I am a retired 44-year veteran of the Real Estate Assessment field. As with real estate assessing and how it applies to real estate taxes, one can make many acquaintances, but not many real friends. It was a great career choice.
It has been nearly 10 years since I reclaimed my home and my real passions within my home. I enjoy it more each day and tip my hat to those who I left behind.
Each day I try to stretch myself with the use of my computer as it relates to this site and using it to print out labels for quilts for trying to incorporate photos into my sewing. Life is so full and I know that I have room for more.
Here’s a quick meal when there just isn’t any energy to get creative. It serves two.
• Hot mashed Potatoes for two
• Heat one can of stew
• Several slices of bread
• Potatoes on the plate
The stew is spooned over the potatoes and the bread slices are used to soak up the extra gravy.
Dinty Moore Commercial
Perfect quick meal on days when there just isn’t energy to be creative
Serves Two
Hot instant mashed potatoes for two
Heat a can of Dinty Moore Stew
Several slices of Bread
Potatoes on the plate
Stew is spooned over potatoes
Bread slices used to soak up extra gravy
It’s a Monday and just as in days of old – laundry day. Too many little flies that want to sit on the clothes and make naughty as clothes were going to be hug out to dry. Thank goodness for clothes driers. Mosquitoes decided to make a huge presences known today as well. Oh for the love of summertime.
Snow Balls Complement White Hair
What a great sunny day for Father’s Day. I had to snap a photo of the snowball bush as the wind has really been raising cane with the blossoms. For the longest time the blossoms were that premature green and the cool temps held them at bay. The sun came out Friday and the blossoms did not disappoint.
While I was gone to a graduation reception yesterday the clouds opened up and out came the rain and down went a flutter of snowball petals.
Yesterday the errand for the day was to get a graduation card for this coming Sunday. As I was walking into the Shopko Home store here in town I couldn’t help but take a detour through the garden hoop. Man, if they sell all of their tomato plants there will be bushels of tomatoes ready for canning this fall. Of course the clearance area of plants caught my eye. The hanging baskets that had been $24.00 were now $12.99. One pot holding Tuber Begonias stopped me in my tracts. It was one pot overflowing with the most beautiful yellow begonias and it brightened up the entire garden hoop.
My mother-in-law, Esther Schafer taught me the love of Tuber Begonias. Esther would save the bulbs from year to year in the used mesh onion sacks. In the early spring of the year she would get them up from the basement and give them a hearty dusting of Garden Guard. Pots of soil with a tuber each would be found on her living room window sills. As the weather warmed up the sprouted tubers adored the north steps of the house and soon there were blossoms that thrilled everyone that came to visit. The blossoms take the texture of wax and when one blossoms dies off there is another to take it’s place.
During the time when Orlin and I farmed, Orlin had taken two retired milk cans and cut them off with the cutting torch about four inches from the handles. When painted black and tipped upside down with the cover in place they made the most beautiful urns for Tuber Begonias. Placed by the north door of our home we also had visitors that were thrilled with the endless blossoms.
Tuber Begonia Incubator
Back to real time: I bought the overgrown pot at Shopko and worked my whiles. There were four plants crowded into that one hanging plant. I am sure when the early spring demanded the greenhouses to get the stock ready for resale it took four plants to make it look attractive enough to warrant the $24.99 price. Right now the four pots are being sheltered from the winds under the lilacs.
After the contents of my four pots have had a chance to recover from being pulled apart, I will have an array of blossoms to be placed hither, thither and yon for the entire season. The secret for continued blooms is a fair amount of fertilizer every other week. Yup, it’s a good thing that you taught me, Esther.
Yesterday we enjoyed a visit from Martha who drove from Arkansas to make a swing through Minnesota seeing family and friends. If we are lucky we do see each other once a year and then the chatting is amped up to cover all bases in each other’s life.
I am just getting to the point of being out every moment I can to enjoy our late spring and summer. Martha made mention that when she returns home in several week the temps will be hot enough that she will be staying indoors. Of course, right now, there is a bit of a challenge with the small black flies and gnats as they are the first string of our less-than-pleasant fellow Minnesotans. We do know how to thwart their advances with a spritz of spray here and there.
Martha relayed a story of doing battle with a six foot long black snake that was gaining ground on a bluebird birdhouse that was at the top of a pool in her yard. A stick was not enough to dissuade him from reaching the house that was home to the baby bluebirds. When the steel garden rake was used it only caused the snake’s pursuit to be stepped up as he entered one of the holes that only shortly before was the safe heaven for the adult birds to come and go. As the entire body of the snake gained entrance the roof of the bird house became dislodged and it was a lost cause to save the babies.
Apparently the six foot long black snake lives in the lean to of the machine shed that houses some hay and straw. When I inquired why she wouldn’t make sure the lean to was snake proof I was informed that the snake took care of rats that can be prevalent. I cannot begin to remember the number of species of snakes that have been and are a part of Martha’s area, but the frosting on the cake was when scorpions were mentioned a bit later.
Nope, that stuff is not for this gal. I will take whatever Minnesota dishes out, and the best thing is that I have lovely black dirt to sift through my fingers with only fat wiggly earthworms wanting to share the same space.
It really isn’t news any longer when rain amounts can be reported. Thunder boomers in the early hours brought an additional two tenths in the rain gauge. Sun has eluded us again. This morning I really didn’t care if it was gloomy, Dennis and I had plans.
Yesterday was a seven week recheck with new x-rays of the left shoulder and a follow up visit with the surgeon. After his assessment of his handy work on the shoulder I had a few questions: could I use a weed whip, could I push a lawn mower that was not self propelled, and could I use the ladder at the Super 8 swimming pool to get into the pool and get out of the pool. The answer was a definite “yes”. He only listed two restrictions: I cannot split wood and I cannot operate a jack hammer. Hmm, there goes my summer jobs for a few extra dollars.
Dennis and I had a date and we were out to the pool by ten this morning. I really had missed this activity the last eight weeks even if the water wasn’t more than 82 degrees. My limit was fifteen minutes this first time back at the pool of wiggling my naughties aka: exercise. One pass of the pool length while totally under water using the arms and then a rest. One pass of the pool length doing the butterfly stroke and then a rest. One pass on my back with arms reaching backwards and propelling and then a rest. The hot tub felt great after that and I knew that I, for real, was back on tract. Sometimes one needs more affirmation of your own private final test other than what a doctor’s record records.
We live on a very busy thoroughfare in St. Jame,s complete with more 18 wheeler rigs that you can count in one day. There is a food processing plant two blocks to the north. One block to the north is the railroad tracks that you can almost use as an alarm clock that could set multiple times within a twenty four hour period. Holding a conversation during the height of the hub bub is impossible. Did any of this register to us in the late 80s when the house was purchased for $8,500? Heavens no!
We began using a patio umbrella put up in the driveway to enjoy coffee and the outdoors. Other than the noise, the amount of people that would be passing by on the street and wander up the driveway was like “Welcome, Open House” was just as impossible. We decided to pop out a porch off the northwest portion of the garage and put a patio that went totally around the porch. That did the trick. We could sit out, cook out or be out in the porch and have some private time.
The Koi pond with its tranquil sound
With too much time on my hands and I began sizing up up the area east of the garage porch and decided that this could be the answer to being outside and finding a bit more quiet. This was the area that Dennis had the grill set up, but with several dozen octagon-shaped blocks, I pushed out the size of the patio to hold a small table and two chairs. Just the distance from the back of the garage porch to the street made a huge difference in the noise of the traffic plus the Oak and Maple trees are now leafed out, aiding with the filtering of noise. The winning element to the tranquil quiet is the water pump in the Koi pond.
The sound of the water can hypnotize me when I take a break from the gardens with my feet up on the neighboring patio chair. This area of the backyard has become my all time favorite. No one knows I am out there reading with a cup of coffee. No one knows I am sitting out there scraping mud off of my shoes. No one knows that I have decided to stay in my bathrobe until noon. Such a little effort has made all the difference in the world in creating this tranquil, quiet place.
1 can of Apple Pie Mix
1 box of “One Step” Angel Food Cake Mix
Combine both for a 9 x13 greased pan
350 degrees for 25 minutes
As I was a W-2 Form worker for 45 plus years the need for time studies was always a necessary evil. In a perfect world we were to work smarter, not harder. Time was of the essence.
I feel pretty cockie as this is the second full week of no longer needing to wear a sling on my recovery left arm. There has been a project in my sewing room that has been itching me for weeks. I waited until I knew where Dennis was and how long it would take him to stay out of the house and then I made my move. I headed down into my sewing and craft basement. A certain project was beyond the hand sewing and needed my trusty 1968 Sears sewing machine. I was at a point in recovery that it mattered how long something took to get it done with the hand stitching. I was ready for some mechanical speed. It had been seven weeks that I been down among the thread and fuzz and I just sat for a moment and took it all in. The project of the day was that I needed sixteen button holes to be made to kick this project toward the finish line.
My Grandmother – Laura Wendlandt
I have never made a button hole using the attachment on my sewing machine without thinking of my paternal grandmother Laura Wendlandt.
During my senior high school year grandma came and stayed with with us for a few days and helped out after my Mom was recovering from surgery. Prior to that surgery Mom had made me a new pair of slacks and a blouse that I was going to wear going to the state basketball tournaments in the metro. This was huge as I had never been and the day long bus trip was a new adventure for this Boon Lake Township gal. The missing element for me to wear the new outfit were the buttonholes. I can still see as clear as yesterday Grandma Laura sitting next to the north kitchen windows making all the buttonholes by hand. She kept an eye on the oven where she had baked goods going, as well as the top of the stove that had the beginnings of supper for six of us that would be putting our feet under the round oak pedestal table. Grandma was short in stature but a little dynamo when it came to organizing a household. She had had a lot of practice with their eight kids plus her mother-in-law, Christine, who lived with them and in years to come when the eight were away from home the youngest son Jerald and his wife lived at the homestead.
My sixteen buttonholes today were completed in less than a half hour and Grandma Laura would have worked on the seven of them on my new blouse for the better part of an afternoon. Time studies will be going forever as we think we need to get everything done in record time but memories of the labors of love of yester-years are priceless.