I NEED an Ocean view....please

Today is feel the beach day!

Oh a hard week for sure. Pain that was nearly unmanageable and then some wonderful distractions. The talk of the ocean, surfing and our Southern California up bringing has me longing for the beach, a view of the ocean, the crash and draw back of the waves, the smell of sea weed & salt & fishy things, the call of a gull, a seal bark, I am home sick for the ocean.

Youngest daughter said in her blog that her i-pod and cleaning with Clorox wipes makes her feel better. We've talked of this before I know and I hope every one is finding things to lift them above hardship. Life will be hard but we can be strong and enjoy so much of this life we live.

I just had to put an ocean on this brief but needful posting. I wanted something of my own. The best I could find is this calendar photo from 2003. (You don't want to see my odd bell bottoms and me with surf board! he he) I journal life on my calendars. It's amazing what I've found from years long gone that I needed off those calendars . So here is the ocean. I am picturing myself there with a glass of strawberry lemon aide or mango something. Oh my heart be still.

Below is a nice calendar message I think will help too. Your day may seem lost in the hardship, it may not have a list of crossed off chores. It may be lonely, long or glorious! I hope. But this calendar reminds me that we plant little things. We have great rewards later after it grows. You don't have to do something big to plant a seed in your child, in yourself, in a friend, a spouse. A tiny seed grows a redwood tree. I know.....Tiny seeds exposed to the heat of fire. One day you have a giant, breath taking redwood. I know because I've grown the real redwoods and I need to tell my kids, they are also redwoods. They make me so proud, their good choices, the love they show trying to understand each other. I must have planted some seeds and it grew 5 amazing people!

So today is plant a seed day!

I just can't stop!

I think I will be trying every recipe in the article "5 minute bread" find the recipe on Mother Earth News web site.

So for lunch today it was Nann. I am a long time maker of really good Nann. I seriously had my doubts this dough in my fridge for the last two weeks could make really good Nann.

I WAS WRONG!

It was really good

Let me repeat

It was really good.

Make it and see.

I brushed the finished Nann with garlic butter and tossed crushed dried parsley over it. It took only moments and made a great addition to lunch. yes the one in the photo was little over cooked but bleach boy loves things crisp and the one for me was soft and good!

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx

Now for the surprises, the Digital age has begun

If you've read my postings on the Green thing happening then you know about the digital change over for the TV.

The govt made it mandatory that all stations must convert to Digital TV no later than Feb 17Th today. Now they have changed that to some date in June.

Now for the surprise.

Over 400 stations changed over and dropped their analog today.

No one said they couldn't do it as soon as they were ready, only that they could do it no later than June. I turned on my analog TV and only one station was working, took a little bit to figure out why.

So the test begins, will we be watching any TV during wind? Will the TV give relief and information during storms? Most likely not and we will slowly pass from even using the TV for anything but DVDs at all. Cable goes up in price too often and with draws stations making you pay for stations you'll never watch. Dish TV has the same snow and weather problems the digital has.

Check back to see what happens in the ever moving world of technology! I watch with curiosity.

Using the bread recipe for pizza

If you have made the Mother Earth 5 minute a day bread dough then you can make this pizza!

Dinner was forgotten, everyone was tired and coming down with colds. We needed food fast. My sister had tackled pizza over the week-end and it came to me to do the same.

I took a piece of dough and laid it on my flour infused pastry cloth. I just flattened it easily with my hands, no need to use a rolling pin as they suggest. I like the bubbling up dough. Then I folded the edges over once to make them a bit more sturdy to deal with.

As the recipe in the link below warns, keep the toppings light so the dough can show a bit and cook up through the cheese etc. I used olives, a bit of garlic chicken, some saute' onions and a tiny bit of spaghetti sauce. I don't have a pizza peel so I made my dough ( remember how moist and soft it is, hard to move it when it is only 1/4" deep) on the pastry cloth. When my baking stone was good and hot I took the pastry cloth down to the oven and coaxed the dough off and onto the stone. This method must be improved upon! Then I spooned on a touch of sauce, sprinkled on my ingredients and slipped the oven closed.

You don't need to put the water in the oven for the pizza but do turn your oven to it's top temperature. It took 25 minutes to heat the stone, 5 minutes to push out the dough, 15 minutes to cut up the ingredients and about 15 minutes to cook. Now that's fast food!

Wow this was the best ever pizza. The dough is chewy and my dough is a week old so it was a bit sour doughish and wonderful. Bleach Boy can't remember any better other than my cracker crust pizza.

Oh! I feel a pizza attach coming on......Good thing I saved a piece from last night.

I have a rectangle shaped baking stone. It's perfect for making triangle shaped piece slices. Cut the pizza the long way down the center. Then starting at the end make angle cuts to produce nice triangle pizza wedges! So easy and you can make them big and little.

Happy Valentines Day

You bring a bit of sunshine into my life

You let me express myself and share what I love

Yes I love families, and women who lovingly care for others.

I Hope you feel the love back that you so much deserve.

Let Cupids arrow catch your heart!

Smiles Grammie

The cupid in the photo is my dear mother in law.

We miss her so much and I love that she grew up in the 20's so we can use her lovely photo.

Now you can see where bleach boy gets his light hair

You have to try this easy bread

I was at Mildred's home last week and she was making this easy bread, she gave me the recipe and I've now done three batches. It takes about 8 minutes to make enough dough for 4 loafs or 8 if you like, let it sit out for a couple of hours, pop into the fridge and bake the loafs as needed. You will need to warm the dough at least and hour when it comes from the fridge. The dough lasts a couple of weeks in the fridge. It's wonderful and fast. Give it a try.

Thank you Mother Earth News we can always count on great stuff!

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx

One note, I know you need the salt in it for a reason but it's too salty for us so we cut it down by a third.

2nd note, I have added 1/2 cup whole wheat flour to this recipe without any change.

I've added another photo below. This was today's loaf. It only set out for an hour and went into a really hot oven on a very hot stone. I know some of you are having problems with the loafs raising but I think we will find the key to that soon. Don't worry if the dough is not raising, just cook after an hour and see what happens. Keep me posted and we will keep testing this out.

Now who couldn't love this face?

Raising five kids wasn't the easiest of jobs and sometimes I just needed my space. I saved a magazine advertisement from the early 1980's that had a nice Cabin in the woods, chimney smoking on it. It said something like this "some times a get away is just another home"

So with that idea I find my self at my other home. My get away!

Made a visit to youngest daughter and her sweet babies.

Now who couldn't love this face?

Awe home sweet home!

Noodle Doodles

Today it is raining, the clouds are low. Time to make goodies. I open up that old yellow high school folder once again. Today it's Hopscotch crunchies if you have good peanut butter, or Noodle Doodles if you don't. Takes but a moment to make these. You only get about 9 goodies from each recipe so double if you wish!

Hopscotch crunchies

1/2 C. butterscotch chips

1/4 C. peanut butter

1 cup chow Mien Noodles

1/2 cup miniature marshmallows

Melt chips and peanut butter over hot water (double boiler) Or do it in the microwave uncovered, stirring after every 30 seconds.

When melted remove from heat and stir in noodles and marshmallows.

Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper. chill to set quickly. Here in Washington I can chill on my counter!

Noodle Doodles

1 (6 ounce pkg) chocolate chips

1 (6 ounce pkg) caramel chips or butterscotch what ever you can find

1 (3 ounce pkg) Chinese dry noodles

1 small can of salted peanuts (I used a mix of almonds and pecans)

Melt chocolate and Caramel chips over hot water

When melted stir in noodles and nuts.

Drop by spoonfuls on wax paper.

chill

hints from the fashions of the 1920's

Where is everyone? I used to get up to 80 visitors a day on my postings and now 3 of you join me. Are you all worn from the holidays, has the weather got you without power, hope you are not down and worried? Just know that you are missed. Maybe my fashion posts just don't cut it. So I'll hold part two for later and put in this fun look back in time, something to make you just smile. Do let me know if there is something you need to hear about!

I collect sewing and fashion magazines from as far back as they go and from every country that shared good fashion. The pages tonight are from a 1921 and 1927 Coats and Clark sewing booklets. Not very big and very fragile you are lucky to get a peek into some of their pages. The fashions of the 20's were simple hip waisted dresses with tons of embellishments!

They loved their short hair and cute hats. If you love this time period you must see the PBS series "The House of Elliot" They won big awards for their costumes of this time period and it is a really fun program you can often get at your local library.

So enjoy clicking on these pages and reading a bit of the past. Forget your worries for a moment and just be a girl of the 20's! Pretend with me.

(As I write this I have some fun Italian music on traveling daughter brought home, I'm swaying and just smiling!)

Oh I'm ready for a night of dancing!

Let's have some fun part one

where is your eye looking, what does it see, what catches your eye?

I'm thinking fashion lately. With money so tight and my wardrobe getting so old I see the need to get creative. I want what I sew to look great right from the start. Let me help you do the same thing, we don't have the time or money to get things we don't want to wear!

It's funny how good my eye is for fashion and how bad I dress, yes a blue jeans gal now! My major in college was commercial art and design, I made so many drawings, painting and posters but what I really loved was design. Learning how to lead the eye to enjoy what you were creating, to make the eyes comfortable but not bored, excited but not bouncing. I loved this! I still look at the things around me as if they need to do this for me. Fashion is the same. We don't have perfect figures but we can lead the eye, make the eye comfortable or excite the eyes. I found some fun old examples. They will help you practice seeing how you might be looking to others.

Lets begin!

Fashion can tell the eye to look! But which direction is it saying to look? The Y is saying to look UP see my face. The arrow is saying look DOWN see my waist, hips, hem and slightly shoes. You may not think this is what is happening because a Y and an arrow have a long straight line that should be helping us point but it is about the direction the space is being pushed not the pointing arrow or the catching space Y.

Eye movement can be given limits by stopping how and where they travel. The width of the T with the hat and flouncy sleeves stops your eye up top. It halts your eye from looking vertical.

This H look of this front panel in this dress stops your eye from scanning the lateral areas , Limits your eye to only see the width. OUCH.

Here your eye is invited to travel up and down limitless, You would look tall and thin with this clear, long line.

Can you see how these fashion designs are giving the eye different paths to travel?

a. has attention on the shoulders and neckline

b. your eye is going to that flounce hemline

c. The eye is going to the hip line because you are looking at those cuffs on the sleeve, locking you at the hips.

None of these are just bad

a. is wonderful for a pretty face and neck

b. will let you show off beautiful legs

c. lets really slim narrow hips look much better

You can enjoy a chuckle on my fun 1960's fashions but watch and see if you can find any example of this same idea in what people wear today.

Here is a test

What do you see in each of these. Write me with your ideas for a,b,c,and d.

go here to practice on some great European fashions!

http://www.marfy.it/eng/activenews.asp

Another asignment

http://www.ireneeonline.com/index.htm

If you do this assignment you will be all ready to enjoy my next posting. This web site is amazing but don't get lost in it yet. Go to the curtain in the middle of the home page and click to take the test. You might enjoy the color facts but please work through the whole test so you can get your body shape. We need that to understand my next post. If you have trouble understanding the test you can click on the right hand left hand links to see what each thing is asking, eye color, hair color, shape etc. Use it as you need to, this is tons of informaton. Have fun!

Bear Claws and High school

It is Bleach Boys 60th birthday this week-end. I didn't want to use the gas to go into town for a donut. I suddenly remembered my high school cooking classes included a whole series of pastries. I dug around and in this beat up old note book are my recipes from high school. Looks like I have some great ones, I'll share more later.

Today it's the Bear Claws. A sweet refrigerator dough that raises in the cool of your fridge. I have two recipes sizes. One is the small size we used after braking into work groups in class, the other is a normal size we could take home for family use. Both work fine, if the smaller one isn't good in your mixer you can easily do it by hand. The family recipe is perfect for the mixer. Now all I have to do is make Bleach Boy a nice Bear Claw, put a candle in it and see if I can get up in time to wake him with a little birthday greeting!

Class room size recipe

1/2 Cup milk

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup warm water (105 degrees to 115 degrees)

1 package of dry yeast

1 egg beaten

2 cups unsifted flour

soft butter

1) Heat the milk until bubbles form. Add sugar, salt and 1/4 cup of butter cut in pieces. Stir to dissolve. Cool to lukewarm before adding yeast.

2) Put warm water in the mixing bowl or large bowl you will stir in. add yeast immediately by sprinkling it over the water. Stir to dissolve.

3) With a wooden spoon, stir milk mixture, beaten eggs and 1 cup of flour into yeast bowl. beat until smooth, about 2 minutes

4) Gradually add rest of the flour, beating until dough is smooth and cleans side of bowl, be sure NOT to add too much flour this dough should be a tiny bit tacky but still clean the sides of the bowl. Turn into large, greased bowl. Oil the top.

5) Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or until dough is doubled. Can keep in fridge for 3 days

6) Form into one of the treats below. Bake as directed.

dough after 2 hours in fridge

******************************************

Home Size Recipe

3/4 cup Milk

1/3 cup of sugar

2 teas salt (I use one!)

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup warm water 105 to 115 degrees

2 packages dry yeast

2 eggs beaten

4 1/4 cups of unsifted flour

soft butter

Follow directions for class room recipe except in Step 3 stir in 2 cups of flour for about 2 minutes.

BEAR CLAWS

sweet roll dough

3 tablespoons melted butter

cinnamon sugar mixture

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup chopped raisins

1 tsp grated lemon peel

Sugar glaze: 1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar, 1/4 tsp vanilla, 2 tsp milk. Stir until smooth

1) lightly grease a large cookie sheet

2) On lightly floured surface, shape dough into a round, let rest for 5 minutes

3) Roll dough to an 18 by 9 inch rectangle. Brush with half of the melted butter. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar leaving a 1/4 inch bare all around the pastry.

This is smaller than the recipe size, with only two of us I didn't want too much

4) combine walnuts, raisins and lemon peel, sprinkle evenly over dough

5) folding from long side, fold 1/3 of dough over. Then bring the opposite side over the other side, to make a 3 layer strip. Pinch to seal.

6) With sharp knife, cut strip crosswise into 6 sections. On the folded side of each make 3 inch long cuts. These are for the toes.

7) Arrange on prepared cookie sheet. Spread toes evenly slightly to make toes. Brush with melted butter and cover with wax paper to raise.

8) Raise until double in bulk about 45 minutes in a warm place.

9) bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees F

10) cool on wire rack. Pour sugar glaze over warm rolls

Makes 6 with class room size recipe

CRESCENTS

another sweet pastry using the above dough

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts

3/4 teas cinnamon

Class room size recipe or 1/3 of the Home recipe

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 egg yolk

Cinnamon sugar mixture

1) lightly grease a large cookie sheet

2) in small bowl, toss the brown sugar, chopped walnuts and cinnamon 3) On lightly floured surface, pat dough into a round and let rest 5 minutes

4) Roll out dough into a 12 inch circle. Brush with melted butter. Sprinkle with brown sugar mixture to within 1/2 inch of edge. Cut into 8 equal pie shaped wedges

5) Starting from the wide end roll each wedge toward the point. Place with center point down on cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Curve to make crescent shape.

6) Cover loosely with wax paper. set in warm place away from drafts until doubled. Approx 45 minutes.

7) With fork, beat egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water. Use to brush tops of rolls before baking. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar

8) bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees F. until golden brown.

9) cool slightly on wire rack, serve warm

Makes 8

*********************************

BOW TIES

One last recipe for the sweet roll dough, feel free to create your own shapes

Streusel Topping

2 tables soft butter

2 tables light brown sugar

1/2 teas cinnamon

1/3 cup unsifted flour

1/3 sweet roll home recipe or all of the class room recipe.

1/4 cup melted butter

Cinnamon sugar mixture

Powdered sugar

1) Make streusel topping: combine butter with sugar, cinnamon and flour. Mix well and set aside.

2) lightly grease a large cookie sheet

3) On lightly floured pastry cloth, roll dough to a rectangle 20 by 10

4) Spread surface with half of the melted butter, then sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar

5) Fold over dough in half, from the long side to form a rectangle 20 by 5 inches

6) Cut crosswise into 2 1/2 inch strips making 8 of them

7) Place strips on prepared cookie sheet making a twist in the center of each to give it a bow look.

8) Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with streusal topping. cover with wax paper

9) Let rise in warm place until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

10) bake 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly on wire rack. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar. Serve while still warm

Makes 8.

Thank you Arroyo High School in El Monte. Here are some things I learned there.

If everyone is speaking Spanish you feel left out and you learn to be a great thinker in your head

If your lunch room teacher calls you and your friends the Relief Society you know he really likes you

Having a great typing teacher did me a great service I learned to type really well and it has served me for a very long time

My male math teacher didn't like girls and wouldn't bother to answer my questions even if I could have been bold enough to ask them. If he didn't like your question you had to run the track. Hense I was a good track runner and very bad at math.

The track was my favorite place and I lived on it, going around and around. Girls could wear pants on the track

Drivers ed (which was part of school back then) is a lot of fun when you are the only girl

The lunch cooks made food better than my mom

Choir was too easy but I loved it

My favorite teacher was in my favorite class which was history

You can't be really good at art and get a good grade in high school everything is paint by number!

Rumors worked even in the 60's

Good readers do less homework (read your last class assignments in your next class, but do it on your lap under your desk)

In High school we waste a lot of time so if you can get out in three years DO IT. It was never a mistake to graduate in my Jr. year, I just paid attention and did my work and was done a year faster!

Summer school condenses information and they don't have time to repeat things and if you read my profile you know I hate things repeated. So I learned summer school is the way to take your Government, English and history classes. Science I need to hear things repeated!

So what did you learn in high school, sis? friends? children?

making pom poms for projects

Print for a pattern

I've made a lot of yarn pom poms in my crafting life. They are wonderful touches to all kinds of toys. This pattern is just one way to make them. It is from when we didn't have those nice plastic forms for making them. It came from a 1960's knitting book. You use the form once so don't work to hard to make it. If you make a ball large enough for a child to toss you'll need a fairly heavy cardboard. 200 wraps are quite a few! I've put a pattern you can print and cut from the cardboard. You can make these smaller and larger if you wish.

Click to enlarge and print

Beware of look alikes

If you google the Grammie hot line you will get the

Grammy hotline.

This IS NOT me.

It claims to to be "The best advice for raising children" Well mom's there is NO SUCH THING! There is lots of good advice, there are helpful ideas, there is a shoulder to cry on, but until your kids have raised their kids you really can't say you have the best advice. And even at that what did you do that worked and made them good parents and good citizens? Who knows? Nope all we can do is offer support and ideas we liked. We can give you our moments of great and wonderful along with our notes of sadness. The only sure fired thing you can't miss with is to Love your families. Everything else is an experiment. Please don't mix me up with the other blog. Smiles Grammie

shadow puppets

Ukiah 1983 ish

Our puppet stage is a refrigerator box all decorated

The puppet screen is oiled paper

The puppet handlers (my 3 girls and some of the neighborhood kids)

go into the box and stand below the oiled window

The black puppets they designed from cardboard are on wires made from hangers

The light source is behind them in the box and they hold the puppets right against the oiled paper and the light does amazing things!

Left to right Alison, Laureen, Kim, Cheryl down below and Shannon in the corner

I don't remember what got us started with shadow puppets. It was a long time ago, my children were very little. The creativity that came from this hobby and the fun is worth passing along.

You can start with using your hands to make creatures on the walls. That is a tiny beginning. Be sure the light source is the correct distance from the hands (takes a bit of testing) Be sure that no hot light bulbs get near the children. The hands should be near to the wall but not touching. If they pull their hands back the creatures grow larger!

The next step is to make paper puppets on sticks or wires and use them to make shadows on the wall.

As you can see in the photo at the top there is another way to do Shadow puppets and that is to make them from black card stock and hold the puppets against an oiled screen. Many cultures have done puppets this way and they are amazing and beautiful. My traveling friends told me all about some they saw in Turkey. Full cultural stories all told with intricate shadows.

Chinese Shadow puppets

Don't get discouraged it's only January!

How do you Climb over an elephant?

I had two calls yesterday from some of the girls. One was under the weather because of a bug going around but it was keeping her from her plan for the new year. She had such a good start. Now she was discouraged.

Another daughter called frustrated with years of going backward on her goals. Makes me sad just to listen. She thinks she is failing most the time.

Then reading a friends blog posting that started like this: "How go the Resolutions, Horatio!!!The Resolve : to live a focused life...a simpler life. A cleaner life (that refers to my careless housekeeping) and a more mindful life.. (translated: don't forget to take bags to the grocery store, - you will never be able to recycle all those plastic bags into doormats!)" I realized how much we bank on that first start of a new plan. How important we make a new year beginning.

I just told you a week ago how much I like a beginnings, I don't suffer the frustrations of a plan not working at the new year. After the phone calls I was wondering why I don't. I looked at how I work on things for change and I think my life now features each day separated. Each day it's own little capsule. Yes today can only go the best I can make it, but tomorrow I have another try. I am always hopeful for the next chance to try again. A sweet friend once told me after her husband passed away she got up each day to quilt. I get up each day to see what might happen, one day at a time.

Don't get discouraged. If you become tired decide you will begin again, continue on that long battle to being better. Don't get upset with yourself. It's when we don't keep trying we should get upset. Remember after today you have tomorrow to put all your energy into.

One day at a time.

I wanted to give you some nice visual way to remember this concept. I went to my stash of old books and found my paper backs from when I was a kid. Now these consist of a lot of horse stories, a couple of chick books, some great classics and some funnies. So now enjoy my kid humor way to remember "You can do anything if you just keep going!"

How do you Climb over an elephant??????????

Grab his tail, climb up his back, dash to his head then slide down his trunk!

SHOW UP!

Does unplugging things help your engery bills and other bothersome things you hear

OR 1100111000011110000111110101010101011100010001111000001110001 ?????

There is a lot of information being tossed at you right now! If you've ever read my profile you will see I DON'T like themes or catch words. 'Going Green' is driving me crazy. I have heard tons of poorly stated information in the act of promoting 'Going Green' lately. Bleach boy has a degree in Electrical stuff so I asked him to give me the real scoop!

What if you want to save power costs? Many shows are telling you to unplug everything when it's not in use. Have you had the winter power outages we endure here in the Pacific Northwest? What do you have to completely reset? Clocks, radio settings, T.V programming etc. It's not fun to redo all your presets on the TV. Or loose your radio presets. If you unplug these items you will forever be resetting most preset items. Yes they do have some power they draw all the time, a little bit. If they have plug ends like the ones below they are drawing power. If they have any kind of little light, or a clock setting that shows when they are off then they are drawing power. Remember if you unplug those you will have to reset everything. I hate blinking clocks!

If your plug looks like this it is drawing power when plugged in even if it is not connected to your item, like phone etc. This goes for docking stations also, they are always drawing power.

Things I do unplug: my cell phone charger, my sewing machines (all on one plug strip)

Things I do not unplug: my TV, DVD player, my surround sound, my radio clock, my computer (what a pain to redo my power back up) When I travel I do unplug the computer stuff.

I'm sure there are more I can't think of but THINKING is what you need to do on this. If I really want to save power, I don't use my dryer or my oven often. I use the lower power use appliances over the big draws. I will put the PUD's list of power use items in the blog after this one so look below.

NEXT ISSUE that bothers me is the energy saving bulbs. They do save a lot of energy. Lighting accounts for close to 20 percent of the average home’s electric bill. The approved energy florescent bulbs use up to 75 percent less energy than incandescent light bulbs, last up to 10 times longer. What bothers me is the ever small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing makes it so that you must take it to a disposal site. Yes you can't toss these bulbs in the trash usually and you have to clean up any broken ones as if you are a hazard team. YIKES. Keep that in mind when going Bulb Green! I also find the older ones come on so slowly that there are many places they are useless to me, as in the front porch. I hear a noise at night, I quickly turn on the front or back light to check on what's happening. A dim glow comes from the light. Useless! I've been told the newer ones are better.

HOW about the TV stations going digital?

Oh this is a can of worms. I hope I can clearly explain this for you.

1. IF YOU have Cable TV or satellite TV you don't have to worry at all. DO NOTHING

2. IF YOU get your analogue TV now from an antenna you will need one of the following

A: a digital TV and perhaps a new antenna OR

B: An Analogue TV with a Digital box and perhaps a new antenna

We put in our Digital box for our analogue TV some months ago. It has not been a happy experience. The frequency band for analogue seems so much more stable and we get great TV on our analogue TV with our roof top antenna. WE do not get great Digital. A slight breeze, a little snow, anything will keep us from getting a clear signal. Right now we just switch back to Analogue and watch what doesn't come in with digital, but that comes to an end in Feb. 17Th.

You need to be in a good sight line to the signal with digital TV or you will not get a good signal. There will be frozen pictures and pixel's bits or no picture at all if you are not picking up a good enough signal. A lot of people are going to be very surprised when they figure this out.

Our digital box works well it's just the signal is so hard to catch and not as stable, but it does look very good if you get it and there are additional stations as in 7.1 and 7.2, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3 etc. Lots of extra programing! These are side band stations.

Our DVD player said it had a digital receiver but it works very poorly so we use the converter box on the TV. Our converter was $60 but we had a Govt issues coupon that took that down.

So remember just because you get analog on your antenna doesn't mean you will get digital. You can spend a lot of money trying to find out what works. Our local stations are providing a directional listing on where to find the stations for our viewing area. That helped a lot as we use an antenna we can rotate from in the house. So if I watch channel 4 digital I will have to turn the antenna to watch channel 5 digital and again for Channel 7 and 9 etc.

You might solve a lot of problems using an antenna that you can change directions with. A router mounted directional antenna, the rotor system is sold separate from antenna. Ours has a box that comes into the house and I just turn the dial to the different degrees the stations can be received in.

Our antenna is many years old but we bought a large one as we live out a ways and so it does pick up the digital. Bleach boy tells me what you need is a good antenna. It's not a matter of analog and digital antenna's, there are small antennas for close to the transmitter and large for distance. All antenna's receive digital and analog. Bleach boy says they all receive radio waves that's the point!

Oh what we go through for the Governments whims! The analog transmissions will be used for emergency issues but the majority will be sold for broad band use. The Government will make lots of money on selling this spectrum. That is why they offered you coupons to buy your converter boxes which I understand they are now out of. It was a great help to us! I'm so glad I live in a free country where I can say this!

I'm happy to answer any questions on these issues. I've only glossed by the information to get you started. Don't believe everything you hear!

http://telecom.hellodirect.com/docs/Tutorials/AnalogVsDigital.1.051501.asp This site explains the difference in the two signals, digital verses Analog. Easy to understand.

Energy use charts from our PUD

Click to enlarge for reading or printing