I do not make a very big deal out of New Year celebrating. We will have an extra nice dinner, but not a feast after all of the rich, fatty foods of the season and the energy expended to make it all. New Years is a kind of winding down holiday for me. The children had their Santa visit and after days of preparing for it and some cleaning up after, I keep things simple and low key after all someone has to pack up all those Christmas decorations and nag someone to put them in storage but that wi...
Continue reading ...

I had to leave this blog alone for a bit because I found myself being spread a bit thin. I forgot for a time that the rule is. Take care of yourself first so that you have the strength to take care of others.

When you have a family that you love and you want to make every Christmas a special memory, it is easy to forget your own needs. You don't even have to be mobility impaired to be affected by the "Holiday Exhaustion." Impaired people just get a little more worn out, faster. It is important...
Continue reading ...

This time of year can be pretty difficult for a lot of us. The weather becomes colder and damper. That alone can cause flare ups in those of us who's pain worsens and gets better like the tides of the ocean. As you can see, I am no stranger to pain. In fact, if you were to live daily with me, you would know the bad days simply by how I rattle like a pharmacist's tote bag when I move. Before you get the wrong idea, you should know that I try very hard to keep the narcotics usage way down, simp...
Continue reading ...

Every year the day before Thanksgiving, is pie and prep day. This is the day that makes "The Ginormous Feast" quite a bit less stressfull if it is handled right. By now you have shopped for everything and you know your menue. Now is the time to sit down, go over all the recipes and think what can be done ahead of time, on pie day.

Pie! First thing in the morning, after making sure the kitchen is really clean and as uncluttered as possible, we bake the pies and any other desert someone has made...

Continue reading ...

This afternoon I am going to Safeway to shop for the ingredients for our Thanksgiving feast.  We are going today for two reasons. Number 1, it takes about a week in the refridgerator to defrost a turkey of the size that I hope to find, around 20 pounds. And number 2, my daughter Elmo, goes to college every day and also has a job at a local motel front desk, so we have to work around these things in order to fit in the regular, Living Life stuff in.

For the last week or so, we have been making ...
Continue reading ...

I am fortunate to have enough room for a workshop. One corner is devoted to making soap, one for long running restoration projects and one corner is for whatever craft or project that suits my fancy at the moment.  I can hear you saying, "Wait a second... Rooms usually have four corners... huh?" Well the fourth corner is unfortunately the never ending project of laundry, both dirty and clean.

Why am I sharing my workshop with you?  Actually there are two really good reasons for this post.

The f...
Continue reading ...

Every year around this time, my thoughts turn to the smell of roasting turkey and baking pumpkin pies and the delegation of cooking chores. Delegation does take a bit of planning in order for things to go smoothly and that is why I am discussing them now.  I usually start the process of seeing who is doing what on Halloween.

I love having the Thanksgiving feast. What I don't love is being too exhausted to enjoy it so over the last several years, I have learned to put my trust in my loved ones....
Continue reading ...

Halloween is on monday and if there are children in your life, it is time to celebrate! In order to do this, I focus on the things that I can do rather then the things I can't. For instance, I can't go on the trick or treating run, but I can make the annual freaky feast of Blood-N-Guts, (spaghetti with a super thick meat sauce) Garlic Bones (bread sticks formed from either ready made dough or from my bread machine) and rotten teeth (whole kernel corn, half dyed green, and mixed together after...
Continue reading ...