Grandmother's silver cream and sugar

 There is something about service ware that I love.  You all know that I love my sets of dishes.  But I also love to collect serving pieces.  And yes, I have way too many of them.  I collect covered vegetable dishes, compotes and gravy boats.  I don't know why because we never used any of them growing up.  But another thing that I tend to collect is a cream and sugar set.  I know I have at least 10 sets.  Some are parts of sets of china, some stand alone.  I don't use them as much as I do my other serving pieces but I do enjoy pulling them out when I have company who wants coffee.

This is a silverplate set that I got from Grandmother's estate.  I really love the border design on these and even though they're plate, they polish up very nicely.  She never used them.  At least not in my lifetime.  They sat in her big china cabinet in a plastic grocery bag.  I'm not sure if that delays the tarnishing process by putting them in plastic bags, but that's what she did.  And, no surprise, I do that too with some pieces.  LOL  But I have loved them for years and am blessed to have them.  Would anyone like cream or sugar with their coffee?  Pull up a chair and have a cup!

Great is Thy Faithfulness

 This is another one of my favorite classic hymns.  It was one of the hymns that were sung at Mom's funeral.  When I thought about going to CUMC, I really was worried about switching denominations, having grown up Baptist.  Great is Thy Faithfulness was the last hymn we sang when I attended my first service there and I took that as a good sign.  Here is The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square performing this great hymn.  Enjoy.

Daily Challenge for November - records

 I am a firm believer that if you have things in your house, you need to use them.  This is a philosophy that works for me.  Using items justifies them.  And, as you know, I do use most everything that's in my house.  That is part of the fun (for me) of having things.  I like my stuff and I make absolutely no apologies for that. Having said that, I want to do something fun for my challenge this month and so I am turning to my records.

Part of my vinyl collection

My challenge this month is to sit down every day and listen to one of my records.  I have a pretty extensive, at least in my eyes, record collection.  I think I have about 1000 total.  Over 300 of those records are devoted to Christmas so if you visit my house over the holidays, expect some yuletide vinyl to be playing in the background! And I have, at one point or another, listened to every single one of them.  But now it's time to go back and enjoy them again.  I love listening to music from all sources:  CDs, radio, streaming, records. There is something very special to me about listening to records though.  For one, there is just no other sound like it.  There's the crackle you hear when the needle first hits the vinyl, and you know you're in for an adventure. And listening to actual records brings back so many good memories.  Before I started kindergarten, Mom could keep me occupied by putting on a record and I would just sit there in awe listening to it.  And getting records from Santa was a big deal in those days.  Actually, it's still a big deal and I love to get records as gifts.

Anyway, that is what I'm doing this month. Something fun for a change.  It will be mentally beneficial as well and I look forward to it!

My oven is strange....at least to me

 As everyone knows, I love to cook.  I cook all the time.  I get immense pleasure from cooking, especially when I can share it with other people.  While I have not had anyone over to eat since July 4th, I still love to have others at my table.  I know, I need to do that more often. I'm working on that.  But cooking for myself still is something that I greatly enjoy.  What I don't enjoy is my oven.

First, let me say that I am grateful to have an oven.  I would be completely lost without one.  And I am grateful that my landlords quickly replaced my oven when it died.  My new oven just does not seem to like me.  At all.  It keeps shutting off on me.  If I am cooking something in the oven, I cannot use the stove top.  If I'm using the stove top, I cannot use the oven.  And forget about using the time with either the stove top or the oven.  Within two to three minutes of two things going simultaneously, it shuts off.  It's very frustrating.

I now use the timer on my microwave whenever I'm cooking.  Of course, then I can't reheat anything in the microwave while the timer is going LOL  The burners are also very strange.  They are "sensi-temp" technology, whatever that is.  Actually, that means that the burner will turn itself down once it reaches a high temperature and then slowly increase its temperature again.  Until I learned this, I had no idea why my pot would stop boiling when I was cooking rice or boiling eggs and then it would start up again.  And, to my surprise, that cooking style seems to work.  The rice and eggs were both done but it was still strange.

And the burners also react differently to different pots.  A regular 6- or 8-quart pot will do that weird temperature cycle. However, if I put a sauté pan on the burner, it just gets really hot and stays hot.  There is no simmering in a sauté pan on this stove.  If I bring something up to a boil, it will stay boiling until I take it off of the burner.  I could turn the burner down to low and 5 minutes later, it's still at full boil showing absolutely no plans of stopping.

So, learning how to cook on this stove and in this oven is a new process for me.  I am definitely having to plan my menus accordingly.  Other appliances like my crock pot and my rice cooker have come in very handy.  I never thought that this would be my culinary challenge for 2026.  Oh well.  At least I have a new oven.

That is all.

Things I'd love to do if I won the lottery

 

I totally forgot to buy my lottery ticket last night. Oh well.  Realistically, I understand that the chances of winning are extremely slim but if I don't buy a ticket at least, the chances are even less LOL But, like everyone else, I have that fantasy list of things I will do if I ever win.  Some of them are obvious, some not so much.  Here are some of the things I have thought about doing if I ever win.  

1.  Start a home for animals

Working in senior living, I have seen the importance animals can be to older adults.  But often, they are unable to care for them at that stage of life.  Sometimes it is for physical reasons.  Sometimes it's just too costly.  What I would like to do is start a kind of retirement home for these animals where elderly people could place their animals when they can no longer keep them.  The pets would be cared for and taken to visit their owners on a weekly basis for the remainder of their lives (either the pet or the owner). That way they can still have that important connection without the burden of trying to care for their pets when it's too much.

2.  Pay off debts

This is a no brainer.  Pay off my student loans and my credit cards.

3.  Spend a few weeks in NYC

I have only been to NYC a handful of times but there's no place like it.  I want to go and do the touristy things like see the Statue of Liberty.  And I want to see a Broadway show every night.  It's gotten to be so expensive that winning the lottery is about the only way to get that done these days LOL

4.  Travel abroad

I have always wanted to go to England.  Mom went there back in the 80s and it was the trip of her life.  I want to follow in her footsteps and see what she saw.  There are other places as well.  I have watched way too many episodes of Rick Steve's European travel shows and each time I think that I'd love to go to this country or that country.  Of course, I'm going to need a passport first!

5.  Buy a house

I keep going back and forth on this one as to the kind of house I want.  On the one hand, I want the big old house with too many rooms.  On the other hand, I want something similar to where I live now.  When the time comes, the kind of house I get will be determined by my life circumstances at that time. I know I just want something to call my own.

6. Spend a month at Disney World  

4 weeks.  4 weeks at Disney World with friends.  And each week I want to spend at a different Disney Resort, beginning with the Contemporary Resort.  The others I will have to do research on but I will figure it out.  Disney is my happy place even though I have only been there four times but it's something I fantasize about spending a lot of time there.  Join me?

7.  Share the wealth

Of course I will want to share my winnings with some people.  I have a list of those people as well but will not share that because if it ever actually happens, I want the giving to be just that...giving.  I don't want it to be expected.  Life changes and relationships change so this is another one that will have to be played by ear once winning the lottery actually happens.

8.  Start a scholarship

Both of my parents graduated from East Carolina University with degrees in education and started their careers as teachers.  That's how they met at Bethel High School.  I would want to start a scholarship for students wanting to study education and teach in the public school system.  I think that would be a great way to honor their legacy.

9.  Support Animal Rescues

This one is dear to my heart.  There are so many good rescues out there that exist to make animals' lives better.  I have a few in mind that I would definitely want to help out financially.  Again, the names will remain in my head only until I am able to assist.  And even then, I would want it done privately.  But the work they do is so important to me and it costs a lot of money to run these kinds of places that it would be the least I could to do help out. 

10.  Start a non-profit

This goes back to teachers again.  I want to open up a supply warehouse specifically for teachers in the public school system.  Teachers are often forced to supply their classrooms out of their own pockets.  To me, that is just wrong on so many levels, but it is what it is.  I really would like to have someplace that I could stock with school supplies of all kinds that would be available at ridiculously low costs.  I mean like 10 cents on the dollar kind of prices.  I know this would not be a money-making business, but if I won the super lottery, who cares.  If teachers are going to have to spend their own money, I believe that they need to get the most bang for their buck.  Anything to help relieve some burden and help our educational system. 

We all have the fantasy list of what we'd do with lottery winnings.  I'd be interested to see what some of the things on your list are!

Working on emotional well-being

 Emotional well-being is a key ingredient for good mental health.  And I will be the first to tell you that my emotional well-being has run the entire spectrum.  There are many reasons for that, and I will not go into them right now.  Some years of my life were very dark.  Many were not dark at all.  So, I am thankful for having made it through those times when I was not sure that I would.  But I did learn from those times and that is a good thing.

I am happy to say that I am very pleased with the state of my emotional well-being these days. I have stated several times in the past few months, both online and in person, that I have been feeling all the feels.  And I have.  I feel like I am much more emotionally open than I have been in a long time.  Every day is not perfect by any means, and I don't walk around spreading sunshine everywhere I go, but when I feel good, I like to share it. I like to share when I don't feel good either, but I have learned that comes with some limitations, and I am totally fine with that. Even then, I am letting myself recognize and process those feelings which ends things on a postive note.

I talked with Lois about this last Sunday during porch time.  I was explaining to her my favorite theory that I learned in one of my theory classes at UNCG.  It's the socio-emotional selectivity theory.  Basically, it states that the older we get, the choices we make become more meaningful and have a bigger emotional impact in our lives.  I have loved this theory from the first time I studied it and that is what I believe is driving my emotional awareness these days.  I am finally making some good choices in my life for myself, and it is resulting in a more positive way of life.  

I'm good with that. 

Quote of the Week

 Even though the results of last night's elections give me hope for us as a country, I think it's important realize what the true goal is.  At least to me.  And this applies to all of us, no matter what your labels are.