Scenes from Ohio

I hate my parents' stove. I think it's some kind of electric coil/glass top, which makes it easy to clean, but difficult to use. Some of the heating elements don't work, it takes forever to heat up a pan, and the controls are the opposite of intuitive. Last Christmas, I got fed up and threatened that if they hadn't replaced the stove by next Christmas, I was not cooking for everyone. My father apparently took this to heart, and while they haven't replaced the old stove, he did build a handy-dandy, propane-fueled, three-burner stove. It worked great, although you'll note that I was too short to use it properly. I think the plan is to buy something permanent and new, but if this is the option next winter, I can live with it.

As my years as a vegetarian roll on, I find I'm enjoying handling meat less and less. So my father made the meatballs while I made the mushroom balls. Everyone enjoyed their respective pasta dish.

My mother, a friend of hers, and I have been exercise buddies for the past few months. Although we all live in different places, we text each other every day with the accounting of whatever activity we've managed. I took lots of photos of our walks to add to the text thread. It was sunny but windy in Ohio until the last day, when Mother Nature played an April Fool's Day joke and dumped a few inches of snow on us.