Coffee Chat: Bundling Weather

Oh hello dears.  Do come on in for a bit out of the wind.   We've had some cold winter weather as well we might since it is January.  Unusual in that it's lasted a full week and is meant to continue on through the weekend.  A friend who lives a bit south of me and I were laughing over the fact that while we might be seeing weather in the teens this week, we're just as likely to see them soar to the 80's in a week or so.  It's very difficult to know sometimes, in Georgia, how to dress.   I've seen days that were so sunny and bright and beautiful and I worked up a hard sweat doing yard work in the morning hours and by afternoon I was shivering mightily because the Arctic winds blew in and dropped the temperature 40 or 50 degrees.  Brrrr!

Oh my goodness...Where are my manners?   Hot coffee or tea?   There's an absolutely lovely orange cranberry nut bread on the counter, just cool enough to cut.  When John came into the kitchen and asked what I was making he said "Oh" in that sort of deeply disappointed voice but you know what?  First out of the oven there he was saying how good it looked.  Well it IS good.  I gave in to his request for a warm piece with butter and there was no disappointment in him at all about it being Orange Cranberry.  I bought those cranberries especially to make that bread and I meant to get it made!  I haven't made it in YEARS, nearly 40 years.   Why?  I recalled all these years that it tasted good when I made it but I've never tried it again.



Oh would you like the recipe?  It's easy enough to recall at the moment.  I sort of combined two recipes and I'll freely admit to making some substitutions as well.

Cranberry Orange Nut Bread

2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
3 tsps. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup coarsely chopped fresh (or frozen) cranberries
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup orange juice
4 tbsps. orange rind
1 egg
3 tbsps. cooking oil

Preheat oven to 350f.  Grease and flour a 9 inch loaf pan.

Put all ingredients into mixer and mix for 30-60 seconds.  That sounds crazy short but basically all you want to do is mix all wet and dry ingredients until they are just combined.  Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake 55-70 minutes.  My recipe book says 55 to 65 minutes.  It took 70 minutes in my oven. So be sure to  checking times based on your own experience cooking in your oven.  Use a knife to loosen edges and turn out on a cake rack to complete cooling.

I know you're wondering what substitutions I made.  Well I had half a small bottle of an orange pineapple apple juice blend in the fridge.  That came up to 1/2 cup.  Then after I zested the large navel orange, I juiced it and that almost made 1 cup but not quite.   So I topped it off with water.
It's a lovely bread, just enough sweet and just enough fragrant with that orange and a subtly sharp bite from the cranberry.

I have really have got to stop thinking I can only make what John thinks he'll eat.  He is self admittedly limiting in what he thinks he likes but he always tries stuff and is often surprised by how much he enjoys a recipe.  I can think of only two or three that he's ever said to me, "Please don't make that again," and only one recipe that he's tasted and refused to eat at all.  Considering that I've made 3 meals a day for him for over 25 years that's a pretty good record isn't it?

But it's more than just food.  John often complains that he can't 'see' my vision when I'm talking about a way to improve our home.  And in his world, if he can't see it then it can't possibly work.  Yet as I pointed out to him this week when we were discussing some work I want done, he can't 'see' my design point of view in the house anyway and despite this, the house turns out nice, he gets compliments on the way our home looks and so he might as well just start trusting me, lol.

It made me think long and hard though, that conversation, and him too, because we ended up revisiting the conversation later in the day when we were less frustrated with one another.  Some things you just have to do scared, you know?  It's not one of those horrible things you must go through to get to the other side but it is a scary thing to trust someone else's opinion or vision.
When John said to me in 2009 that we'd start attending a Messianic synagogue, I was shaking in my boots.  It was hard at times and I felt like I was a foreigner in a strange land at first but it also ended up being a lovely learning time in our lives that stretched us and grew us and enriched our lives overall.

I often don't know where God is leading me but I do know He's told me to let go of this or to go there and all I can do is trust Him and move.  It's not often I have a moment like I did this past month where I could see how necessary things that happened 27 years ago had been to not only our lives but the lives of our children and the lives of others.  Frankly I felt it was sort of a sign that the door was shut on that past when Sam and Amie's dad passed away.  Old things really had 'passed away' and all things were now new, including opening the relationship with John's ex-wife.  It was right and the timing was perfect for both John and for our son JD,  who needed to resolve that relationship with his mother.  They are both on the edge of a time of change in their lives, of renewal and refreshment.  I could see the fingerprints of God all over it all.

I say sincerely that had you asked me 27 years ago why things that took place in my life were necessary I'd have only looked at you in complete bewilderment.  I was full of grief and pain and hurt and yes anger.  I didn't understand anything, I couldn't see why things had to be as they were.  And now, I look and see the pattern and it is good.  Even before I now, I'd begun to see that God's ways are not our ways, that my understanding is not His.  It taught me the first lessons in believing His purposes were higher and started me on the journey of walking with Him and trusting Him as I went.
We are in a new season in our home.  Hospitality seeming to be the key factor.  I had family here last weekend and will have family here this coming weekend.  Bess's uncle passed away and the funeral will be held in Macon, just about 35 minutes from here.   Sam has been here since Tuesday.   They will all go home on Saturday and Sunday and we'll regroup a few moments before Sam comes back once again.  He's officially working in his new capacity and Bess is attempting to hold house and home together and sell the house.  This is a frustrating time for all, really, though we get along excellently each of us.  But Sam misses his family and his family misses him.  John, who admits himself that it's true, is selfish with my time.  He's always felt every moment he's home I am his to companion with, to sit with, to run errands with, etc.  I do my own thing in little satellite movements all around him and I do it all willingly.  I am not put upon.  But I do see the extra work required, the need to see that a meal is provided for the extras, etc.   John much prefers it's all left to fate but at the same time I monitor what they think fate is, lol  A precarious perching place to be sure!   So I shush him now and then and remind him that this too is but a season.  When they move here the visits will be just a few hours or even minutes in duration.  Proximity will make them less likely to visit frequently, though I expect we will see them more often than we've done in the past.

I've been scanning my mind trying to think what I might share with you all.  I confess I'm a bit absorbed at the moment with the new Jamberry venture and I've been taking webinars each afternoon as well as trying to get accustomed to the daily tasks I need to do to get that up nd running.  My launch party starts this Sunday and I am so excited.  Also excited because I've already earned a little money though I've not had an official opening just yet.  My plans are to save towards the work I want done on the baths and kitchen.  (Hence the 'I can't visualize it,' conversation earlier this week).  I'm learning lots of new things but surprised too to discover that sometimes I see the 'big' picture before it's explained to me.  It makes me feel confident in my ability to succeed when I can make these leaps in conclusion long before the outcome is actually spoken by the group leader.  It's like discovering that the recipe for the cook-off you've entered is not that different from what you've always done but is in fact somewhat familiar.   Your confidence in your ability to make the dish soars and you go right off and do it.   And that's what I'm hoping will happen in this instance.

Big surprise for us was the gift of a new Smart TV.  We didn't need a new TV, but it made one of those happy coincidence things.  JD, starting over as he is in his own life, hadn't a TV.  We'd talked of giving him one.  Then we were given the Smart TV so we gifted him our TV.  The new TV means we can watch our Amazon Prime programs and movies on it.  John has been enjoying a silly super hero mocking show called The Tick.  I watched a couple of episodes of The Doris Day show, which fond as I am of her, stank.  Then I watched "Walk Invisible, The Bronte Sisters" from PBS Masterpiece theatre.  I enjoyed it but need to watch again.  I couldn't understand a good bit of what was said.  I don't know if their accents were that 'thick' so to speak or if the sound quality needed to be adjusted.  I gathered enough to piece together the story line but there were many things I know I missed that I'd like to review.

Snow.  We didn't get any.  Bess got two or three inches as did the Georgia coast line and a good portion of northern Florida.   The storm moved in and out fairly quickly but the snow stayed around a bit yesterday and today.   The snow line fell about half way between Bess and us, so we got no snow.  I'm not complaining.  I think it's absolutely the loveliest thing ever but...it's snow and we don't do snow well in Georgia and we all freely admit it to be truth.  We spend more time reading sunblock labels and trying to figure out if we're dressing for Summer, Spring or Fall most winter days.

Yes, we've had the cold weather.  I put on a real coat to go places when we leave home.  I wore socks when I put on my booties. I've consistently worn a sweater in the house.  Katie reported she'd slipped outdoors to smoke and spilled her coffee.  It froze when it hit the pavement.  Her home faces north and that front porch area is often cool but in this sort of weather it's frigid. 

It's a nicely insulated house though and you don't feel it as much as you feel the cold here in our home on the north end.   I'd been sitting in the kitchen one late afternoon and gotten chilly so I moved to the living room.  Sam came in and took his shoes off while sitting in my chair in the kitchen.  "This floor is COLD!"  I assured him it was just at that end of the house.  Our bathroom has always been practically 10 degrees cooler than any other portion of the house in winter.  When we have winter weather as we do now, we usually put an electric heater in the bathroom just to knock off the chill in the early mornings when we get up.

I've been urging Sam to consider a propane heater or gas log fireplace in his new home.  I keep telling him that heat pumps aren't made for this sort of cold.  They fight hard to keep up below 35f.  Below 28f they are very inefficient.  In snow or sleet the power might well go out and then there is nothing but cold.  So far he's resisted listening to me, but I think the deep cold in that floor the other night shook him a little, especially when he heard the heat pump running and saw the propane heater on, too.

I think he remembered eating our supper back in that breakfast area now turned sitting area.  We went out within the first week and bought a rug to put on the floor.  We had to heat the plates before putting food on them because it would be congealed cold before blessing was said over it otherwise.  That was in the days when we had no propane heater, in the first year or so living here.  We used to set up portable electric heaters in the area back then otherwise we shivered as we ate.

I make it sound like the area was frigid cold.  It wasn't.  It was just a good bit colder than the rest of the house, more than just noticeable.

I was meant to go to Bess this week to start the housekeeping work but the snow put an end to that.  Part of me has felt all along that I shall not be cleaning that house.  Call it intuition but I'm certain that it will sell before I ever get to walk through the door to clean it.  It's such a lovely house, really it is and I absolutely love it.

Just as the house that I loved best is the old house in the small town 25 miles south of here, I expect that Bess shall, in years to come, describe this house as the house she loves best.   I remember when she was visiting here, on the hunt for a house.  She viewed 11 or 12 houses the first day then drove three hours to my home after all that looking and riding.  She showed me three or four homes and then narrowed it down to one.  It was not this house they have now.  But something changed overnight.  In the morning when she got up, before she even had coffee she brought me the pictures of the house they have now and said "This is the house.  I woke up this morning and I just knew it was the one."

When they moved in and placed their furniture it was as though everything they'd bought when moving into their Florida home had been purchased for the house here in Georgia.  Even the colors in the rug matched the color of the living room walls!  The towels coordinated with the bathrooms, etc.  It really was like they'd just bought everything for their current house.

I think that just as I love being here, the family will be happy.  I don't expect they will regret being here.  I do believe, though, that house will always be something special to Bess, just like the old railroad foreman's cottage is special to me.

Last night as I stepped into the kitchen, Sam dropped his boots on the floor next to my chair.  I was about to shut the shades and curtains and I looked off down the driveway.  The 'bump' must have been heard outdoors.   There at the end of the drive stood two deer with eyes fully trained on the house.  I called softly to Sam and we stood and watched them for several minutes.  I do love seeing them on the place and it's true enough they think they own it and we are the interlopers.

Christmas morning I was gazing out the northward facing windows when I had the distinct feeling I was being watched.  I stared at the brush just beyond the cut lawn and noticed a pair of ears.  Sure enough there was a deer watching me, safely camouflaged by the sedge and brush.  It made me wonder as I watched it watching me, how often some creature or another stood gazing at my window as I stared out of it.  It kind of gives you the feeling of not knowing if you are the zoo keeper or the zoo critter.   I mentioned this later at lunch and one of John's co-workers laughed.  He's a hunter and said he's often found himself watched when he thought he was all alone.

Which reminds me of the children  here at Thanksgiving.  Daniel came running inside with a little scared look about him.  "There's something out there!" he said in an trembling voice. I  assured him that indeed there was something out there.  His eyes widened.  I told I'm I'd lay odds if he'd stand still and watch he'd find it was a little bird tossing the dry leaves to and fro as he sought a bug for dinner.  I told him they made the most noise doing that little task and you'd think something about the size of a man was out there but then you'd see nothing but a tiny bird that could fit in the palm of your hand. I must have made him feel better because next time I glanced out he was standing staring at the tree line, watching hard.

I know this week has been abysmal for posts but I have been busy.  It's not all Jamberry and company.  No, it's also been housework which suffered from Thanksgiving through end of December.  It took me far longer than it ought to have done to clean that oven of mine.  The pan for the turkey was a little too small.  It was also heavy.  It slipped as I removed it from the pan and broth slopped across the bottom of the oven and dripped down into the broiler.  The oven smoked and smoked and smoked.  It smoked for days after but when was I to clean it?  I had company and you can't just dismantle the oven in the midst of company.  And then it was time to bake cookies for Christmas and it seemed there was never a good time to clean it.

What a mess it was!  I'd mentioned it in a previous post and Debby in KS was good enough to share with me her 'recipe' for a non-noxious oven cleaner.  I wasn't sure how it could possibly work but it did!  Is my oven looking brand new?  No, not quite.  But I have a feeling that a second application of it would just about make it look new.  I just needed to clean the top layer of gunk off the thing.   So now that I've tried it, I want to share that 'recipe', as well.

1 1/2 cups baking soda
2 tbsps. salt
3 tbsps. dish detergent (I use Dawn)
1/4 cup vinegar.

Mix all the dry ingredients and detergent then slowly add vinegar and slowly stir.  Yes it will foam a bit but no worries.  You want it to be about icing thickness.  Spread with a paintbrush over floor, roof and side walls of oven.   Spread over the racks as well.  I couldn't get it to stick to my racks so I'll share what I did with those in a moment.  Leave the stuff on the oven for six hours.

I didn't have quite enough to spread on my oven racks so I mixed a little of the ingredients.  It still wouldn't stick so I filled my tub with hot water and put the racks in and poured the mixture in with it as well.   When the water had cooled to just lukewarm, I took a stainless steel pad and the baked on stuff literally started to slide off.  I didn't have to work hard on those racks at all!  

I was so excited that I decided to see how well the oven came clean.  Now mind you the stuff was meant to be on the oven for six hours and I'd barely waited three.   It took me a good two hours of scrubbing and wiping that oven and then I had to wipe and wipe.  I went through four old rags which were useless as could be when I was done with them.  The stuff I put on the walls slipped through the vent holes into the broiler pan area and while I'd not planned to clean it, too, I did.  It didn't take much work but it sure made me aware of what I don't want in my next gas stove.  I do NOT want that bottom drawer broiler!  What a horrid mess it gets to be and I have to lie on my stomach on the floor to clean it.

I'd show a photo of the results but apparently I deleted the ones I took from my phone so rejoice, lol.  After all an oven is an oven is an oven.  Right?   Suffice it to say that the 'recipe' is a great help and the aroma after you clean the oven is not unpleasant but it does have an 'after' smell of sorts.  I would be really cautious about using a scented detergent like green apple or lavender!

Well dears, it is time for me to end and move on to my next duty.  I've enjoyed our chat and will touch base as I can in the days ahead.  I have managed to cobble together most of my usual Friday posting so there's that.

Talk to you later!