Snippets

[Dusz]

My third grandson was born last night weighing in at 8lb15oz. Had to go to my son's to help take the other two to school and nursery so got to see the new edition when only 8 hours old.
Crusty, enjoy your visit when you make it.

[Crusty]

Recovering Slowly


The ride home from Salmon, Idaho kicked my ass. I didn’t realize how much until yesterday and I’m still not 100%. Actually; to be honest, the ride from Provo Utah to Salmon to home is what kicked my ass. I hit cold rain from Arco to Salmon, then I hit more on the ride south from Salmon to Kemmerer, Wyoming. It was already pouring when I left Kemmerer, and it rained heavily until I was on I-80. Then it played cat-and-mouse with me for the rest of the day. The next day, from Ogallala, Nebraska to Bloomington, Illinois, saw the temps go from the mid 40s to the 90s.

I was tired when I got home, but I didn’t feel the drain until the next couple of days. I thought I had recovered until I went out to do some errands yesterday. First, I went to the Quarter car wash and blasted the dead bugs off the bike. then I went to one supermarket and got a few items and stopped at the meat market to get a few other items. When I got home, I was exhausted once again and it took most of my energy to fix dinner. I stalled off hitting the other supermarket until today. I also need to clean the Express; the quarter car wash gets the heavy crap off the bike, but there’s still a lot of road phlegm all over it. I’m going to have to take a bucket of soapy water and a sponge and spend a bit of time getting it to look pretty again. I also need to mow my front lawn. My neighbor’s teenage kids did my back yard for me, but the front yard is looking pretty scruffy. How much gets done in one day will be an indicator of my energy reserve levels.

I get my meat from a meat market for a couple of reasons. First, they have much better Rib Eye steaks than either of the supermarkets. Second, they’ll cut me 1-1/2” thick pork chops. Thick chops taste a lot better than thin cuts. And Third, I can see the ground beef that they’re putting in the paper tubs. The local Supermarkets like to put their ground beef in plastic rolls. I don’t trust them.

I tend to weigh out my ground beef to make burger patties. Yesterday, I wasn’t thinking and told the people behind the counter I wanted 2 one pound packs of Ground beef. They weigh the paper and wrapping along with the meat, so by the time I opened the package and portioned out the meat, I had 7- 4 oz. patties and one 2-3/4 oz. patty. So I decided to have a cheeseburger for breakfast with the little burger. Then I had a brainstorm. I had a small package of bacon (Half the amount I normally use to make a BLT). So I cooked both the burger patty and bacon and had a very tasty bacon Cheeseburger for breakfast. That should hold me until tonights Rib Eye. Now I just have to decide whether to have a Yukon Gold potato or asparagus or a package of Antioxidant Blend Vegetables with it.

Well; it’s almost Noon. I guess I should get started.

[Crusty]

Food and Other Things




I normally do my big grocery shopping once a month when I get my SS deposit. I try to get all the big ticket items and parcel them out into meal sized portions and freeze them. That’s when I’ll make a big pot of Spaghetti Sauce, or a month’s worth of Beef Stew or a bunch of Pulled Chicken. I’ll take Ground Chuck and make burger patties or Italian Sausage and do the same. Bacon slices get cut in half and put into baggies for BLTs.


This month, things got kind of screwy, because of my Truncated Trip to Tuk. I had a few items in the freezer when I got back, but not enough for the month, so I’ve been doing some shopping. As of this morning, I have a bunch of bacon, 8 burger patties, 5 sausage patties, 2-1.5” pork chops and I just made 3.5 pounds of pulled chicken. Doing the math, I should have made 14 meals worth (13, actually; I just had a pulled chicken sandwich for breakfast)


When I make things in the crock pot (slow cooker), I usually start them just as I’m going to bed. That way, they cook overnight. The only problem with that is the smell permeates throughout the house and I wake up hungry for whatever I’ve been slow cooking. I normally eat breakfast (Brunch) late morning, but this morning, I was ravenous for pulled chicken and I had breakfast early. It was wonderful. After I finish writing this, I’ll go portion out the rest of the chicken into 4 ounce portions and put the little containers into the freezer.


I have enough food to get me through until my next SS Deposit, and I have enough pulled chicken to get me through a long while after that.


I’m slowly focusing on house Improvements. I’ve put off making improvements for a few reasons. I was building the Gentleman’s Express and saving up to go to the Arctic and that took all my money. However; I was also thinking about the house and what changes I want to make. I think I’ll start painting the bedroom, next. That will be relatively cheap; it should only cost me a couple of hundred bucks. I bought the last three sets of Blackout Curtains yesterday and I’ll start putting them up today.


I need to get an Indoor antenna; the flat antenna that I’ve been using doesn’t want to stay taped to the front window any more. I think a little unit from Microcenter will do the job and it will sit on top of the CD/DVD rack unobtrusively. I don’t do cable, nor do I subscribe to streaming services. I can live with over the air TV. Even if I did subscribe to those things, there wouldn’t be much worth watching. I can go to the theater on Senior Day, once a week and watch a movie for a lot less than it would cost to watch one of the Star Trek series on Paranoid, or one of the Marvel movies on the Dizzy Channel.


The bigger house improvements will take a while. I want to renovate my bathroom and replace the tub with just a shower, as well as get rid of the ugly wall tiles. I want to change the bedroom back into two rooms, like it was in the past and I really want to replace the carpeting with something that looks a lot better. Doing all that will probably cost me as much as a new motorcycle. Hopefully, my present bikes will be pretty much trouble free for a while.


I still want to go to the Arctic; but I think it would be smarter to get a minivan for that. I could sleep in the van and save the money that campgrounds and motels cost. A minivan that gets 30 MPG would be a significantly cheaper way to go than camping and moteling. I’ve started looking online to check out prices, though I won’t have the money to buy one for a while. I would have liked to ride there, but I can be reasonably content to drive there. Of course, If I could hit the Lottery… maybe I should start buying tickets?


Well; I need to start doing something. I’ve been vegetating all week, and that's too long. I need to accomplish something today.