Sneakers1957

  On Monday, about 6pm I noticed water on the driveway next door but I didn't pay much attention.  Then when I headed to bed about 1045, I heard water running & I wondered it was raining...it wasn't.  I got my little flashlight & went over & found water running down the side of the house.  The residents have been evicted & had moved stuff last week but I hadn't seen them since, so no one waas there.  I called 311, thinking I'd be connected to the water department but instead they sent the fire department to turn the water off.  Big old truck engine, luckily no sirens or lights (except for the lighted Christmas wreath on the front) with 4 firemen.  They tromped through all the water in the back yard, to the alley.  Later, the one rookie, covered in mud & the 3 clean firemen left.   The house has a realtor's sign & no one answered Monday at 6 or 1045...I called the next day & still no answer.  So I looked a...

It's only Christmas night so maybe it's a little early but here we are.  I think the last time I wrote down resolutions was 2020 & we all know what happened in that disaster year.   I watch a lot of videos on Facebook & there are a lot of people screaming at each other about maskes & vaxes.  Thank God that's over.  For the record someone is going to have to sit on my every day of my life to make me wear a mask or get another vax. So here goes: 1. Read on book everyday. 2. Write every day.  This one will be tough. 3. Get savings back up to 10k+ 4. Eliminate sugar from my life. It won't be 100%...I still need in tea & on cereal but no overt sugar.  This includes getting rid of sugary cereals. 5. No soft drinks 6. Twitter once a day.  I've become too dependent on it. I already have eliminate Facebook, except for the videos.  I don't read posts.  7. Ignore Hollywood stories.  It's a little stange but we all need to elimi...

2 more days and the holidays are over. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  And I have made it through another year. The loneliness is overwhelming.  I miss my family.  Friends are nice but it's not the same.  And I have Steve but he has his own family now & I like them all very much but I'm not comfortable in chaos & that's all on me.  They asked me to come down once but I declined so they never asked again.  And I'm actually ok with that. A couple of years ago I met Hope's family down in Austin & it was nice but they live in Arizona. And they are chaos too.  Growing up, on Christmas Eve we'd eat supper & clean up & open presents.  And on Christmas morning Santa came.  I miss those days. I'll be home for Christmas...but only in my dreams.

  This was the view outside my kitchen window yesterday morning!  The frost is kind of fun to look at but it sure doesn't feel all that good.  This was 12 degrees.  Today it was 7 when I woke up. How long til spring??

  Here is my first dessert board ever!!  It has Ginger Snaps,Linzer Cookies & Peanut Blossoms, chocolate fudge, peanut butter fudge & my first ever divinity.  Also faux turtles (pretzels,Rolos,pecans), gum drops, extra Rolos, chocolate orange candy & hazelnut straw stick things that I don't remember what they're called. It was fun to make!! Here's the divinity! My divinity was not gorgeous but it tasted like my moms.  Next time it'll look better. The best part...clean kitchen!!

This weekend, I'm doing dessert boards.  Charcuterie boards are a way to present food on one board so people can just munch off of it.  It's basically an food art project.  Mine is just going to have desserts.  I'm excited to play with it. I bought 2 boards...I wasn't sure where they were going when I finished with them.  I have some dollar store platters to give goodies to others too.  My first thought with the boards were my friends Deborah & Jan.  But here is the debate in my mind:  Deb has diabetes & she plays that to the hilt. Plus, like me, she lives alone & neither of us need all the goodies...it's kind of a family thing.  But she has cousins she spends a lot of the holidays with & at first I thought she could take stuff to them.  And reuse it later.  But she smokes like a chimney & smokes while she cooks & I can rarely eat what comes out of her kitchen.  Picture her with a cigarette sticking out ...

 

No one reads this but me but for the record my mind sometimes not only goes down the rabbit holes but sometimes into complete outer space.  So follow the train if you can... I like baking shows & the Brits kind of fascinate me.  I mean, I just did an entire post on it...but it also lead me down another trail. One of the shows had the bakers make "Bedfordshire Clangers" which are "hand pies".  There is surprisingly little on Google about them but from the show it shows a definition as:  "Clangers are a traditional Bedfordshire Hand Pie. 2/3 savory, 1/3 sweet with a flaky crust". Basically, it's one long pie with meat & veggies on one end & dessert on the other.  It sounds very efficient.  One guy says he puts one in hs lunch box every day.   For some reason it makes me think of my dad.  He was a cowboy all his life.  The only, short times, that he had a job where he had to be somewhere at a specific time were when he waas in t...

I've decided on my next retirement job.  I want to be a bakery judge.  In Hawaii where it's always warm. I'm streaming a 10 year old show called 'Britain's Best Bakery' where 2 "expert" judges go from bakery to bakery eating.  Sounds like a heck of a job to me. And I'm already tired of winter so I need to move to Hawaii.  And extra 5k a month should help me live comfortably.  😀 We have bakeries in America of course but these Brit bakeries seem like a bigger deal.  I go sometimes to a cupcake store.  There is a lunch place that has more choices.  But I can't think of one in town that anyone gets up at 3am to bake breads & cakes & pastries every day.  I've seen patissere's in hotels in Las Vegas & NY but seriously by the time we get back & I'm ready to make a choice, they are always closed. 😕.   In Las Vegas, there is a little food court thing in Harrah's that has "treats", my niece's favorite thing...

  As I've gotten older I find that there are a lot of things that I used to crave that I absolutely don't anymore.  Pizza, McDonalds,Burger King--basically, ick.  I also used to love Chick Fil A when they were just in the mall & always thought if I had one in my neighborhood I'd eat there a lot.  Now I do have one, rarely eat there. The one thing that I still absolutely love is Schlotzskys but even that's a couple of times a year.  They're all the way across town. My mom loved fried chicken, mainly because my dad didn't like it so if she was in Lubbock, we always ended up with fried chicken one way or the other.  At the time it was KFC, Church's, Gandy's.   The thought of KFC turns my stomach.  I can think of 3 or 4 locations that are still open here but I never see any customers there.  I don't know how they're still open. Church's is a company based out of south Texas that does more traditional fried chicken & I like them bette...

I've found the last few posts here have been grumpy posts & I need to spend more time with good stuff & stop griping all the time.  So here is a small list of things I'm grateful for post: 1. I had my house painted & siding & sofit & fascia boards fixed & it looks soooooo good.   My door had been a mint green & now it's dark orange.  I'm getting new windows on February 6.  I'm going to have a brand new house, practically. Before After 2.  Speaking of my house, I am so blessed to have it.  It's not a fancy house but it sure suits me.  It's big enough, it's warm, it's affordable.  I'm in a neighborhood full of rent houses but the house next door is for sale & I'd love it if someone would buy it to live in, maintain & love.  It has renters in it now.  I don't know if they go or stay with the sale.  They are nice enough people but everyone here pretty stays to themselves.  I'd hate to have t...

I have--or had, I guess--a friend for at least 40 years.  We worked together closely & became good friends outside work.   I've cared about her & her husband & her son.  But for some reason, she's dropped me this last year. So, a few things. We don't agree on anything politically.  She & her husband are lunatic Democrats & I'm more conservative.  I'm not a Donald Trump person but Biden, Harris & Pelosi are pimples full of pus as far as I'm concerned.  But I have made it a point to NOT discuss politics to either of them.  I don't have an explanation but apparently if I don't agree with her political views I'm no longer worth knowing.   And the sad thing is that I don't really care. Our relationship has always been pretty one sided.   She doesn't want to hear about my life but has to call to tell me her husband has a health issue or about her  grandchildren or (recently) about her old girl scould lead...

  Welp, made it through another Thanksgiving.   For the past few years, I've hosted my friend Deborah (and my cousin a couple of times) and cooked almost everything.  But this year,I decided I did not want the chore or cost of a dinner.  We went to Saltgrass Steakhouse instead. They had a turkey & dressing special but luckily they were doing a full menu too so I had a New York Strip & baked potato instead.  It was yummy. My friend insists on paying cash everywhere while I use my credit card. (Gotta get those points!!).  Our dinner was the same price but because we did not explain well, they took all the cash to pay the actual bill & charged me the best so my friend did not get her change.  Luckily, she didn't Karen out & confront the waiter.  She assumed he'd padded his tip.   She maryrs through it feeling she'd been ripped off & it was all a matter of bookkeeping.  I figured out what happened after I though...

As a single woman, sometimes I need a contractor.  I can do a lot of things but sometimes I need professional help. And finding a contractor is a chore. Sometimes my job is not big enough.  Sometimes I have a job they don't do.  Mostly, they just don't show up.  Apparently, it's a contractor thing.  I need some fascia boards replaced.  That was my goal.  I had a guy (in my phone as Marty the Snail) who tried to get the job but he kept putting me off, mostly because he didn't know what he was doing.  First he & his son were going to scrape the fascia & then we talked about replacing them.  He kept putting  me off & when I called him about it he said he needed help from a building contractor & they'd be by tomorrow.  I spent half of my day off waiting for them & then he called 2 hours after he was supposed to be there on Saturday because he knew I was off again.  I told him to forget it.  He was talking a...

Not my window On Thursday I met wiht a guy who sells Anderson windows to discuss some new windows for my house.  We talked at first about doing 3 windows (1 in living room, 2 in my bedroom) but I ended up buying 9 total.  They will be here in the next few months.  They weren't cheap.  I'm not a person who likes debt & I haven't been in in debt for awhile but I financed them.  I could have taken money from 401k but I hate touching it--even though it's in the frigging toilet right now.   I am at the point that I can make the monthly payments.  And if someday I decide to pay off I can.  I'm paying quite a bit of interest but it's a trade off I can live with to keep my savings intact. I'm pretty excited.  They are going to be gorgeous. Today, a guy named Marty came by to look at some facia boards that need to be replaced.  He's a nice guy who worked on my front porch last year & I asked him awhile ago to power wash my house ...

This is going to be a weight reflection hodge podge.  I have too many thoughts to organize any other way right now. My weight has been a lifelong struggle. I was a normal kid but started gaining in school.  I never knew a scale number but my high school graduation dress was a size 15.  And then I gained probably a college 50 instead of a freshman 15.  (I see kids across from campus walking along with big old Starbucks milk shake things & think they are going to have a freshman 40).  Then later I ballooned to my highest weight of 220 & I stayed there forever.  Then after my dad passed away, I don't know what happened exactly but I somehow lost about 70 pounds.  I was diagnosed with diabetes & that's probably where the loss started.  Anyway, luckily I've maintained my current weight (150-155) for the last 12 years so I think this may be where I'm supposed to be.  I know I'm smaller that I was & smaller than many but I still have...

THUMBPRINT COOKIES Basic Cookie Dough 1 stick butte, softened, cut into  small pieces ¼ cup packed brown sugar 1 egg yolk 1 tsp vanilla ¼ tsp salt 1 cup flour Granulated sugar CHOOSE A DOUGH, FILLING & TOPPING COOKIE FILLING TOPPING CARAMEL Microwave 10 caramel candies and 2 tbsp (30 mL) milk on HIGH 1-1 1/2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds until melted and smooth. Sprinkle with powdered sugar CANDY CANE Microwave ½ cup (125 mL) semi-sweet or white chocolate morsels on HIGH 1 minute, stirring every 30 seconds or until melted. Sprinkle with crushed candy canes or peppermint candies. HAZELNUT PECAN ¼ cup (50 mL) chocolate hazelnut spread (such as Nutella®) Top with one pecan half. SNOWFLAKE Microwave ½ cup (125 mL) white chocolate morsels on HIGH 1 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds or until melted. Sprinkle with blue sugar crystals. RASPBERRY JAM ¼ cup (50 mL) raspberry jam (or any jam of your choice) Sprinkle with powdered sugar CHOCOLATE CHERRY Microwave ½ cup (125...