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Love this video from funnyordie.com

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

Some Anti Hate going around

There are some that say I need to blog.   Honestly I am shocked if anyone really reads this anymore, because I don't keep it up.   I loved this little video, so I thought I would share it.   For readers with kids, please make sure they are not present while watching.   (nobody said this was a family blog.)

 

A laugh I needed.

The past couple of days have been kind of rough at work.  People have been getting laid off and it makes for a very quiet work place.    Those leaving aren't happy and those staying are sad to see their friends go.    Today in the midst of all of this mess, I get a call from a retail customer asking if I could help him.    Unfortunately I was not able to help him directly, but Erica was able to help him with his problem.     My conversation with the customer was kind of sad, because he listed of about 6 people that he had as contacts at work that would support him and after each name I would say, "That person is gone."   Then he asked where everyone went.   I explained that too.  But these details are not important.   What was important was this brief conversation I had over IM with Erica about this customer.  We came to the conclusion that the customer was taken care of and I thought our conversation was over.   And then I got this.  

2:08:54 PM) Erica: k. great!
(2:09:34 PM) Erica: girl
(2:09:44 PM) Erica: i was just afraid about the side effects
(2:10:17 PM) Rory: side effects of what?
(2:10:29 PM) Erica: from the mirena
(2:10:44 PM) Rory: Only my gay friends call me girl. 
(2:11:20 PM) Erica: i'm sorry
(2:11:29 PM) Erica: i'm talking the wrong person
(2:11:34 PM) Erica: l'm soo sorry!!!!
(2:11:48 PM) Rory: It is ok. 
(2:12:05 PM) Rory: I got a laugh out of it and hell everyone around here could use a good laugh. 
(2:12:15 PM) Erica: lmao

I laughed so hard, when I read that.   I thought for sure when I asked the question that she would realize that she was talking to the wrong person, but she didn't.   She later called me on the phone and apologized profusely.   I told her that everything was ok and I know what is like to send a message to the wrong person.  

I had to share this, because I hope you get a laugh too.

Projects, Projects, Projects

Those 3 words summed up a good part of our weekend and then some of our week as well.   Actually our weekend started a little early with a trip to Riverside to live it up at the casino there.  I didn't live it up so much.  I kind of lost my ass there, but oh well, I had a great time with friends and that is all that mattered.   And I am very thankful to Andy C.'s parents for letting us stay at their home so we didn't have to drive home that night.   After a fab breakfast at Lou Henri's in Iowa City on Saturday, we headed home.   My mom was here to watch the dogs over night Friday, so we got home, got mom and then headed to look for some bedroom furniture to go with our big boy bed.   I had received a coupon from Cost Plus World Market, so we actually ended up getting about 4 pieces of bedroom furniture for what one would have cost us at a furniture store.  I was happy that we found what we wanted for so little money.   So we bought 2 night stands and 2 dressers, oh and some wine stoppers and a chocolate bar.  (Lou Henri's had given out on me by then.)  After getting our furniture we headed to Gordman's (Gorman's if you are my mother) and looked at stuff.  My mother was not allowed to buy any stuff, since we just cleaned out her stuff and had a garage sale.   I threatened to call my sister if she purchased any stuff and took it home with her.    After shopping we hit Famous Dave's for dinner and as always it was delicious.    

Once we got home we unloaded one night stand and assembled it so that we could be sure it was going to go with our bed.   It looked great, but the rest of the assembly didn't happen until the next morning, because we had to go our and look for a new kitchen sink faucet.   Well as if we had not spurred the economy enough that day, we dropped a bit more coin on a new faucet and sink.   Then we hit Target, but didn't really buy anything there, besides food for biscuits and gravy the next morning.    

Sunday morning we had breakfast and then began assembling the bedroom furniture.   Here are the lovely night stands and dressers.  

Night Stand and Moda

Dressers

We just finished assembling these babies and then it was time for Neal and Russ to come over and help us install the kitchen sink and faucet.   Now this was the normal uproryous project.   What I thought might take us a couple of hours, ended up taking about 7 hours on Sunday and we still were not finished.   We made 2 trips to Home Depot on Sunday and 1 trip to Wal-Mart, only thing left open after 7PM.   And we still didn't have a completed sink.  The faucet we bought was defective, because when you but the sprayer end on the pull out, you could not get any water out of it.   I was missing a few parts for the drain as well.   So Monday morning I ran to Home Depot got a new faucet and the rest of my drain parts.   I just robbed the one piece that I needed out of the faucet and then it worked, (kind of).  I also completed the drain part, but I still had a leak that I couldn't get stopped but didn't have the time to fix.   When Andy got home he was not exactly excited.  We had a new kitchen sink and faucet, with all new drain pipe too.  The kicker was, the faucet didn't work quite like we expected, the sink was not seating well on the counter and the one drain still had a leak.   Not the best result from a 8 hour project.   Oh and on top of that our kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off in it.   So we returned both faucets and bought a new faucet at Lowe's.  The new faucet is very similar to the old one in style and function, but it doesn't drip.   In fact it functions just as expected.   Couldn't do much about the sink since we caulked the damn think to the counter so well, we can't get it out.   I guess that is a good sign.  And I was able to get the drain repaired as well.  Now everything is working well and we love the new sink and faucet as they match our appliances in the kitchen.     It was Tuesday night before our Sunday project was finished.   I just wonder what would have happened had Neal not been here to help us on Sunday.   I would probably still have a huge hole in my counter and open drain pipe coming out of the floor.   BTW, Russ made the most awsome pot roast on Sunday for dinner, it was absolutely amazing. 

Here is a picture of the sink that almost whipped my ass. 

Isn't she pretty???

So that was the project weekend.  Thank goodness we got our fun in first and then did all of the hard work.    Next projects are the coat closet shelves and shelves in the garage.   Then maybe we will be able to get both cars in the garage. 

Oh and if I didn't say it before, I will now.   HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELLY!!!!!!!!

Big boy bed.

We did another injustice to the economy today.    We saved some bucks and tax dollars and bought a bed off of craigslist today.   Now I feel like an adult again, now that the mattress and box spring are no longer sitting on the floor.    Anyway, here are a couple of pics.    If anyone know of some nice night stands, and possibly a dresser or two that might look good with it, we are in the market.

  

Food!!!!

I don't know if you have figured this out yet, but I am obsessed with food.   I love to cook and I love to eat even more.    This is not that great for my Weight Watchers living and it has shown lately on the scale.    But I am not that upset about it, I know what I need to do and how to do it, so I just need to commit to it.   However in the past week or so I have made some really tasty dishes that I thought I would share with everyone. 

First was the 15 Minute Paella.    This is a really tasty dish and I highly recommend it. 

This is a recipe from our friend Russ Holder Jr.

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 pound smoked sausage

3/4 pound chicken breast cut up

3 bay leaves

1 pound shrimp ( the 16 to 20 count works well for this dish) tails removed

1 and 1/2 half T of  leaf thyme

1 medium onion chopped

1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes

2 T of chpd garlic

1/2 jar of roasted red pepper chpd  (get  in the Italian and pasta aisle  comes in a narrow slightly tall jar )

1 t of tumeric 

1/4 cup  of lemon juice

S and P to taste

1 and 1/2 cup frozen peas

2 cups couscous

2 cups chicken stock

1.  Saute chicken in olive oil add onion, chpd garlic and roasted red peppers and thyme, red pepper flakes and bay leaves

2.  When chicken is almost done add smoked sausage  and shrimp and peas and lemon juice

3.  At this point the chicken should be throughly cooked  when shrimp is about done or turning pink add the chicken stock, couscous and tumeric stir and cover and turn off the heat let stand covered 10 minutes  stir then eat

P. S. I sometimes add a pound of cut up fresh sea scllops to the pot at the same time I add the shrimp it is good

P.S.S. do  not use bay scallops they never taste fresh always fishy

Thanks to Russ for sharing this recipe.

The other recipe I tried out is an apple crisp from the Packwood cookbook.   I will give you my modified version of this recipe. 

4 cups or about 6 medium apples cored and sliced

1 cup sugar

2 T. flour

2 t. cinnamon

1/2 cup butter or oleo

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup oatmeal

1 1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans

mix apples, sugar, 2 T. flour and cinnamon together and put in a 9x13 baking dish.    Mix together the brown sugar, oatmeal, flour and nuts, cut in butter or oleo with a pastry blender until it resemble coarse meal.   Put this on top of the apples in the baking dish.   Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.   This is very tasty warm with some vanilla ice cream.   

In my efforts to stay away from artificial foods, I made pancakes from scratch this morning.   This too was from the Packwood Cookbook.   I really love this book, because I recognize so many of the names of the people who submitted these recipes.  

So thanks to Vera Hill, who is a distant relative, here is her pancake recipe from this morning. 

2 eggs separated

2 cups milk

2 cups flour

4 t. baking powder

4 T. sugar

1 t. salt

1/3 cup butter. 

Mix the milk and egg yolks together.   Then mix the dry ingredients together and then mix with the yolk and milk mixture.   Melt the butter and add it next.   Last you will beat the egg whites until peak form and then fold egg whites into the batter.     Heat a skillet that has been sprayed or slightly oiled.   I usually heat over medium heat.   I test a little pancake first to make sure I have correct temp.   Pour about 1/2 cup batter into skillet and cook until bubbles form and stay in the batter approximately 1 to 2 minutes, then turn pancake over and cook another 30 seconds or so, until lightly browned.   These are really good and brought back so many good memories of growing up on the farm. 

Last but not least we canned more salsa today with our friend Neal Stromer, we have been babysitting him since his husband has been out of town.   We have really enjoyed his company these past 2 weeks, but like him will be happy when Russ returns home.    We also canned tomatoes today since we really couldn't leave the house since we were slightly afraid it would blow away.   

Hope all is well with everyone.   If I don't post before election day, let me remind you how important it is to get out and vote.   No matter how you are voting. 

Peace peeps!!

Because I can can

canned a whole lot of food over the past couple of weeks.   

After going to the family reunion, for my mother's side of the family, and having Crazy Barb's salsa, we decided we needed to can some salsa.   So on one of the trips to Fairfield, we picked up some jars and a pressure canner from my mom's house.   We got the recipe at the family reunion so we were kind of set to go.   

Now we had to find a source for the 20 cups of tomatoes and 3 kinds of peppers and so on.  We went to the farmer's market and got our tomatoes and peppers. When we bought 20 lbs of tomatoes, the lady just smiled and said, "Have fun, that looks like work." As she gladly took our money.  We managed to find the other ingredients at the store and then we began the work of making salsa.

Andy was a huge help in this process.  I had made salsa before and I had canned beans, tomatoes, and even beef so I brought that experience.   Andy being the great sport that he is cut up all of the onion and peppers, he left me to the garlic, tomatoes and spices.  I think I also made like 3 trips to the store because I kept forgetting or I would run out of something. 

Here are all of the fresh ingredients in the stock pot.  Aren't they pretty?

My other helper, Rinky was waiting to see if any goodies would be dropped.   The only thing he was really interested in were the chips.

So the cooking begins.   This recipe calls for 3 cups of sugar, 2 1/2 cups vinegar, and corn starch, so cooking was a must.   The smell was so wonderful and even 1/2 cooked this stuff was tasty. 

While we were preparing the ingredients, we washed the jars in the dishwasher and made sure they were clean and ready for some great salsa.  

Here is the almost finished product.  A nice thick salsa that is mm good.   The tomatoes really break down in this so we tried not cutting them up so much in the second batch, but they broke down just as much in that batch too.   The great thing about this salsa is it is sweet with a little kick, and I love a sweet kick now and then.

Ok, maybe I should back up a bit and tell you about having to buy an electric burner from Amazon.com because you cannot can on a glass top stove.  Well we bought this burner hoping that it would do the trick, it didn't.   We did the first canner on it and it took over 45 minutes to get the thing up to 5 lbs of pressure and that was all she was going to do.  The second canner of salsa we started on the electric burner and then moved to the side burner of the grill.   Last but not least we later bought a gas burner for a turkey fryer or something like that.  It is propane and wow, it works great.   I can get that baby up to pressure in about 10 minutes flat, if even that.   I could probably do it faster, but I fear I could melt the bottom of the canner with such a big flame. 

Here is the jarred salsa and I think we might have half of them left by now.  The first batch we ended up eating probably 3 pint before canning it.   But the second batch made about 16 pint.  The second batch didn't have the same kick as the first, because I used different chili powder, but Beulah won't mind, because she thought the first batch was too spicy.

Here is my bounty of canned items.  We have canned 28 pints of salsa and 16 quarts of beef.   If you have never had canned beef you are missing out.   Growing up I didn't really understand why my mom did all of this canning, but now I totally respect that she did.   I have some great memories of my Aunt Iva Bell coming over and helping can or freeze food from our garden.   I think back and realize that my mother really only bought dairy products, flour, sugar, pasta, and other grains growing up.   We canned almost all of our own vegetables or we froze it.  We raised our own cattle and hogs for meat.   I really feel very lucky to have these great life skills that I can share with people, and who knows, maybe someday I can pass them on to another generation.  Andie and Carter, watch out.

Another great thing about canning, is Andy says he enjoys canning with me and I enjoy it too.  

Why am I awake?

It is 6:30 AM and I have been up probably almost an hour watching YouTube videos and reading instructions on how to install our new screen door.   I read a few of the blogs I read daily and now I am blogging myself.   Damn, the pot of coffee I drank with dessert last night.  I mean really, I should know better by now.   Drink coffee in the afternoon hard time going to sleep, have coffee after dinner, morning will come extremely early.   Oh well, it is Saturday and I can take a little nap later.

I was back to the grind this week and oh how unexciting was that.   By Tuesday, Andy was asking me if it was Friday yet and wanted to know why 2 days of a work week feels the same as an entire vacation week. (and not in the good way)  So if anyone has the answer, please let us know.   I was ok with being back at work, at home.   However I was used to being around people the entire time so I had to adjust back to being alone during the day.   Oh well, I find things to fill my time which is good.  Of course the dogs feel the need to go out to pee 5 times a day, so that eats up a bit of time.  "They really are like kids, they just never grow up and feed themselves or manage to clean up their messes.

If I ramble here, remember it is 6:30AM.   

So this week, I got the dent fixed in Vin which was an experience that made me anxious.   I hate handing over something I love to someone and them treating it like it is nothing more than an object.    I mean come on this is my baby and I want to take care of him.   The people at the detail shop, didn't follow instructions well and I ended up making 4 trips there just for some simple work.   They removed a door ding that I had insurance for, but totally disregarded the fact that I asked them to work on some door scratches that were also there.   Now, I initially told them I wanted them to look at the scratches and see if they could touch them up, that was visit one.   When they called me back to setup the appointment, I mentioned it again and finally when I delivered the car, I also mentioned it.   Uh, that was 3 mentions, I think this was important to me.   They called m and said the car was done and when I went to settle up with them, they had not done anything with the scratches.   (also keep in mind, I offered to pay for that work if not covered by the insurance.)   So when I asked the owner about it, he said, "Oh that is right I remember now that you mentioned them.  We only had the dent on the order, but I remember you asking me about that. "   So he asked if I could leave the car for another 30 minutes and they would work on it.   I said sure, because someone would have to bring me back later to pick it up anyway.   When I went back at 8PM to pick up the car, sure enough they had fixed the driver's side scratches, but the passenger side remained.   I didn't have the time or patience to go back again so I took the car.    I didn't feel like I could really call back and complain, I didn't pay 1 penny for any of this work.   But I would never recommend this place to anyone.   Which is sad, because the dent was gone and you would never know that it was there.    This guy needs an office manager to make sure things are done right.   Like I would right tickets on each car that went through there and place them in the car so people knew exactly what is being done.   As the office manager, I would go out and inspect each car once I got the ticket back saying it was done, before calling the customer and saying it was done.   I would also write up a ticket in front of the customer and have them proof read it to make sure we were doing everything we were supposed to be doing.    But that is my little bit of OCD kicking in.    

Thursday I took Vin to have the Sirius radio wires removed from him, so that I can later put the radio in the Volvo, aka Betty.   That place said it would take 30 minutes and I thought it would take more like 10, because all they had to do was pull the wires, I had already removed the receiver.   It took them 1.5 hours and I was getting a little nervous about what they were doing to my baby.   Well I should have known better, because when I had gotten home, I found that the door trim was bent more then it was before.   It was a little bent before, but it had been that way for 1.5 years and not gotten worse at all.   Well I think they banged the door into something and it bend the trim more and now it was sticking out.   Keep in mind I had the car sold, I just needed to get these things done before turing it over to the new owner.   So I called VW and checked on the part.  The part was $70 for this little chrome piece and I was still going to have to get my own adhesive to attach it.   I was not pleased, but I offered to give the the new owner $70 in cash.   No big deal really.   I am just happy the car trading is over.    I have a feeling I will only be taking Betty to Volvo for anything or do it myself.   I have had it with these private shops.   I don't normally say this, but "PRIVATE BUSINESSES, YOU SUCK!!!"   Ok,  I feel better and the sun is coming up. 

I did get this wonderful warm feeling this week though.   (Get your mind out of the gutters.)   I called to schedule an alignment for Betty this week, because we are taking a little road trip with the Chalupas. yay!!!  Anyway, scheduling the service was easy at Willis Volvo in Des Moines and I was absolutely shocked when they asked, "Will you need a loaner car?"   I was thinking "Yes, and how much is that?"   Then he piped up and said, "There is no charge for the loaner car."  Just like he was reading my mind.   So for this 1998 Volvo I bought second hand off craigslist, I was getting a loaner car just for keeping it maintained.   And the best part, when I priced the service to be done, it was no more expensive there then it was at Tuffy's or Tires Plus.  And I trust the dealership will know how to align my car.   Hopefully Betty will drive straight as an arrow when I get her back.   So there was the sliver lining in the thunderous roof banging cloud this week.   

Now that I have bored your socks off and you are sleepy, you should take a nap too.   BTW, I am still wide awake... Damn coffee, why do I love thee so much?