Tag: Weekend

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.

Saturday Morning Coffee Talk: Valentine Planning, Free Hearing Tests, and the Best TV Series

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized4 Comments

Saturday Morning Coffee Talk

Good Saturday Morning to you! At least it is here. Only one cup is poured as George is still snoring away. How great it is to be sitting here typing away on a Saturday morning with the day before me to work on all the things I want to work on and “doing my thing” whatever that is.

This morning at 7:32 a.m. I can hear the Nashville Star coming through. It’s blowing its horn as if to say “hello and good morning”. I think it is probably a mile and a half or two away as a bird flies. From the road system probably 3 to 4. Usually it does not “bellow out” its horn, as a result of controversy within the community in a debate of quiet versus safety, and a safer intersection built to replace the need for the horn. But truth be, I like hearing it. I’m not living next to the railroad tracks though. But the morning train goes along good with the gourmet coffee in a china cup! Today’s version much better than yesterday’s. I added a few too many beans to it and it was along the bitter strong side. I’m talking probably about 10 to 12 beans less today and it’s made it perfect. So I know how to measure it now. The tasting kit before was already measured, but now that I have a whole bag, I had to experiment. Ahhhhh, it’s good. It’s enjoyed today on this wonderful start to a whole weekend off.

Boring Blog Talk

I realize the blog has either been boring or not one at all this week. Nothing fun happened much. It was all work and very little play. When I say “little play” for me that means “little creativity time, little personal time”. I have been fairly content through it, but just boring, uninteresting, and nothing to tell about, and my days have been a bit robotish. I was thinking how awesome you guys are to come on here and read of me saying the same things over and over. Pretty much this:

*iMovie Talk

*Work Load Talk

*What I’m ordering this week

*What I’m “gonna order” next week

*Dog Talk/Some Cat Talk

*My Office Haven

*Books/Shows

*Now my Grandson

*Some camera talk

*What all my goals and intentions are

*Food/Coffee/Cocktails

*Restaurant Reviews

At least some of the places change but in a COVID world it’s few and far between! And I appreciate you all coming in and hanging out, especially during the robotish weeks when I feel zapped from work and all I can find time to do is show you my banana and peanut butter sandwich for breakfast and my salad for lunch, lol!

This Weekend Talk

I’m looking forward to putting “my table” together and “my floor lamp” for the office – also the extra floor lamp is lighting that can be moved from room to room for filming. Well, let me rephrase that. I’m looking forward to having those things set up. I’m hoping George will do it for me but it’s good for me I guess to try to do those things so that I can show myself that I can. I’m not much of one for constructing things – even with instructions. But I think that is really a “mind set”. Someone who owned a boat once said “you can do anything if you have a good instruction manual”. See I do learn something from watching the sailing shows. I learn I can do things and am not restricted by lack of knowledge. You just have to find the knowledge and use it.

So this weekend?

  • Yay! I can finally order that backup drive I’ve talked about
  • Clean and Bless the house
  • Do Laundry
  • Cooking a Pork Stew
  • Putting the table and lamp together
  • Working on the Food storage container set/pantry (if I have time)
  • A little bit of filming here and there
  • Putting back out all the normal nic nacs I took down for Christmas (a tub full)
  • A Canon lesson
  • Finishing getting my email done (from 1400 down to 471)
  • Eating popcorn and watching my shows
  • Working on the Spring Bucket List
  • Planning some vlogging ideas
  • Planning some excursions
  • Doing some reading

Ahhhhh so glad it is the weekend! Then NEXT weekend will be a big one as I will download BIG SUR on the Mac – well after doing the back up and switching my imovie files to the External drive.

Planning a Valentine Excursion

George and I are planning a Valentine Excursion. It’s not very far. We’ll be going to the Cool Springs, Franklin area and spending the day. It won’t be ON the 14th. Probably will be the 13th instead, but we are in the deciding mode and plan to make a day of it. So far we know we’ll be doing lunch somewhere and then we will be doing dinner somewhere. We will be shopping and doing things in between. In between definitely includes a favorite wine shop we like, Whole Foods (we’ll take a cooler), and the rest we have to figure out. We are hoping to steal away some time with a couple of friends but not sure they are ready to emerge in this COVID ladened world yet.

Free AARP Hearing Test

I realize that many people don’t like AARP b/c of their political/controversial beliefs or associations (honestly I don’t really know why or what it is) but I joined them for the articles and benefits. And if you ARE an AARP member you can do a free hearing test. It’s a number you call. I had slight hearing loss in both ears and it suggested I get a check up. I probably will not right away though. Maybe in a year or so or if I start feeling like I have difficulties. Sometimes I do have to ask people to say things twice. But sometimes it’s because they mumble or can’t enunciate properly where you can understand them. So I don’t take the credit for that. LOL

I really do need to start taking advantage of the benefits as that is what I signed up for. But we aren’t doing a whole lot anyway right now.

Here is the website information if you want to get a free online hearing test. No Cost and Don’t have to leave your chair except maybe to get your phone. ha.

FREE HEARING TEST

Netflix Shows

We have been watching some shows recently. We picked up another one.

INHUMAN RESOURCES

And VIRGIN RIVER

We also have been watching YELLOWSTONE and we are on Season 3. But George bought the DVD for it. We enjoy it so much we savor it and so we are watching all these other shows in between. lol

Well, I need to go and get started on all these “to do’s”. LOL

Have I said how much I’m glad it’s SATURDAY and the weekend is here? I did NOT get through with the Year End W-2 reporting. I still have 66 more actual w-2’s to enter online for Oregon, manually – yes the entire w-2. I have done 20 people already. It takes a few minutes to enter and check each one. I go to the trouble to check it over b/c if you do not it’s hard to find the errors later. So I think it takes about an hour to do about 20 – actually maybe less than that. I takes about an hour to do 20 with some interruption – sips of water, answer an email, answer someone’s question, etc. So we are looking at about a day’s worth of entering left with some interruptions. If I have help with time entry I will finish Monday. If not we’ll just be late with that one. Then I have a couple of states that are not due until end of Feb. And I’ll work on those next. I’m so ready to be through with Year End stuff though. Pretty good though considering I had a vacation week in January. But I had help on Monday’s and Friday’s as someone helped with time edits, stuffing checks, and coding PTO forms with info needed for payroll run day. About 5 or 6 hours of help I’d say a week and that really saved the day.

So yeah. Let’s get on with the weekend! What are YOU doing this weekend? Enjoy the sipping and the slurping and the projects and the downtime! May you all have a bliss filled weekend!

Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels.com

A Good Eating Day, Weekend Plans, and a Small Rant or Two

On By BackporchwriterIn Uncategorized3 Comments
Photo by Efdal YILDIZ on Pexels.com

Fall is arriving in little tiny waves. Flocks of birds migrating here and there. Ducks and geese being heard overhead and stopping by. Early mornings have a touch of cool. But today’s high – 74, roughly about 10 degrees cooler than yesterday.

Good news! The muscles worked better yesterday. Not as much of an effort of exertion to move my body. The tingling in my left fingers gradually went away. Have avoided the doc this time. These spells, I guess you can call it – come around when I’ve been stressed, overly busy, not enough sleep, too much on my mind, not getting enough nutrients. I haven’t been overly stressed, but I have had a lot of things on my mind I guess. We have managed to keep ourselves busy and I don’t think that will ever change as long as we can move. We are just list makers and go after what we want to get done. But sleep has been better, not perfect but at least better quality. I’ve doubled up the nutrients on the vitamins and so I think I’m getting back in the game of life now. There were two days this week that I really thought I’d have to go home. I had a couple of those days last week. So much better, but still the right arm that has been a pain, continues to be. It will come and go. Sugar and starches and bad oils in salad dressings etc, will cause it to inflame. I’ve had a lot of bread and rices and tortillas – and I’ll probably not be cutting out all of it either. But I do notice a trend. I know, a body should not be so sensitive to each day’s meal. But I’ve kinda paid attention to this vitamin/nutrient thing versus the muscle and pain thing and there’s definitely something to it. That said here was yesterday’s eating!

For lunch I went out with a coworker/boss for lunch. Great conversation and just a relaxed and fun and good tasting meal. There was so much flavor packed into these enchiladas. I think we may go back next week. My heavens how wonderful. The irony – I felt like I could run a marathon after eating it until the sedation kicked in of having a huge lunch. We laughed about 2:00 or so – how sleepy we were. Of course I had to have coffee to get through the rest of the day.

One can only laugh during the day trying to get their job done. If you need to upload, download, run a report, or do a multitude of things, we all lock each other out of the system. Do you know how many times a day I get this message? I don’t either but it’s more than not. It’s hard to get your work done. And others have the same issue when I’m in the system. We always have to call around the US and see who is in or just wait and try later to get your task done. It’s a wonder my eyeballs are not stuck in the back of my head like Momma suggested as a child. I roll my eyes all day long! lol. I’m sure I make all kinds of faces like these. LOL

Photo by Yan on Pexels.com

I just like to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Got that from Momma. It’s called determination.

Back to the Eating Day….

The rice wraps…has imitation crab meat, carrots, and a soft type of lettuce, like butter lettuce. With peanut sauce for dipping.

They are so pretty! We enjoy these so much! I think he put rice salad in one and chicken salad in some too. It’s all good! You can experiment.

But wait, that’s not all. That could have been dinner but look what else he brought out. Homemade chicken salad on whole grain along with a brown rice salad.

I usually only eat one piece of bread when I make a sandwich these days but this was so good I ate the whole thing. I mean woooooofed it!

So….today I am taking a half day of PTO. I don’t know why I should need to take PTO but I was afraid to just take off w/o asking for it. I’m thinking of all the extra hours worked here and there over the course of last year and this year, being salaried – but I’m asking off for the 4 hours as today we meet with our financial advisor. Everything bounced back from the Corona Virus dip – for the most part I think. But we’ll see today. We meet annually to go over the numbers, adjust, and plan. Retirement is getting closer. I think at my birthday in January it’ll be only 4 years away! I can hardly believe it. A year goes by so fast.

So it’s Friday! This is what a weekend kinda looks like at our house. Drinking coffee, computers, and musical instruments – acoustic that is – I hear a bit of ukelele and guitar as George passes by one and picks it up and plays.

Photo by Tatiana Syrikova on Pexels.com

But I’m really looking forward to having the two days off to get things done. I’ve got a few things planned.

First of all TODAY is our anniversary. But we are celebrating tomorrow, even though we are eating out Mexican today after our meeting and doing another trip to Sam’s. But tomorrow the doggies get trimmed and get their spa day. Then we have a quick brewery run mid afternoon where we are going to do our Christmas planning/budgeting. And then we are going to our steak dinner reservations. Sunday is a free day one can hope anyway.

I will work on the house some, and likely being working on the next video. I do want to learn a couple of things before I get started. I’m looking at revising the “intro” and need to work on the “outro” and want to include the “subscribe” floater button on the video itself to make it easier to subscribe. Anyway, I am going to get moving here and pack up a little veggie roll wrap and peanut sauce. My hunger will arrive before my getting off time so I’ll probably sit and munch at my desk while I wrap up the day. It will go buy fast.

Going to try the Ensure for breakfast this morning. Haven’t had it in a while. But always liked them before. Just needed something different besides “that nutrition company” I use. I’m just needing variety. Sorry I don’t mention their name anymore – they don’t get free advertising anymore since I lost my freedom of speech on my blog to be able to use their name and Covid in the same sentence. I was going to be “cast out” as a member if I didn’t remove it. I didn’t say anything about the shakes curing anything. All I said was I had my shakes to drink if we couldn’t get food otherwise if restaurants shut down.

I can’t believe the things that have shaken down this year (no pun intended, lol) and how we are told to shut up or we are shut up by post removals – so I shut up alright. I deleted anywhere in all my blog entries that mentioned their name. No more free advertisement here.

Oh that nutrition company…… If you want to tell me how to write my blog, then we’ll go all the way and remove any mention of you completely. Have it your way! Your loss. Not mine. And not only did you lose free advertisement but you pissed me off, a customer that has/had bought a LOT! Notice there’s a lot less sales now? Was it worth it? Hmmmm! Oh that nutrition company that starts with an I and has an X at the end. I think the CDC or some other agency was coming down hard on them. I’ve no doubt it was political. There has been too much of an effort to curb what people are saying about this virus. But we can talk freely about cancer and any other disease? Only money $$ can afford to pay so much attention to such a campaign so strongly that it guards anything and everything on every form of media across the globe where anyone says there is a cure for it or even suggests that shakes are available if the restaurants are closed?

Wow…..Let’s give some other things some attention too then. Why are we not worried about so many other things that people die from or are harmed from? Crime, hunger, wars, heart disease, cancers? Why doesn’t anyone curb speech and posts on those things? If I said that drinking water cured cancer – no one would tell me to take that down off my blog would they? Everything is so odd and weird around this whole virus thing.

Oh I’ve gotten myself started. And before anyone misunderstands. Yes I think the virus is real. I think it can kill those with immune systems that cannot ward it off. I think colds and flu and cancer and heart disease and diabetes are real too. But yes I think there has been way too much hype and political structure and hoopla going so far as to tell us what we can post and can’t. Yes I am glad we are taking precautions. I think we should do more of that during the flu season. A lot of people whose immune systems are compromised have pneumonia then too. We have given who knows what to our elderly in the past. We should wear masks every flu season?

I have too many questions and not enough answers and usually where there is smoke there is fire and we live in a money hungry corrupt globe where the big players want money and power and can’t ever get enough. And so odd all of this is going on as our nation ponders political change. Power and money. Money and power. And this time an election – it’s impacting the entire planet. I just don’t trust anyone anymore. I don’t believe anyone anymore. I just trust in God and believe Him. And He takes care of me.

Ok I’m calming down. Ya’ll have a good day. Yes the virus is real….yada yada. But I’m still gonna question everything because I’ve not heard any good answers yet.