Tuesday

So much bad stuff going on in the world right now--I just can't seem to find anything to write about.

Sorry.

I'm fine--just a bit brain dead.

Addition to Yesterday

I just wanted to tell you that if you make the stuffed bread rolls I posted yesterday, if they are frozen, they are much better, wrapped in foil and warmed-up in a conventional oven.

The Microwave is faster, but it makes the bread tough.

Saturday Session

This took me part of the day Saturday.  I just got a craving for them and had to make them.

Called Kraut Brot and got the recipe from a long ago friend.

Shred cabbage and try not to scrape your knuckles

Add a chopped up onion and cook slowly for two hours

Meanwhile--set out two loaves of frozen bread to thaw

Drain cabbage and onion mixture

Brown ground beef

Drain and combine with cabbage mixture and let cool

Cut loaves into 5 sections.

Roll out into circle

Put a nice amount of mixture on bread

Stretch bread around mixture and seal edges

350 degrees for 35 minutes

Onto cooling rack

KRAUT BROT

1 medium cabbage

1 pound ground beef

2 medium onions

2 loaves of frozen bread

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

3 tsp. garlic powder

Take two loaves frozen bread out of freezer and allow to sit.

Shred cabbage and cook (on medium low) with diced onions in 2 Tbls. bacon grease or butter for 2 hours, in covered Dutch oven pot.

Check every half hour and stir.

Drain in colander.

Brown ground beef in same pot and add to colander cabbage mixture to drain.

Return mixture to pot, add salt, pepper, garlic powder and cool.

Cut loaves into 5 sections each.

Flatten on floured board and place mound of mixture on each section.

Stretch dough over mixture, fold over and seal edges of bread.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350⁰ for 35 minutes or until brown.

Remove to cooling rack and baste tops with butter and garlic powder.

Eat while hot or cool completely and put in freezer in gallon freezer bags.

To re-heat, place in bowl, heat for 6 minutes on timed defrost in Microwave—add more butter on the bread.

Worry

I am so worried about our friend Balisha--Pat.

She hasn't even been on her blog to open and read our comments.

I know she feels sicker than anything.

Worry--worry.  

Pray--pray.

All Is Calm

The dryer repair kid came at around 9:45--I was in here working on some writing--thankfully I was dressed.

Such a nice young man--he used to live in this park.  He explained a few things to me and answered a couple of questions I had, then I came back in the computer room and let him do his thing.

A new thermostat.  Not only that, while he had the dryer torn apart, he put in a new timer switch and a new belt--he said, "Just in case."  It cost me $000.00 because of my appliance service plan.  The cost without the plan would have been $250.00+.  At $20.00 a month for ALL appliances, just the repair today paid for the plan for over a year.

He left and I proceeded to sort clothes and get ready to start laundry.

I have done no washing for two weeks.  I had eleven sweat shirts!!  I didn't even know I owned 11 sweat shirts.  I normally wear the same thing every week==three sweat shirts, three-four pairs of blue jeans, perhaps a sweater and dress slacks if I go somewhere.  I wash them on Monday, put them back in the middle of the closet and just re-wear the same thing that week.

With no clothes to grab, I started diving into the back of my closet--sweat shirts.  I even wore a pair of Fred's sweat pants one day because I was out of jeans.

The washer and dryer have been running all day and I'm still not done.  When I get the bed cleared off, I still have to wash and dry the sheets.  That might not happen until tomorrow.
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Nothing else happening here today.  I did run up to the Subway place to get me a nice big salad for supper.  My favorite Subway is the Spicy Italian.  They take the same ingredients, add more lettuce and chop it for a salad.  It costs about $1.00 more, but it lasts me three meals!!!  Kind of like an Antipasto Salad.
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Ever the optimist, I purchased these yesterday.  I'm ready!!!

I hope your weekend is decent.  We have another snow storm coming which, when it leaves this area, will travel out toward PA, NY and MA.  Sorry-

Today Thursday and Throw Back Thursday

I take this to mean---I am a genius!!!!!

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Okay--I visited the Circus today and found out the problem.  The Blu-Ray was purchased because they had to have it for the Netflix to play through?  The Netflix streaming video doesn't stream.  It floats along and occasionally gets stalled by a rock in the stream.  Reason?  The router is too far away from the TV/Blu-Ray.  The router is in the back bedroom next to the computer--about 30 foot away from the TV.  What to do?

I told them to call Comcast, their provider.  Perhaps another router just for the TV?  I don't know--but I do know, Comcast can straighten it out for them.

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My dryer repairman is coming tomorrow to install a new thermostat--I told them it was the thermostat because you know.........

He will arrive sometime between 9-1:00.  So I will have to get up early.

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I went up to the Wal-Mart this afternoon.  I am going broke feeding the cats/birds/squirrels.  I got some peanuts in their shells for the squirrels. 

 Unfortunately, the Blue Jays ate all of them.  I have managed to keep the squirrels out of the bird feeders.  How in the world do I keep the birds out of the squirrel feeder?

I also got a smallish bag of Safflower seeds for the bird feeders.  Birds love them, squirrels hate them.  I don't know how St. Francis ever kept all his animals alive living on a friar's salary!!!

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Merle came down and helped me carry in the heavy stuff.  Jug of litter-bag of dry cat food-24 pack of wet cat food (bits because the won't eat pate')--5 jugs of Diet Pepsi--some Ice Melt--and a gallon of milk.

I love my Wal-Mart Savings Catcher.  I put in the receipt number in the site and it checks 27 local stores for a lower price on all the items.  If there is a lower price somewhere else, they give me the difference.  

Then I put that amount into my Blue Bird card (to be used like a debit card at Wal-Mart) and they double it.  So far, I have $50.49 on that card since Christmas.  I just let it build up and then if I run out of money end of month and need food or something, I go to Wal-Mart and use the money on the card.  

So much easier than the savings thing they have at the Meijer store--you have to go on their site, and click digital coupons, then at check-out, put in your phone number, your pin number and it totals up the savings.

Yes--It's nice to shop at Meijer, which is a nicer store, the prices a bit higher, but with my budget--it's Wally World for me.  I have a very Liberal friend who constantly scolds me for shopping at Wal-Mart where, "they don't pay their employees enough!"  I tell her, "if the Wal-Mart employees aren't happy, they can always go across the street and work at Meijers."

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Speaking of Meijer--Dar thinks she is going to get fired!!  She caused a big stink last week and now, the manager won't speak to her.  She went to his office to talk to him and he got up from behind his desk and said, "I don't have time for you and all your stuff." and walked out of the office.  

Just the week before she told me how well she is doing at the store and how the manager wants to promote her--yeah right.  Now, even the Assistant Manager won't talk to her and the cashiers on both sides of her won't speak to her either.

Meijer is a union store, so I doubt she will get fired.  Just my opinion, but from my experience, once you get into the union, you won't be fired no matter what you do!  So many tales from ex-hubs about guys working at GM that took naps for an hour after lunch in their hidey holes, smoked pot at lunch hour and sometimes, were so drunk they could barely work.  AND that was in the Skilled trades department!

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And speaking of GM--like my segue? (How do you spell that?  Seg Way)--Shortly after my divorce I had to find a job.  All I could do was type 80 words a minutes (thank goodness)--and applied at Kelly Services.  They sent me to the Buick Motor's Headquarters in Flint--as a receptionist--for two weeks.

I was in the department where GM employees came to buy a company car.  All the big wigs got brand new Buick's to drive--3,000 miles, then they turned them in for another new car and we sold the Buick's to GM employees for a 28% discount on the price.  Great program!!

I worked with five of the most wonderful men I have ever met--big wigs in their own right, but so down to earth and nice.  They'd give me a few other jobs to do besides answering the phone.  The more I did, the more they complimented me on what a great worker I was--the more jobs I took on.

Within a couple of years, I was no longer a receptionist, but was doing all the paper work for the car purchase.  One day I spoke to the head guy in accounting and asked if it was possible for me to fill out the car titles, along with all the other paperwork.  

Usually when the dealer came to pick up the car, he couldn't get the title.  I sent the paperwork down to accounting, they filled out the title and mailed it to the dealer.  That meant the customer had to go back to the dealership, in two weeks, just to pick up the title.  

Well--the head honcho in accounting didn't think that was possible.  All the titles were kept in a locked drawer.  I told him I had a locked drawer in my desk.  He'd have to take it up with the guy that was head of Buick.

Thankfully I knew the head guy as he came into our office every time he turned in his car to get a different one.  I knew all the guys on Mahogany Row as we called it--because the offices there were huge, with lovely furniture and appointments and had Mahogany paneling on the walls.

A week later, I had all the titles for our fleet of cars in my office.  When the dealer came to pick-up the paperwork, he got it AND the title AND all he had to do was go up to where the cars were parked and back to the dealership.  He could do the car deal in one day and the new owner didn't have to go back in to get the title.  

I was so naive that I didn't know there were special steps, and levels and procedures and proper channels you had to go through in the Corporate world to get things done.  All I knew is that me having the titles and filling them out was going to help our dealer's.  Therefore, I thought, it's a good thing, let's do it!  I didn't ask permission from my direct boss, I thought of the idea one day at lunch and on the way back to my office, I stopped in Accounting and asked. 

Two months later, the head big dog came up to my desk and told me that, I was named Buick Motor Division's Employee of the Quarter.  A photographer and interviewer would be in the next day.  My face and story would be in the next booklet put out for ALL Buick employees--all over the country and Canada.

My work building

Buick Motor Division--World Headquarters

John is supposed to be showing me paperwork--which he is, but he is saying, "Wanna go to Angelo's for Coney's at lunch?"

and I am saying, "Sure."

I went in as a receptionist for two weeks, Buick "bought" me from Kelly Services after 6 weeks and I stayed for 7 years.  I was considered a Part-time Flex Salary Employee--meaning I could only work 28 hours a week (although I always worked more).  I didn't get all the GM bennies my fellow workers did, but I did get to buy a car at the 28% discount.

Salary?  $9.00 an hour.

Best job I EVER had.  First job I ever had, LOL.  I sure miss those guys--still.

Buick was downsized in 1992 and I was out of a job.  I moved up to Saginaw and worked for a Buick dealership there.  The reason I got that job?  The General Manager had met me twice when he came into our office to pick up one of the company cars.

When my unemployment ran out and I got settled in Saginaw, I went into the dealership and asked him if there were any job openings.  Two weeks and a few tests later, I had me a job--a HUGE decrease in pay, but it was fun.

and....that's a whole nother story.

So Much Fun in the Neighborhood

One of the monkey's in my circus called the other day.

"We just bought a Blu-Ray player.  Margie is here trying to hook it up, but she can't figure it out.  It's so we can watch NetFlix.  She can't figure out how to hook it up.  Can you come help?"

"I don't know anything about Blu-Ray, other than the videos for it cost more than just regular DVD's."

"No.  This is so we can use NetFlix.  There are thousands of movies on it."

"I don't know anything about NetFlix either."

"It runs off that stuff in the air."

"Stuff in the air...hm-mm.....oh, you mean WIFI?"

"Yeah.  That."

"I don't know anything about that either."

"Well--you're no help!"
<hangs up phone>
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My Precious Girl Madeleine is having a great time in Guatemala!  She is building a house for a family--here are some pictures.

The familia--

Cemetery

I would love to be buried in a little house, on top of the ground.

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We had a couple of inches of snow this afternoon.  I would have stayed home because the roads were quite slippery, but I had a hair appointment and NOTHING was going to keep me from that!!!  It had been 2 months and I can barely get past 5 weeks without it looking awful!  So I slid in and back home and--it was worth it.

No make-up--well, really, I never wear make-up, but the eye irritation I am going through right now, makes my eye lids so red all the time.  Maybe lack of enough humidity?  Although I have a large humidifier going all day.  I need to get new glasses this year, but wanted to wait until May.  Perhaps I should go to the Ophthalmologist and see what's going on with the eyes?

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When I got home, I noticed Pearl's daughter was at their house.  I no sooner got in the house and the phone rang--it was Pearl.

"We still can't get this Blu-Ray thing to work.  We wondered if you had any ideas."

"I don't know anything about that stuff."

<didn't I tell her that the other day?>

"Well Margie says we don't have enough Internet power coming into this house."

"Gosh.  I don't know.  You have the same as I do.  You have Cable and High speed Internet connection, I don't know how you could get anymore power."

"I was wondering if we should call the Cable company."

"Sure."

"What do we tell them?  They are going to want all the information and all that fancy computer talk stuff and we don't know what to tell them."

"Tell them you are trying to install a Blu-Ray player and Netflix and it won't work."

"Then what?"

"Tell them you want someone to come out and fix it!"

"Won't that cost money?"

"If you don't have the Comcast service plan. Yes."

"Dammit!"

<hung up phone>