Thankful Sunday--February 15, 2013

I am thankful for jigsaw puzzles.

During these snowy days when it's been hard to get anywhere except to shovel the driveway, I am thankful for an abundant supply of jigsaw puzzles. (Ward is a whiz at working them, so we go through them pretty quickly.)

Here, There, and Everywhere

Do you ever wander around on the Internet?  Start with a specific question, but wander around here, there, and everywhere and never quite reach the place your looking for. I had one of those times last night.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Theo picked up some flatware from a garage sale that he needed. After he got his spoons and forks home, he noticed that his flatware was stamped as coming from many different places--Montana, Utah, USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Germany, and Korea.  I checked all of our flatware and all I could find was the word, STAINLESS. I found the variety of place names on Theo's purchase fascinating. I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that all of the recently purchased pieces were pretty old. So I set out to see if I could find out some of the manufacturing history on any of them.

I did a lot of Googling and found out nothing about when they were actually made or the company they were made by. However, during my wanderings, I did find a few things that I thought were interesting. Here are some of them.


--Utah has a state cooking pot. It's the Dutch oven.

--Montana had the greatest temperature change to ever occur on earth in a 24 hour period. It happened on January 15, 1972, when the temperature went from -54°F to 49°F. That's 103° change. 

--Indonesia is comprised of 17000 islands of which only 6000 are inhabited. It's the fourth most populated country in the world.

--By custom, Korea counts birthdays and ages differently than we do. When someone is born, they are considered to be one year old. They count the time in the womb as the first year. Also, everyone "gets a year older" on New Year's Day regardless of when they were born. The western method, however, is often used for legal purposes.

--Brazil silver, German silver, Utah silver, and Montana silver are all alloys of different metals and contain no silver. However, they are silver in color.

Even though I didn't exactly stay focused, I did enjoy my wanderings of here, there, and everywhere both around the globe and on the Internet. Next time I want to kill some time, I may do it again. (Or next time I start to do this, I should check to see if I really have time to kill.)







Want to know more?

http://www.utah.gov/about/symbols.html

http://montanakids.com/facts_and_figures/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil#Climate

http://www.infoplease.com/country/indonesia.html

 http://www.lonelyplanet.com/indonesia

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daktari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea

Families

Unfortunately, I've been spending time at a hospital again. My mother had a fall, and I have spent the last few days with her in ICU. Thankfully, she is improving, but will require a lot of attention in the near future. If I'm absent then and again from here, that's where I will be.

The ICU is an interesting place. People who are there are quite ill and require a lot of medical attention. Because of this, there is limited access for visitors, and families spend a lot of time in the waiting room just waiting. And this is where in a very short amount of time, my sister and I got to know some other people quite well. We heard about others loved ones illnesses of stroke, pneumonia, car accidents, and gun shot wounds among other things.

There was one family that stood out in particular. We first "met" them when we arrived and heard one of their phone calls. The caller, a woman, was quite upset. She went on to talk about some complicated situations that we didn't understand, but didn't sound very positive. As the day progressed we understood better what she was talking about. They were there to support a middle-aged man who had had a very serious stroke. They included a couple of ex-wives, a present wife (the caller), and a present girlfriend. There were people of all shapes and sizes. Grandmas in wheel chairs, crying babies, and teens with studs in their body. Some had been sleeping in the uncomfortable waiting room chairs for days but they were all there--dozens of them.

As time progressed, the patient worsened and his 18 year old daughter had to make the very difficult decision of whether to operate or not. Both decisions had a high probability of death, but she chose surgery. We listened as the surgeon told them the operation went well and now it was a wait and see game. I cried along with them as they felt relief that their father, cousin, boyfriend, etc. had another day.

I don't know the final outcome for this man, but his family reminded me what families are all about. Families don't always get along--sometimes in a big way. But when it really matters, they put differences aside and do what's right. I am hoping for the best for this family and every other family I met during those few days in the ICU waiting room.

A Walk with Aunt Martha

Aunt Martha took me on a bird walk yesterday. We were in search of a Long Tail Duck, that is not common in our area, but had been sighted recently. This was not the first bird walk I had been on with Aunt Martha. Years ago, I used to go with her on some of her walks. She would point out a bird in a tree and would tell me to notice the white spot under its tail. Usually, I was trying to figure out what tree she was pointing to and had little hope of finding the bird or a spot anywhere on it.

Today's walk was much the same because I was still trying to find the trees Aunt Martha was pointing to. Although occasionally, I thought I saw a bird. I supposedly saw a belted kingfisher, nuthatches, and Canadian geese among other things. Unfortunately, even with her trained eye, Aunt Martha didn't find the Long Tail Duck. However, we both considered the afternoon a birding success because we spent it with a Great Blue Heron (Blue). He started the same place we did and for the next two hours, Blue followed the water's edge as we walked on the path above it. I don't know how much you know about Great Blue Herons, but they are the perfect bird for me to watch. First of all, they're big and easy to see, and next they move very slowly. We saw him looking for fish, flying gracefully along the top of the water, and perching in a tree. Great Blue Herons are my new favorite bird.

Here are a few pictures from our walk.

We were walking along the tow path to the C &O Canal. We had the canal on one side and the Potomac River on the other. We first saw Blue along the lock entrance to the path where we began our hike.

 

Blue was checking for fish all the way down the bank.

There was still some ice on the water, so I guess Blue has adapted well to the cold.

The river water was moving pretty fast. Herons prefer calm waters, so Blue spent his time in the canal.

We all returned to the beginning of our hike where we were able to see Blue from above as we crossed the lock bridge.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--February 7, 2014

Food Ramblings

I'm not sure how interesting it is for you to read my ramblings about our food endeavors last week without any pictures. On second thought, I'm not sure that they would make this post that much more riveting. Have you figured out that I didn't take any food pictures this week? Now to the rest of the world, that sounds kind of normal. However, in the bloggers world, it seems kind of strange.

I am continuing to try to do major grocery shopping every two weeks and last week was no exception. After I returned home with what I thought we needed, Ward went out the next day to get ingredients for his once-a-year cheesy Super Bowl dip. And the last week, we made an extra trip for Popcicles when I was sick. So what this is starting to look like is that we will do major shopping twice a week month and do fill ins when needed. So far, I think it is saving us time and money.

As for food waste, I had some grape tomatoes that got shriveled and mushy before they made it into my salad. I knew that they didn't have a very long life when I bought them, but when I am buying a treat of vegetables instead of cookies, I go for it. I did eat most of them and they did not disappoint. Otherwise, we are eating what we have in a timely manor.

Eating and cooking at home this week seemed like a chore as it often does because our minds were focused elsewhere. But just as with our poor man's lasagna last week, our avocado roll ups this week proved that it doesn't take much effort to put together a tasty, interesting meal. (That's a meal that's a step above a peanut butter sandwich which is not a bad offering either.) The roll ups included a tortilla with a layers of humus, Swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, avocado, lettuce, and Italian dressing. Tasty, filling and not too bad on the health front. These were made by looking in the fridge to see what we had to work with and the forethought to buy avocados when they were on sale last week. We also had takeout Chinese which will also service us tonight and into the weekend. And this time we used a coupon.

So that's the ramblings for this week. Until next time...