WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR JUNE 2016

Hey Frieda! Welcome! here. I have a beautiful daughter but she was running a half-marathon, not going to a prom. I'm flying today but will try to post a pic when I land.
/Penny going far from the North Pole

Friedasmith & Vickey from PA: Welcome to a great group. :flowerforyou:

Becca: I think your DH is very lucky to have you as a life partner. Knowing when to help and when to stand by is a skill that many of us only wish for.

janetr: Congratulations on an amazing and positive experience with the dentist. It sounds like things went very well. :bigsmile:

Pip: You can send me as many extra pounds as you like, provided they're pounds sterling, and not pounds of fat. I'd love to know how to access all those symbols so I can use them, too. :devil:

JennifrClaire: Welcome! :flowerforyou:

Sue: Salt will kill slugs, but it is painful and horrible for them. Wood ashes in rings around your plants will keep them out but have to be replenished after rain. We put slug bait in cans with access holes cut into them. The slugs crawled in and never came out. The advantage is that none of the poisons went into the environment where they could do harm to unintended victims. Good luck. :ohwell:

Cheri: I love the Under the Sea crochet project. :bigsmile:



DS & DDIL placed a Skype call to us via the net today & we had a discussion about us coming to visit them in July. I hope we get it all put together for a time when our son will be at home and not away on assignment. For our part, we need to arrange a place for our dog to stay while we're gone. I think we may work on that tomorrow. Then we have to plan and organize flights. DH wants to take a mobility device along and that means buying one or finding a place to rent one. Yesterday we went to a store that sells them and learned quite a bit. Does anyone have experience renting mobility devices during travel?

Katla in Beautiful NW Oregon

Tibetan proverb: "The secret to living well and long is: Eat half, walk double, laugh triple and love without measure..."

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” Thomas A. Edison

Heather: Thanks for the suggestion of the Instant Pot Duo - developed in Canada and I'd not heard of it before. Looks like something I'd love. Think I'll put it on my Xmas list

NYKaren: Good work with those emoticons

Katla: I hope I can get back on track but it is really tough in the summer as I do a lot of travelling to rural Alberta to put in a garden and stroll in my orchard not to mention visit my parents. Unfortunately that makes my weekends pretty hectic too. So sorry to hear about your DD's brother-in-law..my condolences.

Margaret: Your fairy garden is wonderful, what a great idea of putting those items into it and being able to reinforce so many great memories!

Re: Thanks for the tips. I do have some crockpot recipes that I've used in the past and frozen but they seem to be mostly soups and/or stews which don't seem to turn my crank in the summer. Do you have any recipes that you would like to share that aren't too spicy?

Lenora: Congrats on the loss of the lb!

I've recently found a new use for Dawn dishwasher detergent. It is my spot remover on clothing. I appear to have a hole in my chin, because regardless of what I eat it seems to end up on my shelf...and yes I have a fairly protruding shelf. At any rate the number of shirts and blouses with stains is huge and I haven't been successful at removing them until now. I use.. you guessed it Dawn dishwashing detergent on the stain, rub it in with an old toothbrush and throw it in the wash with regular detergent. The stains even old ones that have been washed multiple times are removed. Yay Dawn!

Nighty nite all


Carey N Alberta

Joyce Sorry! You are the last person I would want to be cruel too. So skip this part where I post the recipe for Mary and Michele:

It's reminiscent of a dump cake because of only 3 ingredients but requires you to cook pudding which of course the dump cakes do not.

Chocolate Cake (Not)
Preheat oven to 350
Grease & flour a 9x13 pan or 24 muffin cups (cupcake liners easiest and you could line the bottom of the 9x13 pan with parchment paper which would help if you want to turn the whole thing out)
One box of chocolate cake mix
One large (5oz) box of cook type chocolate pudding
3 cups whole milk (if you really want to be decadent use 1/2 & 1/2)
One 12 oz bag of chocolate chips, reserve 1/2 cup (you could use more chocolate chips if you wanted to)

Cook the pudding with 3 cups whole milk
Remove from heat, stir in one (or more) cup(s) chocolate chips
Let it cool for about 15 minutes covered so it doesn't form a skin
Stir in the cake mix
Pour into pan or spoon into muffin cups
Sprinkle reserved chocolate chips on top
Bake for 15-20 minutes. Don't overbake.
Let cool and cut into squares (if 9x13) or just serve hot and gooey with ice cream and watch them disappear

You can use any chocolate cake mix, chocolate or fudge pudding mix, any chocolate chips. I was thinking yesterday at the store that for my not-so-fond-of-chocolate family members, I could use orange or white or yellow cake mix, any other pudding like lemon, pistachio, or vanilla, and white or butterscotch chocolate chips. I thought yellow/vanilla/butterscotch or yellow/lemon/white or white/pistachio/white would be good combos. And orange/vanilla/white would be like dreamsicle.

OK, Joyce, you can come back now.

OMG Heather & Carey I even have an adult bib I got at a craft fair. I, too, use Dawn dishwashing liquid on my grease dribbles. LOL! And I am with Carey. I was very intrigued by the PotDuo which you can even use to make your own yogurt. It may make its way on to my Christmas list as well. It doesn't go along with my pup tent plan, but perhaps I could get rid of two or three larger appliances before Christmas to justify it.

Joyce Give him a kiss and hand him the keys. "Will you please drive me, kind sir?" I am sure your instincts are spot on as to whether he is ready to drive or not. And good luck with the doctor's appointment. I bet you didn't take my advice to put a zoysia plug in that hole in his belly. Your husband's help with your driving reminds me of a friend of mine who is such a control freak from the passenger side of the car. She feels it is her duty to tell me where to park, which makes me laugh hysterically and pass by the spot. When I needed the right rear view mirror adjusted back in the day when that had to be done manually, she adjusted it so she could see properly. I laughed my *kitten* off and gave her unmitigated hell. She is a good friend, so she just laughed at herself when she realized her folly.

Debbie in TX I can relate to taking or buying your own food. One of the ways I find to "blend in" is to keep leaf lettuce on hand to substitute for bread. I can use them for breakfast burritos, hamburger "buns", wrap sandwiches, etc. That way I can eat a lot of the same foods everyone else is having. Plus it's easy for me to just scramble a couple of eggs in the morning, and often I find that other people prefer eggs, too, so I buy plenty to share as part of my contribution. My grandson is a hard-boiled egg freak and will choose that over a bag of Doritos (not my granddaughter, though). Lake LBJ sound wonderful; that is a large group you are going with! Have so much fun! I am going to look up your lake as soon as I post this so I can see where you will be.

Lenora I am not weighing at home either as I get obsessed with the scale and forget to notice my clothes getting looser and my stomach getting flatter. It also makes me impatient with the process and more self-critical when I don't need to be. I am weighing every 6 weeks at my doctor's office. Maybe later I will weigh at home. Way to go losing another lb! One at a time, just the way we put them on!

Hi Frieda! I am doing keto mostly, too, although I probably dip in & out and don't sustain it especially at my evening meal. Janetr it's just a low carb diet which causes your body & brain to burn fat & ketones for fuel instead of carbs & glycogen. It works well for lots of people but particularly insulin resistant people (prediabetics and people with type 2 diabetes, women with PCOS, metabolic syndrome, etc). I keep net carbs around 45-50 most days.

Becca Hope hubby is still doing OK.
Barbie Ditto, know his back is dreadful.

Penny & Heather & anyone else who have been up for hours Good Morning!

Karen in Virginia going to Jazzercise today

Karen - I used to love Jazzercise when I was younger. I did all kinds of dancing, including Modern Creative Dance. My dodgy knee put paid to that.
I have been working on strengthening my knee for a couple of years. It will never be proper dance fit again, but one of the joys of the cruise was doing some ballroom dancing, including the rumba, with the "gentlemen hosts" and strutting my stuff, quite energetically, with my DH. The next mornings I knew my knee was there, but it survived!

My son, that I bought the Instant Pot Duo for, has used the pressure cooking facility a lot. I envisioned it more as a slow cooker. I liked the fact that it keeps food hot for many hours after cooking and can even switch off later, so you are not time dependent. Technology, eh? !!!
I can't really justify getting myself one as I am home so much, but I almost ruined my yogurt last night by leaving the oven on at 50° when I meant to turn it off after a minute. Oooops! Luckily I had some more culture available to add once it cooled down. I don't think I can justify such an expensive yoghurt maker though. :laugh: These days I have to put the timer on for everything, even for one minute, or I just forget.

Heather UK

morning peeps -

katla = nothing fancy, just symbols on the keyboard.

yesterday, kirby reminded me that our wedding anniversary was coming up. today is the day, 6/22/02 14 yrs of wedded bliss! hard to believe. i hold the day we met as our anniversary, today was just a formality... that was on 9/16/96. can't believe it, no more marriages for me.. stopped at #4!

morning again ladies~
laundry done, shower done, and I made the cookie dough for my dads cookies..
my grandma used to make these for him and they are a favorite of his.. they are called rolled nut cookies.. these were made waaaaaayyyy before slice and bake,but this is what they are you make the dough ,flavoring of,cloves and cinnamon and chopped nuts, roll it up into wax paper and refrigerate for 12 hrs or so.. then slice thinly and bake until crisp.. I made them for him for christmas and bagged in sandwich bags and then in gallon zip lock , so they can stay in the freezer, and take out a small bag at a time...
with this batch I will hold of a small bag and tuck in my purse to take with us on the trip
having a cup of peppermint tea..

Karen VA-thanks for the recipe! I like the other options as well. Do they have an orange pudding or cake mix? I have never seen one or could you use a Jell-O?



Mary from Minnesota