My abdominal ultrasound yesterday went just fine. I left the house a couple of hours early with the intention of stopping at Target and then the fabric store. The Target stop went okay – I got everything I needed – but I pulled up to the fabric store a little after 9:00 only to find out that it doesn’t open ’til 9:30. And I had to be at my appointment at 10:15, and though the imaging center is only about 15 minutes from the fabric store, I didn’t want to feel rushed, so I put off the trip to the fabric store for another day.
So I stopped by to see Fred at work for a minute, then meandered around Huntsville and ended up at the imaging center about half an hour early. Luckily, I’d brought a book with me.
I always think I’m going to fall asleep when I’m having an ultrasound done, because it’s so dark and warm, and they put the warm gel on your stomach, and I just lay there and zone out. I watch the screen while it’s being done, but it never looks like anything but a big blob of nothing to me, so no self-diagnoses for me this time around.
Well, except for cancer of the abdomen, of course. OBVIOUSLY. It just looked like a great big blob of tumor, is what it looked like.
I’m sure I’ll hear from DrLiver later this week, telling me everything’s fine and to come see him in another six months.
Since there was a possibility of frost last night, Fred and I had to go outside after dinner and cover the fruit trees. What a fucking COLD ASS PAIN IN THE ASS. I wore my warm parka and my warm boots, but it was windy and I didn’t have any gloves on, and the wind was going right through me.
Those goddamn peach and plum trees better PRODUCE this year, is all I have to say.
Day 3: Feliway bottle still missing. Wherefore art thou, Feliway?
Recipes I have made recently and which I am sharing with you:
A couple of weeks ago I was looking for something to make as a side dish with dinner. I didn’t want to make rice (Fred’s not a big rice fan), we’re getting low on black-eyed peas, and I don’t generally make pasta as a side dish. We had a ton of potatoes, so I looked around and found a recipe for Honey Roasted Potatoes. Quick, simple, easy, sounded good. So I gave it a try, and it was tasty. Only the slightest hint of sweetness – in fact, Fred took several bites before he said “It almost tastes… sweet?”
The next time we had homefries and scrambled eggs for dinner (which we do about once a week), I decided to make homefries in the oven using the same basic idea, only instead of using the honey/ mustard/ salt & pepper topping, I just salted and peppered the potatoes lightly and drizzled olive oil over the top. Voila! Homefries without the annoying sticking-to-the-pan part! I got a Vidalia Chop Wizard for Christmas, and it comes with two trays – I use the larger one to chop the potatoes into uniform cubes, and then the smaller tray to chop the onion. Works perfectly!
Last week I decided it was time to start going through the six inch tall stack of recipes I had, and making some of them for dinner. I have the tendency to see a recipe online and print it out or see it in a magazine and rip it out, then sticking it in a folder and never making it. After a quick look through my recipes, I decided to give Pecan-Crusted Chicken Tenders (from Southern Living magazine) a try. One of my favorite lunches is a salad with chopped tomatoes, a hard-boiled egg and shredded cheddar added, and then I like to slice a couple of chicken tenders (bought at the deli section of my grocery store) and put the chicken on top of the salad. I’ve never been able to make a decent chicken tender, so I’m always on the lookout for a good recipe.
For the first time ever, I made coated chicken where the coating didn’t stick to the pan. The secret, I guess, is either the part where you coat the chicken in flour and then egg, and then the outer coating, OR the part where you spray both sides with nonstick cooking spray before you put it on the rack to bake. Whatever the reason, the coating stuck, the chicken was very tender and tasty, and I had enough left over for a few days’ worth of (oven) Fried Chicken Salad. YUM.
Friday, since I finally had everything I needed for the recipe, I made a recipe I’d torn out of Cooking Light magazine. Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Honey Apple Cake sounds, well, kind of boring, I know. But the picture of the cake drew me in and made me want to try making it myself (unfortunately, I didn’t think to take a picture of the cake to share with y’all!). It’s a fairly simple cake to make, and except for the chunky applesauce, I had everything I needed here (well, except for the Lite Cool Whip. Tip from me to you: Fat Free Cool Whip tastes like plastic. NASTY.). It’s a lightly sweet cake – if I were the sort of person who had afternoon tea parties where I served tea and cake, this would be perfect. Like I said, it’s lightly sweet, it’s very tasty and won’t fill you up too much. Fred and I both liked it and the pigs and chickens LOVED the leftovers – especially the toasted almonds.
McLovin would like you to know that he’s the man. He’s the man. He IS the man.
***************************
“Haw haw haw, stupid humans, having to pay taxes, it’s times like this that remind me that it’s GOOD TO BE A CAT. Haw haw HAW! ::wheeze::”
Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: “Light” my ass!
2004: An odd duck, that one.
2003: Unfortunately, he lived.
2002: 10 Things I Learned Last Week
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
Laughing kitty is toooo cute. and does not appear to be full of het.
My cat, Simon, has an obsessive need to nudge nudge nudge things from tables, counters, etc., onto the floor. Maybe one of yours did this with the Feliway? And then it rolled under something? I can’t tell you how much time I spend on my hands and knees looking under furniture for missing stuff, THANK YOU SO MUCH, SIMON.
Just a thought.
Also, that is a GREAT picture of McLovin and should be made into a print for your home!
The Vidalia Chop Wizard is the bomb! Any time I need to take my aggressions out, I just whip up a potato salad!
hmmm. Am I the only one who thinks the Vidalia Chop Wizard makes MORE work? I mean, I have to cut the fruit or veggies into pieces of a length that are “handle-able” in the Chop Wizard. So I usually end up just keeping hand chopping till its all done. And then, I have to clean not only the cutting board, but the chop wizard and those awful grates that don’t easily come clean??? Maybe I am doing it wrong.
Hey Robin I just saw this and thought you might enjoy. It’s an engineer’s perspective on cats. Hope you have a great day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4
WARM gel? You got WARM gel? Bitch.
*muttering* Already having back spasms and they go and squirt a big glob of ice cold – probably REFRIGERATED – gel on my stomach, just to watch me jump and then scream, and SHE gets WARM gel. Harrumph!
I’m pretty sure the Feliway is under the couch.
Wow e, you must have made someone angry for them to give you cold gel. I have never Not had warmed gel and have had more ultrasounds at more places than I would like to try to count. The machines generally have a little cup holder of sorts built right in to hold the bottle and warm the gel. You may want to be sure to request it next time. I could not imagine cold gel. Yikes!
Kristina:
That whole appointment was a mess. They didn’t know what they were scanning for, despite the fact that it was right there on the orders; I had called the day before to ask if I needed to be fasting and the guy at the front said, “Oh no, of course not, no special instructions at all,” so I ate breakfast and the first thing the tech said was, “You ARE fasting, right?” and didn’t believe me when I told her I’d specifically asked the day before; I was in so much pain I could barely move to get in the positions she wanted me in so it was taking a long time (she didn’t help) and she finally pulled the curtain aside and called to someone to “Tell my next appointment I’m going to be a while, this is taking longer than I thought,” all kinds of fun stuff. And the kicker is, it’s my own employer!!
Robyn: If you lived in my house, the Feliway would probably be in some ridiculous place, like the freezer* or in the ::cough:: feminine hygiene supplies or something.
*My mother once found a pair of her socks in the freezer, neatly folded. Everyone denied putting them there. We never did figure that out.
We had the same frost 2 nights in a row. We covered our garden but hell no not the fruit trees. What did you find big enough to do that with? I guess I have too many/too tall because it didn’t even occur to me! 😉
i love the pecan chicken tender salad from applebee’s. i usually eat this with both honey mustard and ceasar dressing, so one bite is savory, the next sweet. i usually throw what dressing is left on the rest of that huge salad, so i can take it home and make a couple of wraps. i can’t wait to try this version and save $10 a salad.
fred put the feliway up high, out of your reach. make him look!
My first thought of laughing kitty was that he was laughing uncontrollably because he hid the Feliway so well.
Love the photo of McLovin, props to the photo taker!
Did you, perhaps, take the Feliway outside somewhere? I know you wouldn’t use it outside, but maybe you went outside and it just happened to still be in your hand… Just a thought.
I wonder if you accidently threw away the Feliway??
Your potato recipe sounds like my roasted potatoes. They are so simple, and so good:
ROASTED POTATOES — VERY EASY
small red potatoes or small Yukon golds, quartered
salt and pepper and mashed garlic
Penzey’s powdered Country French salad dressing mix
a tablespoon or so of olive oil
Toss all the above together in a big bowl. If you don’t have the Penzey’s seasoning, then use
any seasoning mix that takes your fancy. Lemon-Pepper is good if you add paprika and garlic to
it, almost any combination of herbs, spices etc that you enjoy and that goes with the rest of
the meal. It takes very little oil to make all the seasoning stick to the cut surfaces of potato.
Then take a baking sheet, spray it very well with Pam or similar spray, spread the potatoes out
on it, and bake at 425 until they’re done. Takes around 30 minutes or so depending on the size of
the potato pieces.
It’s also good if you use sweet potatoes this way, cut like French fries. Or half sweet potatoes and
half little red or Yukon gold potatoes.
I should have asked: Robyn, do you ever order from Penzey’s? penzeys.com, one of my favourite places
on the Internet. Doesn’t matter how arcane the spice, herb, or seasoning mixture, they’ll have it,
and it’s always very, very fresh and the flavour just zings. I love it. And if you ask for their
paper catalog, it has GREAT RECIPES, the never-fail, not-complicated, delicious kind of recipes. I clip them and save them.
Your potato recipe sounds like my roasted potatoes. They are so simple, and so good:
ROASTED POTATOES — VERY EASY
small red potatoes or small Yukon golds, quartered
salt and pepper and mashed garlic
Penzey’s powdered Country French salad dressing mix
a tablespoon or so of olive oil
Toss all the above together in a big bowl. If you don’t have the Penzey’s seasoning, then use
any seasoning mix that takes your fancy. Lemon-Pepper is good if you add paprika and garlic to
it, almost any combination of herbs, spices etc that you enjoy and that goes with the rest of
the meal. It takes very little oil to make all the seasoning stick to the cut surfaces of potato.
Then take a baking sheet, spray it very well with Pam or similar spray, spread the potatoes out
on it, and bake at 425 until they’re done. Takes around 30 minutes or so depending on the size of
the potato pieces.
It’s also good if you use sweet potatoes this way, cut like French fries. Or half sweet potatoes and
half little red or Yukon gold potatoes.
I should have asked: Robyn, do you ever order from Penzey’s? penzeys.com, one of my favourite places
on the Internet. Doesn’t matter how arcane the spice, herb, or seasoning mixture, they’ll have it,
and it’s always very, very fresh and the flavour just zings. I love it. And if you ask for their
paper catalog, it has GREAT RECIPES, the never-fail, not-complicated, delicious kind of recipes. I clip them and save them.
That cat engineer video on youtube is hilarious!
I think the Feliway is out near the baby chicks in the garage.
That rooster of yours kills me!!! He is freaky cocky as hell! Look at him perched up on that pole like he owns Crooked Acres!!!! Bwaa ha ha ha haa!!!
Teresa and Paula,
That was hilarious! Are all engineer’s cloned from the same personality? That is my husband in a nutshell including the way he annoyed the cats.
Robin,
I suggest that the long forsaken Feliway was not feeling the love and has taken up with the animal feed in the garage or fertilizer in the gardening shed.
Robyn!? Didn’t you know I snuck all the way from Illinois to spread the HET and steal your feliway?? MUHAHAHA 🙂