The Ford dealership in Guymon, OK is finally looking at the diesel. Hubby had to remind them that the warranty expires the first of August, and then, they could duke-it-out with the bank as to who is paying for the repairs, as we don't have the money.
The car made it into the tranny shop. Tranny shop replaced some module on the inside of the tranny, which the computer said was the problem. That didn't fix it so the tranny shop pulled the cover again and got to poking around in there and discovered that there are no clutches left from second gear on. It would cost $2400 to have it rebuilt. Which, quite frankly, is more that the old girl is worth at over 220,000 miles. So Hubby and I took a whirlwind ride to Albert Lea, MN yesterday to pick up a used tranny with 73,000 miles on it, to replace the old one. Hubby will deliver the tranny tomorrow morning to get the car back on the road. 26 hours on the road with a 6-hour nap and we are both tired! Blinding rain storms and road construction makes for a slow, tedious trip.
We have the water pump in to repair the washer. We will tackle that as soon as Hubby gets back from the tranny shop tomorrow morning. The laundry has reached critical mass and I need to do something even if it is wrong! We think we have figured out how to get the water out of the tub without drowning ourselves. Wish us luck!
Sister Suzy’s A/C was an easy fix. The last time the lights went out during a thunderstorm the reset button on her A/C was tripped. She pushed that and she now has A/C. But, not before she went to the garage and retrieved the new A/C and brought it upstairs to her room. ; >)
The roof still leaks like a sieve but I have buckets in all the right places, though. We need to get the roof tarped until we can get it fixed properly. I know! Pure white-trailer-trash! I'd cover it in duct-tape if I had enough. Red Green would be proud of me because I thought of duct-tape first! LOL
July is almost over and thing are settling down again! Yeah!
Hope everyone is having a good day!
Judy
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Sunday, July 21, 2013
woe is me
Remember this song?!
GLOOM, DESPAIR AND AGONY ON ME
From the TV Show "Hee-Haw" (1969 -1992)
By Buck Owens & Roy Clark
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Here are my woes over the last month.
We went to Phoenix to see what the employment market looked like. Hubby's been unemployed for three years now and it is time to do something. Phoenix is Hubby's old stomping ground. Job market looks fair and we found places to live that were as economical as where we are at now. On the way back to Kansas our diesel pick-up crapped out on us in Albuquerque. We spent a week in a motel room eating bean-n-cheese burritos and dollar menu items at Mickey D's. We had to borrow money from my sister to get home. We ended up renting a car for Sister Suzy and I to come home in. Hubby limped to Guymon, OK with the diesel after spending a second week in Albuquerque and the Ford dealership telling us the truck was fixed a second time. Don't use Rich Ford is all I'm going to say about them. The truck is still in Guymon waiting for parts and repairs. We have to sell the travel trailer to pay for repairs.
Next, the car's transmission is going out. Hubby thought he would just pull it and rebuild it himself. After getting the rebuild manual and reading through it he has rethought that idea. Still not sure what we are going to do there.
Next up, the washing machine had stopped filling. A quick search on the Internet said we needed new brushes in the motor. So we ordered a pair; tipped the washer on its front and pulled the motor and replaced them. Tipped the washer back up, hooked everything back up and plugged it back in. Hey! Everything works! NOT! Something is now wrong with the water pump! When we tipped the washer over something that was in the trap fell over the edge and got caught in the water pump. Great! Now the washer needs a new water pump! More trips to laundry mat until that is fixed and the roulette game of, "Is this washer or dryer going to eat my money or work?"
Oh, it just keeps coming! Sister Suzy came in this morning and said her air conditioner has stopped running. The good new is we have an extra one we bought on sale a couple of years ago. The bad news is it is larger than the one currently in her room, so the hole will need to be cut out and re-framed and finished.
One final woe, we had a series of frog drowning, gully washers last night. The roof leaks, guess where? Yup, my side of the bed!
Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me
I know just how they feel.
I hope everyone is having a better day than me!
Judy
GLOOM, DESPAIR AND AGONY ON ME
From the TV Show "Hee-Haw" (1969 -1992)
By Buck Owens & Roy Clark
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Here are my woes over the last month.
We went to Phoenix to see what the employment market looked like. Hubby's been unemployed for three years now and it is time to do something. Phoenix is Hubby's old stomping ground. Job market looks fair and we found places to live that were as economical as where we are at now. On the way back to Kansas our diesel pick-up crapped out on us in Albuquerque. We spent a week in a motel room eating bean-n-cheese burritos and dollar menu items at Mickey D's. We had to borrow money from my sister to get home. We ended up renting a car for Sister Suzy and I to come home in. Hubby limped to Guymon, OK with the diesel after spending a second week in Albuquerque and the Ford dealership telling us the truck was fixed a second time. Don't use Rich Ford is all I'm going to say about them. The truck is still in Guymon waiting for parts and repairs. We have to sell the travel trailer to pay for repairs.
Next, the car's transmission is going out. Hubby thought he would just pull it and rebuild it himself. After getting the rebuild manual and reading through it he has rethought that idea. Still not sure what we are going to do there.
Next up, the washing machine had stopped filling. A quick search on the Internet said we needed new brushes in the motor. So we ordered a pair; tipped the washer on its front and pulled the motor and replaced them. Tipped the washer back up, hooked everything back up and plugged it back in. Hey! Everything works! NOT! Something is now wrong with the water pump! When we tipped the washer over something that was in the trap fell over the edge and got caught in the water pump. Great! Now the washer needs a new water pump! More trips to laundry mat until that is fixed and the roulette game of, "Is this washer or dryer going to eat my money or work?"
Oh, it just keeps coming! Sister Suzy came in this morning and said her air conditioner has stopped running. The good new is we have an extra one we bought on sale a couple of years ago. The bad news is it is larger than the one currently in her room, so the hole will need to be cut out and re-framed and finished.
One final woe, we had a series of frog drowning, gully washers last night. The roof leaks, guess where? Yup, my side of the bed!
Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me
I know just how they feel.
I hope everyone is having a better day than me!
Judy
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
exploring scones
I'm fascinated with the concept of scones. Maybe it's my ancestry from the British Isles. Mom’s mother was mostly Scotch-Irish, my mother's dad was of Welsh origin. My dad is of English origin.
I have watched a boatload of you-tube videos and read at least a cookbook's worth of recipes. I have read that making good scones can be difficult. Hubby says his ex-bride made ones that would break teeth and the ones he has had elsewhere weren't much better. As I was watching the you-tube videos, scone making looks to me to be about the same process as biscuit making. And we all know that with biscuits if you aren't careful you can end up with hardtack!
I watched a you-tube video of a unique process that really intrigued me put out by the American Test Kitchen. Then I searched for the recipe and direction; finding it here about half-way down on the page. Here's what I did to their recipe.
ATK Blueberry Scones
8 TBSP unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda (Ha! I used too much! Didn't affect the taste though.)
I forgot the salt! It calls for a 1/2 tsp.
1/2 tsp. of lemon extract. (The recipe calls for lemon zest, I didn't have any lemons.)
2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of whole milk (I used 2% cause that's what I have.)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups of frozen blueberries
I set the oven to preheat at 425 degrees. I thought I would be slick, pull a stick of butter out of the fridge and use my food processor to grate the butter. LOL, what a mess! Freeze the butter!
Time to punt! I decided to cream the butter and sugar together in the food processor.
Okay, that doesn't look too bad! Then, I added the baking powder, baking soda and lemon extract giving it a whiz. Scraped everything down; added the flour and gave it another whiz until I had bread crumb consistency.
Hey, I may be able to salvage this! Next, I added the milk and sour cream and whizzed it until it just barely came together. I then scarped a very sticky dough onto a heavily floured piece of parchment paper.
At this point, I should have stuck the whole sticky mess into the freezer and firmed up the dough but I didn't. I tried to work the dough like she did in the video. I finally put the dough in the freezer. I went to switch the laundry over and came back.
I retrieved the dough from the freezer and proceeded to press the dough out to a 12-inch square. I sprinkled the frozen blueberries on, while lightly pressing the blueberries into the dough. Then I scraped and folded the dough in thirds. I patted the dough out to about 4 maybe 5 inches wide. I cut the dough into quarters and then again into triangles to make 8 servings. I moved the wedges to my parchment lined baking pan and baked them for 18 minutes in the 425-degree oven.
A few things I didn't do! I didn't brush the tops with melted butter and sprinkle sugar across the tops. They would have looked nicer if I had at least brushed the excess flour off the tops. Next time I will add the salt to see if it is really needed. I thought they tasted pretty darn good without it.
The scones had a light lemon under-tone with a great blueberry taste. The scones also rose/raised??? very well and were very light. They were not crumbly at all. And best of all, Hubby and Sister Suzy liked them! We even discussed what different fruits we thought would taste good in this recipe. I'm thinking frozen cherries next!
I think next time when I get to the bread crumb stage I will turn the flour mixture into a bowl and incorporate the liquids in the bowl to cut down on the mess in the food processor. It would make chilling the dough easier before working it into its final shape. The other thing I think I'm going to do is add an extra 1/4 cup of flour instead of trying to handle such a sticky mess on a floured surface. Something else I would do is divide the dough into 10 maybe 12 servings instead of the 8 as I thought they were almost to big; if you can believe that!
Stay tuned! I want to try a French Apple Walnut Scone recipe and look at some recipes that have the traditional oats in them.
Have a good day!
Judy
I have watched a boatload of you-tube videos and read at least a cookbook's worth of recipes. I have read that making good scones can be difficult. Hubby says his ex-bride made ones that would break teeth and the ones he has had elsewhere weren't much better. As I was watching the you-tube videos, scone making looks to me to be about the same process as biscuit making. And we all know that with biscuits if you aren't careful you can end up with hardtack!
I watched a you-tube video of a unique process that really intrigued me put out by the American Test Kitchen. Then I searched for the recipe and direction; finding it here about half-way down on the page. Here's what I did to their recipe.
ATK Blueberry Scones
8 TBSP unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda (Ha! I used too much! Didn't affect the taste though.)
I forgot the salt! It calls for a 1/2 tsp.
1/2 tsp. of lemon extract. (The recipe calls for lemon zest, I didn't have any lemons.)
2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of whole milk (I used 2% cause that's what I have.)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups of frozen blueberries
I set the oven to preheat at 425 degrees. I thought I would be slick, pull a stick of butter out of the fridge and use my food processor to grate the butter. LOL, what a mess! Freeze the butter!
Time to punt! I decided to cream the butter and sugar together in the food processor.
Okay, that doesn't look too bad! Then, I added the baking powder, baking soda and lemon extract giving it a whiz. Scraped everything down; added the flour and gave it another whiz until I had bread crumb consistency.
Hey, I may be able to salvage this! Next, I added the milk and sour cream and whizzed it until it just barely came together. I then scarped a very sticky dough onto a heavily floured piece of parchment paper.
At this point, I should have stuck the whole sticky mess into the freezer and firmed up the dough but I didn't. I tried to work the dough like she did in the video. I finally put the dough in the freezer. I went to switch the laundry over and came back.
I retrieved the dough from the freezer and proceeded to press the dough out to a 12-inch square. I sprinkled the frozen blueberries on, while lightly pressing the blueberries into the dough. Then I scraped and folded the dough in thirds. I patted the dough out to about 4 maybe 5 inches wide. I cut the dough into quarters and then again into triangles to make 8 servings. I moved the wedges to my parchment lined baking pan and baked them for 18 minutes in the 425-degree oven.
A few things I didn't do! I didn't brush the tops with melted butter and sprinkle sugar across the tops. They would have looked nicer if I had at least brushed the excess flour off the tops. Next time I will add the salt to see if it is really needed. I thought they tasted pretty darn good without it.
The scones had a light lemon under-tone with a great blueberry taste. The scones also rose/raised??? very well and were very light. They were not crumbly at all. And best of all, Hubby and Sister Suzy liked them! We even discussed what different fruits we thought would taste good in this recipe. I'm thinking frozen cherries next!
I think next time when I get to the bread crumb stage I will turn the flour mixture into a bowl and incorporate the liquids in the bowl to cut down on the mess in the food processor. It would make chilling the dough easier before working it into its final shape. The other thing I think I'm going to do is add an extra 1/4 cup of flour instead of trying to handle such a sticky mess on a floured surface. Something else I would do is divide the dough into 10 maybe 12 servings instead of the 8 as I thought they were almost to big; if you can believe that!
Stay tuned! I want to try a French Apple Walnut Scone recipe and look at some recipes that have the traditional oats in them.
Have a good day!
Judy
Friday, April 19, 2013
lookee at what I found
An outfit I made for Sister Suzy about 20 years ago! I took three day off work, at the time, to make her six outfits so she would have plenty of cute clean clothes when she first arrived at the in-laws house.
We were cleaning the shed out of stuff from the in-laws that had migrated to our house and I found the outfit lying in a magazine rack that looked like a cradle. The mice had a good time chewing out one side of the top.
Sister Suzy had trouble believing she was that little. She was also fascinated with the size of the shoes. I had to chuckle when she was flabbergasted about her wearing a dress every day.
I went looking for the pattern in my pattern drawer but didn't find it. I bet the pattern is in some box rolled up with some fabric waiting for me to get back to it and make another one. She's a bit too big for the pattern now, LOL, so I will have to wait until somebody has a little girl to use the pattern again.
That's the most blog worthy thing I've done in a while. Haven't felt like sewing and knitting on my sweater is progressing very slowly. However the computer card-game hearts is sucking up a bunch of my time when we are not cleaning out storage rooms and sheds.
Have a good day!
Judy
Saturday, March 16, 2013
more on life's happenings
So what have I been up to since the last post?
Knitted some more on my sweater. I've got most of the body knitted and as usual with stockinette it is all curled up and not very photogenic.
Cooked up and dehydrated some ground beef we found on sale to make backpacker's gravel for camping and such.
Starting to finish our remodel of our travel trailer. We have one bed frame installed but can't seem to get to the other because life is interfering.
Hubby's mother entered hospice and has passed away. The dear lady is now without pain for which we are all very thankful.
We decided to trade our diesel pick-up truck in that we tow the trailer with for a gasoline powered one. That will lower our one-n-only payment. The good news is the loan isn't for any longer than what was left on the diesel. A little monetary breathing room would be nice.
We've been kicking around the earth boxes idea. The cost is way more than we can afford so I've been looking at DIY clones of earth boxes. I think we will use that guy's idea with the wicking system that I saw in this video. We are hoping to get some kind of garden this year because it is still very dry here. So unless we get a lot more rain this spring, things don't look good for crops or forage for animals. The watershed ponds are still dry.
That's about it except our anniversary rolled around this month. We went to Emporia, KS and picked up Sister Suzy. Then, the three of us played in the hot-tub and heated swimming pool for two day at the hotel.
I hope everyone has a good day!
Judy
Knitted some more on my sweater. I've got most of the body knitted and as usual with stockinette it is all curled up and not very photogenic.
Cooked up and dehydrated some ground beef we found on sale to make backpacker's gravel for camping and such.
Starting to finish our remodel of our travel trailer. We have one bed frame installed but can't seem to get to the other because life is interfering.
Hubby's mother entered hospice and has passed away. The dear lady is now without pain for which we are all very thankful.
We decided to trade our diesel pick-up truck in that we tow the trailer with for a gasoline powered one. That will lower our one-n-only payment. The good news is the loan isn't for any longer than what was left on the diesel. A little monetary breathing room would be nice.
We've been kicking around the earth boxes idea. The cost is way more than we can afford so I've been looking at DIY clones of earth boxes. I think we will use that guy's idea with the wicking system that I saw in this video. We are hoping to get some kind of garden this year because it is still very dry here. So unless we get a lot more rain this spring, things don't look good for crops or forage for animals. The watershed ponds are still dry.
That's about it except our anniversary rolled around this month. We went to Emporia, KS and picked up Sister Suzy. Then, the three of us played in the hot-tub and heated swimming pool for two day at the hotel.
I hope everyone has a good day!
Judy
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
startitis
My terminal case of startitis has been flaring-up. I have started three shawls and a sweater. The shawls need to be frogged and put back in the yarn stash. The sweater looks like a keeper even though I have restarted it twice. I have bought the yarn for a matching set of mitts and balaclava for Sister Suzy. I have the patterns printed and everything in a bag together. As much snow as we have had in the last week I should have got them done two weeks ago. : >)
I have two quilts I've started and lost the inspiration to finish. Got two more planned but haven't looked in the fabric stash yet.
I need to knuckle down again and get something finished. Otherwise, the projects start piling up and my monkey-mind gets to driving me crazier than I already am.
Been cooking and canning up a storm. The grocery store had all the ingredients for salsa on sale so I went nuts and bought enough to do 24 pints. Only this time I dehydrated the salsa after I made it and the salsa fits in a 1/2-gallon ice cream container. The stuff tastes great after re-hydrating which was a concern when I came up with the idea. Made Hubby two kinds of pickled jalapeños with the leftover peppers. The recipes say to let the jars set for a couple of weeks before trying so I'm not going to publish the recipes until we have tasted them. Cabbage was on sale, also, so we picked up two heads. I want to dehydrate them to make up a soup blend of vegetables to have handy for when I want to make a quick soup. If it turns out well I may get more cabbage.
My desire to wear clean clothes says I need to start the laundry so back to the salt mines!
Everybody have a good day!
Judy
I have two quilts I've started and lost the inspiration to finish. Got two more planned but haven't looked in the fabric stash yet.
I need to knuckle down again and get something finished. Otherwise, the projects start piling up and my monkey-mind gets to driving me crazier than I already am.
Been cooking and canning up a storm. The grocery store had all the ingredients for salsa on sale so I went nuts and bought enough to do 24 pints. Only this time I dehydrated the salsa after I made it and the salsa fits in a 1/2-gallon ice cream container. The stuff tastes great after re-hydrating which was a concern when I came up with the idea. Made Hubby two kinds of pickled jalapeños with the leftover peppers. The recipes say to let the jars set for a couple of weeks before trying so I'm not going to publish the recipes until we have tasted them. Cabbage was on sale, also, so we picked up two heads. I want to dehydrate them to make up a soup blend of vegetables to have handy for when I want to make a quick soup. If it turns out well I may get more cabbage.
My desire to wear clean clothes says I need to start the laundry so back to the salt mines!
Everybody have a good day!
Judy
Monday, February 4, 2013
tossed nine patch quilt
This is the fourth quilt I made for the girls. It is called tossed nine patch and this you-tube video was the inspiration for it.
Sister Suzy wanted this one for herself.
I cut 5-inch square patches. I used the dark-purple print in the border for the center blocks. Then I used random purple squares for the outside corners and random green squares for the four inside blocks of the nine patch.
I had to add a fourth inside border on each end because the center of the quilt wasn't long enough to fill the space for a 48" by 72" quilt. I cut a small diamond stencil that fit on-point and using my washable quilt pencil drew around the stencil for the quilting of that border. As you can see I used stitch-in-the-ditch for most of the quilt and put a big X in all the larger blocks to make sure the batting didn't shift or bunch in those squares.
One of the things I did differently for this quilt was useing up a bunch of scrap batting that was the same weight or loft. By spraying the backing well with the spray adhesive it was easy to butt the pieces of batting up against each other and get complete coverage without any shifting or bunching. The quilt will have to be washed several times to see if I have enough quilting to hold some of the smaller pieces in place. I plan to try it again with another quilt with higher loft scraps.
I decided to go with big squares for the backing on this one.
And here is the label so it can go to it's new home with Sister Suzy.
As a Side note: I was off-line for about a week as Hubby rebuilt my computer and him trying to get all the bugs worked out. He ended up having to replace the new motherboard he installed because Windows 7 would not recognize the video card on that board. The computer is still choking every once in a while so he has some more fine tuning to do. So my access may still be spotty for a while.
I hope everybody is having a good day!
Judy
I cut 5-inch square patches. I used the dark-purple print in the border for the center blocks. Then I used random purple squares for the outside corners and random green squares for the four inside blocks of the nine patch.
One of the things I did differently for this quilt was useing up a bunch of scrap batting that was the same weight or loft. By spraying the backing well with the spray adhesive it was easy to butt the pieces of batting up against each other and get complete coverage without any shifting or bunching. The quilt will have to be washed several times to see if I have enough quilting to hold some of the smaller pieces in place. I plan to try it again with another quilt with higher loft scraps.
I decided to go with big squares for the backing on this one.
As a Side note: I was off-line for about a week as Hubby rebuilt my computer and him trying to get all the bugs worked out. He ended up having to replace the new motherboard he installed because Windows 7 would not recognize the video card on that board. The computer is still choking every once in a while so he has some more fine tuning to do. So my access may still be spotty for a while.
I hope everybody is having a good day!
Judy
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