by jphilo | Mar 10, 2015 | Top Ten Tuesday
10. One day snowdrifts. The next day daffodils breaking through the dirt.
9. Cardinal song.
8. Certain people who will remain nameless go to bed way early to Netflix because the arrival of Daylight Savings Time makes it perfectly okay.
7. Morning people are smiling because Daylight Savings Time means their favorite time of day come extra early.
6. The Man of Steel can be found splashing through puddles while running up and down the gravel road.
5. The Woman of Aluminum can be found picking her way around puddles while walking up and down the gravel road.
4. After a couple days of exercise overdue, the Man of Steel and Woman of Aluminum walk stiffly around their house along the gravel road.
3. The park is overflowing with 12-year-old girls wearing short shorts and walking bare-legged even though the temperature is only 48 degrees.
2. Brackets, brackets, brackets.
1. Everybody in town wears a goofy grin, and they have no idea why.
What signs of spring are sprouting where you live?
by jphilo | Mar 3, 2015 | Recipes, Top Ten Tuesday
The winter of 2014-15 has been a long one. At this house that’s a good thing because with two new grandbabies, I’ve been cooking up freezer meals to make life easier for the two sets of new parents. These ten recipes have received thumbs’ up from the parents…when they have the energy to lift their arms, that is.
10. Slow Cooker Pork and Veggies: Easy to make, and it received both the New Parents’ Thumbs Up and Hiram’s Coveted Seal of Approval.
9. Hearty Hamburger Stew: This one isn’t a slow cooker recipe, but it’s very easy to throw together and doesn’t require much cooking time.
8. Barbeque Meatballs: These take a little longer to put together, but they don’t take up much freezer space.
7. Spaghetti Sauce: This sauce can cook on top of the stove or in the crock pot. But a double batch won’t fit in a crock pot. Don’t ask me how I know this.
6. Turkey-Veggie Sloppy Joes: Though I’m not usually a fan of Sloppy Joes, these are very good…almost like a casserole in a bun.
5. Crock Pot Chicken Fajitas: As I said a few weeks ago when this recipe first posted, it’s about the easiest recipe ever. And it freezes really well.
4. Minestrone: Another winner of Hiram’s Coveted Seal of Approval and the New Parents’ Thumbs Up. The cook likes it, too, because it tastes like it’s a lot of work, but it’s not.
3. Italian Wedding Soup: Yet another double winner. The other day, I tried it with ground turkey instead of ground beef, and it tasted just the same.
2. French Stew: If you visit this website frequently, you’ve probably seen this recipe before. It’s a family favorite, easy to freeze, crock pot friendly, and delicious.
1. Chicken (or Turkey) Tetrazinni: Whenever I offer to make freezer meals for the kids, this is the one recipe they request every time.
Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is. If you’d like more recipes, check out the post for Gravel Road’s Top Ten Freezer Meals compiled a couple years ago. And if you have a bang up freezer meal, give it a shout out in the comment box.
by jphilo | Feb 24, 2015 | Top Ten Tuesday
10. Enjoy the feeling of a weight lifted off your shoulders.
9. Wonder if you might have developed PTSD from spending 3 weeks on rewrites for a book about PTSD in kids.
8. Wander around the house wondering what you spent your days doing before the rewrite began.
7. Clean the sorry mess of a kitchen that’s been sorely neglected for about…3 weeks.
6. Order the “she’s moved” cards for your mother, who moved over a month ago, so her friends don’t think she’s gone underground and joined the Gray Panthers.
5. Think about writing the annual family Christmas New Year Groundhog Valentine Presidents’ Day letter, but decide to procrastinate until St. Patrick’s Day in a show of solidarity for their ongoing recession.
4. Think about gassing up the car so it’s ready to go for the weekend, but decide it’s too cold.
3. Go to bed early and watch an episode of Grandchester. Think Call the Midwife meets Downton Abbey Season 10 meets Foyle’s War.
2. Sleep like a baby all night long.
1. Spend the weekend visiting the kids and grandkids.
by jphilo | Feb 17, 2015 | Top Ten Tuesday
10. Keeping your fingers out of iPhone photos can be tricky, so it’s best to take them only when your son is available to show you what you’re doing wrong once in a while sometimes every time you aim your phone.
9. Just because there’s an iPad app people can use to sign up for your newsletter doesn’t mean the same app exists for iPhone.
8. The Word Press editorial calendar free plug in is a wonderful thing.
7. When you don’t update your business software after a major revision, the software may expire and you may not notice that it’s no longer saving your entries or password changes for almost a month, which means once you figure out what happened and get the update, you may have to spend most of a Saturday re-entering data, which would be torture were it not for Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.
6. It’s possible to own a MacBook Air for 3 months before realizing a light tap on the track pad works just as well as a heavy click and is much easier on the fingers.
5. The minute you drop your land line phone, the robo-call gremlins switch to your cell phone number in a flash.
4. Two people can have their own computers, so they can stream and watch whatever they want whenever they want, and still have to take turns because they don’t have enough bandwidth to stream at the same time.
3. Always keep a cover on your cell phone or bad things can happen.
2. The windshield wiper defrost feature on the 2015 Subaru Legacy is a wonderful thing.
1. However, the Legacy’s dashboard is so filled with knobs, buttons, touch screens, bells, and whistles that 2 college graduates who are eligible for AARP but refuse to join, they may not notice the slit for loading CDs for two months and three long road trips after purchasing it.
by jphilo | Feb 10, 2015 | Top Ten Tuesday
10. Sleep in.
9. Ignore your rising frustration while trying to read the cell phone bill by going shopping.
8. Jump puddles on sidewalks and in parking lots while shopping on a sunny, 50 degree Saturday.
7. Take a shopping break to pick up some audiobooks at the library, including Some Luck by Jane Smiley, which you’ve been waiting for a long time.
6. Get teary-eyed in the card aisle while looking for the perfect Valentine’s card for your spouse.
5. Skip lunch because you’re tired of the winter muffin top developing around your middle, and order a cup of your favorite coffee at your favorite gourmet java place instead.
4. Wander around a furniture store looking for inspiration about how to replace the bed you just passed on to your kids and be taken aback because the latest living room furniture styles look just like what was in your parents’ house in the 1960s. Dub it the Mad Men effect.
3. Plan, write, and schedule a week’s worth of blog posts so you’ll be able to devote vast, interrupted spans of time to a book rewrite due at the end of the month.
2. Pretend to be interested in the basketball game your husband is watching, and then have your heart melted when he volunteers to go to Redbox for Boyhood, a movie you’ve been dying to see…and then he sits down to watch it with you.
1. While watching the movie, eat apple crisp and popcorn for supper…because it’s your day off and you can eat what you want to…besides, you skipped lunch!
by jphilo | Jan 27, 2015 | Top Ten Tuesday
10. After being very disagreeable for a week or two, the temperatures finally decided to behave themselves.
9. A church fundraiser provided the opportunity to make dairy free “buttermilk” brownies, sample a few, and give the rest away. Check tomorrow’s post for the recipe!
8. Our daughter and her husband moved into a condo, which means we’ll be getting rid of some old furniture.
7. Co-author Katie Wetherbee and I are almost done editing the page proofs for Every Child Welcome, which is scheduled for release on April 27, 2015. (Yes, you can pre-order now!)
6. Whittling away at my to list in the second half of January means February may have some free time to work on the mystery novel again…if I can remember what it’s about.
5. Watching and listening to reporters trying to talk about “under-inflated balls” without breaking into fits of adolescent giggles is highly entertaining.
4. The Parenthood finale. Which is also the worst thing about late January since it signifies the end of a fantastic television series.
3. Downton Abbey, Season 5.
2. Mom’s doing her best to adjust to her new digs in assisted living.
1. The Man of Steel finally gets to meet his new grand daughter this coming weekend.
What do you love about late January 2015? Leave you comments below.
