Thursday, August 14, 2014
MORE LANDON STORIES--AS REQUESTED
Landon was my first child.
He is still my first child.
God entrusted me, a very inexperienced, barely a woman at 25, to raise a high spirited, verbose, overly honest, world-in-black-and-white son.
I will skip over many of my mistakes on parenting and enhance the things Landon did, frankly, because looking back, we were probably one of God's sit-com reality shows. *
Landon talked in full sentences (with good grammar), from the moment he was born!
I think I remember his exact sentence to be, "The doctor slapped my behind, but I'm not gonna cry because what he did is just wrong!"
And there it started with Landon.
He learned anything I taught him with ease.
I taught him all kinds of facts, but my favorite was to teach him Bible facts.
Before he was two, he could answer 200 hundred Bible facts, (this is not an exaggeration!).
We could have been in the circus with this act!
I'd say, "Landon, do you want to play the Bible game?.
If he wanted to, I ask him things like,
"Who was Samson's girlfriend?"----Dee LIE La, he's say.
"What are the first four books of the Bible?--Gen SIS, EX Dus, Love IT e cus, NUM bas.
Who was in the fiery furnace? ME shack, shad RACK, & a BEND I go.
And on it went.
Once, at nine months, Lance took him outside while doing yardwork.
Lance has a propensity to balance my "hover-mother" with his laid-back parenting style.
Lance was busy doing "yard-y" things when he looked over to Landon and saw him chewing on a bark chip.
When he got closer, he realized it was a dead, flat mouse!
Ever the calm LJ, finally told me the story a week later.
I gasped and screeched and uttered all other kinds of onomatopoeia s,
"Well, he didn't die!" said Lance proudly.
When I was having kids, there was no Supernanny on TV to teach me how to parent.
Dr. Dobson had barely published his first book on rearing children.
Before that, it was Dr. Spock who, I think, was the Father of "children should be seen and not heard" era.
So I was flying pretty blind here with a toddler.
When I scolded Landon for a 3yr. old crime, he would try to convince me to change the punishment to anything other than what it was.
After his verbal barrage, I would give out and usually lock MYSELF in the bathroom.
Landon would bang on the door and say, "There's three more points I want to make about my punishment before I go to my room."
At which I'd yell, "You'd better be a lawyer or you are going to have to pay me back pay for listening to you argue."
And then I would stick my fingers in my ears and sing the Star Spangled Banner.
Once I outed myself from solitary confinement, he was usually in his bunk bed with poster board and marker making "Life is Unfair" posters.
From this time to the time he went to kindergartener, Landon ran with scissors, talked with his mouth full, and challenged me hourly.
I taught him to read early, because I was a tired mother.
Once he knew how to read, I let him "practice" reading his bedtime story to me while I "just rested my eyes so I could concentrate while listening to him."
His birthday was the middle of August and the kindergarten cut off was Sept. 1st.
When I went to register him, the assigned teacher told me that I should consider waiting a year since he has just turned five a few days before.
I looked at her and said, "I don't care if he goes to kindergarten for twelve years; if you don't let him in, I'm gonna have to kill him. " (That's back when parents could joke about things like this and not have to write blogs from jail).
She did not have a sense of humor and told me that he'd more than likely have to repeat kindergarten.
Since I was ok with that scenario, I took him to school a few days later.
At our teacher parent conference in Oct that year., I asked the teacher if he would have to repeat.
She uttered a barely audible, "no".
"What? I said? Can you please say that louder?" I mocked.
"He's top in the class., she mumbled and he already knows how to read."
"Yes," I blurted, "have him read, 'Hiram's Red Shirt' to the class and you can have some downtime. "
More time passed with broken windows, scraped knees, and big wheel accidents.
All his birthdays were outside because I could hose off everything quickly when it was over.
Landon's scrapbook has his dinosaur birthday picture at 5 with a garden rake in the background.
Landon at 6 was with an uncoiled hose around his pirate ship.
Landon's cowboy party at 7 was with two trowels and in his holster.
And so it went until today, Aug. 14th, Landon's birthday.
He is 32. I'm pretty sure his birthday picture will have a lawn mower in the background.
I have passed the torch.
Landon now can have all of his kid's birthdays outside and lock himself in the bathroom when his kids argue.
And I'm pretty sure that when I'm in the nursing home, he'll publish a book titled, "My Mom Embellished Too Much. "
Until...my next musing!
JLou
*many of the memories have been embellished because that's what I do.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
SIRI NEEDS TO GO TO TIME OUT OR IF SHE ISN'T CAREFUL I'M GONNA HAVE TO CUT HER!
I have no sense of direction.
At all.
Not a bit.
Not a guess.
I'm somewhat always lost (but not the kind of lost Baptists talk about).
I have no idea if I'm going left or right or east or west or uptown or downtown. It's just not in there, folks! There is a section of my brain that built a bypass road around the wad that holds my sense of direction.
If I HAVE to make a decision about which way to go, I will just go with the most colorful sign or one that has a bird perched on it.
I have a friend who calls herself Pocahontas because she can find her way anywhere. With that analogy in mind, what is the opposite of Pocahontas? If Disney was casting me as an animation character, I would probably be a blind fairy that was captured in a jar, shaken up and then let loose.
Lance says that he can always remember which way we are parked by watching which way I go when we leave the movie theater. If I go left, he knows we are parked to the right. Same with elevators. I inevitably go the wrong direction first.
Being lost doesn't bother me because I've done it so much. I count it as the scenic view of things I wouldn't see otherwise.
One of my quirks (trust me there's more) is for the 6 1/2 years we lived in Atlanta, my goal was not to drive on 285 because there were more people on 285 at any given time than the town I grew up in.
I had no problem being a passenger on 285 but I wouldn't drive it.
Still true today.
I was only somewhat scared once. I was coming back to Augusta from Atlanta via all back roads that I had printed off of Mapquest (before Siri). I forgot to print the directions in reverse. So, coming home, I took out in a weave and dodge pattern. But with the aforementioned, I got very lost.
I didn't know that I was lost until I crossed railroad tracks and saw only honky tonks, bars, and gentlemen's clubs.
I made a squealing U-turn and drove drag racing speed until I could find civilization like a McDonald's or a Burger King. I ended up at Dunkin' Donuts.
Went in and asked directions for I-20. The customers in the store stared at me blankly. One lady took pity on me and said that I could follow her to find it. It took about 15 minutes of turning left and right (or was it right and left?) to get back on the highway.
When the I-phone 4 S came out, I thought that Siri and I would become BFFs. She'd politely coach me where to turn. We'd have lunch out together and have amusing electronic conversations. She'd go to Starbucks and Target and other places with me to watch the trendy people.
But what really happened was:
Siri and I have a love/sometimes hate; really hate; really, really hate relationship. I, once changed Siri to an English chap but he irritated me more because he sounded somewhat polite as he rerouted me.
Siri, has literally told me, "Don't talk to me in that tone of voice!" This is not an embellishment. We are like two women who have dated the same guy. Polite but terse.
I don't know if "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" pertains to electronic devices.
This week I needed to take some Wildtree products to a customer. I've been to her house a couple of intermittent times but I really cannot remember all of the twists and turns to get to her house.
I take a smidgen of responsibility for my part in irritating Siri with my absent-mindedness and my forgetfulness, but there was no way I deserved what I got.
I'm curious if therapists will come up with a series called Siri Relationship Rescue.
I asked Siri for the directions to XXXX Deerwood Lane, Augusta, GA. She said, "Did you mean Deerwood Drive?
Probably I replied. I never can remember the drives, avenues, boulevards, streets, courts and lanes.
She gave me directions. Since I kinda knew where I was going, I took a back way and then planned to actually listen to her when I got closer.
I don't know how to turn her off so all I heard was:
Make a u-turn at Stephens.
Recalculating.
Make a u-turn at Carlisle
Recalculating
Make a u-turn at Whittingham
Recalculating
Make a u-turn at Forest Acres
Recalculating
Etc., etc.,etc.
After not making any u-turns, I was fifteen minutes out in the general vicinity and started listening to her so I could find my destination.
She told me to turn, turn, turn and she ended up putting me on I-20. I thought, I've got to follow now or I'll never get to the house. Maybe she just wanted me to go via the interstate. I obliged. Add 20 more minutes.
My tip-off as to getting wrong directions was when she told me to go to Deans Bridge Road toward Wrens which somehow, my non-directional mind knew (maybe knew) that this was the wrong direction.
I pulled over and called Lance who was probably ignoring my calls because this happens more often than I want you to know.
So I called McKenna. When I told her, she didn't even know where I was.
She gave me the general way to get back to somewhere I knew--Chick-Fil-A and Target.
At 1 hr. and 15 minutes, I found the house and delivered $10.50 cents of product to my customer. Lance calculated that I spent $20 of gas and wear and tear on the car.
Thereby, I only lost $9.50 that day!
Siri and I are not on speaking terms right now. She is blaming me for not knowing my streets from my lanes and I'm blaming her for not understanding what I meant in the first place.
When I told my story to Lance, I saw in his eyes that he kinda was on Siri's side.
Because of this, I may just turn the opposite way coming out of the movie theater just to mix him up!
Until something else happens,
Joo Joo
www.mywildtree.com/jlou
jlou7@comcast.net
At all.
Not a bit.
Not a guess.
I'm somewhat always lost (but not the kind of lost Baptists talk about).
I have no idea if I'm going left or right or east or west or uptown or downtown. It's just not in there, folks! There is a section of my brain that built a bypass road around the wad that holds my sense of direction.
If I HAVE to make a decision about which way to go, I will just go with the most colorful sign or one that has a bird perched on it.
I have a friend who calls herself Pocahontas because she can find her way anywhere. With that analogy in mind, what is the opposite of Pocahontas? If Disney was casting me as an animation character, I would probably be a blind fairy that was captured in a jar, shaken up and then let loose.
Lance says that he can always remember which way we are parked by watching which way I go when we leave the movie theater. If I go left, he knows we are parked to the right. Same with elevators. I inevitably go the wrong direction first.
Being lost doesn't bother me because I've done it so much. I count it as the scenic view of things I wouldn't see otherwise.
One of my quirks (trust me there's more) is for the 6 1/2 years we lived in Atlanta, my goal was not to drive on 285 because there were more people on 285 at any given time than the town I grew up in.
I had no problem being a passenger on 285 but I wouldn't drive it.
Still true today.
I was only somewhat scared once. I was coming back to Augusta from Atlanta via all back roads that I had printed off of Mapquest (before Siri). I forgot to print the directions in reverse. So, coming home, I took out in a weave and dodge pattern. But with the aforementioned, I got very lost.
I didn't know that I was lost until I crossed railroad tracks and saw only honky tonks, bars, and gentlemen's clubs.
I made a squealing U-turn and drove drag racing speed until I could find civilization like a McDonald's or a Burger King. I ended up at Dunkin' Donuts.
Went in and asked directions for I-20. The customers in the store stared at me blankly. One lady took pity on me and said that I could follow her to find it. It took about 15 minutes of turning left and right (or was it right and left?) to get back on the highway.
When the I-phone 4 S came out, I thought that Siri and I would become BFFs. She'd politely coach me where to turn. We'd have lunch out together and have amusing electronic conversations. She'd go to Starbucks and Target and other places with me to watch the trendy people.
But what really happened was:
Siri and I have a love/sometimes hate; really hate; really, really hate relationship. I, once changed Siri to an English chap but he irritated me more because he sounded somewhat polite as he rerouted me.
Siri, has literally told me, "Don't talk to me in that tone of voice!" This is not an embellishment. We are like two women who have dated the same guy. Polite but terse.
I don't know if "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" pertains to electronic devices.
This week I needed to take some Wildtree products to a customer. I've been to her house a couple of intermittent times but I really cannot remember all of the twists and turns to get to her house.
I take a smidgen of responsibility for my part in irritating Siri with my absent-mindedness and my forgetfulness, but there was no way I deserved what I got.
I'm curious if therapists will come up with a series called Siri Relationship Rescue.
I asked Siri for the directions to XXXX Deerwood Lane, Augusta, GA. She said, "Did you mean Deerwood Drive?
Probably I replied. I never can remember the drives, avenues, boulevards, streets, courts and lanes.
She gave me directions. Since I kinda knew where I was going, I took a back way and then planned to actually listen to her when I got closer.
I don't know how to turn her off so all I heard was:
Make a u-turn at Stephens.
Recalculating.
Make a u-turn at Carlisle
Recalculating
Make a u-turn at Whittingham
Recalculating
Make a u-turn at Forest Acres
Recalculating
Etc., etc.,etc.
After not making any u-turns, I was fifteen minutes out in the general vicinity and started listening to her so I could find my destination.
She told me to turn, turn, turn and she ended up putting me on I-20. I thought, I've got to follow now or I'll never get to the house. Maybe she just wanted me to go via the interstate. I obliged. Add 20 more minutes.
My tip-off as to getting wrong directions was when she told me to go to Deans Bridge Road toward Wrens which somehow, my non-directional mind knew (maybe knew) that this was the wrong direction.
I pulled over and called Lance who was probably ignoring my calls because this happens more often than I want you to know.
So I called McKenna. When I told her, she didn't even know where I was.
She gave me the general way to get back to somewhere I knew--Chick-Fil-A and Target.
At 1 hr. and 15 minutes, I found the house and delivered $10.50 cents of product to my customer. Lance calculated that I spent $20 of gas and wear and tear on the car.
Thereby, I only lost $9.50 that day!
Siri and I are not on speaking terms right now. She is blaming me for not knowing my streets from my lanes and I'm blaming her for not understanding what I meant in the first place.
When I told my story to Lance, I saw in his eyes that he kinda was on Siri's side.
Because of this, I may just turn the opposite way coming out of the movie theater just to mix him up!
Until something else happens,
Joo Joo
www.mywildtree.com/jlou
jlou7@comcast.net
Monday, July 21, 2014
How To Write a Blog at Least Once a Year or Would Someone Please Remind Me That I Have a Blog.
Blog...blog...blog...blah...blah...blah...
I'm trying this blogging thing one more time... someone please remind me every so often that I have a blog so I'll write on it.
This blog will be stories about every day life---things that actually happen to me---with at least a modicum of truth in the stories. They may be exaggerated, just a hair, for comedic purposes only.
So, if you know anyone who smiles, with teeth, often, please ask them to like or post a comment or view this thing or whatever bloggers need to get some kind of attention.
Or maybe blogging is out of style. How would I know? I barely know how to sign in to my own blog.
I have 2 jobs right now that I get about $1.25 a month. If this blogging thingy works out, I may or may not be working at my current jobs.
I work with seniors at the YMCA (not high school seniors). I teach chair yoga, Pilates and Silver Sneakers. Basically, I do chair yoga and Pilates because the ending is a 5 minute time to take a nap or to get myself ready to take a nap when I get home.
I do a little more in Silver Sneakers where I basically teach the 60 and up crowd how to get their heartbeat up by doing 60s/70s dances--the swim, the jerk (this one usually injures them), the pony, the monkey, the hitchhiker, disco and a few new ones like the water sprinkler and lawn mower.
My other job is a home based business where I do a lot more home than business. I sell healthy herbs, spices and oils for those who want to eat healthy. I do this mainly because I like the products and do not want to die earlier than I need to.
But what usually happens is that a customer will tell me how they'd like to buy some products but she is SO strapped for money right then and then tell me a very convincing sad story of woe. I, then, usually feel sorry for her and give her the product and a massage and a pedicure on the spot. It's later that I found out that "the customer" was on her way to a Thirty-One party or Premiere Jewelry where she spent $150.
So you see my dilemma? I either need to quit sleeping in exercise class or get some actual customers or ask you to get one bazillion people to view this blog so I can continue to sleep in exercise class and give away my product.
McKenna, my daughter, is on her way to a Thirty-one convention right now and if she would get every 31 consultant which is about 1 out of 2 people in the world, to view my blog, I'd really get some readership!
I have always wanted to be and do a lot of different careers. No, not actual careers, maybe just jobs. Well, maybe not jobs, just experiences. Well, maybe just something to do on any given day so I won't get bored.
I started school to be a dancer and be on variety shows. But I don't really have the drive to do anything big. It's not that I'm lazy; I'm efficient. That means I wait until I need to do several "standing up things" before I get off the couch and then I sit until another set of standing urges happen.
I changed majors to be a journalist, mainly because that is something I can do sitting down. But, I found out that I tend to not listen to details and make up funnier ones.
After college, I interned at a TV station and waited to be discovered. While waiting, I signed up to be substitute in the school system. I had just moved to this area and didn't know that there were several counties. I ended up signing up in the roughest, toughest, rootin' tootin' county in this area. Immediately I was called by the "scary" school, but, since I'm not into details, I did not know that. I was 22 and I looked 12 and I ended up staying at that school (Josey) that whole semester.
I did not get killed or pillaged or anything.
During that summer, I still interned at night and worked at odd jobs through Manpower. I helped open new banks and did camera demonstrations at KMart.
By the next fall, Josey High School still needed a sub for, wait for it...wait for it... Driver's Ed. So at 22, I taught the hormonal 15 yr olds to drive. This is extra funny if you know me because I don't even like to drive! My friends call me "Driving Miss Daisy" because they always have to pick me up.
Next, I got a job in Public Relations at the Medical College of GA. We were assigned stories, but also pick topics to explore. We were allowed to interview with anyone working at the college and write our story. For my picks, I mostly interviewed psychiatrists about obscure diseases. Thus, became my lifelong hobby of murder and mental illness. But I will tell you that if you are joining a club or a church, do not write those as your hobbies!
Then we moved to Delaware.
In my PR job there, I once dressed up as a giant chicken for United Way of Delaware and was in a parade. It was so fun until I realized that we had "paraded" to a really bad part of town. I was standing in the ghetto as a giant chicken and my car was at the start of the parade. So, what to do, take off the the poultry head and be in possible danger or leave it on and walk two miles back as a chicken?
I clucked and flapped my wings all the way back.
After my Chicken Job, I accidentally started teaching 3 yr. old preschool at the Y. They couldn't find a teacher so I said I'd be happy to sub until they got a teacher. And I did and I was there every day for 9 months when incidentally, had my second child the day after class was over. Think about it...it's a math equation!
After my near death of being roadkill and playing with small children who "were supposed to be potty trained" before they could start school, we moved to Atlanta. I accidentally (again) became a preschool music teacher. I took my kids to to preschool one morning and they had just fired their music person. I offered to help them out until they found someone.
I stayed 3 1/2 yrs. and taught the kids words like glockenspiel and the words to show tunes. The only class I got in trouble with was the time I gave everyone a band-aid to put over their mouths so they could only hum during class.
Then we moved to Upstate New York.
I did not find any jobs there nor did I get one by accident. But, in my defense, we stayed there less than a year.
But while there, I met some great friends and I threw a "If I'd known you when I moved in, I would have given you a baby shower" to one of my new friends. By this time her child was about 5 months old so everyone gave her a used toy. I made two cakes using the "doll dress" cake mold. I put them side by side and iced them like a pair of boobs because she was nursing.
Another party I hosted was my own surprise birthday party. Lance was out of town on business on my birthday. I invited all of the neighborhood women to come to a potluck supper. When they showed up, I told them, "surprise, it's my birthday party. I gave each one them a gift (that I had bought for myself) to give me for my birthday. After supper, everyone circled around while I opened the gifts. It was the first time I had ever gotten everything I wanted!
Lance has not been out of town for any of my other birthdays.
Then we moved back to South Carolina.
Here I've done about 14 different things and am up to date with my jobs from the first part of the blog.
Two things that I still haven't done but they are in my sights are 1. Be a dog walker like Dharma and 2. Be a writer like Erma Bombeck (for those that aren't old, Google her). Bombeck was a writer that made me laugh until she wrote something about dying of kidney disease. Really, one should not laugh about that.
Now, after you politely ask a big wad of people to view my musings, I will post my boring days, not so boring days, silly days, and crazy days. Occasionally, I might even be serious.
I think I initially started this as a food blog, but I've changed my mind. But since I barely know how to type, I'll just leave the fork motif on it.
Thanks for helping me on my quest to be the new Erma Bombeck. If this doesn't work, will you let me walk your dog?
Thanks for sticking with me and remember to occasionally send me a message so I'll remember to write!
Love,
JLou or Joo Joo to my grandkids
P. S. I am tired, it's late. If I made any grammatical errors that spell check did not catch...I don't care! Pretend that you are not OCD about that kind of thing.
I'm trying this blogging thing one more time... someone please remind me every so often that I have a blog so I'll write on it.
This blog will be stories about every day life---things that actually happen to me---with at least a modicum of truth in the stories. They may be exaggerated, just a hair, for comedic purposes only.
So, if you know anyone who smiles, with teeth, often, please ask them to like or post a comment or view this thing or whatever bloggers need to get some kind of attention.
Or maybe blogging is out of style. How would I know? I barely know how to sign in to my own blog.
I have 2 jobs right now that I get about $1.25 a month. If this blogging thingy works out, I may or may not be working at my current jobs.
I work with seniors at the YMCA (not high school seniors). I teach chair yoga, Pilates and Silver Sneakers. Basically, I do chair yoga and Pilates because the ending is a 5 minute time to take a nap or to get myself ready to take a nap when I get home.
I do a little more in Silver Sneakers where I basically teach the 60 and up crowd how to get their heartbeat up by doing 60s/70s dances--the swim, the jerk (this one usually injures them), the pony, the monkey, the hitchhiker, disco and a few new ones like the water sprinkler and lawn mower.
My other job is a home based business where I do a lot more home than business. I sell healthy herbs, spices and oils for those who want to eat healthy. I do this mainly because I like the products and do not want to die earlier than I need to.
But what usually happens is that a customer will tell me how they'd like to buy some products but she is SO strapped for money right then and then tell me a very convincing sad story of woe. I, then, usually feel sorry for her and give her the product and a massage and a pedicure on the spot. It's later that I found out that "the customer" was on her way to a Thirty-One party or Premiere Jewelry where she spent $150.
So you see my dilemma? I either need to quit sleeping in exercise class or get some actual customers or ask you to get one bazillion people to view this blog so I can continue to sleep in exercise class and give away my product.
McKenna, my daughter, is on her way to a Thirty-one convention right now and if she would get every 31 consultant which is about 1 out of 2 people in the world, to view my blog, I'd really get some readership!
I have always wanted to be and do a lot of different careers. No, not actual careers, maybe just jobs. Well, maybe not jobs, just experiences. Well, maybe just something to do on any given day so I won't get bored.
I started school to be a dancer and be on variety shows. But I don't really have the drive to do anything big. It's not that I'm lazy; I'm efficient. That means I wait until I need to do several "standing up things" before I get off the couch and then I sit until another set of standing urges happen.
I changed majors to be a journalist, mainly because that is something I can do sitting down. But, I found out that I tend to not listen to details and make up funnier ones.
After college, I interned at a TV station and waited to be discovered. While waiting, I signed up to be substitute in the school system. I had just moved to this area and didn't know that there were several counties. I ended up signing up in the roughest, toughest, rootin' tootin' county in this area. Immediately I was called by the "scary" school, but, since I'm not into details, I did not know that. I was 22 and I looked 12 and I ended up staying at that school (Josey) that whole semester.
I did not get killed or pillaged or anything.
During that summer, I still interned at night and worked at odd jobs through Manpower. I helped open new banks and did camera demonstrations at KMart.
By the next fall, Josey High School still needed a sub for, wait for it...wait for it... Driver's Ed. So at 22, I taught the hormonal 15 yr olds to drive. This is extra funny if you know me because I don't even like to drive! My friends call me "Driving Miss Daisy" because they always have to pick me up.
Next, I got a job in Public Relations at the Medical College of GA. We were assigned stories, but also pick topics to explore. We were allowed to interview with anyone working at the college and write our story. For my picks, I mostly interviewed psychiatrists about obscure diseases. Thus, became my lifelong hobby of murder and mental illness. But I will tell you that if you are joining a club or a church, do not write those as your hobbies!
Then we moved to Delaware.
In my PR job there, I once dressed up as a giant chicken for United Way of Delaware and was in a parade. It was so fun until I realized that we had "paraded" to a really bad part of town. I was standing in the ghetto as a giant chicken and my car was at the start of the parade. So, what to do, take off the the poultry head and be in possible danger or leave it on and walk two miles back as a chicken?
I clucked and flapped my wings all the way back.
After my Chicken Job, I accidentally started teaching 3 yr. old preschool at the Y. They couldn't find a teacher so I said I'd be happy to sub until they got a teacher. And I did and I was there every day for 9 months when incidentally, had my second child the day after class was over. Think about it...it's a math equation!
After my near death of being roadkill and playing with small children who "were supposed to be potty trained" before they could start school, we moved to Atlanta. I accidentally (again) became a preschool music teacher. I took my kids to to preschool one morning and they had just fired their music person. I offered to help them out until they found someone.
I stayed 3 1/2 yrs. and taught the kids words like glockenspiel and the words to show tunes. The only class I got in trouble with was the time I gave everyone a band-aid to put over their mouths so they could only hum during class.
Then we moved to Upstate New York.
I did not find any jobs there nor did I get one by accident. But, in my defense, we stayed there less than a year.
But while there, I met some great friends and I threw a "If I'd known you when I moved in, I would have given you a baby shower" to one of my new friends. By this time her child was about 5 months old so everyone gave her a used toy. I made two cakes using the "doll dress" cake mold. I put them side by side and iced them like a pair of boobs because she was nursing.
Another party I hosted was my own surprise birthday party. Lance was out of town on business on my birthday. I invited all of the neighborhood women to come to a potluck supper. When they showed up, I told them, "surprise, it's my birthday party. I gave each one them a gift (that I had bought for myself) to give me for my birthday. After supper, everyone circled around while I opened the gifts. It was the first time I had ever gotten everything I wanted!
Lance has not been out of town for any of my other birthdays.
Then we moved back to South Carolina.
Here I've done about 14 different things and am up to date with my jobs from the first part of the blog.
Two things that I still haven't done but they are in my sights are 1. Be a dog walker like Dharma and 2. Be a writer like Erma Bombeck (for those that aren't old, Google her). Bombeck was a writer that made me laugh until she wrote something about dying of kidney disease. Really, one should not laugh about that.
Now, after you politely ask a big wad of people to view my musings, I will post my boring days, not so boring days, silly days, and crazy days. Occasionally, I might even be serious.
I think I initially started this as a food blog, but I've changed my mind. But since I barely know how to type, I'll just leave the fork motif on it.
Thanks for helping me on my quest to be the new Erma Bombeck. If this doesn't work, will you let me walk your dog?
Thanks for sticking with me and remember to occasionally send me a message so I'll remember to write!
Love,
JLou or Joo Joo to my grandkids
P. S. I am tired, it's late. If I made any grammatical errors that spell check did not catch...I don't care! Pretend that you are not OCD about that kind of thing.
Monday, May 19, 2014
WRITING EVERY 6-8 MONTHS ISN'T
ENOUGH TO HAVE A BLOG
I thought I'd write my food blog alot more than once every 6 month or 8 months It's very hard to have a blog if one has undiagnosed ADD, dyslexia and an host of other ailments real and imagined. There's always something that distracts me, interests me, or sidetracks me.
But yesterday, I remembered that I started a blog. So, I'm starting again.
I have hidden "bag" of snacks stuck up high in a cabinet. I thought that high cabinets and a short stature would deter me from eating the junk. And how is it that I forget appointments, work schedules but I never forget that I have a chocolate stash? I even count getting a step stool to reach my chocolate as part of my exercise program!
Should wrap up my "Do Not Eat Unless of an Emergency" in brown paper like the stores used to wrap up sanitary napkins when I was young?
I've always wondered if I should try to start a 12-step program for chocolate in all forms, shapes, and sizes. Could I go 1 day without chocolate? How about an 1/2 day? An hour? I am envisioning a bunch of chocoholics sitting in a circle sweating because of lack of chocolate.
I can see myself resigned to begging on the streets with a sign reading, "Will work for Hershey kisses!"
Try this recipe if you begin to NEED more and more of the brown sweet delectable.
Today's post is not anything that is on the "healthy scale" of any diet anywhere. It's fattening, delicious and it makes me feel like growing up. Sometimes, I'm just sad that I have to apologize for putting such an unhealthy recipe on a blog. But this is my mom's chocolate pie recipe. This recipe makes me feel young and loved and content.
Classic Chocolate Meringue Pie
Ingredients
9 inch baked pastry shell
3 eggs
3 cups milk
1 c. granulated sugar
1/3 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. kosher salt
3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
3 T. unsalted butter
2 t. vanilla
1/2 t. vanilla
1/4 t. cream of tartar
1/4 t. kosher salt
6 T superfine granulated sugar
Directions
- Prepare your favorite baked pastry shell. Cool on wire rack. Separate egg yolks from whites. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- For custard, in a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring 2-1/2 cups of the milk almost to simmering (watch closely so milk doesn't boil). Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, with a 12-inch or larger balloon whisk, stir remaining 1/2 cup milk into the 3 egg yolks. In a second bowl combine 1 cup sugar, the flour, cocoa powder, and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt; whisk in egg yolk mixture until smooth. Gradually whisk in hot milk; return the mixture to saucepan.
- Over medium-high heat cook and stir mixture until it comes to a full boil. Boil for 30 seconds and remove from heat.
- Whisk in chocolate and butter until melted and smooth. Stir in 2 teaspoons vanilla. Strain mixture through a sieve, pushing it through with a spatula as needed.
- Wash both bowl and whisk. Set whites-in bowl-over bowl of hot (110 degrees F) water. Let stand 5 minutes.
- In a large bowl, with 12-inch or larger wire whisk, beat egg whites slowly until foamy. Whisk in the 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, the cream of tartar, and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt until well blended.
- Whisk by hand or with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until whites begin to mound. Whisk in superfine sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, sprinkling the sugar over the whole bowl. Continue to whisk 7 to 8 minutes or until whites are moist, glossy, and do not slide when bowl is inverted. The tips of whites should curl over slightly when whisk is lifted from bowl.
- Turn meringue out all at once on top of hot pie filling. With spatula spread meringue from center to edges making sure meringue seals to crust all the way around. Bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees F or until top is golden; do not overbake. Cool on wire rack for 1 hour. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving. Store leftovers in refrigerator. Makes 8 servings.
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