I am very excited!! We have finally found the perfect place and are moving back to Cato, NY. I can’t wait. Fairhaven (where we are living now) seems like the end of the earth. It takes forever to do anything. No one visits way out here.

I have lived in Cato since I turned 21. We moved to KY for 3 years and came back to help out my in-laws. My friends and family are all in the Cato area. If everything works out as we hope with this house, we will be staying in NY for quite a while. We planned on another year or so, but…

The house is actually a half a house. It’s an old, big farmhouse type that’s been redone and now houses a wonderful family with 8 kids. The family is moving out of state. They have added on to the original house that was there. Currently, they are in the process of converting part of the garage and the addition into another half of a house. The part we are moving into is what was the original house so it’s good sized.

I will finally have my own home office again. That’s the best part. I’m so much more productive when I have an office where I can close the door and just get to work. For a year and a half, I’ve been working out of our livingroom. We have no livingroom anymore. When my son came home we gave him the sleeper sofa and that has since wore out. It was old anyway. I just realized…we have no livingroom furniture. LOL…..That’s OK. We will get some I’m sure.

Two bathrooms…we will have two bathrooms again. I told the kids they can stay as long as they want, but they have to work and they have to pay rent. I remember when I was growing up…I couldn’t wait to get out of the house. Kids these days just don’t want to move out. That’s OK. Don’t tell them, but I kind of like having them around. I’m glad they don’t read my blog.

Clayton is doing better, but still has a long way to go in his recovery. He keeps trying to do more than he should. Yesterday I thought that I was going to end up in the ER with him. He tried helping out a friend the day before and overdid it. Not good. Today is a better day, but he has to realize that he is not invincible.

Anyway…things are looking up. I feel better already just knowing we are moving closer to friends and family. I can’t wait!!! Everything always works out as it should. God always takes care of us and makes sure we end up where we belong.

I grew up on a dairy farm in Sennett NY. We always sat down at the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner together as a family. I’ve always done that with my kids. My husband and I got together when the kids were still little. We’ve always sat down to dinner as a family and talked.

I guess I took that for granted as just something we did until recently. I got coupons in the mail from Barilla Pasta. It came with something called a Talk A Bowl. It has all kinds of questions you can ask as conversation starters. My kids (19 & 20) loved it. They wanted me to print out more questions so we weren’t constantly answering the same ones. Things like “If you could vacation anywhere in your state, where would you go?” and “What is your favorite food?” and “What is your favorite memory”, etc… Michael will get the bowl out every time we eat dinner and he loves to introduce the Talk a Bowl to his friends.

I miss sitting down with my kids. The past few months, Katie (Kat as she likes to be called now) has been gone way more than home and Mike is gone doing his own thing a lot as well. Maybe I’m experiencing the beginning of “empty nest” syndrome? I’m not sure, but I do know I miss our family meals and talks.

If you don’t sit down and eat dinner as a family now, consider changing that. It’s great for the kids and parents to communicate and if you aren’t sure what to talk to them about…print out a bunch of questions…throw them in a bowl and take turns drawing one out and asking it to the rest of the family.

WARNING…this is addicting!!

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I don’t know how many times in the past couple weeks someone has almost backed or pulled out of their driveway in front of me while I’m going down the road. Come on people…just because there is no stop sign at the end of your driveway does NOT mean you don’t have to STOP!!! It’s a PUBLIC road. Public means that other people may be using it. It’s not your private road. I don’t care if it’s a country road or not, other people use it.

I generally buy Heluva Good cheese products.   When I moved to KY, I couldn’t find Heluva Good as it is an upstate NY item.  As a matter of fact, it’s manufactured about 25 miles from where I live.  I was forced to use orange cheddar cheese and generally just bought the store brand.  One time ( a year or so ago in KY), I saw Cabot cheese in the store and was very excited that I had found white cheddar cheese so I bought it.   Later that day, I was getting ready to make homemade macaroni & cheese with real sharp white cheddar cheese.  I opened the package to cut up the cheese and IT WAS MOLDY!!  I wasn’t happy.  The macaroni was already boiling and I had to change plans in mid stream.  Needless to say, the family wasn’t happy because they were looking forward to “mom’s real homemade mac & cheese” made with white sharp cheddar.

For the remainder of our time in KY, I didn’t make many dishes that called for cheddar cheese and when I did, I settled for the store brand because I wasn’t about to buy Cabot again.

When we moved back to NY, I was happy to be back in Heluva Good country.

A couple weeks ago, I went to the store and they were all out of Heluva Good sharp cheddar.   I saw the Cabot cheese and figured I could try it again and hope for the best.  A few nights later I was going to make my mac & cheese.  I started the macaroni boiling and got out the cheese to cut it up.  To my horror, this is what I saw:

Notice that the mold is mainly on the edges and the packaging is not clear, it’s BLACK and white.

I immediately looked at the expiration date.  07/31/11…since it was 09/30/10, it was nowhere near the expiration date.  I decided to call the company.  The recording that greeted me said my estimated wait time was 10 SECONDS.  YUP…seconds.  I waited, and I waited, and I waited.  During my wait, I kept hearing their automated message assuring me that my call is important to them and “Please excuse us while we deal with an unexpected surge in incoming calls.”  Of course there was an unexpected surge in incoming calls.  There was unexpected MOLD on their cheese!!

FINALLY…a woman answered the phone.  I began by telling her that i generally buy Heluva Good cheese and the store was out so I grabbed a brick of Cabot white sharp cheddar and when I opened the package it was moldy.   Almost before I was done talking, the woman launched into a diatribe starting with “Let me tell you why you may expect to find mold on our products and not on Heluva Good products….” I cut her off to say “HOLD IT…I don’t expect to find mold on ANY cheese that I buy in a store”.  She started talking about preservatives and mold inhibitors and why mold is not necessarily a bad thing on cheese.  She didn’t “get it”.

I told her of my one other experience with Cabot cheese in KY.  I told her how my step father would set freshly made cheddar cheese on top of the fridge for months loosely wrapped in saran wrap to get covered with mold.  He would then cut the mold off and we would have extra sharp cheddar.  I KNOW how cheese is made.  I grew up on a dairy farm.   However, I do NOT expect cheese that has been vacuum packed and is being sold in the store to be MOLDY.  Not to mention, after I took the above photo, I cut the brick in half lengthwise and the mold ran into the inside of the brick so I couldn’t even cut off the moldy parts if I wanted (which I did not).

She again attempted to tell me what horrible cheese Heluva Good is and how Cabot is so much better.   She did not understand that I was not interested in hearing her slam the competition.  She should have apologized for the moldy cheese and offered to give me my money back.  She did not.  She actually said “Well…I was going to offer you coupons for our cheese, but you probably don’t want that”.  NO…I don’t want coupons for your moldy cheese.

I informed her that I want quality control to know about the issue.  I want Cabot to stop putting expiration dates so far out if they aren’t using mold inhibitors.  I want them to check their machines and make sure that the vacuum packaging is actually working because before I opened the package, I did notice that it felt like there was air inside.  AIR CAUSES IT TO MOLD QUICKER.  That is why vacuum packaging is so important.

Bottom line…when a customer calls with a complaint…do NOT try to explain it away.  APOLOGIZE and ask the customer what you can do to make it right.

Too many families these days are too busy to sit down for a meal together. They eat and run or eat on the run. I have to tell you – if at all possible, make the time to sit together over a meal and chat at least once or twice per week. In our house, anyone who is present at dinner time, sits at the table and eats & chats with us. Not all of our dinner table conversations are “blog post worthy”, however, I will try to recapture some of those here on my blog in a “Dinner Table Conversations” category.

Dinner Table Conversations 8/10/10

Present: Clayton (husband), myself, Kate (daughter) & Anthony (daughter’s boyfriend)

We were talking about actors/actresses and where they got their start. I asked Kate & Anthony if they knew where Adam Sandler made is TV debut. Anthony knew that it was as Theo’s friend on the Cosby Show.

Kate then asked if we knew Robin Williams was on “Happy Days” and my husband exclaimed “Mork”. Then Kate and Anthony looked at me like I was out of my mind when I exclaimed “Mork & Mindy!” Of course I then had to do the “Mork calling Orson…come in Orson” imitation. My husband and I did the na-nu-na-nu handshake and then shouted “shazbot!”

I told them about the cats we had when I was little named Mork & Mindy. I loved that show. It ran from 1978 until 2 days after my 15th birthday in 1982.

For those of you who don’t know about Mork & Mindy, Mork first appeared in Happy Days as Richie’s martian friend. Then Mork & Mindy spun off as a new sitcom. Mork was sent to Earth to study life here and Mindy befriended him, moving him into her attic. At the end of each episode, he would call home to Ork and summon Orson by standing and calling “Mork calling Orson…come in Orson”. Each week Mork would report back to Orson about what he learned. Things like “Earthlings drink liquids with their mouths, not their finger” and “They sit on their butts, not their heads”.

In the fourth and final season, Mork & Mindy got married. Mork gave birth (laid an egg) to an adult baby (played by Johnathan Winters) named Mearth. Mearth was born an adult because Orkans age backward.

The kids laughed and laughed during dinner. At times they thought we were crazy, but for the most part, we all had a blast talking about old TV shows. Make time to sit and talk with your family!!