A Day Without Technology

Today was terrifying! As close to a scary Halloween Day as you can imagine.

Picture this, Sicily 1949....oh wait, that's the beginning of a Sophia on The Golden Girls story.

Didn't you just love her? She was the best!





Ok, picture this, Bakersfield 2012, a fearless woman leaves her home. A normal day, like any other, navigating Highway 99 like a pro. Listening to Bob and Tom in the Morning radio show, laughing, rolling her eyes at their antics.

She gets to work, gathers up her purse, her lunch bag, her sweater and locates her office keys, makes sure her headlight are off and heads into the big, gray, two story office that has become her home away from home. She could travel down these hallways blindfolded and know exactly where she is just by the number of steps she takes, that's how well acquainted she is with where she spends the majority of her day.

She unlocks the office door and steps into darkness...a quick few steps to the left and there is the light switch, she turns the lights on and heads into her office. She places her stuff on the desk, turns on her computer and stares out the window while it boots up...not knowing, not aware of something that is about to turn her day into a nightmare!

She sits back down and realizes that it's 7:50am and her sister, who calls her every morning between 7:40 to 7:45 has not called her. Fear clutches in her heart! Did sister oversleep? Is it Saturday and sister didn't call because this is not a work day. Or maybe sister found someone more interesting to call, someone less judgemental and grumpy in the morning???

She grabs her purse to get her cell phone and the world comes crashing down around her head, she gets dizzy, she clutches her heart, she screams out "Oh my Gosh!!! I forgot my phone!!!"

She's never forgotten her phone before! The walls close in on her, what is she to do? How is she going to check in on facebook throughout the day? How is she going to retrieve those super important email jokes all day long? How is she going to play Words with Friends and WordFeud and UnBlock Me? How is she going to play with Talking Tom? How is she going to text with friends and family??? Could it be? Could this be A DAY WITHOUT TECHNOLOGY???

It was my friends, and it was hard! The longest day of my life. I'd be working away and think, "Oh, I gotta text my son and remind him to ask the lawn man for a quote to trim the trees" and I would reach for my phone, and it wasn't there. I would reach for my phone to check the temperature outside...and it wasn't there. I waited at lunch time for my ever dutiful sister to call me as she does daily and then I remembered I had no phone.

On the bright side...I got a lot of work done. I think the world was definitely more productive before Smart Phones!

Iwanna Wednesday - All Things Bright and Beautiful!

I am obsessed lately with anything India. It all started with a bedspread my daughter April gave me that's silky and has bright colors, orange, pink, green, blue and yellow, mainly orange though, that's the dominant color. When I see it, it makes me happy. So even though I think that I should have an adult bedroom with bedding that's brownish, beigish, tan-ish, greenish...Iwanna bedroom with bright beautiful colors.

My bedspread alas has seen better days, and even though I love, love, love it...it's time to start shopping for another one. And is it just me or a bedspreads, comforters and sheets outrageously priced! Yikes!

Today for Iwanna Wednesday Iwanna pick out some things for my bedroom. Now some of them I may end up with and most of them I probably won't, but that's what Iwanna Wednesday is for, a day I can Iwanna anything I want, but that doesn't mean that I will be buying them.

To start with, I love ottomans, but the one I have is a drab olive green and even though I mean to re-do it someday, wouldn't it be nice to just have something new? Something bright and beautiful? Something like this...

This is exactly what I mean when I speak about being obsessed with the colors of India! Isn't this gorgeous? Not only do I love the colors, but I love the style, the way the ends curve and the see-throughness of the legs! This little beauty came from India By Design and is made out of recycled materials.

Also from that same website is this beautiful lamp made using a wire hanger and Indian Bangle Bracelets. I have tons of Indian Bangle Bracelets and I love them. The lamp might not provide a lot of light, but it's beautiful just as a display of art, don't you think?

So if I had that beautiful bench above, I would want to place it at the end of my bed and wouldn't it just look perfect if I were to get this bedding? What do you think? Too much? Hmmm, I don't know, I'm kinda loving it myself! This beautiful bedding is believe it or not from walmart.com

Now what Iwanna is some curtains. In my bedroom I have a beautiful bay window and a huge sliding glass door so curtains really make the room since most of the room will be curtains. And in keeping with the India theme, how about curtains made from Saris? I swooned when I saw these! They would bring out the blue in the bedding don't you think? These are from Indian Selections.com.

And I was thinking since I now have a beautiful place to sit at the end of a beautiful, colorful bed with gorgeous windows and the glow of the light through those colorful bangle bracelets what else could Iwanna except for a beautiful Sari to wrap myself in, but then I watched this video of how to wrap the Sari and while it's mesmerizing to watch how they wrap it, I just don't think that I can do it.

 

 

 



So maybe just a nice kaftan instead? Something colorful and comfortable like this?

And lest you think that Alicia has finally gone off her rocker or is losing it in her old age (since my last post was about all my gray hair), I think it's just that I've gotten to that point in life like the little old lady that shall wear purple.

When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

by Jenny Joseph

 

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.

 

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and bear nuts and things in boxes.

 

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

when suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

 

 

So that's what I'm doing, I'm just practicing just a little bit now, before I grow old...so I don't shock anyone. What about you? What's your dream bedroom like and has it changed as you've gotten older?



 

 

Island Pork Tenderloin Dinner

 love pork tenderloin, but honestly had not made it since the 1990's when I was married. My daughter found this recipe and emailed it me asking me to "pretty please" make it for Sunday dinner. So I read it and thought, "Hmmmmm, this sounds weird." But I bought a pork tenderloin and put it in the freezer and forgot about it for a couple of weeks. This Sunday I decided to give it a try.

 

 

 

Doesn't that look delicious? First let me say that I used a cast iron skillet. I love cast iron skillets and I remember all my tias (aunts) cooking with them, but myself had never really used one. It just made me feel like I was channeling all the wonderful cooking skills of all my tias, even though I'm sure not a one of them had ever used a cookbook, let alone recipes from the internet!

 

This recipe was adapted from Gourmet Cookbook and my daughter found it at Little B Cooks: Chronicles from a Vermont Foodie. It's super easy and if you read it you might just wonder how these different ingredients could go together as they don't really seem to make much sense, but ohmygosh!!!

 

The only change I made from Little B's recipe is that I used Cayenne Pepper instead of plain ole chili powder cause we didn't have chili powder. I'm glad I did because it gave the the dish a great little spicy kick!

 

I think though that using the Cayenne made for a little bit of drama in my kitchen because you take salt, pepper, cumin, cinnamon and the cayenne and stir it all together for a dry rub. Then after you get all up-close and personal with your pork loin you braise it in your skillet with some EVOO (extra virgin olive oil). This process created an aroma that I didn't personally like although my son and daughter did. This process also created some smoke that had all of us coughing! My mom coughed so bad she had to step outside for fresh air! So be sure to turn the fan on over your stove. You have been warned!

 

 

Once you've braised it on the stove then you stick it....cast iron pan and all into the oven. Once it's done you take it out, cover it lightly with foil so all the juices can soak back in and slice and serve. Delicious. I didn't think about it at the time, but there were some delicious drippings left in the pan which I should have pour over the top, but still great even without! We had mashed potatoes and green beans as side dishes. I'm planning to make pork loin sandwiches with coleslaw with the leftovers...if they make it through the night!

 

ISLAND PORK TENDERLOIN

For Spice Rub:

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp cayenne pepper (or chili powder)

1 tsp cinnamon

2 pork tenderloins (2 1/4 - 2 1/2 lbs total) trimmed

2 tbsp olive oil

 

For Glaze:

3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 tbsp finely chopped garlic

1 tbsp Tabasco

 

Stir the spice rub ingredients together in a small bowl and rub all over the pork. Heat oil in ovenproof 12 inch heavy skillet (or a cast iron skillet if you are fortunate enough to have one) over medium high heat. Brown pork, turning occasionally, about 4 to 5 minutes total. Remove from heat, but leave pork in skillet.

 

Stir together brown sugar, garlic and Tabasco in a small bowl. Pat the mixture on top of the pork. Place skillet in the over at 350. Roast until thermometer inserted diagonally into the center of each tenderloin registers 140 degrees, about 20 minutes (I didn't have a thermometer so I just left it in the oven for 30 minutes to be safe and it was perfect!). Loosely cover with foil and let stand in skillet for 10 minutes then slice and get ready to be delighted!

 





Gray Hair and Wisdom

"A little gray hair is a small price to pay for all this accumulated wisdom." Anonymous

Lately I've noticed a touch of gray hair at my temple...oh c'mon, who am I kidding! I've been fighting gray hair for the past ten years. Sometimes I think it's because I've been coloring my hair ever since I was in high school.

 

 

In this picture for instance you can see my natural hair color in the picture on the left, it's kind of a medium dark brown. I used to color my hair Auburn in high school, as you can see in the picture on the right. I don't know why I did that because out in the sun the color was more circus clown orange than Auburn. But I've been a redhead, a medium blond, had streaks and once even dyed my hair Cher black (that was not a good look for me!)

 

To be honest the gray in my hair doesn't really bother me, other than having to color it more often. But I am a little upset in the way my gray is coming in. I would love for it to be salt and peppery like Jamie Lee Curtis' hair. That would be cool.

 

But unfortunately my gray is more Cruella Deville-ish. Well not exactly like hers as mine isn't one side gray and one side black, more like the hair at the crown and temples is all gray for about an inch and then it's my natural color.  It seems odd to me that only that one inch grows gray...does it automatically then turn brown once it gets past an inch? How is that even possible? Weird right?!

Anyway, my reason for pondering gray hair this morning is that the other day I was wondering what my kids thought when they first noticed I had gray hair. I wondered because I remember the first time I saw my dad with gray hair.

 

He was sitting at the kitchen table in his chair, the chair that we could all sit in when he wasn't around but the instant he walked into the kitchen, everyone jumped up to give him his chair. I remember turning around and the sun hit his hair just right and all of a sudden I noticed that he was gray. I'd never noticed that before!

 

 

All of a sudden I realized that my dad, my rock in life, the only man I could ever count on, was getting older. I realized that one day he wouldn't be there, in that chair anymore for any of us. He wouldn't be there to call on when I had a flat tire or I needed a bulb changed in a tail light. He wouldn't be there to BBQ for us all anymore.

 

Well...lest you think this is a sad story, let me tell you that I first noticed that gray hair on his head in 1995 and he's still with us today. The photo above was taken on his birthday in May of this year and he's still got that gray hair and he's still with us, and though he complains of aches and pains, I know that he loves life and he loves his children and grandchildren. I had dinner with him, my sister and his grandson Isaac on Wednesday of this week and as I was driving him to the restaurant I was telling him about an electrical problem I think I am having with my car and again he gave me advice on how to tell what is wrong with it. My dad, my rock, my mechanic...he's still got it!

 

I wonder if my kids think anything when they see my gray. Does it worry them, scare them? Who knows. I know I never told my dad of my fears that I wouldn't always have him around forever.

 

"When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars,

 and he will make the face of Heaven so fine

 that all the world will be in love with night

and pay no worship to the garish sun."

Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet

 

 



Albondigas and Corndogs, What a Combo!

I can already feel the stress and tension leaving my body and my mind. For the past four months my co-worker has been out on maternity leave. This left me alone with all my work and most of hers and even worse...without her company and conversation. We're a two person office so when one of us isn't there it really makes a difference.

But Monday will be her first day back and while I know that she's going to be distraught having to leave her baby daughter with her mom the whole day, I really have missed her and am happier than a pig in slop to have her back!

I think that's why today for the first time in four months I felt almost festive! I put up my small collection of Halloween and Fall decorations. Then I even decided to try a few of the 2,000,000 recipes that I have pinned on Pinterest.

For lunch I made two-year old food. No! Not food that was two years old!! I mean food that a two year old would like.  See, I have a few finicky eaters in my family. The most important one my mom. She's very thin and she doesn't have a very good appetite, so I'm always trying to find interesting, yummy things for her to eat. Today I made Mini Muffin Pan Corn Dogs.



For Halloween, you could make these for your kiddies and call them Corn Dog Eyes!



Aren't these little guys adorable? And so easy to make. I got the idea from Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman. Her corn muffins are of course made from-scratch muffin mix and mine are made with a boxed mix, but other than that they are exactly like hers. Although hers look much better! I believe it's because she pushed the hot dogs down deeper into the muffin tin than I did. Next time I make them I will try that. Let me tell you though, if you are a corn dog lover, you will love these! They taste just like a fast-food corn dog, but not greasy! Needless to say my finicky mom gave them two thumbs up!

Then for dinner I got inspired by another recipe I'd pinned on Pinterest, a recipe for Albondigas. Albondigas are a Mexican meatball soup. My mom has made Albondigas for us since we were all little kids. She makes a big pot of rice with spices and tomato sauce and then tosses the meatballs in there...her version of Albondigas. But everyone has always told me that true Albondigas have veggies in them, so I tried a Veggies version today.

Let me tell you, they were delicious! The original version came from allrecipes.com. I tweaked their version just a little bit because theirs called for beef bouillon and I had none so I used low-sodium chicken broth instead. Theirs had a jar of salsa, but I used a can of tomato sauce instead (I know my people and they won't each anything that has green and red things floating in it). And I seasoned both the soup and the meatballs with salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder. Did I tell you it was delicious? Oh yeah, I think I did but I must say it again! It was delicious, definitely a dish I will make again and again!

So today was a good day and hopefully things will get back to normal at work and I can have my life back again so I can blog and cook and blog about what I cook...lucky you! I've missed you guys!


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Anyone having problems with comments on blogger?

I have tried to reply to some of the comments left on my blog as I usually do. But when I click reply I get nothing! Won't let me post a comment, nothing. And I notice no comments on my most recent post, not that it's so interesting that everyone runs to read my blog, but I do have my faithful readers that comment whether the post was good or not. Thank you to those faithful ones, by the way. So anyone else having problems? Are you having problems commenting on my blog? If so, please shoot me an email at calangel58@yahoo.com. Thanks!

What's the Rule for That?

Today I had to run errands at lunch. Don't you love that? Using your much deserved lunch break to take care of real life! And even though we are in October it's 97 degrees out there!

So I thought to myself, "Self...you deserve a treat! Go and get yourself a $10 Salad, you deserve it!" I have to admit, I'm pretty generous with myself.

So I headed over to Sub Station, my favorite sandwich shop. They sell the best sub-sandwiches, but they also have the cleanest, freshest, crispiest salad bar in the world! A large to-go salad with a small drink comes to $10.05 and that's why I call it the $10 salad.

As I was walking up to the door there was a gentleman ahead of me. We

both got to the door at the same time and he of course held it open for me and said, "Here, let me get that." Or maybe it was, "Here you go", or "Woman, get your butt in here cause it's hot and I'm hungry." Whatever it was, he was nice enough to hold the door for me. I thanked him graciously.

Now, here's the dilemma. I walked in first, and of course there is a line. Do I then offer him to go first as obviously if he had not held the door and let me go in first he would have been ahead of me. Do I go ahead and just assume because I'm a woman and he's a chivalrous man that he would just expect me to go ahead of him? Do I offer him to go ahead of me? Ack!!! What to do, what to do!

I had to make a spur of the moment decision so I just went ahead of him and didn't offer to let him go first. Now my heart is heavy and I feel like I did the wrong thing and I can't eat my salad...well I can't eat it as quickly because I am typing and sharing this story with you. But anyway...what say you? What should I have done? What would you do in a situation like that?

Adventures in Funeral Service

Several years ago I worked for a funeral home. I have to say it was one of my most favorite jobs ever! I know! You wouldn't think so would you? But of all the jobs that I've ever had that was the only one where I ever felt that my being there really made a difference to someone, to whole families.

I remember the interview like it was yesterday, talk about being nervous. But the interview was nothing compared to my first day on the job. I remember coming in through the garage where the hearses were parked. I know...hearses! Can you imagine seeing hearses every single day?

But wait...that was nothing. I walked in trying to squeeze past the hearses and I look to my right into the open door and I see a very sterile white room that looked like a doctor's office. In this room I see a gurney and on the gurney I see a  body laying there very quietly. Of course this person was very quiet, this person was dead!
Trust me...I thought, "What am I doing here?"

I took a deep breath and thought about my kids and how I needed this job so I could be close to them and close to their schools and I kept on walking into the office. And every day it got easier.

I was never really thrilled about the embalming room and tried not to go into there very often, although there were times that I had to go in there when there was no one else to help the embalmer. Sometimes it was just to steady the body to position it into the casket, sometimes it was to help load the casket into the back of the hearse.

I have to give credit to the embalmers though, to them it wasn't just a job, it was a calling. They took such pride in their jobs and I saw them take bodies that had been mutilated and transforming them so that their loved ones could see them and touch them...one last time.

There are jobs that none of us want to do and then there are those that do them. Like embalmers who face death head on every day. So the next time you are at a funeral home for visitation, remember that someone treated that person laying in the casket like that person was someones father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, whatever that person was, they don't think of that person as a scary dead body, but as someones loved one.

Inspired by a real-life murder that threatened to topple the powerful Hapsburg dynasty in the 17th century, The Bloodletter's Daughter imagines how one young woman holds more power than she thought possible. Join From Left to Write on September 25 as we discuss the The Bloodletter's Daughter. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Raising a Boy

You've all heard the saying, "Mother's of little boys work from SON up til SON down"? Never was that saying more fitting than when it comes to describing raising my son. My son was rambunctious and rowdy right from the beginning. He was born to fight his way through life. He even fought being born, choosing to come out butt first and having to be born through a C-section! Never was that saying more fitting than in describing raising my boy.

Here you see me fresh from the hospital holding my little bundle of joy. You can see the exhaustion in my face and the pain. C-sections are not easy, especially when you go through a long labor with a breech baby for hours and hours before the c-section.




My son was a good baby though, slept through the night almost immediately and ate well and was healthy and happy. We loved him to pieces, especially his sister.

I was fortunate that I got to stay home with him for the first two years of his life, after that I had to go back to work and had to rely on daycare. That's when the problems started. My son was VERY active and it was difficult for him to just sit and listen to a story or color or play with blocks. He had to be constantly moving so when he had to sit quietly his hands would wander and he would pull a girls hair or poke another child, anything to keep from just sitting quietly. We must have gone through seven or eight different daycare places before it was time for him to go to school.

We hoped that starting Kindergarten would be the end of the daycare problems, but they just continued on in school. There was not a day that he didn't get sent home with a note from the teacher for some reason or another. He had a journal that he would bring home every day where the teacher would right a sentence or two about his day. Every day was the same thing, "unable to sit still", "unable to keep his mouth quiet", "doesn't stay on task", "fights with the other children"...and on and on.

His dad was not as forgiving as I and it seemed like my son was constantly being punished and put in "time-out" by his dad. As he got older it was being grounded and having to stay in his room constantly with no TV, no books, nothing to do but sit on the edge of his bed. Torture for a child that can't stop moving! His dad and I were miles apart in our theory of how to raise him.

Finally things came to a head between his dad and I and we divorced, leaving me alone to raise my troubled but loving and beautiful little boy!

Things at school escalated. I met numerous times with teachers and principals and counselors and therapists and psychologists and doctors. The school called me every day to come and straighten out some problem with my son. I recall one time they called me to tell me that my son refused to leave his desk to go to the Principal's office after making a little girl cry. I watched through the window as they tried to convince him to go to the Principal's office and he just gripped his desk with those little arms and fingers and refused. The only way they could have gotten him to go would be if they had broken his fingers or his arms. The teacher, principal and janitor came out and they asked me to sign a paper that would allow them to pick up my son's desk, boy and all and carry it to the Principal's office. I was at a point where I didn't know what to do so I said ok and signed their paper. That is just one example.

And it wasn't just at school, I had problems with him at home also. I remember one Saturday outing with my son, my mom and myself. We went to do a little shopping and stopped to grab a bite to eat at a Wendy's restaurant. At some point inside the restaurant while we were eating my son got upset and said he wanted the keys to the car so he could wait in the car. He was about 8 years old at this time and I told him no, he could sit there quietly and wait for his grandmother and I to finish. He said no and walked out. My mom wanted to leave right away but I told her no, let's finish our meal, he will be back in a little bit, where is he going to go?

We finished and went out to the car assuming he would be standing by the car...but he wasn't. I walked around the building then to the stores in the area and down the block calling him. He was no where to be found. By this time I was in a panic and called the police. The police came and questioned me and my mom and radioed other officers to be on the lookout for him. About an hour later a California Highway Patrol officer found him. The CHP office had been getting reports of a little boy crossing Highway 99, a heavily traveled 3-lane highway! When the police finally caught up with him he was 5 miles from the Wendys!

The officer that brought him back to me was very nice and said "You're going to have to keep this kid on a short leash because he has no concept of what is right and what is wrong." This was a big wake up call for me!

Doctor's and therapists had been telling me they wanted to put my son on medication, on Ritalin for ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, I finally agreed, I didn't know what else to do.

Did Ritalin help my son? Well it calmed him down and made it easier for teachers and the other students to deal with him. It made it easier for him to concentrate and learn, but he hated it. He hated the way it made him feel. He would beg me not to make him take the meds and promised me that he would be good. A few times I tried sending him to school without the medication and the school would call me and know right away he had not take his medication and they asked me to come and give it to him. This is how I remember my son on Ritalin...

Did I do the right thing in medicating him? I'll never know. Will I always feel guilty that I had to resort to Ritalin to try to make my child behave, definitely. I know that I did what I felt was best, but that guilt will always be there in the back of my mind.

The good thing is that when he started junior high school he refused to take it any more and said he was going to force himself to be good...and he did. Ritalin is a thing of the past for my son, but the memory of my son's glazed eyes and swollen little face will never be erased from my mind and my heart.

This post was inspired by the book, January First, A Child's Descent into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her.

 

How far would you go to advocate for your child? In January First, father Michael Shofield and his family struggle to find the right treatment for his daughter Jani, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at six years old. Join From Left to Write in September as we discuss the Shofield's memoir January First. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Memories of High School or I wish I had known I was THIN!

This weekend I did a lot of Spring Cleaning even though we are still in the hot clutches of the summer sun! I found lots of pictures that brought back lots of old memories.

For instance, I found this picture of me at my Senior Prom. This had to be in 1976. I remember this day well as I had butterflies all day.

I must have tried on 500 dresses and none of them made me happy because I was SO FAT! Seriously...I thought I was fat. Isn't that sad because now looking at this picture I realize what my mom always told me, that I wasn't fat, that I was the same size as all my friends!

What I wouldn't give to be this size again!

Do you remember your Prom? Do you remember shopping for dresses?

I was lucky, I loved this dress and the young man that took me was one of the sweetest guys in the world and we had a blast!

Ahhh high school...one of the best times of my life!