Category: Food

Office Decor Finished, Revelations, Heaven, Tagine Cooking, Collagen, and the Weekend, Whew!

On By BackporchwriterIn Food, Home5 Comments

So the chair corner is complete! The table is in, the pillow is in, the throw added, the lamp in place, the books in the holder, and a drink on top! George had to help with the table. I couldn’t get the first screw in as the grooves were not very good and bolt would not screw on it. George was able to force it and gave me tips on how to do these things, such as Lefty Loosy and Righty Tighty. LOL LOL

I debated back and forth about keeping the White Board on the wall but the look just defeated me. So it had to change! The White Board was moved.

The white board ended up in the corner there by the desk. It looks better there. I use it a lot to keep me focused on things that are not really on a to do list but I want to remember. So I’m taking these with my camera and I’m just not good at the indoor lighting yet. I probably needed a flash to tell you the truth. I haven’t taken many lessons yet. They were even hard to fix with lighting effects. But I’ll get there one day when I have time to resume the lessons.

I am happy with the office changes. I think it meets my purposes now much better. The chair was an excellent addition for meeting my needs. Its much more enticing to do a devo and prayer now than it is at the desk which pulls you into the computer instead of writing and studying.

As mentioned before, I still wanted that side table there for projects. I needed the horizontal surface! And of course you see that Roger is there. We were putting the table together and he fell asleep there. Yes he is wearing a diaper!

I pulled some little signs from my “beachy” spare bedroom and added the sign board over the chair.

And the Thankful pillow…..warms my heart and reminds me to be thankful for all of our blessings and I will see it every morning when I approach the chair. Thankfulness is a part of my written prayers to God in my Prayer journal.

Revelations, How the Earth Ends

I finished the book of Revelation this week. Wow! What an ending. If you want to see how it all ends, go check it out. It’s quite the show. It will top every block buster you have ever seen. I once thought it was hard to understand Revelations. I had always approached it with much trepidation. And in reading it I think it was not so much hard to understand as just hard to imagine. Most of us in our lives are just not used to seeing such graphic scenes. We are told in this book, that you are blessed if you read it. You know me, I’m always wondering how or why we are blessed for reading it. I can think of several reasons:

  1. Gosh while all that was going on if you are present for it, at least you will know how it ends.
  2. And you will know what is coming.
  3. And you will know what things are represented and why – the 7 lampstands, for example, represent the 7 churches of Asia.
  4. You see the reward in descriptive beautiful detail (of heaven, the New Jerusalem) and to hold on to your faith regardless.
  5. You know not to accept “the mark of the beast” in which people accept it to worship the one who has 666 on his forehead.

I did a screenshot of this on the internet showing the jewels that are contained in heaven. Although two of these are different from what the Bible says (perhaps they have two names, but I’m not totally familiar with some of these gems).

However, for the most part we can expect these gems to be in heaven. I really had not “taken in” the description of heaven so much other than remembering that the streets were of gold, the gates were pearly, and there would be no night, no crying, no death, no pain. But I really “took in” the reading about heaven. If I understood correctly the actual gates are big huge pearls – not made of pearls but each gate made of one big pearl and have the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel inscribed. Wow. That’s big. There are twelve foundation stones in the wall surrounding heaven, representing the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

I did some research on how big heaven is based on the Biblical definitions of “stadia” and “cubits”, which you have no choice but to look up on the internet really and see how many feet are in them. And do the math. I had come up with at minimum 1379.54 miles and as big as 1431.81 miles. Somewhere I read on the internet where they calculated about 1500. I was not far off. My math is only as good as the definitions of stadia and cubits as found on the internet. I screenshot this giving us North Americans some perspective of the size of heaven. So approx 1500 in width, length, and height!

And this is what I wanted to do when I put this room together. A place to study, learn, grow, teach, share, be creative, and go from there. So I’ve put the new room to purpose!

Tagine Cooking

George cooked with the Tagine I bought him for Christmas. Tagines are a Moroccan style of cooking. You layer meats and veggies along with oils and herbs and spices. Part of it, is the steam that rises through it that helps it to cook. Our tagine is glazed which means that it doesn’t have to be seasoned before cooking.

You start with butter and then keep adding the ingredients. And BTW, I video’d this for a future YouTube Vlog so it’ll be there. Here were the ingredients he used. Candle not included, and neither is the dog food over in the corner, LOL.

Other than the chopping it didn’t seem to take too long to cook. About like anything else – 40 minutes or so. The sweet potatoes almost did not get done, but they were done just enough. He added frozen peas and also you cannot see that there is preserved lemon on the table as well as onion and garlic. He used the spice in the blue can which is Ras El Hanout a Moroccan Spice. Neither can you see the Yogurt and cilantro we added to each plate at the end. See final result down below and you can see it there.

To describe what Ras El Hanout is I’ve copied a blurb from Google.

“The mixture usually consists of over a dozen spices, in different proportions. Commonly used ingredients include cardamom, cumin, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, allspice, dry ginger, chili peppers, coriander seed, peppercorn, sweet and hot paprika, fenugreek, and dry turmeric.”

Since we plan to cook with this quite a bit (maybe some weight loss if didn’t add that french bread on the side which gathered the juices and was exquisite!) – anyway, since we plan to cook with this a bit, I decided it was a MUST for him to have this spice already blended as opposed to making our own.

What surprised me was:

  1. How good the tomatoes were.
  2. The preserved lemon added a lot of distinct flavor that did not taste like lemon juice.
  3. How good that the yogurt was to spread around on top, that added a lot of flavor and reminded me of greek food and their yogurt cucumber dressing.
  4. The couscous was really good underneath it all and
  5. The french bread (baguette sliced) was sooooo good to soak up the juices. Normally I don’t like any bread soggy but this was perfection as you still had the crusty structure to the french baguette slice.

This was a basic beef recipe, which George wanted to start out with. Next he is going for lamb. But this recipe here is a keeper. I think I could eat out of the Tagine every night and be happy. I’m posting this pic below for a 2nd time so you can notice the diffuser here underneath the Tagine – that was recommended to keep the heat source from cracking the pot with changes in temps. While you can only see its handle, it is a metal plate of sorts that diffuses the heat gradually. The Tagine can also go into an oven as well and be transferred back and forth for certain dishes.

Enjoying the Weekend

Gosh we enjoyed our day yesterday, both getting to do things we love and enjoy as well as doing some work too. Got some laundry done and worked on the office as you saw. Studied and organized my world a bit. I videod a lot of things yesterday which took considerable time. I videod the office additions and George’s cooking and also him making our drinks. He made a Paloma for me which was recommended to go with the meal. He made a bloody mary for him.

I fixed a big bowl of popcorn and watched a YouTube show or two. And I got the back up drive and the external hard drive ordered! Yay! That means next weekend I can back up and download Big Sur as I’ve been talking about forever!

I opened up my Collagen Elixer and will start taking it today. I’ll let you know how it works. Here’s what is in it. I’m interested to see how it tastes. Hold on – I’m gonna go get it now while I’m doing this blog entry. LOL

Ok, surprisingly it tastes like COMMUNION at church. It’s like a grape drink. So it has a marine collagen blend, biotin, zinc, vitamin C and acerola berry extract among other things. Oh I love this taste. I may not be able to give this up. lol I also like the glass bottles. Although I’m not sure what you could do with them. I look forward to THAT everyday – Wow! I am taking a pic every day to see if I notice a difference.

A quick google of what studies say:

Some studies show that taking collagen supplements for several months can improve skin elasticity, (i.e., wrinkles and roughness) as well as signs of aging. Others have shown that consuming collagen can increase density in bones weakened with age and can improve joint, back and knee pain.

I also have figured out that Saturday is just a great filming day! I get up and after coffee and blog, go take a shower and fix myself up with hair and makeup! Then I can “vlog” til my hearts content, LOL. I did a few videos without a lot of make up and hair, and I was not happy with it!

I’ve also decided I’m enjoying the longer version of my hair and I probably need to keep doing it myself. It’s actually how I’ve wanted my hair all along – or close to it. I’m still learning how to style it while it’s longer. Like the bangs, mmmm I’m not sure about having them roll under so much, but I like the curls on the side coming into my face. I found a hairspray that holds pretty good w/o being sticky. Probably not to days end though. Here’s the back. I’m due for another trim though – just slightly – but this length is good. I always wanted my hair to do this, even back in highschool but I had to get a perm back then to do it. Now I just use my curling/blowdryer – it’s a blow dryer with brush attachments and works better than anything I’ve ever owned. And quickly too.

The Rest of the Weekend

Here’s George’s to do list pad on the Fridge! Seemed like a good place to insert that pic as I talk about my to do list today.

Things I have to do today:

  • Put my Vitamins in the little daily holders, along with the BP Meds
  • Finish laundry
  • Iron
  • Fix Beef Stew for tonight
  • Check the Weather for this week
  • Plan my outfits (it helps so much each morning to have this all mapped out already)
  • Do my nails

Things I Really SHOULD do today:

  • Clean house a bit more (vacuum/dust/pick up/put up)
  • Put our normal nic nacs back out from where I took them up to put out Christmas
  • Decide where we are going for Valentines Dinner in case we need reservations
  • Set up my next autoshop on THAT SYSTEM I DO.
  • Do the software update for my phone and Apple Watch.
  • Continue to clear of emails
  • Look up the next recipe (I’ve cooked twice this week, and want to continue to help out in the kitchen)
  • Look into Elder Care/Senior Care (Basically how to care for aging parent period – I know NOTHING!)

Things I WANT TO DO today:

  • Start a Spring Check List
  • Do a camera lesson
  • Watch YouTube Shows
  • Read
  • Work on a New Intro for the Videos
  • Start working on getting the videos/photos I’ve taken into their respective “video files”
  • Plan future videos, although they do a good job of just happening

So ok quite the blog entry today! I need to go DO SOMETHING, AnYtHinG from these lists! ha.

Tropic Storm, 16 Hour Fasting Technique, and Hacksaw Ridge Review

On By BackporchwriterIn Food, Home, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Good morning! Yesterday I set the desktop to fall photos with animals. It’s a desktop theme on microsoft. It reminded me of Cody and Katy and of course the deer in our yard. There are lots of new themes on there and I’m looking forward to finding a Thanksgiving one next week.

We had a lot of rain that threatened our area yesterday and it decided to unleash about the time I got off from work. I just took it slow, hugged the right lane and was thankful that most everyone else took it slow. It was very heavy rain. I could still see but ponding on the roads in Nashville area can be a big issue during these heavy rains. Flash flood warnings were out.

I was able to do the 16 hour window of “daily fasting” yesterday, in which I ate in an 8 hour window. It basically cut out a meal and instead I had two meals and a 140 calorie snack in between of protein. I drank my cleanse drink and put the Ionix stress formula in it with lots of ice and water. It kept me til lunch. I was busy and able to not notice any hunger pains but I had eaten a lot the night before (as we usually do).

I tried this Tuna Infusions yesterday. Oh my it was good. It’s by Chicken of the Sea. I had to look three or four times to make sure it wasn’t cat food. LOL

I may never buy regular tuna again! lol. Oh I will but this was good. It came with a fork and was easy to eat at my desk and totally worked for a snack. Requires mint chewing gum afterwards! Wearing a mask after tuna is no good, not to mention what ones coworkers may think when they are around. George won’t take tuna to work. But I do. Tuna rocks. I just got tired of eating it every week. I think that is what has happened to me. I got in a cycle of eating the same foods over and over and just flat got tired of it. I never DID get used to doing shakes every day during winter. I have some of it left in the big containers waiting to either drink it or expire so I can get the ones in the smaller containers. I just think something happens to the ingredients in the big containers that make them taste bad after it’s been open a while – even before it expires. But the ones in the little packets hold their “composure”. I haven’t ordered any more shakes lately though and I’m about ready to. I miss the chocolate ones. I just can’t stomach the big ones anymore. I had one or two that didn’t taste right and it’s hard to bring myself around. I guess I will toss them as they are taking up space but I feel guilty. They were expensive except the ones that I got for free. They sure do a good job though of getting the nutrients in. I can be achy from old age and drink that it is like medicine. I’ve just learned I have to get them in the packets. I will order more shakes next month. I have some vanilla’s left in packets.

Little Bit likes hanging outside as that is where he loves to be – either on our porch or out in the woods. I’m sure he probably visits neighbors. So far no one has complained. If they did not sure what we would do. He’s sortof a stray cat that we just brought home to this area so we could feed him. But we claim him as ours. He has to be about 11 years old or so. But yesterday he was just a fussing over the rain and wanted to hang inside. He tried to go back out a couple of times and ran back in, LOL. I fixed his bed up in the guest bed and put the quilt down in his favorite spot so he wouldn’t get on the comforter.

I tried to get a good pic of Roger’s little drowned rat look but he kept moving. I wasn’t going to use them but why not? It tells the story of what happened really well. Never mind my ratty floors. They will be gone soon and a pretty replacement. It hardly seems real. I will be so excited. Have to wait til after the baby is born and we will likely have to take off a day or two of work.

George fixed dinner and I wrapped gifts for Friday’s “shower” with no people. lol. I think there will be a table for the father to be and a bride to be. We had lessons of “No more sharing of food you guys. You cannot cook for each other and share food during the pandemic”. We had some sweet folks to pass out some things in recent days out of the kindness of their hearts. It was yum. I survived. It’s this kind of thing that is hard when you want to share and can’t. This virus is the perfect devil-created thing to keep people from being close. However, as we know, God takes things and turns it around for good. I’m not sure how yet, but I know He does. For me, it gave me time to learn iMovies! And of course if we want to commune at work, we just go out for lunch to do it. We have done more of that I guess than we normally did. So that is good. It’s about time too for another excursion out. Maybe after quarter end though. I’m sure I’ll finish with that next week, I hope. It should be finished this week but I didn’t get the information in time to even dream of being able to get it done this week. There were a lot of issues that had to be fixed, found, and adjusted first. That’s ok. I am trying to rush it through as quick as I can. It’s going pretty fast. But today is the 29th and it is supposed to be finished by tomorrow. It won’t be. Most things are not requiring much $ to be paid for unemployment so not much interest or fines, and that is what we would be trying to avoid.

We saw Hacksaw Ridge last night. I’d been putting it off as I figured it’d be hard to watch. And it was. It was very graphic, very real. I had to look away a number of times. We both cried. I knew that it was based on a real story and I knew without a doubt that it depicted what really happened at the Battle of Okinawa It was hard to watch, and as I said, I had to look away. I could not bare to see human life go through such. But the character of Desmond Doss played by Andrew Garfield was excellent. I enjoyed seeing Vince Vaughn as the sergeant and Rachel Griffith’s as the Mom (also played in Six Feet Under, and we had to figure that out.) The movie was excellent. The effects were excellent. But it was very intense and I had to delete messages on my phone for about 20 minutes as I looked down. I could not watch the graphic scenes. But it gives you a deeper appreciation for those that gave their lives. I think everyone should have to sit in the room with this one at least just to give respect for those that had to endure this and other wars protecting our rights. And here people go across our country trying to tear down what they protected. It’s insane the selfishness that is taking place right now across our country. People are standing for things they don’t realize they are standing for. They are being deceived.

“RATED R for intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence including grisly bloody images.”

And Little Bit watched it with us. Much of it in my lap. Do you know how much I loved this? I miss my lap cats and my lap dog. Maisy tried, but just couldn’t stay. She wants to watch me from a few feet away. She’s learned not to be jealous. For the most part. Bless her.

Maisy is on the floor behind me and Little Bit is so black you can’t see his face hardly, lol.

I just loved having him there in my lap.

I think he liked being there in my lap. Look at his back legs crossed like a human, lol. How many pics of a black cat in my lap did you really want to see? I had to share them all at every angle! That is how much I loved him being there. He seemed pretty happy too.

Good Eating and Good Authors!

On By BackporchwriterIn Food, Restaurants4 Comments

The Eating has been GOOD the last couple of days – not that it’s NOT when we are home, but you know how much I love to eat out. It was always a treat growing up and we’d go out a lot back then any time we went to church which was every time the door was open. When George and I first married we didn’t go out as much unless we met our families. It was a money thing. I had to get used to staying home a lot, no shopping and all that. But through the years, with promotions, and paying off things we began to eat out more and more especially for all the special occasions (if we didn’t have one, we’d invent one) and when meeting friends. We love to eat out and try new things and get inspirations for things to fix at home. 2020 has NOT been the year for experimental cuisine spots, but it has been a year of COMFORT FOOD. We had a $25 gift card to use up at Cracker Barrel. And I was so proud of our Cracker Barrel here. Not only was the landscaping lovely but they added a temporary outside seating area so they could accomodate more people (not lose money) during the social distancing requirements.

We had good conversation about our work and about politics and the election and the coronavirus. I mean what else would we talk about. There is one more subject I suppose, but we left that one under the table, LOL.

Well, GEEZ, what do you do when Blackberry Cobbler is in season? Ya go for it. Oh my a bowl of heaven right there. It was little. It was good. Not sorry.

The gift shop was enticing at Cracker Barrel as always. And look….it’s a Christmas SLOTH.

Of course you know this corner speaks to me with our little wildlife yard. Speaking of….I saw the SKUNK last night.

We smelled him the night before when he permeated all the way to the highway to our house. But last night I saw him out with the deer in our backyard. Neither were considering each other a threat. I’ve seen deer and skunk together before. Might have been in the cartoon Disney movie, with Bambi LOL. But I believe I saw them hanging out in a state park in the Land Between the Lakes area. Saw the deer first then the skunk. I remember thinking it was like a zoo area with a pet skunk and was running to it and my grandfather said “un uh nope nope – that’s not a pet”. Oops! It was at a visitor center and in a fenced but open area, so I had thought it must be a pet. I’m glad he saved me from my curiosity and subsequent hotel tomato bath during our travels.

So last night I met my friend Christy at Smiley Thai coming from work. They had THE BEST Halloween decor ever!! This was a lot of fun.

I ordered the noodle PHO last night with Chicken and also had ordered Sushi. I took this pic after I’d eaten most of the chicken. The noodles were a bit hard to eat with my spoon but I managed to eat a lot with my chopsticks. I still couldn’t eat all the noodles and bean sprouts. But it was good for a rainy night as the cold front began to come through.

We enjoyed chatting and vowed to go get our toes done next week. Yay! Someone to go with! I miss my Kate and our pedicure outings. And I’m happy to have a friend that will go.

We downloaded the same book to do for a Bible Study. Hers is on line. Mine is audio. It’s a Max Lucado book. Anyway, I’m half way thru between these guys:

*Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire – by Jen Hatmaker (Like I need to read this one, LOL!) In this book she is basically giving you permission to be YOU and not worry about it. I knew I liked her when she said she argued with her publicist over which curse words they would allow to remain in the chapters (she is a religious speaker/writer, lol). Not that I like cursing, but if we are all being honest here – we all know that even elder’s wives say the S word – a LOT. Even I cursed when spilling the communion in the car before taking it to a shut in. It happens. I don’t like it, but I’m honest and I’ll ocassionally say S***, H***, or D*** to make a point. But I do not want to hear the GD word. That is a no no. Unfortunately though, this author has found a lot of criticism in her industry for not only her words but some of her beliefs. She is going through a divorce and her publisher dropped her like a hot potato for embracing some new open minded thoughts. I get it, or should I say I’m used to that. I think we all have to study to show ourselves approved and create our salvation through Jesus and with God and His plan. It’s our own responsibility to work this out so I’m no judge of that. But I draw strength from her character and spirit. And as a writer of a blog and of my own words, I can relate that when you say what you feel and what you know to be true and get called on the carpet for speaking the truth as if you were a devil served up on hot pancake. My motto is fix the problems people, don’t get mad at the writer for telling the truth. If you were ugly yesterday or caused a problem and didn’t want people to know it – then don’t be ugly, irresponsible, or causing problems and don’t be mad if it gets mentioned. Work on your issues and don’t attack the writer. Anyway I could go on but I won’t. I can relate to this writer’s spirit. And I believe I read somewhere that she will say everything you were afraid to. LOL. That’s me too! Don’t test me!

*Escape from the Ordinary – by Julie Bradley (Like I need that one either). This book is a couple who retire and sail and their adventures, some of which are pretty scary.

So once I finish with one of these I’ll start the Max Lucado book.

Anyway, it’s Friday and I’m so elated. This week has been a fast one. I’m working on quarter end and stuck on the Quarterly Reconciliation Sheet. It’s off about $1700 in the social security taxes. Neither me nor my boss have been able to find the answer for where it’s off yet. So she is having me go through every employee and do some calculations to see if it can be found. This will take forever, but here we go. As for the rest of the month, now I’ll be behind. Once I get information from others I can start doing some unemployment returns for the Transport side. And then when we get this reconciliation sheet balanced and I get info from others I can do the returns. So while I was ahead, this is the part that always gets behind but a lot if it is out of my control. I guess that is what worries me a lot about January is that I could get more of it done if I got the information earlier in the month. But likely it’ll all come to me when I’m gone and I won’t even get an opportunity to do the month on time. If the opportunity is not there then it’s hard to meet the goal. The train that couldn’t. It’s Engine was missing and so was the conductor. LOL LOL LOL

I better quit before I become a “Jen” and get dropped like a hot tater for my truth telling. As someone once told me The Truth is Hard. Yeah it is. Especially when put in black and white. But again, don’t attack the writer! Please. I just do the best I can with the world I’m given! I don’t get to write all the rules. I just write what happens. Or doesn’t happen.

So off to get this Friday done and put on the headphones I guess and listen to something as I try to find the missing $1700 some odd dollars and cents.

Ya’ll have a good weekend. Not a lot planned but laundry, cleaning, early voting, and maybe take a look to see if I can throw another movie together. Might record some more footage. Might need to do some more learning! lol But here is a good message for the day!