I Find It Hard To Believe, Too...

Monday Stuff On the Way to Other Stuff: Life-Changing Anniversaries

September 11 has come and gone. Fifteen years since that horrible day -- yet we're still here. That in itself says something. 

    Tomorrow will also mark a year since the climax of a difficult event for me personally.  I was being threatened with all sorts of dire consequences, professionally and emotionally. (Now you know why I posted this back then. This post probably makes more sense now. This one, too.) 
     The Brick had just retired, so we were still working out finances. And I wasn't sleeping well at night, in spite of knowing I'd made the right decisions. I wondered if I could ever rise above it. 

    Turns out, with God's help, I could -- and did. 

At the time it happened, I had no idea that the mid-September salvo would also be the last. None of the threats were ever carried out. Nonetheless, it cost us a great deal to protect ourselves, in case they were. And I lost a good deal of income and momentum because of it. 
    Like the events of 9/11, I will always carry scars from this time. Certainly I'm more cautious, and less trusting. But at least it's in the past.


"Drop dead gorgeous:" a blogpost on the beauty of women -- when they're dead. One of the weirder posts I've ever read, but fascinating.  (Early Modern Medicine has this one)

How to negotiate for yourself -- and do it well.  (From Millenial Moola)

9 party dips to make (and keep warm) in the slow cooker.  (From Betty Crocker) Including this bacon cheeseburger dip...oh boy.



Negotiating a severance -- and what you can do for payback as an employee, if you're treated badly. (From Financial Samurai. This guy has IDEAS.)

A thousand-year-old Icelandic sword found...just laying on top of the ground. Hey, these were important.

Knocked over by love...and lots of licking! Amanda Holden gets plenty of affection from one of her Animal Hero recipients. Wouldn't you know it, he's a golden Lab. (Take note, Charley and Abby. Sir Charles would do the same.)

The Metropolitan Museum's in financial trouble...but why?  (From Appraiser Workshops)

Thirteen ways to make your front door stand out. (Okay, a few of them are weird.  From Hometalk)

Ten human test subjects who gave their lives, so you could benefit from medical advances. Including the guy with his own private lice collection.  (From Listverse) This is cool, too:

Ten real-life ghost ships.

An Iranian tycoon worth an estimated $120 million has been getting foodstamps for two years...and even got an operation paid for by government aid. (He's broke, he says. Can't sell his land -- so he needs help.) Are you hoping that this schmuck is benefitting from some other country's welfare system? Nope...he lives in Ohio. Darn.

Discount grocery outlets around the country. Who and where they are, state by state.

How Melissa Mayer earned more than $100 million -- by not doing her job, or listening to advice. Who pays? Yahoo -- and its shareholders.

The college student who ran a four-seat tasting restaurant out of his dorm room. (He's starting at a new restaurant now, at age 22. See his take on that, courtesy of Urban Daddy.)

Restaurant copycat recipes.  Yum.  (From Pillsbury)

"How to get girls, even though you live at home with Mom and Dad."  Urban Samurai's irreverent take on the subject. (Here's his version for girls.)

"How growing up poor made me a badass."  (From Millenial Revolution) Speaking of...

Tom Brady and the Manning family read letters from their bright boy, Peyton. Try not to laugh!

And have a great week.

A Little Oddity is Good for the Soul

The Victorians were very fond of 'oddity cabinets:' decorative pieces that held stuffed animals, birds, unusual rocks...and all sorts of odd pieces. My grandma's house had an upstairs bedroom that intrigued the granddaughter who visited there. Grandma didn't do taxidermy, like her Victorian forbears. But the bookcase held petoskey stones, a chain of links (carved from one piece of wood, I was told), a weird little box (a gift from a missionary), rocks, coins and all sorts of old books.

     I enjoyed creeping into the room on hot summer afternoons; it was cool and still, with only the buzzing of an occasional fly in the window. I could handle all the bits and pieces and read to my heart's content -- as long as I was quiet, and no one knew I was in there. A 19th century copy of Jane Eyre still lives on my bookshelf, as a reminder of that magical place.

I have an oddity cabinet now, sort of. Only mine holds a squirrel statue, amethyst crystals, a copper Statue of Liberty, little boxes filled with beads, sequins and spools of thread...and most of our DVD collection. The quilter must be vying with the packrat.

You could collect items for your own oddity cabinet -- or make one, instead: a 'sort-of' taxidermy display cabinet.  Thanks to Knock Off Decor, it's surprisingly easy.





Or go here for the video tutorial:

Something To Remember

Something Jesus Christ reflected in His own life, over and over.


"Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve..."
                     Matthew 20:28

Upward and Onward

Those big tough Broncos.

They played hard during last night's game with the Carolina Panthers. They worked at it. And they had the temerity to 'hit' -- actually hit Cam Newton, the Panthers quarterback. 


And they hurt him, doggonit! They're so mean... it's just not fair.  (Poor baby.)

How dare they... especially when few people outside Denver apparently thought they could win this first game of the season?

Probably the very same people who said they were going to make fools of themselves at the Superbowl. 

And you know where that went. 

It was close, but...

Final score:   Denver Broncos 21, Carolina Panthers 20.

GO BRONCOS!

Investment Cooking And Stocking Up

    'Cooking the books,' right?

What it means is simple:  buying or gathering what's in season (or on sale) now -- for use later on.

And boy, can you save money.

Our peaches, bought at $13 for a box (about 18 pounds, or roughly 1/3 of a bushel) two weeks ago, are already up to $1.50 a pound in the stores -- and that's on sale. Hmmm... how much did we save?
      72 cents/lb for our box vs 1.50/lb:  $13 vs $27. 
                                                         (or $53, once they go back up their usual $2.95/lb)
      Wow.

Even at sale prices, we've already more than doubled our money-power!

I did even better with my recent onion purchase.  A 50-pound bag for $5: .10/lb.  Here in Colorado, onions are at least .99/lb, and often more. Gee, $5 vs $50 -- how many of your investments pay ten times over the initial cost? Even if some of the onions go bad (and they won't, in a cool basement closet), I'm still making out like a bandit.

You can stretch your money this way every day of the year, provided you pay attention to what's in season and/or on sale that time of year.

Fresh fruit   (peaches are almost done here in Colorado, but apples are coming in - buy from a farmer, warehouse or fresh-air market for best prices)
Pumpkins, post-Halloween    (good for pies and soup, easily frozen. Our chickens will kill for a pumpkin.)
Soda, chips and other outdoor/picnic goods, post-Memorial and Labor Day  (napkins and paper plates, too) Look for these around Superbowl in late January, as well.
Candy and other sweets, post-any holiday  (use the colors to your advantage -- red and green Christmas kisses can be separated as red -- for Valentine's Day -- and green -- for St. Patrick's.)

       As for chocolates -- what else do you have to do, except eat them...

You can even follow this principle if you pay full price, provided you make full use of every scrap of food you buy. It's especially effective for protein -- which is getting increasingly expensive these days.
    *Get a roast chicken, then make broth from the bones and freeze it. Many recipes call for this -- and now you've got some handy. Or add leftover vegetables, plus a handful of the chicken, and you've got a second meal. Cost: nothing.
         Works for beef and pork, too. (I had to restrain myself from mentioning this to a girl ahead of me in line at the checkout counter. She was obviously on a limited income, yet a can of beef broth was in her cart.)

    *Serve less the first time around. Chop or simmer the extra meat, and you've got enough, mixed with veggies, for a stirfry or pasta. As little as a cup of burger can make all the difference in beans or a Mexican dish.

Once again, if you can squeeze 2 or even 3 meals out of an expensive item, you've doubled or tripled its buying power. This is easiest to see in meat, but you can do it in all sorts of ways.
             And once again, the money saved adds up.

Can you spare $5 a week? Even that small amount will buy cans of fruit or vegetables -- something that's often on sale this time of year. Once they move out, then canned soup generally moves in.
      Ice cream. Ice cream bars. (On sale big-time right now.)
     Or meat that normally goes for much more. Especially steak.
     Hot dogs.  A Labor Day favorite to put on sale...and perfect for 'pigs in the blanket' (recipe coming soon) on a cold fall day. (You can even do them fancy-pants style -- but they're also good just wrapped in a corn tortilla and baked until crunchy.)

Not me - I don't even like blankets!

    Buy a can of tomatoes now at 50 cents -- and you've just saved 100% when it goes back up to a buck off-sale, and you need some for chili or sauce. A consistent return on your money. How  rare is that in stocks!

Stash the money saved in a sugarbowl (if you want to follow your foreparents' lead)...or at least keep notes. You'll be amazed at how much it adds up in the long run.

There's another plus in this equation:  Now you can afford to be generous.

*Share a bag of those sale items with someone else.  Bring a bowl of your 'leftovers' soup to someone with the flu, or leave a loaf of banana bread on your neighbor's doorstep. (Made with clearance bananas, naturally).You still come out ahead financially, which is great. But even better, you've helped someone who badly needed the food -- or encouragement.

Now I'm off to buy beans...on sale right now at $20 a fifty-pound bag. I'd expect to pay $1/pound; even this store normally stocks them at .79/lb.  And they keep literally for years. (If the world ends, come on over to our house for bean soup. We've got 'em.)

     Hmmm... $20 vs $50.00, or $39.50?

     Now that's my kind of savings.

Do You Ever Have Times Like This?

It's been zany lately.

I was going to say a weird 'month,' but our strange period ran over the last few weeks of August, then bled into September. I'll explain -- are you ready?

Grab a cup of coffee and brace yourself: it's going to be a bumpy ride.

*Friday - Monday: went camping on Grand Mesa. (Very peaceful, since everyone and their brother were down in town for the peach festival.) Stopped in Palisade the last day -- even better, since most people had gone home the day before. Got a boatload of peaches. (And they're ripe. Really ripe. Oh oh, need to deliver and process these -- fast.)

*Home late Monday night. I have to be in Cheyenne, two hours drive away, at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.

*Worked all day Tuesday - Friday, judging for the Cheyenne Heritage Quilters show, then three full days of appraising.

*Meanwhile... Dave had started a dogsitting gig we'd promised to neighbors down the street. Our puppy of the week was a golden Lab named Nitro, 15 years old (that's 105, in human terms).  The deal: we'd stay there as much as possible, and sleep overnights.

Nitro the wonder boy. (He doesn't like photos.)

*I got home Friday evening to Nitro and company. Stayed there as much as I could. Jammed all the peaches into the refrigerator (no time yet to process them, hoped for the best), worked on appraisals and hung out with Nitro and our dogs. Did this for a full week.

The Brick, meanwhile, came over for supper, stayed the night, then breakfast before leaving for the 'other' house. Because he needed to practice all week for...

*Friday's wedding rehearsal for our friend Ana's wedding. (Nitro's owners got home just in time for me to head to the rehearsal.) Supper was fun, too.  Next day:

*Saturday afternoon: Ana and Jerred's wedding, in a lovely outdoor garden in Sedalia...near the railroad tracks. This didn't seem like a big deal until halfway through my rendition of "Ave Maria," we had a Very Big Visitor. So what the wedding guests got was:
     "A-ve Maria..."   HONK HONK HONK chug chug chug chug chug.

Not as graceful as this:

Oh well. At least I got the first half of the song in.

*Once the ceremony was done, schlep the keyboard, amps, stands, wires, etc. upstairs for the reception. (The Brick had already lugged everything down once from the parking lot, for the ceremony. Poor guy.) 
     Set everything back up. Ate -- fast. Then we played keyboard for four hours-plus straight: classical, Beatles, love ballads, John Denver, you name it. We spelled each other -- but really, the Brick did most of the work. A cheerful crowd, lots of music...

*Got everything stuffed back in the car, headed for home. Exhausted. Arrived, only to greet our friend Mary...who decided to make a quick trip to Colorado to see her family. (She only had a day or so warning herself.) She came in on Friday evening, and was perky...we, on the other hand, were brain-dead.

*At this point, stuff is EVERYWHERE in the house. Groceries, books, work....you name it, it's probably stacked on a chair, hogging space on the table or elsewhere. Dirty dishes in the sink, dirty clothes to wash. At least Mary's bed had clean sheets. (She was very understanding, even when we had to hand her a key and tell her to let herself in all weekend.)

*Sunday morning:  Worship Team for church. Downtown in the park. (Creekside Bible does this every year.)  Drag the keyboard out of the car AGAIN, and the Brick went to practice. (I, on the other hand, spent a blissful hour doing nothing but read the paper.)
     Got home early afternoon -- and took a nap. We both conked out, practically unconscious.

*Sunday evening, with Mary, decided to go see a movie with other friends. (Florence Foster Jenkins, which was surprisingly good. Friend Tommy and the Brick, who had words about having to go to a 'girlie' movie, wanted to know where the explosions were. Sure, guys.) Came home late...

      To find three dogs in the backyard, behind the 6-foot chainlink fence.

We only have two dogs. 

One of the biggest Great Danes I've ever seen was barking at us, along with Charley and Abby. Where in the world did he come from? No markings...was he a neighborhood dog? No collar or tags.

The Brick booted him out, and we went to bed. Come 2 a.m., and...

Right under our bedroom window. INSIDE the yard.

The Brick got up, booted him out again, back to bed.

*Seven a.m. -- you guessed it. Barking away inside the yard again, and now hanging around our back door.
           Only this time, he has a snoutful of porcupine quills. 

*We'd planned to sleep in Labor Day...fat chance. Gave up, and called Animal Control. They came and got Big Boy, who by now, had calmed down some. He was huge -- half again as big as Charley, who is no tiny puppy in his own right. But a very sweet dog.

The animal control guy came back later in the morning -- the quills were out, and Big Boy's family, from the next town over, had picked him up. Whew. How he ever got in our neighborhood, we never found out. (The guy was laughing; on the way into our subdivision neighbors had stopped him and said that 'a horse was running loose up there.' That's how big this dog was.)

Charley, Abs and Nitro -- on patrol

The rest of Labor Day was spent hanging out with Mary, grilling steaks and watching another movie.
     And just plain vegging.

*She left Tuesday morning -- out the door, just as appraisal clients were coming IN.

Since then, I've been trying to clear out the rest of the appraisals, and the piles off the floor. Picked beans and delivered eggs. Washed a boatload of clothes, and started in on three weeks of accumulated ironing. We're making progress -- slowly. But a few days ago, the Brick came down with the flu.

Guess what? I now have a sore throat and headache that won't go away.
               Oh goody.



Welcome to the fun-packed world of the Bricks.

We spend all our time lazing about. Just like this.