Looking towards spring in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I’m a little sad today: not only would it have been my mom’s 75th birthday, but I just learned that a friend lost her husband to suicide three days ago. She lives in North Carolina, but I just saw her two weeks ago at the memorial service for a mutual friend…who also took his own life. We’re not close enough friends for me to travel for her husband’s service, but I’m heartbroken for her and her daughter.

Depression can f*** right off. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

I’ll spend the rest of this morning doing online volunteer stuff (updating the training materials for one committee, and sending “your membership expires this month” reminders for another), which will help me feel better. Then, I’m looking forward to a quiet afternoon. The upcoming week will be on the busy side: I have my annual physical tomorrow afternoon, an in-person support group meeting Tuesday evening (plus a pre-meeting dinner if I can quit work/leave the house early enough), therapy on Thursday morning, a farewell event in Maryland on Saturday evening for a friend’s daughter who is moving to Colorado, and my first volunteer event in my new role on Sunday morning. I have a feeling I’ll want to skip Saturday’s farewell/drive to MD, but it’s my oldest friend and her 29-year-old daughter was the first kid to ever call me “aunt”…we’ll see.

That’s very cool! :crossed_fingers:

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Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off today. It’s up to 32 degrees currently(ferret height, not celcius). I shall watch the Po Bowl and hockey All-Star stuff after cleaning.

Nice!

some typos are too good to forget. :smiley:

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Good point about the typos. Isn’t it nice that there’s a football game for the poverty-stricken? JK

I’ve been watching an awesome youtube channel hosted by an abuela on a ranch in Mexico. She makes mouth-watering authentic meals in her rustic, rural outdoor kitchen.

One of them is something new to me - machaca in green sauce with potatoes. With a couple of modifications, that’s what I’m making for dinner tonight. I have canned Hatch brand green enchilada sauce, and with the addition of some tomatillos and cilantro it should replicate her recipe pretty well.

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Good morning!

It’s currently 42 degrees and wet. The expected high is 48 and we will vacillate between light rain and showers. In other words; rain.

I ended up running around yesterday trying to find new entryway rugs and runners. Besides the usual places for runners, I put down some extra on hard floor surfaces for Polar because hard floors are difficult for him to get up from or navigate sometimes. I was not successful. I find some entry rugs that will do for now, but the runners were in short supply. I ended up ordering them from Amazon.

I was disappointed because I went to three stores, Target, HomeGoods, and Kohls. Target has become increasingly disappointing to shop in for normal household stuff. There was hardly any selection at all, and a lot of the sections are just junky and looked pawed over. It didn’t used to be that way. Additionally, for some reason, Target couldn’t seem to stock any blush. They sell all kinds of make-up, but for one reason the only blush I could find was a very, very dark shade and there was only one container of that. I did, however, find my Happy Eggs. They had a wide variety of eggs and no limitations, unlike Safeway, which has limited people to one carton and who only has one brand of eggs to choose from. I bought myself two cartons of Happy Eggs. I also bought an outdoor doormat for the front door. The one I had was old and looked its age.

Kohls had a little bit more selection and that is where I ended up buying the entry rugs, but I wasn’t overly pleased with them.

By the time I was done searching high and low for carpets, I was hangry and just wanted to pick up some linner and get home. Yes, linner (late lunch/early dinner). So, I’ll need to run out again today to fill the Jeep with fuel. I want to do that today because I don’t really like hitting the gas station at 4:00 in the morning. There are sometimes unsavory characters there and I’d rather not chance an encounter with them. Besides, once I get on the road, I just want to go without stopping until I get down to Olympia. One I’m down in Oly Town, I’ll stop at Haggen and pick up my favorite yogurt (Siggi)
and a banana for breakfast. I will probably pick up some kind of treats for the office too. I almost always show up with some kind of nice chocolate or pastry treat for the office because I like to spread a tiny spark of joy by sharing. Tomorrow is an in-office day. Rah. :roll_eyes:

lili, that’s great news!

Other than filling up the Jeep, I need to finish laundry today. I washed the old rugs and runners and will keep them handy to use when I have to wash the new rugs and runners.

I’m going to finish my coffee and shower so I can get out and get some fuel while it’s still early, but light outside. After about 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning here, traffic just gets ridiculous.

Have a great day!

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Going birthday gift shopping later today. If lager gets off my lap.

Yesterday I watched a lot of home design you tubes. I was inspired enough to dejunk 2 drawers, put up paint stickums in the kitchen, and knit a bit.

Rats, lager just got up. Gonna have to get going…

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MetalMouse like me he’s going for his 7th continent Wow, you’re well traveled. I’ve only been in N America, US/Canada/Mexico. Well, I guess that’s not exactly true. Honeymoon was a Caribbean cruise and we went ashore for 6-7 hrs in Carracas, Venezuela. Bought a huge elephant pinata so we missed our tour bus so just took the next one that came along which turned out good because the tour guide was superior to the one on the first bus.
And that was great to make a friend before getting on the cruise ship. btw, in re the 5 hrs to kill, did you take a book to read?
Bon voyage!

red nice score on the rick rack. I admire your crafting skills.

{{{Pearl}}} a few more hugs and a few more :pray: for you, your nephew and all the extended family.

Cookie the chinook has made it’s way to the mitten as our temps went up to the mid 30’s overnight and is headed up to 39* this afternoon; still will wear my long unders but will only need about 2-3 layers on top instead of 4-5.

JtC powdered skim milk. It is in sealed bags What size are the bags? wondering because backpackers like to carry powdered milk. When I did my backpack trip after I retired, I had my daughter mail ziplock bags of powdered milk to me every week.

doggio I also thought they were talking about adding psilocybin at first.

Lily Yay for the good news. Let us know when we can watch the zoom reading/read the interview on line.

Swampy sometimes when chili/meat loaf/salads w/ mayo (like chicken or tuna), etc are frozen or refrigerated, the flavors blend better and the food tastes better so keep hope alive.

{Misnomer}

Taters I frequently eat linner as well since I start getting hungry 3:30ish. Also, for a second I thought you were in Metro Detroit since you mentioned going down to Olympia which is where the Red Wings used to play many years ago.

Had a banana nut muffin and orange cafe bev for breakfast. Will be going to mass and possibly the Ice Carving festival in Plymouth.
As for yesterday’s dinner, hubs made it, the salmon was very good, but he put lemon on the broccoli and it was not a good taste.

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Sorry to be late with this reply
My standard lecture on home smoke detectors:
There are mainly two types of detectors.

The photoelectric detector has a chamber inside with a light source and a receptor, which is out of the direct path of the light. When visible smoke enters the detector it reflects the light into the receptor and the detector is triggered.

The ionization detector does not actually detect visible smoke. It is triggered by the non visible particles of combustion. Ionization-type smoke alarms have a small amount of radioactive material between two electrically charged plates, which ionizes the air and causes current to flow between the plates. When smoke enters the chamber, it disrupts the flow of ions, thus reducing the flow of current and activating the alarm. however, the visible aspect of the smoke is not what causes this. This detector reacts to the non visible product of combustion. The delightful odor of frying bacon, for example, is actually the non visible product of combustion.

The differences of these are important. An ionization detector will not pick up smouldering fires such as a cigarette fallen between couch cushions or most wastebasket types of fires. Extension cords under carpet also are smouldering type. A chimney fire due to creosote build up will also likely be unnoticed.

The best home fire detection appliances are combination Photo/Carbon Monoxide detectors.
these are the detectors in my home

This is a six minute video showing some actual testing of Photo vs. Ion detection:

I worked as an electrician specializing in fire alarm installation, programming and service for 42 years.

Edited to add: This is not me conducting the test. There are a bunch of these videos on YouTube but I think this is the clearest and most understandable

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The place I picked for breakfast was meh and overpriced. It was almost $50 with tip! For 2 omelettes…

Then we went to the Skechers outlet and I got 2 pairs, one at half off, plus 10% off for getting on their mailing list.

Then we drove thru downtown Berlin - all 3 blocks of it. And back at the hotel, the hot tub was empty, so we had a nice soak. Now we’re just chilling. In a little while, we’ll walk out to the beach.

Exciting, ain’t we? :laughing:

This is the getaway we needed.

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I asked The Missus if she wanted anything for breakfast. She said, ‘No. I’ll just have yoghurt.’ So after a while, I decided to make myself a ham-and-cheese omelette. I put it on very low heat because I don’t like them browned. In the catio, she asked ‘Are you having your steel-cut oats again today?’ I told her no, I’m having an omelette. ‘What kind?’ ‘Ham and cheese.’ ‘I could do an omelette…’ So I got out a bigger pan, beat a couple more eggs with cream, and transferred my omelette into the bigger pan and mixed in the additional eggs. I cut it in half with the spatula when it was done.

We both liked our omelettes.

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taters I don’t know if you’ve got Agways in your area, but here they have runner carpets, kind of like a welcome mat, available by the foot. I got a 6 foot long one to go in my entryway.

It’s up to a balmy 41 degrees here, so that’s nice, snow is melting. I should do some house chores, but donwanna.

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Our last house was remodeled to the “open concept”, which meant that we were constantly setting off the smoke detector in the dining room, which was in turn connected to all of the other detectors, so they would all go berserk every time I burned a piece of toast. I kept a piece of cardboard nearby to fan the thing until it quit squalling.

We went to Lake Harriet yesterday to see some ice sculptures and some weird art shacks, neither of which were very impressive, I’m afraid. But the fresh air was nice. Up in the 20s today and will hit 40F at some point this week. I’m not fooled into thinking it’s spring, of course, but it makes for better driving around town. Last night’s dinner was aglio e olio, which turned out pretty good.

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I’m going to try to walk today, since I spent yesterday failing Whiskey Cakes at Vegan U.

THAT’S where I went wrong!

Yep, muffins had me fooled that I knew what I was doing. B. said her gramma sticks to muffins when she’s baking vegan for her because they’re so reliable. I read somewhere that the egg substitute works best if you had a teaspoon or so of yogurt, so I add plant-based yogurt to mine.

MetalMouse, I’m so glad you didn’t go out looking for the building with the giant ball on top. It doesn’t exist. Oh, my gosh, I’m still laughing at my wimpy eyes. I went back to look at the photo of downtown Ushuaia, and the “ball” turned out to be the back of a round sign on a streetlight. :rofl:

Also, according to the table I used, your windchill is about 25ºF. Seems like it should be lower with that much wind.

Seconded. {{{misnomer}}}

Let us know how it turns out.

That’s been my experience as well. It’s weird because I remember reading that Target had way too high of an inventory and was offering deep discounts on many items. I haven’t seen that here, just lots of empty space where products used to be.

Lily, congrats! And I hope your book sales go through the roof.

hippy, thanks for the very informative explanation and video. I learned a lot.

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Don’t you hate it when your house comments on your cooking?

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Thanks hippie; your timing is impeccable. Our smoke detector battery was pinging like crazy Firday night so hubs disabled it until he can get to it. So, I copied and pasted your lecture into an email to him, our daughter and my sister.

FCM Glad you were able to get a soak in. Enjoy the beach walk.

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@nelliebly
@Kitten_Mitten

You are very welcome. I can sometimes bore people to death with this stuff

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Thanks! That would be, like, 5!

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I am not laughing my butt off. Really, I’m not.

Today Hubs wanted to bottle beer and part of the process is to drain the finished beer out of the vat it has been fermenting into another five gallon bucket with the sugar needed for carbonation. This helps remove a lot of the sediment and he says it mixes the sugar better.

Hubs got distracted during this process and turned his back on a five gallon bucket filled with liquid. Bad idea.

GG started splashing around in the beer (he loves the feeling of liquid between his toes) which alerted hubs to the issue, so hubs yelled. This startled GG into pulling the bucket over towards himself (a smaller cat would have launched themselves into the beer, which would also have been a mess) and not only covered himself with beer, but also dumped 5 gallons of beer all. over. the. place.

I am really truly not laughing.

Who am I kidding, the only reason I stopped laughing was cause I got a rib cramp.

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Gonna smell like… a….brewery…forever. You’re gonna have to move and tear the place down.

All while laughing til your ribs hurt.

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hehehehehe

The look on hub’s face was priceless. hehehehe

We’ve got everything pulled out of that room and the walls and floors have been washed. Everything else will be cleaned before being returned because I was finding beer splatters everywhere and I’m just way too lazy to try to clean around full shelves.

It is a good thing in a way, that room was getting pretty cluttered and badly needed to be reorganized. Now it will happen. After I stop laughing.

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Cats. So helpful.