Easy Beef and Onion Cheese Ball (A Quick and Easy Recipe)

New Year's Eve is almost here, and it's holiday party time!  I made this cheese ball recently just for the heck of it, and took it to my writing group.  They raved.  They said I could bring another one anytime.  They ate the whole thing - it's gone!  I'm going to make it again soon - just to have at home.  YUM!

Easy Beef and Onion Cheese Ball

8 oz cream cheese, softened
3 green onions, thinly sliced or chopped
2 1/2 oz dried beef (or chipped beef)
1/2 t celery salt
1 1/2 t Worchestershire sauce
1 c chopped pecans

Mix all ingredients, except pecans, together well.  Form into a ball, roll in the pecans until completely covered.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.

NOTE:  I used my stand mixer to make this recipe, but it's not at all necessary if the cream cheese is softened.  Maybe if you were making a BIG cheese ball or a bunch of them in a bigger batch.

Toys in the Kitchen - Part 2

This time, when I say "toys," I mean, literally, TOYS.

When you were a kid, did you ever have one of those little toy potholder looms?  You know, with the stretchy loops.  I remember getting one for Christmas.  The so-called "potholders" made on the seven-inch looms always ended up so small, nobody could ever seriously consider using them as potholders.

I was rooting through one of the kitchen drawers and came across two of the finished products from one of those looms.  I couldn't tell you whether they were made by The Boy or The Girl, but there they were!  They've obviously been in there a long time because the younger of the two is "pushing thirty," poor thing.

What I was searching for in that drawer was a coaster.  I spied these ancient, diminutive potholders, and I had a revelation - they are the perfect size for coasters!

One of my "new" coasters.

So now these poor, neglected objects have a useful purpose!

And I want to run out and buy myself a potholder loom and make some more coasters.  I'm such a child.

Have you ever discovered a use for something that originally seemed doomed to forever languish in the junk drawer like my "potholders?"

Rustic Italian Tortellini Soup (A Family Favorite from the Pantry)

I've been kinda sorta inventorying/reorganizing the freezer, and I found a package of cheese tortellini.  And a stack of packages of Italian sausage.  AND a package of shredded parmesan cheese.  Inspiration!

All the ingredients for this soup are things I try to keep on hand all the time.  It's one of those great fast go-to recipes that makes everyone stop and say, "What smells so good?"

Rustic Italian Tortellini Soup (about 8-10 servings)

1 lb Italian sausage OR ground beef
2 medium onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
48 oz chicken broth
2 15 1/2-oz cans tomatoes with Italian seasoning, undrained
18-oz pkg refrigerated tortellini
10-oz pkg frozen chopped spinach
2 T minced basil
shredded parmesan

Brown the sausage, onions, and garlic,  Add broth and tomatoes.  Bring to a boil.  Add the tortellini, turn down the heat, and cook the tortellini  7 minutes.  Add spinach and basil.  Cook for 3 minutes.  Serve, topped with parmesan cheese, if desired, and crusty bread. 

NOTE:   I try to buy the sausage uncased, but if it's not available, buy it as sausage links, open the casings, and discard the casings before browning the meat.

Toys in the Kitchen

Here's the unit itself.

Yes, I've been playing in the kitchen yet again!

A couple of years ago, I bought a cheapo dehydrator.  It's from a reputable company, Nesco/American Harvest, but it is the lowest priced one they made at the time (around $25.00).  I never got around to trying it out until a few weeks ago.  I'd never used a dehydrator before, so I wasn't sure what to expect.   Some friends from my Boy Scout days dehydrate their own backpacking food, and I was intrigued.

Well, I screwed up my courage, brought it into the kitchen and studied the instructions.  I figured I'd start with something easy and straightforward - apples!  Simple enough.  I cored and peeled the apples (Galas are my all-around favorite), sliced them with my mandolin into a bowl of lemon juice and water, arranged them on the racks, and plugged the dehydrator in.  It took a good twelve hours.

The end product.

I was going for a crispy apple-chip-type thing - SUCCESS!   The problem is, I like them so much, they're almost gone!  I'll just have to make some more, I guess - darn!  Ha!

Now that Christmas is almost here, I'm in a cookie-baking mood.  So out came the chocolate chips, peanut butter, and oatmeal.  But instead of the typical oatmeal raisin cookies, I want to make oatmeal "craisin" cookies.  I was about to put Craisins(TM) on the grocery list when it occurred to me that there was a boatload of cranberries left from Thanksgiving, just languishing in their bag in the fridge.  Hmmmmm...  The dehydrator manual does indeed have instructions for drying cranberries - YAY! 

The pretreatment for cranberries is to dip them in boiling water until their skins split.  Well, that sounds pretty easy.   I was in for a surprise, though.  I got the water boiling and dumped in the first bunch of sorted cranberries. 

Here they are - homemade "craisins!"

Well!

In about thirty seconds, it sounded like I was fixing popcorn!  When a cranberry's skin splits, it happens suddenly, and with a loud POP.  The first couple made me jump!  HA!  After the popping slowed down (just like with popcorn!), I poured everything into a colander to drain and started another pan of water.  I spread the berries on the dehydrator racks.  This was messier than the apples because when the berries split, they spilled their guts a little ("All right, youse guys, talk!").  I filled all the racks and plugged in The Machine.  They took longer than the apples, but they look pretty official to me.  Next - cookies!

STILL (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.  (Exodus 14:14 NIV)

How can you be still?  The way things are now, it's difficult to find a place or time to be quiet, still, and centered.  With 24-hour news, entertainment, and connectivity, there's no place to hide!

My place to be still is in nature.  In the woods.  On the water.  On a trail.  In a park.  Sailing.  Running.  Hiking.  Camping.

I turn off the phone and get away from the TV.

I go alone.

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "STILL."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

BALANCE (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

I had to think about this one for a bit, so I'm late posting.

There has been so much written about work/life balance in the past several years, and I've found it an elusive thing.  Everybody's chasing it, and nobody thinks they've achieved the magical state of perfect balance.

Well, we all know there's no such thing, so why do people keep writing about it?  And why do we devour the books and articles supposedly giving us the answer?  Are we crazy?  Unbalanced?  (HA!)

So if it's unreachable, what do we do?

First of all, we need to redefine what "balance" is.  The books and magazines and seminars make it sound like we need to balance our time every day, or at least every week.

I've decided it's a lot of hooey (that's a highly technical term, if you didn't know).

Life goes through stages, and overall, if you're paying attention, it does balance, eventually.  Think about it.  When you have small children and you're working, I'm sorry, you're just naturally going to be focused on small children things, and it's difficult to focus on your spouse (if you're married) and work at that stage.  Oh, you're focused on work, too, but really, it's a vehicle to provide for those small children.  And the spouse should be focused on the kid stuff, too, and take some of the pressure off.  Some weeks, you'll have to have kid stuff in the front of your brain.   Other weeks, you'll be all work.  I used to travel for my job, and I'd be away from home overnight from time to time.  We figured it out.

When the kids were older and into sports and Scouts and stuff, I got involved in their activities, and my weekends and some weeknights were full of that stuff - meetings and practices and games.  I chose to be involved in those things.  I took vacation days from work to go to Boy Scout or Girl Scout camp.  But when I was at work, I worked like mad.  And on the weekends, That Man did the kid stuff, too.

Just because you can't be there all day doesn't mean you're a bad parent.  Everybody does what they can with what they have.  Some stages are easier, some stages are harder.  Eventually, some of your time becomes yours again.  You can work, and advance, too.  But you have to pick your battles and decide what you're willing to do, and what you're not willing to do.

Remember, it's only temporary!  EVERYTHING is only temporary.  It's all about choices and what you do with them.  It all balances out in the end.

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "BALANCE."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

Scalloped Potatoes (A Microwave Recipe)

When That Girl and her husband bought a house earlier this year, I took her the full-size microwave she had had in her apartment when she was single.  The Other Half couldn't understand why anyone would want that big of a microwave.  "Nobody cooks in a microwave.  You just use it to heat up food for the kids."

She and I just looked at each other.

Yes, you really CAN cook in the microwave.  From scratch.  Not a from a box.  Like any other cooking method, some foods do better than others.  Here's one that made a believer out of me.  This recipe is from a hardback cookbook that was included inside the box with my very first microwave oven - Christmas of 1984!

Scalloped Potatoes

4 T butter
4 T flour
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
2 c milk
4 c thinly sliced peeled white potatoes
1 large onion, peeled and thinly sliced

Place butter in a 1-qt measuring cup and microwave about 30 seconds until melted.  Blend in flour, salt, and pepper to make a paste.  Gradually stir in milk.  Microwave 4-6 minutes, stirring after each minute, until thick and creamy.  

Spray a 2-qt microwave-safe casserole dish.  In the dish, layer half of the potatoes, half of the onion, and half of the sauce.  Repeat the layers.  Cover, and microwave at 70% power for 20 minutes.  Remove from microwave and let stand 5 minutes before serving.

NOTE:  This recipe was originally developed using a super-powerful (at the time!) 750-watt microwave.  I've adjusted it for 1,100 watts.

Roast Beef (A Slow Cooker Recipe)

Christmas is coming!  One of my favorite things is the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss.  Part of the Whos' celebration in Whoville was a feast with "roast beast."  Something about the phrase "roast beast" tickles me, so for years, whenever I have roast beef, I call it "roast beast."  So, for all those Cindy Lou Whos out there, here's my really easy, no-brainer, delicious, slow cooker roast beast - er, beef.

No gravy this time!

Roast Beef 

3-4 lb beef roast
1 16-oz can diced tomatoes
minced garlic to taste (I use a heaping soup spoon)
1 bay leaf

Place the roast in a 3 1/2-quart slow cooker.  Pour the undrained tomatoes over the roast.  Add the minced garlic and distribute it evenly over the meat.  Place the bay leaf to the side of the meat.  Cook on low for 8-10 hours.  Turn off the slow cooker and let sit for 30 minutes before removing the roast and slicing it.  Discard the bay leaf.

If desired, you can add 2-3 tablespoons of flour to the liquid, mix well, bring it to a simmer and cook 5-10 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

This recipe is great for cheaper, tougher, less marbled roasts.

DEEP (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

When That Girl was in high school, when I'd get "definite" about some issue, she would say, "Calm down!  It's not that deep."   Of course, those issues often involved some misbehavior on her part!

But really, aren't most things we get all worked up about not all that important?  We have to learn to choose our battles, as they say.  Or, as I like to say, you have to choose your own reaction.  You can choose to be angry, or you can choose to say, "Well, it is what it is."

It used to exasperate That Girl when she'd say that someone had "made her mad," and I'd tell her, "No, you chose to be mad."  For the most part, people just do what they do, and they're too wrapped up in themselves to bother to purposely make you angry.  

That doesn't mean you have to accept, agree with, or condone whatever it is, but what good does it do you to allow yourself to be angry and start shouting, which blocks logical thought and civil discourse.  It doesn't do your blood pressure or your digestive system any favors, either, and you'll probably regret the things you say and the loss of control .  

Anger itself isn't good or bad, but rather how we choose to express it.  You have to figure out just how truly deep the problem really is, then decide how to go about changing it.

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "DEEP."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

Give Thanks for Pumpkin Pie - YAY!

As I wrote in an earlier post, we had Thanksgiving at our house, and that means PUMPKIN PIE.
Well, Thanksgiving is over, and Christmas is coming, and that means MORE PUMPKIN PIE!!!

When I was little, my mom used to make a no-bake pumpkin pie using unflavored gelatin and Dream Whip mix or something like that.  Those pies were cold and pale, but they were delicious.  That was the only kind of pumpkin pie I’d ever had.   Most baked pumpkin pies looked burned and unappetizing to me until I went to my sister’s house, she had made baked pumpkin pies, and we ate them WARM!  What a concept!  So here’s my pumpkin pie recipe.  I started with the recipe on the back of a can of Libby’s pumpkin, then tweaked it over the years until I came up with the flavor I wanted.

Pumpkin Pie (2 9” pies)
Filling:
1 28-oz can 100% pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie mix)
1 13-oz can sweetened condensed milk
4 eggs
1 1/2 c dark brown sugar
1 t vanilla
1 t salt
2 T flour
4 t pumpkin pie spice

2 unbaked pie crusts, crimped, in 9” pie pans

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Mix all filling ingredients together and divide between the two pie crusts.  Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for another 35 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.  When you remove the pies from the oven, the centers will not be firm.  They will finish cooking as they cool.

NaNoWriMo is DONE!

Yes!  The 2018 edition of National Novel Writing Month is finished, and I WON!

Don't know what NaNoWriMo is all about?   Well, it's a month-long 50,000-word writing marathon.  It's a chance to write the first draft of the novel that's been floating around in your brain, but you've never committed to paper.

I know, 50,000 words sounds like a lot of writing, and honestly, it IS, but it is absolutely doable.

It all starts in September, when you're able to go to the NaNoWriMo website and give your novel its identity.  I hesitate to call it a title  (even though that's what the website asks for), because the actual title doesn't really matter.  You can name it anything - My Book for This Year, My First Novel, Random Stuff.  Whatever you want.  Just name the project and go from there.

If you're a planner type of writer, you can work on an outline before November, because an outline isn't the actual writing - it's just a roadmap.  If you're a seat-of-the-pants type, you can wait until November 1 and just start writing.  You have until 11:59 p.m. on November 30 to write your 50,000 (or more) words. 

Here's my progress graph from November 2018.
It's on the stats tab on the website.

To "win," all you need to do is write a minimum of 50,000 words.  You don't have to finish the novel by the end of the month.  You don't want to edit.  You want to simply spew sentences.  

You don't write on the website.  You write using whatever program you prefer.  Many writers use Microsoft Word™ or Scrivener™.  Then when you have reached the goal and are ready to confirm your word count, you select all, copy it, then paste it into a box on the website's validation page.

If you're a loner, you can participate all by yourself.  But if you need or want some community or encouragement, many areas have write-ins, often at a bookstore, library, or coffee shop.  They may be listed in the calendar in the "Regions" tab on the website.  Don't be shy!  Everyone is there for the same reason - to write!

If you're not sure you want to commit to 50,000 words in a month, there are two other times you can experience a sort of NaNoWriMo Lite - Camp NaNoWriMo, in April and July.  It's the exact same idea, except you are able to set your word count goal for the month.  If you want to aim for a goal of less than 50,000 words, that's what you enter.  It's kind of a nice warm-up to the "real" NaNoWriMo in November.  You get a feel for what it's like to write a lot of words over a relatively short timespan.  You get familiar with how the website works.  You have a lot of fun.

Yes.  

FUN.  

Well, maybe not necessarily while you're in the throes of the writing frenzy, but like running a marathon, the fun is in having accomplished something many people talk about but never get around to doing.

If you have a book simmering inside you, NaNoWriMo is a way to let it out.

Just do it!

Slow Cooker Harvard Beets - A CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Box Recipe

Two of my later CSA boxes had 1-pound bags of beets in them.  Now, I LOVE beets, but nobody else in my family is a fan of cooked (hot) beets.  That Girl and I both are pickled beet fiends, but I’m pretty sure I’m the Hot Beet Queen (now THERE’S a mental image).  

When I eat at an MCL cafeteria in Indianapolis, I can guarantee that at least one of my side dishes will be Harvard beets.  (Yes, I often choose to have TWO orders of Harvard beets - you wanna make something of it?)

I was browsing one of my untouched cookbooks, Taste of Home's Slow Cooker Throughout the Year, and came across this easy recipe for Harvard beets in a slow cooker:



Slow Cooker Harvard Beets

2 pounds small fresh beets, peeled and halved
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c packed brown sugar
2 T cornstarch
1/2 t salt
1/4 c orange juice
1/4 c vinegar
2 T butter
1 t whole cloves

Place beets in a 3-quart slow cooker.  In a bowl, combine the sugar, brown sugar, cornstarch, salt, orange juice, and vinegar. Pour over the beets in the slow cooker, then dot with the butter.  Place the cloves on a double thickness of cheesecloth, bring up the corners, and tie with string.  Place the clove bag in the slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low for 7 to 8 hours, or until tender.  Discard the clove bag.

VALUE (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

I have a big family dinner on Thanksgiving.  I start on Friday, buying the turkey and putting it into a big cooler with some ice to thaw.  It is a BIG cooler for the BIG turkey.  This year’s was typical - twenty-six pounds.

You’re supposed to buy a turkey of about one pound per expected person.  We had twenty people, and my choice was limited to the single twenty-six-pound bird and a flock of measly little fourteen-pounders.  My oven isn’t big enough to roast two turkeys, so…!

I use oven roasting bags because they make the turkey cook a little faster and you don’t have to worry about having a tall enough covered roaster.  The bags say they’ll hold a turkey up to twenty-four pounds, but I can make my monsters fit.

I bought the turkey on Friday.  I finished my grocery shopping on Saturday, put the leaf in the table and made cranberry gelatin salad and deviled eggs on Monday, roasted the turkey, got out all the serving pieces, and cleaned the house on Tuesday.  Wednesday, I carved the turkey, baked pies, and cleaned some more.  Thursday, I made the gravy, assembled and cooked the side dishes, baked the rolls, and got ready for the ravening hordes.

They came, they saw, they ate, and ate, and ATE.  As is the custom, by the end of it all, we were all blissfully miserable.

Why do we do this every year?  Because we value family - all of them!  The crazy and the annoying.  The one who volunteers to bring three things, brings eight, and burns the one thing you really, really counted on.  Oh well.  It is what it is, and what it is, is family.

Now THAT’S value!

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "VALUE."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

What I've Been Reading - Dear Mrs. Bird by A. J. Pearce

I thoroughly enjoyed this book!  I felt as if I were in wartime London during the Blitz.  I simply couldn't put it down.   By turns funny, intense, engaging, sad, and ultimately, hopeful.  I'd like to read more about the characters the author created.  

The author was inspired by a chance discovery of a copy of a women's magazine from 1939 and its advice column.

Here's part of the book description on goodreads.com

"London 1940, bombs are falling. Emmy Lake is Doing Her Bit for the war effort, volunteering as a telephone operator with the Auxiliary Fire Services. When Emmy sees an advertisement for a job at the London Evening Chronicle, her dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent seem suddenly achievable. But the job turns out to be typist to the fierce and renowned advice columnist, Henrietta Bird. Emmy is disappointed, but gamely bucks up and buckles down.

"Mrs. Bird is very clear: Any letters containing Unpleasantness—must go straight in the bin. But when Emmy reads poignant letters from women who are lonely, may have Gone Too Far with the wrong men and found themselves in trouble, or who can’t bear to let their children be evacuated, she is unable to resist responding. As the German planes make their nightly raids, and London picks up the smoldering pieces each morning, Emmy secretly begins to write letters back to the women of all ages who have spilled out their troubles."

Candied Carrots, and My Eighth and Ninth Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Boxes Continued!

My last two CSA boxes included a boat load of carrots!  Oh my!  What to do with all those orange spears?  

I let them languish in the crisper drawer in the fridge through my trip with my sister to the Lake of the Ozarks, and through the washing machine bearing repair week, and through the bring-the-boat-home weekend.  

Last week I decided to do something with the carrots, so I gathered up all the bags I had, dumped them onto the counter, peeled them, and put them into a large storage container.  

I ate quite a few of them raw, and they were great!  But enough raw carrots is enough, so I decided to cook some one night.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!  But a little dull.  I wanted something just a little more than plain old cooked carrots.  So I got online and found a recipe for candied carrots, and here it is…



Candied Carrots

1 lb carrots, peeled, and cut into one-inch to two-inch pieces
2 T butter, diced (so it melts faster)
1/4 c packed brown sugar

Put the carrots in a saucepan and cover with lightly salted water.  Bring to a boil then turn down and simmer about 20 minutes or until fork tender (not mushy!).  Drain off the cooking water, then add the butter and brown sugar to the carrots in the pan.  Stir it all up, and cook on low heat until the sugar in the bottom of the pan is bubbly (about three to five minutes).  Serve them warm!

ONE (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

One is the loneliest number you can ever do.
Two can be as bad as one.  It’s the loneliest number since the number one.
     - Three Dog Night


One is supposed to be lonely.  That’s what the song says.

But you know what?  Most of the time, I don’t mind being alone.  I can be lonely in the middle of a crowd.  I like being with my friends, but I don’t NEED to be with people all the time.  As an introvert, I need breaks from people; otherwise, my social tolerance is exhausted.

To me, ONE is the number for recovery of equilibrium.  ONE means I can choose to be, go, and do whatever and wherever I choose.

The more people involved, the more difficult it is to decide anything!  Where to eat, what to do, where to go.  Talk about a bottleneck!  With everyone’s conflicting food preferences, allergies, caloric restrictions, and usual meal times, it can end up with nobody happy and everyone irritated.

So ONE is re-energizing.  Give me time alone, and then I’ll be excited to be social again.  Just don’t expect me to do it indefinitely - you’ll be sorry!

HAHA!

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "ONE."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

The Jet in My Laundry Room (More Adventures in Home Ownership)

That Man walked into the house from working in the garage and asked, “Isn't the washing machine kind of loud? It sounds like bad bearings.”

I had started a load of laundry, and the machine was going through a spin cycle.  I had noticed a few days earlier how loud it seemed, but I wasn’t positive.  I could be imagining it, right?

Well, here’s your sign.

That Man said, “Well, do you want to buy a new washer?”

Oh, no.  I’d REALLY rather not!  But, another unplanned project - oh, joy.

So I powered up the computer and Googled “Whirlpool Cabrio washing machine loud spin cycle.”  I read some articles (most described the sound as a jet getting ready to take off) and watched some YouTube videos and eventually bought a repair kit on eBay.  It included a drive shaft, upper and lower bearings, a seal, adhesive, grease, and installation tools.  They would arrive by the end of the week.

The old drive shaft

The following Sunday, immediately after church, we began.

I pulled up a couple of YouTube videos and we watched guys open up the top of a washing machine.  Not the lid, mind you, but the entire top of the machine.  One guy, in what was supposed to be a training video, working on an obviously new, pristine machine, took a putty knife, slid it into the narrow crevice of the machine top, released the catches (one, two!), and popped the top open - voila!  Like magic!  So easy!  Another guy, obviously working in his garage told us the catches were hard to release, and to not use the standard flexible putty knife, but to use a stiffer putty knife or a flat screwdriver to get at those stubborn catches.

He was right.

The top was eventually opened, the ring around the top of the tub where the detergent, fabic softener, and bleach dispensers are was removed, and the sorta-kinda agitator bump in the bottom of the machine was also removed.

Now all we had to do, according to the training video was to reach under the lip of the tub and lift it out - easy peasy!!!

We worked at that for a couple of hours.  HOURS.  Yes.  Hours.

That Man periodically asked me whether I wouldn't rather just buy a new washing machine.  But by now, we were committed, by gosh!  We are not quitters!  That stupid machine was NOT going to win!

I went to the garage guy’s video.  He said he had trouble getting the tub out.

No!  Surely not!  You’re kidding, right?

But he had a solution, involving a car jack and a piece of 4x4 lumber.  We worked at that for a bit, using the jack from one of our cars, and a scrap piece of 4x4, but got nowhere because of how the jack’s base was shaped.  That Man retrieved a bottle jack from the garage and we tried again.

Oh.  My.  Gosh.

It was like magic!  The jack and 4x4 got the tub released from the drive shaft, and out came the tub, just as easily as the training video showed.  Then we turned the washer on its side so That Man could knock out the drive shaft and bearings.  There was more to it than just that, but by that point of the process, it went pretty smoothly.

One thing about the garage guy’s video - after he got the tub out, he said he could hear water sloshing around, apparently trapped inside the tub walls.  He couldn’t figure out how to drain it, so he intended to DRILL SOME HOLES IN THE TUB to get the water out!  NO! NoNoNoNoNo!  That water is part of how the washer balances the load during spin cycles!  I hope he didn’t do it.  All that work, and then to ruin the machine.

Anyway, back to us.  The reassembly went well until it was time to install the seal.  It wasn’t the same on both sides!  All right, which side goes which way?  I looked at more videos and examined the old seal and drive shaft closely, and figured it out to MY satisfaction.  So I got the dubious honor of greasing and putting adhesive on the seal and installing it.  According to That Man, that’s so if it had been done incorrectly and the washer leaked all over the floor, the fiasco could be blamed on ME!

After getting it all put back together, one of the videos said not to run a load through the washer for 24 hours.  I waited two days.  Oh, the suspense!!!

I ran a short cycle with no clothes to test it out.  It was quieter and no leaks!  But it was just sloshing water around.  I needed a real world test - jeans. So I loaded it up and ran a normal cycle.  I stood there and watched it during the first spin cycle.

It was quiet.  There were no leaks.  It powered through the whole cycle and worked like a champ!

It took us about eight hours to do what is supposedly a four-hour job.  But we did it ourselves, and we saved a ton of dough!  Instead of buying a comparable new washing machine for $700.00 or $800.00 (MSRP of about $1,100.00) on sale at Lowe’s - yes, that’s JUST the washer - I checked, we paid less than $76.00 for the repair kit.  And if we’d had someone come fix it, we still would have probably been charged about $400.00 for the repair.

Yes, our time and effort are worth something, but we learned some things, got the satisfaction of doing it ourselves, and saved $325.00 to $725.00 to boot!

It WAS worth it!

Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage, and My Eighth and Ninth Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Boxes - What I Got (The Late Reveal!)

The Eighth Box

I obviously received my eighth and ninth CSA boxes a while back, but I just had to complete the series and show you what my last two boxes contained!

The eighth box included tomatoes, sweet peppers, onions, carrots, and beets, and the ninth box, tomatoes, sweet peppers, potatoes, and carrots - lots of carrots!

I've chopped and frozen most of the onions and peppers, and eaten the tomatoes and potatoes, and some of the carrots (raw).

I still have some of the onions, all the beets, and a lot of the carrots.  I have plans for the beets and carrots, and you'll hear about them in time.

But today, I used one of the onions.  I never got to an Oktoberfest celebration this year - it rained and rained, and I wasn't going to wade through the mud.  I can wait until next year.

In the meantime, I decided to make German cuisine in my own kitchen.  

Today I was inspired to make red cabbage.  The recipe I use is called Rhineland Sweet-Sour Red Cabbage from the original Crockery Cookery cookbook, written by Mabel Hoffman.  YUM!  I've had a hankering for it for weeks, so I went a little crazy and made it.  I'll have a couple of other German recipes in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

The onion came from one of my CSA boxes, but the red cabbage, alas, did not  We never received any cabbage, red or green, so I bit the bullet and headed to the store to buy a couple of heads.  It's a simple, foolproof way to make delicious red cabbage.  

Here's the recipe (my paraphrase):

Rhineland Sweet-Sour Red Cabbage (6 to 8 servings)

6 slices bacon, cooked and chopped (reserve 3 T bacon grease in the skillet)*
1 large head red cabbage, shredded
1 medium onion, chopped
6 T brown sugar
3 T flour
2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
3/4 c water
6 T vinegar

Put the cabbage, onion, and bacon in a 3 1/2- or 4-quart slow cooker.  Mix together the bacon grease, sugar, flour, salt, and pepper.  Stir in the water and vinegar.  Pour over the cabbage, onion, and bacon in the slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low 4 hours.  If the cabbage isn't cooked to your liking, turn the heat up to high for 1/2 hour.  Stir and serve.

*If you want the preparation to go even faster, here's a shortcut - chop up 6 slices of pre-cooked bacon and put it in the slow cooker with the cabbage and onion, and use 3 T of vegetable oil instead of the bacon grease.

BURDEN (A Five-Minute Friday post)

I remember my parents saying they never wanted to be a burden on anyone.  They had it all planned.  They had their finances in order, they traveled, they took part in their activities, they had FUN.

But then Mom started being afraid to drive, to get her hair done, to go out of the house, to have us visit.  She didn’t want Dad to go out, either.  She was afraid for him to leave her.  She was suffering from crippling anxiety. 

At the end, Dad was sitting with her all day, from early in the morning until late at night.  He didn’t have time to bathe, do his shopping, pay his taxes, or any of the things he enjoyed.  My sister and I spent alternate weekends sitting with Mom so she would have someone with her and he could get out and do the things he needed to do.  She didn’t like it much.  She really wanted HIM, not us. 

But, no matter how demanding she became, he stayed by her side. 

He never considered her to be a burden.

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "BURDEN."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

What I’ve Been Reading - Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

I want life. I want to read it and write it and feel it and live it. I want, for as much of the time as possible in this blink-of-an-eye existence we have, to feel all that can be felt. I hate depression. I am scared of it. Terrified, in fact. But at the same time, it has made me who I am. And if - for me - it is the price of feeling life, it's a price always worth paying.

          - Matt Haig in Reasons to Stay Alive

At age 24, Matt Haig nearly jumped off a cliff.  He has lived with depression and anxiety for many years.  

This book surprised me.  Matt Haig describes his descent into depression and anxiety and how he climbed out of the hole and learned to live with them.  It’s not long, but there’s a lot packed into it.  If you or someone you love live with depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, or any mental illness, this book will give you hope.  If you don’t, there’s a lot to be learned about what it’s like to live with mental illness.  

He talks about what it feels like to be depressed and anxious.  There’s no pyscho-babble here - just the experiences and thoughts of a survivor.  I especially liked his lists - famous people who have/had mental illness, tweets from ordinary people about ways to deal, what helps (apparently peanut butter sandwiches and country music!), and what doesn’t.

This isn’t a sad book.  On the contrary, he looks at his depression and anxiety as part of what has made him who he is.  And he sees humor in his life.  There is a lot of good advice for everyone (”If the sun is shining, go outside.”) in the lists.  I’m working on my own list.

If you can find the audiobook, get it.  He reads it himself, and it’s excellent!

REPEAT (A Five Minute Friday Post)

All last month, and all this month, too, I'm following a routine -  sit, write, repeat.  I didn't write consistently last month, but did it in clumps.  I got behind, and I had to really get it in gear to finish all thirty-one posts by the end of the month.  So, I had to write and post several at a time.  When the challenge comes around again next year, I'll improve.

So far this month, I've written every day.  That's not saying much, because this is only the fourth day of the month, but I've kept to my schedule.  Yay me!

Consistency is the key.  All I have to do is sit, write, repeat, day after day.

Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.
          - Bruce Lee

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
          - Gretchen Rubin

Great ideas!  All I have to do is apply them. 

Repeatedly.

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "REPEAT."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

CLOSE (A 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes Post)

Well, this is the last writing prompt of the 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes challenge.

Whew!  It was CLOSE, but I made it!

I'm afraid I wasn't very good at writing daily, so my posts came in bursts instead of a nice even flow.  Oh well.  I did the best I could with what I had.  Some of the writing prompts kind of flummoxed me to begin with, but I was able to do something with most of them - not all, though!

So here I am at the end of the challenge.  I suppose you believe you'll be getting a break now, right?  Well, maybe.

Tomorrow starts NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), so I'll be writing like a fiend, trying to get my 50,000 words written before December 1.  Because I won't be working on a novel (I'm a Rebel - that's the official NaNoWriMo label for someone who's not writing a novel), I'm sure a lot of what spews from my fevered brain will end up here.

You lucky people.

So I'll CLOSE for now!

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This post is part of the 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes challenge link-up.  Today's writing prompt was for Five Minute Friday, "CLOSE."  For more information on the challenge click here.

VOICE (A 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes Post)

A friend of mine commented on one of my early posts and said the writing sounded like me - she could hear me talking.  I have a VOICE!

I'm in the middle of reading The Art of X-Ray Reading by Roy Peter Clark.  The subtitle is How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing.

Wow!  I feel like I've never really READ a book, and I read a LOT.  Since January 1 of this year, I've already finished ninety-four.  Not all (well, hardly any) qualify as Great Works of Literature, but of course not all books aspire to be.

Anyway, in one section of the book, Clark talks about an author's "diction," which, as he used the term, he obviously meant "voice" - the words and phraseology an author uses in writing, which are influenced by geography, economic condition, education, occupation, religion, age, and time in history.  Compare two authors' work side by side, and you can tell who is who because each has his own distinct voice.

I've just finished a section heavy with Shakespeare, and Clark points out where the important words fall in a couple of sonnets.  Fascinating.  Lots to ponder.

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This post is part of the 31-Day of Five Minute Free Writes challenge link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "VOICE."  For more information on the challenge click here.

TOGETHER (A 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes Post)

Yet another song!

The more we get together, together, together,
The more we get together, the happier we'll be!
For your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends.
The more we get together, the happier we'll be!

How did you find the friends you have?

Some are from work, some are from school, some are from church, but I know a lot of mine came from other friends, including That Man.  My first friend in Indiana (we go all the back to fourth grade!) introduced us.

How do you keep your friends?  The best way to stay connected is to get together, of course, just like in the song.  The friends I feel closest to are the ones I make the effort to talk to on a regular basis.  We have lunch or dinner, see a movie, go shopping or sightseeing.  It doesn't matter what we do, as long as we're together, together, together!

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This post is part of the 31-Day of Five Minute Free Writes challenge link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "TOGETHER."  For more information on the challenge click here.

SONG (A 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes Post)

You've probably noticed how often these writing prompts remind me of songs.

Music and singing have been one of the constants in my life.  There are the hymns in church.  My family always sang in the church choir, and I still do.  Dad also sang in men's groups, including the Indianapolis Scottish Rite Chorus, and sang solos.  All three of us sisters had piano lessons.  Two of us took violin lessons.  At home, Mom played the radio all day.  I play handbells in church.  My grandfather used to sing Gay Nineties songs to us that his father sang to him.  I sing oldies in the car (at top volume!).

I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
(Psalm 104:33 NIV)

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This post is part of the 31-Day of Five Minute Free Writes challenge link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "SONG."  For more information on the challenge click here.