Turkey Kielbasa!

Kielbasa, the other half of the one we had weeks ago that we had frozen for tonight, nah, sounded good,..., with lower fat and sodium, yea they do make it, anyway... I did that tonight with handful of  sauerkraut, of course,  one medium sized peeled and chopped into half quartered sized pieces yellow squash, different, I know, one and a half onions sliced, three cloves of garlic smooshed and chopped, a cup of frozen peas and one large potato, pre-zapped four minutes in the microwave, sliced, and  a 1/2 cup of frozen mushrooms!
Chicken bouillon low sodium with  one cup of water and less than a quarter cup of flour for thickening the sauce that has Kosher salt, pepper, and thyme in it mixed altogether then pour over everything in the large pan that it is all mixed into after it had been sprayed with PAM and a tablespoon of olive oil and a smidge of butter! Oy Vey, not Kosher at all, but mmm oh so good! So a one pan meal! Since the turkey kielbasa is precooked... and oh so fast too!
Should have quartered the kielbasa though because for two, once again way too much; lotsa leftovers!

Lunchtime I had my homemade New England style but my own, clam chowder, on Friday, and yes it had two slices of bacon zapped in microwave, also not Kosher, and one potato also zapped in microwave and chopped, sautéed vegetables,  one stalk chopped celery,  half cup of frozen mushrooms, fresh carrots, also pre-zapped, then added frozen mixed vegetables, sometimes just frozen corn, onions, garlic, chicken bouillon, two packets with flour for thickening and two cups of water too, and two cans of minced clams with juice when all the other has permeated, add in thyme, sea salt, crack black pepper, and Old Bay seasoning, a splash of milk and a drizzle of lemon! Yields about eight good sized cups or more, add more spices and water/milk to gain more.  Sometimes I add in shrimp or surimi crab with the clams even better, and sometimes instead of milk I used stewed canned tomatoes, always in my pantry, smashed or put into the Cuisinart, or fresh cherry/grape tomatoes with low sodium V8, and that makes it a Manhattan style but mine own version and add in either a dash of lemon juice or sherry vinegar, either works very nicely!

I so love making homemade soups!
Even though its heating up, in the air-conditioning it is always comfortable.
Hubby's Grandma Anna had a theory, more like an expression really that you should eat hot when it is hot and cold when it is cold that it neutralized your system, and she did live a very long healthy life!
Who knows.
I do know I liked her since she was very warm and loving, and when I had my first miscarriage and in the 1970s it appeared to be taboo to discuss she had no qualms and revealed that she had had one too! Gotta love the ole gal, my kind of woman, spoke her mind.
I had two more miscarriages, but she wasn't around for them she passed away when our second son was just six months old in August of 1976, but she had gotten to hold him, really nice lady.
Oh she had a green thumb for gardening and was a great cook and baker too!
And shared her knowledge with me, so very nice.
Hubby thought that her pound cake recipe had been lost that he had loved when she passed away sadly, but when I tried to make it using an old tried and true cook book, Betty Crocker's, it tasted just like hers, minus the egg shells, ha!
Sometimes over the years I have made it, since it is so versatile, adding lemon to it, or using it for strawberry short cake, but since I have been a much bigger gal, I haven't.

Any-who, cooking in our household too was always a family deal and our boys yes, sons always cooked with us from the age of about three and had a ball doing it!
In fact after we got out of the restaurant business our younger son, still in high school, became a sous chef for a fancy restaurant in town! Our older son chose fast food as a student.

And our sons knew how to do laundry and handle money too all before college!

I suppose that is why the older one still isn't married, but in a long term relationship.
I wanted them desperately not to marry for maids I wanted then to marry their equals.
And they did intellect wise.
Oldest significant other, girlfriend is a psychologist.
And our younger son's wife is an attorney, and he is a nuclear engineer!

They again chose wisely.
No maids there, not that there is anything wrong with that job, but domestic chores in a home should be equal too in my opinion a partnership in everything in a good relationship!
Like Hubby and me and it does work.
His Mom was a working Mom so he knew all those things too, survival skills!
Actually, he knew more than I, yep I was a spoiled brat, most all was done for me, but he is responsible for me becoming a Mensch, so to speak. I even learned how to fix things, and paint things like walls inside and out and Geez lotsa stuff!
And I am happier for it.

Share those blessings and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

 

Happy Holidays!

Happy Easter and yes, still Happy Passover till Tuesday!

I do realize that today must be a wonderful day for most getting together with family and friends, and a not so great day getting together with family and friends, ha!
Also for many of us who are far from family and friends or for any other reasons that you spend many holidays alone or with just your significant other, hello?
Many holiday dinners are served mid-afternoon and many are served whenever you and your guests feel like it, hmm?
Any-who, by now I have established that you are with whomever you wanted to be with or did not want to be with but had no real choice, or with just yourself or your one and only, and you may have or may have not eaten your BIG holiday meal yet or your tiny one or on the fly one...WHEW!
Gosh, I'm exhausted, are you?

Since Hubby and I raised two heathens holidays do not mean that much to them, huh?
Yup.
Actually, we did try the dual religion thingy, neither one of us would dare ask the other to convert, but I suppose after my parents passed away I was enamored with the fun side of Hubby's holidays, that is not to say that Jewish holidays were not fun too, oh they were.
You know though how when you are a kid and someone has something you don't, but you find it exciting and mysterious?
Taboo comes to mind and then when you are all grown up and have the ability to choose?
But still can make plenty of mistakes, well it is sorta like that, ya know?
Anyway, we did not join any specific houses of worship, thus our sons the "heathens" as adults haven't either, but even so the younger one studied different religions in college as a minor and found it very interesting and our older one has dated mostly Catholic women of Spanish and German heritage, except for this last one who has two masters in psychology and a continuing medical education, and last time we spoke that she said that she has no real religious affiliation, okey dokey, one of us! She is ancestrally Welsh though, whatever that means.
Life goes on in spite of that, anyway they, our sons, are both over forty now, so they too have that right to choose! Although, in our home they always had that right.
And that is what I always would say, give them a taste in life of all things and then they would choose!
We raised free thinkers, who oddly enough chose to become liberals like us, crazy!
Actually, not so crazy.
Most/all free thinkers are liberals.

Although, Hubby and I came from two different worlds.
Hubby was raised in his Mom's faith, Catholic, his father was Lutheran.
I was born and raised a Jew by two Jewish parents.
Hubby's family was/is Republican.
My parents were Democrats.
Hubby grew up in a single parent home with a divorced Mom.
I grew up in a home with two parents that were married.
Hubby grew up with two siblings, he in the middle.
I grew up with basically myself and a half brother who was nineteen years older that would come and go periodically.

See real different!
But somehow we both ended up thinking the same way.
Liberal non-partisans.
Non committal to organized religions, but do not hassle others who believe, just don't expect us to think your way, and Hubby tells people he is half Jewish that is his better half! Love that!
I am still and I suppose that I always will get very upset when people say anything Anti-Semitic and I consider myself pro Israel as a Jewish state.
Whoa!
Hope I don't get any backlash from expressing my true feelings; heck I can deal with that!
Not from any of you guys anyway!
See I chose you all wisely.
Live and let live is my motto.

 On that nice note, share those blessings and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

PEACE TO THE WORLD PLEASE!
The dud bomb was a message to you all in North Korea to give peace a chance... Please do!

 

Brisket was bought for tomorrow!

Both at a Passover Seder and Easter dinner brisket of beef is an appropriate meal, and so since we celebrate both Hubby and I that is why we decided for tomorrow to serve that as one fine combo holiday meal!
No rolls will be served, but asparagus, sweet potatoes, and lotsa onions (somewhat of a tradition!).
I am currently marinating the brisket in a sauce that I made with fresh squeezed orange juice, unsweetened orange marmalade, honey, sodium free soy sauce, ketchup, sodium free beef bouillon, bay leaves, thyme, black cracked pepper, and garlic all of it in a Ziploc bag for overnight.
Tomorrow it will go into the slow cooker on high for five/six hours to become tender and delicious!
I could get up to do it earlier for twelve hours on low, but we eat so early at five P.M.  usually, and although many a day I am up then at five A.M., putting it in at eleven seems more logical and not so rushed.

Usually for holidays past, except Passover, I would make my French toast casserole that can be put together the night before and put into the oven the next morning. Toast Italian sliced bakery bread, figuring two to three slices per person, cut in triangles, lie down decoratively in a 10"x19" PAM sprayed glass pan, make enough eggs scrambled for the amount of toast again two to three for each person, add in a teaspoon of vanilla and cinnamon a few teaspoons full also, scrambled in with the eggs and milk, next pour the entire mixture over the toast, then drizzle Maple syrup throughout, add dollops of (in my case light or fat free) cream cheese throughout too, then cover with foil or Saran and place into the fridge. Take out  the next morning to and make sure it comes up to room temperature for glass pans usually so they won't break, metal should be okay, before placing into a 350 degree pre heated oven for a half an hour or till done, use knife or toothpick to make sure eggs are cooked all the way through! Enjoy with your favorite fruit, bacon or sausage, and juice choices and coffee or all of it!
Great for large or small gatherings, brunch or early breakfasts for a crowd.

Tonight I made salmon croquettes with canned salmon; regular salmon is way too expensive these days! Salmon is a great source of heart smart Omega 3!
I sprinkled Panko, uh oh( I know Passover no bread, Matzo crumbled could work too!), anyway... into it with one egg, *Dukes light mayo, one tablespoon, lime juice a few splashes, dried dill for great taste, garlic powder sprinkled, dried onions or fresh,, mix well together, use a melon baller for scoop size and place individual croquettes on a sprayed cookie sheet or glass pan, smoosh down with spoon or the other side of melon baller.
You now should have mini slider sized croquettes, spray tops with Pam, place in 350 degree oven and bake till golden brown, about twenty minutes to a half hour check them.. I like to serve them with a light mayo/lime or lemon juice/ dill sauce. Tonight we had sides of mashed potatoes and yellow squash; the sauce also tastes great on mashed potatoes! Try it, you might like it!

*On a sad/ bitter sweet note my niece Arlene who passed away on October 13, 2006 from colon cancer thirteen days before her fifty-first birthday, used to love Duke's mayonnaise, in fact when she first visited us down in Florida, but on the east coast in Ormond Beach she asked me to go to the grocery with her to get some and so we did. So whenever we have some I think of her. Oh Arlene was introduced to Dukes when she and her Mom had moved to North Carolina when she was fifteen, and she flew back to NJ to be in our wedding way back in 1971! She had grown up in NJ before that move, and then went on to the University of North Carolina where she received her degree in physics and shortly after became a trouble shooter for General Electric, their aerospace division and travelled the world for that! Brilliant woman and miss her still.

On the eve of another holiday night... please world find the peace in your hearts!

Share those blessings and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!
 


 

Retraction, of my oops! Misspoken on a couple of items.

Watering practices in Charlotte County Florida have been two days a week for the last several years due to water conservation with diminished reserves. Odd numbered homes and even numbered homes can water on specific days, and as they have been designated for about seven years.
Recently Cape Coral residents were told that too, only twice a week, but have been threatened with going to only one day a week due to all of us being in a severe drought. Forgive my mistake of saying we in Charlotte County had been allowed only once a week, I had misspoken, and the fact is we do not even take advantage of that watering time, since our priorities have changed and a green plush lawn is not in our concerns these days.
This just in: via NBC news in Fort Myers: Cape Coral will be going to a mandatory once a week watering schedule as of the 21st of April, next Friday!

My misspeaks are not as hurtful as some others.
 
Oh, I almost forgot that also my use of the possessive form of the word, "world", by writing it as "world's", was mainly to try to get my point across about it, our one world, the only known inhabitable one that is, being mine/ours and thankfully so far no collisions have taken place, physically.
Although, war cries are being concussed throughout the world, by annoyed countries with less than self controlled leadership!
And for them I do wish for them to think without ire, please!
Calm yourselves, and know that whomever shoots off that first devastating shot will be forever known as a monster to the world, our only one, world, that we must treasure and protect!
This is NOT a game of chicken!
Real people are involved, innocent ones who could be harmed by your foolish reactions to words that can be changed through compromise.
Well thought out recourses should be considered!
This is in reference to the leader of North Korea, whom the whole world is watching how he will handle himself, with poise and intellect, or with hotheaded reactive hairpin trigger harm to human beings! So many wise men are from your part of (our) world so try harder to remember that before (re)acting.
Respect is formed by smart reasoning, not from brute force.
Peace to all!

Share those blessings and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!



 

When world's collide!

Personal depressing news and the horrific news daily from, about or because of this horrid administration!
Setting back policies that have been in effect for decades by circumventing their initial purpose for women to have control over their bodies is just one of the many examples of how things are going so very wrong!
Using warheads without concise plans, sure we all want the villains gone, including our home grown ones, but this is not a parlor game this is real life! Organize and ask people who know how to accomplish this.

My MRIs were mixed reviews.
My brain one with all the main lesions are stable, no new or active ones, great news!
As far as my neck (cervical) one goes I do have two major and one minor herniation c4major,c5minor,c6major, and my stenosis is stable there without any MS lesions.
My thoracic (chest) region shows a new herniation between T8-9 with spinal canal stenosis are demonstrated the neuroforamina are patent bilaterally that wasn't there before either. Nothing was said either way about MS lesions in the thoracic region, confused? So I will take it as a no? There was also disc signal loss seen at multiple levels in the thoracic region, not good, I think.  
Basically, all my physical problems have been justified.
My brain lesions can cause many of my symptoms from numbness to spasms anywhere up and down my body, as well as headaches and so does my cervical stenosis, that is my numbness and my bellyaches and headaches, and my heart (angina) as well as numbness in my arms, hands and thighs/ legs and feet, my lower extremities the thoracic region can take claim to them! My spondylosis is still degenerating all throughout my spine, and that I was diagnosed with over twenty years ago.
Validation is not always good news, sometimes it can be depressing.
And with all the other news, news that is, I feel as if my world's of my life and the one that we all live in are colliding into nasty territory!
Heartbreaking at times the national/international news that is, mine too for me I suppose.
People are dying from illnesses that I am not, just paralysis is hovering ever so much more closer now.
Bombs are dropping, but not on me; except reality ones of my health issues.
People are being shot at in the streets, innocent decent folks, but no not me, only with injections.
It scares me this world we are in, at times it feels as if all we knew and trusted is falling away into oblivion, and yet we know we should never ever think that way.
So we continue trying to change things, but sadly nothing seems to work.
Oh why, oh why?????
Have we here, in this country, have we done something to deserve this?

 NO!

We cannot believe that we would do anything that evil!

Oh wait, I could be wrong, but didn't more than half the voters vote to hire this administration??????
Oh no, he lost the popular vote by millions and supposedly won the Electoral College by their majority!
Oh wait, he said the election was rigged!
Yes, he kept saying that!
But he won.
So he rigged it for himself to win?!

So he is our Armageddon our Apocalypse our end to this world!
Not any of the religious concepts as how we will be all gone, but just one more home grown terrorist will end it all! Irony, since he wouldn't allow the truly peaceful people in...
My only question is will it end with a whimper or a bang?

PEOPLE PLEASE, PLEASE, do not allow this to happen, he must be stopped with all his associates! By non-violent means, dethrone him, defrock him, sue him by bringing out all his illegal business practices and his rampant nepotism now while he is in power, and he not taking this job seriously as a full-time one with him taking every weekend off??????? His tax statements should have been shown to all Americans; he is the first president to not show us his returns in the last forty years!

He, I feel will be the end to all of our freedoms!
And he has already taken some of those away.
Daily he tries for more...
I cannot see any good news in our nations near future, and that is extremely depressing.

Good night to all, and share those blessings while you can and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!  

Thinking, thinking, thinking...

Why do people believe what they say without thinking in a public setting, let's just say for argument's sake on national TV that it is okay to retract a statement said with conviction when your ignorance is caught by thinking people?????? No, backsies your stupidity is out there! And your apology is not accepted!
When you are a public figure and have to speak to let's say a country maybe even the world, shouldn't you perhaps have a written script to reference to stay on topic, and let's say that someone reliable other than yourself since ignorance is not retractable should be able to check all facts before stupidly saying a hurtful, hateful, horrendous mistake to an audience of people who definitely are more aware of what is true than you are and that you should be retrained to understand what previously of what your actual job entails? Read below:
As Whitehouse press secretary whose primary responsibility is to act for the executive branch of the Unites States government administration, especially with regard to the President, senior executives and polices; Sean Spicer you should be fired!
History is NOT a second language!
You failed your responsibilities shamefully!
Hitler was an atrocity and notorious for causing atrocities!
He was an animal, too mean to animals, forgive, a gasser of too many lives, killing millions, toxic gas is gas, in those chambers that you MIGHT have heard of!
Get your analogies correct or better yet do not make them!
Far as most of sane America goes, YOU SHOULD BE FIRED!
We Americans cannot accept this ignorance/ hate, in our government and somehow it must be stopped!
We the people call for your resignation!

Moving on...

Boat people called back today and we're in the manufacturer mode of checking to see if the engineering department can figure it all out; i.e. making the doorway opening wide enough
for me, i.e. my motorized wheelchair, to fit comfortably through. Pricing is still within the realm of possibilities.

Hubby mowed our dust bowl today!
We, in spite of the miniscule rain droplets we have received in this our very dry, very fire ridden season had sticker uppers in patches throughout our lawn.
Hubby dealt with those, but this time with our lawn mower not the trimmer, although he did trim with the trimmer around the fences and trees, got that?
PS Cape Coral, who have been making a fuss over one day a week being allowed to water, just recently; for your information we in Charlotte County have been on that once a week system for years, including wells, due to our very high aquifer!
Those people down there, seem to think they are "special" and have pumped their fresh water canals nearly dry!
Water is a commodity that should never be taken for granted.
Or eventually we will be without any!
Once rainy season kicks in our lawn has historically come back, every year!
And yes, this is our first home without a sprinkler system, out of the four before, and the last one on the other coast went to reclaimed water, great idea!
Thus why we use our rain barrels here, but just for the gardens not the lawns.
Vegetable oil on the tops prevent mosquitos from laying eggs, as well just like mosquito eating fish in our fish pond prevent mosquitos there, the live baring fish were free from the county extension, by the way.

In closing our lives are never easy, but not getting along with one another makes it just more difficult so we must try to work together, please. In this again a holiday season for every faith intertwining.

Share those blessings and next time please be here or be square, ya hear!





 

Very late lunch today!

Had my last two MRIs, cervical (neck) and thoracic (chest) with and without contrast.
Was scheduled for 12:15 P.M., but I did not go in until 12:40 P.M. and got out at 2:30 P.M.
No breakfast was allowed and so I was pretty darn hungry and Hubby waited too, and so he was also very hungry!
We decided to eat at Applebee's so he could have his burger and I could take advantage of their healthier low cal. choices, he had their all American burger, and I had their spicy steak and bean soup 180 calories with a spicy chicken wrap.
Today we ordered our usual beverage of iced water with lemon and limes on the side.
The ride there was only a few blocks even with medium traffic maybe ten minutes. Many snowbirds have flown home we think; at least according to us seeing less foreign license plates.
Any-who, by the time we received our lunches it was about a quarter after three!

Hubby ate his entire bacon cheese burger, and I ate my soup and half of my wrap, yep that's all, and so we asked for ice to put into to our lined cooler bag from the grocery and a container and were on our way!
The next destination was to go to a couple of boat dealers and the one where we had bought our Sea Hunt, Ingman's, new back in 2003 was our first stop, they were selling Bennington pontoon boats, I stayed in the car.
The temperatures have soared again, nearly ninety, actually 88, but close enough!
Hubby wandered as I stayed in the air-conditioned car and waited.
He came back shortly aggravated since he could find no sales people to help him, but as he was telling me loudly as he was getting into our car... a salesman came over and explained that he was the only one there today! Hubby and I could see he was helping another Hubby and wife and so we decided to call them back later.
That one was north of Applebee's and the other was south of our home.
They too were busy and Hubby found a new Sweetwater pontoon boat, a seventeen footer, but looked like it had all our requirements, and was priced within our ability to pay, only one problem... the opening to board was only 23" and my motorized wheelchair is 26"! Doorways are preferably for me to go through smoothly are 30"!

So maybe we better rethink the whole thing.

Oh well... not all can be that narrow?

On this note of a bit of a shorty, share those blessings and next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

  PS: Latest binge watch on Netflix is Midsomer Murders from the BBC, no stars given yet, but the series is 19 years so far and still going strong! Quite enjoyable! I had finished the Murdoch Mysteries of seven seasons and even got Hubby to watch, and he is still watching.