Our predecessors had faith in our brainpower

Polly came home from work this morning with her arms full of karo syrup, molasses, chocolate chips, brown sugar, and powdered sugar which were 6 months old so were being thrown away. Now, these all happen to be things that I currently am well stocked on anyway so I thought that I would look for a spice cake recipe and see if I could use up some of the molasses anyway. Plus, it is so frigidly cold out that I need to have the oven on anyway, and Grandma will eat cake 3x a day if I have it baked, so....

I found this recipe that gave me a good laugh. It is Grandma Fish's recipe written in Aunt Polly's hand writing. In this day and age of describing every step in detail, often accompanied by pictures of each step, this really strikes you in its lack of detail. It is written assuming that you know how to bake a cake and know when it is done, etc. The following is the recipe exactly as I found it.

Ivy's Molasses Cake

2/3 cup molasses
fill cup with brown sugar

1/2 cup shortening
fill cup with hot water

1 egg

sift together
1-1/2 cups flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger

That was it. I made it up, yum. When I make cookbooks of Grandma's recipes for her grandchildren I will have to include a copy of this page as it is written. There is another recipe on there for a sponge cake that I have to mess with to figure out as the corner is torn off which says how much flour is called for, oh details, who needs them.

Of course as I made my icing for the cake, I realized that my own recipes are such exact things of science.

My Icing of Choice

When cake goes in oven put 1 stick of butter and 1/2 package of cream cheese in small mixing bowl and set on top of stove to soften while cake is baking because it should have been taken out of the fridge earlier to soften but I did not think that far ahead. Now, if there is anywheres from a half to somewhat more than a stick of butter soft use that, same with cream cheese, if there is an open package, that is probably the right amount. When it is soft, or Grandma has said 10 times "Is the cake ready?" so you figure you had better get making icing, mix at whatever speed the mixer wants to work at today until light and fluffy. Add a dollap of vanilla that you think is about a teaspoons worth (at least) and a much smaller dollap of almond extract (more like a 1/4 teaspoonish). Then pour in powdered sugar until you either use up that bag, or a few really small part bags that you just discovered in the back of the cabinet, or you think it is enough. If to moist pour some more, if too dry add a few drops of milk/heavy cream/half and half or whatever is in the fridge. Ice cake. Cut Grandma a slice and pour her a glass of milk and politely hand it to her, even though by now she has asked 20 more times and you are beginning to feel like stuffing it down her throat, but you are a good person so you do not do that.

There, now wasn't that just so much more precise?

By the way, the cake is very good.

Sea Kitten

There was an item on the news this morning that PETA wants fish to start being called sea kitten because they feel that it shows the warm cuddly nature of fish better. I want to know what type of fish the PETA people have seen that are warm and cuddly, as those are not the primary adjectives that come to my mind for fish, but this is not the first time that I have felt that PETA has never been closer to an animal than the Bronx Zoo. I must say that PETA has won on this one though, when asked what she would like for lunch, Grandma said that a sea kitten sandwich sounded tasty. We will no longer eat tuna in this house, from now on it is sea kitten all the way!

Actually, we will be picking up Oscar and Cindy (our pigs) Monday from their extreme makeovers and personality adjustments, so sea kitten will become a rare treat around here. What would PETA think about the fact that we had Goose's trophy (Best of Show Poultry at our county fair in August) sitting right next to her on the Christmas dinner table?

Nothing happened today!

It may sound strange but after the last few days today was blissfully uneventful. It was wonderful! Sometimes it takes a bit of trauma to make you appreciate dullness.

Last night this stomach bug that we have been suffering with here was making noxious odors emit from every possible part of my husband. I was so happy to have him home safe and well that I was still able to cuddle him and not even mind. I just snuggled down with him and listened to the storm blow outside and pulled off half a dozen different things that they had left stuck to him in the hospital. They were even so nice that they left them stuck to lots of hair for me to pull too. hehehe

Today, I spent a nice boring day tackling the disaster that the house has become. I got the tree down, and it is only 2 days after Epiphany too! I packed all but one box of decorations up correctly, the last box I will get done tomorrow, then I need to get them put in the closet. I cleaned the back kitchen and the bathroom/laundry room, including washing almost all of the laundry. At least there is no laundry in there from before today. I hit a few high spots in the kitchen, it still looks like it has been looted, but I got a start on it. I washed 3 drain racks of dishes, by no means all of them, but at least now the dirty ones fit on the one part of the counter next to the sink.

Now, the next most important thing on my list is to bathe me. I did talk smelly hubby into the shower earlier, between collapsing on the feed mill floor, all the stuff they smeared him with in the hospital, and topping it all off with last nights bug he was slightly odoriferous. Now I think that I am the one who stinks to bad to sleep with me tonight. I hate it when I crawl into bed and me and myself try to kick I out of bed because she stinks too much.

Ain't boredom great!

Another Day, what more can I say?

I am extremely exhausted right now, but need to do some stuff before I go to bed, but sat down for a minute and the laptop jumped onto my lap, so of course I started reading, now writing a post seems better than dishes and laundry. I know that the phone will be ringing so if I go upstairs to bed I will have to run back down.

Polly finally made it home after bringing the ice storm up from Virginia with her at 3 this morning. I managed to say hello to her and give her a hug before I stumbled up to bed. The ice blowing against the house and my bladder woke me at 8:30 and I tried to call Mike but could not get through, it turns out he was having his stress test then. Polly was naturally dragging, and not knowing what was going to be happening in the hospital we decided that I would go into Albany alone and she would stay here with Grandma and get chores done. The trip to Albany was terrible, icy nasty roads all the way, even the Thruway was bad, so I spent over 3 hours going 70 miles but arrived safe and sound. Mike was in his room awaiting the results of the stress test. They finally came in at about 4 this afternoon all fine. So the doctors decided what I had figured out yesterday that the new pill he started on Sunday is not his friend and said he could go home. I was impressed as they had the paperwork all done and the machines unhitched and the wheelchair there in less than 45 minutes, I wish our local hospital could figure out how to do things that quickly. Mike had been more than anxious to leave for quite a while to put it mildly.

We got on the way home and he told me that he thinks that he is coming down with the stomach bug now that we have been having here, and that is one reason he wanted out of there, he was afraid if he started throwing up they would not let him leave. So, we are all home, his heart is fine, he has been told to not take that pill ever again, like you could force it down his throat, and everyone but me is in bed. I think I am ready for a nice supper of dry toast and chamomile tea, if that tells you how my tummy feels, then for desert I will have a cup of Sleepytime Extra.

While I sat at the hospital all day the dishes and laundry unfortunately did not decide to run away from home, but I am thinking that if I ignore them maybe they will decide that they have been neglected here and run away overnight. I did get as far as bringing some of the boxes downstairs yesterday to start undressing the tree, but that is all I did, and unlike Grandma it did not strip when I was not looking. Oh yeah, I came downstairs this morning to find Grandma stark naked with all the bedding completely stripped off of the bed and strewn all over the floor saying it is cold in here because someone had left the windows all open. I think that all of this will be dealt with tomorrow, and my sense of humor will be a bit more restored on the whole idea.

Goodnight everyone.

Two Bad Days

I have not blogged in a while with the Christmas festivities and business. No it is all settled down and I thought life would get calmer but these last two days have disproved that theory.

Yesterday morning at 7:30 Polly and Jessie drove out the driveway and down the road with the pickup full of totes loaded with Jessie's essentials for living. Her clothing, bedding, a small selection of books (two totes full, I believe), some knitting supplies, the violin, and of course all of her riding equipment, which had to be packed on top and easily accessible. I watched the truck leave with my baby with a quivering lip and moist eyes which spilled over completely as the truck went down the road. Grandma and I were both having a bad time with it, it came out in Grandma with her not having a good day at all and escaping the reality that she did not like. She was pretty out of it all day long, today is better for her, thank God. I kept feeling worse and worse all day which I was chalking up to being upset about Jess and then Grandma on top of it. I got a bad headache and then got sick to my stomach. Somewhere in the night I realized that Polly had not wanted me to miss her to much while she was gone and had left me her stomach bug to remember her by while she was gone for a few days. Children are so thoughtful and considerate of their Mommy.

This morning, while I was once again hugging my porcelien new best friend the phone rang. I struggled my way to the phone to hear that a Mark from the Cargill mill was calling me to tell me that Mike had had an "episode" and the ambulance and EMTs where there and that they were taking him to Albany Med with chest pains after he had collapsed in the mill. Yeah, that really settled the stomach right down. I had not had any problem with being here with no car until that moment, but here I am with this phone call and no transportation. I knew that Mike had to be feeling really bad if he had them calling me. I had no clue what to do until I thought to call Sandy who headed down there to see what was going on. Mark called me back after a while and said that Mike had gone to the ER but they had given him oxygen and an iv before they left and he was feeling better and arguing that he did not have to go, which made me feel a bit better about how he was. Sandy found her way to Albany Med and found him in there and they called me. He was feeling fine as long as he was lying down but Sandy said it was quite fascinating watching the interesting colors he turned if he stood up. They took his blood pressure lying, sitting and standing, and when standing he had a whopping 77 over 57. They are keeping him overnight for observation and to run a stress test tomorrow. I think the problem is the new pill that the doctor gave him for his blood pressure which he started taking on Sunday so he had taken it twice. He already was complaining about that pill giving him a dry throat so I know he will throw these as far as he can. I think that they are going to change his blood pressure meds, hopefully they will not take him off of the one that we just paid $140 for a 3 month supply of, (it was not on Walmarts list of $10 presciptions).

Polly had finished getting Jess settled in and was just waiting to head up in the morning to get another nights rest before repeating the 9 hour drive. When I called her to tell her what was going on she headed home. I am not able to go to bed until she finally gets here, as she is calling me for moral support as she drives through PA in an ice storm. Last call she had crossed into New York so she is now only about 2 hours away. Yeah, I am starting to feel like I have been through the wringer a couple of times today.

Jess, on the other hand, sounds so happy. She loves the people and the horses and the barn and the riding arena and everything else down there. Mommy just has to keep reminding herself that she is happy for her baby, even if she misses her. I kept waiting for her to come pounding upstairs last night, or to find her cereal dish and oj glass next to the couch this morning, or to sit on a knitting needle Grandma's recliner, or stub my toe on her riding boots, or...

Tonight her friend Virginia came and picked up the ferrets, which I will not miss at all. Now, to just take out the garbage bag tomorrow where I dumped their litter boxes and febreeze her room well and hopefully I will be able to forget they ever were here.

It is now another day, so here is hoping that it will be a better one.