Baby On Board

In a few weeks a baby will join the family and I will take on a new role and new name, Yaya. What is a Yaya, you wonder? While there are many names for Grandmother, my son's Greek heritage suggests the name Yaya for my new role. Nana would also work, as it is easier to form the letter "N" than it is to form the "G" for Grandma. Yaya is very simple as it requires a full open mouth, with the tongue in a downward position, near the lower front teeth, assuming the baby will have lower front teeth. At some point. The baby will be able to say the word with ease. (Note: Grandma is "γιαγια", pronounced yiayia.)

Yaya should not be confused with yoyo, a wheel shaped toy used to entertain children and adults alike. A yoyo is a useful interesting toy and a Yaya is a useful loving Grandparent. Other names for Grandma include the Irish Granma, Oma (German & Dutch for Grandma), Nonna (Italian for grandmother), Nai Nai (Chinese for grandmother), Mica (Serbian for Grandmother), Lola (Filipino for grandmother), and Kupuna wahine (Hawaiian for grandmother). So many choices.

As for this somewhatfortyplus soon-to-be Greek Grandfather, Pappous is the Greek word of choice. Grandpa is "παπου", pronounced papoo. Soon a little grand daughter will join the family and two her wonderful parents, who couldn't be happier. As for us, Yaya and Pappous are waiting and passing the time at BabiesRUs and Beautiful Beginnings and Freckle face picking up a few things.

Photo attribution: somewhatfortyplus

Surviving Thanksgiving

It's happened to all of us at some point in our lives -- we survive Thanksgiving, and that is what we really need to be thankful for. It all starts as a grand idea, have Thanksgiving, getting family together to visit, eat, play and talk. Then the work begins: plan the food, plan the table, iron the napkins, oops -- order larger tablecloth because the table is 126 inches long, just like the tablecloth. New 144 inch cloth is ordered and on the way.

Shop for food, cook food, make appetizers, get wine --- no wine needed, already have 33 bottles and these homeowners don't even drink wine. Arrange flowers, make one 15 pound turkey on the day before, along with 10 pounds of mashed potatoes, 2 large bags of stuffing (each is for an 18-20 pound turkey), 8 large sweet potatoes, 2 large boxes of raspberry jello, 2 pounds of French green beans and dinner for that evening.

On the day of, stuff the second 15 pound turkey, roast the bird, make gravy, cut pomegranate, set the table, make name cards, arrange name cards, change candles to drip less, slice lemons, pour water, change name cards again, and celebrate. Talk to guests, take two aspirin, drink San Pellegrino with pomegranate juice, nibble on brie, snaps photos, smile, chitchat, smile, enjoy the moment because soon it will be over for another year.

What am I thankful for? My husband, my three children and their spouses and girlfriend, family who could come, no fires in the kitchen, no burned turkey, no fights at the dinner table, plenty of bubbly, and watching everyone enjoy the day. Happy belated Thanksgiving to all -- I would have been here sooner but I was busy in the kitchen.

Photo attribution: somewhatfrank

Happy Birthday Mark

Word just in -- Mark, of the infamous Mark and Mary duo of Racine -- celebrated a birthday! Here's to a happy one, may you have many more! Cheers!

Thanksgiving Stuffing Recipe

Kids rule in this household whether they're 7 or 25, and when it comes to stuffing the turkey for Thanksgiving, only one recipe will do. Mine. It's really quite simple and the flavors are great. Adult children rave about this stuffing year after year, so either it's really good or it brings back childhood memories.

For a 20 pound turkey, saute 3 pounds of ground pork with one clove of garlic. Add 2 large yellow onions which have been diced. Add 10-12 stalks of diced celery. Add chopped fresh parsley -- don't worry, you won't add too much. Brown the mixture. Add sea salt or Kosher salt and pepper to taste, along with 3 tablespoons of poultry seasoning. which is parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Mix together and taste. Add more salt and pepper if needed.

In a large bowl pour two bags of plain stuffing mix. Melt 1/4 pound of butter, not margarine, and pour over the mixture. Add the warm ground pork mixture, then 1 or 2 cans (13 ounces each) of MSG free chicken broth. Mix together. The stuffing needs to be moist as it will dry out while cooking so add another can of chicken broth if needed. Stuffing must be cold before it is placed in a cold uncooked turkey so place the stuffing in zip-lock bags and refrigerate 3-4 hours or overnight. Never put warm stuffing in a bird as food poisoning will result.

When ready to stuff the bird, scoop as much stuffing into the cavity of the bird as possible, and push down a bit. Place remaining stuffing in a buttered or oiled pan that you will bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. While this recipe is simple, it is delicious and each year the raves are louder and louder.

Photo attribution: somewhat frank

Furnace Update

The new furnace is functioning and the house is warmer then ever at a lower temperature. The Aprilair humidifier installed on the furnace is worth every penny as there is no more static in the carpets and the air is easier to breathe. The English basement apartment is warmer as well, and as bad as the price was for the furnace, perhaps it was worth it.

Furnace Woes

In an economy going through a downturn, the last thing one wants to hear is "your furnace may stop at any moment because there are cracks through out." And if that isn't enough to hasten the entry into new furnace-land, try this: "it may last through the winter but the real concern is carbon monoxide, even though you have alarms." Oh-oh. In less than a week the house will be filled with all the children and their significant other, plus additional relatives. As things happen, one could predict the furnace would stop on Thanksgiving morning, or worse.

Every fall the two furnaces in this Chicagoland home have been "cleaned" by a somewhat reputable furnace company who swooped in, "cleaned" each furnace and charged $89.99 each. This year they were called -- twice -- and were too busy for such trivial matters. A new furnace company, with 24 hour service was called, and several thousand dollars later, a new larger and more efficient furnace AND humidifier have been installed. Was it a scam? No, unfortunately it was not. This somewhatfortyplus husband saw the inner workings and cracks in the furnace, thanks to the furnace scope. The previous furnace company said a humidifier could never be installed on the old furnace because there was no place for the water (from the humidifier) to drain. In comes the new, young guy with 22 years of experience owning his own company, and he was able to come up with a solution. Better yet, the bigger and more efficient furnace has several rebates which we received, so the humidifier was really free, if you believe that.

The end result is warmth with the needed humidity that comes best from the furnace. The three unsightly standing humidifiers have been put away. While the warmth is reminiscent of a summer day on the beach, we are in Chicagoland, where it will get cold and snowy soon. And, as they say in children's books, they lived happily (and warmly) ever after.

Photo attribution: somewhat frank

Hearty Boys Visit Woodstock

Chicago’s very own Food Network stars, caterers, restaurateurs, authors and genuinely nice guys, Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh highlighted the Woodstock Fine Arts Association's Creative Living Series Thursday at the Woodstock Opera House. And what a hit they were!

Calling themselves The Hearty Boys, Dan and Steve got their food start in an eight by eight foot Chicago kitchen that was so small they could stand in the middle and touch the stove, fridge, and the collapsible counter top they had rigged to the wall behind the back door. Four hundred twenty-three guests listened to The Hearty Boys talk of their journey, stopping to highlight events and share laughs with the group.

Neither Steve nor Dan went to culinary school or studied the hospitality industry in college. Starting out as actors in New York, Dan and Steve ventured into the food industry to help pay the bills, moved to Chicago, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Once in Chicago their lives became busier and busier. In one eight week period during the summer of 2005, Steve and Dan beat out 10,000 entrants to become The Next Food Network Stars where they launched their own show, Party Line with The Hearty Boys, opened their first restaurant called HB, and then adopted their newborn son, Nate.

The Hearty Boys Cookbook, Talk with Your Mouth Full, was released in September of 2008, and the restaurant and catering businesses have continued to flourish. A perfect gift for the holidays, the book is available through their HB Restaurant or here. Steve and Dan even treated the crowd to home-made brownies that melted in one's mouth, and provided the recipe, which will be on their web site tomorrow. Thank you Hearty Boys for making this visit memorable. You were fabulous!

Photo attribution: Somewhatforty Plus

Replacements Arrive

When looking for "vintage" Lenox crystal water goblets and wine glasses, several online sites popped up, but prices were steep and we all know about the sliding economy. Replacements, an online site that offers replacements of china, crystal and sterling, came to the rescue. Today a big brown box appeared at the door. In it were the four replacements I ordered, all in perfect condition, ready to be washed and become part of family gatherings. Thank you Replacements for such quick service. Replacements were ordered on Sunday and received on Wednesday. If everything could be this easy.

Photo attribution: Replacements

Slow Sluggish Computer? I've Got the Cure

Sooner or later we all suffer a spell of sluggishness, but when it hits the PC, two aspirin and extra sleep aren't the needed fix. If you don't have it now, you will: the computer freezes and needs to be re-booted a zillion times. Fear builds as one recalls "it isn't a matter of if your PC will crash, but when." Oh-oh.

The cure to a slow and freezing PC is a stroke away at RegCure. But do YOU need it? To quote a familiar 'also ran,' "You betcha." RegCure answers the question, Why is my PC so slow? After continued use, all PC’s suffer the effects of a corrupt and ineffective Windows Registry, causing error messages to appear, slow loading, and system crashes. Eventually, that machine that was supposed to make your life easier is now the source of your greatest frustration. Sound familiar?

Used to scan, repair and optimize your PC, RegCure is a cheap cure at $29.95, and extremely effective. Offering a free scan initially, purchasing the program will allow continued use and a faster PC. The first scan on this PC resulted in 756 problems that were corrected. Wondering how the PC had managed to function previously with so many problems, an immediate second scan found an additional 56 problems that were corrected. On day two another scan found 23 problems....and finally nothing was found and I "had the cure." You can too if you buy the program and run it several times in the next two or three days. Give it a try and then thank me for making your life, err PC, so much better. You're welcome.

Photo attribution: RegCure

Replacing Vintage Crystal

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, and 13 on the guest list, it was time to count the china and crystal to be sure all would get a plate. Alas, over the years the Lenox China Eternal pattern, ivory china with a gold band, had lost a few mates and needed replacements. Not a problem since several websites offer various brands of china. The Lenox China site was the most expensive, but the site aptly called Replacements sold the 2 dinner plates at half the cost of the Lenox site. Great news. Two ordered.

Replacing two missing crystal pieces wasn't so easy. Two water goblets and two wine glasses in the Lenox Eternal crystal pattern was almost impossible. Time has not been my friend, and what was new back then is now considered, are you sitting down, "vintage." I feel much older after learning this piece of news. Over the past ten or twenty years the Lenox Eternal crystal pattern I had was replaced with a new style that did not resemble the pieces in my collection at all. Oh-oh.

Replacements again to the rescue. The vintage crystal was purchased from them at a much lower price then any other "vintage" site. Four crystal glasses are on the way to this somewhat forty plus household so the Thanksgiving table is complete and matches. Next topic -- seating 13 people at the dining room table.
Photo attribution: Replacements

Pink Girl = Pink Eye

Always a lover of anything pink, these green eyes went pink over the weekend, and that could never be good. A quick visit to the MD and the diagnosis: pink eye, also known as conjunctivitis. Teaching at a college, many of my students have young children, and apparently young children get pink eye. Does this mean I am much younger then I thought or just young at heart?

A clean fanatic, these hands get washed way too often, and after teaching from a classroom computer, Purell is used to remove any germs left on these hands; even at the grocery store a Clorox wipe is used to clean the cart prior to pushing it. As a way to kill germs from pink eye, Lysol Spray and Clorox Wipes covered many a surface at home, auto and office.

But what about the eyes themselves? Nothing to fear, Zylet is here. Zylet is Loteprednol, in a class of drugs called corticosteroids. Loteprednol inhibits processes in the body that cause inflammation (swelling) and contains Tobramycin, an antibiotic used to treat eye inflammation caused by surgery, infection, allergies or small children. In a few short days, actually 24 hours, these pink eyes will turn green again. Eye makeup can be worn again. I will feel like myself again.
Photo attribution: somewhatfortyplus

Chicken Soup

It's been said time and again, chicken soup could be one of the best cures for the common cold. My cold seems to be common enough, so a large pot of soup needs to do its magic. But does it really work?

According to the Mayo Clinic, scientists have put chicken soup to the test, discovering that it does have effects that might help relieve cold and flu symptoms in two ways. First, it acts as an anti-inflammatory by inhibiting the movement of neutrophils — immune system cells that participate in the body's inflammatory response. Second, it temporarily speeds up the movement of mucus through the nose, helping relieve congestion and limiting the amount of time viruses are in contact with the nose lining. Does it have to be homemade chicken soup? Researchers at the University of Nebraska compared homemade chicken soup with canned versions and found that many, though not all, canned chicken soups worked just as well as soups made from scratch. Nevertheless, making a pot of chicken soup was on the "to do" list.

Saute a cut up clove of garlic, 1 large chopped onion and 5-6 stalks of celery and 3-4 cut up carrots in 1/4 cup of good quality olive oil in a large pot. Add sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add cut up chicken breast and cook until all is sauteed. Add additional olive oil, as needed. Now toss in chopped parsley, a sprinkling of thyme and a dash of rosemary. Add four 14 ounce cans of Swanson's Chicken Broth without MSG, 2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice and slowly simmer for 30-45 minutes. Bring the soup to a boil and throw in 1/2 package of wide egg noodles.

In sixty minutes or less a homemade pot of soup can be simmering in your kitchen. Not only does it smell good, it is a healthy alternative to store bought canned soup, and it has to be better for you. I just finished a big bowl of chicken soup and it really does make one feel better.
Photo attribution: Swansons

TECH cocktail Chicago 9 Tonight

If you haven't already heard, tonight is the ninth TECH cocktail held in Chicago since the inception, in July of 2006. Five-hundred are expected at John Barleycorn-Wrigleyville from 6:30 till 9 p.m. to mix, investigate new start ups who are demoing, and network. Is it a good time? You betcha. Gotta go -- need to get down there to help set up.

TECH cocktail is brought to you by Frank Gruber and Eric Olson. Give it a look-see.

Fall Clean Up In Aisle Seven

Cleaning up one's flower beds each fall is a labor of love and nothing else. Never a big fan of fall, cutting down flowers and plants that have already seen better days is a sad reality that along with fall comes winter, and I am not a fan of winter.

Spring and summer are the best seasons in northern Illinois; flowers pushing through the earth is the beginning of a rebirth of sorts each April, proclaiming "the best is yet to come." After a beautiful and eventful summer, the first freeze, and even the first snow of the season last week, cold temperatures have hit this Chicagoland area killing off the beautiful mums that remained. Fall clean up includes removing most of the plants, leaving the hydrangeas and grasses and a few other interesting plants to create a winter scape. Each fall several small cabbages are planted to add color that will remain until heavy snowfall.

October 22 is the official beginning of the Holiday Season in this homestead as Jack's birthday is celebrated, followed by a few Northwestern and Purdue football games, Thanksgiving and then the big one, the Christmas Holiday extravaganza. And so today the formally beautiful flowers gracing the front of the house were cut down and hauled away. White and red cabbages were planted and the area was raked. As the weather continues to change, the cleared garden will be a refreshing reminder of the wonder of the One who created all of this. And that a baby girl will be born into this growing family in a few months.

Car Buying 101

Purchasing a vehicle can be a delight to some, but to this consumer, purchasing a vehicle is second only to having needles poked in one's eyeballs. A Volvo XC90 lover because of the high safety ratings and top and bottom air bags all around the vehicle, few cars come close. After a full day of Internet shopping, phone calls, and emails, three Volvo XC90's are in the running, all with fewer then 21,000 miles on them. Buying a slightly used vehicle saves money, and yes, while I did get the emails and memos about conserving gasoline, I also got those about conserving money. The whole economy is not good, and this is the time to pull back, tighten the reins, pull in the oars, and enough with the metaphors.

The Illinois Lottery has not called to say I was a winner, and Publisher's Clearing House has yet to pull into my long driveway, so purchasing a vehicle will have to be done alone. Oprah has not offered to buy me a car either. In comes the local Credit Union, with rates so low it will make one giggle, all set to go, but have to decide on a vehicle.

The weekend will be spent reading reviews and deciding which color will provide transportation for the next few years. I am partial to burgundy, dark blue, black and the signature silver, but only a fan of dark leather interiors for unknown reasons. A new vehicle will be in this driveway in the next few weeks -- or sooner.

Photo attribution: volvo

No One Came

Each year candy is purchased, pumpkins are carved and lit, lights are turned on, and a happy somewhatfortyplus lady in waiting sits, waiting and waiting and waiting. No one comes. The door bell does not ring. Head lights don't venture up the long dark driveway. Voices are not heard in unison shouting "Trick or Treat!" No one comes. A friend calls to say 42 kids have already been to her house. She lives in the well lit town; I live in the dark and spooky country.

Trick and treating hours have been set in this Chicagoland area, and range from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. CDT. It is now 8:40 p.m. A $12 five pound bag of assorted candy bars, purchased at Costco, sits undisturbed, missing only those eaten by the somewhatfortyplus husband. One more year of no monster mash. No goblins or vampires. Good thing I can remember Jack dancing and singing to "The Monster Mash" on stage a few years ago. Thanks Jack. Tell them Boris sent you......

Photo Attribution: somewhatfrank