Paczki bobble-heads

 

 

PACZKI

Until I moved to Michigan I had never heard of Paczki (pronounced Punch-key) or Sweetest Day. Sweetest day is like Valentines sort of. A good time for Hallmark to sell cards. I can't remember what date it is celebrated. I seen the Paczki display today when I went to Krogers for groceries. They are a Polish tradition on Fat Tuesday. A last chance to stuff oneself before Lent. They are a round sweet roll with various fruit or custard fillings. We used to call a similar item Bismarcks in Minnesota when I was a kid. Paczki are about 450 calories each and so sickenly sweet you want to barf. The bakeries in Michigan crank them out by the thousands. People buy them by the box and take them to work to treat co-workers. I guess there is a big Polish population here to devour them all. I can't beleive I posted twice in one day....I have not eaten a Paczki today. I only ate one once in my life on Fat Tuesday in the year 2000.

BALD EAGLE

 

Eagles

Eagles are getting more plentiful. At least I see them hanging out here more often. I think they like being by water and we certainly have enough of that with Lake Erie a mile away and Stoney creek in our backyard.
Weight Watchers! I told Lenny if I did not lose any weight today I was stopping at Burger King and getting a bag of whoppers and Fries. I don't even like Whoppers. Fries are okay. I lost two-tenths of a pound! Thats like losing NOTHING!!!! The nice skinny lady at WW told me I was not eating enough and my body went into starvation mode. Thats dumb. I do not eat all my points. I ask her if I could make up the excess points with FF vanilla lattes (three points each). She says I should make a better choice. I will try this week to eat all my points. I already had my oatmeal with an apple (three points). I am heading for the grocery store and to get my Latte.

Rainy Day is better than Snowy Day

Snow was forecast so was overjoyed to wake up to our "sorta" green grass. Very WET green grass. I started veg-beef soup in the crock pot and got the books out to decide what kind of bread to make today. The Sarge liked the Honey Wheat I made last time. I made a one pound loaf and it fits in the toaster better. Seems like our toaster sets off the smoke alarm a lot. Luckily my cooking does not set it off and it is quite close to the stove. I lost one and a half pounds on the WW scale yesterday. I always think it should be more. There was a drug robbery going on yesterday when I drove by a drugstore on my way home from WW. I was wondering why all those police cars were just sitting in the middle of the street. They closed down businesses and had the helicopter out. They caught them later when they tried to rob another drugstore in Ida. I read all about it in the newspaper this morning. Several people expressed their opinion in the paper. They didn't think the poor addicts should go to jail, they should get treatment because they can't stop themselves from threatening people with guns because they are addicted. Several other people wanted to hang the S.O.B.'s I bought a WW cookbook at the meeting yesterday. I will post the recipes if I find some I really like.

Playing Dress-Up Is So Much Fun!

 

The Computers Are Well

I was busy for a few days trying to get the computer to work. I finally decided to re-install windows XP. I had the cd so figured I had nothing to lose because it wasn't working anyway. I did it and it looked good except I couldn't get on-line. I did call my computer tech guy (B.I.L.). He speaks fairly fluent English too. It took him about 3 minutes to tell me what the problem was. I had to put the other cd in and install the drivers. Amazing! It worked. Its only the second time I have re-installed windows so you really can't expect me to know everything! I think it was a virus causing the problem. Anyway it works good and Lenny is happy to have it back. Our snow was all gone but then we were surprised to see everything covered with the beautiful white stuff this morning. A lot has melted already and there is water everywhere. The creek in our backyard is very high, but has never come too close to the house. It runs down to lake Erie which is about a mile east of us. I am soooo ready for spring.

Lottie Shew Root was born here

 

I am Frustrated!

I have been wrestling with a laptop. I sure wish I had a computer geek living near to me. This is Lenny's laptop which got infected with that windows scan thing a month ago. I thought I fixed it but now I am thinking that is still what was wrong with it. I can't seem to leave it alone. Finally on Saturday when I just had a black screen I decided to try re-installing windows xp. I had like 3 re-install cd's for an HP..thats the only kind of computer I have ever bought (no, one sony) so wasn't sure which was the right one. I did get it installed and it looks great..only I cannot get on-line with it. The network keeps saying there is no internet connection but the computer says there is. Believe me,there isn't. All the other computers work on the network so must be something I am doing wrong. I thought maybe the hard-drive was damaged, but ran chkdsk and it says its okay. May try to call Steve later, if he can't help I may call B.I.L.(that brother in law)named Bill. Then when I am not obsessed with that I am obsessed with Family Tree. Lenny can cook dinner because I am busy on the computer...that's a joke because he doesn't cook much except to heat stuff in the microwave. He is off getting the oil changed in my car so I should be nice. Anyway, the log home is east of Brainard in Crow Wing county. A relative of my kids was born there. She was the first white person born in that county or so the story goes. Her name was Lottie Shew Root. She was a sister to my kids great grandmother, Susie Shew. I thought Susie was born in that cabin too but found out she was born while they lived in Eden lake, Minnesota. An aunt of these two girls had a daughter who married a 7th cousin to President Grover Cleveland. Thats about as close to famous as we get. Tomorrow is WW. I don't think I have lost anything and I really have been good. I could not find Bev's NO PUDGE brownies at the store so can't even say I was eating those.

Its always something!

I got a new recipe. Its called George's Antique White Bread. Made a real tasty loaf of bread. We went to Toledo yesterday for a RV show. Beautiful "Downtown Toledo"!! I have seen less-tacky places. We parked in the suckiest parking ramp in the world, but was cheap and the car was there when we got back to it. My legs are stiff from doing the stairmaster yesterday. NOT! They are stiff from going up and down so many little steps to get into these RV's. Some of them are unbeleivable. There was one that had 5 TV's. Two big flat screens in the main area, one on each end so you can watch two at once by just turning your head. A nice sized one in the bedroom and one in each of the bunk beds so the kids won't fight ( if you only have two kids). Then we stopped for lunch in the worst place to eat in all of Toledo, or all the USA I think. Boston market. They used to be fairly decent. I vowed a few months ago to never to go there again. It was that bad. Anyway where does The Sarge pull into??? so I decided to shut up and try to find something half way decent to eat. I ended up with a kids meal, meatloaf and some green beans. No worry about sticking to WW with that! You know, they aren't even that cheap so should expect the food to at least be fit to eat. Rainy, warm weekend here! Oh,The worst! Lenny's laptop is in bigggg trouble, I believe! Its been suffering for about a month now it seems. Now I can't get it to do anything. I am tired of messing with it.

George's Bread

 

Weight watchers today

I made it to the WW meeting..only had moments to spare because I got interested in my email and didn't leave when I should have. Then had to stop and wait for 2 very long trains. Anyway I lost 5.4 this week, my first week ( its probably all water weight) I will not expect it every week of course. It kind of surprised me. Our scale is old and not accurate. Seems everything we own is old and inaccurate sometimes. I did get a new mixer with my Kohl's gift card. I hope it lasts as long as the last one. Makes me think I should make cookies or something. I DO NOT eat them even when I am not dieting. My BFF loves oatmeal raisin cookies so maybe I will make him some and surprise him. He is not fat so can eat them. He works a long day on Tuesdays so won't see him until 8-9 p.m. I got an email from a cousin(of my kids) several times removed who needs information on Jemima Hunter. A "lotsa greats" grandmother of my kids. Isn't her name neat? Her first child was born a couple months after her marriage, not uncommon even in those days. I do have a picture of the log cabin in Eden Lake that her granddaughter, Susie Shew was born in. Some Indian stories also which I have yet to add to the on the web FT site. Susie would be a great grandmother to my kids. I like her name too. Susie Shew..sounds like a nursery rymne. So this afternoon I have to get some information together for our new-found relative again. We sure are related to a LOT of people. I may try Alison's chix recipe as well as Kerry's meat loaf recipe. Both sound good.

 

Here it is. Sunday again.

Here it is. Sunday again and that means waffles. I did the buttermilk recipe again because I decided I like it best. I should have cut it in half and I was going to do that. Don't know what happened there, The picture is what we had left over after we ate. Lenny had two, I had one. I am not sure how to count it on WW. I haven't eaten my full allotment of points any day this week and have not had any of the bonus points so I won't worry about it. I had sugarfree crushed pineapple on it..no syrup. Anyway the Bread Bible written by Beth Hensperger is my favorite cookbook. Mine was purchased used and is a library discard. Some little kids or retarded adult wrote on it and has notes on some recipes, but thats okay. I looked on Amazon and the book is out of print & lists prices all the way from $74 to $355. Yeah! You are reading that right. You can look it up yourself on Amazon! If you ever see it and love cookbooks and the price is about $5 pick it up. The origional price was $19.99. She has another book which is expensive also. She has a new one coming out tomorrow of breadmachine recipes. I already ordered it. It is $14.99 and I usually don't spend that much on books. I buy all my books at the half-priced book store in Apple valley. Back in the fartherest corner is the clearance section where books are $1-$2 each. Thats where I shop. My daughters also give me their books they bought for full price at B&N. I will put the waffle recipe in here for anyone who wants to try it. My beaters broke beating the batter so I need to go get a new hand mixer. I have Kohl's gift card. I had that old mixer for about 40 years. I also put some chopped pecans in the batter. Oh, the new cookbook is by a different author..hope it is good.

BUTTERMILK WAFFLES
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 eggs, separated (beat the whites till soft peaks and set aside)
1/4 cup veg. oil
2 cups butter milk ( I use the powder and mix it in with flour and add the 2 cups water). I just dump it all in the bowl and mix together with the hand mixer, but don't overmix. Fold the beaten egg whites in.
I use high heat on my waffle iron and cook 4 minutes. This makes a lot..half a recipe should feed 2 or 3 people. The batter seemed a little thin to me but it was okay that way.