Cooking, Roasting and Thermometers

Sunday actually turned into an OK day. DH and I were both playing Lord of the Rings Online, our normal activity, and around 1:00 pm or so, I wandered up to the kitchen to start preparing dinner. DH had purchased a tenderloin eye round roast, a piece that would be quite a bit tougher than the rolled rib steak I had bought earlier in the week. No problem - we'll have my meat for Easter Sunday (coming up at the end of the week, y'all) and we would have this one today. 

I cooked the roast properly, searing it first, then slow 
roasting it. My problem was having the oven on a 
temperature that was probably too high for the roasting 
part. I need a new oven thermometer. 

He had found and printed out a recipe he wanted me to use, which had me mixing together a lot of different herbs and olive oil into a thick paste to smear over the surface of the roast. It was actually quite tasty. I covered the roast and since I was using the oven anyway, and wanted to get my dinners prepped, I popped in some bacon-wrapped asparagus spears to cook before putting in the roast. I got those finished, ready to be reheated for my next 2-3 dinners, and put the roast into the oven. 

I purchased the supplies to make bacon-wrapped asparagus 
more than a week ago and needed to use it before the 
asparagus went bad. I grabbed the opportunity to get them 
cooked yesterday afternoon. They're going to make a couple 
of really nice dinners for me over this next week. 

The directions said to put it into a 500F degree oven for 15 minutes or so, then to cover the roast completely with foil and return it to an oven set to 170F. That's a huge jump in degrees, and, unfortunately, my oven degree markings only go to 200. After that point, it's a guessing game. I set it to what I hoped was 170F, but I suspect I was closer to 180F. I pulled the roast out after its' one hour and let it rest while cooking honey garlic carrots and garlic sauteed green beans. When I sliced the roast, it was well done, not the medium I had been hoping for. I'll know better next time, and I'll find a new oven thermometer (my old one bit the dust 2-3 weeks ago). I can cook better than this. 

I need one of these with this type of hanger. I don't 
like oven thermometers that have to sit on the 
rack - it takes space in a very small oven. I like 
them to hang onto the bottom of the rack without 
impeding sheets and dishes pushing in and out 
of the oven. My last thermometer lasted for many 
years, but I haven't found a good replacement 
yet. Amazon may be my only hope. 

Still, after dinner, I pulled out my slicer and cut the rest of the roast into sandwich slices. I'm eating them wrapped with a little mayo, I'm not sure if DH will eat them at all, since he prefers his roasted chicken for his lunches. One way or the other, though, we'll eat the rest of the roast this week. 

I've also been looking at getting an instant read 
food thermometer and also at getting a remote 
food thermometer - fancier and fancier. I've got 
standard food thermometers, but they're really 
old - inherited from my mother. They work, but 
they're slow and cause the food and the oven 
to lose heat. While I'm shopping for thermometers, 
I may as well cover my bases. 

So that's it right now - big goings-on in the household - LOL. At least DH's temper was much better on Sunday, so I'm feeling like I'm walking on firmer ground again. We'll see how long this lasts and where we go from here, but we might be over the worst of the grump for a little while. Here's hoping, at any rate. Sending *hugs* out to all of you who have helped me through last week. I really needed my friends, and you were there for me. Have an excellent day - be kind, stay safe and please wear a mask. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Squirrels in My Chimney

I have squirrels in my chimney. They've lived at the bottom of my living room chimney for multiple generations. If they tell stories around the campfire at night while toasting marshmallows, it will be about how a bright star showed them the way to a dark, tall tunnel with a perfect nesting cave at the very bottom, long, long ago. How long? In squirrel generations my haven goes back to the Neanderthal times. In my time frame, I'm sure I've had them since I've owned the house, so almost thirty years now.

There's something about roasting marshmallows and telling tales
around the campfire. I doubt the squirrels have ever done anything like
this, but if they did, they'd tell their origin stories across the flames
time after time. 

It's a tall chimney, but it needs pointing, cleaning and capping. I've never done that because I don't use the chimney. In fact, this half of the double chimney has never been used at all. We have used the other half in the past. It leads to a second fireplace in the den which we've used on and off through the years. But that also hasn't been used for quite a while - at least ten years at last count.

I took this picture in the fall to show the colors of my maple
tree in the lower back yard. But here's my chimney on the left.
Also, the picture window in the front is what I'm getting new
window treatments for, thus the measurements mentioned
later in this post. 

Why do I mention that I have squirrels in my chimney at all? Well, at this time of the year they have their babies. And those little buggers complain to Mom and Dad at night. Mom and Dad, being the food brigade, snarl back at the kidlings to "shut up, already and go back to sleep." But the babies don't care, because kids are always the center of their own universe. So they keep complaining, Mom and Dad keep telling them to shut up, and they wake me up.

I would certainly prefer that the squirrels lived somewhere other than my chimney. And
I'll get that chimney cleaned and capped within the next year because it's the
next thing on the home agenda. But right now I have effin' baby squirrels
waking me up and I'm really not very happy about it. 

I felt vindicated when my alarm went off this morning. Now, instead of them waking me up, my living room lights will awaken them shortly when they automatically turn on. Vindication! Until tonight when once again they will waken me with their back and forth. It's never a long period of time that they talk back and forth - only a few weeks in the year. But its annoying when it's happening within six feet of your head. *sigh* (Of course, they won't actually see the living room lights since they're in the chimney, but it's the principal of the thing - a bit of tit for tat.)

Hamernick's has done the carpeting for my family for as long as I've
lived up here. My sister-in-law used them twice, my father-in-law also
had them do his carpeting. I want something neutral that will have good pile
and be comfortable to walk on with bare feet. But at this point, anything will
be a major improvement! 

So my excitement for today will be Carl and Regina from Hamernick's Decorating who will be by the house early this afternoon to measure for carpeting and window treatments. I've been given this assignment - to have new carpet and a new drape across my picture window installed this year - and I'm taking it quite seriously (since I've wanted it done for years now). Getting my measurements will be step one. Getting carpet samples for DH to look at and walk on will be step two. One step at a time.... Enjoy your Wednesday. I'm off to Guppy it for the morning workout. Yippee!

Stormy Weather - A Photo Blog

It's a weekend that will be wet and rainy, but the storms aren't as much from the sky as from DH who is a bit overly stressed right now. This too will pass, but right now we just have to live through this next small bump in hurt feelings and bruised attitudes. I'm in the mood for photos, and since we're a bit stormy at home, I'm doing beautiful storms for today's photo blog.

I'll start with this wonderful prairie shot. The lightning, the threatening
clouds, and the wide open spaces make a vibrant, stunning shot of
a threatening storm. 

Here's a fabulous pic of a stormy sea. The large ship in the background
is leaving the Tyne in the UK while being pounded by waves from
the stormy sea. 

Look at this approaching storm outlined in the setting sun. The
picture is of the California coastline. 

This is a great shot of storm clouds over the Greenwich Peninsula by
David K Hardman. Follow the link to see more of his work. 

December 2012 was the beginning of a very stormy winter for the
UK and Europe. This picture from The Guardian warned its readers
to brace for a difficult winter ahead. 

After the storm, the sun returns and often we are greeted
with the rainbow - one of the most beautiful gifts of light we see in
our skies. 

So there you have it - stormy weather pictures for stormy times. The promise held in the final pic will also come to pass, it may take a while but things will be calm again one of these days soon. Have a great weekend and I'll return on Monday.

Argh!

No, Argh is not pirate speak for me today. Argh is just that simple cry of frustration that echoed through my house yesterday afternoon. I'm immersed in keeping up with B2ME and was working on a story featuring a panel discussion of the relative merits of the character Feanor and the premise of whether or not he was the Savior of Middle Earth (OK, I'm letting my geek out here). I had spent 2-1/2 hours on this, polishing it to a truly beautiful story, and switched pages to grab the header. Moving back to paste the header onto the story, the wrong window closed and I lost it ALL! The entire story - dust and non-recoverable. After tears and total frustration, I dug in again and rewrote it - probably not as good as the original, but at least it got done and posted - after another 3-1/2 hours of work. So I'm now behind by 3-1/2 hours because I had planned on doing three stories and having a start on the fourth. Now I have starts on three, but I have my presentation to do tonight so I will have no time to work on this at all today. Like I said - Argh!

Except for that catastrophe, the weekend was good. We watched four more episodes of Spartacus (season 1) and only have one more disk for that season. We went to Barnes & Noble where I picked up the mag I needed - I got in and out of there within 30 minutes, a record speed. And we hit the grocer for a few things. I now have lunch stuff available again - yippee!

My presentation to the Bead Society is scheduled for tonight and my materials are 95% ready. I'll do the final bit at work this morning. I was up at 2:30 am printing out the last few pages and making sure that I had everything packed and ready to go. Mondays are always very busy days for me and I didn't want to have any unpleasant surprises on a day when I'm running a very tight schedule. I am still going to allow myself to have my hour of coffee, oatmeal and reading though. I think I do need to allow myself a little bit of relaxation. Have a great day!

Computer Issues

DH got a new graphic board put in back in March. It's dying, so I have a phone call in to my Computer Guru to find out when I can drop the CPU by for a fix. LOTRO has the new Isenguard update downloading on Monday and DH is determined to play it. Without a computer, it won't happen. So I phoned my guru last night, leaving a message asking him to phone me anytime after 5 am. I have a chiro appointment and a doctor appt this morning, so hopefully Dale won't call when I'm in with them. But if I could get this fixed today I'd be very happy.

I wanted Dale to make me a new computer this year, but had to spend the money on auto repairs instead, so I'm pushing the build off until next year instead. Hopefully I can get my credit card paid off quickly and resume life.

But life next year is not looking happy. Without Chickie, and it's looking pretty sure that we just won't be able to afford keeping her after the end of the year, we'll have to work all of the shifts. I'm really pushing for a five day week. But DH doesn't want to change our hours and wants to be open for six days. Since we can't have the store operated with only a single person, that means I'll be working six days a week and you can call me EXTREMELY UNHAPPY. No...actually...THAT'S AN UNDERSTATEMENT. Call me very cranky and you'll have it. This battle will be fought for months because I am unwilling to sacrifice every free minute I have for NOTHING! Yeah....UNHAPPY!

Tilting at Windmills

Sometimes I feel as if I am Don Quixote, tilting against the windmills of beaurocracy time and time again. On my current agenda has been monthly charges assessed to my company bank account since 2006 (yes, that's not a typo, 2006) from a firm that we never really accepted doing business with in the first place.

 Over the years we have used several different credit card processing firms. Back in the early 2000's we were using US Bank as our processor. Apparently they subcontracted out to this firm called Elavon . When we ceased using US Bank for our processing in mid-2006, we thought we had submitted all of the appropriate paperwork necessary to close their processing and start our next one. Apparently Elavon wasn't notified. BUT the account was inactive - not used from that point only.

Unknown to us, they were assessing us a $5/month charge to our account for year, after year, after year. Then they increased their amount to $30 per month in mid 2009. At that time I tried, along with the bank, to find out what was causing this monthly charge on our account. I got nowhere. But then, in June this year, that fee increased to $85/month. The proverbial S__T hit the fan.

I started calling people - many people. I called everyone I could think of. Finally I found out that it was Elavon putting this charge on our account and that, unknown to us, the original contract with them stated that they could charge our account forever until we formally notified them that they could no longer do so.

I mean - shouldn't this be illegal? To charge on an inactive account for five F___King years????

The day I found out who was charging us I had them fax me the appropriate paperwork which I filled out, signed, faxed back to them that day, and waited for their confirmation response by fax which I was supposed to receive between five and seven days. After giving them eight days, I still hadn't heard from them, so after phoning them yesterday and talking to a supervisor because I was getting nowhere with standard customer service, I finally got my fax confirmation from them that the account is officially closed. Now I'll meet with my bank this morning to inform them that additional charges from that number is not permitted and maybe I'll be through paying money through a hole in the floor. What a PAIN! There should be a law......

Is there a website where I can post this crap?  To let other people know that these are BAD people who take advantage of their customers?  I'm more than ticked off that we lost hundreds of dollars to these crooks and that we have no recourse to recover any of it. 

Can You Say "Frustrated"?

Frustrated. That doesn't even begin to describe my feelings right now. I have been living in computer hell and it doesn't seem to be improving - AT ALL.

So, when we last left the little vale of Cold as Brass Balls, we were having computer problems, more specifically, monitor problems. And the monitor from computer S had been placed on the computer for DH, successfully. That left computer S without a working monitor.


To double-check the old and defective monitor, I placed that onto computer S to double-check whether or not it truly was a dead dog. Indeed, it qualified, most well, for that titular epesse. Following that small test, it was placed in a lowered position in a far corner and turned to the wall in shame.



That left computer S feeling somewhat incomplete. A buying trip to the local marketplace was in order.  And, after a dull day at work and some reading on a more portable electronic friend, after collecting my companion, we headed off to the Big Blue Box store, tape measure in hand (space was quite limited).

Measure, dismiss. Measure, dismiss. Doesn't anything here extend less than 20 inches across??? Finally, an appropriate display device was located, it was within the monetary parameters necessary, and we headed out to dinner and then to place things into the appropriate locations.

Initially, my thoughts had been to take back my old viewing device, leaving the new device for computer D. But, placing my previous monitor onto Computer S resulted in a "no signal" display (a blatent lie since it was displaying text concerning start-up in safe mode, etc perfectly well). However, that roadblock could not be surmounted. The older viewing device was removed from Computer S and returned to Computer D, and the new viewing device was then placed onto Computer S.

But, horrors, the same coding occurred. The viewing device turned on, showed the manufacturer logo and went into a start-up mode. Then it stated "no signal", followed by acceptance of B/W safe start-up options text, which weren't accepted in any chosen mode. Hours of research followed, along with gnashing of teeth and incipient head-aches occurring. However, nothing of substance was discovered.


So, currently Computer S is unusable because of a lack of valid viewing device. Computer D is happy with the old viewing device (and is what I am using for this post - thus, no graphic accompaniment) and I am left with the only option - contacting my Guru via speaking device. However, it is the weekend. I possibly will be without a functional viewing device on Computer S for several more days.


Can you say....NOT HAPPY!!!! ?

Bundle Up Against the Cold

Temperatures are falling both with the weather and with personal interactions at home.  I had to do a quick errand yesterday morning.  My shop opens at 10 am, and the store that I needed to get something at opens at 9 am.  That leaves me time to go to the store, get what I need, and return to the shop in time to open.  I got to the store that I needed at 8:55 am and waited for their doors to unlock, went in and in 12 minutes, I was back out of the door and heading back to the shop.  I got back to the shop, continued the chore that I needed more supplies for, finished that, went downstairs for a minute and the phone rang.  It was my DH who started the conversation whining "Where have you been?  I've been trying to get a hold of you for a half-hour."  I said in return, "If you need to contact me and I'm not answering at the shop, call my cell phone.  It's why I HAVE a cell phone."  He got all miffed off about that and hung up.  Now he's giving me the silent treatment because I "yelled" at him, and all because he was stupid and didn't call my cell phone because he didn't think about it.  I've been carrying a cell phone for more than a decade, so you think he would use his brain sometimes .  Oy veh !

And physical temperatures are cold here today also.  Although the city doesn't get as cold as the countryside does, our state-wide temps dropped into the cooler last night and today will be quite cold as well.  Our low temp is 10 degrees F (-12 degrees C).  Our high for the day will be 23 degrees F (-5 degrees C) and our low overnight in the state was -10 degrees F (-23 degrees C).  There was no snow overnight, although we are expected to get 1-3 inches of snow today.  We have an index in this area that we call the PIP Index (Pain In the Posterior Index) and this winter is looking like it will plot quite high so far.  A big change from last year's winter which was actually pretty darned nice, with minimal snow.  Oh well - 'tis the season....

Looking Forward...

We have an off day on Le Tour today, so things kick off in the Alps again tomorrow.  Lance is basically out of contention for the podium due to three falls yesterday - tough day for Armstrong.  His strengths and talents now need to be focused on his teammate - Levi - to get him as far as possible.  The stage was won by Andy Schleck (happy me!) and the yellow is being worn by Cadel Evans (also happy me!).  All in all, Sunday was a great day on the Tour. 

Cadel Evans in Yellow.  He SO deserves this!

Sorry to all my friends from the Netherlands, but the octopus was right again (someone put that sea critter into Vegas - phenominal winning record).  Spain won the World Cup 1-0 in Extended Play.  I'm NOT a soccer fan, but this was a great game (even though I only caught the last half hour). 

The Octopus predicts Spain will win over the Netherlands.
It was right again!

And we tried to put the new cable boxes onto our televisions.  Oh - a REALLY bad idea.  Tempers rose, DH stomped around complaining about monopolies, and I'll end up phoning Comcast this morning and arranging for installation.  Since Chickie is off next week, it will have to be this week or a Sunday.  Comcast is usually very accommodating.  I need to pick up two surge strips before we can do this - we don't have enough plugs available to add anything else to it, and ideally I can get a Wednesday afternoon session, but that will almost eliminate my chances of getting my metal clay pieces done.  So I'll schedule myself some time at the shop to work on them, or work on them tomorrow night.  It's the enameling that concerns me, but I'm planning to do bas-taille, so it won't be as elaborate this year.  I also need to get the PPP completed for it, I can work on the master for that tonight.  Busy...busy...

Chilly in the Hot Weather

Well, conversation is still not happening at home.  I'm supposed to care about this, but realistically this has happened so many times that I just don't care anymore.  I did have an opportunity to see Eleanor yesterday for a later breakfast.  It was such a joy to see her again.  It's been such an emotional rollercoaster that she's been on with Lee's heart attack and the other health issues that he has had over the past three weeks, that she almost burst into tears in the restaurant at least three times.  It was my job to steer her to the positive things and get her away from the brink.  After all - he is still living, is improving, and shows every indication of continuing to improve.  That's a very good thing. 

The Hotel that we stay in for Metal Clay World.

I took advantage of early registration for Metal Clay World 2011 yesterday also, and phoned in my early-bird registration on the first day they were accepting them.  Last year's conference was absolutely wonderful - one of the best times I've had in a long time.  I can't wait for next year's, I'm sure it will be an equally wonderful opportunity to share creativity with friends, both old and new.  The PMC Conference and Metal Clay World switch years, so the conference I'm attending at the end of this month is the PMC Conference.  If it is held in Purdue again in 2012, and if the pre-conference classes are still as boring, I might skip the PMC Conference 2013 completely (that's providing our world doesn't completely self-destruct in 2012 as has so often been discussed).  Creativity - my life preserver in stormy seas. 

The route for Le Tour de France 2011.  Wicked mountains!

Le Tour de France begins tomorrow.  Can't wait!!!!

Temper, Temper

I want another day off. I'm very close to being completely over this cold/flu that all of us have been suffering with, but I have to be back to a regular schedule this week and that's not going to be helpful. I only hope that VerLaine isn't suffering too badly - she came down with the crud late last week and really was suffering on Saturday. Jim actually was able to be up for most of the day yesterday, but his nerves are totally raw and he completely lost his temper because I wanted to eat at half-time instead of just before the SuperBowl. Apparently that is cause to rant, rave, throw things around, and act like a really stupid bully. It's his temper that makes me regret our 30+ year commitment. If I throw the temper out of the equation, he's a great guy and all is good. I have no idea what can be done about bad temper though. Maybe he'll argue and fight his way into a stroke or something.... how stupid would that be! It's so much nicer to just enjoy life instead of grumbling because there are still seeds attached to the slices of bell pepper.

Here's an example of great, positive viewpoint. The New York Times has an E-columnist - Maira Kalman, who attended the inaguration. Her viewpoint is delightful and a joy to look through - the inaguration through the eyes of one woman and her art. I highly recommend that all of you follow the link and take a good look - you'll be happy that you did.