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When I bought my most recent dishwasher, they told me I just needed to throw the pod in. I still put it in the dispenser. The door opens later for a reason!

Sometimes I do use some 'prewash' crystals, for that first rinse/wash where the pod is still in the dispenser. I use LemiShine, it really helps with my hard water. I also make sure my rinse aid dispenser always has some liquid in it. I battle my water on everything. Dishwasher, laundry, my hair!, ice makers, Keurig. Ugh.

I'm listening on Audiobook, and get a bit distracted. So many Cornelius's!

Bet you never knew Ham's had balls! (That is joke we say about every time I make them, along with "I didn't now chicken's had fingers!" ... lol

Ham Balls are quintessential IOWA!
They are made from ground ham (not ground pork, but you can add that in too) and ground beef. Traditionally crushed graham crackers, milk, and eggs are added to the mixture, then formed into meatballs or a loaf (ham loaf). The sauce is usually a concoction of canned tomato soup, brown sugar, a splash of vinegar and some dry mustard.
I am lucky that 2 grocery stores near me sell the pre-made meat mix. I just add cracker crumbs (I prefer saltine or club crackers). I also add some seasonings - salt, pepper, garlic and onion powders.
I usually make a big batch of sauce - 2 cans of tomato soup, splash of vinegar and mustard. I do sometimes add some BBQ sauce to that too.
Bake at 350º for an hour - basting with the sauce several times. You can make big meat balls, a loaf, regular size meat balls, and are great as a small cocktail meatball! I sometimes add a little water to the sauce, because it really cooks down. And we like a little extra sauce for mashed potatoes.

Gem Girl - my Meat & Potatoes guy loves them. I serve with mashed potatoes (garlic mashers are great with this) and probably corn bread casserole.. it's Iowa. We ranch/farm - I always have made noon meals like this.

If you live somewhere that does not have the 'ham ball mix' in the butcher case - ask your butcher to grind some ham for you. Have them grind a nice size ham steak. Add that to 1 lb of ground beef. Or you can do ground ham, 1/2 pound ground pork, 1/2 pound ground beef to make the mix too.

zztop11 - I am not familiar with the Just Good Meat market, so I can't really say. But convenience would be a factor for me!

BKF did WONDERS for my oven glass! Wowzers! I used 4 ought steel wool and BKF. It was spotless!

This is my husbands favorite! If your husband likes planes or military anything - he will love this place!

zztop11 - if you have time, the DeSoto Wildlife Refuge isn't far from Omaha, on the Nebraska/Iowa line. About 25 miles. It is an amazing place to observe migratory birds on the Missouri. But the MOST amazing there there is the Steamship Bertrand museum. It is a steamship that sunk in the Missouri River in 1865. It quickly sunk and became covered in silt. They excavated it in the late 1960's and the cargo was very well preserved. It is a really neat thing to see!

I think they are closed Sunday-Monday, but open the rest of the week. Those hours might change seasonally. I know we have been on a Sunday before.

Steamship Bertrand

Check out the Old Market area in Omaha too. So cool! Great small shops and amazing places to eat!

We used to go to Omaha a lot, back when we marketed our fat cattle through the Omaha Stockyards. That is all gone now. Stockyards are gone, but the exchange building is there. We always used to go for a big meal at Johnny's Cafe after selling our cattle. Lot's of great memories from those times. My husband bought his first saddle at the tack shop by the stockyards. It was an old military/Calvary saddle. You can't get tossed out of that thing, but lord it is not as comfortable as the new padded ones!

I was underwhelmed by it. I would not purchase it again and have not used what I have.

I do love Barkeepers Friend (BKF). That stuff works! I prefer the power in the can. Gets my sink WHITE, cleans so many other things.

A young man that was from our hometown and was a classmate of one of my kids was killed in the line of duty as a police officer. He job wasn't here in our small town, but the funeral was held here.

There were representatives from almost every states law enforcement. There where thousands and thousands of people there. The funeral was held at our school gym where he grew up playing sports.

It was the most heartbreaking thing to see his parents and sibling. Such a young man with so much promise.

All the flags, firetrucks with big flags, escorts. It was simply amazing and heartbreaking at the same time.

You could also incorporate your beautiful sola flowers into a lantern you make with frames.

The "Find My" feature has saved me! Lost my phone down in a pasture, and of course I always have it on silent.
Drove up to grab DH's phone, because I have the Find My Phone shared with his phone, and dropped back down in the pasture and drove my Gator right too it. I was practically standing on it and still didn't see it right away!

I might have found it at night by calling it and having it light up - but boy - it was well hidden.

It just plopped out of my side pocked as I was driving along fences to check them. I lean out every so often to see if the fence is hot, and it slid out one of those times.

I live in rural Iowa. If I asked 10 people today (and I never see 10 people in a day) ... I can almost guarantee no one would have any opinion about it. A few might say "I went to Disneyworld 10 years ago" ...

No one around here cares.

I hate mopping, but I like a REALLY clean floor... So the dilemma.

I do have the spin mop and I don't dislike it. I have the original one, that is just dirty water. The new one has two buckets, in one, that allow you to spin the mop out into the dirty water side and dip the mop to use in the clean water side. I wish I had this - but what do to do with a perfectly good one that has the single water. So I just use a separate clean water bucket.

My ideal way of mopping my vinyl floor is to use a broom. Not a natural corn broom, but my good Libman broom. I pour or spray a little household ammonia (open your windows!) and scrub my floor and edges with the broom. I follow with a clean mop - either the spin mop, or most of the time I put a clean micro-fiber into my Swiffer. I mop up the dirty water with that, then put a clean wet microfiber in again and mop that area until I am satisfied it is clean. I do the floor in small sections.

The broom really dislodges any dirt, and gets the edges good. The microfiber in the Swiffer picks everything up so well. And a couple passes with the clean wet microfibers in the Swiffer really pick up everything. And I am left with a really clean broom too!

IMO, Ammonia cleans vinyl floors like nothing else. I never mix anything else in with it, and I do ventilate.

I see people using laundry detergent and all kinds of other concoctions in the Spin mop - and that just leaves residue for the dirt to stick to. And some of the stuff they mix is dangerous. Also - Fabuloso smells good - doesn't clean worth a darn.

My vinyl floor gets dirty. Mud, crud, cow poo, spilled coffee and food. It's a real farmhouse. There is not a 'no shoe' rule here... sometimes you have to hot foot it through the kitchen to get to the bathroom fast, or get that emergency cup of coffee....

The Spin Mop has saved the day on some big spills for me.  I dropped a huge pitcher of bottle calf milk.  Oh gosh.  It went everywhere.  The spin mop made it easier.  I first just mopped up the milk with it, and spinning that head made it easier to soak up.  Then a few more passes with water, then ammonia and water to get it clean.  I popped on a clean head and did the baseboards and cabinets that got hit with the splash.   

I do wash my walls with the Spin Mop.  Mostly the stairway wall to my basement.  That is where the mud and crud goes.  And often a dirty/muddy sleeve slides down that wall.  So a clean head will really do well cleaning walls.  

His stance on wind energy, which is NO as long as they are in his backyard, but YES if they are in MY backyard turned me off him in anyway.
He vehemently opposed windmills at Cape Cod, and mentioned how their blinking red lights would ruin the stars at night.

Yes, indeed they do. I am surrounded by lines of blinking red lights at night and they are ugly. The windmill towers are ugly. The roads built to every tower are ugly and scar the ground. The blades that were used for 10 years or less are simply buried in a deep hole in the ground to stay for eternity. When they decide that that the wind towers are no longer wanted for viable, will they just be left to sit on their giant concrete pads? Yes - in my backyard. That's fine. But not in Cape Cod! Oh no!

Wind energy is one of the biggest jokes around.

I have a small 2 burner Weber grill that I love! It's just DH and I. But if I have more people over, it can easily handle a few more.

I have a Treager, but only use it during the nicer warm months. I use my gas grill year round.

Treager. Boy do I have a love/hate relationship with that beast. I think I get the lemoniest lemon of them all. I have replaced every part that is replaceable, and it works fairly well now. I finally quit buying 'genuine' Treager parts and went with whatever was cheapest on Amazon. Guess what - same exact parts, same part number, everything was identical. At a fraction of the price, free shipping and fast shipping.

My Treager has been in flames more than once. I do clean it often, so it wasn't dust that caused it. The flame would go out and the auger would keep dumping pellets and then it would reignite with a belly full of pellets. I switched to Pit Boss pellets and that seems to have stopped that issue. Treager pellets were not good.

In short - I don't recommend a Treager brand smoker. LOL

I saved a lot of my kids toys, so I have been getting them out at age appropriate times when they come visit. I am never quite sure who is more excited to see the toys, the grandkids or my kids! I am glad I saved what I did. I only saved a fraction of them, but the really special things.

I brought my grand daughter her Mom's American Girl doll, and she flipped out! LOL It was so fun to see.

Our play/tree house is still in our yard. The kids helped their dad build it. It was not a kit, but of their own design. It's permanent. My grands are too little for it yet - as it's a bit of an adventure to get into.

I have custom made high chair from their childhood, but it is more of a toddler chair that is table height. I try to get any foods they want, but they always bring most of that along.