I hung out at Katrina's last night while Chip subbed for Ken's golf league. Alyssa and I made two new recipes from the paper. Wow! They both were great!


We made chicken cob salad with romaine lettuce, avacado, red grapes, bacon, and lots more with homemade green goddess dressing (minus the anchovies of course!)

Dessert was Blueberry Crostata. MMMMMM Good! Alyssa thinks it would be good with blackberries. Katrina thought mulberries. Both sound delicious!

When I get a chance I'll scan the recipies into my recipe files.

Relaxation

I've had a wonderful time today! I slept in, had a wonderful breakfast at the Green Marble Cafe in Calcutta. Then I spent three hours chatting in the Sticth-A-Long quilt shop! We had a lot of catching up to do!

I'll post pictures when I get them.

Bugles

Bugles.

Those little one-inch cornucopias of snacking corn goodness!!

My sister and brothers and I always knew it was time for card club at our house when Bugles appeared in the cupboard! It also meant we could stay up past bedtime in Mom and Dad's bedroom watching tv, eating snacks, and pretending we were "big kids". Bugles were cause to let the inagination run wild!!


Bugles taste great alone, or with vegeable dip (my favorite) or french onion dip (Leisa's favorite). They taste good with the pale, pinkish, pimento cheese spread that comes in the rectangular, little jars. They taste good without dips at all! The C-R-U-N-C-H when you bit into them is so satisfying.


Nip off the end and they are a horn to call the troop together, or play in the marching band. Pretend to fill them and they become the ice cream cone stacked high with your favorite flavor. Turn them upside down and they are the dunce cap from "Little House on the Prairie" school.

Once those imgination options were exhausted or we fell into fighting among ourselves, Mom would pop her head into the room and tell us to "settle down" it was bedtime. Rather difficult to do with all of the snacks and pop in our system! To actually get us quiet and asleep required at least two trips from Mom and the last trip from Dad. If Dad came in the the room, we knew if he returned a second time, the next trip would be cause for a spanking. Not that I ever remember getting spanked for that but the threat was real enough to us.


Mysteriously, we always awoke in our own beds the next morning, not remembering how we got there. Usually the latest dream would proffer the wildest guesses - the Transformer robot (Todd's usual guess), faeries (Leisa's guess), or a giant hand that gently plucked us from Mom and Dad's bed to our own (my usual dream).


I loved Bugles then. I still do. I just don't buy them because I would eat the entire box in one sitting. I just have no restraint with some foods so I just don't keep them in the house. But the memories those foods bring back never fade.

Empty Nest Syndrome

Ok, let me say this right up front. I was always under the impression that the empty nest syndrome happened to old people. That said, I am NOT old! I'm not even close! Old is a state of mind and I don't qualify.

When I was young and had my children (Tink is trying to be a critic again and blocking my view. Nice kitty, now go and play. Tink just sulked off and took up her post on the cat perch. Her tail is swishing her agitation!)

Tinkerbell came to us as the last part of our four-legged family, when our daughter moved and couldn't take her with them. Tink had a BAAAADDDD attitude at first, but after intense squirt bottle therapy, she learned I am the queen cat in this house and she better mind her p's and q's. She's learned to get along with all of our animals. I do think she's jeolous of Harley Jane though. She also get a little nervous when the house is full of either two dogs or the grandkids. She's my first lap kitty.

As I was saying...

When I was young and had my children I didn't think hardly at all about what I would do when my children would be grown and move out of the house. Of course, I didn't know at the time I would get my wish, or close to it, for 10 kids. When I was a young adult I would tell anyone I knew that I wanted 10 kids. Ten just sounded right to me. Most people looked at me like I was crazy!

After meeing an old high school classmate a few years out of high school, who was divorced and had a child in Washington state; bearing two children, a subsequent divorce, then meeting the man of my heart who had kids, then taking in his best friend's niece, and finally having my daughter from Washington return to the fold, there were eight kids to live with us. Thankfully they were not all at home at the same time! The most for a short time was five. But eight was close enough to 10!

I digress.

After having a noisy, crazy, loving, not always perfect, upside down life for at least 20 years, (33 for my dh) full of kids and their antics. I never thought I'd enjoy, yes, I said ENJOY being an empty nester!

I never said it was easy - at first - but I've grown to cherish my quiet household!!

It was always hard to say goodbye to each child as they moved on to adulthood and out of the house. As the house noises became quieter, I put the thought of the last child leaving home for good out of my head.

When our son, the youngest at home, moved out for the trial of adulthood, I moped for weeks. Somewhere inside I knew this was only a summer trial of separation but it sure felt final. Then he moved back home and all was back to as it should be I thought since I wasn't ready to give into the empty nest bliss yet.

Then the son met his wonderful wife-to-be and they were married. Ouch! Even if I wasn't ready he was. This was going to be final.

I knew I had to come to grips with this "thing". I cried (and I NEVER cry- or hardly ever!) for months. I did a ton of soul searching. What I realized was....drum roll please....

I realized a Mom is a mom forever. Period. The part of me that nurtures, loves, guides, and takes care of everyone else was not going to go away. I prayed asking to have something to "mother". Some animal to love, discipline, and spoil since I needed to mother someone or something or go crazy! And take everyone else around me to crazy-ville too especially my dh who was left alone with me! So we went looking for a dog. One to protect me when he traveled and give me companionship and love.

First there was Lucas, our yellow lab we rescued from the Humane Society. He was a good dog but had been abused too much to be around kids. One awful day he went after a grandkid. Thankfully, she wasn't hurt - only scared but that was enough. I ended up putting him out of his misery and held him as the vet put him to sleep. I cried for weeks. More of this crying thing...just not good for me.

During the time Lucas was with us I aked God to send something else to mother since Lucas didn't take up all of my time. God sent us Pumpkin.

Pumpkin was orange as a baby hence his name. His mom was an abdoned cat left to fend for herself. She has since become feral. But Pumpkin was the runt of the litter. Momma cat had moved all of her kittens again but hadn't come back for this one. Poor baby was crying in the ditch across from our house. I crossed the road, put him in a box, left him with dog food and water in the garage and went to work. I had full intentions of taking him to the Humane Society. God had different plans. Our daughter came by the house and even offered to take him to the Humane Society by her house. Pumpkin was in the box in her truck. But he kept getting out of the box. I didn't want her to get into an accident so I said we would take the kitten there after her Dad got home. By that time I was hooked! I asked my dh if we could keep him. He said yes! Poor Pumpkin was so traumatized that dh held him for over two days. That clinched that. Pumpkin is dh's cat. Oh, he loves me and will show me a little affection but he pines for dh when he's gone. That's ok though, dh needed a cat to love him too.

After I had to put Lucas to sleep, my heart ached. When I healed, I again asked God for something to mother. God sent me Buster Brown. He's our wonderful, kid-loving, spoiled rotten, ball catching, pool swimming, spring-shedding-enough-for-a-mattres, joyful, licking, Austrialian sheep herding dog. He's a big hoss but oh so very loving. He also is a great watchdog! Buster also came from the corn field just like Pumpkin. The kids call them our four-legged children of the corn.

Buster giving dh hugs!

The last animal love of our lives is Harley Jane. She is our sometimes dog. She is our daughter's and son-in-law's dog. She was Buster's surrogate mom. She was really the one who potty trained Buster. All of the good gentle qualities of Buster were nutured by Harley. Of course, he's taught Harley a few things too - like how to get into the garbage - one of his very few bad qualities.

Pumpkin and Harley

Harley's ready for bed. I don't spoil her do I?

Then there were grandkids! And that is another story in and of itself!

You've got a friend

I don't know who created this but it is cute!


http://www.terrisfunny.com/movies/afriend.swf

Shippingport - America's first commercial nuclear power reactor

Click on the title for the link to the article.

What Meg Makes blog

Did I mention we now have digital high speed!!!! Guess you'll get lots of posts like this since I can now actually SEE what's on the site in seconds instead of hours or never!

Ran across this blog. It's kind of cool. Lots of crafty projuects, kid stuff and how to save tips, and freebies.

http://whatmegmakes.com/

Mom advice - choosing the right partner

I received a note from a friend who was going through a divorce but was keeping an eye to the future. Here is my answer.

I'll give you the same advice someone gave me and I've passed on to my kids.

Make a list of all the traits and things you want and don't want in a relationship. This list keeps getting refined as you heal and grow after a breakup or divorce.

It's ok to be picky!

Then when it is time ask these questions:

Does he make me laugh?

What does he do when I cry?

Does he cry?

When? Crying is healthy even in men though some don't see it that way.

Can we talk about anything? Money, power, relationships, kids, feelings, lovemaking, men only establishments, politics, ANYTHING. You don't have at agree you just have to be able to talk about it. Agreeing to disagree is fine.

How does he handle anger?

How does he handle my kids' and my feelings? Are the feelings ignored, trampled, or acknowledged?

What is his views of discipline?

Corporal punishment?

What are his hobbies?

What would he like to do for retirement? It may be a long way off but has it been thought about.

Does he have children?

How will we blend the two families? We had one rule. The biological parent had the last say in matters. I think I used it once and he used it twice on VERY important matters (all were life and death type matters).

Can he talk me out of my funks and down times?

Can we sit in silence comfortably without strain?

What makes him jealous?

Do we enjoy similar things? The key is to talk, talk and more talk. The more you talk the more you both learn about each other.

We have it!

The Amplex Internet men have been here. We have DIGITAL internet!!!!!!!

WOOOHOOO!!!

Now on to the task of cleaning all the old files and folders, and old programs on my 'puter.

I'm excited!!!!

March 24 is THE day we get HIGH SPEED internet!!!!

I can not wait! Then look out blog readers cuz this will be full of stuff!

Canning time again 10-13-08

It's been a busy weekend canning. Over two days I did the following canning.
24.5 quarts of frozen veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, onion, green pepper, garlic, green beans, and brussel sprouts)
21 quarts of spaghetti sauce
15.25 quarts mild salsa
9.75 quarts of V8 juice
35.5 quarts of tomatoes
6 quarts dilly beans
4 quarts dill pickles

It sounds like a lot but it sure goes quickly during the winter!

18 years strong - July 27, 2008

we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary yesterday. it's hard to imagine it's been that long. it's gone by in a blink! we just hung out saturday -went to the genoa faremer's market, the hayes museum and toured the house, ate ice cream, went out to eat for supper at appleby's, just had anenjoyable day. he surprised me with a ipod nano. i've been so busy i haven't had a chance to load more music on my 'puter. yesterday i canned what we got at the farmer's market then later jo and the kids then even later katrina and kids came over to visit. ken was hilarious! the girls were breastfeeding the babies in the living room - nothing indecent was showing. we were hanging out having adult time when he started to come into the living room, saw them feeding, turned and walked right on past. he was blushing and shaking his head.

it's amazing how little things can put lives into perspective. jo and juan were arguing and neither was talking - texting a ton but not talking - toeach other. jo and jordyn went down to the golf course to pick up supper.there were a couple of guys in there being jerks. the wife of one of themen called on the cell phone and he handed it off to his buddy. they were giving the wife grief. she kept calling but not getting her hubby - onlythe his friends. jo came back and had to text juan that even though they were arguing at least he wasn't a jerk. i laughed when she told me she had to tell jaun he wasn't a jerk. perspective is a good thing...:)

jayme's now 7.5 months old. he army crawls everywhere! he gets so excited about buster (the dog). buster just loves having kids to watch over! the cats weren't as thrilled. tinkerbell was hiding under the kitchen table and chairs. jayme crawled over and the looks on tink's face was cute. you almost hear her thinking..."how did this kid get down on my level!" jayme cried when she'd had enough and ran away. pumpkin just hides when they come. he doesn't like being picked up and given "elmira" hugs. (elmira hugged her pets until they strangled to death. it's a bugs bunny spinoff.)

Hula Hooping - Can you still do this?

Do you remember hula hooping? That was a favorite pasttime of ours as kids. Leisa was the champ most of the time when she did it around her waist; but I could beat her for longevity when we challenged each other to the arms or neck. Being taller helped. There was one size of hula hoop - big; not like today when I even found one Kaylee-size!

This cartoon, Rose is Rose shows it all.

Fremont Farmer's Market

Ralph's Joy of Living Farmers' Market, Fremont's downtown open air market, opens at 9 a.m. Saturday, June 21, downtown on Front Street.

I found some great deals last year! I hope it continues to grow and grow!

Future dates in 2008

Sat - Jun 21, 2008
9:00 AM

Sat - Jul 19, 2008
9:00 AM

Sat - Aug 16, 2008
9:00 AM

Sat - Sep 20, 2008
9:00 AM

Sat - Oct 18, 2008
9:00 AM

Shippingport, PA

http://www.wqed.org/mag/columns/sebak/2008/0508_shippingport.php I got to see that clock in the article the first time I came out here with Ken. The building was not quite as run down as it is now. That was before all the concrete walls, fences and razor wire were added because of 9-11. The building that is left is a little bit bigger than two ranch houses set side by side. Until it started to decay, the lobby held pictures, plaques, and other memorabilia about Shippingport. When they wanted to tear down the building because it was falling apart, a group of people who used to work there, moved those items to the Training Center at Beaver Valley. That group of people started a community group that has grown and the last time I was here (fall 2007) there was talk of building a museum to hold the artifacts and history. I don't know if that is going to happen or not.

Shippingport went into operation in 1957-8 - it is older than I am (by a year or two depending on what year you use.)! I was born in 1959. No laughs from the peanut gallery - both your Dads are older than I am!). I walked in with a man the other night that worked at Shippingport since it first was started. He said that some of the equipment from Shippingport is still used at Beaver Valley today. He talked about how the Chemistry techs would use old glass pint and quart milk bottles to hold the water samples. Then he surprised me when he said BV chemistry techs still use the same bottles for sampling! There are still a number of people that worked there that are still working at Beaver Valley. Some of them have over 40 years of working since Shippingport.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shippingport_Atomic_Power_Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shippingport_Atomic_Power_Station Click links for more info


Beaver Valley from Shippingport.

Summer cooling tower design. The baffles that help cool the water are on the outside of the cooling tower instead of on the inside. This design in used in warm weather (southern) states because of the humidity in the air. The water vapor is coming off the baffles. It sounds soothing when I walk past the cooling tower, just like a waterfall. There is a beautiful view from in front of Security looking towards the Ohio River of the cooling tower, the Ohio River, and the bridge that crosses the river. At night you see the barge lights shining on the river.

This is an early picture of Shippingport Atomic plant looking towards the Ohio river. (Picture copied from wikipedia.org.)

Shippingport is circled in red.

Follow the pink line starting at the top of the page. That is where I park, walk through Security, past Unit 1, then back to Unit 2 where the pink circle stops. There are more outbuildings added since this picture was taken, as well as, cement walls, fences, and razor wire around the perimeter. You can see the difference between the two cooling towers.

picky eaters

Mom used to make oyster stew during Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was Dad's favorite. I loved it too! Oh, how I miss eating that! It was creamy and rich and had just the right amount of oyster flavor. None of the rest of the family liked it. That just meant more for me and Dad!

My brother Troy was a picky eater. I think he got that trait - I don't think it was a habit - from Great-G'pa Henretty. Great Grandpa Henretty was Grandma Heilman's dad. He liked every item of supper on a separate plate. Mom wouldn't let Troy get that bad but he did like eat food in it's own pile. Brannon got that picky eater gene too.

Now as an adult he doesn't have it as bad but when he was little Brannon would quietly dig out the offending food and after the meal there would be a little pile of onions or other things he didn't like to eat. I used to puree the onions so he couldn't tell or at least couldn't find them. He's say I taste onions. I'd tell him that if he could find them he could pick them out. He never did find them when they were pureed.

Hitting the wall and other outage stuff

Working outage hours are long, hard work where all you do is eat, sleep, drag your very tired butt to work and then work your ass off (while trying to be safe and meet all the company milestones), go home, try to eat, say good night to the spouse and kids (either two or four legged), drop dead tired into bed, get jarred awake by the alarm (if you are lucky and can sleep that long or at all) then do it all over again for how ever many days in a row you have to to keep the good paying job. The job has to be good paying because no one else would put up with that kinds of shit for small pay. After a few weeks even then you start to wonder if the pay is enough to put up with all you do!

On your day off - if you are lucky enough to get one - you eat, sleep, do laundry (or take it to the local laundromat - and yes the laundromat or kids do it when we are in outage, I don't have time to do laundry, and try not to bite any one's head off. If you don't get a day off, you still must fit in the laundry even if it means driving to the laundromat to pick it up.

We've found sleep to be a precious commodity. The closer we can stay to work the few extra hours of sleep we can get. After the first outage I found out it doesn't pay to be he-man or she-ra - give me the closest hotel! It is worth every penny spent! Most hotels give a long term rate that is much cheaper. Ken go his for $50 a day for the next Beaver Valley outage. I don't have to clean, cook, or do laundry! The maids are very accommodating about cleaning the room for a $20 or $30 tip per week - money very well spent. And sleep can be had by all - unless Ken snores. :) And we are much safer off the road than driving exhausted.

Anyway, I digress. Hitting the wall. I never understood the wall until my first outage and the last month of it on night shift. The wall is sheer exhaustion. You can not do another thing without sleep. Tears run down your face you can't even think of eating without wanting to puke, I wear my vampire sunglasses even at night because all the lights are too bright, every fiber in your being is screaming at you pain, pain, PAIN. You can do nothing after you hit the wall but sleep. You will do it one way or another - if you do somehow manage to make it to work, you will not be able to function. I've been standing up straight with my eyes open and I have been asleep. The body can only take so much before it WILL find ways to sleep. Ken has had more time at this and recognized the signs of the wall that first outage and tried to have me take off the next night which was the last night of our outage. All I saw were dollar signs. I didn't listen. I should have. I hit the wall and ended up calling off anyway. I slept 36 hours. I'd sleep, get up and eat a bowl of cereal, then sleep some more.

There are signs before you hit the wall. I'm getting better at recognizing them but I am not perfect yet. I do know enough now to say I've had it - I am not fit for duty, I need to go home and sleep. The signs are confusion - you check yourself two, three, four or more times wondering if you are doing that task correctly when you know your job and know how to do that task with ease normally. You babble not making any sense. I get weepy - I am not normally a crying person at all. Every little thing upsets me emotionally when in my normal frame of mind whatever the thing was would not even faze me. You fall asleep anywhere you can and don't even realize you've been asleep - a blackout type of thing. You just nod off and don't even know it. And I do mean anytime - I've even done it on the road driving and my guardian angels have rescued me. I get hyperactive - so much energy I think I am superwoman and can go forever - that is a very bad sign - it isn't long and my body just quits and I hit the wall. One sign is bad but any more than one and within a few hours I will hit the wall. When this happened at Beaver Valley the last time, Ken pointed it out and when I thought about it I agreed. I left two hours early and then slept for 16 hours straight.

After outages are no picnic either. I never understood why Ken would sleep for 36 hours. I do now. It is all your body can do - sleep, get up eat, then sleep some more.

Outage hours are cumulative. They take a physical and emotional tole on you. It is even more evident when working night shift. Not only are you dealing with long hours, then add on top of that trying to switch back to days. I have a much harder time coming back to day shift. It takes me almost a month before I don't get up in the middle of the night to eat or just be up because I'm used to being awake. It also takes me months after to sleep soundly again. Emotionally, you are still so exhausted for so long after the outage - much longer than you think you should be - all the little things in life that normally would just slide by irritate you and make you angry. Family life suffers. During the two year outage so many family's suffered. When we finally restarted - I heard so many comments about how they didn't know their sons, daughters, and wives or husbands because two years had been robbed from their lives. At the time we all didn't know from one day to the next if we even would have a job the next day let alone the next week or month. We couldn't even see to the next year. Family holidays were non-existent, special occasions went by without the DB employee there. More than one marriage ended in divorce because of it.

I never understood until I became a DB employee what outages really are like and the tole they take on your health, family and sleep. I couldn't understand. I can see both sides now. The family at home has issues to deal with too. We call it the Davis-Besse widow's syndrome. It applies to all outage families.

Outage in FINALLY over!

YEAH we're up and running!!!!! I could say that a few more times and it still wouldn't be enough!

Ken and I had the weekend off TOGETHER! TWO whole days together! It was nice. Strange to be sleeping together again but nice. The cats didn't know where to sleep with us both sharing the bed. Ok, so I have to get used to his snoring again but I think I can handle that :). I puttered all weekend. I did laundry, dishes, cleaned the house, washed the cushions on our living room furniture, cleaned the cat litter box super-duper-scub-forever well (it was gross!), and spent some time wandering around Lowe's and Walmart. I decided to buy a little bit each week to get things going on the complete-the-rooms projects. It's the little stuff - new light bulbs, lamps; purchase and install the oak trim, outlet and light switchface plates, and heater vents. At about $5.50 a faceplate, and $25 a ventcover, I'm taking it in small chunks. I have about 4 or 5 more outletcovers to go. I couldn't find the return vent covers in oak in the right size so I'm going to have to do some hunting. We never got to the point of getting the plumbing but that is on this week's list. We put together a cabinet I bought at Walmart during outage. I don't like the construction - poor - and am looking for the receipt to return the other one. I'll make some changes to this one - add stabilization,sanding, staining, and maybe use it for the g'kid toys. That will free up a closet in the spare bedroom. Jan, Lynn and I are still working 9-hour days this week. There are about 100 more outage orders left out there (not in our area) to close.

It's been a l-o-n-g two months! Ken and I both ended up with bronchitis - twice - each! People are still sick at work. I keep telling them they can't share!

My good friend Genny is retiring soon. Right now she is either in Alaska or Florida with her b-friend. This one sounds like a keeper. I' m really going to miss her when she retires!

My other friend Karen has been through some tough times lately. She's starting to bounce back very well! Youi can see her confidence returning daily!

Night shift

We'll I've finally got a day off after 13 days on night shift. There are about two weeks left to go. WOOHOO! The money is good but it sure takes a toll on you body and family life. Then on to another outage in the spring.

Dirt

I compost. I find that it's a either you do or either you don't kind of thing. I need to do something with the proliferous grass cuttings during the summer. Besides, we have tough, clay soil. It needs all the help it can get. During the summer the compost pile mounds almost chest high under the wide maple tree. It's now Thanksgiving Day and I moved the compost pile today onto the garden - such that it is - the flowers on the north side of the pole barn, and the flowers to be on the west side of the pole barn. By spring it will all be good, rich, dirt.