Welcome to August

Sorry folks -- we're having mega computer problems at work and I can't log into ANYTHING during the day (small office, *I* am the 'server' and  the e-mail troll says I can't! LOL).  I'm also dealing with danged sciatica so sitting is awful anyway and by the time I get home I can NOT sit and do much at night.  (feel free to pass me a little cheese with all of that whine??)

Life WILL get back to normal -- (my mantra of the week)

Miss seeing you Callie :)  I wish your Sciatica wasn't such a pain in the bottom , what kinda cheese should we serve.  My mantra lately is "What is normal" Ha.   Take care of yourself and just let us know from time to time that you are well.  BTW have I thanked you lately for helping me with Garth and Rock and Hot?  If not Thanks for always answering those panic calls.

Callie-take care of yourself first.  

The new iMac won't work with the old printers, and apparently the manufacturers aren't supporting them.  I have three-an HP, a Canon, and a Brother, that won't work with this machine, so I had to get a new one.  I tried a hack recommended on an Apple forum, but that didn't work either.  The new Canon is pretty.  Good thing it's just money.

The problems are with the things that are almost the same.  Photo replaces IPhoto and works differently.  Appleworks is gone, my Microsoft Office didn't make the upgrade, so we will have to use IWorks Pages or OpenOffice.  Wife is not happy-she really likes Appleworks.  Basic easy to use and did everything she wanted.  Oh well.

Construction season is on.  Into Mankato has about 10 more miles thanks to a winding detour.  We are getting a divided 4 lane over the next two years, with our own bridge.  Can not go directly south out of town thanks to the bridge work.  Go into St peter (east) and the last two miles are detoured into town.  Go north to Gaylord and they have the center of town torn up.  We can get to New Ulm, but why?..  Takes about 10 minutes longer to get to the dog park, so we will hit the WMA more often  Lots of room and a clean creek to swim in.  Took the detour into Mankato, and they have cones up in the middle of the river bridge.  May have to get a sports car to run the slalom  courses.

Doug, I know construction is necessary, and with growth comes new roads....but...haven't you ever wondered why those towns/road depts. don't try to coordinate?   Just never could figure that out.  

How about a nice Brie, Callie?  Goes well with everything.  Seriously tho, I'm so sorry you're having such a rough time.

I so wish that I could post from my phone or from the laptop.  Seriously sux having to make extra trips up the stairs...all 17 of them.  May have to break down and move my desktop downstairs.

The garden is keeping me super busy.  Yesterday I got sauerkraut started, today I parboiled cabbage for the freezer for stuffed cabbage, "speared" a gallon bag each of zucchini and crookneck for the freezer, diced a gallon bag of tomatoes, also for the freezer, then made a couple of combo veggie bags with crookneck, zucchini, broccoli and red pepper, sliced up a quart of peppers (red and orange) de-earred 6 corn on the cobs, got a 1/2 gallon jar of fridge dill pickle slices going, oh, and, did a few pounds of pickled beets.  I washed and filled a two gallon bag with lettuce, and then I still had to cook dinner.  Darned good thing I enjoy playing in the kitchen.  I complain now and then, but, will sure appreciate all this come winter, and there IS quite a feeling of satisfaction peaking into an overflowing deep freeze.  Sooner or later, I'm going to have to break down and buy an upright that I can keep in the kitchen because I really am having to get creative shoehorning things in....and it's only August.

After only 5 weeks, Sis is out of her hard collar and into just a soft one.  I had the same surgery and I had to wear the hard collar for 13 weeks!  And my surgery wasn't a result of a major trauma.  And she is OLDER than me by 6 years!  Guess she really does live right.  Kicking myself for never taking up exercising to the point of dripping sweat.......

Oh yeah!  Isn't summer road construction fun stuff???  Sure makes traveling the interstates an adventure.

We attended a funeral for an old friend (93) Monday and took the alternate route avoiding the interstate through the metro area.  2 lane highway all the way, and no traffic.  3 small detours, but had a relaxing trip through farm and forest.  Actually beautiful countryside.  In the interest of speed, we took the  divided 4 lane and interstate back.  Made great time until entering the metro area, where all the traffic was in two lanes, with roadbed and bridges being replaced.  Fortunately it was  not peak drive time.  I don't know how people live in those areas.  The two lane was faster.

I agree with the road construction complaints. Many times I choose an alternate route even if it means it will take me longer to reach my destination. I'd much prefer to keep moving than to sit in traffic, despite having to travel more miles in the long run.

And speaking of car travel complaints, I got in my car yesterday to go to work, hit the radio as I always do upon starting the car, and nothing happened. I tried again -- no luck. I must have a fuse out. Not having a working radio in the car is like when the electricity goes out at home --- without thinking, I keep hitting the radio knob, thinking it'll turn on, just like I keep turning on light switches in the house, even though I know there's no power. Talk about creature of habit! I know it's good to be alone with your thoughts sometimes, but it is annoying to have silence while driving, especially in the morning when I need something to perk me up.

Glenda, I'm glad to hear your sister's recovery is going so well. And I wish I had your motivation for all the advance food prep you do. I have trouble meal planning even one day ahead! I can relate to your frustration about going upstairs to use the desktop. When my laptop died 2 or 3 years ago, I didn't replace it because we had a fairly new desktop in the spare room upstairs. I found it inconvenient to use it when I spend so much time in the kitchen and living room. I finally broke down and got a new laptop this summer and it's much easier!

Callie, I'm so sorry to hear that your sciatica is giving you so much trouble.We miss seeing you here -- take care of yourself, and sending lots of healing vibes your way!

Typed a whole post the other day and then I must have hit a wrong key, because it disappeared.

Gorgeous days here lately, The heat is due to return this weekend, so I may have to go swimming. Zucchini update: I've pickled it, dried it, shredded and froze it, and sauteed it. And, there's more to come!  This is the year for zucchini! I also made some pickled cherry tomatoes last night and canned more dilly beans (which I love).  Next, I need to make some corn relish. The green and yellow beans, round two of the beets and the tomatoes are all producing well.

Tomorrow is our Firemen's Fair--old fashioned fun. I'll be having an order of clam cakes and who knows what else.

Is there any way for the ads to be monitored? I keep getting the "browse the profiles of 1000 single Asian women" ad--that doesn't seem like something that should be showing up here.

OK--I should go mow the lawn, but I may watch some Little League baseball instead.

Very happy to be through this week.   Kate you are making me very hungry, yummy!

Kids are back in school here Monday...will have to start taking my "kids are back in school" route to and from work now.  Takes longer but less traffic.  Hope everyone has a good weekend!  

Haven't been on much lately. Don't know why but maybe it's because I hadn't been using my computer too much, just the phone and harder to navigate from my phone. In fact just tried it and couldn't find Aug thread. Didn't try too hard as I just didn't want to bother. Boy Glenda wish I had that ambition to do all of that freezing of your veggies. Cooking is not one of my favorite things to do. I rarely even cook dinner. My husband and I eat so differently that it's difficult, so often it is just fend for yourself. In the summer he may be more apt to cook, as he does things on the grill. I don't eat meat but he'll put a sweet potato on for me, as he is doing a baked potato for himself.

Took our dog Gus to the internal specialist yesterday. He had a urinary tract infection, which didn't heal with the first antibiotics he had, which led us to having an ultra sound done and finding a thickening of his bladder wall. Not sure if i'd mentioned this before. Think I might have. Anyway they knocked him out and inserted a catheter in order to do a scraping to get a few cells to test. Hopefully will know the results by next Wednesday. He isn't showing any symptoms so that is a good thing. In fact he did agility last weekend and had a great time. People were cheering him on and he had a big smile on his face, just as he always does when running agility.

My darn trigger finger is coming back again. Not sure if it's just because of time passing or because I've started to use the computer a bit more lately.

Typing is being very jumpy for me. Does anyone else have this problem?

You're using too many fingers.  Only use one on each hand.

You know, we all have our own passions.  Mine just happens to be cooking.  I love creating in the kitchen, and  likely could have been a top chef had I gone in that direction.  I often create solely by instinct and it makes me happy.  For so many people, cooking is just one more chore.   I personally find that very sad, because cooking is the essence of who I am but I sure do understand that many simply can't find the joy of cooking.

This weekend is our annual tax free weekend.  DS and I did some shopping (never my favorite thing to do) and I played in the kitchen for a bit.  Put up more pickled beets, put a meatloaf and a couple meals of stuffed peppers in the freezer....and picked up Chinese for dinner!  But, I also strong armed some heavy pieces of furniture OUT of my kitchen to make room for the deep freeze which in turn makes much more room on my sun porch.  DS has a beautiful amoire that is solid wood and extremely heavy.  It was in the end of the kitchen since it's too blasted heavy to get upstairs.  Now it's in the dining room, and the bookcase that had to move to make room for it is in the foyer for now.  My kitchen area is 15'x20' so I can sure spare the room for the freezer (which is 20 cubic feet so not a tiny one) but it did require some serious rearranging.  Tomorrow I'll defrost the freezer, and while it's empty, will go ahead and move it, and then I can finally reach my goal of having room on the sun porch for ALL of us to sit and relax.  It's a very pleasant little room, but not when it's overwhelmed by the freezer.  But, since the freezer has gotten stuck wherever there was room for it (garage, pole barn, basement, at one point in a tent, sun porch) it was a bit the worse for the wear, appearance wise, so have had to give it a fresh coat of paint.  Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike the mess (mostly to me) of using spray paint?  Random parts of me are now satin Ivory!  However, the freezer looks almost new again!  Too bad I can't say the same for me.

We are once again in a weather pattern of brutal heat and humidity.  Storms this evening dropped our temp from 84 to 68 degrees, which feels heavenly!  Unfortunately, it'll be even more hot and humid tomorrow, and for the next several days.,

Sending good vibes for Gus.  Kate, watching baseball ALWAYS takes precedence over mowing the grass!  Although I don't understand why you don't want to browse the lovely Asian women....my spam box is full of opportunities to browse not only them, but the lovely Russian ladies as well.  I wait anxiously for my offers!  Not!!

And speaking of baseball,  22-10 Boston over Seattle?  Seriously?  Baseball or football being played???  The game actually became rather boring!

We had the firemen's fair yesterday and I had my annual order of clam cakes yesterday--YUM!!!  I also won a gift certificate to a local pizza place.

It is hot and muggy again today--with more to come over the next couple days. Yuck!

I planted some carrots for fall--I think they should be OK and have enough growing time. I hope to be able to dig some for Thanksgiving. Cleaned the refrigerator yesterday--the freezer is next. Glenda, I don't have a big freezer like you do--that sounds like a job!

The Little League baseball won out--mowing can wait :-)  I'll be watching again today, because RI made it to the regional finals. I saw that score for the Red Sox--I thought it was a typo at first!

Hope everyone is well! (Tracy, how is your mother-in-law doing? I think of you often and wonder how the transition  is going.)

Clam cakes....YUMMMMMMM!

The big job is done!  YES!  This morning I ran out to the hardware store for yet another can of paint.  Got the freezer unloaded and all the contents toted into the kitchen and covered with towels to help keep the cold in.  Then I defrosted the darned thing.  I will say that it sure felt good getting IN to dry it out and make sure all the ice was gone.  That nice cold "box" was just the ticket in todays heat.  Moving it into the kitchen required a LOT of patience.  First we removed the door between the sun porch and kitchen, then popped the hinges off the back and then DS decided that he just had to remove the end panel  to disconnect the cord so that the lid could come OFF without straining the cord.  That was a rather time consuming process with me stuck on the porch and DH having to go in search of a specific screwdriver.  Once IN DS went OCD on me about not just wiping down the back of the freezer, but using a scrub brush to make it look brand new.  I finally gave up on waiting for him and reloaded the darned thing stuck out in the middle of the floor, and then finished the painting (the end that had been up against a wall, and since he had it so squeaky clean, the back as well.  Once the paint dried we managed to shove it back in place.

Of course it took a good deal of time to return all the stuff from the porch to its rightful place.   All had come into the kitchen so we had room to maneuver the freezer.  Thank goodness for the huge kitchen!  Despite being a massive job, I'm really glad that we did it.  It is so very nice to have the sun porch to use as a room without being all cramped and having the freezer in the way.  It will also be very nice to not have to unload all the stuff that tends to get dumped on any large item that's handy when anyone comes in the door.  Very frustrating having to move all that stuff off the freezer to grab a bag of veggies!  But, I was as guilty as the guys.  Now it's tucked in a corner that simply won't be convenient as a dumping area.

I've gotten the feeling that Tracy's MIL had decided that she prefers to be miserable and has become quite the expert at wallowing in it.  I feel badly for her, and for the family who has to deal with that stuff.  Attitude plays such a gigantic part in well being.  So says the person who somehow survived a MI winter in an RV with 3 people, 6 german shepherds, three cats and a disabled duck....and came out of it still smiling.

FrisbyPI we can certainly block those ad's, the system should pick adverts relevant to the site, but there is only a moderate amount of control over what is displayed.