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Critter

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Everything posted by Critter

  1. When my two oldest dd's (now 23 and 21) were 5 and 3, one of my good friends gave us a hand painted cermamic nativity set. As I was unpacking it I said to them, "This is very fragile, so don't touch it. It's not to play with, just to look at. My friend made this so it's very special." At which point the box tipped out of my hands and crashed to the floor. At least half of the pieces were chipped or broken. I glued it back together as best I could, but the cow is missing a horn, one of the camels was beyond repair, and the donkeys have no ears. Somehow the Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, and the angel made it through intact. I still put it out every year and wince at the reaction I might have had if it had been the girls who had chipped it. Once the "new" was off of it, I let them play with it and I'm sure they got much more good out of it that way. Don't sweat the small stuff. Before you know it, they'll be adults.
  2. I'd just like to add to all the other suggestions that I would try not to let it turn into a debate with her. Sometimes kids like to argue just for arguments sake, or because they've found a parent's button to push. I would explain to her why you personally believe, and explain to her that even people like Mother Teresa sometimes had doubts. Advent is the perfect time to keep the conversation productive because our Catholic culture has so many beautiful traditions concerning the incarnation. Sometimes something as simple as lighting an advent wreath and reading a short devotional can do wonders to change the subject into one of belief instead of unbelief. Actions can speak louder than words.
  3. I love my UPS driver...because I'm married to him. I don't think most people realize what a difficult job they have. Most people wash out and can't even do it. Great salary and benefits though.
  4. I think the worst thing about having to clean up my MIL's mess was that for such a long time I wasn't able to think about her in a positive light. It's a painful experience to feel angry at someone that you cared about who is now dead. I found out things about my FIL that I really would have rather not known. After those "discoveries" when I thought about what life was like for my MIL, I would be overcome with sorrow. I also felt sadness for my husband and his four siblings, wondering how they managed to grow up whole and healthy, and realizing that not all of them did. As a small child my husband slept alone in an unfinished and poorly lit basement filled to the brim with junk. He had to climb over junk to get to his bed. He was ashamed to have friends over and still has "issues" when company is coming and I give the house a special cleaning. Cleaning up the mess was therapeutic for him, although it was very emotionally draining too. I have a new respect for him because I know now the extent of what he suffered through as a kid and what he "rose above." The hoarding situation he grew up in wasn't the worst of what he went through, but I won't go into that. He never complained. I don't know how he managed to stay strong and solid like he has, I honestly don't think many people could have managed it. My MIL was 86 when she passed away. She refused help until nearly the end of her life, often she wouldn't even invite me into the house when I dropped by and would stand on the porch to talk to me. She failed very quickly at the end of her life. She spent a couple weeks in the hospital and a month in the nursing home. I wonder if she worried the whole time about who was going to clean up the mess and what they would find. Just like the show, I think her story is a very good cautionary tale for those who have hoarding tendencies.
  5. My MIL died a year ago and in the last year we logged over 450 hours of work cleaning out her house. Eight commercial dumpsters, and dozens of pickup loads to the dump, and a year later we were able to put the house on the market as a fixer-upper and sell it. We literally used scoop shovels in parts of the basement. They kept everything; we even found old razor blades among the scraps of paper, broken glass, and general filth. Do I sound bitter? I will never do this to my children.
  6. Bummer! This same thing happened to me this week, only my old fridge was ten years old so I didn't even bother getting it looked at. I've been wanting a new fridge anyway, because I'm tired of the mess from the water and ice in the door. I was able to get a black french door style 25 cubic foot capacity fridge with freezer on the bottom for about $1000 at Sears. The nice thing is that it has more storage than my old one because it has no water or ice in the door and the bottom freezer is roomier. It has an icemaker with a scoop and I bought a water filter for our sink faucet so we can still have filtered water. It seems like a better buy than an expensive repair to me, because it's new and has a warranty.
  7. I have three pressure cookers and two large crockpots, and I consider them all to be essential kitchen tools; however, if I had to choose between them I would choose the crockpot. They're more versatile. And I'm afraid to cook dried beans in the pressure cooker ever since my aunt was burned badly while cooking them when the pressure valve became clogged and the cooker exploded. The pressure cooker works very well for green beans and making stock quickly and is a time saver. One of our favorite meals is green bean stew, which I usually make with venison or chevon, onions, garlic, salt, pepper, and water. It's much faster in the pressure cooker and tastes better too.
  8. I read somewhere that if you put your luggage in the shower/tub of the hotel room instead of on the furniture or luggage racks that the bedbugs won't climb aboard and hitch a ride home. I wonder if that works. I also wonder if all the preventative techniques only serve to make people feel better about the situation because they feel they have some control. Whether the control measures work or not, worrying about it too much could ruin a person's vacation or keep us from enjoying guests. That seems worse than bedbugs to me.
  9. Botulism is very dangerous and can make people very sick, or even kill them, especially small children. I wouldn't use honey in canning recipes unless you are following a recipe that calls for pressure canning instead of a hot water bath. When I make jams and jellies I just sterilize the jars and lids before I pour the boiling jelly into them, tighten the lids and invert them on a towel for five minutes. After they are turned back upright they will seal fairly quickly. If any don't seal I store them in the fridge and use them first.
  10. My oldest daughter has this exact same problem; her poor underarms were raw and sore. She started using the hypoallergenic deoderant/anti-perspirant from Clinique and has never had a problem since. It's a little more expensive than regular store brands, but it lasts a very long time and was very worth it.
  11. "I was clear about delineating between other teachings and those of Paul (who to my mind often argues the opposite message of other sciptures). But for Paul's position I'd point you to 1 Corinthians 7 which includes: Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.... Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion." --Spy Car This made me think of some quotes I came across recently: "What else gives rise to so many heresies, except that the Scripture, which is excellent in itself, is falsely interpreted?" --St. Augustine "The devil can quote Scripture to his purpose."-- Shakespeare I don't really think we need to bring Scripture into the discussion about the purpose of marriage, natural law will be sufficient. The editors at NR said it very well, "Marriage exists, in other words, to solve a problem that arises from sex between men and women but not from sex between partners of the same gender: what to do about its generativity." They said a lot more that made a very good defense of traditional marriage, but I can't quote the entire article here.
  12. I was also thinking that finding a fun toy to play with in the front yard would be a good idea. Something like a model rocket; that always draws a crowd of boys in our neighborhood. And then admonish them that they are perfectly welcome to be included in your fun if they remember to be perfectly welcoming to others in their fun.
  13. This is an interesting article that speaks to the issues that Teatime wrote about in her post. www.nationalreview.com/articles/245649/case-marriage-editors
  14. Which ferrier school did he attend? My brother went to a school in Oklahoma and does hot, cold, and corrective shoeing in western Colorado.
  15. We have a similiar situation with our seventeen year old daughter. She was reluctant to drive after getting her permit. After having held it for a couple months she had only accumulated 2 1/2 hours of driving time. One of our favorite neighbors strongly encouraged her to get behind the wheel and drive her brother to football practice. "You won't have a wreck or anything. It will be fine." Ten minutes after dropping ds off at practice we were sitting by the side of the road in a totalled car, the victims of a hit and run driver, waiting for the state patrol to come so I could give the license number of the truck that plowed into us. A year later she is only half way to the number of hours needed in order to take the test. The wreck really shook her up, and I have to admit that it shook me up too. I can't imagine that we would have been able to get her to drive at all if she had impatient driver's ed instructors. Does she have an aunt, uncle, or good friend that could drive with her and even go with her to the test? That's the only way I was able to pass my test (third time was the charm). Sometimes we make our kids more nervous without realizing it.
  16. For our tenth wedding anniversary I asked for a goat and I got a goat. She was the beginning of our little farm and we named her Schwanli because we had recently read Heidi.
  17. In our home town we have a statue in honor Mike the Headless Chicken, along with a whole weekend of festival in honor of Mike. So, yes, I can attest that it's true, if tacky. Our family raises chickens for meat and eggs, but we're very careful to be humane in how we dispatch them.
  18. Do you have Ricki Carroll's book Home Cheese Making? The recipe for goat milk mozzarella is very different than the cow milk recipe. I had a lot of trouble making cheese with rennet tablets, so I only use liquid rennet now and the batch turns out every time.
  19. If the milk is ultra pastuerized that might cause trouble. Are you using liquid rennet? Are you using a recipe specifically for goat's milk?
  20. Hello! I'm from Western Colorado too.
  21. I think it's morning glory, anyway it looks exactly like the morning glory I have in my garden. I has pretty blue or purple flowers that spread seed that will be coming up all over the place for years and years to come. If you don't like it, I would get rid of it before it flowers. I once let it grow up a trellis for the summer and the base of the vine grew to be about five inches in diameter.
  22. I just finished The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and I really loved it.
  23. My mom has a fabulous recipe for yellow crooked neck squash. Slice it into 1/4" rounds. Dip it in egg and milk mixture, then dredge in flour. Fry it in a skillet in butter with plenty of salt and pepper. When it's brown on one side, flip it and fry, salt and pepper the other side. It is DELICIOUS and very bad for you.
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