SendBlaster Bulk Email Program
Since I enjoy doing reviews here, which might make someone else’s research easier for them, I thought that I’d do a review on SendBlaster.
SendBlaster is the first bulk email program I tried. I downloaded the free version (which you can find here: www.sendblaster.com) because of the high rating it received from the download site I found it on, and because of the oh-so-neato little logo of a friendly little blue cannon shooting letters into the air. Even the free version is feature rich coming with many templates and the capability to handle 2 mailing lists of 100 addresses each with 2 connections. They now have a new version, SendBlaster 2, which also has a free edition. I have been thrilled with the features and the ease of use of SendBlaster Free Edition but I have now outgrown its mailing list capabilities. So, I began hunting for other bulk email programs to compare.
I have tried several free and trial programs and I have tried the online programs as well (which tend to be slow and cumbersome to me). Many of those I’ve tried have seemed interesting and quite functional but are enormously expensive. Besides, none of them have a friendly little blue cannon shooting letters which I’d become accustomed to seeing on my desktop shortcut.
Since I have found SendBlaster Free to be such a fantastic program and so easy to use I am eager to purchase the SendBlaster 2 Pro Edition which will grant me the additional bonus of keeping that little blue cannon on my desk. 
If you need a bulk email program please take my advice and go check out SendBlaster at www.sendblaster.com and do tell that little cannon I said, “Hi!”
About 20 Years Ago…
Memory Lane by Erin Clark
…I was raising my 2 little stair-step girls, who would’ve been around 7 and 8 years old, in Memphis, TN. My husband Rory worked shift work at E.I. DuPont where he’d been for a number of years.
This was back in the day before DuPont went to the 12 hour shifts. What a wild ride that was! Back then the shift workers worked 7 nights of midnight shift, 2 days off; 7 nights of the so-called 4 PM-11 PM shift, 2 days off; and 5 days of the daytime shift with 4 days off following that. Then it started all over again so that in the course of 1 month’s time he worked one week of each of the 3 different shifts.
I’m sure that some of the DuPont wives handled it better than I but I just did the best that I could and that was all that I could do. I tried to keep a schedule in the house but this was hard to keep up. I remember a friend calling about 9 o’clock one evening and was unable to hide her horror that I was just cooking supper. Often I’d hear the Valley of the Dolls theme song wafting through my mind, “Gotta get off…this merry-go-round…” But those were happy days. We were happy at our church (which is where I met Jean Stockdale whose blog I often mention here at the Cafe–this was before she started her MOM’s group ministry which she is so well known for now–go check her out). We lived in a house I loved and I often said I would never move again although Rory often said he wanted to move to the country.
A year or 2 later my husband’s widowed grandmother ‘eloped’ with a younger man, a cattle rancher…she was 80, he was 78, and they traipsed off to the Justice of the Peace one day and got married surprising us all. He wished to get shed of the responsibilities of farming and offered to make us a deal if we’d buy his cattle. He said he’d make us a deal we couldn’t refuse; so he did, and we didn’t.
Suddenly we were sitting on a 50 acre farm outside of Covington, TN with 42 head of cattle in the process of building our home with our own hands. We fell in love with farm life instantly! What a time that was! The kids combed afar and afield, jumped ravines, swung on grapevines, played in creeks, played on hay bales…the kids had emu, goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, a duck, a horse (who is STILL with us here on the farm though she is about 28 years old by our calculations!), 7 dogs, and 2 cats.
The kids are grown now but the grandsons love Avignon, our farm, and the saga continues with the chickens we now have for my grandson Micah’s lil’ egg business.
Quite a far place from where I sat in my city home and said I’d never move again…anybody interested in buyin’ farm fresh eggs from a 9 year old with big dancing eyes and a bad cow-lick?
I’m participating in the McLinky Blog Hop!
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Savory Monkey Bread Recipe
Monkey Bread
Hey y’all! I’m pretty sure I mentioned seeing a good sweet Monkey Bread recipe with an awesome cream cheese icing over at Jean Stockdale’s place and it reminded me that I need to post my savory one here:
Bread Machine Monkey Bread Dinner Rolls
(Recipe is for 1 – 1 ½ lb. machine — 2 lb. recipe amounts shown in parentheses)
2 ½ C. all purpose flour (4 C. for 2 lb. recipe)
2 T. sugar (3 ½ T.)
½ t. salt (3/4 t.)
1 T. butter, margarine or shortening – softened (1 ¾ T.)
1 egg – beaten (same for 2 lb. recipe)
1 T. milk (1 ¾ T.)
2/3 C. lukewarm water (1 ¼ C.)
1 t. dry yeast (2 t.)
1/3 C. melted butter – reserved (2/3 C.)
Put 1st 8 ingredients in bread pot in order listed. Let stand 5 minutes. If you want to use the delay timer add all liquid ingredients first, piling the dry ingredients high. End with the yeast placed as the last ingredient making an indentation made with your finger or a spoon into the very peak of the dry ingredients for the yeast. This is to keep the yeast as far as possible from the liquid ingredients so that the yeast is kept from proofing either too soon before the kneading begins or proofing unevenly.
Use ‘Dough’ setting; press start. Dough will be done in 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove dough and place in greased bowl (or greased zip lock bag), turning to coat evenly with the oil so that the dough does not dry out while rising. Cover bowl and let rest in warm, draft-free place (inside a microwave or your oven does well) 20-30 minutes.
Punch down gently, form into 30 balls. Dip each in the reserved melted butter. Arrange in layers in 10” tube pan or bundt pan or even in a cake pan with a greased, inverted custard cup placed in the center before you add the dough balls. Let rise in warm, draft-free place 30-40 minutes or until doubled in bulk.
Bake in preheated 350ºF oven 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack 5 minutes. Invert onto serving plate. Drizzle with additional butter, if desired. Serve warm.
