(Old) Top O' the Mundane To Ya- A St. Patrick's Day MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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All to taste:

Base of good quality Mayo (no Miracle Whip, just no)
A couple of pinches of granulated sugar
A drizzle of vinegar

Stir it well till the sugar is dissolved and the vinegar thins it a bit. Let it sit for a while if possible to be sure the sugar is dissolved. Meanwhile chop up your chicken, apples, grapes and pecans (how could you forget pecans? Walnuts will do if you’re out of pecans). Then stir the dressing good and coat the apple pieces before they turn brown, then add the rest.

Celery is for tuna salad or stuffing with peanut butter.

I take it your dad didn’t get his two Covid boosters this season? I just got my second one 3 weeks ago. Hopefully he’s talked to his dr and is starting on a course of Paxlovid to reduce the likelihood of needing hospitalization (or worse). I’ll be holding a good thought for him.

Texa is the last state I’d be traveling to right now. The.very.last. It’s not like you can do anything for him if you went down that your mom can’t do. Warm up soup, bring him Tylenol, encourage hydration, take your Paxlovid on schedule.

102

Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to heave. SCpot is celebrating World Sleep day at the moment.

Been there, done that. Hope Dad get better quick.

103

I’ve posted about this before, but I’m trying to figure out what to do with my PTO. The company I work for is quite generous with it, and I’ve got a bit over 8 weeks saved up thanks to unlimited rollover. I accrue more than a day each pay period, so even with the known plans I have for this year, I could take quite a bit of extra time off and still have four weeks minimum saved for illness.

But I’m still trying to get over my hoarding impulses, especially since my cap is 12 weeks and I’m not even close. On the other hand, I realize life is short and my general health and quality of life would be improved by taking more time for myself. It’s just hard to overcome the miserly habits…

104

Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 4c/39f with a predicted high of 13c/55f and mostly sunny. Weather app says “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, fucking shame on me. Fool me every fucking time, you’re probably a weather person.” It’s definitely sunny out there and we have no precipitation in the forecast.

Hurrah! That’s a good bit of news to start my day.

My Wednesday night pub friends are in this situation - one is retired and once he stopped working, he almost completely detached from normal life, stopped keeping up with the news and current affairs because he felt it didn’t have any significance to him any longer, and the only reason he knows it’s Wednesday is because he sees me. She, on the other hand, is very up-to-date on what’s happening in the world and can have a sensible conversation about things. Him, not so much.

That looks amazing! Well done on such a great job. I’m glad you were able to be so creative and get it looking perfect.

red Largs station in Scotland has a small replica Viking longship full of flowers on the platform. I’d definitely consider one of those!

Not much excitement over here. I finished irk yesterday and prepared campus food, then had a bit of sofa time before making dinner. Reasonably early night as I was up early to get to campus. I’ve got a couple of meetings today, nothing I really need to be at except that I am expected to put in an appearance.

Tonight I’m going straight from work to my friends’ house to tend to their pet ferret. There’s a bus that goes from the town bus station and stops close to their road. I should be able to get the same service bus back to near where I live without having to change buses in town. Then a quiet night at home looking after me and the mogs.

105

Nobody ever lay on their deathbed and said, “Man, I wish I’d spent more time at the office!”

106

Van Go, that is amazing! Great job!!!

In the news from the house of Sticks and Scones this morning:

Sticky is sitting in her living room working while surrounded by the smell of cat urine as apparently one of the neighborhood strays has sprayed the house or something close by. Yuck.

107

My chicken salad is pretty simple. I use thinly sliced celery and red shallots, shredded carrots, kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper then stir in Duke’s Mayo to the right consistency.

108

Woke stoopit early, played with my tablet, then put it down and fell back to sleep for a bit. I’m feeling close to human. I’m thinking in addition to dealing with my specs today, I’ll get my hair trimmed - no doubt it needs to be evened along the ends. Neither place opens till 9 and it’s not even 8, so I have time. Beyond that, I’ll figger it out.

For now, I’ve got the ice maker going and I’m fully caffeinated. FCD has gone to the boat - he needs to install lights in the engine room and there was something else he wanted to do - I don’t recall what he said, since I was half-asleep. Speaking of boat - my shoes are nice and clean again - the soaking and the washer did a good job. I set them on the pellet stove to dry (the top never gets all that hot, but it was warm enough to do the job.)

I love love love the idea of a small boat as a raised bed. I’m guessing I could find one around here, considering it’s very much a water-centric area. Must search.

Roxy wants to go gem mining for her birthday. We get to our hotel on Apr 13 and her b-day is the 15th, so that’s the plan. Daughter did gem mining a couple of times when she was a kid - her grandparents took her. I think both grands will enjoy it, and they’ll have treasures to take home as souvenirs.

Amazingly, I feel fine this morning - well, as fine as I can at my advanced age… :wink:

Eons ago, my husband worked for a boss who insisted when his minions took leave, they should take at least 2 weeks, because it generally takes a week just to start relaxing. Starting with that as a possibility, what are some of your favorite things and where can you go to enjoy them? I highly recommend getting more than a day’s drive from home so you won’t be tempted to not vacation. Seriously - GO AWAY!!! :wink:

I guess that’s all the excitement I have to share for now.

Happy Wednesday!

109

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. gYAWN* ‘Tis 43 Amurrkin out and N.O.S. with a predicted high of 79 and N.O.S. Not much we need from the sto’ this week so the executive decision was made to get the few needed items from the Food Kitty near the church house this evenin’ on the way back to da cave after the Wednesday doin’s. Should be a quick in and out to get what we need. The rest of the day can be spent in RDOS inactivities as is our wont.

Oopsie conga rats on the impendin’ job offer!

VanGo happy doperversary! The boat looks great.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day! Rah.

Happy Hump Day Y’all!

110

So the concert was good. The musicians were professional and friendly. I was able to chat with the bass player for a bit. They pretty much stuck with the American Songbook and I wish they had done some blues, but it was good to hear some jazz.

Our snow storm never materialized. I guess they’re catching hell down south of us a bit. The wife’s niece is probably getting about six inches of white stuff. It’s quite windy out though and just above freezing.

I was awake for awhile last night, so when I finally fell back to sleep, it was pretty deep. I was awakened by a loud MEOW! from Sadie who was telling me it was 0700 and time for her breakfast.

On with the day.

111

Sitting in Great Clips waiting for a trim to even my cascading tresses. :grin:

112

An Elder and his wife (Both Elders? Co-Elders?) took us to lunch after church one day, and they also invited us to their house for Thanksgiving. On one of the occasions, the wife mentioned that she couldn’t stand even the smell of alcohol. Too many ‘church people’ I’ve met in my life have had a pathological aversion to alcohol, and seem to believe drinking alcohol is a sin. But: ‘Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit…’ - Ephesians 5:18-20. It says right there not to get drunk on wine, but fill yourself with spirits! :tumbler_glass:

That’s where I went.

113

[quote="purplehorseshoe, post:100, topic:1015709, full:

Tomorrow is my Blessed Day Off, and I’ve decided I really wanna make chicken salad. Haven’t done it from scratch in ages so imma procure grapes & celery (there’s an apple in the fridge) and then play around with the dressing.

Anyone got their sure-fire chicken salad dressing recipe? … and GO!
[/quote]

The Silver Palate cookbook recipe is what I use. The recipe is online. Sour cream and mayo, I think in a 1:1 ratio, but look it up. I also add tarragon. I love chicken salad.

114

I’ve been up since around 4am and still feel fuzzy headed. The wind was very gusty all night and kept blowing leaves and small sticks against the bedroom windows. Neighbors across the street also put out three full trash bins yesterday evening and of course those have all been knocked over and the contents of at least one ripped bag have been strewn down the street. Trash won’t be collected until tomorrow afternoon so I hope they haven’t left town - the garbage truck won’t even try to pick up and dump bins that have fallen over.

Congratulations!!

What is a redneck stirfy?

A friend has this metal sign and I crack up every time I see it. Sounds like you might need one as well :wink:

I’m jealous, I hope you get to play with it for a bit!! They are such funny, entertaining little critters.

115

Good morning all. Have just finished my big bowl of Cereal and an apple to break my fast. Have a few things on the agenda, like putting the trash/recyclables out to the curb and paying on my credit cards, but should be a good day for sloth, since it’s supposed to reach 75F today. Might even think about doing the first mowage of the season, but it’s only mid-March so I’ll probably lie down until that feeling goes away; bad enough I have to mow into November now…

flyboy, being an Agnostic Areligionist (I am not entirely convinced of the existence of God but if He/She/It/They exist, their reactions to Human religions past/present and future is to point and laugh) I cannot offer any good advice for wife and you on faith matters, I just hope it works out where she is comfortable with it. And as for drinking, I’m reminded of this old quote, attributed to Martin Luther:

“Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!”

I understood that reference; I wonder if young children still have to sing that in school like I had to.

shoe, rooting for a short Thorsday for you, And sorry your dad is ill, but like BBBoo says, what more can you do for him?

Jumpy, I know how you feel, I worked for the US Government for over 30 years and they let you carry over 360 hours (9 weeks) and after 15 years I had 26 days of ‘use or lose’ leave every year, and I always had a hard time using it up; a couple weeks of vacation, another 5-6 days around T’Giving/Xmas and the rest on a few arbitrary MondayFridays. My advice (FWIW) is to go ahead and collect those 12 weeks worth on your cap (you won’t feel ‘right’ until you do) and then you’re almost forced to use all your leave hours, lest they go to waste (the US Gov. did pressure us not to ‘lose’ any leave and to ‘use’ it all). Your call and I wish you the best with it.

boo fae, happy ferret-tending.

FCM, glad to hear you are not achy. Enjoy the haircut.

52, are they metal cans or the big wheeled ones? Either way, hope the neighbors are responsible folks and clean up their mess.

So onward into the day. Need to go hang my blue jeans up (according to tradition/something I heard once I don’t dry them all the way, but let them hang out to finish drying naturally). Have a good Hump Day all.

116

The bins are the big plastic wheeled ones.

And now the neighbor next to them just laid out several hollow-core interior doors near the curb for big trash day (which is tomorrow at the earliest). What are these idiots (not) thinking?? There’s 60 mph wind gusts going on and I can already see the door on top getting shifted around by it. I hope it doesn’t get sent flying down the street next.

117

Black as the ace of spades to the west. The forecast is thunder stroms with rain turning to snow. I hope not.

118

We are. In a blizzard. Started with hard rain about midnight, howling winds included. Transitioned to whiteout snow/sleet by morning. The howling winds and horizontal snow continue. School called off for the blizzard, the other kid’s preschool is closed for spring break, so Boo is home with 2 squirrelly kids wound up by the sounds of howling winds-their parents are off birthing their baby brother (I’ve been here with them since school pickup yesterday. Came over with my duffle bag to get here ahead of the storm). Nobody has killed or left a mark on their sibling yet but the day is young.

I think we are close to being on the same latitude so you’re likely to get what I’m having, just a day later. chefguy sent it down, it’s his fault. Nasty but at least it’s not that cold and it’s blowing snow around but not building up much.
.

119

I’ll take the hit. :smiley: This has been our story for most of the winter. Systems head straight at us, then veer off north or south. It creates no woes for us either way, given our present situation in life (unless the heat goes out), and I have to admit to a bit of schadenfreude when I stand in the window with my coffee watching all the working slobs trying to navigate things. Our building sits at the top of a slight incline from a main arterial and there is always someone who can’t make the grade.

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  1. Tomorrow 43.