Athaclena

You have no idea. Friends ask for a heads up before major life decisions (seriously). The car might NOT be dead. It did overheat. Apparently none of the temp lights or anything work but hubby put a GALLON at least of water in the radiator and drove it around a bit - including stopping by a place to schedule them to look at it - at least a radiator flush\fill and maybe we'll find an easy leak (or find out it needs a new radiator or water pump and we're good for a bit. If it's totally dead we're looking at replacement.

And Mom's car may have just died (still need to look more at the engine, potentially over heated without setting off a light and blew head gasket or warped something so not reasonably fixable - engine swaps on a 14 year old car with other electrical issues - gonna pass on that). FFS I need job #3 or something to keep up.

I've had my Fitbit Inspire 3 for about a week and love it so far. The battery really lasts and it is much lighter and less clunky. That does mean a bit less "real estate" on the face, but I'm getting accustomed to the new clock face (and I did choose a different one than the default). The new silicone band isn't irritating either which is new. I did order a metallic (but no magnetic clasp this time) band so we'll see how that goes. It's a cheap band but I chose a silver color in hopes that it's not painted (which will chip\fade) and found that my awesome keyboard has magnets so one of the things that drove me nuts about the last band I'll STILL have with this one so I may have to re-think and go back to the silicone band. *sigh* Maybe if I get the palm pads it'll help. I'll give it a bit to see how it works out. At least I'll have a nice looking bracelet option for travel to clients I guess. I mean, no one is going to mistake it for a nice watch. I just can't bring myself to spend $400+ on a smart watch when the $100 fitbit does everything I actually need....

Update - on a hunch trying with dinner tonight - the oven comes to temp reasonably on Convection (which has an additional heating element) which kinda confirms the heating elements are likely going - or at least the "hidden" baking elements are which are the most expensive and require you literally pulling the entire unit out. So yeah.... likely going to talk over the small modification for the opening that'll likely be required with a friend and bite the bullet. Since it is almost certainly not going to be replaced before Thanksgiving, at least I'm pretty confident we can cook the turkey. Everything else I can work other cooking methods and my little Convection Oven, but a 15# Turkey isn't going to fit in that no matter how many pieces I cut it into LOL.

I think my double ovens are slowly dying. I really don't want to spend more $$. Replacing it won't be cheap but replacing the existing elements looks like (I kid you not) $1000 for the parts. All of which I can install myself, but that may not be the actual problem. I'm looking at a relatively fancy new one for about $3k (which, while expensive - and yes, that is majorly on sale - is still less than $5k). There's also the option of swing away (i.e. swing left or right rather than down) which means my 5' self isn't reaching across an oven door. My ONLY problem is the only way to get that is to get a "smart" oven which means LCD screen and installed software. I'm in IT and I know you can do a lot with software, but I'm also very aware that means a lot of extra sensors and hardware which means more stuff to break. I'd rather NOT have all of the fancy stuff because if any of that fails, your oven doesn't work. And I want the new one to fully last 15 years+. I would just like to not out-spend every commission check before I get the dang thing ya know?

Fire is still contained - and we got at least a LITTLE rain. Hoping for more today and again Sunday. We're about 50% done with the leaves falling from the trees which isn't helping. Wet leaves might help smother it but for that we need rain. Sand mine is coming to a head. There HAVE been some back door dealings and the organizing to stop it before it's built has been slow to build - and in fact may be too little too late. Because we're "unzoned" in rural areas in our county, to do anything we have to adopt the "County Powers" act which many are opposed to fearing it can be used for overreach in saying how you can\can't use your property. So I'm helping build some data as "ammo" to convince them to pass it and use it to stop the mine. I'm mainly concerned with blasting on top of caves which are home to threatened species (gray bats have maternity colonies here), old abandoned coal mines (which could collapse and cause sink holes), and what that will do to our water supply. My water is provided by the Utility District, but is fed from a nearby lake, but there are 20 or so wells that residents rely on for water for them and their livestock within a mile of the proposed site. In other news, got my new Inspire 3 FitBit and already love it. Can't wait to get the replacement band so it's not the silicone stuff although this band doesn't seem to bother me as the last silicone band I had so that's good in case I need to use it. Still not getting my steps in BUT in light of all of the stress of the above stuff mentioned, it turns out that I CAN shut my brain down to sleep. It just requires a combo of Sleepy Time Tea with a shot of Chamomile Infused Vodka, a few 303 and a CBD gummy. THAT will put me out. Hopefully I don't have to use that combo often, but good to know it works (without causing night terrors or sleepwalking).

Just to update - they got it 90% contained last night. Last tally was 90 acres. They're working to finish containment and monitor for hotspots. While no rain is in the forecast until Friday it is finally at least not windy. And since it's been dry and we just reached peak color season - there are a lot of very dry, easily picked up by the wind leaves on the ground. So I'm still packed to go if needed. Hubby will be home this afternoon as well.....

Always! Forestry Service pulled a power move, took over and sent the fire departments home thinking they had it with mechanical breaks. Not an hour later it was flaring up in the back yards of 2 homes. We're up to 10 fire departments battling it now with 3 homes threatened (one of which is a homestead that had to gather up their goats & chickens). They're staying all night tonight to make sure the fire stays put and are soaking as much as they can in it's path while continuing to make fire breaks on the side of the plateau (because we're not really a mountain any more, lost the tops from glaciers over an ice age or 2 - or more, they believe the Appalachians pre-date Pangea). Anyway, I've finishing up go bags for myself, mom and the animals so we can bug out in about 15 minutes, just in case. And I doubt I'll be able to sleep tonight - so I've posted to my work Teams/Slack to that effect in case I'm out of it (or have bugged out) tomorrow. At least it's not a hurricane. Definitely DONE with hurricanes.....

More joys of rural living. A wildfire started about 3 miles from me this morning and trying to keep updated on how it's going is pretty much through roommate who's parked himself near by the responders. Several fire departments, county emergency and now the Forestry service are working to contain it as it's on the literal side of a mountain and not easy to get to. Thankfully it's not as windy today and 3 miles is a LOT to go through to make it to me. Still, I've located all of the kitty carriers, made a plan for them + food and a bag each for myself and Mom. Probably should pack up my work laptop to be totally safe if we need to evac. This is actually the closest I've been in a path to a forest fire (I've had houses burn down a few lots from me, but there was never much danger of it making it to other houses). We actually don't have trees near the house and the roof is metal so it's less likely to catch fire, but still MAY have to evac for safety. When you live literally "in the woods" - keeping a good break between house and trees is essential to your home being one that's not a total loss in a forest fire. I've watched some good documentaries on some of the big California fires where they showed which houses made it and why....... This was all kicked off with a neighbor posting in the FB group the literal worst thing you can in an emergency.... ATTN: THE MOUNTAIN IS ON FIRE PAST XXXX HOUSE. That's it. Like, seriously? Do you want everyone to f'ing panic? We got a helpful "Lot #1" a bit later (there are at least 9 phases so at least 9 "Lot #1s" FFS). I had a name so I could look up the address (after I went outside to note that I didn't see smoke so likely wasn't near me). I get it, you want to alert people - but FFS you're an adult that should know better than to just shout FIRE. Give the address, what you can see, has 911 been called, what is the response. Give people INFO so they know what to do. So - in case you need a script if you're in a similar situation - concise What, Where, Current Situation, Be Alert such as "There's a wildfire down the mountain from X address, fire services have been called, please be alert and if you're nearby be ready to evacuate and keep in touch here if help is needed" will go a LONG way to keeping folks calm and allow them to prepare a quick response. Whether that's gather up animals and evac or coordinate in gatorade\water for the firefighters (all of which happened once we established where and how big).

Broke out the 12 hr Sudafed last night as it felt like I was starting to get a little chest congestion + more coughing and starting to be a wet vs dry cough. Combined it with a CBD Gummy (which hubby did earlier in the week and said it helped with the "speed" effect of the psedoephedrine in the Sudafed) and a Valerian supplement and BOOM - no heart racing. Didn't "pass out" like I normally would with CBD + Valerian but I feel like I got more rest. Back to JUST non-drowsy anti-histimines this morning and so far so good *knock on wood*. I may do the Sudafed + downer combo again tonight if I start to feel like it's moving down to my chest again. Need to not remain sick because my immune system needs to keep the toxoplasmosis in check (don't look that up - depending on what you find you're either gonna go blind, die or have no issues LOL). Work has been busy AF this week so I can't just bail for an hour and take a nap. It's quieter today so I may bail early and do just that.......

So last week, hubby had what could have been a "head cold" or could have been "major allergies". Since his symptoms showed up after he blew driveway leaves on Thursday, we were pretty sure it was allergies and COVID tests were negative. I can now confirm it was absolutely a head cold. It's not the worst I've had, but it's annoying and I'm flipping TIRED and work has been busy enough that I can't just ditch a few hours and sleep. But I'm keeping up with lots of hot tea (with honey), antihistimines (I haven't felt the need yet to add in Sudafed, but I'm close and might tonight to help me sleep) and Aleve for the minor body aches which I'm not sure are actual body aches or me sleeping badly and in the wrong position. So I'm doing a bit less walking than normal especially since it's like actually cold at the moment. Hopefully today is the worst day and I'll be on the mend tomorrow.....

Ended up with an onion, mushroom and cheese fritatta with a side of oven roasted potatoes. And I'd joke about doubling or halving our trick or treaters from last year. Something about multiplying by zero gets the same results. Ahhhhh..... really, really rural living. Love it LOL.

So the drama over the pizza - yielded a better crust LOL. So..... I'll be doing it this way going forward and BEST of all, the next morning I can see if it rose or not and recover if I somehow forgot the dang yeast LOL. They guys got all packed up and left for the event this morning. Fingers crossed it all goes well. Invoices sent for the last couple of events where we're SLOWLY gaining trust from a single company and working on becoming their single network provider for all of the NAM events and doing our darndest to land their World Event. THEN we may be looking at really building the company and actually making some $$ to work on updates to the shop, property and house - and hopefully work on paying off the house (key for me to retire).

I think I saved the pizza dough. We'll see how it does tonight. Now to get through today where we get the rental and finish packing for the event this week (sending hubby and Roommate #1 to Atlanta). Lots of moving parts to deal with - including a day job LOL. Still not doing "focused" walking, but doing more walking in general by walking between the house\shop several times a day so I'm hitting my steps and there's plenty of elevation so there's that.

I literally can't even today. As any of you that follow along know - I cook. A lot. I make yeasted or sourdough waffles every weekend, make rather than buy sandwich bread, etc. This morning I was disappointed in my waffles and was thinking about what I needed to adjust in my recipe. As I was making pizza dough (because I forgot to set an alarm on Friday and PROMISED hubby pizzas tonight) I realized I'd forgotten SALT of all things. Shaking my head I finish the dough. 1.5 hours later, it's ready to pull. I've pre-prepped everything else (cooked some onions, chopped olives and frozen pineapple, hand shredded a pound of mozzerella, made the sauce) and go to turn out the dough and.... it didn't rise. I flash back to making the dough and realize I never took the fucking yeast out of the fridge much less put it into the dough SON OF A BITCH. I can rescue\recover from a lot of stuff but that's one I can't save and have dinner at a reasonable time. Hubby "and this is why you write stuff down" - which was the wrong thing to say because for all of my baking - I DO. I pull out the recipe, lay everything out (mom's first comment) then as I finish go through and go "yep, yep, yep" and occasionally "oops, forgot y" but while I did pull everything out, my brain short circuited it seems when I realized I'd forgotten the salt this morning and I didn't pull out the yeast and actually remember going "I don't need to run through the list, I do this every week and I pulled everything out first". I know better and this is an infuriating - yet in the future although it's not now - funny reminder. My standard Plan B - well, I used that Friday LOL. We came PRETTY close to just having Mac & Cheese with Turkey Kielbasa (my "I have no energy and need food now" go to) - but swapped to what I usually make Mondays. Meatballs. But I'm so out of sorts I almost forgot to get the rice started, almost forgot the salt in the meatballs. Pre-heated the oven and set the alarm then realized I HADN'T PUT THE MEATBALLS IN THE OVEN. FFS my ADD brain is on overdrive today. I did manage to get some yeast into the dough, covered it and into the fridge. Who knows, maybe a super slow rise will solve all of my usual pizza dough problems and it's perfect and I do it this way from now on LOL. Won't be the first mistake I turn into "this is how we do this from now on" LOL.

I'm glad she did because sometimes your lungs don't sound echo-y when you have pneumonia. NEARLY happened to my mom at Urgent Care, but the doc told the NP to do it just in case - he had a feeling and yep - he told me to go straight to the ER and asked with all seriousness where I would take her and was happy when I told him my top 3 hospitals and I'd be on the phone with her insurance once we were in the car to make sure one of those were on her plan. Feel better soon and quash those demons!

{{HUGS}} Sending healing vibes and hot, calming tea. And giant mugs of soup.

I'm glad to introduce some new folks to sourdough and yeasted waffles! Warning - I come from a long line of story tellers - so below (if you're interested) is how I stumbled upon these golden pillows of goodness LOL. The first time I had sourdough (or yeasted) waffles was at a restaurant chain called Original Pancake House (this is NOT IHOP LOL). They have a ton of different pancakes and ALL use yeast rather than baking powder\soda for leavening (according to their blurb on their history). My favorite of theirs is buckwheat (but not enough folks in my house are a fan for me to make them) - but they're all AMAZING! I started with a sourdough pancake because I had started trying to make sourdough bread and using the remnant from feeding as a base for pancakes is one of the most common things. So I started there because they knock the socks off of every baking powder based recipe I've tried. Then there was a request for waffles which I was never good at making because I could never get the "normal" batters the right consistency - either too thick so it didn't spread or it was too thin and all ran out of the maker. But my sourdough pancake "dough" really holds together so I gave it a try. OMG they were the BEST waffles I'd ever eaten and they totally became an every week thing (because it's really not hard, you just have to remember to bulk up your sourdough the morning before to the right amount, get the batter done the night before then throw a few more things in the morning - simple but don't forget anything LOL). Then I hadn't kept up with my starter and thought "there's got to be recipes for other yeast based waffles\pancakes" and began my search and tried a few. The one I linked in my post was ALMOST perfect, but leaning on my previous sourdough and bread making knowledge, made a few tweaks and VOILA! As long as I remember to throw it together, I can make really, really good waffles or pancakes on any weekend! Since I make a lot, I also broke down and got a larger waffle maker so I wasn't churning out waffles for an hour in the morning. After a fair amount of research - I landed on this one and I can't say enough good things about it. You can remove the plates for cleaning. I haven't used the "pancake" plate, but since hubby loves sunny side up eggs I MIGHT give that a whirl in the pancake plate some day

Since hubby and roommate #1 will be out of town for an event for side gig (hopefully some day main gig), we're absolutely having something with mushrooms (because hubby is severely allergic so I save that for when he's out of town). I make sourdough (or if I haven't been good that week with sourdough feedings - just overnight yeasted) waffles every weekend so likely not going for the traditional Pancakes on All Saints Day. I also am pretty likely to feed my pasta obsession. I forgot how often I could indulge in the things I love and hubby hates\is allergic to\isn't as crazy about when I was traveling for work, until I'm no longer traveling for work If someone wants to try Overnight Yeasted Waffles (or Pancakes) I'll post my recipe below. I guess if it's for dinner, technically you'll make the batter\dough in the morning This makes a pretty big batch - 16 waffles in my waffle iron - which is 4 batches of 1 1/2 cups of the batter. Feel free to cut in half for a smaller batch (I have 5 hungry adults in my house at most meals) BUT they freeze incredibly well so you may as well do them all (keep them warm in the oven while cooking them). Full disclosure, this is modified a bit after my experimentation from This recipe. Since I don't need to proof my yeast (I use it all the time), I skip the proofing step so I also completely and ditch the water and sub in more milk. I also found it needed more baking soda to brown properly and how you can make pancakes or waffles without vanilla - well - it should be a crime LOL. I live with a bunch of blueberry lovers and voila! My recipe below. Overnight Yeasted Waffles Ingredients: 8 - 12 hours before - in a LARGE bowl: 1/2 c melted butter (yes, one stick) 2 1/2 c milk (I use Almond Milk, I can't bring myself to use regular cow's milk for something that is going to sit on the counter, I just can't do it LOL) 2 Tbs Sugar (regular old white sugar or cane sugar which is my preference - but you could use brown or sub in honey but I do not recommend a swap out for a sugar substitute as that'll impact the yeast) 1 tsp Kosher Salt (1/2 tsp table salt) 1 Tbs Active Dry Yeast (I buy Red Star in bulk from Amazon, keep some in the fridge and freeze the rest - yes, I bake bread regularly) 3 c. All Purpose Flour (because yeast is involved I'm not sure if a GF Flour would work, but hey, it may be fine if you've used it for regular bread) The Next Day: 2 large eggs (beaten) 1 tsp Baking Soda (not baking powder, this is being added for browning, not for leavening - we have the yeast for that) 2 tsp Vanilla Extract 1 1/2 c frozen blueberries (optional) Method The night (morning) before, combine the melted butter with cold milk. Whisk in the sugar, salt and yeast to dissolve then whisk in the flour one cup at a time. Make sure your bowl is big enough for your mix to double or triple in size. Before you begin pre-heating your pan\waffle iron, whisk the eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir that into the batter (yes, the bubbles\air from the yeast will deflate, it's fine, it'll spring back when you cook). Then stir in the blueberries if using. I usually wait about 10 min before using - this is when I pre-heat my waffle iron. I preheat to high on my first waffle iron and cooked for 4 min. My new iron (that can do 1.5 c at a go) I set to a 4 out of 5 and it actually dings when it's done which is basically once it's back to temp. You may have to experiment here with your waffle iron. Alternatively for pancakes, I use a 1/4 c measure and heat a nonstick pan (or cast iron) to a medium high heat. I drop as many as will comfortably fit -3 in a 12" skillet or I pull out my griddle so I can do 8 over 2 burners. Once the center bubbles and the edges are dry, flip and cook another 30 seconds or so.

You know - I moved to a rural area to get away from drama. I am technically in a platted "neighborhood." I say technically because the property has been segregated into Phases and there are covenants. MOST of the properties are 5+ acres. I kind of kicked off a FB "group" - but I didn't "start" it - for an easy way to communicate things like "Hey, so & so's dog ran off - keep an eye out" or "I swear I paid the electric, but we have no power is it just us or everyone?". And this one lady.... OMG. Out about 5 miles from where we are (as far as I can figure) someone wants to buy property for a sand mine and she has lost her shit. It's not back in the area where we are. And while I agree it's a bad idea (we're rural, but pretty populated) - it's constant. While TN doesn't require a "Mining" permit for sand, from a National perspective, you need one to disturb that much land with respect to run off (NPDES) which is done by the states for the permitting, but is still required. Doesn't matter if you're mining or digging a pond, want to re-route a stream or put in a little damn to create a pond. You need a permit - but she thinks the dang sky is falling. I'm like - calm down until there's a permit - or if they try greasing a few palms and do it without a permit, we can shut it down. Still won't impact us here really, I'm sure the actual neighbors to that property will yell long before we're impacted (waiting on a truck to pull out onto the road). She's concerned about it harming our water supply - which is why *drumroll please* THEY NEED A SURVEY AND PERMIT - just like you do if you want to dig a pond or put in septic......

Right? One person asked about kids..... They had kids but they would have been teens when this house was built and how full that thing was was definitely not a "last couple of years" thing.

I've been getting steps in, even if I haven't gone "on a walk" - I still need to do that. But I also realized I never concluded the "Septic Saga" LOL. Warning for language - so decided to update and put it behind a spoiler guard.

Take care of yourself and get better soon. I say have the blue Kraft Mac & Cheese Let's just make it through the next challenge and hope for a better 2024.

TBH - that's all the energy I have at the moment. I will be continuing my attempt to find the motivation to just walk. That's really all. If you've followed along at all over the years and have seen everything I've wanted to improve - I've done pretty well. The house is mostly clean (finally). The kitchen stays clean. While we aren't "full on" meal planning, the little guidelines about a nightly theme and suggestions I keep on the fridge have WAY helped so we're not eating the same thing 2-3 times a week and while we do have a few things in heavy rotation, it's not really a "rut" - basically a ton of stuff I've been desperately spent years trying to work on have kind of fallen into place. It's certainly not "perfect" by any means, but I've learned long ago there's no such thing and there really is a "good enough" and for some of those areas I've reached it through some sort of motivation and finally sitting down to do the pre-work required. I'm still trying to reach that with walking - some of which is also fixing my sleeping which is also a gazillion times better - so I'm just going to keep at it!

I'm here. Pass the coffee!