51 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-19-16”

  3. Good morning, fellow wanderers.
    Growing up as the baby of five (my siblings are significantly older than me: 13, 10, 8, and 6 years are between us), we rarely agreed on music. But, we
    all liked the Eagles and James Taylor. We frequently listened to the Eagles on the drive to and from school.
    Although I was born in 1971, because of my older siblings influence, I’ve always enjoyed music from the 70’s more than other genres.

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  7. Morning to those on this part of the globe! Hello to the rest of you whenever you get to read this.

    It’s a cold morning to head out to see a doc. There were two appts. scheduled for today but one rescheduled. Those docs have to do a lot of juggling to fit in their surgeries. I am amazed at how they, their staff, and God fit it all together.

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  8. I loved Miami Vice. Here’s the song by Frey they often used.

    “There’s trouble on the streets tonight
    I can feel it in my bones, I had a premonition
    That he should not go alone

    I knew the gun was loaded
    But I didn’t think he’d kill
    Everything exploded, and the blood began to spill

    So baby, here’s your ticket
    Put the suitcase in your hand, here’s a little money now
    Do it just the way we planned
    You be cool for twenty hours, and I’ll pay you twenty grand

    I’m sorry it went down like this
    And someone had to lose, it’s the nature of the business
    It’s the smuggler’s blues, smuggler’s blues

    The sailors and pilots, the soldiers and the law
    The pay-offs and the rip-offs and the things nobody saw
    No matter if it’s heroin, cocaine, or hash
    You’ve got to carry weapons, ’cause you always carry cash

    There’s lots of shady characters, lots of dirty deals
    Every name’s an alias, in case somebody squeals
    It’s the lure of easy money, it’s got a very strong appeal

    Perhaps you’d understand it better
    Standin’ in my shoes, it’s the ultimate enticement
    It’s the smuggler’s blues, smuggler’s blues

    You see it in the headlines, you hear it ev’ry day
    They say they’re gonna stop it but it doesn’t go away
    They move it through Miami, sell it in L.A.
    They hide it up in Telluride, I mean it’s here to stay

    It’s propping up the governments in Colombia and Peru
    You ask any D.E.A. man, he’ll say there’s nothin’ we can do
    From the office of the President
    Right down to me and you, me and you

    It’s a losing proposition but one you can’t refuse
    It’s the politics of contraband
    It’s the smuggler’s blues, smuggler’s blues

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  9. Great. Just saw our weekend weather forecast…. 😦

    We could be lookin’ at 1 to 2 feet. 😯

    Better get the snow blower some gas and get it ready for Sat..

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  13. Good Morning Everyone. I am nursing a cold. I really do not enjoy basking in sickness. January always seems to bring a lot of death with it. I guess it really is the cold weather that wears people down. I noticed it a couple of years ago when we lived in town. It seems every day there was a hearse at one of the four churches I passed by. I asked the guy who owns the gas station across the street from the Methodist and nest door to the Lutheran what was going on. He said it was like that every January–Death Season is what he called it. The rythmes of life that we see to be so far removed from in our modern world.

    Karen to answer your question, NO. BG did not attend the wedding. They got married in the Virgin Islands. He took her to dinner last Thursday night before he left. I told him to really talk to her about his re-marriage. I thought she liked Mr. P until he moved in with us. She did all sorts of stuff to manipulate us. She is older now and hopefully a little more mature and understanding, but I don’t want her or her father and stepmother to go through what we did with her. I didn’t want ex-h to make my mistakes. I have made it very clear to her that I have no reason to dislike the new Mrs. C and as long as she is good to BG I have no reason for that to change.
    Now to address my pettiness and bitterness….It did hurt me that they went somewhere. I got a honey moon in New Orleans—whoop di do. I was promised a trip to Mexico for my 10th anniversary, but then it was bargained down to getting laser surgery on my eyes, which ended up being a pair of earrings that I bought myself and sent the bill to his office. He never went anywhere with me. I made him go to a play with me once and at intermission I told him we could go home. Everything I ever wanted to do was “pretentious”. NOW he is doing them. Old scars. Mostly healed, but sometimes they still scab over and hurt. I will survive. I always do.

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  14. Kim – Maybe he learned from the mistakes he made with you. My dad said his own dad went from being an overbearing tyrant with his first wife (Dad’s mother) to being a milquetoast with his second wife.

    As for surviving, yes, you will, I have no doubt. But remember that in Christ, we are not merely survivors, we are overcomers, & we are more than conquerors. 🙂

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  15. The Eagles are my favorite band.

    (“The Eagles are . . .” sounds right, but since it is the name of one band, should it be “The Eagles is. . .”? That just doesn’t sound right.)

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  17. I wouldn’t take anything for the time we have taken to go be Mimi and Grandpa 5 or 6 trips in 3 years. Not really enough to be top of mind with the children at their ages now, but I selfishly want a trip that is just Mr. P and me to someplace FUN that doesn’t involve anyone but us.
    It was a goal I had set for myself last year but that was before I was let go from the job I thought was going to allow me to set and reach goals. This year I have just gone where the wind blows me with no plan at all but to get through each day.
    My next trip with be to California with BG to JH Ranch. I am hanging a lot of hopes on our week there for both of us.
    After that I will see if I can go park my carcass on a beach somewhere and read trashy novels and have someone do a pool set up and bring me cold, refreshing drinks. Mr. P wants to go back to Cuba—who knows?

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  18. It’s “my” Monday, back to work after taking an extra day off for a rare long weekend.

    Interesting story posted by a friend/long-time source this morning about when she knew Frey in his “poor musician” days in the late ’60s when she and her girlfriend and he all used to hang out together weekends at the Troubadour in Hollywood, sharing a table where they’d melt their swizzle sticks over the candles into different shapes (remember, this was the late ’60s). Some funny stories, but when she met her husband-to-be she quit going there. Next time she saw Frey he was very excited that his band was getting regular work — and he actually had enough money to buy her a fancy/expensive drink (she and her girlfriend always had to pay for his beers at the Troubadour).

    Of course, the Eagles went on to become one of the biggest bands of the ’70s. She said he was just a super nice guy. 😦 They were a good band, their music was/is still so familiar to many of us.

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  22. That’s great news Janice! 🙂 And I learned a new word, ablation.

    I have a plumbing issue — seems there’s water collecting under the tub liner which I only noticed this morning (by the squishy feel and sound when I stepped into the shower!). Ugh.

    Plumber coming tomorrow.

    Sigh.

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  25. Not a nice day. I have access to my parents’ email account, as it used to be the family account. A family member had notified me that they had sent an email for me to that account. So, while I was on, I decided to clear away some of the spam/promotional emails that accumulated, as my mother does not use computers and my father seldom uses email. I found that my dear father had signed up for a certain energy newsletter that is decidedly dodgy at a considerable cost. I hated having to do it, but I had to talk to my father and persuade him that he was getting bilked of good money for poor advice. He took it in pretty good part, but I have a heavy sense of his vulnerability. He has been led up several blind financial allies by people pretending to be his friends in the past. He always lost money of course; though, thankfully, never enough to bankrupt him. A business man, he is not; and I wouldn’t have him anything other than the good, honest, and plain man that he is. That is what hurts; that others trade on his straightforward nature and steal his hard earned money (although both my parents are on a government pension, they earned every penny) for getting money on inflated pretences is indeed stealing. He was attracted this time, by a ubiquitous internet ad – he thought that the sheer number of different websites it appeared on was proof of its legitimacy. I could invoke one of David’s Imprecatory Psalms on the head of the advertiser; but it is a sad, strange feeling to be the one instructing one’s father on the pitfalls of something, even if it is something as new as the Internet.

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  26. You ladies often get into discussions that are gender specific. I usually skim over most of that. However, I have a question for those of you who cook.
    I have started helping Elvera in the kitchen of late. We have/had a large chicken carcass which has had the legs, most of the breast stripped and eaten . However, there was still lots of meat left on the carcass. I decided to strip the bones and make some chicken soup. I just took the chicken from the bones, added some potatoes, carrots, corn and make a stew.
    It turned out pretty good.
    But only pretty good. It was kinda bland.
    Except for onions, can you give some suggestions to spice up the remainder of that stew?
    This is for me. Elvera likes bland.

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  27. Let it snow! We’re getting our first big snow of the season. Last week was an inch or so. Tonight we’re supposed to get up to 4 inches. Maybe there won’t be school tomorrow.

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  28. Chas, for starters, I simmer the whole carcass for about an hour, after which all the meat falls off the bones. I think the bones give it extra flavor, too. I then add carrots, celery, and onion and a couple cubes of chicken bullion, and salt. After that simmers for a while I add noodles to make chicken noodle. But if you won’t add the onion, then I just can’t help you.

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  29. Chas, boil the bones and you can add some celery and carrots to that. Then drain it all, pick out the meat, toss it into the broth. Throw out the bones and veggies. Add what ever vegies you want to the broth. Salt, pepper, rosemary, sage, whatever. The bones will brighten it up a lot.

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  30. Chas, I love “poultry seasoning.” It is a bunch of spices together in one, and I add quite a lot of it to any chicken soup I make. Salt, pepper, and garlic are also good choices anytime. Celery salt is another. But poultry seasoning can add a lot of flavor without any sense of spiciness. (I’m a low-seasoning gal myself, but my husband, who likes stuff less bland, has highly complimented my chicken that’s seasoned with only poultry seasoning and some salt and pepper. He also likes garlic in anything and everything, and while I don’t like onion, I do like garlic, so I can use a lot of that, too.)

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  31. Well Chas, since you want gender specific, I’ll tell you how a real man does it. 🙂

    Throw the carcass in a pot with water, onion, celery, and carrots. I also add a bay leaf now. You can’t eat ’em, and it’s easier to find it now than when the soup is done and full of ingredients. Bring it to a boil, then cover, turn it down to low and simmer for an hour. Then pull the carcass, take a fork to it to knock off any remaining meat and chuck it. Next drain it through a strainer into another pot, pick out the chicken and toss the rest, including that pesky bay leaf.

    You can freeze it, store it in the fridge a day or two, or use it right away. You can further season it with garlic, salt, pepper and whatever strikes your fancy when you make it, depending on what soup you have in mind.

    I do the same with turkey and ham bones as well. We’re big soup fans here. 🙂

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  32. Poultry seasoning is good and can be used in place of sage in dressing, as in ‘chicken and dressing.’

    What I do is boil the carcass for quite awhile, like others said, until meat is falling off the bones. Then I put what’s in the pot into a colander over another pot so the broth all ends up in a pot. I get the good meat out of the scraps, and throw away the yucky stuff. I let the meat and broth cool enough to put in the refrigerator. It firms up in the fridge with the fat separating and rising to the top. The next day or later in that day if done early, I dip off and throw away all that fat. Then I proceed making soup as others have said. Rice is a good addition even alongside noodles. Some canned tomatoes, canned corn, frozen peas, or even some green beans add nutrition and flavor. I like a bit of basil if using tomato. I have a recipe for soup made with cole slaw mix and I believe it has a bottle of zesty V-8 juice added to it. That soup uses ground beef for its meat.

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  34. Thanks. I considered boiling the entire carcass, but wasn’t sure, so I cut the meat off the carcass. I’ll boil the entire thing next time..

    I like the idea on draining the water and starting over with the meat and veggies. I will check to see what spices we might have, bay leaves, celery salt, etc. I’m not familiar with what we have. She tries to be helpful, but I usually have to get things together.
    I did cook it for an hour and a half.
    As I said. It was OK, but just OK.
    We often have soup for lunch. We have a good bit left for the next several days.
    I may find some of those spices you mentioned.

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  35. Chas, for health reasons and for my preference to not have greasy soup, I strongly suggest taking time to get rid of that fat. It may take away some flavor, but it is worth it, IMO. I don’t like the greasy residue left in my mouth and on my lips after eating soup that has not been defatted. I think there are specialty gadgets used for defaulting broth but I have never owned one. Anyone else have other methods to get defatted broth?

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  37. After it separates a bit, put the baster down into the broth and pull it up, put it in a pot, and dive in again, until you get it all. But I leave the fat for the soup. It can come off later if there is too much, it definitely adds flavor.

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  41. Chas, I always check expiration dates to make sure things are still fresh. That taco seasoning pack probably has a date as well as the spice and herb containers. If old, they lose flavor and won’t make things taste as good.

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  45. Spices fade quickly. However, I am still using boxes of yeast I bought fifteen plus years ago. They have been in the freezer. And some unknown person dropped a bucket of baking powder in our mud room a few years ago. It was out of date at the time and barely used. It is still making delicious pancakes and biscuits.

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  46. Chas, you said you put potatoes in your soup. I think potatoes may draw salt to themselves and leave the liquid part of the soup less flavorful. You may want to make soup without potatoes.

    A little Worchester sauce will flavor soup nicely, too.

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