Pain in the Butt

Hi, this is Andrea – not Mam. She’s asked me to do an update because she can’t sit at her desk for very long. Her sciatic nerve is having some issues and she’s all doped up on demerol and gravol, plus in line for a CAT scan.

Although why they want to scan Porche is beyond me…

Anyway! Leave her some comments for Carl to read out loud while she paces.

Sickie update

Dad has been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease.  He is still hospitalized and will be for awhile longer, while the doctors get the symptoms under control and his medication regulated.  My brother Andy also suffers from this disease.    It’s funny how until a disease strikes close to home, you know little about it.   Since Andy’s diagnosis a few years ago, I’m constantly reading articles on Crohn’s.

I went to work this morning to complete a couple of tasks which were hanging over my head.   I managed to put in most of the morning but had to leave due to back pain.   Thanks to the anti-inflammatory drugs my back is improving, I just need a couple of more days of medication and rest.

Since the television flat lined this past weekend, I have been reading more and more.   Most days I finish a novel.  My brother made arrangements to get it repaired (the vertical scanner died) but I’m not so sure I’ll bother watching it.

Despite the various upsets this past week, today is a wonderful day.  My DH is coming home after being on a job site in Cape Breton for the past 3 and 1/2 weeks!

A couple of sickies

It’s been a couple of rough days around here. My Dad’s been in the hospital since Friday. After suffering with diarrhea for two weeks he decided to finally go to the out patient department last Wednesday. The doctor gave him Imodium and sent him home. Two days later he was back, this time by ambulance. After five days of not getting any better, he is scheduled to have a colonoscopy first thing tomorrow morning.

My back has been bothering me since Saturday. When the pain got so bad today, it made me sick to my stomach I broke down and also went to out patient’s. It appears that I have an inflamed disc. So I’m home for a couple fo days on anti-inflammatory drugs.

I don’ t know where Tim finds this stuff, but it certainly is interesting

Here are some facts about the 1500s:
They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery…….if you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor” But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot………..they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” and were the lowest of the low.

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell . … . brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water!”

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, “Dirt poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren’t you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home the bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer…

And that’s the truth…Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

Can you bake a raisin pie?

While at Bulk Barn today, this middle aged man, whom I’ve never seen before in my life, said to me……”Excuse me you look like an intelligent very attractive lady”.

“I beg your pardon”,   I muttered.

He went on to say, “Who looks like she was a good cook in her time.  Can you tell me what type of raisins I need to make a raisin pie?  You know the big ones?”

At that point I called out to Sally, the store clerk and asked her what other types of raisins they carry besides sultana and thompson.   She told him where to find the lexia raisins.

When I told my DH about this encounter, he commented….”To think most men go to a bar and spend a couple of hundreds dollars.  And all this time they could have been picking up women at bulk barn.  Who knew?”

Good books and good stew

The current temperature is 5 degrees, it feels more like November than September.  Tomorrow will reach a high of 10 degrees.   When the weather is this chilly my favourite space is at home snuggled up with a good book.  On the way home today, I picked a pile of books at the Great Canadian Dollar Store for $3.00 each.   My plan is to spend most of Saturday reading and nibbling.

Here’s a recipe that makes an incredible soup regardless of the weather.  ( I omit the peanut butter and cilantro).   This stew is very adaptable to changes, I’ve added lentils, different peppers, and a variety of root vegetables.

Adapted from the Crazy Plates cookbook by Janet and Greta Podleski.

Rockin’ Moroccan Stew

2 tsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 clove garlic, minced (or more if you like)
3 cups vegetable broth
3 cups peeled, cubed sweet potatoes
1 can (19 oz) tomatoes, drained and cut up
1 can (19 oz) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp grated gingerroot
1 tsp each ground cumin, curry powder, ground coriander, and chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp light peanut butter
chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan. Add onions, green pepper, and garlic until vegetables begin to soften.

Add all remaining ingredients except peanut butter, and cilanto (if using). Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes.

Stir in peanut butter and cilantro (if using) and simmer for a few more minutes. Serve hot.

Tomatoes

Life has been hectic lately.  Since the first of September I have been scheduling interviews for a province wide competition, over 250 in total.  The interviews were held the past three days so life has been topsy turvy to say the least.   Last night I was too tired to even turn on the computer let alone blog something intelligent.

Today life is slowly getting back to normal.   We dined at a local restaurant which specializes in Indian food.   Dinner was followed by a 3 kilometer walk.

When we arrived home it was time to pick the tomatoes.  The temperatures have dropped to minus 2 degrees the past two nights. Even though I have been carefully covering the plants, I did not want to take another chance.    We picked all but one central plant, which I’ll cover each evening.  Hopefully those tomatoes will ripen slowly on the vine, and taste like only a home grown organic tomato can taste.

From four plants we harvested 15 pounds of tomatoes.  Due to the poor summer most of our friends tomatoes were small or blighted.   Ours are huge, and without any sign of disease or distress.  The vines were the size of small trees.

Got cheese?

It’s bad enough that Cousin San got us hooked on Same Gnome,

then along come yet another mindless computer game, Cheese or Font

………don’t ya just love it!

There’s not enough hours in a day

Tonight I’m trying to do it all!  I have a pot of tomatoes and onions on the stove simmering into a thick pulp.  Once the mixtures cools, I’ll strain it.  Tomorrow night I’ll once again bring it to a boil. By adding spices, sugar and vinegar, I’ll have a batch of Little Nanny’s ketchup.

For the past few days I’ve been making time for quilting.   Although it was very tempting to start a new project, I dug into the cupboard and hauled out blocks I worked on four years ago.  Originally the block were to be made  as a wedding gift.    I’m trying not to use a lot of borders on this quilt, so I have been making more blocks including blocks of solid plus a block within a block.    Plus using only what I have in my stash of fabric.  Wish me luck!

In between I went for my evening walk with Michelle, feed the kitty and myself in that order and surfed the net.

Mam and J’s excellent adventure

Yesterday I accompanied my friend “J” on a mystery shopper road trip.   Her mission was to evaluate the take out of a popular pizza outlet in two different towns along the northern shore of New Brunswick.

Years ago J and I would travel the northern part of the province just to shop.  We would just head in a general direction and let what ever adventure come our way.  Today was no exception, but now she was being paid for the trip and I would be treated to dinner.

We could not have picked a nicer day.  The temperature was an incredible 25 degrees.  The shopping was excellent and the meal was delicious.  Our route took us along the beautiful Starfish trail  which covers the Acadian villages of  Tabusintac, Tracadie-Sheila and Shippegan.   At times all we could see was the huge blue sky meeting the wide ocean waves.

In Shippegan we set up our picnic lunch in a gazebo on the boardwalk.   We were entertained by a local 62 years old resident, whom is his words ” lives in a home for the mentally retarded”.    He was looking for a girlfriend to “make the love with, but not to have the babies”.    We assured him both of us were unavailable and happily married.     On our way out of the park, he poked his head in our car window and serenaded us with a very tuneful version of “That’s the wonder of you”, song in both official languages.

On the trip home, J’s gps got out of whack and took us west instead of south but that was okay.  The drive with a friend is never long.  And with J it is always an adventure.