Mercy me. It's been so hot here. I mean really hot here. Triple digits hot. When it's this hot (and mind you I do not have central a/c) it is hard to think about cooking. Yet, I still want to eat. Of course I do. I want ice-cream, ice-cream bars, hot fudge sundaes, and that sort of thing. I want salads for dinner - BUT - the parasite scare is keeping me away from doing that. Cold noodle salads maybe? Cold bean salads? Somehow, none of that is grabbing me at the moment. Geez.

I neglected to post the menus and I didn't even make a grocery list from the menus because I knew what I wanted and how I planned to make the meals, and then realized that sure wasn't helpful. So, here's the menus for this week: Triple C Soup (Cabbage, Carrots + Cannellini) Ocean SOS (Shrimp On Seashells) in a Lemon Dill Sauce w/ Sprouts Chickpea Casserole (Chickpeas, Carrots and Spinach with Chicken) Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas (using Egg Wraps instead of Tort

Those of you who were brought up on the notion that you had to 'count calories' in order to keep a healthy weight and to stay healthy, this blog is for you. For those of you that transitioned from counting calories to 'counting carbs' in order to lose weight and avoid diabetes, this blog is for you also. Some of you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure (or hypertension) and were told to count how many grams of sodium you were ingesting each day in order to keep your c

When you have nothing to say for your blog except how stinking hot it is, then you don't blog. That's what happens. Will glass coffins be a success? Remains to be seen.

I am making a pledge to myself to make the effort to try and eat more fruit. I know I should eat more fruit, I just have trouble making myself do it. If I eat too much fruit my body reacts in unpleasant ways, so I am not pledging to eat lots, just more. Every diet list of menus (the healthy ones) stick fruit in the plan as part of a meal or as the main part of a snack if not the snack all by itself. For day one you'd be eating a pear, an apple and a banana. All three in one d

Every year it's the same. We don't have enough water. It's way too hot. Everything is all dried out. The fire danger is in the red zone. Then...let's set off fireworks on the dry grass and desert sage. Oh say what?? !! There's a fire? No, there's a dozen fires. Sheesh. You'd think they would do something different. You'd think that. But they don't. I know they tried. For the big fireworks show they started out with drones and that was really cool. It cut down on all the loud

Hope you had a grand Holiday weekend. Here it is Monday again. Time to get back on track, get busy, get back on schedule and all that kind of thing. This is one of my most favorite places to be. I love coming here. The cherry blossoms are always in bloom when I come to visit. The air smells so sweet. It snows soft pink petal-flakes, they cover the sidewalks. It's like a dream. If I was a writer, my novel would start out with the paragraph above. Well, one of the novels anywa

Weekends are all about leftovers. There is usually plenty because I purposely cook more than what we would eat at one sitting. So the menus for the weekends vary depending on what is left from the days prior. Sure makes 'cooking' easy on the weekends when you want to spend more time playing than in the kitchen anyway. Holidays are "Cheat Days", usually. So for the upcoming Independence Day I think I'll plan on a picnic. Indoors, outdoors, here or somewhere else, it doesn't ma

What is weird is that I do not remember blogging about this or even mentioning this, so I am not sure how this got out there. But, yes, this IS salad week. I am eating salads for lunch every day this week. Even on the (leftovers) weekends. So.....here are 4 of my salad recipes for the varied salads I am and will be eating for the week. I know many folks seem to think that doing a salad is eezy-peezy. I'll just throw together a salad and I won't have to cook. Well, not so fast

Well, Virgin River on Netflix (what I was watching) ran out of episodes. I hear they will be coming out with another season, but by then, it is quite likely I will be into something else and will have forgotten all about that show. So I had to find a new thing to watch on a regular basis. Now I am watching a show called Sheriff Country, on Paramount Plus. It is closely tied to Fire Country. Seems to be a thing the networks are doing these days. I mean, look at all the Chicago

This bears repeating. I posted about this a long while ago, but the message is not getting out there well enough to really save people from making a huge mistake. People are still using tropical fats like coconut oil and palm oil. These items might be good for your skin, for your hair, and actually best for your feet. But not at all good for your innards. Really. People are still jumping on the Keto Diet and doing real damage to their selves. I am compelled to go over the fac

Yes, this seems to be my week for problems. I still haven't gotten my phone/camera to be able to share pictures or download pictures to my laptop. I really have to have that going on. My laptop is where I will polish up pictures, edit videos, be able to upload pictures and/or videos to websites, like this one. I never had any problems doing this in the past. It's a new thing that started with the most recent Microsoft updates. This weeks' menus has also turned out to be a bi

We were talking about how people post things on X and Facebook, etc. that seem pretty inconsequential. I like seeing funny clips or uplifting posts. But what we were talking about was those posts of, "where I am", "what I am eating", "what I had for breakfast", and so forth. Well, it occurred to me that this blog is about those very things. It's about what I have learned, what I have planned for my menus, how I am going about eating healthier, what I am reading, what movies

I said I was going to catch you up on what am up to so, here's what I am doing now. I am reading: a book titled "The Brotherhood of the Tower Rats". It's about a persons' experience in the military and moral dilemmas. What is a dilemma in the military? A situation that requires a choice between options that are or seem equally unfavorable or unsatisfactory. It's interesting and upsetting both at the same time. As you know I seem to always be reading more than one book at

Adam and Eve were the first ones to ignore the Apple terms and conditions. I have talked about this before but it's been a long while so I am going to talk about it again. I have new stuff to add to it. I participate in a learning program put on by the Ardmore Institute of Health. The program is called "Full Plate Living". It is a free program and you can learn a lot about nutrition and cooking from this program. I joined a long time ago and I'm still participating. It's very

What time does a duck wake up? The quack of dawn. So I am back to making up recipes again. I have plenty of recipes. I am not sure why I think I need to do new ones. It's the more creative side of me I think that steers me towards the thought of making up 'new' stuff. Anyhow, here's what I have so far: Chicken Quinoa Chili. I am thinking this would pair well with microwave cornbread. Ingredients will be: Some red bell pepper, onion of course, chicken (duh), Black Beans, P

Before inflation took a big hike up, before the pandemic, before I began shopping online---before---before. Before all this, I use to spend about $100 to $125 a week at the grocery store, which was entirely at Winco. Often, if there were one reason or another that I needed to do it I could cut that back to less than one hundred dollars on any given week. Keep in mind that this included household items, cash back, and extras for Holidays, it was not just usual groceries alone.

Yes, it's true, I am running a wee bit behind this week. The reasons why elude me. But nonetheless, I did get menus created and here they are: For Friday Fish Day - Kippered Herring Caesar Pitas Butter Chicken and Cauliflower with Potato Wedges Lentils and Rice with Spinach Orange Chicken with Leftover Rice Kale and Lentil Stew with Mashed Potatoes Weekend Leftovers As a cautionary addendum for myself I have the items and the recipes ready for these extras: Cuban Chicke

The phrase "You think you know somebody" often comes up when people feel surprised or betrayed by someone they trusted. It captures a common experience: the realization that our understanding of others is limited, sometimes painfully so. But why does this happen? How can we believe we know someone well, only to discover unexpected sides of their personality or actions? This post explores the truth behind this saying, offering insights into human nature, relationships, and how

Why did the candle feel happy? It got really 'lit'. What am I still doing? you ask. I am still comparing my old self (young self?) to my current self. That really has to stop. Everyone, at some point in their life, is told not to compare their own self to someone else, or to others. Especially Hollywood people. Those folks just are not any image to hold up for anyone. My issue is my size. For the first almost 50 years of my life I was either slender or skinny. Sometimes ver