Celebrating Jesus Christ's resurrection from the grave, having passed from death unto life, the happiest day of the year. He is risen!

Words from an old hymn:

Praise the Savior, ye who know Him,
Who can tell how much we owe Him?
Gladly let us render to Him,
All we are and have.

Have a wonderful day!

KEM

Hi. Good Friday service was very nice, especially with Hat Christa directing the children's singing. One little girl in a hot pink sequined gown got so busy jiving to the music that she forgot to hold up her "L" for the word Gospel (she held it up the first two times, then lost her train of thought for the last two and the littler girl next to her was tugging at her to hold it up, to no avail, it was pretty funny). So, Gospel became Gospe, you gotta love it. Children make the world go round. You can just see a kid riding his bike down the sidewalk with nothing but a good time on his mind. I love the story of a local elderly woman here who would buy tickets for a class of less privileged school children to attend a classical music concert. The students were probably first graders. The picture in the newspaper should have won an award, it was hysterical. Little boys slumped down in their seats asleep. Little girls dressed to the hilt in various stages of fidgetry (word ?). One student mesmerized. The elderly woman said she had no use for socializing with adults, adults are absurd and children are WAY more interesting.

Glad they ran that story when they did, with the lady in her fancy hat and all. She died maybe a year later, last year I believe. Fantastic story, though.

Then the pastor taught from the Gospel of John and drew all the parallels of Christ with the Old Testament sacrificial system. For instance, the cherubim at the ends of the Ark of the Covenant were repeated when Christ rose from the tomb and there were two angels, one at the place where Christ's head had lain and one at the feet. (Also, there were two angels guarding the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden). There were many fascinating connections, because Christ came to fulfill the Old Testament sacrificial system, which couldn't save but points to the Savior.

I learned too, that John is the only Gospel that doesn't mention Christ's Last Supper (Passover). Instead, John uses the story of the feeding of the 5,000 to show that Christ Himself is the Passover. It was nigh unto the time of the Passover when this miracle took place, and the people were coming to Christ at the Sea of Galilee, not going to Jerusalem for the Passover yet, they were drawn to the true Passover first. Christ is the Bread of Life who shed His own blood for our sins. Hallelujah!, we have passed from death unto life (pictured in Egypt when the blood was splashed on the door posts and the death angel passed over). Christ died once for all.

Okay, I have a new vacuum and I'm not so sure. The lady put my partially used hepa filter from the old vac into the new one, because hepa filters are 'spensive and mine still had some mileage. So when I plug it in at home, what do I smell, but the burned up motor smell from the old vac. You know, the lady even pointed out the black soot under the dust cover of the old vac, so why did she reuse the hepa? I've replaced the hepa with the lesser non-hepa filter for the time being. Tomorrow I go back, not real happy to have burned smell and black residue in my new vac. Not happy at all. Stay tuned . . . I told Mike, Nothin's easy. He said, You've got that right.

But focusing on Christ's great sacrifice surely makes the woes of this world shrink to proper size. It should anyhow :)

KEM

Blog Snippets.

Today was an unusually great day, somehow. Had guests for big pot roast lunch and stayed calm before, during and after. Even while scraping out inordinate amounts of congealed yellow fat from the chilled short ribs pot. I offered my guests a look-see at the bowl of fat, but they not-terribly-demurely declined. Memo, entertain at lunch, not dinner. If old opened wine is a no-no for cooking, I'd like to know how.

With all the heavy pollen, the poor Jazz has been rolling around on the floor like a little demented dog. So off to the vet we went. I hugely admired the many cute dogs in the waiting area. One dog had all the heavy drapey folds of skin around his face, I forget what he was, but he was blue. Yes, he had bluish spots. NEVER saw a dog like that, the most unusual dog I've seen, besides the hairless dog. I had a shameful response in the presence of the hairless dog's owner, a southern belle. She brought the dog out for us to see and I shrieked, WHAT'S THAT???

So tonight someone sends me an email that's titled NOT A Bath Towel -- DO NOT Put In the Laundry. What is not a bath towel is a draped dog, draped in his own rolls of folded skin, that is. Thick curtains of billowing excess dog skin. Man, I'm waxing poetic. It's hilarious, he's curled up on the bathroom rug right next to the shower curtain. Everything in the picture is white and honest to goodness, you cannot tell there is a dog in the picture. For all the world the dog looks like a bath towel. I was especially amused since I saw the similar dog at the vet's, only blue, and, by all appearances, only drapey around the face.

The vet says that Jazzi should go on Benadryl and new fatty food, that this will ease her allergies to the environment. When I checked out at the desk the lady gave me the food. I asked, Where's the Benadryl? She looked at me like I was crazy. Benadryl, she said matter-of-factly, as if that suffocated all questions. I said, You mean Benadryl???, like the kind I take to help me fall asleep at night, the kind you buy in the grocery store? Yes, she said. Well, really. I was expecting some kind of Doggy Benadryl. And what on earth will it do to the Jazz? She is to take 3/4 of a regular adult tablet, one gram for every pound she weighs. I take one tablet and it knocks me out cold. I think it's safe to say that I weigh considerably more than my little dog. If I can do the math, I'm taking one gram for every 5 pounds. Why, then, does poor Jazz have to take one gram for each of her single little pounds?

Then it was choir practice, where the only note I played was the one I hit accidentally with the notebook I was using for a firm surface to do Marilyn's Numbrix from Parade Magazine. I didn't play because he used only the orchestrated accompaniment tape tonight, as it was the final rehearsal for the Good Friday and Easter performances. The director said at the beginning, I didn't think you were coming tonight. That's interesting since no one told me not to come. I guess I should have just known, based on prior experience. Oh, well, something interesting happened anyway. The director handed me an anthem and said, This is a great piece we will do sometime. I looked at it and immediately recognized it. You see, it was one of the very first pieces I every played for this choir 5.5 years ago when I first started playing for the choir. (Weird sentence.) I thought it was an outstanding anthem. At the time I had instruction from my piano teacher for this accompaniment, which I vividly remember. I also remember being very nervous to play it, as I was still new on the job and it was an exquisitely pristine type piano part. And what church pianist is going to forget a piece where the measures alternate between 5 eighth notes and 3 quarter notes?? Furthermore, this was the very piece I had been asking my director to repeat, starting last summer. I couldn't remember the name of it, but I wanted him to look it up.

So here he is, all proud to hand me this piece and it turns out to be the one I was begging for anyway. Only he said, We've never done this piece before. And to add insult to injury, the main soprano said we'd never done it either, 'cause she would remember. Well, NO ONE is going to tell me we never did that piece before, because we did. FINAL. The lady and I even went back to the music files to search for it. I found it, except it was a set of brand new, never used music. Which made us even more confused.

There is an answer to the mystery. Just suffice it to say, we did the piece before. My darling hat-making, elite-running, duo-partner Christa thought this was so much fun, that God has a sense of humor, that the director picked the piece without knowing it was THE piece. I agree. I was able to put my bag of reading material to good use. I found an article that said we must sharpen the brain by doing games. So, I promptly did the Numbrix. Then my brain turned out sharper than anyone's. But I take no credit, as I have to work harder at the piano than the singers do singing, them's just the facts of life. THAT is why I remember this piece, besides it being so special.

So much for Blog Snippets, I'm getting carried away.

I had instructed Mike to eat three Deviled eggs for dinner, after his Tenebrae service (the eggs I had made for the lunch and forgot to set out, did I just say something about a sharp mind?). He could also have the leftover Marlboro Man sandwich filling, I suggested. I wondered why he didn't object to eating old gray meat again, so far be it from me to incite a riot over it. Later, after he had eaten it, I said, Did you read my blog today? He had not. So, that's what he gets. Sometimes, ignorance is not bliss. Anyway, kiss the old gray meat Bye-Bye. Never again, I can tell you that much.

Now, at this very second, I am becoming ill from inhaling dead vacuum fumes. The fumes have all entered my air passages and it's a ghastly gas filling my head and lungs and everything in-between. You see, my vacuum has been ailing with the consumption or something for the past few months. Yes, the vacuum from Empire Gorilla State Vacuum, if you recall some of my first blogs, which who on earth would do that? A while back I noticed a peculiar odor, as in the motor burning up. I would freeze and then go on with my vacuuming. Each time, and it's only been a few times this has happened, the vacuum would rally, which I don't quite, you know, grasp.

Well, the last couple of nights when I turned it off, it made a sick coughing and sputtering sound. Groans and wheezes. I'm telling you, this thing is human. I was getting more nervous by the second. Tonight when I went to turn it on, I thought, Oh dear, is this thing on its death bed, or what? So, I vacuumed the bathroom and before I could even finish, it let out more than a death rattle. It shrieked and moaned and whistled to the high heavens. I was so scared I pressed the off button with my foot quickie-quick, in the hopes it wouldn't explode with flames licking the ceiling. Man, you won't catch me plugging that baby in again, it's last gasp was just that, it's last.

And the odor of death was wretched and crept through the house, invading every square inch. Ominously. Like in the movie The Ten Commandments. Remember when the death angel visited the homes that didn't have the blood on the posts, how it was visualized as a foggy vapor seeping under the doors and windows? Well. Just the stench of DECAY. Ugh. Mike knows I basically cannot live without my vacuum, which of course has given up the ghost on a long weekend. And if he's counting on a vacuum hospital visit in hopes of a miraculous revival, I do believe he is sadly mistaken. And to think, I just inserted a brand new vacuum bag. At least the dear will be well-dressed for burial. Good-bye, Fair Friend. (Am I losing it, or something?, maybe I've gone too long without doing my Numbrix or Jumbo and I'm left with a bowlful of mush.)

Anyway, it was a good day. And I'm happy I can sit here and say that in spite of losing a long-term useful and loved family member (that never talked back) that faithfully answered my every beck and call and dutifully served me without complaint until THE VERY END (except when it was a lemon when I first bought it), I still had a very good day. Now THAT'S saying something.

This piece of trauma calls for hot chocolate and Zucchini bread. By the way, Pioneer Woman's Baked Fudge must go into your Big Bang for The Buck repertoire immediately. It takes 10 minutes to mix, if that, and is nothing less than a smash hit.

How do you get rid of dead vac fumes? Always sumpin'. Oh, and this blog is far too long to proof- read in my present condition, so, good luck . . . now that you've read it.

Two complete tablespoons of butter in each modest-sized baked fudge cup,
KEM

Good grief, if Pioneer Woman's recipes don't put you in the grave with butter and bacon grease, they will for effort. Gads, I'm exhausted after making her Braised Short Ribs and Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich, which is chopped steak, onions and butter sauce on a hoagie bun.

See, I went ahead and made the short ribs because the date on package said sell by April 1. We'll eat them tomorrow since they're supposed to be better the second day anyway. Plus, after chilling the fat is easier to scrape off. In the middle of browning the ribs I thought, I hope an opened bottle of wine is still good after 3 or 4 months, in the fridge of course. So I had to check stilltasty.com. They said use your opened wine by day 5 or freeze it for cooking later. Okay, so I'm only off by . . . 3 or 4 months minus 5 days. Next I emailed Miss Orcas and asked her mighty opinion, she's good at this stuff. Meanwhile, I went ahead and poured my wine on the ribs and shoved the whole mess in the oven, what else was I going to do? I read what Miss Orcas wrote back while the ribs were cooling on the stove. She's some kind of wine snob, she revealed, and therefore I, the keeper of bottles of ancient opened wine, was asking the wrong person. And she said she wouldn't drink wine after the first day and wouldn't cook with it after the 5 days and to listen to stilltasty. Too late. Now I'm going to Google, How long does wine last before it kills you? I figured it was like vinegar and would last forever. Miss Orcas insists it's all bad in no time. It oxidizes. Well, rats, now I have to eat the ribs anyway. And do check the obits.

Then I made the favorite sandwich because I had the rolls I wanted to use up. The meat was cubed steak and, please, let it not be, but, oh yes, it is brown in the middle on most of the pieces. Looks nothing short of totally repulsive. So I had to go Google, Why is meat brown in the center? It's amazing how many people not only have the same question, but the smarties who have the answer, too. The answers had mainly to do with oxygen (oxygen again, see above paragraph) not getting to the middle of the meat or grocery stores dying the meat or something, don't quote me. Too bad, it's the grossest thing ever, brown in the middle, stinko. The bottom line was, If it looks gray, feels slimy, smells bad, then don't eat it, it's probably spoiling. Really? My solution was to lay it all out on a plate, exposed to air, I mean, some of the surfaces of the meat were brown, too. I have to say, it turned more red when the oxygen could circulate. It didn't feel super slimy (doesn't all meat feel a little wet?) and it didn't seem to smell bad. Well, I ended up using most of the meat. My motto is, When in doubt, don't pout, just listen to your snout and stick to the same route. (Did I seriously just write that?) For dinner it was just my stepson. I said, What'd you have for lunch? Subway, says he. Like I've said multiple times, I have the knack. And so does my stepson.

I love for my darling husband to read these things after the fact. His sandwich was made special, "fresh," after he got home from choir practice, with the, unbeknownst to him, brown meat that had sprung to life again, not peppy life, mind you, but life on a breathing tube, specifically, cubed steak on life support. Stepson and I had the two pieces that were red throughout. Well come on, this is the young man who gave me Chop Wizard for Christmas. (And just so you know, I made Deviled Eggs somewhere between the ribs and the sandwiches. Mike snacked on those before his sandwich and asks, How old are these? The nerve of some people.)

So, like Uncle Pete said, I make a big deal of everything. It would have been easier to just jump in the car and go buy new wine and return the brown meat. Except I didn't have any make-up on. Or any clothes. Well, I had clothes on, but the kind only my four walls are allowed to see.

I see a parallel here, red wine, red (supposedly) meat, old wine, old meat. Oh, pooh!

I am slated for bed within the hour, I cannot go on in my present condition. BTW, the Marlboro Man sandwiches were good, if the meat was past due, you could have fooled me, except for the hideous shade of gray-brown, can't emphasize this enough. I wanted to make PW'S Baked Fudge, but who had anything left after these flaws-in-the-slaws to do that? NOT I said the Little Red KEM!!! Oh yeah, and by the way, my cabbage is also aging in the fridge.

I tell you what, I'm much better at salads, they are such a GIFT.

DTD is here all night goofing off on Facebook. Good for her, she works too hard anyway. She couldn't believe I should be watching a reality TV show, First Love Second Chance. I can't believe it either. But I've watched it for 4 Wednesdays in a row, I've seen everything they have to offer so far.

KEM of the Kolor RED P.S. I just researched opened wine. Everyone is a Super Wine Snob, only one person said she'd keep a bottle for a month for cooking. I think another said that wine ages well opened. We of this If-It-Isn't-Crawling-Use-It persuasion are drastically in the minority. Listen, I don't even know the dif between dry and sweet wine. PW said to use dry. I say, Use what you have and hope for the best.

Hello. I am up for a blogette tonight. It didn't take me long to overdo it on the Smooties. Today I tried a new recipe, thought I'd go back and forth between Paul Bragg's smootie and this one from the newspaper, because this new one sounded so good and I had all the junk for it, well, I subbed a couple things.

So, I made a smootie composed of the following ingredients: Papaya juice, water, banana, blueberries, mango (oh my, that had to be the fruit in the Garden), red chard, a carrot, ground flax seed and Almased powder. It made three glasses full. I drank all three glasses full. My tummy has been acting up ever since. Where is Mike when you need him? I guess I will have to 1/2 the recipe, but it's hard to halve stuff like a mango. Actually, the recipe calls for strawberries, which I had none. So in plopped the mango. Also, it calls for Pomegranate juice, had none.

Anyway, shouldn't I be so healthy, after drinking all that? The lady who submitted the recipe says she drinks a quart of it every morning. I guess I'm not in her league.

Then I went to two grocery stores and bought the junk for Pioneer Woman's Braised Short Ribs and Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich (which uses cubed steak). Then I bought three packs of chicken and bacon and salmon, frozen and smoked. I don't know, am I expecting a take over or something and it won't be safe to leave the house? Mike thought all this was hilarious. He said, All this meat sure goes with the Paul Bragg diet, doesn't it? Paul Bragg wouldn't touch meat with a ten-foot pole. He said when the cows are standing in line waiting to be executed, that they see what is happening to their cow friends in front of them. This causes sheer internal panic, like when your blood freezes in your veins because of some horrible thing happening to you. Then some chemical is released into the cow's poor system as a coping mechanism, I guess. And this chemical, then, ends up in that gorgeous roast on your Sunday dinner table. Which then, if logic is presumed, ends up in YOU! And ME!!

Well, don't mind me, who can worry about all this stuff anyway? Let's just eat our cows and be happy.

Last night when DTD was here and my niece and her friend, I was going on about the Mystery Monkey. DTD thought this was THE DUMBEST thing she's ever heard of, that someone would have time to write a Facebook site on behalf of the monkey, that such a person has no life and should really go out and get one last week. Well, I defended it, good clean fun is all, besides I don't watch TV hardly at all, except maybe First Love Second Chance, and Andy of course, and maybe the Mystery Monkey author doesn't watch TV either.

Then I showed my niece this article I clipped on how a vet explains how you can hurt your dog's feelings. DTD said that was the second dumbest thing she'd heard that night. I clipped the article because recently DTD was too rushed to pet Jazzi. When DTD returned later that day, I said, You hurt Jazzi's feelings (see, Jazzi makes such a huge deal when visitors come to the house, she spins donuts and whimpers and stands on her hind legs and everything, she expects a fuss in return). DTD couldn't agree less, so that is why, a couple weeks later when I saw this article, I thought maybe she should like to study it. Well, what's a mother for? And maybe it is dumb to have a fan site for Mystery Monkey, which now has over 60,000 fans.

The wildlife people are going ape, saying how dangerous the monkey is and he might carry disease and how lonely he is without any monkey friends. They said he must have been kicked off the monkey island in Homossassa. This is the only monkey bunch in the whole state of Florida, in Homossasa. See, there is something about that monkey, why else would his family kick him out? We all hope the monkey doesn't get killed on the Interstate. I think this monkey is too smart for that, good gravy, he's lasted this long and been everywhere.

Val Toad had given me Chia Seeds. She says they're better than Flax Seeds. Have you seen them? I hadn't. They are tiny pale black balls, like poppy seeds. The billow up when placed in liquid and get soft and spongy. You sprinkle them on salads and put them in smooties and things. Chia Seeds get in your gums and in your dishcloth. They are sticky little things, like sandspurs. When you smile you have little black beads at the gum line, almost could pass for some new weird kind of mouth jewelry. (I think the smooties are gittin' to me.)

Mike has no talent for cleaning the cheese off his fork. His fork comes to the sink laden with sticky ol' cheese. Not mine, clean as a whistle.

And with that, KEM signs off

Hi Everyone,

I got up at 8 AM today and lived the life of a real human being. My Toyota acclerator is fixed, unless, of course, I am unhappy with the repair and then I can take it back and get a whole brand new pedal instead of just this fix-it job they did today. The pedals are available April 1st. Hmmm, don't I have the knack?

Sat in the car at Target for an hour clipping coupons. But it was well worth it as I found a Target coupon and a Crest coupon, each for $10. That means I saved $20 on the latest and greatest Crest Whitestrips, remember them? 3-D Whitestrips. Oh dear, hope they don't turn my teeth iceberg white, I just can't stand overly white teeth. You know who has them? Most everybody. I had a picture on my fridge of a family member, but it had to come down as it blinded me every time I needed something cold. You know who else? Apollo Ohno, remember him? The short track speed skating star?, yeah, his teeth match the ice on the rink. No, wait, they are way whiter.

Mike can use the 3-D.

Okay, I discovered a new Monkey page (for our same dear little monkey). It's called Mistary Monk-Kay. Check it out on Facebook. The profile of the monkey is too funny. One of his favorite quotes, "I fling poo." Sorry, that just cracked me up. At least we are talking about a monkey so it's not THAT vulgar. Also, his favorite book is Curious George (and movie).

I didn't go looking for this new monkey stuff, he liked a comment I had posted, how I was fortunate enough to know a lady who stood under a palm tree while the monkey shook, rattled and rolled palm fronds above her.

Okay, my other big news is I saw a tether ball on my walk tonight. It was actually tethered. I used to LOVE playing tether ball with all the neighbor kids when I was growing up. I also loved the Witch's Hat at school. You ever hear of the Witch's Hat?

In order to keep to my new 10 PM bedtime, I must bid you adieu. If I can't make two nights in a row that would be more than sad (last night was 10:15). My Pep drink kept me peppy for 8 hours.

My niece and nephew are in town, surprise, surprise.

Panicky to get to bed KEM

Many full moons ago, I went on Paul Bragg's fasting program. It worked. Cellulite was a thing of the past, the pounds melted away and people thought I looked like Karen Carpenter. One of the chief elements of this program was a special Energy Pep Drink or Smoothie. It had lots of expensive peppy ingredients in it, foreign exotic things like Lecithin Granules and Raw Wheat Germ and Nutritional Yeast Flakes and Psyllium Husk Powder and much much more. I remember making it with pineapple juice, banana and seasonal fruit and honey and boy, was it yummy.

Well, because I have been feeling like a corpse, I've decided to go on this diet again. Because when I was on it before I literally felt like a teenager. Proof positive of that is that I could do Cindy Crawford's 43 minutes strenuous workout like it was a piece of cake. This was totally new territory for me. I lasted on the diet, fasting one day a week, for 6 months. My clothes were hanging off of me and I was told how unflattering the weight loss was (by someone who doesn't like me, ha, ha). Eventually, all the effort this program takes got the better of me. And here I am again, at my usual weight when in the midst of the diet I thought, I will NEVER gain weight again, impossible. Possible.

So, if you don't use these ingredients, eventually you have to throw them out, and that's a very sad day, it happened to me. But not this time, I have all fresh and I made my first smoothie today. It didn't turn out like before, it wasn't a nice pale pink or pale yellow color, depending on what you throw in the blender. This time I added Barley Grass Powder, which I don't exactly remember using a green good powder before. And I promise you, what with dates pulverized in there, and sunflower seeds, I ended up with a concoction that looked EXACTLY like thick green pea soup. I should know, I just had a can of Amy's Split Pea Soup the other night, after the birthday party, because I didn't want to indulge in birthday sausage balls swimming in decadently delicious gravy, having been having upset tummy and all.

Hope I can adjust my smoothie and get back the knack. I really don't relish the idea of downing a thick as pea soup, looks and tastes like pea soup, too, smoothie every day. My wonderful healthy smoothie was followed up by a spaghetti dinner with Texas Toast. This person who fixes spaghetti likes to put pepperoni in the sauce. But not tonight. Tomorrow and all week, smoothies and salads and bed time at 10 PM, so, see you later.

Ha, ha, I just did Spellcheck and I was typing "smoothie" as "smootie." I like that. Just like the other day CDW emailed me she was too "popped to poop."

Smootie KEM