Open Thread, Readers please post

(Update: I added a ratings ability to the site, check it out, it’s for the articles as well as comments.)

I’ve noticed recently from looking at the stats for this site that quite a lot of you out there are coming to this site and staying for longish periods of time.  I would like to invite you to join in our conversations.  Those of us who post here and author material did not know each other till we met on one blog or another, some here and through our conversations have come to know a bit about each other.  We would like to know a bit about you the gentle reader as well and we would like to hear whatever thoughts  or stories you may have to share.

You know we all had a first day and a first post on a blog.  so start here, pop in and tell us about you.

So what’s going on with your day or life?

Is everyone Ok

Hey don’t force me to write something here, lol.  So I am curious to know especially if Whisel is ok, since this is the longest time since she has written here.  Please let me know and also Scribe were you able to log on after I fixed it for you.

Ok, I  guess I will have to write something bigger than this so I will plan on it for the afternoon.  Meanwhile a very good and wonderful day to you all.

Sour Dough Breadmaking, Antidote to Politics

Getting through both conventions has taken a toll on me and I bet on a lot of you folks. What to do to get through the long days. Well, last week I started to bake bread. Not that I need bread, not that bread is on my diet, but rather that I needed something constructive and fullfilling, (No pun intended), and baking fills that bill.

First I started with regular white bread dough with some calamata olives and garlic cloves. Oh that was good and I made several more loaves. I then started to run out of yeast and not living within walking distance of a purveyor of yeast, I decided I needed something I could count on to be there when the need arose, thus I settled on making my own sour dough.

For sour dough you make a starter, which is yeast, flour and water, which you let foment for days before combining with more flour and water, then more fomenting to make a sponge.
The sponge is then the basis for your bread and the unused sponge is then combined with more flour and water to make more starter. Yeast can be added to the origional starter, but not required as there is natural yeast in air and flour. For mine, I did add yeast as I wanted to rush the project a little.

If you are interested in making sour dough bread here is the excellent site I used.

So I’ve had a great time baking, baking and more baking. Giving away and freezing, and then more baking. I’ve make fry bread, bread sticks, flat bread and rosemary and olive oil (my favorite). I am just now awaiting the fomenting of the sponge so I can make more bread today.

One note of caution, be careful of the amount of bread you eat as I found out the hard way. One day this week I ate quite a bit of my bread combined with quite a bit of homemade humus and I had a very bad case of indigestion and heartburn. So I am now more careful in limiting the amount consumed and planning on giving away more.

So what kinds of food have you been making and please include any recipes. I got my humus recipe from google searches as I do most of my recipes. I would also like to hear of any cost saving recipes you may have. Making your own bread for example can cost less than a dollar a loaf, depending on the cost of your flour.

Numbers

So today I finished up my two week grocery list and coded each item by catalogue number. I order my food from a delivery service and every product has a five digit code number. That’s food for two adults and three cats.

Then I thought about the stash of vitamins and supplements I take, realizing I was running low. So I listed them out, checked my inventory, counting out what I needed and placed an online order.

Next I reviewed my packet of stamps, figuring out how many more of what denominations I needed to order to bring my assortment to combined totals of 42 cents each.

I was tempted to balance my checking account, being on a roll of sorts, but I was already dizzy, so I decided to move on to exercises and a more recreational evening. I counted out a moderate amount of leg lifts, stomach crunches and arm twirls. Then I spent a couple hours applying myself to my paint-by-number masterpiece. Go figure!

Do you ever have days that seem to be locked into a particular mode of expression? It seems kinda weird, but that’s a Full Moon for ya

Best wishes, Whisel*

Caramel

Almost caramel. That’s what I taste if I close my eyes and savor the melted cheddar cheese with olive oil. Caramel, like the taffy apples I made in high school that would not come off the waxed paper.

Caramel, like the popcorn mix sold downtown at Garrett’s in Chicago with white and cheddar popcorn. Caramel, like trick-or-treat goodies on Halloween. like the smell of the Indiana Beach boardwalk with deep fried, powdered elephant ears, rides for the kids, shooting galleries and prize booths for the older ones, dance halls and beer gardens and fireworks at night. Caramel, that luscious but deadly tooth destroyer, appointments at the dentist office before topical anesthetic or any of the pleasantries of manner or method, in that dental chair tense and trembling, drills of torture, one step lower than wide-awake brain surgery.

But ah, caramel! Formed into chocolate, nutty turtles given at holidays, a token of love or lust. The caramel color of the beach at Lake Michigan and 47^th Street and of the devoted beach goers parading their shades of creamy browns up and down the shore line. Brachs candy, each wrapped separately. Buy it by the pound. Holloway suckers. Milk duds. Soft caramel insides. Hard caramel toffee outside.

My imagination brings up all the savory memories attached to the taste of caramel. Tastes and smells are hypnotic, easily pulling to mind the visuals of past experiences.

Is there a particular smell or taste that reminds you of places and people in your life?

Best wishes, Whisel*

What’s Coming Up Next In Transformative Energy

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Greetings to each of you from the light, within the light and with the light. The light is truth.

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A great event comes to you this week. We reiterate with an explanation and will then elaborate:

It is that you have entered into reconstruction of your reality. The very fabric of which you are created is being rewoven. That which has been the harmonic arrangement which creates harmonic resonance of you and all other things is being rewritten as a symphony of changes.

Jellyfish Eye

Greetings Friends. A situation developed over the Memorial Day weekend. Sudden onset of floaters and flashers. I’ve been to the emergency room, to the opthamologist and have an appointment with a vitreous surgeon next week. I’m hoping the assessment will not require a procedure. Think happy thoughts.

I was out with a friend for dinner on Sunday when …. poof…. my left eye become all blurry and seemingly dirty with spots and cobwebs. I couldn’t imagine what was happening. I went to the bathroom to flush my eye with water, but the vision remained the same. Everywhere I looked there was this jellyfish constellation in my line of vision. Later that evening, after accessing the internet, it was recommended to see an opthamologist as soon as possible. The next day was Memorial Day and all clinics were closed. I went to the ER, but they were no help at all. On Tuesday, I finally got to see an eye doctor.

The Breakfast Tortie

Today was turkey quesadilla day for breakfast, or so I thought. Having coffee and a small food in front of the computer is a grand way to start my day. So as usual,  I carried  my repast into my room, set it on the side table and began the ritual of preparing for computering.  Then my daughter called and I jabbered with her for awhile, popping my vitamins between swallows of coffee and perfunctory “uh-huhs” into the phone. Turnng to my plate to grab a small bite of sustenance, I notice: no quesadilla. What ho! Where is my turkey?

There she is… skulking out the door is the resident tortie-thief with my breakfast in her mouth! I yell, I call her name, but alas, she has gone deaf! I am yodeling, my daughter is hysterical and the turkey-nabber is nowhere to be found. Eventually, my kid and I wrap up our phone call. I follow the trail of raggedy tortilla remnants into the parlor where the cat is curled into a soft snuggly circle, having ingested a tasty, protein meal. I say: Ok, you little cat-burglar! Where’s the meat? I bend my head to hers and she purrs contentedly, as if to infer: “A delicious morsel, eh? Good of you to be distracted.”

She continues her snoozing and I paddle back to my bedroom to have my coffee. In comes the second tortie, a little older, wider and slower. She sits insistently at my feet, looking up with moist eyes, inquiring: “Ya got anymore of those turkey tacos?” I pick her up, hold her, rock her and pet her. She pulls away, glares at me, shoots her tail straight up like a whip in the air and marches out of the room. She is showing me that she’s been deeply insulted and consequently, I’ll be snubbed for an hour or two. Torties have high standards and particular rules of intereaction, which I, as a fallible humon, often fail miserably to reach. And there’s no more turkey in the refrigerator. I’m in for it now.

They will forget this little interchange in awhile, though I am racked with guilt…. and will probably open up a can of tuna for lunch. I was never any good at being alpha-dominant, even with my own species. Life with cats ~ precious, funny and wonderful.

Here’s a photo of the scoundrel. She’s mostly black with a light tortie pattern and a white chin. She’s sitting in my computer chair enjoying some early morning sun.

Any animal stories out there?  Best wishes….. Whisel*

Walkabout with me

This is so cool, just made the slide show and then I was able to load it right onto the site from there.

So I took these pics on Friday as I walked slowly around my place, so you can see the plant  abundance I am living with and share with me the wonderful feelings plants can bring..

This is how I pictured my place to be when I first moved here 2 1/2 years ago with nothing but a few plants and bare walls surrounding me.  I dreamed of my trailer being covered in vines and it’s well on it’s way now with my lovely morning glory vines now reaching the roof.

Sunday, small talk

Hello Dear Readers:

Here’s a picture of my dear little grandson Mathew, with whom I spend a lot of time every week. He is nearly 20 mo. old, (18 mo. old in this picture). and just the most fun for me in the twilight years of my life….

I’ve been helping my daughter, his mother, with a lot of things, incl. watching Mathew while she works for her Dad’s business, on Tues. and Thurs. She actually works there 5 days a weeks for a few hours each day, but on Mon., Wed. and Friday she also does babysitting and those days I don’t go along as it involves too much driving and too long a time commitment for me. I am helping her because it’s almost impossible for her to do her work with little Mathew roaming around the office and her work always has  to accommodate raising her kids without having to use baby sitters herself.  This summer she will begin college and will enroll Mathew in the child care school on campus.