old kitty

Claude needed a pedicure, and to have his thyroid checked.

Wait, he's a cat, right?

Yup. A very expensive cat. A cat who rarely darkened the door of a vet's office, until his big overnight adventure last summer that resulted in a compound fracture. Now he and the vet are best friends.

While he no longer needs weekly visits to get a new cast, he does have a thyroid issue that needs to get checked regularly. And nails that need to be clipped by a professional since his poor foot healed crookedly. And during his visit this week, it turns out he also has hypertension.

The curse of getting older isn't just for humans. And according to the chart at the vet's office, while Claude is 18 in cat years, he is 85 in human years.Poor old kitty.

So now he adds another med to his daily dose. And he still doesn't like it when I shove them down his throat. But when I reward him with a nice bowl of his favorite grilled poultry with gravy, he mostly forgets about it, until I wrestle him again before bed time.

But I think he loves me anyway, as he will still pose for his portrait.

party time in Chicago

Mike and Charlie had a grand time in Chicago-the Pohl Family spent the long Martin Luther King weekend with John and Mary at their lovely home in Lake Forest. Thanks for showing them such a great time!

They journeyed downtown, and had lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern (made famous in the Saturday Night Live skits with John Belushi and Dan Akroyd-remember "chzbuga, chzbga, chip, pepsi!):They had a beverage at the top of the Trump tower, and checked out things downtown:
They had dinner at an Irish Pub (my sister-in-law Mary, Mike's mom Jan and his dad Don):Charlie and his cousin Lizzie sledded at the Country Club:John and Mary prepared a gorgeous and delicious birthday dinner for everyone:Left to right: Mike's dad, Don, his brothers John and Bob, Charlie, John's wife Mary, Mike's mom Jan, Mike, and Lizzie, John and Mary's daughter.

And of course, cake for the birthday girl!Happy 75th Jan !

banishing gloom

Apparently I am feeling the need to keep everyone's spirits lifted, in what can be a gloomy, depressing time of year here in the northland.

I lifted the following that I got in an email from my very favorite store in Chicago, called POSH. They travel the world and get interesting finds at flea markets from Argentina to France. Dishes, glassware, unique gifts, all kinds of fun things. Here is their website, if you wish to check them out further. I often order on-line from them, they are very speedy! www.poshchicago.com

Anyhoo-they send out an occasional newsletter, and this was the beginning of the most recent one:

Another fresh year is here...
another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear;
to love and laugh and give!
~William Arthur Ward

Here we are once again - poised together at the start of another twelve month journey. The calendar, like a blank canvas, is waiting for us to make our mark. To add first one stroke, then another and then another until - with care, thoughtfulness and grace - we've created a most beautiful 365 days.

And to that end, I hereby pledge to do what I can to inspire all of you to live the next year in the same way.

Today's assignment will be simple. Smile and say hello to a stranger-whether you are walking down the sidewalk, waiting in line at the grocery store, or picking up a child from school. Even if they don't smile back, I promise you will feel just a little warmer inside.

reality check

Or, the glass is still half full.

If we read every article in the newspapers and magazines, and watched every news broadcast telling us about how bad things are right now, we might actually believe that things were terribly dire. And that the Great Depression is back.

Let's look at some facts, shall we?

a. The jobless rate during the Great Depression was 25 percent. We have yet to reach 7 percent.

b. Bank failures, not hedge funds, or risky investments, wiped out the life savings of millions of people. To date, not one single person has lost a penny in an FDIC insured bank account.

c. About 44 percent of all mortgages were delinquent by 1934, compared with about 4 percent today.

I do not diminish the fact that there are people struggling right now. I am just sending out a gentle reminder that it is not as horrible as the media would like us to believe. Things have been worse, and things will be better.

I have an idea for my own news channel. It will only talk about good, positive things. Like pilots safely landing airplanes, and strangers paying anonymously for another person's meal at a restaurant, and a profile on the neighbor who always shovels your sidewalk for you. I am thinking that is what people want to hear about right now. It would be like the profiles they do of Olympic athletes, uplifting, and miraculous.

And it would have a cooking segment, that would only feature comfort food. Like this:

Sunday Roast Chicken
(but feel free to make it whenever you fancy)
1 4-6 lb roasting chicken
1 lemon
1 head of garlic
one bunch of fresh thyme
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. melted butter
1 large onion, thickly sliced
Preheat the oven to 425. Remove the giblets (if they were included) and rinse the chicken inside and out, pat dry. Generously salt and pepper the cavity, and stuff in the thyme. Halve the lemon, and put that in there too. Cut the head of garlic in half horizontally, and plop that in the cavity with the other goodies. Tie the legs together with kitchen string to hold it all together, tuck the wings under the body, and put it in a roasting pan. Brush the chicken all over with the melted butter, and tuck the onion slices under the body a bit.

Roast it for an hour to an hour and a half (depending on size) until cooked through.

It will be moist, and flavorful, and yummy. And you won't even think about the stock market once.

birthday greetings!

It was just one year ago today that I decided to do it, to put myself out there, to commit to being a blogger. I am not controversial, and will never be interviewed by a news organization about my impact on moms, or premenopausal women. But I have made it a whole year.

It's amazing how much has happened in just a year.

We were in the middle of trying to choose who should run for President, and had not heard of Sarah Palin.

We were spending money, and most of us had little idea of what our economy would look like in just a few months.

I still had my crummy old kitchen.

We didn't know our house, yard, and garage would become a simulator building factory.

Charlie still played with Legos every once in a while, and didn't spend his Sundays glued to the TV watching football.

I had less gray hair popping it's way out of my scalp.

My sister was still trying to hold her marriage together.

Charlie had an amazing teacher, and I spent time helping in her classroom.

An awful lot can change in a year. Change is good, even though it often hurts in the beginning, and we don't realize how necessary the change was, or how much better off we are because of it.

I don't know what this blog will look like this year, probably more of the same-recipes, photos, my thoughts on life (and fashion. just kidding) Because all it really is, is my journal, my diary, a way to keep track of my life. And anyone who wants to come along for the ride is more than welcome.

Any diary I ever started before never lasted more than a couple of weeks-there is something to this blogging thing. Several of you have started your own blogs since I started playing with this a year ago-I love following them.

If you want to start YOUR own blog, go here: www.blogspot.com

Thanks for coming along for the ride!