Que Sera Sera

Mineral Oil kills Ear Mites/Canker in rabbits

2012-02-10T18:12:00.000-06:00

DH often feeds the rabbits before work, when it's still dark. But if he's running late, DH will call me after it's light outside for me to feed them. That's when I noticed one of our rabbits ears looking gross. So I suggested DH go out to check that rabbit in during daytime - he said it was probably ear canker or mites, and mineral oil usually worked.

We didn't have any mineral oil, so I used hydrogen peroxide with Q-Tips while DH held the rabbit. The really bad ear started looking just a teensy bit better after three days using hydrogen peroxide. Then I went grocery shopping and remembered to pick up some mineral oil. It made a huge difference in just one day!

The bad ear had inflammation towards the lower part of the ear, where the canal goes into the head. The peroxide hardly made any difference at all on the inflammation. One day after mineral oil, I couldn't see any inflammation at all!

After day two on mineral oil, DH said the rabbit shook his head as DH put him back in his cage, and a large scab came out the rabbit's ear, leaving behind pink skin. Today is day three on mineral oil, and most of the inner ears are both pink with intact skin, with a spattering of very small scabs.

None of the other rabbits have grungy ears, and the one that had mites/canker was born in captivity. Also, his cage is in between other rabbits, so I have no idea how just that one rabbit got mites in his ears and no other rabbits did. But just to be safe, I think each rabbit should get at least one squirt in each of their ears preventatively, in case mites are in their ears, but just not visible yet.

DH said I look younger, yay facial exercising!

2012-01-11T05:50:00.006-06:00

I don't ask DH how I look in an outfit, or whether he likes my new haircut. First of all, I figure he'd probably fluff up the answer, and secondly, I have a mirror - if I think a dress makes me look fat, then it DOES (on second thought, it's not the dress that's making me look fat, it's the food I shoved in my piehole and not exercising afterward that's making me look fat!)

So I borrowed a facial exercising DVD from a friend, and have been doing them for about a week -- BTW, they do make my facial muscles tired directly after doing them. I told DH I was doing them, and that according to what I've read, that the alleged immediate effects generally only last 20 minutes or so, for the first three weeks. Then as the facial muscles become more built up, the effects last for a longer time, until around six months, which if done daily, the effects are supposedly permanent (as long as one continues a maintenance schedule).

The last two days I've been thinking my eyes looked younger, the upper lid wasn't drooping over the crease anymore. But was is just wishful thinking? Was I sub-consciously adjusting my eyes somehow?

This morning, after we finished breakfast, he asked me to look at him and to remove my glasses. He said that my face did look younger!! I hadn't even mentioned anything relating to facial exercises, beauty or anti-aging junk; he brought it up completely on his own! So that made it more believable for me, yay!

I still have the 11's -- the vertical lines in between the eyebrows, and faint forehead wrinkles. But being that I've only been doing fhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifacial exercises for a week, I'm still thrilled about my eyes looking younger, especially since DH thinks so too ^_^

PS: Houston got a decent amount of rain again, and DH's place of work had TWO MORE ROOF COLLAPSES! DH also told me that while the roofs were being constructed (post-Ike), that he told either the main construction guy, or their engineer? that the drainage wasn't adequate for the size of roof area. But since they didn't know DH, of course they didn't believe him - because they're the experts {sarcasm}. Well three roof collapses later, who was right?!

I still believe the drought and biggest heat wave in Houston's recorded history somehow contributed though, because we've had plenty of big rains after Ike - quite a few with some degree of street flooding. And these two recent rains didn't even cause street-flooding in our area.

Laughed until stomach muscles hurt

2012-01-10T19:48:00.002-06:00

I had insomnia the last few days, so I finally fell asleep late last night, slept through the morning and into the evening. When I woke up, I wanted coffee and since I also wanted to recharge a somewhat heavy battery in the kitchen, I brought the battery with me down the hall.

Since I still had the "wake-up stupids", I'm not sure why I dropped the battery, but it sure made a loud thud when it fell onto the wooden floor. DH was already in the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, and saw RB (male cat) fly four feet into the air! Since they were both in the kitchen, neither of them saw what caused the loud thud.

Milady (female cat) was sitting on the end of the living room couch, and also jumped into the air when she heard the thud. RB's and Melady's trajectory paths crossed, and their mid-air collision gave them just enough time time to slap each other a few times before the landed back on the floor.

The next split-second had DH yelling to ask what the heck was going on, as he saw nothing except RB launch four feet high after hearing some kind of thud. My reply to DH's question was a loud guffaw, which continued long enough that I had to use hand-signs to tell him what had caused the thud, then about our two cats mid-air collion, and their slapping each other when they crashed.

DH joined in the rambunctious laughter until both our stomach muscles were hurting ^_^

---

PS: Both cats have mostly recovered - they received their 4th shots the night before. I'm still powdering their smooshie with Lysine for the FHV (Feline Herpes Virus).

Penicillin Allergy!

2012-01-09T03:26:00.004-06:00

My cats have feline herpes virus, which I usually control with crushed Lysine mixed into their "smooshie" (canned cat food). But last week, the Lysine didn't fix them up - they continued getting sicker, one blew stuff on something when sneezing, so I could see that it was thick and greenish-brown; I had to give them penicillin shots to clear up the bacterial pneumonia.

Cat skin is much tougher to puncture than human skin, especially boy cats. I made the mistake of using the same needle to pierce the penicillin bottle*, then the male cat's skin, which didn't go well at all. I depressed the plunger of the syringe after I "thought" I had the needle in his shoulder skin, but since I hadn't pierced his skin properly, the penicillin leaked onto his fur, which got onto DH who was holding the cat for me.

Now for a bit of backstory:
DH had some kind of infection as a child, was prescribed penicillin (not sure if pills or liquid suspension). His mother took him across the street to the pharmacy, and had him take his first dose while there. Within minutes - while still in the pharmacy - he started gasping for air and passed out. Luckily, the pharmacist had the wherewithal to arrange immediate medical attention from the medical area across the street. Ever since then, whenever asked about medicine allergies from a medical professional, he's responded that he's VERY allergic to penicillin. Of course the medical professional asks what type of reaction occurs with exposure to penicillin, which he answers: anaphylactic shock with respiratory arrest (yes, the medical professional's eyes grow wide when hearing this!)

Tonight, on day 3 of penicillin shots, DH told me that his hand that got the penicillin on it broke out in a reddened rash! OMG! Then he wondered why I went all drill sergeant on him while he was moving all around me trying to recapture the cat while I was holding an uncovered syringe with penicillin in it (I do NOT like for there to be a lot of movement nearby when I'm holding an uncovered syringe! I've heard too many needle stick injury stories I guess LOL)

The cats are sounding much better, and the girl cat's appetite has fully returned finally - they're both still getting the Lysine mixed in with their food to prevent relapse of the virus. DH's hand had already cleared up before he told me about him reacting to the dribbled penicillin. Tomorrow will be the last shot, and DH will be wearing gloves when he holds the cats! And, there'll be a lot less movement allowed in the vicinity of the uncovered needle too!

---

*Using the same needle to puncture both the medicine bottle dulls the needle somewhat. This doesn't matter too much if the skin receiving the injection is soft skin. But adult cat skin is challenging to me, much more so than humans, and even dogs. So after learning how tough a male cat's skin is, from now on I'll change to a fresh needle after withdrawing the meds from the bottle. To save on how many needles are used, tonight I tried filling today's injections and hopefully tomorrow's as well, but DH interrupted me with something, and I forgot which needle was the med bottle puncture needle. Next time I draw up many syringes at a time, I'll put a dot on the bottle-puncture needle with a sharpie.

♥ Boar Bristle Brush ♥

2011-12-28T16:24:00.004-06:00

I didn't learn about Boar Bristle Brushes until recently, and I love it SO much! I'd read about oiling hair to make it shinier, but even though I thought I followed the instructions of lightly dampening hair, applying a few drops of hair oil (I'm using jojoba) on my hands, then lightly rubbing it on the hair a few inches beyond my roots, it had oily areas that looked shabby -- until I received my Boar Bristle Brush from Amazon.

It really does spread the oil evenly, which might be useful for younger people's scalp hair I suppose. And an added bonus: My hair actually looks decent when I brush out my spirals, AWESOME! Even DH complemented my new loose waves ^_^

I purposely didn't buy the mixed bristle brush because the long hair forums I've been studying from recommended 100% boar bristles. I guess the brush makers added plastic bristles because of people complaining that the BBB wouldn't go through their hair. But the long hair forums taught us that they're not supposed to, they're basically hair polishers. But if I brush from the top first, then from the bottom, that usually takes care of any tangles.

Side note: DH is picking up Cowboy Caviar ingredients so we can have tasty Black Eyed Peas for New Year. I let him choose if he wants corn kernels added in the salad, corn chips, or corn bread on the side.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T12:48:00.004-06:00

DH got some Jacomo colongne (yay me!), and the last season of the last Star Trek, that he hadn't seen yet, and some gray winter sweats (our heating system is currently weak, so sweats are awesome right now LOL). I got an Isi soda machine (yay), lilac sweats, and a pink toolbag with pink tools (awesome!)

We gave my parents season 3 of Laverne & Shirley and 6 filet mignons (see last post about why that particular season ROFL). Brother received a few dark cherry juice concentrates, some low-purine proteins (yea he has gout, bummer), a butane cooker with a pack of butane cans, and many paper products since I had just bulk shopped earlier, and various other groceries like Sriracha.

I'm making garlic pork loin with onions, parsnips and brussel sprouts. I made fudge last night.

Merry Christmas!

Best Family Story

2011-12-24T07:52:00.004-06:00

My father and I laugh easily and robustly, but my mother doesn't laugh easily. Many times when me and my father were literally rolling on the floor, she'd just be smiling - usually at our antics, instead of whatever triggered me and my father to laugh.

We were watching Laverne & Shirley - Shirley had brought a horse to their apartment, and their friends Lenny and Squiggy dressed like cowboys to help them. Lenny's cowboy outfit was decorated with Christmas garland! They acted SO silly that me and Daddy were rolling on the floor while horse-laughing that we triggered my mother to start laughing too - at us!

That's the exact time the phone rang (this was back in the "old days", even before analog recorders, so ALL calls were answered)!

Since me and my father were busy horse-laughing, my mother got up to answer the phone, trying to "hush us". We tried to hush our laughter, but that only caused us to high-pitch giggle instead. My mother picked up the phone, then laid it on her chest while trying to compose herself.

She finally composed herself, put the phone to her mouth - AND SNORTED INTO THE PHONE!

Me and Daddy looked at each other in disbelief over what had just happened, and burst out into very loud horse-laughter again,while Mama put the phone back on her chest again. This time she also flapped her hands at us while trying yet again to compose herself.

She put the phone back to her mouth - AND SNORTED AGAIN!

Me and Daddy burst out horse-laughing yet again!

My mother finally composed herself enough to apologize to the caller (in high-pitch giggle-speak) to find out who the caller was calling for, walked back into the living room and said: "It's for you (me), it's a boy"!

Then it was Mama and Daddy's turn to burst out laughing as my face reddened, and my eyes grew really big. I had to close my parent's bedroom door to try to drown out their laughter while trying to explain to the boy, calling for a date, what had us all so tickled.

~~~~~

This is our favorite family story that gets told at every get-together. I finally found which episode of Laverne & Shirley it was: season 3, episode 14 "The Horse Show". I ordered the entire season 3 from Amazon (along with some filet mignons) for their Christmas present ^_^

Why do I waste my time with Kroger, bleh!

2011-12-23T17:16:00.004-06:00

I've not been able to find any chicken at Kroger that's not injected with the, IMO, evil seaweed aka carrageenan!

Without looking up any studies, I can guess I'm in the minority about not tolerating carrageenan, otherwise it wouldn't be so rampant. But since carrageenan is used in medical studies to induce pain and inflammation of tissues, it stands to reason that if your intestinal lining isn't completely intact, then carrageenan just might somehow leak into the tissues of the intestines, causing pain and inflammation.

When I first figured out that carrageenan was causing my extremely painful gut episodes, with bad swelling, I found carrageenan in things with cream such as ice cream, yogurt, creamy salad dressings, and occasionally frozen dinners. A few months or so later, I noticed it was also injected into cheap Walmart chicken - I'm guessing it pumps up the chicken better than water. After that, I noticed carrageenan in deli chicken, turkey, and sometimes in deli ham.

About the last six months, I noticed Kroger's no-brand "house" chicken also has carrageenan, so it's not just cheap Walmart chicken anymore. HEB still had carrageenan-free chicken last time I shopped, but I have to read the labels carefully, since they do carry some chicken with carrageenan.

But since Kroger brand's brussel sprouts are so much sweeter and tender than name brand brussel sprouts, I had to go to Kroger, ugh! They didn't even have whole nutmeg! IMO, the only difference between Kroger and Walmart is that Kroger doesn't carry as many non-groceries.

Boil Tap Water in Neti Pots!

2011-12-17T05:51:00.003-06:00

Naegleria fowleri has very high fatality, especially if not caught early on. Symptoms sound similar to meningitis, plus possible changes in smell and taste. It seems that most people get infected with it by swimming, but recently a few people have contracted it by using tap water in Neti Pots: "The organism doesn't pose a threat when ingested, but if it becomes lodged in a person's nose it can end up in the brain and cause an infection."

Internet Glasses!

2011-12-12T14:20:00.003-06:00

I got my PC glasses today, and it's SO nice that I can read my laptop at normal distance instead of having to bring it one foot away. Another thing that's very nice is they're single vision instead of progressive trifocals, so I don't have to bob my head up and down to focus. DH has the truck, so I don't know if I can read road signs with my new glasses until DH gets off work.

I'm cavity free (and in pain)

2011-12-09T20:50:00.003-06:00

I'm thrilled to be cavity free even if this last filling appointment left me hurting.

I guess learning to make soft foods for DH after his teeth were pulled will come in handy. Today's meals were two fried eggs topped with salsa with a piece of cornbread, then Northern bean dip with lemon, rosemary, garlic and a bit of olive oil, using flour tortillas to dip. I don't think the tortilla would have been soft enough if my pain was worse. I was still partly numbed when I ate the cornbread LOL.

Tomorrow I'm thinking about pressure cooking potatoes, carrots, and onions with some soup bones from the freezer.

Scratch Egg Nog

2011-12-07T21:41:00.003-06:00

I've only found one commercial Eggnog without Carrageenan so far, and that brand had a slight medicinal taste (eww!) DH is bringing home eggnog every time he shops, the tries hiding it out of sight in the fridge, sneaking drinks while I'm in another room (I find the coated glass, even triple rinsing won't get rid of that carrageenan residual!)

So of course my season cravings are triggered, so off to search for eggnog recipes that can be adapted to using Half and Half (since we can still find some without carrageenan, unlike most commercial creams). Oh, and without getting into the "salmonella in raw eggs is/isn't dangerous" debate, I prefer my eggnog warm anyway, so problem solved!

In a 2 qt double boiler, beat three large'ish eggs until they're mixed as possible. Add 1 pint Half and Half (I guess it's no surprise I'm not brand loyal, I just use any Half and Half I'm lucky enough to find without pain-inducing carrageenan), and at least 1/4 cup sugar or equivalent sweetening.

Alternate whisking with grating whole nutmegs over pot (DH had some powdered nutmeg he bought quite a few years ago, while I had a few whole nutmegs left from many, many years ago - I let him smell mine after I grated through half of it - he said: "wow!") I grated one entire nutmeg into it, maybe if my nutmeg were fresher I could have gotten away with half a nutmeg ^_^

Once the eggnog started steaming, I turned off the heat, added 1 teaspoon of real vanilla extract, a pinch of salt (because I always add a pinch of salt to everything sweet, to prevent it from tasting hollow [quote from my mother LOL), then decided it needed a bit of butter.

Strain through a metal sieve to remove the eggy bits, I thought it was awesome, but DH is so used to commercial eggnog that he thought it wasn't sweet enough. Plus he's very particular about whether drinks are hot or cold, and he grew up drinking store-bought cold eggnog. Oh well, more for me, but next time I'll try a bit more sugar, and chill it.

Update to recent posts

2011-12-07T19:11:00.002-06:00

I'm still waiting on my online-glasses to arrive - for the price, I guess I can't expect Amazon shipping speed LOL. My GP didn't order the uric acid levels with my bloodwork, so I'll wait until next time I have to go in for whatever, since I haven't had any gout attacks.

DH's job still doesn't have the caved in roof fixed, they're doing some kind of reinforcement to the sides of the caved-in area, which sounds like a good idea. DH's team is working the same hours as usual since they're maintenance, and some of the production line is helping out with some of the rebuilding, pretty much the same routine post-Ike. Too bad it was the roof over the production line though - I asked DH why they couldn't run product in another area of their new post-Ike building, but apparently some of the machinery is too big to temporarily setup elsewhere. I hope the line-crew found temporary jobs elsewhere.

The chickens really enjoyed Thanksgiving turkey that didn't get frozen. They also got the smushy bone/skin leftovers from the broth I made for many days. Today they got sunflower seeds, romaine lettuce and cornbread.

My Home Based Physical Examination

2011-11-29T19:03:00.002-06:00

Dr Kruse MD, neurosurgeon, posted an excellent article about how we can tell if we might be deficient in key nutrients without a Dr ording a lab test: Your Home Based Physical Examination. Here's a few observations from my "home physical exam":

Vit D & A
Rolling metal on my shin didn't hurt that much, but I do have problems reading in the dark. Good to know to increase Vit A/orange foods while supplementing with D3.

Zinc
Ex FIL lost a bet with one of his obese friends about whether the friend could drop 100 lbs over a summer. FIL lost the bet, then the obese friend told him his dr diagnosed him with a serious zinc deficiency after the obese friend complained of his taste buds not working anymore. Supposedly it took many months of supplementing with zinc for him to be able to taste foods again. I'm not too worried about myself, but it's important to men. Too bad BP caused oyster prices to soar. So I'm glad DH enjoys wheat germ in cornbread, since wheat germ is fairly high in zinc.

Iron
My thick nails have some ridging, and I've always shaken my legs when sitting. I had no idea these could be related. PS: I haven't had complaints of kicking while sleeping, but I supposedly toss back and forth a lot, and wrestle the blankets.

Magnesium
My knee prevents me from running or doing stairs LOL, but at least I don't sweat a lot. We're supplementing with magnesium anyway, me for peri-menopause. But since seeing how much magnesium is in dried herbs, I might not buy more magnesium supplements.

K2
I don't have a gall bladder anymore, AND my dental hygenist just got all over me about tartar/plaque. On Chris Kresser's K2 page, he states: "bone would be richer than muscle meat", so I wonder if bone broth might be pretty high in K2? I'm making my 4th batch of bone broth from our Thanksgiving turkey. I think a cheese omelet cooked in butter might be beneficial, as well as yummy LOL

B Vitamins aren't quite the easy read as the other nutrients/vitamins he started with. But what's up with Marmite having such high amounts of about B1, B2, B3, & B9? I heard Marmite tastes better than Aussie's Vegemite, which DH thought tasted quite "different" (and didn't finish it LOL, but I've never tried either one.

Dr. Kruse covered a few toxins too:

Mercury
I do leg lifts while in downward dog, so I guess my balance is ok, whew!

BPA
We're not entirely BPA free yet, especially DH, who doesn't like the Double-Wall Plastic Cold-Drink Cup with Reusable Straw I bought for both of us.

Omega 6
I haven't used Crisco or margarine in almost 20 years, but I did use vegetable/corn oil up until about 3-4 years ago. Now I use olive oil, butter, coconut oil and sometimes sesame oil because it's so yummy. Oh, and we take fish oil caps, and eat salmon occasionally too.

PC Glasses for $15 (including shipping)

2011-11-27T17:39:00.003-06:00

Well we're still not sure about DH not having a paycheck for 3'ish months -- due to the roof cave-in -- but I've needed Laptop glasses forever, and took advantage of goggles4u.com free lenses combined with Coupon Code: BigSale that ends in a few hours (Nov 27, evening).

No extras, just the cheapest everything came up to $14.99 including shipping (that's with the above coupon code). I want to make sure I get my sizing right (I have a big head to match my taller than usual body, otherwise I'd look weird, and my eyes are set a bit wider than usual).

I also want to see how well I'm able to see with Online Glasses. My recent pair, progressive tri-focals, aren't that accurate for small print, so another reason I didn't gamble with Online Glasses, since I'm not sure if it's the script, or the local place that made them (see I do try to give local business a chance, too bad I can't read small print that well with their product -- that cost more than 10 times as much as the internet glasses! although there will be a difference between progressives and single vision scripts). Meanwhile for small print, I still do better with 99cent store magnifying glasses.

No paychecks for 3 months?

2011-11-26T19:54:00.004-06:00

DH's boss called while DH was at Home Depot, saying not to come see the caved-in roof today, but to come in regular time Monday morning. Bossman also told DH not to make any big purchases anytime soon, as it's possible they might go without paychecks for THREE months!

I've already spent $20 on a Christmas present for DH, so I told him that was his limit for me. I'll be on the lookout for shelf-stable recipes or building stuff for gifts.

Thankful no one was hurt!

2011-11-26T16:18:00.003-06:00

DH's boss just called to report that they had a roof cave-in! Thankfully no one was hurt!

The building that caved was one of their original buildings that had its roof peeled off during Hurricane Ike, so the roof that caved was a new replacement put in in late 2008. Sure, we got some training rain today, but the Hobby Airport area is showing 1.10" for today, I can't believe such a small amount of rain could cause a 3 yr old roof to cave-in!

DH just left to go to Home Depot - I bet he swings by work too.

UPDATE: KHOU carried the story: Building partially collapses in southeast Houston

GP Physical - lab results decent

2011-11-25T20:11:00.003-06:00

I wonder if any other families share their lab results with each other like my family does? My elderly parents send me a copy of their labs, and have been at me a while to find out my cholesterol and thyroid levels. So now that I've finally received my general physical lab results, I'll have to send them a copy to make them happy ROFL

TSH (thyroid): Normal, whew! This and my cholesterol levels are my parents main concerns for me.

My A1C and Blood sugar were both upper limits of normal - the scheduling staff didn't make me NPO after midnight, so maybe my blood sugar results aren't as bad as it sounds, although not being NPO wouldn't affect my A1C. I've been lax with pre-sweetened flavored teas, so I'll be brewing more from scratch with stevia the next few months, and cut back on grains again.

Triglycerides: 141 (normal <149)
LDL: 128 (normal <130)
HDL: 67 (normal >39)
Another reason to cut back on sugars and grains, since my trigs and LDL are just barely under the mark. I'm happy with my HDL, although a bit higher would be nice.

Vit D: 22 (normal 30-100)
I seriously thought I'd score higher on this one, but at least I know I should be taking 5000 mg caps instead of 1000 mg caps. I want mine in the higher range!

Kidney and Liver: Normal

I requested uric acid levels, since there's some pretty bad gout in my family, but it wasn't on their lab postcard (HIPPA allows lab results on postcards? Well it was double-stapled at least haha). I'll call the nurse this Monday to see if it was drawn. If not, I'll wait until the next time I "need" to go to the dr, since I haven't had any gout attacks - I just wanted to know if I should watch my purine intake since I'm higher risk.

Thanksgiving with Nesco Roaster and an old crockpot

2011-11-24T17:33:00.003-06:00

My old stove is kaput, and DH has to do some serious electrical work in order to put in the stove our neighbors gave us. But with just the two of us, I do fine with a toaster oven, hot plate (electric, as well as butane, since living on the coast means having a few ways to cook without electric), and of course a microwave.

But turkey's don't fit in toaster ovens - well except for turkey breasts, which lately have been those gross piece-meal, turkey-parts glued together globs, gross! So I sacrificed crispy skin for cooking a real turkey in a Nesco Roaster. I also made the gravy in it, even though the Nesco Roaster didn't make brown bits on the bottom, but gravy still tasted good (Kitchen Bouquet to the rescue!) DH said the turkey was moister that oven-cooked turkeys, and the Nesco Roaster didn't heat up the house enough to kick in the AC (mid 60s F in Houston today).

I made mashed potatoes in the crockpot yesterday, and cornbread in the toaster oven. I boiled eggs in the crockpot this morning, but instead of covering my old-style crockpot with its usual lid, I put a sautee pan on the crockpot to slowly sautee onions and celery for the cornbread dressing. Now if you're in a hurry, this wouldn't work at all, but if you're multi-tasking and have plenty of time, it worked out great, giving me plenty of time to coordinate without the worry of over-cooking/burning things. I put the crumbled cornbread and a few slices of wheat bread in the toaster oven to dry, then put the turkey into the Nesco Roaster.

After approximately an hour, I lifted the sautee pan off the crockpot, spooned out a few eggs into a bowl with water, peeled the eggs, repeat until all the eggs were peeled and yolks removed for deviled eggs. Emptied the water from the crockpot, dumped in the sauteed onions and celery with the cornbread and sliced bread. Then made the creamy roux for the dressing (all the cornbread dressing I found called for Cream of X soup, so I made it from scratch with butter, flour, and Half and Half). Again, the roux took a long time on top of the crockpot, but when not cooking on a schedule, it was lovely not worrying about burning while multi-tasking. But I also put a bit of Half and Half into the crockpot with the breading, just to make sure nothing burned while waiting for the roux to smell like pie crust before adding in the Half and Half.

Finally the creamy roux (homemade Cream of X) was finished and dumped into the crockpot, which was spiced with Chicken Seasoning and extra sage. Then I finished the deviled eggs, arranged the relish tray, then a bit later, the turkey was done. I had DH help me transfer the turkey to a big disposable tin, then poured off about half the pan juices into the crockpot, then the rest into a 2 cup measuring cup for the gravy. The Nesco Roaster heats up to 450F, so making roux in it was much faster than on top of the crockpot. By the time the gravy was finished, the turkey had rested enough for the juices to settle (probably the main the turkey was juicier than usual haha).

Yesterday's potatoes were nuked at 70% power in a covered casserole, then I nuked frozen spinach with butter.

So not having an oven forced me to be creative with ancillary cooking appliances, but I learned a few fun tricks along the way. Hope everyone that celebrated Thanksgiving had a lovely one ^_^

Gray update with clip-in ponytail

2011-11-19T13:52:00.005-06:00

I'm fairly curly for the first two days after cowashing, so those days the gray still looks almost like the last update. But once I put it in a pony on days 3-5 (post-wash for the straight-hair girls LOL), they gray's finally long enough to hide my chemically dyed hair under a gray clip-in I bought from Amazon.

BTW, it's very challenging to find gray hairpieces online. There's only one left with the 10% brown on Amazon. Hopefully as more women embrace their silver, there'll be more options.

Next up, researching which "blueing" shampoo is good for no-poo cowashed hair (it's a curly thing LOL).

Back online - chicken update

2011-11-09T00:33:00.007-06:00

While I was offline (hard drive died**), I let the chickens out in the afternoon since DH said they'd probably return to their cage once it started getting dark. He was right - for one night only! They've been free-range chickens after that first night.

One day I noticed the young male was missing, and wondered if maybe the rooster might have killed it. But two nights later I heard a ruckus and rushed outside to see a raccoon chasing the rooster. We chased the raccoon off, but later when I checked on them, I heard the mother hen making awful noises. She, and her attacker were already gone by the time DH rushed out. DH put out a humane trap with tuna, but haven't caught anything yet (surprising, since we also have possums and at least one feral cat).

Main rooster decides he and remaining young lady should roost on the satellite dish on the roof for the rest of the night. Now they're roosting in the trees.

I haven't tried buying them a cage I can elevate since I don't think we'd be able to catch them. But today something happened that gave me an idea: I found a roach in their scratch container, scooped the roach along with the scratch, and poured it all out in front of the rooster. He nabbed that roach in a split-second, and the young lady ran full speed to steal it away from him! DH said his Grandma's chickens acted that way with crickets, so maybe I could buy some crickets from the pet store to lure them into a new cage. I sure hope it works, for it'll be getting cold here soon.

---

**For the past two years, I've tried numerous times to make an image backup with my Win7 Dell Inspiron laptop, but they all failed for some unknown reason. So once I had the dead hard drive replaced, I thought I had to order replacement disks from Dell (turns out we already had the disks that came with the laptop, but since I didn't set it up, I didn't know, doh!) So I kept waiting and waiting for Dell's "one day delivery" - that took almost two weeks and almost daily calls!

Once we had disks to reinstall, we went straight for the OS and everything worked great - I was able to make a backup image on my external USB hard-drive right away!

I suspect Dell's crapware might have had something to do with my not being able to make an image-backup in the past, as it had its own backup system - maybe Windows and Dell's backup systems conflicted with each other? But since I gave up trying to use Windows backup and found good reviews of Paragon's free home version backup-image program, I suppose it could have been Windows backup not liking me. BTW, I'm pleased with Paragon's image backup.

I'm also going to try to make a slipstream w/ SP1 for my USB hard drive in case I might have different hardware settings in the future, but I'll have to study slipstreaming a bit more, and make a bit more room on the USD HD too LOL

USAF shows are SO lound, but at reassuring

2011-10-15T14:35:00.007-05:00

It's been many years since 911, but finally I don't connect USAF shows with 911 anymore, like I did for the first few years -- the same sounds as after 911 happened.

Even still, they're loud, but they're reassuring. Thanks military personnel, for keeping us safe!

Onomatopoeias & Songs as Pet Nicknames (yes, I'm weird)

2011-10-14T11:07:00.012-05:00

I've always loved onomatopoeias, even though I didn't know there was a word for them until recently. I've nicknamed quite a few pets with onomatopoeias: Poppy, my slug-eating cat that would always come running whenever she saw me pick up a garden tool, learned her nickname: "pop pop pop", with me smacking my lips open and closed to make the sound.

Of course I was tickled pink to find a fun onomatopoeia search engine hyuk hyuk hyuk ^_^

Sometimes I couldn't come up with a sound-nickname, so I'd use a rhyme or part of a song, like using the skip-rope song for Teddy Bear (who'd kidnap other cat's babies, so every time I heard a baby kitty crying, I knew I had to take the kidnapped baby back to it's mother to nurse, then Teddy Bear would kidnap it back until next feed time).

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, you're a clown!
(DH contributed the last line LOL)

Instead of an onomatopoeia nickname for our current young cat named RB (short for Rocket-Butt), I came up with an onomatopoeia for his favorite game: Kerpow, which sounds like a mouth explosion -- I kick my foot up about two foot high in front of him while making the Kerpow sound. He'll jump high in the air to try to catch my foot, then he'll run up and down the hall full speed (Rocket Butt haha). Then I'll "kerpow" him again, over and over, until he's worn out.

I am working on a song-nickname for RB, and I think he's starting to respond to it; it's based on the song Lover Boy, from Dirty Dancing (starting at 57 sec):

aRBie...kitty aRBie...kitty aRBie...something something something
meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow
(imitating the twangs from the musical instrument)

I'm going to put this song into DH's head, so hopefully he'll help me with the something something something part. If I just ask him, DH won't play LOL, but if I sing the song to RB in front of DH, then complain how I can't come up with anything for the something something something part, DH will come up with a funny filler eventually ^_^

Watering the new chickens?

2011-10-04T22:43:00.008-05:00

It seems that the former neighbors setup a backup plan for the chickens, because we(DH) were taking so long. But our across-the-street neighbors were watching out for us, and offered to help wheel the small pens into our yard for me. But he didn't know how to catch chickens either, so I told him DH had just woken up from his after-work nap, so I'd bring him back with me (knowing that if our across-the-street neighbor was waiting on DH, DH might actually go next door LOL). So I return home and tell DH:

'Honey, honey, the other guys going to get my chickens if we don't move them today and none of us there know how to catch them!'

It worked, and DH caught the white chicken penned with Nasty Duck. Turns out the white chicken is a white rooster, whose new name is Pedro Tamale.

DH said the rest of the chickens in the large pen would be too difficult to capture until night time. DH and I went there as soon as it was dark, and my oh my did those chickens ever raise a ruckus - I can now proudly say that I've held a chicken, woot!

I'll still feed Nasty Duck next door, I don't want it "free ranging" in the backyard with the occasional dog visits, and after seeing how nasty it is when penned, don't want it caged here either. If the "plan B" neighbors don't take it in a week or so, I'll visit my around the corner neighbors with the mini-ranch to see if they'll take it.

DH had bought me some kind of waterering system that has a round metal pan with holes in it, that screws onto a large mason jar. Too bad neither of us can figure it out LOL. DH said he remembers his grandma using that kind, but it's been so long he can't remember her trick to prevent all the water from spilling out the mason jar when flipped over. I tried searching YouTube, but apparently all the cool chicken coops have Chicken Nipples now days ^_^

ETA: Haha, apparently it has been a LONG TIME since DH helped his grandma with her chickens, for the chicken "waterer" is actually a chicken "feeder" - no wonder why the water kept spilling out ROFL

Delousing the new chickens and rabbits

2011-10-01T18:44:00.006-05:00

All known neighbor rabbits are in cages suspended from our boatshed rafters, yay! Hubby said he wasn't sure how he'd bring over the chickens, so now that the neighbor's yard has an extra cage, how about he remove the duck from the cage it shares with one chicken, putting the duck into the spare cage, then move that lone chicken over here. Once that chicken is moved into our "new" pen (bought from other neighbors), then he'd have a spare, empty cage to move the other chickens from the larger neighbor pen.

I think I heard that bird mites can get into rabbit ears from a Chicken Whisperer podcast, so I'll be keeping the chickens and rabbits separated until I get the neighbor chickens free of whatever crawlies they probably have. Bird Mite Infestation Tips & Strategies also has some helpful hints from their Bird Mites Forum. Wow I have so much to learn ^_^

I need to grow birdhouse gourds for our sanity!

2011-09-28T14:53:00.004-05:00

I'm guessing the current nest next to the office window makes our sixth bird family (unless the cardinals in the front bushes are the same parents over and over, then we'd have just three bird families making six nests).

Although they're cute and sweet, I'm getting a bit tired of wondering what the new noise is (until I learn to recognize their sounds), because at first I'm afraid they're baby mice squealing LOL. Also, our indoor cat goes crazy running and bouncing off any and everything in the house when he hears them. And having to http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifuse the backdoor all the time as not to upset the cardinal family in the front bush gets a bit old too, especially if we forget and then feel guilty for upsetting the birds haha.

So I'm thinking of growing birdhouse gourds this spring to hang from the oak and pecan trees, in the hope that the birds will prefer the gourds hanging from trees instead of next to our doors and windows. Here's a nice pictorial on how to Making Bird Houses from Your Gourds in case they grow for me. And here's one article from a site that has many useful links to setup and run birdhouses: Cavity-Nesters, Which Birds Will Use A Nest Box?

Anyone have a handful of birdhouse gourd seeds? Of course I'll pay ^_^

Corn Meal vs Polenta; Cornbread Leavened without Gums

2011-09-22T13:32:00.013-05:00

Self-Reliant Living's Preparedness Radio had an awesome podcast interviewing Carol Deppe, author of The Resilient Gardener, and boy does this lady know a lot about corn! All this time I thought the biggest difference between cornmeal and polenta was that I thought polenta was nixtamalized. But after listening to this podcast, I've learned there's SO much more to learn about corn.

Carol explained why she was so driven to learn about corn is that she suffers from Celiac disease, and that because of all the sweetening, alternative baking mixes were acceptable, but she couldn't stand the taste of bread baked from alternative Gluten-Free flour, but did enjoy the taste of cornbread. She even stumbled on an older way of making cornbread that doesn't require adding gums to the cornflour and baking powder, yet is still leavened, which she explains in pretty good detail for a podcast.

She explained the corn anatomy (I'm not sure I'm using the correct term haha), so learning what she explained would help us to make better tasting polenta, as well as baked goods. So whether you're a foodie, gardener, or prepper, I think you'd really enjoy this podcast (first link above has the downloadable MP3).

Not only will I be listening to this long podcast again (it went overtime), but I'm also going to buy her book. The podcast host announced he'll be interviewing her again soon about potatoes, so I'll be waiting eagerly for that, since instead of a bumper crop of blue potatoes, I grew a handful of blue marbles. But at least that one meal of blue potatoes tasted pretty good ^_^

PS: I caught one of the neighbor's bunnies finally! I almost had another one, but he wiggled out of the cage bottom before I could close it and I was afraid of hurting him.

The bunny I caught today ate from my hand yesterday - she was still in the old neighbor's backyard (they travel back and forth between the yards through the dug up tree root along the fence - they know morning feed time too LOL!)

UPDATE: I went to check on her and bring her some lettuce and carrot, and she was running around the yard - I think she blew me a bunny-raspberry as she hopped past me.

Chickens, if we can catch them

2011-09-16T15:20:00.003-05:00

The neighbors are still dropping by to tend to the animals, and caught a female chicken and the duck in a medium sized pen/cage - just big enough that I can't maneuver it onto our dolly. So DH and I made a deal: If he brings over the pen/cage with the duck and chicken, I'll make him pumpkin waffles and muffins.

Meanwhile, one of the younger female chickens (sorry, don't know chicken terminology yet) has escaped from the bigger coop. I carried over DH's human trap and sprinkled chicken scratch on the trigger thingee, but the young chicken hasn't triggered the trap yet. We still haven't caught anymore of their rabbits other than the first one (they weren't penned/caged when we learned the neighbors had moved).

I'm not into politics, but here's my thoughts on Rick Perry as my Governor

2011-09-13T04:56:00.020-05:00

The main things that pop into my mind when I think of Rick Perry as Tx Gov:

Tx Gov Rick Perry & TS Rita Mass-Evac

During TS Rita's mass-evac in 2005, a local radio station reported that Gov Rick Perry had heard about the evac highways becoming parking lots, because many were running out of gas. Supposedly -- according to the radio DJ's that I'm paraphrasing from memory -- Gov Rick Perry asked "why more hadn't gassed up before leaving".

We filled up BOTH of our dual tanks before leaving -- including a few 2 gallon gas cans -- and still had to refuel both tanks before we got out of gridlocked freeways! Most people don't have dual tanks, so if they got stuck in traffic moving 1-2 MPH, they're pretty much STUCK! It's not like they could turn off their engines to conserve gas, because the traffic occasionally moved forward a few feet every minute or so.

If Gov Rick Perry didn't want millions using up so much precious gas while approximately 3 million Texans evac'd, why did it take SO VERY LONG for DOT to setup contra-flows, when it had been obvious for many, MANY hours that all main SE Tx freeways were gridlocked?

- Did Tx Gov Rick Perry not have enough clout to get DOT's heads out their behinds?
- Maybe Tx Gov Rick Perry's mind wasn't able to connect the dots: Non-moving traffic uses up gas!
- Or was it that Tx Gov Rick Perry just didn't care to lean on DOT to help break up the gridlocked evac?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions, but it made me question Gov Rick Perry's ability to lead a large population during a disaster. (Yes, I realize that Houston's Mayor Bill White didn't help when he announced that anyone scared should evac - I'm paraphrasing from memory again.)

Tx Gov Rick Perry's Pet Project: "Imminent Domain Highway" aka "Divide the Nation"

For reasons unknown to me, Tx Gov Rick Perry has been championing a super-highway from Mexico to Canada. Too bad many family farms and ranches are in the way - too bad for the families that is! This eminent domain/highway stuff is NOT new - I've been aware of it for at since before the last Tx elections - the main reason I voted against Tx Gov Rick Perry.

- Google results for keywords: trans texas corridor rick perry
- Google results for keywords: trans texas corridor eminent domain
- Google results for: rick perry texas corridor eminent domain

Mandating New (UNproven) Vaccines for Children

- Google results for keywords: rick perry mandate HPV vaccine

But I'm not big on Palin either, undecided about Romney, and plead no-comment on Ron Paul. So I guess the way things look at this time, it'll come down to Obama vs Perry - yet another "lesser of two evils" decision, IMO. At least they're both attractive, unlike the last big election ^_^

Preparedness Podcasts - a first time listener's thoughts

2011-09-11T05:21:00.006-05:00

I found quite a few preparedness type podcasts at Blog Talk Radio, so I signed up with BTR so I could sub to their preparedness talk shows:

Chicken Whisperer
Prepper Broadcasting Network
SHTF Radio
Preparedness Radio Network (PRN)
Preparedness Radio Channel 2 (PRN) (I'm guessing these last two shows are somehow related)

I've listened to the most recent Chicken Whisperer - there were a handful of ads, but IMO they were related to the podcast (chicken raising) and IMO it seemed like they tried to be amusing. The main part of the show wasn't "exactly" related to what I'd think would fall under chicken raising, but more like sustainability, how to use earthworms to enrich your soil, but since chickens like worms, it was close enough LOL. And the interview about how worms enrich soil, which worms (3 different kinds) and how to get more into your soil - all in all I enjoyed my first Chicken Whisperer show very much.

I'm listening to my 4th preparedness show right now, having skipped* a show I just plain grew tired of listening to. Right now I'm listening to an Emergency expert talking about the wildfires in Texas, which of course interests me, since I live in Houston and have family near Waco (SW of Dallas), and many of my high schoolmates have moved to different parts of Texas and are posting their Texas Wildfire experiences on Facebook.

*At this time, I don't feel comfortable blogging about the show I skipped, because I used to enjoy their blog a great deal. But, like many preparedness blogs of late, have - IMO - changed their focus to selling books they and their friends have written, or promoting $tuff they've partnered (commissions) with, or other kinds of self-promotion (some is ok, just be balanced).

While I enjoy unbiased product reviews, and understand to a certain degree about making money to offset the time they blog (to teach others about how to prep), there's a balance. And unfortunately IMO, a few of my former favorite preparedness blogs haven't been as balanced lately - meaning they're promoting books and products much more than they're inspiring and teaching.

So that's the reason I'm hesitant about blogging why I skipped that second show - the blogger USED to be such an awesome source of valuable educational posts, but recently has turned their focus to self-promotion IMO. Of course I have hopes they'll return to their roots, so I won't blog negative feelings and just keep my fingers crossed for them.

Another preparedness type show I enjoyed (and can't figure out which "feed" it came from) was about learning how to navigate with compass and maps, and talked a bit about how people have become too dependent on GPS, which isn't always accurate. IMO the show was very interesting, even though I didn't understand all the terms at first, they explained enough about the terms for me to have a general understanding, and inspire me to learn more about how to navigate with a compass and a map. IMO, if a show inspires me to want to learn, it was a good show.

I'll wait until I've listened to the rest of the shows before blogging about my thoughts on preparedness podcasts, even though the last two "networks" put out a LOT of shows (too many?) compared to the other networks.

Alternative Use for Canning Jars

2011-09-08T13:23:00.002-05:00

Audiobooks, Podcasts, and Old Time Radio Shows

2011-09-07T06:11:00.007-05:00

After a few years of using DH's MP3 player on and off, I finally bought an MP3 player - not an iPod -- I won't use bloated iTunes. I've been listening to podcasts and audiobooks; I have one Il Divo song on there too LOL.

IMO, most of the comedy podcasts out there have LOTS of swearing and/or adult content, but NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! - The Oddly Informative News Quiz - is very funny (despite having Kyrie of Memo listed as a panelist) and the one podcast I've listened to was very clean. I've also subbed to quite a few How Stuff Works podcasts, and NPR has a great podcast directory by topic (lots under Science and Health), and some have been quite interesting.

I haven't setup Overdrive yet, so for audiobooks I've tried a few Podiobooks, but I'm limiting my searches to completed books so I won't be disappointed if a writer gives up half-way through -- the Podiobooks name their MP3's really stinks though. I've listened to the first section of all the books I signed up for, and Origin Scroll (book 1 of 3 of the Targa Trilogy by Richard S. Tuttle) is the most intriguing one so far - and it says it's family-friendly (although maybe a bit scary for young ones).

I've queued up some Old Time Radio shows from Archive.org. I filtered that search link so that it shows the highest average ratings from listeners, in the hopes that the better shows will come first in the list.

I've already noticed I get up and do more away from the PC now that I have portable entertainment ^_^

Pavlov's bunnies ^_^

2011-09-06T11:56:00.004-05:00

Early this morning, our older girl cat wanted out, since our inside boy-teen cat was bugging her, but I wanted to check the backyard to make sure that dog hadn't returned. First I peeked out the backdoor window, and saw movement! After bobbing my head up and down with my trifocals, I finally focused on the movement, and it was the neighbors bunnies (they've moved out, but the father still returns everyday to tend to his bunnies and poultry until we can capture them and bring them to our yard).

So I hollered to DH, who was getting dressed for work, that the neighbor's bunnies were in our backyard again - maybe that's why the dog hopped the fence last night. I also opened up the backdoor so I could peek around the corner to make sure there wasn't a dog.

Backstory: I bought a string of mini-bells at the Renaissance Festival many years ago, and they've been hanging on the backdoor ever since. I don't even notice them ringing anymore - most the time anyway.

But a split-second after I opened the backdoor - and the bells rang - I see two more bunnies still in the neighbor's yard running towards our yard at FULL-SPEED! What a coincidence LOL

So now there's four neighbor bunnies in our backyard, and all are headed towards our rabbit cages (hanging from the old boatshed rafters). DH usually feeds our bunnies before he goes to work at sun-up (during DST). Maybe the neighbor bunnies running towards our yard when hearing the bells wasn't a coincidence after all ^_^

I feed our bunnies since I'm already out there, and I notice I have company haha, so after I finish feeding our bunnies, I find an old, dented biscuit pan and put out some rabbit kibble for the new bunnies.

By now, DH has left for work, and it's actually almost chilly this morning - first time this year, yay! So I decide to do a bit of yoga while in the backyard. Milady - our inside/outside cat LOVES to help me do yoga, so the new bunnies come closer to check us both out. I'm stretching my arms backwards while Milady is tapping my shin, and the bigger rabbit comes ONTO THE YOGA MAT so he can smell Milady - I'm only one foot away from this rabbit, and he came to us! The new bunnies are much tamer than our bunnies!

I'm going to try to talk DH into fencing off the old boatshed so the bunnies can roam around instead of being stuck in a cage, but we're visited by dogs occasionally, so he might argue that against fencing the boatshed. But since the neighbors also gave us their chickens, I could counter with that, since we've seen bunnies and chickens penned together.

PS: There's a duck we're supposed to bring over too.

"Wild" dogs in populated areas

2011-09-06T01:07:00.004-05:00

Heard another noise outside my window (it's night), grabbed flashlight and almost ran smack into a somewhat large dog running at me (guessing around 40-45#). Since I haven't been able to run in over 10 years, I panic easier than when I could run, so I can't say for sure I was in actual danger - I didn't hear any growling, so it's possible the dog might have thought I was friendly, until I let out a piercing scream and limp-ran into the house).

DH woke up and grabbed the pellet gun, while I grabbed a knife, but we couldn't find it thank goodness. I brought the inside/outside cat in for the night. Bunnies are fine.

I live in a suburb, so I'm not used to having to grab a weapon each time I hear critters outside - mostly they're possums, racoons, occasionally a rat, stray cats, so I haven't felt the need to weapon up in a few years (we had a small pack form a few years back, that got a few of our rabbits, even though they're in big cages, some hanging from chains a few feet above the ground!)

I'm working on an Amazon order, so I'm going to see about a mace/pepper spray since I can't find mine, duh!

First homemade ice cream: Hazelnut Chocolate Chip

2011-08-21T15:14:00.006-05:00

Even though I received a Cuisinart ice cream maker for my birthday, I chose PLAY AND FREEZE™ ice cream recipes because there's no eggs or cooking of custard. And they use half and half, which thrills me because I recently discovered Oak Farms' Half & Half doesn't contain carrageenan, which causes me severe pain and inflammation of my lower intestine - that's why I asked for an ice cream maker, because it's near impossible to find ice cream without the dreaded seaweed (carrageenan).

I had the ingredients on hand to make the Hazelnut Chip ice cream; I put everything but the chips into a 2 quart measuring cup and whisked it, then poured it into my ice cream maker. After twenty minutes, I poured in the chocolate chips and ran it for five more minutes.

Hazelnut Chip
1 pint of Half & Half
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons of Hazelnut Syrup (used to flavor lattes) - I used Torani
2 tablespoons chocolate chips

Because it's been almost two years since I've enjoyed ice cream, we finished the entire batch in one sitting! I didn't freeze it afterwards - the ice cream was like soft serve. I'm thinking of adding a small package of chopped Ferrero Rocher candies to it, or making a Nutella sauce next time.

I'm very pleased neither of us missed the eggs, because I know I'd make less ice cream in the future if I always had to cook custard first.

Here's some flavors we're wanting to try next:

Key Lime with broken Graham crackers (DH)
Pumpkin with broken gingersnaps or candied pecans and maple sauce
Ginger with chai-granola
Maple Caramel Swirl with apple-raisin sauce and cinnamon croutons
Carrot Cake Ice Cream
Dark chocolate with bananas and strawberries
Chocolate with Andes candies (DH)
Not sure it'll work, but I'm going to try soaking a few Celestial Seasonings Bengal Tea bags in the Half and Half overnight, then swirl in marmalade and chopped orange candies in the last 5 minutes.

DH is shopping right now, so I texted him a list of ingredients to make some of the above flavors. OMG I forgot to add the Nutella, so I had to call him ROFL

Happy Birthday to me! I'm going gray!

2011-08-13T08:00:00.032-05:00

DH gave me a FroYo maker that doesn't require ice and rock salt -- I haven't been able to eat ice cream/frozen yogurt since discovering that carrageenan was causing my painful IBS. I can use Nido powdered milk to make yogurt or kefir. I've also found that Oak Farms Half and Half doesn't have the dreaded carrageenan either, yay!

Despite using the maximum dosage of Gray Magic, and leaving the dye in my hair the maximum time, my grays only hold the color for about two weeks, then fade to orange, ewww! I won't lighten my overall color because curly hair is often more prone to damage. DH has been asking me to let my hair go gray for years, then while visiting my mother, she told me my faded orange hair wasn't attractive, to go natural! So I've finally decided to try to become a silver fox ^_^

Due to our DSL modem acting flaky the last few days, I wasn't able to get my photos submitted in time for Going Gray Looking Great's "newbie classes" that helps people like me transition from dyed hair to a silver fox (one can hope LOL). So I'll transition to silver on my own instead.

I broke down and dyed my hair after this photo. My curls grew longer and were looking disheveled, so I made my first appointment with a curl specialist in Clear Lake, Houston. She's thinking it'll take at least 3 more haircuts before the dyed hair is gone.

My neck is VERY happy without all that extra insulation, being that we're still suffering our record-breaking heat spell.

Fire photo (blogginng w/ pics!)

2011-08-13T07:36:00.004-05:00

Being frugal often means work-arounds, which made blogging with pics a bit of a challenge. The best solution for me - frugal+easy - meant buying a BlueTooth dongle for around 10USD. Now I'm seeing how my 3G phone's hi-res pics turn out; here's a pic of my backyard fire that got pretty close to a corner of our house (house is shown in upper-right corner):

Montreal Balsamic Turtle bean dip

2011-07-29T20:52:00.006-05:00

I love bean dips because they help keep my digestive system "young", and they came in very handy after hubby's teeth were pulled a few years ago. Hubby got tired of hummus because that's the only bean dip I served him for a while (I served other kinds of non-bean dips though).

While taking care of my parents during and after my mother's surgery - limited pantry, and very little access to the internet - I came up with a new dip for black beans that tastes different enough to please my hubby:

Montreal Balsamic Turtle Bean Dip
1 can black beans rinsed
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon Montreal steak seasoning
Olive oil to personal preference
water if needed to blend, but I put in just enough olive oil to blend in, pulsing and stirring a LOT
I don't think it needed salt

Hubby agreed with me that adding 1/4 - 1/2 cup of sauteed onions might be nice the next time I make my new black bean dip. I'm also going to sprinkle about 1 tsp dried parsley to offset the mucky color. Fresh parsley would be nice of course, but I always have dried parsley stocked in the pantry.

Food blogs posting about "food photography" = Blech!

2011-07-18T15:35:00.003-05:00

I'm sorry, and I realize it's your blog, so you can post whatever you like. But some food bloggers care about what readers think about their blogs, so here's my opinion about food photography posts:

I do NOT like posts about food photography in food blogs!

I enjoy when food blogs post pics of their dish, especially when they include how-to pics. In fact, I've been unsubbing from food blogs that don't include at least one pic of their dish in the RSS feed*! But just because I enjoy seeing pics with posts about food doesn't mean I enjoy reading many posts about how to photograph food.

IMO, photographing food should probably be included under blogging skills, such as learning to use your blogging platform, writing so that others understand you, maybe a bit of SEO junk if you want to increase viewers, but thankfully most food blogs I follow don't post many posts about blogging software, writing, or SEO stuff, whew thanks!

But with the increased amount of blog posts about food photography, obviously there's interest in it. How about starting a sister-blog dedicated to photography, with it's own RSS feed? People like me - only interested in the food posts - would love you, while others interested in food photography could sub to your new blog about food photography, and love you. Everyone wins! Maybe consider doing a post on how and why to compress photos while you're at it ^_^

*I've noticed lots of food blogs only putting out "preview or teasers" in their RSS feed, most likely because their blogs are being scraped (ripped off and posted on copycat sites). But I'm subbed to quite a few preview/teaser sites that manage to include one pic of their dish, so I know it's possible. Using an RSS reader (like Google Reader) to view my food blogs is great, except when there's NO photo, just text - it's as exciting as reading ancient recipe books without pics (yawn) - unsubbed!

Back to the backyard now that I'm home again

2011-07-17T23:04:00.002-05:00

I didn't tell my parents about our fire, mostly because I didn't want to freak Mama out when her aneurysm was finally bad enough to justify surgical repair - I certainly didn't want her blood pressure to spike! So when I wasn't worrying about Mama during my first week away, I was worried about the yard not being tended to after catching on fire.

Hubby told me a few times that there'd been rain, but after more questioning, most of the rain occurred where he worked, only a few times raining at home. So we're still VERY dry considering we live near the coast, and most times we worry more about flooding.

It was only 95F when we finally arrived back home (I was in Central Texas during the daily 100F+ record breaking heat-wave), but the trip back home, then unpacking, made me too tired to jump back into yard work. I'll start as early in the morning as I can get away with using power tools.

Meanwhile, all but two of my container plants are DEAD! Even the ones in self-watering containers, argh! I mentioned to hubby 2-3 times to water my front plants, including filling up the bottom reservoirs so they wouldn't have to be watered daily. But I guess once he got home from work, the call of the AC was too strong LOL. All that's left is my stevia and garlic chives, and the stevia looks iffy.

Oh well, it's still too hot to worry about starting anything outside for the fall garden, so that'll give me more time to get the backyard into shape. Hopefully I can find some vermiculite to mix with soil to cover the areas I clear of underbrush. I was able to do my yoga and core stuff at my parents' house during the second week of my stay, so hopefully I'll be able to keep up with the yard work without hurting my back until I'm stronger.

Mama's surgery

2011-07-17T21:57:00.006-05:00

A few hours after my backyard fire, my mother called to tell me her surgeon finally scheduled her Aortic Aneurysm repair, after watching it for almost ten years. During her most recent scan, they found masses in her colon, so wouldn't go through with the surgery until a GI cleared her. Luckily the masses were benign polyps, so once the cardio-vascular surgeon heard she'd been cleared, he scheduled her for the aneurysm repair.

He was hoping to do it through her groin, similar to heart cath surgeries, but her groin arteries weren't big enough for the scope, so she ended up with an incision from her pubic bone to her rib cage!

Apparently almost all abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs recover in ICU, but I wonder if she spent a bit more time in ICU due to her smoking. Well, long-story-short, not once did she show signs of pneumonia, but she did puff on her incentive spirometer like a competitive athlete LOL

ICU can't have over-night guests, so I went home with Daddy and fixed him dinner. The next morning she looked good and no longer had her NG (nasal) tube - we were pleased, until we found out she yanked it out herself during a "delirious fit". It turns out her blood levels and potassium were very low, once they gave her two blood transfusions and a few potassium bags, she was no longer delirious. The doctors said they'd see how she tolerated being without her nasal tube, in the hopes of not having to put another one in while she was conscious. Luckily she tolerated things without the nasal tube.

She finally qualified for the regular floor, and made it six whole hours there before the floor nurses shipping her back to ICU. Looking back, I wonder if I might have contributed to her being sent back, if so, it was for the best:

Without the extra tubing of the ICU (nasal tube, EKG monitoring, just to name a few), she had more freedom to move around in bed. She kept tossing from side to side every thirty minutes or so. I told her to try to settle down a bit, because she had a lot of bruising after her minor gall bladder surgery from tossing around so much (but not enough to to to the ER - yea I did six years of post-0p on the floor). So I figure I should peek at her incision, since her tossing had caused problems in the past.

Not only was there bruising again, but the area directly around her incision was puffed up and hard! I found her nurse as quickly as I could, who was also concerned by this, so she used her pen to mark the puffy, hard area. I told the nurse about how Mama couldn't stop turning from side to side, so we decided her PRN Ativan might help her stop tossing and turning. Boy did it ever stop her from tossing and turning - Mama was gorked!

So maybe 30-60 minutes later I check her incision again and the puffy, hard area had grown considerably beyond the nurse's markings! I report this to the nurse again, who looked again, more concerned, so she wanted her vital signs. Another long-story-short, three RNs couldn't hear her blood pressure until they brought in a doppler (the hand-held machine normally associated with listening to a baby's heartbeat while in a pregnant belly). Between the increasing size of the puffy, hard area around her incision, combined with her weak blood pressure (most likely associated with the Ativan, looking back), Mama was brought back to ICU pretty fast.

Right after the nurses sent me down the public hallway to wait for the ICU nurse to call me in, I mean RIGHT AFTER, I hear a code being called in the ICU! I started crying in the ICU waiting room, and called Daddy, who's very hard of hearing, so he didn't answer. I called my hubby in Houston and cried to him until they called me into the ICU. Her room number wasn't the same room number as the code (I overheard the family of the room that had the code called, and their family member made it through the code!)

Well during the time I waited to be allowed back in, her surgeon's partner had already arrived and ordered a CT to rule out hemorrhage, since that seemed the most likely reason for the blood pressure and incision stuff, but the CT came back negative for hemorrhage, whew!

Three albumins and two more bags of potassium later, she wasn't gorked anymore, just groggy from the Ativan. She was borderline on her blood, but not quite enough to require more blood, but they'd watch closely until she was stable. Once the Ativan wore off, it was almost like nothing had happened, pretty much like the night before.

So even though my concerns about hemorrhaging were wrong, I'm glad it triggered us into action, for maybe her dropping blood pressure and potassium levels wouldn't have been caught so soon on the floor, with the higher nurse-to-patient ratios.

It was finally morning, so Daddy answered the phone (he has a thingee connected to his TV that says the phone is ringing). She wasn't stable at the time I told him about her being sent back to ICU, so his one hour trip back to the hospital was a rough one, especially all alone. She was coming out out of the Ativan while both of us were in the ICU with her, then we all went back to the floor once again.

Now that her blood and potassium had dropped to dangerous levels twice, they scheduled more frequent labs, so they were on top of it the third time it happened, and she got blood and potassium yet again while on the floor. She finally stabilized after that, so the only thing left in her recover was to move her bowels and do PT to regain a bit of strength.

That's when she and I butted heads - she has always hated exercise and being told what to do, and is the master of manipulation. She had the PT and CNA's all fooled about how much she could tolerate, and got mad at me when I'd remind her that not walking would slow down when her bowels would move. Instead of walking more, she started eating less solids! Apparently her Dr figured out something was up, and put her back on just water only until her bowels moved, and suggested in-patient rehab for the PT. He also ordered her Miralax until she moved her bowels, so it was off to in-patient rehab finally, yay, because they had one in their little town - in a nursing home!

Adjusting to the nursing home was a bit rough at first, but it was a pretty nice nursing home other than the loud raucous, because it was such a small nursing home, they didn't have enough wings to put similar patients into special wings like bigger nursing homes. Once Mama figured out she could request her meals in her room, things went a lot better, especially since they had scheduled smoking breaks every two hours during the day. And being in their home town also meant visitors from her retirement neighborhood, yay!

She tried the manipulation stuff again with the nursing home's PT crew, but since she was across the hall from the PT room, they allowed her to have many smaller PT sessions, instead of doing the entire hour in one session, so that was great as far as Mama was concerned, although I wished she had gotten enough rehab to rebuild some of her strength and endurance from being lazy and depressed from a few months of eczema that took many dermatologists to finally beat it. But since Mama could get around in the house with Daddy helping tend to her, that was enough for them. What can I say, it's Mama's decision to be inactive, and Daddy's decision to be an enabler because he loves her.

She's supposed to have Home Health PT, which was yet another drama due to the last time they had home health for Daddy's surgery, the home health nurse showed up twice with her family, once bringing her son into my parents home, asking if the minded! I'll call tomorrow afternoon to see if the Home Health service had got in touch with her yet, or if I need to call her poor doctor yet again.

All in all, I'm very relieved she no longer as a weak area in her aorta, for her blood pressure can get pretty high when she's not post-op. Hopefully having a break from me hovering will help keep her blood pressure in check, even if she did enjoy having someone cooking and cleaning for them for two weeks LOL

Bottle + Drought = Fire!

2011-06-26T00:41:00.005-05:00

Earlier today, we were woke up (late morning) by repeated doorbell rings, way more than door-to-door salespeople or even kids ring the bell. When we looked out the peephole, no one was there, so because of how many times it was rang, we peeked outside and saw our backyard neighbor coming from the side yard. She yelled: "There's a fire in your backyard! I've already called the fire department!"

I limp-ran through the house to the backdoor, rushed out to find a lot bigger fire than the last time I had a backyard fire! I grabbed the hose to reattach it to the faucet, while she said the fire dispatch said not to try to put it out. I replied that I had no idea how long they'd be, I had to at least slow the spread (there wasn't time for me to explain to her that I had minimum fire safety training back when I started working at the hospital, so I knew not to continue spraying water if it caused it to spread, like with an accelerant fire, or saw sparking like with electrical fires).

Meanwhile hubby is still putting on his shoes (I put my flip flops on when I heard the doorbell). I'd put out the flames close to the house, and had started on the tall flames in a different area by the time he came outside. He grabbed the hose from me and started on yet another flaming area when he handed the hose back to me and left.

A few minutes (or seconds) later, no more water came out the hose! I'm scream-babbling about where's the water, so he answered that he changed out the hose for the better, longer hose because the one I grabbed wasn't long enough (in my defense, the better hose was on the side of the house, not right next to the faucet where I started). The second hose did work much better and had a longer reach, which was great since by then the fire had spread to the neighboring field! I screamed again: "It's spread to the field - get the field!"

Apparently our awesome neighbor had run back around to her house, for she answered she was getting her hose over to where her property shared boundary with the field. She then yelled she thought the sirens might be the fire department. So I went up front to wave them to our house. By this time, I didn't see anymore flames in OUR yard, even though there was still many smoking areas (another thing I remember from my short fire training, as well as putting out my other backyard fire: smoking areas will reflame!) There were still a few flaming spots in the field next door though, so that trumped smoking areas.

As the fire fighters got out of of their truck, I told them we had the flames out in our backyard, but it was still flaming in the field, also we still had many smoking areas we couldn't finish off until we got the flames out next door. The head fire fighter had me show him possible ways to get into the field next door - they had re-fenced, so no more easy access using our now useless gate to the field, but then I noticed there wasn't any more flaming in the field, yay!

So me and the head fire fighter return to the back, and the other fire fighters were putting out the smoking areas in both our backyard and the neighboring field. Meanwhile we discussed how it might have started, but after I told them we hadn't barbequed in over a month, didn't smoke in the backyard, didn't have enemies or recent fights (see, I have been questioned by the fire department before, but this time they didn't get on their hands and knees and smell the ground for accelerent LOL). So they decided if we put the sprinkler out, moving it around every 10-15 minutes, we should be ok - watch it for another hour or so, which we did.

I'm guessing it was around 1pm when things slowed down enough for us to go inside to cool off a bit (thank goodness it wasn't in the 100's, high 90's was bad enough!) I drank 1 1/2 glasses of water while hubby said he was going to thank our neighbor and reassure her we were watching to make sure it didn't reflame, and I told hubby maybe he should drink a glass of water first LOL (he did).

Well that fire was a kick in the backside for hubby to finally get out the bigger yard tools he had hidden away in his scary shed I can't get around in. He had a power saw that's easier to handle than a chainsaw (which I'm not allowed to use), but bigger than a hedge trimmer. We took turns cutting down underbrush that had grown up. There's so much we couldn't finish it all before dark, with taking breaks because of the heat. I had to take breaks because my hands were tender, since hubby couldn't find my garden gloves he borrowed (they're found now, and will be used tomorrow!)

Later on, hubby told me he moved the small bottle outside in the middle of where he thought the fire started, so it wouldn't cause any more fire. I didn't even know it was out there, probably hidden under the underbrush. I just kept up my small exercise area and area around the picnic table - I couldn't get the lawn mower beyond my little areas.

Well last fire about 10 years ago, when the fire fighters were into arson investigation mode, we finally figured it started from a yard tool plastic wrapper left out, even though there wasn't a lot of underbrush back then. But it seems it's becoming a pattern now, so NO MORE clear plastic or glass in the yard, especially during droughts, or even just hot summers! For they'll magnify the sun's rays on the dry grass/brush and start a fire!

Big thanks to HFD Station 52! I'm deciding what I should give them as a thank you gift - I'm thinking fruit, since there's not as many allergies/sensitivities with fruit, and no big reports of food poisoning. Organic for sure!

Veggie Container Garden and Potting Soil

2011-06-24T00:06:00.002-05:00

I bought two different potting soils for my container veggies experiment.

One was from a feed store, the other from Walmart. I put two cherry tomatoes in one container with the feed store potting soil, and six jalapeno peppers into the other container with the feed store potting soil.

I put one yellow pepper (sweet) and one yellow summer squash into the container with the Walmart potting soil.

So far I've harvested about 12 jalapenos, and maybe 75-100 cherry tomatoes from the feed store potting soil containers. The plants look a bit sparse, but still produce.

The Walmart potting soil container hasn't even produced any flowers on the yellow pepper plant, and the small ugly squash plant, it does make squash flowers, but they never become squash. Both plants are very small.

I need to learn about adding extra fertilizer, or other amendments, but I've learned NOT to use Walmart potting soil.

Saffir-Simpson Scale OR Surge - Why not BOTH?

2009-06-14T00:36:00.002-05:00

Houston's ABC Weatherman, Tim Heller, blogged:

[T]he National Hurricane Center has removed all references to storm surge from the Scale. I think they should reconsider that decision. Since the public is familiar with the Saffir-Simpson Scale, NHC should leave the Scale alone, but change how it is used: rank hurricanes based on the wind speed OR storm surge, whichever is the greatest threat.
Using this method, Hurricane Ike would have been ranked a category four hurricane based on storm surge.

It's Tim Heller's second post; I had already commented on his first post on this subject, but when he posted the above again -- clarifying that under the proposed new hurricane rating system -- Hurricane Ike would have been classified as a cat4 hurricane. I didn't fully understand that at first, so I commented on the original post again. Below is what I commented the 2nd time:

I commented on this post earlier, but didn't fully understand the "OR whichever's worse part", but Tim explained it again in the 2nd related post:

"change how it is used: rank hurricanes based on the wind speed OR storm surge, whichever is the greatest threat.

"Using this method, Hurricane Ike would have been ranked a category four hurricane based on storm surge."

I will explain why I think Ike as a Cat4 would have been stupid, and caused another Rita Evac mini-disaster:

I live in SE Houston, in Zone C, which is only mandatory evac for cat4+. I am well above sea level and did not get any water in my home during Ike.

But if Ike had been rated a cat4, our entire Zone C area would have been mandatory evac for no other reason than this new proposed method of EITHER/OR.

Need I remind ANYONE that more people died in Rita's evacuation than the area that Rita actually struck?

SURGE is for people close to the coast and large-connected waterways.

WIND is for people further inland.

With as much technology as the weather folks have, and most have very high degrees, I find it VERY difficult to believe that having BOTH surge and wind categories to be too difficult, especially when the occasional weird storm like Ike would cause unnecessary evacuations.

We need BOTH, not either/or.

Thank you.

Hamburger Pemmican Experiment - 1b

2009-06-11T14:57:00.003-05:00

I put the boiled hamburger into a baggie; there were lots of large and medium sized chunks. Later on, before putting the hamburger into the dehydrator, I used a coffee mug to mash up the chunks before taking it all out of the baggie. I only have one plastic liner for leathers/barks, so I used a regular tray as a guide to cut out some big circles from parchment. I ended up using 3 trays, but probably should have done 4, since five pounds (minus 2 hamburger patties for dinner) was crowded on 3 trays. I still had a few smallish chunks after putting it all onto the trays, so I mashed those down with a fork.

About ten hours later, hubby put the dehydrated hamburger into a baggie for me, then put it in the fridge. I'm not sure it needed to be in the fridge since it was bone dry by then, but we had room, and why take chances.

Today I poured the baggie of dehydrated hamburger into the blender, and used the highest setting to ground it up. I did this in batches since it looked like it would be too much to do it all at once. When it was all ground up, it looked like a cross between ground coffee and chocolate cake mix, except not quite as dark.

I had poured all the broth into a sherbet container, and put it in the fridge. When I took it out, the top layer of fat was harder than I imagined (I've never worked with such a large amount of beef fat, only chicken which is softer even when chilled). I ran a butter knife around the inner edges of the container, then use the butter knife to stab the fat in the middle, while holding the sherbet container over my rice cooker.

I thought it was pretty cool when the solid piece of fat stayed on the butter knife, while the gelatinous broth fell cleanly into the rice cooker LOL. There was a little gunk on the bottom layer of fat, which I rinsed off with tap water (it's hot today, so the water was already a little warm, which helped wash the gunk off without melting the fat).

I added a bit of water to the broth to bring it up the next level (4), then added 4 cupfuls of rice (my rice cooker came with its own cup that correlates with the raised measurement lines in the rice cooker), and turned it on.

I put the hamburger fat in the electric skillet to make sure it didn't have anymore liquid in it, and after it heated for a while I poured it into a measuring cup -- 1 3/8 cup. I measured 1 3/8 cup of dehydrated hamburger, then lined a cookie sheet with foil, and spread out the hamburger on it, then slowly poured the fat over it while slightly mixing with a large spoon. As I was mixing and spreading everything around, it reminded me of spreading warmed chocolate chips over toffee. I took a small taste and it was very bland, so I sprinkled about 1/4 tsp salt over it.

It looked pretty greasy once it was mixed up and spread out, but I put it in the freezer so it would harden more quickly. I hope I didn't misunderstand the directions about putting equal amounts of fat and meat in -- maybe it meant weight instead of volume?

Since putting it in the freezer, I played Mafia Wars, then came here to update the experiment series, and just checked on it in the freezer -- it setup really fast! I used a butterknife to score it into small pieces about 1/2" x 1". I tasted one, and it was greasy and crunchy, but at least the salt made it taste better. I don't see either of us eating these by themselves like we did with the hamburger jerky I made before evacuating Hurricane Rita -- that was yummy. The only thing I see us using this pemmican in is meat sauces, rice dishes, or beans.

One other thing I didn't consider when I decided to try making pemmican: The main reason I want shelf-stable meats is that we occasionally lose power where I live, even if a hurricane hasn't struck near us. If we have no power, then it gets pretty hot, and the fat in the pemmican would seperate from the dried meat, oops!

So after I package it up into meal-sized portions, it's going to stay in the freezer in case of power loss. At least it will take a few days before the freezer warms up enough to separate the fat from the dried meat (I insulate the fridge/freezer if power goes out). Mabye the Indians that used pemmican lived in a cooler climate 8^)

I'll blog later about how it went after using the pemmican in a recipe.

Meanwhile, the rice finished, cooled enough to put the inner pot of the rice cooker in the fridge, and later I'll put the rice into one-gallon baggies for the freezer, ala Biggie's freezer storage tip, so all I'll have to do is thaw rice for dinner over the next few weeks.

Ready to Survive a 90-day Quarantine?

2009-06-09T14:58:00.004-05:00

Preparedness Pro blogged: Ready to Survive a 90-day Quarantine? It was quite an eye-opening article about the many ways people would need to be prepared in case of a 90 day quarantine, including scenarios we might not think of.

While I agree that everyone should try to be prepared for most foreseeable disasters, I had some questions and comments for her that ended up being too long. So Here's my long comment (and I'll link this blog post in her comments as a manual "trackback"):

Are there any recent or proposed protocols for quarantining various types of locations (big cities, ports, less-populated areas)? If so, are there different levels of whichever protocol might apply, such as: very contagious, but only lethal to young/old/immuno-suppressed; or mildy contagious, but more lethal across the board; or very contagious, and highly lethal D/T cytokine storm? <-I just made those up, perhaps there's already different levels with better names.

Anyway, hopefully there's some kind of realistic protocol based on our current population that considers the different levels of threats. The swine-flu threat took a bit too long before they tried to contain it IMO, even though it turned out not to be as lethal as it was first thought (like it was in Mexico). But once they actually closed some schools, some were closed for quite a while even after they realized the threat wasn't as bad as we feared (although I don't know each locations death rates, so the amount of time might have been justified).

Even if they just "wing it", making protocols up in real time, I'm guessing only certain areas of the country might be looking at the possibility of a full-blown quarantine lasting a full 90 days. Look at China during SARS -- it had a fairly high death rate, yet people still ventured out, albeit with masks and gloves.

But! Even if a partial quarantine happens in your area, don't be too lulled into thinking gloves and a mask will give 100% protection, even if it's an N95. When I first trained at the hospital, they spent extra time on new healthcare workers on wearing TB masks properly. She had a spray that smelled very sweet that she'd spray near the edges of our mask. If we could smell sweet, then we would have been exposed to TB. None of us new healthcare workers in our group got it right the first time!

Also, I'm pretty sure I caught rotovirus from a pedi patient! I had cared for, or assisted with IV, for many roto pedis, so it wasn't like I was inexperienced. But even though we tried very hard to always glove and wash our hands very good with roto patients, I had diarrhea the next morning. I helped hold the pedi during IV insertion, and it was difficult just like it always was with stout toddlers or kids. And I was gloved, but I got sick anyway. So despite training, certain situations will put people at risk (fighting, or not wearing masks properly), even with gloves or masks.

Hamburger Pemmican Experiment - 1a

2009-06-08T09:40:00.002-05:00

The hamburger broth with fat cooled enough that I could pour it through a strainer without risk of burning myself, and it's now in the fridge with the meat. I'm thinking of pouring boiling water through the meat to get rid of whatever fat is left, but I'm not really sure if that's necessary, since I'll be adding fat back into it later on after dehydrating and powdering it in the blender. But since traditional pemmican used lean meat for the jerky, it will only take a few extra minutes to make sure there's no fat like with the traditional way.

Meanwhile, I checked on the broth a few minutes ago, and the sides of the container were still slightly warm. So I looked for the dehydrator, and found stuff on it, some of which needed to be thrown away. Then I got distracted outside, and visited with the neighbor (who told me where they buy their used cars from, and they're also a decent mechanic too, yay) while I swept the mowed grass on the sidewalks into piles to mulch my little raised bed garden later on after I put another bag of potting soil on, and some rabbit manure.

All the semi-wild, and tamed cats actually stuck around, probably because the yard was finally mowed (don't let gas/oil mix sit in lawn mowers too long!) So I had to tickle a lot of tummies after sweeping grass. Then I rode my bike because I'm still way out of shape from sitting around sick last year.

Maybe the broth will be chilled and separated after I wash the dehydrator, rinse the hamburger in boiling water, then setup the hamburger on the dehydrating trays.

Hamburger Pemmican Experiment - 1

2009-06-06T11:04:00.007-05:00

I've read a few articles about how to make pemmican, and it seems like rendering the fat and grinding the dehydrated meat make it difficult. I remember reading on some OAMC sites that some people boil their hamburger, then pour off the water and fat so they can use just the hamburger in their bulk recipes.

So I'm thinking that if I boiled hamburger, drained the water and fat into a container that was put into the fridge, that I could easily scrape off the fat once it had risen, then have leftover broth for soup or beans.

Meanwhile I could dehydrate the hamburger, and since it was pre-ground, it might be easier to grind once dehydrated.

I used a five pound tube of 73/27 hamburger that hubby bought from Walmart -- minus two medium sized burgers. I think that's their fattest hamburger blend, which is good, since I hope to have as much fat as dehydrated hamburger.

I put the hamburger into my electric skillet along with about 1/4 cup of soy sauce, then broke it up with a wooden spoon (skillet is non-stick). I then topped it with water I had boiled in the kettle, to within 1/2 inch of the top. I set the temperature as high as it would go -- 400F -- covered it, and stayed nearby until it boiled. I washed breakfast dishes, and the wooden spoon I had used to break up the hamburger while waiting.

It didn't take very long to boil since I had added boiling water; it boiled over a little, and I had to be quick with the paper towels to clean up the boiled over mess. I uncovered it and lowered the temperature to simmer, and broke up the meat again, since it had big chunks in it that had pink in the middle.

I let it simmer longer at around 220F to get rid of the pink, and washed the wooden spoon and plastic slotted spoon I used to break up the bigger chunks. I'm guessing it simmered for about 20 minutes longer.

I used a plastic spoon to remove the bigger chunks (not as big as the first group I had broken up, but about meatball sized), and place them into a colander draining over a large glass bowl. Once I removed most of the hamburger chunks I could easily get to, I put the colander and drain bowl into the fridge. Then I covered the broth and fat with the smaller bits of hamburger to let it cool down before I do a pour-strain, since I usually burn myself if I don't let the liquid cool down a bit first.

What to scan for Emergency USB

2009-06-01T11:55:00.005-05:00

An extremely well-written Katrina memoir includes a list of great suggestions to keep handy for bugging out. Most of those could be scanned and stored on an encrypted USB (or two).

LISTENING TO KATRINA - HYST - Documents

HYST = Have Your S*** Together

Take a peek at his entire memoir too. It's amazing he's able to write this so humorously about such a dire situation as Hurricane Katrina. But he pulls it off. Two pages prior to this page, he wrote about large populations trying to evacuate all at once. Been there, done that! Yes, I was in the Rita evacuation, and completely agree with him that bugging out/evacuating is dreadful -- we saw so many serious car accidents, so I really shouldn't complain, but it wasn't something I'd repeat unless my life were actually in danger, instead of possibly. More people died in the evacuation than died where Rita actually landed.

PS: We don't have a laptop, but hubby removed our hard-drive to bring with us during our Rita evac. Yes, we realized we couldn't just put it into any computer and have it run, but we would be able to access our saved files.

Preparedness and spouses (sigh!)

2009-05-25T20:14:00.003-05:00

Big storm yesterday woke me up; power went out twice while I was awake, but only for a few minutes each time. Later on, hubby told me power had gone out for about 15 minutes while I was napping, and came back on right as he was about to light the lantern. Amusing chuckle.

The sun actually came out before sunset, and all was quiet after dark. Then for no weather reason whatsoever, our power went out. I waited a few minutes to see if it would return, and when it didn't, I used the flashlight to find the other flashlight, and lit the one lantern that was out, as well as a huge candle with four wicks I bought on sale after Ike.

Then I stepped out the back door to see if the neighbors we share the transformer with had their backyard floodlight on, and if the back-fence neighbors' TVs were glowing through their windows. No lights, but the rest of the neighborhood had plenty of lights.

So I go back in and call the power company while trying to light the other lantern. The fuel looked a bit low, and the wick barely caught, but fizzled out while I was going through the power company's voice menu. After I'd given the information to the power company, they said it had already been called in, and would hopefully be restored by sunup.

Uh oh, that's many hours away, I better top off this lantern to make sure there's enough light for hubby in case he woke up to use the bathroom. So off to the prep storage area I go to get the kerosene -- it's not there!

I looked in a few other places where it could have been, and no kerosene to be found, despite hubby saying we had enough to last us through until fall (when I called him last month doing early hurricane preps to avoid the desperate panic rush with empty shelves).

I decide to buy ice since I'd bought quite a bit of fresh meat last shopping trip, and put the lantern that was lit, and the candle in a safe place, with a flashlight next to each one just in case hubby woke up while I was out.

I wasn't gone that long, but the porch light was on when I returned, and I found hubby awake, but just barely. I put out the lantern and candle, and put them up while telling him about not being able to light the other lantern because it was low on kerosene, and the kerosene wasn't in the prep storage area. Oh, he'd put it in his mess of a garage.

Well isn't that helpful?! I had planned on moving the storage prep from the kitchen to our central hall anyway, so now's a good time to start, so I can see what else isn't there anymore. And he wonders why I stash stuff LOL

Help: Prescriptions, hurricanes, and insurance

2009-05-22T12:15:00.004-05:00

Backstory: Hubby started on prescription drugs about 1 1/2 years ago, and we're still learning all the ins and outs involved with it. We were both very relieved that I remembered to call in his prescription for refill once they determined that we were in Hurricane Ike's 2-3 cone, and was able to have another month's supply of his medicine. It could have been really close to running out because of how long it took to get power back up in the SE part of Houston.

A short time ago, his dosage was increased, but the PA didn't call it into the pharmacy -- she just instructed him to double his dosage. So he ran low quicker than usual, and I called it in for a refill. But CVS wouldn't fill the prescription, because according to their records, it was too soon for him to be needing more medication. I had to call the doctor's office, and the nurse called in the new prescription to CVS, who filled it right away since they knew what was going on.

Looking back, I wonder if the reason we were allowed to order his medication before Hurricane Ike was because of the hurricane, or maybe he was nearing the end of that month's supply (too long ago to remember).

Questions: What if a hurricane is going to strike about two weeks into a prescription? Will we having problems filling the next month's prescription ahead of time?

Maybe this is a CVS only policy.
Maybe it has something to do with insurance not paying unless the medication falls within a certain time period.
Maybe there's a hurricane provision that cancels out whatever the reason is that doesn't allow pre-ordering during normal times?

If someone reading this has any experience with this, or knows how to handle this potential problem, please let me know. Thanks!

Raised bed garden started

2009-05-05T18:46:00.001-05:00

Big trash is coming up, and neighbors are putting out stuff that got ruined the the floods a few weeks ago (we were the only ones on the dead-end block to not get water in the house). I saw a wooden bookshelf, so it popped into my head that would be easier than building a raised-bed garden with scavenged boards. I grabbed the dolly and wheeled it into the backyard.

I put it near the clothesline in a place that gets sun almost from sunup to sundown. I poured two bags of potting soil I had on hand, and put in the better boy tomato and poblano pepper plants that are growing in some kind of organic planter that will disinigrate as the plants grow. I have a few tomatoes from last year that survived our somewhat mild winter, but they're very leggy, so I'll have to lookup how to propagate or air layer them. One of them has a flower though, so maybe it's too late?

The Chayas won't go in the raised bookshelf garden though, since they're perennials and will grow fairly tall. Hubby still hasn't told me where he'll "accept" one of them, but one place has been approved at least: corner of the front yard between the giant oak and house. The seller said they do better in partial shade in Houston. He said they're from the Yucatan; I guess they're cooler there than here, maybe because of the seabreeze or elevation?

The other bags of potting soil I had are in the back of the truck, so I couldn't get to them until hubby got home, and it was hot then. But it's cooling off now, so I'm going to put those into the first shelf so I can plant the Asian Yard Long beans (yum!)

Bunnies update

2009-05-05T18:35:00.001-05:00

It's a bit warm today, but the baby bunnies are still in their box with shredded newspaper and mama-fur. Hubby said they were out yesterday, but he thinks mama flipped the box. I weighted it down with half a brick, but I guess she's stronger than that.

Their fur has filled in; there's two light red bunnies, and one gray and white bunny. One of the red bunnies has a white start on their head, so we can tell them all apart easily. Hubby hasn't sexed them yet, but if the starred bunny is female, he'll probably name her Star. He named one of the kitties Smokey. I need to reinstall Bluetooth on this computer, so I can transfer my photos to hubby's phone, so he can transfer them to the computer (my phone and computer "recognize" each other, but won't transfer, grrrr). ATT tech-support had me uninstall all networks except theirs when our internet went down. Hubby installed Bluetooth the first time; I dread it, but want my baby critter photos on the pc, so I don't have much choice.

Freaky Dreams: Painful Halloween

2009-05-02T04:31:00.001-05:00

It's been quite a while since I had a freaky dream, but I had a doozy last night:

Hubby brought someone home from his work; I don't know who it was, or why he brought them home. I just know he woke me up from napping on the couch to tell me he brought someone home. We all went into the kitchen to see a dog -- I don't know how it got there -- hubby and coworker didn't seem surprised the dog, but I was. The dog was missing chunks of flesh that had been replaced by electronic circuitry (think Borg).

There were lots of fancy, expensive boxes and bags of candy on the dining table that the dog was trying to get into when the doorbell rang; it was trick-or-treaters (in April!). I handed out some fancy candies and they left, but I saw more trick-or-treaters down the street and figured word would get out that we were giving fancy candies, so I started to move the candies from the kitchen area to the front door area so circuitry dog wouldn't get into them.

That's when things started getting weird.

There were lots of people in our house now. They were helping themselves to the candies, as well as drinks from the kitchen, and using our bathroom. I didn't know if hubby or coworker had let them in, so I went looking for one of them to ask.

One of the unexpected guests grabbed me, and kissed me. A woman! The next thing I knew I had pushed her away by gouging one of her pressure points, and went into defensive stance. She tossed her head back, laughing, and said: "Well, she's in defensive mode now". But she didn't make any more moves on me.

I was livid! I went to find hubby or coworker to find out who had let these people in our home, and get their help to get everyone to leave. I entered the back bedroom to find a homeless man wandering around looking for the many critters in there. There were a few pet birds and some small critters people keep as caged pets, all wandering freely in my back room!

I became more angry, and was about to tell the homeless man to gather his critters and get out now, when his pet spider I hadn't seen crawled on my hand and begin biting me repeatedly -- the bites hurt bad. I woke up after about the third or fourth bite because I was hollering. Once I was aware that I was actually awake, I thought I had really been bitten while I was asleep, and looked at my hand for bitemarks. Nothing, and the pain totally disappeared too! There's still no marks on my hand hours later.

I had no idea dreams could make us hurt when we weren't actually being hurt in reality.

Storage order

2009-05-01T21:02:00.003-05:00

My order for Walton Feed supplies:

Pak-Main Course Pack

Pak-Imitation Trial Pack (various TVPs)

Pak-Soup Starter Pack

Pak-Fruit Pack

Mountain House 72 hour meal kit

Case of MREs

#10 Whole dried eggs

#10 Butter powder

#10 Non-fat milk

#10 Sample Pack

#10 Garden seeds

2 Blue 55 gallon water barrels

1 spigot

1 pump

Aquamira water filter

Aquamira replacement filter

Wonder Junior Deluxe wheat grinder

Adding these items to my canned goods, dried beans, rice, powdered milk (grocery store), pastas, and 100 lbs wheat should be enough to get the two of us through a hurricane or quarantine, even if we have to feed others. I wish I was a better gardener, but I can still grow some food. I don't kill too many perennials at least, so there's hope for the Chaya and Chayote. And there's always Nopales, if I ever learn to make it so hubby will eat it 8^)

Perennial Vegetables - starting out

2009-05-01T13:59:00.003-05:00

I now have three Chaya trees, aka Tree Spinach. I paid for two, and he gave me a smaller one, along with some picked leaves to cook (which I haven't done yet). He told me that theirs do better in partial shade, probably because of Houston's heat. Hubby's particular where I plant permanent things, I guess because he doesn't like to mow around things in tight places. So I'll let him pick where we'll plant them so I won't hear about it later on.

Although I've read about some Chaya varieties not having the stinging hairs, the ones I bought do have them. The seller showed me a few; they're on the leaf stems. He showed me how to pinch off a leaf without touching much of the stem. He also explained that if they touch the stinging hairs on the stems, they mostly just itch a few minutes, and don't get a rash. But I showed hubby how to pinch off the leaves just in case, so I won't hear about it later on LOL

The seller also explained how easy Chaya is to propagate. His family just puts the woody sticks in soil; they don't put a plastic covering over it, and still gets 50% rooting. He says they put two sticks in each pot to make sure they'll get at least one Chaya.

The seller, as well as Wikipedia article say they'll grow fast, so I'm looking forward to propagating more for family, friends, or neighbors, whoever wants them. We've noticed the next-door neighbors having more and more edibles planted (her father brings them; he's nice and always offers us food when they're grilling), and they're Mexican, so I bet they might want some. They already have a few peppers, nopales, and some kind of sturdy fruit tree/shrub (the girls can't remember what they're called in English); they survived Hurricane Ike, and the three floods from the last few weeks. So I'm thinking of giving them the smaller tree I got for free the next time I see the Grandfather next door, since we know he's the one wanting his kids and grandkids having edibles and is pushy that they get planted. My across-the-street neighbors are into fruit trees, so maybe he'll want one also.

My chayote, aka choto has sprouted and needs planting too. Since it's an aggressive perennial vine, I've chosen the backside of the boat shed converted to a bunny shed in the back corner of our yard that.Hopefully it'll smother the wysteria and honeysuckle I'm constantly having to hack down (and people in cooler regions actually desire our weeds ROFL). The rabbits could use the shade too. I read that they don't like standing water, so I'm going to have to build up the soil with some bricks we have, since we flood with the heavier rains.

All parts of the chayote are edible, so it would be a great sustainable/preparedness perennial to have should any disaster affecting food happen (hurricanes, animal-named influenza pandemics, depression).

Boost immunity for Swine Flu? Not until more known about Swine Flue and Cytokines

2009-04-28T23:34:00.006-05:00

Until it's determined whether Swine Flu causes cytonkine storm, no way will I give us Elderberry or Echinacea:

Swine flu and deaths in healthy adults--cytokine storm?
@ Aetiology by Tara C. Smith - an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology

If they do find cytokine storm with Swine Flu, I'll be following the following advice for "natural cures", since the author/s sourced the studies found at PubMed and NCBI for most of the "nature cures" listed (including the DON'T TAKES, where Elderberry and Echinacea fall under):

Natural Antivirals
@ The Health Gazette - blog owners "have decades of professional experience in multiple health disciplines, including nursing, psychology and natural medicine. We were also senior academics who spent almost 15 years teaching in Australian universities. We each have several degrees including PhD."

And if you're confused as to whether the Swine Flu is airborne or droplet (no, they are not the same), don't feel alone. Apparently they're deciding to treat Swine Flu halfway between droplet and airborne protocols (read the article; it's too complicated to rewrite without writing a book).

All Swine Flu, All the Time
@ Controversies in Hospital Infection Prevention - blog owners 1) Michael B. Edmond, MD, MPH, MPA is Professor of Internal Medicine, Epidemiology and Community Health, and 2) Daniel J. Diekema, M.D., M.S. Clinical Professor of Medicine and Pathology

Fomites cleaned; reclean after returning home

2009-04-26T22:18:00.003-05:00

I try to regularly clean my home's fomites (frequently touched things), but until the Swine Flu 'pandemic' scare passes, I'll be doing it every time one of us returns home from public places, like shopping today, and when hubby comes home from work. Since hubby loses the hand cleanser plastic bottles I kept in the truck when I used it for work, I bought antimicrobial wipes. I really like how easy it is to clean little, twitchy things like:

keyboard keys
the mouse
desk area in front of the pc
remote control buttons
light switches
fan switches and pulleys

I also cleaned all doorknobs, faucets, and window-blind pulleys. I had already cleaned the truck's doorknobs and steering wheel when I finished shopping. Now if hubby washes his hands when he comes home from work, all I need to wipe will be the truck, front door knobs, and faucets of the sink he used. Comment if you think I forgot something. Hmm, I think I'll include his lunchbox, and put some wipes in a ziplock in the lunchbox too, since he shares eating quarters and bathrooms with numerous people that might be higher risk due to country of origin (I hope that was politically correct, and not too insulting).

I put the travel-pack of antimicrobial wipes in the truck, and am going to put some gloves and one N95 mask into a ziplock baggie for the truck too. I sure hope all of this turns out to be just paranoia. At least it took less time than it took to type this up 8^)

Prepping for hurricane season, and potential pandemic (panic)

2009-04-26T17:18:00.002-05:00

This is about the time of year I do hurricane preps; I buy things we'll eat throughout the year, but shelf-stable instead of frozen. I also make sure we have enough cooking and lighting fuel, batteries, and water containers.

So after reading so many reports about a potential Swine Flu outbreak, epidemic, or pandemic, I figured I better get my yearly hurricane preps done now, otherwise the shelves will be emptied.

I bought a lot of canned meats and beans a few weeks ago. Today I bought some rechargeable batteries (AA and AAA), an LED lantern (20 bulbs) that recharges with AC or DC (we have an inverter we plug into the truck), and in-between shelf so I can store more cans without them being stacked on top of each other (why did they stop making cans stackable?)

I also bought more gloves, since hubby goes through them quickly, anti-microbial wipes in travel-pack as well as full sized so I can restock the travel pack (we already had a travel-pack, but hubby ripped the top open LOL). And I even found some N95 masks, 2 per box, for less than $3 USD/box. Hubby asked why I didn't just buy some HazMat suits; I answered that they weren't on sale LOL. I hope he'll always be able to laugh about his wife buying those, instead of having to use them like we saw from China's SAR's outbreak a few years back.

Other than the masks, everything I bought is either something we'd use during normal times (ok, not Spam, but I do have to hide the vienna sausages from him LOL), or something we'd use if hit by a hurricane. I filled up one gas tank, but the pump wanted to start over after it finished with one tank, and the car behind me had been waiting a while, so I dind't fill the other tank and gas cans like I planned. The gas card is still loaded, so we can use it for the other tank later.

Book Contest: I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage

2009-04-13T03:31:00.004-05:00

I probably have more than three months worth of food stored, even though about half of it is stored in the freezer. This time of year I start to stock more canned and less in the freezer because of hurricane season (even if we don't get a hurricane in Houston, I'll likely lose power at least once, even if only for a few hours).

But I'm not really sure how long my stored foods will last us. I need to learn a system to inventory what I have, so I can use food storage programs (spreadsheets or online calculators) to stock for three months, then six months, and eventually an entire year's worth of food (not in the freezer either, since that's unreliable). I'm not a good enough gardener or forager that I could feed the both of us without shopping if a long-term disaster happened (hurricane, job loss, drastic increases in food prices, ect...)

I've started storing some long-term foods as I can afford, or find, and I've slowed down for a few reasons:

I need to store it better for long-term
I'm not experienced with using things like whole wheat berries
I haven't cooked with most of the long-term foods (except powdered milk)

So, I'm excited about this contest at Everyday Food Storage blog:

I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage

A step by step training program for using your food storage every day in your own recipes. Think of me as your food storage personal trainer.
Over 100 kitchen tested (and very delicious) recipes, including some not yet featured on my blog!
Family Home Evening lessons to help get your entire family involved in planning your 3-month supply and helping you in the kitchen.
Information on the what, where, and why’s of common food storage items.
Practical tips for getting dinner on the table, picky eaters, grocery shopping, and more!

The link above goes to the contest page. She'll choose three winners randomly from her email entries, then three more "for being the most excited and passionate about spreading the word", which we can become a Facebook fan, Twitter the contest, or blog about it, emailing these things to her.

Meanwhile, I'm going to pack up my whole wheatberries into FoodSaver bags.

Homemade flavorful tea

2008-08-07T04:56:00.000-05:00

I stopped drinking Diet Coke a few years ago, and switched to Lime Koolaid, but I didn't like that I had to put so much sugar in it to make it drinkable. So I tried tea, but it wasn't as good as the more expensive flavored tea sold at the stores. But over time, I managed to come up with a easy way to copy the flavored teas for much less money, and my tea system even gives me variety.

I buy family-sized ice tea bags; I use Luizianne tea, but your favorite tea would do just as well. I also buy Celestial Seasonings Fruit Tea Sampler, and use one family-sized iced tea bag along with one Celestial Seasonings Fruit Tea Sampler bag for a 2 quart pitcher. There's five different flavors; my favorite is the Cranberry Apple Zinger.

I add 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar, but that will vary depending on your taste.

Once I've brewed a batch, I pour more boiling water over the wet tea bags, and make up a 1 quart batch with 3/4 tablespoons of sugar

Testing Windows Live Writer

2008-04-09T11:49:00.001-05:00

Testing Windows Live Writer. I had to put @gmail.com after my username to get it to work with Blogger. Now I'm checking out how it handles photos. I tried aligning the photo on the right, but I couldn't get the text to wrap. But the left aligned photo seems to work. I finally found the area to save my inserted photo settings (bottom of the left pane: Save settings as default).

Now it's time to test publishing. If you're reading this post, then it worked. OOPS! It seems that a Picassa account is necessary to upload photos to Blogger. Ok, trying again (now that I set up a Picassa account).

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Well, it uploaded, but as a draft instead of a post. Looks like I'll have to play around with settings a bit more.