Random Musings

I've lost count of how long we've been under the stay at home order, but this is still the view when you go near Target's toilet paper aisle. Food Lion is the same way. A friend gave us a pack last week. We shared it with a family member and are thankful for it every day! Other shortages come and go, but this one has remained. It still boggles the mind.

Several family and friends who love to cook (or just like to eat) are often posting recipe videos on Facebook. One of them shared a payday recipe, and I thought I'd give it a try. The only two variables were the salted peanuts (Bobby doesn't like sweet and salty mixed so I went with unsalted) and peanut butter chips (the grocery store was out of those, along with 50% of everything else on the baked good aisle that week).  So I substituted smooth peanut butter in place of the chips, thinking it would be about the same equivalent. It wasn't. While it was plenty sweet enough, the consistency was too oily. And the peanuts do NOT stick to the mixture. So I tossed the recipes and at Bobby's suggestion stuck it in the refrigerator (which did help some). I looked online to see if I could find the original recipe/video, and found several other variations that I think might make the recipe work better. But since I'm supposed to be cutting back/out sugar amounts, I don't...

Today Governor Cooper announced that North Carolina's stay at home order will not end with April's calendar but will extend until May 8th. Even then, if things continue to improve, not everything will open at all once but in gradual steps. The pros & cons of all of this: The health care system will not be overwhelmed and they can continue to acquire medical supplies for those treating the virus. The health system may be somewhat strained, but when nurses at hospitals are not working full shifts and many offices are closed, it is hard to say they are overwhelmed. There are many people who need treatment or care but are not getting it because doctors are not opening their offices. Those who do seek care are treated in a crazy manner if they have a fever, even though multitudes of things cause a fever, not just this virus. People who have the virus but aren't showing symptoms won't continue to expose wide ranges of people to the virus. Watching people at the gro...

Things seldom go as we plan. Last fall we ripped out the carpet in one end of the house and had something similar to laminate installed. During this time frame I mentioned to Bobby it would be neat if I could rearrange things to make room for a longarm. He's never been to keen on the idea in the past, but he surprised me this time by telling me to research them a little more and measure the space while the furniture was out of the room. So I taped out the measurements to see if I had space for a longarm. I was four inches short.  A few months later one of the dealers I had acquired measurements from gave me a call. I told him as much as I dreamed of having one, I didn't have quite enough space. He told me they had a mat you could spread out on the floor, and it showed both the size of the machine on the frame (all three possible sizes) as well as the amount of floor space you would need around it. I thought it was a waste of time since I had already taped the space out, bu...

I've lost count on what week of the "stay at home order" we are in. I can tell you the things that have happened in the last ten days that I never thought would happen: A specialist we've used for twenty years refused to see Bobby. I became the owner of a longarmer. (a specialized quilting machine for those not in the quilting world) I yelled at a hospital receptionist. I must have been quite loud,  for an office worker down the hall stuck her head out the office door and answered all my questions/corrected all the receptionist's erroneous statements. My husband gave some very simple legal advise to a friend, and in return we are getting a toilet paper donation, of which I am ecstatic about. Last roll was going on the holder tomorrow!! Grocery stores shelves are still eerily empty or with large gapes in them. I thought I would have all this free time on my hands, and while we have done several things we normally don't do (watch a few movies, rested mo...

While in the process of cleaning out the sewing room, I decided it was time to use up a bag crammed full of scraps. I've now pieced two tops for quilts of valor. Not gonna lie - I was more than a little disappointed when I returned the remaining scraps to the bag. Half full - it's loosely piled in the bag and 3/4 full. Half empty- I wanted this bag GONE!!! So for now I'm stuffing it in the top of the closet until another time. It's time to move on.

When I was a kid, there were two kinds of apple pies that I liked: McDonalds  and flapjacks. For those of you nor from the south, flapjacks are small, handsome, homemade apple pies. Many people fried them, though mum Mom always baked them. I was shocked when as an adult I discovered some people used a variety of fruit fillings for them. Somewhere towards adulthood McDonalds started being healthy (sounds contradictory,  I know) and changed the crust and filling. Their apple pies have never been as good since. I cannot make a decent pie crust. At some point I quit trying and accepted the fact that  bought pie crusts tasted as good. A friend told me her family used canned biscuits suits for their crusts. So I finally gave it a try, using some apple butter that we needed to use up as filling. And they're not as good as Mom's or ReaRea's pies, but they are good. I might do this again.

A few weeks ago an article started circulating on social media that everyone needed to take Vitamin C or an immune booster to help prevent acquiring the virus. I didn't think much of it, as I've heard many specialists say unless your body needs a supplement the only thing you gain is expensive pee. Then last week Bobby was nearly out of his. Like most paralyzed people, he takes Vitamin C daily because of chronic infection. Combined with an antibiotic, it holds things at bay. Imagine my surprise when I get to the store to find the Vitamin aisle 90% empty. I purchased the next to last bottle of what they had, and neither the pharmacist nor I were thrilled with it. Top three ingredients are sugar, sugar, and water. Not exactly what the kidneys need. Thankfully my husband is not a griper. He laughed last night and said it was the best tasting Vit C he's ever taken. My Mom, who is fighting her 4th UTI for the year is facing the same problem. I understand people are s...

This April Fools I've only seen two jokes mentioned on Facebook...one was fake notices from state governments stating that all students would need to repeat this school year, ending with the tongue in cheek "We wouldn't want for seniors to miss out on their senior year." and the other was someone posting a very long list of names on their FB post saying they were tightening their circle to people who actually cared and those people would be removed at the end of the day if they had not responded. At the end of the list it said "What? You actually read to the end to see if your name was here? April Fool's!" But the most common theme was that this year has been hard enough to attempt to prank anyone. Because I might one day look back at this to see what I remember from the year, here's the update of this halfway week: We've lost two more chicks and are now down to 4 babes. Not sure what offed the one today. It appeared to have a broken neck ...