Lessons in life I have learned from people who have passed away

My Mom: Eating too much ice cream will make you morbidly obese.

Dwayne Dawson: Driving too fast in a downpour will get you killed.

Mike Weekly: Be careful about falling while in the bathroom.

Grandfather: Wait to be helped when old & on the toilet.

Creamy 1 pan Chicken and Potatoes the cheaper way

Last night out of anger basically I whipped up a recipe I found somewhere last week or so only because it seemed interesting. Creamy 1 pan Chicken & Potatoes is the name. I made some changes.

Instead of cayenne pepper I used Chili Powder. I didn't have 6 boneless chicken thighs so I used a frozen 1 pound pack of boneless Chicken Tenders which has been in my freezer since April. I had wanted to wait until I visited Walmart in person because that's really the only way you should buy fresh pack meat but I was under considerable stress to get something made.

Instead of an expensive Shallot (and at Walmart you can't buy just 1) I substituted with a cheap pack of Scallions. Which meant the part of the recipe where you put the shallot in the pan to cook & soften wasn't going to take 3 minutes. Scallions aren't as robust.

Instead of Mini Gold Potatoes, I bought a 5 pound of regular gold potatoes and used my box chopper to slice the smallest 1.5 pounds of them, which turned out just fine.

Instead of Heavy Cream, I chose a pint of Half & Half, and instead of shallot & chive flavor Gournay cheese, I used regular cream cheese. I guess I used up the thing of chives I had in a spice bottle... And if I was to do this again, I would have gotten some Onion or Chives flavor regular Philadelphia cream cheese. I think that stuff comes whipped in a bowl container? As long as I have 6 ounces.

The recipe calls for using the dry spices to coat the chicken, then coating that with flour for cooking in oil. Keep ahold of that flour when using Half & Half, because later when cooking the potatoes and after you added the cream cheese and the vegetable oil is still in the pan, you'll have some loose ambient oil floating on top. I sprinkled flour from earlier around the pan and it absorbed it up as well as made the creamy stuff thicker. Just watch for it trying to stick on the bottom & stir.

This is yet another dish which tastes best when it has cooled down. In general, this was low sodium when omitting the salt - only the chicken broth has any real amount so I saw no need to add more. Just be aware the potatoes can end up being done earlier than the recipe says they will.

I risked personal injury for this...

Today for paying bills started off early as I had planned because I checked the weather forecast and it indicated around 9 a.m. the temperatures would still be okay - what was NOT conveyed was the humidity. We went all of summer and NOW we get hotter than ass outside??? But before I could consider anything else, a brief storm went through as I got breakfast and as promised, it was gone by 9.

I gathered up all my loose trash, garbage, freezer filth, and cat crap and got downstairs... oh. Pain in my legs means this is going to be a rough day. Small goals for this huge Do. Check my mail - ah, I got a sweet bonus! Nice. AND MY RECENT EBAY BOX IS HERE!! eBay isn't broken!! This one started out in Vermont, then Massachusetts, then 3 days later was suddenly in MIAMI FLORIDA?? Over to Ybor City, then back up to Indianapolis, Akron, Canton, and finally to moi.

Get outside, there's some guy on the bench. I deposit my 3 smaller bags of refuse in the curbside receptacle, sit down, he asks do I mind if he smokes? I said, no, but you can't do that directly out front of the building and there are places at the sides where you can. So he thoughtfully just finishes rolling his little cancer stick and moves off to one side. He eventually leaves and I take up the other end of the bench to collect motivation.

Get in my vehicle, put the big garbage bag in the other seat, load up, move the chair back back, do my loop around and deposit the bag (lid is closed again), and off to the credit union. I'm annoyed the credit union got rid of the armless chair and it's difficult for me to stand for too long while I transact there. And the teller takes forever to process things. Withdrawals, easy. ugh....

Get to Disney Drug Mart. It's getting muggier by now. Get in the door, my red chariot awaits. Some guy has a tiny table for donations he's taking. Again.

Get inside, deposit my refills request. Figure out what I need to pay Marshall County. Get money orders AND FILLED THEM OUT CORRECTLY. Gosh! So many envelopes to mail out this month.

I have a beeg list of things to shop for and I'm definitely not getting it all here. So I get what I can. PUMPKIN SPICE SEASON! HALLOWEEN CANDY BAGS!! STAY BACK, FOUL MERCHANDISE! I NEED NOT TEMPTATIONS TO RUIN MY DIET!! But I took pictures! The Vlasic Pickle Balls was most amusing.

They didn't have any Tidy Cat Free & Clear Unscented cat sand... I hope I didn't make a mistake buying another brand cat sand. Even the Tidy Cat which doesn't say it's unscented is scented and the Lightweight stuff just doesn't work as well as the heavy stuff. Oddly enough, plenty of Friskies canned food but no Turkey Paté.

Bought 6 Fuji apples for $1 (produce markdown). Bought apple cider instead of pop because while they had a special going on Coke products, you had to buy 4 and I don't need 4 of anything except bread hanging around. I mean except for that one time Myers & Myers did at Giant Iggle... I need some Zero Sugar Canada Dry though I'm up for some Vernor's.

 

Tried my best to knock out as much of my list as possible. Golden Potatoes had for a recipe. Hope they keep well. Didn't get any cereal as they got rid of Malt o meal bagged cereal. I mean, there was quite a lot I did NOT get.

Get out of the store after paying and oh my god that front area was fricken NASTY HOT. AND THEN IT WAS HOT OUTSIDE BY NOW, TOO. I couldn't get into my vehicle fast enough and get it started and blow that air conditioner. I will likely use the monies from the royalty check to get a checkup & oil change for the vehicle. It could use one!

Get back and Tina isn't in the office, so no officialness for my money order receipt. Drop off 4 envelopes to mail out and while I'm getting ready to go back up, some lady comes in and spreads out some stuff on the donation table. Wait for her to leave and I see it's a bunch of dry milk pouches, 6 cookies, and 3 wrapped individual bread slices. Da frick? Who passes up dry milk? I grab everything, of course.

By now my pain relief has faded and I'm running on fumes. I'm lucky I'm still awake to put things in the fridge and then physically able to get in my bedroom. But I manage to get in bed, take more acetaminophen before I nap, and drink the last dregs of water in my bottles. Wake up later (cat insisted on his laser dot chasing so my nap was delayed) and finally have supper & type this out. 

Lasagna Tonight, what 6 cans of 8 ounce tomato sauce looks like

Made Lasagna tonight, finally using up the free box which was here when I moved in... how many years ago? There were 7 noodle sheets left in the box, and I intended to use them all.

Changes I made from the recipe on the back:

I used 1 pound of ground turkey, adding some chopped onion (the remainder of the red onion from the potato salad recipe) and chopped green pepper (which I bought as marked down produce on the 3rd). Seasoned it with onion & garlic powder, some black pepper, and some thyme. Then after it was suitably browned, broke it up in my crank chopper for better consistency in the meat-sauce mixture the recipe said to make. Added basil, oregano, and sage in the crank chopper to better spread it around. Tomato part of the sauce was a free 15 ounce can of low sodium tomato sauce & 1 14.5 ounce can of no salt diced tomatoes. Recipe says to get 2 25.25 ounce cans of marinara but I got enough anyway.

Cheese mixture was 1 pound of ricotta, 2 eggs, 3/4 cup grated parmesan. I had that ricotta since July. I had plans since then for lasagna.

Cooked the noodles in boiling water in a skillet until soft (about 7 minutes) and I always wonder if I actually cook them long enough and I don't find out until after it bakes. And I got them cooked perfectly. I try to get them soft enough to droop but still needing some baking so the lasagna sheets draw moisture from everything around them so it coagulates. I find it odd the recipe on the box says to boil 5 quarts of water and use THE WHOLE 1 POUND BOX and the recipe says to use at most 6, because you ain't going to need more than 3 wide in a 13x9 pan and you're doing 2 layers.

Used Queso instead of provolone, did the layering, got it covered, baked it as specified, and let it cool. My Teppanyakii steel spatulas were PERFECT for cutting and serving lasagna! And it tastes so good I had a hard time stopping... but I managed it. Into the fridge it goes.

Also included a photo as to what 6 cans of no salt 8 ounce tomato sauce looks like when it's delivered correctly. Also I thought I had water left in the skillet after cooking the lasagna noodles but it evaporated after coming back an hour later while I watched Nyana's return strim.

Cole slaw dressing aged 10 years is so smooth

One of the things I bought on Monday while shopping was a 99 cent marked down bag of coleslaw mix. Today, I finally opened my 2nd and final aged bottle of Aldi cole slaw dressing. This came out of the bottle easier than the 1st. It looked unappetizing to be sure... But the contents extruded itself out of the bottle and onto the slaw mix in the container I had ready.  Gave it a good mix. It didn't smell bad at all. If anything, preliminary tastes showed this to be even better than the 1st. Hours later, I had a few fork fulls. Smoother, less sweet, less harsh, less vinegary. It made for a nice brown shaded cole slaw with an incredible deep flavor note. So smooth and creamy. A shame Aldi hasn't stocked it on the regular since then. 

This bottle has a Best By date of Apr 13, 2017, so if it was made months previous, that might make it 2016. I'd like to say this is a 10 year old bottle of slaw dressing which aged gracefully thanks to the apple cider vinegar. Yes, this beats KFC.

August shopping was 76° and partly sunny

Today was for paying rent, monies, and refills. I didn't get out as early as I'd hoped - at least I got the cat pan cleaned last night to toss out today and it hadn't even begun to ferment into ammonia!

While cleaning up & organizing my office area, I ran across the errant money order I bought in June for paying the cable bill - only I wrote it payable to my building instead! Disney Drug Fart & Eastern Onion don't do refunds if you f_ck up a money order, so you just have to figure it out yourself. Thankfully, I was able to unf_ck that situation. I had forgotten about that money order by the time July started because of Michael Weekly's passing... But last night, I found it again, and all I needed was another $97. Which happened today.

Getting out wasn't too bad. Got a free can of no salt added peas (I love canned peas). Got pulled in backwards at the credit union to make the walk to the front door shorter - ONLY TO HAVE SOME JERK PULL INTO THE HANDY CRAPITATED SPOT NEXT TO ME. Now I have to walk AROUND their car...

Got pulled into my 3rd favorite spot at DDM, and my red chariot was waiting and plugged in, but man did the last idiot not park close enough & had to stretch out that cord.

Had 2 refills, checked my 2 pieces of paper I had printed last month (trash), got my personal payments done, and just as I was about to fill out the 1st money order, the pharmacy had filled my 2 requests. Nice. Resumed carefully writing the correct things on the correct money orders.

Also back in June, Jean helped me not only with the money order problem, but also the lack of TP - I forgot to buy some in June due to my money order problem!! Today, I finally used up the last bits of the last roll of that pack she got me. It lasted 2 months! Last month I bought an 8 Mega Roll pack which had been marked down because 2 rolls got turned 90° in the package. Discounted sh_t tickets? Sold! Bought a cheap 4 pack today - just in case.

ALSO DISNEY DRUG FART HAD FRISKIES CANNED TURKEY PATÉ CAT FUD!!! Every time I have been to Walmart for the past couple months, they've had ALMOST NO Friskies cans on the shelf AND NO TURKEY unless you bough the $10 multican pack and then it was only 4 cans in there!! SO I BOUGHT 11 CANS. 1 of those is the shredded turkey, but the other 10 are what I usually get. Now I have the happy problem of buying 3 or 4 more cans so I can set up pairs - I run Poofball's food in a 2 can sequence. 1 not turkey (like Salmon), and 1 can of Turkey. This is how I found out he doesn't like any of the white fish stuff but loves Salmon, Tuna, Chicken, and Turkey. 9 Lives Super Supper he will eat, Mixed Grill he eats begrudgingly, and then lots of others he tries to bury like poop.

Produce - wish me luck. I bought a pack of Romaine lettuce. Also grabbed a pouch of marked down coleslaw mix - I finally will open & mix up the dark, aged bottle of unopened Aldi brand slaw dressing. This has aged to a very dark color & I promise I will take a photo before opening, maybe video. I had 2 of these probably just before Mom passed, and I don't make coleslaw very often. I'll buy a bag only to make okonomiyaki! But the other bottle didn't smell bad at all, was difficult to remove from the bottle, and tasted very good!

I guess I need to call Tracfone and ask why my amount of minutes dropped from 3,200 to 3,167 when I added 60+60 minutes. Also my SMS number went down instead of up. My service date was extended and my data went up, but not the other 2 numbers.

There were a lot more items on my list which I did not get due to not liking the price or they didn't have it. I'm going to make Mom's BBQ Potato salad recipe & Walmart likely has what I need. I should visit Meijer again though their prices weren't great.

Got gas, went to McDonald's for a Sweet Tea for my 2 Acetaminophen for pain relief (I had taken 2 way earlier & they would have faded by now), and made it back only to park next to... a running car? Did the owner turn on their car by remote? I didn't see him in it.

While gathering spoons to enter the building, I saw a Uhaul park outside & thought someone's moving out... only to find someone was moving IN. So I guess the previous occupant moved out somehow. At least it wasn't 204!

Got up & saw a recent order was dropped at my door. Thank you, Gofo!

Went through the list, listened to a couple Seinfeld episodes on the TV as I put things away (I had seen them when they originally aired), and managed to get to bed & pass out for 3 hours when Poofball woke me up for food.

I will now recover for the doctor appointment on Thursday.

AND OH YES - I BOUGHT A METAL STAPLER!!

 

Going through a box of memories...

I went through a storage tub as I worked to combine them into 1 in order to make room and be able to store the tub somewhere else. I found a few items.

- a Netspend prepaid Mastercard I got prior to 2014 which I did not sign up for and never activated.

- Photos of friends at Christmas and my 1st niece's graduation photo collage thingy.

- Scholastic book about pandas which I somehow still have.

And then a sheet of paper I wrote on:

STUFF I FOUND OUT ABOUT MOM IN THE 3 DAYS AFTER OCTOBER 15TH

- Paying for a Jackie Lawson website membership - waste of money!

- Paying $15 a month to a Magazine Publisher - Claimed she "didn't know" where Woman's Day was coming from, TV Guide was NOT free

- Paying for a Senior People Meet membership - another waste of money!

- POGO

- Irregular payments to a Chase credit card which had been maxed out & shouldn't have had anyway. This developed from a Paypal Credit Card - I kept wondering why she kept getting Paypal statments.

Recipe for BBQ Potato, Bacon, & Corn Salad

1/3 cup ranch dressing (I intend to use Blue Cheese)

1/3 cup BBQ sauce

2 tablespoons Dijon Mustard 

3 pounds small red potatoes, quartered & cooked (I prefer to chop into small cubes)

1 can no salt added whole kernel corn, drained

1/2 cup sliced celery

1/2 cup chopped red or green pepper

1/2 cup chopped red onion

6 slices of crumbled crispy bacon (or equivalent)

Mix dressing, BBQ sauce, & Dijon mustard in large bowl. Add remaining ingredients except bacon & mix lightly. Sprinkle bacon on top, refrigerate until ready to serve. 

Paying rent for the month, hope the van is okay

Today's tasks mostly went off as well as I could expect them to. I wanted to get out by 8:30 a.m. to beat the heatup, but managed to get out around 9 a.m. anyway. I was however rewarded for my earliness with free foodstuffs left on the donation table. Seems like I got here early & nobody knows this is here. I grabbed what I was interested in - a shame the head of cabbage got claimed but it's good to see it was. I'd have liked to made okonomiyaki or use my aged bottle of Aldi slaw dressing made with Balsamic vinegar. I had 2 and had opened 1 & it was sweet & delicious for cole slaw! At least now I have 2 pounds of lentils & a bag of raisins again.

Got my garbage deposited, parked where I prefer at the credit union & didn't have to wait in a line, then got to Disney Drug Fart and my red chariot was plugged in & waiting!

Asked about passport photos & they still do them. Got that photo taken (I forgot to shave & it looks like hell), deposited my refill request, shopped a bit, then got payments, stamps, & both lotteries. It was when I was doing my rent payment I noticed I forgot the cable envelope, but since I got something else to mail out when I get back, I decided to do it then & not panic.

It pays to look around. Was going to buy a certain pack of Fiora TP then found a slightly disturbed mega pack on the closeout shelf for $3.49 so I grabbed that, & then saw the distressed boxes of cereal. OKAY. Poofball's preferred Paté turkey or salmon were sold out so I had to get 8 cans of other cat food he will eat like Indoor Chicken & greens, chicken & liver, and Poultry Platter. He does not like anything with white fish. He might like shrimp, tuna he will eat. He might eat anything but I give him paté because it's easy to portion.

There wasn't a whole lot of shopping for things I needed. Finally remembered the rubber drain plug for the bathroom sink. Things were okay for driving back but as I got closer to Alliance, I felt a disturbance in the van. I wonder if it could be the heat, so I turned off Cruise Control since it drives the transmission harder than I would, & turned off Max Air on the air conditioning & it seemed to help. I really need to get it serviced, an oil change for sure. Perhaps a tire check.

I just hope it doesn't repeat the process of me having a vehicle try to take a dump before going to a friend's memorial service as I was forced to miss Randy Geis' service when the Blue Bumb took a dump & nobody else had time to go.

Got back before 12 noon, paid rent, saw if there was anything else to claim (applesauce is nice), and managed to get in & rest. Got my milk in the fridge, 2 loaves of bread in the freezer.

I'm going to spend the rest of the day in air conditioning and recovering. 

Been busting my ass for this

SO unfortunately, the cleanliness inseption is for TOMORROW instead of Wednesday like I had hoped. I am basically Not Allowed to cook anything tonight because then the reflector pan of the burner on the stove I normally use will turn brown as it did from what was cooked on it yesterday, and then it would look uncleaned, and while I would like to line it with aluminum foil to prevent this & make it easier to clean, some info says "That could catch fire..." And then there would be the dirty dishes in the sink. I basically live in a museum of Nonfunctional items. Except sitting surfaces. I'm allowed to sit.

 

I have a few more things in the other room to do things with. I really should have gotten a vacuum cleaner with an edging tool for crevices. OH WAIT - I DID! BUT YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THAT.

 

Oh and somehow a phone call at 4 p.m. from the boss lady says I overpaid rent by $18. The ledger says I did. I don't know how - maybe something from when the 1st time the elevator went out & they said they'd give us a break on rent the next month after it was fixed & I never got that? I pay exactly what I've been told & when it goes up. I wrote it down (and posting here) as proof that's what I was told. I can take $18 off next month's rent.

 

I apologize to my body - I did too much today

I had an appointment with a nutritionist at the local hospital today and because of that, I actually got in the bathtub & took a decent shower. Washed my hair, got the sprayer all around my problem areas, figured out how to get in & out of the tub... Get dried off, choose clean clothes...

Then with bad directions on finding the place, wandered far too much to get to the right place, had to ask 3 people... Thankfully 2 of my best friends were along (I asked for help getting to the hospital front door) and I had to stop a few times to catch my breath because there was so much walking. Which I will report to my cardiologist. But it wasn't so much my breath but pain which made me stop.

Got in, saw the lady, got info, and afterwards, we went to Walmart so I could finish some shopping -  we all had stuff to get. But I chose to stay in the vehicle at the next 2 stores - mainly because I was spent. I took 2 more Acetaminophen before leaving the hospital (why don't they have caffeine free pop in the machines??) but that comes on only so fast. Thankfully electric carts were ready & available once I walked in.... using a cart...

I will be unavailable for anything in the next 3 days. I need to recover. I bought a 5 pound weight and have info from the nutritionist to help me change my eating habits. And with that, some working with a weight to get muscle back. I hope.

Depression makes you do funny things, and you get used to them.