Update on the Moving Situation

For about a year now Hubby and I have been thinking and planning on moving out west. We currently live in North Carolina; I’m a native, he’s a transplant from Canada. We’re both ready for a change, both visually and culturally, and decided that the Pacific Northwest would be a big enough change for us. We had…and still have…big plans for moving to Washington state, buying some land, and changing our lifestyle drastically.

Hubby will be transferring within his company, so all our dreams hinge on a job being open for him where we want to go. Last year we were waiting for a particular job in a particular city to open up for him, and were told that it should open up in 2009.

So we planned, and waited. Knowing that when the job did open up that we would have a very short time to pack up and go, I closed my antique shop so that we could downsize and prepare to move. And then we waited some more.

Now we learn that the job Hubby wants is vacant, but not open. Big difference, I hear. Apparently the current state of the economy has forced a lot of companies, even healthy companies like his, to slow down growth and tighten the budget belt.

The last year has been an emotional roller coaster…first the move is several months off, then it’s “any time now”, then it’s questionable. It’s tough when your future depends on someone else, but right now we’re just thankful that Hubby has a job.

Although we’d love to get the call today that the job is open, the honest truth is that we’re not physically ready to go. I still have tons of inventory to push out the door, although now we’ve decided that whatever I still have when moving time arrives will be packed up and taken with us.

I still have a lot of our personal belongings to go through and winnow down, but I’ve gotten enough done already that it’s more manageable now. In comparison to the business inventory, packing up our personal belongings when the time comes will be a breeze.

And that’s where we stand on the move situation…a little closer to being ready, but less chance of it happening any time soon. Dang it!

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Why I Haven’t Been Blogging: Excuse #2

After closing the shop I hurled myself headlong into beefing up my website, adding as many products as I could that I still have on hand. I spent a lot of time on the website and starting writing blog posts again, just working away.

Like a lot of you I use Statcounter to keep track of how many people are coming to both sites, and from where. And as I was working so hard, of course I was keeping an eye on the stats to see if my hard work was paying off.

Suddenly it seemed that no one was reading my blog any more. Few comments, and no visits showing up. I attributed it to summertime and kept plugging for a while but nothing seemed to be happening.

Of course, depression ensued, with lots of handwringing and hair-pulling. Why oh why am I working so hard, I thought? No one cares. *sniff* Poor me.

So I concentrated on other things, house cleaning and organizing, weeding out old belongings, that sort of thing. And virtual farming, of course. Seemed like others had slowed down a bit on blogging too, and I was bad and didn’t read my favorite blogs and comment on them like I used to. If the blogging world was taking a break, then so was I.

Fast forward to a few days ago when I started thinking about the lack of visitors again. I was showing zero visitors for a couple of months, but there had been a few comments left so that couldn’t be right, could it?

I guess you’ve figured out the problem by now, you’re surely smarter than I am. That’s right…I had accidently deleted the Statcounter code from my blog. Duh…stupid!

So all the handwringing and self-pitying was for nothing. You had been visiting my blog, there was just nothing for you to read! LOL

Now I’m back on track, writing drivel for you again. Enjoy!

And here ends Excuse #2 for why I haven’t been blogging.

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The Best Burgers Ever

Now that I’m staying home, I’m getting more into food. And more food’s getting into me, but that’s another story.

Hubby and I were talking about how we felt we could make a better hamburger than any of the prepared patties that we can buy, so he challenged me to do it. We both like highly seasoned hamburger patties, so here’s what I came up with.

Disclaimer: These hamburgers will be very strong in flavor. If you’re feeling timid, cut the spice measurements in half.

I started with three pounds of 80/20 ground beef. You can use leaner hamburger, and I was worried that maybe I should, but ours turned out really nice with very little shrinkage.

I mixed together all of my spices with one egg and beat them together well. Then I added the egg mixture to the ground beef and tossed in the bread crumbs. I used a wooden spoon to blend everything well, just stirring and turning until the spices and crumbs were mixed evenly with the meat.

Hubby likes HUGE burgers and had requested half-pounders; I like a little smaller burger. So I used my postage scale and my Tupperware patty maker to divide the meat mixture into measurable patties. I ended up with four 1/2 pound burgers and four 1/3 pound burgers from this recipe.

Freeze the burgers and don’t thaw before putting on the grill or they will tend to fall apart more easily. Ours held together well being cooked from the frozen state.

Here’s the full recipe:

Pam’s Perfect Burgers

3 pounds ground beef

1 egg

1 tsp. Morton’s Nature’s Seasons

1/8 tsp. dry mustard

2 tbsp. dried onion flakes

1-1/2 tsp. garlic salt

1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup bread crumbs

Mix egg with spices, pour over ground beef. Add bread crumbs and mix thoroughly with meat and egg mixture. Divide into patties and freeze; small squares of wax paper between each patty. Cook on a hot grill while still frozen.

Enjoy!

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Why I Haven’t Been Blogging: Excuse #1

Nearly three months ago I made the jump from PC to Mac. At first it was awkward…I’m so used to a large keyboard and using a mouse that transitioning to a Macbook was difficult. The keys are very low profile; there’s no numeric keypad; and I don’t have a Macmouse (I think I just made up a new word here!) so I use the touchpad.

I left my PC laptop up and running right next to my Macbook for two reasons. One: There are a lot of applications that I use on the PC that aren’t available on the Mac, or that I don’t want to pay for all over again in another version. Two: It gives Hubby a place to check the weather, our portfolio, etc. without pushing me off my laptop. Doesn’t stop him from grumbling about how slow the PC is, but that’s another blog post in itself.

One of those applications is Windows Live Writer, without which I can’t imagine creating a blog post. And for some strange reason (jealousy, perhaps?) Microsoft hasn’t come out with a Mac version of Live Writer.

So when I decide it’s time to update my blog, I slide my chair over and wake up the PC. And wait. Grrrrr…. And when Live Writer is finally up and running, I’m so awkward now on the PC keyboard that it feels like I’ve gone back to using a manual typewriter. I’ve really become a Mac lover, folks.

I haven’t found another application for the Mac to replace Live Writer yet, so I thought I would throw it out there to my Internet peeps who are also Mac converts.

What software do you Mac people use for for writing your blog posts?

I know I can just use Blogger itself, but I got so spoiled with Live Writer, that I just don’t WANNA!

And here ends Excuse #1 for why I haven’t been blogging.

P.S. I’ve missed you!

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