Best New Condement

I am a person of habit when it comes to cooking Holiday meals.
Cranberry sauce, Keen's Mustard preped the day before, onion marmalade cooking on the oven vent all day.
This year I tried something new!
I made an onion pickle. Just a fast day of pickle, easy and very tasty.
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup white sugar
Bring to a boil
Add
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
Bring back to boil
Turn off heat and let it cool

Tangy, yummy, and great in a sandwich.

The Stuff in my house.

I have just read the most amazing book. Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things. The book is a compelling read, a page turner, sort of like watching an accident. You want to read about the people who are worse then you and you want to congratulate yourself on not being like them but you see little bits of you or your loved ones on the pages.

One point that was made very clear in the book is the massive, one day, huge clean out do not work and in some cases have lead to the suicide of the hoarder. The forced loss of their stuff is to traumatizing and they can not cope.   

I  watch the tv show " Hoarders" it is one of my guilty little pleasures. It also serves a purpose in my life. After every episode I toss out, recycle or give away stuff. The show reminds me to clear off my flat surfaces. After reading the book I don't know if I can watch the show. The empathy I have for the hoarders is to strong. It is a mental illness, one that can be mitigated, one that can be lessened with therapy and new coping skills. Not in two days of cleaning. When the coupon for 2 for 1 Pizza expired in 2009 is as important as photographs for family and friends throwing out the coupon is not the answer.

Read the book. If you have the condition find a professional to help. If a loved one has the condition find empathy and a professional.

The Power Breakfast

My Doctor put the fear of death in my mind back in June. My cholesterol was to high, my weight was to high and my blood pressure was to high. Welcome to your fifties.

Being the type of person I am I ran to the library to find every book on the subject I could. To distill all my reading down to a few lines this is what I learned. My father was right, eat your porridge.

With a page taken from the Swiss and their muesli the new porridge is raw. That is right raw.

My first raw porridge was made with organic quick cook oats. I took 1 cup of oats and 1 cup of water. combined them and put the mix into the fridge.

In the morning I put half the mix into a bowl, added 1/2 cup yogurt and a sprinkling of mixed nuts. Good but not great.

My next mix had organic quick cook oats, steel cut oats, buckwheat and assorted nuts. Much better. Great mouth feel, chewy and nutty. I keep a large jar of the mix within easy reach. The hardest part is to remember to make up the watery mix every night.


The theory behind the breakfast is to make your stomach "work" for it's food. You need cholesterol in your body to help digest your food. By making the stomach work and use up the cholesterol in your stomach it makes the body draw the more cholesterol from your bloodstream there by lowering your reading. Well that is my unscientific reasoning.
 
Four months later I am still enjoying my chewy, healthy, cheap power breakfast. I have lost weight and gained energy.

This has to be read by everyone

Please read the post by Franklin over at The Panopticon. He writes one of my favorite kitting blogs but this one is not about knitting. It is strong, it is witty and it will make you cry.

Click It Gets Better and be ready to send it to everyone you know.

Lice, Love and Happiness

I have lots of kids who have lots of friends who all have lots of glorious hair. It is the glorious hair that I want to talk about today, or at least what can live in the hair. Lice. There I said it. All my kids have has lice at one point in their school careers, some more then once.

I found that the regular over the counter treatments did not work and I hated the idea of putting such harsh chemicals on my young children's hair.


I scoured the web and found the LiceMeister Comb . I then checked out old country recipes for getting rid of lice.

Through trial and error I discovered the chemical free solution.

You will need  -
1 good lice comb - make sure it is metal and the tines very very close together.
1 wide tooth comb
1 large bottle of cheap hair conditioner
1 large towel
A collection of little towels
A good strong posable light


Wrap your child in the large towel.
Slather your child's head with conditioner and I mean slather.
Let the conditioner sit for twenty minute.
Take the wide tooth comb and comb through the hair, removing any knots etc.
Using the good lice comb work section by section through the hair. Depending on the amount of hair  this should take a minimum of an hour.
After each pass of the lice comb through the hair wipe the comb off on one of the smaller towels making sure to kill any bugs that are still moving.
Once you feel you have all the nits and eggs out have the child wash their hair. Toss all towels in a hot wash and pour yourself your favorite drink.

You should repeat one week later.

You don't have to wash everything in the house but if you suspect infestation wash all bedding in hot water. Anything not washable can go into a hot dryer for twenty minutes or be frozen for two days.