USMB Coffee Shop IV

[beautress]

Me too. When I found my place here I was the happiest camper in the world, and I still love my home, and I had "thrown out the anchor" because I never wanted to move again. But here I am, thinking about it, and just because of the state of things here. There are huge problems with moving though, like not getting enough money for my home, and the price of homes where I would like to go selling for $500 to $750 a square foot, it's insane. So the chances of me moving any time soon are pretty slim, even if I want to, I'm not going to take a huge lose here and have to finance a huge chunk on a new home and have a mortgage with a massive, sky high interest rate. That just isn't going to happen.

This may sound crazy to you, but years ago, we visited my husband's mom and dad's, and she showed me her volume on my dear one's baby pictures. One snowy day when he was a tot, their neighbor, a photographer for the Chicago newspaper, saw him on the porch with a pail he was filling with snow, so he could "save" some for another day. Somehow, this got into the paper, and his mom saved the picture that had a caption about teaching children young how to encourage "savings." Funny how that followed him for a life time, so he started saving money at an early age, nickel by nickel and later put himself through college with investments he made in the stock market, for which I'm sure his father had something to do with. He saved what he could after the church treasurer put a clip in the church bulletin about the average giving practices of all members (no names included,) so the family decided to take that percentage and give from their earnings (and his) so the church could continue on. Things didn't change after he married me. A certain percentage was saved for old age, and although my family never savers, when he retired, he has saved enough that with the sale of our house, we could buy a country place to retire on, considering the population of the state of Wyoming was around 50 thousand people in the whole state, and our move to warm Texas was to share the state with then 18 million people, and after the waves of recent migrations that emptied Central America and Mexico of the contents of their prisons and cartel profiteers is who knows how many, but surely, a lot more people. But we were north of the big population center in Houston and south of the big population center in Ft. Worth-Dallas, and happily for me there was a quilt store in this town and 4 or 5 more in a 50-mile radius. And sew on... I added another row to my recent charity quilt last night. In orage and lime green, which seems to be everywhere online lately. Different color combinations seem to change each year after the fabric companies have their show-off week in any given Las Vegas convention center for nationwide providers. Wow. The colors are getting more illumined every year...

​

 

[beautress]

That's what we did when we left Kansas. Had a huge yard sale including a lot of our furniture until we could fit comfortably into a two bedroom apartment when we moved from Kansas to Albuquerque. After a year we bought and fit into our small house (1000 sq ft) up on the mountain until we filled it up, out grew it, built a large storage building in the back yard. And after 14 years we bought our 2000 sq ft home plus double garage and walled in back porch here in Albuquerque and had plenty of room. Until we have filled it up.

I guess it's just inherent in too many of us Americans to be natural pack rats and hold onto a lot of stuff that we 'might need' at some point or we just enjoy having.

We really live in a house and I don't even try for the Better Home and Garden look. But I get depressed when things get really cluttered. My spirits are considerably lifted when things are cleared out, organized, neat and accessible and it looks good. You would think my lifestyle would make the latter happen more often.

When we moved, my fibromyalgia was in full bloom, so it cost extra to have people do all the packing and all the unpacking... and if I'm not mistaken, there are a few boxes that got moved to the workshop/tractor cover, and I don't even know what's in them anymore. The last one I opened, I only remembered one or two items in the whole box. Go figure...
For anyone uninformed about what fibromyalgia is and how horrible its pain... oh, nevermind. Just hope the lady in your life doesn't ever get it. For every 15 or 20 women get it, only one man succumbs, and trust me, the disease is chased by suicides, divorces, etcetera, because people can't feel someone else's pain as they still go on living, laughing, and even loving those who are disenchanted by their loved one's "faking pain" balonry. Trust me, there's nothing fake about screaming-out-loud pain 24/7/365/ad nauseum. Do if any of your loved ones ever gets it, give them a hug for me. When we moved, my new doctor was an osteopath, by some good fortune, and she was troubled by my high calcium count throughout myself. Out of the blue (I thought) she ordered a picture of my neck, and found 2 really bad parathyroid glands, which govern a balance of calcium levels. After they were surgically removed, my fibromyalgia was no longer there a month later. That was the very good thing about our move. A year later I was a lot better off except fibromyalgia has a few other ugly sisters such as chronic fatigue, brain fog, etc., and you saw an example of my brain fog when I forgot about one of our good members was insulted that I thanked him for his sudden appearance to the coffee shop. How can you explain brain fog? It just happens more frequently than you would, and victims of your brain fog can get very insulted by it from time to time. So much for the sad song of the leftovers of fibromyalgia. When you're cured, not all of the ugly sisters of the disease get out of your life.

Well, it's time to get back to my little lime green and orange baby quilt top. One of my beloved quilt pals said they (my 'charity bees' sisters) finally got down to the last 2 tops I made from the year I produced one hundred quilt tops by nonstop work in front of my sewing machine with scads of scraps I brought home to Texas with me in about a hundred boxes. Needless to mention, I will still have fabric that will hopefully go to charitable uses the day I die. I'm taking supplements of people who lived to be 110 years old or older, so if all goes well, I'll be around another 25-40 years to use it all up.

 

[Foxfyre]

 

[Foxfyre]

This may sound crazy to you, but years ago, we visited my husband's mom and dad's, and she showed me her volume on my dear one's baby pictures. One snowy day when he was a tot, their neighbor, a photographer for the Chicago newspaper, saw him on the porch with a pail he was filling with snow, so he could "save" some for another day. Somehow, this got into the paper, and his mom saved the picture that had a caption about teaching children young how to encourage "savings." Funny how that followed him for a life time, so he started saving money at an early age, nickel by nickel and later put himself through college with investments he made in the stock market, for which I'm sure his father had something to do with. He saved what he could after the church treasurer put a clip in the church bulletin about the average giving practices of all members (no names included,) so the family decided to take that percentage and give from their earnings (and his) so the church could continue on. Things didn't change after he married me. A certain percentage was saved for old age, and although my family never savers, when he retired, he has saved enough that with the sale of our house, we could buy a country place to retire on, considering the population of the state of Wyoming was around 50 thousand people in the whole state, and our move to warm Texas was to share the state with then 18 million people, and after the waves of recent migrations that emptied Central America and Mexico of the contents of their prisons and cartel profiteers is who knows how many, but surely, a lot more people. But we were north of the big population center in Houston and south of the big population center in Ft. Worth-Dallas, and happily for me there was a quilt store in this town and 4 or 5 more in a 50-mile radius. And sew on... I added another row to my recent charity quilt last night. In orage and lime green, which seems to be everywhere online lately. Different color combinations seem to change each year after the fabric companies have their show-off week in any given Las Vegas convention center for nationwide providers. Wow. The colors are getting more illumined every year...

​

I saw your post this morning and then saw this on Facebook and I just couldn't resist.

 

[007]

Had 17 below this morning up nort' here in Wisconsin. That's chilly. The snow "crunches" under your feet when you walk.

Supposed to warm up though. I'm ready for an early Spring.

 

[Foxfyre]

Had 17 below this morning up nort' here in Wisconsin. That's chilly. The snow "crunches" under your feet when you walk.

Supposed to warm up though. I'm ready for an early Spring.

Wow. That would be painful for these old bones. We woke up to 33 degrees and it's 49 at our house now. We really haven't had any really bitter cold weather this winter.

 

[Foxfyre]

Those of you too young to have watched the original Star Wars Trilogy won't get this one. Us old folks all saw the original Star Wars movie on the big screen in 1977.

 

[beautress]

I saw your post this morning and then saw this on Facebook and I just couldn't resist.

We had a saying at my quilt shop in Wyoming about quilting addictions--"There's no cure!" and

 

[beautress]

Had 17 below this morning up nort' here in Wisconsin. That's chilly. The snow "crunches" under your feet when you walk.

Supposed to warm up though. I'm ready for an early Spring.

Oh, my goodness! I just found this portable heater...

Stay warm, 007!​

 

[Ringel05]

Speaking of staying warm my last gas bill was almost $200......... I now keep the temp around 69 degrees (50 degrees when I go to bed) and wear my heavy terry robe around the house.

 

[Foxfyre]

Speaking of staying warm my last gas bill was almost $200......... I now keep the temp around 69 degrees (50 degrees when I go to bed) and wear my heavy terry robe around the house.

We just paid ours today and it was over $200. And we have had a really mild winter so far this year. Last winter we had a lot more cold weather and our gas bill at the end of January was about $90.

 

[Foxfyre]

We had a saying at my quilt shop in Wyoming about quilting addictions--"There's no cure!" and

Some may not know that I have been certified as an addiction counselor mostly for alcohol abuse. But over my life I have dealt with friends and relatives and others who are or were alcoholics, drug addicts, gambling addicts, those caught in a vicious compulsion to order merchandise until they are broke, highly vulnerable to internet scams, unbelievable hoarders.

I would guess, however, that a quilt addiction needs absolutely no intervention at all.

 

[Hossfly]

 

[Oddball]

Saturday morning!

Is there anything Commander McBragg can't do?

Let the cartoon(s) begin!

 

[Foxfyre]

Good night, afternoon, morning wherever you are darlinks. I really do love you guys. May the Coffee Shop always be a virtual family for those who need or enjoy one here.

And we pray or send positive thoughts or keep vigil for:

Harper, the inspiration for the vigil list.
Nosmo King for healing and health & wholeness.
Big Black Dog for the very best treatment and outcome for the rest of his days.
Gracie for solutions and peace.
Ringel for continued wellness and his brothers' family for relief from adversity and illness.
Hombre & Foxfyre's son for continued wellness & their nephew dealing with ALS.
Beautress's friend Ken for healing and wellness.
Dale Smith for quality of life.
Boedicca's nephew for healing/adversity and baby Alex for strength and healing.

And we keep the light on so others who have been away can find their way back and we hope they will.
SNOW MOON FEB 5 2024 over the Sandias.

 

[Foxfyre]

I swear sometimes when I go out onto other forums at USMB I feel like I've been dumped into the upside down world of Alice's Wonderland at best and into the Matrix at worse. I swear they could do 200 pages over what a simple definition is.

I think I'll go put on a good movie to clear the incomprehensible gobbledy gook and convoluted arguments out of my head.

 

[Hossfly]

He must have been a tea drinker.

 

[Ringel05]

I've been cooking with cast iron skillets for years now but honestly I'm not as strong as I once was and especially that 10" skillet is heavy....... So I'm now considering a good set of carbon steel skillets (8" & 10"). The OXO brand is rated very good, pre-seasoned and one of the less expensive choices, $40 for a 10" and $30 for an 8". Most sets include a 12" but I have a 12" anodized aluminum skillet which I never use so it's kind of a waste for me to buy one that size. Matter of fact I forgot I even had the 12" until a few days ago when I pulled out a couple of stock pots and saw it hiding behind them.......

 

[Ringel05]

I went ahead and ordered the two which should have been $70 but forgot I had a credit so the final price was $30........

 

[Foxfyre]

I've been cooking with cast iron skillets for years now but honestly I'm not as strong as I once was and especially that 10" skillet is heavy....... So I'm now considering a good set of carbon steel skillets (8" & 10"). The OXO brand is rated very good, pre-seasoned and one of the less expensive choices, $40 for a 10" and $30 for an 8". Most sets include a 12" but I have a 12" anodized aluminum skillet which I never use so it's kind of a waste for me to buy one that size. Matter of fact I forgot I even had the 12" until a few days ago when I pulled out a couple of stock pots and saw it hiding behind them.......

I have not found stainless steel to be as satisfying as cooking with cast iron, but like you, the cast iron has become uncomfortably heaven at times, so my favorite cookware now is copper--I have been gifted with a good supply--or my non-stick T-fal skillets (they are quite safe until the coating begins to wear at which time they should be replaced) plus I have three different sizes of electric skillets if I am cooking something I don't want to have to tend carefully. I use my cusinart stainless steel saucepans almost exclusively for cooking sauces, soups, stews, or anything else that could leach metal though.