Archive for » December, 2009 «

Out of Touch
December 23rd, 2009 | Author: Eric Hays-Strom

Hi all,

I’ve been a little out of touch.  My laptop has developed some issues with connectivity, and for a while I couldn’t stay connected for more than a few minutes at a time.  In the end, I had to completely reformat my hard-drive and reinstall Windows.

I’m still in the process of loading software, and some of the more important stuff has gone missing at some point (Microsoft Office 2003 & Outlook – my email package).

So, in case you’re wondering where I am, that is it.  Of course, this doesn’t explain the long periods of time between blog posts.  That’s a different issue!

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All Rolling Pins are not Created Equal
December 17th, 2009 | Author: Eric Hays-Strom

Scott and I have lived in our home for over 10 years now.  We’ve done a lot of remodeling in that time.  Floors, kitchen, walls.  We never had a house-warming, and we’ve really done very little entertaining.  Just once about 5 years ago, we invited a few friends over.  In the interim, we’ve hosted dinner a few times for people that one or the other of us were working with.  But nothing either of us really consider entertaining.

This is the year that changes.  We have decided to host a Christmas Party for some friends from church.  I decided that I would like to do some baking for this party.  On the menu would be my favorite, rum balls, and Russian tea cakes, and frosted cookies in the shape of stars and trees and bells and the like.

The rum balls were easy to make.  I made the dough on Thanksgiving morning, and that night, Scott and I stood shoulder to shoulder and rolled out the balls, dipped them in powdered sugar and hid them well.

The Russian tea cakes were a little more difficult.  I didn’t let the butter soften at room temperature, so it was a bit of a chore to mix it.  But, eventually that succeeded, and we have 3 dozen delicious cakes… I know: I’ve sampled them!

The cookies proved to be a bit more of a challenge!  Now, those who know me well, know I do not like to cook.  The concepts involved are just far too complex for me!  I can make a main course.  I can prepare a vegetable.  I can heat up biscuits and rolls.  But getting them all to be done at or about the same time is just rocket science when it comes to my abilities!

One of the problems I have with cooking… and it really becomes obvious when I try to make cookies from scratch… is the meanings of terms.  Lightly floured.  Roll until thin.  What’s thin?  Is paper thin too thin?  Is a quarter inch of cookie dough thin?  Or is it too thick?  And what should cookie dough look like to know if I’ve too much flour or too little in it?

Then there’s the preparation.

When we remodeled the kitchen, we put down tiled counter tops.  They’re very nice… but it’s difficult to roll out cookies on tile!  So, we hunted down a sheet of Plexiglas at our local Home Depot.  We wanted one of those old Tupperware pie thingies (that’s the technical term, I think) but can’t find them in the shops we visited.

We have a rolling pin.  So, we didn’t need to buy one of those.  It’s a nice one.  It’s set on an exposed shelf in our kitchen for nearly 10 years looking nice.  It’s never been used until I ground up the vanilla wafers for the rum balls.

Tuesday, the day came.  I gathered all my ingredients together, and started mixing them.  I sifted flour (did you know 3 cups of sifted flour is about the same as 1 and a half cups unsifted?)  Finally, I had a peanut butter consistency dough and put it in to the fridge to chill “for a few hours or overnight”.  By the time Scott got home from work, several hours would pass.  I wanted Scott to supervise the next stage… he knows what he’s doing!  But “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” was on TV and we watched that, first.  Then we watched a saved episode of CSI:Miami.  And then, it was time for bed!

Wednesday, I was gone from before 7 a.m. until nearly 8 p.m.  And I was totally exhausted.  So, no cookie rolling Wednesday.

This morning, I finally squared my shoulders, looked at the dough, and thought “Oh, how hard could this be, for cryin’ out loud!?”  I dusted the Plexiglas with a half cup unsifted flour.  Slick Plexiglas does not dust well!  I grabbed about half of the dough, plopped it down on the mound of flour, grabbed my marble rolling pin and rolled.

And that’s when I discovered that not all rolling pins are equal!  The dough stuck to the pin like peanut butter to the roof of a dog’s mouth!  And it clung there for dear life.  After peeling off the dough in great gooey gobs, I washed the pin, and looked at the dough.  I put my hands in to pull out a mass to try again, but it was like trying to get a handful of peanut butter.  It stuck to my fingers.  But just enough flour had adhered to the dough from the first attempt, I got the idea “Hey, maybe I didn’t put enough flour in the dough!  So I mixed some… a lot of some… flour in to the dough and kneaded it like a 2 year old with his play dough!

Then, I saw the parchment paper for the other item I intend to make, so I tried covering the dough with that and then rolling!  Success!  From there, I pulled out my new cookie cutters, and cut some santas (they came out looking like oh who knows? How does one describe those shapes?) and candy canes… another disaster shape.  I finally  discovered that stars, bells and trees were the easiest to make.  Each batch I rolled out got easier than the last, as each batch had more and more flour added to it.  I think I REALLY under-measured the flour when I made the dough.

Nikki got quite a bit of dough… my disasters ended up in her mouth.  Or mine.

But, I now have sugar cookies.

As I worked, images came to me of making cookies with Mom oh so long ago.  The wooden rolling pin.  The wooden surface she brought out for cookie making.  The consistency of the dough.  The next batch, should I decide to make them, should go so much more easily!

Now.  A question for my gentle reader.  Should I attempt that Buche de Noel?

Category: Eric's Life, Stayings at home  | 2 Comments
Austerity Revisited
December 02nd, 2009 | Author: Eric Hays-Strom

Well, here’s something to add to the previous post.

As most of you know, last Spring, Scott enrolled to take college courses at UNO where he works.  He’s seeking to complete his bachelor’s degree, and plans to pursue graduate work in Archeology.  As an employee of the University, Scott gets a discount on his tuition and other expenses associated with his education.

When I got word at the dealership this a.m. about the brakes, I sent him a brief text message giving him the bad news.

So, just now I got a new text message from Scott.  He tells me HE has paid for the brake work.  It seems that even though he’s an employee, apparently the University made a mistake.  They listed him as a Non-Resident of Nebraska, and as anyone with knowledge of college expenses knows, that equates to higher tuition.

However, there is an agreement that give residents of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, the same tuition rates as a resident of Nebraska (I think a few other counties over here get that as well.)

The University admin has discovered their mistake, and are reimbursing him $800 for the summer semester!

Of course, that $800 pays for the brake work.  I find the coincidence of the timing rather interesting.  Discovered and remedied on the same day as unexpected expense.

Some might say that is not a miracle and that the timing is merely fortuitous.  But I have learned over 5 decades that it is precisely in the fortuitous that miracles are to be found.  Sure, every now and then a miracle occurs that simply transcends the capability of science and reason to explain.  I suppose spitting in the dust, and using the resultant mud to cure lifelong blindness is one of the latter.  But I have discovered that far more often miracles CAN be explained by both science and reason.  It’s the fortuitousness of the occurrence that makes it a miracle and that proves to me God’s hand is involved.

Yes, I’d love a BIG miracle.  An army of angels setting up camp in my front yard would be nice.  The sudden appearance of a ton (as in specifically 2000 pounds – 32,000 ounces) of gold in my living room would be mighty nice, too.  Perhaps coming home to discover that a brand spanking new house has miraculously appeared where my 1910 Bungalow now stands… yeah, pretty awesome.  An overnight breakout of world-wide peace and the sudden end of all drought, resulting in the complete end of world hunger, coupled with the immediate disappearance of all forms of disease – those would be even BETTER “Big” miracles.

But, that’s really not how life generally happens, is it?  It’s the sudden appearance of $800 when $800 is needed, even though it comes from a totally mundane and easily explained source…. Those are the kind of miracles I tend to expect.  God never seems to let us down.

Thank you God!

Category: Our Life Together, Spirituality  | Comments off
Austerity
December 02nd, 2009 | Author: Eric Hays-Strom

As we enter the 11th month without a job, Scott and I have started to look at how we can reduce expenses.  Over the past year we’ve slowly been cutting our expenses, buying less, taking time to evaluate need versus nice to haves, that kind of thing.  But now it’s time to roll up our sleeves and knuckle down to cost cutting where possible.

The first thing we looked at was our utilities.  There really isn’t a lot of savings to be had in the water/sanitation department.  Sanitation is a fixed rate for all residents of the city, anyhow.  Water we’ll work on, but we don’t expect a huge saving there either.  We’ll be more careful to see to it that the dishwasher is totally full before washing.  Same for laundry.  We’ll pay on time (if we pay by a given date each month, we save about 10%).  But again… our water bill is only about $25 a month.

The electric bill was the next to be evaluated.  Over the past 3 years, we’ve been converting all our lights to the newer style fluorescent bulbs that are supposed to last longer and use far less electricity.  We’ll keep that up, even though the bulbs are a lot more expensive… they last longer so it evens out.  About all we can do here is to recommit to making sure no lights are left on when we are not in the room.  Frankly I’m the worst offender here.  Lights on the main floor and upstairs are no problem.  I’m very good at turning those off when I leave a room.  But the basement is a different story.  I go down there for a purpose… namely, to do laundry or get a tool.  When I come back up, my hands are usually full.  The light by the washing area frequently gets left on all day.  Once upstairs it’s easy to forget it’s on.  No more.  I’m going to make a huge effort to get those turned off.  I’m thinking about getting one of those motion sensor switches.  It’ll turn the lights on automatically as I head downstairs, then after 15 or 30 minutes will shut them off.  It’s worth looking into.

The gas bill was next.  This will be a little easier to cut down.  We’ve traditionally kept the thermostat set at 73 to 74 in the winter.  Because of Gary’s issues, we’ve liked to keep the house a little warmer, and frankly, I enjoy it warmer too, in winter.  But not now.  We’ve set the thermostat to 68 for December.  When January hits, I may well drop it down to 66.  In turn, we bought Gary a warmer comforter for his bed… well, HE bought the warmer comforter.  We gave him our electric heater from the camper, but have asked him to only use it when it gets too cold for him.  I’ve committed to washing our clothes in cold water, only using hot or warm for certain loads.  We hope to see the greatest savings in the gas department.

Next we hit the Cox Cable bill.  Cox provides our TV, Internet and telephone.  We turned off our land line.  Saved something around $35 per month.  We cancelled HBO, Showtime & Cinemax.  Another $25.  And we’ve had two old converters setting around for far too long which will save another $10.

Verizon was next, our cell phone carrier.  I had hoped to drop the data service, and just use our Blackberries as phones, but Verizon won’t let us.  We would have to turn them in and get new, less functional phones.  I use my blackberry for a lot… calendar, notes, info on Dad, and a heck of a lot more.  But I did turn off the annoying “Voice2Text” feature that converted all my voice mail into text messages.  If the caller had good enunciation, that was great.  But it had to be impeccable enunciation!  I’d get messages like “Sky Derrick hits Marlborough. Can you come church the cow broken. (???) chairs charity (???)”

That translated to: “Hi Eric, it’s Carla.  Can you come to the church now?  One of our vendors spilled tar on the stairs, and they’re dirty.  They need to be cleaned.”  And just so you know, Carla has pretty good enunciation! 

We also cancelled the insurance on the two phones.  So we’ll end up saving maybe $25 there.

Finally, we took a look at our grocery and dining out expenses.  Oh, my goodness.  When I look at the trends over the past 11 months in groceries and restaurants, it’s hard for me to see how I’ve lost weight (a good thing, of course) or how everyone else has stayed thin!  We actually spent over $1000 in one month, though most months were down around $700.  For three people.  That’s just ridiculous.  Over all, in the past 10 months, we averaged $23 a day in combined groceries and eating out.  We set a budget of $70 a week for all three of us.  Hopefully we can stay with that!

One of the reasons for high grocery bills for us was we bought groceries daily for that night’s dinner.  And Scott has LOTS of meetings at church, so we tend to eat BAD food on those nights.  No more.  We’re shopping for 2 weeks at a time, now, and Scott gets to take leftovers on days he is going to be home late.  Our first shopping trip on the new plan, for food for next two weeks, we did quite well!  $105 for the two weeks.  How it turns out, however, remains to be seen.  I imagine we’ll need to supplement here and there (we’re already out of milk, and running low on bread.)  Still $35 for two weeks of incidentals ought to do it.

And then… our austerity program comes crashing down.  Like a house of cards, one of the bottom cards gets pulled out, and WHOOSH!  The whole thing collapses.

This week we had to do a bunch of vehicle servicing.  The camper needed winterizing.  That was expected (and actually budgeted for).  The pickup needed an oil change… that’s okay.  Today, it’s the Buick’s turn.  It also needs an oil change… in fact it’s way overdue (2+ months overdue).  That’s okay.  Still within our new budget guidelines.  Then, they drop the hammer.  Over the past month, we’ve noticed the brakes were deteriorating… they were mushy.  When we stepped on the brakes at anything over 35 miles an hour they… I don’t know how to describe it, really… they pushed back… They’re anti-lock brakes and you could REALLY feel the pulsing of the brakes.  We never had problems stopping… but it just was rough.

And that’s because both the front AND the rear brakes are completely shot.  Rotors are all but gone.  We need NEW rotors, new brakes.  Not counting the oil (and air filter) service, we’re facing over $600 of brake work.

So, December ain’t gonna be so austere, after all… well, actually, yes, it WILL be austere.  But not cheap.

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