That One Weird Old Tip

I've been noticing that there appears to be an awful lot of Martha Stewart types among us.  Either that or these people are relaying "tips" that they themselves haven't mastered either.

I'm talking about all the "how to...." videos people keep posting on Facebook.  You've seen them, right?  Like when you're teased in with a headline that reads, "What She Does With This Will Blow Your Mind", then the video gets going showing something crazy like a lady wielding an ordinary paring knife fashioning an ordinary banana to look just like a Corvette.  The rest of us wind up with something that is more in line with a lopsided canoe.

The little boys were watching a video where person-less hands were carving up a watermelon that ended up looking just like a large bouquet of roses.  Mankind has come a long way. We can now substitute watermelons for flower bouquets.

And, did you know you can serve up your carrot sticks in little train cars made of hollowed out peppers with cucumber slice wheels?

It's all so clever, but I absolutely wouldn't have thought of 99% of the stuff people come up with.

Like, who knew you could cut a glass jar tidily in half with just water, oil, and the slight touch of a hot razor blade? I am not really sure when I would actually need to cut a jar into parts like that, but if I ever need to know I am now armed with a tip on how to do it.  If I remember about it.

So many tips I have seen, but I forget to try.  The other day when I was about to make mashed potatoes for lunch, I remembered a tip I meant to try.  "Yes! Finally, I will save myself some time," I said to myself as I took my knife and made a slick cut just through the skin all the way around each potato and deposited them into my cooking pot.

I couldn't remember if I was supposed to cool the potatoes after I cooked them, but they certainly were too hot to handle otherwise, so I did (slightly).  I envisioned the skins invariably popping off of those things.  Was I ever disappointed.  "Maybe they just need a little help," I mused.  So, I began helping the potatoes out of their skins.

What I wound up doing was peeling five pounds of hot potatoes, ya'll.

I had a young helper with me that day.  Dear, sweet Diane had come to help me clean house.  She tried to be helpful by suggesting it might've been easier to peel the potatoes before they were cooked. Great.  Not only was my experiment a dismal failure, but I appeared too dumb to know I should've peeled them while they were still cold.  Stupid tip.

I am kind of interested in fixing the chip in my car windshield with another tip I saw.  The guy made it look so easy.  Actually, on second thought, I might be better off passing on that one if it turns out anything like the potato fiasco.

Oh, I have tips of my own I could share, but they are insignificant compared to vegetable trains and watermelon roses. I "dazzled" Diane with a trick for keeping water in my kitchen sink:  an upside- down jar lid.  Yup.  I actually used to use a flat canning jar lid, but I always had to find a spoon to pry it out when I was done.  The jar lid with the lip saves so much time.  I merely just reach in and pull it up and, whoosh, the water drains.

Diane looked thoughtfully and wondered aloud why I don't just go buy a regular sink plug.  She really wasn't out of line for wondering.  They really aren't so expensive, and I do actually have ONE official basket strainer for ONE side of my kitchen sink, so she gathered I wasn't opposed to them for any obvious reason.

It's because my tip works so well that I never think to buy a new one.  Ever.  

Oh well, it is good, I suppose, that this world has so many creative people in it.  Parties are so much more festive because of them.  Me?  I am never the one to bring the centerpiece that everyone "oohhs and aahhs" over.  I might be the one washing up the dishes afterward, though; that I can do whether the sink comes equipped with a basket strainer or not....

~Colleen

P.S.
Dear Sharla,

If you are reading this, Maria read me parts of the letter you sent to her while I was driving her to work today (long story....so many people, so few vehicles....).  I had to laugh. How ironic! Such has been your experience with all these "tips" out there, too, eh?  The toothpaste-for-acne thing has been going around for a long time.  I could've told you that didn't work about thirty years ago.  lol.

Oh, and if for any reason you hear that tumeric is good for anything on your scalp, be prepared that your hair will turn orange for a while.  Just thought I would mention it.  Somebody has to be out here sounding the alarm about the downsides to all these tips...

It's Chickie Time Again!

Outer Banks, NC

It didn't take a lot of convincing for Paul to persuade me to go with him to pick up new doors for the tractor.  After all, we have been on many such excursions in our now 27 years of marriage.  Granted, I was a bit hesitant.  The last long distance trip we took had us scooping water out of puddles to fill the truck radiator and robbing parts off the tractor we had on the trailer behind us.  Sigh.

He did say I didn't have to go.  I almost opted for that.  But no. I said I would go, come what may (I guess).  

I should've noticed the twinkle in Clark's eyes when he clarified that he only had to do his school on the *Monday* of my absence.  I was going to be back on Tuesday, so why should that have been such a uncommon request?  

I should've noticed that Paul suggested I pack enough clothes.  He *never* cares how much I pack and knows I like to travel light.  We were going to be gone for all of Sunday, all of Monday, and (not very likely) part of Tuesday.  How many clothes would we need for *that*?  He threw in the suggestion we find a church to stop at on Sunday (unbeknownst to me that I might add a nicer set of clothes for each of us).  (We didn't end up stopping at a church....)

I should've noticed that Paul told me he wanted to leave at 4am on Sunday morning.  We weren't going to be able to get the tractor doors until Monday at 8am.  I figured he was gung-ho for a long sight seeing trip.  He does that.  We do that.

I should've been more suspecting when I woke up and was noticing I-64 signs instead of I-77 signs.  I knew they ran together for a while, so I quietly studied it for a while to see if somehow the I-64 mile markers were interspersed with the I-77 mile markers.  They weren't.  I finally said, "We're on the wrong road."  I figured he took a wrong turn back when I was sleeping.

He casually dismissed his blunder.  I figured he would get off at an approaching exit and correct it eventually.  We had all day to get to western North Carolina, so there was no use getting all worked up about it.  He proceeded to "uh-oh" miss this exit and that until finally I was left wondering if he had lost a bit of his mind.

And then he couldn't keep his secret any longer.  He showed me the map on his phone.  The ending flag was....wait....out at the Atlantic Ocean???  What???  He asked how I would like to spend the whole week out there!!!!

It took a while for it to sink in.  You mean we really aren't going to western NC to pick up tractor doors?  

Nope.  He made arrangements in secret to take me to the Outer Banks of NC for an entire week.  And all the children knew about it before we left and kept it a complete surprise for me.  I HAD NO CLUE.  

We had a great time.  It was dark when we left home, and I didn't bother to look into the truck bed, but he had thrown on a couple ice chests stocked with meat, milk, and eggs. I think Paul was a tad disappointed I wasn't more interested in eating out while we were down there!  He figured we would probably eat out maybe once a day at least, but we really didn't eat out almost at all because we had such a convenient way of feeding ourselves at "home".  :) 
     
 

This was our "home away from home".  We had never done anything like this before, but we discovered Paul got a very good rate on a 3 bedroom house 2 blocks from the beach for the whole unseasonably warm week.

I am happy to report we had no truck troubles.

I am also happy to report the children held down the fort exquisitely.  This is no small feat when you consider the sheer number of children and throw in a whole farm to run, to boot.

Oh, and we did swing through western NC on the way home to pick up the tractor doors (because we can't ever go on *any* trip without doing *something* business related).

~Colleen

Wright Brothers Museum

It is amazing what ingenuity, perseverance, and their mother's sewing machine enabled the Wright Brothers to accomplish! We had a lot of fun touring the Wright Brothers' museum and park.  

Wildlife

 

We saw scads of turtles and an occasional creepy snake.  We saw these the day we were at Somerset Place Plantation.  I couldn't help considering that in the face of these and many other dangers, it was a truly risky and brave thing to do to escape enslavement back then.  Shivers.

Slave Cabin

 

This picture ended up out of order from the rest.  It was from the day we visited the plantation.

There were 25 of these little cabins that each housed 2 slave families.  I can't remember what Paul said they measured, but they were tiny and sparsely furnished.  The beds you see in the pictures were shared by married couples! 

Lighthouses

  
 
We stopped at 3 of the 8 (was it 8?) lighthouses along the Outer Banks.  Very pretty.  We almost climbed the red brick one in Corolla, but I chickened out.  Heights rather freak me out.  I wasn't alone.  There was a little kid who started, but was soon back.  He was scared of the height, too.

I didn't post all the pictures we had, but the houses are where the lighthouse keepers and families lived.

Corolla, NC

 

Along with visiting the lighthouse in Corolla, we walked the town for a while.  That schoolhouse is in actual operation as public school.  I think the sign said there are 23 students.

The tracks on the beach lead on to the next town and, if you are fortunate, sightings of the wild horses that live along there.  Paul really, really, really wanted to drive on the beach up to the next town, but I really, really, really didn't.....so we didn't.  We later met a guy walking along the beach who told us the richest man in the next town (accessible only by beach) was very likely the tow truck driver.  lol.

Kitchen

  

The main house, typical of the times, had no kitchen inside the house.  This is the cook house/kitchen.  I kind of like the open fireplace.  The "oven" in on the "laundry" side of the same building.  The fireplace opens up on both sides, using the same chimney.

The cooked food was taken into the pantry of the house through french door where it was then taken to serve the family.  The slaves weren't allowed to enter the big house through the conventional doorways reserved for the family and their (white) guests.  

Dairy

 
This is our personal tour guide (because we were the only ones there) Alecia (I am not sure if I am spelling her name correctly).  She is showing us the "dairy" where the slaves worked to keep the milk, cheese, butter, and such things cool.  She is standing next to a butter churn that she said the slave children often took turns making the butter with. 

Hospital

    

The white building in the background is the plantation hospital.  It was akin to taking proper care of their livestock to make sure the slave populace got medical attention.

The big black tub is a bathtub.  The meat tenderizer looking thing was used in conjunction with a heated glass for blood letting (sometimes they used regular old leeches instead).  The medicine cabinet was stocked with typical medicines and tools of the day.

Break your leg?  You are all set to be immobilized for a while in the "casts" of the day (seen on the beds).

Plantation House

   
It is really amazing the incongruity between the way the slaves "lived" here and the way the master's family lived.

I laughed about the steps.  Apparently faux painting is not a new thing. They are painted to look like marble.

Somerset Place Plantation

 

We decided to drive inland about 1.5 hours just to visit Somerset Place Plantation in Creswell, NC.  We loved it.  It was so peaceful there*.  We were ahead of the real tourist season, so we were really the only visitors there and we given a personal tour.  The tours are free, but they accept donations (which a donation is well worth it!).   Our tour guide is a direct descendant of slaves from this plantation.

*Peaceful.  Now.  It is truly sobering what the enslaved community endured at such places.