Orange you glad I made cupcakes?

The recipe called for a bundt pan. I hate those pans so poured the batter into lined cupcake pans.

I put the extras in the freezer but they had to come out yesterday to make room for the beerocks I made.

A fresh batch of orange buttercream frosting makes the cupcakes just as good as the day I baked them.

Today’s juicing ingredients

Strawberries, kale, basil, fennel, apple.

Decade of discontent

A Facebook friend was waxing ecstatic about the 80s this morning on her post. Many of her friends replied in similar vein, talking about music, fashion, even the economy. I could not agree at all. Maybe it’s because I am of a different generation. The FB friend is closer to my daughter’s age than mine and was in high school during the 80s. Terry said, when I laughingly told him of the comments, that everyone likes their high school years and that I should tell her the 60s and 70s were the best. I don’t know that those decades were all that great, either, but they were much happier for me than the 80s. The clothes and music were also better and there was a feeling that we could do anything. Like go to college, get married, buy our first place, buy new cars, start a family.

We bought the house in which we still live in October 1980. The prices were high (we had made over 100% profit on our condo) but so were the interest rates. We were able to buy the house because it had an assumable loan with 11% interest. New loans had interest rates of 15-16 percent. A few months later Terry’s brother would buy a house with 18% interest on the loan. It was a tough, tough time. Sure enough, only a year or so after the purchase, our house was worth considerably less than we had bought it for. We had put almost twenty percent down, so that helped somewhat, but it had not been our intention to stay in this house but for a few years. We had hoped to sell and move up. Thirty two laters, with the house paid for, it’s all a moot point, but back then it was painful.

Terry lost his job in 1982 and we really struggled. His next job in retail didn’t pay all that much. There were times I had no idea how we would pay the bills. Jennifer was removed from private school; the dance lessons stopped; we didn’t go on any vacations. Since I shopped at Mervyn’s for Jen’s clothes, I bought my things there, too. Certainly nothing fancy.

I wasn’t happy with my job and wanted something different, but every interview I had was pretty much for the same kind of work, just a different company. Years went by. One day I finally realized I wanted a job that would give me more time off with Jennifer, and teaching seemed perfect for that. I had worked long enough for the cottonseed company that I had a large amount in my retirement fund, enough to live on for two years, the time it would take me to get a teaching credential. In late 1987, things began to click. There were again possibilities.

By 1989 I had the credential and a job at the inner city high school where I would remain for 21 years. Terry had returned to school, too, and was working in computer programming. He would change companies quite a few times in the next two decades as the businesses kept changing, but our finances were in good shape.

I also had begun to feel better about myself and what I was accomplishing. The  1980s, and my thirties, were behind me. Maybe that made a difference, too. The thirties seem like a tough time, now, in retrospect. You’re no longer young, but you haven’t found your niche yet, or at least I hadn’t. The financial part was the biggest hurdle of that era and one I would not relive for anything. I get upset, though, when I hear of people just up and leaving a house on which they owe more than it’s worth. That was our situation for a few years, but it never occurred to me that we should abandon our debt responsibility. We stuck with it, and today the house is paid for which makes retirement at a young age possible. I guess that decade of discontent taught me that things can change and you are never stuck forever.

The juicing is doing some good

Some of you have been following along with my juicing experience. You’ve asked if I’m more healthy by doing this, and I have been unsure how to answer in that I am pretty darn healthy. At my last doctor’s appointment, she ordered a full blood workup, testing everything that could be tested, and the only number that was out of whack was sodium. It was low. The doctor asked if I drink lots water. I do. She told me I could eat more salt but to not tell anyone because doctors never say that! This was all before the juicer came into our life.

Our juicer

(And as an aside, Terry is so healthy that our doctor has told him it’s really disgusting that someone his age is in such good shape. We are very thankful and hope to keep it that way.)

I usually make juice every day or so. About five times a week. Terry has been surprised that I have kept it up so faithfully. This week that changed because I have been busy in the afternoons which is when I make the juice. This morning I was feeling kind of crummy and tired and then I remembered that I had not made juice this week so made the decision to correct that. I made apple, basil, carrot, and kale juice this afternoon before Terry took off to run some errands. Looked like sludge but was very tasty as the carrots and apples are so sweet.

Terry enjoyed it along with me which was a good thing since he had eaten meat both at breakfast and lunch today. Once a month he takes photos for a local organization that has its breakfast meeting at a nearby Mexican restaurant. The food is excellent, but he consumes a number of meat dishes instead of the usual cereal that he has for breakfast. Then I made turkey sandwiches for our lunch. We definitely needed some veggies in there somewhere and the juice contributed that missing piece. Helps us both to feel better. So, I will get back into the routine of making juice.

A new wind chime

Although I really wanted this wind chime when I saw it at Orchard Supply, I could not justify the purchase. Remember I said I got rid of something old before buying a new item.

Terry brought the wind chime home yesterday, after he worked on editing the church broadcast. I was delighted with the present and he was delighted to be able to buy it for me. You see, I always buy my own gifts and such so I get what I want. I’m very hard to buy for.

This wind chime (I have three others in the backyard) has the most melodious tone. I am delighted to sit out here and listen to the breezes make music.

We could be our own case study

Terry and I have recently discovered a British TV series, Doc Martin. I read somewhere about a man who was sick and to help himself feel better, he would watch the series and laugh, which as we all know, is very good medicine. If you are familiar with the American TV show, House, then you get a bit of the premise of Doc Martin. Dr. Martin Ellingham is a brilliant surgeon who has been let go from the prestigious position he had in London due to a blood phobia. Pretty bad for a surgeon. Since England has socialized medicine, Dr. Ellingham is sent where the government needs him, a small, quirky fishing village in Cornwall. The ailments he turns up in his surgery (that’s what the British call a doctor’s office) are quite varied, and like Dr. House, he is superb at diagnosing them. And, like House, the ailments are taken from real life cases. Also like Dr. House, Doc Martin is not very good with people. We have been watching the past seasons on Hulu, and like the chap I read about, the laughter is good for us. Especially when the joke is on US.

The Doc Martin that we watched last night had a case of an old man who had developed a terrible smell about him but there seemed to be no medical reason for the odor, nor was there a hygiene problem as Doc Martin had social services check out his home and bathing routines. He had lost his pet bird about the same time as the odor problem started. Turned out, the missing bird had died in his valise which he carried everywhere. It was only at the end of the program that the bird was found.

Now, to bring that story closer to home: A few weeks ago, when returning to Fresno with the tiny grandchildren, we stopped at Starbucks where Terry bought a fancy brownie of which he only ate half. After getting home, he wondered aloud what had become of the rest of his brownie. We never did find it. Until today when I noticed the bag (think valise) I had taken on the trip. A newspaper was sticking out of the top of it and I realized I had been so busy with small children that I had never emptied the bag upon our arrival at home. There, further down in the bag, was the brownie (now hard as a rock) along with a bag of dried apricots, gummy worms, and a half-drank bottle of cranberry juice. Fortunately for us, the contents had not begun to smell. Terry and I laughed about our slide into ineptitude. 

I made strawberry jam