My Scottish Grandmother used to tell a story that always made me cringe because there would be no way I would eat it. They emigrated to Canada in 1927. They had a big house close to downtown and the shops. My Grandma worked hard but they could never afford to buy a good cut of meat, they ate mostly organ meat or sausages, Grandpa used to make head cheese (gross) I remember the eyeballs floating in the pot when I was a child when he made it. My Mom had a big German Shepherd she called Lindy Hop after the dance. One day my Grandma looked out the kitchen window and noticed the dog had something in her mouth and was trying to rip paper off of it. My Grandma went to see what the dog had and it turned out to be a big roast beef still wrapped in butcher paper. and string. The dog either stole it or someone dropped it on the way out of the butchers. Grandma grabbed it from the dog, took it in the house, washed it off and they had it for dinner. Meat they hadn't had for a long time. In this day and age no way would I have eaten that meat but during those depression years I guess you would do what you had to do to feed your family. Grandma said the meat was fresh and because it was wrapped it was clean,. Poor Lindy lost her prize but after a boil to make soup she did get the bone. haha I can't tell you how many times I heard that story.

Having to purchase seeds, soil, and pots a year beforehand because they never hit shelves early enough. edit on my original post *-OVER watering outdoor gardens- I see a myth every now and again about how people over water out door gardens. (not indoor pots) Not sure where they live but I'd be hard pressed to find anyone in my neck of the woods that could possibly over water an outdoor garden. Probably not a myth, I just don't think over watering an out door garden is an issue unless your living in a high water flood table. and even then it should go without saying. I guess the same people that complain about over watering outdoor gardens also build raised garden beds to combat the high water tables which would make sense for them.

One thing that drives me a tiny bit crazy, but I just look away, is singular plants dotted across a flat landscape, usually also featuring some kind of mulch. I also don’t like to see plants being abused like branches cut off trees and big stubs left or trees just randomly topped off. I haven’t found cats do as much damage as dogs, for one thing they are a lot smaller, although my neighbours cat kept trying to use my tomato planter as a toilet, so once I had that figured out, I blocked her off. It drives me batty seeing dog owners “walking” their dog in obvious garden beds as if they were in a public park, walking on a lawn. Also people who use gardens and planters like a trash can.

I avoid flying with airlines charging you to check a bag if I can. Mostly I only have 1 carry on except on longer trips where I do check my bag. All it seems to do is have more people have 2 large carry on's and then they end up pissy that they have to gate check their luggage, which also takes a lot of extra time in getting the plane loaded and going. I will also pay to have pre-assigned seats or to board up if I can. My daughter is now hitting the age where they won't seat us together, but she is nowhere near the point where she wants to sit away from her family and would freak out if she had to. I'm also becoming more worried about strangers in her space as she looks a little older than she is as well. We are also tall so will pay for more leg room. Just annoyed with all the changes of having to pay all the extra's, but often when we used to fly it was not planned far ahead so getting in a different cabin than economy isn't always an option. If work didn't cover it I would pay out of my own pocket. If you are far ahead in the planning process I find business or first class to be just slightly higher than the other options after you pay for all the upgrades. That said I'm also willing to rough it at times to teach my daughter some planning/savings. She won tickets to be in the audience for a Disney show that was filmed in LA (we live in TX) and only got to know about it 3 or 4 days ahead. So I said we could go and gave her a low budget. She found flights and a hotel below the budget and she said we can only bring a back-pack each with everything or we are over the budget. So we did it. It probably was our most nightmarish flight together, but only because of the circumstances with a storm delaying us into taking off 4 hrs late which meant we were so tired we slept on the plane, except the seats didn't recline at all - don't think any of them did, so our necks really hurt for the next 24 hrs, and we had to hear Baby shark playing over and over at the airport as well as on the plane by a toddler who did not want to sleep. 8hrs of baby shark was a little much. However it was a budget airline and I really appreciated their efficiency over most of the big ones I've flown with. Once we were asked to board, all were on in no time and ready for take-off. Been a long time since I've seen that efficiency. Also had very clear rules about the size of the carry-on and it was enforced and nobody got a bye. Oh I should say it wasn't JetBlue or Southwest which are also fairly good at being efficient, but this was faster than either of those, and much lower budget.