What are you burning this month?
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Friend has two months to live- what do you say to them?
Comments (10)Although this is an old thread, bringing it back up to the top made me remember that early last month, I ran across an article (with examples) on amazing website run by a cancer survivor. The cards are what she would have wanted to receive/hear, and hopefully it will help others: I ran across this article in Slate and loved it. I want to find these cards, because they are amazing. And I could have used some of them, too, in the last few years: A Cancer Survivor Designs the Cards She Wishes She’d Received From Friends and Family Slate.com, May 6, 2015 (excerpt) "Los Angeles–based designer Emily McDowell was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 24, enduring nine months of chemo and radiation before going into remission. “The most difficult part of my illness wasn’t losing my hair, or being erroneously called ‘sir’ by Starbucks baristas, or sickness from chemo,” McDowell writes on her website. “It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn’t know what to say, or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it.” The 38-year-old designer has been cancer-free ever since. But the emotional impact of the experience lingered, inspiring her to design a newly launched series of Empathy Cards—emotionally direct greeting cards that say the things she wanted to hear when she was ill." Full article & examples of the cards: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2015/05/06/empathy_cards_by_emily_mcdowell_are_greeting_cards_designed_for_cancer_patients.html...See MoreRE: Once a month cooking..What did you
Comments (10)I've been a long time Garden Web member but have not visited here before. I live in Southern Missouri now. But we've lived all over the world. England, Washington DC..and more. I like to keep a comfort meal in the freezer. If I travel leaving my husband alone I prepare enough that he can treat himself every few days by taking out just one pan and heating in the oven or microwave. He likes it so much he'd just live on it but that wouldn't be the best idea. The frozen meal consists of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and Mac n Cheese. By making sure they all touch sides in the freezer package it helps keep them moist and avoid any freezer burn/drying out. I make a meatloaf of quality meat (whatever you like, Turkey, Lean Ground Pork etc. But for us I use a quality ground beef)and adding, for our taste, finely chopped mushrooms, onion, fresh garlic or powder, drained canned tomatoes chopped very small or crushed, oatmeal soaked in the tomato juice rather than using breading. Eggs if you like. I like to mix the eggs in the oatmeal while it's soaking up the tomato juice drained off the canned tomatoes. This holds the loaf together nicely. Just use similar portions to your favorite meatloaf recipe. I season liberally..whatever appeals at the time. Seasoning salt, celery salt, white pepper, italian herbs seasoning, different things as my mood calls for or what is at hand in the pantry at the time. Before baking I scoop a furrow about 2" w and at least an inch deep down the length of the top of the meatloaf and fill it with spicy ketchup and sprinkle brown sugar over that. Be sure to let a little of the brown sugar drift from the ketchup to the top of the meatloaf. Bake. The tanginess of the ketchup and brown sugar are a great taste treat with this particular meal. You could freeze the meatloaf whole for a large family. But slice it before freezing. Here's the comfort meal package: For a smaller family like us, just two, I slice the meatloaf, packaging meal size portions for the freezer in a disposable pan or cake pan. If you want the meatloaf to stay moist in the freezer you can spread a little fresh ketchup over the entire piece. (Gravy will keep it moist too.) The ketchup on the top will have caramelized with the brown sugar so it will stay on the meatloaf when you cut a slice and lay it on it's side. Or if your meatloaf isn't tall just cut a chunk and set it upright in the pan and spread a little extra ketchup on the side that's up to make sure it stays moist. You can freeze this meal for quite a long time..but it won't last that long. :-) Then I make mashed potatoes, place a meal size portion beside the meatloaf in the pan and be sure they are covered with a thin coating of gravy. A well in the center will hold enough gravy for a portion, and you just spread a thin layer of the gravy over the entire potato portion to keep them moist in the freezer. I make homemade mac and cheese and add another meal size single portion. This is the reason this is not an every day meal and is called a comfort meal. Since you are going to heat this in a microwave or hot oven the pasta is not going to deteriorate as it would reboiling it. All he has to do is make a small fresh salad or steam some broccoli and he's done. I plan the portions of potatoes and mac small enough so that he'll think he needs a large portion of broccoli or salad to "make ends meet". :-) That way I don't feel so bad for feeding him too starches in a single meal. I know it's not for everyday. But it's such a comforting meal. I think it must be one of his favorite treats. I had to be away for five weeks years ago, so I left enough of these for about three or four meals per week. Most of them went to his office for lunches. I have to tell you the other men were begging and bragging on his wife and he didn't feel nearly as abandoned as he might have. Starchy as it is, it's far better than hamburgers or pizza every night. And really, if you portion it out wisely it's not worse than one large helping of either potatoes or pasta. And they think they are getting away with something! And when I am not away from home it's nice knowing there is comfort meal an arm's reach away. There are those times when comforting with food (and no work) blesses a gal too. The ketchup and brown sugar idea were my great-aunt Ellen's idea. I have never tasted better meatloaf than this. Another thing she added to the meatloaf was breakfast sausage like Owens or Jimmy Deans. You cannot believe how good. But who needs the fat?...See MoreGarage fluorescent lights burn out in months - HELP
Comments (8)Brickeyee's reply a couple posts up regarding grounding, is really is a very important comment and quite a common problem in rapid start fluorescent fixtures flickering and not starting. Usually, however, it is not considered since it's a little bit of the "black magic" used in these fixtures. Often when the tube does not fully light, the first reaction is to try to grab and re-seat the bulb, and then suddenly it lights. (Many tombstone connectors have been sold because of this.) What is happening is that the capacitive effect of your hand touching the bulb is actually what causes the tube to light - the same as the effect caused by the grounded reflector over the tube. It aids in the ability of the the mercury vapor gas in the tube to ionize and start the ongoing process. While they may be able to strike an arc without the ground, it is much more reliable with the ground. A proper ground needs to exist between the electrical ground, ballast, and metal reflector. If touching the bulb all of the sudden causes it to light... suspect grounding problems....See MoreThe Month of May: What are You Reading?
Comments (118)Blimey, it's too long since I've been on here....note to self - must visit more often! Sheri - I read Your Inner Fish about six months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. This month, I've read a couple of books which might interest you. First, I decided that I'd see what the creationists have to say about everything (or, at least, one of them), and read Evolution - The Fossils Still Say No! by Duane Gish. He follows the story of life as written by evolutionists and just finds holes in the arguments; his main argument being that there are no real transitional fossils. It's a very frustrating book - it just picks holes in evolution and evolutionary theory over and over again without putting anything except "Goddiddit" as an alternative. To someone with a scientific bent, it's very tedious. I was able to spot a few of his flaws, but I'm not an expert on paeleontology, so the book does give the impression that evolution is dubious, to say the least. Then I turned to Evolution - What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters by Donald R Prothero. Prothero is a professor of geology, & a fellow of the Paeleontology society. Basically, he knows what he's talking about - and boy, does it show! In the first part of the book (entitled Evolution and the Fossil Record), he discusses the scientific method and why creationists cannot be considered to be scientists (basically, it comes down to the fact that if the evidence leads you somewhere, that's where you have to go - even if the bible tells you something else). He also discussed the history of evolutionary and geological theory, and systematics - the way living things are related to each other and how they are sorted out. In the second part of the book (entitled Evolution - the Fossils say Yes!), he more-or-less follows Gish in discussing the evolution of life on earth from the beginning. The difference is that he demonstrates, with dozens of examples, that the fossil record is far more complete with literally hundreds of transitional fossils between "kinds". He also takes the time to bad-mouth creationist quote-mining and their misapprehensions about evolution - he goes as far as accusing them of downright dishonesty in a lot of their books. It's a magnificent book, and I frankly don't understand how anyone could read it and still believe in young-earth creationism and flood geology. I'd thoroughly recommend Prothero - it's one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read on any subject. If you wanted to read just one book about evolution, to understand exactly what it's all about, and why the creationish arguments are so flawed, I can't think of a better one. It's worth reading Gish in parallel to see how dishonest a so-called scientist (he has a PhD in Biochemistry) can be - more-or-less HAS to be - when they are starting from a premise which they are not allowed to challenge. (The only down-side to Prothero is the fact that it's a BIG book - it's not one you can slip in your......See Moreplllog
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