Thursday January 26

I certainly could have slept until noon again, but CVS keeps bugging me to pick up my meds, and CVS is absolutely relentless; especially when I have to pay for it.

Every 90 days I get raked over the coals for $300 for icosapent ethyl, highly refined fish oil for lowering one of the cholesterol values. Insurance just won’t touch it, and that figures because it works.

Also got my metformin and nasal spray. The spray is free and very effective, and every 90 days I get three new bottles. This stuff I can use every day.

I used the wife’s car today, and filled the tank with mid grade; gas was $3.69/gal.

I saw that if I choose to sign up again for my Sam’s membership, it has now gone up 10 bucks a year.

I believe I’ll hold off on spending until I see how we’re going to come out with the taxes this year. Still gathering our stuff and waiting for the wife’s statements.

We are still completely baffled by how we got a refund last year, and are hoping that will be the case again…that we’ll be baffled, no…that we get a refund, yes.

I see that my version of Linux will stop receiving updates in 90 days, so an upgrade will be in order…at least it will be free..

This version has not been trouble free. Most of the issues are with the Firefox browser; it crashes frequently. Usually when I have more than 3 tabs open for a couple of hours.

Linux Mint 21.1 is out there now, but must first upgrade to version 20 before making the big leap. I must also do the 33 upgrades they are pushing now.

It’s always something.

Guess I’ll start on that now.

 

Ted Cruz Introduces Term Limits Bill For Congress

https://www.dailywire.com/news/ted-cruz-introduces-constitutional-amendment-to-enforce-term-limits-for-congress

 

A two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress is required to propose a constitutional amendment. It must then be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

Although I am all for it, it’ll never fly. It’ll be interesting to see who leads the parade in the battle against term limits, and who squelches the amendment. Way too many democrats are used to getting their monthly “kickback” from the Ukraine.

In other news…

Then there’s this

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/01/25/dave-chappelle-calls-out-violent-transgender-activists-they-threw-eggs-at-fans-lined-up-to-see-the-show/

I think it would be easy to figure out who threw the eggs, because they likely “throw like a girl”.

Another sleep until noon day for me, although I did get up at 9 am and take my BP meds.

56 is the forecast high today, and we have reached that now, and will be hovering close thereabouts for the next few days.

The wife is still going outside to smoke. I don’t think she’ll be quitting anytime soon.

Looks like I’m gonna have to buy a suit, that I’ll only wear once twice; once for the fitting, once for the event. Hell, I didn’t even wear a suit to my own son’s wedding.

I will consider the new suit part of my gift.

Slowly but surely all the Christmas decos are getting put away. Now, out come the next round of seasonal decorations…sigh.

I got my next round of coupons from the hardware store, including a free tape measure on my next visit (with any purchase). I still have a $5 coupon that I gotta use before the 30th as well.

Getting a $5 coupon to a hardware store is comparable to getting turned loose in a candy store with a nickel…just a tease..

 

Tuesday January 24

Another sleep until 12 noon day.

Cooler weather aids in the not wanting to get out of bed syndrome. Will be windy this afternoon as more cold weather blows through here, leaving us with overnight temps in the 30s for the next couple days.

Some light rain last night too, will make traipsing around the yard muddy.

My BS was 115 this morning, which it has been running within 10 points of that since the diet. My most recent low was 96 a few days ago.

The wife drove to the big city to burn a couple of coupons; one at Walgreens, the other at the grocery store, where she picked up some more chicken breasts, bone in. She got some ground beef; a 3 pound roll of ground chuck, and a 5lb bag of wings.

I had to mix up a new batch of  Hot Wing marinade. I normally use it for at least two batches of wings, adding more hot pepper sauce for the next round.

Next, I bagged and soaked the chicken breasts in lemon pepper and Italian dressing in individual bags, and popped them into the deep freeze.

Then I halved the roll of ground chuck and Vacuum sealed it, and into the freezer.

I had some stray bulk cashews and Virginia peanuts that also got vacuum sealed, and into the freezer.

I made coffee, but forgot to actually put fresh coffee grounds into the filter, so I ended up with coffee I could see through (I seem to be doing that more and more). So I wasted that effort and decided not to drink coffee today, since it was already 1:00. And, since I no longer use the Irish Cream, I do not enjoy it as much. I likely won’t take a nap anyway, given my late snooze.

I used up the last of the smoked chicken, and made some chicken salad with the last of the deviled eggs too. It came out nice. It’s good to have a variety when dieting; BBQ chicken, smoked chicken salad, and guisada…although guisada really isn’t low carb, it can be when eaten in moderation.

The wife picked up a few of the Aitkins low carb snacks too which help the after dinner sugar cravings, and still keep my BS low.

The wings went into the freezer. They will keep several months. I also added a sliced jalapeño into the Hot Wings.

I also vacuum sealed a couple boxes of Rice A Roni and some Kraft Mac and Cheese, and stashed them. The Rice A Roni was the Long Grain and Wild Rice variety, which no one eats except me. The wife says the instructions are wrong, as it is never done in the allotted time on the box…

The truth is, that that particular variety needs to be cooked for 45 minutes; not 25 on the stovetop…Wild rice by its very nature takes longer to cook…real wild rice can take as much as an hour; if one can afford it.

Tax time is upon us as well. The wife managed to get us a refund last year; hope she can do same again without an audit.

Remember the days when we could deduct credit card interest paid? good times…

P.S. the jalapeno poppers are hot as hell for the first bite, since one naturally eats the tip first; and that’s where the little bit of seeds and pith lurk, and it seems to be a characteristic of this batch. I still like it better than splitting them into halves, then patching them in hopes that they won’t leak…’cause they will.

Sunday January 22

My sole purpose today was very simple.

Cook the Italian Dressing Chicken and the jalapeno poppers, and my work is done.

The chicken has been soaking since Wednesday, and I built the poppers this morning. I never did find the video of coring the jalapenos…I tried the corkscrew, but had very little success in retrieving an entire core. Using a very sharp small blade paring knife, seems to work nicely. Hopefully, I got enough of the seeds out so they won’t be that hot.

Two slices of thick cut bacon for each popper held in by round toothpicks (they’re sharper than the flat).
I chilled the cream cheese on the top fridge shelf as it’s coldest there, and basically cut a hunk off and shoved it into the jalapeno. Cook until the bacon is done..yeah, it will flare up on you too so keep your BBQ lid handy.

I had just a little cream cheese left, and 4 strips of bacon left.

I prefer cutting the tops off as opposed to slicing the poppers in half, since the cream cheese leaks badly while cooking when halved..this way not near as bad.

I cooked these on the old Weber Kettle grill…I think I’m gonna hang on to that one, even though all the vents are rusted away.

Remember a while back I was getting all those boneless ribeye roasts, and carving off the caps? Well I have several of those things now, and I was thinking I could round all those up, and smoke them. Just a thought.

I ate one of the poppers. Consider this: since they were not split, and instead hollowed out from the stem end, the pointy end did not get emptied out of all the seeds and other white stuff..SO, when I bit the pointy end off one of the poppers, It was immediately a 4 alarm fire…I had to fight hard to keep from screaming out loud, although in hindsight, me screaming that the poppers were too hot might be more than enough deterrent for the girls to attempt to “sample”.

The rest of the popper was just fine, and I finished it no problem, and the fire subsided without additional firefighters.

From personal experience, I have seen that a spoonful of honey will put out the fire in one’s mouth from too hot a pepper, too hot salsa, too hot pico de gallo, or even whole milk can be helpful in putting out the fire.

Water will not work. Trust me on that one.

I pulled the meat off the chicken, and put it into 2 zip lock bags, quart size. Plenty for salad additions, or right out of the bag with maybe some homemade cocktail sauce for dipping.

There is still some smoked chicken left too, that I should finish before indulging in the fresh stuff.

The wife said she was gonna go back to the big city tomorrow, and would stop by the grocery store to get a few things.

So I got that workin’ for me.

Looks like we’re going to a wedding in Seguin TX in March..It should be interesting, as I have never been there…what’s this? no denim? In case you haven’t noticed, we live in Texas, pal!

 

 

Saturday January 21

Since I missed my nap yesterday cleaning the storeroom, I slept until noon today. Those little two hour napcitas really do make a difference.

I saw somewhere not long ago, in the local blogosphere who had a video on using a corkscrew to deseed jalepenos for poppers. I cannot find it. I thought it was Bacon Time or Disturbed Deputy, but my search parameters failed on those sites.

So, I guess I’ll be flying this batch by the seat of my pants.

Upon further examination of the “I’ll Wash Your Car if You Do Some Shopping For Me” deal, I discovered that the ground beef chub on sale was in fact 73/27…I think not.

We did make some headway by clearing out the store room yesterday. We make a nice big clean spot. Unfortunately, now the outside of the storeroom is piled with the boxes we removed. It just don’t seem right.

We did come across some vintage vinyl LP records from the sixties. Do Wacka Do, Happy Holidays from Perry Como, Handel’s Messiah by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,…NOW how much would you pay…The New Christy Minstrels, and the coup de gras…The Fifty Guitars Go South Of The Border…

Easy now…not all at once…

A couple boxes of books were lurking in the back corner, likely hadn’t been opened in 30 years…looked like what someone would study for if going for a nursing cert…which the Wicked Witch was…an RN.

The trash people don’t like it when the customers sneak in a box of books…too heavy so we’ll have to eek it out over the next few weeks.

There sure was a lot of party stuff; solo cups, cheap champagne glasses, plastic plates, tablecloths and why wasn’t I invited napkins…

16 pounds down since Jan 2. Still not smoking, although I have had an increasing number of cravings that came and went.

I have been soaking bone-in chicken breasts with Italian dressing and lemon pepper since Tuesday, and need to either cook them or freeze them…along with the jalapeno poppers (10). I should probably go  ahead and cook all that since my fridge supply of protein variety is waning.

The wife has been good about dealing with the fact that she does not eat stuff on my diet, so she is pretty much on her own.

Not much happening here; ‘specially since one sleeps until noon.

Friday January 20

I have not seen yet whether or not Creepy Joe will deliver the “Unsafe State of the Union” today or not.

The wife and I made a trip to the big city yesterday to get my “gotta have it” stuff.

I picked up a couple of LED shop lights at Harbor Freight, and an assortment of crescent wrenches.

Then to Lowe’s where I picked up the drain maintainer enzyme for slow drains, and some charcoal.

No cinder blocks today.

The wife got a giant saucer for her palm tree in a giant pot which is now inside.

Cooler weather is upon us as after all, it is still winter. High today around 62. Cloudy as well.

I will work on the wife to make a run to town to get my 10lb roll of ground beef, and I’ll wash her car. Seems fair. She gets to go shopping, and I get to stay home.

Looks like we’re off to the storeroom for some spring winter cleaning. Getting the stuff emptied out so we can in turn, put more stuff back in. See?

 

 

David Crosby Dead At 81

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/01/19/rocker-david-crosby-from-crosby-stills-nash-dead-at-81/

One of the few live concerts I ever attended was CSN in Norman OK in ’77.

I am not enough of a fan to know all the details of Neil Young’s relationship with them, but he did sing some harmony here and there. They also did some extreme dabbling with Joni Mitchell (or was it night putting).

I think he had a liver transplant back in the 90s, from heavy drinking.

The band was legendary in the peace movement, and I believe played at Woodstock.