Crockpot cooking is real strange…tastes as if it’s not going to blend, and then does. I’ve often used Middle Eastern spicing (cinnamon, clove, cumin, allspice) with meats because we don’t get on with onion, but it’s been so long since I’ve dared any garlic I wasn’t sure they’d blend well. Oh, yes. I think onion might have been wrong with this, but about 4 cloves of garlic per pound of meat worked very subtly, and made a real nice flavor.
In the winter we have extra fridge space, so to speak. The little mud room, sort of an airlock (or catlock) as you go to the back yard—gets quite cold, and does very nicely in that function. So storing a whole monster pot of sauce is no tribble at all.
Don’t leave it too long, lest it reproduce and burst out of the Mudd room bent on world domination! 😉
Double Hubble boil and Muddle
Rockets burn and Crockpot bubble
And on the ‘middle eastern’ side: Egyptian glass beads found in Danish digs. Very pretty cobalt-blue beads, 3400-year-old graves.
First hurdle passed. M’Amanda mia is home, safe, and the same nitpicking complaintant brat that she has always been! Now for a good night’s sleep, so that I can assemble presents tomorrow!
BTW, the dress is ready to wear at the drop of an iron.
Much as I like the new digs, it has neither catlock, nor screen door/storm door. I’ve got to work out how to utilize a folding screen to create a buffer zone by the front door for the cat sitter, as I don’t want to confine the gleesome threesome to the office/bedroom end of the apartment. Cat sitter needed as I have been informed that I am driving my mom to Pearland (Slightly south east of Houston) in my new car. Trip of about 600+ miles. And back. Plus driving about in the sprawling suburbs of Houston, which is what that town has become. Mom is the 12th of 12. She turned 90 this year. Of her eight brothers and three sisters, only two brothers are left, aged 94 and 96. The 96 year old is in great shape. The 94-year-old is very poorly and is in a nursing home. She wants to see him once more before he passes. We’ll be leaving at Oh, God o’clock in the morning so as to make it there by suppertime. I hope to squeeze in a visit with a blog friend who lives in League City, which is two bedroom communities to the east. We’ll be driving back New Year’s Day (Oh, Joy!) as I have to be back at work the 2nd.
Plus having to stop every two hours to walk so that neither of you gets an inconvenient blood clot. It is indeed something to view with dread!
Have you thought of a curtain on a tension rod?
Have to stop every 2 hours for a potty break, anyway.
Put up badminton netting across the last permissable doorway. They can climb it but they won’t get through it. Unfortunately neither can your petsitter unless you have a secret tied entry.
Man mistakenly sells mattress set with cat inside
It happened here in Portland.
“Gee, I lie down in this nice, cozy, place and all of a sudden, it’s ~moving~ and I’m stuck in here! Why, of all the nerve! What’s a kitty gotta do to take a nice, quiet nap around here?”
Heheheh. Poor cat. That could not have been a pleased cat when he/she woke up.
Smokey’s first several nights with me, he’d either try to hide behind the pillows on the bed, or he’d hide under the bed. I was too worried that if he got under/behind the pillows, I’d roll over during the night and hurt him. So that was a no-go. It took him a long while, days, to learn the big two-legged monster was not going to *eat* him, and that he was actually welcome and wanted, family. Hah, after that, he started getting used to it, then he discovered he was fine. But that was one frightened little guy for longer than I’ve ever had that kind of adjustment with a new cat or kitten. But he was a rescued street kitten. He had good reasons not to trust anything that big.
Between Christmas and New Year’s sometime is the anniversary of when he was given to me. He’ll be over four soon. Mr. Assertive, middle name of Trouble. And he grew up to think he owns the universe, because the big, scary monster did not eat him, but actually liked him, and the most non-assertive cat in the universe also liked him. Therefore, he must be blessed by the gods of catdom.
Hmm… Browser spellchecker thinks catdom should be coatroom. I think the connection is at best tenuous. LOL.
My parents had at least one cat who liked to sleep in the box spring for the double bed in the back bedroom. We knew about it, though. (You could hear the cat, but you couldn’t see the cat.)
OMG! Rosetta imaged a 1km cliff on 67P.
Image: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03147/cliff-rosetta_3147479b.jpg
Newspaper Article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11311481/Rosetta-images-show-soaring-1km-comet-cliff.html
Amazing!
beautiful!
Well, Christmas dinner was a bust for me…..last night, I was sitting at home with the scanner going, and I heard the EMS dispatcher call out my parents’ address. Seems my father had fallen and hit his head on the doorway and was bleeding pretty badly (most scalp wounds do bleed profusely). I got myself dressed and got down there as quickly as I could, a couple of minutes after the EMTs got there (THEY don’t have to stop for red lights). Both Mom and Dad were sitting on the floor in the hall, just inside the front door, with 3 EMTs in with them. They took Dad out to the hospital, so I took Mom out in their car, following the ambulance. About 45 minutes after they admitted Dad, Mom got dizzy, so they admitted her, as well, because she had fallen trying to pick Dad up off the floor. Both of them had cuts, Dad on his head and left forearm, and Mom on her hands. The doctor at the ER had CT scans done on both of them, and both were negative, as were Xrays for any broken bones. I got them home around 3:45AM, made sure they were both in bed, and then I came home.
Went down this morning around 11:30, they were still in bed, but were okay, so I stayed downstairs. Dad came down once around 12:30 or so, then went back up. Mom came down around 4:30, had a cup of tea, Dad came down a couple of minutes later, and I fixed him a cup of tea, as well. Both of them went on back upstairs to bed again, which is exactly what the doctor wants them to do, although he did stress, if either of them wakes up, to go wake the other one up and make sure they’re all right and coherent.
I decided to wait until I got home to get something to eat. On my way back home, I passed a street corner where there were two city police cars with their lights flashing, blocking the street. When I got home, I found out that apparently, this was the scene of a shooting. This so rarely happens in my city, it’s really big news when someone does something like this. Please note, my city has a population of roughly 20,000, so it’s not like Dayton, which has this happen several times a day, or Chicago (even worse).
Not much in the mood for Christmas spirit right now, so just made a quick sandwich and called it dinner.
It is good that you were there!
OMG, Joe, but good that you were there able to show up—I’m sure your being there made them feel much better, all the same.
I think you ARE due a really nice New Year’s Eve celebration after that!
we have a New Year’s Eve dance next Wednesday…..I’ve got my ticket…..
Joe, sorry to hear things were rough, but it’s good to hear your folks are doing better, and you’ll have a better post-holiday and New Year’s Eve.
Thanks, all. I went down there again this morning, my younger brother had driven over from Columbus (about 70 miles from home), and he was there already. He stayed for about 4 hours, and then he had to go back home. I fixed supper for Mom and Dad, then did the dishes, and left around 6:00PM after everything got put away and all they had to do was get ready for bed.
This is the first full meal they’ve had since Wednesday evening, so maybe it’ll help them feel better.