Merry Christmas

A very Merry Christmas to one and all. 

If you are reading this, you, like me, survived the “end of the world.” I sincerely hope you didn’t really believe that civilization was going to be wiped out.

Are we going to undergo changes? Of course. We have from the beginning of time. That’s progress. That’s evolution. I hope we never stagnate.

As a civilization goes, we have come a long way, but we have a long way to go. I do believe we can iron out our differences and become a Planet of Peace. It starts with each individual.

The Soul speaks to the Heart and together they speak to the Mind. Uh oh. There is the stumbling block…the wall, if you will. The Soul/Heart can’t always get through to the Mind. I don’t know how to change that. On an individual level, I try to listen to my Soul/Heart, but I’m not always successful. Or, at times I’m just plain willful. I hear the Soul/Heart but I refuse to listen. The results are never pretty. When will I ever learn?

Let’s try harder to be less willful and more Peaceful.

Wishing everyone a New Year filled with an abundance of all good things.

Unspeakable Tragedy Comes to Connecticut

I can't imagine there is anyone, at least in the United States, who hasn't heard about the shooting of 20 children and six adults at the Stony Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.

I grieve for all of them, especially the little ones whose lives were snuffed out at such a young age. They were all six and seven years old. They had not had a chance to really live yet.

How did society fail them? Did we fail them by not having stronger gun control laws? Did we fail them by not having in place programs to identify and treat those who might act out and do the unthinkable?

I'm not sure either of these options, if implemented, would stop such mass shootings. I do have to ask myself if they would, in some measure, help.

The news accounts also talk about the six adults killed on that day at the school. No one wants to give voice to the shooter, Adam Lanza, or his mother, Nancy. No one wants to talk about what tortured souls they must have been. Adam's mother apparently knew her son was a threat. A man who came forward to speak about being Adam's babysitter10 years ago, told how the mother told him to never take his eyes off the child...not for one second, and to never turn his back on him.

Did the mother try to get her son help? Did she give up? Did she live in fear of her son? Had she ever tried to have him hospitalized? These are questions we may never get the answers to. We may never learn the "why" of what Adam did, in spite of our intense need to know.

Nancy and Adam Lanza deserve our prayers as much (if not more) than the 26 other souls who lost their lives that day. I ask you to find it in your heart to pray for ALL the victims of the Newtown shooting.

Computer Problem Fixed

A not so funny thing happened on the way to Cape Cod this past September! My computer went haywire. It was fine at home before I left for vacation, but by the time I arrived at the cottage something had gone wrong. The cursor was in “select” mode and selected everything in sight…whether I wanted it selected or not. I thought it was having iPad envy…since I had just bought my iPad.

Had I known how easy it would be to take notes and jot down thoughts on the iPad, I would not have disturbed MacScene.

When I returned home my first stop was my Apple certified computer guru, Mike. At the shop, my computer behaved perfectly. He spent a lot of time troubleshooting and found nothing. That wasn’t cheap.

A few days later I was back. Mike replaced the top…keys and touchpad. The keys and touchpad were pretty worn. Not cheap. The problem persisted. I took MacScene over to a friend’s house and she behaved beautifully! The computer, not my friend, although my friend behaved, also. But I digress. :)

I called Mike and he suggested I run a diagnostic and see if anything pops up. I did and as far as I knew, everything was OK. But then, when it comes to things like that I have no idea what I’m doing. Back to Mike. He ran a diagnostic and the battery came up as “failed.” Now I have a new battery. Not cheap! And the problem persists. I’m getting the feeling Mike is at the end of his expertise or patience.

I went to Best Buy…three times. Mike (a different Mike) is baffled. He suggested I try wireless mouse, which would disable the touchpad. I bought one. Not cheap! Brought it home in order to configure it to my computer and went back to Best Buy to have them do it.

I have to say here, the Boys of Best Buy not only spent a lot of time on my problem, they did not charge me!

So far I have to say this is the first solution that has actually worked! Everything else was most assuredly necessary, but all the replacing didn’t fix my problem. It still takes forever for my computer to connect to the internet, and I’ll have to wait to see if I will still lose the connection from time to time.

After spending in the neighborhood of $400, I have my fingers crossed that MacScene is back to mostly normal. I can live with a balky internet connection…I couldn’t live with my cursor sending my emails before I had time to thoroughly proof read them. Talk about living dangerously! :)

Kitchen Talk

 I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately…cooking and washing dishes. Yes, I wash dishes because the dishwasher that came with the condo stinks. That’s ok, I don’t mind washing dishes. It’s like ironing…mindless.

Anyway, I have been spending a lot of time making soups, cakes, cupcakes, and muffins. That, in addition to my regular meals.

I have come to this conclusion: other than regular meals the rest of it might not be worth all the fuss and time. Mostly because it takes a lot of time to do from scratch what can be done by opening a box or a can.

Let’s start with soups.

The cream of broccoli and cream of asparagus that I make is good and worth continuing because I like them. If I had use for them as a cooking sauce, I would buy Campbell’s. My cream of mushroom is best left to Campbell’s and used as a cooking sauce. It’s good, but…

Today I made what looked like a great tasting soup, actually a bisque, but it was a great disappointment. It was a butternut squash and sweet potato bisque and after all the work it took to make, I don’t like it. I have packaged for freezing what is left in the hope of finding someone who does like it.

My cream of tomato and chicken soup is worth making. Easy to make and really taste good.

Cupcakes, etc.

Sure they taste good! But…why go through all the mess and clean up when I can open a box and be done with it. Homemade from scratch doesn’t have all the preservatives...point for that. But…

Coffee

My cup of coffee in the morning and another in the afternoon is very important. I want my coffee to have some body to it. I don’t want anything weak and watery. And I want it to taste the same cup after cup.

With the two Kitchenaid coffee makers I had (in two years) it seemed that no two cups were alike. I wanted something I could count on. I made the decision that when my Kitchenaid went squat I would look into getting a Keureg. However, I did not expect my Kitchenaid to go squat so soon.

I did buy a Keureg and two refillable filters. I will not pay all that money for the pre-filled K-cups. And so the search begins.

I tried some of the K-cups that came with the Keureg. Thank goodness there was a book giving the strength of coffees available for the Keureg…some of them were in the complimentary pack. I soon weeded out the weak and totally unacceptable from the dark roasts and bolds. Dark roast and bold…ahhhhh!

I figure I’m saving a lot of money, water and coffee by using the refillable filter. 

I measured the coffee today and found that in the Keureg refillable I use 3 tbsp of coffee. With my old coffee maker I used two 2-tbsp measures...rounded. So I'm using one tablespoon less coffee now.

With the water, instead of using 5 cups (which was the minimum) and throwing away a cup of coffee because I didn't drink it...I now use only the water it takes for one cup...in the case of what I used this morning...I used 14 1/2 ounces. I use a BIG mug! Because I use a refillable filter I am not throwing the K-cups into the garbage!

So in the long run, I am saving $$ and the environment with the Keureg.

Computer Heebe-Jeebes

When I took my computer with me to Cape Cod it was acting up to the point where I was unable to use it!  After spending $300, it still has the heebe-jeebes.

It seems to have a mind of its own...opening files, closing files, selecting text or photos. The most fun is when I open a file and my computer sends it to the "dock"...for safe keeping I suppose.

The top of the case has been replaced (the touch pad and keys); the battery has been replaced having been shown by diagnostics that is was failing. And it's still acting on its own!

I am wondering if perhaps what is acting up is the router and/ or modem!

I have a MacBook that is 6 or 7 years old, and so are the router and modem. I have a problem having to wait for one of them (or maybe both) to connect to the Internet. Hmmmmm!

I will take MacScene over to Barbara's house to see if it acts up over there. If it doesn't (it doesn't act up at the fix it shop), then I think I have found the problem.

I just love electronics. Right now..Thank goodness for my iPad!!!!

The Day After Sandy

I was lucky…no loss of power or cable so my coffee pot, phone, TV, and internet all worked when I got up.

The day dawned with wind and rain on their way out of our meteorological nightmare. As the morning wore on the clouds occasionally parted to allow full sun to come through. At other times the clouds took over.

Thick clouds, in layers, continue to stream northwest at mid afternoon. At times there is complete overcast and at other times, there are varying amounts of blue sky…at times not even enough to make a pair of Dutchman’s britches.

Outside of my locale it’s been all over the news: Connecticut shoreline is torn up again; the mid-Atlantic states had lots of rain and wind; heavy, wet snow is falling in the Appalachians of Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia; New Jersey shoreline was ground zero; lower Manhattan (New York City) is flooded. With all the tunnels and subway tubes flooded I have a question that has nothing to do with transportation: What happened to all the rats and occupants of the homeless communities that live down there? Just asking!

After lunch I took a ride down to the boat launch to check on the river. It’s still there and it’s still low. In the parking lot, my car was immediately surrounded by the flock of geese that lives down there. They were definitely looking for food. Then I saw the sign that said not to feed the wild water fowl. These guys are wild, but they weren’t always wild. I think they were domestic at one time and founded an independent community.

From the boat launch I headed to “the place” where I can look across the river at the eagles’ nest. I was told, recently, they built a second nest just a bit north of the one they have used for at least two years…and there it was. I have to get on the bike path one more time before it’s closed for the eagle nesting season. I want pictures from the canal path to go with the ones I took today.

Do these geese look domestic or wild? They came running to my car looking for food.

The dot in the trees is the old nest.

This is the new nest. Frankly, I like this one better. Let's see which one the eagles like!

Hurricane and Tag Sale

 

I will try to get this posted before I lose power. At the moment we are 2-3 hours away from the beginning of the worst of Hurricane Sandy. I have been watching the speed of sustained winds and gusts increasing.

Halloween Tribulations

And right now, for the second Halloween in a row, Connecticut is experiencing a major storm. Last year it was winter storm Alfred (we name our winter storms in CT). This year it is Hurricane Sandy.

How lucky can we be? Stick around to see what next year’s weather will be.

My cell phone  and iPad are charged; I know who has propane for cooking so I can make a cup of coffee if I have no electricity…which will most likely be the case; my friends know I will have water should they need it; I know who has a wood stove so I can warm up.

Nothing to do but wait. I hope you are safe and dry.

Next to New Sale

I was in Maryland a couple weeks ago as a volunteer worker at the Next to New Sale. This is a “tag” sale that fills a gym to overflowing and goes for 4 days. The proceeds go to financial aide for the students. Everything that is left over is picked up by charities and distributed locally. This year’s sale was a huge success and raised a substantial amount.

While I was at the airport waiting to go to Maryland an earthquake struck New England. Didn’t feel it!