I had to chuckle to myself today when I was reading on FaceBook some of my friends' posts. One friend said Santa Claus broke down and brought her daughter an Easy Bake Oven. Such a rite of passage it seems for many little girls in this country as I too got one when I was young. Oh the memories...oh the anxiety that little oven brought me.
You see, back when I was a little girl there was no such thing as an Easy Bake cake mix proportionately sized for a young girl's attention span. Noooo...if one was going to make Easy Bake cakes it became an afternoon project and then some. That 25 watt (or maybe it was 75 watt) light bulb that provided the heat to bake your cakes in those miniature pans took forever and multiply that by the fact that the largest pan could fit in a little girl's opened hand with little difficulty and you had easily an afternoon project and then some. Yes...you can only but imagine just how long it would take to bake all of that cake batter bit by every little bit in that 'easy bake' oven. Forever!! And just when I had 3 or 4 of those little cakes baked and lined up neatly on the tiniest wire rack mom could find one or both of my worst nightmares would seem to appear out of nowhere in the form of one of my brothers who would dash in, grab as many little cakes as possible, stuff them quickly into their mouth as they ran upstairs to their bedroom or dashed back outside for safety laughing as I screamed in protest!!
It didn't take me all that long to tire of my Easy Bake oven with my brothers' harrassments and I graduated quickly to making cupcakes in the big oven. The 'nightmares' still continued with less frequency but now I always had cupcakes left over after their dash and grabs and it didn't seem to matter as much to me. Making a dozen cupcakes at a time in 20 minutes versus the hours it would have taken to make enough easy bake cakes to equal a dozen cupcakes seemed to take the fun out of torturing me.
I'm sure if you were to ask one of my brothers about 'torturing' me and stealing my cakes they would deny ever doing it or plain say they don't remember that. Trust me...that's a standard line for any sibling and one I have even been guilty of using. But in the scheme of life it really doesn't matter anymore as the memories bring a smile to mind. I just hope, knowing that my friend's little girl has two brothers of her own that they don't repeat history. If they do I'll probably never know but I hope that someday she too will have fond memories of her Easy Bake oven.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
Mother Nature...pretty please?!
Mother Nature and I are not exactly having a love fest right now. Although I really don't mind winter that much cause if I really did I surely would not subject myself to Minnesota winters year after year. But...I do have issues when my plans are usurped by Her whim.
I had made plans to head to Montana on Sunday but it seems that I will have to delay traveling until at least midweek as we are being dumped into a major cold spell and stormy weather on the western end of South Dakota with 6-8 inches of snow and blowing winds are not exactly what one wants to drive into in the middle of winter. The cold spell isn't really that bad..it's pretty much a given it's going to be cold here. But winds and blowing snow are not what one wants to drive through on open prairies that tend to mimic what images I can conjure up of Siberia.
I am surely not impressed as I have people to see and places to be but if this is the only bump in my travel plans for this winter I imagine I can find my way through it. I'll make a deal with you Mother Nature...get all this out of your system now in the next few days and I'll deal with this delay without further complaining. But I'm begging you not to rear your ugly side come February 17th for sure...you really don't want to see a grown woman sob especially in the winter when tears can lead to frost bit cheeks. Deal?!
I had made plans to head to Montana on Sunday but it seems that I will have to delay traveling until at least midweek as we are being dumped into a major cold spell and stormy weather on the western end of South Dakota with 6-8 inches of snow and blowing winds are not exactly what one wants to drive into in the middle of winter. The cold spell isn't really that bad..it's pretty much a given it's going to be cold here. But winds and blowing snow are not what one wants to drive through on open prairies that tend to mimic what images I can conjure up of Siberia.
I am surely not impressed as I have people to see and places to be but if this is the only bump in my travel plans for this winter I imagine I can find my way through it. I'll make a deal with you Mother Nature...get all this out of your system now in the next few days and I'll deal with this delay without further complaining. But I'm begging you not to rear your ugly side come February 17th for sure...you really don't want to see a grown woman sob especially in the winter when tears can lead to frost bit cheeks. Deal?!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Montana Bound
It's a sunny, bright and COLD day outside at 8 degrees F. Oh sure it could be colder but thankfully it isn't. Can't help but think of what a shock it will be come February 19th stepping off the plane into the land of Oz...and heat. Am I going to melt right on the tarmac?
Years ago I flew down to Roanoke, Virginia to visit some friends and travel around a bit. It had been a few years since I had last lived in Virginia and I really hadn't given the heat or the humidity a second thought. That is, not until I stepped down onto the tarmac and felt as if I had just been slapped with a wet towel fresh out of a hot dryer. Talk about a shocking and rude awakening that day and for the rest of the vacation. Seems my body no longer had much tolerance to humidity and forgot to tell me.
But in the meantime I am going to turn my thoughts to Montana where I am heading on the 9th to spend a week or so with my oldest brother and his family. Always love going out there...southeast Montana has a beauty all to itself and even after going out there for more than a few quick vacations since the 70s there always seems to be yet another site that I see that I never noticed before.
I love the contrast of living in a metropolitan area of 3+ million and going to a town of less than 500 people. Maybe a few months or a year goes by before I visit but it always feels like going home...a place where there are people who call you by name and have a hearty hug or handshake waiting for you...people who know some of your history or have helped you live it. Yup...it may be a small dot on the map but they get it.
Years ago I flew down to Roanoke, Virginia to visit some friends and travel around a bit. It had been a few years since I had last lived in Virginia and I really hadn't given the heat or the humidity a second thought. That is, not until I stepped down onto the tarmac and felt as if I had just been slapped with a wet towel fresh out of a hot dryer. Talk about a shocking and rude awakening that day and for the rest of the vacation. Seems my body no longer had much tolerance to humidity and forgot to tell me.
But in the meantime I am going to turn my thoughts to Montana where I am heading on the 9th to spend a week or so with my oldest brother and his family. Always love going out there...southeast Montana has a beauty all to itself and even after going out there for more than a few quick vacations since the 70s there always seems to be yet another site that I see that I never noticed before.
I love the contrast of living in a metropolitan area of 3+ million and going to a town of less than 500 people. Maybe a few months or a year goes by before I visit but it always feels like going home...a place where there are people who call you by name and have a hearty hug or handshake waiting for you...people who know some of your history or have helped you live it. Yup...it may be a small dot on the map but they get it.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Gotta Love MPR!!
There's nothing quite like getting woke up by a blaring alarm clock radio tuned to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) playing Wolfgang Amadeus. It gets the blood pumping and the blood pressure sky rockets from fright as one is abruptly awakened from a blissful sleep. Not exactly my favorite way to be torn from sleep especially since it wasn't even my alarm clock going off. Oh well...really didn't need that extra half hour of sleep did I?! It could have been worse I guess...The William Tell Overture could have been playing (a.k.a. The Lone Ranger theme song)...now that would have been cause for cardiac arrhythmia!
As it was I dragged myself out of bed, had peanut butter on a toasted bagel and settled into my recliner to read the newspaper and catch the latest news on tv. I don't know if it's the age thing where one finds themselves flashing back to times gone by but the image of the old Indian Head Test Pattern flashed through my mind as GMA lit up the screen. I can only imagine a majority of my readers saying WTF is that?
In years gone by...okay many years gone by...one could not flip on the tv and immediately be bombarded by the latest news from CNN or romanced by a long forgotten movie on TCM (Turner Classic Movies). Instead the late hours of the evening through the wee hours of the night a single test pattern was broadcast until broadcasting resumed for the new day. Bounding out of bed on a Saturday morning quietly turning on the only tv in the house...yes only one tv...and seeing the test pattern meant you had scored and not missed a single episode of the Saturday morning cartoons. Oh yeah...did I forget to say cartoons were only a Saturday morning phenomenon back then? But that phenomenon is long gone and the Indian Head Test Pattern is something that most have to google to figure out what the he** I'm talking about.
But that was then and this is now and Ellen is about to start so the he** with the test pattern...time to watch some real stimulating television!! Sorry Regis...you have been usurped by Ellen!!
As it was I dragged myself out of bed, had peanut butter on a toasted bagel and settled into my recliner to read the newspaper and catch the latest news on tv. I don't know if it's the age thing where one finds themselves flashing back to times gone by but the image of the old Indian Head Test Pattern flashed through my mind as GMA lit up the screen. I can only imagine a majority of my readers saying WTF is that?
In years gone by...okay many years gone by...one could not flip on the tv and immediately be bombarded by the latest news from CNN or romanced by a long forgotten movie on TCM (Turner Classic Movies). Instead the late hours of the evening through the wee hours of the night a single test pattern was broadcast until broadcasting resumed for the new day. Bounding out of bed on a Saturday morning quietly turning on the only tv in the house...yes only one tv...and seeing the test pattern meant you had scored and not missed a single episode of the Saturday morning cartoons. Oh yeah...did I forget to say cartoons were only a Saturday morning phenomenon back then? But that phenomenon is long gone and the Indian Head Test Pattern is something that most have to google to figure out what the he** I'm talking about.
But that was then and this is now and Ellen is about to start so the he** with the test pattern...time to watch some real stimulating television!! Sorry Regis...you have been usurped by Ellen!!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
2011...Really??
2011...can't believe that the New Year is here already and yet I keep wondering why I think it is 2012. We've all had those days where we are off by a day or two or think it's a different week but come on...a whole frikkin' year? What's up with that? Or do I really want to know? Probably not so I'll keep pounding into my head that it is 2011. Maybe if I had gone out on New Year's Eve and woke up suffering with a dismal headache from the festivities it would have been emblazoned in my brain cells (those that were left) that yes, it was indeed 2011. However, I stayed home as I didn't want to suffer through the chilling temps we were experiencing from the mere fact of living in the upper midwest during winter time. Somehow wind chill temps that are in the -30F just aren't appealing to brave going outside.
I've a friend in Australia who, being in the Southern Hemisphere, is in the middle of summer there and loves to rub it in that it is warm, sunny and a gorgeous day in Melbourne most days. Of course it's warm, sunny and gorgeous if you were sitting where I am. Most anywhere except "Minnesnowta" is warmer. Even this time of the year I start slacking on converting temps into Celsius to share with her about our weather for the day as anything below 32F starts sounding even that much colder in Celsius.
But...we are going to find out just how warm, sunny and gorgeous Melbourne, Australia is when I step onto Aussie soil on February 19th. I am traveling 'Down Under' for 30 days and am starting to get very excited about the trip. I have wanted to see Australia since I was a lowly freshman in high school...which was only a couple of years ago...right?! Not!!
One of my best friends from high school, Betty, and I would joke in shop class about how we were going to Oz and fence out all the kangaroos. I know...pretty dumb but I really truly did want to go to Oz and that was long before The Man from Snowy River and Crocodile Dundee hit the silver screen. You can do the math on how long ago those movies came out!! More years than I prefer to count!
My yearnings would be further reinforced by my Uncle Casey who traveled to Sydney multiple times to judge some prestigious Arabian horse shows there and I loved to pick his brain about the country...and then along came the movies and their sequels to further reinforce wanting to go there.
Now here I am...47 days and counting til I board an airplane and embark on my first international trip...the thought makes it seem just a little bit warmer outside! Dreams do come true...so never stop dreaming!
I've a friend in Australia who, being in the Southern Hemisphere, is in the middle of summer there and loves to rub it in that it is warm, sunny and a gorgeous day in Melbourne most days. Of course it's warm, sunny and gorgeous if you were sitting where I am. Most anywhere except "Minnesnowta" is warmer. Even this time of the year I start slacking on converting temps into Celsius to share with her about our weather for the day as anything below 32F starts sounding even that much colder in Celsius.
But...we are going to find out just how warm, sunny and gorgeous Melbourne, Australia is when I step onto Aussie soil on February 19th. I am traveling 'Down Under' for 30 days and am starting to get very excited about the trip. I have wanted to see Australia since I was a lowly freshman in high school...which was only a couple of years ago...right?! Not!!
One of my best friends from high school, Betty, and I would joke in shop class about how we were going to Oz and fence out all the kangaroos. I know...pretty dumb but I really truly did want to go to Oz and that was long before The Man from Snowy River and Crocodile Dundee hit the silver screen. You can do the math on how long ago those movies came out!! More years than I prefer to count!
My yearnings would be further reinforced by my Uncle Casey who traveled to Sydney multiple times to judge some prestigious Arabian horse shows there and I loved to pick his brain about the country...and then along came the movies and their sequels to further reinforce wanting to go there.
Now here I am...47 days and counting til I board an airplane and embark on my first international trip...the thought makes it seem just a little bit warmer outside! Dreams do come true...so never stop dreaming!
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