Call your cell phone, lads and lassies

This is a public service announcement.

From me.

Fifteen years ago people had cell phones, but not everyone. I only had one because my company paid for it and I didn't use it unless I had to do something for work. I don't remember that I knew anyone with a cell phone such that I had to call them on it. Sure, I knew people with cell phones, but I'm just saying it wasn't a thing...an expectation.

Back then all the phones had these little messages. You would call your friend thus:

*ring * ring*

It would go to voicemail because it was 1995 and your friend's phone wasn't glued to your friend's body. Voicemail lady would come on the line and explain to you, at a slowish sort of pace, how to leave a message: After the tone, begin speaking. When you're done speaking, press one to review the message, press two to re-record your message, blah, blah, blah.

More people got cell phones and if we fast forward a few years, the message changed to say this: After the tone, begin speaking. When you're done speaking, you can hang up or press one to review the message, press two to re-record your message, blah, blah, blah.

Folks, it's now the 21st century and everyone on the planet knows how to leave a message on a cell phone. Yet many, many cell phones make callers listen to that annoying message when they land in your voicemail. I have a girlfriend who's OFFICE phone actually still has an outgoing message that explains to me, rather slowly as if I were as stupid as a small rock, how to leave a message.


I call a lot of phones all day. It's sort of a huge part of my job. I'm calling people I have never met and I call a lot of them and I'm pronouncing myself an authority on this topic. You stand a pretty good chance that you are driving.them.nuts.


I got my umpteenth cell phone back after Christmas and I was delighted to discover that I can turn that message OFF. I'm wondering (strongly suggesting) if you check with your manual, your cell phone help, put it in the Google machine, call your provider (ok, that's probably an annoying circus, but they can be helpful), you may just find out that you can also turn that stupid message off.

And then imagine how liberating it will be for everyone who leaves a message for you to actually be able to leave a message when they get sent to voicemail! Everyone will gain approximately what, 15 or 30 seconds back to their lives (PER VOICEMAIL, PEOPLE) that was hitherto irretrievable. Gone forever.

I'm just asking that you call your cell phone and let it go to voicemail. If you can stand to listen to someone tell you, slowly like you're really, really dumb, how to leave a voicemail (which you've been doing for many years now), then more power to you.


I'm just saying it drives.me.nuts.


What drives you nuts? It's only fair to share.

Nature Notes and Signs of the Seasons

Visit Michelle at the refreshing Nature Notes Thursday for a new look at the world.


Winter Morning Poem
by Ogden Nash


Winter is the king of showmen
Turning tree stumps into snow men
And houses into birthday cakes
And spreading sugar over lakes
Smooth and clean and frosty white
The world looks good enough to bite
That's the season to be young
Catching snowflakes on your tongue
Snow is snowy when it's snowing
I'm sorry it's slushy when it's going

Do yourself a favor today: Eat chocolate cake

I found out today from my friend’s blog that today is National Chocolate Cake Day, so WOW! Cake is amazing. Here is my favorite chocolate cake recipe in cupcake form. I have made this recipe several times and I can’t stop eating the delicious creation.

Cake
1 cup Guinness
1 stick, plus 1 tb, unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tb vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda

Glaze*
8 oz cream cheese
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup milk
Preheat oven to 350; butter a muffin tin.

Combine the Guinness and the butter, chopped into 1-inch chunks, in a large sauce pan, and heat to melt the butter. Remove from heat, and whisk in the cocoa and sugar. In a bowl, whisk the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla, then add to the beer mixture. Sift together the flour and baking soda, and fold into the batter. Pour into muffin molds and bake for 25 minutes, or until inserted cake tester comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes, remove from muffin tin, and cool completely on a rack.

Using a mixer, whip cream cheese until smooth, sift in sugar, and beat. Add milk, and beat until smooth. Spread glaze over cooled cupcakes.

*To create a thinner glaze, use a tablespoon or two more milk; for a topping more akin to icing, use less milk, and perhaps more sugar. In either case, add a little sugar or milk at a time, mix, and check for desired consistency.

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Do yourself a favor and follow the directions. Not that I've ever accidentally screwed up this frosting every.single.time. I've made this recipe.

No. That wasn't me.

It's a blizzard

A very popular Dairy Queen treat is the Blizzard Treat, which is soft-serve mechanically blended with add-in ingredients such as sundae toppings and/or pieces of cookies, brownies, or candy. It has been a staple on the menu since its introduction in 1985, a year in which Dairy Queen sold 100 million Blizzards. The Blizzard was invented by Sam Temperato, Ted Drews, and Wil Stiles. It is traditionally served upside down to prove the thickness. The most popular Blizzard flavors include Skor Bars, Oreo Cookies, chocolate chip cookie dough, M&M's (Smarties in Canada), Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, Heath bar, Kit Kat, and Butterfinger. Seasonal flavors are also available such as October's Pumpkin Pie.

My favorite blizzard, the only one I ever eat and then only every other year or two, is the pumpkin pie blizzard. Because it's PUMPKIN!! I love all things pumpkin. Has anyone else gotten heartburn from pumpkin pie? That makes me feel old. I used to be able to eat it just fine, but I digress.

A blizzard is also a storm with widespread snowfall accompanied by strong winds.

Would anyone care to guess which blizzard I am "enjoying" this evening?

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Tomorrow night my Irish class has a guest teacher - like a real teacher, not just me. That means I'm going to learn something, which is very exciting to me. I'm really looking forward to it. So help me if this endless winter affects our class tomorrow!

More downtown Des Moines

Des Moines is home to Meredith Publications. Their buildings are located at the point at which you enter downtown from the west. It used to be one of the only way downtown other than the interstate when you come from the west. I don't know what it is about Des Moines, but we really have a lovely city with plantings, gardens and artwork. Meredith gets in on the act with several large areas of beautiful landscaping. This is just one area on the western part of their campus.

This is the opposite side of the area from the grasses. It's about a whole block, I think. The building peaking out in the corner on the right side of the photograph is the newer Meredith building.

Edwin Thomas Meredith founded the company in 1902 when he began publishing Successful Farming magazine. In 1922, Meredith began publishing Fruit, Garden and Home magazine, a home and family service publication. Two years later, this magazine was retitled Better Homes and Gardens, and the first issue cost a dime on the newsstand. In 1930, they published the first edition of the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book.

OH my gosh, will winter never end?

You know, it's funny. I've been sick and have not much to do besides lounge around in bed for days thinking of things to blog about-I was even WITTY!!

Now? Here I sit, ready to blog, and all I can think about is that the Walgreens ad has been disappointing for weeks. Weeks.

Being sick is a bit of a downer. Being sick in winter seems right, but at the same time it hardly seems fair. Here I am with nowhere to go and no one to do anything with, so it hardly seems like much of a loss. Even with the ice and some days hovering around 40 degrees, we still have a solid pack of snow on the ground. I am sensible of the fact that it isn't as bad as being healthy and stuck in the office on a beautiful sunny day with puffy white clouds straight from childhood, a slight breeze, fresh green grass and a steady 75 degrees. Now that is really hard to accept.

Here's my theory: I got very sick this time last year, so maybe it's my body's annual Tune Out to Tune Up. A mandatory rest, if you see what I mean.

I didn't go to Wednesday's swim class, I haven't done anything resembling a workout beyond getting up and down out of bed and bending my elbow to take a slug of NyQuil. One thing I did accomplish this week: I've read two books. I may have mentioned in my March Improvement Plan a reading program this month at the local library. I will pop into the car and run to the library to hand in my completed slips. Then I will go to the store because I'm out of oatmeal and all of a sudden that has become very important. Oh and laundry detergent. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I want a housewife.

I have caught up on all the blogs I read. It is good to see that some of them have been blogging right along, but it is also nice to see that many bloggers seem to be having the same problem I am having: not posting or when they do post it is about how they don't have anything to say!

It does seem difficult to believe that January is almost over, but it's good news to me. Oh except for the snow in the forecast. Yep, more snow. Delightful, isn't it? It is supposed to begin this evening and continue into the morning. I hope they're wrong. I almost always hope they're wrong! But you do get to a point at which you think, why not have more snow? How about some more ice? A little sleet? Heck, it's winter. We might feel cheated if we don't get storm after storm after storm. I'm sure the City of Des Moines can scrounge up another $3 million for the rest of the season. Everyone can take their change buckets down to city hall.

It's an idea.

I would hate to feel cheated out of a good Midwestern winter we can all complain about for months to come! So go ahead and snow, see if I care. Remember in The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder how Pa stood up and raised his fist and yelled at the storm? Yea, that's almost where I'm at.

Nature Notes and Signs of the Seasons

Visit Michelle at the refreshing Nature Notes Thursday for a new look at the world.

Ice storm

I guess I don't need to explain how an ice storm forms! It came out of the four corners region and rained even though the temperature was below 32 degrees.

Hoar Frost

We have had a great deal of freezing fog this week due to the warm weather melting so much snow. That created fog, which is basically a cloud close to the groun and then the temperatures dropped the fog froze on everything. Water vapor in the fog turns into ice crystals that form on the surface of things inside the cloud. This occurs when the air near the surface has dew points below zero.

The result is hoar frost and it is beautiful. It happened on Monday and Tuesday this week. On Tuesday, it lasted into the afternoon and outside my office window I watched as trees lost the hoar frost all at once and in a 'poof' the frost fell off and then rose briefly in the air before sliding off as a