I recollect when.....

rec·ol·lect

ˌrekəˈlekt/

verb

remember (something); call to mind.

Do you remember sitting around listening to elderly people who talk about "back in the day" and say "Well, I recollect when...." 

Well, today I recollect when.....

Laundry day was actually a whole day.... or two. Mom washed our clothes in a wringer washer. We had well water and it wasn't a very deep well so we had to watch how much water we ran in a day. 

She had a galvanized tub that she used to put the rinse water in. She would fill it with cold water the night before so she would have enough water to wash the next day. 

No spin cycle on a wringer washer. So you had to literally run them through the ringer as many times as it took to get all the water out after washing. (by the way, this is a stock photo, not my mom).

Then you had to swing the wringer portion over your rinse tub, rinse them by hand and run them through the wringer again.

Then you would go out and hang them on the line to dry. 

Once they were dry you "brought them in" to be ironed and/or folded. I remember her having a sprinkler bottle and there were certain things she would sprinkle and then put them in a pile and tie them up in a tablecloth and put them in the refrigerator. Apparently, keeping them cold helped get the wrinkles out when she ironed.

She always ironed in the living room while we watched Hazel, Pete & Gladys or Dick Van Dyke. 

And if it was something like dress shirts or our pretty little dresses, she would use Niagara Spray Starch.

So doing laundry was a two day sprint, not just "toss a load in...do something...move it to dryer...do something else...fold and put away" like it is today. 

So yes, I recollect when laundry took more than a day. But I also recollect that her efforts were all worth it because we made a fine looking family. 

Friday Foto Friends

I love the idea of Friday Foto Friends. 

I am linking up today to show you a photo of one of my favorite fall blankets. For the past ten years or so, my Mom has been doing primitive stitchery on fleece blankets. She did this one about 5 or 6 years ago, which would have made her around 79 - 80 years old. 

Every fall when I get it out and I admire each individual hand stitch she did, not to mention tracing the patterns and cutting them out, I am amazed at how talented she is. I will cherish this forever. She is 85 now and going strong and still crafting. 

Right now she is making some new ornaments for her Christmas tree. I hope to get pics of them to share. But in the meantime, here is my beautiful blanket my mommy made.

Pop on over to Jeremiah-2911.com and link your Friday Foto.

Pizza Hut Twisted Crust Review

I took the opportunity to order a pizza last night from Pizza Hut. I decided to try the twisted crust. I was told that the crust was similar to their hand tossed crust only they twist breadsticks to for the crust. I place my order for it with double pork sausage. 

The twisted bread stick looked very good. I couldn't wait to try it.

You can see where they laid it on the pizza dough to bake it right into the crust.

So I pulled it apart and....yuck. Talk about unappetizing. Where they laid it has no pizza sauce, no topping under it and because it was laying right on the naked crust it did not brown when baking. It looks uncooked but it did feel cooked, not dough-y.

I tore off a small piece of the top that I peeled off and tried it. Bland. There is not hardly any seasoning on the breadstick like there is on an order of breadsticks. And again, because it was laying on dough, the bottom is not brown or crisp. It is actually a little soggy.

So next I tried a bite of the pizza. Just let me say that the "amost like hand tossed" dough was NOTHING like hand tossed dough. If anything, it was more like the fat on a piece of meat. Very tough to chew and very unappetizing to look at. Needless to say, I didn't make it past the first bite.

The whole experience was very disheartening. And thought I love Pizza Hut and eat it all the time, this new pizza has me so turned off that I doubt I go back for a long time. 

So do I recommend the new twisted crust? NO WAY!

Tomato Cage Trees

We usually put out 2-3 tomato plants each summer, but the past two years we haven't. But I could not part with the tomato cages because in my mind I kept thinking I could use them for something some day. Well, that day has come. Thanks to Pinterest, I have many options on what to do with these tomato cages. Some are super simple and some are a little more adventurous. Here are some ideas.

I would love to have a couple of cute trees on my porch. So I like the ones that are just garland and lights wrapped around it. 

But I do like it embellished a little, though I am not a huge fan of this one. It does give me ideas though.

These are probably one of my favorite since they used the garland that looks like Douglas Fir. That is what I normally get for a tree and for Christmas wreaths each year.

I love this one. It looks extremely realistic. I checked out the site and saw the steps and it is garland and lights. But it looks like a real tree. I think it would look cute to wrap some concrete blocks in Christmas vinyl Dollar Tree table cloth and put a big red vinyl bow like presents around the tree.

This is simple but cute. I would need to spray paint my tomato cages because we bought bright yellow.

Here is one done with burlap ribbon. Even though I like the look of burlap, I hate working with it.

These are too cute for words. But if there is one thing I hate working with more than burlap, it is mesh ribbon. I do not like it and it does NOT like me.

What a beautiful angel made with the tomato cage. This is really cute but far above my talent level.

This is a cute tree turned into a snowman using the white garland.

Another cute snowman. Again, the evil mesh. But it is really cute.

This one looks simple as well. These snowmen would look cute on my sister's porch. She should try to make some of these. 

Mom would love these. She always has poinsettias out everywhere at Christmas. These would be super simple but I am not sure how much it would cost to have that many poinsettias fill a tree.

I am so happy that I now have a plan for those tomato cages I have hung onto.

Is it soup yet?

I had several requests for the recipe on the soup I posted yesterday. It is "soup"er simple. This recipe came from Lisa's Carolina Kitchen. She said it was the recipe that her school always used for soup.

School Soup

1 48 oz. can tomato juice

1 lb. fresh lean ground beef

1 bag frozen mixed vegetables

1 8.5 oz. can lima beans

1 14-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, mashed and with juice

2 potatoes, diced

2 med. onions, diced

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Bring tomato juice to a boil. Slowly add crumbled ground beef. Cook until beef is separated. Add onions, mixed vegetables, potatoes, salt and Worcestershire sauce. Cook over medium heat until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. Add more salt if desired.

I used my favorite chopper spoon from Pampered Chef to mash the tomatoes. I often wonder how I ever smashed anything before I got this spoon.

I got them nice and smashed and all the juice gave body to the soup.

I ended up on using only one onion. It calls for two medium, but we had large so I went with just one.

You can dice the potatoes any size you want. I chunked mine but didn't go too big because hubby likes them more this size.

Dumped it all in the pan and brought to a boil on medium heat. Then I reduced it to simmer and let it simmer several hours. 

It was so delicious. 

I did make 3 small changes. First, I left out the lima beans because neither hubby or I like them. Second, I browned the hamburger and drained the grease instead of boiling it in the tomato juice because I do not like a greasy soup. And third, since we both love corn, I added an extra bag of frozen corn. 

Weekend Wrap Up

It was another wonderful weekend at Mamaw's Place. I got a lot of house work done and the laundry for the week is all caught up....even folded and put away. I did all that Friday night. Then vegged out on the couch and watched TV.

Saturday, I got up early and made a mad dash to Walmart to pick up some staples we needed. While I was there, I started my November tradition of pricing hams and turkeys everywhere I go. It won't be long till they will start coming on sale and I will have to decide on what brand for this year. 

Saturday afternoon, I headed to Trunk-or-Treat at our church. It was really good. I love seeing my friends and checking out their trunk decorations. I think this one was my absolute favorite this year. It was so creative. 

It was getting cold so I was glad to come home to Allen having the fireplace running. It was nice and cozy. I spent some time starting to set out my Thanksgiving decor. I will get pics of all of it later, but I love my angel with my new sign I got for just $1.00.

Once again, we didn't have any trick-or-treaters. We just don't live in a big enough neighborhood. But I spend the evening reading and relaxing. I am about finished with my last Icicle Falls book. This has been a great series and I hate to see it end. 

I got up on Sunday morning and did my nails. I didn't like how they turned out so I did them again. I didn't like that color either so I figured third time is a charm so I changed to my Brushed Metal polish by Avon and I am happy now. 

Sunday morning, I went to church with my son and his family at Richardson Cove Baptist Church. It was a wonderful service. Their pastor always brings a great message. I really enjoyed getting to see my grandbabies. I wanted to get a pic of them, but my phone died before service was over.

I came home from church and had a light lunch then decided to try a soup recipe I saw on Facebook. It was called School Soup because the lady said it was what they fixed in her school cafeteria growing up. I had bought all the ingredients on Friday so I decided to give it a shot. It turned out perfect. I really enjoyed it. I will definitely add that to my recipe collection.

I didn't leave the house the rest of the day. I just spent some time changing my backgrounds on my computer and phone to Thanksgiving. I worked on my Thanksgiving dinner menu. May a list of things we are low on so I can start stocking up.

Then Sunday night, I started the Thanksgiving season off right by watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. 

All in all, it was a great weekend. Now I have to ruin it all by getting out in the rain and going to work. I really, really don't like Monday's.

Happy November 1st

I love November. A month of giving Thanks and finding joy in the blessings we receive every day. We take so many things for granted in this life that we should stop and give thanks 365 days a year. But too many times we get so caught up in the trials and troubles of everyday life that we forget to appreciate what we do have instead of focusing on what we don't.