A New Word

or What Does Velleity Mean?

I leaned a new-to-me word the other day that has all kinds of possibilities in all kinds of situations. It's usefulness makes me wonder why I didn't know about it before. 

Velleity---a noun that means to have a wish or desire to do something, but you are not interested in it enough to act on it.

To learn a word, you're supposed to use it in a sentence. Here's a couple of tries.

--My desire to take a walk around the neighborhood in the rain was more of a velleity than a real plan.

--Velleity is what keeps me from cleaning the lint out of the laundry sink. 

Can you think of a way that you could use velleity in a sentence?

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But wait, there's more.

Here's how you say velleity.

A Second Look--January 30,2013

This week, we've had a bit of snow, freezing rain, rain, sun, and temperatures ranging from the teens to the 60s. Enough variety for everyone, I think. I found a couple of more bone pieces this week along with a lone dandelion trying to bloom. Otherwise, it's been muddy and brown all around.

Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.

This dandelion is a little worse for the wear with all of the changing weather we've had this week.

Bunny tracks in the fresh snow. Notice the extra "track" to the far left. That was probably the rabbits tail.

These three house finches (one male, two female) were enjoying the feeder during the snow.

This is the second day of the snow when it was starting to melt. We only had an inch or so.

The female house finch and Carolina wren (brown bird on pole) visited the feeder during the freezing rain. The wren is a new visitor to our feeder this winter.

I think this lightweight bone fragment came from a bird. I don't really know, but I enjoy guessing every week.

You know what they say, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."

Thanks to Aunt Martha for help with identifications this week.

Pumpkin Soup

or This Experiment Turned Out Pretty Well


What to do? What to do? Saturday, I made a batch of pumpkin bread with my secret ingredient--chocolate chips. Delicious. However, when reading the recipe, I made a mistake and ended up with an extra can of pumpkin open. What now? I didn't want it to go to waste, so I thought I would try some pumpkin soup. However, most of the recipes included ingredients that one person or another in my family didn't like--mainly onions or pumpkin pie spices. Then somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my brain I remembered a sweet potato soup with peanut butter that my brother-in-law made several years ago when we were visiting that everyone liked. That's what I would do. Make pumpkin, peanut butter soup. Once again, the recipe with the right fit eluded me, so I did some creative cooking and came up with my own concoction. It was very simple and included pumpkin, peanut butter, and curry.

And now for the reviews:
Ward said that it turned out pretty well and the flavors blended nicely with no one flavor standing out. In fact, he said that he couldn't taste the peanut butter at all. Wally said it was perfect and wouldn't change a thing. He did taste the peanut butter, but that was okay considering that peanut butter is his favorite food. I, too, thought it was a good blend of flavors and was surprised at how filling it was. I like something to chew in my soup so I added croutons. The perfect addition as far as I was concerned. It was super easy to make. I just dumped the ingredients into the crock pot and let them slowly simmer throughout the day until we got home from our busy schedules to try this very hearty soup.

Here' a recipe if you want to give it a try. All of these ingredients can be used in more or less quantities depending on your personal tastes. The soup is rather mild, so I was surprised when Ward and Wally didn't want to add a drop or two of hot sauce into their bowls. However, I served it with that option available.

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Soup

3 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
2 cups pumpkin puree
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Whisk broth and pumpkin together until smooth. While stirring, add peanut butter and heat until melted. Add spices and simmer for a few minutes. The longer the better, but 15 minutes would be good. Be careful not to scorch.

Slow Cooker Method 
Whisk broth and pumpkin together until smooth. Add peanut butter and spices. Cook on low for six to eight hours. Stir before serving.

 Serve with croutons and enjoy!

from Live and Learn-Toss and Turn

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"Millions" by Frank Cottrell Boyce--a book review

What: Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce  This is a kid's book for readers 8 and up. And I think the "and up" part is very applicable. I'm much older than 8 and I didn't find the story suffered at all from being written to a lower reading level. The book has been out for a while (2005) and even has had a movie made from it, but I just recently discovered it.

The Premise: A young boy finds a bag with a lot of money in it, and he and his brother have many adventures while trying to keep it away from the bad guys that lost it. They also have many dilemmas and disagreements on how to spend the money.

The Back Story: The story takes place in England when Europe was getting ready to change to Euros. When this change happened, the old currency was to be cashed in and destroyed. Also, the two brothers' mother has died and they live alone with their father. They are all adjusting to this loss.

The Quirky Part: Everyone in the family likes quoting facts. The father likes general knowledge facts, the brother likes money and economic facts, and Damian (narrator) likes to talk about saints (and sometimes they talk to him.) You will learn a lot of interesting things about saints from this book.

Food for Thought: The book presents the moral, ethical, and practical matters of having a lot of money. There are also basic economic lessons thrown in.

Recommendation: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Boyce does a nice job of weaving the different parts of the story together without focusing too long on any one part. The story is both poignant and exciting with a little humor thrown in.The characters, major and minor, are interesting and well developed according to their place in the story. Let me summarize with this. When I think about this book, I smile.

What people who review books for a living said:
--"Witty and poignant. ...Readers will be racing to the finish to figure out who's conning whom. Brilliant." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
--"A joy for readers of all ages." Kirkus Review

Thankful Sunday--January 27,2013

I am thankful for the insulation in my house.

Blown insulation in our attic

When I was growing up, I lived in a house that had no insulation. In the wintertime, we didn't spend much time in our living room because it was so cold that there was often frost on the inside of the windows as well as the electrical outlets. We had to wait for warmer weather to spend time in there again.

Now I live in a house with good insulation, and I really appreciate that during these cold, single digit days. I am warm and toasty no matter what room I am in. What a luxury.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Jan. 25, 2013

 It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

No waste this week! Over the weekend, I made a list of things to use up from the fridge. We cooked and ate from this list all week, and avoided any waste. Now, was I coordinated or what? :)

This Week's True Food Confessions

One of these things is not like the others,

One of these things just doesn't belong,

Can you tell which thing is not like the other,

 By the time I finish my song?*

If you guessed the pizza, you'd be right. We cooked everything else at home this week. A definite success.

*Does everyone recognize this song from Sesame Street?

A Second Look--January 24, 2013

We had no snow this week, but the temperatures were appropriate for January with the thermometer reading in the single digits. Add wind to this, and it was quite cold outside. Nevertheless, I didn't see much difference in the yard. If something was going to die in the cold, it was already gone. And if something was going to be evergreen, it stayed green.

I am continuing to find bone fragments in the yard. (Maybe if I collected them all, I could eventually build an interesting creature.) This week, I found a leg bone, among several large black feathers. The first story I made up was that a fox and a big bird had an encounter and the bird won. However, when I saw a chicken leg bone later from a piece of chicken that Ward was eating, I had second thoughts. The bones were of a similar size and weight. Maybe, it was the bird (I vote for crow because we have so many around) that had the unfortunate demise. Definitely, there's not enough evidence with my limited knowledge to really know what happened.

Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.

Moss

 

Rhododendron bud waiting out the winter.

This squirrel and cardinal are scavenging for seeds that have dropped below the feeder.

This is a newly broken branch from a sweet gum tree.

Azalea bud also waiting out winter.

Wasp nest that fell down from the eave above.

Several large black feathers were found near this bone. Notice that this group of feathers still has the quills attached to each other.

Left-Bone found in yard near feathers.                   Right--Rotisserie chicken leg bone

Making Change

or My Two Cents

Long ago and far, far away in another time and place, people knew how to give you change. You gave them money (bills and coins) to pay for something and they gave you back change in a very organized and easy to hold way. That doesn't happen today. Today, you get change in a disorganized, easy to drop way.

Used to be that there weren't cash registers that automatically calculated the change that was due back and the clerk had to actually count it out. They started with the amount that was due and counted the rest into your hand starting with the smallest domination until they reached the amount that you gave them. What you ended up with was an assurance that you were getting the right amount back and a tidy pile of coins in your hand with any bills on top of them. It was easy to grip the coins while you were putting any bills away. It all made perfect sense.

Today, the amount of change that is do back is calculated by the register and the clerk puts the whole pile in your hand at once with bills on the bottom and coins on the top. If you stop to count it, others in line behind you get annoyed that you're holding things up, and then you're lucky if the coins don't slide off the bills before you get them put away.

I don't know why we've gone to new this method, when the other way was so easy and so much more user friendly. I long for yesteryear.

Clara Barton House

Ward exploring around the Clara Barton House. Notice both the American and Red Cross Flags.

 

Ward and I recently visited the Clara Barton House in Glen Echo, Maryland. The weather was sunny, but breezy for our outing and while Ward found this invigorating, I found it cold. However, as we were walking outside around the grounds before the house tour, we found some peonies blooming and a lone purple blossom on a vine . The find of those flowers made the cold wind worth it for me. The house tour was free because this site is part of the National Park Service. We had a very good tour guide and learned a lot during our hour long tour.

A welcome sign of spring outside the house.

I have tried several times to summarize what we learned about Clara Barton. However, she was too complex of a person to do justice with on this blog. I'll just tell you a few of things that I found interesting.

--In 1881, Clara Barton started the American Red Cross after gaining fame by taking supplies to the front lines during the Civil War. 

--Clara was the one that first established the Red Cross as an organization that brought relief to areas during times of natural disaster. Before this, it was only focused on soldiers.

--Clara thrived under dangerous and risky situations. War zones invigorated her and she did some of her best work there.She also liked being in charge and didn't deal well with criticism or transition.

--Clara had to be very determined because she lived during a time that women were not allowed much responsibility. For example, she was not welcomed by the military to take supplies to the soldiers on the battlefields during the Civil War. She had to do a lot of lobbying to be able to do it, and Senator Henry Wilson, chairman of the Military Affairs committee, finally gave her permission.

--When she was in her 80's, some said she was too old to sit all day to do the work that needed to be done to run the Red Cross. To prove them wrong, she cut the back off of her chair to show that not only could she sit for long periods, she could do it with no chair back.

--The house we toured was modeled after warehouses that were built for the aftermath of the Jonestown flood.

--The house ceilings were lined with muslin instead of plaster—the same material used for bandages.

--It was good to get and do something different for a change.

Enough Already

I love to save money. I hate to waste. I would rather reuse something than recycle it. I relate to the saying, “Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, Do without.” But sometimes, I think I carry it too far. 

Case in point. I have a yellow clothes basket that has had a long life in my house. In the beginning, it worked well. Then it developed a split on the top rim. However, if I remembered to carry it carefully, I didn't get pinched and the split was only a minor problem. As time went on, that split lengthened and I had to handle the basket carefully so that it wouldn't tear any more. At this point the the fix-anything duct tape came out to repair it. That worked for a few months until the tape came off and left its sticky residue. In the meantime, the other side started splitting, and now it was easy to get pinched unless you were VERY careful how you handled the basket. Also, it developed tears on the sides below the top. I tried weaving a shoestring through it to hold it together, but that didn't work. I used the basket like this for a while until I got tired of being pinched by torn plastic.  

I've been thinking a lot about why I put up with that annoying basket for so long. In the beginning, it may have been about thriftiness, but that doesn't explain why I let it go as far as it did. Maybe it was from being raised by Depression Era parents or maybe it was from just plain simple inertia, but I think the basket represents a need for change in my life. I need to be proactive about changing the negative things in my life into positive ones. If I can do that, I think the quality of my life can change in a very positive way.

I'm going to start with simple things and hope I can build on those successes to then work on bigger issues. A few things that I can fix today are getting rid of the pinching clothes basket and the can opener that has never worked well. I can clean out the plastic-ware cabinet so I won't be annoyed by the containers that fall out every time I open it. I won't answer the phone if I don't want to talk and I'll turn off the news when they start talking about the same negative thing over and over. And the list goes on.

It all seems so simple. Why didn't I do it sooner?

Thankful Sunday--January 20, 2013

Annie is thankful for this sunbeam and so am I.

After many cold and rainy days, the sun is out again--a very welcome sight.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Jan. 18, 2013

 It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

 This Week's Food Waste

I was disappointed when I pulled out this piece of cheese and found mold on it. It was going to grace my tuna sandwich. Oh, well. I did manage to eat the last slice from another package before it went bad, though.
Otherwise, I think we're okay in the waste department.
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This Week's True Food Confessions

We did pretty well this week considering we're still trying to gain our footing after several weeks of holidays followed by illness and traveling. In fact, mentally, it still feels like we're in quicksand. Given that, I'm kind of proud that we managed to do some cooking this week. We had easy, but delicious tuna sandwiches one night and another night we had cabbage soup using ingredients from the fridge. We also had a vegetable quiche using the unlikely combination of spinach and peas. However, it turned out pretty good. The different part of this dish was that I made a healthy, homemade pie crust. This was mostly because we haven't made it to the grocery store since we got back and I didn't have a chance to buy the oh so tasty, but bad for you crust.

Now, it may seem interesting that we haven't made it to the grocery store, but Ward did make it to his favorite Chinese restaurant for pick-up and Theo ordered burritos from Chipotle. I have to admit that I enjoyed their take out just as much as they did.

I'm hoping once again for a calm week next week and homemade, routine food.

A Second Look--January 16, 2013

While we were gone last week, we had some unseasonably warm weather with temperatures in the 60s. This fooled some of the plants into sprouting like it was spring. However, the weather has turned cold again and snow is predicted for tonight. Brrrr.

Here's what I found this week during a Second Look.

Daffodils

Crocus, I think that's a flower in the middle of the leaves beginning emerge.

Dried sedum

Crossing juniper trunks

Bone, My wild guess is that it is part of fox's pelvis.

Fungus

Ivy

I put orange slices out for the birds about a week ago, but Mr. Squirrel decided that it would be much easier to eat them from the ground.

Maple tree buds. (That was really the color of the sky. It was raining.)

Today...

Today, I'm going to be like this pancake maker and focus on only one thing at a time and see it through to completion.

This pancake maker was part of the breakfast set up at the hotel we stayed in recently. I was totally fascinated by it and we had a few more pancakes than we really needed just so I could watch it work.

Home again

This past week, Ward and I spent most of our time worrying, waiting, and comforting while we were spending time with my mother, who was in the hospital. Things were not simple. Because of complications, she was in three different hospitals and ended up in a hospital 150 miles from where she started. I felt like we were playing chase with her as we followed her on her circuitous route to different hospitals. However, now she is back in her hometown hospital and stable, and we're back at home. Things are looking up.
 

Lucy couldn't wait for me to empty my suitcase when we got home.

Thankful Sunday, January 13, 2013

I am thankful for my teaberry plant.

Several years ago, I bought this teaberry plant because it reminded me of a childhood favorite--Teaberry gum. When I want a pick-me-up, I break a leaf and inhale the wonderful aroma.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions, Jan. 11, 2013

 It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

 
I did a clean out of the condiments in the refrigerator door and found these things that were long past their shelf life. Out they went.

 This Week's True Food Confessions

We have been traveling this week to help my mother who is in the hospital, so we have been eating out. Therefore, we're not quite back to "regular" eating. Maybe next week.

Menu Planning

We had a good menu plan this week.

Menu planning. I'm for it. I just don't always do it. It's not because I don't know how. It's just that, well, I'm not exactly sure, but I just don't do it. Very often. Unless, I'm feeling guilty about how we've been eating. Then we have a plan, unless we don't. As you can see, I have a confused relationship with menu planning.

My first menu planning came while I was growing up. My sisters and I were usually responsible for fixing supper after my mother went back to work and meal planning was not complicated at that point. Every meal had a meat, starch (usually potatoes), a green vegetable, a yellow vegetable, bread and milk. Our house was well stocked with vegetables from our huge garden and venison from my father's hunting, so it was easy to follow the plan.

Also, during those years, I remember an assignment in eight grade to plan meals for an entire week. Every meal I planned was well balanced and included something from every food group. Also, the calories added up to the appropriate amount for the day. I think that was the most complicated and complete meal plan I have ever seen. So I learned menu planning in the early years, both in a simple and complicated way.

Then I grew up and lost menu planning somewhere along the way. I think it started when we lived in New Orleans, home of fantastic food, both expensive and inexpensive. We ate out a lot and loved every minute of it.  However kids came, we moved to Texas, and the need for menu planning became necessary again. Plans during this time were sometimes written down and sometimes not but depended on easy to fix things for young kids--especially the ever-hungry Wally.

Another move landed us where we are now and it's where we've done most of our meal planning as a family. We've had family meetings and made up plans for weeks and months. We've made each person responsible for a day of the week. We've checked the ads and planned around what was on sale, and we've made plans from what was in the pantry and the freezer. We've assigned each day of the week a different type of food and planned within that structure. We've also used premade meal plans with shopping lists, and we've done a lot of last minute cooking.

However, my favorite way to plan was a way that Wally used for a while. He would take a cookbook and open it randomly. Each of us got to choose what we wanted from between those two pages. Then he would open it randomly to the next two pages and the next person would get to choose. We ate a lot of interesting things when he used that method.

So what does all of this mean? Menu planning. I'm for it. I just don't always do it. It's not because I don't know how. It's just that, well, I'm not exactly sure, but I just don't do it. Very often. Unless, I'm feeling guilty about how we've been eating. Then we have a plan, unless we don't. As you can see, I have a confused relationship with menu planning.

A Second Look--January 9, 2013

This week I took a look at some of the man-made features around the yard for a different focus during this dormant time.

 Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.