Company In My Jammies

Yesterday I was just going a hundred miles an hour getting so many little things done. I called the telephone company and told the lady that the phone bill was too high. I told her that we were on social security and that there should be a discount for senior citizens. Well, I’ll be darned if she didn’t give me a life time ten dollar a month discount. I was so proud of myself, but how many people do not even think about asking for a discount. I had absolutely no problem with it and it saved me over a hundred dollars a year.

Then I got the remaining Christmas cards done. Every year I receive a few cards that I haven’t sent out. This is my little yelp every year, “ Oh no, I forgot so and so again this year!”

I had noticed, of course, that the kitchen table was a mess, sugar that Fran spills every morning for his coffee, toast crumbs that I have on my place mat, received Christmas cards in a pile, coats hanging on the kitchen chairs, (why hang them up when we have to use them twenty times a day to take out our puppy?) But I could have cared less. I was standing at the sink getting a roast ready for the oven when the door bell rang. “Oh, dear and me in my jammies for a cold winter’s night” I had a thought of running to the bedroom to get my clothes on but thought, “you know what they could have called so I just sat at the table and visited and had a good time.

 No I probably won’t get dressed early in the morning from now on just in case I might get company.

The Sauerkraut And Sausage Part 2

Just a mention of the sauerkraut and sausage. It was a hit. There is just no reasoning for some people’s taste.

That’s ok, there is still half a crock pot of it left. So Fran will figure something to do with it. I think it takes a special person to eat it or smell it. But that’s ok, I am going to fix a beef roast for supper and I am sure that there are a lot of people that don’t like beef!

Let’s hope something interesting happens tomorrow, let’s really hope!

Sauerkraut and Sausage

The title of this post makes me cringe just to think of it. I used to eat this, my husband loved it.

We are going to a Christmas party tonight that is a potluck at a club. There will be all kinds of hot dishes, salads, and desserts. I am sure mine will be the only sauerkraut and sausage hot dish. It smells awful!!

I have nothing else to fix this late in the day. You just never can tell there might be a few people there that have a little beer that like sauerkraut to eat while they drink. I just looked up a recipe for this and they add apples, onions, potatoes, and a lot of garlic plus fresh cabbage. How do you figure. It just might taste better and I am sure would smell better.

It will take a whole can of air freshener to get rid of the smell!

Food Pantry Donations

I have never been hungry, except for the hunger pangs that mean I haven’t eaten for four hours. That is not what hungry means and being very fortunate I can’t describe it, but I can imagine.

When I was about twenty two, I was close to being hungry. I was divorced, living in a forty dollar a month dump and generally hungry. I lived in an apartment house with a lot of other single people that were working, but made just enough to cover expenses. Expenses were rent. Rent included utilities. We had to walk to work, so therefore more shoes than normal people would have to buy. That left little for food. I was very lucky that I could afford to buy chicken wings and knew how to make soup and noodles out of them.

One day one of the girls knocked on my door and asked me what I was cooking. I told her and asked her if she was hungry. I watched her eat and let her eat as much as she needed. A little thought went through my mind that my fridge would not have left over chicken noodle soup in it that night.

I worked for the Blind Industries on a commission for what I sold over the telephone. When I was hungry when I could afford it I went downstairs to a Chinese restaurant to eat chicken fried rice. They served a whole big basket of saltine crackers with a big cereal bowl of rice. This wonderful meal cost thirty five cents.

I met a wonderful man at that restaurant and he started buying me my rice. I couldn’t let my need for food start a relationship, so I called my mom and dad and had them come to get me. I then transferred with the same company far away.

The man that bought me rice wrote and wrote and I finally came back to the “rice” city and we got married and started a family.

Today my husband and I filled a food pantry basket full of oranges and apples and I thought of those days when an older man stood and watched us fill the basket. In his hand he had just a very small sack of food. I just wonder….

Mom's Memory Box, Part 2

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  I was just wondering what I had around here to write about. I figured I was just about out of things except the settling of Cherokee, Iowa, where I was born and raised.
  
  
  
  I got out mom’s memory box again and started going through it. I had some letters that my uncle wrote to my mother when he was in the service. I got them all together to mail to my cousin. As I was sorting them out, I found a box that was hand tooled from Puerto Rico that was full of hand embroidered handkerchiefs. He had sent these to my grandmother. I will send these to my cousin in a separate package.
  
  
  
  As I was sorting through and of course, reading all these letters I was reading them to Fran and I told him what impeccable spelling he had. As I said that my spell check just fixed mine. These letters spoke of missing his mother’s food, the farm and the seasons. He said he was too hot there. He described boot camp to a “T” and then in the next breath he made fun of new recruits. He learned how to run wire. It sounded like phone or electric wire that he was learning how to do. He was in the signal corp. I believe this pin was on his lapel.
  
  
  
  The letters were of a twenty five year old farm boy that so missed his family. I found a letter from my grandfather to my uncle. It was a half sheet of narrow tablet paper. He even told my uncle that he tore it in two so he didn’t have to write so much! And further more he was only doing it because my grandmother had made a fuss about it. My grandfather was very stern, seldom smiled and showed little to no emotion. Wouldn’t that be so very difficult to know if you were missed and loved. I think it might be impossible.
  
  
  
  
  

Homemade Gifts Are Wonderful

           


I remember when I was a little girl,  my mother would give my teacher a loaf of homemade banana bread all wrapped in foil with a ribbon on it for a Christmas gift. I was so embarrassed. The other kids gave the teacher such beautifully wrapped gifts. Some how in other, the teacher always seemed to love my gifts, little did I know how touching the home made gifts were. The mail man always got a loaf of home made banana bread too and so did the bus driver. The bus driver whose name was Charlie couldn’t wait  for Christmas so he could get his loaf.
I asked Mother about this home made stuff and she said that people like them because they knew that people thought about them the whole time they were making them. That statement stuck with me my whole life.
The whole thing is I was not given a whole bunch of talent to make things; I might be but I am not creative. I don’t crochet, or knit, I attempt scrap booking and people do seem to like it, but the gifts I have made are not professional.

But this year I thought of something really really cool! I want to tell you what it is so badly, but my daughter reads my posts so I can’t, but I will report the outcome to you after Christmas. The project has taken a long time, but I think it will be worth it but really messy!

The Third Day Of Decorating

 The first  day of decorating was plugging in a short strand of lights on the front porch; took approximately five minutes.

The second day of decorating was putting a hundred and forty lights on our three bushes on the front of the house. Took approximately fifteen minutes. 

The third day of decorating was putting up the one and a half foot fiber optic tree, one hour. Swag of greenery in living room with  thirty five lights, fifteen minutes.   Putting cotton on the piano to represent  snow fifteen minutes (it got stuck together). Taking all the things off the piano so the Santas and the tree could take their place.

Fran found the owner’s manual for the video camera that I have been looking for for months. Hmm. Maybe holidays that require decorating the piano should happen more often.

I put two swags of poinsettias on my artificial tree that is behind my recliner. Had to use a fly swatter because I could not reach the tree. The first swag fell on the floor. Then the fly swatter came to mind. Worked like a charm.

It will take the fourth day of Christmas because Maggie loves the decorations especially the reindeer horns. Well, maybe taking the paper off the packages. She really really wants her own stocking, but not with doggie treats, wants chocolate like people persons. She just doesn’t understand when I tell her no. She had a foil wrapped piece that Fran had dropped in her mouth. When I took it out of her mouth I thought I saw a tear. Oh, Dear.