Let'sPower UpThe Media...

I dropped by Ros-the-Quilter's blog and she had posted about a quilt teacher that had some of her display quilts and teaching materials stolen in a smash and grab at the motel she was staying in on a teaching trip. I put her blog post on FaceBook but decided to go ahead and write a post for those of you not on FB. We form such a network out there on the blogsphere and can reach so many people that I thought "Why Not?" when wondering if a post on my blog might help alert people, not only to watch for her quilts, but to send out another reminder for anytime any of us travel.

Do not leave anything in a car when you stay away from home. Actually we shouldn't even leave anything in our cars at home, but crooks seem to target motel parking lots for quick smash and grab crimes, not having a clue what might be in a bag that they steal. All they are thinking about is turning a quick buck for whatever reason... drugs, booze, jewelry for the girlfriend or girlfriends.

I don't know many people who haven't had their homes or their cars broken into and I can tell you that no matter what is stolen it leaves you with such a sick feeling, such a feeling of vulnerability and loss. Back in the olden days someone broke into the big house (my nickname for our family home). The police figured it was a kid, or some kids, because most of what was stolen was change that I had saved... this was back before copper was added to quarters and half dollars were not uncommon. I had been saving the coins for a coin collection and even now when I run across quarters without the copper layer or older nickels and dimes I still feel a stab of loss from over 50 years ago.

Worse than that was when Carol and I were still living in east Tulsa and she was still teaching. I was in school, taking some art classes, and Carol was still teaching at Catoosa. Two kids broke in the laundry room door, stole Jeff's Nintendo and a bunch of games, stole cassette tapes, this was in the early 90's, and jewelry. Fortunately the neighbors across the street were retired and saw the boys coming from the side of the house with a duffel bag and recognized the boys. When the police came out he was able to tell the officers who the boys were and most of the loot was recovered but a lot of the jewelry was already gone. The item that hurts my heart, to this day, was a ring that my big brother brought back to me from Africa. I had gone to Texas and stayed with my sister-in-law and the kids while he went to Africa to help my sister come home from Mali. Sue was 7 months pregnant and had a 3 year old on the ground and he figured she could use his help getting home. Her husband's tour of duty was to be up in another month but that would have made traveling at her stage of pregnancy not a good thing so Bill flew over for a few days and then flew back with Sue and her oldest boy. While in Africa he did some shopping and my ring was one of the things he brought back to thank me for helping out while he was gone. I hadn't expected anything so that made the ring much more special. I checked pawn shops all around our area, even taking a picture I had drawn of the ring, but it was never recovered...

Sooooo... please help out if you know anyone in the south Texas area that might help watch out for the quilts at garage sales or flea markets, even on Craig's list. Let's see if we can put social media out there for a good cause. Here is the book marked page from the blog of the quilter/teacher that has the info about the theft:

QUILTS STOLEN «

Thanks for your time.

Stupid Questions...

Do you, like me, ever wonder if there is no originality left in the world of news reporters? I know that right now I'm under the influence of drugs (for a toothache people...) but I just wonder how many stupid questions reporters can ask. What started all this pondering? The t.v. trailer for the news was showing a man charged with child porn being walked to the court for arraignment and this idiot news man hollers, "Is there anything you'd like to say to the families of these children?"... What in hell do you think he is going to say? 'They sure are cute kids, bubba, do you think I can meet some of them?'. Sheesh. Sometimes I wonder.

I know that years ago I heard that commercials were created at the level of 12 year olds because the powers that be figured that would reach the most viewers but I think that the schools of journalism are teaching questioning skills at even lower mentality levels than that... just saying. If the aforementioned criminal makes any kind of answer to the reporter other than something like 'how stupid are you for asking that?' he is liable in Oklahoma and most other states to get his own self shot the first opportunity one of the family members has to shoot his sick ass. I know that the t.v. news people have to try to sell their station to you in these teaser clips but I, and I'm no intellectual, would be looking for a newscast with a little more meat to it. If I can't find something better I'll just stick to watching 'Cops". Watch those boys in blue bust those bad boys, not just ask them stupid questions.

That's my gripe for today. All comments are mine... under drugs or not.

Miscellaneous B.S.

I was looking for some inspiration for a post this afternoon and got to thinking that I (and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one) have collected some weird images over time. For whatever reason, each and every one struck a chord in my twisted brain and I saved the images. I thought I’d share some of the oddities with you today. The above has made me laugh and shake my head more than once… felt like that more than once.

On those days when I feel like I’m the only one with a decent attitude and everyone I’m around is a sour puss… I need this printed on a card to hand out.

This is kind of how I feel when I’m hunting where in the heck I put photos… One of these days I’m going to learn how to sort my pictures into folders… right after I learn how to make a folder.

Yep, been there, done that. I think I’ll make a t-shirt and along the same lines…

Not to dwell here very long because that might indicate that I remember ever having a sex life, we’ll move right along.

I mean it… we will move right along… I got stuck for a minute.

Sometimes I have to get downright rough with my own mind to get the channel changed but I’m like Rosie the Riveter… I can do it!

I seem to be able to live by this axiom daily…

And this is how I often end up looking after learning something stupid and then someone with great timing sends me something like this to drive the point home:

That’s when I take my own self out behind the woodshed for a good therapy session…

Y’all feel free to steal any of the images on this post. Some of you may even recognize the ones you have e-mailed me over time… just want you to know that I appreciate each and every funny you pass on to me. I’ll look forward to sharing some more of these in the future.

Enjoy!

Somebody's Peeing In My Post Toasties...

Just found out that there are changes afoot in my blog world, by Google... Now it's bad enough that FaceBook is shoving changes down our throat which is making me thinking twice about even bothering to keep a profile on FB, but Google now from what I understand is wanting to change things around with our blogger accounts. No sidekicks on the sidebar and who else knows what.

I haven't started investigating all the things they are going to change but there is one thing you all know... I hate changes in areas that I am already uncomfortable in to start with... like internet shit. It's so much a foreign language to me, computer stuff, that it has taken me 15 years to get comfortable enough to (a) Turn the son of a bitch on without fear of blowing the sucker up... (B) learn how to do email... (C) Start slowly venturing further on to the web by doing searches for various interests... (D) Start a blog and last but not least (E)signed up for Facebook. All this process has taken me 15+ years which should give you an idea of how tentative I am with trying to learn anything technologically involved. Once I learn it and get comfortable with it I'm good.
I can do the things I like to do and try to learn a little more each time I get on, try to figure out something new or make a new friend that can explain stuff to me so I don't have to stretch my brain so hard... especially since I'm getting to the age where what viable braincells I do have left are dropping off left and right.

I don't know if I'll have enough brains to take me forward into more new technology especially since my ass is dragging way back yonder trying to catch up to the rest of me already.

I just want to be happy in my playhouse with the things I'm familiar with and only learn new things because I want to, not because I have no choice.

This is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Snippets And Odds And Ends...

I get things running around in my head sometimes... I call them many things like wonderings, idiot attacks and/or brilliant revelations so I decided to jot down one or two... or seven. Who knows?

Do you know how to fold a fitted sheet? I do know how to do that because my momma taught me how many, many years ago when fitted sheets were first introduced to the market. The second part of this mind wandering is if you know how to fold them do you care whether or not you do?

Am I the only person who wonders why the advertising people pay people to trash a place and put leftover food out on the counters and blindfold people to see if their air freshener covers up the smell... when all they would have to do is go to most any college kids apartments without giving them notice and film it for probably a 6-pack and a twenty dollar bill and then lower the prices on the air freshener?

And, following along this line, has anyone besides me ever thought about giving someone a snow shovel to make it easier to clean their house? I didn't, but I sure thought about it...

Is there a gene that makes some people inventive and others (like myself) the ones without the gene that are saying, "Why didn't I think of that?"

What about that person this past week that won 14.3 million playing the wrong lottery game?... I keep telling our good Lord that winning the lottery wouldn't spoil me or change me and I keep getting the reminders that you have to buy the tickets before you can win... no matter which lottery you play.

No matter how much closer I move to where my sibs live, the older I get the harder it is to make myself drive to visit them... or even go to the grocery. Or maybe that is my state of mind right now. Just sayin'.

Do you ever feel like your doc is just experimenting on you?

Does anyone else have brilliant thoughts while out and about and then when you get home and go to write them down don't remember what they were? And how hard would it be for me to get it through my thick skull to carry a little tape recorder around so I could save these thoughts for posterity with just a click of a button...

There were a bunch more things running around in my brain but evidently they fell between the lobes while I was trying to document the wonderment of my thought processes... Next time maybe I will have more that I've written down or recorded to share with you but for now...

That's all, folks!

Grits Aren't Just For Deep Southerners...

Any more, anyway... I told you all about the Chili Cheese Grits that Carol whipped up for Christmas. Neither she nor I have ever been a fan of grits but she ran across this recipe in a magazine and thought it sounded good... I thought she was nuts trying it out on a Christmas lunch but we were having company and she figured it would be more likely to be eaten, I guess. Not wanting to rain on her parade and since it had green chiles in it which gave the dish a southwest or Mexican nod I thought, "what the heck... give it a try". Dang, it was good. Almost like a spoon bread in texture. So I had to eat 'crow' along with everything else for lunch on Christmas. Here you go... enjoy.

CHILI CHEESE GRITS

3 Cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Cup quick-cooking grits
1/4 Cup butter, at room temperature
1-1/2 Cups Longhorn cheese, grated (about 6 ounces)
4-1/2 ounce can chopped green chiles
2 eggs
1/2 Cup milk
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Bring water to a boil and add the salt and garlic. Slowly stir in the grits and continue stirring for 4 or 5 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat.

Add the butter, 1 Cup of the cheese and the green chiles, stirring until butter is completely melted. Beat the eggs with the milk, add to the mixture and mix well.

Pour into a greased 2 quart baking dish and bake, uncovered, in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and serve.

Whomever wrote the original recipe should have added that the recipe might make a non-grits person into one who would request this dish. Obviously if I talked about it and took the time to copy the recipe for you all it is something that I would eat again.

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks... or new foods to eat and like. I think Carol just wants to see if she can make something that neither of us has cared to eat into something good and yes, ma'am, she can!

Texas Trash And Other Tidbits...

First off let me say that Chloe (and mom) made it through her health crisis. She's eating and cleaning the floor for any little tidbit that may have been dropped, she's barking at anyone who dares to darken her door or the little kids that she can see playing when she's in the yard. I'm so glad to have her back to her old self that I don't even threaten to beat her for her barking... I just pet her and tell her to hush her mouth.

Now on to the inquiry about Texas Trash. Originally I believe it was more commonly known as Chex Mix and the recipe you can find on all the Chex cereal boxes. Where we got to calling it Texas Trash was from additions and augmentations to the original recipe by friends in Texas and it just seems easier to remember for me than Chex Mix and more fun to say. The original recipe calls for (this is just guesstimation from me... we don't have any cereal here now for me to be exact) 2 cups of each of the Chex cereals, Cheerios, pretzels and nuts. Carol has also used Bugels (the snack) and usually uses mixed nuts. She also uses a full stick of margarine or butter instead of half a stick. You melt that down and add to it a couple of tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce and some seasoning salt, a couple of teaspoons I think. I can't remember if there are other ingredients and Carol is in the shower as I write this but if you don't find it on the Chex cereal boxes, give me a shout and I'll find out for sure the recipe. Anyway after you melt your butter or margarine and add the other ingredients, you pour it all over the cereal, pretzels and other treat stuff like Bugles or Goldfish or whatever and stir it up good. I would suggest you put in one of those throw away turkey cooking pans because then it goes in the oven on a low heat, probably like 250F. and every 15 minutes you pull it out and stir it up to get all the seasoning to all of the cereals and stuff. You do that two or three times and then you dare people to not eat it until they are full of it, too.

Really it is one of those snack things that folks will sit and pick at while watching football games or visiting with folks that stop in for a visit. It's fun finger foods for the little ones and everyone figures out what their favorite part is (mine are the rice Chex, for now) and you will catch them picking out their favorites. It is a snack that is easy to add to or change around like our friends that like to add Tabasco for a little kick (mmmm good!) or different types of snack foods like the Bugles or Goldfish crackers.

In a day or two I'll get Carol to print out the recipe for the green chili grits and pass that on to you all. I've never been a grits fan, nor has Carol, but she ran across the recipe and decided to try it. We are both glad she did and will have it again soon.

So that kind of explains about the Texas Trash/Chex Mix. It's fun to eat and easy to make, I could probably make it but don't tell Carol. You can have it going in the oven while you do other things and folks sure don't pass it by...

Enjoy.