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!!!!

RAIN RAIN RAIN

Well folks, yet again I am in the clearing out and disposing of goods....purging you might say, mood.  And due to the crappiness of dealing with  FB marketplace I am just chucking it all out.  Our thrift stores here are very hard to please thus I am not considering them either except for clothing....clothing seems to go no problem.

  I try really hard to feel bad about the waste and throwing out perfectly good, sometimes new, stuff.  But I don't.  Those feelings are what totally complicates a good massive clearing out.  Thank god for black non transparent garbage bags.  And thank god for the van and the garbage dump.  I really don't want my kids to have to do it after I am gone.  I am not stopping this time til my voice echos in here.

No xmas tree this year.  As much as I love staring at the lights I have decided there will be no tree, not even that tiny one.  I will let Biscuit shine for us.  Biscuit is the flowering hibiscus and right now she has three massive flowers glowing on her.

Ange showed me the most awesome app the other day.   It's called Freeprint.  Every thirty days you send them up to 45 pictures and for the cost of shipping...6.99 they send 4x6 prints to you.  They are beautiful!!!  So I got onto Amazon and bought four little albums and I have sent my first batch off.  I am sending them in groups that make sense.  The batch I sent off this first time was the pics of our Vietnam trip and the pics of us all at Hullcar burying Mom's ashes with Dad at the cemetery there.  I will label  each album for quick finding.

I apologize if I am missing words or saying things in a screwy way.  I have a really interesting show on tv going, my phone is blowing up for some reason and I keep getting bleeps on my laptop.  Busy techy day today!  I like doing three things at once and my brain just happens to be in the kitchen.  I made an order super early this morning at Walmart site for a ten o'clock delivery.  Two 2 pound sirloin tip roasts and sourdough.  

Back when I first went on the dr. Atkins way of eating, one thing I subsisted on was cooked roast beef, cheap cut, put through a meat grinder.  You also put through a piece of bread for every 2-4 pounds of roast and a little onion.  You then add mayonnaise and salt, pepper and whatever spices and herbs you want.  Zero carbs in that and it is delicious to snack on.

The last time I made this was yonks ago in Bamfield.  Cookie and I made a big batch with the old crank handle stainless steel grinder that you clamp onto some overhang ledge.  I have a picture of her and I cranking away!  I think we were in pjs. 

Well this is getting me nowhere!  Gotta go and get the roasts ready.  Not sure if I can figure out how to work the stupid thermometer.  I have always had Monte do it!  But alas...he has left home.  He hasn't slept at home even once since I got back.  Hope he doesn't get caught.  You aren't allowed to live in those places.  I have told him but you know.....

So have a great week or few days or whatever and TFL&TTYL

'Out of clutter, find simplicity.'  Albert Einstein