1) A car that folds up into your suitcase
2) A complete meal in a pill or a machine that creates your meal in seconds based on what you just asked for
3) Teleportation (we do have this now, at the molecular level, not at a practical level)
4) Telepathy
5) Space colonies

Here’s some things that we no longer have or that you have to look really hard to find that seemed everywhere in at least my past:

1) Phone Booths/Pay Phones – you’re lucky if a bar even has one anymore
2) Letter holders with the 2-3 angled slots and the key hooks along the bottom – growing up, every kid made one of these in shop class. Now if you want to try to buy one, you have to comb the craft shows for a homemade one. You do not see these in stores.
3) A large selection of mobile phones. The Verizon store used to be wall to wall phones around here. Now it feels like there are six phone choices, a few pdas, and some tablets. And the rack of accessories and a couple pay as you go options in the middle of the store.
4) Things that were fat/chunky and still cute. My Little Pony, Care Bears, and stuffed animals that were actually named Fat Cats. Now even Care Bears seem to be slimmer than in the past.

Also, why do apartments never have light fixtures in the ceilings in the living rooms?

Saturday: 70s
Sunday: Heavy rain and tornadoes (not in my actual city, but throughout the state)
Sunday Night/This Morning: Snow. In some places, 3-7 inches

There was also a beading station, plus the doll clothes stations. For every dress we made, we put some scraps of the fabric in a bag that the girls could pick up and use to decorate their own paper doll. Those girls can get pretty creative! There was also a fifth craft table for the boys where they could craft their own message in a bottle or decorate paper dolls as pirates.

Other areas included games, disney movies, bingo, hair, makeup, nails, and coloring. At the end of the event there is a fashion show where all the kids walk across the stage and show off their outfits.

It was a lot of fun seeing the girls in their dresses and remembering working on each one, which parts you helped with, and seeing how without knowing the kids how the colors and styles just seem to fall in place.

I can’t wait for next year. Every where I look at dresses now I’m storing ideas for things to try out.

We haven’t tried the whole conception thing since November, but hopefully next month we’ll get back to that. I am attempting to get some semblance of exercise and healthy eating back into my lifestyle. My brother and I joined the gym last Saturday and it has been going well so far. I’ll also be emailing my cousin later today to order some shake mix and get back on doing those for breakfast. I was unhappy donig shapes two times a day, but I also haven’t been making myself breakfast in quite a while either. So the plan is shakes for breakfast only. And this brand my cousin sells (Body by Vi) tastes quite a bit better than the herbalife, and I don’t have to worry about becoming a distributor to get a discount as there are no discounts for being a reseller. One less account for me to have, so that works for me.

The next two weekends we are cat sitting, with a bockfest and beer sampling event thrown in the mix,  then it’s the Royal Treatment Day, and then it’s Easter. Weekends are booked for a while. I may attempt to plan a “babymoon” to Wisconsin in April. We’ll see.

That’s right, I’m talking about Laskiainen. It’s the Finnish Sliding Festival held the first weekend of February. We haven’t been in a few years and our friends asked us to come to a concert, so we attended. After all, I really cannot remember any year where there’s Been a concert, unless you count the range country music folks performance.

Oh right, back to your confused expression and half-formed syllable on your tongue. Before we go any further, it’s pronounced ‘Lusk-ee-eye-nen.’ And for good measure, sauna is pronounced ‘sow-nuh’ as in a female pig, not as in an implement for cutting down trees.

You can read an extremely short blip on the event here: http://ironrange.org/attractions/calendar?312

Basically, it’s a festival celebrating our ethic heritage and traditions. The main event for the kids is the ice sliding area down the hill and out onto the frozen lake. This festival originally centered more around flax, a main crop in Finland. Folklore has is that the distance you slid out on to the lake predicts how well your crop will grow the next summer, so get the best sled you can find and cram as many people into it as possible. The festival hasn’t always been in February, but that is when it is held now.

The adults hit up the Tori (marketplace) for one of a kind handmade items for their homes and cabins. You can find Finnish branded items like Ole and Lena joke books, cookbooks, or some towels for your sauna with Sisu emblazened across them. Handmade items are out in abundance. Felted boot liners, warm mittens made from recycled denim jeans, woodburnt cribbage boards, soaps, ornaments, birch bark nik-naks, rag rugs. There is even an educational display area of how the flax was originally harvested and the process used to make it into clothing.

Food is also a big part of this festival. It’s not Laskiainen without squeaky cheese, cardamom bread, beef stew, split pea soup, or fry bread. Not that I eat any of those, but they’re all part of the general experience. As are the basketball games in the gym each year. There’s even a queen coronation and a dance.

This year was the 75th anniversary of the festival and they stepped it up a notch. Tonic Sol Fa was the group hired for the concert and they did not disappoint. I was amazed at the wide variety of ages in the audience. I expected a lot of younger generation people, but there was a vast sampling of the community there, which was great to see! One of the highlights of the evening was when they dedicated a song to my friend that we were there with. Apparently her husband had emailed in a quite lengthy correspondence about how much he loves her and how great she is and would they dedicate a song to her during their performance. The other fun part was when my husband looked at his ticket after the performance and went “Oh, Tonic Sol Fa.” He thought our friend said their name was “Atomic Sofa” when he called to ask if they should get us tickets too. I am still giggling over that one.

Later that evening while we were out around town, my husband and I came up with a hilarious idea, but abandoned it because most of the kids working at Burger King have probably never seen the movie and have no clue what Groundhog’s Day is.

We thought it would be hilarious to go through the drive thru, order something cheap like a small fry, pay, and pull right back around again into the drive thru line. Repeat a few times, ala Groundhog Day. You’d have to order the same thing each time, with the same wording, and pay the same way. Possibly in exact change only. If we knew anyone who was old enough to have seen the movie and worked at a drive thru window, you can bet where we would have spent our evening, driving in circles and all of us laughing hysterically.

A prime example of a generational gap in gift giving is gift cards. I was raised that you didn’t buy anyone gift cards except as a last resort. Giving someone a gift card meant you didn’t care enough about them to spend the time looking for a gift you thought they would like. And even in the gift card world, some gift cards were lower than others. Someone still might appreciate a gift card for a nice meal at a fancier restaurant, but a gift card to Target implied they needed help affording their everyday necessities.

Now that I’m almost 30, there’s a very definitive change in the younger generation. They would much rather have a gift card to spend than have to make you a list of things they might like. They’ll also take a gift card over possibly getting stuck with clothing items they don’t like/won’t wear. With so many options available at their fingertips and these items not easily found in stores in smaller areas, it is easier for them to plug in the visa gift card number and order exactly what they want online. To this generation, getting a gift card means that you want them to have the exact perfect thing for them and even though you don’t know exactly what they would like the most, you know that they know and can now buy it with this gift card.

With that being said, we’re now on to skill set gap shopping. Do you enjoy a hobby where someone else has said “I wish I knew how to do that” when you talk about it or show them something you did? Please keep in mind that just because they wish they could do it, doesn’t mean that they will ever have or take the time to learn how to do it. It can be terrifying to have a project in a box waiting to be done, but know that no matter what you do, the end piece will not look right because you don’t have the skills to get it near where someone with practice would. It is often better to offer to make them one of whatever it is you do rather than buy them their own kit so that they can learn how to do it. If they do ask “can you show me how to do that sometime?” that, my dear readers, is the time to get them their own materials. Until them, make them a nice redeemable certificate where they can specify what colors, materials, type, etc. and then you can make them one. A display piece is much nicer than a box or bag that gets stored in the bottom of the closet for 10 years before being donated to the church rummage sale. If you give them the redeemable certificate and they don’t use it, ask about it once and then drop it. They appreciated your gift and the thought behind it, but they either don’t know where to put/use whatever it is you’ll be giving them or they can’t decide on what they want.

You may also have the opposite skill set shopping issue. You want to get a gift for someone that already is very into something. What brands and tools do they prefer, what is good enough and what won’t do, and so on. I find it best to go the gift card route in this area or take them shopping and have them pick something out. If it’s for a close family member or friend, you can also do research by observing what they drool over consistently when they walk by it in the store. Maybe there’s a particular table saw that has all the features they’ve wanted after working with their cheaper one. Maybe there’s some fabric that they’ve always wanted to make something out of, but it’s just too expensive to get when they do many other projects. Just be advised that sometimes people lust over some things in stores that they will never actually use so do a reality check if you are picking something out without them present. It also helps to randomly ask a stranger or staff person their opinion. You can get some valuable information from the people hanging around the hardware or crafting stores on what products they’ve tried and work well or should be avoided at all costs.

Different knowledge areas can also probably be summed up by personality differences. If someone is at all geeky, something from thinkgeek.com is a sure bet. Figure out the personality basis you want t shop for and then search for that word plus toys, gadgets, gift ideas, or anything else that fits. You will find all kinds of niche items that you may not have normally thought of. Please note that almost all of these gifts are for amusement value and will not be practical gifts.

Lastly, I want to cover getting gifts for your friends’ kids. This could theoritically fall under generational gap shopping, but there are some additional guidelines.

1. If they’re under 3, go practical and throw in a stuffed animal. They will never remember what you got them and the parents can always use more receiving blankets, socks, onesies, socks, outfits, socks, and did I mention SOCKS. There is an entire basket in the kids room of mateless socks. Either the dryer ate them, they are hidden somewhere in the house or car, or the kid pried them off their foot in the parking lot or shopping center and the sock is now lost to them forever.
2. If they’re between 3 and 6, you can almost never go wrong with a generic “kids this age like X” gift. For boys, this is cars of any shape and size. For girls, this is dolls and horses.
3. If they’re a boy under 14, you’re still pretty good with legos every year.
4. If they’re a girl, figure out which disney princess they like and get them anything with that on it.
5. If they’re over 14, forget ever getting them the perfect gift until they’re in college.

Basic varieties
There are five basic types: yellow-fleshed, red-skinned, white, blue and Russet. They are categorized by color and by starch: less starch yields a firmer potato. Here’s the complete run-down:

Nutrition
Contrary to popular myth, most of the potato’s vitamins and minerals are not found in the skin. Instead, they cluster in a layer a little less than an inch under the skin. Therefore, removing the skin will not affect the spud’s nutrition. However, it will reduce its fiber and potassium content.

Maple syrup is always sold in various grades: A, B and C; or 1, 2 and 3. The differences are state by state (and country by country). But the effect is the same.

And that first category, A or 1, is always divided into three subs: light (or sometimes “fine”), medium and dark. The differences have to do with how long the syrup was cooked, how much the sugars have broken down as the water was being boiled off. The lower the grade, the more intense the taste.

That said, grade C is not fit for much except industrial baking. For your cooking at home, consider grade B or even grade A dark as the pantry staple. These will offer a more sophisticated, earthy taste, the better to match with dishes like this roasted pork loin — or even in your favorite quick bread recipes. Save the very high grades for a treat on pancakes and waffles (although, truth be told, we prefer grade A dark for even those breakfast goodies).