Too Hot to Cook

 I don't know about all y'all, but it is too hot here in SWMO (southwest Missouri for the uninitiated).  So, to riff off my friend Silver's post this morning, I'm going to talk about not-cooking - or cooking with as little extra heat in the house as possible.

Last night, I used my Foreman grill to make pork chops.  That's one way to have a meal and not heat up the house too much.  Of course, they were boneless.  I'm not sure how well I'd be able to cook bone-in porkies on that thing.  Boneless took about 5 minutes.  Bone-in would probably take way longer.  And I cut my own boneless pork chops, but that's a story for another day.  With the pork chops, I microwaved leftover mashed potatoes.  Low heat all around.

I've also found that using the crockpot cuts the added heat.  Last week, I bought a small roasting chicken.  I took that bugger and shoved it in the crockpot with seasoning and butter, and let it cook for 4 hours.  Super yummy, without loads of heat leaking into my atmosphere.  Plus, afterward, I had loads of cold chicken to use on salads, sandwiches, etc.

Speaking of sandwiches, if you've never made a grilled cheese on a Foreman grill, you're missing out.  Super easy stuff there.  I like to cut roast chicken and put it on my grilled cheese.  Mmmm.

Tonight, I think I'm going to make the fixings for Big Salad night.  (Not much to make really.)  I'll lay out a spread of cut up ham, shredded cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, croutons... whatever we want on our salads, it'll be laid out on the counter for us.  I'd put out chicken, but I ate the last of that yesterday for lunch.

If you know me, you know I like to bake.  This is a problematic like in the summer time.  To address my baking urges without baking myself and Hubs, I try to keep my baking to the mornings.  Unfortunately, that means I have to muster the gumption before the gumption is even awake, but I do what I have to do.

I saw something on FB the other day where a woman made cookies using the INSIDE of her car on a particularly hot and sunny day.  I'm not quite going to that extreme.  There are ways around getting overheated and still having something yummy to eat, though.  

And now I'm hungry.  Time to go forage for something cold to eat.  ;o)

What about you?  Any tips or tricks for eating without baking?

The Olympics

I get why some of you are boycotting the Olympics.  Really, I do.  I'm not doing it, but I get it.  

For me, all the reasons to boycott the Olympics as an organization are stacked up against the individual athletes and their accomplishments.  Those kids have worked their asses off to get where they are and I'm going to support them, even if it's just me in my home cheering where they can't hear me.  I don't want to punish them over actions they had no part in and no control over.  

In a rational world, the athletes would en masse raise their voices against the stuff the organization is doing.  But as I've said before, we're in a far from rational world.  They're stuck working with the Olympics and I'm going to give them my support.  I mean, where else would most of these kids get to show their talents on a national stage?  It's not like ESPN is jumping over themselves to televise badminton.  They occasionally show swimming or running, but only the die-hard fans watch.  Right now, in this venue, it's their one shot to get the accolades they deserve for all their hard work.

So, yeah, I'm watching.  If you're boycotting to the point where you don't even want to read about it, stop reading here...

OMG, the girl - Chloe Dygert - who was in the cycling race and fell?  That spill was awful, but the fact that she got up, got back on her bike, and raced her heart out to win bronze was freakin' amazing.  She was feeling the pain when she walked up for an interview, and no wonder she was on the verge of tears after that fall, but go her.  I felt really bad for her, though.  If she hadn't fallen, she could've easily taken gold.  I wanted to give her a big, ol' hug.

I'm not sure what's up with our gymnastics girls.  Okay, so they're in first, but they're still making me sad. Poor Jade got knocked out of her best event - floor exercises - because she missed the landing on one of her passes and fell.  Now she can't compete in the finals for that event.  And none of the other girls even went up and hugged her after that.  Sad.  The men's side is worse.  But the bright spot is Paul Juda.  Go, Paul.

I'm also cheering on people of other nations.  Israel particularly, but any one of these individuals who represents my values is gonna get a big WOOHOO from me.   Screw the lousy organizations and the horrible policies of the countries they're competing for.  You go, guys.  

Sunday Update

Good morning all.  It's Sunday again... you know, in case you have a tough time figuring out what day it is, like me.  

In the writing realm, I didn't write every day like I was supposed to.  I missed two days because of reasons and due to because.  I still managed to add 4840 words, though, so it's all good.  This book is now at 24533.  Yay.  I've also been thinking about another book and wanting to work on that, which for me is a bad idea.  I need to finish this before I go back to that or I'll never finish this.  There are enough unfinished novels on my hard drive to attest to that.  Still, it's good to be thinking about books again, so I have that going for me.

I read two books last week and made it about 100 or so pages into another.  

I was busy in the kitchen this week.  I made oatmeal cookies which didn't turn out too well, but we're eating them anyway.  Then I made coffee cake which didn't turn out the way it was supposed to, but we're eating it anyway.  Then I made pizza which was pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

On the activity front, I only did something active four days out of seven, and some of that wasn't all that active.  Still, it was more than sitting on my butt in a chair, so I counted it.  Two of the days, I walked.  My mileage is up to just over 30 miles this year.  Weight: 169.2

I've been working on the genealogy again.  This week, I got a little farther up the tree on the ancestors who came from Europe.  If I read German, I could probably make more progress, but I'm muddling along.  I also discovered some cousins I once knew, but haven't seen in decades, who have passed away.  They're all on my dad's side, and those people stopped communicating with Mom after Dad passed, so while it is annoying that no one told us, it's not super surprising.  If we'd known, we probably would've at least sent flowers, if not actually gone and paid our respects.  They were all in their 80s, so nothing shocking there, but still sad.  I also found where my great-aunt's grandson was killed in a tractor accident in 1962.  Dead kids in my tree make me sad.

I'm still thinking about the day job. I can't seem to stop myself from wondering if this got done or that got done, and did they remember to do that other thing that I was in charge of but that no one seemed to take care of before I got there?  :shrug:  This, too, shall pass.  Also, I kinda miss my guys.  Not enough to want to go back to work, but still...

Well, I think that's about it for me.  Other things happened, but at the moment I can't think of them, so they must not have been important in the scheme of things.  This week will be more writing, more reading, etc.  I also really need to get on top of updating all my books' back matter and continuing to make sure all the paperbacks are correct.  (That last one should've already been done, but it's a slog because my internet is sooo slow that I'm less inclined to want to do it.)

Have a great day, everyone!  And if you're in the mood, tell me about your weekend.

Saturday Reading Wrap-up 7/27/24

Mornin' Folks.  I hope you're all doing well and awesome reading weeks.

I picked up one new book this week and paid full price for it.  I got The Sword of Shannara.  It's for my collection.  Now I have all three of the initial trilogy.  Go me. 

Books Read:

15) The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (7/24/24) - mystery - 5 stars. I hadn't read this one before, but it's Christie.  I picked this up for $1 at the thrift store.
Review: "This one starts off a little slow and a lot confusing, but it pulls together neatly and in the end is quite the satisfying mystery."

14) Cinder by Marissa Meyer (7/21/24) - SF dystopian - 4 stars.  New to me but not underappreciated. This one I got on a 2 for 25c sale at a thrift store.
Review: "I've been meaning to read this for a while now, and I was lucky enough to find this at a thrift store. (All apologies to Ms. Meyer. I know authors need sales, but if it hadn't been for the thrift store, I wouldn't have bought it at all and thus couldn't be leaving this review.)

I think this was a pretty good retelling of the Cinderella story. Dystopian science fiction well worth reading. It had a very gripping plot, told excitingly. I enjoyed the characters, the premise, and the plot. Okay, so the surprising plot twists weren't really all that hard to figure out ahead of time. (I won't ruin it for others by mentioning them here.) It had some sad parts that I didn't think were super necessary to the storyline, but that's the writer in me - always wanting to change things for the happier. The point is the telling of the story made me feel things and almost made me cry, so that's a win on any author's score sheet.

I have the second book in this series lined up for reading, but I think I'll let that lay for a little while."

DNFs:

7/26/24 - free - suspense - I read this to about halfway through and then gave up.  The premise was weird, the characters were annoying and didn't seem to have any idea about what they were doing, and the writing wasn't sound enough to carry any of it.  About halfway through, I realized I just didn't care anymore.  I think it could've been a good book, but it needed an editor to tell the author where to snip.  So much unnecessary stuff in there to be snipped away.

7/25/24 - free - urban fantasy - Meh.  

Currently Reading... nothing.  I DNF'd that suspense last night and haven't had a chance to start another book yet.

What's on your reading wrap-up for the week?

Gone Gadget & Quick JuLoWriMo Update

That gadget was a pain the ass, so I removed it.  Full disclosure, though, I've missed three days this month.  I'm up to 23513 words as of this moment.  That makes 18949 added so far this month.  It's not NaNo numbers, but I'm not kicking myself over any of it.  

With that, I'm calling it a night.  I'll be back in the morning to do my reading wrap-up.

Thursday This n That

 I just saw a hilarious meme on FB.  It was an old-timey, book cover like picture of a guy holding off a tiger with the butt of his rifle and the caption had the guy saying something like 'I don't want any frosted flakes!' and the tiger saying 'but they're great!'  Well, I laughed.  In comments there was a guy spouting off about how horrible frosted flakes are for you.  Dude needs to grow a funny bone.  He must be a riot at parties. ROFL

Ricky Gervais - who I sometimes agree with and sometimes I think he's a butt- said something along the lines of 'You found it offensive.  I found it funny. That's why I'm happier than you.'  Bingo.

People really need to chill out.  Yeah, there's a lot of stuff to be unchill about. That's why you need your sense of humor more than ever now.

I keep seeing this idea running around social media about how despite having differing ideas, we can all still be friends.   (I just this second saw another meme about it.)  Umm... not really.  Hey, I'm all for everyone having opinions of their own.  I'm also all for not having to give one more second of my time to opinions that wildly diverge from my own.  :shrug:  You do you.  Just do it in another room.  Or from behind my block list.  And yes, I realize this is not a popular attitude to have when you're someone who wants people to buy, read, and review your books.  But I gotta be me. 

An armadillo wandered through our yard a couple of days ago.  It's been a while since we saw one of those in the yard.  They're kinda destructive little buggers, but a guy's gotta make a living somehow.  The next day we saw where he'd been digging.  It's kinda trashed over there.  On the upside, he uncovered a large rock that I can dig out and move.  

We also saw a little fox.  Yay.

Last night, when I was supposed to be falling asleep, my brain decided it was time for a slideshow of everything I've ever done, followed by a discussion period, with the jukebox set to autoplay every song I'd ever heard.  Fun times.  I eventually fell asleep, but man, sometimes my brain is annoying.

Okay, it's about that time, so I'm off for my morning call to Mom.  Have a great day, folks.

The Brightspeed Saga

If you haven't been following along on Facebook, or don't actually use Facebook, I'm currently having issues with Brightspeed - the phone company in these here parts.  It's reaching 'epic saga' proportions at this point.  (Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but hey, I'm a writer. We exaggerate stuff.)  

Let's see... a week ago yesterday, we woke up to no dial tone.  Nothing.  But we still had internet - which travels along the same lines as the phone, so go figger.  I was not in the mood to call the phone company, and I assumed someone else would do it.  It's never just us when these things happen.  I called in the afternoon and learned NO ONE had called.  :shrug:  I was unsurprised.  They gave me an appointment time of Thursday between 8am and 5pm.  Woohoo.  

Wednesday afternoon, I picked up the phone to see if it miraculously healed itself and the phone read-out said 1 missed call.  Well, if we're missing calls, then we have phone.  Yep, dial tone.  But we couldn't figure out how we could've missed a call because we didn't hear it ring.  Shrugging, we figured we must've been out in the smoking room at the time and went merrily on with our day.  That night, we're watching TV and see the phone light up like it's getting a call, but it's not ringing.  Okay, well sometimes it does that when the satellite is reaching out for data.  Except the answering machine picks up and starts giving the standard greeting.  So it WAS a phone call.  It happened two more times that night.  Hubs and I used our cell phones to call the landline, and it's not ringing.  

Thursday morning, I reach out to the Brightspeed technician - cuz I was smart enough to take down his number from one of the many other times we've needed service.  I tell him that we have phone but that it's not ringing, so we still need a service call.  He comes out.  He works on it off and on Thursday.  He works on it off and on Friday.  Late Friday afternoon, he tells me that he can't finish fixing it that day, but they'll be out on Monday.  If time allows.  He also kinda hints that his supervisor is telling him he's already spent too much time on this issue, so it seems like anyone getting out here is iffy.

Monday... I get a notice that a technician will be here between 1:45 and 5:45.  A totally different tech than before shows up at 1:45 and he's out messing with the box on the outside of our house.  He's got his supervisor on the phone with him and they're bouncing ideas, I guess.  Then I get a call from the supervisor telling me that the tech's butt-set is ringing outside, so the problem has to be inside the house.  (Inside the house problems are the responsibility of the customer, and cost like $99.)  Whatever.  The tech comes in and starts messing around with our jacks and wiring inside the house.  Still, no ringy-dingy.  Then he decides that it has to be the other jack in the house that's causing a problem with the jack our phone is plugged into, so he's in the office now messing with that jack and wiring.  Still no ringy-dingy.  He leaves to go check the big box at the beginning of our neighborhood.  When he returns, he lets us know that the problem ISN'T just us after all.  Several other houses in our neighborhood have the same problem.  Which he can't fix that day.  His supervisor will be out personally on Tuesday to fix this.

Today... As I was typing this, I got an email and a text message that they are very sorry but a technician cannot come out today.  The appointment has been rescheduled for tomorrow.

We have some of the oldest equipment on the Brightspeed lines and they're having a tough time finding parts to fix it.  Seems to me the answer would be to replace the old equipment - which might be pricey at the start, but it wouldn't certainly cost less in the long run when compared with the amount they're paying in labor.  Short-sighted turds.

Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks for letting me vent.  There's really nothing we can do but ride it out and continue to demand the service we're paying for.  Unfortunately, crappy service seems to be the norm rather than the exception these days - across the board and not specific just to Brightspeed.  They're just a symptom of the larger disease.  =o\

ETA: Final Update... fingers crossed... I got a call and the phone rang.  It was the tech letting me know it was fixed.  When I sat down at my computer, I had an email that the tech was working on it and another one sent two minutes later that it was fixed.  I guess whatever it was, it was quick fix.  Thank you, Brightspeed techs for working the problem until you resolved it.  Now, if only you can fix the internet so it's not so damn slow.