Monday, June 22, 2015

Summer, No Knitting Involved!

Right now, I am not knitting a thing.  My right hand is so screwed up it isn't funny! I can't even stand to hold my tablet.  My fingers have been going numb.  Not sure if it is the diabetes or the carpal tunnel finally demanding that it be fixed.  I know the arthritis is bad in it.  I have been dealing with that, too. 

I want to knit socks for my charity knitting project.  I look at the yarn, I look at the needles and tell myself, maybe another day.  Sad. 

I have been hitting the waterpark weekly.  I missed last week since it was raining and Tropical storm Bill decided to peruse through the state.  What kills me about this storm is the weather and the news hyped it up to be a category 5 hurricane with all of their warnings and panicking.  Excuse me...what is wrong with these people it was just a tropical storm, no hurricane.  They caused a panic with all the people from other states living here and the grocery stores were packed for all of the people going crazy.  I stayed home and didn't buy anything.  My sister managed to get herself into panic mode, too.  I have some bottled water, I keep it for my trips to the water park.  I knew it would just be wind, rain, and some lightning, the usual stuff.  We get more winds coming off of that prairie than we did during Bill.  My niece, had some trees blown down but, they were young and they haven't had much rain so, the root system hadn't developed properly, yet. 

I am waiting to see what happens when we get a proper hurricane and all of these people from other states start freaking out.  Oh my word!  It is going to be interesting.  Basically, after a hurricane down here, you sweat, find the coolest spot you can, and wait for the power to come on.  You cook everything in the fridge first and then cook the stuff in the deep freeze.  If you don't have a gas stove, you learn to cook on your bbq pit.  Buy a cast iron skillet, it comes in handy during these times.  If you are able to afford one, buy a gas generator or one of those natural gas ones that hooks up to the main line of your gas to your home.  I want one of those.  I told the hubby, that would be awesome.  It would power all of the appliances and I could be happy for a while.  No a/c though so, that would freaking suck but, it could power some fans and that would help. My sister's neighbor installed one.  Then again he plans to live in his home forever. 

Today I am doing laundry, ugh!  I had to get up this morning and go water my plants and my tomatoes.  My tomatoes have a rat in them and he is destroying the whole bed of them.  I really don't think we are going to get any tomatoes this year with that damn thing in there.  I am going to have to set up some traps to get him out of there.  Damn varmint! 

I have been trying to play catch up on my chores.  I haven't been feeling like doing much of anything at all.  We had to go to San Antonio to visit my mother in law and give her her Mother's day present.  It was a nice visit with her.  I wish it could have been a bit longer but, there was a huge weather cell coming in and we didn't want to be on the road when it hit. 


Yesterday, I was a couch potato although I did cook supper and made beef stew, it was so good.  It was a simple recipe and I have left overs.  Tonight is left over night.  I am not cooking.  Usually he is pretty good about not making me cook on the weekends.  I like that break.  Last night, I decided to use up one of the packages of beef shoulder steaks in the fridge.  The other package is in the freezer.  It worked out nicely to cut the steaks into stew meat and it went over well with the dogs, too.  They had some over their kibble.  Percy is starting to get bigger.  He is still lean but, he is getting taller.  He needs some fat on his frame, yet and I am trying to figure out how to do that.  We might have to give him some kibble that has more fat in it.  Although we do feed him a salmon based kibble with no grains in it.  My older boys couldn't handle the grains and when they both passed we decided to keep the corgi on the same stuff since he is 6 and that is usually when the allergies show up.  Not going through that crap again.  No thank you.  So the corgi hasn't had grains since he was 2.  Percy hasn't had them since he has been here with us. 


I made homemade pimento cheese the other day and it has been sitting in my fridge for a couple of days getting all yummy!  I love good pimento cheese, bad pimento cheese will turn you off of it for a long time.  It is easy to make and man, when you do it right, it is fantastic! 

I took a bag of shredded mild cheddar cheese, half a bag of  sharp shredded cheddar cheese, lots of Kraft mayo and 1 teaspoonful of pimentos, mix it all together and let it sit covered in the fridge for a couple of days, to meld.  Then mix it up, slap some on some bread, and enjoy!  I have tried it with other mayo and the Kraft mayo is what tastes best to me.  If you are a Duke's fan, then use it.  I have never had it and I love the Kraft mayo.  I have no idea what the measurement of the mayo is, I put in enough to get it all together.  Keep adding until you have the consistency you desire. 

I know that some people have no idea what pimento cheese is...a Southern delicacy!  I had a really good one at a funeral.  I forgot to ask the ladies serving who made it and what her recipe was.  I had been searching all of my cookbooks for a recipe and some of them had no clue and then I found one in a Southern Living cookbook and tried it out.  The mayo was all wrong and then I decided to use the Kraft and that was it, her recipe uses the Kraft.  That creaminess was present, it is fantastic! 

Last night, I was reading in bed and I heard a distinct crash downstairs.  I looked at the hubby and asked if he heard it, yep, he did and so down the stairs we both went.  Sure enough, the cats had killed off a saucer to my fiestaware.  Damn cats!  Between the hubby and the cats, I am losing dinnerware quickly.  I might have to go looking for replacements to my set.  They discontinued the cinnabar and so, I went with cobalt as my new choice.  I have cinnabar serving pieces.  So, now I have the cobalt dinnerware.  I guess we will see how long they keep that one.  sigh!