Three Weeks Later…Eating Sherbet?

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

Well, it LOOKS like Sherbet…what it really is something Marcia came up with on her own, although others have made a variant of it with names like Jello Cream Cheese Fluff.  She mixes two small containers (or one large) of sugar-free Jello with 2 cups hot water and 1 cup cold water, mix and put in the Refrigerator until it sets.  Then she puts 6 oz of cream cheese, cut into small squares (to mix easier), 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream, and the set Jello in the Magic Bullet and mixes until it is well blended.  Then pours it into a large mixing bowl, and uses her immersion blender to get it to fluff up more, then back into the fridge.  An hour or two later, it is ready to eat.  WOW, this stuff is GREAT, and it is nearly carb free!  The serving you see above is a bit bigger than our normal serving.  When she makes it, we both get 3-4 servings from the batch.  One ounce of Cream Cheese has less than one carb in it, according to the label.  She puts in 6 ounces, and that makes 6-8 servings…so essentially, each serving has less than 1 carb.  The Jello and heavy whipping cream have no carbs.

Skruffy wants to show off our new dishwasher.

This is the quietest dishwasher I have ever heard…and my sister and Arny have a very quiet one too.  There are two drawers, and you can wash one while filling the other, and then start it when ever you want.  So you can wash one drawer or both drawers at the same time, and it does not matter which one you use first.

    

There is only one set of controls, all on the top drawer.  The first button will light up the display (so will opening a drawer).  The second button will select which drawer you want to wash, pictured with the white rectangle above the button. In the bottom two picture above, the “Fast” is for the upper drawer, and “Rinse” is for the lower drawer.  The third button selects the type of wash you want to do…46 minutes fast wash is what she likes to use, it does not dry…she likes everything to drip-dry.  The bottom drawer is set for a 15 minute rinse.  The manual says that you should run each drawer at least once every week or two, other wise you open up the drawer and let it sit until you get back from your vacation.  So we just run a quick 15 minute rinse once a week or so for the bottom drawer…typically with nothing in it.

    

    

Above you can see the other types of washes.  All types of washes are available for each drawer, and you select the type by pushing the button right under the numbers.  You can also push the second and third button at the same time to make changes to the length of time of some of the wash choices.

The last button starts the washer.  You can use either liquid or granule soap in the dispenser, or if you use the solid squares or balls, you can put them in a special holder that sits above the silverware holder.  You add a liquid rinse aid, and when it runs out, a small light right by the soap dispenser will light up telling you it is time to add more.

I really like our new chair.  It was easy to put together, took me about 40 minutes.  It is also very quiet when it moves, but there is a hum when the massage is running. 

    

It is time for a new hose for the motorhome, and heard about this neat new hose, it has been around for a couple of years.  It has real good reviews, and it will be much easier to store.

In looking over Black Friday Week on Amazon, I came upon this neat little speaker.  It is bluetooth, connects to our Kindles, is solar charged (or it can charge via a standard phone charger), and also connects to a phone.  Sometimes we are traveling on a Sunday and we want to watch/listen to our church service via the Internet…but the sound is too weak.  This will be perfect.

Heard about Verizon’s new “no contract” Prepaid Unlimited Data plan, $65 per month if you autopay, and a new aircard/Jetpack for $49 (one payment only).  Right now our 40 gigs of data runs us $150 per month…and we are locked into using that aircard for 5 more months…but we are NOT locked in at the 40 gigs.  But that 40 gigs is a promotional price…once we let it go, we can’t get it back at that price, which is normally $300 per month.  So we got our new prepaid Jetpack today, and if it works for the rest of the month, I will drop our 40 gig plan down to 1 gig, which will run us $30 per month…and in May, drop it completely, saving the $30 and the $20 monthly connection fee.  Also, since this plan is unlimited…we hope to be able to drop our house connection saving another $100+ per month.  The only shortfall with this prepaid plan is that is subject to deprioritization on congested towers. 

This is “US” going all out on Christmas.  Yep, this is the extent of our decorations…we love it.

This is our Christmas Tree, with the presents underneath it.  Wish I could tell you who the presents are for, but when my sister sent them, there were no names on them.  Heck, knowing her, they are all for Bubba and Skruffy.  Wish we could sneak Bubba in here for Christmas, but alas, we don’t want the HOA coming down on us now do we….

Well, that pretty much covers the past three weeks, and above is the total decorations that the Condo does for outside….nice that they light up the pool and cabana area, it is a nice touch…but they won’t let anyone put anything else outside, but you can put stuff inside your windows.  Christmas Eve is a week from today and we plan to head to Brooksville to visit with Marcia’s side of the family…and this time I plan to take my camera to share that and the rest of our Christmas with you all.  Until then, be good so Santa “MIGHT” stop by where ever you are…

PS: Posted this using the new aircard…went just fine.

Turkey, Turkey and More Turkey

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

We don’t always have turkey for Thanksgiving…but normally we do…and this was a ‘normal’ year.  Back in 2014 we did a Loin Roast, and that was YUM YUM YUMMY.

The picture above was from that meal…and boy, it was good…with potatoes, asparagus, yams and my favorite Marshmallow Salad (longtime followers have heard about that salad before). 

This year, though it was just the two of us, we did a turkey.  I got up at 6:30, by 7:00 I had the turkey in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour, then turned it down to 210 degrees for eight hours doing an occasional basting.  The picture above is not our turkey, but it is the closest one that I could find to what ours looked like.  Stuffed with onions, celery and whole mushrooms, spiced with pepper, lemon pepper and poultry seasoning, it turned out good…except that the thigh was not ready after the nine hours of cooking, and needed 45 minutes more at 325 degrees to reach the 165 degree mark.  The turkey was moist, tender, and real yummy.  With it we had our first baked potato in two years, and asparagus.  (Now I am not the biggest fan of asparagus, but Marcia does it just right...not mushy, spiced just right...)

We have a “Choose a Crock” Crock-Pot like the one above.  I cut off much of the turkey meat, crammed the turkey bones and remains along with some water and some chicken broth into the largest of the three crocks, and let it cook on low for an hour, then on warm all night long.  It is nice because when you set it for a given time limit, it automatically goes to warm when the time is up.  The next morning I strained the bones and meat pieces from the broth, then added the meat I got out of the strainer into the crock.  As the day progressed, I added veggies and more meat, and we had enough turkey soup for three meals.

I got a large baggie of miscellaneous turkey meat, and another large baggie with one of the breasts.  We had Turkey Salad twice, Turkey on Burgers once, and three omelettes…and there is still just a bit of meat left for another omelette, and one large container of soup in the freezer for a cold night later on.  By-the-way…10 1/2 pound turkey at 49 cents a pound.  Not bad for just over $5 and the cost of eggs, veggies and chicken broth.   And did I mention we had baked potatoes for the first time in two years?    Other than the potatoes, we stuck to our diet real well...and I love turkey so much, I am ready to cook another one. 

Yep, I had another one of those...never a big deal anymore.  As it falls near or on Thanksgiving a lot, I am used to people forgetting or overlooking it.  My kids remembered ok, though Stephanie did not call me until the next day just before she was getting on a plane headed back to Salt Lake City (she was in California with Michael)…but the boys both called.  Mom and dad called the next day, a brother sent me an email, talked with both my sisters within a day or two and even got a chance to talk to Arny on Monday.  Of course, when mom and dad called on the day ‘after’ my birthday, I answered the phone by saying, “Who is this?  Can’t be my parents because they would have talked to me on my birthday!”  We laughed….    I even got a blog comment from Cat Lady who must have seen it from past years and remembered, because as far as I know, I have never met Cat Lady, but at my age…you never know about these things.  (Ok, not that old…but Medicare is come up pretty soon).

       

Our dishwasher should be installed next week…along with a Power Lift Massage Recliner Heated Vibrating Chair that I ordered yesterday from Amazon.  Life is good…and soon life will be much more comfortable.