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As summer approaches, I thought I'd share my dad's special recipe for diet smores...

Carefully place 2 mini marshmallows on a stick.  Roast over a fire for 30 seconds.
Get 2 graham cracker sticks from the box, and place 2 chocolate chips on one stick.
Pull the mini marshmallows from the roasting stick and put them on the 2nd graham stick.
Put both graham sticks together, sandwich style.
Take 2 bites and enjoy!

   

Please point me in the right direction if this has been discussed before...
Does anyone have any good, clever ideas for recycling?  How to recycle in areas of limited space.  What type of containers to use to store recycling.  Clever ways to conceal recycle containers.  Anything?  I'd like to start to do more recycling, but our kitchen is so limited on space for containers.  We don't really have a broom closet, and my trash can is not even in a good location.

Also, has anyone ever thought about doing a recycle pick-up service?  I know they have the recycle bins in town sometimes, but I wonder if more people would recycle if someone came to their door or picked it up from the curb?  Even in rural areas, this might be a nice service.

I'm anxious to hear everyone's ideas and thoughts!

[****This thread was created and split from the OBAMA/REV WRIGHT thread in the Politics section by Teresa H.****]

****This thread was created and split from the OBAMA/REV WRIGHT thread in the Politics section by Teresa H.****

I agree with you too, Flo.  I am an American. Do you ever hear many Native Americans crying over their land being taken from them, or that they are put on Reservations.  I am sure there are some out there, but you don't hardly ever hear them complaining, well at least I haven't. 

I don't want to flame this issue, but in response to this comment... Native Americans aren't crying b/c they get a monthly check from the government.  Not saying I agree or disagree... just saying.

Rudy;
Just wondering why I had two page 8's this week in my paper?  It was the Classified page; it was also printed on the very back page (where page 10 should have been).  Was I just special?  Or was there a printer's glitch?  Or was there some secret annoucement on the back page that I just didn't have the special Private Eye 3-D viewing glasses with the red lenses?
Just curious.

From the National Gardening Association website:
http://www.garden.org/subchannels/care/techniques?q=show&id=1376

When to Plant Vegetables
by National Gardening Association Editors

By keeping one eye on the signals nature is sending, you can plant your vegetable garden according to nature's calendar.

If you live in the North were crocus are common, you can time your seed sowing to their their bloom: When you see the flowers, plant the following as seeds outside in your garden: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, onion sets and seeds, peas, potatoes, radish, rutabaga, shallots, spinach, and turnip. Of course these signals don't work if you live where frosts in winter are rare or light, such as in much of coastal California, Phoenix, and along the Gulf Coast and south Florida. In those regions, plant these cool-loving crops in October.

These early plants may be ready to go in while your garden is still cold and wet, before the soil is ready to be worked. One way to tell is to step onto the bare garden soil. If your footprint looks wet and shiny, wait. Another way to test is to squeeze a handful of soil into a ball and set it on ground. Poke it with your finger. If it crumbles, it's okay to plant. If it clings together in a hard ball, wait.

When tulips, daffodils, and maple trees blossom, you can plant beets and Swiss chard by seed. They can take a light frost or two, but not as much as the crops listed above.

When apple trees, lilacs, and late tulips are in bloom, you can plant the following seeds: bush beans, sweet corn, pumpkin, and squash. These crops like summer heat, but can germinate and grow in relatively cool soils.

When the tall, bearded iris bloom and apple blossoms have fallen and summer has arrived, plant seeds outdoors for pole beans, lima beans, cantaloupes, cucumbers, eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes. These are the true heat lovers.


Now my question is... what's a crocus and when do I plant that???   

Saturday, March 15, Palm Sunday:  5:00 pm  (Start in St. Mary's Hall for procession to church)

Thursday, March 20, Holy Thursday:  8:15 pm

Friday, March 21, Good Friday:  3:00 pm

Saturday, March 22, Easter Vigil:  8:30 pm

Sunday, March 23, Easter:  7:00 am

I'd like to personally apologize to everyone who eats American Beef and watched the video last week on the slaughter plant debaucle in California.  I would also like to apologize on behalf of the millions of farmers and ranchers and others who make our living on raising healthy, happy livestock so as to provide healthful, safe meat to our own families and families of all consumers in the United States.  I apologize for crying with you as we watched the horrific scenes play out on TV, and not being able to comfort your children with words to make them understand that is not how we treat our animals.  I apologize that I can't invite every single one of you to come visit my own ranch, or a ranch of one of my friends in the industry, and show you how important it is for us to treat our livestock with respect and kindness.  I apologize that the punishment that will hopefully be brought down upon those people in California who own, work, and inspect the facility won't be harsh enough to make up for all the pain they have caused you and me and the livestock industry.  I apologize that the next time you walk through the grocery store and pause at the meat counter, that I cannot erase the images you'll have in your head.  I hope that you will accept my apology, and the apology of all my beef industry friends, and that you will have faith in us to restore your faith our product.  I also hope that you do not take out your doubts and fears caused by this horrible incident on the rest of us who depend on the health, safety, care, and happiness of our livestock that provide our livelihoods.  Thank you.

I'm not talking paternal or faternal twins... I'm talking about those people you see who look "just like" someone you know. 
For example...
I saw Janet's twin tonight.  She works at Applebee's in Grand Island, NE.  Her personality is just like Janet's, and her face and features were very similar.  Kinda crazy!!!

Does anyone have any interesting information about the old Beaumont House?  I've been told that the house they tore down to build our new house used to be called the Beaumont House, and that it maybe was the original homestead office for Elk County?  For those of you who don't know, we live about 7 miles West of Howard on Limestone Rd.  Just about 1 mile West of Jim Perkin's.  When they tore down the house, they saved a few neat pieces of history from it.  I have made a couple shelves from some of the baseboard, and displayed some of the door jam corners on it (not sure what the word is for these decorative things).  I'm trying to come up with something creative for the porch pillars, too.  The rest of the door jam corners and baseboard were taken from us, and I don't know where they ended up.  I was going to make picture frames from them.
I'm not really a history buff, but I've heard that a ton of different people have lived in that house, so I'm curious as to the history of it.

Can anyone research this and see if it's a hoax or truth?

*PIN NUMBER REVERSAL

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your Pin # in reverse.

For example if your pin number is 1234 then you would put in 4321. The ATM recognizes that your pin number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine.
The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.

This information was recently broadcast on FOX TV and it states that it is seldom used because people don't know it exists.

OK, you asked for it...
Yesterday and today I attended the KLA (Kansas Livestock Association) convention and tradeshow in Wichita, KS.  I had a tradeshow booth for my company, but we didn't end up in a very good location of the show and the traffic volume was very low.  I am staying in the Hotel at Oldtown... BEAUTIFUL!  It used to be an old warehouse where they made Keen Kutter tools.  My room has a balcony that overlooks the atrium area.  They have poinsettias everywhere, including about 6 on my little balcony.  They have advertisements, old tools, and other things in lots of display areas arond the hotel that gives the history of the old building.  All the decorations are very victorian and the room is beautiful.  Too bad I never get to spend much time in the hotel room when I'm working!
Next week I'll be in Springfield, MO for the Missouri Cattlemen's Convention, but I doubt I'll be staying in such a fancy hotel, so my report may not be as interesting.
Tomorrow, I'm working on Christmas shopping while I'm in town!

What are you having for Thanksgiving?

The menu at the Norris' this year (we're serving 11):
Spiral-cut honey glazed ham
3 racks of pork ribs (Chuck will grill them)
Refrigerator mashed potatoes
Broccoli and rice casserole
Apricot salad
Blackeye peas and rice
Cream-cheese corn
Stuffing
Rhodes rolls
Veggie tray
Layed pumpkin dessert
Dad's chocolate mousse pie (frozen) x 2 (it's pretty popular)
Lemon pie

It's my first time to serve Thanksgiving at my house, so I'm pretty excited! 

For those of you who live in Elk County (and the surrounding area) and didn't attend the Elk Konnected Conversation meeting in Longton last night...YOU MISSED OUT.  This was an AMAZING event put on by a steering committee of local people who want to turn Elk County into a place of of the future; not a dying county of the past.

The evening started out with a free chili supper served by both FFA clubs from West Elk and Elk Valley High schools.  Child care was provided by the same group, along with other high schoolers from both schools.  They did a great job keeping the kids entertained so the parents could enjoy the conversations.

The first instructions we received from the conversation leader, Terry Woodbury, was that we have to start expelling all the negative thoughts and perceptions of the past.  We also have to think like a COUNTY COMMUNITY, instead of each city.  Because; if we don't work together, ALL the cities will fade away.  Our second instructions were that we were not there to point out the problems or to point fingers... we were there to start thinking about SOLUTIONS.

Before the conversation, the steering committee sent out surveys to people from the county (and Severy).  They were asked to rate their city and the county as a whole on 20 clues to building community.  On a scale from 1 to 4 (1 = excellent), they were asked to rate statements like "Evidence of community pride: our community is a show place of care, attention, history, and heritage".  The results of this survey were given out at the meeting.  As an example, for the statement above, only 27% of the people rated Elk County has having Excellent or Good ratings (1 or 2).  Individual cities were below 50%, actually below 40% (except Moline; they were at 58%).  Of the 20 points, there were only 4 that 50% or more of the people ranked the county as being Excellent or Good.  These points were 1) Strong support for education, 2) Strong presence of traditional institutions, 3) Acceptance of women leaders, and 4) Strong multi-generational family orientation (the leader was impressed with this last one, as not many counties he's worked with has ranked this one highly).

Our goals throughout the night were to take these 4 strengths of the county, and focus on the lower ranked points.  We started working with people at our table.  Then we grouped together by cities.  Then we grouped together having at least one person from each city at the table.  Some of the lower ranked points that we discussed were active econonmic development program (2nd to last); sound, well-maintained infrastructure (3rd to last); evidence of community pride (6th to last); and cooperative community spirit.  We also talked about improving the youth quality of life, and how to get citizen engagement in some of the activities and events that already go on within the community.

The interesting thing about this conversation... we didn't leave with any action items or a need to go out and "save the county".  Just our thoughts and the thoughts of others in the county.  This will be a long-term investment of people power, time, and eventually money.  Again, this was a FREE supper.  Not even a "free-will donation".  Just county neighbors getting together on a Friday night to look to the future of the county... and how we will have to work TOGETHER.   YOU MISSED OUT.

Only great minds can read this... 

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

So, I had to take the pickup to Eureka today to get some stuff fixed on it (Odometer error!).  They wouldn't let me have a car to drive around, so they just took me up the road to the old McDonalds (and not like "old macdonald had a farm", smarties).

Not sure if any of you have been up to Eureka to see this place, but they have transformed the old gas station/McDonalds into a cafe and gift shop.  They serve breakfast and doughnuts and also have lunch.  The place was PACKED.  So, I found a booth and whipped out my laptop to try and get some work done (and to glance across the latest Forum posts).  NO INTERNET.  I would have stayed there all day if I could have hopped an internet connection (well, until the local old men started teasing me).

SO... funny that I was actually thinking about this yesterday for a neat idea in Howard or somewhere in Elk County.  Do you think a cute cafe that also was a gift shop and had free internet access and GREAT coffee would fly?  I know we have a doughnut shop and Toots in Howard, so we'd have to be careful of competition, but is that too many eateries for one small town?  Would a sandwich/cafe type store (open 6-11 am and 7-10 pm) actually serve enough coffee to survive? 

Just a hypothetical... and to get someone else's wheels turning.  (I have a job that keeps me busy enough!  But you could count on me to buy a LOT of coffee!)  And just for fun... think about this... Washington street next to the old 1st National bank building is wide enough that you could even have a DRIVE-THRU!

Something I learned when I was on Weight Watchers (years ago, as you can tell)... 
Instead of using eggs and oil in a cake mix (or skipping the cake altogether), just use a can of diet soda!  Any flavor works fine, as the taste of the soda doesn't really come through in the cake, but I've found that light-colored sodas work better in a light cake (white or yellow).  The only slight difference I've found is that the cake might not rise as high as normal, but not too big of a difference.  You can calculate the calories, fat, etc, the same as what's listed for the unprepared cake, as the diet soda doesn't add anything else!
This also works well for kids, husbands, or late-night cake baking!  Normal soda works fine, too, but doesn't have the same caloric effect. 

Anyone out there have a good (easy) Jalepeno jelly recipe?  My dad and I love the stuff, and I can only find it at craft fairs!