No Post Post

Redundant title, yes, I know. Sorry for it and the absence here since Dec. 25. For the first time since I started this blog, I have what I guess is writer's block. Or something like that.

To be honest, I actually have about eight posts started but haven't been able to solidify any of them into a cohesive entry! So frustrating. Maybe it's just too many choices....

Well, an entry will be forthcoming, so thank you for your patience and support.

This is so wierd, I've never in forever had trouble writing, I love to write!

See you shortly!

The Power Outages Continue Post

We were very fortunate in the town I live in. The power came on after 21 hours of being out. My appointment with the rheumatologist at 11 a.m. down in San Gabriel which is about 25 minutes away revealed a lot more damage than I'd been aware of. Knowing I might experience delays, I gave myself 45 minutes. However, it took 1 1/2 hours to get there. There were so many closed roads (and not just small side streets but main arteries), work crews were everywhere so I had to zig-zag all way there.

At one point, I pulled over to call them and let them know, they said not to worry. Easier said than done! By the time I got there I was a shaking wreck. Wasn't all that familiar with the side streets in that area so there was a lot of guessing about where exactly I was. Upon arrival, discovered they had no power and were running on a generator. Their electricity wasn't due to come on till 12/8/11, Thursday!

The book I brought to read was Isabel Allende's (one of my favorite authors) The Sum of Our Days, A Memoir. Being so rattled I kept reading the same paragraph repeatedly, but it didn't register in my brain. I finally gave up. The nurse called me in and took my blood pressure when I got there, both she and the doctor commented on how very high it was. Can't imagine why, I thought sarcastically....and told them so, nicely though. It wasn't their fault I had a tough trip, they were still dealing with the outage themselves and so calmly I might add!

Funny, I can drive through heavy rain, snow storms, and on "black ice" and I'm not phased. But having the feeling of being lost and lack of control of my route did me in!

Sorry, no photos from the drive over, I was too frazzled. I'm sure if you google Pasadena or San Gabriel wind damage you'll pull up a lot. Forgot to mention, winds in Pasadena were clocked at 90 m.p.h. which is essentially tornado level. Most of Pasadena was closed yesterday.

So, the next stop for my knee is an MRI. Oh goody, more money. Though I have to say that I'm so very grateful for finding this clinic. Can you imagine that seeing a rheumatologist (a specialist) only cost $25.00 (18.50 Euros)!? So again, very, very thankful!

On the way home I attempted Subway again but no parking (I'd forgotten that they were offering two kinds of six inch subs for only $2.00. McDonald's was packed. The Von's parking lot...filled. A second Subway, again, no parking. Geesh! I was exhausted. Went home and crashed for three hours much to poor Blue's dismay. Poor bored little sweetie. :(

This and That Post

Haven't posted for several days because it's the sixth day of a killer headache in my right eye and right half of my head. I had to force myself to go out and get some food since last night's dinner was 4 strips of cheese and Campbell's chicken noodle soup out of the can. Pretty pathetic, huh? So I really needed to restock on salads. And crackers. And orange juice. And chocolate milk. And so on.

Mission accomplished as the saying goes and I even got into see the ophthalmologist! Good news, it's probably a sinus condition. My eyes are fine. Yay!

Trader Joe's is such a wonderful store! I went there and to another today with a list (so there'd be no impulse buying). TJ's had every single thing on my list. The other, Pavilions (part of the Vons/Safeway chain), only had 50% of what I needed. Pretty sad. So, tomorrow, I'll be going out once again only this time to two other stores in hopes of "stocking the larder" for at least another week.

While my "new" style of buying "prepared" fresh foods does have its draw-backs such as lots of recyclables, it has achieved it's goal of getting me to eat something reasonably healthy. Unless of course, I run out, like last night and have to resort to less than ideal food choices. So, for the moment, all is well.

Off the Map

It's been almost a week now and this is a follow up to the "Aftermath" post about food, cooking and me. With concentrated effort, I have successfully, purchased pre-made meals, saved money and lost a pound or two.

The first leg of this "plan" involved purchasing two Pasadena salads from Trader Joe's plus two small bottles of chocolate milk, a pound (.50 k) of strawberries and a bag of Pretzel Thins. This was supplemented by a Subway sandwich sliced into 3 sections. I also hard-boiled half a dozen eggs. I wound up eating "little" meals throughout the day such as a hard-boiled egg, or half a glass of chocolate milk or a few strawberries. If I was a little hungrier, I might eat one of the Subway sections or half of a salad.

This seemed to work well for 3 days so I repeated it with the TJ's salads, but instead of a Subway sandwich, I visited the deli at Albertson's and bought half a pound each of potato salad, Neptune salad, coleslaw and sliced Genoa salami. While there, I picked up a dozen little dinner rolls. I made a few small sandwiches from the rolls, salami and turkey (that I had at home) and continued with the same little meals for 3 more days.

Bottom line is that I feel better, didn't waste money or food, and wasn't starving at 9 p.m.! The surprising thing is that it actually cost less money than I normally spend and took very little effort once I had a "plan". I know this probably sounds utterly lame to you. Maybe I can best describe it by saying that sometimes you find yourself in an unknown land, and finally realize that you really need a map to figure out where you're going because the routes you knew and have taken in the past aren't available to you any more.

That's sort of what's happening in my life. My world after divorce is totally different. Nothing is the same. I'm essentially starting over from the beginning...again, and I think I finally stopped fighting it, or at least it seems that way at the moment. It's not what I want or wanted, it just is what it is.

Anyhow, so far, the kitchen experiment/solution seems to be working. Now I have to think of a path for cleaning up the house and getting rid of stuff. But I can't go there today, because just thinking of it really makes me feel like crawling back to bed and I wanted to enjoy this last week's success and build on it. So I'll save the house and my clutter for another day while I revel in the delight of getting a handle on eating and "cooking".

On Hold Post

It's been a while since I posted anything for one simple reason, I'm still sick and hacking my lungs up. Yes, as I've said before, it's an exciting life we lead here at Grey House Journal. Lol! Since I'm spending most of my time in bed, hoping to get better poor Blue is really feeling put out and you can see it in his little worried eyes and knit brow.

He's sticking to me like glue. If I get up, he's right there at my heels. Not sure if he thinks he's herding me or what. If I sit to watch some TV between rounds of coughing, he's plastered between my feet and the chair I'm sitting in.

I'd take a photo of his sad little face but it's not even dawn yet (couldn't sleep because of the coughing) as I write this so I'd probably blind the wee boy if I try it. Earlier in the day, I made an attempt but his ears went flat down, not a great look for Corgis. Plus, you'd see I haven't vacuumed in a bit and he's been shedding profusely! I may post my tuna and macaroni salad tomorrow. I just made it tonight since I was tired of opening the fridge and finding nothing that to eat. Really need to make a small grocery run. It's a great recipe that's my "go to recipe" for pot lucks. My mom used to make it, so it's comfort food and memories when I enjoy it.

Relatively inexpensive to make, I keep my eyes open for tuna, elbow macaroni, mayo, Le Seuer peas and celery salt sales. Every now and then I find tuna and the peas for over a dollar less than regular. Yay! Then buy several of each. This habit has been a life saver currently because there's no need to spend money, well except for the celery and onions which don't last as long as the canned things. Vons currently has a pound of dry macaroni for $0. 99. That makes a lot of noodles!

Well, I'm drifting off now, so it's time to hopefully fall asleep while the medicine has begun to work.
Bye for now, stay well.

The Main Event

Did you ever have a craving for something but by the time you got it all together and cooked, you were tired of it? That's what happened with the lasagna today. I think I mentioned that I haven't made lasagna in about 4 years. I couldn't figure out why. Well, after the main event which took 4 hours to cut, cook and assemble, it was pretty clear why I hadn't made it in so long...it takes FORever!

Now I can see why the recipe used so many pots and pans. If you don't, it really drags the process out. So my abbreviated version may have used far fewer pans, but it took twice as long to cook all the elements in the recipe.

First I sauteed the onion and garlic in a sauce pan with EVOO. When onions were translucent, I set the pan aside.

Then I browned the ground beef. I have to say that the store where I purchased my 93% lean ground beef has a different picture of what that means than I do. I drained off five very large ladles of watery fat after browning. Then spooned it into a sauce pan with the onions and garlic.

I wiped the pan out with a paper towel and added spices and Prego Spaghetti sauce to heat. I haven't used Prego for quite a while and they must have changed their formula, because it was overly sweet.

Once warmed, it was added to the onions and ground beef in the saucepan. In the interim, I had cooked the lasagna noodles till al dente and rinsed in water. I then lay them on a tea towel to thoroughly drain.

Once warmed, the noodles, meat sauce, ricotta mixture and grated mozzerella where layered repeatedly and finished off with a light layer of parmesan. The dish then went into the pre-heated oven.

I decided not to rewrite the recipe here since I wasn't totally happy with the end result. You can find the recipe here if you're interested. What would I do differently the next time I make lasagna? First, I'd make the tomato sauce from scratch, skipping the Prego. The taste that you come away with was not tomato sauce but something very sugar-y, not tomato-y. I'd add more spices, not sure which ones but more, so you could taste them over the excessively sweet tomato sauce. I'd hunt down my original recipe in the 1960's Betty Crocker cookbook and use that. But above all that, I'd probably opt to try a frozen version. All assembled, just pop it in the oven! So much easier! Then, even if you don't care for one of the frozen entries, you won't have waste 4+ hours and the ingredients.

It was kind of like that with French Onion Soup from scratch. I made this many times over the years and loved it. Each time was labor intensive but the result so very good, it was worth it. That is till I tried Trader Joe's frozen version. For a very small price by comparison you get an identical soup with virtually no work!! Holy onion peel! It is utterly amazing!! The taste equals if not surpases my many hour long homemade version with ease.

Oops....#2

While trying to figure out CSS language in this blog to make it change colors, I apparently upset the "blogger gods" and this blog vanished. Now I have no idea what I did to make that happen or how I fixed it but now it's back. Whew!

So much for saving $$

I really thought I could save money by washing and ironing my own clothes.  Maybe not.  As I was ironing one of my J. Jill blouses ($69) I found spots, kind of like water spots on the front, so I stopped ironing and figured I’d re-wash it.  I went on to the same blouse in pale orchid.  After ironing all around and approaching the “finish line” of the left front, I discovered about 7 “white” spots which looked just like bleach!  Having not used any product related to this in the last 3-4 weeks I stopped and had a mini fit.  Threw all the blouses back in the wash, just in case, and started over.  After hanging and drying, the first blouse still had “water” spots.  That was it.  I took them all (except for the “bleach spotted” one) to the dry cleaners.  “UNCLE” is what was running through my mind.  So $30 later, I have no water spots, but have lost $69 plus CA tax in one blouse.  How sad is that?  I guess some things really aren’t meant to be!  At least I tried.