Sheena Carroll

This is true, they're now adding a water mist to outside air conditioning units to help keep the motor from overheating in the hot summer months. It helps keep the components cooler.

I live in the Oklahoma City area and it gets very hot here in the summer. When my brother and I have to do things outside or in our storage units we just do a basic bucket of water with a towel or rag (I like my own bucket cuz I don't like sharing sweat with my brother LOL) and we dip the rag ever so often in the bucket squeeze it out and wipe our bodies down and then either put the rag back in the bucket or around our neck and then when our bodies get too hot again the rag gets dipped again. Now this is only good if you're liking your office you mentioned sitting there and with a little mini fan blowing on you would be perfect you don't have to have a big fan on you I prefer though a box fan in the room. Sitting down at night watching TV every little bucket of water next to you quiet down and then with the fan blowing is nice and cooling. I heard back and old days in Texas the ladies would take their nightgowns and dip them in water and ring them out and during the hot time of the day put them on and wear them to bed for a siesta or nap. Sometimes simple is better.

A lot of leftovers were used in many ways in my mom's family during the depression. I saw you had that tomato soup cake never heard of that one before. But they have buttermilk cake, vinegar cake, LOL. A cake made of everything. But what's leftovers my mother's family would take like leftover oatmeal and make something fried up a little bit or add something to it to make it thickening and then eat it with syrup. Take leftover mashed potatoes and make potato patties out of them and fry them up and serve them with ketchup or by themselves. So this way nothing went to waste. It is unbelievable the amount of food that is wasted.
I'll look at the chicken that have been destroyed or recalled and you think of all those poor animals that died for nothing. It just breaks my heart. Back nowadays everybody mostly raised their own meals and didn't kill them until they're ready to use them.

That was so funny to read how you mentioned about the orange juice being watered down. My mother always watered down the orange juice and I asked her one day when I got older why did she always make it taste like that and she said she was making it go further. Instead of using the three cans of water she'd always use four. She was raised on a farm during the depression time and everybody pick cotton even the children when they can start walking and picking up a cotton sack they would be out picking cotton. After breakfast which is mostly biscuits probably gravy and a little bit meat like bacon to go with it. They would put the wood burning stove down and throw in sweet potatoes to slow cook in the stove until they came back from the fields and the potatoes will be good and done and that's what everybody would eat on until dinner was ready.
We grew up pretty poor and mama was new how to cook for the five of us Mom Dad my two brothers and I and we would have a lot of beans and then rice. She would cook everything by hand. She always made us desserts by hand pies things like that. Our cinnamon rolls wasn't made with yeast because that would have to be saved for other things she would take leftover biscuit dough roll it out and add cinnamon sugar to it, roll them up and throw them in the pan LOL. And if she had any extra sugar or cream she would make a little sugar topping. She would only cook one chicken for all five of us and everybody would have their own piece all the time there was never trading around. Mom and dad always got the chicken breast my brother's always got a thigh and leg and I was stuck with the wings and sometimes mom would cut the wishbone out of the thighs and I would get that. To this day I don't care much for white meat, I wish phone was white and the chicken wings were to me white and now I love thighs and legs all the time.

I make home stuffing or I use store-bought stuffing if it's on sale and make up ahead of time to put in the freezer. Making it home is just using old bread that's not moldy and I put it in a lot of things to make things go further.
One thing my mother used to make a lot was she by one can of mackerel or one or two depending on how many people are there and add eggs salt and pepper to it and then make little patties and bread it with flour salt and pepper to fry. But I found out myself with when I had leftover stuffing to add to the mackerel before you make patties and it makes the fish patties go a lot further and it makes more of them. You can also use this with salmon. I really like the flavor and it's great. The texture is real good too. Just fry it in your vegetable oil or I always use canola oil on both sides to Brown and it's so easy to make. We'd always serve it with mac and cheese and you know how cheap mac and cheese can be. And Mom would splurge sometimes instead of making a regular vegetable like corn or or green beans to go with it she would make asparagus. And asparagus goes perfect with the fish patties mac and cheese.

I found by using oak leaves preserves your crunchiness because they are full of tannin, something like that that preserves the crunch. But when using oak leaves you don't need too many in a jar. I use about one oak leaf per quart or pint jar  when I make at home fermented vegetables. All you have to do is just wash the leaf and put it in the jar there's no prep. I put the leaf at the bottom of the jar or in the middle just to make sure it works up and down. When I ferment carrots the carrots are still so crunchy but they're good and sour depending on how long you ferment them.