Sunday, November 3, 2024

This and That

 Anybody else looking forward to the campaign ads going away?  There are some I wouldn't vote for based on just how annoying their ads are. Between the ads and the spam phone calls (Of course you are from Medicare and I'm positive you are calling just to help me out.)  I think I have invented several brand new swear words!

There are ads for a local judge.  Seems he is the most wonderful human being ever.  I kind of want to give him a well-placed kick.  Yeah.  There.

And then there is the Daylight Savings thing.  In the words of Pooh Bear, "Oh, bother."

So, to get away from all things crazy, I spent the last couple of days working on freezer meals for one.  I have several cases of meals in jars but thought it would be good to have some in the freezer as well.

I combined chicken that had been cooked, the meat removed from the bones and then diced.  Added three small bags of diced onions I found in my freezer, and a couple of bags each of frozen corn and peas.  Peeled, sliced and cooked 6 lbs. of carrots.  Sliced and cooked three bunches of celery.

Dumped all of it into a plastic dishpan.  Filled it nearly to the top.  Stirred it all together and then filled quart sized Ziploc bags with two heaping cups of the mixture per bag.  Into the freezer went 26 chicken-based meals.

To use the meals, I will thaw, add either water or broth and seasonings and heat for soup, thicken and serve over biscuits or make a pot pie.  There are other uses for these meals, but those are what I mostly use them for.

There is a reason for wanting easy to fix meals available.  I am old.  I live alone.  I have arthritis.  Some days I just don't feel like standing by my stove, stirring food from scratch in pans.  Or heating up my apartment with the oven.  There comes a time when, even if we are healthy, that we just want to make life a bit easier.  The meals help.

A couple of days ago I watched some white, fluffy stuff falling from the sky.  This is not unheard of in Minnesota.  A number of years ago there was a blizzard on Halloween.  But this time, by morning the snow was gone.  

Part of my son's job is supervising several snow removal crews.  Every fall he asks me to pray for snow so he can keep his crews busy.  And he has a kid in college.  He sent me a photo of the rain gauge in his backyard, telling me that if the amount of water in the rain gauge had fallen as snow, there would be about 36 inches of the white stuff on the ground.  

That message was followed by this.  🙏

One of my greatest blessings is having children with great senses of humor!!

Take care, friends.  And keep an eye on what happens this week.  I don't know for sure what will happen, but I'm thinking it might not be very good, depending on the outcome of the election.

Stay safe.  God bless and keep each and every one of you.