Tag Archives: Honey

by

A Word A Week Photo Challenge – Round

The “A Word A Week Photo Challenge” lives here.

As I follow skinnywench in my reader, she reblogged this post and I decided to steal this idea to construct my own post – thanks to both of you in advance!  (I was originally going to approach all these photo challenges by going out and Taking New pics for them, but this is much easier!)

Honey - Round

A very well-designed honey dispenser I found at Gulfstream Restaurant.

Paint - Round

The two colors of paint in my recently finished garage – the light grey on the right is the walls and ceiling – the cobalt blue on the left is the architectural details (the fuse box cover, the joist and pole that hold up part of my house, the garage attic ladder door and a few other details in there).

Recessed - Round

More garage stuff – we got one of these to see how we would like the light it produced and we did, so I took this pic when we went back to get more so we could make sure to get the Same one again!

Red Jewelry - Round

This is a jewelry set I got two of for the holidays – one for me and one for a girlfriend!

Rings - Round

These are the rings I wear on my left thumb.  If you want to know more, please see “I’ll Take Red Please.”

Sloppy Joes - Round

This is a pan of homemade (from scratch) Sloppy Joes Hubby had cooking on the stove the last Wednesday of my Radiation Therapy.  For more info on that, do a search on my blog for the keyword “Radiation.”

AHO - Round

This is one of two photos of my organic produce delivery through Abundant Harvest Organics from this week (delivered to my porch last Saturday).  See those beautiful round navel and clementine oranges both?  So sweet and delicious!  Not to mention the Russet potatoes, butternut squash, broccoli and fresh dill!

Checkers - Round

This is a checkers set I crocheted, including round crocheted checkers, that I gave to my work colleague who has a couple of not-quite-ten-years-old grandsons – she sent me a pic of them playing with it!

Dashboard - Round

The dashboard in a rental car I had last year after getting hit on the way to work – photographed as proof against them charging me for gas at their outrageous prices.

Invisibelt - Round

I wear a fair amount of untucked shirts, so I got one of these wondering if it would do away with the belt buckle bulge – the jury’s still out on this.

Jewelry - Round

The card of an artist I met at a local show whose jewelry I like and want to be able to find again in the future.

Mrs. Mays - Round

Yummy round fruit-nut-chocolate snacks!

Pancakes - Round

Mmmmm!  Pancakes and sausage links for brunch!

Siggi's - Round

Now this is my very favorite yogurt – thicker than Greek even, and they use only agave nectar (a low glycemic index, all-natural sweetener).  Currently, I’ve only ever seen it carried at Whole Foods Markets here in So Cali.  I’m hoping like the Greek yogurt craze, this will make it to the traditional supermarket chains too!

Amiata - Round

This was from a bar of soap I got at the same local farmer’s market as the artist’s business card above, and I took a picture of it so I would know what it was if I liked it and wanted to get more.  Turns out I Didn’t like it and the picture is still in my camera roll.

Bloody Mary - Round

Bloody Mary from the Egg Plantation.  Round olives, round glass –  need I say more?

Glazed Mug - Round

A cup I saw from an artist (again?!) at the local farmer’s market.  Wasn’t ready to buy it that day, but the pic reminds me of it if I want to go back again.  Seen from above it’s, well, round.

Boobie Beanie - Round

This is what’s known as a Boobie Beanie.  I made it for someone I work with when she had her second son.  It’s a hat for the baby to wear when nursing.  Cute, huh?  She didn’t precisely ask me to make it, but showed it to us as something fun and I surprised her with it at her work shower.  You might have to think about it for a minute to see the ’round’ part.  :-O!

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved.

by

SNL (1975-1980, 1985-Present): December 22-25, 2012

Who gets the reference?

Saturday:

[So, this morning I wake up to kiss Hubby and send him off to work.  You see he is off moving his company, all day and into the night.

Which means I have the house all to myself!]

– knitting in bed

[It took me Three times of doing this gauntlet, before I got it right to half the thumb gusset, and then I did the last part of the thumb inside out!]

– brunch
– knitting in bed
– watching Hart of Dixie on Netflix – one episode right after another – marathon style
– dinner

Sunday:

– kiss Hubby and send him to work…again!  🙂

[I do love my man And (not but) I also Love Another day All To Myself!]

– coffee in bed
– more Hart of Dixie, in bed
– more knitting, in bed

[This time I did the second/matching, well, technically they’re called Hand Warmers, completely correct, including the whole thumb!]

– nap (a nap day is Always better than a non-nap day)
– cleaned up kitchen
– loaded/ran dishwasher
– washed dishes
– reorganized freezer
– made cranberry sauce

[This time I used 2 of the organic oranges from my organic produce delivery – this batch came out really good with organic cranberries & oranges, and some local Buckwheat Honey I had found!]

Monday:

[Woke up to find Hubby at home, yay!  (There was some chance that he would have to work Monday.)]

– coffee in bed while
– reading in bed
– nap

[Um, where did the morning go?]

– hanging with Hubby for a few

[We decided to keep our Christmas Eve tradition, and so headed out to the mall (see  “Thoughts – Week of December 26-28, 2012.”]

– visiting the iPad Mini at the Apple Store (well meeting each other for the first time actually)
– shopping at Old Navy
– dinner at Macaroni Grill

Tuesday (Christmas Day):

– coffee downstairs together
– opening presents

[Santa must have realized I wasn’t a little girl anymore, since he got me liquor, chocolate and the yearly traditional sparkly for Christmas this year.

It had to be Red this year...

It had to be Red this year…

The yearly sparkly tradition began years ago with a set of diamond earrings showing up in my stocking – they were wadded up in tissue paper stuffed into a pyrex measuring cup (we had broken one that year and this was a good excuse to replace it).

Since then, I almost always get something sparkly for Xmas.  When life allows, it has been a Piece – something fantastic and expensive (like one year’s platinum and natural sapphire necklace), but most years it’s something for the jewelry box – something that gets worn continuously for a few weeks to a month, then goes into the jewelry box to be rotated in according to wardrobe.

Most years it is sapphire something (because of course, navy blue is my favorite color).  Last year, while Hubby and I were doing our Christmas Eve thing, just as we were about to buy that year’s sparkly (together – it happens that way sometimes), we got the call to go to the hospital Now – Grandma was being admitted.  New Year’s Eve day – after the devastating family decision to let her go to Grandpa – Hubby and I went back and completed that purchase.  It felt like the right thing to do – to bookend her with it somehow.  Well, it makes sense to me anyway.  Please see “I Missed You Last Night, Grandma – Single Malt Scotch and Election Returns.“

But this year had to be red (see “I’ll Take Red Please.”) of course.  And the shape is no accident either.  My Hubby happens to have exceptional taste in jewelry generally (or at least taste that matches mine), and he’s very good at choosing jewelry with messages (I may hafta post the beautiful Piece he brought me back from Australia when he went there this past January for work – partly because V-Day was upcoming and partly as solace for the fact that I couldn’t go with him  😦 – it was chosen to convey a message too), and this year’s message is obvious.  :-)]

– breffast (outta the freezer – neither of us felt like actually cooking)
– hanging out with stuff recorded on the DVR and napping

[I actually was prepared for Hubby to sleep all day Monday after the hours I know he worked Sat/Sun, but he surprised me and wanted to do our usual thang, so when his eyes started closing , I didn’t mind – we didn’t have anywhere to be, so just hanging out together was perfect.]

– dinner:

marinated beef fillet
premade nuked mashed potatoes, with way more than necessary sour cream added, plus some of those organic green onions ‘cuz we had ’em and could
nuked frozen veggie blend

and

2008 Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel
(Hubby got me two bottles of this for Christmas – one to open now and one to save for later – this was a wine we had found on one of our motorcycle trips where we challenged the sommelier to pick a wine that would go with what we All were eating, and this is what he came up with from their cellars – we’ve loved this wine ever since.)

– dessert:

homemade punkin pie made by Hubby last year and frozen since then, newly rediscovered when reorganizing freezer and one moved to fridge to thaw (other left in freezer for later, since no new pies were made this year), and canned real whipped cream I had picked up at the market the other day (I realized once I rinsed the cranberries and cut up the oranges and put them all in the pot that the two cups of orange juice my recipe called for would drink Hubby out of OJ – and that was Not something that would end well, so I grabbed the keys and headed out to the market to avert disaster – whew!).

Yeah, all in all not a bad Christmas, or at least it certainly Could have been a Whole Lot Worse, but Wasn’t!  🙂

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012 All Rights Reserved.

by

SNL (1975-1980, 1985-Present): December 1-2, 2012

Who gets the reference?

Saturday:

[So, this morning I wake up all alone in my house.  Hubby is off doing a Z club drive and track day somewhere (to continue in the spirit of geographical vagueness) at a small airport in Riverside County.  Now, this could go on my “Things Cancer Has Screwed Me Out Of,” and it might, but honestly (as you may have noticed by the decreasing number of posts being published lately that) this fatigue business is really taking its toll.

So, Hubby is off for his day of driving fun (and please know that he tried many ways to get me to come with him – he hates it too that I can’t do everything I/we want to do right now.  He offered to wrap me up in warm blankies after breffast for the drive to the track day venue – and he Even offered to drive at the Back of the Pack so the drive would be Less exciting and I could maybe sleep during the drive between food and track day fun.  Now, for Hubby, who is a Very Talented Rider/Drive – Seriously, Please, Please Do Not follow him into the corners, ride/drive Your Own ride/drive, thank you, your cooperation is much appreciated, by you mostly 🙂 –  and who, like me, Really Likes a good exciting ride/drive – That is True Love!).

Well, it might not be to you, but it made me feel loved, and since this is my blog and my world to create – that’s what matters.  Along with the fact that Hubby mentioned when I go to the next one we’ll have to ask the kind club member who arranged for food to please make sure there is some available without barbecue sauce (I have a pre-diabetic condition that I’ve control by diet for 25 years now), and then mentioned that we could have stripped the skin of f a chicken breast and reasonably gotten me fed even today if I had gone.

Unfortunately a 12+ hour day with lots of movement and excitement on a Saturday is not on my agenda just now.  But a day to myself all alone in my house is.  :-)]

– coffee
– managing email (filing, handling to-do’s contained therein, etc.)

[I’m kind of embarrassed about how long it’s been since I curated my email properly, so I’m not gonna tell ya – let’s just say it predates my cancer diagnosis (by a fair timeframe), so I’ve got a lot of ignored/collected email to deal with – in multiple accounts because I’m an information organizer – fun.

The good news is that I’ve processed this cancer thing enough, or gotten through enough of the treatment for it, or just plain got bored enough with it – to want to exert some control over parts of my life where I may still have some (for me, that’s a good thing), and it’s manifesting as wanting to get my email back under deliberate control – one mailbox at a time.]

– brunch

[If you’ve been reading  me, you know weekend brunch is a thing with me.  Just because I’m alone doesn’t mean I don’t get brunch.  After all, I can cook, and today I only hafta cook for myself – no figuring out if we both want the same thing, and if not, figuring how we both get what we want, and who cooks it and who does the dishes . . . and all that shit.

Breffast/Brunch:

– Egg in the Basket (which I’ve been calling “toad in the hole” even though the British version of toad in the hole is a different dish entirely)
– leftover chicken & apple sausage
– cheesy hash browns from the freezer]

– more email management

[Then 4:00 pm hit and I was suddenly tired – ‘course I’d only been staring at my computer and making decisions since about 8:00 am (with a short break for cooking breffast and another one for heading down to grab a mid-afternoon snack), and the brain is one of the most energy-hungry organs in the body, so no wonder I was tired.]

– reading in bed
– eating dinner after listening to Hubby recount his day

Sunday:

– coffee
– nap (a nap day is Always better than a non-nap day)
– brunch w/ Hubby

[Today He wanted what I’ve been calling Toad in the Hole, and he laughed when I said I’d had it yesterday!  But I made him some, and I was back to protein to eat before waffles (Hubby had gotten me some fruit-juice-sweetened, gluten-free ones and we were both wanting to see how they tasted).

I cooked breakfast for us both (just plain fried eggs and a couple small round brown-n-serve sausages for me), then I made um, breakfast dessert?  Second breakfast?  Dunno what to call it exactly – I had my breffast in courses this day, so it was time for the second course – waffles.  Hubby only wanted a bite to taste them and I ate the rest . . . of two waffles . . . liberally coated with both melted butter and maple syrup.  I must say, they were a really good, plain carrier for the butter and sweetness tastes that were the main attraction.]

– made applesauce

[Yeah, from scratch again.  If you’re reading me, you know I love my trips to Oak Glen (search this blog for that phrase/name).  And I was under obligation to make applesauce to be ready no later than December 11th of this year.  But that’s my own fault.  You see, last year a work colleague volunteered to make latkes to bring to the office to celebrate Chanukah.  Having so fallen in love with Oak Glen and its bounty of apples, I volunteered to make applesauce to accompany the latkes.  I made a batch of applesauce this big.  I came home with an inch of applesauce left in the bottom of the container.

So a week ago (she knew I had gone to Oak Glen multiple times this year and had bought plenty of apples), my work colleague (same one as last year) tells our office manager (right in front of both of our desks) “We’ll be celebrating Chanukah here in the office on Monday, December 11th, with latkes And Applesauce . . . (now looking my way) And Applesauce.”  To which I replied, “Yes, Ma’am, I’ll make applesauce.”

Oh, and Hubby’s been sending me recipes over the last month or two (every since we started our annual multi-day pilgrimage to Oak Glen), and every other one uses applesauce – yes, he’s hinting Broadly!

I do admit it’s my own fault, I did it to myself.  But, I could do worse things to myself than to cook things that other people request again year after year, eh?]

– hanging with Hubby, watching TV for a bit
– dinner with Hubby, watching Copper off the DVR

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012 All Rights Reserved.

by

SNL (1975-1980, 1985-Present): November 17-18, 2012

Who gets the reference?

Saturday:

– coffee
– vaping with Hubby, hanging out, feeling not too bad
– delicious brunch cooked by Hubby
– napping – yep, 3 hours . . . gone
– knitting
– dinner

Sunday:

– coffee
– did dishes, ran dishwasher
– brunch, cooked by me

[I actually had enough energy to accomplish something meaningful – you know, like feeding myself and Hubby from-scratch cooked food – sausage patties & toad-in-the-hole for Hubby, and well my first course was fried eggs and sausage patties, otherwise known as the appetizer to “something to have Apple Blossom Honey or maple syrup on.”  Yep, again.  More buttered waffles – this time one with Apple Blossom Honey and one with Maple Syrup.  Uh-huh, I went there, I did.]

– checking out FB

[So, a friend of mine posted something on FB about medical “hemp.”  And a friend of his commented something about (I’m paraphrasing here) a doctor friend of hers who practices here in the US, who advises his cancer patients going through radiation (on the QT mind you) to get some medical “hemp” to help with side effects during this type of treatment.  Reading that reminded me of something – namely that when first diagnosed, I went out and got myself a “green card” figuring I had no idea if I would be interested in using “hemp” at any point during my treatment, but if I did then the whole getting the card business would be taken care of.

And a week  later or so, I found myself with 15 minutes or so to spare before, well at that time a chiropractic appointment for injuries suffered in a car accident the week before my cancer diagnosis (it’s been a great year), and in front of a collective, so I decided to stop in.

Bottom line, after reading this post & comment on FB, I realized I had something useful in the garage fridge.  One of the forms I had availed myself of is a tincture.  Now, from previous experience with varieties of “hemp,” I know I’m a lightweight, and throughout my life it has always made me nauseous.  So, in previous experiments, I’ve found edibles easier to balance desired effects vs. unwanted effects.

Well, it’s Sunday afternoon, I’m hurting, what the hell, let’s experiment.  Being cautious I started with one drop – yes, one drop of tincture.  And took half a pain pill (5).]

– read in bed, dozed, relaxed – decided after a couple hours of this I had to get up and do something or I wouldn’t sleep that night and that would be bad – but I didn’t hurt anymore 🙂
– did some laundry
– dinner with Hubby

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012 All Rights Reserved.

by

SNL (1975-1980, 1985-Present): November 10-11, 2012

Who gets the reference?

Saturday:

– coffee
– napping

[When I say napping, I was back asleep by 7am and slept until 12:30 pm (after sleeping from 10pm Friday night to 6am Saturday morning).  Now, I’m usually a two-hour napper (the 20-minute power nap never did anything for me), but 5-1/2 hours?  I think the fatigue is here, at least for the moment.  So far, I’m making it through my workweek before collapsing.  We’ll see how long I can continue to do that before I can’t.]

– lunch
– watching TV off DVR in bed
– Ways for dinner (we do a 4-way in our house) with Gold Star Chili while watching something off the DVR
– then back up to bed

Sunday:

– coffee
– watching Firefly marathon on TV in bed (not sure I caught the very beginning of it this morning – might hafta start over at the very begining on Netflix through my Apple TV)
– brunch (picked up by Hubby and brought home to me from our local Denny’s)

[Otherwise known as “something to have Apple Blossom Honey or maple syrup on.”  This seems to be a comfort-food weekend thing.  But, I figure if I’m not gaining weight (which, after quitting smoking CFT 76 days ago, that I’m not is a miracle in itself), I figure my body can use the extra calories to repair the damage caused by the necessary radiation therapy.  So when Hubby asked what I wanted for breakfast, my answer was one of the following three items: waffle, pancake, french toast – and some protein to go with it.]

– blogging
– made cranberry sauce

[Yup, homemade, from scratch, and all that stuff.  Seriously this stuff is easy, put it in a pot, cook for 45 minutes, stirring & mashing up every 15 or so, then cool & eat.  The most time-consuming part is cutting up the oranges.]

– watching more Firefly marathon on TV with Hubby
– dinner

[So, when I got the stuff to make cranberry sauce, I also picked up a turkey breast and a couple turkey thighs.  I made a triple batch of sauce this year because a couple months ago I had 1 cup left over from last year’s batch which got defrosted and eaten over my morning yogurt on two mornings and it was damn good!  So I figured cranberry sauce is Not just for Thanksgiving (and neither is a turkey sammich with mayo on one side and cranberry sauce on the other Only for the Day After), so I made a triple batch and bought some turkey to go with it.  Hubby picked up that gauntlet and made the yummiest dinner: turkey, garlic mashed potatoes (nuked from frozen), brussel sprouts (also nuked from frozen), and pan-drippings gravy, with my cranberry sauce.  Happy tummy!]

So things were going pretty well, I wasn’t really feeling caught up on rest, but Monday morning was nearly nigh and I’d go for it anyway, until…

I called my Dad (like I do with both folks every – or as nearly as possible – day): See “My Last Anchor to Childhood – And My First Ativan.”

Copyright Ridingthebcrollercoaster.com 2012 All Rights Reserved.

by

SNL (1975-1980, 1985-Present): November 3-4, 2012

Who gets the reference?

Saturday:

– coffee
– reading in bed
– pedicure/nail fill @ the Nail Forum – Porter Ranch
– underarm waxing – wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but decided to go for it because I did not want to shave (I figured more risk of doing damage shaving than by an experienced aesthetician doing a quick wax – which would also last nearly the duration of my RTher).
– reading in bed
– quickie dinner @ home with Hubby

Sunday:

– coffee
– vaping with Hubby
– napping
– brunch

Otherwise known as “something to have Apple Blossom Honey on.”  I woke up this morning wanting some of the apple blossom honey we picked up in Oak Glen last weekend.  I woke up from my nap to find Hubby in his room . . .

[Yes, we do not share a bedroom.  We haven’t for oh, 15 years or so?  It’s partly because he snores, and partly due to changing and incompatible work schedules over the years.  Don’t worry, when we wanna play, we have a whole house to do it in, plus two beds we’re not afraid to mess up ‘cuz they both get slept in every night.  🙂  And, Hubby having his own room serves us in another way than just letting us both sleep – it lets him deal with my need for a tidy, sparely decorated house – by giving him a place Not to have to keep things cleaned up to my standards,]

So, anyway , earlier this morning while we were downstairs hanging out I was trying to find something to have honey on for breffast, asking if he felt like eating (and well, making) pancakes – did we have a pour-liquid-and-shake Biscuit jug (I didn’t want either of us to spend half the day cooking)?  But that didn’t work out, and I Finally felt like if I lay down I could Actually Nap!  So I did that, and woke up to find Hubby having cereal and  went to find myself a carrier for the honey I wanted.  Turns out (after eating a breakfast of actual food with protein and stuff) the carrier of the day was a buttered waffle, previously frozen and now toasted golden brown and warm.  🙂  Then I wrote this post, and now I think I’ll go have the other waffle left in the bag in the box in the freezer, toasted with butter and Apple Blossom Honey, of course. . .

– blogging
– breffast #2 = waffle #2
– more blogging
– eating yummy dinner (pork roast, broccoli, potatoes) cooked by Hubby
– watching tv off the DVR with Hubby (Castle, Once Upon a Time)