What I've Been Up To

I've been working. I've been knitting, and biking, and trying to get The Cupcake to school on time (Kindergarten!), and homeschooling The Biscuit (unschooling actually, which turns out to take more time & effort on my part but scares people), and wiping noses and bottoms, and connecting with hilarious people and grumpy family on Facebook, meeting tons of Bikey Friends on Twitter, and doing dishes, and laundry. Oh, and I've been helping with the accounting side of a wonderful new magazine... which I don't have time to read myself. The guilt I feel when any one of these plates that I have spinning crashes to the floor is overwhelming and leaves me in a depressed place that does no good; the depression is not so huge I can't get moving after a bit of a wallow, but it still leads to more of those spinning plates falling. Here I am, trying now to catch them before they shatter because that’s all I can manage today.

And now you know why I haven't posted.

If I have more time this weekend I will add photos to this. Otherwise you can see some on my Flickr stream.

I Love My Bike

I haven't written in ages and I have so many reasons why that I'm no longer sure exactly why I'm not writing. None of them has a large enough piece of the pie that it stands out as The Reason; there are so many reasons that I don't even have the energy to list them. So I'm not going to. I'm just going to dive in and start writing from now without catching you up. Anything that's important will come up again.

I LOVE MY BIKE.

Seriously, I changed my photo on Twitter from my kids and me to a photo of my bike. Let me try to put it into perspective: imagine your dream car. Not the car that you think you might be able to afford and that would be practical, but your DREAM car. It's thousands of dollars that you just cannot spend. You do not have it. And then, one year later, you've been saving and saving and saving and you find a used one for only 2/3 the price. You can buy it now. You can pay cash. Sure it's an older model, there have been two model years since then, but it's a beauty. So you do it. You have your dream.

Now imagine that your dream car makes it possible to take your kids to the grocery store. It's not a small personal conveyance. Your Ferrari or Porsche or whatever-it-is can hold your kids and all the stuff you could want to carry quite easily and it is STILL a dream to drive.

Now maybe you can understand why and how much I love my bike.

Horace and Doris Beans

Note: "Horace" and "Doris" were nicknames for my Grandma June's cousin and his wife. Not sure where they got those names. I kind of assumed it was a radio show, but if so it wasn't popular enough to last and get a Wikipedia page. Grandpa Dutchy gave me this recipe for a company picnic in the late '80s - early '90s. These beans are runny so if you're taking them somewhere to share make sure there are bowls and spoons. And napkins. And water or wet-naps (or just lick your fingers). Whatever.

Ingredients:
1 can of V-8 juice (46 fluid oz., it's the tallest can)
1 can of Pork and Beans (tallest can, same size as the V-8, but it's measured in weight -- net wt 53 oz.)
1 med white onion, minced (can substitute yellow, but other onions change the taste)
1 lb. bacon, minced (Oh, this is the awful part! Partially freezing it and using kitchen shears helps, but it's still a miserable chore.)
pepper (to taste, careful because of the mustard)
salt (to taste, careful because the bacon is salty)
molasses (to taste, a few tablespoons)
dry mustard (to taste, a teaspoon or two)

Directions:
In a gargantuan stock pot that is NOT aluminum (aluminum and tomato do not get along well with each other), dump in the V-8 juice. Add the Pork and Beans next (so they aren't on the bottom of the pan sticking and turning black). Put this pot over low heat. You will be occasionally stirring it while tending to the bacon and onion.

Saute the bacon. You may have to do this in batches depending on the size of your skillet. I use a 3-qt saute pan and I do 2 batches so that there's a single layer in the pan. Drain each batch of bacon on paper towels and then dump it into the bean pot. Leave a small amount of bacon drippings in the skillet after the last batch.

Now saute the onion in the drippings. I can usually do the onion in 1 batch. Just cook until they're soft, don't let them brown. When done dump them into the bean pot.

Let these flavors simmer together a while and then start tasting & adding the seasonings. BE CAREFUL! The most common thing I do is over-pepper. The only way to counter this is with more V-8. Start with a teaspoon each of salt, pepper & dry mustard and a tablespoon of molasses. Let it simmer a while and then taste again. Adjust, simmer and taste. Repeat until you're satisfied or you just have to go because you're doing this at the last minute and need to get these beans to the darn picnic!

Number Of Servings:412

Preparation Time:days & days & days