You’ve got your corned beef cooked and you even took the extra time to brown it in the oven with a delicious mustard glaze. Now, you’re faced with a dilemma…How do you cut corned beef? Wasn’t there some special trick to it? You whip out your cell phone and put in a call to the family cook to ask how to slice the meat and he or she responds with an incredibly helpful:
“Why, you just slice it across the grain!”
Umm…yeah. That helped. You’ll just go…umm…Right. Well.
Actually, it isn’t that hard to find the grain of the meat. After it is …read more

On this day, March 17, we can look at “green” crafts two ways….those for St. Patrick’s Day and those that help the environment.  The ingenious parent or crafting adult can combine the two.
Re-using materials has always been fun in our family.  I grew up in an era when there wasn’t lots of extra money for craft supplies.  So my siblings and I created with used materials from around the house and out-of-doors.  I also did crafting with my daughter using “found” items.
“Green” crafts for St. Patrick’s Day:

Cut shamrock from green wrapping and construction paper saved from previous projects.  (Families can …read more

I’ve always loved St. Patty’s Day for some reason. The food, the cheer, and all that green (one of my favorite colors.) But there’s more than that, of course. St. Patrick’s Day really means friends, family, and even faith. In other words, there’s more to St. Patty’s Day than green beer!

While I make my family a traditional Irish dinner on March 17th, I also try and do some things that fall within the “spirit” of St. Patrick’s Day. For example:
Send St. Patrick’s Day Cards
Forget Valentine’s Day! Send your loved ones a St. Patty’s day card to …read more

Are there St. Patrick’s Day festivities in your household?  Special foods, decorations, stories, or card exchanges?
We always made St. Patrick’s Day a special occasion when I was a youngster because the hired man, Dan Sullivan, was Irish.  He wore a tiny green bow on his work cap.  It was a game which one of us children spied the bow first when Dan and my dad came from the barn for breakfast.
(Dan worked for my dad on the farm and was a surrogate grandfather for us children.  He took his meals with us and rented a room from a neighbor.)
Mother cooked corned …read more

One of the nicest things you can do with the kids as Spring arrives is to head to the zoo. Today, we did just that. It was the perfect way to spend St. Patrick’s Day weekend, even if none of the animals was sporting a bit of the green in honor of the holiday. (Although the peacocks were showing plenty of other colors!)
Our little zoo is just the right size for a trip with young children and has a really nice picnic and play area attached. I don’t know if the kids had more fun visiting the animals or climbing …read more

St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching. In Savannah, Ga., USA it is special since we have the second largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the country. (NY, of course, is first). Making the guess that this may very well be brought up at some meeting somewhere in the next week, I’m going to take this opportunity to reprint last year’s entry on the topic…
Any Excuse Will Do…
A newcomer lady was concerned the other night about having a difficult time staying away from the first drink on St. Patrick’s Day here in Savannah. We have the second largest St. Patrick’s …read more