Computer Help

When most people talk about getting computer help, they mean calling in a geek. A smarty pants kid next door, their relucant spouse, and in worst case scenarios, tech support from their computer vendors. Heaven save us from that. Over the course of the summer, my new computer and moving from XP to Vista with software and hardware issues to spare, meant literally days on the tech support "help" lines, at least 6 total reinstalls, with some problems still existing. If I pretend not to notice, they'll eventually fix themselves, right?

In my case, tech support better come equipped with a big bag of catnip.

Fruitcake

Time to come clean... I like fruitcake. I especially like Grandma's Famous Fruitcake with Amaretto. I've tried baking my own fruitcake. It's expensive and more prone to being a 20 pound doorstop than a dessert. Take my advice, don't. Just buy Grandma's. I figure, if they've been doing it since 1917, their Grandma must have been a better baker.

There's a bakery outlet in my town, where it's made. It's half price right now. Guess where I'm stopping my my way home from work. Happy New Year.

Post Holiday Haze

Does anyone else have a pair of mysteriously shrinking jeans? I mean, they fit just fine a couple of weeks ago. I don't know what happened. Maybe the cookie, candy, cheese, more cookies feeding frenzy of the last 2 weeks? Nah.... mystery jeans!

We made a mad dash to Texas for the holiday. Happily, with Christmas day being on Thurs, my work gave us Wed and Friday off, extending the weekend just as much as possible. It was a magical ride from sub zero daytime temps to balmy upper 70's for several days. Even more magically, we returned to the great white north to discover a freak warm spell had swallowed up all the snow! Now, that's Christmas magic!

The whole holiday was wonderful for me, starting with a fun hide & seek hunt for my Secret Santa gift at work. Not only was it fun to play games, look what a treat the gift was! I love my new camera phone! And I adore my retro new mug in a cool, funky color I never thought I'd like! Thanks Santa!

Solstice

On this darkest, coldest and longest night of the year, Winter Solstice, we all need a little warmth, joy and light. Since I can not be with my family this night, I have virtual gifts to share.

Yesterday's toffee has become warm hearted gifts. These are going to friends at work tomorrow, and there is a secret message of love in this photo. I'm very pleased that my cutting skills have improved now that I have "middle aged" eyes and see better up close that I've ever seen in my life!

For my daughter, this memory...

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near.
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

And for you all, this song, Light is Returning .

Christmas Toffee

I spent the day making candy, that is after I wapped presents and spent about an hour in 8° arctic,windy cold hacking away at over an inch of ice entombing my car. I broke my scraper... I guess it really wasn't meant to be used like a fireman's axe. When my ears started to burn despite a hood and hat, I decided to call it quits, done or not. A strong north wind will kill your ambition like nothing else.

So once I could feel my hands and ears again, I decided to have some fun. Making candy is fun. Now, I wish I had some secret ingredient that made this toffee recipe unique, but alas, I do not. This may be just about the easiest candy in the world to make. Which is a good thing, because once you start sharing it with your friends, you're going to be making it over and over. One year, I think I ended up making 10 batches and had requests for more.


Classic Toffee
1 cup butter (no substitutes)
1 cup sugar
3 T. light corn syrup
1/2 to 3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 to 3/4 cup finely chopped (or ground) pecans or walnuts, optional

Before you get started, prepare a cookie sheet by either spaying with PAM or lining it with a parchment sheet. I like parchement, it makes life much easier when you're dealing with multiple batches. You'll also need to have a couple of hot pads or a towel under the cookie sheet, cause there's not much hotter than the molten sugar lava you're about to be dealing with!

After years of making candy in various pans, I've learned 2 things.
1. You always need a larger pan than you think you will.
2. Once you find the right pan for you, guard it with your life. Mine's a nice deep Revereware saucepot.

Lets's get started. Put the butter, sugar and corn syrup into a large sauce pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly as the sugar dissolved and melts into the butter. Now for my electric stove and my beloved pan, that means the number 4 setting.

Keep heating until the mixture begins to boil. It will be a light lemony yellow color for quite a while, and then it will start to thicken and you'll see it gradually turn light tan. Starting to understand the lava reference?

Now it's the most critical part of this whole process. If the phone rings, don't answer it! I'm not kidding, this next part goes fast. Trust me on this. DO NOT WALK AWAY.

Continue stirring this boiling molten sugar until it reaches 305°. If you're going to make candy, you need a thermometer. There's no messing around here, no eyeballing and praying. Adjust heat as necessary to avoid scorching. And keep stirring!

This will take about 20 to 25 minutes. By this time, the candy will be thick and will have turned a nice golden brown. See how the upper part of the candy has changed color, just a bit...that's the magical indicator of just right and 1 blink later, scorched beyond belief... and probably buying a new pan.

Notice how the pan is slightly off the burner? For me, it's easier to move the pan off and on the burner to help control the heat. And pay attention to how thick this candy is at this point, building up quickly on the indsides of the pan and looking like it could support life?

Remove from heat. Working quickly, pour the toffee onto the cookie sheet, spreading with a wooden spoon to desired thickness, generally about 1/4 inch thick. Don't be poky about this, you need to work fast to get it on the cookie sheet before your spoon is permanately cemented to your pan!

Immediately sprinkle the top with chocolate chips. You don't need to completely cover the top, just evenly distribute the chips. Wait a few minutes for them to melt.

Then, spread the melted chocolate across the hot toffee. I find this easiest to do with the back of a soup spoon. Be extra careful not to grab the pan, it's incredibly hot right now. If you're a nut person, now is the time to sprinkle the melted chocolate with nuts. Gently press then in place.

Cool toffee completely. Break into bite size pieces, and enjoy one of life's little pleasures.

It's really much easier to make than it is to talk about, so get in the kitchen!!!

Ok...so you want to do this NOW and you just don't have a candy thermometer. All is not lost. Do it the way your Grandma did, with the cold water test. Liquid sugar at the 305° range is referred to as "hard crack stage". That means that when a bit of molten sugar syrup is dropped into a glass of cold water, it will harden very quickly(in seconds) into a mass. Take it out of the cold water and you should have a nice snap or crunch when you test it's consistency.

Don't freak out about making candy. You are absolutely going to burn some batches. You'll have some candy that doesn't get cooked enough and stays too soft of gooey. It's o.k. It's part of the process. Actually, I think it's part of the master plan, to weed out those wanna be candymakers who only show up at Christmas time and never try it through out the year....oh, wait that's something else entirely. So, go for it. Make a mistake. Try it again. Then when you master it and you KNOW the magical moment when sugar become candy, you'll really have something to be proud of. And your family and friends will love you forever. Think of toffee as your little insurance policy!

The Santa Wars

So, the Viking did not like that I think Santa lives in Finland. Even the proof did not convince him. So I went hunting to see what I could find. Santa claims Norway as his birthplace on his blog , but I'm still not convinced.

The Norwegian consulate Christmas page seems to want us to think so too, but I'm still not swayed. Where's their conviction? Oh! I forgot, they're Norwegian, so the conviction is frozen under a foot of ice. So I kept looking.

Being partial to Rein Poortvliet's illustrations of Gnomes, I hoped to find some clue there, but then I remembered that Poortvliet isn't Norwegian, so I had to fess up and admit that I really just liked looking at gnome drawings!

Back to the Santa mystery. I keep looking and here's what I've decided. Santa indeed lives in Finland, but since Norwegian kiddies leave glogg or Christmas beer instead of milk, he goes to Norway to party. Need some proof ? I warn you.. you'll never think of Santa in the same way again. Santa dancing the Norwegian Boot Dance.

Nuts for Christmas info?

Santa Lives in Finland

Do you believe?

Here's proof.

Snowy Day

It started in the wee hours this morning and has been snowing all day. The first snow of the season is pretty and it's easy to have wistful romantic thoughts of winter wonderlands. As I was making my way to work this morning in the balmy -2° along the highway that had not been plowed, in the dark with only my headlights illuminating the icy crystals, I actually liked the sparkle of snow falling.


Fast forward 7 hours to when I had to brush off 4 inches of snow from my car before I could head home, and the romance is over. I changed gloves midway to keep my hands dry. I changed one more time when I was done to keep my hands warm on the way home. It doesn't seem silly any more to have about 6 pair of gloves in my car.

I confirmed something today too, about living in Nebraska. It's too wicked cold when even the cows have snow building up on their backs!

What does -9 degrees look like?

Ever wonder what -9° looks like? Are you crazy? I would actually be quite happy not really knowing the answer to this question, but here it is. -9° in all its glory.

Frankly, I could have gone my whole adult life without knowing how it FEELS, but it is sort of pretty. Did you know that if you combine -9 with a pretty stong wind, it actually becomes just like -22° and schools even close? And that your steaming hot coffee in the very good thermal mug will become a tepid memory of coffee in less than 10 steps from your door to your car?

Me either. But it does. A friend at work told me today that it can also freeze your pillow to the window if you sleep too close to -9. That's just not right.

Cell Phone for Soldiers

The Viking gave me the spiffiest new phone for Lucia Day! It's my first camera/mp3 phone, its RED and most importantly, I can read the blasted thing without my reading glasses!



That left me pondering what to do with the old phone. Or more correctly, the 4 old phones that have been living in a drawer for the last couple of years.



I found Cell Phones for Soldiers. They take your old phones and turn them into free calltime for deployed service people. Check out their site for other service relief projects too.
So, who needs old phones? They do. They even pay postage.

Happy Lucia Day

The start of holiday festivities in my home is Dec. 13, St. Lucia Day. This tradition started when our daughter was about 4 or 5 and just couldn't stand waiting until Christmas for gifts. I learned about St. Lucia's celebration from ladies in my church group at the time, with strongly Scandinavian backgrounds. Since my own Viking didn't come with any family holiday traditions, except the one about monster potato balls which we'll talk about some other day, I decided to adopt Lucia as one of our own. There's some Swedish, I think in my own ancestery, so Lucia became the bringer of the holidays for us.

In Sweden, Lucia Day is celebrated in a big way. St Lucia was a young Christian girl who was martyred, killed for her faith, in 304AD. The most common story told about St Lucia is that she would secretly bring food to the persecuted Christians in Rome, who lived in hiding in the catacombs under the city. She would wear candles on her head so she had both her hands free to carry things. Lucy means 'light' so this is a very appropriate name.

December 13th was also the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, in the old Julian calendar and a pagan festival of lights in Sweden was turned into St. Lucia's Day.

St. Lucia's Day is now celebrated by a girl dressing in a white dress with a red sash round her waist and a crown of candles on her head. The crown is made of Lingonberry branches which are evergreen and symbolise new life in winter. There are parades, feasts and other celebrations.

In families, the youngest daughter traditionally dresses as Lucia, and awakens the family bearing special saffron breakfast rolls. Our Lucia had a crown of battery operated candles; can you imagine putting real candles on top of a squirmy 5 year old! When I didn't work, I'd bake cinnamon rolls for her to wake Daddy with. And then there was a present for everyone.

Over the years Lucia Day evolved into cooking baking day. One year at a craft show I came across this Lucia doll. She makes her appearance one day a year, this year she's got a peppermint Oreo! Lol... no little Lucia's anymore. I like Lucia day because it blends so nicely our older Christian traditions with our more current worldly religious beliefs. We still give each other a gift on Lucia Day. Now it's holiday time! How does your family mark the beginning of your holiday season?

Mystic Seaport Christmas

I spent most of my childhood and teen years living in a small town next to Old Mystic, Ct.
.ow that I live in a totally landlocked state, I realize just how much I miss the romance of the sea, even if it is just in the memories of wooden sailing ships.

Mystic Seaport is located in Mystic proper, always my favorite memory of living in the area. Each holiday season, the Seaport has a living history event, Lantern Light Tours, an evening walk through the historically correct, recreated village of Greenmanville. As you step back in time to a whaling village of 1876, visiting various merchants and families, you'll find yourself wishing for a simpler time and maybe, you'll even begin to find some meaning in the holiday season beyond the number of gifts under your tree.

Or maybe you'll really be thankful for the almost instant heat in your car and the warm homes we take for granted. And glad you weren't the homemaker, ropemaker, whaler or sailor in that long ago time when bone chilling cold and the smells of living weren't always as nice as gingerbread.

If you're in the New England area, try to go. It's really special. If you're far away as I am, hop on over to the web site, watch their video and rejoice in the internet.

Weird Word Wednesday

Here's one every crossword puzzler needs to know!

pachynsis - pă-kĭn'sĭs)n. A pathological thickening of a bodily organ, tissue, or structure.

pa·chyn'tic adj.

Now, don't you want to know what the heck I was writing about at work to come across this one!

The elephant has nothing to do with it, execept for the root of the work, which looks like it should come from pachyderm. I just think it's so joyful I wanted to share a smile.

Perfect Winter Soup

It's cold and windy where I live, definately soup weather! I love making soup and usually it's a weekend activity, because I love the whole process and like to do it all from scratch, including making stock or the broth. But, when you don't get home from work until 6 pm and you MUST have real soup, there's always a way to find shortcuts in the kitchen and still have a great warming meal. You'll have this on the table in about 40 minutes or less. Gosh, now I sound like Rachel Ray!

Chicken Corn Soup with Rivels is a traditional, hearty Amish soup that warms you body and soul. I learned to make this soup at a church soup supper in Rosedale, MD. It's got quirky little Rivels, that I just adore. They're like random bits of noodle dumplings floating in your soup, but tons easier than making old fashioned noodle. This recipe perfectly divides in half, important to know if your family is only 2 people like mine. This is one chewy soup. Let's get cooking!

Shortcut Chicken Corn Soup

Ingredients
1 store bought rotisserie chicken,meat removed or about 2 cups of cooked chicken
1 pk (20-oz) frozen corn
3 qt chicken stock ( 2 boxes of good chicken broth/stock )
8 tablespoons butter
1 sm onion; peeled, chopped
4 ribs celery,sliced thinly
1Bay Leaf
2 cans (17-oz) creamed corn

Ingredients for Rivels
2 Eggs; beaten
2 c Flour
1 pinch Salt

Soup Garnish
4 Hard boiled eggs; peeled & diced or sliced
1 tb Chopped parsley

Instructions for Chicken Corn Soup with Rivels

In a large soup pot, melt the butter. Add in the celery and onion and cook slowly until softened, but not browed. If you don't already have hard boiled eggs, get them started now. Or wait until you decide if you really want them and do them micorwave style at the end. I'll tell you how later. Add the broth and bay leaf. Simmer broth and vegetable about 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaf. Add the package of frozen corn kernels.

Time for Rivels!

Rivels are pretty straight forward and I don't think anyone can mess them up! Not even the most kitchen challenged. In fact, this is the perfect, no fail soup!

Here's the Rivel ingredients again.

2 Eggs; beaten

2 c Flour

1 pinch Salt

Stir the flour and salt into the beaten eggs. It's going to be dense and gluey, but that's ok. If it's really dry and you don't have nice clumps of dough forming like in the picture, add just a teeny bit of water. You don't want it wet, but it does need to clump. It should get too messy for your spoon and you start thinking you should have done this with your hands. That's good! In fact, that is just when the dough is perfect! Get those fingers in there and work out your frustrations.

Now the fun part..... with your broth just simmering, grab up a handful of rivel dough. Roughly pinch off little bits, no larger than an inch, and drop them into the soup. I like them best when I've somewhat flattened the little rivel before I've dropped it in, so it's like a fat noodle chunk. They kind of look like clouds in your soup.

They only take a couple minutes to cook depending on their thickness. If you like a little more chew to your soup, make rivels a bit thicker.

Adding the rivels really thickens the soup, keep your heat low so you don't scorch the bottom or have your broth cook off! Almost done. By the time you've added your last rivel, it's time to add in the cans of creamed corn and the chicken meat.

Now you've got to consider this garnish business. The soup if perfectly fine right now. In fact its significantly better than just fine. The traditional garnish is a bit of sliced or diced hard boiled egg and a sprinkle of fresh parsley. I almost never have fresh parsley, so you know that's not going to be on the top of my soup. But I do like the egg finish.

The Viking does not like hard boiled eggs, so it hardly seems like the electricity and water it takes to hard boil 1 egg is worth the effort. I do mine in the microwave. Have you ever tried it? Just crack your egg into a microwavable cup, I usually use a measuring cup, and nuke it for between 25 and 30 seconds. The egg pops right out and you can chop up all the egg garnish you want!

Taste the soup for seasoning, you may want to add a bit of salt. I always add pepper and a splash of Tabasco.Usually the stock and canned corn is salty enough for me, but I do sometimes add about a teaspoon smoked paprika, but that's just me and not at all traditional to this soup.

Of course, if you were lucky enough to find this on your kitchen counter when you came home from work with thoughts of soup on your mind, then the ideal garnish becomes apparent. Who wants to come have dinner at my house?

Peaceful

For one reason or another, we haven't had a Christmas tree for several years. This year, it was time for a tree again. I am entranced with the glow of the lights. When the rest of the room lights are dimmed and I take my glasses off, I am in a gaussian blur world of warm, glowing orbs.

It's the upside to insomnia.

Weird Word Wednesday

Today's word has nothing to do with weird words I come across in my work. Today's word comes from the music I'm listening to lately: Brobdingnagian Bards , Celtic music to lift your spirits. Plus, one of the bards, Marc Gunn, has the only Celtic music podcast devoted to cats that I've ever heard! How can you go wrong?

BROBDINGNAGIAN

Pronunciation: \ˌbräb-diŋ-ˈna-gē-ən, -dig-ˈna-\ marked by tremendous size
Function: adjective or noun

Etymology:
Brobdingnag, imaginary land of giants in Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift
Date: 1728

Night Sky Smiley

If you lived in the Southern Hemisphere, you got a treat last night - a celestial smiley! For those of us in the cold north, it's still a pretty spectacular sight. We've had clear skies, so I've been able to planet gaze. I wish my camera could capture this.

That's Venus and Jupiter keeping company with Luna. An event that won't happen again until 2052. I'll be 97...hope I get to see it then.

Spirit Photography Video

Found a really well done video on YouTube, The History of Sprit Photography. If you enjoy this video, please go to the creator's YouTube page and let him know.

Its a Cat Thing

What is it about a keyboard that some cats find irresistible? I have four cats, three of whom don't care a bit about my desk. Then there's Frannie, who didn't care at all about it either until about a month ago and now she's making up for lost days. As soon as I sit down, she comes from wherever she is and leaps on the desk. She'll even wake up from a NAP (she's a champion sleeper). She's very determined and no matter how many timess I toss her off, she jumps right back up and will inisist on head butting my hand if I continue trying to decide who gets the keyboard.

If I really need my whole desktop, I have to close the door to the room.

She hates that.

We've compromised. She mostly just leans on the very edge of the keyboard now, and only tried to eat the mouse cord when she thinks I'm not looking..or when she's successfully slid something off on the floor to distract me before she pounces on the mouse's tail.

She also thinks the ideal place to sleep is under the covers with just her nose peeking out. It's a cat thing.

Insomnia

It's 4 am. I've been up since 3. Not by choice. This has been happening every night for the last month, and I don't know why. On week days, it's a real problem because I have to get up at 6 and go to work. I don't have any problem going to sleep, it's staying there that seems to be impossible. At least today is Sunday, I'll be able to go back to bed and sleep eventually.

I'm tired. I know all the things you're suppose to do and not do to promote healthy sleep. My bedroom is cool. I keep to a bedtime routine. I don't eat within 3 hours of going to bed, because I do have GERD and it's bad, bad,bad to violate that rule. I don't drink anything other than a few sips of water after 6:30 pm and no caffeine past noon. No alcohol. I also have RLS, medication takes care of that but I'm still not sleeping through the night. I don't have pain issues.

It's dark in my bedroom. My husband uses a CPAP machine and still occasionally snores, so I always sleep with ear plugs. That's not the issue. I don't break any of the sleep rules and yet, somewhere between 2:30 and 3, I wake up. The hamster wheel in my brain is going overtime and all I want to do is sleep.

Thanksgiving for Pets

Wondering what do to with all those leftovers. Giving pets tablescraps isn't the best idea for the pet as there's generally way too much fat and salt in leftovers.

Here's a couple of ideas, approved by our vet at work.


Turkey Supreme (for cats)
Makes 4 servings
1 turkey breast, cooked and chopped fine
1/2 cup carrots, diced
1/4 cup spinach, diced
1/2 cups green beans, diced
3/4 cup cooked brown rice
No-salt chicken broth
Combine turkey, carrots, spinach and green beans. Add rice and enough chicken broth to bind ingredients. Cool until mixture is lukewarm and serve.


Lazy Turkey Loaf (for dogs)
Makes 6 servings2 pounds ground turkey
1/2 cup cooked vegetables
1 teaspoon garlic powder*
1 egg
1/2 cup quick-cook barley
1 cup quick-cook oats
4 ounces canned no-fat gravy
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a mixing bowl combine turkey, vegetables,garlic powder, egg, barley and oats. Mix thoroughly. Spoon into a greased loaf pan
and pat down meat mixture until level. Spread gravy on top of loaf and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Cool and cut into six even slices.
Store unused portions in refrigerator.
* Garlic powder in small amounts is not considered dangerous to dogs.

Black Friday

It's finally happened, a store employee has been killed in the annual insanity known as Black Friday. I've never understood the mass chaos of Black Friday. It's not like we live in a country where we must act like wild beasts to get the only loaf of bread in the market. Sure, the store may have limited quantities of the "it" item, but you'll surely find an acceptable alternative. Or wait a couple weeks for more inventory to arrive. Maybe you will pay another $5 for it, but you won't go giftless.

Maybe it's my past in retail management that makes me especially scornful of this Black Friday nonsense. Stores opening at 4 am, people acting like starved lunatics, media outlets hyping the mania. We should be ashamed of ourselves, for condoning and encouraging the retailers who incite and take advantage of the herd mentality.

Taste of Thanksgiving

We have a pretty normal Thanksgiving feast. This year, for the first time in about 8 years, it's just the Viking and me for dinner. I seem to not be able to cook in very small quantities, so we'll be having reruns for a while. It's all good.

I know there are people who don't care for cranberry sauce. Not me, I love the sweet tart cranberry taste. I prefer Cranberry Orange Relish, made with raw cranberries, over the cooked varities. I got my bag of berries out of the fridge this morning to make my relish to discover that Ocean Spray no longer puts that recipe on the bag. Thank goodness for the Internet. I've decided to share it here, so I'll never loose the recipe again!

So how about you - cooked or raw? C'mon, cook ( or actually don't cook ) along with me, it's super easy. You can do it.

Cranberry Orange Relish

You need 1 12 oz bag of fresh cranberries. Pick through them, removing any that are mushy, wrinked or just creepy looking. Rinse them off. You'll also need an orange, sugar and cardamom, which we'll get to a little later.

Cut the orange, rind and all, into 8 segments. You don't have to be fanatical about it, but try to get them pretty evenly sized. And yes, I really mean the rind... I promise it will not kill you. Really. Place 4 orange segments and about half of the raw cranberries into a food processor. If you don't have a super spiffy food processor, you can do with with an old fashioned food grater, but if I were you and I wanted to make this, I'd go splurge on a food processor....even the tiny little ones will do this job. You'll just have to work in smaller batches. Alternatively, you might as well sit down with the old food box grater and watch the parade while you shred your fingertips.

Ready to move on? I thought so. Pluse the blade several time until you have a medium textured gind going on. Actually, grind it as fine as you like it. I just prefer this size. And yes, you will have bits of visible orange peel that you can actually eat. Be brave. It's wonderfully fresh.

When the first half is processed, repeat with the remaining orange sections and cranberries. Move all the goodies into a bowl. As you can see, I am quite partial to this gigantic measuring cup.

Now we've got to add some sweetness to all this tarty goodness. The standard recipe calls for 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar. I really only use 2/3 cup sugar, but I like it tart. I was toying around with the idea of a little maple syrup at this point, but decided against it. Lemme know if you try it.

It's at this point that I go a little crazy and deviate from the traditional method of cranberry relish prep. Not only do I like it slightly more tart than sweet, I love a hint of spice. It really heightens the cranberry orange taste for me. So, if you're a wild woman too, now's the time to add from 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of spice. I prefer cardamom but I think cinnamon or corriander would be nice too.

Now, just mix together, cover and refrigerate for several hours. If you plan better than I do and get this made the night before, not only do you get a gold star and the turkey leg, you'll get a mush more magical flavored cranberry orange relish. I didn't plan well this year, so we get the immature vintage. I still love it.

This recipe makes about 3 cups. It survives quite nicely for several meals. It's also an outstanding accompaniment for pork and chicken dishes. Plus, it's great mixed with cream cheese and spred on toast, or mixed into pound cake batter, pancakes... you get the picture.

Yummm... don't tell anyone but I like this better than the turkey!

P.S. I've heard rumors that some people like nuts in this relish. If that sound good to you, go for it. I think pecans might be best, but it's your relish; do what you like. Happy Thanksgiving.

Cranberry Orange Relish
1 12 oz bag fresh cranberries

1 orange

2/3 - 1 cup sugar

1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon cardamom, cinnamon or corridaner.

Rinse and remove any spoiled cranberries. Cut the orange into 8 segments with the rind attached. Place half the cranberries and 4 orange wedges into a food processor. Pluse 4 or 5 times. Remove and process the remaining cranberries and oranges.

Place ground cranberries and oranges into a bowl. Mix with sugar and add the spice if you like that idea. Mix well, cover and refrigerate 6-12 hours. Best flavor develops when made the night before. Makes about 3 cups.

New Word Wednesday

I love words. I love word games, crossword puzzles, hangman, Jeopardy, criss-cross puzzles, anagrams, scrabble ; you name it and I'm up for it.

In my job, there is some very specific vocabulary and I'm always learning new words. Joy! Often, when looking up a new technical word, I learn some new word that's totally not related but gets in my head anyway.

Starting today, I'm going to share my new words with you. Introducing New Word Wednesday!



Today's discovery:
Chickabiddy
Chick"a*bid`dy\, n. A chicken; a fowl; also, a trivial term of endearment for a child.syn. child, bud, chick, juvenile, kid, moppet



In short, a term of endearment for something that's just too darn cute for real words!

Why Did the Turkey Cross the Road?

Do you think these ladies know how exceedingly dangerous it is to be strolling the highway at this time of year? Do you think they've ever given hunter Elmer Fudd a single thought? These ladies wander the roadway on my way to work. They have a nice little thicket they seem to live in and absolutely no fear of traffic. Apparently, they've not seen what can happen when turkeys go wandering where they shouldn't!

That reminds me, I need to go grocery shopping for our feast or offer a really tempting bribe to the Viking.

Lights in the Dark

Holiday lights started appearing in town last week. It's been unseasonably warm and perhaps smart homeowners are taking advantage of decorating the roofline when it's 40 degrees instead of 20 degrees. At least that's what I thought until I spoke with my daughter and sister who both live in warmer southern states; they are seeing lights go up too. Christmas lights before Thanksgiving?

I think it's a reaction to all the bad financial news lately. I think we're all just so weary of the continual dismal future outlook, plunging financial markets and uncertianty over the future, that we're eager for some twinkling little lights to brighten our spirits. I know they've started to help my own.

I've been in a bit of a funk lately as we've gotten closer to Thanksgiving. I've been reliving this time last year with my father's surgery, our last Thanksgiving and moving forward to Christmas and his unexpected death. I'd been doing fine, then the tear jerker, happy family Christmas commercials started about 2 weeks ago and I took a nose dive.

Just as I was really starting to worry about myself, the lights started appearing. Now this may sound completely childish and superficial, but the sporadic lights and holiday decor have helped.

Bright lights shining against the deep twilight sky are just as beautiful as they'll be in a few weeks with snow partially covering them. Maybe even more so.

They bring me happiness and I have learned that happiness can not always be explained and never questioned; only enjoyed in the moment.

Snoozy

Ever notice how snoozing cats are almost as hypnotic as a small baby sleeping on your shoulder? This is Shadow. We rescued her from a warehouse where she'd be found. She was so timid that she spent almost all of the first 2 years we had her hiding under furniture. She didn't know what to make of other cats and the dogs we had at the time.

Moving to a different home opened her world. When everyone was unsettled, she was finally able to have a little courage and we could get to know her. One of our older cats decided to pick on her and when she almost died from a sneak attack, she became the "back of the house" cat. We had doors on our hallway and kitchen entrances, and we were able to block off the bedrooms. That wasn't the best solution, but it worked. I've since learned that in a group of cats it is not unusual for one to be the bully and one to be the pariah. Unfortunately, she's still quite timid and is physically a very small, almost kitten size cat.

The bully died before our next move. With that next move, Shadow really came into her own. Oh, there was another cat who decided to become the bully, but he wasn't as motivated as the first one. Bully 2 was a lot older. Plus, she was able to stick up for herself a bit more.

Now, she is completely at ease around the rest of the family and boy, does she have a lot to tell us. We've never had such a vocal cat as little Missy Shadow. Yak,yak,yak all day long...with the most annoyingly whining cat voice possible. She's now our constant companion, everywhere... like she's glued on! Oh, and sometimes, she's incredibly silly, sleeping with her tongue out.

Remembering

Veteran's Day

Veteran's Day is a day of remembering and saying Thank You to the men and women who protect our freedom. It's thanks to them that we have the right, as Americans, to be wrong, stupid, make bad choices and then start all over again. It's thanks to them that when the worst hits us, we can stand and bear the burden.

I am from a military family. At times, in my youth, my military focused upbringing made me uncomfortable with the pull of my generation to an anti-military stance. When friends from school became casualties of war, it was difficult to reconcile the sorrow of loss with the dedication to duty. I understood both.

Recently a discussion on what is patriotism has really made me give thought to this issue again. I'm still not entirely sure just where my understanding of patriotism is, as a philosophical stand, but I do know that my deep regard and respect for those who serve is not lessened by the questions in my mind.

It is because of them, the young men and women who serve , that I am allowed to question. I am allowed to discuss the unpopular. To the patriots in my family, to the one's I'll never meet.. Thank you for our freedom.

Vintage Spirit Photography

Spirit photography was all the rage in the late 1860's. The Spritualist movement was a new and powerful force for people who were terrified and unsettled by their times. It wasn't just in America, where the national heartache following the Civil War over the unheard of loss of life, where Spritualism took root. It became a very real presence in England, where it remains an active religion today. Here in the US, American Spritualism is also a current religion, although much smaller in force and often considered a "fringe" religion by the mainstream.

The American Museum of Photography has a wonderful collection of spirit photography of the era, Do You Believe?, The preeminent spirit photographer of the day was William Mumler.

He understood how to combine the mysteries of technology with mysteries of the sprit, and his photographs are the result. The wonderful old home entertainment stereoscope even had it's fair share of 3D spirit photos.

Today, we look at them and see the intentional double exposure, the rough manipulations and shake our heads at anyone who could have been duped by these crude photos.

We have difficulty understanding how learned men such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed they were real enough to write a book supporting the phenomena as recent as 1923. Of course, he was also taken in by the Cottingley Fairies, so maybe it's not so surprising!

I invite you to take a break from today's reality and wander through this wonderful gallery, set your 21st century logic aside and enjoy these photos for what they were. They remain a curosity of a distant time.

If you get as captured by them as I have, you'll be pleased to know there are many, many examples of old spirit photography on the web. There is a nice private collection of photos at Flickr. Also at Flickr is a Vintage Spirit Photography group with a nice collection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an interesting small exhibit. Beyond the Grave, is an exhaustive exhibit on Mumler, spirit photography and an introduction to Spiritualism of the era. An excellent bibliography of Spirit Photography has been put together at this collector's site, Brightbytes.com.