BUPKIS

 

I have done bupkis today!  Seriously.  The highlight of my day has been throwing sheets in the washer and dryer.  Yes sirree Bob.  That is the extent of my day.

The A/C guy was scheduled to be here at 8 this morning.  He showed up at 9:20.  After explaining my issue to him, he got to work to see what could be done to fix the high humidity in our house.  Two hours later, we were informed we needed a new part.  The part is under warranty but the labor is not.  I tried really hard not to blow a gasket.  The unit is only 3 years old and this is the third or fourth issue we have had with it.  Very calmly I told him "I am just about to invoke the lemon law on this unit."  No company wants the lemon law invoked because that means they need to replace what ever is a 'lemon' at no cost to the consumer.  

We received a call from the technician about 20 minutes later.  The part and labor will be provided at no charge to us.  PHEW!  It was going to be a VERY expensive repair.  We are talking 4 digit expensive! ($1100)  Hubby and I breathed a sigh of relief.  We really did not want to get ugly but this is crazy.  Having to replace parts each year on a brand new unit!

By the time, all this was done, it was lunch time and I was wiped out.  My hope now is, the same technician that worked on the unit this morning will be the one to install the new part.  He was so good and did quite a few tests to figure out what was wrong.  We just had the unit serviced last week.  Hubby told that guy our issue.  He told us he adjusted the unit so it would run longer to pull the moisture out of the air.  All that did was raise our energy usage!  He was a young whipper snapper.  The guy today was closer to my age and seemed to have a clue what was going on.  Not to mention he was also a BIG dog lover.  Luna loved him.  Enrique was in time out. (he does not like strange men)

I have been working on hubby's socks since lunch.  It is still too yucky in the house to pull out the blanket to work on.  Hopefully, that situation will be taken care of by next week.  The part is on order.

Tonight, I am making Pozole.  I will use the pressure cooker application on the Ninja Foodi.  I am looking forward to it.  I do have a plan "B" if that does not turn out.  Last night we just had grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.  Since I had made a loaf of bread, that gave us 1.5 loaves of bread and I didn't want either of them to go bad.  It was close to ham and cheese hot pockets. 

I have been going through reviews on movies.  We now have Netflix as well as Amazon Prime, Disney +, Hulu and Apple TV.  Five movies have been placed on the 'to watch' list I am making.  If you have any suggestions, let me know.

Until next time...............happy crafting & stay well.

Hey Y'all

 

How y'all doing today?  Me and Mine are doing pretty darn good.  Hubby's car got taken to the dealership today for a factory recall.  It took several hours but it is all done now.  So glad Toyota is so good about letting it's owners know about recalls.

That means we kind of slowed down what we normally do on a Monday.  I did manage to do 1 load of laundry and cleaned out the fridge.  Hubby watered the outdoor plants and got some swimming pool issues resolved (and the defective part was under warranty!)  

I also HAD to make a loaf of bread today because..........................

I got a new bread machine today.  My last one was slowing going downhill.  Half of the bread would be quite dark and the other half barely browned.  It was grinding as it would mix the ingredients together.  And the grinding noise was almost as bad as fingernails on a blackboard. (Hopefully you are old enough to remember that sound.  If not........Watch Sister Act 2)  When I ordered this, I was told delivery wouldn't be until the 27th of this month.  To say I was a bit surprised to get this today would be an understatement.  I wanted to make a loaf of bread right away to make sure it worked.  It does.  My loaf turned out very nice and evenly browned.  There is no grinding sound either.  It still makes noise because it is a machine but it is not ear splitting.

Enrique got a treasure in the mail today too.

This is a slow feeding bowl.  Enrique eats all of his food in less than 2 minutes!  This is one of the reasons he is a bit over weight.  This should slow him down a bit.  I tried putting a small upside down bowl in his 'normal' food bowl but he managed to push the little bowl out of the food bowl!  Don't tell me my dog is not smart.  The new bowl will take it's maiden voyage tonight for his dinner feeding.  Fingers crossed this helps slow him down.

We are now all settled in for the rest of the afternoon/evening.  I just had a little mid afternoon snack.

What a lovely nectarine.  They are one of my favorite fruits to snack on.  Black plums are my other favorite and I have several of those in the fridge too.  BTW......the nectarine was quite yummy.  I ate it before I started typing.  No sticky keys for me.

Tonight I am making ham and cheese hot pockets from scratch.  They are cooked in the air fryer and use a 2 ingredient dough for the outside crust.  

Today was the first day of school for Josie.

It sure looks different than all the other 'first day of school' photos.  This will continue until September 8th and then the school will reassess and see if in person learning will be possible.

Our A/C people are coming out tomorrow morning.  They were here a week ago.  Hubby told them our in house humidity was pretty high (45-54%).  With the outdoor humidity only being 10% we felt this was a little odd.  The person that worked on the unit said he fixed it so the level would be much better.  Really?  We are now running 48-51%.  No wonder I am always feeling hot and sticky!  We are supposed to be running around 35% max!  UGH!  Hopefully we will have someone tomorrow who knows what they are doing.

Time for me to sign off and work on some knitting.  It is too hot to work on the Havana blanket.  Hubby's socks will get love today.

Until next time...............happy crafting & stay well.

WEEK 7 OF MY 10TH YEAR

 

Hello there.  So glad you have come here today.  Wanna see what I have done this past week?  Okay, let's take a look.

I worked a bit on hubby's HES this week.  The needle is where I was last week.  Do you see the colors gradually changing?  Look towards the top of the photo.  It is a very subtle change and I had to look twice last night to see if it was just wishful thinking on my part of if it was really changing.  Wait until you see what the final color on these socks will be.  It is shocking.

Here is my xstitch I am plugging away on.

I know it doesn't look like much.  I can not work on it for very long because of this:

The pattern!  I learned quickly to highlight the areas I have completed.  The color changes are amazing.  It will be gorgeous when completed.............if I can work longer than 30 minutes on it that is.  Trying to keep track of where I am on the pattern is hard for me.  Even with my strongest glasses on. Hence the reason I am highlighting the completed area.  What was I thinking when I bought this?

Most of my week was spent working on the Havana blanket.  

I just started my 5th color last night.  There will be two more colors to add and then I will just repeat them until it is finished.

This was made wider than the pattern called for.  I wanted it to fit a single bed.  Well, as you know, I am an over achiever LOL.

This is it laying across my king sized bed!  I laid it on a full size and it fit that quite nicely as it did on the queen sized bed too.  I am very much enjoying this crochet.  Now, if it would cool off here so I did not have to work on this with a fan blowing directly on me!  Yes, it is still over 110F here and will be for at least another week or two.  

In everyday life, we had a fairly quiet week.  Other than getting most of our groceries for the month, we pretty much stayed home all week.  I did get a treasure this week.

My new 8 quart 9 in 1 Ninja Foodi Deluxe.  Some of my kids have been telling me all about this machine for several months.  They keep praising it's ability to do the job of several of the small appliances I use almost daily now.  FINE!  I finally found it on sale at Bed Bath and Beyond and was also able to use a 20% off coupon on top of the sale price.  That brought it into my price range.

I used it last night to air fry some chicken thighs for dinner (Took 15 minutes to do)  Worked just fine!  This will replace my air fryer, 2 large crockpots, dehydrator, and rice cooker.  The one thing I did not have that this will do is pressure cook.  I am sure there will be a learning curve with it.  That's ok, I have time to play with it and learn little tricks to making it just right for me.  

This coming week is busy for us.  Hubby and I both have car appointments.  His is for a recall and mine is for routine maintenance.  Hubby also has a Doctor's appointment this week.  That covers the first 3 days of the work week.  Our local Grand Daughter starts school on Monday.  It will be online to start.  Her school will reassess after Labor Day to see if/when they will go to in person learning. Our covid numbers have really gone down in the past three weeks, so hopefully, schools can get back to having students on campus soon.  

Would you like to join our Year of Projects group?  We would love to have you jump in anytime.  You only need to be some type of crafter.  It is a wonderful place where you can share your love of your craft, no matter what it is.  This is the link to join us.  

Until Next Time.................Happy Crafting & Stay Well!!!!!!!!!!

HI

 

Hello there. Welcome back to blog-universe.  How is your day going today?  Did you have any plans for the day?  Did those plans come to fruition?

I had a very long 'to do' list today.  I knew when I made it, last night, I would be hard pressed to complete it.  And, I did not complete it.  I did manage to get 3 loads of laundry done, make menus for the next 10 days and make a grocery list of the few items we will need for the recipes chosen.

My goal was not to go to a grocery store again unless it was for fresh produce.  That is exactly how my grocery list reads too.  There are 3 items on it that are not a fruit or veggie.  That means, I can just slide over to Sprouts and get my produce as I need it so it will be fresh for each meal.  Tomorrow, I will take a short jaunt to the store to get the next few days of produce as well as the 3 other items.  So glad hubby and I did the major shopping the past 2 days.  It sure does make it easier on me.

After I got the laundry and menu/grocery list completed, I sat down to work on my Havana blanket.  It is the most addictive crochet I have done in a  long time.

I just finished the first pattern section as well as my third color.  Now it is on to my 4th color and pattern section 2.  This is going much faster than I imagined it would.  Attention does need to be paid to it though.  I had to rip out 2 rows today because of a missed stitch which would have thrown off the entire mosaic pattern.  I am already planning my colors for my next mosaic crochet blanket.  It will be a different pattern and I am just as excited about that one too.  The same designer though.

Tonight's dinner is ham steaks and brussels sprouts.  When I cleaned out the freezers yesterday, I found some items buried and was so happy.  The ham steaks are one of the finds as were the brussels sprouts.  In fact, there are quite a few meals on the menu plan that came from that freezer clean out.  

That's all from me today.  In case you were wondering...............it is 113F at 2 o'clock.  We don't hit our hi temp until about 4.  Yes, it is still hot. 😩

Until next time.................happy crafting & stay well!

And Repeat

 

Today is kind of a repeat of yesterday.  Hubby and I decided to finish up our major monthly shopping today.  So off we went to:

We were able to pick up quite a bit of meat for our freezer as well as some staples.  Now I just need to get motivated to go into the kitchen and pull out the vacuum sealer and get all the meat packaged into meal sized packages.

These feet are not in the mood to move at the moment.  In all honesty, I really need to rearrange my deep freeze before I get all the meat we bought to day sealed and put in there. Thinking about working in the deep freeze is a pleasant idea with our lovely heat wave going on.

I will need to make one grocery store run yet this week. (probably tomorrow)  It will be for 2 items and then we are set for at least a week......................I hope!  BTW..............our new diagnosed virus numbers are falling quickly here.  We are no longer considered a 'hot spot'.  Thank goodness.  We are still wearing masks in public and using physical distancing.  Our hospitals are no longer at capacity either.  So things are looking up at the moment.

Are any of you having sleeping issues since this pandemic hit us?  Hubby is having a horrible time sleeping all night long.  I usually wake up two or three times but usually manage to fall back to sleep before too long.  Hubby on the other hand seems to lay awake for an hour or two.  Neither of us drink caffeine after the morning.  We have started eating lighter dinners, are trying to maintain a constant bedtime and have the house cooler than normal.  Any other ideas?  It has gotten worse over the past month.  

Well, that meat is not going to package itself.

Until next time......................happy crafting & stay well!

TUESDAY

 

Hubby and I took a trip today.  We both were getting some bad cabin fever.  We hopped into the car and headed out to..........................................

And after we completed our little shopping trip there we took off for the final leg of our journey.

The excitement was almost too much for us.  🙄

Actually, the trip to Costco was needed.  I was out of  the protein bars that I eat each morning for breakfast.  Since WinCo is right next door, we went there as I was totally out of fruit and they have such good prices on their produce.  The plums and nectarines were beautiful and several of each are now in my kitchen.  WinCo also has the fattest jalapenos every.  They make the best poppers too.  Of course we had to get a few of those too.  The Costco run netted us a lovely pork loin which we will cut in half and use half for pork chops and the other half for a smoked pork roast.

Today is wing day at our local shop.  Hubby suggested we get wings there tonight for dinner.  You didn't have to tell me twice.  They have a Strawberry Hot flavor that is so yummy.  

What's for dinner at your place?

Until next time...............happy crafting & stay well!

Hey There!

 

So, what is going on in your area today?

I can tell it is August.  The heat here is making me cranky.  We have had 35 days over 110F so far and they are predicting 10 more days of it before going down to 109F (cool wave LOL).  Our monsoons were non existent other than a couple of weeks of higher than normal humidity for us.  At least our humidity is down to 9% now.  But it is still brutally HOT! 

So, what do you do when it is this hot outside?  Stay inside and knit, crochet, work on counted cross stitch and drink lots of cold water.  Why am I not going into our pool?  It is to hot to go during the day.  Our UV index is so high that your skin can burn in under 10 minutes.  Even with sunscreen on, I would only be able to be out there for 30 minutes before I would start to burn.  Night swimming is the best option.  But.............then you have mosquitoes to deal with.  YIKES!  See?  I am cranky!

Last night I was getting ready to make dinner when I discovered I did not have any Old Bay Seasoning or curry.  It was the only spice used in the recipe I had planned to use.  This is when it is always good to have a back up plan for meals.  Here is what we ended up eating.

Bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers.  I always have jalapenos in the fridge and had just bought a pound of bacon this week.  It was just enough to satisfy our hunger.  I had also made a loaf of bread so if we were still hungry, we could have had a half sandwich.  We were both satisfied with the 4 poppers each.

So, tonight I am making last nights scheduled meal.  Creamy shrimp and celery salad.  Here is the link.  I mixed it up right after lunch so it could marinate in the fridge.  We will have a slice of that yummy homemade bread with it too.

In good news, I talked to my Texas family.  Well, I talked to the parental units there.  We have not been talking often since both of the parents were preparing for retirement from US Navy.  They are both now retired.  Our son has taken a job at Home Depot selling appliances and our Daughter in Law is looking for a job.  It was good to talk to them and get updated on all the grand kids there.  I have asked for photos.  We will see if any come to me.  They said they really don't take pictures often which is probably why I haven't gotten any for a long time.

Ok, that is it for today.  I will try not to be cranky in my next post.

Until next time.............happy crafting!