Several asked for instructions on how to make a Boomerang Bag. Magen put together a pattern, just for you! Click the link below and the PDF will open in your browser. You can print it from there.
The Boomerang Bag…
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Category Archives: Community
Boomerang bags!
Linda is the proud recipient of the January Volunteer Award from the non-profit Surfrider Perth Foundation.
Linda’s niece, Magen, is currently the president of the Surfrider Perth branch. Magen is based out of the University of Western Australia, and has just completed her Masters in Marine Biology (focusing on shark learning behaviours & recreational fishing).
Linda’s Aunt Mildred donated fabric for the reusable grocery bag campaign (Boomerang Bags). While Magen was home, she and Linda and Magen’s mom, Judy, worked on bags.
Judy, Magen’s mom
Magen and Linda
They made 76 bags! Magen is working to get the Boomerang Bag program started with Surfrider Chapters in the states and to start an Australian/USA sister chapter. Click here for more info.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
Today is a time to consciously give thanks and I am thankful for many things:
- I’m thankful for my family (who love me even when I am stressed and, therefore, cranky).
- I am thankful for my friends. You know how there are people who have hundreds of good friends? I am not one of those people. I’d like to be, but it’s not my nature. I have a few good friends and I am so very lucky to have them in my life.
- I am thankful that I am healthy. In fact, I recently found out that I don’t have osteoporosis—just garden-variety osteopenia along with just about every other post-menopausal woman I know. Yay! One less thing to worry about.
- I am especially thankful that my family and friends are pretty healthy as well.
- And I am thankful for pie…
I baked pumpkin, pecan, apple, and cranberry-apple pies yesterday. Steve rolled out the (gluten-free) crusts which was a big help.
I used a new apple pie recipe, sent to me by my mom’s friend, Coralee. It’s from allrecipes.com: Grandma Ople’s Apple Pie. It calls for a lattice-crust which is too hard to do with a GF crust so I used a cookie cutter to cut pieces instead:
Watch the video and make notes because the recipe itself is not very complete. I realized after 2 false starts that the order in which to add things matters. You combine simmering melted butter with 3 TBS flour to make a paste (sort of like white glue, not a stiff paste). Stir in white sugar (while still simmering), then brown sugar, and then water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer for a bit… they say 5 minutes but I think that might be too long. The point, I think, is to make a toffee sauce.
I made the sauce and let it cool too long. I think it would work a lot better to have the pie ready to pour the sauce onto as soon as you are done simmering. It looks like it is going to be a very good pie!
Next year we will be in NYC with Jeff for Thanksgiving. He is, as I write, sitting in a restaurant watching the parade and having brunch which is a lot warmer than being on the street in the wind and snow.
Even though I have never been much of a parade-watcher, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade really does look like fun. I’m looking forward already to 2015!
I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!
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Put foil in your wallet…
Millions of us now have new credit cards. In fact, I seem to be get one at least every 3 months because somewhere I have used my card has been hacked. It’s gotten to the point that it is no longer unusual. My newest VISA came with the chip and I thought that that was a step in the right direction, security-wise.
I learned something last night from ABC World News tonight and that is that those chips can be hacked by someone with a cellphone loaded with a credit-card-hacking app. The cell phone has to be close, but it happens. You can get a fancy wallet that blocks the cellphone or you can cover your card with foil!
I put a folded sleeve of foil in the pocket with my chip-enhanced credit card. I did the same for Steve. I had foil left over so I made myself a foil-dollar-bill and that will live in my wallet, on the outer edge. Can’t hurt, right?
So, in case you missed this news and in case you want a cheap fix, there you go. You can think of me when you look at the foil in your wallet :-).
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Don’t fall down…
There was been a recent article in the NY Times about how bad it is to fall, especially as you get older. I have fallen down myself and can attest to the fact that falling down can be serious. People die from falling down!
My Mom has fallen lately. She can’t get up from the floor by herself which makes falling down even harder to deal with. We have had to call the paramedics in the past and they are remarkably nice and efficient when it comes to helping someone stand up.
A few weeks ago she slipped and fell in her bedroom and, thankfully, was only sore for a week or so. Nothing fractured, no concussion. None of us was happy about the fall but Sherry, her home health nurse, came by at just the right time and helped mom up off the floor. And Sherry taught me how to help mom up on my own which is a good thing to know.
FYI: Here’s how: The fallen person needs to be able to stand for this to work. You face the person on the floor. You both bear-hug. The strong person uses her legs to lift the fallen person to a standing position. It requires upper body strength and balance, and it’s nice to have a helper on the back of the fallen person.
Yesterday I took Mom to the library. She usually goes with Carla but she was out of books and the weather was nice so we decided to go. Everything was great until she tried, with her walker, to navigate over an uneven spot. I was in just the wrong place, trying to position the walker, and she fell backwards… in slow motion. Onto the asphalt. I don’t know how she did it, but she sort of rolled into the fall and, while she sort of hit her head, she didn’t really smack it. She has a small bruise on one elbow and nothing hurts. Trust me when I tell you that this was a miracle.
This is the first time that mom has fallen in public. I was amazed that, in an instant, 4 women were right there to help. It turned out that one woman had been driving by, saw the fall, stopped her car, and ran to help. And these ladies did help! Mom assured us all that she wasn’t broken or have a concussion. I did the bear hug thing with other women behind and beside to help, and it worked.
Darned if Mom didn’t, after getting her bearings, decide that she was still going to go into the library to get her books. That woman is a determined sort :-).
Sherry had suggested a week or so ago that it might be good to have a transport wheelchair. Mom liked the idea and it was on the list of things to do. It moved to the top of the list and now this one is sitting in her garage. I got it at Breath of Life in Sherman, but you can find them lots of places. It’s light but sturdy, and rolls really well with Mom in it. It folds up and fits in the car.
I don’t know if Mom would have been as happy to have this wheelchair before her fall, but now she knows that this actually makes her more mobile, not less mobile. We can take her more places and, as anyone who knows her will tell you, Mom really likes going places :-).
This post is for those of you who, like me, may not have thought about a transport wheelchair. Ours was $119 plus tax, much cheaper than I would have thought.
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From the funnies…
I love it when the comics hit close to home. Janet, who commented on my last post, is not the only one with a paper issue. I often just close my eyes and pray I won’t need what goes in the trash. Or the shredder.
And I do love to see sewing machines on the funny pages :-)…
Which reminded me of the most impressive Halloween costume I ever made. It was for Jef who went as a Ninja Turtle in the late 1980’s. He sure was cute!
Piece O Cake Blog 