What are you up to today? This week?

[Sherry]

This sounds really tacky. But when I was working for that telemarketing company/answering service, I administered the typing test. I kept headsets connected to the computers so they were ready to go. But I would stand there and watch some of the people that came in to test, and think to myself, there's no way I would ever use a headset after them! I knew why so many employees bought their own headsets to use,even if they were $80!

[havanaholly]

When we tested vision & hearing in the elementary schools we made up huge bags of alcohol-soaked cotton to swab down the headphones on the audiometer & the forehead rest on the vision machine.

[heidiiiii]

Hello all!

Today is a resting and relaxing day. Yesterday I went to my friend`s house where we celebrated the birthday of another friend. Dinner, cake, and conversation. I did not get in the house till way after midnight. The friend lives within five minutes walking distance from my house.

So we celebrated into the night!

No drinking. Just lots of laughs...and do not worry about my back. We sat at the diningroom table.

So today I feel blechy. So I did a few errands with Fred and now I relax.

[KathieB]

Sounds like fun, Heidi. I learned yesterday that laughter is a good preventive activity regarding women's heart health. So double benefit: fun with friends and a health boost at the same time. :thumb:

Took Lloyd to the doctor this morning. Vertigo. Doc thinks inner ear problem. He has meds for dizziness that are only marginally helping. Poor guy is trying to stay horizontal as much as possible, but getting up for bathroom breaks is a real effort.

[Selkie]

My husband has been having bouts of vertigo off and on for a several months. The meds really didn't accomplish much except make him sleepy. He had all kinds of tests from the regular MD and an ENT and so on to no big results. He has gotten relief from going to a PT and having them do what's called the Epley Maneuver. We have now learned how to do it at home so when it strikes we can take care of it.

They explained to us that it is frequently calcium type things that float in the fluid of the inner ear that get stuck in the wrong place. They normally dissolve on their own as a routine thing but occasionally get stuck where they don't belong. The Epley Maneuver repositions them to the proper area where they can dissolve. The biggest irritation was that they told him to sleep in the recliner for 1-2 days after each treatment rather than lying flat so the particles would stay where they belong.

Here is a link to the Merck Manual about it. Epley Maneuver

Hope it might work for him. Good luck.

[havanaholly]

The first year we did the Panhandle Trace Hike one of the other hikers got a bout of Meniere's about 2 miles from the end of the first day's hike and we all hung close until we got him to the next crossroad and the shuttle vehicle.

[KathieB]

Thanks, Selkie, for the info and the link. Will see if I can get L to give it a try.

[Sherry]

DS2's kindergarten teacher had a bad case of vertigo before they finally figured out it was an inner ear infection. Not the normal earache, but deeper in her ear somehow. Once they found it, it still took a bit of time to heal, but maybe that's Lloyd's problem. She couldn't even drive, it got so bad. I hope he gets better soon, he's had enough for a while!

DS1 called, they bought a new house. I knew they were looking for one, but this one has a salt water swimming pool, and I'm sure nervous about it, with two small children. They are putting up an iron fence around it, but just knowing it's in their yard bothers me. Do I sound like an overprotective granma?

[KathieB]

A salt water swimming pool? Is this something new? I can feel my skin drying out and cracking even as I think about it.

As for the nervous grandma, I'm with you. Kids love a challenge. Kids climb. Kids have friends who influence their decisions. Peer influence can instigate a lot of mischief, even if the home boys know they're not supposed to go near the pool.

Thinking I'd order several tons of sand and fill it in, make a play area out of it.

[Sherry]

My feelings too, Kathie. But supposedly a salt water pool is the best kind. I wouldn't even like trying to keep up a salt water aquarium.

But this pool really worries me. Not my business, I suppose.

[grazhina]

I'm in obsession overdrive this afternoon.

I've been wanting to make a sort of tamale casserole, you know, spicy ground beef with a cornbread type topping. Everyone I ever tried was too bland for us, and even Paula Deen's cornbread topping turned out too dry to suit me.

I finally struck on the idea that spoon bread might be the answer, so I hunted and compared spoon bread recipes online. I noticed that some were like souffles, which I didn't want, while others were described by people who rated the recipes as bland or dry. Since I noticed so many of them mentioned serving the spoon bread with lots of butter, I figured, yeah, must be dry. I did finally settle on one recipe that seemed in between the souffles and the "serve with plenty of butter".

Next step was to make the ground beef mixture. Have you ever noticed that most all ground beef casseroles these days are flavored a la Italian or Mexican? I have enough good Mexican and Italian ground beef recipes thanks.

I decided to try a recipe by Paul Prudhomme that I use, it's for a noodle casserole. I changed it a bit, adding a little chili powder, some liquid smoke, a can of Rotel tomatoes with green chiles. It was coming along and looked like it might pair well with the spoonbread.

Uh-oh.....I went to the cupboard, but it was bare of cornmeal. Only one lousy box of Jiffy cornbread mix and that wasn't enough anyway.

All that planning and experimenting and I had forgotten that I used up the last of the cornmeal last week............

Back to square 2........I wonder how noodles mixed with sour cream, cream cheese and maybe dried chives would work with the meat mixture on top with Cheddar and American cheese as a topping? It's sort of like Paul Prudhomme's original recipe, only I'm sort of changing the order of some things.

I don't know....oh how I obsess.......I can be obsessive-compulsive.

It's a good thing the pizza shop down the road has good hot wings in case dinner is so-so. DH and son like those wings.......I wish I'd ordered them in the first place.

[Sherry]

Try it with crunched up Fritos on top, that's not bad at all. If you have any fritos!

[grazhina]

OK, dinner has been eaten.

While I was mixing up the cream cheese and sour cream and chives, DH came over and asked what that was, when I told him I wasn't sure yet, he shuffled away mumbling "oh gawd".

It wasn't bad. DH thought there was BBQ sauce in it, which there wasn't, just a tsp of Liquid Smoke. It's funny though, the meat mixture tasted sweet, just as if there was BBQ sauce in it.

I'm going to make it again, sometime, but I need to cut back on the black pepper.

[havanaholly]

Grazhe, try a can of cream-style corn in your cornbread if you want moist. I also use fat-freee yogurt instead of milk.

[grazhina]

Thanks Holly. I've seen quite a few recipes that mention adding cream style corn, but wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to try or not. I'll keep it in mind in future.

[chellebelle]

My daughter and I have started a new way of spending quality time together. We now have Waffle Sundays! She drives up here ( about an hours drive) every Sunday, bringing all her laundry, and a new recipe or idea for this week's waffles. Today was pumpkin, which were awesome, and another recipe a batch with the pre pumpkined batter, added Sargento Bistro Blend shredded Sharp Wisconsin and Vermont Cheddar cheese and bacon, plus extra bacon. It was pretty good. Savory rather than sweet, so we skipped the syrup on that one. Of the 2, I'll vote pumpkin, lol. Last week was banana walnut, my favorite so far.

Dan was at a Super Bowl party, so it was just us girls. So, we did what girls do. Rented a Johnny Depp movie, Public Enemies. I wish I could say how good a movie it was, but unfortunately, I fell asleep about 20 minutes into the movie, and missed it. We will have to re-rent because Sarah fell asleep too, lol. I'm slowly feeling better, but I must have been REALLY tired to sleep through Johnny Depp! Then she was off to meet up with friends. Dan came home early, and the game is on.

[Sherry]

The cream style corn really perks up cornbread. Then add a little minced jalapeno, grated cheese, and minced onion, and you have cornbread to die for! Probably my kids' favorite thing for me to make.

[heidiiiii]

Kathie,

I suffer from Meneire`s disease. It has to do with fluid retention building up in the inner ear..it gets to a point where it releases and that is when you have an attack.

Room can spin (sometimes not..i dont get the room spin) and you feel sick to your stomach..like get me off this ride!

Try this trick. Have him lay on his left side with ear down on bed...if that does not give him relief, have him lay on his right side. If it makes his gut feel better..then have him stay on his side like that when he takes a nap.

[Muriel]

I'd take the first oportunity to teach the kids to swim well and then although the worry is still there it might be very little bit less, knowing they can swim (teach them rescue swimming too while you're at it!) If you can't swim or can't teach them, enroll them in a course at the local pool - basically say you're getting a pool, so you gotta learn how to swim and rescue! If they're still little (which i think they are if I remember rightly) the just teaching them to swim for now will be useful. I know a lot of accidents still happen, even when you can swim, but surely it reduces the risk.

I'm putting stamps on our wedding invites and will take them to the post office this afternoon. Other task for today was tidying hobby room, will get on to that shortly too I'm sure

[havanaholly]

You're welcome, Grazhe; I also use 2/3 self-rising meal & 1/3 self-rising flour. And absolutely NO sugar!!! (remembering what part of the country you live in; the corn will make it godawful sweet as it is!lol). Sherry, I do the same thing when I make cornbread! Back when our jalapeno bush was bearing I used both the red & the green peppers and do they ever make a pretty cornbread! (note, if you remove the seeds from your peppers the result is perky, not fiery).

DH is in Quincy getting his tax return checked by the pros to see if we really have to send the Feds all that money! When they cut back on the withholding as a stimulus to get us to $pend more, it meant we have to send them $$$ instead of getting a refund, like we used to when we were both working. Anyway, since the furry intruders are back (I emptied a glue trap yesterday AM) I swept & vacuumed downstairs; doing laundry now.

I'm inordinately pleased at how my first attempt at formas draperies turned out. Jacquard necktie fabric also works well for drapes!

I have my copy of Janet Storey's upholstered furniture book out to see if I can reduce the Knowles sofa to 1:24; considering the note next to the pattern in the book says to photo-copy it to enlarge 111%, should be an interesting experiment.

[Sherry]

Muriel, they started the oldest on swimming lessons when she was tiny, but don't know if the baby has started his. I know they'll be careful about the kids. I just worry, it's my job!

Teaching at the discipline unit today, that should be interesting! As long as I don't have to do the daily workout with them, I'll be ok!

[Muriel]

Excellent Sherry! lol, reminds me of a story of when I was little. Granny had a cabin on Lake Michigan, so we'd go there every so often for summer holidays. When I was a toddler still, not walking, I'd zoom crawl down the sand to the water, splash around, nearly drown, have to be rescued and brought back up the sand away from the water. Where I'd stay a minute or two, before crawling down and nearly drowning again Definitely a water baby!

[Muriel]

I posted a forum posting tutorial for people not familiar with forum posting! It is in the site info, feedback and technical support forum

That took quite a bit of writing and formatting (quite proud really ), but otherwise tonight I am chilling out not doing anything. Should be doing plenty, but don't want to Tomorrow will be exhausting I fear. Early start (open at 8:45) late finish (6:45) and then a rush to get to a neighbouring town for a compulsory training evening (food from 6:30, meeting from 7:15). I'm due to arrive there at 7:15, but one friendly colleague will make me a plate of food and another will keep me a seat!

[Sherry]

Well, I ended up substituting for the school nurse today and thought about Holly. I had over 20 kids come in. Mostly tummy aches, headaches, one pink eye, I don't want to go to PE aches. But also some throwing up, an 8 yr old diabetic whose blood sugar level was 299 when he came in this morning (had to call dad), mysterious rashes, stabbed self with a pencil, and about 4 bloody noses. It made for an interesting day!

[havanaholly]

Ah, Sherry, you brought back some memories! Muriel, your tutorial was brilliant, it was the first thing I read when I logged on.

We had our Florida Trail Association meeting tonight and DH brought up the upcoming Panhandle Trace Hike the Western Gateway chapter of the FTA will hold the first week in April. We went in to town after lunch and hit thrift stores until supper time, and the meeting after supper. I found two tiny handmade pitchers and the same store had $Tree furniture (the later stuff with nonworking drawers & doors) and Michael's hutches marked US$2.99 apiece that I summarily ignored. I also found both of Jewel's books, which I haven't read, so I bought them. At another store I found a box of wine charms that are teensy "blown glass" Christmas ornaments!