cmt's Profile

A friend passed on to me the dishes-in-the-oven trick decades ago. Really helpful. Mostly. A friend was coming over with her preschoolers. Didn't get around to the dishes. Put them in the oven. Would have worked except, she is a vegan. I always struggled to second guess what was appropriate for her extremely restricted diet, the details of which were always relayed after the fact. Every visit was a lecture on another forbidden food. Throw in a vegan toddler, double trouble. I begged her to bring food for her kids. She brought veg lasagne...which needed some heating up. No problemo--throw it in the mickey. That's when I learned these people don't cook with electricity. (Huh? Never saw that coming.) "Just put it in the gas oven for a few minutes...." Uber mom (with the immaculate house) doesn't visit any more. Your real friends will love you, dirty dishes and all.
Oh yeah, watch out for the jam-all-the junk-in-shopping-bags-and-toss-them-in-the-garage trick. They store flat and can be easy to yank out in a hurry. The handles make them easy to haul, several at a time. My mom used to do that. Dad threw them out thinking they were trash. Label them, in big letters?? Or unpack in a hurry after guests leave.
Oh yeah, friends might give you advance notice, but mothers-in-law like surprise visits, and they WILL inspect the house.

I've been using rain barrels for a few years now. It all seemed so sweet and simple when I was planning it. Reality check: things go wrong. I have spent the last few years tweaking my system. I would definitely recommend a diverter system that will channel water back into the downspout when the container is full. My rain barrels can fill in 20-30 minutes in a heavy downpour. Then I have to run outside in the rain and switch my flexible downspout to channel into the regular downspout, or have it flood the areas around the barrels. This is not fun. I didn't buy diverters because they cost some serious money, but trust me, if you have the money, it's worth it. Daisy chaining is another alternative, but somehow my adapted olive barrels won't daisy chain. (I bought them with the spouts already installed). I think the angle of the spouts on the shoulders of the barrels is pointing up, and the water doesn't flow out of them.The other problem I have is the plastic has cracked around the spouts and they leak. A leaky rain barrel is as useful as a leaky boat. The spout is only marginally useful for filling a watering can because it is so small. It's much faster to dip the watering can in the top. The spout would work with a hose, as long as the barrel is higher than the garden. My garden is higher than the ground around my house. Water does not run uphill. Rube Goldberg would be amused by my work around for that. As I said, endless tinkering and frustration. When pricing water harvesting systems, include the cost of multiple barrels (you use the water pretty quickly during dry spells), diverters, hoses, and some mosquito dunks. By the way, I broke my dunks into chunks and sewed them into used nylon tea bags. If you do this (and it does work nicely), attach something bright to them (fishing bobs would work) because I've lost some when when scooping water out with a bucket, or upending the barrels to get the last drops out during a drought. I find them. eventually, strewn about the garden. It helps to have something bright to catch your eye. If you don't like the color of your barrel, consider painting it. As for food grade barrels, you can't drink the water, but you definitely want to avoid a recycled barrel that was used to transport chemicals of some kind that might leach into the water from the plastic. One last comment, I save extra water in 5 gallon plastic buckets I happen to have. Sometimes it seems like a ridiculous amount of water, but right now my reserve is gone due to a prolonged dry spell. You never know.

Item six would need to be clean out the kitchen sink and everything within ten feet, after washing a dog in it. Every other cleaning task pales in comparison.

I found it rather dark and nasty, compared to USDS. There was a viciousness to the characters, and very little of the compassion there use to be in the Masterpiece Theatres of the past. I found few sympathetic characters, but many to dislike. It seemed to be the theme of the show. There certainly have been a boatload of shows over the years about the lord and his manor, dripping with lavish settings and period dress. There needs to be more than that, though, to really draw me in. Wickedness is not an end in itself.

Nice to see that Bob is the real deal and not an invention of the marketing department of a conglomerate. I always enjoy using BRM products in my baking. Thanks, Charlee, for getting him started in this biz! As Cary Grant would say, "Good Stuff."

Hear, Hear!! I agree it is a wonderful thing to do to cook for the new mom. My weight dipped below pre-pregnancy level after my son was born because I just couldn't get enough to eat. My husband refused to believe I was as hungry as I was, and no one thought to cook for me. I was too busy and too tired to cook much. Nursing takes an extraordinary about of calorie intake. Hats off to you for your thoughtfulness. Recipes look wonderful, and a good choice for sharing as it reheats nicely and is all the better for sitting till ready for consumption.

Shipping is expensive, so I took three frying pans to my son, when I was visiting him at college, in checked luggage. Needless to say, they opened it to check it out, as evidenced by the "Cleared" sticker they put on it. I can see terrorist training camps covering this issue. As a weapon of choice, the frying pan is probably more aerodynamic, and easier to handle, but being hit by a dutch oven would probably hurt more. Glad I decided to check it. I'd be quite annoyed by having them confiscated. Then again, you could punch someone with your fists and cause some injury....