Thursday, January 17, 2013

Warning ~Ranting Dead Ahead~ and other stuff

Good Morning Everyone,

I am trying to get my fanny in gear to run some errands, but the fanny as well as the rest of me really doesn't want to even get into first gear in the first place. Its cold, and my old bones and back are screaming a little.  I think there is a change in the weather, to colder and I have bouts of achy and the back lets me know and then it goes down into my legs and feels like a horrid tooth ache, dull and doesn't let up.  But I have to go run some errands, and pick a few things up so I took an aspirin and am having another cup of tea and thought I would blog a little and vent and probably run all of you off.

I listen to the radio most of the time. I am getting to hate TV, but that is for another post.   I listen to our local station until 9 am, then I switch to another local station that is about 50 miles away but I can stream this particular  station on the computer through I heart radio. I also listen to public radio a lot, but they did not have anything that I wanted to listen to this morning.
I was listening to the streaming station, and on the news that came on the announcer was talking about how a lot of celebrities have cookbooks out now, and a lot of people have bought these so called "cookbooks".  The only thing is: these cookbooks are just sitting on the shelves, collecting  dust bunnies as the books contain ingredients that a lot of people cannot find in their areas.  Also, the wording in these books are complicated and some people do not understand the terminology in these books.

OK, first, I cannot stand celebrities, movie stars, Hollywood, or whatever else migrates out of  there. I sorry if I offend anyone from California, I do not mean to,   but I am not being derogatory to you.  Your state is beautiful and I love the countryside part and farming part of California, but I just cannot stand the movie stars and their brand of lifestyle.  I am sure they cannot stand my lifestyle either, so the door swings both ways, but to get back to the cookbooks,  I just wish people who are new to cooking, or to baking, PLEASE, just find some good, old fashioned cookbooks, something that is very straight forward and follow these and then after awhile, venture into more gourmet cooking.  Please just use what you have available and go back to simple wholesome cooking.  Quit worrying about fat free, low carb, unless you have allergies, then follow simple, and go from there. And quit buying and sending money to these worthless celebrities so they can have another new house, or get their faces on TV.   Where I live, we do not have gourmet stores, or fancy places to buy ingredients for fancy baking.  I remember years ago, I was in one of our local markets and a woman was looking for date sugar for some baking she was doing, I was picking up something and she asked me where the date sugar was, and I said "just buy dates and run them through the food processor and you have date sugar".  She looked at me like I had 2 heads, and said, you mean its not a sugar?  I said, its a type of sugar made from dates.  She left and was mad.  Go figure. My grandmother ground dates to make this when she made cookies and short breads and sweet breads, when sugar was rationed.  Good grief.  So this is my rant this morning. Sorry, but this just infuriates me to no end, people spend hefty money on these books and generally they are worthless and end up on a garage sale later on.

It was been very nice here the last few days.  It got to 51*F yesterday, the snow melted as we had Schnook winds and they were warm and it made the snow we had melt into the ground.  We need moisture so very bad, its so very dry and it does not look like we'll get any more soon.  I am quite worried about spring moisture and so are the farmers.

I got a good one for all of you.  Because of the extreme drought we have here, hay is at a premium, and so is the price, ask Glenda at Living and Gardening in the Ozarks.   Its over double in price now, and some places around my area it's triple in price now.  Here about a few weeks ago, a rancher had 83 round bales of premium hay stolen right out of the pasture!  Now,these bales are huge, and weigh in around a ton (2,000 lb) a piece and it takes some specialized equipment to move these. And also, this many bales, you would need at least  three semi trucks and trailers  to move these bales....now that's a heist. And around here its a felony.  We also are having good old fashioned cattle rustling, too.  Another felony. Someone has some brass door knobs to pull this off.

Other than that, not too much going on in my life, still trying to get outside to get some air and shake off the cabin fever.  This weekend its supposed to get very cold again, so I am trying to get things done so I can be stuffed in the house with bunch of house bound cats that are getting cabin fever also.  The dog is getting crabby because of the cats being too energetic.  What a combination.

Well, Take care all, enjoy your up-coming weekend, stay warm, stay cool, enjoy, eat, drink, be merry. Hope my ranting wasn't too much.
Hugs