July 31, 2009 at 3:25 pm (Uncategorized)
An Adorbale Video of my Nana would be found in this space, if only I could upload it. Drat! 
Here is a picture, as a consolation prize. She is thinking, “Gransherrie! It’s MY turn to take a picture.” Which is what you would have heard her say if this were a video. Which it’s not. Double Drat.
July 30, 2009 at 11:55 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: 101 Things in 1001 days, bucket list, dreams, goals, life balance, One Office Girl, Sherrie Pryor, www.oneofficegirl.com
Four years ago I was a single woman, working at a high level admin job. It wasn’t too demanding, and left a lot of time to focus on other things. I spent my time:
It was a good and full life. All the while I was working toward this job that I had dreamed of for 10 years. In October, 2005 my dream came true. A job shift and shortly after a promotion.
Before I realized it, the job had taken over every aspect of my life. I stopped walking, biking, visiting friends, babysitting, dropped dance class and church.I was working, working and only working. I knew things were out of balance, but I felt trapped. The job was secure, good pay, good benefits, and was actually very rewarding. It just didn’t leave any time for anything else.
I started writing notes in notebooks on a regular basis about what I could do to correct the problem. The job market here in Michigan is non-existent. My choices were few.
During this process, a friend told me about a list she was making…101 Things to Do in 1001 days. I’m a list maker. So I thought it would be fun to jot down some things.What I found is that it’s hard to come up with 101 things that you would like to do. I had to include “Finish Writing the 101 Things” as an item on my list!
#1. No Nights and Weekends – First on my list was to resolve my job situation. I didn’t know how, I just knew I had to do something about it.
Writing things down, has a way of solidifying them in your mind.#25 – Visit Grandma Spann
I had seen my grandmother embarrassingly few times in the past year, due to work. She lived so close to my office that I am ashamed that I didn’t get there more. Thankfully, writing this on my list made it a priority. My list was created January 7, 2009. I saw her a good number of times during what would become her last two months of life. She passed away on February 23, 2009.
#37 Go the the UP
I had never REALLY wanted to go to the U.P. But Michael said it’s so beautiful, and I put it on the list to go sort of because of him thinking I might never because I can’t stand the 7 hour drive. When my friend and colleague, Kim, called one day to ask me about going to a conference in Marquette, “Yes!” popped right out of my mouth before I could even think to say no.
#79 — Go to Fife Lake
The same thing with this trip. I wasn’t trying to consciously check this off my list. I hadn’t even looked at my list in a while. But one day I just got the urge to check lodging and found this great Log Chalet. Next thing I knew we were vacationing lakeside. Only later when reviewing my list did I remember that this was an item.
P.S. On May 29, 2009, I resigned from that job. I decided that if there are no jobs available, I would just create my own. I am a freelancer of sorts, I do small business support services. I work the hours I want to, and I am slowly starting to rebuild my life. www.oneofficegirl.com
July 28, 2009 at 10:10 pm (Family)
Tags: Bert Spann, Burt Spann, Fellowship Baptist Church, Hailey Sue Kimberly, Saline, Samantha Pryor, Sherrie Pryor
Lauren, Hailey & Hannah June 2009
We continue to pray for Samantha (mom), Chris (dad), Lauren (big sister), Hannah (twin sister). We are thankful for all of the kind people who opened their hearts and came with hugs, food, cards with money, flowers, and kind words. We are especially thankful for the amazing minister, Bert Spann from Fellowship Baptist Church of Saline who performed a near miracle. With his words, he was able to ease our hearts a little and shine a tiny ray of hope on that dark day.
July 26, 2009 at 8:20 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Augusta Township, Carleton, French Fries, Gibraltar, Good Eats, Good Eats Cafe & Grill, Michigan, Mike Brindley, Portofino, Riverview, Sherrie Pryor, Wyandotte
Yesterday, we needed a break from all that has been happening around here. We just wanted to get away by ourselves for awhile. I mapped out an adventure for us and off we went!
1st Stop- KOA Campground Detroit Greenfield–Actually located in Ypsilanti off I-94 & Rawsonville road. We have been looking for an opporunity to try out our very used, $100 camper. We thought a nearby excursion would be best for the first time. The lady at the guardshack, was militant about letting us look around. Another option for her to consider in the future perhaps would be to say, “Welcome! We’re so glad you came to check us out!”
2nd Stop- A couple of parcels for sale. We are trying to find Mike some hunting land that is within a reasonable driving distance, and/or a new house for us that does not include thumping bass outside our window all day long. No luck on the property. It was a surprisingly impoverished area August Township, Carleton, that area. It just didn’t feel like home to me.
3rd Stop- Gibraltar–Actually no stopping here, just a little ride around the island, I had never been there and was surprised at love lovely “vacationey” feeling.
4th Stop-Riverview–Actually no stopping, and no riding around, this was very industrial and none too inviting.
5th Stop- Wyandotte–I needed rest stop. Conveniently located next to Portofino (one of our fav downriver spots) is McDonald’s (yeah bathrooms!). We stayed in Wyandotte and walked most of the Downtown. I was surprised to see how many shops are vacant just since our visit last summer. The good news about Wyandotte is that they have a restaurant called Good Eats Cafe & Grill.
The food here (and everything else!) is fabulous!
Mike suggested it, he had eaten lunch there with a bunch of the City Workers. His description of it as a little hometown diner with not much special about it except the really delicious food, was clearly a lie. Everything is special about it! From the servers who are welcoming and kind, to the chef who said, “She can have anything she wants.” when I asked for loaded cheese fries, which aren’t on the menu, to the cheerful, but understated mustard gold walls, dark wood chairs, and just a few wall decorations, that make you never want to leave.
I am forgiving Michael for the lie about the place not being special because he told the absolute truth about the delicious food! He orderd the Jalapeno, PepperJack burger with fries. I just wanted the fries. Of course because they are fresh, hand-cut fries, my absolute favorite.
The burger was 10 oz. of flamebroiled angus, fresh, not frozen.
The fries were hot, crispy, pieces of perfection loaded down with cheddar, bacon, sweet onions and sourcream. Mmm!
The bill…$12.00. They’ll be seeing alot more of me at the Good Eats Cafe & Grill.
July 23, 2009 at 7:33 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: 48184, Howe Road, Wayne
We moved into this house 8 months ago. On the day we came to look at it for the first time, it was a quiet Saturday in August. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the grass was green. We fell in love, we were literally jumping up and down (Ok, that was only me, not Mike.). We called the Realtor from the yard desperate to see it today, lest it be swooped up by some other person who might stumble upon it. We stalked the house all day until our appointed time 3:00pm and daily until the seller accepted our offer. Never during any of this stalking did the neighborhood show it’s “other side”.
Our house
The other side, is the side street. Our house is on a corner, the front yard is on a dead-end, dirt road, it feels like country living. The side yard is on a collector street that is THE most direct route to the party store in our neighborhood that sells liquor. So we get alot of characters walking by our door.
1:30pm Today: I am at home working at the dining table alone. The picture window faces out onto the “side street”. I hear a couple of rough sounding young men talking. I can’t see them without turning around but they could certainly have see me sitting at my computer at the table. The sidewalk is 10 feet away from my chair.
“Somebody, just got shot, yo. Yeah, I was up at the store and there was a car and somebody got shot .” ( I get up, lock the doors, shut the windows draw the blinds.” Seriously! I think to myself. I check the news sites on the internet, no news of a shooting. But you can’t be too sure.
2:30pm Today: Doors and window still shut and locked. I am standing at the sink making a meatloaf for Mike’s dinner. Another group comes by, two young women and one young man are walking down the “side street”.
One of the girls says,”That’s why I signed the papers. He said I wouldn’t get no jail time. So I signed.”
I am not feeling warm and fuzzy about my neighborhood today. These conversations are so disturbing. In my old house, a small midblock house near the elementary school 8 blocks away, we were blissfully ignorant of these goings-on .
Earlier this summer: My All-Time-Favorite “Outside my window” moment: C’mon Rider, my beer’s gettin’ warm…
I am putting mulch around the lavender and roses near the sidewalk on the “side street”. A family walks by: a mom, a dad, two girls, (one on a bike) and a little boy (apparently named, Rider) is wayyyy back there on his bike with training wheels. (You will have to imagine the slightly hick-ish vocal intonations.)
Mom (encouraging): “C’mon Ryder. You can do it honey.”
Sister walking: “Yeah! C’mon Ryder! You’re doin’ great on your bike honey”
Dad (Raises a bag he is carrying): C’mon Ryder! My beer’s gettin’ warm!”
Sister on bike: “Mom, you know Papaw is gonna be pissed when he gets home and sees that Ryder learned the bike while he was gone.”
Mom: “I know, honey. He’s gonna say, ‘What the F—. Y’all taught Ryder the bike while I was gone.”
You can’t make this stuff up. Something tells me we’ll be moving again soon…
July 22, 2009 at 1:52 pm (Uncategorized)
I have had a book on my shelf for about 7 years, the title: “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television“. I haven’t read it ever. But I picked it up at a garage sale or thrift store somewhere because I wondered why someone else besides me, doesn’t watch television. By the looks of the cover, it’s a pretty old book.
I gave up television in 1993. I just got too busy. Two preschoolers at home, finishing my bachelor’s and working 30+ hours per week. There was just no time for it. Over the years, finally getting to have my own house (without a husband), just me and the kids. We just never got back to watching TV. We had a TV in the house. We used it to watch VHS movies (many Adam Sandler marathons!).
I run into people who say they don’t watch TV. And then they add, except, well just House, and CSI, and Grey’s Anatomy, but I TIVO them so I don’t see the commercials. Or whatever. I really, really don’t watch TV. Not ever. There is no TV in the main floor of my house. There’s one in the Man Cave downstairs for Mike, and my daughter has one in her room. But I don’t watch them. You won’t ever come to my house and just find a TV “on”.
My brothers say I am culturally deprived. I have seen about 3 episodes of Friends, ever, and maybe 3 episodes of Seinfeld. The only television I see is when I am at someone else’s house visiting and they leave it on (very rude by the way). Due to my lack of exposure to TV, I have no immunity to it. If there is a TV on, my attention is captivated by it. I bail out in mid-sentence sometimes (also very rude) because the people talking on TV say something that grabs my attention.
After I saw the movie Matrix, with Keanu Reeves, I thought the whole thing was about how people’s perception of reality has been formed by the television. And that only by “unplugging” (remember all of the disturbing scenes where the characters get the plugs disconnected from the backs of their heads) can they be free to experience reality that is not controlled by “the Matrix” inside the TV. I tried to talk to some friends about this to see if they thought the same thing. No one did. They just looked at me puzzled. I wonder if it is because they all watch TV?
I figure, that by not watching TV now, that when I am old, and everyone else is watching reruns, all of the shows will be new to me.
July 19, 2009 at 12:26 pm (Uncategorized)
Downtown Adventures
One of our favorite ways to spend a Saturday is to go on an “adventure” to new Downtown where we haven’t been before. We browse around, usually pick up a little something and then have a bite to eat. Sometimes we go where there is a festival other times, just check out the town on a normal day.
We’ve been to: Ferndale, Northville, Rochester, Williamston, Webberville, Fowlerville, Owosso, Brighton, Howell, Royal Oak, Dundee, Tecumseh, Chelsea, Jonesville, Petoskey, Marquette, West Branch, Kalamazoo, Clare, Fife Lake, Manton and others.
July 17, 2009 at 8:15 pm (Uncategorized)
On our recent vacation, it was a cold, windy day outside the log chalet on the lake. (They really called it a chalet, I’m not making it up.) So Mike was surfing the 12 cable channels and I was working on my never-ending ENGL 444 homework.
He came across a PBS special about the “Master’s of America” or something like that. And the whole thing was about Garrison Keillor and the Prairie Home Companion. After half-listening for awhile, it dawned on me that he had not changed the channel. My curiousity drew me over to the couch, I laid down on the floor and put my feet in his lap watching the TV upside down and asked him…”you like this?”
You would have to visit the man-cave on any given night and sit amongst the “dead animal heads” as I call them (he says they are “mounts”) and take in any of the, apparently numerous, cable TV shows available with the sportsman package. They all featuring men hunting or fishing.
Mike and his Pike (and a bass)
It is like a bad romance novel, the way the whole scenario plays out, first the hunter whispers into the camera, “It’s cold/hot/foggy/rainy out here. We’ve been watching this buck/elk/moose/turkey all day and now we’re in place and waiting for it to come in.”(Time lapse.) Commentator speaks: John/Joe/Billy/Rick/is lined up, he takes his shot. Cut to John/Billy/Rick/Joe–”I can’t believe it! He just come right in here and I took the shot. Man!~ It’s got me tore up. I can’t believe it.” Cut to John/Billy/Rick Joe holding the dead animals head in his lap. Lather, rinse, repeat.
So it was more than surprising to watch my hunter-man watching Garrison Keillor and enjoying it. We’ve been dating for going on three years. You feel like you know someone so well. Like there can’t possibly be a new thing to learn about them. Then along comes Garrison Keillor. We watched the whole special together. He told me how Granny Tressa’s 2nd husband, the only one he knew as his grandpa looked and sounded so much like Garrison Keillor that he just couldn’t get over it. He loved seeing the radio show played out on screen with all of the ‘homemade’ sound effects and the different music and the funny stories.
“Can you find out when this is on at home. I’d like to listen to that.”, he says.
“Sure”, I reply. Startled. Wondering why I never asked him to take a listen before. I have enjoyed Prairie Home Companion for several years now. I just assumed he wouldn’t like it. What a wonderful vacation we had starting with that moment when I realized there is so much more to both of us. Maybe we can keep discovering new things forever. Or at least for the 40 years he has promised me.
July 17, 2009 at 7:35 pm (Uncategorized)
As a Michigander who has helped friends move after they have lost their house, helped several people try to connect with new jobs after their jobs dissappeared into thin air, I have made some philosophical changes about my spending habits. I want my dollars to make a difference where I live. I want to know that my shopping choices are helping to keep another family’s household intact.
Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way. And Michigan is not the only state where people are getting personal about the way they shop and spend.
Cinda Baxter’s blog www.alwaysupward.com/blog hasn’t always been about The 3/50 Project. It used to have more general good reading for retailers. Over the last 6 months or so that’s all changed with the creation of The 3/50 Project.
If only half of the employed population did this each month…it would generate over $42 billion dollars in revenue. When you consider that $68 of $100 spent in a local business returns to the community vs. $41 of each $100 spent in a national retailer, it makes a lot of sense.
Shops In Downtown Petoskey
I have been excited to see the signs for the 350 Project popping up all over the place! Yesterday in Dixboro, I saw one. And Downotwn Plymouth has them all over the place.
Serving as Downtown Development Authority Director for the City of Plymouth has definitely influenced my thinking. Watching day after day, year after year, as these very hard working people worked to make a success of their dream of “owning a little shop” has made me think harder about whether it is worth it to spend a just a little extra to buy from a real person who really cares whether I am happy about my purchase.
Some of my favorite inpendently owned businesses are in Downtown Plymouth:
July 15, 2009 at 5:53 pm (Uncategorized)
When deciding upon a topic for this post, I consulted my daughter. She asked, “What are the limitations?”
“Anything you want.” I said.
“Rhubarb,” she answered,”Rhubarb is amazing. You should write about Rhubarb.”
And so…We had been dating six months, it was our first summer. Mike’s little rhubarb patch at the back of his one city acre had “come in” . Mike’s daughter Heather, who is a little dynamo in the kitchen, was mixing up something called “Rhubarb Betty” for our dessert. What I saw was none too appetizing. Cubes of white bread, diced rhubarb, sugar, tapioca, and other “stuff” being smooshed up inside a gallon ziploc bag. To be honest, it resembled vomit.
After she microwaved it and we heaped some vanilla ice cream on top, it was surprisingly edible. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily good.
Leap forward one year, and many rhubarb desserts later, it is the first cutting of rhubarb for the season and I am in the kitchen cleaning it and cutting it. Mike is outside talking to the neighbor. The sweet, sour one-of-a-kind smell is tempting me to eat the rhubarb -gasp-raw! I shock myself at this thought, and then I take one little bite and then another. And then I begin to dip the fresh rhubarb in sugar–oh delight! I take a plate of rhubarb outside to Mike and the neighbor mostly to share so that I don’t eat it all myself.
If you have never liked rhubarb, or even tried rhubarb, you may be surprised at how delicious it can be in the right recipe. In the last three years I have learned to do rhubarb pie, rhubarb jam, rhubarb ice cream, rhubarb crisp, and even tried my hand at the rhubarb betty (Heather remains the rhubarb betty champi
on).
The recipe below is yours to try. If you don’t have your own little “rhubarb patch” in your backyard, most of the local farmer’s markets will usually have some available for purchase. If you plant yours now, you will be harvesting next spring. It’s perennial, so you get to keep eating it forever.
Recipe for rhubarb crisp from Lorraine Brindley
Preheat oven at 400*F — Bake 35 min
Mix together:
Pulse in food processor until coarse:
Spread topping over rhubarb mixture. Bake. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
If you find that you have fallen in love with rhubarb, as I have. I encourage you to visit www.rhubarbinfo.com for and endless supply of rhubarb ideas.
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