A neighbor and I were conspirators (or should I say codependents?) on a couple of huge beefstake tomato plants this summer.  Well, they started to really started to take off again in the fall and had thousands of hard little green tomatoes by the end of November.  Trouble is, an unexpected freeze hit our desert area so I decided to chop the bushes down before they got messy.

Our first reaction was, "What a shame that we lost all those tomatoes" and "We'll just have to throw them out."  But someone in the neighborhood told of how his mother, a century ago up in Montana, put green tomatoes in the root cellar every fall, and how they ripened and were eaten in the snowy winter months. 

I don't have a root cellar, but we were going away for a month, so after cooking some up as fried green tomatoes, others as green tomato soup, and freezing some to use later, I saved some of the green guys in baskets on the kitchen table, closed the blinds, turned the heater off, and left on vacation, forgetting all about them.

 

When we returned, it was quite a surprise to see that they were still there, but lots of them were orange, as shown below.  I set them aside again in as cool a place as I could find out of direct sunlight, and by now all of them have ripened into a rich bright red.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, almost all of them have been eaten by now.  The smaller ones were perfect in stir-fry, as they were firm enough to hold together, yet tender and sweet enough to enjoy. 

I do like when PayPerPost advertisers give us the choice of disclosing on site or within a post, as I'd like to say right up front that this is a paid post.  Of course, if I didn't like the advertiser, I would not do it.  The fact is that I have never been in Mississippi, although I have met some awfully nice people from that state.  Most of them eventually went back, too, not just for a visit, but to stay.  For most of them, their primary reason for moving back is that they can live a good life cheaper there. 

So if you are one of those people and if you are looking for cheap car insurance in Mississippi then maybe it is only a click away. 

Cheap auto insurance is one of the reasons I drive an old clunker.  Well, it is in good shape inside and out and runs good, too.  Actually, after well over a hundred thousand miles my '96 Grand Voyager still purrs like a kitten.  Compared to most people I know, though, driving the same car for 16 years is kind of pushing the envelope.  But whenever I stop to think about all of the nice modern (think hi-tech) features a newer vehicle might offer, I always come back to the same point.  Higher registration and insurance!  Then, too, when a car is new one always has to worry about the little nicks and scrapes. 

Actually, I only had my present van a couple weeks when it was side-swiped by somebody in the middle of the night, hit and run.  BOOM, $1600 damage in a few seconds.  Naturally, I had 1K deductible. 

Now I don't even carry collision.  Just liability.  For California, I have really cheap insurance, but seriously, if I ever decide to get a new car, I might have to move to Mississippi in order to be able to afford good insurance.

Here is a photo of an adorable kitten which was rescued by a friend of my brother's:

I am so glad this kitty now has a good home.

I personally love cats, but cannot take care of one because they like a routine and my schedule is cockamany. 

C'mon cat, we're going to San Francisco.  MEOW.

Here, kitty, want to see the ocean?   PHFFTT!

WHAT, no cats allowed on the golf course?

 

 

That did it. 

I think maybe we gave the term "Shop 'til you drop" new meaning this holiday season.  So many stores were so empty that we wanted to spend money just to support them.  We were also encouraged by the existence of some real bargains.

Speaking of which, I just learned that the folks over at Crystal Singing Bowls have recently slashed prices on some of their merchandise.  For instance, their 14" frosted A 3rd eye crystal singing bowl which normally sells for $450 is marked down to $179.98.

In perusing their website, I also learned that the Himalayan solid salt glass 4-pack is marked down to $29.98.  If this sounds like an ad, by the way, it is.  Silver Sky Imports was kind enough to pay for this post because, I think, they know I love this stuff.   To be honest, I am pretty clueless about how to actually use a solid salt glass, but they are SO pretty, and at this price I can afford to find out.  It does seem to me that they would be great for serving ice cream. 

The next sale items that caught my eye were the lamps.  Because of the dimmers, these are possibly the most beautiful items offered by Silver Sky Imports.  They are made of Pure Natural Himalayan Grade "A" Crystal Salt and sit on a rosewood base. 

 

A few years back I set out to write an article exposing online PTC sites as fraudulent and got quite a surprise when my research showed me that some of them are legitimate.  The bad ones, it seems, give all the good ones a bad rap. 

For me, getting the internet give me a few dollars a day is a fun game.  While I don't earn enough online at PTC to pay the rent, I do make enough for an occasional meal out, usually at some trendy bed and breakfast.  So I am always on the lookout for yet another way to pick up a little cash without doing much. 

Needless to say, when one of my favorite PTC sites started up a new sister site, I joined and bought a platinum upgrade right away:

The next morning I already had 10 automatic referrals and 40 cents in my account. What is a referral?   That is someone who joined after  you and every time they earn something you get a percentage for having referred them. This is why a few cents show up in your account every night while you are sleeping. 

PTC-Box is unique in that they guarantee you will earn back the cost of your upgrade or they refund the portion that you didn't earn back.  Since this is brought to us by the same people who came up with MatrixMails, I believe them.  But I've already earned enough at MatrixMails to pay for my PTC-Box upgrade and more, so whatever... this is like playing with house money.

 

 

 

 

 

Holidays are a time I like to get away and concentrate on drawing and painting. So this Christmas I dug out a couple of art books that I bought years ago and hadn't gotten around to reading. 

A Method for Creative Design by Adolfo Best-Maugard looks simple at first glance, but it is so full of interesting stuff that one really does have to go back and read it over again. It is full of captivating little sketches and trying some of them got me motivated to put everything else aside and just draw.  Here is one of the Samplers that I worked on today:

If you like this sort of thing, there is more on my art blog, drAnn's ART

The other book I will mention there is Patrick Woodroffe's Mythopoeikon.

If the Halloween pumpkin doesn't become a pie in time for Thanksgiving, it will keep until Christmas.  I paint mine on the outside instead of carving so that it will stay fresh longer. So I haven't cooked it yet, but here is my turkey:

It was a 19 lb frozen Butterball Premium Young  turkey from Winco (sold for 1/2 price with $50 groceries) and I thawed it in the fridge for 3 days and then roasted it 4 hours, starting at 350 and lowering the temperature every hour or so. 

I used a Reynolds oven bag to keep it tender and juicy and contain the drippings, which of course became giblet gravy in due time.  We had our private Thanksgiving dinner Saturday with mashed potatoes, pureed applesauce yams, stuffing on the side and other trimmings.  Desert was cherry pie. 

 

Here is a pretty interesting article I found about antibiotics and hormones in turkeys, why frozen turkeys are better than fresh, and what they mean when they say it is a "young" turkey.  

About Buying a Turkey

Apparently the turkeys with a Premium label are given better food before they become our food.