Category Archives: Something About Nothing Column

Revive The Greeting Card!

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Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf printed in the Albert Lea Tribune February 3.

The United States Postal Service is raising its rates. It is partly my fault. The reason I partially blame myself is that I am memory-challenged when remembering to send people cards for birthdays, Christmases, baby births and times of illness, sympathy and friendship.

I like to get the cards. I keep the people in my prayers and always have good intentions but never seem to get it done.

This is not something new that has developed since I have become an adult. When I was in grade school and high school, I would write letters to my aunts and uncles and cousin but they would never get mailed. When they came to visit and occasionally their visits were yearly, I would hand deliver the letters to them.

This is my greeting card showing greeting cards.
This is my greeting card showing greeting cards.

There is one problem, and that is the fact that I love to buy greeting cards, and I love to make greeting cards. I must have a problem with that in many areas of my life since I love cookbooks and recipes but don’t like to cook. Maybe it is the author in me that likes to see things in print.

Since I am changing careers I need to readjust and change out my office so I can work more efficiently with my new writing career. It is amazing the joy it creates when you find an object that you have been looking for. In the midst of the mess I found so many greeting cards. As I looked and sorted the beautiful cards in to categories I wondered how in the world I ever accumulated so many cards. Then I felt a little sad that I never sent the cards to the people they were meant for.

Some of the cards that I found were perfect for someone in their young adult years, but the person that I had in mind when I bought the card is no longer a young adult, in fact they might be called a senior citizen now.

In my meandering of thoughts it crossed my mind that greeting cards are probably obsolete too or they will be soon. I hope not. History is represented in greeting cards. I have the Valentine cards that my mom got when she was young. I have the Valentines that my parents gave me when I was young, and when I read them it brings tears and good memories to my heart.

I am de-cluttering, but there are some things that are keepers in my heart, and those are the Valentines of my youth. The birthday cards from certain people from my youth that I still have. It is the Christmas cards, not all but some, that I have kept over the years from people that I miss because they are living with God now. Those cards give me comfort, make me smile, occasionally make me cry and bring back memories.

My mother never threw anything out, and I was very vocal in letting my opinion be known. There are items that did not need to be kept, and I would still be vocal about them if she were here. She was a child of the Great Depression, and that made her at times hoard things.

When it was time for me to go through her things I found the treasure of her youth. I found a scrapbook she had made of old Valentines. I found cards and letters of sympathy from my dad’s funeral. I hadn’t paid much attention then to all the cards and letters of caring he received when he was sick and when he died. Reading them twenty years later as an adult made me appreciate the impact he had on people’s lives. I would have never had known that.

As I look at the cards, the many, many cards, I have in my stash to send to people I made a decision. This year I will try over the year to mail every single card that I have to someone. As crazy as it may seem, I might send a Christmas card in July. I am not going to pay attention to season but I will pay attention to the get-well and sympathy cards and make sure they go to the right place at the right time. Sending a sympathy card could get a little tricky if the person were still alive, though many years ago when my uncle’s favorite team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, lost the World Series, I felt it did warrant a sympathy card. I was sure my uncle mourned for the next year about that.

Will I live up to my new resolution? It’s not a New Year’s one. Join me in sending cards to friends, family and strangers this year. It may change their day, it may make them smile and … it might keep the Postal Service in business. Challenge your friends. Let’s start a card revolution in 2014.

I have started a page on Facebook called “Revive the Greeting Card.” Hopefully it will help me in my resolve to send out greeting cards. Hopefully the members of the group will keep me on task.

If you are a Facebook person look for the page “Revive the Greeting Card “and join us. Take the time this year to send some greetings to someone, it may change their day.

Another Reward Card? My Wallet is Full.

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Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf published January 27, 2014

My wallet is getting fatter. Unfortunately it isn’t getting fatter with money or even credit cards. It is getting fatter with all those rewards cards that we have to carry to get rewards when we visit a business.

Don’t get me wrong, reward people, I love my rewards cards. I must admit my life was a little simpler when I didn’t reap the rewards of my shopping.

It seems every business is jumping on the rewards-card bandwagon. There are Hy-Vee Gas cards, Panera rewards, Shopko rewards, Cherry Berry rewards, Pizza Ranch rewards, Pet-Co rewards, Office Max rewards; and those are only a few of the many.

There are times when I have to stop and remember where I am when checking out. Yes, I occasionally do forget where I am, in the I need that frenzy of shopping. I get to the register, dump my products onto the little conveyer belt that moves the items closer to the cashier and then I fumble in my purse to find the right card. Of course, while I am fumbling and digging through my billfold I almost and sometimes do, drop it on the floor.

The solution would be to be prepared by digging out my card before I get to the register but what fun would that be? It would not give those shoppers coming behind me the excuse to check their cellphone, talk to the person behind them or glare at me for holding up the line.

Things are made a little simpler when it comes to coupons; we don’t always have to have to the paper coupon anymore. We can store the coupon on our cellphone. Of course, that means that not only do we have to pull our rewards cards out, we have to hold our cellphone and get it to the place on our phone where we have the coupons. The people behind me always love that.

Some stores are making it easier if you are a prepared and organized person. I actually don’t know too many of those. If you are an organized person, you can go to the store’s website and put the store coupon on your rewards card. That does make it simpler.

Let’s add being a senior citizen to the mix. Senior citizens at many places get senior citizen discounts. Some are widely advertised where others are kept under wraps. You have to know what stores have senior citizen discounts and then you have to ask for them when you are at the checkout. You also have to know in many stores, what day they cater to senior citizens. There is also another little catch.

Some chains of stores don’t have the same senior citizen policy in every store. The days differ, and in one case I have found that the liquor store offers a senior citizens discount, but the actual other store connected doesn’t.

I am tired writing this. Being a smart consumer these days is tricky. One day I was shopping with my daughter. A sale of something that I needed didn’t start until two hours later. We were in the store at the wrong time and had to be home in another community before the sale started.

I was disappointed but accepting. My daughter pulls out her cellphone, finds the ad on the phone and calls and finds a clerk in the store. She asks if there is any way we could get the discount early since we couldn’t be there at 3 p.m.

The clerk said they would check and came back and said it was in the system already so they would honor the sale. We should show the clerk the ad and tell them they said it was fine to honor it early. We checked out, and I got the sale price. I would have never thought of that in my old age. Shopping used to be simpler.

That is my point. Life is getting challenging for those of us with an older brain. Shopping now is somewhat of a puzzle that we have to put together to get our perks and our prices. If you have the time — and senior citizens are supposed to have the time — then its fun.

Younger people pick up on this easier, but families with young children don’t have the time. Of course, they don’t have to search out senior citizen discounts, but with their lives on fast forward all of the time, keeping track of all the rewards if they want the perks can be mind-boggling.

I liked it when J.C. Penney cut its prices and did away with sales. Their prices were wonderful, and it was great shopping in the stores. Unfortunately, many consumers didn’t feel that way and J.C. Penney lost money. We are programmed to go for the deal.

I can’t wait to see what the stores think up for us in the future. I am researching the hidden senior citizen discounts in preparation for an article later on to aid seniors in finding their way through the discount maze.

But I should warn you, the last time I was in a maze, a corn maze, I needed to be rescued. If you don’t hear from me during my research you will know I am hopelessly lost under the pile of reward cards. Listen for my call for help and rescue me.

I Cook Like Lucy Ricardo!

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Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf Published in the Albert Lea Tribune, January 20, 2014

I am hooked. I am hooked on cooking shows. My son made me watch “Chopped” on the Food Channel, and now I watch “Chopped” and any other cooking show that I can find while my eyes are still open as I lounge on my couch. HGTV does not have exclusive rights to my eyes anymore.

The problem with watching these cooking shows is that at times I think I can do some of the crazy things that they do, such as coming up with my own recipes from weird ingredients.

I identify most with the sloppy cooks that have ingredients flying all over. I remember watching “I Love Lucy” when I was younger and laughing at her kitchen antics especially with flour. In my old age I think I am the “Lucy” of my household. The past week was a perfect example of my Luciness.

My family loves hot chocolate. For some strange reason I decided that for our Christmas this past month I was going to gift the kids and my son in law with homemade marshmallows. I bought the ingredients and set them out on my kitchen counter to start creating my fluffy creations.

I love my big stand mixer. Am I challenged by it? Absolutely! You should see how my potatoes whip around the room when I have the spin cycle on high. I put the gelatin and water in my mixer and mixed them up.

I needed to boil my other ingredients. The first oops was dropping the open bottle of corn syrup on my kitchen floor. It flew out of my hands. I had to grab my cats and give them a time out in the bathroom before I could clean up the corn syrup or they would have been sticky icky. With that out of the way I wiped up the corn syrup, but of course my slippers wanted to stick to the floor so I had to scrub that part of the floor.

I melted my corn syrup, water and sugar on the stove and kept stirring with a spoon. I propped the spoon on the stove to get my thermometer to measure the heat. I didn’t have a clip-on one so I used a different one. As I put the thermometer in the liquid, my spoon knocked out onto the floor.

As I picked up the spoon my thermometer fell out of the pan and rolled against the flame. You guessed it, it cracked. As all of this was happening I thought perhaps it was a sign from up above that I wasn’t supposed to do this. But I persevered and got the ingredients into the mixer and mixed. There were no problems this time with the mixture.

The recipe called for lining the pan with cornstarch and powdered sugar. I love using my hands to sprinkle this. As I was reaching for something else the powdered sugar bag fell onto the floor and sprinkled powdered sugar all over the wood floor. At that point I hollered to my husband, “Don’t come in here.” I knew he was planning on doing this because he was hearing the plops and I knew he would be appalled as he is a neat cook. This time I swept the floor and then scrubbed it because the crevices were filled with white. I must admit I looked like Lucy covered in flour but the difference was the powdered sugar. If you lick it off your face it tastes better than flour.

I am happy to say my marshmallows were a hit with my family.

Fast forward to the next week where salad was my contribution to the meal at a Bible study. I decided to try a new recipe that I could substitute mayonnaise for a gluten-free kind. I haven’t mentioned that I am having trouble with arthritis in my right hand and holding something tightly or slicing with a knife is hard. Since my better half was not here to help me I pulled out the knives and started chopping away at the cabbage. This time I had not yet given my cat’s time out. They were very interested in what I was doing at the table and tried climbing on the stools to see. Some of the cabbage flew on the floor as I quickly tried to drop the knife and grab the cats to put them in a bathroom time out. I didn’t want to have sliced or diced cats. I left the fallen cabbage on the floor as I knew I would make more of a mess while creating, and I could clean it up later. My theory is to clean it up once.

It was time to julienne the carrots. Remember that I watch all the cooking shows so I think I am a chef too. I positioned my carrots and started chopping. It was going well until I got a little to close to the tip of my thumb which shouldn’t have been there and I tried julienning my thumb. The color red would have added some color to the salad but I didn’t think the others would be fooled if I said it was strawberry juice since there were no strawberries in the salad. I bandaged myself up, finished the salad. adding a couple of ingredients that were not in the recipe. That was in honor of The Food Channel cooks. I looked at the floor and thought I must live in a garden as it was so green.

After I cleaned everything up I thought about my messiness. I had such a good time making the marshmallows and the coleslaw. They both turned out great and so I forgave myself for my messiness. After all, I made sure everything was sanitary as I was doing it. It was the aftermath that didn’t look so good. but I am a creative person and I felt that creativity while I was cooking. I realized I can’t create in any orderly place. I thrive in the chaos of messy. It makes me happy because out of chaos many times comes a creative product.

The moral of this story is: Try something new, be yourself and let it be OK to do things the way that works for you. Your creative messiness might be the gateway to happiness for you or someone else.i love lucy photo: i love lucy ilovelucy.gif“>”>