I Guess I'm Old Fashioned

Like just about everyone I know, I bought an InstaPot a year or two ago.  It was small, only a 4 quart model.  I quickly realized it was too small to cook those things I use my crock pot for--like a beef roast.  So, I was storing the crock pot and InstaPot.  I did like all the recipes I found for the new appliance, but I never got used to using the pressure cooker function. 

So, what did I do?  I bought a pressure cooker.  I had gotten rid of the one I had used since we were first married over 50 years earlier.  The new one looks almost the same and, except for having the steam valve in a different location, I knew how to use it immediately. 

And I donated my InstaPot to the Goodwill. 

I made a roast in the new pressure cooker the first Sunday.  And I am using my crock pot to serve meatballs today and to make white chicken chili during the coming week.

When we went full-time in our RV 10 years ago, I gave my KitchenAid mixer to our daughter-in-law Liz.  It was just too large to carry in the RV.  Instead, I depended on the hand mixer I had received as a wedding gift. 

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a new KitchenAid.  I have plenty of room in our Arizona kitchen.  It does a much better job on cakes and mashing potatoes than that hand mixer!

I love these appliances and they make cooking so much easier.  But it leaves me feeling old fashioned.

Entertaining Ourselves in the Winter

We truly enjoy our winters in Gold Canyon.  But life isn't full of as many photo and story opportunities as when we travel.

I baked cookies one day.  The oven in the Airstream measures 13 inches by 13 inches so baking there is difficult.  The large oven in our house here is 24 by 18.  I can bake a whole lot more cookies in the house.





We quickly ate up my cookies.  John's efforts are producing something much more lasting.  This is an intarsia wreath he made--assembled, then finished.  It hangs on our house in the covered patio area.

Saturday we drove to the West Valley to look around the Litchfield Park art and craft show.  There were some pretty items, but nothing really inspiring.  I didn't take many photos because many artists are afraid someone will copy their ideas.  These umbrellas might be of interest to the people in our resort who have sun decks.



There were t-shirts with messages and beautiful images in numerous booths.

                                                                

And, of course, every style of jewelry you could ever want, assuming you are in the market for jewelry.  I wasn't.  There were very few booths with woodworking projects, something we would have been very interested it.

We were really big spenders.  We bought and shared this boat of french fries!

Today we were off to the Mesa library to look at the Grand Canyon State Model Railroad display.  I liked the smoke coming out of the smokestack in this section.

Lots of freight trains with coal and shipping containers.  We see lots of these containers as we travel and we were very familiar with coal trains when we lived in Castle Rock.     

                                     

 

The Burlington Northern line ran east and west through the northern part of the country as well as throughout the Midwest.  Today it is part of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe system.

Notice the two old black and white police cars in the city scene here.

There was a train station about this size in Castle Rock.  It was moved and it now a museum.

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Look at the length of this coal train.  They really hold up traffic when they pass through a town.

We decided some of the model railroad enthusiasts name businesses or towns after their wives who let them spend all that time and money on their hobby.