kappydell

This will be my retirement home............one day

Sounds pretty good!!!!

No nursing home for us. We'll be checking into a Holiday Inn!

With the average cost for a nursing home care costing $188.00 per day, there is a better way when we get old and too feeble.

I've already checked on reservations at the Holiday Inn.

For a combined long term stay discount and senior discount, it's $59.23 per night.

Breakfast is included, and some have happy

Hours in the afternoon.

That leaves $128.77 a day for lunch and dinner in any restaurant we want, and/or room service, laundry,

Gratuities and special TV movies. And don't forget the maid comes every day!

Plus, they provide a spa, swimming pool, a workout room,

A lounge and washer-dryer, etc.

Most have free toothpaste and razors, and

All have free shampoo and soap.

$5 worth of tips a day you'll have the entire staff scrambling to help you.

They treat you like a customer, not a patient.

There's a city bus stop out front, and

Seniors ride free.

The handicap bus will also pick you up

(if you fake a decent limp).

To meet other nice people, call a church bus on Sundays.

For a change of scenery, take the airport shuttle bus and eat at one of the nice restaurants there.

While you're at the airport, fly somewhere.

Otherwise, the cash keeps building up.

It takes months to get into decent nursing homes. Holiday Inn will take your reservation today.

And you're not stuck in one place forever -- you can move from Inn to Inn, or even from city to city.

Want to see Hawaii ? They have Holiday Inn there too.

TV broken? Light bulbs need changing?

Need a mattress replaced? No problem.. They fix everything, and apologize for the inconvenience.

The Inn has a night security person and daily room service. The maid checks to see if you are ok. If not, they'll call an ambulance . . Or the undertaker.

If you fall and break a hip,

Medicare will pay for the hip, and Holiday Inn will

Upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life.

And no worries about visits from family. They will always be glad to find you, and probably check in for a few days mini-vacation.

The grandkids can use the pool.

What more could I ask for?

So, when I reach that golden age, I'll face it with a grin.

Check at the local technical school. I know of one that teaches dental hygenist classes - get your teeth cleaned free. The same town has a dental college where you can get free dental checkups and often very low priced fillings, etc. They gotta practice on someone, and the teacher is right there.

Yes, I must confess, I do things not approved by the USDA, like canning butter and cheese, and canning in 1/2 gal jars occasionally. But I do use tender quick in my jerky, and salt...lots of it. I use Morton's recipe; and I also freeze my hamburger rocks for longest storage. The dehydration is more of a space saver than anything as they don't keep unfrozen or unrefrigerated all that long due to fat content. But I and my prep buddy are the only ones eating these (and she has been warned that it is not approved food and why...)so we accept these risks.

BUT...!

Violet is most knowledgeable about approved methods, so you should stick to her directions for safest results, especially if anyone other than yourself will be eating the grub. If you have children, stick with the approved recipes, there are soooo many good ones in the Blue Book alone. But the little fellers systems are vulnerable to bugs, so don't risk them, please.

Sorry Vi - I'll keep my controversies down in the Edge.

Philbe would love to have more deep freezers...but...if the power grid went down I'd lose alot of it I think. Do you have an alternative way to quickly can things (without electricity) that you have in deep freezers?

Yup, I have canned over the gas grill as well as open fire. A little fussy, but it works with patience. And come to think of it, maybe I'll just 'clear out some more freezer room' with another canning cycle...you know, one canner full of stew meat, one of chicken, one of pork, one of ham...equals one 'cycle'. Repeat as desired. Some work, but I do love to see those jars on the shelves!Maybe I'll keep my eyes open for a small used freezer to convert to a chest refrigerator instead. Its supposed to save quite a bit on the electric bills...got the info from www.energyconservationinfo.orgIt also gave direction on how to put an on-off switch on the water heater to save $$ too, but the refrigerator looks easier and quicker - no wiring required.

I am not sure this computer likes me. I can't get Java to work, either, and have tried everything on the help sites. yes, I routinely do disk cleanups. I just presume it is this wierd computer.

You can dehydrate cooked food, but you have to make sure it is totally dry when you store it. Beans should shatter when struck with a hammer, for example, and you should always test to make sure they are dry enough. Many backpackers routinely dry pre-cooked foods for the trail. You might try looking for some books on it at the local library. However, home-dehydrated foods are NOT good for decades, like many storage foods. Be sure to rotate them earlier to get the best end product.

I have had excellent experiences with dehydrating canned beans...and chili....and split pea soup. The dehydrated beans cook up, or rather re-hydrated much faster than cooking dry beans from scratch and have been a standby of backpackers for years. In fact, at least one mail order house that caters to back packers carries dehydrated cooked beans in bulk! Just spread them out on a tray and dry until hard. They should shatter when struck with a hammer, like dried corn should. Or you can puree them in a blender, dry them like a leather, and grind up the dry chunks for a cooked bean flour that makes excelled 'instant' refried beans.

We bought 40 lb of hams at ridiculously low sale prices (farmers must be selling off livestock they cant get corn for) and cut them down. Froze and canned slices for scalloped potatoes & ham, chunks for soups, and froze the bones for the next broth making day. Going to get more, too, since we expect meat prices to climb with the crappy corn harvest. Some are already 'predicting' more drought this summer....do you guys think a third freezer would be 'too much'?

still showing up on my 'puter. had to use the back door again. It was the first thing that pops up when I query Mrs Survival...MrsSurvivalWarning: Dangerous DownloadsOne stop source for women to gather and learn about preparedness. Featured is the Forum, MrsSurvival.com's Survival Talk for Women.www.mrssurvival.com

I got that too just now...had to use another route to get in here!

Our content is only dangerous if it hurt your head to think; hope nobody tagged us with a nasty virus!

I make it all the time! I have a crockpot that I keep simmering. The broth is poured into a fat-separating measuring cup (They are on sale at Wal mart right now for Christmas) for easy separation of fat. I use the broth in soups, gravies, white sauces (chicken broth) etc. I keep beef bones separate from poultry bones, pork can go in either one (for me). I put them in net bags that I make out of the netting around the turkeys this time of year, and keep them in the freezer (in a plastic bag) until I have 'enough' to fill a crockpot. Toss the net bag in, simmer away in water to cover, plus a couple TB of vinegar or lemon juice to help the calcium dissolve into the broth. When ready, remove the bone bag, pour into the fat-separating cup and use as desired.

One tip I read in a civil war era army cookbook was most interesting. They advised saving all the bones cut from meats, separating them into net bags, in bunches large enough for the cookpots. Then after simmering 24 hours or so for the next days' soup, they were fished out, the bones dried, and re-used again the next day. Three days the bones were boiled for broth, then day #1 bones were thrown away, and day #4 bones added to bones from days 2 and 3. Obviously this would take at least 4 net bags of bones for the rotation to work, but it made me marvel how much use they got from those bones and I keep it in mind as a way to stretch my soup fixin's even further should the need arise. I can only imagine how many bones an army cook would have to work with!

FLUFFY FROSTING (bakery style)

1/4 c flour

3/4 c sholid shortening

1 tsp vanilla

1 c milk

1 1/4 c sugar

In saucepan, mix flour and milk. Cook over med heat stirring constantly. Heat to boiling, cook and stir constantly for 5-8 min or until extremely thick. Cool completely. In medium bowl, combine Crisco, sugar and vanilla. Add thickened mixture, beat on high speed about 5 min until smooth and creamy. Spread on cooled cake – frosts & fills two 8 or 9 inch layers.

Is it this one? I have always had good luck with it and I like it because it is not so overpoweringly sweet...

Yesterday 7 qts loose ground beef. Tomorrow, beef stew meat cut from chuck roasts on sale.

I chop mine, add miracle whip and raw chopped onions for a pickled beet salad. Some prefer sour cream. It does make a loverly pink salad...

the old homestead i just moved out of heated the entire 2 bedroom 2 story house from a single propane heater. When we lost electricity, it still ran and we were quite comfy. My spouse did not like the propane, afraid of gas troubles, but it served us well. I don't know how much the landlord paid for it, but it sat in the living room on a fire-proof pad right where the old timey pot-belly stove used to sit.

Yep, thats the one. Cheap and works like a charm. Dont let children handle it though, it is sharp as can be!!! Ive cut myself enough with it to know.

Ive used a sharp knife, with practice it is quite fast. And one of my favorite buys from the local thrift shop was a wood and metal kraut cutter (looks like a cutting board, with sides and several sharp blades in the middle). The blade was removable, all I did was take it out and have it sharpened. But I like my Feemster's Cutter the best - basically a blade set on a metal frame, with an adjustable guide for thickness of cut. It works fastest and was very reasonably priced. They are 7.95 at Lehman's and VERY sharp. Use them like a mandoline. Mine has been going strong for 20 years, my mothers even longer! Unfortunately I cant copy their photo of it....

www.lehmans.com/store/Kitchen___Helpers_and_Accessories... - Cached

Feemster’s Famous Vegetable Slicer

$7.95 In Stock

SKU: 622900

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Excellent for potatoes, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, more. •Calibrated to make perfectly uniform cuts from 1/8" to 1/2" thick

•Great for dehydrating, scallops, potato chips, etc.

•Super-sharp carbon steel blade

•Mounted in a convenient steel and aluminum frame

•7-1/2"L x 3"H

•3-1/2"W blade

•Made in India

The same thing is $9.99 from Walter Drake.

I like the outside the house idea; my bird bath base is hollow, a couple pvc pipes or skinny olive jars would fit in there....and it is not too hard to get out even in dead of winter.

being a retired leo i still remember some of the odder places folks stashed their dope in their vehicles, so i dont recommend leaving it in the car...even hidden...dopers would know all those places!

how about putting a roll inside the metal pipe type flag pole that comes with those cheap kits with the flag & pole mount & pole included...inside your chain link fence pole (those top thingies come off you know)...a plastic bag sandwiched between that large potted plant and the saucer underneath it (works best if the drain holes are around the edge of the pot, not in the middle)...in the tube part of your porch chair's arms...or even just in a box or jar buried in your planter-box...behind a fake vent screwed onto the soffit of your shed's or garage's eaves...in the handle or body of a non-working drill or other power tool...in a jar in the bird feeder, hidden by bird seed (you would have to keep it filled up nicely though)...in the wheelbarrow tire (remove it from the rim, tape the money to the center of the rim, then re-mount and blow it up. Works in a car spare tire, too, but again, it is a dope smuggler stash location, so use with caution)...under the plastic or concrete tray that goes under the downspout (baggy, of course)...heck, even under the welcome mat...some medicine chests can be slid out of the bathroom wall and the hollow area behind accessed if you are handy - a good place for a 'safe'...

i do like the hidden pockets idea, as i know how to sew and could put an amazing number of them into a plain looking outfit...esp in a jacket hanging by the door...

Not only am I guilty of most of these things, but every time I see a canner at the local thrift shop I want to buy it! I never use most of them...just want them ALL. Fortunately I know others who will buy them from me especially at the prices I paid $5 or $10! I had so many canning jars that when I moved, my brother 'confiscated' several hundred to take to his home, where they are almost impossible to find, to give to others who need them. What the heck - he moved a couple hundred others for me! I just cant pass a canning jar on sale, either. I never could explain why I wanted all those 1/2 gallon ones to suit him....

Not only am I guilty of most of these things, but every time I see a canner at the local thrift shop I want to buy it! I never use most of them...just want them ALL. Fortunately I know others who will buy them from me especially at the prices I paid $5 or $10! I had so many canning jars that when I moved, my brother 'confiscated' several hundred to take to his home, where they are almost impossible to find, to give to others who need them. What the neck - he moved a couple hundred others for me! I just cant pass a canning jar on sale, either. I never could explain why I wanted all those 1/2 gallon ones to suit him....

thats the way I do it momma! Works fine for me. I am always rescuing cast iron cookwear. Its heavy, but my oh my, it sure can cook!

My mother baked all our bread when we were growing up - 8 loaves at a time, twice a week. She used a half-bushel sized tupperware bowl. I used a stainless bowl about the same size when I baked all the family bread during our starting out years. The kneading trough makes lots of sense!

It will be hard to top my memories of that place, but Im going to try. This new place is very nice; I have my oldest friend living with me in it (my husband died over a year ago, luma, but you didn't know, its OK)for company. Us two ole broads on disability are planning some fun. She wants to go south to see my sister & brother in Fla & Tenn respectively, but finances are too tight to do it right away. So I guess we'll winter over here.

We are FINALLY done with moving. I am relieved, but in some way a little sad, too, I will miss that funky old farmhouse after 16 years. Everyone is exhausted, but I did manage to do excellent liniment back-rubs and make a good porterhouse steak & big-tater dinner (with grilled onions, natch) to reward my loyal helpers.

Now on to my next major task - getting in shape for my surgery so my hip wont be a hinderance anymore. I absolutely hated not being able to do much. Guess it is up to me to change THAT!

ordered a quarter of beef and a side of pork from a trusted meat cutter. before the prices get so crazy we cant afford it. quarter of beef $400, side of pork, $100. I think that is a good deal, at least in my area.