Food, Glorious Food!

Dad prepares to carve the turkey.

I come from a family who LOVES to eat so many of our celebrations and memories have centered around food over the years.

Thanksgiving with toddlers.

Apparently my hubby came from a similar family because when I married him, he brought a whole new set of family recipes to the marriage AND his own recipe box.

Will Grandma do her usual sampling?

One of the family tricks that has provided amusement at our gatherings has been my mother's tendency to "sample" the pies when no one is looking.  We'd usually discover that she'd done some tasting when we'd go to bring the pie to the table and see that a little hole had been cut out smack dab in the middle of the pie.

"On your mark, get set....."

When all the family gathers together, we enjoy the same dishes over and over again.  If it is Thanksgiving, you get Green Bean Casserole, Hash Brown Supreme Casserole, Sweet Potato Souffle, Dressing, Mashed Potatoes, Jellied Cranberry Sauce, Turkey, a dessert salad (affectionately called "fruit compote" by the kids), and at least two kinds of pie.

We also like to photograph food.  I never realized that we did this so much until this year when my sister-in-law came around the corner and saw me setting up a shot with one of the dishes.

"Wow, " she said, "You and your brother are just the same.  He's always taking pictures of food."

I'd never realized this was unusual.  I thought everyone did this at special meals or when they make something that they want to remember.

After all, how else are you going to have bragging rights, if you don't snap a picture of that culinary concoction and then post it on your blog or up on Facebook?

I was going to ask my mom if she used to do this but then I figured out it would be pointless to do so.  After all, she was ALWAYS taking pictures so I'm sure that there was a roast or a pie in there somewhere.

I DID have to chuckle though on Thanksgiving Day when we Skyped with our son and his family in Texas.  We asked him if he had had a nice holiday with his in-laws.

"Mom," he said.  "It was a curious experience spending the holiday with a different family and seeing what  traditions they had.  And this has to be the FIRST time that I've sat down at a holiday meal where everything  didn't taste like dessert."

Yikes!  Guilty as charged.  We do have a powerful sweet tooth in our family.

Small Business Saturday

This is the first Thanksgiving holiday season that I can remember in years when I did NOT go shopping on Black Friday.  You know what?  It actually felt good to be able to sleep in on Friday and to leave the madness to everyone else.

Instead we had a pleasant day with family, eating leftovers, taking a LOT of family pictures, and playing games.  Some of us watched the seemingly endless football games that were broadcast .  It was very relaxing.

On Saturday we tried a new tradition.  I don't know if this has been going on for awhile now or if it is something new that retailers have dreamed up but local advertisers and newspapers have been touting "Small Business Saturday."  The push is for shoppers to go out and visit locally-owned businesses to do some shopping, thus giving them support and sending business their way.

We headed out to Gettysburg Saturday to drive around the National Park, doing a self-guided auto tour.  It was a lovely morning, with few tourists around and fairly balmy weather.

As the day progressed, the sky turned gray but still the rain held off and so did the wind so we were content to wander along the ridges of Little Round Top.....

To take pictures of the many monuments scattered around the park, which are amazing in their variations and meanings.....

To imagine the horror and carnage of those days in July so many years ago and the many families that suffered loss, realizing that this was not just a battlefield but also the final resting place of so many young men...

And to stop to appreciate the stark beauty of farmhouses straight out of a Wyeth painting.  I couldn't help but also think about the townspeople and the farm folk who suddenly found themselves in the middle of this horrible conflict during the Civil War.

But back to our "Small Business Saturday," after our time spent at the Gettysburg Battlefield, we headed off through the winding back roads to the Adams County Winery to do a little wine tasting.  The roads back to that little winery are so twisty that we laughed and joked among ourselves that surely this was a deterrent for those who might be tempted to imbibe too much once they arrived at their destination.  Anyone slightly tipsy would be likely to find themselves having a close encounter with an apple tree if they weren't careful.

We had a lovely time there and, by the way, I highly recommend these folks and their wine.  The wine is lovely, the vintners are very friendly and there's even a golden retriever who greets guests and has a wine named after him.  We did our part supporting a local small business and headed on home to have yet another go at our Thanksgiving leftovers.  I believe we have now set the record for getting the most meals out of one Thanksgiving meal in our household.  I don't want to see turkey or green bean casserole again for a LONG time.

Outings and Shenanigans

Continuing our discussion of Thanksgiving traditions, one of our favorite traditions has centered around the cousins getting together.  They've been enjoying each other's company since they were babies and when they get together, mischief and fun isn't far behind.

Over the years, we've had impromptu fashion shows put on by the kids.

We've had sing-a-longs interrupted by the occasional OUTSTANDING dance moves.

We've gone on outings over the holiday weekend.  This particular outing has a little story attached to it.  My brother had been raving about the hamburgers at a place called the Black Diamond Bar and Grille.  He kept going on and on about how they were HUGE and the best he'd ever had. So we all piled in the van and headed out one cold morning for a long drive up into the mountains to have those hamburgers for lunch.  After all that driving, we got there only to find out that they were closed that day.  Oh, man....we sure didn't let my brother forget about that!  However, we continued on and came to this wonderful pancake restaurant that had real maple syrup with their flapjacks and after the meal, you could sit outside on their swings or walk little nature trails through the woods.  It turned into a lovely outing after all.

We've enjoyed "talent shows" put on by the cousins.  They've really been a hoot.

Have you heard of a group called the "Tijuana Brass?"  Well, sometimes we adults have joined in the fun, hence the "Michigander Brass."

And the kids have kept us entertained while we've waited for the turkey to finish cooking.

Sadly, the cousins are scattered around the country now with job and family commitments that make it difficult to get them all together at one time.   These days we are lucky to have one or two of  them joining us for Thanksgiving.  But regardless, we still have fun together as a family.  Wherever YOU are, we hope you have some fun planned, too, this holiday weekend with family or friends.

Smile for the Birdie!

Ah, Thanksgiving!  That time of year when families travel from near and far to get together to eat too much, shop too much, act like fools, and make wonderful memories.

 In our family, my brother's family and our family have taken turns for years getting together to spend the long weekend together.  We've had certain "traditions" that we've followed over the Thanksgiving holiday which I'll share with you in the next few posts but one of the most sacrosanct has been posing for family pictures.

At some point in the weekend, we all get into our festive outfits and gather in one central location, set up the cameras on the tripods, and then the fun begins.

We take many different combinations of pictures.....photos of each family, photos of just the kids, photos of the adult siblings, and photos of the siblings with our mom.

These photo sessions can drag on  and on, sometimes erupting into gales of laughter and other times deteriorating into testiness.

The one thing that they all have in common, though, is that they are snapshots of times in our lives that will never come again.  Despite the dorkiness of them or their perfection, they will always remind us of the special joy we have shared as family.

They are treasures that I enjoy looking at every year.

Perhaps my all-time favorite is this picture that was taken the Thanksgiving immediately after I had finished my 6 months of chemotherapy after a diagnosis of breast cancer.  The joy reflected on our faces is so evident.  We were a family united together, alive,  and life was good.  It still is!  May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week (or have HAD one - for my Canadian friends).

Case in Point

Today was the beginning of the big Christmas sewing push.  In other words, I spent the morning ironing all the fabric for the novelty pillowcases that I always "gift" to my extended family and then cutting out the various components.  Tomorrow my friend is coming over with her sewing machine and I'll have my machine set up and we'll spend the day doing our Christmas sewing.  I plan to have all my pillowcases finished by tomorrow evening.  That's the plan!

In case you're wondering what pattern I follow, I use one from an organization called Pillows of Love.  They help women and children in crisis.  Some years back, our church's women's ministry group made a bunch of pillowcases for this group and I kept the pattern and have been using it ever since.  Here is a link to the pattern, which is available for free.  If you go to their website to check it out, read about their work.  They are a great organization.

In the meantime, my new case for my Kindle Fire arrived today.  It is a leather cover made by Marware.  You can read all the particulars on Amazon's site here.  When I first opened it up and tried to put the Fire into it, I really struggled to get it into the corner grippers.  I finally manhandled it into it and it's securely in there.  Of course, after I had put all that effort into it, I discovered the simple instructions (pictures only) which had fallen out of the box when I opened it and slid to the side that showed you had to SLIDE the one side into the right-hand top and bottom grips and then press the other side down into the grips.  Oh, boy!

The case is kept closed by an elastic strap that goes over the front of the case.  When the case is open, it looks like this.  At first I thought, "What in the world is with that left side of the case?"  OK, so I looked at the instructions again.  The honeycombed strips come into play when you use the case as a stand for the Fire.  The instructions never mentioned (or showed) what the thick elastic band was for but I figured it out anyway.

 I used to sing in our church choir after all.  Our choir folders have something similar.  In this case, you can fold the left side back and secure it with the thin elastic strap, and then slide your hand under the thick strap to hold your Kindle Fire.  I would imagine if you wanted to show something to another person, this feature would also come in handy, enabling you to one-handedly hold the Fire pointed toward the person while you point or gesture at the screen with your other hand.

Back to that "stand" feature.  If you want to use your case as a stand, you push the left side of your fire out of the grips and then pull it forward along the left side of your case either up to the first honeycomb strip or the second, depending on how much of an angle you want for your viewing.  It works ok if you want to view things from the horizontal position but I didn't see any way to use it as a stand in a vertical position.  There also isn't a lot of flexibility in the viewing angles offered.  It's pretty much the two options.  But I found one that worked for me.

Also, the first two times that I popped the left side of my Fire out of the case to put it into the stand position, it was rather stiff and tight to do this but I noticed that it is getting easier so I think it was just because it was brand new.

You can see in this picture how the case is designed to fold in the back when you adjust it to use as a stand. Your elastic strap just sits in the back while it is used in this manner.

As far as access to controls on the top and bottom of the Kindle Fire, the case is designed to give you full access.  This shows the bottom of the Fire in the case.  As you can see, it's no problem to get to the on/off buttom, the audio jack, or the charging slot.  The top of the case is similar, leaving the speaker unobstructed.

I'm pleased with the case.  The Kindle feels very protected in it.  It's a smart-looking case and sturdy.  My only criticism would be the lack of versatility in the viewing angles you can set when using it as a stand.

Putting Out the Fire

My Kindle Fire arrived yesterday and I've been playing with it, as you can expect.  I promised you that I'd post some reviews of it for you and I'm going to give them to you in manageable bits, as I discover what all it will do and how it performs.  The picture above is one of the opening screens after you press the tiny power button on the bottom.  You use this button to power the Fire up, turn it off, put it to sleep, and wake it up.  Once you've got it "fired up," you swipe the yellow arrow to the left and you are taken to your Home screen.

Your Home screen will have a rotating display of icons representing the latest apps and books that you've opened.  On the bottom shelf will be things you've "pinned" and want to have remaining there (until you remove them).  The ones you see are ones that Amazon had placed there for me when it was shipped.  I haven't gotten around to customizing it yet.

The first thing I did after powering it up was start downloading some of my books onto it.  When you press "Books" at the top, it gives you the option of viewing either the books you have in the "Cloud" (in other words, your archive) or on the "Device."  You can then sort them by Author, Title, or Recent.  Since I have lots of books in my Cloud, it was easier for me to do a search and then select the books to download that way.

One other way you can customize how these books are displayed is by choosing either "Grid View" or "List View."  in the first picture of my Cloud books, you were looking at it displayed as a Grid view.

This is how it looks as a List View.  Those little down arrows are what you would press to download the book onto your device.

I couldn't remember what "Pulse" was so I decided to explore that.  Once I opened it up, I realized that it is similar to "Flipboard" which I use on my iPad.  It is a customized reader where you can pick and choose what blogs or news feeds to follow.  Instead of "flipping" pages, it has a "timeline" appearance which is nice and you just swipe left or right to see the pictures and small synopsis of each story.  To read something in greater detail, you just select it.

I did a little searching within Pulse to see what feeds and blogs were available.  I was delighted to see that Google Reader was there and it let me log right into it and then it displayed all the feeds/blogs that I currently follow in Google Reader.  I simply select the ones I want to add to Pulse by pressing the "+" sign by the ones I want.

I had no problem logging into Facebook and following along with the posts.  It is set up pretty much just like Facebook on your smartphones.  As I was typing a status update, I noticed that Kindle Fire is constantly coming up with words it anticipates that I might be typing.  To use one of the words, you just touch the one you want and it pops into whatever you were typing AND puts a space after the word so you don't even have to do that.  This feature was a little distracting at first but it hasn't taken me long to become much more comfortable with it and to start using it more and more.

Of course, I HAD to add a few apps right away.  Amazon had already put some on my shelves just waiting for me to download them, if I so chose.  But what I really wanted first was Netflix and Comics.  It was getting too late last night to search for more.  I did notice that quite a few of the games I had on my Kindle 3 did NOT download to the Kindle Fire.  It said something about them not being compatible or able to be downloaded onto this device.  I'm assuming that their codes need to be rewritten for the Fire.  So app developers, let's get cracking, OK?

Speaking of the Comics app, here is what a page from a comic looks like on my Kindle Fire.  Cool, eh?  You can zoom in if you need to, of course.  The colors are wonderful.  I just love being able to read comics on an e-reader.

The only glitch I've had so far with my new Kindle Fire happened last evening.....LATE last evening.  I was ready to head to bed and wanted to turn off the wireless.  I could not get that wireless to turn off for love nor money.  The instructions said that you just have to "toggle" on or off.  I know that I was trying to swipe to the right, since that is how I would interpret toggling with that type of visual display.  It stayed firmly in the "On" position.  Now I swear I tried poking the Off button too but maybe I didn't.  It WAS late.  Finally I just turned the Kindle completely off.

First thing this morning I called Kindle support.  Let me just say that you can access support by going to Settings and then picking "Help & Feedback" which is the first choice.  A screen comes up with a list of topics under FAQ & Troubleshooting but you can also choose "Contact Customer Service."  I chose that and it was a very simple thing to indicate a general topic for my problem and then to press either "Call me now" or "Call me in five minutes."  I chose the "Call me Now" button and in less than a minute, my phone rang and I had Customer Service on the line.  I felt kind of stupid telling her my problem and even dumber when she said "Press the word 'Off.'"  I did this and immediately the Off was highlighted and my wireless was now turned off.  I don't know what happened but it has worked like a charm ever since.  I was giddy with delight (and probably lack of carbohydrates) since it was 7:00 a.m. and I couldn't thank the service rep enough.  If I was nitpicking, I would say the Amazon folks should have designed the "on" and "off" as radio buttons so you would intuitively know you needed to press them, instead of swiping them.

That's it for this first part of my Kindle Fire review.  I'm really enjoying it.  It is every bit as responsive as my Apple iPad.  Until next time.....I'm off to play with Fire.