The Chronicles of Nani - First Story Time Part 1

 Sometimes life is not always about living with my chronic illness. It's not always about bad days and it's not even always about making the best of good days. Sometimes it's just me as a human being.

Early on in doing my vlog, one of my aides suggested that every now and then I should just tell a story. She said she loved hearing me tell stories because it's some thing that I did well. I was very flattered as I was flattered what is my grandmother told me when I told stories like my grandfather did when I went to visit her just a few months after he died. My grandfather was the greatest storyteller I've ever known and my grandma told me I inherited his gift. So this is part one of my first story time. I thought I should give a little bit of a background before I tell the first story.

You hear a little bit about the sibling rivalry story this week but the rest of it will come next week in part 2.

Thursday Thoughts

Good gloomy Thursday! All right, it’s gloomy in Toledo, but the sun always shines in Cyberspace, right? I guess it’s not so sunny if you have a cyber-nightclub, but in this cyber coffee shop, it’s always sunny.

I was awakened in the middle of the night by a flash of light and a breeze coming in the open window. It’s not a vivid memory, I sleep soundly, but I recalled it when I looked outside and saw wet pavement this morning. I remember hearing the rain start and saying to David that he should probably close the window. The window is on his side of the bed. Only, David wasn’t there. He’d gotten up for some reason and was coming back into the room and made a comment about “fat raindrops.” I said it sounded like hail. He looked out the window and studied the downpour. He confirmed it was hail and it was coming down hard, making a lot of noise on the metal roof on the enclosed porch off the bedroom. I asked him where Carla was because she gets scared from the sound of rain on the metal roof and the hail was very loud. He said she was downstairs…and that’s the last I remember. I suspect if there was any more conversation, I was talking in my sleep.

Remembering dreams from the middle of the night is much more interesting than remembering reality when the weather wakes me.


Yesterday was Pi Day, 3-14! To celebrate, for lunch I made a perfectly round, and perfectly fat-free, pizza Pi!

A full Pizza Fit ‘n Free is a perfect fit for my new 8” plates!

Pizza Fit ‘n Free  is fat free pizza that tastes just fabulous! The pizzas are shipped with very tasty sauce and the fat free cheese. I added a strip of turkey bacon and a couple spoons of sautéed onions and bell pepper. There is just a trace of fat in the toppings and it adds just enough to make the cheesy gooey. A plain cheese pizza if still great, but the cheese doesn’t get so gooey without the trace of fat the sautéed veggies and turkey bacon added. It was fantastic and a whole pizza id s just 6 WW points!


Since I was going to be preparing the toppings for my pizza, I went ahead and chopped the whole onion and bell pepper, as well as cooking three more slices of turkey bacon to make Quichettes. They turned out great!

Real simple recipe too!

Ingredients

3 strips of turkey bacon cooked medium crisp and cut into squares
1 diced bell pepper
1 diced medium onion
1 tsp. margarine
1 piece string cheese, diced.
1 cup Egg Beaters
2 TBS grated Parmesan cheese

Sauté onion and pepper in margarine. Mix cooled bacon, onions and pepper with string cheese cubes and Egg Beaters. Add Parmesan cheese and stir until blended. Pour evenly into sprayed 12-cupcake tin. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Makes 12 Quichettes



Remember my mug cake recipe?  I made a very tasty variation. I omitted the cocoa and used 2 Tablespoons of raspberry jam in place of half the Splenda.

I admit it’s unquestionably uglier. I suspect the raspberry and almond flour combination is what made it turn grayish teal. But for the taste, I accept it as a yummy blue raspberry cake!  Next time I'll add a drop of blue food coloring so I can know I meant to do that!


Okay, so there’s the new “what’s cookin’” stuff. How about something old?


Here’s a neat little piece.

It’s a pin that looks like it was never taken off the paper it was displayed on. It says “souvenir of Newfoundland" and on the back of the British Flag the hand is holding has Great Britain engraved on the back.

detail

Newfoundland was originally part of Great Britain and became the tenth province to join Canada on March 31, 1949. So, this pin is at the very least that old. It was in the box with the trinkets Papa bought back from WW2 and Newfoundland was one of the places he was stationed for a while in the early 40s. I read several postcards he sent grandma in 1941 and 1942 which would have been when he was 18, shortly after he enlisted and when Grandma was still in high school. So my best guess is that it is from the very early 40s.

See more unusual and common vintage pieces at Vintage Thingie Thursday, hosted by Suzanne at The Coloradolady.

Links

Pizza Fit N’ Free

The Coloradolady

Groundhog Day – Come Vacation in Ohio!

Happy Groundhog Day! I was reading some dejected Tweets about the impending doom of Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow this morning, but on a blissfully overcast day in Ohio, Buckeye Chuck did not, I repeat NOT, see his shadow. So while the rest of the country is burdened by 6 more weeks of winter, my crocuses will be budding by mid-March! On behalf of the Ohio Department of Tourism, I’d like to invite everyone to our fair state to enjoy the early spring!

I did well in all levels of my education with math…and sarcasm! As a lifetime Midwesterner, I never understood what all the fuss about the groundhog was. How mean is it to wake up a furry critter on an early February morning to see if it casts a shadow so you can determine if it’s going to be a torturing 6 weeks until spring or blissfully only 6 more weeks until spring. If you’re banking your state of mind on a groundhog, that’s pretty sad. Still, come to Ohio, the happy state!

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I’ve been diligently working on the White Tornado Project upstairs this week. Today I am achy and I’ve decided to take it as an easy day. One thing I need to do is plug lights back in. I was moving some things around, cat toys and socks, under the bed. I pulled on an extension cord and unplugged the light on David’s side of the bed. Then when I turned on the light on my side, it blew out. So right now we have no bedside lighting. Not so good in the winter when the sun is gone at bedtime and not back yet when you wake up! So, while I’m otherwise taking a break today from the White Tornado, I will still wiggle onto the floor to plug things back in and replace the bulb in my reading light.


Then, the rest of the day is for scrapping, blogging and making some mini quiches for the freezer. I joined my Dad for the first phase of the South Beach diet back in the late 90s. Word of eternal caution here – even if a doctor suggests a diet to someone else, it may not be right for you! Pop’s doctor suggested South Beach for my dad to shed a few “off season” pounds. He always gained over the winter when it was not construction season. I decided that I’d join him because the support would help him stick with it and it certainly wouldn’t hurt me to shed a little. Well I was wrong on the “wouldn’t hurt me” part! I followed the recipes with the exception of adding all the oil they called for. That much oil was a gross thought and I had elevated cholesterol. Upping my fat intake would drive me to the “high” level in no time. After I got sick and actually gained weight, MY doctor chewed me out for trying a diet that is geared towards people with weight gain from carbohydrates with high or headed that way blood sugar. It’s actually dangerous for high cholesterol because if followed to the letter, it will reduce blood sugar and raise cholesterol. By cutting out the fat in the recipes, I reduced my blood sugar, which wasn’t good for me and because I wasn’t eating enough calories, I gained weight.  This is why they say to consult your doctor before changing your diet!

But the one thing that I did get from the 2 week on the South Beach diet is a taste for the little breakfast quiches made in cupcake pans. Boy those were good! All the talk last week on the Wednesday Hodge Podge about brunch and the many people who’d make a breakfast casserole or a quiche made me crave casserole or quiche. I remembered those wonderful South Beach breakfasts, which I’ll definitely have with whole wheat toast now. I looked up a few recipes last night and I’ll analyze them and create one that works for me this afternoon. I’ll get back with you all on how that turns out!

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It’s Thursday and time to share a vintage treasure. This is from one of the boxes from Grandma’s garage. The garage is where the boxes from Detroit went in 1982 that weren’t opened again until Dave and I with our spouses were sorting through everything. It’s where we found the tax return copies from 1958. and in one box I found these!

I had to do some searching to get a little bit of background. The Labor Non-Partisan League pin is supporting Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1944 Presidential election. Winning that election saw FDR’s fourth term in office. He died of a stroke just a few months after the beginning of that term.

I haven’t come across any other presidential election pins, but I find it interesting to note that the presidential election pins I’ve had, the candidates have won too. Maybe there’s some family mojo at work there. Maybe I should seek out a pin for the candidate I choose this year.

The other pin is a Douglas MacArthur War Hero pin. It was in the same box and I’d guess probably from the same time.

I admit that I totally enjoyed the research I did for these pins. At the site where I found both of them, the FDR pin sells for $45 and the MacArthur pin for $20. I also did some reading at various sites, brushing up on some American history and imagining my just-married grandparents at that time.  Grandma was living in Boston, and at the time of the election, Grandma was pregnant but probably didn’t know it yet. Papa was stationed in the Pacific. World War 2 wasn’t over.


Enjoy some more nostalgia and vintage finds at Suzanne’s bog, The Coloradolady for Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Links

Cleveland Leader – Buckeye Chuck blurb

Roosevelt 1944 Election Pins.

MacArthur War Hero Pins

My Grandfather Was a Very Smart Man, Really!

Sn** - YUCK!

David wondered this morning if we weren’t in for our first appreciable snowfall of this winter today. I said “Shuh!” I always shush him when he uses language like that. I have a thick skin. I can handle hearing profanity without it burning my ears. But I find that four-letter-“s”-word beyond offensive. They use it on TV, I mute it and ignore it when it’s written and I still see it on the ground outside, practically sideways when the wind gusts. –Sigh- it brings other 4-letter-words to mind.

“Dan the Bug Man” as he calls himself with a chuckle, just left. He was in to do our bi-monthly anti-bug update. Orkin sprays around the house and in the house to keep pests out. The biggest and most important things are that it doesn’t deter our outdoor friends from enjoying our oak tree and yard, the squirrels and chipmunks are safe and most important, there’s been a DRASTIC reduction of spiders in the house. Dan said there were just a few spiders in the basement today but no mice. That makes me happy and Kaline notsomuch. But she’d get bored with the mice if we had lots of them, right?

Dan made me happy when he asked how I was doing. I told him the meds I was on for my MS were doing well and I felt great. He said I don’t look as tired as last time he saw me and I look like I have lots of energy now. I love that it’s apparent to others, not just me. I told Dan to “be safe” as he was leaving because the sn** was picking up and he’d already mentioned slick roads and “bumper cars” on the highway this morning.


About the title. When I found this treasure I was excited to brag for Vintage Thingie Thursday.

Papa’s Senior Year Report Card

It’s my grandfather’s high school report card from his senior year, 1940/41. He Went to high school in California, PA.

My grandfather was an incredibly intelligent man. He had an impeccable memory and wonderful logic. I was told that when he was in the Navy, he had to pass a sort of IQ test because the standard was higher for the Navy. I don’t really know all the details, but that he was in the Navy was a big deal at the time. I also always knew that Papa had fantastic grades all through school. Mom said that Papa was where the Mensa quality IQs came from, genetics.

I never doubted any of that. I always considered my Grandfather and my Mother the smartest people I knew. So I fully expected to see straight As, maybe a B in there since it was senior year. What I didn’t expect was this:

Huh? There were Bs and Cs!! One A final in science. Well, that one was okay, but how could this man, a genius in my eyes, have Cs, even a couple of Ds for card makings? Yes, I had a couple of Ds in freshman year. but that was freshman year, I wasn’t mature enough yet. This was his senior year!

Then, I looked at the “grade code.” Hmmm… It really was about the lessons and not the “self-esteem” then.

Papa’s average as a senior was pretty much a straight B. Only 15-27 students in 100 got a B. That A in science was something on 3-10 percent of students got. My high school grades were higher because I got the ”cost of living allowance.” A coke after school cost more for me too!

After realizing there was a huge grade adjustment, we don’t fail students now and we don’t have them do a grade over, we just give more As, I was pretty pleased with my Grandfather’s totals.

The other very cool thing about this treasure is on the back:

That’s my great-grandfather’s signature verifying that Papa’s parents indeed saw his report card. My grandfather was the baby of the family. I never got to meet my maternal-paternal great-grandfather. There’s something about things that are written or made by hand that is a very real connection to the past. My grandfather’s achievements and my great grandfather’s signature make this a very special treasure to me.


See more great vintage things at Suzanne’s blog, The Coloradolady!