I talked with both of the birthday girls. They’ve had wonderful days. My daughter’s coworkers gathered around her and sang Happy Birthday. They’re upset that she has to go. I imagine yours are the same way, flyboy.
That sounds nummy. Are the muffins pink?
They will be upset. One cow-orker, who does the accounts payable/receivable for the country thinks her time will be soon because AI will take her place. (She’s been there since she graduated high school… over 40 years.)
The batter was. In fact, it was kind of a sick purplish color. But after the muffins baked, they became a rich brown with bits of cranberries for color. Would recommend. 
The Rheumatologist (!) was helpful. With my other labs and the distinct lack of inflammation, I seem to be 3.5% of people with elevated Antinuclear Antibodies.
Mrs Magill and I did our weekly shopping tonight. I’ve got the goods for pad thai, butter chicken, and chicken and rice soup. We ate at Shake Shack, and once again I’ve been disappointed. It’s a good burger, but not worth the price.
10PM and time for the late-night final. Not that I have done anything constructive in that time except explore the digital coupons from Kroger and complete my Firday shopping list, but mostly catching up on my You Tubing. Despite sleeping in I don’t think there will be any problem getting to sleep tonight, so need to finish up and get over to Slumberland.
VanGO, nice gift (I presume) from neighbor, hope Brian likes it.
Nettie, glad your felines are getting along well.
Doesn’t scare me but it’s so huge (I solved about 70 or so words today and still have 85% to go, IMHO). At least it will keep me entertained into next week.
Bright Tree, ‘cranberry oat pecan muffins’ sounds…interesting. And glad Ollie is clipped and gland-reduced.
Flyboy, a salute to the veteran that probably will be passing soon, and kudos to Wifey for what she did for him.
Maus, glad the Doc helped. Had never heard of Antinuclear Antibodies, googled them and still not sure what it is, but at least you know you have them and hopefully it can be treated. And I do wish there was a Shake Shack around here (we have damn near everything else), but the nearest is 100 miles to the south.
And that’s the way it is, and will shall be until I arise Thorsday morn. Take care all.
Not sure they appreciated DH turning on lights and taking pictures.
Wifey, RN charges $55 for a visit; but she charges veterans, spouses of veterans, and nurses $45. So she does do veteran discounts. (She has three or four – sometimes five – patients per day.)
Findus is berserking in CatMom’s room (while she’s trying to go to sleep), Goo is on my bed, and Abbey is sleeping next to me on the couch.
What a beautiful pair! I love butterscotch cats.
That’s awful. I’m sorry for her…and you. Was the decision La Jeffe’s alone?
Oo, even better! Did you use a recipe or wing it?
It was probably Ja Jefa, (the former) El Jefe, and our accountant. El Jefe wanted to get rid of me when he came onboard in 2012. My boss, whose position I now hold, really had my back. (She came to our wedding in 2015, BTW.) Since they came from the outside, they don’t understand the tradition of excellent data quality. They think, ‘Our members send their accounts receivable files, we upload them to the credit bureaus… Why do we need Johnny L.A.?’ They have no concept of quality. They don’t care. They just want to sell credit reports and collect dues and get our members to pay for conferences and such.
A bit of both. I started with a recipe but made a few amendments based on my personal preferences. (Can there ever really be too many nuts?)
I always make cranberry sauce for the holidays and I often have a fair amount left over, so this recipe fit the bill to repurpose it. It’s an odd recipe for muffins and I had my doubts about whether they would come out well – but they really did!
Cranberry Sauce Muffins
12 servings
Ingredients
½ cup milk
⅓ cup olive oil
1 ¼ cups leftover cranberry sauce (I increased to 1 1/3 cups)
⅓ cup brown sugar, or more to taste (I increased to half a cup)
1 egg
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup oatmeal
¼ cup chopped pecans, or to taste (I increased to a cup)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line cups with paper liners.
Combine milk, olive oil, leftover cranberry sauce, brown sugar, and egg in a bowl and mix together using an electric mixer*. Mix in baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Gradually add flour and oatmeal and mix everything into a smooth batter. (I added my nuts here, though the recipe says to sprinkle them on top of the spooned batter below.)
Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full. Sprinkle with chopped pecans. (As noted, I mixed my nuts into the batter, so as to have nuts in every bite of muffin.)
Bake in the preheated oven until tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 21 minutes. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
*Notes: Virtually every muffin recipe I have says to mix the dry ingredients lightly into the wet ones and to mix them as little as necessary just to combine. The use of an electric mixer was kind of shocking. But it worked out beautifully! If you find yourself with leftover cranberry sauce, this recipe is a keeper.
Thursday afternoon here. We got snow! Only about 10 cm (4”) so far.
SenSpoiledBrats need rides everywhere and I reminded them that I had to walk 93 miles over four mountain ranges in blinding blizzards, barefoot, just to go to kindergarten but apparently they don’t believe me.
This Saturday SenBoy’s good friend is coming to stay with us for six days while his single mother takes some time off to regain her sanity gets a break. The younger brother is being held by an honored guest of another household.
Why would I take on yet another annoying teen wonderful adolescent?
Actually, it’s a net plus for us. Said friend gets taken to the same places so no extra trips. SenKids fight less when others are there observing. And, SenBoy has to clean his room and wash dishes. While I may need to utilize the line of credit for feed one more 15-year-old boy, it should be worth it.
Now off to pay bills, growl at grocery costs and try to avoid sliding cars.
That’s great of you to do, Sensei! Glad your son can enjoy some time with a friend while helping the mom.
My new med seems to be helping with sleep, sneaking up on me gradually. This morning I slept until 4:10. Everyday it extends a bit and it’s great as I had been waking up at 2:45 to 3:00. I am excited about going to the full dose in a couple of days. I hope to feel human again!
Great news as my NP is super awesome. I got a call yesterday from a referral to a neuropsychologist (!!). I now have an appointment scheduled in January. 
I am 99% finished with the IEP and will submit it for review this morning.
BooFae, I hope you have a grand last day off of work!
Oh, and I love all the cat pics!!
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 38 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 50 with rain beginnin’ around noon. Glad we have nowhere we need or want to be today. Sounds like a good day to be inside, warm, and dry. Sup will be beastloaf, peas, butter beans and okra cooked together, scalloped N.O.T., and rolls. A good meal for an ick day.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. I shall attire myself in T-shirt, sweatpants, socks, slippers and fuzzy robe. RDOS chic! I should design a line of clothin’ for grumpy old men who are RDOS.
Happy Thursday Y’all!
Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 6c/44f with no predicted change, and cloudy. Weather app says “Just remember, every fucking silver lining has a fucking cloud.” Well, that’s cheerful, isn’t it?
We used to have a policy that you had to take one solid 2-week break during the year. That got dropped by HR because so many people objected to it as a mandatory limit. I’d have been fine if I hadn’t had this pesky cold before I went on leave, as I knew we would be doing a lot during my time off. Consequently, the cold has been kept at bay but I haven’t really rested at all. Working from home helps though.
Happy birthdays all round! I love the idea of a last little gift at bedtime, especially if it’s a book
I decided in the end that I could work from home, and just as well that I did since one of the other senior admins has called in sick today instead.
That made such a lovely picture! I’m glad they seem to be getting on well together.
Sensei I hope you enjoy the benefits of having Senboy’s friend staying with you! Sounds like a win to me.
I got my car cleaned, I did grocery shopping, and I made cottage pie for dinner. Not bad for a day off
Today I decided I should work from home as I am capable of doing some stuff, but not really fit enough to go to the campus office. I’ll need to swap some days around next week as we’ve got the last of the language class tests on Tuesday so one of us really should be there for that. It means I can have Thursday at home, which is good as it’s pub night on Wednesday so I get a bit of a lie-in after that.
I have confirmed the fundraising times that I need to be at the pet store (their Santa Paws promotion runs through December and we need to be in store for a set number of hours through the month). It meant I needed to shift a hair appointment so I’ve moved that from Saturday morning to Monday afternoon as I can go there straight after work. I would have been at the dentist that afternoon but she’s cancelled on me and moved that appointment to mid-January. It’s all a bit messy but it worked out in the end!
Financial companies often have that as a rule, with no remote sign-ins during the two weeks. It’s to encourage workers to really take time off and recharge, but it’s also an anti-embezzlement function. If someone is cooking the books on the side, they need to be there all the time in case a glitch in their “system” happens. If they’re not in the office for two weeks and a glitch happens, someone else will notice that there’s a problem.
I’m aware of one case years ago where that’s how the employer discovered a dishonest employee was cooking the books. A glitch happened in the employee’s “system” and someone noticed. Then they started digging to find out the problem, and uncovered that book-cooking.
Jail time resulted.
And the employee in question had a reputation for being a hard-worker, dedicated to his job. Why, he actually came in on his holidays just to see if he could be of help! Yeah, that should have been a warning sign, not a sign of a dedicated employee. He was keeping an eye on his “system” of dummy invoices.
I heard through the grapevine that his coworkers who were trying to figure out the problem when he was away were saying, “If Bill were here, he would know what’s causing this glitch in the system.”
Then the penny dropped: “If Bill were here, he would know…”
Awake for a bit before breakfast. There will be more PT today and Sis will likely bring Nelson in for a visit. Onward!
It’s another sub-freezing morning, but much sun predicted thru the day. We might get some evil white stuff tomorrow, which makes sense since I have a 7:30 appt for my semi-annual once-over to determine how much my body is breaking down with age. 
I do like early appointments since there’s less chance of the doc running late, but not all that keen on venturing out in the early cold. Still, I park in our garage and it stays above freezing, so there’s that.
I spent a chunk of last night messing with the new tablet. I transferred all my stuff from one tablet to the other, marveling at how far technology has come in the short time since we had to do everything in DOS. What a world!! There was some messing about with settings to get my defaults instead of theirs. Little things like colors, and placement of apps, and suchlike. I’m glad I had the old and new side-by-side - it simplified that process and didn’t tax my brain as much.
I find it interesting that while it moved my games and other apps, it didn’t move most passwords and some game history. Three games in particular started from nothing. Two I don’t really care about, but the third dropped back to kindergarten level (it’s a word game) and it’ll take a while to get to the challenging puzzles. Maybe I need a new word game.
Once I finally get myself showered and dressed, I need to run to Food Lion - FCD is out of 'nanners!! Oh, the humanity!!! Maybe a stop at Aldi while I’m in the neighborhood. My only other plan is to put a second coat on the door panels if it’s needed. It was hard to tell when the paint was wet. Maybe I’ll make the bean soup today that I didn’t make yesterday. Or not. Time will tell.
Happy Thursday!!
Good morning! I have stuff to do today. I have a neorogist appt at 10:30 in Goshen, and an allergy shot in Mishawaka at 1:00pm. The roads are slick, with a new coating of ice and snow.
“Okay campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties 'cause it’s cooooold out there today!” -7F this morning at 0800. Got all heaters going and the cat is huddled next to me. I was going to hit Costco this morning, but perhaps not.
Okay, I need coffee. The wife says she’s having turkey leftovers for breakfast. Hope she doesn’t poison herself.