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I’m always looking for the next great thing when it comes to unique gift ideas. When it comes to my family, I’ve bought jewelry, books, trips, meals out, collectables, and just about any other typical gift you can think of.

Since my mom’s mother just passed away last week, I wanted to get her something poignant and appropriate. So, I found this lovely old picture of my grandmother from when she was in her 40s. I scanned it and I’m looking to have it turned into an oil painting. I have it in mind for the artist to add color when rendering it. I can’t think of anything more personal and beautiful than giving my mother an oil painting of her own mother.

I’ve been looking at myDaVinci.com, Turn your photos into Art is their phrase of choice over there. You can quite literally have any photo turned into an oil painting, watercolor, pencil sketch or one of several other styles. The company pairs you up with an artist. This isn’t one of those websites that just runs your scan through some texturing software and prints onto a canvas. This is an actual artist’s interpretation of your photo.

Have you ever eaten a star fruit you bought at the supermarket? I see them here at the Publix and each one coast about a buck. They are small and yellow and when you cut them in crosswise slices, the slices are little stars.

Well, we have a star fruit tree in the backyard. They get to ripen fully here, so they are deep yellow and about 6 inches long when I pick them. The ones you buy at the grocery store are picked small and too early. Their flavor is compromised and I can’t imagine anyone buying them for anything other than a cool garnish for a salad or a dessert.

The start fruit on our backyard are fat and juicy and sweet, though. In my opinion, they taste like a cross between an apple and an orange. They have the juicy flesh of a ripe plum, but the tang and spark of citrus. They are out of this world delicious. I just lean over the sink and bite into one, all the while just letting the juice drip down my chin.

This year I want to find a way to use a lot more of the fruit. We usually end up letting so many go to waste. Right now there are over 100 star fruit on the tree, just at the cusp of being ripe.

So, I found this simple recipe for Star Fruit Jam I am going to try this weekend.

44 1/8 ounces star fruit
3 ½ cups water
26 ½ ounces sugar
2 lemons (juice of)
1 teaspoon salt

Trim the winged edges from the star fruit and place in a saucepan.
Add water and boil until tender [approx 15 minutes].
Add the sugar, lemon juice and salt and boil until the jam sets.
Pour into sterile jars and seal.

I might actually go as far as to peel the fruit completely and remove the seeds.

I had to take a lot of exams in order to earn my teaching certification here in Florida. It made me realize how much respect I have for industries that require certification via exams and experience. Doctors must pass exams and be certified. It’s the same with teachers, lawyers, and many other professional sectors. I wish more industries would incorporate a certification process.

Can you imagine a world where that customer service rep at your local utility company actually has to prove their worth via a certification process? Wouldn’t that rock? No more dim wits trying to walk me through understanding my overcharges and billing cycle.

Anyway, I digress. I have a friend who is preparing to take her exams to be certified as a Realtor. I mentioned to her that in getting ready for my certification exams I used several different online and hard copy exam practice programs. I feel like it helped me to be more ready for not only the content, but also the format of the exams. I suggested that Alice also look into practice exams.

One of the programs for practice Real Estate Exams I found was at Compucram.com. They actually offer exam prep for several industries, but I only ran the demo for the real estate version. It was easy to use and the paid version has hundreds, even thousands, of questions depending on the exam subject. In my opinion, one of the best ways to prepare for an exam is to take practice versions.

You have to wonder about the deep down ethics of some people. We feed our cat a holistic diet. None of her food contains animal byproducts. You also will never find corn as one of the first ingredients in her food. I fed my dogs this way as well.

My attitude changed once I met a man who owned a pet health store in Gainesville, Florida. He has a degree in animal nutrition and he explained to me that feeding your pets something like Purina is not actually going to kill them, but it is akin to you and I eating three meals a day, every day, at McDonalds. You would slowly destroy your health if you did that.

Once PI switched my animals to a holistic diet, their health improved in too many ways to even list. Echo’s hot spots went away and her skin became healthy. Angel’s sore legs stopped bothering her as often. Chloe, the cat, can jump up on the beds again.

Anyway, the point of my little story is that we boarded Chloe at the vet while we were gone for my grandmother’s funeral. We brought some of the food we feed her so that she could continue to eat what she is used to.

Do you know what the office staff at the vet told us when we picked up Chloe? They said we needed to stop feeding the Eagle Pack food to her, because it is “poor quality”. Instead, they said we should feel her Purina One or Purina Ed, or some other Purina product. And guess what? They said the product they most highly recommended had to be purchased from them.

Smell the rat yet?

I went online to look up the ingredients for the Purina One and the variety they asked us to purchase. Chicken byproducts were either first in the ingredient list or close to the top. It should not be in there at all! Plus, the stuff was just chock full of corn and other fillers.

Gross.

Do you want to know the first ingredient in the Eagle Pack we feed Chloe? Anchovy, sardine and salmon meals. That’s a far cry from corn and chicken byproduct.

So, now I am convinced that the pet food companies have bought our vet. What a sellout.

When I lived back in the DC suburbs, the Washington Redskins were my home football team and I considered myself a fan. I still acutely remember both Superbowl victory parades in the 80s. We were let out of school to attend.

I know some people tend to pick a team and stay with them no matter where they live, how many times they move, or how the team actually does in a given season, I have always been more of a regional fan, though. When I lived in Gainesville, I found the spirit of the town so infectious that I became a huge Gators fan. I still keep track of their teams and scores. Two national basketball championships in a row will make a fan out of even the most sports-phobic person out there!

When I was up north for the funeral this past weekend, I found that a lot of the talk surrounded WVU and Penn State football, in equal parts. Most of my family up there seems to be fans of one team or the other. In fact, people were hopping in their cars as soon as the funeral was over to check game scores.

I’ve not morphed into a total Tampa Bay Bucs fan yet. Maybe some day. I think I enjoy college football better.

So, who do you cheer for, and why?

Currently I am having an issue with salt. A very pressing issue. I am at a point where my body cannot take in salt, or even much sugar, without retaining every drop of water that passes through my lips. My feet are in pretty bad shape and I am eating nothing but raw veggies and a little lean, unsalted meat for a few days to see if I can get my system back to normal.

Of course, that means I am thinking about salty foods. I am dreaming about salty foods. I love salty foods. I once had a room mate that told me we should just hang a salt lick over the table. I was tempted.

Obviously, I cannot eat hotdogs right now, so that is what is on my mind. I wanted to get some traditional West Virginia hotdogs while I was up there last week, but I never had the time. A West Virginia hotdog is typically ordered with “sauce and onions”. You don’t ask for a chili dog. You would probably get the hairy eyeball if you did that. WV hotdog sauce has a finely-ground beef base and sometimes a little pinto bean paste. Seasonings vary.

I love looking at the regional topping traditions. Seattle hotdogs have cream cheese and onions. In Rhode Island, a hotdog is served with meat sauce, chopped onion, mustard and the essential celery salt (you absolutely cannot forget the celery salt!). Visit Chicago and you might find yourself eating your hotdog with diced tomatoes, cucumbers, a dill pickle spear and sweet pickle relish, mustard, and celery on a poppy seed bun.

If I figure out why I am so sensitive to salt right now and get back to where I can actually safely consume it, I may just have to go on a hotdog tour of the United States!

Please leave me a comment and tell me about how hotdogs are typically served in your area.