Doom and Gloom

Have you noticed all the doom and gloom everywhere you look?

I don't have a TV, so I can't speak to what is shown there.  But the internet is full of dire warnings and predictions of war and reports of bad stuff everywhere.

I'm tired of it all.  I want more happy and less fearful.

Sometimes I think this is all designed to scare us into compliance.  When did we begin to scare so easily?

Remember all the cute kitten videos?  Or the travel videos?  Or the videos whose sole purpose was to make us smile?

I scroll through and see crime and dire warnings about nearly everything and politicians busy stabbing each other in the back and tossing threats and lies everywhere.

Enough, already.  I want a world where Dad jokes prevail and family life is important and where we can laugh with each other instead of at each other.

It is called kindness.  

Find it again.

Sometimes...

 I wish I were one of those people who stays blissfully ignorant.

If I am blissfully ignorant, I see no reason to spend time and money to stock up on food or water.  Recently I spoke with someone who was totally amazed that anyone would preserve food, be it canning or dehydrating or even buying extra canned food at the grocery store.  And it sort of blew their mind when they saw me filling several saved 2 ltr. bottles with water.  They could not imagine a time when those things could become unavailable.

Me...I look for sales and ways to add to my stash of food and water.  I am not at all convinced that stores will always remain open or that food will be affordable (not so much right now).  Should we lose power, the pumps that keep water flowing in my building would cease to work.  

If I am blissfully ignorant, I keep every dime in a bank account, convinced there is no reason at all for banks to close.  I'm pretty sure that those who lost everything in the bank closures of the Great Depression were of the same opinion.

Me...Every now and then when I can afford it, I add to a stash of cash.  The object is to have enough cash on hand to pay my rent and bills until I can decide what my next move might be.

If I am blissfully ignorant, I have no clue about what is happening in the world around us.  I believe every word coming from CNN.  I avoid truth at all costs.

Me...I find it difficult to keep track of current world events.  But I see enough to know that unless we get our act together - and soon - we are in for really hard times.  Lately I can see that some in charge are on the right path, but their efforts need to continue.  I still have hope.

What prompted this post was a conversation I had not too long ago.  Questions were asked about my preparedness activities.  And then, in utter disbelief, I was told that all of my efforts are a total waste of time.  I was told that nothing will ever change and everything I would need will always be available.  And to top it off, the opinion of that person was that nothing happening around us would ever have an effect on her.

Me...I am of the opinion that anything can happen without a moment's notice.  Pretty sure those in Pearl Harbor in 1941 when bombs were dropped thought they were safe.  Those victims of storms in the southern states lately have left many homeless, having lost everything.  Just the other day, tornados wreaked havoc in parts of our country.  To say nothing of the crime rates all over our land.

What others think or say matters not to me.  I will continue preparing.  And I will do so even if it turns out that it is never needed.  I pray that is the case.  But just in case my family needs what I can provide, then it is worth every penny spent and every minute used.

My family will not go hungry.  Ever. 

New Family Member

 This is just a short post to let you all know that my third Great Grandchild was born earlier this evening.

Brooks Alexander (last name omitted for privacy) weighed in at 8 lbs. 15 oz.  Both my Granddaughter and her son are just fine.  I expect that proud Papa is fine, too!

Grandmas are allowed to brag.  Great-Grandmas, even more so.  It's in the contract .  :)

Just thought you all might enjoy some good news for a change.

Thank you, God.

Remember When

 I seem to be on a 'nostalgia' kick lately.  Not sure why.  Perhaps it is because the world around us is full of lunatics.  Or quite possibly it is because I am nearing my expiration date and long for the world of my past.

The world where a kid could ride a bike all over town.  Got my first bike at age 6.  When the training wheels came off, I explored my town of between 9 and 10 thousand people, along with several of my peers, with nary a problem.

The world where a kid could safely play at a park, unsupervised.  During my grade school years in the second and third grades, I walked the five blocks to the school in the summer to play on the playground equipment and in winter, to go skating on the outdoor ice-skating rink.  No worries.

A world where, after the family moves to a house in the country, a mile and a half walk to the local two room schoolhouse was fun.  Met up with classmates from neighboring farms on the way.  Played in the creek on the way home.  Good fun for a 4th grader who loves the outdoors.  There was only one problem.  I learned the hard way that one does not call "Here, kitty, kitty" to a litter of baby skunks.  Got sent home from school.  Mom buried my clothes.  Spent the better part of the day in the bathtub, trying to get rid of the aroma.  Sigh.

A world where summer evenings would find neighbors sitting on front porches, coffee or lemonade or maybe a beer in hand, engaged in gentle conversation.  I can recall laughter at the telling of 'Dad jokes,' the talk about neighborhood doings, etc.  No yelling.  No name calling.  No drama that has become commonplace.

A world where neighbors helped one another.  My mother knew how to cut hair, so she trimmed the hair of some of the neighbor ladies.  Dad helped wherever he could.  He wasn't a mechanic by trade, but he was a genius at fixing problems in auto engines.  And he shared his garden produce with the neighbors.  Everyone seemed to get along then.

I understand that there are still places where people get along with their neighbors.  There are people who are kind and generous.  It just seems like this is more the exception now than being the rule.

We need to fix this, if at all possible.  We need to go about our days without having to look over shoulders for danger.  Our kids and grands need to be able to do kid stuff without mommy or daddy watching their every move.  

Mostly, we need to be kind.

Thoughts and Frustrations

 The 'frustration' part comes from having my Internet going away for a few days.  There is such a thing as YouTube Withdrawl.  :)

I have had the same Internet provider for years, through my phone company.  All I wanted was to send back my modem and have them send me a replacement.  We have done this before.  Have you tried to reach a real person at the telephone company lately?  Not likely to happen.  Several phone calls and a rising blood pressure later, the best I could do was schedule repair work for tomorrow.

And after all of that, my modem decided it had been asleep long enough and it is now working.  Go figure!

We talked some time back about how so many now get all upset if Starbucks closes.  So many haven't a clue how to fix most anything.  I wonder how they would survive today under the same conditions as my Grandparents.

The 'thoughts' part comes from a conversation I had with one of my kids.  He was asking about my memories of my Grandparents.  My paternal Grandparents lived in northern Minnesota.  When I was a kid, they had electricity in the house, and they had one of those old wooden telephones on the wall.  And that was about all there was for amenities.  

Cooking and baking and canning was done on a wood burning, cast iron stove.  Heat in the winter came from a wood burning furnace in the basement.  Wood to burn in both was cut, split and dried by the family.  Nobody called anyone to have wood delivered.

Food was kept cool in a wooden ice box.  The cool part happened because the men in the family cut blocks of ice from a local frozen lake, hauled it home on a horse drawn wagon and stacked it, packing it in straw for insulation, in their underground root cellar that they had dug out themselves.  The blocks were brought inside one at a time and set in the ice box.  No electricity plugs there.

Water came from a hand pump located a few feet from the back door of the house.  Drinking water was in a bucket with a dipper in it for drinking.  The bucket was on a stool next to the back door.

Water for cooking and cleaning was hauled in from the pump in buckets.  Water to take a bath came into the house the same way.  Needed hot water?  Pour it into a large kettle and set the kettle on top of the wood stove.

Need to use a bathroom?  Go find the outhouse out back.

Need milk?  Go out to the barn and milk a cow.  Want a pork chop?  Kill a pig.  Same with chickens.  Want vegetables?  Grow a garden.  Need butter?  Separate the milk from the cow to get the cream and churn the butter.

Got the idea?  I'm guessing that those of us who are frightenly close to our expiration date are probably familiar with most of these things.  The kids?  Not so much.  

Perhaps learning the old ways might serve us well.  Just sayin'.

Stretching the Dollar

 This past week I've been working on a quilt for my newest Great-Grand due in March.  Seems like when I am sitting in front of a sewing machine with nothing but fabric pieces to look at, my mind tends to wander.  Lately, what with grocery prices still headed skyward, I try to think of ways to still eat three meals a day without wrecking the budget.

Thinking back to my childhood, some of the ways my mother cooked meals are beginning to make sense.  After all, my family wasn't exactly living high on the hog, so to speak.  Due to Mother's ever worsening arthritis, there were doctor bills and hospital bills in addition to the normal family expenditures.  

My family had one meat and potato meal per week, and that was on Sunday.  Dad was lucky enough to be able to rent out the ten-acre field that was part of our property to a neighbor who paid in beef instead of dollars.  That's where the roast beef for dinner came from.

I wondered for years why Mother always made a pot of rice to go with the chili.  It finally dawned on me that the rice stretched the meal to feed all five of us.  

Bread was always homemade.  Bread made at home cost a lot less than a loaf of bread from the store.

Casseroles were a common meal.  Or, if you live in Minnesota, they are hot dishes.  Goulash, tuna noodle hot dish, chicken and rice hot dish.  You get the idea.

We canned and froze all the food we could lay our hands on. 

I find myself looking at recipes for the kinds of meals Mother made and at the home canned and dehydrated food on my shelves for meals.  Thankfully, I have stockpiled pasta, rice and lots of flour and sugar.  I live on a fixed income.  My cost-of-living increase for Social Security this year was a whopping $44.  Frugality is necessary.

Until inflation is under control, if it ever is, seems to me that a frugal approach is the smart way to go.  Those of us who have been stacking it high over the years find ourselves in a much better place than do those who haven't yet figured out that prices aren't apt to go down any time soon.  It took several years to put us in this mess.  Going to take time to fix it.

Check Grandma's cookbooks for cheap meals.  Continue stacking it high when you find a decent sale.  And pray.  A lot.  We need all the help we can get.

Memories

 While waiting for my groceries be delivered this morning, I have been cleaning up my kitchen.  I seem to have a talent for messing it up.  While working on that, a couple of things occurred to me.

While washing dishes I came upon a set of measuring spoons.  Made of maybe aluminum.  Connected by a metal ring.  The same measuring spoons I used at age 11 when my mother taught me how to bake cookies and cakes and bread.  

There is an aluminum coffee pot sitting on my stove.  One of those that comes apart.  Pot on the bottom, basket for coffee grounds next, container for hot water next and the lid.  This coffee pot is older than I am, and that is saying a lot!  It was the first coffee pot my parents had after they married in 1945.  Dad gave it to me when my handy dandy Mr. Coffee machine went belly-up.  Still makes really good coffee!

There is a Singer sewing machine in a small cabinet sitting in a corner.  Sadly, there is some rust on it due to being stored in a damp basement for a number of years.  I need to have it restored.  There is one part that I want to leave as is.  The piece on top that held a spool of thread broke off.  My Dad, ever frugal, replaced that part with a good-sized nail.  Works just fine.  This sewing machine was purchased in the mid 1950's.  Mother taught me how to sew on this machine.

I'm pretty sure these items mean nothing to the younger set in my family.  Nobody uses what Dad called a "drip-o-later' coffee pot anymore.  And who sews their own clothes now days.  

It isn't the items.  It's the memories and the stories connected to the items.  Measuring spoons used by me when Mother's hands became too crippled with arthritis to knead bread anymore.  The spoons remind me of making loaves and buns and cinnamon rolls, all while standing on a chair at the kitchen counter so I could reach the bread dough.  

Sipping a cup of the best coffee ever, made in that old pot.  Remembering that while in their home, there was always a cup of coffee within reach.  Or teasing them about having a coffee addiction when they couldn't drive 20 miles from home without a thermos of coffee in the back seat.

Learning to sew on that Singer sewing machine and winning a blue ribbon for a skirt and blouse entered at the 4-H building at the County Fair.  Or the wool plaid skirt Mother made for me.  Or the little dresses I sewed on that machine for my own daughters.

Maybe these things and the stories are only important to this old lady, but still, I would hope that someday they might be of interest to those I will leave behind.  Someday.  Not any time soon, but someday.