Recipes for disaster (or 'pinterest is the antichrist)

I come about it through family lines. What Pinterest is to me, recipes in magazines and newspapers were to my Mom. I love crafty ideas. I see one, I want to make it so I like it or link it or add it to my saved sites. Then I never go back. I mean to, I want to but I'm me and that means I will put it out of thought out of mind. Should I make wreaths from old candy wrappers? Will I ever send out homemade cards stamped with corks I've carved into hearts and Christmas trees? Do I need to make a homemade lantern from an old coffee can? Probably not but it's so cute and looks so easy so I just might... never.
Will I use a bookcase made from old shipping crates? Chances are zero but again it's so cute and looks awesome so add it to my list.
How about a garden with old china tea cups filled with ferns and violets or panseys? Love it but not gonna happen.
Or set of coasters for everyone I know using old photos and mason jar lids? But but but ...they can double as Christmas tree ornaments with the snip of a hole puncher and some curling ribbon so ... No, but let's save it just in case.
I've even found a way to share my sickness and deflect blame from me. I now send links to my son's girlfriends and to my dear long suffering friends. Then it's them not me, right? Yesterday a blanket ladder, a week ago melted snowmen cookies, before that painted flowers on glass made from old window frames. I need help, someone save me from myself. Please.

BUT.

It isn't my fault. I inherited my illness. Blame my Mother. It's on her. When I got custody of her and all her stuff, I got custody of two bins full of cut out recipes and hints that appear to be helpful but really aren't. They came from packages, magazines, other people, and some I swear she invented after hearing it on the radio or tv. And I got them, all of them, every blessed one.  Meatloaf made with canned corned beef hash. Casseroles with things we should never eat together all blended into a big pile of geh. Appitizers, or "horse de or vaays" to quote my mom, that no one ever made. Nor should they. If they printed it, Shirley cut it out. I've been going through them one by one. A couple were keepers. Pickled beets made from canned beets, deeelicious. I will share it with anyone who asks. Sweet and sour pork minus the minute rice? Yum. But some of them are skeery. Some of them are just plain wrong. Would you like to know how to make Ringtum Ditty? What about Burgundy glazed hot dogs? Feeling brave? She has recipes for blood sausage, for homemade cat food, and even for making what I will just assume is a delightful prune shortcake.
Not so brave now are you?

And it wasn't just recipes, She has how-tos for stain removal, for table settings, for making your own soap out of slivers of old soap.  That one involves cookie cutters and a lobotomy. I know hints for laundry, hints for sink cleaning with leftover squeezed lemons you used to make your family a pitcher of homemade lemonade, how to use a grill and then clean it, how to use shower curtain rings to hang umbrellas and belts in your closets. The ideas abound and are filed in a notebook each in their special place. Your's for the low low price of ....
Thanks to Mom I know how to can headcheese, set up a buffet, take rings off my wooden tables with mayo, keep cats off the sofa (and kids too), fix a run in my pantyhose with nail polish, use that same polish to stop the fraying of a hoodie string, make potato pancakes and fold a fitted sheet. Now that last one is worth all the reading and sorting don't you think?

If you are close enough to be on my facebook or know me by voice, thank my Mom for the links and ideas. If you aren't then send me a self addressed/stamped envelope and $0.15 and I will send you my handy dandy book of helpful hints. You see, I really cannot help myself, I'm addicted. But there is hope, somewhere in one of my files is a 12 Step program for idea and hints hoarders, I just have to find it and I guess if I can't I can probably find it on Pinterest!

Bored in the USA

I've been told my blog makes it seem like I live in the past with no focus on the future but that's not true. I remember the past, I live in the now, and I wonder what the future brings. I can't picture the future because it hasn't happened yet and who knows what tomorrow will hold. I talk about the past but only because I think it's important to learn from it. This post is about the here and now. It's about the words "I'm bored"

So let's start in the past, because I can. When I was a child saying "I'm bored" earned me chores. I learned fast not to say it, act it, or look it. Bored wasn't going to get me far and I'd get so busy looking not bored that I'd forget I was bored. I think it might have been easier to be bored in the 60s. No tv, no Blue Ray, no DVDs, no cable. No on-demand, texting, or sexting, Not much was "insta", not much was out there. We picked up a book or some crayons.We played baseball and tag not video games and CDs. Bored wasn't a word we used often. "I" stood for "me" not ipod or ipad or IMAX.

Fast-forward to now. I was talking with a friend and his son was in the background complaining about being "bored". In a plugged in world how can anyone be bored? And when did it become an excuse for bad actions, cruelty, and crime? "It's not his fault, he was bored". "We keep them busy so they don't get bored". "He was bored so we bought him a,b, or c."  Anti-boredom is a style of parenting. As if "bored" is a bad word or an abusive action. No one has had their kids taken because they allowed them to be bored.No one has faced charges for not overloading their daughter's head with devices and instant amusement.
Remember day dreaming? Sure boredom can lead to mischief but it can also lead to imagination and invention. It can lead to day dreaming and creating. It can lead to opening the door and going outside. It can actually lead to human interaction and face to face discussion. The horror.
So to my accusers, yup I am old school, mostly due to my middleaged-ness. I remember back when and I look at it fondly. Because back when we played with people not things. When a discussion was in a room not on a screen. I challenge you parents of today. Let your children be bored. Let them day dream and create. Let them spend time with people. Take a week and be old school. Can you do it? can you let your children be bored? Learn from my past to make your today better and your future relationships be with people. Be bored, savor it, enjoy it, teach your children to be bored once in a while you may find some of your best memories come from being bored.

Paper hugs

I haven't taken my Christmas cards down yet. I may leave them up until Valentine's Day. Each one holds love and with that love comes fond memories from people I can't see every day.

Every morning I sit here and sip coffee from my first mug of the day and I look at the cards encircling the doorway and I think "I should really take those down" but I don't. I like them too much. They are proof that I am blessed with friends and family. They are proof that I matter in this world.
Sure, one or two come from places or people I don't really know. One from the postman, another from the local baseball team we bought season tickets to. They don't really know me but I don't really care. Their cards hang right there with the others, they carry memories too.
The mailman, who's deaf ..not that it matters, always leaves two tiny Milk Bone treats for Rudy even though he cannot hear him. He knows whenever he approaches either door Rudy is somewhere inside barking his fool head off, just like he does in the warmer days. So our mailman leaves him treats which Rudy enjoys every time, his little tail wagging faster than his jaws can crunch those bones. I left him a plate of cookies and he mailed (yes, mailed) me a card.
The card from the Rochester Red Wings reminds me that soon I'll be sitting in my new season ticket holder seat freezing my tush off on Opening Day. I'll be screaming and clapping my mittened up hands and will jump to my double socked and booted feet when we score. Will it be cold? Yup. Will I be bundled up like a toddler on the first day of snow, unable to bend my elbows, waist or knees? Yup Will it be worth it? Hell yup.

I've got cards from my cousins, cards from old neighbors, cards from a dear friend or two. Each one holds a smile. My cousin, a few years older than me, is the proud Dad of two toddlers. Yes, toddlers at his age. God bless him, I remember those days. He's running ragged, always moving and still sends a letter out with a card. A tradition he carries over from his parents. His card is Christmas to me. He and his sister and parents would travel by train from NYC each Christmas and we'd meet up with them at his grandmothers to eat and play and go out in the snow on the old wooden sleds. We only saw them twice a year so the excitement for Christmas held a special glow. His parents are old now, as old as my parents would be. They no longer live on their own and can't tackle small notes let alone Christmas letters full of updates and news and their usual invite to one and all to join them on New Years for their annual party. We never went, too far away but the invite itself brought visions of a different world in the Big Apple. His party is on hold for a few years, toddler chasing takes over as all of us parents know. But his card still brings memories of sights and smells from years past. I look at it now and can picture those days at his Grandma's warming up after a long afternoon of sledding. I can smell the ham baking and the scent of her tree and the image of a pile of gifts and toys pops into my head. Each time we met up the four of us kids picked up right where we left off and when my cousin came to Mom's memorial with his wife and small kids we picked up again as if we'd just seen each other in the past week. Some things never ever change and I hope they never will.

There's a card from my brother. He's on the long road to recovery. Soon after Christmas he took a bad fall and will never be the same. He was in critical condition for a while and I look at his card and think how lucky I am to have this last member of the Robinson four still with me. I could have lost him and I didn't. He is blessed and so am I.

There's a card from my childhood next door neighbor. She reminds me that we will do lunch this summer when she's in town. Now that Mom is gone her visits will include my brother and I. There's another from the people directly across the street from her on our old street. One from my parents friend a street over and a couple from others in the old 'hood'. We scattered like so many people do when they grow up but these cards tie us all back together.

I got sad cards with only one name at the bottom. Too many people leave us before we are ready to say goodbye. It reminds me to be grateful for the time I spend with loved ones. It reminds me to say "I love you" and to get a real hug in when I go to say goodbye.

I've a few photo cards. The next generation and the children they've had. My granddaughter included. She's six now and a big sister. Her Christmas card picture doesn't show that first lost tooth, that happened between then and now. Then off to the right is a picture of a dear family with a little girl born a week after my granddaughter. She's recently lost her first tooth too but like my granddaughter her smile is full in her photo too. They change so quickly, next year's photos will come too soon.

I've got cards from dear friends, far friends, and near friends. Friends I've met and friends I'll never meet. Family I cherish and the children they chase. I'm blessed to have this out pouring of love so I think I'll keep my Christmas cards up a while longer. To others they may be tacky or silly but to me they are paper hugs.