My Weblog

apron strings.....

Today has been an "apron" day. My sweet potato chips have finished dehydrating. I have bananas dehydrating now. And I just finished making the "look alike" Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe. It's not bad, but not quite the same. Nevertheless, it sure does a barbecued pulled pork sandwich proud!

I carried trash out and water and dirt in. I had thought I would be able to get that open bag of dirt taken care of today. However, just like last time, it was heavier than I thought. I picked it up at one point but I was not confident I could carry it all the way through the house and out to the raised bed garden. So more bucket work was called for.

It has been a very difficult evening for reasons I can't discuss here. I haven't taken my blood pressure and that was intentional. Besides, I really don't need to. I know it's high....... 

I heated up some sort of shrimp dish I bought at Trader Joe's a couple of weeks ago. It was VERY sweet. Too sweet. I ended up scraping the sauce off after the first bite! 

I did do some kitchen clean up. I really needed to do that. You know, if you've been around here long, that there's a very messy cook who visits my house from time to time. Well, yes, she DID visit here today! It's better now, but it could use more help. I'll be back out there shortly. I wouldn't dare go to bed with my blood pressure off the charts. Actually, I checked and the blood pressure is not that high though it's headed up. Apparently the blood pressure meds are holding their own. It's my heart rate that is off the charts. Well, I know what to do for that but I'll still be awake for a while.

So, anyway, I need to spend some time with the Lord tonight. Barring that, there is no chance I will sleep. I hope you had a BLESSED day!

All in all, it was.....

a pretty good day. I spent about 2.5 hours in Lumber. It was actually busier than a normal "business" day. I was kind of surprised, but I had some fun customers and it was all good. I spent another 1.5 hours "in the middle". This means I was NOT at my usual register where the ventilation duct blows right on me. I did not feel as well when I left as I did when I went in, but I really wasn't "sick" either. And, that's saying something since the wind was reputed to be a good 18 miles per hour! I was scheduled to work til 3. At 2, they decided they had too many bodies, so I was offered the option to leave early and I jumped at it. These days, when quittin' time rolls around, it doesn't take me long to get out of there!

I am off tomorrow and Monday. Yippee! I could get used to this 3 days on and 2 days off! Of course, who knows if it will ever happen again. There's no predicting the schedule in this place. I've learned there are a couple of people who have a "set" schedule. I assume this means they have shown themselves as only available to work between certain hours on certain days of the week. But, because I want to work as much as I can, I haven't sought to restrict my hours in any way.

My mandoline arrived today. I am REALLY happy with it. The old one I had was plastic except for the blades. This one is pretty much all metal. I am hoping this means it will last a lot longer. It is dishwasher safe. The major problem with the old one was that the blade had become bent and food snuck in there under the blade and stayed there. From that moment on, cutting was almost impossible unless you stopped and cleaned that mess out. That was dangerous to fingers and It just happened over and over and over again. It made using the old one almost less productive than doing the slicing by hand. It certainly took more patience than slicing by hand! 

I've already peeled a couple of sweet potatoes and run them through the mandoline. I'll be increasing my supply of sweet potato chips momentarily. Right now they're just sliced, but the next time I go to the kitchen, I'll be starting up the dehydrator. I also have some bananas to dehydrate, but, of course, I'll need to slice those by hand.

I got a little disgusted with some of the dried fruit I bought at Trader Joe's. The blueberries in particular. They are coated with a sugary substance. I don't want all that sugar. I'm contemplating trying to rinse them off and then let them dry and see if that helps the problem. Why would you take something so healthy as a blueberry and coat it with sugar? That just doesn't make any sense to me.......

Everyone has been suffering with allergies. The winds are blowing pollen and dust and at least half the valley is sick to one degree or another. The good news is that tomorrow the wind is only supposed to be 6mph. Never in my life did I think I would take so much interest in the wind! After all, this isn't Florida--we don't have hurricanes. And, this isn't Kansas--we don't have tornadoes. But the wind we do get is relentless and it's making a lot of people suffer! 

I was walking into the store the other day (a windy day) wearing a mask. One of my co-workers kind of laughed at me. He thought it was pretty funny, me wearing a mask outside, because he thinks the air quality is pretty bad inside. I agree with him on that, but I'll do what I can to get through this. The best thing would be some rain. That would give us a day or two of relief. It kind of washes the pollen out of the air and damps down the dust. Guess I'll start praying for rain. 

Towards the end of next week, we will have our first two days this year in the 90's. Duck everyone! Here comes summer! At least, once we start seeing high temperatures, the plants and grasses stop emitting pollen and we'll all be able to breathe that incredibly hot air a little easier, LOL.

In case anyone wondered, my neck is almost "cured". If I turn my head far enough to the right, it still hurts. The answer to this, I suppose, is just not to turn my head too far to the right, LOL. Anyway, perhaps whatever is bothering it is on the mend. I DO hope so.

As I mentioned above, I will be loading the dehydrator with sweet potato slices on my next trip to the kitchen. After that, I need to dehydrate those bananas. If I'm still awake after that (doubtful), I have found a recipe for look-alike KFC coleslaw. I figure that will be pretty tasty and will also go well with my leftover pork roast. My mouth is watering at the thought of a pulled pork sandwich embellished with some of that cole slaw.

That's about it for now. I need to go get those sweet potato slices into the dehydrator. I hope you had a BLESSED day!

 

Thank God I'm Home.............

I actually spent the entire day in Lumber today. That's always interesting. The cashiers who work in Lumber on a regular basis have skills and the authorization to use them which I don't have. So customers come in, expecting that I'll be able to do these things too since I'm standing in the same spot, wearing the same color vest. I did learn one new skill today so that was okay.

The guy that was working in Lumber today was NOT in a good mood. He was perfectly fine, more than helpful to me. Don't get me wrong about that. However, The "we don't have enough staff thing" has him all wired up. He does a lot of sales to contractors and once the stuff is sold, the whole order has to be accumulated and associated and pulled off the shelf so that if the contractor is buying lumber AND 6 water heaters, he can get them all at one time, in one place. However, apparently he is left with no one to pull the orders because the guys that are supposed to do that are being detailed to other places in the store, rather than working their regular jobs. Also, according to him, there is one guy who is willing to work and work hard, one who is new so not of a whole lot of use, and one who wants to BS with his friends rather than work. So, anyway, the staffing problem is getting to him. Additionally, he showed me some stats. There are just 2 guys in the same job classification with the same duties and responsibilities and the same salary level. The guy I was talking to has sold 10 X what the other guy has sold this month. He claims this is the same over the last 6 months. And, sure enough, the other guy left an order dangling, was supposed to be in at a certain time of day, and when I left was still not there. 

I heard largely the same story from a guy in a totally different department yesterday. The guy I heard from yesterday is well-respected and supposedly really knows his stuff. But, he is usually there alone and he just has no time to do what he's supposed to do because he's doing everything else. Both guys are rumbling about leaving..........

I did have to bother the guy in Lumber and I felt bad about that. We had a customer who wanted to pay for his order in a "specialized" way, a way with which I am totally unfamiliar. So, I had to ask for help. He was great in walking me through the whole thing without making me feel like I was being a pest and without making me feel like I was stupid because I don't know this stuff. It's a good thing he taught me as well as he did because he went back to his little corner of the store world and the very next order wanted the exact same thing. I was able to do that with no problems. Good job, Teach! Of course, I made sure to thank him profusely for his help, and, honestly, I couldn't have done it without him.

It is windy, windy, windy outside today. And when I went to work it was only 56 degrees. The entrance to the Lumber area from outside has a door facing (I think) north and a door facing south. The door facing south is sheltered by part of the building as well as a roofed loading area. That door was okay. However, the door on the other side actually had to be manually closed and more or less locked. It had blown open and sent papers blowing everywhere. There is also one of those big metal "shades" which form a huge door. It's through here that the forklift enters and exits. That thing had to e opened numerous times today. So, it was plenty cold and on occasion windy in Lumber. But there is no duct directly overhead blowing crap in your face. So, I held out a little better today than yesterday. 

Nevertheless, I have my little hack-hack cough. And I had numerous opportunities to dry my eyes and blow my nose...... This wind has GOT to stop! It just has to!

I collected my current paycheck and the bit of money that I got on that itty bitty "I'm sick" paycheck today. With the two added together, it was okay money, but it sure doesn't go far or leave much left over. Gasoline prices are on the rise around here. I really go nowhere. I go to work and home again (total round trip commute is 9 miles). I go to the bank, but 9 times out of 10 I do that on my way to or from work. I do go to the grocery store. Other than that, you will usually find my van parked in the driveway. But with summer coming on, and the need for air conditioning on at least part of the commute, I felt I HAD to increase the money I allot to gasoline.

I also increased the amount I put into my envelope for bottled water. I want to keep that at a certain supply level, and I could not do that with what I was allowing. I know after this past December that I have to have extra money available when December rolls around, but It sure is hard to come by "extra money". 

Well, I have just a couple of pills left of the prescription the urgent care doc gave for this cough. I think I am going to take one and try to get some sleep. The little bit of sleep I got last night is just not enough to sustain life..........

 

Opening.......

Yup, that's what I'll be doing--opening the store. In some ways it's not too bad because the first couple of hours are generally pretty slow. But, still, I have to get up at zero dawn thirty to be ready on time and I'll probably have to leave home in the dark. Who wants to do either of those things?

I am going in to work, exhausted. I tried to go to bed early, but sleep was just not my thing. I think I actually managed about 4 hours, but I was up repeatedly to use the restroom. So, my plans to get the van's oil changed this afternoon may get set aside in favor of a nap! 

Yesterday I went to work feeling pretty darned well and I came home feeling much less well from standing under that darned dirty duct. Proof positive: my oxygen level went down 2 points from the time I left here til the time I returned. And I'll be back in the same place again today because that is always the first register to open and the last to close. Darn! Today I will be taking my regular allergy pill and supplementing it with a Benedryl before I even leave home. The weather today, to top things off, will be stinky. Our high will only be 68 degrees with 20-30 mph winds, gusting to 40 mph! This is NOT my idea of fun!

I did end up making one more trip outside last night, in the dark. I gathered up the outside bins and put them inside the side gate as soon as I read the forecast. At least, when I get home, I won't have to wander all over the neighborhood in the wind, trying to find out how far they've blown. 

I really do think I can finally move the opened bag of dirt out of the van tonight. And I did a count of water bottles in the house and came up one short. Sure enough, I thought I had brought them all into the house but there's still one lurking on the back seat of the van. So I'll try to move that tonight as well. 

The best thing I can think of right now is that I am on the 2nd day of 3 days in a row and then I get 2 days off! Glory be! If I get some additional sleep, my attitude may change, but, for right now, that makes me very happy. It doesn't hurt that today is payday either!

I have been experiencing some symptoms I don't like. Right now, I'm attributing them to walking the edge of dehydration, but I can't swear that's what's going on. Besides, I keep pouring the water in like crazy. I must be about to float away......... Maybe it's the new meds, and if it is, I think the doctor will have to put his thinking cap on and figure out something different. 

I wish I could figure out the pharmaceutical industry. My previous batch of diltiazem cost me $44. The newest batch, picked up on Tuesday, was only $22. I'm grateful for the change. I just wonder if it will last...... I think I am getting to the age where the practice of medicine and all things related thereto are the biggest bane of my existence. I also have a bill here for the oxygen concentrator and the billing company has completely bypassed a payment made to them so I have to try and get that straightened out. Oy vey! Pain in the tushie!

I'm outta here. I want to get that Benedryl into me and working. You be BLESSED today!

A Night to Celebrate!

I am eating a hamburger made on my very own grill. Wow! Only a few minutes ago, I was making grilling smells on my patio, fit to compare with the rest of the neighborhood. I am very pleased with my new/used grill. 

I think I will buy some lava rock for in the grill. It does drop in temperature whenever you open it. And it doesn't exactly jump right back to where it was before you opened it. The addition of some lava rock in the belly of the thing is supposed to help with that immensely. Reminds me of "passive energy" design in a house where slate floors and bricks or stones are used to build a huge fireplace to help hold and multiply the heat.

I bought two barbecue tools at the store before I left, tongs and a flipper(spatula). I also bought some wood chips. At least, the wood chips were on sale. Of course, I got my discount on everything but that doesn't do much more than offset the sales tax. Still, I'm grateful for that discount! I hated to spend the extra money, but I figured since the good Lord had helped me stumble into such a great deal on the grill itself, He probably wouldn't mind the bit extra I spent. After all, if I'd lost my head and bought a more expensive grill, I would still have needed tools. It seemed to me, if He wanted me to have a grill, He probably wanted me to have tools as well.

Work today was fun, as far as the customers were concerned, but I was back at my "usual" register, under that darned air duct. By the time my shift was half over, I was coughing and blowing. And, to top it off, it was blowing outside, winds from 20-30 mph. So there was plenty of pollen and dust being blown around and being sucked into the ventilation system. I don't really know, but it seems to me there can't be much of a filter on that system. That's a bit strange for a store that sells filters.......Then I remember that we're trying to work with scan guns with batteries that are worn out and the lack of filtration on the ventilation system seems less strange........I was happy to come home to my inhaler, LOL. What does one do when one is allergic to one's job?

I planned to haul at least one load of dirt tonight. But by the time I got the grill out of the van and hauled it in and then went back for the extras and then went back to the van to bring in that case of Mason jars I bought, I was pretty well tired out. I guess maybe I have one more trip in me. I'll have to hurry to make that happen though........

So, in the interest of hauling dirt, I'm signing off now. I doubt I'll be back later as I have to get up VERY early tomorrow morning and that means I have to hit the sack VERY early. At least, I know that when I go in at 6AM I will NOT be busy. And, I'm outta there at 12 noon, so I'm going to try to get the oil changed in the van, finally! 

'Night all......

 

Back to "the grind"

So, it's back to work today. I think I might be in decent shape for that for the first time in what seems like forever but is really about a month. Yes, I am still coughing, but everything is loose and I'm getting some of that mucus out of my system. My neck is almost "normal". I can now turn my head without pain, almost to its normal limits. Whoopee!

Today is a 6-hour day as is tomorrow, but tomorrow has the added "glory" of starting very early. I REALLY don't like that, but maybe, having the entire afternoon off will enable me to be more productive. 

My pork roast last night turned out just wonderful. I paid about $10 for it, but I ate from it last night and then packaged up 7 single servings of sauerkraut, dumpling, and some sliced meat. AND, I still have about half the roast left so temporarily I just dropped that into a ziplock bag, but I'll be pulling that out and shredding it for sandwiches. I even bought some cole slaw mix at Smart and Final the other day so I will have that to go with pulled pork. Yummy!

I have been studying up on dehydrating. My freezer moved here from St. Louis with me 38 years ago. It was only a few months old at the time, so there was no way I was going to leave it behind. I do want to do more dehydrating, though, as I'm not sure how long the freezer will continue to do its thing. Dehydrated food is good for years, depending on how its stored, up to decades. I've just been storing what I've dehydrated in an unsightly collection of jars saved from instant coffee, etc. I bought a case of quart-size Mason jars the other day. A case of jars is not THAT many, but I know where to get more........ I think my pantry shelves will look a bit more "pulled together" with jars that are all the same type, and I can use the food saver on Mason jars to vacuum seal them as well. I don't have a lot to store yet. Mostly I've been using the dehydrator for stuff to use as daily snacks and for emergency storage of produce that is approaching it's "use me now or throw me away" date. But, I'm planning to keep that dehydrator running almost non-stop if I can. Summer is a good time to do that with its bounty of fresh fruit and veggies...........

I pretty much walked away from the produce department at S&F the other day. I think the only fresh produce I bought was some sweet potatoes. I had intended to buy more stuff, but their produce is all pre-packaged and I think it's pretty pricey. From here on, I hope to start scouring the grocery ads from other stores to take advantage of "deals". I pass a Smiths store on the way home from work and I've shopped there before. I happen to know they have an outstanding produce department. And there's a Sprouts market that is only about 2 miles out of the way. I ought to be able to get some deals on produce between those two sources. There IS a farmer's market near the house, but it is only open on Saturdays and it kinda seems like I am slated to work most Saturdays. So, I'm afraid I can't really take advantage of that. I just ordered my mandoline to make all of the chopping and slicing go a little faster. 

I did not really accomplish much of anything in the house the last two days and I'm not happy about that. During the day, between running all my errands, I only had about 40 minutes at home on Tuesday. And I was SO upset when I got home from trying to pick up a kid from school who didn't GO to school that the best thing I could do for myself was just sit down and try to calm down. Yesterday kind of got lost with kid pickup and cooking. So, I'll have to try to make up for that if I can in the evenings. 

I have hidden my bullet journal from myself. It's rather unthinkable, but I'm hoping I left it in the van. Usually that thing follows me everywhere I go, LOL. If I didn't leave it in the van, then it's "lost" here in the house somewhere. I'm not sure how I can navigate through my day without it, LOL. 

Well, time to start the "getting ready" process and quit blabbing. YOU be BLESSED today.

Getting in touch with my roots..........

Last night, I had to pay homage to my Irish roots. I ate hash brown potatoes for dinner. I suppose O'Brien potatoes would have been more Irish, but I didn't have any green peppers. Tonight I decided to honor my German roots. I made a pork roast, sauerkraut, and dumplings. Oh, my, a total culinary delight (as long as you don't eat too many of those dumplings at one time). 

So, I think I neglected to tell you that I bought that little electric grill. It's the Charbroil grill that sells for around $140 on Amazon. I can't wait to give it a try, but, tonight, I already had the pork roast so the grill will wait another day or two. If you want to see what it looks like, here's a link on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Char-Broil-TRU-Infrared-Patio-Bistro-Electric/dp/B002DM1Z5C/ref=sr_1_3?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1493262446&sr=1-3&keywords=electric+grill+outdoor  I was fortunate to get it for $30. 

I really like the lady from whom I bought it. Sadly, I met her as she's preparing to move to her tiny home in Arizona. I think she and I could have become good friends.

So the big deal for today was picking up the DGS from school. I had specific instructions to pick him up between 2 and 3 PM. I got smart today and got off the freeway early and took surface streets the last little ways to the school. Yesterday I was stupid and got snarled up in Las Vegas's ""Spaghetti Bowl". There are 4 exits crammed together, as well as construction and the part of the freeway I wanted narrowed to 4 lanes total, all in the same less than 1 mile stretch. Trying to get through there without getting killed is just madness! I think they've been working to "improve" that area since I moved here in 1979! 

In that I was told I needed to be at the school between 2 & 3, I assumed school was dismissed at 2. So, at 2:08, I called to let the boy know I was 5-10 minutes away. He apparently had promised to help someone with a video project and somehow got the idea I wouldn't be there til around 4! Well, I told him I'd wait, but I wasn't prepared to wait THAT long. He finished up and I got him safely in the van around 2:38. I asked him where he wanted to go and he thought he could go home. I told him his Dad had said his favorite restaurant was Jimmy Johns and I suggested I could take him there. That made him smile. The kid had not eaten all day. He inhaled a sandwich! I guess it must be his favorite place--the guy behind the counter knew exactly what he wanted to eat and quoted his order to him, LOL. We got to spend about an hour and a half together. I have had so little time with him of late. It is hard for me to get over how grown up he is. He tells me he is about to take his test for his driver's license! And he has an Adam's Apple. Now where the heck did that come from?

Anyway, he seems to be doing better in school, or at least so he says. And, yes, Virginia, apparently they DO have majors in High School these days. Of all things, his major is Japanese! I was impressed when he explained why he'd chosen Japanese. According to him Spanish is an easy language to learn, you just talk to your Hispanic friends and you learn it. He thinks that being able to speak Japanese will be a marketable skill in the business world, given our ties to Japanese businesses. He pointed out to me that I drive a Toyota van, LOL. That sounded like reasonably smart thinking for a 16 year-old.

When we left the restaurant, he wanted to know if he could drive. Truly, I was not comfortable with that. Traffic was heating up (casino workers turned loose, scattering out of downtown in all directions). So we worked a deal. He is going to come out here and help me with my wireless connection and I will go driving with him. MUCH less traffic out here and I want to watch him drive out here before I want to turn him loose to drive in traffic! I hope he keeps his end of the deal because this wireless thing has been hanging fire for months now. 

I have been fighting a battle with dehydration/low blood pressure both yesterday and today. I keep pouring in the water but I'm only making slow headway. 

Well, that's about it for now. I have a headache and I'm going to take some ibuprofen and then work on cleaning up the kitchen. I hope you had a good day. I know I did, low blood pressure and all!

 

 

My 19th nervous breakdown........

I am totally wrecked. I remembered my son-in-love's e-mail to say that I needed to pick up DGS between 3 & 4. When I double checked it about 2:20, it REALLY said between 2 and 3. You don't even want to know the words that came out of my mouth--old habits die hard. I took off out of here like a bat out of hell, sweating every single foot of ground I covered between here and the school. I found the school. It is not the building I thought it was. And, it is not A building. It is a series of buildings all related/linked together in some way (that linkage is only to be discovered if you belong to LV CSI, I think). Anyway, in my mind, I pictured DGS at a school like the schools out here in the 'burbs. Taking up lots of space but able to be driven around without problems.

Not this place. I encountered one way streets (of course I was going the wrong way). And, it's darned difficult to the unfamiliar eye to figure out where the "campus" begins and ends. 

I honestly expected the boy to be on the sidewalk outside the main building, waiting for me. No, that was not the case. I sat there for a while, thinking maybe he'd ducked back into the building but would look out and see me sitting there. When I gave up on that hope, I started trying to find my way around the campus. I eyeballed every kid in the neighborhood. No doubt at least one of them went home and told their folks about a little old lady pervert who looked at them funny. I ducked into alleyways and parking lots. I found one teacher in a parking lot. He asked me what the boy's "major" is. "Major"?????? This is High School, not college. Who has a major? Well, apparently...........

Anyway, when I got to the theater building, I saw bodies inside. I stopped the car and went to the doors there. They were locked to keep the "vagrants" out. No doubt, by this point, in my state of absolute panic, I looked like one, LOL. But a young lady came out and opened the door and asked me what I wanted. I told her who I was looking for and she went in to see if he was there. After a while, a man came out and invited me into the building. He is apparently some sort of mucketymuck in the theater department. Anyway, he'd never heard of a kid with that name. So, he called the main building (where I started this search) and they broadcast a message to the whole "campus". Then he walked me around the campus, me with the lousy deteriorated legs from mountains of Levaquin. That was quite the hike!

Now, yes I DO have his phone number. BUT, I was so upset to be leaving home late that I ran out and left my phone here. In that I expected a self-contained area, and in that I expected him to be outside and visible, I thought that would be no big deal. Well, obviously, it became a big deal. Finally, I circled everything again and headed home to my cell phone. I cannot begin to tell you how upset I was. Oh, my Lord.......... 

I grabbed the phone and there had been no "Grandma, where are you?" phone calls. No incoming phone calls at all. So, I called DGS. I think the first words out of my mouth were "Boy, where ARE you?"

Turns out the kid stayed home sick from school today. He says he texted me. Lovely, but I don't have texting on my phone so that did me no good. Anyway, he's safe, and he's home. And, soon, no doubt, I will stop shaking and sanity will be restored. Right????

Chasing my tail.........

I didn't go to bed til around 2AM, silly woman! And I was wide awake at 7AM. I'm not sure how that's going to work, LOL. I DID get a nap earlier in the evening so I think, all in all, I did get about 7 hours of sleep.

I need to run around all over town today. I was going to qualify that and say all over the west side of town but I actually have to go all the way downtown this afternoon, so I can't make it sound any better than it does.

I want to hit Smart & Final today. There are just a few things I need to pick up. Milk, half 'n' half, sweet 'n' low, and maybe a pork roast and stuff to feed my dehydrator addiction. S&F is about 3 miles south of home.

I have to go to CVS. I think they have some prescriptions ready for me. I could conceivably do this this evening if time gets tight. CVS is about a mile south of home.

I want to go see about that electric grill and also scope out if she has a coffee table and side tables for sale and if I happen to like them. She lives about 5 miles northwest of me.

I have to pick up DGS from school downtown and take him home. This is about 8 miles northeast of me.........

It's a good thing I don't mind driving, LOL. And the "pick up from school" leg will be the pits. I think I have to be there around 3PM and that is shift change time at the hotels/casinos in town. Streets will be congested to say the least. I guess the good part is that going there I'll be going in the opposite direction of the traffic. Once I get him in the van, though, I'll be in the thick of it. It won't be scary bad or anything, just clogged and slow. 

So, I don't expect to get much done around here today! Geez......

I have had some successes and some fails with the dehydrator, but the end result, I think, will be that I do get some additional nutrition into this body. I have decided I like the sweet potato chips. I just slice the peeled potato (2 of them) as thinly as I can. I put all the potato slices in a bowl and add a couple of teaspoons of coconut oil and 1 tsp of salt. I mix all that together and when all the potato slices have a thin coating of oil, I plop them on the dehydrator. 

I tried something similar with zucchini. I think I would have been okay except I decided to sprinkle a little garlic powder on them. BAD ideal. They have come out of the dehydrator tasting bitter, the kind of ugly bitter you get when you "brown" garlic too long in a skillet. I did the zucchini with olive oil. I did also put a tiny bit of parmesan in with them and that worked out okay.

I tried dehydrating sliced beets. I LOVE me some beets. Most likely that is because they are so rich in magnesium and, other than supplements, I never feel I get enough of that. Also, lots of fiber. However they did not turn out well. First, they turned really dark, almost black. Like little slivers of coal. They honestly don't taste like beets til you get to the very end of chewing on them. They're really kind of tasteless til then. So, I don't think that worked out too well. 

I went to work yesterday looking all "healthy" with my snack bag of veggie chips. I had some of all 3, the sweet potato, the zucchini, and the beets, in there. It was kind of pretty and just looking at it and knowing I was going to eat that while other people would be eating Snickers bars and Doritos made me feel all virtuous. Well, I ended up digging through the little bag and pulling out the sweet potato chips and leaving the other stuff behind. Much less "virtuous" than I'd imagined, LOL.

I am going to buy myself a new mandoline. For dehydrating, uniform slices, thin slices, is the goal and that is time consuming when you have to do it with a knife. I have an old mandoline, but the blade is bent. This causes food to get stuck under the blade. Once that happens, slicing goes out the window and you have to risk losing your fingers to try to get the food out of there. So, a new mandoline is going to happen.

I'll keep trying though as I do think that I need that bit of nutrition. Lord knows with this job, the "snacks" are about all I actually get to eat. And, I really do feel that fruit and veggies are important. And fruit, when dehydrated, is generally very sweet. I'd rather have less sugar and more vitamins so I'll continue searching for ways to make the veggie thing work.

On a totally different subject, I've noticed recently that Las Vegas appears on several lists as a "sanctuary city". This makes my blood boil. Not only does that attitude put me and every other legal citizen in this area at risk because criminals are being released back into the streets, but, if federal funding is cut, as is being threatened, the city is going to suffer greatly. Nevada already has some of the poorest ranked schools in the nation. Obviously, we really can't afford to lose federal money. So let's play with fire and see if we can do what the federal government wants us to NOT do and still get federal money. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I have sympathy for people. I really do. However, I spent a major portion of my life enforcing laws. The consequences to those who did not understand or did not know or did not obey those laws were sometimes pretty big. Sometimes I felt that, in equity, the laws were "unjust". But if it's the law, you can't ignore the law. Instead you work to change the law. Otherwise, the word "law" becomes meaningless and we become a nation of lawlessness. 

I have noticed lately that there are a lot of security doors going up in the neighborhood. Security doors, security windows, alarm systems. Now either someone is getting "Salesman of the Year" awards for selling that stuff in this neighborhood or there is a problem around here. Having had someone break into my van and go through it looking for riches of some sort, I think that there is probably a problem around here. In that I am now gone from home a lot of the time and in that I am the proud owner of the world's friendliest dog, it does concern me. I've long been wishing for a security door. I do habitually, without even thinking about it, lock my doors, but there are times I'd love to be able to open them up and get some fresh air in here. Part of the problem with that is exposure to anyone who wants to enter and part of the problem with that is making sure Parker doesn't run away. But, it will be a long time til a security door is in the budget. And, I'll be darned if I'll live in a house with bars on the windows. THAT is not going to happen. 

If anything goes on my windows, it will be those metal "shades" that raise and lower. They are secure, of course, but they have an added glory to them: they shield the inside of the house from the heat of the Las Vegas summer. I have a client who has them and she loves them for THAT purpose. Of course, they are hellishly expensive!

SO, this is a very long post. Kudos to anyone who actually read this far! Apparently I had a lot to say today and I didn't even know it. Well, I'm going to shut up now and get ready to head to Smart & Final. YOU be BLESSED today!

 

 

I think I'm getting better........

I coughed a lot today at work. But, I got through the 6 hours easier than I have of late. So, maybe that request for "strength for today" got me just what I needed. And, in spite of the coughing, my oxygen readings are strong so I'm happy about that. Sadly, the right side of my neck is still screwed up and right now I have a dandy headache because of it.

Tomorrow, I'll be busy. I want to swing by Smart & Final to pick up a few things. I've been without string cheese for 2 days. I really do like to have that first thing when I'm at the store. It seems to start the day off right. I don't want to buy too much. The bank balance doesn't look any better til Wednesday. But, if I trek over there tomorrow, I can take advantage of this week's specials. I particularly have my eye on a pork roast!

Tomorrow I am going to go see about that electric grill. I did some research on electric grills. Seems the only real problem with them is that once you open the cover, the temperature drops and they take a long time to come up to temperature again. However, if you put some lava rock in there, it helps hold the temperature. So, I'm going to try that. I can get 7 pounds of lava rock for under $10 which would put my cost to use this thing at under $40. That's a lot cheaper than I can get anything from the store.......... As I said, all I want is something on which I can cook a burger or a piece or two of chicken. This should do the job. Apparently you can even soak some wood chips, make an aluminum foil "box" for them, and sit them down in there to get a real smoke flavor on the meat. I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't been able to grill anything for a lot of years now. The only hang up now will be whether this baby I'm going to look at is free-standing or has to sit on a table. I really don't want to have to deal with a table......

IF I get the grill, I'll invest in a cover for it. I want it to last a very long time.

Not much else to report. I think I am taking my headache to bed now!