This & That

 Good Morning Friends,

  What a difference sunshine and above freezing feels like. Our home is finally warmer. Discovered the old furnace was heating the basement-weird-but that did keep the floors warmer than they are now when it is below freezing. So I had to wear shoes indoors-ugh I never do that just wear thick socks instead.

  I did have to go into the doctor Monday to make sure I was having asthma issues and not something else. So am on those dreaded steroid pills but am thankful not pneumonia.

  A couple weeks ago when I was buying a few food items online, I was looking for those olive oil sprays. Not like Pam etc-but just pure olive oil-doing that I found something better. Not sure why I never knew about this before. On Amazon I found a sprayer made in Italy that you pour your own olive oil into. Wow I had not seen this before and I love it! Are you familiar with these? This is the one I bought (that red piece is a protector in shipping)

After I wash up my cast iron pans, I always heat them up and spray olive oil in them, let the pan heat up and then wipe out the extra oil--This new sprayer saves money for sure. I also use it to spray into the cast iron pans for frying eggs etc

When I went food shopping yesterday I couldn't help myself but to buy some flower seed packets. I wish I could grow a few veggies here but the numerous squirrels here destroy everything ugh-except flowers This Spring I will be able to find out how many of my perennials perished with that water issue. Thinking most all of them I will replace the bee balm plants for sure. Will check to see what seeds I still have left of perennials if any.

   The super bowl will be a repeat of the super bowl two years ago. Hoping KC will win and make history-first team ever to win 3 super bowls in a row. KC has excellent coaches.

  Happy Midweek everyone, and hoping you are having warmer weather now too

  

A Bit of a Warm Up

    It has been an extremely cold winter so far. We did get down to minus 2 F Monday but a very slow warm up beginning now. Today we have sunshine which is always a good thing.

  Part of Lake in the Ozarks did begin freezing but not by us thank goodness. If we would get frozen in that can cause a lot of damage to docks and boats here. That did happen when we first moved here to the lake. With the days warming up to above freezing in the coming days-I think we will miss that ice for now on the lake in my area.

  I was thinking about this very frigid winter here,  and we have not had our garbage picked up in three weeks now-do to our iced gravel and steep hill on our road-so I have been careful not to fill it up with cardboard boxes etc-just food garbage. 

  I do need to  go food shopping again soon for fresh items which may happen this Saturday or next week for sure. I do not want to deal with any driving on ice. My younger days driving in blizzards and ice is over since retirement-I can tell you stories about some of those trips-haha. I was a phone operator with Bell and AT&T when operators used to be important and needed. When I was first hired I was assigned to a cord board office-that was wild and am glad I got to experience that.

  I have been Baking cookies this week. 

I baked up wheat chocolate chip cookies for Larry yesterday-froze most of those. The day before I made a batch of gluten free molasses cookies. These were a childhood favorite of mine. They are a soft molasses cookie not a crunchy one. When my Mom made them they were quite large. Since I changed the flour to gluten free, used butter and coconut oil instead of shortening (ugh when I left home I never used that again) and I used half Splenda and organic sugar for the white sugar. My cookies were delicious but baked up very small. I also mixed in fresh grated ginger.

Today I am baking up a gluten free batch of chocolate chip cookies for me. I added about a half of a cup of chopped hazelnuts that I found in the freezer (I had found those at the Aldi store before moving here) I also used a dark chocolate sugar free organic chip.

I roll the dough into balls first

Then I flatten them (to the right) and bake (to the left)  I will freeze a lot of them-just so I don't eat many-smiles When you don't eat much sweets then they become addictive when you have them around again. At least that is what happens to me

     I was disappointed with the Notre Dame Game loss but through their season they had only lost one game and then this one. I think some of the players were playing ill as well. During the season I thought they played a lot better than many of the NFL teams

 I began slow stitching on my second bag this week. I really like the lay out on this bag too, I changed it a bit from the last photo.

How are you all handling our arctic winter? Please stay safe and warm. This is the year we really needed a working woodstove-those are soooo much warmer.

Stay warm and safe