Dackel Princess

The Foods We Eat

Gattina over at Writer’s Cramps asked the question, “How do you do your grocery shopping? Since I know that many countries do their shopping differently, I decided to write about how I shop now, and how I have shopped in the past.

When Hubby and I first married I did a big shopping once a week and then filled in with things during the week. We lived outside of town and it was quite a ride to get to the nearest grocery store.

When we moved to Germany, I shopped every day. Our fridge was tiny, so I just didn’t have room for much. In Germany this was quite common back in 1989. I really enjoyed this because I always felt like I was getting things very fresh and this was nice. I especially love the bread in Germany. Simply the best ever.

Seriously. The best bread in the world…made in Germany!

Later on, we moved to Florida. At that time, Hubby was flying three or four days a week and so I was home a lot by myself. I didn’t cook. I ate frozen diet TV dinners. I shopped every few days, but food held no real thrill for me.

When Hubby retired and we returned to New Hampshire, I began to cook again in earnest, which meant that my shopping habits changed. I shopped once a week again, and started to cook great extravagant meals. Oh I loved cooking lasagnas and casseroles, and cakes and cookies! Yum!

Right up until Hubby developed diabetes and I hit my high weight level. Then I had to relearn, to manage mealtimes, for his diabetes and my Weight Watchers meal plans.

I started shopping for pantry items once per week and buying my meats, chicken and fish once per week. Then twice a week I will supplement with fruit and vegetables. There are times I shop every two weeks to use up what I already have.

In the summer I eat what I grow or what I can get at the local farm stands.

I love fresh vegetables. Don’t you?

So how do you shop for the food you eat? Has it changed over the years? Are you eating fresher food now or more packaged foods?

I always read the sale flier and try to plan meals around what is cheap that week. I also stock up on chicken and beef when they are on sale. How about you?

I wish I lived closer to a good fresh vegetable market, but that only happens in the summer when the farm stands open in our town. Other than that I must drive 20 miles to the nearest, good grocery store.

What do you like and dislike about grocery shopping? What is your favorite time of year to shop? Do you utilize your local farm stands and farmer’s markets?

Where Everyone Knows Your Name

It’s March 1st! I cannot believe that this year is going by so quickly. In one week (March 9th) we have our Town Elections, and as you all know I am running for Library Trustee, a position I have been holding temporarily, since last December. I love the work, and I love the people I am meeting. Most of all, I love that I am making a difference in my small town.

I have my day all planned, next week. I will get up before daylight and do my hair and make-up and put on all my long underwear and warm clothes, as well as my cute jacket and gloves, and then I will go and stand a respectful distance from the polling place, where I can welcome voters and introduce myself. It’s important for me, that people know who they are voting for, and don’t just see an impersonal name on a paper ballot.

In fact it makes me think of the old theme from the TV show “Cheers”. It’s how I feel about living in this town and knowing the people that I do.

“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn’t you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.”

I have even made a cute “Vote for Me”, name tag to wear on my coat. I think I am ready, and that’s a good thing, because…

TODAY IS MARCH 1ST!!!!!

***************

March 9th is also a special day. It is Greta’s birthday. She will be 6 years old that day. I’d better plan on getting her a small doggy cake!

Oh you know what Greta did to me on Sunday? She climbed up in my lap and sat up with her paws near my neck, almost hugging me. She didn’t grumble at me, she did, in fact smile. She cuddled with me, like this, for about an hour, before she went off to watch the birds outside of the window.

It was special because of all four of the dogs, Greta is her own gal. She is independent and lets us know, all of the time, that she is in charge and aside from opening her dog food can, she doesn’t need anyone. Then there are those moments, when she loves you and you see, that the strong girl is just a mask that she puts on to fool the other dogs. She is in fact, a sweet and loving girl!

Happy Monday!!!

Snow, Snow & More Snow!

The day started out very snowy. I was shocked to wake and see a good 5 inches on the ground, and the snow was continuing to fall. Hubby filled a thermos jug and headed off to the local ski area to ski a few runs. I didn’t mind, as I know how he loves to ski!

So, I busied myself with trying to take pictures of this event, but I found it tough to take pictures of falling snow. It never looks like it is falling as hard as it actually is. That’s when I decided that taking videos might work a little better. So I took a few. The first one, Greta began to bark and bark. Annoying! And Fritz came right into the center of the camera shot and wee-wee’d! Scrap that one!

So I tossed them inside and took some quiet, peaceful snow videos, where all you hear is me talking, and one small little song too.

Finally I got on my boots and stomped through the snow so I could show you what my house looks like from out front. I took a few pictures as well, and I tried to make a little movie, but my computer kept freezing up, so I finally gave up for tonight.

I made a meal of leftovers for dinner, and now we’re watching the gold medal match for curling! That’s why I am sitting here writing my blog, because mostly I do not care about what is on TV.

The fire is blazing in the hearth, and the dogs are asleep by the fire. Even Fritz, who is discovering the joys of a warm fire! It’s kind of a nice way to end the day.

This & That

I’ve been sitting here watching the Olympics and trying to think of a good theme for today’s blog entry. Usually I am full of ideas and my hands fly across the keyboard. Today I am feeling as tired as the Alpine Skiers after their last run, and my mind seems to be drawing a blank. So I will just tell you a few things that happened on Friday.

Just before midnight on Thursday, the power went out. Fritz freaked out and woke me to open the bedroom door, which I did, even though I had no light at all to guide me.
Hubby, who had a flashlight was just coming to bed and we all met at the door.
After making coffee the next morning, I went to turn on the TV and the channel was stuck on channel 2. Could the power outage have zapped our TV’s tuner?
We tried everything to switch the station and discovered that we could press in 12 to turn the channel to channel 12, but as soon as we hit the up or down button it went back to 2. We also had no upper channels.
Hubby called the local repair shop and the woman mentioned reprogramming.
I knew how to do that, but I noticed when I went to do that, that the TV had gone from “cable” to “TV”. So I switched from “TV” to “Cable”.
Then I reprogrammed the TV and life was good. And the fix was cheap! Nothing!
Hubby went off and I did some cleaning and laundry.
I had lunch ready for Hubby when he got home and he was off right after for another appointment.
While he was gone I did some programming on Hubby’s computer.
I also learned to bullet these entries!
I also took an old pair of speakers from a dead computer and brought them out to the family room. I like to watch TV shows on my computer after they air, and I cannot always catch the dialog, but with the external speakers it works very well. Hubby likes it too.
Dinner was easy. tacos, Weight Watcher style.
Now I am working on three projects. The scarf, a booklet and a drawing.

I do not have much else planned for the weekend, or on the docket. Our town elections are on March 9th. That is the day I will be voted on for the Library Trustees. I have my name badge all made up and I am ready to stand outside all day to shake hands.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Rainy Days

Thursday it rained all day. It’s unfortunate because it is washing away the snow that the local ski areas have. Here is a picture of the local radar right now (7:30 PM Thursday night). The green is rain, the yellow is heavy rain, pink is ice and blue is snow. As you can see, the rain is pretty heavy and there isn’t much ice and snow falling in the state.

So what do you do on a day like this? My first instinct was to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head and hide. Alas, that was not to be. Hubby, who had insisted he was going to ski, arrived back home after skiing only one run, and then dragged me out to grocery shop. It was good that we went, but I got wet, and cold and grouchy!

We stopped to get the mail and I received a package from Germany, from Uschi! It was Peter Fox’s CD!!!

I am so excited about this, as I heard some of his music online and really wanted his CD. I may not understand every word, but I love the music and the rhythm.

Thank you so much Uschi!

Thankfully, we have a garage under our house, so we were able to unload the groceries in the warmth and dryness of our home. Even the dogs did not want to go out in the wetness! I cannot say I blame them either.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring as far as our weather goes. I have stopped listening to the weather forecasts and I figure what will be, will be!

Snow, Rain & Ribs

The day was long and full of snow, sleet and rain. When we got up we had about 5 inches of snow, so Hubby stayed home to clear our driveway and prepare the driveway for the rain to come.

The dogs thought this was wonderful, and the “helped” him quite a bit. In the end, the driveway was cleared and the four dogs and Hubby came into the house soaked to the skin.

Weight Watchers was canceled due to the bad roads, and I was disappointed. I knew I had done well this week and looked forward to weighing in! Oh well, there is always next week to get the official weigh in. Here at home it looked like I’d lost two pounds!

While Hubby was outside, I did what I like to do on days like this. I cooked. I made sure that Hubby ate healthy, filling meals, and this time when I cooked the baby back ribs, they came out just the way they should! Tender and delicious!

I also started a warm fire in the hearth that all three dachshunds lay in front of until they were dry. Fritz hid. He just doesn’t like fires.

I spent a little time clearing out my email folder. Suddenly everything is overloaded with SPAM. Now if the spam was interesting to me, it wouldn’t be so bad. Unfortunately my Spammers think that I am a guy and so I get all “those sort” of spam emails. Honestly, I had one addressed to “Dear Mr. Dackel Princess”!

Okay, I admit it. That one did make me laugh!

Lovable Dogs & Olympic Questions

Tuesday morning we all slept in! I mention this because lately I have been awake by 6 or 6:30 each morning. However, today the dogs and Hubby all were feeling sleepy and no one wanted to get up.

I did move about quarter to 8 and Anneliese leapt onto me with glee! I was covered with kisses by the happiest pup ever. Arnie joined in, greeting the day with pleasure, and Greta lay between Hubby and me putting up with the frivolity. The next thing we knew, Fritz jumped up to join in the celebration of a new day! Both Hubby and I laughed. We are very lucky to have this pack of dogs!

I immediately asked Hubby who had won the ice dancing the night before. The darned skating runs so late that I end up going to sleep about half way through it. I really love the skating and I wish the time was such that I could watch the whole thing. My favorite couple, Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the silver medal! I am so happy for them!!!

Of course none of us see the whole of anything, except maybe Curling and Hockey. We get those completely and at decent times. I have been less than thrilled with NBC’s coverage because they don’t show things live, like the skiing, or ski jumping, when they could. They also do not show us the “minor” players in these events.

You know, if I made it to the Olympics in any sport, I would hope that the world would see me. Think about it. These kids practice 7 days a week, for years and years and years. Don’t they deserve their moment of glory as much as the medal winners do?

I can tell you that I have watched a ton of Curling. Do I understand it at all? Not really. Hubby does. His parents came from Canada and apparently has played and watched the sport over the years enough to tell what the heck they are doing. I do know one thing…there was a girl from Denmark on the Women’s Curling team and she looked really tough. I wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark ally.

Best moments, Lindsey Vonn winning gold and Bode Miller winning his medals, all three of them! And of course Meryl and Charlie! What are your favorite moments?

Fritz’s Day

This morning I was watching the news and they spoke of a week where we will have snow every day. The alarmist weatherman said that ski country (where I live) has the possibility of getting 1-2 feet of snow! I am really not sure if this will actually happen, but I took stock of what needed to be done around here, just in case.

First, our trash, magazines and newspapers all needed to go to the recycling center. So, I dressed in my grubby, go to the dump clothes and started to pack the Jeep with the trash. I turned to pick up a bag and I looked back and Fritz was in the Jeep, sitting there waiting to go.

I suppose I could have dragged him out of the Jeep, but he looked so excited that I just finished loading the car and off we went, Fritz and me! I rolled the window down so he could feel the wind on his face, and I thought how good that must feel to him. When I was on the cruise, I stood on the deck of the ship and felt the wind on my face and it felt wonderful!

We recycled everything and Fritz even got a cookie from the recycling center helper. The woman there just loves Fritz! We went to the bank after that and Fritz got another 2 cookies there. He is really popular with the ladies!

We stopped at the grocery store so I could buy a few things to tide us over during the storm, and a man in the parking lot asked if that was a White German Shepherd? I said yes, and he got quite excited to see such a handsome boy.

At the Post Office, a man asked me about Fritz and I told him what sort of dog Fritz is. It was simply Fritz’s day to be noticed! This was so nice because the dackels get all the attention and Fritz is happy with that. He loves them too. But every once in a while, it’s nice when people make a fuss over him.

Today, I really enjoyed my big boy! What a Prince!

I’m Knitting!

Okay, I’m trying to knit. Usually I get half way into a project and stop. Really, I am so bad about actually finishing a project. A few times I thought about loading up my car with all my yarn and heading to my sister’s house where I will give her all my unfinished projects! She is the one in the family who sticks to it and actually finishes a project!

I digress.

I found a pattern for a very easy long knit scarf. It’s 12 stitches on size 10 needles and it’s simply the garter stitch. For those of you who do not knit, this means that you use one stitch called the knit stitch all through the pattern.

I can do this!

The scarf is a raspberry, variegated mix yarn and it is fuzzy and soft. I sure hope it comes out well because, I would like to actually finish something and have it look good.

I should probably join the local knitting group, called the “Knotty Knitters”. They meet once a week and could probably whip me into shape. Or is that knit me into shape! lol! I know, bad joke!

Arnie was lying on the sofa today and I watched him arrange his pillow, get his bone and then settle himself down chewing it. I had to laugh because he looked so darn cute as he lay there, like the little Prince that he is!

The weekend is nearly over, where did the time go? At least this is my week to keep things low key. No big meetings, and no appointments that I have to go to. Good time to knit, yes?

Splish Splash!

After breakfast I got all the dackels together and washed them down in the shower. I think I had not bathed them since last summer! In any case, Jack came into the bathroom and I was going to hand him Anneliese to dry, when Greta snuck out of the shower dripping wet and ran from the room! Oh my goodness everything got soaked! We tried to find and dry off each of the girls, and then we got Arnie out. The poor little guy was all alone in the shower. Ah well, rugs dry!

Bathing beauty and all around sneak, Greta!

Now if I had been smart I would have just stayed home, and done housework all day. But no, I decided to run some errands, which is never a good idea.

I did the usual. I got the mail, went to the grocery store and then on my way back home I saw that the car wash was open. Hmmmm, I thought, this Jeep sure could use a wash. It was covered with sand and salt and grime from our sloppy winter roads. However, in the last few days things have dried out and I knew that this would be a great day to get it washed.

I turned in, paid my money, and started through the automatic wash. Splish, splash, spray, and the brushless system, cleaned the Jeep right off. I could hear the under carriage jets washing off below. All was going along well, until we reached the rinsing part of the cycle.

The water came pouring into the Jeep through the drivers side door frame! I got soaked! I tried to put my hand up to stop the water coming in (like that would even have worked!), but it didn’t. I sort of felt like I was in an “I Love Lucy” episode and glanced around for Lucy’s faithful sidekick Ethel! But all I found was a drenched Maribeth!

I came home soaking wet!

As I sit here tonight, giggling over the events of the day, I have to say one thing, besides having a clean car and clean doggies, I also laughed a lot!

Isn’t that what we hope for at the end of the day?

Love, Life and Lots of Laughter!