Roof Repair

Dad picked up 20' worth of scaffolding last Wednesday and brought it over to the house. We have it for a week - which is the minimum rental time - so begins the efforts to repair the damage to the roof caused by the squirrels and chipmunks.
By Friday we had the scaffolding up. Went to Home Hardware Saturday morning and got a piece of sheet metal dryer vent pipe and some roofing patch putty stuff while it rained. Just had to cut off the parts of the sheet metal that made it pipe-like and then cut it to size. Luckily by the time I was ready to climb the scaffolding the rain had stopped. Cut and bent the sheet metal to fit under the shingles and behind the eaves trough, and secured everything with construction adhesive. Then coated everything on top with the roofing patch putty - went better than expected! Tore down the scaffolding and reloaded it into the trailer to go back with Dad so that he could use it to cut down an offending tree branch near his house. Going to put a bunch of "Critter Ridder" in the attic and continue to keep the squirrels away by live-trapping until the first heavy snow.
With the rain, I felt it was okay to start a fire in the "new" fire pit in the back to get rid of some of my scrap wood - basically anything pine (which isn't good in the wood stove) and a bunch of hardwood that was starting to rot after being left at the bottom of the old wood pile, sunken into the mud. With the new fire pit, I can get rid of the disintegrating fire barrel and clean up the back yard a lot, looks much better. Got me in the mood and really started a back yard clean up. Moved the little tin shed around so that we can use it to store the wood for the woodstove - what a neat idea, dry firewood in the winter, you'd think I would have thought of that sooner! Thanks to Sharon for moving most of the firewood into the shed from under the deck.

News Story - Unable to unplug, tech addicts may sue

News Article: Unable to unplug, tech addicts may sue

Okay, so the thinking is that people may sue over addiction to technology... My take is: what is it going to take for people to take responsibility for their actions? If your life sucks because you keep working through your Blackberry, then YOU should recognize this and reduce your usage. Don't give me the crap that you need to be accessible because others are and if you are not then you may not get that promotion - guess what, if YOU DECIDE that you want to be in the running for that promotion and if YOU DECIDE that being accessible all the time is a key way to stay in the running, then YOU need to decide if you are willing to pay the price of being that accessible, which can mean a crappy home life - same as the traditional situation of having to work late all the time - only this gives you the added BENEFIT of "working late", but you don't have to stay at the office. You want the brass ring, you still need to get above the rest. My suggestion is to find better ways to highlight your talents and commitment to the company than just having your Blackberry on all the time and responding to your boss' emails within the minute.
That's my 2 cents anyway.

Looking for a cookbook

I've had a thought for a cookbook, and I'm hoping that it exists and one of the many, many, ... many readers of this blog can point me to a good one. The cookbook I want would have an index of ingredients and then recipes that a) feature that ingredient or b) just use that ingredient. The reasoning for this relates to my relish entry below - when I have a bunch of something, or want to get rid of something in the fridge, or use something provided from a well-intending friend, I want some ideas for how to use those food items to create something good and interesting.
Some examples:
- my garden is producing lots of cucumbers, what can I make with them? (besides relish)
- I am starting to finally get some tomatoes from the garden, all I can think of is spaghetti sauce, chili, and sliced with hamburgers
- that can of "pineapple tidbits" that has been in the fridge for way too long...
- the package of shredded coconut in the cupboard
- onions, got a bunch in the fridge "crisper" (talk about false advertising, nothing has ever come out of there "crisp"...)
- shrimp in the freezer, something besides cocktail or mixed in spaghetti sauce or a stir fry...
- a box of Cheerios that I bought by mistake (Sharon only likes the Honey Nut kind - I'll eat almost anything in a pinch, but haven't been in a pinch recently)...

Get the picture? Any suggestions? I guess I could use the internet to search for recipes, but at the risk of starting another rant, I only have access to dialup service where I live - nuf said...