Kitty crisis

It seems like every couple of days, something will go wrong at the house...

One of my dogs will conduct a successful trashcan raid or rip the stuffing out of a toy and scatter white fuzz all around the house, or something will start leaking or an appliance will squeak... just about any of these things disturbs the domestic tranquility...

But here's a new one.

We keep hearing a cat meowing.

It started last night and has continued into the morning. Every few hours, a meow or two. But I can't figure out where it's originating. Obviously from a cat, but I can't tell if it's somehow stuck inside my house (although I think the dogs would have taken care of that problem), inside the garage, which is enclosed and hasn't been open since Saturday, or outside somewhere. Each time it happens, I go to all the doors and check to see if I can see anything... but I'm not having any luck finding this misplaced kitty.

Anyone have a suggestion on how to 1) Find it and 2) Get rid of it?

Post-Christmas chatter

It's the first day after Christmas and "Lifestyles Land" is back and in rare form. We're tired and cranky and some of us would actually rather be here than at home.

Although most of our Christmas celebrations went off without a hitch, I think we've all taken about as much insanity as we can possibly handle.

Allison (Assistant Lifestyles Editor) has dealt with noisy kid toys and pondered why a barn her son received doesn't have a place for the sheep, which were included in the set. She was, however, super-excited about the stuffed Yoda her husband bought her and the slightly off-kilter magnets her sister gave her.

Cherish (Reporter) announced that she got the most fabulous set of pots and pans ever. (FYI, I'm more than a little jealous.)

I, however, was quite excited over the gift of a Belgian waffle maker. Yay! I tried it out on Christmas morning... my first attempt stuck to the maker and came out in little fluffy chunks. This, of course, was at 7 a.m. (not the best time of day for me) and had a little freakout moment. My sister, who got one last Christmas and who is, by now, an old pro at making them, notified me that I didn't use enough nonstick cooking spray. I'll know that for next time...

My mother also did me the kindness of purchasing a new dining room table and chairs for my house... I was a little concerned beforehand because mom's style is very ornate, while mine is a little more "Pottery Barn," but she did a great job picking it out and I like it. (BTW, thanks mom!)

At any rate, I think all of us in the corner had a pretty good holiday...

Until next time, enjoy your own gifts!

Health addition

I promised earlier this week in the paper that I'd add some information here that I couldn't fit into the lab tests package. So... here it is.

A urinalysis really does show a lot -- from infection to diabetes.
If there are white blood cells in the urine, there could be an infection.
If there are ketones, the person could have gastroenteritis (stomach upset/infection) or diabetes.
If there is protein in the urine, a person could be diabetic.
If the microlbumin if off, it could be an early sign of diabetes.

A CBC is also a pretty telling test.
In addition to the things I mentioned in the paper, it checks for several other things.
MCV - Helps determine which type of anemia a person might have. If it's low, then the patient has iron deficiency anemia. If it's high, the patient has pernicious anemia. Usually if this number is off, the doctor will also check Iron and folate levels.

An interesting bit of trivia: Dr. Robert Jones Sr. also told me that physicians can tell if a patient is drinking too much alcohol based on their blood count results.

Dr. Chris Cerjan also mentioned that all children, when they're born, are screened via a heel poke at the hospital for several diseases and disorders. The blood is sent to a state lab, where a thyroid test, a test for sickle cell anemia and tests for other rare congenital conditions are performed.

The best pretzels ever

My sister and mom and I made our yearly trek to the Amish horse sale in Troutman (near Statesville) on Friday night. As always, we looked around at the horse-related items in the buildings and the variety of buggies and wagons parked outside, then we went inside toe barns to look at the horses and mules. They ranged in size from about 100 pounds for miniature ponies to thousands of pounds for the draft horses. Prices ranged from $100 to more than $4,500 for a single animal while we were there. We also got our yearly Amish pretzels that are made out of some secret recipe yeast dough. They were, like always, fabulous?

This year went significantly better than last year, when I slid down the hill in a mixture of mud and horse manure. I won't tell the whole story on here because it involves a great deal of bad language, laughter and some poor Amish kid accidentally seeing a little more flesh than he bargained for. (It's a much funnier story now than it was a year ago.) It was also a lot warmer this year than it was two years ago when we were walking popsicles with scarves.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and it's yet another chance for Graham to mock my agricultural upbringing, but I don't care... I got a pretzel out of the deal.

Think you might want to go? It's not over for another day or two. For more info., call the Iredell County Fairgrounds. To get there, get on I-77 and take the Old Mountain Road exit. We took I-40, so I can't give more specific directions from Shelby.

Lifelong to-do list item marked off

I've been saying since my junior year in college that I want to one day have a therapy dog.
As of last Monday, that hope has come true.
I went to the kennel club in Charlotte last Monday and had my dogs tested for both their Canine Good Citizen certification and their certification from Therapy Dogs International.
Now all I have to do is mail in their paperwork and registration fees.
I cannot even say how proud I am of my girls. Both Gracie and Lulu worked hard - during the test and during out weekly class leading up to the test.

An added bonus is that while I was at the kennel club, I got to see Tucker Summerville again.
Tucker and her therapy dog, Sam, are well-known in the therapy dog community and they volunteer at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
They also happen to be the subject of my final project in my photojournalism class - and thus are the reason why I wanted therapy dogs to begin with.
Tucker is a part-time nurse at the hospital and brings in Sam (and now her other dogs) to see patients on the pediatric ward. When I was there, there were children with cancer and bone diseases, along with youngsters with a variety of other illnesses. (I would love to show off the photographs, but I had to sign a waiver saying I wouldn't.) Some in pain; others facing boredom and loneliness, Sam brought an element into their day that's hard to explain. He'd nuzzle some, calm others and spread smiles wherever he went. He'd also snuggle next to worried moms in the bed and just be there with a kid in pain.
I think what he brought was normalcy from the world outside the hospital. And that was almost as valuable as prescribed medicines and IVs.
Although I didn't get to see Sam again, I did get to meet the two dogs who will be carrying on the Sheltie's tradition at the hospital, and it's easy to see that they're both going to be as great as Sam.

As for my dogs, the experience has been a great one - even before taking the test, Lulu and Gracie have been going to "therapy" on Tuesday evenings at Cleveland Pines. We've met a lot of really neat people - people we never would have met before - patients, families and staff alike.
We also get to see the difference it makes on a weekly basis. These people look forward to our visits and will greet us from wheelchairs in the hallway and beds in their rooms. They thank us every week for bringing the dogs by.
In any case, I can mark getting the dogs pet therapy certified off my life's to-do list and go on to the next big task. And who knows, maybe we can help more people along the way.

Christmas is coming, despite the warm weather

A valuable lesson was reinforced for me this weekend: Martha Stewart and I could be friends, but not best friends.

No matter how much the people at work kid around about it, she and I have big, unsurmountable differences.

Yes, we both like to entertain and we both like to cook and garden and we both have dogs.

But the similarities end with holiday decorating.

Martha is all about centerpieces, holiday trees and wreaths and decorations. I, on the other hand, have to practically be forced to put up even a Christmas tree.

Don't get me wrong, though. I like celebrating Christmas and what it stands for. I just don't like putting out seasonal towels, lights, snow globes, stockings, knick-knacks and all that jazz. It's just not worth the time and effort. Plus, it's a pain to store the stuff all year.

With that said, I decided, like I do every year, to go with my mother to the Southern Christmas Show in Charlotte. I don't particularly care for the holiday theme, but I do like all the free samples. (Martha, of course, would frown on that because it's so common, but I like them all the same.) We don't usually buy a lot while we're there, but it's a mother-daughter bonding thing that has turned into a yearly tradition over the last six or so years.

This year, there was an extra bonus -- I wrote in my last blog that I hoped Jenny Cartee would be at the pottery festival on Saturday (which was great), but she wasn't there. She was, however, selling pottery at the Christmas show.

Evidently a lot of people from the area have gone as well. Residents of Cleveland Pines in Shelby went on Tuesday and came back tired and in good spirits.

Are you thinking about going? It ends this Sunday. Want to know more? E-mail me at emilykillian@shelbystar.com or call me at (704) 669-3331.

On the Web: Southern Christmas Show at the Charlotte Merchandise Mart

Pottery show preview

It's around 5:30 Friday evening and potters from around the state and even the Southeast should wither be headed to Shelby or be here already. Potters will be setting up tonight for the annual Carolina Pottery Festival, which begins at the fairgrounds at 10 in the morning.

Never been before?

Here's what it'll be like:
People from Cleveland County and beyond will be lining up shortly before the sale starts. They'll go through Dorton and Goforth Halls, looking for the right pottery piece at the right price. One tip for buyers: If you like it, get it before it someone else does. There's nothing worse than reverse buyer's regret (also known as the regret of the person who didn't buy what they wanted). Another tip is to go in with a list of things you want to buy. It'll help you from getting into pottery buyer's overload (that's when you buy so much you can't physically carry it out).

But seriously, there are a lot of things you should check out while you're there.

June Miller's leaf platters are a thing to behold. She takes giant leaves and uses them as her inspiration. They're really cool. Stop by Doby Wright's booth. She's a great conversationalist and I enjoyed meeting her this week. Annie Thompson's work is super-detailed and is certainly worth checking out. Hal Dedmond does traditional Catawba-Valley style pottery and his wife, Corrine Guseman does really cool garden rattles. Other potters to check out include Allen Griffin, Vickie Halloran, Kaye Lowery, Bobbi Black and Vicki Gill. My favorite person is fellow GWU graduate Jenny Cartee. Although I'm not 100 percent sure she'll be there, I'm going to make sure to look for her. I'm also going to look for fellow Isothermal students and teachers. I'm sure there are more that I've left out... I'm getting too psyched up to think...

As for me, I'm looking for a few items: some sort of big bowl or platter for my aunt, a small bowl with a chopstick notch for me and I want to look at anything with fern leaves. I need good art for my small living room.

(The photo is of some of my favorite pieces from June Miller's studio)

Molasses recipes

I promised on Wednesday's Food page that I'd have more molasses recipes on here... so here you go...

Christmas Ginger Snaps
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup molasses
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put shortening and sugar in a large bowl. Beat well. Add eggs and molasses and beat until light. Stir flour, baking soda, ginger and cinnamon. Roll pieces of dough into small balls. Place into a greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle the tops with a little white sugar. Bake 12-14 minutes. Let cool and enjoy!

Dark Gingerbread
1/2 c. shortening
1 c. molasses
1 egg
2 tbsp. milk
2 c. plain flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. baking powder
Heat the shortening until it is hissing, pour it into a bowl in which the molasses has already been measured, add the egg and milk and mix lightly. Sift together the flour, salt, ginger and baking powder, and stir into the liquid ingredients, beating and stirring only enough to blend. As soon as smoothly blended, pour into two shallow, well-greased pans and bake 15-18 minutes in a moderately hot oven (400 degrees) (From an old Rumsford Baking Powder cookbook)
The following glaze works well or you can use your own:
Add 1 tbsp. grated orange peel to 2 tbsp. melted margarine, stir in 1 1/2 c. powdered sugar, 1/4 tbsp. vanilla and a few drops of orange juice, only if needed to thin. Drizzle over warm gingerbread.
Recipe courtesy of Lydia Elliott Hamrick

Molasses Drop Cookies
1 c. raisins, plumped (soaked in warm water and drained)
1/2 c. chopped pecans or almonds
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 c. soft butter or margarine
2 tbsp. shortening
1 egg
1/2 c. molasses
1 c. buttermilk
Grease baking sheets. Start over 10 min. before baking; set oven to 400 degrees. Wash raising and plump, then cool. Chop nuts. Sift flour, measure, resift four times with next five ingredients. Press brown sugar through a coarse sieve to remove lumps. In a 3 quart mixing bowl, cream butter and shortening with a wooden spoon until smooth, add sugar and cream well. Scrape off spoon, remove. Beat in egg with a rotary beater until fluffy, then beat in molasses until satiny. Remove beater and use spoon. Stir in flour mixture and milk alternately in two or three portions, beginning and ending with flour and mixing until smooth after each portion. Stir in raisins and nuts until well distributed. Drop by heaping teaspoonfulls onto prepared sheet. Bake about 10 minutes until delicately browned. Remove at once from sheet to cake rack. When cool, store in a jar or box with tight-fitting lid with sheet of waxed paper between layers. Makes about three dozen. This recipe takes some time but it is well worth the effort. Shared by Lydia E. Hamrick

Art of Sound

I thought I'd take a minute on here to plug the Art of Sound festival this weekend. After working on Art of Sound advance coverage for the greater part of three workdays this week, I feel like I know way too much about the festival. I won't, however, be able to make it to the actual event because of out-of-town plans.

Judging from the variety of musical styles, I think this year might be one of the festival's best. There are a lot of new performers and a lot of interesting groups. I would have loved to have been able to attend the traditional music/dance workshop, but such is life, I guess.

Is anyone planning on going? If so, share your experience in the comments section.

Halloween coverage preview

I thought I'd sneak all of you some of the things we're going to be doing for Halloween in Lifestyles land...

Doggie Halloween - costumes and safety tips
I've had several people from the community bring in their pooches in Halloween costumes... it's been quite the experience... Here's Becca, Maureen the copy editor's step-dog. (I like to call her Bacon, though.)

Scary movies - there are several local people with ties to the movies (Think Haunted Pyramids)

Ghost stories - I have a few tales from the Zion community and Allison Flynn is working on a project with the Paranormal Scene Investigators. Anyone else know any local ghost stories? If so, post them in the comments section.