Jerky

Jeff usually makes venison jerky. This year was no different. The children, who love beef jerky, were pestering Jeff daily to get the jerky going. He was afraid of a hostile take over so he gave in and made it. As usual it was great. A little to spicy for my taste, but good none the less and the kids loved it. The problem is there are a lot of people in my family and every one wants to eat and eat the jerky. The kids like to take it to school for snack or after school to eat before their sporting event. I’m glad they eat it and would prefer that to unhealthy snacks, but it gets expensive. Even when we don’t have the venison jerky we buy a lot of the beef jerky.

While I was grocery shopping I came upon some London broil that was buy 1 get 1 free. I got to thinking that if I bought those I could make my own jerky. So that’s what I did. I bought 2 of the broils and I told Kevin he could cut one up and make his own jerky with his own seasoning. He did a great job and it has just the right amount of spice and smoke flavor. I did the second broil and marinated it in bbq and other things. Not the best jerky I’ve ever had, but close (hehe).

The whole experience of cutting the deer up, processing it, of making jerky has made me realize how dependant on processed food and how good it felt to actually be doing some of the work myself. I grew a small garden this year and plan to expand on it in the spring. Hopefully I can find more ways to be less dependant on everyone and everything else.

The last few day’s have been very busy at work. I’ve been struggling to find enough time to get everything done before I leave for the day. I much prefer that to being bored.

My niece Shayna is still staying with me. Its been going very well. I feel kind of bad for her. She doesn’t know anyone in my area and she is far to shy to go out and meet anyone. There are several jobs I would like to hook her up with, but she’s so shy she won’t do it. I’m not sure how to get her to over come this. I haven’t even been able to get her to come to my work and volunteer due to her shyness. She just sits at the house and watches tv or plays with the kids when they are there. Oh well, we will continue to work on it.

Liana has shared with me that there is a girl in her class that is really mean to her. She doesn’t understand it. One day the girl wants to be her best friend and the next she hates her. The day’s she hates her she gets the other girls in the class to act the same way. I shared with Liana that this is how girls act in the 4th grade. In fact when I was in 4th grade the girls acted the same way. Really the only thing you can do is be yourself. If the girls don’t like you then that’s their problem. You can not change who you are to please other people. Also I shared with her how important it is not to hurt other people’s feelings. That sometimes other people are hurting inside and the only way they know how to make themselves feel better is to hurt someone else. That Liana should set the standard high for how she will react and respond to this kind of treatment. That it is ok to stand up for herself but it is not ok to deliberately hurt someone else’s feelings.

I don’t know if she understood or not, but I hope so.

I have found myself stressing about Christmas the last few days. I’m really worried how I’ll pull it all off. Usually I figure it out and we end up having a great Christmas, this year however I see nothing in site that I can do to work my magic. There is just no money to do like I want to. Not for profit work is very rewarding but not in the financial way. I always stress to my children about giving is better than receiving, and this year we are really going to be testing that.

I was given information today from another agency in town on people that they suspect as abusing the area pantries and trading the food or other support for drugs. One of the names they gave me is of a friend of mine. I have suspected for some time that she is addicted to prescribed pain pills, however I do know she has a legitimate reason for having them. I’m not sure what to do with this information. Part of me wants to call my friend and tell her that someone anonymously told me this or just leave it alone. I think she needs help, but just based on conversations I’ve had with her I don’t think anything I say will provoke her into getting any help. I don’t know what to do.

Oh well that’s it for tonight. Tomorrows another day…….