Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Been looking around.... and haircuts


Saw this posting of events at the local senior center.  Regarding the third item on the board.  It should be spelled TAI CHI.  

TIA is an abbreviation for Transient Ischemic Attack which means short lived stroke.  I am sure that tai chi would be very therapeutic for someone recovering from a TIA

Also went out and about yesterday for a quick cut at my Barber.   Dang closed.  Found out later that he moved somewhere else.  He only charged ten dollars to cut and the barber chair was classic and very comfortable. He didn't do anything else provided by a full salon but the cut was very good.

Today I went to my hair cut appointment at a local beauty salon, the ambiance was nice, and the cut was spendy..twenty-five bucks, no shampoo, just a spritz of warmish water. Cut was very nice, chat was good to,so must readjust gasp factor when paying for the cut. May have to limit hair cuts to quarterly outlay with occasional self mutilation of bangs and stuff hanging over my ears.  Could get raggedy looking especially if trying to trim without trifocals. Honey where do we keep the band-aids???

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Schnickies, exercise!?!?!?!





After the casserole was done,  The Hubs volunteered to go walk about with me so I could take some fall leafage pictures.  So you see above.

It is a seriously glorious day ..um after the morning fog burned off and we only went about 2 blocks round wise in the hood.  Have to work up endurance gradually y'know when you are in training for RETIREMENT......

I have no idea what those lovely purple things are but up close kind of resembles Queen Anne's Lace only not quite so weedy.

Gonna have to sample the casserole after a nap.  

Lovely Autumn Days


Got nostalgic today and decided to drag out one of Mom's old recipes, typed in red, a few crossed out lines over the years but over all a darn good casserole.

Hungry Boys Casserole 1963 winner of the Pillsbury bake off. Mom must have seen the recipe and decided to try it. She followed the recipe faithfully at least once and after that she left out the Lima beans and the biscuits baked on top. Today I have more or less faithfully followed the original except I left out the Lima beans, left out the Accent (mono-sodium glutamate) and I did not follow the biscuit recipe as the canned pop open biscuits work VERY well. So here goes:

1 ½ pounds ground beef or turkey 
1 cup sliced celery
1 clove garlic minced 
 ¾ cup (6 oz) tomato paste
½ cup chopped onion 
 ¾ cup water
½ cup chopped green bell pepper 
One 1 lb can of chick peas or Lima beans un-drained
One 1 lb can of pork & beans

Biscuits
1 ½ cups flour 
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt 
 ¼ cup butter
½ cup milk 
4 tsp yellow food coloring
½ cup chopped stuffed green olives 
 ¼ cup blanched slivered almonds

DIRECTIONS:
Saute in skilled: meat of choice, onion, green pepper, garlic until veggies are tender: Drain, add water, tomato paste, salt, paprika and Accent (NO NO NO NO!!!). Reserve one cup for biscuit filling.

Add beans and peas, simmer: Prepare biscuits-- Sift flour with butter and salt, cut in butter until fine, combine milk and coloring. Add to flour mixture. Stir until moist;knead on floured board 12 times. Roll to12 x 9 inch rectangle.

Combine olives, almonds and reserved meat, Spread over dough,roll up starting with 12 inch side,cut into one inch pieces. Place meat mixture in 12 x 8 or 11 round baking dish. Top with biscuits. Bake at 425 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes.

Canned bickies: Roll out each one, fill with meat mixture, roll up, cut in half pop on top of meat mixture in your baking dish, makes 12 biscuits, bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Husbands review: He ate it RIGHT OUT OF THE OVEN. Declared it delicious! He looks forward to having some tomorrow when it has had a chance to cool and ever so gently thicken up.

So do any of my siblings remember eating this dish? And if you did, did you like it?

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Sunday!


First Sunday off in many many years.   Only missed the first fifteen minutes.  Piece on Renee' Magritte, touted as the best modern artist, very quirky stuff but enjoyable.  Now all the techies I am related to may ask how come I did not record the show?  All the VCR's finally died.   Never did get a thingummy from our cable provider, so laziness and I figured half of the show would be puff pieces from the network.

Breakfast was English muffin, piece of bacon, hot chocolate and a bunch of delicious medications. Yummy!

Unlike my sister, I am performing household tasks today as I baked cookies yesterday.  

Watched Avatar, again. Go Jake! Stupidest mineral name in the universe ...Unobtainium.

Also have stumbled recently over Burning Man 2013.   Well I watched some videos from 2012, fascinating.   Several thousand people pay fairly significant folding green to camp out in the Nevada desert for art's sakes, then they burn something large and wooden at the end of several days of dancing, singing, imbibing of probably illegal substances.   Lots of supple young things.   Lots of mechanical vehicles, some spectacular statuary.  The theme this year was Cargo Cult.  uh.....didn't actually see a lot that however it was colorful.  

Must rest....

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

I can haz retirement....


I don't work here anymore as of about 9:30 a.m.
 
It is now more or less official.  Got to work this morning and there was a big fat email sitting there. I opened it and decided that my services and presence were no longer required.  I chatted with HR and let the nice lady know that today was my last day. I chatted with the bookkeeper and asked her to mail my checks to my house.

I had discussed this possibility with husband so he was not entirely surprised and suggested going out for a therapeutic lunch, ooh maybe later okay?

Now I must deal with part B Medicare, Medigap insurance and signing up husband for Obama care.   yeesh.

So far retirement has been pretty exciting.  See ya!

Friday, October 11, 2013

Breakfast on Friday and other reflections


Well happy Friday boys and girls!  I decided to repeat my croissant and grilled banana from last week, butter, Splenda, Lemon Juice and cup of Constant Comment tea and a variety of morning medications. Yummy! Ah that's the life.

It has recently been brought to my attention that I can easily be replaced by three 22 year olds.  When you do the math it is fairly scary.  So I am contemplating my navel and reviewing my options.  I have rather decided that a bricks and mortar book store is a bit too expensive at this point,so I may try selling some online.  Second point is that my darn blood pressure is going through the roof probably from a combination of boss induced stress and the aging process.  Dang!  Am tinkering with changing meds and so far nuthin'. Since I haven't had a real vacation in two years or so, I may take off until New Years to see how things settle out. Or not.....  Bye for now!!