List of Favorite Useful Stuff (That We Use Regularly)

I know this is a little excessively random, but I'll sort it out later. It's just nice to find a place to write down some of the things we've found so useful over the years (and often wished we had purchased the first time around instead of wasting time and money on less effective options).

Andis 30125 Wall Mounted Hang Up 1600 Watt Hair Dryer with Night Light

For too many years, I had my bathroom counter taken up with a big hairdryer (especially in the winter!) before I realized that someone probably made a hotel-style built-in hairdryer. I really like it and am planning on getting one for the kids' bathroom too.

Zyliss Jumbo Garlic Press with Cleaner

I'm really pretty impressed that we're only on our second garlic peeler for our whole married life (almost 22 years!), and we had to replace our first one only because we accidentally donated it to a guest house we were visiting at a monastery once upon a time. ;) Also, the press is weighted in such a way as to give maximum leverage with minimal effort.

Miele Vacuum Cleaner

This is a recent purchase, after a lot of fails and a lot of dust allergies to deal with. It's not cheap, but it's been amazing so far.

Behr Ultra Premium Satin Enamel Paint

We had so much bad luck with cheap paint, that we've learned to be more cautious. Though we've purchased some Sherwin Williams (which has really good sales a few times each year), I think our best experience (especially considering the cost difference) has been with this product from Home Depot. Great coverage and durability (and you can bring in color options from other brands for them to work out with this paint).

Southwest Airlines

We buy a lot of airplane tickets these days, mostly for the college kids. We've found Southwest to often be the best bargain - and often the direct flights are the best deal. Plus, you get two free check-in bags on each flight.

Kindle Keyboard

We love, love, love our Kindle Keyboards. No back-lighting means that it's easy on the eyes. It's easy to highlight passages and add notes to books. I LOVE being able to look up words in the dictionary so easily (I am otherwise too lazy). Books are inexpensive (and many, especially out-of-copyright, are free). I love being able to put my own documents, as well as purchased ebooks, onto the Kindle. I really appreciate how much easier it is for me to get through long books - partly because the Kindle is so light-weight and partly because I don't get distracted by how much of the book is left (it might sound silly, but it really is true for me). And finally, the text-to-speech option is fantastic. We set up a blind relative with a Kindle Keyboard and it has changed her life immensely. She can access all kinds of books and documents with ease and enjoys listening to the Liturgy of the Hours (via the Universalis App).

I should also mention that it's really nice, especially when a bunch of us are reading the same book for a literature discussion group, to buy one copy of a book, and end up with multiple copies for our various devices (though some books have a limit on how many devices they can be on at once - we've only hit this a few times, I think when we got past 5 devices or so).

Ooma Internet Telephone

Home telephone service for $5 a month. What's not to like?

Business Calendar App for Android (Appgenix Software)

I got a tablet (Samsung/Android) a little over a year ago, primarily in order to facilitate a portable calendar situation, without having to pay a monthly fee for a smart phone (I use an AT&T track phone which costs about $100 a year). While reading up on tablet options, I came across a very enthusiastic review of this app, and then happened to get it while it was free on Amazon. It's worked very well for us (it syncs with Google Calendar on our computer when I'm near wifi, so it's not live at all times, but it's good enough for my needs).

Fisher Paykel Washing Machine

Some friends turned us onto this little-known brand a few years ago. It was reasonably priced, energy-efficient, and seems to be holding up REALLY well.

Oxyclean Stain Remover

We started adding this to all of our laundry loads back when diaper messes left stains on all of the baby clothes. Even though our youngest is now ten, we still use it because it helps with stains and keeps the clothes smelling better and more sanitized (I think). You don't need to use much, so it lasts a long time. I also rub it in with some liquid laundry soap and let it soak on particularly bad stains.

Zojirushi Rice Cooker

This is a great (but fairly expensive) rice maker that cooks white or brown (basmati brown is our favorite) and keeps it fresh for about 36 hours. We make rice 3-4 times a week and find it handy for lunches during our homeschool day and such, so I feel that it's been a very good investment.

Costco

Though we used to shop at competitor, Sam's Club, we haven't looked back since Costco finally came to our area about 3 years ago. The company is great, the products are quality (the Kirkland store brand tends to be quite good), and there are lots of good options for gluten-free families like ours.  We regularly buy dairy, veggies, gluten-free bread (the Udi's loaf we buy is twice the size of the one in local grocery stores for only about 20% more cost), spices, oils (coconut, olive and avocado are our favorites), dried goods (like raisins, rice and gluten-free flour) and chips. We've also been very happy with their optical department and regularly purchase gas and tires from them.

Trader Joe's

I've been a big fan of Trader Joe's since my college days in Southern California. Again, it's a recent addition to our local repertoire, and a very welcome and helpful one. First of all Trader Joe's is a very gluten-free friendly store. You can request a list of gluten-free items to help you out. Some of the staples we buy from Trader Joe's are: tea, granola, chili,  beans, Emergen-C (better price than anything I've seen, though I haven't checked online yet), yogurt, kefir, peanut butter, jelly, maple syrup, marinara sauce, corn pasta (the trick is to rinse it in hot water after you cook it to get rid of the starchy after-taste), all kinds of soup, refried black beans and wine (yes, we like their "two-buck Chuck", even though it costs $3 here).

Amazon Subscribe-and-Save

This is a particularly good deal if you have at least five items in a given order (then you a discount of 15% rather than 5%). We like this for things like canned soups (some Progresso Soups are gluten-free and are really inexpensive this way), Basmati Brown Rice, gluten-free breakfast cereal, gluten-free snacks and granola bars and gluten-free baking mixes (like pizza crust and cornbread mix).

Toyota Corollas

Okay, so maybe I'm having a little too much fun with the random nature of this list, but it would be wrong for me not to mention our favorite workhouse of a car. We're on our fourth Toyota Corolla in 20+ years (plus a couple of vans on the side), most of which we've purchased with 100,000+ miles for a few thousand dollars. We've pretty much run each one into the ground. They get great gas mileage with relatively little repairs needed. I don't know how we would have managed without them.

Walgreens Store Brand

We use this brand a lot for health care and personal care items. A stranger in a line at Target introduced me to their store brand diapers many years ago. Since then, we've used many store brand items of all sorts, and like to keep an eye out for their great sales, when we do a big stock-up.

Dollar Tree

This is a brand new category for us, introduced to me by my parents recently. For starters, my dad (who's quite savvy in this sort of way) has found the Dollar Tree batteries and lightbulbs to be both extremely cost-effective and of excellent quality.

Sweet Victory!

Originally posted to Chez VH, February 6, 2011 -

We had a fun little Packers party here tonight - about 20 people in all to watch the Superbowl. The kids made homemade green and yellow decorations (most prominently a huge green and gold paper chain that hung across the room behind the TV). Everyone brought food and goodies.

Frank had the idea to make a bunch of paper airplanes and hand them out to everyone to throw in the air at each touchdown. It was quite a nice touch!

We started the tradition at the Championship Game of handing out sweets at every Packers' touchdown - we call them "victory sweets". Since there were plenty of desserts at our potluck, we handed one out at each touchdown (and one was left to celebrate the end of the game).

We cheered ourselves hoarse and tried to coax the Packers into rallies when things were looking tough - and I guess it worked. :)

One funny thing happened to me. We decided to start cutting up the second dessert in preparation for the next touchdown. I announced this to the crowd and then looked at the TV and realized that the other team had the ball. Oops! But no, right then, we got an interception AND a touchdown. Best "bad" prediction I've ever made. ;)

My husband, a former DJ in college, has a little "game" he likes to play at half-time. He turned off the audio on the TV and piped in music from the computer. We started with a little Gaelic Storm (Beggarman), while the Black-Eyed Peas and their backup dancers were gyrating all over. It was hysterical! Then he switched over to the Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian, which was somehow exquisitely timed. We laughed ourselves silly.

So if anyone is curious what we had food-wise, here's a partial list:

Chili with fixin's

Hot Buffalo Chicken Dip

Hot Bean Dip

Chips and Veggie Platter with three more kinds of dip

Deviled Eggs

Cheese and Summer Sausage Tray (with crackers)

Homemade pickles

Rice Krispie Treats

Brownies

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Apple Crisp

The Recipe that Almost Died (A Google Story)

Once upon a time, about a year ago, in fact, my aunt decided to try to resurrect her mother's potato pancake recipe. After trying it out to be sure it tasted just the way she remembered it tasted, she sent it out to our extended family e-mail list, explaining at the end that, "It's scary to think Mom's recipe almost vanished!"

I was interested in trying it sometime so decided to post it here to Studeo for my own convenience. (Recipe here.)

Well, the recipe didn't die (and we tried it and liked it and have made it several times - we're looking forward to making it soon with some homemade maple syrup from our own trees).

Well, anyway, if you Google "Potato Pancake Recipe" right now, you'll find that it's #1. Yep, right above the recipes from allrecipes.com, cooks.com, epicurious.com and foodnetwork.com.

And I suspect that somewhere, up there, Grandma is smiling. :)

My Grandma's Potato Pancake Recipe

I haven't tried this yet, but figured this would be a good place to save it (and someone else may enjoy it as well). This is from a letter written by my aunt. By the way, this a recipe from my Grandma Lawless, who I never met, because she died several years before I was born.

I finally figured it out, and it needs to have good old "Russet" (Idaho)
potatoes. They are good and starchy which is key. I had tried it with "New"
potatoes and that, I think, was the main problem. So now I've done it this
way twice and I think my Mom would approve. This makes enough for two, it's
also a good size for testing to see if you're happy with them then adjust
for the size of your family.

POTATO PANCAKES

1 Egg
1/2 Cup chopped onion
1/2 Cup milk
1/2 Cup all purpose flour
1 Extra large baking potato diced medium
Couple shakes of salt

The potatoes I used both times are the really huge size, they don't sell
these in bags, but you can adjust for that.

In a blender put the egg, milk and onion and puree it. Add the flour and
blend, then the potatoes and salt. Pulse this a few times until it looks like a rough pancake batter. Using a ladle, pour onto a hot, lightly oiled griddle, and with the back of the ladle spread batter out very thin.

If you are using a dark Teflon griddle you will see the darkness through
parts of the pancake. Watch closely they cook pretty fast. Turn when nice and brown, cook other side until it looks like a flour tortilla. That's it.
Put on a dish, spread with butter, roll up like an enchilada, and pour a
ribbon of syrup over it. Yum yum.

I wouldn't use self rising flour because they aren't supposed to rise like a
regular pancake. When finished they are the thickness of a flour tortilla and look like one on the second side. I make mine round, in a frying pan but for efficient use of space when using a griddle Mom made them in rectangles.

It's scary to think Mom's recipe almost vanished!

Frankly Speaking

"Mommy, can we have some egg noggin after dinner?"

More on that Canning Thing...

Maureen Wittmann forwarded the following to me (for those who might be interested)...

We do not recommend oven processing for the following reasons:

1. Variable heat in the oven could cause jar breakage.
2. Food located in the center of the jar does not always reach safe internal temperatures
3. The possibility of damage to the sealing compound is high in the oven.

While foods may be fully cooked in the jars, they are not safe for shelf storage. Jarden Home Brands does not feel sufficient research has been completed in this area and does not endorse the baking procedure.

Information for canning high acid foods is available on our website at www.freshpreserving.com.

Thank you for contacting us.

Sincerely,
Consumer Affairs
Jarden Home Brands

Since We're Talking About Canning Already...

I thought I'd share this tip that a good friend of mine just sent me - sounds like a perfect fit here!

With many years of canning behind us, Mom and I use a relatively new
method called oven canning, in case you're interested.

THIS ONLY WORKS FOR HIGH ACID FOODS, and apple and pear fall into this
category.

Place filled (leaving proper space at top) and sealed jars into cold
oven. Set it for 225 degrees and a timer for 90 minutes. When the
timer goes off, LEAVE THE DOOR CLOSED UNTIL IT IS COMPLETELY COOLED
DOWN. We usually just put the jars in after supper, and leave the door
closed til morning. (Be sure to leave a note or indication to yourself
that you have something in the oven, so that you remove the jars in the
morning, before you decide to preheat the oven for something! and find
that you've unsealed your jars.) This method accomplishes the same as a
water-bath stove-top method.

Quarts: 90 minutes. Pints: 80 minutes.

When sealing the jars, make sure the rim is perfectly clean and free of
chips.

Fruit!

I can't get over the enormous quantities of fruit that our one pear tree and one apple tree are producing. Last weekend the kids filled a 30 gallon container with apples and pears. And there are loads more on and under the trees. We really have our work cut out for us (particularly since many of the apples have worm holes to work around - the pears look pretty good). I think I've managed to identify our varieties - Anjou pears and Cortland apples. We're still fairly new to this house and apparently some of these trees apparently bear well only every four years or so, we're in pretty new territory.

We've made some very good apple juice and apple sauce and I hope (perhaps tomorrow) to do some honest-to-goodness canning (of both sauce and pears). I was pleased that our local grocery store carries quart-size Ball canning jars. Some good friends came over to help with apple processing this afternoon, but since we were just getting started with the whole process and decided to get together for it on a whim (and thus had to spend considerable time cleaning before we really got started), we didn't accomplish all that much. But we had fun! I imagine it's one of those things that you get more efficient at over time. After we get the apples a bit under control, I really have to start attending to the pears. They seemed to need more ripening, so we've placed the ones the kids have picked so far into paper bags (seven of them and lots more on the tree!) on a table in the basement. Should be interesting!

I Can Hardly Believe It....

My dear friend Katrina bought me new dishes for my birthday! I happened to mention once that I'd like to replace my beige stencil-patterned (and somewhat scratched and tattered) Corelle dishes with a blue and white pattern some day. She surprised me with a gift card when I saw her in California and I just got to order these today...

Which will go beautifully with my eclectic collection of blue and white serving dishes and odds'n'end kitchen things that come from here and there - mostly rummage sales plus a bowl that John brought back from Taiwan and a little tea mug set he got in Germany. Thank you my friend!!!

Once nice thing about this pattern is that if we need extra dishes some day and we can't find the pattern any more (and this is already a "retired" pattern), they'll go quite nicely with plain white Corelle dishes as well.

Ah, Eating on the Road

Outdoor Breakfast, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

...a very pleasant part of the trip, thanks in part to Trader Joe's.

A Little Papal Celebration

When we had a party (ahem, a few weeks ago now) to celebrate our final teen catechism discussion of the year and the completion of the book Jesus of Nazareth, a young lady in our group made this incredibly beautiful papal tiara cake in honor of the festivities of the day. I like how you can see some of the group in the mirror's reflection.

Holy Thursday

My children's favorite meal of the year (and they openly admit this) is our Holy Thursday meal. We have a passover-like meal (a general approximation) which we tend to get a little better at each year.

For us it seems to help to not start with big expectations, but to let a tradition develop slowly from year to year until it becomes an integral part of our lives. The impact of this particular tradition only fully hit me last year when the kids excitedly exclaimed that it was their favorite meal of the year. I never expected it to become that! I also like how it's worked out that, even though there are some downsides of not having everyone go to the evening Mass on Holy Thursday, this is one that that they get to choose to go to - and the older ones, at least, tend to choose willingly to go to this particularly beautiful Mass, full of symbolism that is made just a little more vibrant by our symbolic dinner beforehand.

We haven't always done this, but I'd say we've had a pretty strong record for about eight years running. One year, before this time, Ria entered an Easter Coloring contest at our local grocery store. They called us on Holy Thursday morning to let us know that Ria had won first place in her age group. She won a couple of frozen pizzas and some bottles of soda. She was so proud of bringing her food home to share with everyone, so we ate frozen pizza and soda for Holy Thursday dinner that year.

Ah, tonight we ate much better, though. Once a year I splurge and pick up a big piece of lamb. It's not cheap, but it's extremely memorable. I cook it a little differently each year (I'm definitely a wing-it sort of cook.) This year I cooked it with olive oil, garlic, fresh rosemary and sage and, of course, salt and pepper. I made a gravy to go with it and it turned out very well, I think. (The unleavened bread was delicious dipped in the gravy!). I do need to remember to get one of those oil-separators to simplify the gravy-making process.

When we first started doing these meals, it was with the help of Mary Reed Newland's The Year and Our Children. We still have never made it farther than that in the book. It has a bookmark in a permanent spot for Holy Thursday and we take it out most years to help remember the details. We didn't manage to pull it out this year, but we pretty much remembered the menu and we talked about the purpose of the meal rather informally.

Once thing *I* like about fixing this meal is that it was meant to be fixed and eaten in a hurry. Even in the midst of a chaotic week, we wear our shoes to the meal and rush off to Mass or whatever else. Today was a little more chaotic than usual. Our big van has been in the shop all week and we finally got a call late this afternoon that it was ready. Since we're expecting a major snowstorm tomorrow and we'll definitely need the van over the weekend (!), we ran off to pick up the van after dinner and three of the kids and I arrived at Mass only fifteen minutes late.

Anyway, back to the menu, besides the aforementioned lamb:

unleavened bread (here's the recipe we found online). This took Ria about 15 minutes to prepare and 20 or 25 minutes to cook (alongside the lamb).

We also generally pick up some sort of kosher crackers - Matzos or some such. These are usually very good with...

Charoseth. We use the recipe we found in Mary Reed Newland's book. This is supposed to represent the mortar for the bricks used by the Israelites while they were in slavery in Egypt. This recipe calls for a mixture of raisins, chopped peanuts (I get dry-roasted, other kinds may also work) and applesauce. We just wing it on the proportions.

Bitter herbs - we put a long sprig of parsley and a little radish on each plate. It's colorful and interesting to taste. We also have a few bowls of salt water around (to dip these bitter herbs in) which are supposed to represent the tears of the Israelites in slavery.

Grape Juice - my kids love this part!!!

We generally also have a dessertish sort of thing too. One year I picked up some candied fruits in the kosher section of the grocery store. This year it was some dried dates and apricots, which went VERY well with the rest of the meal.

I did take some pictures and I'll try to post them later. This year, the table was especially pretty as Frank asked very sweetly yesterday if we could get a flower to put in the middle of the table for the special dinner. :)

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the kids love setting a special place for Elijah. The little girls, who made the place cards, carefully wrote out one for him too and Kate and Terri felt very privileged to sit on either side.

Don't Let the Label Fool You

Don't Let the Label Fool You
Originally uploaded by Chez VH

We made this stuff ourselves! It is a bit on the watery side, however. It took about four gallons of sap to nearly fill this little maple syrup jug. It's QUITE delicious!!! (This little jug holds about 12 ounces total).

Tapping the Maple Tree

Tapping the Maple Tree
Originally uploaded by Chez VH

It's a funny sight, but we've gotten about TEN GALLONS of sap from this tree already! The kids check on it several times a day.

The yard looks deceptively warm. There are still large patches of snow on the ground and we've had weather in the mid-30s during the day.

Sweeeeet!!!!

IMG_2047
Originally uploaded by Chez VH

You know how there are lots of things that you dream of perhaps doing someday, but never really think you'll do? (Well, at least there are many things I dream of doing that I don't/can't do. But perhaps you do lots of sewing and baking and cool crafts with your kids and things like that.) Ha! One of those actually happened today. A few days ago, Terri (age 10) and I were talking about maple syrup. For some reason, I remembered that it was about the right time of year to tap the trees. After that Terri took over. She heard her grandparents used to tap their maple trees and gave them a phone call. Sure enough, they had some real taps around, and pretty soon we had three taps in our very large tree with milk jugs poised to collect the sap.

We collected a few little batches over the last few days and had our first finger-licking taste of maple syrup last night. So today we were amazed to find nearly a gallon of sap waiting for us when we returned from our afternoon activities. Here's the picture (complete with messy counter) to prove it. :)

It doesn't look like much in our enormous spaghetti pot, but this is now simmering on the stove and will theoretically make about a quart of maple syrup. UPDATE: Um, scratch that, it's a ratio of 40:1, not 4:1.

Now if only I can find my copy of Miracles on Maple Hill so I can read it aloud to the kids. :) If I can't make it that far, I can at least pull Little House in the Big Woods (from which my entire body of knowledge regarding maple syrupping comes from) out to read.

This has got to be the prettiest thing I've ever made with two extremely stale sourdough baguettes

What We Did With Our Leftover Bread from Christmas
Originally uploaded by Chez VH

I was up really early yesterday morning working on love2learn and decided to start some bread pudding in between the web work. Over the course of several hours, I kept "feeding" batter (basically it's french toast batter) to the super-stale bread bits until everything was soaked. It took 30 eggs! Definitely best served with maple syrup. Yum!

The Solemnity of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Here's a useful repeat from last year. :)


Happy Feast Day!

Here are some links of interest for the day:

Domestic Church's page on Our Lady of Guadalupe

Website on Our Lady of Guadalupe (be sure to read the part about her eyes)

Catholic Encyclopedia Entry on the Shrine of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe from EWTN (very informative!)

"A Tea in Honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe"

Ideas for Celebration from O Night Divine

It's so nice to be able to say Saint Juan Diego now, isn't it? (Even though he's been canonized for several years, it still seems new to me). I love how we commemorate the spectacular events of 1531 over the course of several days - between his feast on December 9th and her Solemnity today. UPDATE: By the way, sorry for the multiple updates. I was doubting my information in calling this a Solemnity, but my sister found the above link on EWTN which seems to confirm it. If anyone has further information, I'd love to hear about it.

Today we're planning to go to Mass, attempt to sing a song we learned at a Spanish Mass a few weeks back (with a little procession), read one of our favorite books, bake a dessert out of Josefina's cookbook and eat Mexican food in honor of the day.

Here's one of our all-time favorite dishes (no guarantee of authenticity). I'm afraid I don't tend to measure anything out - this recipe is a little different every time - it also depends on what I can find fresh at the grocery store.

Taco Salad:

Ground Beef
Canned Black Beans
Taco Seasonings (I use a seasoning packet)
Chile Peppers (here's a helpful "heat" index - see note following list)
sweet or red onions
fresh garlic
sliced mushrooms (I like baby bellas)
sliced black olives
avocado
fresh diced tomatoes
Lettuce (we like red leaf)
sour cream
grated cheddar cheese
salsa (recipes can be found here)
tortilla chips and/or tortillas

Note about peppers: I'm pretty new to cooking with chile peppers. I think I was a little nervous about it - since I'm not big on HOT peppers (at least for a Californian) - but I shouldn't have been. I found the poblano peppers delicious in the meat mixture, but too mild (even for me) in the salsa.

Brown ground beef with garlic, onion, peppers and taco seasonings to taste. Drain fat, add beans and cook until thoroughly heated.

I sometimes make two batches of meat - regular and "grande" (particularly useful for a large family gathering where not everyone will appreciate the fancier version). Regular - shown above. Grande - set aside part of the meat mixture and add mushrooms and olives to cook along with the beans.

This is best served buffet style (be sure to keep the meat hot, however, as all the other items are cold). Some assembly required: Prepare a bed of lettuce. Top with meat and bean mix, cheese, tomatoes, avocado, sour cream and salsa. Sprinkle crushed tortilla chips on top. Also works quite well wrapped in a tortilla.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, patroness of the unborn, pray for us!

Well...

I got six Love2learn Moments done today and put a new photo up to more accurately express the weather we're in the midst of here (major ice storm expected tonight).

I'm so delighted to get SIX of them done - I usually only manage 2 or 3 at a sitting. They're quite tricky to do as they need to be of just a certain length (48.5-50 seconds seems to be the acceptable range) and of course I'm trying for some solid and encouraging content. (The latest six can be seen at the link above). Getting an appropriate amount of oomph in the reading usually takes a couple of tries too.

No energy left to blog about the fun and crazy things that happened over the weekend. For now I'll just say that they involved a six foot obelisk, a Roman feast and a broken water pipe.

Oops - I take that back - it was more like a five foot obelisk. :)

Good Old-Fashioned Fast Food

I was at Target yesterday, on the way home from a long (but fun) afternoon of Irish dance at a friend's house. John is out-of-town and I was starting to think about dinner somewhere around 5:45.

I decided I needed something easy but not terribly unhealthy. Too much of that lately and I wasn't feeling so good after all of that!

I decided to think a little European. (At least it sounded sort of European). We had lots of cheddar cheese at home. I picked up a large can of fancy mixed nuts at Target. Then I dropped by our new local grocery store and picked up apples, grapes, a couple loves of nice bread, grape juice and a little bit of some fancy cheese that the kids love (strawberry peach stilton).

When we got home, I popped the bread in the oven 350 degrees for 15 minutes (including preheating time) while I cut and washed the other things as needed. The spread was colorful, tasty and reasonably healthy - and the kids loved it!

Renowned Local Food Critic's Identity is Revealed Only in Death

I found this story touching and interesting.

Amazing that he managed to keep his secret in this day and age!