The earliest kitchen “disasters” that I can remember were in our first year of marriage. I’ve always been a corner cutter when it comes to cooking; I like to find ways to eliminate extra work or to change recipes to suit what I have on hand, but had an inflated sense of my own abilities in that regard. I had a recipe for cornbread and didn’t have all the ingredients so I did some ill-considered substitutions and put it in the oven. After a bit, we both noticed we were hearing the sounds of sizzling in the background. I looked in the oven and my substitutions had been so off-balance that the stuff hadn’t risen at all and was literally frying in its own excessive oils.

Another time I decided to make pizza instead of buying it, thinking to save money. I forgot to put salt in the dough for the crust and had bought an awful fat-free mozzarella-substitute pizza cheese. I didn’t have pizza sauce either, so I tried to make one without a recipe (how hard can it be?). The resulting pizza was well-nigh inedible.

The first turkey I baked for a Thanksgiving meal turned out fine, but I baked it upside down, never having had up close and personal contact with a turkey.

My cooking generally improved over the years with lots of practice, but my propensity for choosing strange recipes was a continual trial to the family. We’d been to a church function once where someone had brought an eggplant parmigiana that was superb. This impressed me because up until this point I hated eggplant with a holy passion. It’s like someone took the essence of dirty socks and poured it into a vegetable. Filled with new zeal about eggplant possibilities, I found a recipe for eggplant parmigiana and made a YUGE casserole. Oh my gosh, was that horrible! I apologized to the family and gave permission for people not to eat it. Kris famously “tripped” over by the kitchen sink and dumped the remainder in the garbage disposal with a loud, “Oops!”

Another time I found a recipe for carrot ice cream. How fun! It wasn’t. I have a vague memory of a carrot soup that I made that tasted like dirt. I realized then that perhaps there was a good reason to peel carrots before cooking them (corner cutting as usual – why do I have to waste time peeling carrots?). And of course, most of my family remembers the time I forgot to turn the crockpot on and didn’t discover it until quite late in the day. Good times.

I decided once to conduct my own experiment with baked potatoes. Instructions always said to pierce the skin before baking them and I thought to myself, I wonder what would happen if I didn’t do that? God was merciful to me the day I made that incredibly stupid decision. After it was done baking, I reached in wearing an oven mitt to pick up the potato and it exploded boiling hot potato mess all over, but fortunately most of it in the oven and not on me. Not long after that I read a story from pioneer times about a girl who was severely burned and ended up dying when that very same thing happened to her. Yes, mistakes in the kitchen can kill you.

And speaking of explosions, I recall the night we were sitting in the dining room eating supper when we all heard a loud noise. I had been attempting to make root beer and had stored the bottles in the craft room while they were “brewing.” In a typically careless move on my part, I hadn’t measured the yeast with any sort of exactitude, which turned out to be important. The bottles had all exploded, the first bottle close enough to the others to set them off as well. It was pretty spectacular – a brown, sticky mess all over the carpet and walls and even the ceiling. We never did get it out of the carpet and had to replace it.

But let me leave you with a better picture of my kitchen experiences. Here I am just a couple years ago making bread dough with our granddaughter. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Too many substitutions in this post – it’s going to sizzle in the oven in the morning.

I decided to start taking some indoor photos for a change. I popped my long-distance telephoto lens off, put the kit lens back on, and went exploring around the house to see what caught my eye. A couple of things looked back at me and here they are.

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Hedgehog: Why can’t everyone be as adorable and winsome as I? Don’t you just want to pick me up and hug me? Of course you do!

Gargoyle: Wipe that smile off of your face, Hedgehog. Let’s hear no more about how adorable you are. You should be trying to inspire fear, not hugs.

The hedgehog was a recent birthday gift from a friend. The gargoyle used to be my mom’s. I wonder where and why she bought it. Very intriguing.

Those are the day’s meanderings.

I’ll probably wipe this post off the blog face in the morning.

Luna wants to sit on my lap
She waits patiently,
Ears all perked up and ready.

She tires of waiting –
Soft paws try out my leg,
A purr or two, like a question:
”May I come in?”

Alas, the lap desk,
That infernal lap desk!
She settles next to my leg
In quiet resignation.

The rain patters on the window,
The candle flickers and burns,
And Luna sits,
A warm gray body on this gray day.

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I’ll probably delete this in the morning in quiet resignation.

Some months ago a friend recommended taking regular cold showers for health benefits. Nope. I have a distinct aversion to being cold. Last weekend we were talking to our nephew who takes regular ice baths, extolling the many health benefits. I’m guessing that would just about kill me at my age. However, he also mentioned that we tend to love our comforts too much and that struck a nerve with me. I’m all about comfort. The older I get, the more comfort and ease I want. Sadly, my body isn’t on the same page. I want to sit and read a book or work on a puzzle and my neck says, “You can’t do that for too long – I will complain.” Or I might want to tuck my legs up under me in my comfy chair and my knees say, “Not today, my friend – not today.” We’re always told that we should drink more water for more of those alleged health benefits (it doesn’t matter how much you are currently drinking – you still have to drink MORE). Meanwhile, my bladder says, “That’s fine, I’m just fine. Bring it on. No need to….URGENT NEED TO GO TO BATHROOM RIGHT NOW! Oh, I’m sorry – you’ll never make it in time.”

It’s all part of the aging process, right? It sharpens the perspective on the importance of the eternal, rather than the temporal. Paul (the apostle) put it this way: “Therefore we do not lose heart, for though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing in us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Case closed.

But the matter of the cold shower still lingered. I flexed my fingers and did a little internet research to find out just how great these health benefits are. Maybe I need to sow a little discomfort in my life in order to reap the great rewards? So here’s the carrot on the end of the stick as pertains to the potential benefits of cold showers:

Boost immune system
Relieve depression
Make you more alert
Keep hair healthy
Sense of invigoration
Improve circulation
Reduce inflammation/muscle soreness
Stimulate weight loss
Increase metabolism

Of course that lovely list of benefits is not a guarantee, and if you have heart disease, a brisk cold shower could go in all the wrong directions for you. I’M NOT RECOMMENDING COLD SHOWERS. (I have to say that for the lawyers out there).

As an aside, one of the articles I read started out with the phrase “Many people prefer warm showers to cold showers,” which made me laugh out loud. “Many?” Try “All people.” Or at least “All sane people.”

More asides: Cold showers are also called the “James Bond Showers” or “Scottish Showers.” I don’t know why – I didn’t feel like jumping in that rabbit hole. Also, Katherine Hepburn took a cold shower daily.

Bottom line: I have now entered the realm of insanity and have taken two (yes, two!) brief cold showers. The first minute is unmitigated shock and misery, but it becomes surprisingly bearable for the next (and last) two minutes. Is it worth it? Stay tuned.

By the way, I AM NOT RECOMMENDING COLD SHOWERS.

I’ll probably delete this after a cold shower (WHICH I AM NOT – repeat – NOT RECOMMENDING)

The year was 1998. We were expecting our 6th child and officially outgrowing our 7-passenger van. It was time to broaden our vehicular horizons, so we figured we might as well go straight to a 12-passenger van, rather then mess around with the 8-passenger models. My husband began looking around and we prayed for the right van, but he didn’t find anything. And then on a business trip in Wisconsin, he was passing a car dealership and saw a large van in the parking lot. On a whim, he pulled off the freeway and circled back to check it out. The dealership had taken delivery on this behemoth, but then the original buyers backed out so they were stuck with it. A deal was made, my husband went on to his meeting and a nice older couple from Wisconsin drove the van to our little city in Minnesota to deliver it.

It was pretty impressive, a gleaming Chevy Express 2500 in Toreador Red (or “dried blood color” as my mother put it). I was almost afraid to drive the beast. It was so tall! When I got ready to park it in the garage, I succumbed to nervousness about it and asked a neighbor over to see if it would fit. My nervousness was well placed – he said it was too tall. My husband made some adjustments to the garage door after he got home to make it work. We named her “Big Bertha.”

Big Bertha was the first new vehicle we’d ever purchased. We decided that there would be NO food eaten in the car, EVER. This lasted until we had to take the kids somewhere longer than a half-hour drive; in other words, not long. Bertha was a thing of beauty – capacious, comfortable, and quite a smooth ride! We loved having room to spread out when we went on long trips. With six children you can bet that there were times when we needed to separate them due to fighting/arguing. We learned early on always to have an empty ice cream bucket in the van. I’ll bet all of you parents know what that was for, but for everyone else, I’ll just say that sometimes vomiting happens.

Bertha served us faithfully and reliably for all these years. She lugged all 8 of us out West and back many times. We’ve put 210,000 miles on the old girl. The once-gleaming van is showing her age in more ways than one. She sounds like a bucket of bolts sometimes and is literally held together in certain places by duct tape. The front windshield has a long crack in it. Bertha no longer is able to figure out when the gas tank is getting low, so we keep a piece of paper in the van that tells us at what mileage we need to fill up. The driver side door doesn’t close very well. Oh, and that baby who was born in 1998 used Big Bertha during the summer after his freshman year in college to drive to and from a painting job he had. He managed to get a fair amount of paint on the inside, just getting in and out. Bertha wears those paint splatters proudly.

I’ve never had any sort of sentimental attachment to cars until Bertha came along. I suppose we’ll face a repair job someday that we can’t justify spending the money on and we’ll have to get rid of her. When that day comes, I will weep.

I’ll probably put this in an ice cream bucket in the morning.

I took last week off of writing blog posts. Why? I was feeling flat and uninspired, I guess. Sometimes when I feel that way, I need to write. Other times, I just can’t. I spent the week taking comfort in hymn lyrics like

“Soul, adorn thyself with gladness;
Leave behind all gloom and sadness.
Come into the daylight’s splendor,
There with joy thy praises render.”

and

“O Word of God incarnate, O wisdom from on high,
O Truth, unchanged, unchanging, O light of our dark sky!”

and quotes from Samuel Rutherford:

“I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what their Lord is preparing for them,” and

“Send a heavy heart up to Christ; it shall be welcome.”

That’s the way to look for light when the sky is dark. Can I get an “Amen”?

I’ve had a few new subscribers lately (hello, if you’re reading this). My usual response to the idea of a subscriber who doesn’t know me is to wonder why on earth they decided to follow my blog. I never hear from them and sort of assume that they don’t read it, for which I do not blame them. My blog is so eclectic that it doesn’t really fit into any sort of categorical slot – you never know what you’re going to get, if anything. Thank you to those of you who do read it and who sometimes respond. I appreciate it!

And now for the topic o’ the day: a surprise message from my mom who passed away over a year ago. I’ve been listening through her CD collection of mostly classical music and recently decided to try out “The Chicago Principal: First Chair Soloists Play Famous Concertos.” Sounds like a winner, doesn’t it?

When I opened it up, it turned out there were two CDs. The second one was labeled with my mom’s shaky handwriting from her later years: “DON’T BOTHER.” I laughed out loud to see it. She had very strong feelings about many things, music being near the top of the list.

I’ve listened to the first CD three or four times: Mozart, Haydn and Schumann with oboe, trumpet, horn and four horn solos. Good stuff. I have especially enjoyed the Schumann piece featuring the four horns. But now the time has come to try the second one and find out what roused my mother’s musical sensibilities enough to put a warning on it. I’ll keep you posted!

I’ll probably delete this in the morning unless I hear my mom telling me “DON’T BOTHER.”

It’s a busy day (i.e. I squandered my morning putzing around), so I went wading into the pool of some artwork that I did for my Instagram account back in 2018 and picked a few to share here. Enjoy!

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I’ll probably procrastinate on deleting this in the morning. It’s an art and I take my art seriously.

I know there must be some people out there who don’t want to read or hear anything about politics right now. You’ve come to the right place. Come on in!

Continue reading “Tuesday, November 5, 2024 The Wild Huntsman” →

I’ve been having adventures with mishearings for years now. I’d like to blame it all on people not speaking clearly enough, but the common denominator seems to be my ears, not their voices. It’s often quite amusing when you compare what I heard versus what was said. I’ll share a few of these and then I fully expect some of you to share yours in the comments section.

I was telling a friend of mine about all the box elder bugs that were plaguing our house, particularly on sunny days. “Oh, I know,” she said, “my friend Dora is covered in them!” This brought to mind a very funny picture of poor Dora, but when I asked for clarification, she had actually said, “My front door is covered in them!”

My husband and I were on a walk and I had picked up a couple interesting leaves. He asked, “Are you going to put those on your straw hat?” Since I was not wearing a straw hat, I was somewhat confused. “What do you mean? I don’t have a straw hat!” I replied. That’s when I found out that he was completely uninterested in my leaves and was merely asking if I had put our walk on the Strava app.

Another time someone mentioned being back in a “couple hours,” but what I heard was “with flowers.” I like my version better, don’t you?

Lastly, one of our sons was doing the congregational prayer at our church a couple months ago. A young woman in our church had asked for prayer for her great aunt who was having fairly serious health problems and surgery. Our son was praying about this situation and to my surprise, inserted the phrase “unborn child” into the prayer. I pondered this for awhile, wondering what it meant. Maybe the young woman was expecting another baby (she was married and had two children). Hmmm. He was at our house later in the week and I asked him why he said something about an unborn child in the midst of his prayer. “I said no such thing!” he insisted. He had his prayer typed up and on his phone, so he looked it up. It turns out he had used the phrase “ongoing trial,” which made a lot more sense. We had a good laugh over that one.

Okay, it’s your turn!

I’ll probably repeat this in the morning (that’s what you heard anyway).