On My Mind

My landline quit working this week, but my internet connected to the landline still worked. Weird?!?  After 3 days, the technician got my landline fixed...now the robocalls can start calling me again.

When I have to leave my cats alone for a couple of days, a good friend stops by once a day to feed them and change the water.  When I lived in the "BIG CITY", I hired a professional & bonded Pet Sitter.  A little expensive, but worth it as I could relax while on a long vacation.

Ginger, there's also the Red Scarf Project, which helps kids who were in foster care but are over 18. Scarves are a really good first project.

Linda, Smeshque - thanks for the idea. I had wondered about giving to charity, but thought nobody would take a somewhat personal handmade item of unknown origin. Guess I'll look into it now. Thanks!

A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness. It is an expression of humility. It is a foundation for the development of such virtues as prayer, faith, courage, contentment, happiness, love, and well-being.



James E. Faust

Ginger May- to add to Linda, hospice always needs lap blankets.

GingerMay, if you'd like to take up knitting, there are quite a few interesting charity knitting groups. Hats for preemies, socks for soldiers, Linus blankets -

My little Jitterbug shakes so much it sounds tinny and cuts in and out just when it is ringing.
If cell phones could think, it would be saying:
"I hope she doesn't throw me out the window....I know she wants to."
And:
"You should hear what she says after hanging up" "I will get her back and not end the call so others can hear".

Not to anthropomorphize the little cell, maybe they really do think, talk, etc. CM?
Is the little thing coming by boat this time?
Congrats on your new I-phone. Did you and MsMadge shop together?

Recipes are copied. Thanks Country. I'll let you know how it goes.

Well, I've done it now...

Somewhere far away on a shelf in a warehouse there is a line of iPhones waiting to be picked and packed, and one of them should be shaking in its little shoes because it is going to be mine come Saturday afternoon.

"I wonder if my owner will be kind to me?" it is thinking. Poor little devil.

Leek and potato (this is from La Cuisine Familiale Française, so if it sounds odd blame my clunky translation)

3 fat potatoes (it doesn't say to peel them but I wouldn't dream of not peeling them!)
3 leeks (size not specified)
1 ½ litres = 2 ½ ish pints water, boiling
100g = 4 oz butter
salt
slices of toast

15 mins prep
1 hour to cook

Wash the vegetables. Chop the leeks, cut the potatoes into pieces. Melt (half?) the butter* in a big saucepan or flame-proof casserole, put the leeks in and fry them until they just turn colour and go "golden", stir in the boiling (or just boiled) water, throw in the potato pieces.

Add salt to taste. [Don't skimp, but don't forget you can always add more but you can't take it out]

Leave it to cook over gentle heat for an hour.

Put it through a vegetable mill if you have one. If not, any liquidiser or hand-held blender will do just as well.

It says to pour the soup onto your pieces of toast in a tureen, which is nice if you like it like that, then add the uncooked butter.

* I'd never noticed this before. I guess what they mean is... Do your original leek-cooking in one or two ounces of the butter, then stir the rest in at the end, or use it to butter your toast.

It's nice, anyway! - even though I've apparently been getting it slightly wrong for 35 years.




Maman* Blanc's vegetable and chervil soup

It is important to get the slices really thin so that the vegetables cook fast. The easiest way is using a Japanese mandolin, but if you have a food processor that should have a fine enough setting on it. Doing it by hand takes pretty good knife skills if you ask me!

20 minutes prep
10-12 minutes cooking

1 onion, cut into teeny weeny dice
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced ⅛" thick
3 celery stalks, sliced ¼" thick
2 leeks, with their two outer layers stripped off, cut into slices ½" thick
½ oz unsalted butter
1 large zucchini, halved lengthways and then cut into slices ¼" thick
2 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 ¾ pints boiling water
a large handful of fresh chervil, roughly chopped (flat leaf parsley is fine if you can't get chervil)
salt, freshly ground white pepper

to finish, optional - crème fraîche or more butter

1. Sweat the vegetables. Large saucepan, medium heat, melt the butter, put in the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, and leeks, cover the pan, turn the heat down low, and leave them for five minutes. They should only soften, you don't want them to take on any colour.

He says: season with 8 pinches of sea salt and 2 pinches of white pepper. I love Raymond Blanc dearly, and I have never eaten anything at his restaurants that wasn't delicious, but to me this amount of salt is insane and I use half that amount at most. Add gradually and taste it, I should.

2. Cook the soup. Now add the courgette, tomatoes and boiling water (it must be boiling hot to reduce the cooking time and to help keep the colours bright). Boil fast for 5-7 minutes, until the vegetables are just tender. Stir in the chervil, or whatever herbs you like, at this point.

3. Whisk in the crème fraîche or butter (or both!). Taste and correct the seasoning. If you like your soup smooth you can blend it but it looks much prettier as it is.

*Raymond Blanc's Maman, that is.

Countrymouse - yes, please and thank you. Soup sounds terrific. If you can send, the Maman Blanc vegetable and the Leek and potato sound great. Wow, thank you.

Soup is nice. Also quick (most of them), and tastes so much better than even the best you've ever bought. Also cheap - so if it does (I can't think how) go horribly wrong at least you haven't wasted much money.

French onion? Maman Blanc's vegetable? Tomato rice? Leek and potato? I can send you a recipe if anything there tickles your fancy.

Every trial, every tribulation, every frustration, every tear I shed is a small price for
the reward of seeing you smile. I love you, Mother.

Musing about I need a good hobby. I thought of knitting, but then figured I didn't need all the extra hats, mittens or scarves that would come of it. I have allergies so gardening is out. Maybe cooking? Nothing fancy just mastering some homemade things from scratch.

Dec. 5th declared a National Day of Mourning in the U.S. for a past president. Some Federal offices will be closed.
My dH has to work.

Hubs made a great effort to put up the lights. Yay!

Comment on the landline; we have to have it out here in the middle of the country (middle of nowhere, actually), in order to get internet. We DO have the old square office desk type phones, and they do work during power outages.... just say'in!

"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." Oscar Wilde

Send, hope you are back safe!

Going on an "adventure" now to pick up hubs in the worst traffic!
Sure that I will receive traveling mercies....

“An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” — G. K. Chesterton

“Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear.”
–Unknown

You deserve a break Barb. And a celebration!

Congrats, Barb!! Do you have any personal projects or ideas of things you want to do...? Or are you going to settle into the new routine and think about what else you'd like to do with your extra time?

Today is my last day of work!!!!!!!!! Retirement is a wonderful concept.

Isn't that the truth, Smeshque. Can you please keep posting these? I don't know where you're finding them but I like them. Everyone could use a good word a day.

Welcome back, Lu. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have tv or internet. Probably finally read a book again, haha.

“Caregiving often calls us to lean into love we didn’t know possible.”
― Tia Walker

It was rough cwillie and my dH only wanted to watch shoot 'em up bang,bang shows on our 1 TV like Mannix and Cannon and The Fugitive that I hope I never have to watch again.I kept trying everything I could think of on the computer everyday,but nothing worked and I realized how addicted Iv'e become.I definitely had withdrawals.

Wow Lucky, no screens, you must have been going through withdrawal - I'm not sure I could survive returning to pre tech life.😲

My dear friends,here on AgingCare,
I sure have missed you~
Everything is A-ok here.We just lost 2 of our TV's,the phone and my computer for a whole week when somehow,we lost our connection to it all,the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. We still had the den TV but my dH hogged it.It was niceto have him eat dinner with me in the den though instead of him being back on his bed watching his TV in there for a change.
I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving ~
Thank you for wondering if I was alright.That's mighty kind~

“Sometimes you have to lose all you have to find out who you truly are.”
― Roy T. Bennett