CLEAN HOUSE AND PEA SOUP

 My house is clean as a whistle and I made a massive pot of split pea sludge.  That ham had a very big bone in it and I had a 900 gram bag of split peas.  Inevitably there was going to be pea soup.

  And thank goodness my low carbing means I can't eat it.  No amount of fibre can yank down the carb count in that soup.  And the thank goodness is because that was the smokiest ham I have ever bought and I despise the taste of smoke.

I didn't hate it up until Monte and April were 6&8 years old.  We went to Maui for a holiday and Spod, being a spam freak, bought a can of smoked spam.  Sounded good, looked good, smelt okay but the taste?  Hokey Dinah...I almost can't eat even bacon now.  Anything smoked turns my stomach.  And this pea soup might as well have had a smoke gun on it for the last six hours.

The housecleaner was here on Wed. so the house is pretty clean.  I spent most the day today working on my bedroom.  You wouldn't know it to look at it.  I just don't have anywhere to put anything.  I really don't.  Back in the nether days we didn't have a ton of everything. Now we load up on quadruples of whatever we own.  I say it's buying choices.  I don't want one pair of brown shoes and boots for winter and one pair of white shoes for summer. I want ten pairs.  Choices.  

In grade 8 when we first moved to Vancouver from lowly Smithers, I had one wool pinkish skirt and one blouse.  For the whole school year!  I wore the same outfit for a whole year.  I am happy to say I didn't care one bit.  Can you imagine a 13-14 year old kid of today handling that?  Not on your life.  And now when I look at my room I yearn for those days again!!!! Much simpler times!

But I digress, as usual.  Company is a'comin'!  Myles and April are arriving around ten tonite.  They can only stay til Sunday.  But we will have all day tomorrow to visit and play the piano and have fun!  I am going to teach April my version of Hallelujah.  She is very capable of learning the original but she says she prefers my rendition.  It's waaaaay simpler.  I mostly play by ear...always have. 

We were trying to decide where to go for dinner tomorrow night.  She mentioned the Station Tap House.  I had never heard of it!  I didn't think it was possible that there was a restaurant in town I had never heard of.  And they both like beer so as soon as I hung up the phone I googled it.  And it's just down the street from us!  DOH!!!!  The menu is awesome, small but refined.  And all the beer is from around here.  We have amazing distilleries and beer maker places.  I forget what those are called.  Breweries!!!  Thats it.  Award winning ones.  So we shall go there and I am going to eat carbs!!!  Then when we get home we may watch a movie or something.  I am so excited.  

And next week end my brother and Antonia are coming for one nite!  Two visits in a row from people!!  We never get people.  I am not sure I remember how to have people.  hahaha!!!!!

Okay enough rambling.  I shall report on our weekend on Monday!  Have a great weekend and TFL & TTYL

'If I had my life to live over, I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.'  Erma Bombeck.   this woman is my hero

WARNING: A FOODIE EXPERIMENT POST

 Now and then I like to talk about the food I am trying or going to try.  The reason for this one is I am experimenting with low carb but delicious meals....a complete meal.  Not easy!!!  You would maybe think we diabetics can just chow down on vegetables and meat.  How exciting does that sound?  So now and then when I have a brilliant idea...even if it turns out to be a junker in the end I will be posting about it.

I decided to buy a massive heavy giant bone in ham.  After the initial dinner I cut the meat off and then make pea soup with that bone.  I will still maybe make pea soup for Monte and Ange.  I won't be eating it.  Too many carbs.  But I can snack on the leftover meat.

I looked up keto glazes and lo and behold I have all that I need according to the recipes I found.  Every one of them was the same.  Low carb brown sugar, dijaun mustard, vinegar.  Thats the base.  Add spices and what you like.  You boil it and in pictures it thickens.  We'll see.

Fifteen minutes a pound for the ham.  My ham is about eight pounds so two hours.  There will be yummy pan juices...especially with the glaze mixing in with the meat juices.  So...how to utilize that....

Well I happen to have two, not one but two purple cabbages.  I have got to that stage of life where I forget tiny details like I bought a cabbage already.  And they I bought purple ones because they are only four bucks to green cabbage's eight!  Ridiculous.  And don't forget, as I have mentioned before, cabbage is PIG FOOD.  That is what we fed our pigs when we were kids!  We rarely ate it ourselves.  Now it has become an elite expensive side dish.  And I know why. 

I totally blame it on the popularity of pulled pork.  Pulled pork, which I hate, has caused two sad things.  Firstly pork shoulder.  Pork shoulder roasts or steaks were welfare people's go to meat.  I was on welfare for years once upon a time and we ate a lot of it with shake and bake.  Then along came pulled pork and shoulder, or butt as it is also called for some unknown reason, was the only choice of pork that works.  And you guessed it...because that cheap ass cut of pork gained a desirable identity....stores put the prices up.  Way up...for junk meat.  (shovel list). And what mandatorily goes with pulled pork?  Why that would be coleslaw.  All of a sudden pig food also gained an identity.  And...up goes the price of cabbage..the lowest of low vegetable.  Enough said!

But cabbage's one redeeming factor other than it is delicious, it is low carb.  So due to two taking space in my fridge (actually the top of my outdoor freezer, it's cold enough now) and us all trying to low carb to some level or another it will be cabbage with the ham.

I am going to cut them in half and roast them in another pan at the same time as the ham.  But when the ham is finished I will remove it to a cutting board, ready for my kitchen chainsaw, and I shall transfer the cabbage wedges to the drippings pan, use a little glaze on the cabbage and finish roasting it.

And...this is the exciting  part.  I am going to make us each keto mug cheese muffins.  I might not use mugs and make a triple recipe and make them in the oven in my silicone muffin pan.  Haven't decided yet.

So sliced ham with glaze, roasted pan juices cabbage and cheesy keto muffins.    They only have 3 carbs per muffin.  Cabbage has five carbs per cup of cabbage and ham has zero.

My hopes are high.  But recently I saw continuous comments and pics for 'chaffles' on low carb sites.  Cheese waffles that use almond flour, cheese and eggs.  One day I made them and hated them.  I really don't like almond flour so I am not holding out too much hope about the muffins.  We'll see.

Anyway I am going to take pics as I go and I shall try to attach them to this post in a sensible order.  But it IS blogspot.  No control.

Speaking of control that is what prompted me to once a week try to come up with low carb ideas.  So instead of sitting here moaning about it and scrambling around in my brain for a medium carb eating plan, I am going to actively make up a proper low carb dinner once a week that generates left overs!

So as usual I almost forgot to take pics.  I get so involved in the process I forget that part.  But I got a couple so here goes.  I will attribute a number between 1 and 10 on each of the four things involved with this dinner under the picture.  By the way...the glaze worked beautifully and it didn't spike our blood sugar.  TFL & TTYL

AS USUAL ALL OUT OF ORDER.  THIS GROSS MESS IS THE PIG FOOD...PURPLE CABBAGE.  IT WAS AWFUL.  0 OUT OF TEN.  IT WAS LIKE SHOE LEATHER AND WE WOULD NEED MUCH NEWER SHARPER FALSE TEETH TO EAT IT.  BAD!!!

THE GLAZED HAM.  I WOULD GIVE THIS ONE 8.  FOR MY TASTE IT WAS WAAAAY TOO SMOKED.  THE SMELL PERMEATED THE HOUSE TO THE POINT THAT BY TWO IN THE MORNING I HAD TO TAKE AN INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH GRAVOL....IT SUPER MADE ME SICK.

THESE WERE SUCCESSFUL.  I MYSELF WOULD GIVE THEM A 6.  ANGE LOVED THEM, SHE EVEN WANTS THE RECIPE.  I FOUND THEM TO GRAINY OR SOMETHING.

IGNORE..STUPID BLOGSPOT

THE GLAZE IS THE ONLY ONE THAT GOT A TEN.  IT WAS DELICIOUS AND THICK AND GOOEY.

THE FINAL BEAST.  ALL GLAZED AND ROASTED.  IF YOU LOOK CAREFULLY YOU CAN SEE WHERE I SNUCK A TASTE.  THAT WAS WHEN I REMEMBERED TO TAKE PICS!!!

I HATE LOW CARBING

 Seriously!!!  Low carbing and being diabetic sucks the fun right out of life.  It's expensive, it's meat forward...not my favourite and it's boring as hell.  I am an all or nothing person and I can't find a happy medium.  I am either stuffing my gob with very inappropriate food (muffins, potatoes, rice, sloppy casseroles, muffins etc...) or I am measuring crumbles of carrot, four peas, ten pieces of rice etc (shovel list).  How does one find a happy doable medium?

  And people that tell ya that one bite is enough are full of crap.  You know I was looking at a raggedy hunched over homeless soul who had been going through the dumpster behind the store.  He started eating a baguette end...and I totally envied him.  Seriously!!!  I envied him, this poor downtrodden, raggedy fellow. I felt like crying...and not for him...for me!!!!  I was freaking jealous of him and his freakin piece of dirty mouldy bread.

  The upside?  I have lost almost eight pounds and my blood sugar is bang on!!!!  I just have to get jiggy with this way of eating.  No choice.

Small towns are funny.  People are way too involved in every decision the mayor and councillors make.  Every little traffic change thats made causes a shit storm on our local fb page.  Every little improvement done gets endless ridiculous criticism.  In big cities, we the public generally have no clue what's going on in city hall.

Well here it's the public indoor pool.  A place I want to partake of.  I think swimming is about the only exercise I can do now with my issues.  And I love swimming (as long as I don't get my hair wet).

That being said the second year I was here they closed the pool for renovations.  Well holy bejeepers you'd think the powers that be had decided to paint all the streets pink for berjillians of dollars.  The hue and cry (lol..I checked with AI if it was hue or hew) was crazy, mostly against.  The bros in this town are bullies and buffoons and the pool is predominantly used by women and women with kids.  Bros don't give a rat's ass what we want.  So the pool sits idle waiting for a miracle.  Have you ever heard of a town without a pool?  Sigh.

Okay this has turned into one big whine.  My apologies.  I think I spend way too much time by myself listening to my tinnitus.  Right now it's screaming in my ears. I am trying to figure out what key it's in.  I can hum it.  Maybe I will go to the piano and find out.  And maybe I won't.  Maybe I will be smart and just say good bye.  I promise I won't post again til I smarten up.  TFL & TTYL

                  A BLAST TO THE PAST

IN OUR KITCHEN IN OUR LOG HOUSE WE BUILT IN BAMFIELD.  THAT IS MOLLY IN THE PLAYPEN.  WE COULDN'T TAKE A CHANCE OF HER GETTING OUTSIDE....EAGLES HAVE ACTUALLY EATEN LITTLE DOGS UP THERE.

WHEN WE REBUILT THE HOUSE AFTER THE FIRE, WE GOT OUR MOOSE BACK.  THE RESTORATION PEOPLE FIXED HIS BURNT NOSE. HE CAME WITH THE HOUSE.  AND FOR THE LIFE OF ME I CAN'T REMEMBER HIS NAME.

I DO BELIEVE THIS IS THE STRANGEST PIC I HAVE IN ALL MY THOUSANDS OF PICS.  SOME OF YOU HAVE PROBABLY SEEN IT BEFORE.  WHILE WE WERE BUILDING THE LOG HOUSE IN BAMFIELD, WE LIVED IN THIS DECREPIT BROKEN DOWN HOLES IN THE FLOOR TRAILER.  IT WAS THE HAPPIEST PLACE I HAVE EVER LIVED.  VERY LOW MAINTENANCE.  ARYN IN THE PINK/RED JACKET IS CARRYING AN UPSIDE DOWN MONTE.  I AM NOT SURE WHAT APRIL IS DOING.  POOR JENIFER IS TRYING TO WATCH THE 13' TV WAY OVER ACROSS THE ROOM.  THE TRAILER CAME WITH A CRAZY MURAL ON THE WALL.

NOTHING NEW

 Jeez!!!  I lead the most boring life.  The most exciting thing I did since talking to you guys is...let's see.....NOTHING.  We were going to be going to Nanaimo today but the place Monte needs to go to is actually in Parksville and closed Mondays.  So we will go tomorrow to Parksville and then for something different we head to Courtenay/Comox to the Costco there.  It isn't much farther distance than Nanaimo, just the opposite direction.

Stores in the smaller, and sometimes bigger, towns on the this here island close for three days a week.  Sunday Monday and Tuesday.  Go figure.  It is so annoying!!!  And I know they say unemployment numbers are super high but so many places are closing or closing part time because of employee shortages.  How does that work? 

 Our I.C.U. just closed indefinitely at the hospital.  So we are in a town with all the old doctors  retiring and the one clinic with the one overworked doctor is only open intermittently.  If you have 3-4 hours to go and try to get one of the fifteen  chairs in the hallway and hopefully he doesn't get called to the hospital and the clinic closes...after you have sat there forever...you may get to see a doctor.  Most of us do telephone doctors but they can be a real pain in the butt.  They don't seem to understand that it's either you renew my prescriptions  or I just go without.  The pharmacists can only give extras now and then.

  And god help you if you are travelling.  It's almost impossible to get enough pills to cover the end of your three months prescription, all they can give.  I hate it.  Poor Kamloops.  At least we are only 18,000 people.  Kamloops is in the same boat with one clinic and they have over a hundred thousand people.  I really want to see where my kidneys are at (they aren't so good) but you have to see a doctor.  Anyway enough of that crap.

On the lighter side I just bought a ton of battery operated pillar candles.  They are all on remote controls so I can line them up in my front window (hopefully making up for no tree) and on the piano and on the mantel.  I love lights!!!!  I also got two plug it ins with apple cinnamon smelly wax thingies.  That is my nod to xmas.  I am sure we will get good old Hey Google to play Elvis's xmas album.  And I bought Ange a big cat xmas puzzle the first year she was here.  We never put it together.  So maybe Xmas day we will clear the table and do a puzzle.

I am glad my kids don't feel I have reached that age where they must spend xmas with mom...it might be her last.  My experience with that is we have spent many a xmas with old gramma who never dies.  I don't want to be that person.  Nope. (shovel list). Plus all those grammas were shoved in a corner and totally ignored.  I am actually thinking of inviting some of our familyless peoples for xmas or xmas eve.  I shall consult the household about that.

Not to belabour it but....the hardest thing to come up with is decent between meal snacks on this woe.  So I took a page from April.  One summer in Bamfield the whole family low carbed it.  When we got back to town in summer she had to go back to school. And she did something I have never forgotten.  

I used to buy fat little chubs of liver sausage.  It is a zero carb perfect snack for us low carbers.  No crackers mind you.  Well (she was in grade ten) she would put one of those with the end cut off in a zip lock bag in her back pack and every now and then stick her finger in there and scoop out a gob and surreptitiously eat it! So I keep one handy with a small hole poked in the end and every now and then I squeeze a squirt into my mouth.  Keeps the hungries away!!!!

Well enough of that.  Gotta clean the house.  Housekeeper comes next Wednesday and I am gone all day tomorrow.  Take care and TFL & TTYL

1. “Keto is not about depriving yourself; it’s about finding new and creative ways to enjoy your favorite foods in a healthier way.” ― Martina Slajerova. (I call total bullshit on this quote)

 

HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPO

 Grooooaaaaaannnnn!  Back on the low carb train.  It would be so much easier if I could shop in the states.  They have the most amazing plethora of keto low carb foods.  Go Trader Joe's!!!  But that is actually just being lazy.  If you are willing to spend a little time and money you can cook keto all day long.  Literally!  lol!!!!

Unfortunately I don't like almond flour.  It's grainy and falls apart in your mouth and it reminds me of when I accidentally get sand in my mouth.  And coconut flour, the only alternative, is difficult to deal with.  When I am low carbing all I want and all I can think about are muffins. But making muffins keto is not an option.  Here is why....I can't help but compare and thats the downfall.

 We have a coffee shop here called Steampunk. They sell the most amazing incredible muffins on the planet.  They are huge, heavy, loaded with goodies and an awesome array of kinds.  Apple spice, Pina colada, carrot cake, banana chocolate chip, oatmeal peach, all with a buttery crunchy crumble top.  OMG!!!!  I have no real idea of the carb count on them but at a pretty experienced guess here I would say around a thousand.  I want one RIGHT NOW!!!  Keto muffins are a very sad replacement.

In preparation for this 'back to it' way of eating, I stocked up on some snack things.  One of them is cheap 2 carb per piece, Walmart brand cheap wieners.  I also buy a carton of apple segments.  So I get a dish and get three wieners and four segments of apple.  I cut them up in smaller pieces and eat a piece of wiener then a piece of apple then a piece of wiener and then a piece of apple....raw wiener...I don't like them cooked.  It's no muffin but it's low carb and pretty tasty!!!  (when you are desperate)

Tomorrow we will hopefully be making a trip to Nanaimo to Costco.  There are just things that should be bought there.  Turlett paper, meat, olive oil, buckets of mayo, lox, cheese, cookies, cakes, breads, bagels, buns, brioche, muffins, dam!!!!!  I am also not going to be able to partake of our usual treat of fries and gravy and hot dog.  When you go to Costco only four times a year you can indulge guilt free, except when you are low carbing it.  Maybe I will take the wiener out of the bun and eat that, without the apple part.  Sigh.  (shovel list...I am going back to shovel....penguin just couldn't cut it, either that or I am way more a shovel person than a penguin one).

Well enough complaining for one post.  The upside of all this is the feeling of accomplishment when I choose to not eat crap.  I taught myself back when I first low carbed when I was 24 that when I feel hunger that is a sign of accomplishment.  And of course my lower a1c is a really big bonus.  So right now I am feeling extremely over the top accomplished and I need to check that my blood sugar number isn't too low.  Lol!!!  Gotta bounce!!

TFL & TTYL

I RAN OUT OF APPLE!!!!!!  I HAD TO SUBSTITUTE CELERY CHUNKS.  SO I ADDED MAYO.  IT IS BASICALLY CARB FREE SO A NECESSITY ON MY LOW CARBING.  SADLY DOESN'T IT LOOK LIKE MASHED POTATOES?

 

IF YOU ARE HAVING A LOVELY DAY, DON'T READ THIS NEGATIVE RANT!

 You know that old cliche...'you can put a man on the moon but.....'. Well I have a rant that I need to get off my chest. And like I said please feel free to skip this post.

A couple of months ago Aryn installed roku on both of my tv's.  My monthly Telus bill for optic tv went from 200 plus different amounts every month (which included internet) to 124.  Most of that is the internet.

It took me a while to get used to the Roku.  It has its drawbacks. The actual change in the programming is great, it's the instrument you have to use that is the nightmare.  My rant is about their  unbelievably ridiculous extremely badly designed clicker. It's so bad I googled who was the idiot that designed the piece of crap.

Bould Design from San Francisco is the culprit.  The opening statement on their site is all untruths according to me.  And as I have pointed out before...this blog always seems to end up about moi!  I am going to try to post a copy of their little statement that starts their site.  It probably won't go properly as I feel that whoever designed blogspot are cousins of Bould design.  Here goes:

BOULD DESIGN is a strategic partner for bringing highly functional, beautiful and successful products to life through a professional, user-centric design process. Our focus on function, simplicity, quality and character has achieved outstanding results for clients ranging from stealth mode startups to diversified multi-nationals.

Well guess what?  I am a client and I have a total opposite view of their clicker.

1.  Function?....the little buttons are....LITTLE!...My fingers are not big.  They don't overflow onto neighbouring buttons on anything else...like my other clickers I have.  But this little piece of crap?  Why yes they do.  One is forever hitting two buttons at once and always the wrong one is the one that will operate not the correct button.

2.  Beautiful?...it is about four inches by 2-3 inches, all black with teeny tiny faded white printing or symbols on the buttons.  Plus it is not a sharp square edge that sits on the arms of chairs or edges of overcrowded side tables.  Noooo.  It is rounded so it falls off EVERYTHING.

3.  Successful?...  it freaking well is NOT.  It is so tiny you keep dropping it.  And to push buttons from the top of it to the bottom you actually have to hold it with one hand to poke buttons with the other.  Thats just plain stupid.

Clearly young people with dexterous hands that still have max feeling in their finger tips and good, really good, eyesight so they can actually see what the buttons are and good memories so they can whip around that stupid control with no problem, designed this.  Plus they are from San Fran.

Well I am a fat cranky old half blind desensitized broad.  Who the hell do they think are the tv watchers in this world?  It sure as hell are not any people under 55ish.  Those youngsters are all watching YouTube or insta or tick Tok  on their phones.  They don't need weenie pieces of crap to operate a tv.  But us old dinosaurs need big huge buttoned, well marked, bright remote controls that don't fall off arm chairs and side tables.  It takes five minutes to get out of that chair to pick it up and if we bend over too far we either fall or can't get back up.  And by then when we finally get back into our chairs we have to find the damned rewind button and the stop button and the go button and.....well you get the point.  Shame on BOULD DESIGNS.  (I hope they have a roaming bot that finds their name when it's used.  If you did find it and you are reading this...SHAME ON YOU!!!). That does happen doesn't it?

Well if you are still with me I don't have anything to report.  My house is so clean.  The cleaner came yesterday for the first time in a month.  Boy did it ever need cleaning!!!  And now I sit here feeling nervous.  Clean houses always make me feel nervous.  Today I am determined to find all my jeans (totally missing) and throw out half my shirts.  Wish me luck!!!

TFL & TTYL

YOU KNOW UNTIL THE LIGHT FROM THE CAMERA WAS ON IT I HAD NO IDEA THAT THE ARROW BUTTONS WAS PURPLE

NOT ECHOING YET BUT GETTING THERE

 There is something very addictive about junking stuff.  I do have to admit though I don't throw out unused unopened packages and boxes of food.  That Monte takes down to the Bread of Life and donates.  But I am having trouble with one bunch of stuff.  I am truly understanding hoarders a little more.  And that is with my shirts.

I have about forty shirts, most existing since 2003.  And because of my upper back deformity (nice way of saying hump due to double scoliosis) my shirts ride up at the back.  And I really hate that.  So I am constantly reaching back and tugging my shirts down.  And because my right arm is gibbled I only use my left arm.  Now a great portion of my shirts have thumb holes on the bottom at the left back side.

I remember many years ago when my sister and family lived in our Monte Creek house for a while.  They were looking for a house to buy.  One evening there was a showing and she asked me to go along.  I said I would love to and as we were about to leave she gently says, 'were you going to change?'  I wasn't, hadn't even thought of it.  But when I took a look at what I was wearing....well let's say rag bags looked stellar compared to what I was sporting.  I just never noticed or really cared if I am honest.  But I happily went and changed...probably not much better.  

I will put a pic on here somewhere.  Preferably at the bottom but this blogspot has a mind of its own.

Yesterday Monte and Ange were at the dollar store.  I was buzzing around the house working away and I thought I heard Ange come upstairs but she didn't find me and say anything and when I went to sit for the five minutes I need to sit cuz of my back there was an awesome surprise on the chair.  A mars bar!!!!  I passionately love those things and once a year at halloween I allow myself one mars bar.  But this year whilst I was in Vancouver Monte got into the halloween candy and there were no mars bars left when I got home.  I lamented to Ange.

Well I guess she bought me one at the dollar store!!!!!!  And there it was!!!  I pounced on it and gobbled it down!  Soooooo ooooey gooey good.  I took a selfie of me eating and sent the pic to Ange with a giant heart!!!

But then I took an actual look at that picture.  I was wearing a pair of dirty black jeans, big pink slippers and a black sweatshirt that I didn't remember but what the heck.  Down the arm was written 'I draw the knife'. Huh???

When Monte saw it he says hey!!!  that is my Wolf Parade shirt.  Ooooops!!!!  But holy hell you can't see those clothes in the pic but Jesus Murphy my hair, my fat neck, my big brown sun spots!!!!  Egads!!!!  I don't remember looking in the mirror since I got home and boy does it show!!!  So if shirts are that unimportant to me it's time to do a massive cull.  That will be my goal for tomorrow.

Well as usual this post is ALL ABOUT ME!!!!  Again.  I mean I could be writing about politics or other news or crap that happens in town here or......but no.  I write about me.

So before I launch into another all about me story I shall hang 'er up here.  Have a wonderful time til next time....TFL & TTYL

I CLEARLY HAVE NO PRIDE

but it is a picture of happiness!!!!