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Showing posts from January, 2005

Okay, I broke down

I told my self I wasn't going to sign up for another blog traffic service, but practically every blog I was coming to was talking about a new one, so I broke down and signed up for BlogaZoo . Four blog traffic exchanges, I'm seriously, seriosly doomed.

New week

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Spent yesterday pretty much around the house. Hubby spent most of the day attempting to get that laptop we'd picked up from a friend a while back up and running. We'd hoped to either load my Accuchef program onto it or at least set it up as a terminal connected to my 'puter, but the darned thing is just too old for either (unless hubby can work a miracle). Hubby is thinking maybe turning my recipes into text files and loading it on, I think that is going to work very well as there are literally thousands of recipes and coming up with a means to search is going to be as cludgy and frustrating as all get out. I think looking for a newer laptop thru one of the surplus sales thru both universities may be a better idea, something that can run at least Win95, which is the minimum I need for AccuChef. Did a few dishes, swiped the kitchen floor with the chlorox wet mop, vacuumed the living room and pretty much had no other house work to do So yesterday we FINALLY sat down to watc

Jean's cooking tip of the week

Hot oil and a plastic container don't mix!

My weekend so far

Spokane is out of the questions this weekend, maybe in a couple of weeks. So today has been a fairly laid back day. Got the air mattress pumped up some more, straighten up the living room, some of the bedroom and the kitchen. I've currently got beer batter resting in anticipation of chicken nuggets later and we've just come back from an errand and a little bit of geocaching. What is geocaching you may ask? Well, it is me and hubby's new hobby :D Hubby's best friend in Canada is into it and told hubby about it and then hubby chanced on a good deal on a GPS unit and we decided that geocaching would be just the ticket for us. It would give us a really good excuse to get out of the house more often (we can only go out to the range so many times before we seriously start running out of ammo LOL), a great way to really explore the county, some fun ways to make trips out of town more interesting and a really fun way to get some fresh air and exercise. We hit the 3 easiest on

Mmmmm, Friday

Looking forward to a lazy weekwend, with any luck. Tho I am feeling an incredible urge to get out of town. I wonder if we could swing a trip up to Spokane and check out the store there that we have the gift card for. I've been checking their website and they have been getting a few more things there, but most of it is I don't want it, need it, already have it or it is just too darned expensive, even if it is on sale. The store isn't much bigger then ours, but they may have sheets sets and other bedroom items we can use the card for. Heaven knows we need new sheets. Speaking of beds, several months ago we'd gotten an inflatable queen size mattress to see if that would help any on the bed. 3 egg shell mattress pads still left me in pain in the morning. We've just been using it on top of the mattress we already have and when you consider we have a double height pedistal bed, we are talking need ing a ladder to climb in every night. So last night we pulled the regular

Sweeeet!

Got home last night and was able to give the food dehydrator a good looksee. It was fairly dusty and dirty, but then again, living in a small town surrounded by fields and half the streets are gravel it isn't too surprising. So put the cover and the trays and all in the sink for a wash, opened up the unit to get into the fan and heat mechanism (at one point hubby doing a "LOOK! It's Elvis!" to get me to look another direction while he dealt with a too many legged that deserved to be flattened), shook some dirt out and plugged it in. Fan started right up, heat coil worked and there was warm air blowing. So we unplugged it and I hauled it into the bathroom and ran the hand-held shower head over it to thoroughly flush it out and then gave it a good scrub. It's been drying since then. Along with the 4 trays, it came with a couple screen inserts for drying herbs and a couple of inserts for doing fruit sheets, so I think we scored big time. I can't wait to start u

A small point to ponder

Terri Clark's song "The World needs a drink" posits that what we need to do is sit the world down and have a drink and then maybe everyone will start getting along. A nice idea, Hank Williams Jr has one called "Why Can't We All Get a Longneck?". Then I started to thinking, sitting down to drink is NOT a good idea, I've seen way to many people get aggressive and beligerant after a beer or two or three. So, instead of sitting down for alcohol I think the world needs to sit down and start passing joints, pipes and other paraphnalia with some primo weed. I have NEVER been to a party where it was pretty much weed where anyone ever got out of hand. Seriously hungry, but never aggressive or belligerant. So, World, lay in serious munchies to share and pass the joint and once everyone is nice and mellow we can work out all our differences.

EEEK!!!!!

My video copies of Red Dwarf are dying WAHHH!! We went to show our neighbor the very first episode and the tape refused to track properly and the sound quality was muddy. Then again, I DID record them goddess knows how long ago and VHS doesn't really have that long a shelf life. So we will just have to save up the money and get the series on DVD. One nice thing about stir fry for dinner, is when hubby invites the neighbors over all I have to do is throw a little bit more meat into the wok and there was more then plenty to feed 4 people :) I still have enough beef and rice for the fried rice tomorrow night. The Freecycle thing is slowly taking off locally. Tomorrow morning we'll stop off before work and pick up a food dehydrator someone offered. A while back we borrowed one from a friend to try our hand at making our own beef jerky and it came out very well and we want to do more. I also want to look at drying other things like garden veggies and such, maybe make our own ban

Sunshiny day

Sun is out again and the temps are in the mid 40s, tho there is a bit of a breeze, so it is definately chilly. Need to figure out who is leaving headless mouse corpses on the porch, I don't think it is any of our lot as they appear overnight and we find them in the morning. Luckily so far they have been placed far enough from the door that I have not actually stepped on one, close but so far not yet. I must say tho, this mild weather had been very good for the mice, they are frickin' HUGE!!! Planning dinner out in advance is definately helping, with the except of having to stop off at the store last night to pick up the onion and green onions, I'm not worrying at all. By doing a big shop for things like meat, canned goods, frozen stuff and dry goods I will be able to plan a head of time and then only worry about getting things like bread and fresh veggies on a weekly basis and in the long run save a lot of money. When we were shopping practically daily, we'd never

Weekends are too short

The one thing I hate about Sunday nights is I have to start getting ready for Monday morning. Oh well. Yesterday we did make it to Lewiston, where we managed to walk out of Costco for less the $40. Picked up 2 more packages of chicken thighs, 2 packages of the super sweet frozen corn and a couple of bottles of worchestershire sauce. Grabbed a couple of slices of pizza there. Did you know that Costco has pizza to die for? One of these years we are going to get a whole one to bring home, tho I am not sure if it will make it up the hill before getting inhaled:D Hit the cash 'n carry and finally got the can of roasted sesame oil, we were pretty much out, so we now have enough to last about a year since I blend it with oil oil and it is still as flavorable as it is. Made up beer batter when I got home. I defrosted some of the chicken thighs and cut them in to smaller pieces and then dipped them in the batter and deep fried them for a variation on my chicken nuggets. Came out very

Bye bye Johnny, we are going to miss you

RIP Johnny Carson , 1925-2005

Good morning!

Very springlike today, tho with a bit of a chill. I think I will see about getting some seeds started this weekend, so I will have a head start on the tomatos. Get them really big before transplanting them outside when it is time. I posted the clothes to the Moscow Freecycle list last night. Woke up this morning with someone wanting to take them. WOW! that was fast, I figured it would take a while, esp since the list is still small. So once we figure out what we are doing today I can arrange to get her the clothes. I much rather give things either to the local shelters or directly to someone so I KNOW they will be used and appreciated. Goodwill here sends the stuff up to Spokane and gives Value Village a first crack at it. The excuse is they don't want local people to be embarrassed to see someone else wearing their clothes. The problem is, we don't really get any of the good stuff sent here, they sell it all to Value Village and places like that. I for one LIKE to see someone

Survived the week

Thank god it's Friday. Was brain dead most of the day, but got thru it. After work we went over to Pullman to hit Shopko. Scored several shirts for hubby, 1 for $15, 2 for $6 each and the other one for $5. The cheap ones were on the clearance racks. Checked out small mocrowaves and food vacuum sealers while we were there. Hit the Pullman Safeway and picked up some sour cream to use for a dip for tater tots and I got a chunk of myzithra cheese. Decided dinner was going to be burgers and I topped mine with the myzithra and topped hubbys with Tilamook sharp chedder cheese. Finally got home after 8:30. Currently watching the season premier of Stargate Atlantis, almost forgot it was on, luckily someone on the Good Eats fan board mentioned it was on tonight. They'd left last seaon with a cliffhanger. I hate it when they do that. Weather was very springlike today, it was disgusting. Those of us who garden were grousing at work about being stuck inside. A coworker said she saw daf

Amazing

how much better hamburger helper tastes when you add shredded sharp cheddar cheese :D Felt like crap when I got home, so I broke into the emergency stash of quick meals and fixed a box of chedder cheese melt boxed stuff. We usually pick up a box or two of the store brand, they usually run a lot cheaper then the name brand stuff and I usually find they have more flavor. Farmhouse used to put out one, they still may, but we can't find it around here anymoe. Which is a bummer, they had the best stroganoff flavored one out there. I like to doctor them up, usually add extra cheese or sour cream and such depending on the flavor. I still had a flat of burger in the fridge, so I cut that into quarters and packaged up three of them and got them in the freezer and cooked up the 4th. Had a decent dinner with 1/2 hour. Sitting here surfing blogs tonight. Hubby got me a new (at least to me) monitor. It is a 19" and WOW! Things look so much different after my little 15" one I'

OOOOOOOOOOO!

I GOTTA get me one of THESE

Spring has sprung!

Okay, not really, but it did get to be just above 50F today. Those of us with garden space started to get really, really itchy to go outside and play. We'll be back to cooler temps in a few days, but it is nice while it lasts. I am giving serious consideration of getting some plants started this month so I have a really good head start on getting them outside. Got the soup into the freezer and started the spaghetti sauce. I discovered I need to buy a bigger pot. The one I use was barely big enough so I had to use my stock pot, the 26 QT stock pot, which was WAY too big, but it did the job. I had to transfer the sauce back to the other pot to put in the fridge as the stock pot would not fit. I'm thinking of getting something along the lines of about 10 qts or so. While making the sauce I decided to add a splash of some leftover merlot. OOOOO boy, did that make the sauce tasty. Added a nice depth to it. I am hoping I will have more then double what I had last time to put in the

Back to work

School is now in full swing after the 3 day weekend, looks like the students all made it back. I think a lot of students extend their winter break a little bit longer when school starts mid-week. The way things are set up now, you don't have to be on campus in person to register and pay for classes, unles syou haven't been in previously to see your advisor before end of last semester. The soup came out good, I'll package it down to put in the freezer. Did pick up a couple more flats of burger last night, so will turn one of those into spaghetti sauce and probably break the other one down into small packages for general use. Straightened out the pantry and discovered a few spices and herbs I was short on, so got more when we hit Winco. I like buying my herbs and spices in the bulk section as much as possible. It is cheaper int he long run. Hubby gulped when he saw the per pound cost of the italian seasoning I get, but since the amount I bought was barely 1/8th of an ounce

Recipes

Grandpa Chuck's tag just reminded me that on a cold day a nice pot of soup is just the ticket, so here is the recipe for the split pea soup I have in the crock pot: Keeping in mind I didn't really measure anything: Put 2 bones from a fresh ham (the pork roasts you get in the stoer that look like a ham that hasn't been cured) into a pot and cover with water. Simmer for several hours and remove bones from pot. You can then put the stock in the fridge to chill over night and skim any fat off the top, tho you don't want to skim too much of it off. Once the bones cool, pull off any meat that remained on them and use them in the soup (this recipe is to die for using a regular ham bone or even a smoked ham hock or too, just cook them in water the same way to get all that porky goodness ). You can either use the same pot, or transfer the liquid to a crockpot. Add 1/2 onion, diced into small pieces, 3-5 cloves garlic, diced into small pieces. Add about 5 cups split peas, more w

Time to take a break

Someone should have warned me Nicholas Nickleby was going to be at least a 10 hanky movie. What a great film, it is going into the permanent collection. The soup is happily burbling away in the crockpot, I have 28 hamburger patties and 2 roasts in the freezer. The pork loins are brining in the frdige and I am taking a break and trying to figure out what to have for lunch before tackling my pantry. We picked up a fair amount of dry and canned goods yesterday, it is overflowing and I can't find anything I need. So will see what I can do to organize it. It is currently raining out side, making things a sloppy mess. Hubby is now at his 2nd client, he'll have to go back later to the 1st one to finish things up, but he got them back up and running for now (parents, be very, very careful about letting your kids play on the computer, they seem to manage to sneak a lot of nasty things thru the firewall). 2nd Client called while he was out, they also want him to work on their business

Busy day today

I have the day off, but I've a lot to do. Already have a crockpot going with split pea soup and a load of laundry in. Picked up hamburger, some pork loin roasts and a big chuck roast at Winco I will process today. The pork loins I will brin, the burger I'll mix with seasoning and make into patties to freeze and I'll cut the roast in half to make 2 meals. Hubby has 2 clients today, so we will be able to gas up the car and pick up a few more groceries. Winco was out of bulk powdered milk and the sliced cheese that was on sale. May even see about picking up another flat or two of burger. I picked up tomato sauce, so would like to do up a pot of spaghetti sauce for the freezer. Currently watching Nicholas Nickleby while puttering around. Nathan Lane is currently on and chewing up the scene so wonderfully well. This is the one Dickins story I am not really familier with, so I am enjoying seeing it for the first time. Picked up a bar of Fels Naptha yesterday, so will look at ma

A little less sparklie

Put away some more the christmas decorations, mostly the ones on the entertainment unit and on the buffet. I've left the garland and lights on the shleves and mirror tho. May take them down next week. Looks a wee bit depressing in here now. Oh well, at least I have the neon flamingo light on :D Looks like Costco is out of budget this time around. If we only needed a few things, like meat, it would be no problem, but we need more veggies, flour, cocoa, spices and other odds and sods that I don't need to buy in huge quantities. So we'll do our shopping at Winco and Safeway. Safeway has their Rancher's Reserve beef chuck roasts for $1.99 a pound and those are very versitile and very tasty. I can fill in with chicken from Winco and with luck they will have more hambuger for a decent price so I can make more spaghetti sauce and hamburger patties. I may even look at trying a pot of chili, not too spicy so hubby can enjoy it (I've been slowly working his palate upp from b

SNOW!!!!

We got about 3 inches over night. Still a bit chilly, in the low 20s right now. Luckily it looks like we'll not get the sub-zero temps they were predicting. Which is perfectly fine by me :) Popped out to Wally World yesterday to price microwaves. I like the one we got at the second hand place, but it is older, doesn't have a carosel and doesn't pop popcorn as well. We are still waiting for the manual for it from GE as I do want to learn how to use the convection oven part of it. We are going to look at a small microwave just for doing popcorn, re-heating coffee, doing veggies and defrosting small items. The other microwave will do fine for defrosting larger items just. Still have to check with Shopko to see what they have. Still working on what to do with the gift card we got for christmas. They still don't have anything online that we want kitchenwise. So we are looking to see what they have for bedding. I'v only one proper set of sheets for the bed and get creat

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Don't know what the official low was, but our thermometer said it got down to 7.7 dregrees F! Okay, found it, it got down to 8 degrees officially. Idiot child Mister didn't come home last night, I really hate it when he decides he's a feral kitty when the weather gets nasty and cold. Idiot child Nicky went out first thing this morning, but it was up to 19 degreses by then and I saw his brother Angel outside, which means his brother Tuffy is out there also so he has someone to play with this morning. Ran out of energy about 5pm last night, so we hit Winco and picked up one of their chicken dinners, so I didn't have to cook last night. Brought it home and we did rum and cokes to go with it :D Was feeling REAL good after dinner hehehehehe Hopefully we can drive down to Lewiston sometime this weekend, we need to hit Costco to stock up on things. Weather is giving us a heavy snow warning for later today or tonight, so we aren't too sure if we want to deal with the g

My sneaky, sneaky hubby

Is going to get a big ol' kiss when we get home tonight (and hopefully a little more if I have the energy ;) ). He calls me this morning and says he's gotta pick me up at lunch. Since he's been at the pawn shop working on their computer I think it is reference for that pistol he'd worked the deal on and I was going to get to go in and get it earlier (it was going to be a couple more weeks until I could get it, which was fine as it is too cold for me to even think about going out to the range and do any shooting). So I grabbed the lunch I brought (figuring I can rush into the staff lounge as soon as I got back to eat it) and my purse with my ID and off I go. We park downtown and start walking towards the shop. We proceed to pass the shop and go a few doors down. Okay, maybe we are doing lunch at Wheatberries? Wonderful bakery that makes sandwiches and wraps to die for. Nope, hubby says turn right into Plush Brush, a beauty salon. He says to the girl, my wife has an

Hmmmmm

Been surfing blogs with both BlogExplosion and BlogClicker, one in each window to see how they compare side by side. So far BE is a head in the comparisons. BC is still fairly new so there aren't many blogs on here as yet, most of the ones I see are folk I see regularly thru BE, tho I have come across a few that I've not seen before. I'm not sure I like having the banner alternating between top and bottom, it is a bit annoying, but I do like the fact I only have to pick 1 of three icons to go to the next site. What I am getting annoyed with is I keep running into the same sites over and over and over again on BC. Unlike BE which makes sure you don't run into the same sites in the smae session, BC doesn't seem to have a way to avoid it. I do find it funny tho to click next on BC and then next on BE and hit the same site on both services. BC seems to be a stripped down verion of BE, there is a lot less to it, no ratings or comments. I am also waiting to win some cre

A new service to surf blogs

It is called BlogClicker and is very similar to BlogExplosion . Just signed up today, so haven't done much surfing so will see how well I do tonight.

Not the way to start one's day

The wind started about 4 am, waking both of us up. Hard getting back to sleep when your bedroom is on the end of a metal box that the wind is blowing on. We kept getting power blips, which meant the CPAPs kept going on and off. I gave up turning the humidifier back on everytime and finally got a bit of sleep. That is until the power went out completely a little after 6 am. So we decided that it was time to get up. We have those battery touch lights scattered throught out the house, so we had light to get to the living room. Lit the Dragon, so we had heat. Lit the oil lamps we have, so we had light and I dig out the butane single burner stove so I was able to get a pot of water going and made a nice big pot of tea. We dug the emergency radio out of the bug out bag, so we were able to get some local news. Seems the power went out in several parts of Moscow and several little towns north of us. Have to see about getting a multi-cup Melita. We only have a single cup one and while tea was

Sweet!

Popped out to the pawn shop at lunch. Hubby spotted a little Taurus .357 magnum revolver that looked like it would just be the ticket for me. So wandered in and checked it out and I am in love :) Such a sweet little revolver, it has an after market grip on it that felt so good in my hand. Hubby is going to see what kind of deal he can swing for it, so he can get it for me. Really pretty out today, the trees are all limed with frost. It is also very foggy and very cold. I really need to dig out my winter gloves, lows will be hitting minus temps later this week and I don't do cold real well. Luckily hubby got plenty of kerosene for the Dragon, so we'll be nice and toasty in the evenings. Going to look at getting some veggie starts going early, I am bound and determined to have lots of tomatos and bell peppers earlier in the summer in my garden. I'll be looking at picking up those laundry baskets from the dollar store to use as planters in the next couple of months so I can

Survived Monday

Got more sleep last night, tho I apparently dislodged the nasal interface at one point and hubby woke me up. Re-adjusted it and went right back to sleep. It was really nice being at work and not feel so crappy, tho by this afternoon I was dragging again, then again, we aren't sure how long I've been seriously sleep deprived since it seems to have come on gradually. So I will be a while yet before I am back to normal. Saturday we hit a local antique/2nd hand funriture store as our neighbor had been there earlier and saw they had a microwave for $15. So we went and checked it, turns out it was a microwave AND convection oven, so we bought it. It was made in 1991, but GE is sending us the manual for it. I've been hacking out the microwave part of it, I hope we don't need the probe for the convection oven function, it didn't come with that. Currently using it to defrost chicken thighs, going to do chicken nuggets for dinner. Probably do some kind of rice and then nuke

PURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

I'm happy to report the first night home with my CPAP was a success. Picked up distilled water on the way home and actually held off going to bed until about 10:30 hehehehehe Got things set up, I have it on the headboard, hopefully Nicky will be a dear and not knock it off onto my head. Got the distilled water into the humidifier and set it to preheat. It has settings from 1-5, with 5 being the maximum of 149 degrees F (65C). I started off at 2 which is what the instructiosn recommended and set the pressure to ramp up from 4 to my 8 over 10 minutes so I can start getting used to it. Seems to have helped, I was asleep in no time. I woke up about 2:30 am with the air blowing like it was ice cold and realized that the air in the house is very dry and the setting was too low. I re-set the humidity up to 4 and went back to sleep. Didn't really wake up again until a little after 7am and while I was still sleepy, I wasn't feeling worse then when I'd gone to bed. I'll have

COOL!!!!

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They do still make the slow cooker I have, tho this looks to be a slightly bigger model:

FRIDAY!!!!!

Picked up my CPAP this morning, hubby is jealous, I've got a newer machine and it has a few more bells and whistles on it then his :D I almost called in to work to say I was going home to get some sleep, but I resisted the urge, so I'll just have to wait until bedtime. We'll stop at the store on the way home to pick up distilled water for the humidifier, there is no way I'm going to use the CPAP without one. I tried with hubby's and my poor sinuses had a screaming hissy they hurt so much. Finally got some significant snow yesterday, maybe about an inch or so. We are supposed to have another 3-5 inches over the next couple of days. Still not enough built up tho to throw Nicky into when he gets out of hand. Dinner last night was yummy. I'd put the pork roast into the slow cooker and dumped in a can of cream of mushroom soup, a bit of water and a little bit of Rhine whine. I seasoned it with the Johnny's Garlic Caesaer blend and then had hubby put it on the c

I'm not a bad person

I've been thinking all afternoon that I was because the first thought that ran thru my head when I came across a tidbit that John Basedow "fitness celebrety" (who has those annoying "fitness made simple" tapes commericals) was missing in the aftermath of the tsunami was "Hallelujah, they'll be taking those damned commericals off the air!!!!!" I asked a co-worker if that made me a bad person, he said no. He hates those commericals too. He also said "That guy gives me the creeps". However much I dislike the guy, I wouldn't wish this to happen to anyone.

HOT DAMN!!!!!

I'm picking up my CPAP tomorrow morning. I am SOOOO looking forward to finally be getting a good nights sleep every night!!!!!!!!!!!

PHEW!!!!

Thought I was going to be spending the evening sans internet. But I was able to get things going again. I remembered hubby once having me unplug someting on the router the last time I couldn't get anywheres on mine and then plugging it in again while he was keeping his eye on my 'puter while I did so. So it worked this time to :) Hubby is over at a clients for a couple hours working on their computer (they have a shop downtown and it is easier for hubby if he can work on their machines after hours), so I have the placve to myself for a while. So I have the stereo cranked to a local country station (tho I just noticed the PVR is no longer recording, I may switch over to GAC and watch videos), spaghetti sauce thawing in a sauce pan and a pot of water going for spaghetti. Even tho hubby doesn't like spaghetti, I always feel guilty if I HAVE to have some and he ends up having something else for dinner, usually hot fdogs or something. Tonight he's doing Quarter pounders fro

http://jeanc38.bravemusings.com/entry/7916

Hubby didn't get to sleep this morning until after 6:30am, which meant what little sleep I got was very disturbed. So I let him sleep in while I got ready for work and started looking for coinage in order to get a parking permit for the day (hubby usually drives me to work, so I don't bother getting a parking permit for the U). Thinking I was going to have to resort to the check book, I decided to check the parking website. HALLELUJAH!!!!!! They aren't enforcing any parking in the red lots, so I didn't have to fork over any money to get the permit. So I am currently parked out behind the law school, which isn't much further then the gold lot on the other side of it (gold lots are the "we are going to gouge you for the permits and then park all the univeresity vehicles in those lots" parking lots :P ) and I didn't have to pay for the privilage. So I'll drive home at lunch so he can have the car this afternoon.

Kewlness

I added a Google search box that will search my journal :D I just tested it by plugging in the workd "chicken" and it grabbed all my posts where I've mentioned chicken, so it is a cool way to check out what recipes I've posted (along with anyo other mention of things). It can also search the net. So I've gotten the soup going, turkey stock, leftover chicken (there's that word LOL) a couple different kinds of frozen stirfry veggies and half a bag of frozen broccoli. I think I've got some barley in the pantry somewhere I think I'll throw in. While I was at it, I cleaned out a bunch of stuff from the little freezer and the fridge. I figure it it was dated before May of this last year, I'm probably not going to be using it anytime soon, so it got tossed. I now have lots of containers I can re-use. One the gift card front, hubby got a call today from the corporate headquarters (wow, we weren't expecting anyone to call for several more days at le

Nice quiet Sunday

Processed those two big flats of hamburger we bought the other day last night. One flat I mixed with spices and such and turned them into burger patties, most of which are now in the freezer for future dinners. Half of the other became a big pot of spaghetti sauce that has been cooling overnight in the fridge so I can repackage it today and the other half I packaged in a couple of portions for use in something else in the future. Currently defrosting a big baggy of turkey stock so I can start on the soup. Haven't decided what kind, but I do have a couple packages of stirfry veggies int he freezer, along with partial bags of veggies and the leftover chicken from the other night, so it looks like I'll be making chicken/veggie soup. Weather today is sunny and cold, currently about 35 degrees F. Snowed a bit last night, not enough tho to throw Nicky into a snow bank. He's starting to get a wee bit aggressive, so we HAVE to see about getting him edited soon. He hasn't star

Happy New Year everyone!

We get to start ours out looking for a new microwave or at least trying to figure out what happened to ours. I'd been defrosting chicken in it last night and when I set it again to finish defrosting (it didn't quite defrost all the way, I usually under set the time to keep it from cooking it) it either stopped working after a minute or didn't start at all. I set it and went back in the living room and after a few moments I realized I wasn't hearing it. Went out and it was completely off. We checked the plugs, outlets and everything. We had it on a surge protector and that was still working. Hubby got the cover off and can see anything obviously wrong, so he'll wait one more day for it to fully discharge before poking at it. Needless to say, I am NOT a happy camper, I really rely on the microwave for a lot of food prep and re-heating. SIGH!!!!!! I am currently CPAPless, I was right I could have had it on Wednesday, talked to the company and everything, but the insur