The Family Cookbook (And Friends)

About ten years ago, my sister convinced me that we needed to compile a family cookbook so our family recipes were passed down...she went all out and collected recipes from everyone. She typed some up and the rest I was supposed to format in some semblance of order. I've put it off for years. We also continue receiving recipes from various members of the family and close friends.

Aunt Kathy wants to get it going again. She has drawings and recipes she'd like ot compile, too.

So I dragged out my luggage bag full of recipes written on backs of envelopes, index cards, used paper and even the occasional notepad. Sone are typed neatly, some are scrawled at the bottom of a torn cash register reciept or grocery list. Some are torn out of magazines (technically not "our" recipes, unless someone altered some of the ingredients, which is what usually happens). Then there are newspaper clippings, downloads from friends online and hastily scribbled shorthand from others. Sigh.

Mom and I spent most of the day yesterday going through them and trying to organize them into catagories. We ditched most of the professional recipes from copyrighted sources, unless we know for a fact that a family member or friend modified it to our tastes. That got rid of about 1/8 of the recipes LOL.

Today, I'm typing the recipes by catagory into the computer. Once I have them all in, we'll spend some time adding clip art (copyright free), drawings from family and friends and stories and drawings from the kids.

When I sit at the computer for hours on end working on one of my manuscripts, the time flies. Its like I don't have enough time to write all I have to say.

But sitting here, slogging through the recipes and typing them in...sigh. Time is dragging. I got delegated for the task because I type somewhere in the vicinity of 80 words a minute and I am mostly a touch typist.

However, there is one neat thing. We're finding old recipes we'd forgotten about and Mom has stashed a few of them to try out while I'm typing in the other stuff.

This morning, she made biscuits and chocolate gravy - an old, old dish my grandmother used to feed us for special treat breakfasts. Mom used to make it when we were very little and its been years since I've had it! I expect good things to eat in the coming weeks as I work on this...bon appetit!

Blogger Hell...

Well, seems its not going away.

I finally gave up on posting pictures to the construction blog as it simply didn't work. I decided to start a new Construction Diary 2 to continue where I left off. No deal. It also refuses to post photos.

So, the Construction Diary is a standstill until I can find another free blog site that will allow the posting of photos.

We're not happy with some of the progress of one of the contractors. Pa will not be using him again when the time comes next year to start building his own house. The contractor does a great job, but he's NEVER here when he says and the promise of getting the job done in days is false. We're now into the 5th week of what was supposed to be a "4 day job." He also did several things that although they were "code" weren't really the best thing to do. Pa has already fixed one thing and made it better. Pa and I also did part of the work the man had included in the original estimate. The contractor had the grace to drop $100 off the estimate, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining.

We have to slow down for 30 days or so to let the foundation cure. We have been informed we can build on it right away, but Pa has 30 years of building experience and has seen what happens when concrete's not allowed to cure well.

I'm not sure what I'll be doing to keep busy in that time frame - I do have some writing to do and I set my laptop up in my condo last night. I expect to be polishing a manuscript for publication soon.

Anyway, off to see what kind of trouble I can get into!

The things I want to say...

The program that allows me to keep this blog (Blogger) is acting up. There is a known issue with some folk not being able to post photos anymore. Apparently, if a person has several blogs, it can affect one but not the others, or affect all of them. This appears to be my case. I cannot post photos anymore as the software no longer allows it for MY blogs. I sent an email message to the powers-that-be and was sent a form reply of all the "fixes" I've already done. Several times. Oh, well.

Okay, maybe this blog isn't affected...hmmm...took this last week. It is a mirror image of me - my hair looked good and no one was around so I took a picture in the bathroom mirror.



All is going well with the building, the dogs, and the family.

Les came for a week-long visit. She had a lot of fun and it was good to see her.

In two weeks, we'll have more visitors. Maggie, Thomas and Katie will be here for a week, too.

I'm gonna be busting rocks for a while. The hole was dug for my crawl-space foundation and now, it will be leveled and partially buried to bring it back to ground-level. Before its buried, Pa wants me to start cleanup of the big chunks of rocks dug up by tossing them at the bottom of the hole for drainage. There are lots of rocks. LOTS. So I'll be busy for a while.

We'll have a downtime for about a month or so as the concrete cures. I also have to wait for more money to come in around August so we can continue building.

Other than that, life is good.