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Showing posts from August, 2005

SIGH!

Reading the news out of New Orleans and surroundings. Looks like folk are going to be in a bad way there for a while. I can't believe the stories of some of the looting (then again, there are slime who shouldn't be called human out there who prey on others): stealing the cots and water from one hospital, trying to break into a children's hospital where staff and children are trying to stay safe, reports I've seen online (not confirmed) of COPS looting!?!?!?!?!?! Then there is the poor woman who had to ride it out with her hubby who was terminal, couldn't get help and he died while she was trying to find some and then couldn't get anyone to help her take his body to he could be properly taken care of. Luckily she finally found help and he had to pay someone hauling branches to help take them to where she needed to go. Luckily people around the country are working to send help and money. Thanks to Scott of Scott-O-Rama for the banner I have on my header for the R

Ticking along

The person taking the rocker came by and got it. Hubby says they thought it was the neatest chair ever. I'm glad it went to a good home. Now I get to hunt for a new one. Ended up buying some fried chicken with sides from Winco, we had to stop and pick up a case of beer for the guys at the garage who worked on the Forester. They managed to do the maintanance stuff and saved us money at the same time. They'd thought it was going to need new gaskets and a water pump, but when they got in they said it was in a best shape they'd ever seen, so they just replaced the belts we needed. We believe in tipping our mechanics :D Dinner tonight is the ranch flavored chicken I'd pulled out to defrost on Sunday night for last nights dinner LOL I dislike having the same type meat 2 nights in a row (3 if you count the niggets I did on Sunday), esp since I'd brought some leftover chicken for lunch (and had the rest of my sweet corn and shreeded chicken soup), but I don't want to

WWFSMD

If you have not been blessed, quick, get thee to this site so that you too may become enlightened and be touched by His Noodly Appendage.

Monday, blech

Ended up taking an ambein at midnight, I just couldn't get to sleep to save my life. Was very groggy waking up this morning, even tho they say it isn't supposed to make you feel groggy in the morning. I only woke up 2-3 times during the night, slept solid between times. Freecycled the rocker, with the cat condo and the TV stand we got thru the group, there was no room for the rocker. We'd planned to get rid of it anyways, before we got the other two things, we're going to look for a small chair for the living room, one that is easier to move around and clean under. Hopefully the person can pick it up this evening. Of course hubby suddenly had the idea we could move it to the porch to give him a solid chair out there. He thinks of this several hours after I posted to the list LOL. There was a chance it wouldn't be wanted (tho in this town with people in need to cheap or free furniture I figured it wouldn't take more then a day or two to find it a home) and we co

Whew, it's hot in Lewiston today

Went down to Lewiston/Clarkston to hit Costco, just needed to pick up a couple things, feta cheese, more chicken thighs, Kirkland dish liquid, flax seed oil caps and naproxine. The feta was $2.55 a lb, WAY cheaper then at Safeway or Winco, where it's closer to $5 a pound. I'll cut it up and vac seal it so it will last longer. They were having Hot August Nights in Lewiston, so the town was crawling with classic cars. We were thinking about stopping after Costco, but it had gotten too hot for us to be out. Next year we'll plan to go and be better prepared. Had lunch over in Clarkston, the Knight's Table Restaurant and Sports Bar. It is also a bowling ally and a casino (I suspect a charity casino, it's not on a reservation). It was one of those places that one is comfortable in. Hubby had the double double burger (double meat, double cheese) and it was delish. I usually rate a place on their french dip sandwiches. Not bad, I've had much better, but I've had

Feeling better today

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I was a bit miffed yesterday :D but ordered pizza for dinner, watched Good Eats and put the cat condo together. We had to take down the shelf over the south windows, move a book shelf and the rocker and end table. The condo isn't facing the right way at the moment, there is a shelf that fits into the side next to the wall, but oriented the right way, the front shelves stick into the living room. We may turn it later and add the shelf. KiKi isn't too sure of it yet, she's never been a furniture climbing kitty (she prefers to climb the tree out front), but Nicky was very happy, he was checking it out again, inside and out.

WAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May the person or persons in athletics who schedule the pool find their body parts rotting and falling off, their skin develop boils in the shape of frogs and their tongues turn into turnips. Those lousy smegs canceled the pool out from under the wellness program and now I can't go back as there is no class. I sincerely hope their punishment is long, slow and extremely painful.

Oh goodness

Hubby picked up the kitty condo, good thing he had our friend along. We were expecting one of those tube shaped ones you can get at the pet store. Nope, it is a solidly built mansion they had to take apart to get it out of the previouos owners place. Flimsey it isn't and now I'm comtemplating major rearrainging of the living room as it isn't going to fit in the hallway. It has been given the Nicky seal of approval.

LA FREAKIN' BURRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's towards the end of August and I shouldn't be needing to turn the heat on in the house in the morning! It was freezing. Checked the thermometer and the recorded low at our place was 35F! We did have the heat on in the car when we came in. Hubby is picking up the cat condo today, he did get our friend to help. Still don't know what it looks like, but the kitties will be happy. Both of us had to seriously resist the urge to respond to a freecycle ad for a cat. Some people have a cat who wandered in and they can't keep her. It was soooooo hard to not hit reply, but they are looking for someone who can keep her as an indoor kitty only. Hubby was going "we can handle an indoor only cat" to which I replied "Not a hope, any kitty we get will be indoor/outdoor as I have no intention of spending the entire year letting 2 of them out and telling the 3rd she can't go outside with her brother and sister". So we have been reprieved from an addition to th

Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!!!

I'm going back to the pool!! A while back, they eliminated the 5pm aqua fitness class because the powers that be felt that employee wellness wasn't as important as making money off the high school swim team and such, so they moved the class to 10:30 am, a very LOUSY time to be jumping in the pool. As I was getting ready to fill out my work schedule for the fall, I decided to take another look at the wellness program schedule and lo and behold, there was a listing for a 5:30pm Mondays and Wednesdays water aerobics class. YAY!!!! I quickly dropped the head of the program a note asking if this was for real and she replied yes. I printed out the forms I needed and today just sent them in to enroll hubby and I into the program again. I'm so happy!!!!!!! Now, if they would offer a tai chi class on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:30pm it would be even better. Dinner last night worked well, I put the chicken on a bit after I got home. I pulled the dijon pork loin out last night to th

Back to the grind

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School started today and I have gone back to my 9am-6pm schedule. Workign 5 days in a row is going to be sooooo hard!!!!!! :D Ended up hitting Wally World for paint (only because everyone else had just closed) and got a quart of black to paint the cabinets. WOW!!!! Way cool.I also painted the east wall with the bay window. I stopped at the bend next ot the fridge, that will get painted later. I painted all the cabinet doors and the drawers on both sets of cabinets and then the bit of wall around the pantry. This is what happens when you paint the ceiling, the whole thing snowballs from there: Before: After: I can't wait to get the kitchen finished. I'm going to paint a white diamond pattern above the upper cabinets to break up the black a little more and I'm not putting few things back up I took down off the walls, like the plant hangers over the bay window. I'll put one back up for my aloe vera, but that's it. The wooden paper towel holder that also held t

Explain to me please, paint pads are better then rollers HOW?????

Okay, they actually aren't that bad, tho I now remember why I hate painting rooms with furniture and such still in them. I took some of my birthday money and bought some paint ($5 a gal each from the mis-mix shelf at Moscow Building Supply, both a brilliant white, not sure why they were considered mis-mixed, but I'm not complaining), a paint pad and an extender for it and a couple disposable trays and I painted the kitchen ceiling this morning. I didn't get THAT much paint on the floor and walls, but it is a good thing the walls will be getting painted at some point :D We pulled the doors off the upper cabinets and painted those white, they are outside drying. I'm eventually goig to paint the cabinets themselves black, all the doors and drawers will be white. The walls will be white and I will eventually get black and white linolium tiles (probably from MBS, unless the dollar store actually gets tiles in where each square foot tile is either black or white). Baked up b

A very wise man, Confusius

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Mood: (sent to me by my hubby, he is also a wise man :D )

WOO HOO!!! RAIN!!!!

Much cooler today and it's been raining for about an hour now. Hopefully it will rain for most of the day. The fields around our place are harvested, we can now blast thru the intersection instead of having to stop and creep out because the wheat was so high it blocked our view. Made up hamburger patties this morning. Seasoned with worchestershire sauce, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper and Johnny's Season Salt. Made 16 patties. Flattened them between pieces of freezer paper and then bagged them in ziplocks and into the freezer they went. Going to work on banana bread batter in a little while. I need shortening, but will probably use butter instead, gives it a better flavor. I'm going to whip up several batches where I leave out the baking powder and then freeze it in batches. When I take it out and thaw I can mix the baking powder in then right before baking. I will probably make the bread in the muffin tins and then freeze them on a cookie sheet in the freezer

Puttering, puttering

Decided I needed to be on a schedule, so I have my alarm set for 8m. Not my most brilliant idea, esp since we didn't get to bed until 2m last night :P But the idea was do do a bunch of kitchen stuff before it gets to hot in here. Keeping to my laundry schedule, need to put the wsh in the drier in a couple of minutes. So yesterday I got up and made a bunch of packages of frozen chicken thighs with marinades and those are in the freezer. Late yesterday I made a brine and cut the pork loin into 4 pieces and those brined over night. One loin I put in a gallon baggie with teriyake marindade (the store bought stuff), another I made a honey mustard marinade with olive oil and lime juice. The other two I left plain and vacuum sealed those. Last night we made up a bunch of Alton Brown's potstickers OOOOOOOO they were yummy. Most I froze on cookie sheets and then bagged for later enjoyment. I've a bunch of crookneck squash from the big garden, I'm going to slice and blanch t

Happy birthday to me!

Quiet day today. Slept in until 10am and have puttered a little since. I'll bake some homemade brownies later and we picked up peanut butter cup ice cream. We ended up going down to Lewiston yesterday. Hit the canned goods outlet, picked up a package of bacon ends, a couple cans of corned beef hash and some tomato paste. Then off to Costco and picked up 2 of the double packs of whole chickens, 3 packages of the boneless, skinless chicken thighs (we prefer those over the breasts, more flavor), a big pork loin, a big block of sharp cheddar cheese, a 3 pound container of peeled garlic and 2 big bags of sweet corn kernels. We'd been in a couple days before to renew out membership and had picked up a 5 liter container of olive oil. The pork loin I'll cut into 4 pieces and brine them. I plan on packaging those with marinades and freeze them. Most of the chicken thighs I'll use for dump chicken recipes. Some will be used in the furture for chicken nuggets. The whole chicken

WHEEE!!!

Just got back from seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , it was GREAT!!! I love the 1971 version with Gene Wilder dearly and I love the new one with yummy Johnny Depp. Both will be going into my DVD collection. Busy 2 days. Yesterday I left work early to go down to Lewiston to sign for a loan so we can get a lot of things paid off and renewed our membership at Costco. Today we ran around paying things and went over to Pullman to get me papered for a conceal weapons permit. I should have that within 30 days. Then I need to work on getting my Idaho CCW. Now I just need to figure out a good carry method for a fat chick LOL Most on body holsters don't work on very curvy women, so I think I might do a lot of research and possibly write up an article on it for one of the women's gun magazines. Be neat to actually get moeny for an article (I'd written an article a few years on Graves' Disease for a small BBW magazine and was comped issues and a years subscription). Win

These are just so WRONG!!!!

E.V. family works to pay for liver transplant" The family has reached their cap on medical expenses for their daughter and she desperately needs a liver transplant. Two hospitals had agreed to do it, until they found out the insurance wouldn't cover it and then backed out. The parents are trying another hospital in hopes to save their daughter's life. Hospitals, you are in the business of SAVING lives, not killing people because you can only see the bottom line! Wheelchair-Bound Woman Kicked Out Of Church Hmmmm, you can be a member of our church, but the minute you get ill and can't pay your tithe, you're no longer welcome to be a member. Seems to me the only reason this church wants members is the money they give. I might be wrong, but the reason for a church is to gather and worship the Diety, not see how much money you can collect every service.

Hump Day

Week is progressing on, starting to plan out what I'm going to do on my week off. I will have the services of a strong young man (get your minds out of the gutter please) who is trading labor for computer work my hubby did. I'll have him help me out in the yard expanding my gardening areas. The weather should be cooler, so hopefully we can get the work done without too much collapsing from the heat. I'm also going to work on banana bread. I plan on making up a bunch of batches where I'll leave out the baking powder and baking soda and then freeze the batter. When it comes time to use them I'll defrost and then add the two ingredients right before baking. Got the idea from the freezer friendly list where someone posted the recipe for zuchini bread doing the same thing. The DSL problem sorted itself out yesterday. Seems some Idaho DOT contractor cut thru the fiber optic line between here and Coeur d'Alene causing major computer slow down, loss of long distance,

I hate PMS!

At least I'm hoping it's PMS. If it's perimenopausal I'm not going to be happy. If it's PMS it will go away in a couple of days, perimenopausal I have no idea. So here I sit with a big glass of milk and a big ol'bag of chocolate creme sandwich cookies. Self-medication, a wonderful thing :D Been weepy all afternoon, alternating with homicidal rage. Started about the time some slimeball posted to the local community email list, using the name of murdered aquaintance and implying his partner had secrets. Now, we have some wacky cultists on the list who are too cowardly to post using their real names and most of the time they can easily be ignored as they just babble nonsense, but this went over the line. If I ever find out who it is, they'd better not come anywhere in my vicinity as I will not be responsible at that point. The older I get, the more and more I tend to manifest goddesses such as the Morigaine, Hecate and Kali. One of these days I'm not going

Gremlins are eating the Net!

Got up this morning, booted up my 'puter, turned on the TV and grabbed my coffee. I have my homepage set to My Yahoo and it came up okay, then I couldn't get anywhere. Hubby checked the router and the modem and those seemed fine. Tried calling Verizon and all their circuits were busy. Hopefully the problem will sort itself out. FINALLY got my hands on Harry Potter and the Half Blood-Prince. The person ahead of me on the list must have read it over the weekend as it was still on the hold shelf when I left on Thursday. I was going to start it last night, but we went over to the neighbors and had dinner there and watched him play Halo. Looks like a fun game. I tried playing it there before, but I can't get a handle on the controller. I'm much better playing games on a computer and using the keyboard then on one of the game boxes. Not quite as smoky today, but it's still there. Had a scratchy throat all day yesterday. Hopefully the smoke will get blown in another dire

Smoke

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Here's our skyline with the smoke from the School Fire. The pics run from the southwest to the southeast towards our place:

http://jeanc38.bravemusings.com/entry/15186

Six more days til my birthday and 3 days until my weeks vacation. Smoky out today. The smoke from the School Fire south of Pomeroy rolled in yesterday. Things are covered with a fine white ash today. Weather Channel has radar screens and satellite pics of the fire . Luckily it's light enough I don't need my inhaler. Several years ago we had some serious fires all around the area and the smoke drifted in and I was using it A LOT!!! Lammas Circle was nice. It was much cooler down by the pond then up by the house. The potato salad turned out well. I've some leftovers and hubby was thinking we can pan fry them. Going to give it a try tonight for dinner, will go well with steak. Sat around before and after circle and visited, it was very nice. Our Crone made a very yummy pesto bread, I've got to get the recipe. It was wheat free and totally yummy. Topped off with feta and YUMMM!!!!!!! She gets her feta from Costco, a little over $5 for a huge piece. When we finally get

Busy day

Lammas circle this afternoon. I made a potato salad to take. Got up this morning to do it. I boiled up some cubed potatos and then in a saucepan put in the Plochman's Honey Mustard and added some Trader Joe's 10 year old balsamic vinegar and seasame oil. Heated that up until it thinned out and then added that to the potatos and tossed to coat them. It's now in the fridge cooling off. Since I had the potatos out, I held one back and diced it and then fried it with some diced bacon and then added scrambled eggs and cheese and into the oven for a frittata. The leftovers are now packed in the fridge for my lunch tomorrow. Watched a little gem of a 80s slasher flick this morning. Called My Bloody Valentine . Very nicely done and much better then most of the slaher films from that era. While Iliked the 1st 2 parts of Firday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, most of the sequels were abysmal and gratuitious in the gore.

Gonna be a warm one

Almost ran an extension cord out the door last night to use the rice cooker on the porch and then break out the butaine single burner to do stirfry. But I couldn't find the rice cooker and it cooled down just enough by 9:30 to cook in the house. Then I discovered the bag of potatos I'd forgotten about in the pantry was on top of the bag of rice and the potatos oozed and got into the rice. Thank the Goddess there wasn't much rice left. I'd have been pissed if it had been the full 25 pounds. So I borrowed some rice from the neighbor and got it started on the stove top. The rice was the short sticky rice and it was delish. I'll have to invest in some next time we go shopping. The stirfry came out well. I sliced some chuck steak while it was partly frozen, makes it easier to slice. The I used two bags of normandy style veggies. Broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. Then we made a sauce using 1/4 cup of the Plochman's honey mustard, a couple tablespoons each rice wine

MMMMMM

I'm really going to miss my Fridays off when school starts. Working 5 days in a row is going to be hard LOL At least I hve a whole week off starting next Friday (actually a little mor then a week, 10 whole days :D ). Used the last of the Tom Ka Gai on the chicken I fixed last night. Have to find out where in Spokane that asian market is as the closest place I can thinkof is over in Vancouver WA and that's too far to drive just for groceries. If all else fails, I might be abble to get a friend to buy it for me and ship it out and I can reimburse her for it. Watching Good Eats (we recorded it), the epsidoe Wake Up Little Sushi. Learned something. I always thought the green wrapping on sushi rolls was seaweed. Turns out Nori is made from algae.I looked it up and Nori is much lower in iodine then seeweed, which means I CAN eat it with out worrying about iodine. Since I'm hyper I've got to watch how much iodine I ingest. Now, nigiri is my favorite (the raw fish on the sush

Great TV shows

We very rarely watch anything on the big networks, outside of my morning "news" shows and the local news. There is so much better TV on the cable channels, here's a few hubby and I watch regularly: Good Eats with Alton Brown . Mr Science teaches cooking school. Good Deal with Dave Lieberman . How to cook great meals on a budget. Murder in Suburbia , a show on BBC America. Suburbia isn't a calm and peaceful as you think. Firefly , one of the best SF shows out there. Canceled by the suits at Fox, who hadn't a clue as to how great a show they had. Ranks right up with Babylon 5 , which also is no longer on the air. Thank goodness for DVDs. A new one from BBA America that usualy has me laughing so hard I need my inhaler (I stop breathing LOL) is called Just For Laughs . Candid Camera was NEVER this funny.

Busy evening

Managed to get dinner done and eaten by 7pm, which isn't bad considering we usually don't eat until 8-9pm. Having a plan for meals is helping out a lot. I have decided I really need to think about better lunches. My soups and leftovers are good, but there are days when those don't sound good. The Freezer Friendly list was discussing calzones and such and that sounds like a great idea. I can make a bunch and sauce to go with it and freeze them for my lunchs. I also like cornish pasties and those would do quite well also. I'm beginning to think we need a bigger deep freeze, I don't think 10 cubic feet will be enough. Went out to the big garden and weeded and watered. The spinach didn't do too well there. It didn't grow very tall and then it bolted. The tomatos are going gonzo, some of the bush beans survived the bunnies (the peas weren't so lucky) and the crook necked squash i ready to harvest. Brought home a coupel squash and some beans. I'll have t

What kind of witch are you?

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You are an earth witch. You have a bit of each of the other elements in you, but still stay your solid self. You are loyal, giving, and trustworthy which unfortunately may cause people to take advantage of you at times. You draw your power from the earth around you and have great respect for Gaia/the mother, and as the earth, you too are beautiful and can make a wonderful mother. What kind of 'witch' are you? brought to you by Quizilla

Oh great!

NOT! Apparently the cops in the area are on the look out for a level III sex offender who skipped and according to a "reliable source" was heading for our town. With any luck they will catch the slime ball before he gets too much farther and molests anyone else. Ended up making waffles to go with our dinenr last night, actually they were dessert. Lemon yogurt is really yummy on top of waffles. The chicken I added the dijon mustard and other seasonings to before freezing turned out really well and made getting dinner going much easier. I'm definately goig to do more like this. I'm thinking it would be good for pork too. Pulled out some steak for tonights dinner. In a couple of weeks I'll be getting a bit of help with my garden. We have a friend whose son needed some computer help/repair and hubby worked out an agreement to trade help for labor, so the kid will be helping me expand out my garden some. This means I can finish getting the strip in the front yard do

Summer is going too fast!

Why can't summer go slowly, just like it did when we were kids. Here it is August, school starts on the 22nd and students aretrickling back into town. I haven't had much of a chance to REALLY enjoy summer. I do have a week off coming, the week right before school starts. I wish we could afford to go somewhere. Cooler again today, rained a bit last night, enough to splotch the car. We'll probably wash the paint off this week. Hubby talked to our friend about tiger stripes so when she has time she'll do that. I think we might want to pop out there early for Lammas and maybe do it then. Cooked a pork roast last night for dinner. I didn't put the probe thermometer in and managed to over cook it. It still tasted good, but not as good as it should have. I pulled one of the packages of "dump" chicken out to start defrosting last night. Also pulled out a container of mashed potatos and will cut some more lettuce. Between the freezer friendly list and FlyLady th

Okay, it's official

I'm a NASCAR fan. I got my first official NASCAR memorabilia this weekend, at the Dollar Store no less :D It's a snap notebook with Jeff Gordon on the cover. The company has a number of other NASCAR stuff geared for the $5 or less market. I'm going to see what else turns up at the Dollar store (HMMMMMM, mousepad, now that one I need hehehehehe).

Happy Pink Flamingo Day!

Very hard waking up this morning, so it is DEFINATELY a Pink Flamingo day. I need all the whimsey I can get. Not quite as hot today, tho they say it's going to heat up again tomorrow. I woke up at 3am this morning ready to die from the heat, We had the window open, but no cool air was coming in, or if it was, it wasn't getting to my side of the bed. I ended up turning on the stand fan to get some air moving. Getting back to sleep was fun as that fan squeaks as it turns, but I finally drfited off. Saturday night I didn't get anymore cooking done. By the time the sun went down I was totally wiped out and I was lucky to even stand. I did get my lettuce harvested, so we had a nice big salad. The only bad part of it all was right after I put down the bunch of lettuce I had in hand to rinse off, a yellowjacket crawled out from between the leaves. Needless to say, I freaked. Hubby came in and trapped it and tossed it outside. I used a pair of long handled tongs to handle the sal