Category: Food

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!

Saturday Shopping and Eating and Starting Camera Lessons Online

On By BackporchwriterIn Food, Restaurants5 Comments

It’s been an excellent weekend so far. After doing a private blog entry yesterday morning while sipping coffee, we headed out for a late breakfast and a shopping excursion. We had a pork roll bagel at “Pork Roll” Bagle shop. It was pretty darn good. Lots of fresh bagels to choose from.

It was definitely a breakfast hot spot yesterday. Doors open to let public know to come on in!

A rainy day as the Tropical Storm/Low Pressure center was heading our way. But here we are heading to the Providence area from some Hobby Lobby shopping.

Aren’t these little pics cute? Would be great if you owned one of these types or owned a dog grooming business or to put in a vet lobby or waiting room. So cute.

Lot’s of Christmassy going on there!

I really wanted one or two of these trees to set beside snowmen, etc. But I decided they would be too fragile and wouldn’t last long. I don’t want to have to buy special storage for them and I like things that will store easily and not be impacted. Things have to be easy these days.

At Hobby Lobby I bought some additional fall decor. I will show you some of the pieces if I get a chance to take a pic. Not a lot. I bought a few Christmas items also at the Dollar Tree which was close to our Bagel shop we went to.

I know a lot of my readers do not like Trump. But I had to laugh. I know that there was “someone” there that was bored while I shopped (uhum I won’t say who) but this “someone” — well, he showed me the fruits of his bored labor as we strolled through that section of the store. He said the letters were there, so why not. LOL LOL LOL. Don’t hold it against me please. I don’t get into politics, but I did think this was funny.

It’s begging to look a lot like fall!

We shopped at Aldi yesterday for a bit as it’s been a very long time. One of the reasons we go there is to get scallops, cheap but pretty good wine, chicken cordon bleu, and several other frozen items. I bought some kind of Keto ice cream that had a low amount of sugar and a lot of protein. It was mint chocolate chip and I’ll be getting another one of those! But a coworker told me about these wafer cookies. Does anyone really need it, of course not. The Knopper wafers. A wafer with chocolate and hazlenut cream.

I had one after dinner last night and they are a treat to behold. Sugars at 8g and 140 calories. Can’t eat a bunch but one here and there during a sweet craving might not be too bad. Has 2g of protein due to the nuts. Made in Germany and dist from Chicago. Will be a regular, and perhaps a stocking stuffer for a person or two or three.

What a cool way to store the wine while shopping, as taught to us by the lady that checked us out.

More of fall around our car. Yesterday was the most fall like day I think we’ve had so far as far as “looks” go. It was warm however, due to the tropical storm air that moved in from the South.

Heading home in our neighborhood. Storm clouds and rain moving on in for several hours of “off and on” moderate and sometimes heavy rain.

Late afternoon George provided us with an appetizer. This is using carrots, butter lettuce (or a soft lettuce – not as crunchy) and imitation crab meat, and rice wrappers.

For the evening meal George fixed shrimp and grits. And we finished watching the first season of Yellowstone. The next season is on it’s way!

So yesterday afternoon I started to download videos and go through footage I have. I can’t use most of it. So I’m normally pretty good at videoing myself when I’m staying in one spot. However, I did a segment yesterday and it was wayyyyyy blurry. I’m not sure what I did. I have a LOT of footage and a lot of it is unusable. Any iphone videos are fine. But, I decided to finally just stop yesterday and do an instructional video starting at the beginning for understanding my camera. I did learn a lot by watching a 2 hour video which helped me understand the buttons and getting around on the digital screens and menus and what each does. Of course there is a LOT to it. I’m not perfect – no where near. But at least there is some progress toward the learning curve. I need to watch the vlogging ones though and learn that specifically. I need to learn how to move around with it. And I need to learn how to grab it and go as far as vlogging. I vlogged my returning home with my goodies yesterday from the store and wanted to show you all what all I got and even with the camera still – it came out blurry and unusable. So I have to figure this thing out or I will shy away from it. It costs too much to shy away from it. This is why I’ve been afraid to use my drone. lol I’m sure the camera has more settings and more to learn on it, but I’ll get there. I’ll get there because I want to!

Anyway, I’m going to have to accomplish a few things in addition to my continued learning today. I need to iron and vacuum and do an order for LTD Commodities. Need to do a few things to make sure I’m ready for the work week – vitamins, food, drinks, etc.

Anything else I get done will be icing on the cake. Oh I will say that I do have some pretty good footage of Columbia and so I’ll still try to get another video done but oh my it will be choppy as I have such little good footage from all I thought I had. Still some segments are ok. So a lot to go through. Might be a while on the next one, but if I don’t learn how to properly VLOG with the camera, it will be a LONG while before the NEXT one. lol

It’s all a learning curve though and I’ve come a long way. Still a long way to go.