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Sunday, December 20, 2020

Addressing the Uproar Over Instagram / Facebook "New" Terms of Service


Dear Friends: on today's edition of "Let's All Not Freak Out Now with Sarah Coller" I'd like to address the newest trending freakout: Instagram Terms of Service. My kids, their friends, my friends, my enemies, almost EVERYONE is in an uproar about the new IG TOS. I don't claim to be an expert, but I'm married to one so that gives me secondhand wisdomy powers. Plus I worked in social media professionally for about 6 years where my entire life was on display for the whole world to download and I became very familiar with the different ways in which companies use, store, retrieve, and sell our information. AND….I'm a thinking-about-recovering addict so, you know… Anyway, most of what I'm going to say here is my OPINION---but it's based on some knowledge and a whole lot of that good ol' fashioned common sense you've come to adore in me.

First of all---yes, IG (and Facebook) can, will, and has been using your photos/info/contacts/location for all the nasty nefarious purposes. Without going into too much detail, let's just look at it from a common sense perspective: You are using their site for FREE. It might be hard to fathom how much time, cost and man/woman/undecided power goes into running a small little side gig like Instagram, but trust me: it's a lot. You are loading your photos to their site---what would be a better way to compensate them, do you think? Cash? I guarantee you that if IG asked you to pay $20 or even $5 per photo loaded, you'd sign off the rights to your stuff instead, without question. Furthermore, this is nothing new. It's just that now they're being more straightforward in telling you about it. Why? Well has anyone been paying attention to the Zuckerberg Senate Judiciary Committee stuff? Yeah, me neither. But, the powers-bigger-than-Zuck have been on him and my guess is that IG, FB, etc are going to be held more accountable to clearly define their Terms to users.

Here's the thing though...like I said, this kind of sharing, selling, using your info is not new. Why do you think you can be chatting with a friend on Messenger about changing your laundry detergent to Arm & Hammer and three minutes later, you see ads for it when you're browsing Amazon? You like cookies? Well in the internet world, cookies are bad bad bad. Every single internet-capable device that you own has the power to track your conversations, contacts list, location, etc. Some of these settings can be disabled---most can not. Which brings me to….

Instagram is tracking my movements through my front camera!!!!! Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! Are you on a laptop right now? Look up at the very tippy top middle of your screen. Camera? Camera on your phone? GPS in your car? Use a credit card online? Shop at Walmart? Ever seen the self-checkout cameras? Ever returned something at Walmart and had them say you no longer need your receipt as long as you paid by card? They just swipe it and can pull up all your shopping history. You'd literally need to live more primitive than the Amish to not have the potential of being tracked by someone. Does that mean they're actually doing it? Yes, probably, but. There is not some crew of bad guys sitting in some dark room chugging coffee and actually watching your movements. Companies usually store this information for a time so it can be retrieved for little things like targeting you in advertising (again, you're using their site FREE...and way too often, by the way) or for big things like catching sex offenders, kidnappers and thieves. Remember, you're talking to one of the top 10 antisocial, way-too-private, hermits in modern times---but if I ever had a child go missing, I'd be thanking God for Facebook or Instagram's "invasive" tracking methods.

So how can you keep your content from being used against your will? It's SO SIMPLE. You can stop posting it to a site owned by another entity. Listen, if you leave your stuff at my house and expect me to leave it out and display it to anyone who comes to my house, you'd better believe I'm going to do one of two things. Either I'm gonna chuck your stuff and tell you to go find your own place to display your stuff or I'm gonna find a way to make this stuff work for me. I might use it or keep it for my grandchildren or even *gasp* modify it to better fit my purposes. 'Cause I'm the one paying the big bucks to store and display it, right? You're using a service, you pay the price. IG's Terms have not changed so much as your understanding of them has changed. This is the case on every single site you visit. That's the way of the world right now, fellas. That's what this fantastic new technologically advanced civilization has given us. Woop Woop!

If we don't like it, we can leave. Will you leave? Probably not. A few might for a while, but those who do usually find that it's a lonely world when everyone else is having a digital relationship and you're over there trying to live like it's 1999. Just promise me this: if you're going to leave IG or FB over their tracking/selling/using policies, leave everything. Be consistent so you don't look foolish. Get rid of your cell phone, your internet, your GPS in your car, your credit and debit cards. Don't pay your bills online or even over the phone, and when you go out, be sure to avoid all "security" cameras in all drive-thrus, shops, ATMs, freeways... you get the picture. In the words of my parents: they can kill us but they can't eat us.

Yeah...I don't know what that means either.

Friday, December 4, 2020

Homemade Chicken and Dumplings -- A Frugal Stick-to-Your-Bones Supper

 

As a native of Eastern Oregon where there are four distinct seasons, I learned to change up my menus as the weather changed. Fresh salads and fancy sandwiches at springtime, grilled meat and watermelon in the summer, light soups and casseroles in fall, and thick stews with crusty bread in winter. We knew it was time to change seasons by the way things smelled---even when fall was ending and the bite of winter was coming, we could smell the snow in the air.

The South (we are in Arkansas now) likes to play the "let's change up everything with the seasons" game too---only nothing is distinct and there are no signs of a new season coming. I've been here seven years and I still can't read the clouds. We just roll with it day to day and pretend winter is real. Sometimes December is mostly 40s and 50s, other times it's 70s and even 80s.

Still, my kids must have a little northener left in them because they've been requesting chicken and dumplings for weeks now. According to my seven year old, I've not made this family favorite since the night we decorated Christmas sugar cookies---in 2018. She's probably not wrong. I just haven't been feeling it---the whole "do the exciting new season stuff"---but I'm determined to try harder. Especially in a crazy year like 2020 has been, a bit of normalcy is important. These are the things families are made of---the memories and traditions and faith that binds us together.

So tonight I made this hearty, stick-to-your-bones meal in a pot and everyone cheered. I fell asleep while the chicken was cooking but it was perfectly tender. I thought I dumped too much thyme in, but it was fantastic. I thought I went too fast on the veggies and feared I'd undercooked the carrots, but they were just right. Apparently, I've still got the knack. Here's roughly how I made it---I hope your family enjoys chicken and dumplings as much as we do.

Homemade Chicken and Dumplings (12 servings, 8 hours)

1 whole chicken
up to 3 quarts poultry broth (I used turkey broth from our Thanksgiving carcass)
6 bay leaves
3 carrots
3 celery stalks
onion to taste (I used 2 TB dried onions, you could use up to 1 whole, if you like)
thyme, garlic, salt to taste

4 c. flour
8 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
2 c. water

Put the chicken in a large soup pot (mine is 14 qt.), and add all the broth. Add water until it covers to about an inch above the chicken. Add the bay leaves and a few teaspoons of salt. Cover the pot and bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and let it simmer for about 6 hours. 

After about 6 hours, remove the chicken from the pot. (I use a small handled strainer to scoop it out whole but always need to fish out the wings with a slotted spoon!) Make sure to use a slotted spoon to get out any bones. Then set your chicken aside to cool and keep the broth hot on the lowest setting, covered. The chicken will take 30-45 minutes to cool. Once it's cooled, pull the meat off the bones and put it back into the broth in small pieces. Be careful to feel for any small bones. Then cut up your vegetables and add them to the broth, along with the thyme and garlic. Taste to see if you want to add more salt. I end up adding quite a bit to get it just right. Finally, turn your pot back up to a higher setting to get the broth boiling again.

While the broth is heating back up, mix up the dumplings by combining the flour, baking powder and salt, then stir in the water. Use a spoon for this---you want the batter to look lumpy. Once the broth is boiling rapidly, drop spoonfuls of the batter into the boiling broth. The dumplings will cook quickly and rise to the top when they're done. Just keep dropping them in until you've got all the batter in there. It will look crowded but they'll figure it out. Ha!

I served ours with zucchini bread tonight (yay for summer harvest preservation!) but you could also do biscuits, rolls, or just eat it as a one-pot meal. Yum!




Friday, November 20, 2020

Looking For Persimmons in NW Arkansas -- The Homemaking Party

 

Good Morning Friends! How's everyone holding up? We're all doing well. Jamie is still working from home (going on nine months now!) but, other than that, the big things in life have been relatively normal. We've just gone on holiday break so I'm hoping for a lot more time to read, write, and create over these next couple months. We shall see...

Last year on my birthday (October 23) we discovered a persimmon tree near our property. Do you know about the South's legend of the persimmon seed? Well you're about to be educated! This season we got back to it a little late but we did happen to spy a couple fruit left on the very bare branches!

We started by shaking the tree real hard---one fell down. Then I grabbed the stick from Selah and went after the other one. It was a team effort but we managed to snag those last two.

The legend says one can tell what kind of winter is coming by slicing open the seed of a persimmon and seeing what shape is inside.

Here's Liam's (10) explanation: "So if you find a persimmon, this is what to do: so wash and dry the seeds. Then cut it open. If it's a fork, you will have a warm winter; if a spoon, lots of snow; if a knife, a cold winter."

We cut open these three seeds and saved the rest so the kids could try to grow one in our yard. The general consensus was that the majority of these are spoons. 

Kynthia (9) drew this diagram of the steps to making it to the inside of the seed. She came up with this idea so she wouldn't have to ask me how to spell everything---ha! Very smart!

Here is Avalon's (11) journal entry: "Me, my siblings, and Mom all found two persimmons, and nine seeds and the majority of the seeds were spoons. Hopefully the legend is true!"

Brenna (7) is really really hoping for some cold weather and snow this year. Me too!

Thanks for stopping by The Homemaking Party! I'm excited to see what everyone has got to share!





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