bunchofheather

Category: My Random Kind of Life

  • My first meal kit service

    I was such a bitch about these at first… why pay such a premium for a recipe and its ingredients. After all, I’m a good cook. But then, life has happened, and I was in a serious processed food rut. Basic, bland, and likely frozen.

    My review after four weeks of Hello Fresh with three meals a week?  Overall, I really like the concept. There’s about ten decent sized versions out there and so I’m thinking of trying Marley Spoon next – after all, I like Martha Stewart, lol. I’m sure I’ll try Hello Fresh again, for now we’re doing one more week of them… to use up my credits for missing ingredients in the second and this past week – I only ended up having to buy a bell pepper this last week, I was able to work around week two’s missing cheese (had some) and this past week’s missing sour cream (used 1/2 from another meal this week that had sour cream.) Nothing that will stop me from using them again in the future if I don’t try another I like better.


    It worked so well for me because I like to try different recipes & flavors… and pre-cancer M did too. He tries a bit of almost all of them after I make them, then takes more if it tastes okay to his ever limited food palate. I’d say he’s eaten a half serving of a third of them, a quarter serving of another third of them, and been a pass on the remainder. I then eat the leftovers as lunch so it’s actually working perfect for me. M then eats cereal, ramen, or hot dogs. If he gets real ambitious he’ll make chicken nuggets and/or french fries in the air fryer. Mac & cheese used to be in the fallback list, but it’s moved to the no column too, as have most things with cheese.

    I would look at a recipe, but the effort of making a list of meals, compile the shopping list, go shopping, just to make a meal that M would probably not like? Nope. Frozen nuggets or a pot pie is fine… But the convenience of clicking on a picture & description I like and all the ingredients just show up in a box? Perfect. The meal kit helps me to eat stuff I like & not give in and eat like a 10 yr old boy which is where M’s stomach is at.

    Hey, at least he’s still eating. We’re at quantity, not quality, stage for M. However, if I focus on quality, not quantity, perhaps I can have at least twenty-five healthy years more.

  • A blue dot in a sea of red

    Why has the health & safety of our society become a partisan issue? What happened to believing in science?

    Around here there is a large percentage of people who think the virus is gone now. After all, their dear leader says so. Normally I can go about my world and not have to interact with that type, but this past week has had a few interactions.

    Today, I go into the local market to get chicken for dinner from their hot foods. I push in a buggy from outside, about 12 people in the store that I could see, one with a mask. I get to hot foods. The woman behind the deli? Oh, she had a mask, it was protecting her chin. Mouth and nose? Breathing all over things, unfettered. Then she reached into the pan of chicken, no gloves, & dug her fingers into the piece she pulled out to rip it in half to fit it in the bag she was packing for a customer. That’s the point where I “noped the fuck out of there” & drove to KFC where their corporate asses all had on masks & gloves.

    It isn’t necessarily due to the virus, that would have disgusted me pre-covid… Aren’t there health department standards?

    Every day at work I hear at least one thing that disgusts me. I was told last week by a co-worker that they thought there should be a question on the company’s application for political party. I said that was fine, as I was going to judge companies based on the tv station playing in their lobby.

    I’m really getting to the point in my life where I am just fed up with being silent and silenced. I’m trying to find my voice.

  • What’s next? Locusts?

    The world is spinning out of control.  The US is spinning out of control.  Honestly, I’m scared – for so many crazy different reasons.

    When I was in middle school, I had a not-quite-right teacher.  His name was Mr. Domen as best I can recall.  Being 14, he seemed ancient – who knows how old he really was.  He was a football coach and taught social studies.  You’d learn quickly to be really careful how you passed by his room between classes.  He wore his whistle around his neck and stood at the doorway, bellowing and blowing his whistle for the least little thing.

    One day, I don’t remember the reason, but he grabbed a kid walking by, slammed him by his neck into the lockers, screamed in his face, and then let him go on his way.  It was 1986 and that was just barely considered unacceptable.

    Anyway, I remember we were discussing the history of countries and governments and he told us that the US would probably dissolve in the next few decades, that it wouldn’t make it to 250.  I remember everyone basically laughing and not taking it serious.  Now, I’m not so sure that he wasn’t really perceptive.

    Speaking of perceptive, in a weird sort of pivot…  I am not a religious person, at all.  I’m not 100% atheist but damn close.  M, the husband, is 110% atheist without a doubt.  I also love to read, it used to be books but nowadays it’s pretty much only audio books.  I read a lot of different genres and a while back, over 10+ years at this point I’m sure, I got hooked on the “Left Behind” series.  The first one was captivating and I kept reading them until I reached the point where the book club I got my CDs from didn’t carry the next book and there I stopped.  They got rather whacked out & unbelievable – even more batshit nuts then when, in the first one, half the world disappears – Poof!

    Back to the point.  I would not be shocked at all to discover that the current leader here in the US is, in fact, the Anti-Christ.  And this from a near total atheist.

    Next related pivot.  My current job is smack in the middle of the most backwoods & racist areas of Pennsylvania.  With Covid, the department of 8 had six working at home, with the supervisor and me the only ones in the department coming in.   Visitors to the department, coming in to talk to the supervisor, speak in such a way as their political and religious views aren’t hard to guess.

    These are the people that think it’s a hoax.  Somehow, the entire world conspired together to assemble a giant conspiracy, whose purpose was to hurt their dear leader’s campaign for re-election.  My husband has been yelled at while pumping gas, for wearing a mask.

    Now another has come back, the one that I’m training so that I can leave this place.  I’m a contracted employee, but not a temp… though they don’t understand the difference.  I’m supposed to be done on July 3, but there’s discussion of extending me… I hope not.  He and the supervisor are on the same side of the fence.  I try to speak up against the constant flow of conspiracy theories and xenophobic, racist statements but it’s a struggle.

    It is so disgusting, that in 2020 there is still so much racism, both blatant and subtle. What makes people think that your skin color determines your worth? How do we fix this?  The world is boiling oil, one little pop of oil into the fire and it could blow.  Every country has a group of people that get treated like shit and it’s not okay anymore.

  • What can I control? My Sims. Not much else.

    The first Sims? I bought a case, motherboard, parts, and built a new computer, named it toaster, just to be able to play The Sims when it came out. I played it for hours and hours on end, for years!

    Where did it start? My computer I bought in 1993 would play SimCity and SimEarth.  Over the years we had SimTower, SimCity 2000 & 3000, SimTheme Park, and a few other Sim titles.  Somewhere along the way we got a Compaq. It really didn’t have the specs needed for The Sims. So when the much anticipated game came out, a new computer was an absolute must!

    I had all the expansion packs for it and for Sims2 as well when it came along.  When Sims3 came out I wasn’t playing near as much and I didn’t bother for years. In fact, Sims4 was out before I bought 3. I didn’t get back into it. And then, Christmas 2016 (17? 18? real life blurs years together), the husband wanted a present idea.

    Sims4 entered my life. He ended up buying me an expansion pack & I bought the game online during a sale. I go through stages where I’ll play, then months where I won’t.

    Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the world has gone to hell. Holy fuck has it. Majorly.

    And I’m addicted to the Sims again.

    Pretty much every night when I get home from work – yes, I’m still going to work every day… that’s a whole ‘nother storyline about how I fucked up my career path in eight short weeks & lucked into a semi save of it before it totally crashed in flames… just a couple weeks before everything else crashed too. Anyway, when I get home I’ve started playing the Sims.

    Controlling my little Sim lady is more control than I feel 2020 has left me with.

  • You take the good, you take the bad…

    You put it all together and then you have the facts of life…

    Laying in my bed this morning thinking about the news and for sure, this is one of those defining moments that you will remember throughout your life. So then I started listing them in my head and these are what I’ve come up with for the past 100 years.

    • Mar 2020 – Shutdown
    • Sept 2001 – 9/11
    • Aug 1990 – Operation Desert Storm
    • Nov 1989 – Berlin Wall
    • April 1986 – Chernobyl
    • Jan 1986 – Challenger
    • Dec 1981 – Lennon was Shot
    • Mar 1981 – Reagan Attempted Assassination
    • Nov 1979 / Jan 1981 – Hostages
    • Mar 1979 – Three Mile Island
    • Aug 1974 – Nixon Resigns
    • Aug 1969 – Woodstock
    • July 1969 – Moon Landing
    • Nov 1963 – JFK Assassination
    • June 1944 – D-Day
    • Dec 1941 – Pearl Harbor
    • Sept / Oct 1929 – Stock Market Crash

    Oh, btw, I’ve lost 40 pounds since the last post. It’s hard this week to give a shit about my calorie count.

  • time to change

    I wish this wasn’t the hundredth time in my life that I’m starting over with weight loss.

    Next week I turn 47. I’m not a kid anymore. If I don’t seriously make a full on lifestyle change my quality of life in the future is going to suck… and it doesn’t have to go like that.

    I kept up with the gym & loved it… then in March 2018 work for incredibly stressful and I tweaked my arm a bit. Now it’s July 2019, I haven’t been to the gym in a year and I’m just over 250 pounds. JFC!

    July 18, 2020 is my 30th high school reunion. It is also my birthday. This gives me a concrete deadline for a goal.

    Yes, it’s ultimately a change needed for my health but let’s be truthful, it’s also about the fucking aesthetics of wanting to look good.

    52 weeks.

    Base goal: 199

    Moderate goal: 175

    Balls to the wall goal: 150

    I’m using a different tracker, Chronometer. What I’m really liking about it so far is that your food is just “for the day”, no meal divisions. Apparently the subscription version allows meal divisions but that’s not a selling point for me.

    So back to the blog to express.

  • Why do I eat the donuts?

    This is not a facetious question… I don’t understand the thought process in my brain.

    Intellectually: eat donuts means get sick and consume too many calories, therefore don’t eat the donuts

    However, it appears Homer Simpson lurks inside my brain grunting, “eat all the donuts, nom nom nom”

    What prompted this post? I bought donuts yesterday and ate 2/3 of them throughout the day, then this morning before leaving for work I ate the remainder. I felt like I wanted to pull over and get sick all the way to work.  Hopefully I remember this experience the next time the internal Homer is being loud and obnoxious.

  • only two months this time

    I got the promotion. 

    Three weeks ago I joined a gym.

    Today I turn 45.

    Here’s a quilt I recently finished :

  • has it really been a year?

    I didn’t realize I’d never come back and posted again after the last update. ..

    So, to catch up my loyal readership  (lol, somebody might stumble on this blog by accident but I don’t think there are any regular readers)…  the husband is still alive, beating some amazing odds. He’s actually the healthiest sick person I know! He’s had 15 brain tumors treated and chemo for the lung. The chemo almost killed him, he stopped after three treatments but it seems to have done it’s job.

    My job is going awesome.  I’m applying for a promotion this week so, fingers crossed! And now, I have to get ready to go to said job…

    Hopefully it won’t be another year until the next update. 

  • life is random

    On May 3, I got excellent news, I received a job offer to stay on permanently with the company I’ve been temping at since last June. Yay! More money, benefits, all that.

    Then Saturday I took my husband to the ER suspecting another stroke. Nope. Brain tumors, multiple. A mass in his lung. Looks like stage 4 lung cancer metastasized to his brain but they won’t say that definitively until after the biopsy on the 20th. Life is cruel.