COVID-19 "Shelter in Place" Spring Break Postcards!

So...I was a little bored this morning, and created a series of postcards that I posted on Facebook to, hopefully, spread a few smiles among my friends there...

Here's hoping YOU are finding things to amuse yourself (and others!) during these stressful and concerning times!!

Create My Cookbook is AWESOME!

Several years ago, I printed the first edition of my favorite recipes in a book I entitled FLAIR (Frequently Looked At Interesting Recipes).  I printed 10 copies, and gave them out to family and close friends. 

The cookbook contains about 150 favorite recipes that I collected from cookbooks, magazines, family, and friends.  It took a lot of time, and a lot of effort to type them all into a website I had found that actually PRINTED "homemade" cookbooks (www.keyingredient.com).

The book turned out well...

...and I eagerly started compiling additional recipes for Volume II.  UNFORTUNATELY, keyingredient decided to suspend the printing function of their website, and instead focus on being a "recipe warehouse".

So...I kept compiling recipes, hoping they would eventually move back into the printing business...to no avail.  I searched other options for online cookbooks, including both Snapfish AND Shutterfly...neither of which gave me the number of pages needed at a reasonable price.

During the gathering of recipes for FLAIR II, Keyingredient also went through some changes, and I happened upon the site during a rebuild that made it look something like Netscape, circa 1994.  It was clunky, and ugly, and I abandoned it, foregoing the addition of any new "liked" recipes on that site.

Luckily, I checked keyingredient again a few months ago, and it appears the Nescape-esque version is gone, and a fairly slick "refreshed" site is now up and running...without...of course...the printing option.

So...REALLY wanting to publish the second volume, my partner Duane found Createmycookbook.com, and I'm SO GLAD he did!  It's an awesome site...super easy to use...and the finished product looks REALLY good!

I have created the shell for FLAIR III, and am adding recipes for eventual printing.  I'm also cutting and pasting the old recipes from the original FLAIR for a reprinting (in the same format, and of the same size) as FLAIR II. 

It's something to keep me occupied as the days of "Shelter in Place" spring break continues!

Here's hoping YOU are finding things to do while homebound as well!!!

Dingleberry Dumbass!

Okay...I came up with a new phrase for people like the CEO of Hobby Lobby, whose wife had a dream "from God" that told her they should stay open...or Liberty University where the Falwell in charge has determined that students can go back to school...even though COVID-19 is killing people all over the country...DINGLEBERRY DUMBASS! 

It has a nice alliterative quality, and conveys my contempt for stupid people so well!!!

Here' hoping the select TRULY CLUELESS people of the United States aren't getting you down...

"Shelter in Place" BOREDOM...

So...we got the order to "Shelter in Place" last Friday, which, unfortunately, coincides with the first day of my spring "break" from school.  Instead of traveling to Iowa to see my mom and be there with her on dad's birthday and the first anniversary of his death, and instead of seeing "Anastasia" at the Orpheum in Minneapolis, and instead of trying to fly somewhere to get away from this TEDIOUS early Minnesota spring, and instead of finding that we CAN'T get anywhere (since many others are on spring break as well, and we fly "standby") and touring sites closer to home (that we can drive to), I'm stuck at home...where I've been for the last week and a half...trying to be a school librarian...from my dining room table...while attempting to update/check links/check share settings/add additional resources for all of the distance learning teacher landing pages for my school on our website for the week AFTER spring break when we start distance learning until sometime in May...and responding to MILLIONS AND MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of e-mails asking questions about eBooks and online databases and how to Zoom in for meetings and Google Meet-ing until I can't even focus my eyeballs anymore.

This is only my SECOND blog post for 2020, so perhaps getting back into blogging will give me something to do.  If not, I guess there's always dusting...and organizing...and vacuuming...and other SUPER FUN SPRING BREAK ACTIVITIES!

Oh...and did I mention that it's been RAINING for the last few days??!!  Good times...

Here's hoping YOU are adjusting to seclusion and isolation better than I am!!!