New Year, New Start, Past is the Past

The "Past is the Past" unless you live in Hurricane Country.  The boat above was nearly capsizing a good month after the last Hurricane hit our area in October.  Luckily for this boat owner, the tide came in, the boat leveled out, and some kind soul moved it out into the channel and it has been fine ever since.  Perhaps it was the owner who did this...that, I just don't know.
 

But this other boat ended more like an episode from Gilligan's Island.  It beached itself up along the shore, and has remained that way for the past three months.  (It is the furthest boat in the picture).  Two years ago there was a boat that had capsized...all you could see was the hull since the mast was under water, turned on its side.  It took 8 months for it to be cleared from the channel.  My guess is, when we leave in a few months, this boat will still be where it is.  Perhaps they are waiting for the next hurricane hoping it will move itself back into the channel.  Some times the past can't remain in the past, not here in hurricane country.  FEMA moved many folks out of the housing they were providing up until last week...these folks can't get out of the past...their every day living is just HELL!  "FEMA, we are here to help until your three months run out", seems to be their motto.

When I last left you, we were planning to spend Christmas Day at Marcia's brother Mike's house.  Well, a UTI took that plan away...one of the many issues you face when you have MS.  So, I went to Jallo Wine and Spirits, a fairly new store that opened up about 4 miles from us.  It has a lot larger offering than the local liquor stores have.  Easily found a bottle of Ouzo, a bottle of Johnny Walker Black, and these two gems pictured above.  Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout (for Marcia) and Cutwater White Russian foe me.  My sister Sandy turned me on to Cutwater last summer...especially their Espresso.  They did not have Espresso, but they did have the White Russian...which is a flavor I was interested in trying.  

So our Christmas Day was filled with cooking a Bone-in Ribeye Roast, a Christmas toast with a shot of Ouzo, and a Oatmeal Stout for Marcia with dinner, while I enjoyed my White Russian.  A box came with four each, and we enjoyed one each day for the next three days after Christmas too, along with one enjoyable evening with Johnny Walker over Ice in coffee cups, because we did not have any glasses...well, Amazon has fixed that, so we now can (and have) enjoyed Johnny Walker, over Ice each week, in an appropriate glass.  I would show you that the bottle is still 2/3rds full, but you all would probably think I just went and bought another bottle...so I will skip that, and you will just have trust me.

We did make it over to DeLand to see Marcia's other brother and his wife Caryl for New Year's Eve.  Hoping that the Booms and the Bangs would be less in their area than ours, but it wasn't.  However, I gave Indy a couple of Thunder Wonders, and that worked just fine.  We 'camped' in their driveway for the night, and had no problem with traffic getting there on Tuesday, and getting home on Wednesday.  (We actually left Monday, stayed in a Cracker Barrel for the night, and arrived Tuesday around 10 am.)   We had a very enjoyable time there.

I celebrate the New Year with my final IRS payment of our quarterly taxes.  I ALWAYS take a picture of the envelope before I mail it, and as I mail it...just a good idea, in my opinion.  Yes, I could get a PIN and send it electronically, but I try to keep the good ole Post Office in business each year, so I put on my "Forever Stamp" (bought four or five years ago) four times a year, and send it out.  The 5th stamp I use each year is to send our yearly tax statement out...so you can see, I am single-handedly keeping the USPS in business.

Finally, there is yesterday...  Above is Indy having her Inaugural Hot Dog while watching the Inauguration.  Need I say more...  The past is the past, this is a new year...let's hope it is better for everyone.
 

Christmas Time, Blog Time, HO Ho ho

 

Before Christmas is Thanksgiving...before Thanksgiving is my Birthday (sometimes it falls on Thanksgiving).  So for Thanksgiving, we enjoyed a nice, boneless leg of Lamb dinner, complete with different veggies and a large sweet potato that we split in half.  The nice thing about the Lamb, it lasts for another 4-5 meals, so I put a third of the cooked lamb into the freezer.  And what about my birthday?  Pizza from Pizza Hut.  Not that the "Hut" is the best pizza, when you have not had it for nearly 5 years, it tastes darn good!  Now we have had various low carb pizzas over these past 4-5 years, but they just are not like a real pizza.  I "almost" had a Lou Malnati's legendary Chicago deep dish pizza shipped, but I just could not justify the cost...so Pizza Hut was it, and it was good.  And what about Turkey???  We got a bone in Turkey which I made Turkey Soup out of...that lasted four to five days!

Of course, with Thanksgiving being over, we now have to prepare for Winter in Florida.  That included getting rid of an ant farm which suddenly showed up outside our front door.  

Although I could have called the HOA and they eventually would come and take care of them, I hit them with TERRO ant bait, which took out the sugar ants real quick...but the majority of these ants were not sugar ants...more like Little Black Ants, and you need a different TERRO for that...but I did have Amdro and it did the job, except these little creeps kept moving to areas nearby.  It took about a week, but they are now under control.  The difference between these two type of ants is that the Sugar Ant seems to climb up and down walls, power cords, drapes...they just get into anything and everything if you don't control them.  The Little Black Ants seem to stay along the ground...which means poor Indy's food bowl was their favorite place to go.  Let's just say that we are prepared for Florida Winter now, no ants inside for well over a week now.

Since we arrived home from our California trip in late September, I knew it was time to put the HHR back into the shop again.  Once we got back home, it started right up...which lasted about 5 seconds then died.  I figured it might have had water in the gas due to the high humidity and the one tropical storm that it endured while we were gone.  After two shots of gas additive and a few hundred miles of driving, it became apparent this was not the issue.  The Camper Van needed an oil change, and I decided that would be first.  Then the first hurricane, Helene, hit the area, and although we did not have issues, others around us did, including massive power outages.  So I held off (procrastination) until two weeks later when Milton hit the area and caused even more damage.  Although I had an appointment to get the oil changed for the Camper Van, that had to be canceled as we headed north to get away from Milton.  By late October the community was getting back to normal, as close to normal as it could be with debris piled up along so many roadways due to the damage that Milton and Helene caused...so I did get the oil changed, and that was blogged about in late October.  By early November I got the HHR into the shop where it stayed for nearly a week.  $1,700 later, it is like we have a new engine...but the check engine light was still coming on due to a sensor in the Catalytic Converter. So I put an additive in and started driving it in 2nd gear as much as possible to get the RPMs up there as if it was on the highway.  220 miles later, before the second treatment, the light turned off.  I put the second treatment in and continued the high RPM driving for another 30 miles, filled up the tank and started driving it normally again.  It has been another 200 miles, and all is well.  The HHR has over 170,000 of driving miles, and another 120,000 miles being pulled behind three different motorhomes, included up to Alaska and back, so it has seen its days for sure.  But we love our HHR, which we purchased a month or so after we got married in 2011...it was originally bought by a rental car agency in 2009, so we are its second owner, but it has had multiple drivers.  Overall, it has run very nice for us until a couple of years ago.  This time I think we have it fixed.

Which brings up to up to Christmas.  Christmas Day we are going over to Marcia's brother Mike's house.  Christmas Eve I will cook a Texas Ribeye, with Baked Potato, Veggies, and our favorite seasonal dessert, Cranberry Orange Marmalade Sauce over Rebel Ice Cream.  (2 - 12 oz bags Cranberries, 1 cup Splenda Brown Sugar, 2 cups Sugar Free Orange Marmalade, 16 oz baked chopped Walnuts, 4 tbl Lemon Juice.  Cook Cranberries and Splenda Brown Sugar mixed well in a standard 2 Qt. 8″ x 11″ glass baking dish for an hour, covered, at 350 degrees, stirring once half way through.  Add Orange Marmalade, nuts and juice, stir well, cook uncovered for another 15 minutes.)  A half cup serving has 4 net carbs, the ice cream has 2-6 net carbs depending upon flavor (Rebel is our favorite brand).  We also put a couple tablespoons over our Hot Oatmeal in the morning.  It is YUMMY!

We hope all of YOU have a wonderful Christmas Holiday, and remember just what it is we are celebrating for.