Text Heute, Bilder Morgen.

Heute habe ich den Tagelang gearbeitet.

[Lately- spAEtestens?] lese ich Flylady.com, und in der letzen Woche ist das Haus auch sauberer und [neater - mehr ordentlich?] geworden. So also, frUEh Morgens putzte ich in der KUEche und im Bad, und dan hab' ich mein Computer-tisch [desk?] gut geordnet. Sollte zwei Minuten dauern (Flylady's "hot spot" exercise) aber in zwanzig Minuten war ich fast damit [through - durch? fertig?].

Heute habe ich auch angefangen mehr Wasser den tagedurch zu trinken. Das ist auch so ein Flylady Ding. Na, dan war ich mit dem [desk - Tisch] fertig und ging zu'm Haufen im Ofen-zimmer (wo der Holz-ofen ist, und auch meine NAEhmaschine) und hab den Haufen aufgehoben. Das meiste war [tools - schraubenzieher usw.] von, oder fUEr, meine Arbeit (Electriker). Die habe ich alle zur Garage genommen, und die werden den ein anderen Tag weiter weg-getan. Das war ein riesen-Haufen und hat UEberhaubt nicht lange gedauert. Danke, Flylady!

Na, dan war's Mittag, und ich machte aus Zeitschrift ein einfaches Muster fUEr eine... ... ...na so was! FrUEher kennte ich das Wort, was ist das den... was man trAEgt zur Hausarbeit. 'Ne Schirze! SchUErtze? Die habe ich ausgeschnitten und genAEht, sieht ganz vernUEmftig aus, aber wenn ich sie trage seh ich dick aus. Ist aber bestimmt nicht nur die SchUErze.

Taschen hat sie. Die Taschen war'n schOEn wenn ich die WAEsche spAEter reinbrachte, na, da hat' ich ein Korb, aber die [clothespins - Klammern? WAEsche-klammern?]die gingen mir in den Taschen. Heute war auch das erste mal dies Jahr das ich die Leine benutzte.

Dan machte ich Abendessen, was bei uns meistens mehr wie Mittag ist und dan Mittags haben wir Suppe oder 'ne Stulle oder Salat... wir hatten heute Abend so ungefAEhr Reste: von Sonnabend's Truthan (drippings - das Fett?) hab ich wieder Sahne (gravy?) gemacht, und dazu hatten wir Kartoffeln, Champignons, und [stuffing/dressing ?] Da is vielleicht noch eine Stulle-wert Fleisch und dan mach ich 'ne schOEne Suppe mit den KOErper. Wenichstens hoffe es wird schOEn.

Dann hat der Mann Rasen gemAEht und ich zog Unkraut. Aber nicht das alle Unkraut, sonst hAEtte ich kein Rasen! Der LOEwenzahn ist noch hUEbsch, da mach ich nur die ausgeblUEteten ab und lasste die schOEnen, dem "Purple Deadnettle" zog ich auch die langen BlUEten ab (wenn's zu lang wird, wird's gemAEht, und dan hab ich keine Wildblumen). Man, da sind eine menge Veilchen! SUEss sehen die aus. Ich fand auch ein Halbdutzent Sonnenblumen (ganz kleine) im Rasen, da legte ich Steine rum, das die hoffentlich nicht gemAEht werden.

In der NAEhe der Vogel-fUEtterer zog ich unkraut, das [ragweed] und [garlic mustard] und andere, und so 'nen kleinen Spatz hUEpfte mir ganz nah, so ein Meter weg. Der war UEberhaubt nicht nervOEs. Ganz jung war er bestimmt. Ich hoffe, er ist mit dem Katzen [more cautious - passt besser aus].

Na, Morgen mach ich Links und Bilder, aber nun mach ich Schluss. Ich habe noch nich mein email angesehen Heute, UEberhaubt nicht, und halb-zehn Nachts ist es hier!

more about cooking

 

For at least the past couple of years I have used iGoogle for a home page. It's very customizable; has many neat widgets one can add. I have a moon-phase widget, a national-debt widget, a list of my handiest bookmarks (mine, not theirs), the current powerball winning numbers, news headlines, a load of other things, and the How-to of the Day.

Earlier this week I followed the day's How-to, "How to Thicken Sauce" and found an entertaining video from Todd Mohr's Cooking Course. This led me to the I-hate-cooking-recipes website, which I kid you not has got to be the best cooking site on the entire web.

Go look.

T'giving dinner

Oh boy did we have a good dinner.

There were a couple of two-inch thick ribeye steaks prepared on th'grill by th'Mr...

I unimaginatively boiled a handful of potatoes (and then sprinkled them with MSG)...

Lacking fresh asparagus I opened a couple of cans of that...

Added frozen dinner rolls that had to rise for five hours first (that's a first for me, but not a last: they were GOOD)...

And green beans from an NPR recipe that once I was done unventing it went like this:

--------------------------------
in a small iron skillet on high heat chop and fry a large white onion,
slop a couple tablespoons canola oil in a(nother) medium iron skillet, heat well,
toss in two cans of cut (not french cut) green beans,
turn heat down to medium-high,
add a large pinch of salt,
toss with a spatula often,
add a couple cloves crushed garlic,
add a (2 oz) package slivered almonds,
stir in the onions,
eat.
--------------------------------

There's coffee ice cream, but so far neither of us has been especially interested in opening it, though I think I'm ready now.

November punkin

Made a pumpkin pie today, well, two pies and a pile of fritters. Here's the recipe I used.

First I carved out my punkin and put all the meat I could scrape out in a big pot with a little water, and cooked it down.

So Hallowe'en's over, so what? Kitty looks good on the porch.

Thank you!

The little I know about diabetes I've learned this week. I know your sugar is typically lowest when you first get up (is that correct?) in the morning. His was 390 yesterday morning. Then it dropped all day, to 220 by 10PM. We took several short walks and ate reasonably: Oatmeal, roast beef & swiss on rye, orange juice, a salad with bleu cheese dressing and cheese nabs, sunflower seeds, leftover turkey. Reasonable foods in reasonable amounts with a reasonable amount of exercise. I am heaving a big sigh of relief, and hoping yesterday was the beginning of a trend.

We also spent $120 at the grocery (is that ridiculous? for two people?) and today I'll do a pork roast. Hopefully that's healthy food (white meat pork as opposed to red meat ham). Wednesday he'll see the nutritionist and we'll learn more about food. Wednesday he'll also see the doctor again and we'll learn about those numbers.

Thanks to all of you who prayed or danced or crossed your fingers, today begins with more hope.

Happy Holidays; here's how mine were spent...

Two five-day weekends in a row.

Last Thursday I came home, we left Saturday for Muncie, had a real nice Christmas with all th'Mr's family (Saturday was great traveling weather - temperate, and not much traffic at all; Sunday and Monday were ice cold, windy, snowy; and Tuesday was again great traveling weather), drove home Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning I went back to work.

Sometime Wednesday afternoon I realized I'd neglected to bring the apartment keys with me, so Wednesday night I drove home again and Thursday again made the 200-mile round trip to Charleston, but now I'm home again for the weekend.

After work yesterday I went to the apartment to pick up a few things, most notably the Christmas ham AEP had given out. The bird feeders were dead empty, and I keep the birdseed in the freezer (there's no good reason not to: if there are mice it'll keep them out and there's really not another good spot to keep a big bag of seed in that small apartment), or I'd never noticed the power had apparently been out while I was away. Three pounds of bacon and another three of hamburger were completely thawed, and though there were some small chunks of ice cubes left in the big container I dump the ice trays into they were in a big pool of water.

The uncharitable thought that comes to mind is the neighbor (or whoever it was that came in over Thanksgiving weekend and drank cokes, moved the liquor bottles, used a huge glop of electricity and took an unopened bag of Hershey's cherry cordials), on discovering his key no longer unlocks my door, turned off my power for spite (since it was probable I would be gone all weekend). The electric panel is in the "basement" under the apartment, to which the neighbors have access.

Some more charitable (and less paranoid) thoughts are simply there was a power outage, or the freezer malfunctioned, or the breaker controlling the fridge was accidentally shut off for a while.

Last night on the way home I stopped at Target and filled th'Mr's Christmas list --yeah, I know it's late, but why risk duplicating what someone else got him, this is a better way to do it-- and this morning before he got out of bed I wrapped all the loot.

In Muncie we stay at th'MrSr's house and Christmas morning we go to Sis's place for a big breakfast and all the unwrapping. Before noon we were headed back home, and on the way home I started craving Christmas dinner (note above; we had breakfast, not dinner at Sis's), but not even Shoney's was open Tuesday, so today I'm fixing a turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green bean casserole, asparagus and anything else I can find in the cabinets (or send him after). The turkey, an 18-pound Butterball, is now nearly thawed, giblets and neck are simmering and most of the other stuff is ready to go in the oven when it's time.

Th'Mr has taken Astro to get my snowtires balanced, and I'm taking this brief break from kitchen to catch up on this most necessary blogging.

Take care.

It's snowing

First snow of the season. Wednesday and Thursday we had a high/low of mid-seventies/upper-forties.

Yesterday --Thanksgiving-- we did nontraditionally. Since I didn't know till the last minute if I'd be working any of the four-day weekend (I'm not, none of it) th'Mr didn't get a turkey. We both agree I can (and do!) bake a turkey any time, not just on holidays, so he decided he'd like to do a couple nice steaks on the grill. Our Thanksgiving dinner was:

New York Strip Steak
Steamed Asparagus
Green Bean Casserole
Stuffing
Strawberry Cheesecake

Today I need to take Astro to the car shop for a tune up - she's chugging and gasping - and we need to get groceries (last night the dog ate catfood and the cats ate tuna). But right now I'm going to sit here and watch it snow.