My family like to watch 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here' - and although I don't approve of the show, I still find myself watching it. The television has a magnetic effect.
There is a lot of cruelty to animals on the show. And the celebrities are treated very badly - almost like animals in a zoo for our entertainment. And even worse - the public seem to join in with the cruelty.
For three evenings running Katie Price has been asked to endure horrendous tasks - she's crying, shaking, and ge
I have had some good experiences and some mischievous ones,I still wake in the morning and hear my Wife say what time is it? but when i look she is not there I really want so hard to believe. When we had our shops in Windsor Berks i would hear so many noises at night i would go round the shop with a truncheon in my hand, then you would hear a box of cereal then a loaf of bread etc fall on the floor but what my hair stand on end was every thing was to far from the shelf to have fallen it h
Christmas cacti are flowering but they got it wrong again lol, I say christmas but they flower just before easter too, whatever, the flowers are really pretty.
To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.
Reducing Static Cling
Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and.. ta da!... static is gone.
Measuring Cups
Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup.
Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.
Foggy Windshield?
Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car.
When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!
Reopening envelope
If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.
Conditioner
Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth.
It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair..
Get Rid of Ants
Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it 'home,' can'tdigest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!
...the hot water jus
INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS
The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things around the house for us told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us something else; he took the filter over to the sink and ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material... I'm sure you know what your dryer's lint filter looks like.. Wellit sat on top of the mesh! It didn't go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that's what burns out the heating unit.You can't SEE the film, but it's there. It's what is in thedryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free... that nice fragrance too. You know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box .well this stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to potentially burn your house down with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months.He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long!
Howaboutthat!!
Learn something new everyday! I certainly didn'tknow dryer sheets would do that.
So, I thought I'd share!
Note: I went to my dryer and tested my screen by running water on it. The water ran through a little bit but mostly collected all the water in the mesh screen. I washed it with warm soapy water and a nylon brush and I had it donein 30 seconds. Then when I rinsed it. the water ran right through the screen! There wasn't any puddling at all! That repairman knew what he was talking about!
PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO OTHER PEOPLE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
NOT ONLY COULD IT SAVE SOMEONE'S HOME, BUT IT COULD SAVE SOMEONE'S LIFE.
When I was giving birth, I was 'on my own' in the delivery suite (midwives and nurses present, but my close friend who had originally agreed to be there was too ill). Towards the end, when I was screaming and screaming, a voice came into my head telling me to stop screaming and to breathe! The way the voice was bossing me, and also how it sounded made me sure it was my friend.
Two days later I was told that my friend had died the day before the birth.
My husband tried to teach me to drive in his ancient Hillman minx but I had a terrible time with it- and him! So he booked me proper lessons with an instructor who looked like Father Christmas (white hair and beard) His car was a Vauxhall Chevette and I loved it, so much so that when I passed my test (second time around) I bought one.
I used to tell peope I drove a "chevvy" hoping they would think I had a big American limo....
Just starting to clear the back yard ready for my unit, the council is so slow i dont think we will start building untill after xmas ,but at least we are getting ready
Not sure if I'll lose my answers if I go back (it wouldn't paste into the reply section) to see who posted this first but here is my list marked of which ones I have read - definitely more than 6.
The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? I have marked with an 'x' all the books I have read from the BBC book list....copy and paste the list into your Blog and mark how many you have read.....and let them see they are so wrong!!
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - x 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - x 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - 6 The Bible - Old Testament or New or both? BITS 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell -x 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - x 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - x 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy- x
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - x 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - Some 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - x 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien x 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk x 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - x 19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - x 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot - 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens - 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams -x 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - x 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - x 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame -X 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - x 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - 34 Emma - Jane Austen - 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein - 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres - 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne -X 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - x 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - x 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving - 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - x 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy X 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood - x 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - x 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - x 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel - 52 Dune - Frank Herbert - 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - x 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime- Mark Haddon - x 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -x 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - x 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - x 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding -X 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville - 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - x 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett -X 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - x 75 Ulysses - James Joyce - 76 The Inferno – Dante - 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal - Emile Zola x 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - 80 Possession - AS Byatt - 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - x 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker - x 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White - 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -X 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton x 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - x 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute - x 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare - 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl- 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo -
That other Ira Aten has been loging in again and posting a pic. Anyway here is the pic I made from two photo's I took late afternoon today. I wanted a sunset pic but the sunset was not very good, as the sun went down the moon was rising behind me so I got a pic of that. I have taken crops of them both and combined them in one pic.
I went for a spirometry (breathing test) this week and my readings were up 3% on last year which is good cos with emphysema they usually go down. I know 3% does'nt sound like very much but when your readings are only 28% of normal then an extra 3% is quite a lot. I think it may have something to do my getting out and walking more since I had my new camera.
I was up in London a few days ago and I walked past the building where I had my first job. I stood across the road and took this picture on my mobile phone. It shows the front of Cloudesley Publications.
I was Editorial Assistant on two trade magazines - Modern Chemist and Kitchen News - and helped out on a few others.
We were on the second floor and if you look up you can see some open windows.
The offices have been bought up now and all that remains is a Bookies and Fashion Shop underneath.
Of course this was 25 years ago - so things do change! But it was lovely to see it again. It brought back happy memories. I had so much fun there and learned such a lot.
I'm very keen on lentils at the moment - they are very nutritious and filling too. So here's my recipe for Lentil Soup. Season and pep it up however you like it.
Easy Lentil Soup
Ingredients
3 carrots - chopped 1 potato - peeled and chopped into chunks 1 Stick of Celery if liked ½ onion, peeled and chopped Two cloves of garlic - crushed
A can of Lentils (drained)
1 pint of stock (use either a beef or vegetable stock cube to make) Teaspoon of oil Black pepper
Optional flavourings ½ spoonful of Marmite
½ spoonful of Tumeric (very healthy)
Dash of soy sauce
Dash of wine
How to make the soup
1. Fry the onions and garlic in oil until lightly brown
2. Add the carrots, potatoes, and celery and cook for a further three to four minutes
3. Add the stock and drained lentils, bring to the boil and then simmer for about 20 - 25 minutes. Add the pepper and any of your favourite herbs and flavourings to season. I like a bit of Marmite, turmeric, soy sauce and a dash of wine – but you can add whatever you like.
4. Fish out some of the big vegetables like the potato, carrots and celery and puree in a hand blender then put back in and mix it all together. Try to avoid pureeing the lentils as they taste better whole. Combine together and make sure all is hot. Taste and make sure you like it before serving. You can add more flavourings if needed.
It makes a lovely warm Winter soup – and if you have any left it freezes very well. Enjoy!
This might not appeal to everybody, but I invented this soup about 20 years ago after going to a African restaurant with friends. Unfortunately I was bunged up with a cold, and couldn't taste a thing. The soup was a peanut soup and I was desperate to try it.
PEANUT BUTTER SOUP
Two tablespoons of low salt smooth peanut butter
Enough vegetable stock to fill a soup bowl (made from a low salt vegetable stock cube)
Stir the ingredients together in a pan for a couple of minutes until the peanut butter has dispersed evenly and it is hot but not boiling. Serve immediately.
When I mention this creation (or my lettuce stir fried in peanut butter) to friends, they usually look revolted, but I love it, and my American aunt (the only one brave enough to try it) loved it too.
I don’t mind cooking as long as it is easy and I don’t have to follow a recipe!
On looking at the ingredients on the soup sold in supermarkets,I was shocked to see just how much salt was in them…. sometimes over half of your recommended daily allowance.
So here are two easy soups I have made lately. I have changed the recipes to minimise any effort I might have to expend!! They still taste pretty good. Unless you love salty soup that is. I can make them now without having to look up the recipe.
CELERY SOUP
(could substitute any veg for the celery)
Two tablespoons rapeseed oil (any healthy oil will do)
One onion chopped
One celery head chopped
Two ‘Kallo Organic’ very low salt vegetable stock cubes, or make your own stock if you can be bothered.
900ml water
150ml semi-skimmed milk
Pepper and throw in your favourite herbs.
Find a large heavy pan. Gently fry the chopped celery and onion in the oil until soft and turning golden. Takes about 10 minutes. Boil the kettle and dissolve the stock cubes in the water (I use a pyrex measuring jug for this), add that and the rest of the ingredients to the pan, then simmer for about half an hour.
After it has cooled a bit, I use my hand held electric blender to make it smooth, although a jug blender will do (more washing up.)
I transfer the soup either to my tummy, or to plastic soup containers that I saved from supermarket soups. It seemed to freeze OK.
TOMATO SOUP (great for using up home-grown gluts)
(modified from a recipe my mother gave me)
Two tablespoons rapeseed oil
One onion chopped
1.5 lbs chopped fresh tomatoes (the sweeter the tomatoes, the sweeter the soup!)
1.5 pints of veg stock made from very low salt stock cubes again
Heaps of basil, or any other herb you like; oregano is good.
Pepper if you like it.
Same method, except I fry the onion first before adding the tomatoes. I then stir the pan on and off whilst gently cooking the tomato onion mix. Next I add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about ¾ hour.
For those of you who like a smooth soup, after blending, sieve away the pips and skins.
Probably freezable, but it didn’t hang around long enough to be frozen.
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