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The Concord Cheese Shop

November 26th, 2011

copyright 2010 by Julie – Traveling Taste Buds

Hours Open: Tue-Fri 10am-5:30pm and Sat 9:30am-5:30pm

web site: www.concordcheeseshop.com
email: peter@concordcheeseshop.com

29 Walden Street
Concord, MA. 01742-2504
978 369 5778

One of Concord’s celebrated establishments, a perennial “Best of Boston,” not to be missed by any visitor to the town center, has lured foodies down Walden Street since 1967. Its current (and third) proprietor, Peter Lovis, has been serving out samples of the 150-200 varieties of domestic and international cheeses since 1976. You will never buy a cheese there that you can’t taste first! But cheese is not the only food for sale at the Cheese Shop. There’s a vast and excellent (including some bargain specials) selection of wines; there are many gourmet items including chocolates, pastries, spices, olive oils, holiday treats, nuts, pickles, jams, and more. The Cheese Shop Deli is famous for its chicken salad, for carrying “Famous Phil’s Subs,” for its terrific charcuterie, coffees, and its many fabulous freshly made preparations. Besides its warmth, the overwhelming attribute of the Cheese Shop is its internationalism: indeed, at one count the shop’s offerings represented 80 different countries!

NOT TO BE MISSED AT THE CHEESE SHOP:  Make a note to spend December 1st in Concord so you can be present at the Cheese Shop’s Cheese Parade.  A 400 pound wheel of cheese is rolled down the red carpet with music and rose petals.  Be there for this fun event!  Missed this year?  Mark your calendars and make your reservations at one of the Bettina Network homes in Concord to be present at next years Cheese Shop’s Cheese Parade.

A special feature offered by the Cheese Shop deli is their “Friday night supper” menu. $75 brings home a three course gourmet dinner for two, including a baguette and a bottle of wine. All you have to do is heat up the entree; often as not you’ll have enough for lunch on Saturday, too. Many Concord couples make this a monthly treat, but a “Friday night supper” could also be ideal for those taking advantage of ‘eating dinner in’ at the Bettina Network Bed and Breakfast where they are staying. The hosts are always happy to lend the service of their oven or microwave. Just remember that the meals are not offered during the holiday season, which is an extra busy time for the Cheese Shop.

In short, any visitor to Concord would enjoy doing what concordians do: take a stroll down Walden Street for a taste trip around the world. As Peter Levis says, “don’t come in a rush!”

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

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Posted in Food Shopping, Restaurant Review, Travel Bettina Style | No Comments »

Comcast – The Saga Continues

November 17th, 2011

We’ve seen the advertisements Comcast has put all over television and other places touting its great customer service with guarantees.  They don’t say the penalty on Comcast if they violate that guarantee.  They have and are still violating it, from the experience of the Bettina Network, inc.

Having filed a complaint against Comcast with the FCC we wondered if that was a waste of time or if it will produce results.  The problem we started with was miniscule and could have been corrected with very little effort on Comcast’s part.  We can only assume they are either totally incompetent and should close their doors or they have a vendetta against Bettina Network, inc.

What we have just experienced is beyond the pale!

We received a telephone call from  a Comcast employee in the Executive Complaint area who identified herself as Juanita Evans and gave her telephone number as 888-309-2583 ext 44283.  It was definitely from Comcast because their name came up on our telephone ID.

Ms. Evans said she was calling because of the complaint we filed with the FCC, she would like to see if she could settle this problem.  I reiterated the complaint – which is simple – but Ms. Evans was not in a listening mode.  It became clear shortly after I started to tell her the problem – which she should have already known – that she was calling to justify Maria Manning – the Comcast employee we are still reeling from.  That was her only objective.  She went into great detail as to how long she had worked with Ms. Manning – how she had seen her diligence, etc. in resolving customer problems and what a fantastic person Maria Manning was and a very competent employee.  It was an amazing conversation! What ever happened to the customer in this saga?

She called at 4:03pm on Tuesday November 8, 2011.

The call ended with Ms. Evans saying she would investigate and get back to me.

She called back at 5:30pm and in a lowered, very serious, slow voice  she told me Comcast had nothing to do with the problem.  I should call the telephone company with whom we did business and have them fix the problem I should not bother Comcast.  She said she had done a thorough investigation of the problem and discovered we were not Comcast customers.

I am still in a state of shock from that bit of information.  When I told her that company was Comcast, unless they were transferring customer accounts without the customer’s knowledge or consent.   There was a long silence on her end of the telephone.  I asked Ms. Evans  – why  would I bother calling Comcast if our telephone numbers were with another company – and having done a “serious investigation” – as she claimed – she would have had to start with records to show our telephones were with Comcast.   Her lowered voice and serious manner changed – her voice went up an octave, became very hurried,  said she would have to call me back and quickly hung-up.

Today is Thursday, November 17 and I have yet to hear back from Ms. Juanita Evans.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

 

Posted in Small Business Informaiton | Comments Off on Comcast – The Saga Continues

Bettina’s Banana Bread

November 6th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

 From a bed and breakfast guest:

“I had banana bread at the bed & breakfast home where I stayed and it was unbelievably good.  I must have the recipe.  I asked at the home and they told me to write to Bettina’s Blog.  Well, I’m writing – now let’s have the recipe.   Oh – my name is XXXXXXX  and the dates of my stay were XXXXXXXX (just so you get the right banana bread recipe, but please don’t print my name.) Thanks,”

The host family answers:

From the guests name and the date they stayed here is the banana bread recipe – it is really a basic recipe, the difference being the way the bananas are put into the batter.  Instead of mashing the bananas and mixing them in, the last thing to do is slice the bananas into the batter while the mixer is running on slow.  When the banana bread is baked, there is a kind of squishy, strong banana taste which comes from the baked-in slices.  I don’t do anything to keep the slices as a stand out in the bread, just mix them in as the final step.

I use the 1-2-3-4 step cake recipe for this banana bread – the problematic part is how much baking powder to add.  If you add too much, the ‘bread’ will go over the top of the glass bread baking dish and go all over the bottom of your oven which is impossible to clean and which leaves you a very little banana bread in the pan.  Too little baking powder and the banana bread does not rise properly.  The amount needed will probably vary depending upon your location in the world.

I use:

1 cup organic butter (put this in the mixer and let it go for a few minutes to whip the butter)

2 cups organic turbinado sugar (add this slowly after whipping the butter)

4 organic eggs ( it makes a real difference in taste and texture if you are going to use non-organic eggs.  I wouldn’t bother – they ruin the bread).  Add these one at a time while whipping the mixture, but don’t whip too much because this is the point at which you can overbeat the banana bread.

3 cups organic whole wheat pastry flour mixed* with 1/2 teaspoon himalayan salt and baking powder (measured for your geographical area)  – add this a little at a time on a very slow speed on your mixture because you really have to be careful about overmixing when you get here.  I add all kind of things at this point and don’t remember exactly what was added on the day you request.  I add raisins, shredded coconut, pecans, or sometimes walnuts depending up what I have on the shelf, and – as needed – either coconut milk or a great heavy cream I’ve found which is organic, non-homogenized, from grass-fed cows.  The brand name is “Sky Top Farms”.

*To mix the flour, salt and baking powder I use a spoon and stir the mixture around lifting it up by the spoonful and sprinkling it back into itself.

The last thing I add before baking are the bananas.  I take two or three bananas, slice them into the batter with the mixer on low and once I’ve finished slicing I pour the batter into glass baking dishes which have been buttered and bake at about 350 degrees for 45 or so minutes.

Sorry I can’t be more specific, but I am one of those toss it in, trial and error cooks, I don’t do the really particular measurements, etc.  You will have to experiment to get the perfect banana bread for your oven, mixer and location.

Enjoy!  To the guest who wrote:  call me if you have questions.

Ed Note:  We had a request months ago from someone who asked for a heavy cream which was organic but not “ultra-pasteurized”.  At the time, we didn’t know of any and hadn’t come across such a possibility until this blog from a Bettina host family.  Now we know about “Sky Top Farms” organic heavy cream which is also from grass-fed cows and non-homogenized.  A partial dream realized.  Now all we have to do is find one which is straight from the cow without having the nutrition cooked out of it.  At least this one still has some nutrition left, although you can’t leave it on the shelf in the refrigerator for months – you have to use it fairly quickly.  Which is what most foods need.   They were not grown nor taken from the animal to be shelved for a couple years or even for many months.  They are to be used ASAP and then repurchased when you need more.  A very old, very great concept in good nutrition and even better health.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | Comments Off on Bettina’s Banana Bread

Small Business Problems – Comcast

November 2nd, 2011

This is not a copyrighted blog because we would like you to be able to use the information contained herein in any way that is helpful to your business.

Once upon a time there was a company, which was a broadband cable company and it was really great!  We were one of their first customers in the area and we used a sub-contractor, who they recommended to run cable wires through the walls and everything went just elegantly.

For a brief period of time we experienced Camelot.  A wonderful, mystical experience with a fairly large company – something new to us – so we sang their praises wherever we went and to whoever asked – actually also to many who did not ask.

Over the past several years that has all stopped and Camelot has turned to Hell –  Dante’s deepest, hottest hell!

We changed our business telephones to Comcast in 2009 and thought, this must be the new, great, telephone company as well as cable. – since our experience with one of our host families residential telephones changed to Comcast had gone well.  That was a HUGE MISTAKE!

When we made the change, Comcast was supposed to send to Verizon our name and telephone number to be listed in the 411 directory.  That has never happened.  We made several calls, off and on, over those years trying to get that to happen and it did not.  Everyone was wonderful, but nothing worked to get those ‘wonderful’ people to take care of business.

I have been in business long enough to know when a business starts to act the way Comcast was and is acting they are in trouble.  It may not be showing as yet, but trouble is brewing within the corporation and probably at high levels.

What did we experience?  You could call 411, but you could not get our telephone number.  Recently, after all of my efforts,  you could get our number, but it was our dedicated fax number which is never answered.  So people tried to call us and the only thing that happened was the telephone rang and rang and rang with the fax sound buzzing in their ear.  Not good for our business.

I finally put everything else aside to solve this problem because attacking it by calling and believing what was told to me was not working.

My time is quite valuable and I spent hours – days – and now weeks trying to solve this simple problem.

I wound up in a conference call with Verizon and Comcast talking about this 411 problem.  I was told clearly, that it goes like this – Comcast sends a message to Verizon saying we would like company ABC to be listed with this telephone number and no address.  Verizon says ‘thank you’ and that is what happens.

That did not happen.  Changes happened.  You called and you would get our toll free 800 number if you asked for our regular telephone number.  Now instead of our fax number being the first number given out, it was the second number given out – after the toll free number.  It should be illegal for 411 to give our company’s toll free number as its regular telephone number.  That causes all kinds of multi-level problems for the company to which this is happening – and some very serious ones.

We called many times after that and received one frustration after another.  I could not believe a company would be so disorganized and so wrapped up in itself and so bigoted against another company that a very simple problem had now become something ready to be packaged for the law courts.

But first, I called the Executive Offices and asked for the president.  I was given an ‘Executive Complaint Assistant’ who said she would take care of the problem.  She called me back in a couple hours to say a Ms. Maria Manning had been assigned my complaint because Ms. Manning, according to this Executive Complaint Assistant,  had already spoken to me that afternoon.

Shock – Awe – Dismay – Disbelief.  I had never heard of Maria Manning and had never spoken to her and here was this person telling me Ms. Manning had spoken to me and was already working on the problem.

I hung up and wondered what would happen next.  Really strange!

I received a telephone call from Ms. Manning shortly thereafter.  When asked why she had lied about talking to me, she said she was sorry.  She had left a message for me on my message machine and that was the conversation she held with me. More Shock – Awe – Dismay – Disbelief.  We didn’t have a message machine.  Every once in a while we heard people tell us they left messages, but we didn’t know where or how – especially since our Comcast answering system was not working.

So OK!  Whether she talked to me or not – although that did leave a really ugly taste in my mouth about Ms. Manning’s ethics – but, maybe she would be the one to come through to solve this really simple problem – which was costing us lots of business.  We had not been able to get business from anyone who looked for us through the 411 system since we moved our business telephones to Comcast.  And more……

Ms. Manning did call back – to say there was nothing she could do about the problem.  It was Verizon’s problem and Verizon’s fault.  They had a policy whereby they put the oldest telephone number you have first in their 411 system and the fax number was the oldest telephone number we had so that would be the way it was and the way it would stay.

This was never-never land.  Comcast was sinking further into the hottest part of Dante’s hell and that was amazing to me because I didn’t think they could sink any lower.

The oldest telephone number we had was our business telephone number – for some 30 years – and that was the number Comcast was refusing to allow the 411 information system to give out.  They were putting everything they could in the way of that happening.  The fax number was fairly new, by comparison.  When I questioned her and said that didn’t make sense and told her – again – about my conference call with Verizon and Comcast and – again – gave her the names of the people with whom I spoke on that conference call – she named someone else who she claimed I had spoken with (another person unknown to me and unspoken to)  and claimed he said the same thing.  He was her authority figure.  So what was this?  The blind and the bigoted leading the blind and the bigoted?

When we talked about this, the fax number had already been removed as the number on 411 and the 800 number was being given out in its place – so Ms. Manning didn’t  even have the current accurate account information.

And where are we today?  We are still not listed in 411!  When you call 411 you have to go to an operator to get our telephone number because the automated system does not have it – yet. And that is after trying since 2009 – calling everyone I could think of in the company to make a seirously needed change – a simple change.  Given all of the above and more, we decided to file  a complaint with the FCC and will probably do more because there is nothing forthcoming from Comcast.  They apparently think we will live with the way they have decided we should be treated and that we will accept our business being negatively affected by Comcast.

There is something very wrong here.  This is all counterproductive – not only to me, but to Comcast.  A very simple problem has been turned into a nuclear war.  Why?

When you put the next part of the Comcast problem into the picture it begins to look a lot more sinister and deliberate.

During all of this – before I realized how horrible Comcast has become – I had my fax number changed from Verizon to Comcast.  I haven’t been able to use my fax machine since.

The Comcast technician came out  to install the new Comcast line and – and he said, he would have the Verizon line disconnected because the Comcast line would come in over the Verizon line and it would not be usable anyway and that is what they do at Comcast.  He said he was saving me a telephone call – all in the line of customer service.   So – thank you, Mr. Technician.  We appreciate your work.

Well, not quite yet.  Since then, we discovered although the technician came out to do this installation – nothing happened.  When I called and called and called – the same kind of crazy response happened.  Finally, months later, a customer service person said what he saw was stunning.  The order had never been put through.  He had never seen anything like it.  Everything was done, but nothing was working and it had been set up like that.  This, in spite of many telephone calls from me to get things working properly.

Now – why have we been chosen for all of this hullabaloo? We left Verizon because a good deal of the time our business telephones did not work.  The ultimate was to discover our telephones were ringing, but not where we could hear them.  They were “ringing to ground” according to the Verizon technician.  And – according to him – that was nothing we should worry about.  Awestruck, I wanted to know why we should not worry about customers calling us, the telephone ringing forever, no one answering it, destroying our business??  After much frustration and many telephone calls another technician came out – who didn’t understand why the first technician saw a wire outside unattached, commented on its un-attachment being the reason our telephones were not ringing and didn’t fix it.  This was the reason our phones were “ringing to ground.”  This new technician fixed the wire quickly, everything worked just fine again and off we went to the next problem – and there have been many.

So what is wrong with this picture?

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Making Connections, Small Business Informaiton | Comments Off on Small Business Problems – Comcast

Call for Papers – Thoreau Society

October 16th, 2011

The annual gathering of the Thoreau Society will be July 12 through 15th.  Its theme – celebrating 150 years of Thoreau’s Life, Works and Legacy.  The Society is asking for proposals for walks, talks, hikes and other events. If you have such an idea please submit it to The Thoreau Society, 341 Virginia Road, Concord, MA. 01742 care of the Annual Gathering Committee or email to info@thoreausociety.org.  If you have questions you may call 978 369 5310.  Their web site is www.thoreausociety.org.

The papers are due by December 7, 2011.

I  was particularly taken with the Walk to Wachusett.  If it is offered this year I think we will join the group.  It is an unusual walking tour taking three days, but extremely interesting, educational with a sense of history and having walked where Thoreau and others walked generations ago.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

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Posted in Historical Support, Making Connections | Comments Off on Call for Papers – Thoreau Society

Herman Cain and the Racial Discussion

October 12th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc./Marceline Donaldson 2011

We think that if  Herman Cain wins the Republican nomination for president he will be a strong proponent in favor of bringing back an updated and strengthened Affirmative Action program; he will be against the institutional racism practiced by large corporations; and he will take a strong stance against racism and sexism.

We know this because Mr. Cain  says he is a Christian and he knows he would not have the job or resumé he has today, if others had not sacrificed so he could walk through an easier and economically and financially more profitable life.Mr. Herman Cain knows  the many opportunities presented to him and which he took advantage of to promote his career, would not have been there for him -but for- strong civil rights actions attempting to address the problems caused by the racism experienced by African Americans and sexism experienced by women.

A Christian man would not take what he can and throw soot and ashes into the faces of those who provided for him the life he now enjoys.  Indeed, he is a bright, intelligent and very capable individual, but there were many such African Americans who were just as bright, if not brighter; just as capable, if not more so; and just as motivated, if not more so; who did not have what he enjoyed because those huge, difficult-to- open doors were not opened for them the way those doors were standing open when Mr. Cain came calling.

A National Education Association (NEA) convention in the mid 1970’s held in Minneapolis, Minnesota threatened support of a civil rights claim against Pillsbury that would have precluded their products in school districts across the country.  This action was requested by a group of people supporting the law suit for race and sex discrimination against the Pillsbury Company which continued until the mid-1980’s.  Mr. Herman Cain was a direct beneficiary of that law suit and that non-monetary agreement the NEA made with Pillsbury to avoid a boycott of Pillsbury products by the NEA.  In that agreement, Pillsbury agreed to hire African Americans in prominent managerial positions if the NEA did not pass the boycott at its convention.

A part of the law suit was against Burger King – then a subsidiary of the Pillsbury Company.  Working in personnel, because I was considered “uniquely” qualified to work with Affirmative Action, I discovered that Burger King had a practice of putting up potential managerial employees of Burger King in a small Florida hotel – which only did business in Florida and therefore was not subject to the federal civil rights laws of the day.  That hotel had a policy – it did not accept African American guests.  Burger King had no record of having placed any interviewee in any other hotel.  And they did not hire anyone in a managerial position who they did not bring to Florida to be interviewed.  In other words, Burger King had no African Americans in managerial positions and they had clearly never interviewed nor hired African Americans in managerial positions and just as clearly did not intend to do so.  Their continued relationship with the hotel said that clearly.

Given the threat of a boycott against the company by the NEA and possible other such actions by other groups in the near future, Pillsbury stepped up its hiring of African Americans and women,  especially in Vice Presidential positions.  They even put one woman on the Board of Directors.

They originally hired an African American as a Vice President in a staff position i.e. Community Relations (with the minority community).  Even he was hired as a consequence of the law suit against the Pillsbury Company.

Mr. Cain walked into a situation which was very different from one he would have walked into and been rejected from without the Affirmative Action programs in place in this country; without  the law suit; the strong move by civil rights organizations to bring in relevant organizations to work with Pillsbury to clean up its act and stop maintaining a very racist stance against African Americans in managerial positions.  Without that, it is doubtful Mr. Cain would have the Vita he now enjoys sending around to the press.

In fact, if you look closely at Mr. Cain’s Vita you will see the other company which promoted his abilities, experience and education was Coca Cola. A company known for its attempts over the years to be more open to diversity in its employees.  In the 1970’s  and beyond, one could say it was unique in the way it hired African Americans.  And wasn’t that Andrew Young in the wings at Coca Cola?

We are certain Mr. Cain earned his credentials and then some, subsequent to having those doors opened for him by others who sacrificed much to do exactly that and we are equally certain Mr. Cain would want to make sure those doors are kept opened.  He would not want to take the unarticulated stance covertly stated –  “I’ve got mine, now let me  slam that door in the faces of my African American brothers and sisters coming behind me.  The weakness some African Americans and other minorities succumb to in such situations is the character flaw showing up of needing to be “different”, the “only one”, “I am great because I made it and others like me didn’t – how fantastic must I be.”  That arrogance that develops around that is huge and ugly.

Mr. Cain has talked clealry and eloquently about his Christianity.  That Christianity would not allow him to do that.  He could not be a Christian and take his life, at the expense of other unacknowledged and unrepaid sacrifices and then take stances to make African Americans and women sweat blood for opportunities they will  never have because of the racism and sexism he avoided.  Mr. Cain was in the right place at the right time, able and equipped to take advantage of someone else’s sacrifice.  Given that and given his Christian commitment, Mr. Cain clearly has a responsibility to address the racism and sexism in the workplace today.. He just as clearly has a stronger responsibility than most, to acknowledge it and put in place programs to continue to address this evil and in Christian terms – this sin!

We can’t conceive anyone seeking a job as responsible and as powerful as this one – able to make substantial basic changes in the world – not only the U. S. – who would take the advantages he enjoyed at the expense of other peoples lives and then turn around to deny those coming behind him because it would be to his personal advantage to deny the existence of racism and sexism.  It would be to his personal advantage to ignore the debt he owes to many who provided a way for him to exercise his God given talents.

Let us hear from you Mr. Cain as to how you are going to move these issues onto the Republican platform if you are its nominee for President of the United States.  As a committed Christian, who has testified to his Christianity in the public place you can do no less!

Marceline Donaldson

Republican

Sacrificial Civil Rights Plaintiff in many issues and over decades

Who was a witness to the above and was one of the instruments who helped to bring about the economic and financial life Mr. Herman Cain now enjoys!

 

AN ADDENDUM TO THE ABOVE AFTER MR. CAIN HAS SPOKEN!

Well so much for that!  This was written last week when I could not conceive of a man who owed his career to Affirmative Action and the actions taken against racism and sexism by people like me and others would respond the way he has.  He has taken advantage and been a heavy weight on our backs.  Now he has decided to dig in his spurs and make the heavy weight, bloody.  How un-Chritian, arrogant, ugly and vicious of Mr. Cain.   I hope one day he sees himself as God now sees him.

And in answer to his complaint that African Americans are brain washed by the Democratic Party.  Here is one who is not! Who is hanging in there in this Republican Party, just barely and who has people like Herman Cain to thank for making me look wistfully at my African American brothers and sisters in the Democratic Party.

Look at who we get in the Republican Party.  Selfish – Self centered – using racism to get ahead, using sexism to get ahead – talking out of both sides of his mouth – unable to see, respond to, or thank those on whose shoulders he stands.  You are beginning to look like a really miserable human being.  Your arrogance is showing unashamedly.  You may not have been a politician, but you have come out full-blown and as bad as, if not worse than those around you, Mr. Cain. – what a miserable human being you are.  You got your job through Affirmative Action and the work of civil rights groups who intervened and opened a path for you to walk.  You now are telling young people and others they need to work for what they get and if they don’t have its because they haven’t gotten out to get a job.  Isn’t that amazing.  Without the help you received you could have worked your rear end off you would never have gotten the jobs you have had; no matter how much you wanted it or worked for it you would not have succeeded the way you have now – not because you didn’t try, but because the society would not open to give African Americans a chance.  Such hypocrisy, Mr. Cain.  Such viciousness – such a crock!

One thing to remember – as a Christian – you may not pay back what you owe on this earth, but there is eternity awaiting you.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in An editorial just because, Making Connections | Comments Off on Herman Cain and the Racial Discussion

My Feet and Liquid Vitamin C

September 28th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

Please copyright this under my name and the Bettina Network’s name.  I don’t know why – it just strikes me as the thing to do for this blog.

I discovered Liquid Vitamin C a couple years ago and was excited to read your blog on using Liquid Vitamin C as a cosmetic.  It works beautifully.

My discovery was with my feet.  As I grow older, my feet grow uglier and have a tendency to puff up if I sit too long.  By accident almost, I massaged my feet with liquid vitamin C and put white socks on over the C.  I left them on and forgot what I had done, going about my daily life.

Imagine my surprise when I went to bed, took off my socks and found beautiful feet.  It was such a freeing feeling.  I felt great all day, but that was the real treat at the end of the day.

Since then I make it a part of my health regimen to massage my feet with Liquid Vitamin C after every bath and if I skip a day and don’t take a bath I still wash my feet, give them a liquid Vitamin C massage and put them in white cotton socks.  What a difference a small thing like that makes.  My first shock at seeing my feet come out of the white socks the first time I tried this was nothing compared to how much more beautiful my feet have become since I started doing this on a regular basis.  I could have had plastic surgery on my feet, which I was considering seriously because they looked so awful, but now I don’t have to do that.  It took quite a few months to achieve this result, but constancy gave me a good result.  If I had plastic surgery the recovery time would have been much longer – given the pain, inconvenience, adjustment and inability to walk for quite some time.  This way, I have beautiful feet and this whole process made me feel a lot better given the influence of the liquid C into my body on a daily basis coming from my feet.

Hope my experience benefits someone else.

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Growing Old, Guest comments, Health and Beauty, Uncategorized | Comments Off on My Feet and Liquid Vitamin C

Olive Oil and Windows

September 25th, 2011

copyright 2011 Bettina Network, inc.

Ed. Note:  We had three letters from people who use the Bettina Network about the Olive Oil blog.  I have tried to combine them into one blog taking the different points made by each one so all the information from all three letters is contained herein.  Hopefully, I have been true to each persons points in their letter. They were responding to the blog we wrote on using Olive Oil to clean and polish your wood furniture.

 

“Thank you for your information on olive oil.  I have been using it for sometime now and have found it works beautifully on my windows.  I clean them once a year and when they’ve been cleaned, I rub all around the inside and outside of the windows with olive oil.  Thank goodness I found this in time because otherwise I was looking at replacing my windows, but I would only have gained about 20 years and either me or the next person would have had to change windows again.  That’s great for this throw away society, but not great for our middle-class pocket books.  I don’t mean to get political here, that is simply my observation and experience, please don’t take it out of context.”

 

“Thank you for the blog on olive oil.  That is not the first one you have put in your Bettina Blog.  I followed through and started to clean my furniture with olive oil.  That worked so well I have been using olive oil on everything.  I splurge and use organic first cold pressed oilive oil.  I know that is kind of ridiculous and probably also extravagant, but it makes me feel better.  I hope you will write something about cleaning your windows with olive oil.  I have a hard time during the winter opening and closing my windows.  They worked very nicely when they were first installed about 12 years ago.  They are now very hard to deal with, so after reading the furniture blog and realizing windows are made of wood just like furniture, I cleaned my windows (with the help of the young man who cleans for me) and I was awed by the results.

 

He didn’t want to use the olive oil.  He thought it was going to make a mess whicdh he didn’t want to have to clean up.  So I gave him a choice – use olive oil and only olive oil or don’t work for me anymore.  Its my house and I call the shots here.

 

I have noticed the smell in the house has changed.  I’ve begun smelling my friends’ houses.  We are all clean freaks and have our houses cleaned once a week thoroughly.  What I thought was a great clean smell when you walked in the door is really the smell left behind by petroleum.  I didn’t recognize it as such because I had connected that with a clean house.  My mother used every new product that came on the market and I have followed her using more expensive products thinking I was really getting my house clean.  I wonder how much illness I have caused in my family by using those petroleum based products.

 

I firtst washed my windows all around with Mrs Meyers – I like her essential oils added to her all around household cleaner.  I especially like the smell of the geranium oil.  After I’ve washed the windows I use a rag with olive oil and go all over the windows again, especially using the olive oil rag on the inside of the windows and the grooves on the sides of the windows where the windows and storm windows go up and down.  I make sure those two “weep” holes at the bottom of the storm windows are open so water or condensed water vapor can drain to the outside.
When I finished with the olive oil treatment on the windows I closed them and had a cup of coffee wondering what had I just done and why!  It began to seem rather foolish to have done all of that wiping of olive oil into the wood.  I even used “OOOO Steel Wool” in a few places where the wood looked a bit dirty and then wiped the residue from the steel wool off with my olive oil rag.

 

The guy who works for me came to get me in the kitchen.  He was kind of excited and wanted me to see what happened.  I was amazed and so was he. He was delighted not to have to use rubber gloves to clean and what he was so excited about was the fact that the windows went up and down the way they did when they were new.  He didn’t expect that result and quite frankly, neither did I.  It is a side discovery that has solved a number of irritations about my windows.  When I saw how the inside and sides of the windows looked the next morning I was thrilled.  I was especially happy about the new smell in the house.  It was not a petroleum smell, but a nice, non-existent odor that would not hurt anyone.

 

I don’t know if you will use this or not, but even if you don’t I wanted you to know how grateful I am to have been pushed over the edge to giving up my harmful chemicals for something as simple and natural as olive oil.  Who would have thought it would produce a better result and solve more than one problem.  If I had cleaned my windows the way I normally do, the sticking and hard to move them up and down would have continued and worsened until I replaced them.  Now I have beautifully working windows, smooth hands and a good conscience.  Thanks Bettina!”

 

“I love the blog you wrote about using Olive Oil to clean.  I started with my furniture and have been cleaning everything with my olive oil.  I have two bottles – the organic, cold pressed which I keep in the kitchen for cooking and for salads and the bad kind which I keep in the basement for cleaning.  I used it most recently on my windows getting ready for winter and it worked so well I had to write and tell you about it. Thank you for the suggestion.

 

I especially like what it has done to my hands – working with no rubber gloves and my hands are truly beautiful and soft.  I think I am going to start a movement to seek out and get rid of every cleaning substance in my house which is petroleum based and then move on to my family, then my friends, then to just anybody who will listen to me.  I might even start my own blog on “cleaning with olive oil”.  I might not succeed since there are also petroleum derivative products which are hard to know about, but give me a year and I will be expert at it.  Hope you will publish my writings as I discover more and better ways to clean with substances which are good for me and thee health-wise.”

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in cancer, Guest comments, Health, Housekeeping | Comments Off on Olive Oil and Windows

Olive Oil and Shoes!

September 24th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

What in the world would Olive Oil have in common with SHOES????  The two together sounds like the beginning of the end of the shoes and a grand mess to clean.

 

We had an interesting breakfast with a bed & breakfast guest sitting on the side sofa in the dining room, joining the conversation and cleaning his shoes!!!

 

Using normal kinds of shoe cleaning materials that could have been a smelly mess and interfere with breakfast, causing smells that would make most of us stop eating and leave the table.  This guest, however, came down for breakfast and asked if we had a bit of Olive Oil that he could have in a small saucer or cup or any kind of container.

 

We thought he was going to use the Olive Oil on his eggs or maybe he didn’t want butter on his toast and was going to use the Olive Oil on his toast so we gave him a saucer and put the bottle of Olive Oil on the table in case any other guest wanted to do the same.

 

This guest had a small rag with him which he dipped into the Olive Oil which he had poured into his saucer and sat on the side sofa and began to wipe his shoes all over with the rag full of Olive Oil.  Imagine the surprise around the table!  He very nonchalantly joined the conversation, which came to a halt when folks saw what he was doing.  He spent a little bit of time carefully wiping his shoes all over with the rag and at the end took his shoes into the bathroom and rinsed off the soles of his shoes.  Wow!  The only thing the rest of us had ever done was to take off our shoes and, if we weren’t too tired, put them in the closet.

 

His shoes looked spectacular.  He took them to his room and came back to join the group for breakfast.  The questions were all waiting for him.  Was he going to wear them that morning?  Wasn’t he afraid the Olive Oil would ruin the leather?  Why did he do this to his shoes?  Didn’t he use regular shoe polish to take care of what looked like very expensive shoes.

 

He said his mother made him do this when he was a kid growing up.  Every night before going to bed he had to clean and polish the shoes he had worn that day.  He rubbed them all over with Olive Oil – taking off any dust, etc. which might have collected during the day and would carefully rinse off the soles of his shoes so he didn’t keep in the house any debris tracked in from outside.  He didn’t want that kind of ‘dirt’ in his closet.  He then put his shoes in his closet overnight and let the Olive Oil soak in.  He didn’t wear his shoes out immediately when he cleaned them with Olive Oil, he wanted them to dry first, but he didn’t have Olive Oil with him and since he arrived late at night, didn’t want to bother anyone so he waited until morning to clean his shoes.  The airlines wouldn’t let him keep his little bottle of Olive Oil, so he had to give it up before boarding the plane.

 

Well, you can imagine what followed.  All but one of us poured Olive Oil into our coffee cups’ saucer and tried rubbing it on our shoes.  The results were great!  It was a hilarious time and I was converted. I have continued to use Olive Oil on my shoes and I have not been someone who cleans their shoes after each use -not even during a long shoe-lifetime of wearing.  When the shoes get too dirty – out they go into the trash.  Now, I will probably have shoes lasting close to forever from what I’ve experienced as a result of cleaning my shoes daily with Olive Oil.  The first time I tried this I put the shoes in the closet and took them out the next day to see the results.  I didn’t clean any ‘good’ shoes because I was a skeptic.  Wow! Those everyday shoes now look really great – as though I had them professionally shined and all I did was to rub them all over with a little bit of Olive Oil.

His mother trained him well.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Housekeeping, Preserving Family History and Stories | Comments Off on Olive Oil and Shoes!

Press Release from Bettina Network, inc.

September 23rd, 2011

Bettina Network, inc. is moving closer to its goal of becoming a community of people who are interested in sharing a simple, elegantly creative lifestyle.

As we expand the Bettina Network Commuity of people and services offered, we re-discover everyday that it is an elegant and very gracious lifestyle that allows one to build a personal and professional network with meaningful information to share and many ideas on living outside the overprocessed, overtechnologized society we all seem to be helping to build.

 

We are addressing how to live simply and minimize one’s footprint on this earth while not compromising comfort, convenience, graciousness  or elegance. How to live in a beautiful home with the house providing income to subsidize itself and with a constant stream of interesting people sharing our lives for a brief period of time, is how we started.

 

We are taking that concept along and adding more as many guests nudge us in the direction of a Movement.
The latest addition to this movement is Bettina Network Estate Sales. The estate sales part of the Bettina Network’s web site is up and will be added to and improved as time passes.

 

We hope you will give us your feedback on what you would like to see happen in this part of the Bettina Network.

 

Bettina Network Estate Sales will have “Moving Sales” ;”Total Estate Liquidations”; “Small Training Sales” – for our people, “Concert and Content Sales” and more. You will be able to go to the home or other site where the sale is being held and see what is for sale. Those in the Bettina Network Community are invited to the concerts and other small events which tie into and promote the sales and the artists.

 

The small everyday items will be there for you to purchase immediately and take with you. The rarer antique, art, music and other items will be on the Bettina Network Estate Sales web site for you to see and bid on for the duration of the sale. At the end, you may either pick up your items at the site or we will pack and ship them to you, – or,-  if you are going to eventually be in the town in which the sale is being held – we will store them for you at one of the bed & breakfast homes in the Bettina Network until you are able to pick up your purchases.

 

It is all great fun and the really exciting part of this is yet to come – stay tuned – or sign up for emails from Bettina’s to keep up to date on what’s happening.

 

To join the Bettina Network community you must have either stayed in a home in the Network; you must be a host family in the Bettina Network of bed & breakfast homes; or you must have used the Bettina Network, inc. to manage your estate or liquidation sale. Until that happens, we will communicate with you on LinkedIn and the various other places we network or you can read Bettina Networks’ Blog. We frequently add to the blog with all kinds of different information which we collect throughout the Network on what is happening in Bettina homes and other places in the Bettina Network – sometimes it is quite exciting. At all times, the blog entries are helpful to someone. It is an exchange of information to help you graciously and elegantly get through this life. ”

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in A Scattering Sale, Bettina Network Info, Press Release | Comments Off on Press Release from Bettina Network, inc.

Bettina Travel Tip

September 23rd, 2011

When using public transportation in the Greater Boston area, the blind (those who carry a cane or have a dog guide) ride public transit free of charge.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Reader Feedback, Travel Bettina Style, Travel Tips - Boston | Comments Off on Bettina Travel Tip

High Blood Pressure!

September 12th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

“Hi everybody!

I am a new host family in the Bettina Network and this is my first blog.  I didn’t think anything would happen to make me want to write a blog.  I am a quiet, unassuming person and generally go about the business serving rather than joining in the conversation.

 

That has all changed now!

 

We had a guest who caused quite a lively conversation at breakfast and when everyone was served I couldn’t resist joining them.

 

She had high blood pressure and her medicine was out.  She was away from home and didn’t know how to get a refill.  So the table did every thing they could to help.  She was quite reticent about calling her doctor or her local pharmacist.  She didn’t want to bother them.  That is what made me join the table.  Someone as quiet and unassuming as I am, so I got a chance to see myself through someone else.  I am going to love this bed & breakfast business.

 

We tried to do what we could to help.  I was worried she would get sick in my home and then what – but that didn’t happen.

 

Everyone around the table had some remedy they put forth to help her bridge the gap until she returned home.  What a conversation.

 

The best suggestion came from a neighbor who came over to join us for breakfast.  He said he used Milk Thistle Seed about twice a year for about 30 days each time.  He took two Milk Thistle Seed capsules after dinner in the evenings and it made him “pee like a fire hose”.  Well, that broke the ice and when I stopped turning red, it was quite a time.

 

The next best suggestion was organic parsley.  So I put parsley on everything at breakfast – the scrambled eggs; I mashed parsley against a cup to bruise the leaves and filled the cup with water so she could have parsley tea.  She got the idea and went into the kitchen several times over the next few days and made parsley tea on her own.

 

Someone else suggested that old stand-by that I’ve always heard about – garlic.  Except in the Bettina Network it would have to be organic garlic – I learn fast.

 

I didn’t know what to do about that.  One can’t put garlic in scrambled eggs – or freshly baked bread – or muffins – or cinnamon buns – so I made the cheese spread that has been going around the Bettina Network as a great snack to give people when they arrive.  I believe it came from a golf club in Georgia with changes made by several of us.  I made it with three whole garlic bulbs.  The cheese in the spread, no doubt, counteracted any affect the garlic would have had, but it was enjoyed by all.”

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Breakfast Table Talk, Health | Comments Off on High Blood Pressure!

How Do You Keep Your Linens?

September 8th, 2011

copyright 2011 Bettina Network, inc.

A guest at a bed & breakfast in the Bettina Network wrote:

“I just left one of your homes and it was a fantastic experience.  I have become a Bettina Loyalist – hey, I coined something new and hope you use it, it can be payback to you for what I just learned during my visit.

 

I have beautiful linens from my grandmother which I used only once and when I used it, it became  hopelessly stained, by a friend who couldn’t eat without dropping food on the tablecloth.  Because of that and because I want to keep the linens she left me to pass on to my children I needede to know how to use them without causing damage and how to take care of them.

 

I’ve read everyplace and every tip.  The eye opener was my trip to a Bettina home ,just recently.  They had beautiful linens on the table with linen napkins which were exquisitely embroidered by somebody’s grandmother.  I was amazed that she was using such linens for us!!!!  Someone at the table spilled coffee all over the side of these hand embroidered, very old pieces.  I about had a fit.  I couldn’t believe that guest was so careless with something he will probably never again experience in his lifetime unless he stays at another Bettina home.

 

I hung around the kitchen all morning after breakfast because I wanted to know how they were going to handle those stains – and I was too embarrassed to ask.

 

No one was upset about the coffee spill except me.  If these were your usual hotel-type linens which are sent out to a cleaners and bleached, starched and ironed to within an inch of their lives – substantially shortening their life-span I would have thought nothing of it.  But these were very elegant hand made linens.

 

At first, I just hung out in the kitchen, too embarrassed to say I didn’t know how to take care of my grandmother’s linens so I didn’t use them.  When she took the linens up the back stairs it was just to much for me to hold back.  I went after her to see what she was going to do with the linens.  When she saw me following her I had to tell her why and we both laughed – thank goodness!

 

She put almost a cup of non-chlorine fabric bleach in a plastic pail full of water – the kind of pain you use to scrub floors.  She, apparently, only uses this plastic pail for her linens.  Then she put the linens in the pail of water – which was luke warm to my hands and let them sit.  She does this after every breakfast – so when she does the wash for the day – a couple hours later – the linens get dumped in the washing machine on ‘hand wash’ cycle and cold water and washed.  Simple.  But then what?

 

Well, if I didn’t have time or want to do the wash that soon or didn’t have those regular habits and times for doing the wash,  then her advice was to just wash the linens whenever I did have time – the next day is not a problem, but she cautioned me not to wait much longer than that.  She did say she had a friend who uses her home for bed and breakfast guests who sometimes lets her tablecloths stay in the water and bleach for a couple days because she isn’t that organized to be able to do it just a couple hours after breakfast.

 

She puts her linens on a hanger in her laundry room to dry because she doesn’t like to use the dryer when it isn’t necessary.  That’s unusual!

 

Once dry, she irons her linens and rolls them on a roller which she gets from rug stores.  They have the large rollers which carpets come on and these stores throw them out periodically so she keeps a supply in her basement for new additions to her linen wardrobe.  Before she rolls the linens she has old sheets she puts on the roller and then rolls the linens over the sheets.  Her linen storage closet is impressive!

 

It all sounds complicated and time consuming, but I went home and tried it with the stained tablecloth I was grieving over from my grandmother.  It was quite dry from the dinner of several weeks ago and very clearly stained – and I thought forever.  I should have been listening and watching when I was little to see how my grandmother kept these linens so beautifully – but I wasn’t.

I soaked it, per my host family’s instructions, left it overnight – put it in the washing machine with a couple other things the next day and then into the dryer.  (I felt really guilty using the dryer after my stay at that Bettina home, but bad habits are hard to break – especially when convenience is an issue).

 

When the linens dried and were ironed, I rolled the tablecloth on one roller and the napkins on another – she doesn’t roll her napkins on rollers, this was strictly my own contribution.  They came out beautifully.  The stains are gone. I used another one of my grandmother’s beautiful handmade linens last night because we had a dinner party  with special friends.  Eveyrone ooohhed and aaaahed over the table cloth and worried that they would stain it.  I was very nonchalant and advised that they should relax and enjoy their meal.  If they spilled on the cloth – no problem – I could take care of it easily.

 

It was a really enjoyable evening.  I was relaxed and not hyper about what my dinner guests might do to my grandmother’s table cloth and my husband was amazed because he knew how hyper I had been in the past about using these linens.

 

After dinner, when we cleared the table, I took the tablecloth and napkins downstairs to the washing area, put them in the plastic pain  with the all fabric bleach I bought for the occasion, – after looking long and hard for just the right one – went upstairs and enjoyed the rest of the meal.

 

Thanks folks! One never knows where the next little bit of enlightenment to help us live an easier and elegant life will come from.  This time from your Network and I really appreciate the discovery.

 

This might sound trivial to all of you who are still using those plastic placemats, but when you decide that way of eating is no longer satisfactory, come back to this lesson and move up in the world:)

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Housekeeping, Making Connections | Comments Off on How Do You Keep Your Linens?

Post Office Failing?

September 6th, 2011

comment received from a Bettina Network bed & breakfast guest about the blog “Why the Post Office is Failing?

“Thank you for that blog.  Really, one truly never knows what will appear on your blog.

 

I was delighted to see this topic because it has to do with one of my pet peeves – the technology people, the computer programmers and others in that same area use their technology knowledge and assume it is everything.  So what is happening here is the tech area telling the rest of us how we now have to do business.  Technology is a staff function.  It supports the rest.  It has become the only function in charge with everything else taking a secondary seat and sometimes supporting, but most times just pushed out of the way as though generations of experience don’t matter, only the increasing tech takeover of everything in this society.

 

I’ve seen many places where this is true.  This post office box thing is indicative of how the tech area will change the rest of society and not always for the better.  In fact, most times it is for the worst.

You don’t have to be a business to have run into this problem.  My personal address is a post office box number because I  travel a lot.  I don’t want mail accumulating outside my door when I am gone and I don’t want to put a stop on my mail at the post office so my brilliant alternative was to have a P. O. Box.  I can pick up my mail when I am in town and no problems.  However, I am having the same problem – I can’t get a lot of things on line because of my Post Office Box.  My co-worker also travels and has a post office box with  xxxxxxxxxxx (Editor’s wipe out).  She has no problems because her post office box has a street address and suite number.  I didn’t follow her example because it costs more and I couldn’t justify the extra expense.  If this becomes more common, as it seems to be on that path, the Post Office will suffer declines in income from this part of their service.

 

Keep up the good work.  Root out all of the problems – then its up to the rest of us to fix them.  Hopefully, we will not be too lethargic to address this problem and others.  All it takes is many, many people protesting to change this.”

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Guest comments | Comments Off on Post Office Failing?

Why the Post Office is Failing!

September 5th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network 2011

What a discussion and why I love bed & breakfast.

We talked at this breakfast about something I didn’t realize —-

Many businesses have a corporate address as a post office box. Technology groups – ie Google, etc. will not accept an account if the address is a post office box, even though that is the address your company has used forever.  So the post office has problems because private companies which offer post office boxes are much more in demand by corporations because they offer a street address and suite number. The street address is the physical address of the box provider and the suite number is what would be the old traditional P. O. Box Number.

That is acceptable to groups on the web as a bona fide address whereas the United States P. O. Box number is not.

The private groups charge more than  the post office, but if you need a street address you pay the premium.

Apparently, according to this discussion which went around the table, that is one thing taking away income from the United States Post Offices.

Isn’t it amazing the little tid bits that surface at a bed & breakfast.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Breakfast Table Talk | Comments Off on Why the Post Office is Failing!

The Trek from Home to School 2011

September 1st, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

“It is that time of year when the exodus starts – from home to school; from what is known culturally, socially, economically, food-wise and more to something new.  It is the Exodus from, not the biblical-type Exodus to.  For some of us that biblical Exodus will never happen.  For the lucky few, that biblical-type Exodus back will be a life-fulfilling time. Having resided in those hallowed halls, the biblical-type Exodus brings a handful back home.

For others, – the unsuspecting, the innocent, the thoughtless, – friends are left behind;  relatives are left behind; old institutions which formed a comfort level for most of us are left behind and even our identities are shed and strip-searched.  Everything is ripe for forming new attachments, new loyalties, new cultural mores, food habits, clothes styles, friends, and we attach ourselves to new institutions. Most poignantly we adopt new identities without even being aware of that process happening.  We feel the pain of the change, but because this is all such an integral part of the society in which we live and because this has all been pictured to us in ways which remove our defenses and understandings, we simply feel the discomfort, the frustration, the confusion that comes from putting in place our new identities.  At one time in history these many would have been called the strivers.  They are the ones who will succeed beyond their own and anyone else’s expectations because they have that something which brought them out of their own to this new territory without incident, question or immediate guilt.

And yes, what arrives for all in this process is the guilt.  A new kind of guilt which will neither surface nor grow for at least a decade.  A slowly developing guilt from actions that, to those of us in this process – in our late teens to mid-twenties – has nothing to do with guilt, but is simply life moving ahead.

In this re-ordering process, the new identity is what will be most troublesome over the next several decades.  If we are not upper-middle class Northern European we will re-order our family relationships drastically.  To move ahead in this ’new’ society we must cut off and keep family at arms length.  They will expose our background, our class, the economic base from which we’ve come and more.  The exceptions who are used to disprove the rule, are allowed to move ahead and keep family and there are not many of them.  They can discretely keep some family around.  The others have to move away from family.  Find fault with them, keep them at arms length because whatever is wrong is their fault so they will not walk into this beautiful – though painful – place with us.”

Ed. Note:  This is a small excerpt from a letter we received from a former guest.  He had been part of a conversation around the breakfast table in one of the bed & breakfast homes in the Bettina Network, inc. when parents were bringing their children to college and he was doing the same thing.  The conversation from a couple older parents, who are now grandparents was about how they missed their children who were “busy”, had very little time to ‘come home’ and from whom they heard very seldom.

Over the years he has stayed in other homes in the Bettina Network, inc., was a part of conversations with parents who had effectively been ignored by their children for decades and he was beginning to experience the same thing.

We have not put the entire letter in this blog because it is very painful to read and revealed a lot of information personal to the guest.  We don’t know your experience, but over the years this certainly parallels many conversations we’ve had with parents as their children left home for school and the years that followed cut them almost totally out of their children and grandchildren’s lives.

The end of his letter follows:

“What is most painful about having packed up my children several years ago – one at a time – and brought them to college – and then to watch them grow away from all of us is the thought that this is what I did to my parents.  Without even a thought; not realizing the pain it must have caused them.  I became part of the prior generation – leaving home – establishing a very successful career – and looking back today on my childhood and family, which I miss terribly, but can’t replace or even belatedly go back to visit because they are all dead.  I did everything I was raised to do – finished college, established a business and now am living comfortably several steps above where my family lived financially and class-wise.  But in the end, when I look back, what I wanted and expected was to finish college, go home and move ahead with my life in the context of family – my family.  To have grown and maintained my original identity was my goal, although not put in those terms as a young person.  That was taken away from me without either my knowledge or consent.  How did that happen?  Is this how a multi-national economy is formed, grown, expanded?  Was I fodder for that process and are my children the new fodder needed for this to continue?  I don’t think I even like the new identity I put in its place.”

We hope it is not your experience, but we add it to Bettina’s Blog because the guest sent it for the blog and because we think it is illuminating to life today.  Your comments are welcome.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in An editorial just because, Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Making Connections | No Comments »

A Healthy Very Quick Breakfast

August 14th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

I want to share with you something we have started doing in the morning for breakfast when we have a guest who doesn’t have time for a sit-down meal, wants something healthy to keep him/her going during the day and is concerned about keeping healthy and ‘regular’ during their time away from home.

I will call this – the Bettina Smoothie:


For three glass of smoothie we put the following into a blender – if you follow the order we give, you will find the blender works without your having to go in and stir the ingredients while blending.

one glass goats milk kefir (raw and organic, if possible – if not, as close as you can come)
notice we don’t use cow’s milk here and we use kefir instead of ordinary milk.  That is our probiotic and guests really appreciate the difference.


2 organic bananas – if you are making only one or two glasses, then use one organic banana instead of 2.
The other ingredients don’t change for one or two glasses.  Actually, we don’t know how to make one glass because someone always shows up for the second glass and its easier to have it ready than to make another.  they seem to sense the blender going and will have a Bettina Smoothie and then sit down to a full course breakfast.

one package organic frozen fruit – ie  blueberries – blackberries – strawberries – pineapple. Use whatever frozen organic fruit you have or the guest particularly likes.  We have a couple guests who have to be at meetings by 7am. They have come often enough to expect the smoothie and put in their request for the fruit they feel like eating the night before.

A little organic maple syrup, or organic turbinado sugar.  Use sparingly because you only want a tiny taste.

Pour into elegant, crystal stem glasses and serve with linen or brocade napkins, for that “Bettina” touch.

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Health | No Comments »

Anti-Perspirant Follower

August 13th, 2011

A blog from a guest at a Bettina home

I have been reading your blogs on giving up deodorant and anti-perspirants.  That is quite brave of you because we all know people in our society now judge you as immoral if you have any odor at all.  In fact, we are beginning to judge people as immoral even if they have a perfume odor where once we considered using perfume a good thing.  Now using perfume is a low class/trashy thing to do.  Times do change and sometimes really quickly.

I have been trying to give up deodorant and especially anti-perspirants because I believe they contribute to our epidemic of Alzheimer’s.  The aluminum Chloride? – not sure which aluminum compound is in it, but that aluminum closing your pores so you can’t perspire cannot be a good thing.  I imagine aluminum stuffed into my pores under my arms and it gives me the chills.  I have not been successful at giving up deodorants, however, until I read your blog.

Several ideas came to me since reading and re-reading your experiments.  The first – after a few weeks – I realized this is a great, unintentional weight-loss program.

I keep a food diary and write down everything I eat.  It took about two weeks to begin to get it as a regular thing without missing foods or forgetting to write down what I had eaten.  The diary has made giving up deodorants without smelling loud quite easy.

I noticed as I kept this food diary that when I eat heavily processed, pesticides, antibioticized foods – in other words foods that have been doctored and are not organically grown – my bad smells went up.  Really horrible smells came out of me when I ate beef – non-organic.  I smelled almost immediately after I got out of the shower and the smell was not pleasant.

The more of the “wrong” foods I ate also turned my body into a foul smelling center. So gradually I started the food diary so I could ascertain which foods were the culprits and gradually I have become extremely aware of my body and the reactions I have to what I eat.  It has been an amazing revelation – and I am a very busy person so being busy is not an excuse to remove yourself from your own responsibility to take care of yourself.

When I go out to a restaurant with friends or an evening on the town or wherever I am going to eat foods that cause foul smells to emanate from my body I use deodorant.  If its going to be a long night, I even use anti-perspirants because I need to be careful to not be ostracized by those who can’t stand to smell the human body when it is doing its job of getting rid of toxins through the pores.

It has felt like a long journey, but I like where I have reached.  I have lost 15 pounds in the process.  Apparently, the foods that make you stinky also make you fat.

This is an awful note to send you, but you have opened the door to such a discussion and I want to air my experiences.  Maybe they will help someone going through what I’ve been through or maybe they will just peak someone else’s curiosity.  I look forward to reading responses and suggestions from someone who has been through this and can help me go the next step in understanding more about my physical self and how society has intruded on the health of my physical self in a very negative way and what I can do to either mitigate or reverse those problems.

Ed. Note: This was from someone who has been a guest in a Bettina home.  We are sharing it in the hopes you find it useful.  If you are a Bettina Host Family or have been a guest in one of the Bettina Homes, please feel free to send us your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, discoveries and we will add them to the summaries of discussions we get from conversations over breakfast in Bettina homes.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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Posted in Guest comments, Health, Making Connections, Reader Feedback | No Comments »

An Editorial from an Upset Editor

August 4th, 2011

GOOGLE is a very irresponsible company.  Do you know they don’t have any customer service for anybody – unless you know someone who works there who will risk their job by taking your problem to someplace it needs to be addressed and most of us don’t have that.

Our blog was a mess for weeks and we spent hours-days-weeks trying to get it out of the ether back to where it could be accessed.

So now the only Bettina’s Blog you can access via Google search is a part of the blog which dates back from 2010.  How or why they separated our blog into this really one part and ignored the rest is something I can’t address or solve and can’t find anyone in Google.  I think everyone who works there must be a computer – no real live human beings are in evidence anyplace unless you want to spend money and get into Google AdWords, etc.  All of a sudden, live people are on the telephone.  what is that about?

I used to hear how humane and forward looking the two founders were.  Well either this was a myth or the company is so out of their control that it has become one of the worst invaders of our privacy and the worst ignorers of dealing with their problems I have ever come across – and I’ve seen and experienced some really awful corporations.

We are beginning to understand why Google has come to the attention of so many anti-trust bodies.  They are totally trying to put every kind of agency out of business by presenting to the public a way around using an agency. By the time John and Jan Q. Public realize this is a come-on and a really bad way of doing business, their money is gone, they are out of business and Goggle has marginalized those who looked towards them and away from agencies that were looking out for their best interest.

I could go on for pages about the problems we’ve had with Google.

suffice it to say, we were afraid to put blogs out there for several months because of the way Google opened us up to damage by those looking to wreck havoc.  Now we’ve decided to just go on, ignore the possible problems and hope there is a fix for them someplace – Google isn’t interested in fixed anything.  You can post your problems on a public board and hope someone responds and helps you out of a mess. That doesn’t happen very often.

If your problem is of a very delicate nature that could hurt you if it gets out before a fix gets put in place you are flat out of luck.

How have we ever allowed a company which is violating everything we hold dear and close in this country to not only survive but to thrive?

If this keeps up there will be a new company in Bettina’s Hall of Shame and Bettina’s Box of Shame.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in An editorial just because | No Comments »

Robert’s Blueberry Muffins

August 4th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

We have had several requests for Robert’s Blueberry Muffins – which are admittedly exceptional.

He has not been in the frame of mind to give out his recipe.  He experimented with lots of different combinations and finally came to the conclusion that it is not the recipe, but the ingredients which make the difference and then went about using just an ordinary muffin recipe.  Everytime he makes them we get rave reviews on the “Guest Questionnaire” which we send out to guests who have visited one of the Bettina homes.

He is giving up this recipe with the proviso that when you use it you have to give him credit and give the muffins the title of “Robert’s Blueberry Muffins”.

A creation of the Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – or so he claims:

                     
                          “ROBERT’S BLUEBERRY MUFFINS”
                     
All of the ingredients for these muffins must be organic and not simply ‘organic’, but the best organic ingredients you can find.  Be especially careful of ingredients called organic from those large, large stores which are now hopping on the organic bandwagon and selling organic products about which I am a bit suspicious.

1/2 cup organic turbinado sugar (sugar that has been processed only once.)

1/3 cup organic butter or organic, virgin, expeller processed coconut oil (this is a new ‘shortening’ I have started to use because my wife gave me heck for turning my nose up at it and using butter exclusively.  I find it makes lighter muffins and gives them a little different taste that no one can quite pick out.  This is one of the secrets of these muffins.)

1 egg – organic from chickens that run around in the fresh air and sunshine and are only given organic feed

1/2 cup milk.  Preferably raw organic milk.  If you can’t find this, then milk which is unhomogenized, and/or unpasteurized.  If not, then use organic milk as unprocessed as you can find it.

1 1/2 cups organic flour.  Make sure the organic flour is also stone ground.

2 teaspoons organic baking powder.

1/2 teaspoon himalayan salt.  A very pure kind of salt and the only kind I am allowed to use at home.  I would love to tell you why, but I don’t know.

1/4 teaspoon soda.  This was a secret because we had abolished using soda.  I used to keep this specially wrapped and hidden away, but the secret is now out.

1 cup organically grown blueberries.  Put the blueberries in a small bowl with flour and mix them around with a large spoon until they are coated with flour. This helps to keep the blueberries from all sinking to the bottom of the batter.  It took quite a long time for me to figure this one out.

Grated rind of one lemon and a little extra turbinado sugar to mix together and sprinkle on top of each muffin before you bake them.

Mix dry ingredients together with a wire whisk until the flour looks lighter and has incorporated lots of air. .

In a separate bowl, beat egg with a wire whisk until it has lightened and incorporated lots of air then add the rest of the ‘wet’ ingredients.  The idea is to incorporate as much air as possible into these wet and dry ingredients because the batter is mixed very little once you put these two together.

Add dry ingredients alternately with wet ingredients.  Lightly mix – don’t try to get out all the lumps and especially don’t overmix.  Fold in floured blueberries.  Pour into a greased muffin tin and sprinkle grated lemon rind and sugar on top of each muffin.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

If you want more than this yields, double or triple the recipe.”

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

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