abcornwell's Profile

I enjoy April and May here, and June if it doesn't get too hot and humid. But, dang! Biting insects, 90% humidity, no breezes, and 90 - 100 degrees doesn't make for much outdoor fun. A little 6:30 am gardening and a short respite under the umbrella on the deck and that's it!

Huh. Ice cream melts? I guess I've never eaten ice cream that slowly. ;>

I love the title of this post. I thought "Well, they think of everything nowadays! You can rent a vacation house already supplied with children!" (You know,, for those who are childless but yearn for a summer vacation a la all the magazine pages they've seen recently.)

Sometimes a meal of Swiss steak (cube steak, floured & browned, with sauteed onions, celery, and stewed tomatoes all simmered together) and mashed potatoes just hits the spot. I might prepare this once a year, probably in cold weather. It's definitely a "Mom used to make this" meal!

My first house was next to a family of drunks and nasty juvenile delinquents who vandalized my home, sprayed weed killer on my perennial beds, traipsed through my back yard one night and ripped up every tomato plant, and so on. I put up a big fence, for sure. That was most effective. Calling the cops, not so much. Did I have proof that they were doing these things, beyond what my eyes saw? Well, no, this was pre-smartphone days. I would have had to lug around a camera all the time. Plus, the shits were angels when anyone was around. After we put in a surveillance system w/a web cam things calmed down. A bit. I was able to get a restraining order against the Dad, who ended up getting hauled off to jail overnight because he got in the officer's face. Ugh. Thus my desire to live in the middle of 5 acres, with no one around. I'm working on it!

You folks are sooo good. Freezing, portioning, small spoons, some of just can't have sweet stuff around. Unless someone else hides it. And we can't smell it. Or follow a trail of crumbs ... *sigh*

I often sub soy (or other) milk for dairy, which has worked pretty well. Also, Allrecipes.com has a search by ingredient function, alowing you to exclude and include ingredients, which has proven helpful to me many times. Last but not least, I just Googled "substitute dairy in baking" and found quite a few useful links.

Let's see ... 3 large monitors (yes, I need them), Mac mini, back-up drives, routers, microphone, headset, mouse, keyboard, digital drawing tablet, Uniden phone (yes a landline), Hoops & Yoyo plush toys, clamp on lamp ... whew!

Whoa! High wasted jeans!!! Party on!

After reading these stories I am so glad that I was so shy that there was NO WAY ever that I could have had a roommate. I grew up in an area of reasonably priced rental housing, so that helped make it possible.