Very random things going on with me

1. It takes a long time to get over pneumonia. I get tired easily. I am usually feeling OK in the mornings, pretty sure I am dying by 2p, and by 5p, its all I can do to drag myself home and to bed, which isn't possible when I have to catch up on all the things I failed to do when home for two weeks.

2. Its a good idea to keep your legs shaved at all times. Because the day you don't is the day your gonna fall in your parking lot at work, and you wont be able to get up by yourself. So you'll call your secretary out to pick you up, and she'll situate you in the kitchen, with your feet up in another chair and your bloody knees will get doctored, while everyone in the office comes to take a look and let you know you failed to shave your legs.

3. Plotting a top secret CIA mission has got to be easier than getting the dog ready for our vacation. It would probably just be easier to bring him with us. We have an elaborate schedule with no fewer than four people coming to check in on him at various times of the day. His sleeping schedule has been coordinated with the two boys next door, and he will be sleeping with them, in their bed, each night then returned home each morning.

4. Should I drive the car to the New Orleans airport and leave it for a week or get someone to drop us off? Its hurricane season. If a hurricane would hit while we are away, we'll never see the car again, or at least be unable to retrieve it for some time.

Before I became a lawyer, before I went to law school, one of my favorite things to do was to drive by the law school, very late at night, when no one else was around, stop in the middle of the street and just admire it, look at it with respect, so impressed with it, almost overwhelmed with it, in awe. Just looking at it made me proud and happy and hopeful and nervous.

I returned to the law school today.

I cant say it was the first time in 6 ½ years since I’ve been back, but I was surprised to realize I have not been there in quite a while, and have not driven by it to just admire it either. Walking in the parking lot and through the doors gave me the same feelings. Its just a very important building, its very impressive. And I worked really hard to get into that building. Then I worked really hard to get out the other side of that building, when I became a Law School graduate and no longer just an admirer or a student.

I had returned for one of my Professor's memorial service. Someone who had some responsibility in me getting to that other side of the building. We met at the start of my second year when I randomly answered some ad looking for a research assistance which brought me to her office.

Tax law. Now that’s something to avoid.

You know the joke. You became a lawyer because you cant do math. Theres a lot of truth to that.

But somehow, this Professor persuaded me that I could, and when I argued with her that I actually could not, she practically forced me to take one of her classes. I continued to explain to her that, although I somehow got myself into law school, I’m really not bright enough to tackle tax law. I mean, its one thing to do legal studies and quite another thing to do tax law. I mean, really. I'm no Rhodes Scholar here. I just cant do it.

She wasn’t listening. She was busy signing me up for her class, giving me my first assignment and telling me how much fun tax law is and on and on she went. "Tax law is sexy", she would say, which always made me laugh really hard. I left her office with a job, my first tax class and feeling tricked.

So, I spent my second year at law school sitting in a tax class and working for a tax Professor, sitting on the dusty fourth floor of the library, deep in the area where no one frequents, the area where all the tax books are kept, researching and writing tax codes, of all things, all the while convinced that I was going to fail, get kicked out of this impressive building, and I am doing her more damaged than good, because... tax law. come on. I just cant do that.

But she taught me tax law.

And she taught so much more than tax law.

At some point, asking her to explain the tax code, turned into taking about marriage and children, jobs and money, careers and home and being a woman in this profession (or any profession, really). Sometimes she would ask me to drop off or pick up work at her home, sometimes she would have me walk with her and carry her things to her car, sometimes she would call me at home and ask me to go to the grocery store for her. She was very open about her life, talking to me like a colleague and not a student. Every moment alone, she took advantage to speak encouraging words to me, about tax law and about life. Always with the same general theme, "you can do it, you are much smarter than you think you are, believe in yourself".

Somehow I won the award that year - the one that the school gives one student from each subject area. I also won a small scholarship. It was the only class I would ever receive the award in and the only time I got that scholarship. So, the second year passed by, I took my award, my good grade and my name mentioned in a credit in writing a few articles with her, and I moved on. Someone replaced me in the job, while I took other classes with other professors (I even took three more tax classes without feeling like someone tricked me into it).

Since graduation, I've written her twice. Once to send her a wedding invitation and once to quickly jot a note complaining about the job I had at the time. She wrote back and said it was a good time to get an LLM (an advanced degree in tax) and practice tax law. I laughed out loud again. But, of my many excuses for not doing so, I just cant do it was not one of them. I can. I can not only do the things that I thought I could not do, I can excel at them. And I did not know that before my second year in law school, before sitting, alone, on the empty fourth floor of the library, before crying in the bathroom while taking my final exam, before meeting this professor.

I'm now going to reinstate my late night drives by the law school, and I have another reason to stop and stare at the building with admiration, because of a woman who was my tax professor who is no longer here.

Her husband reminded all of us at her memorial service today, of what she was really teaching her students:

1. Believe in yourself
2. Work hard
3. Take every opportunity that comes your way

Guess who has been keeping me company?

Theres a stranger in my house

On my way to church each week, I pass a construction site that is to be a brand new business. It has two bays, but it is much too small for a car repair place. It has a loading dock like a grocery store for 18 wheelers or big trucks to back up to but it is too small for a grocery. Its a very tall brick building with what looks like a little office in the front. After the sign goes up, each week I try to memorize the phone number.

I need what they have.

Quality Furniture Restoration.

I have a desk, that my mother had before me, that is need of some love and attention, some skilled love and attention. Really, it plain needs repair and restoration.

Before it was here and there with me, surviving a hurricane in a damaged shed, and then sitting in my garage for the past I don't know how long, it went to college with my mother in the 1960s, then back to her parent's house, and who knows where else in between, as she is not here to tell and the desk isn't telling either.

I finally called them over for an estimate and nearly choked when they gave me the final figure. I could have bought a nicer, brand new desk for less, and I don't even need a desk. But what would happen to this one? And it cant go on in the state its in.

I finally wrote the check and watched the little desk being carried away, only to re-appear months later ( and I do mean months.... it took months) at my door early one morning this week, almost unrecognizable.

Its nestled in my upstairs office now, under the front window, and I cant keep my eyes off of it. I literally walk upstairs to just look at it. I told my husband last night, I feel like there is a stranger in the house.

He said, not all strangers are bad things, you'll become friends.

$11.00

Yard Sale Saturday!

One extremely tall glass hurricane type candle holder (or is it a vase?) from yard sale this weekend $3. With a candle I had already at home and craft sand/small pepples from Wal-Mart $9. (who knew sand was so expensive???) and Shells I picked up on Beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama.



The latest edition to my black toile tray wall is the round one on the bottom. Its not as pretty as the other trays, and its round. But it is a black toile tray and they are getting harder and harder to find, especially for $2.00 at a yard sale.




Rug for the laundry room in front of garage door $3. It was an accident that it matches the floor so perfectly it just blends right in.



An unopened package of three foil containers for bringing food to others $.50. (These are expensive from the store)


Two mini muffin pans and one angel food cake pan $1.50.


Two dark blue candles for the top of china cabinet $1.



See what others got this morning here

Foodie Friday: Freezer Meatballs

Foodie Friday: Freezer Meatballs.

If you live anywhere near me, you are in need of food, and I get a last minute call from the food ministry, that only means one thing...your getting meatballs from my freezer.

They taste a lot better than that sounds.

I was never one to make meatballs. I thought they were too complex and too much trouble, especially since you can buy the bagged ones in the freezer section. I am more of the take the easiest route kind of girl. I don't make my own spaghetti sauce either. Im more of a Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Cooking type instead of a Julia Child The Art of French Cooking type.

Then my friend Tyler, who claims she does not like to cook, never fails to impress me that she was in the kitchen making meatballs for her freezer and she let me in on her secret.... and her recipe.... they are not so difficult to cook and they taste a lot better than the bagged ones in the grocery store freezer.

Here is her recipe, with my variations:

Preheat oven to 425.

Combine 4 pounds of lean ground beef (I use 90/10 ground sirloin and then add 1 pound of ground sausage) with 4 large eggs, 1 cup milk, ½ cup finely chopped onion, 2 cups bread crumbs (Tyler makes her own breadcrumbs, I buy mine), 4 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 4 tsp salt, (I only use 2) and 1 tsp pepper in a large bowl.

Mix until well blended.

Shape into 1 1/2" balls.

Arrange on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake 15-16 min until no pink remains. Drain (I've never drained. There’s never grease).

Makes about 8 dozen (96) meatballs.

Make ahead and freeze tip: Place baked meatballs in a single layer on baking sheet. Freeze 2 hours then remove to freezer bag. (This keeps them from sticking together when frozen.) Label. Freeze for up to 3 months, but they wont last that long.

Put the freezer bag on the counter for a couple of hours and they are defrosted.

Then throw them in spaghetti, make a meatball sandwich, serve with ketchup like mini meatloaves, drown in BBQ sauce, or my very favorite way to enjoy them is with the sweet and sour sauce from this recipe Tyler gave me with no variations from me, because it is perfect.

Brown sugar, packed 1 1/3 cups

All-purpose flour 3 tbs

Water 2/3 cups

White vinegar ½ cup

Ketchup 1 tbsp

Low-sodium soy sauce 1 tbsp

Mix brown sugar and flour well in medium saucepan. Stir in water, vinegar, ketchup, and soy sauce. Heat and stir until boiling and thickened. Makes about 2 cups sauce.

Add meatballs. Simmer until heated through. (Or, toss in a crock-pot to simmer throughout the day – this works well when the meatballs are frozen. Or, toss in a casserole dish and put in the oven at 350 until warmed through – 30 min when thawed, 2 hours from frozen.)

Happy Foodie Friday!

Surprising things I've learned this week

1. It takes one after hours clinic, one general doctor's office, one emergency room, two blood tests, a flu screen and an x-ray to diagnosis pneumonia.

2. The wrong antibiotic, no matter how big it is, will not make you feel better.

3. Its possible to keep a 102.2 fever for four days despite taking three cold baths a day, four Advil every six hours, chicken soup for every meal, two (wrong) prescription antibiotics and three prescription cough medicines.

4. My husband's idea of making me feel better is to shower me with ice cream, potato chips and rice crispy treats.

5. It is surprisingly easy to drop off the face of the earth for one week.... not so easy for two weeks.