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REXTINE1's Recent Blog Entries
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Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Both museums were closed on Monday, so we went down to St. Petersburg today and saw the exhibit of 100 American Impressionists. I made a (nearly) U turn and parked right in front of the entrance at a meter. For $1.50 we had two hours inside, and I planned to run out and put more coins in if that wasn’t enough, but we were out in not much more than an hour. The BW made it up the ramp with her cane, and I pushed her around in one of their wheelchairs.
Then we stopped at Frank’s Bob Evans (close to where he used to live and where we had Easter Breakfast with him one year). Frank was my next younger brother, and lived in Clearwater, close to St. Pete.
It turns out that both museums are about 30 miles from our house, and both have similar exhibits. We’ll hit the Tampa Art Museum a week from this coming Saturday.
On the way home we had to stop again to look for another full sized air mattress for the Futon and Bed Bath and beyond actually had them in stock. Everyone has queen size, but no one seemed to have full sized. Then the BW remembered she had a coupon for 20 per cent off at home, so we went home for the coupon and to let the dogs off. The air mattress she had was more than 8 years old and had developed a slow leak (low after a couple of days), so now we have a new one that’s 14 inches tall with a pillow top, and a new set of sheets to go with it. The $200 dollar matters only cost $160, and I have another form to get a $20 rebate because it cost more than $150. In the end, the mattress will cost $140 and the tax will be $11.20, so I paid $151.20 instead of $214. And I won’t hear about the leaking mattress any more. I’m glad she remembered the coupon.
We put 100 miles on the Camry today running around.
To finish the day off, I closed the books on our fiscal year and started our FY11 budget/Profit & Loss program. I screwed up copying a big block from FY10 to the FY11 December sheet (they are 12 sheet Excel programs) and spent an extra 40 minutes screwing around until I finally managed to straighten everything out, so we’re good for a month. Then next month we have a big budget meeting and figure out what gets less next year to pay for the things that get more (Medicare part B, Mailhandlers, etc.) We’ll see how it turns out this year.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
I got up late, read the paper and had some coffee, then took the dogs for a walk. It was 52 degrees when we went out at 8 and only 56 when we came back at 9. The cold front is here again, and my thermometer doesn’t read the same as the weatherman’s promises. Sometimes it higher, and some times it’s lower.
I spent most of the day doing Kiwanis paperwork and calling guys. Some of the retirees want to get together at the Pier again, so I sent out an e-mail to see how many guys we can round up in December and what the date will be, before the big event in February.
The BW wants to visit both the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and the Tampa Museum of Art, and I spent some time trying to figure out which of the locations in Tampa has the display she wants. I can handle St. Pete – it’s close enough to the Pier that I can drop her off, then park in one of the Pier parking lots and walk back. In Tampa it might be a little tougher because she doesn’t walk so well, but maybe there’s a way. In the limit we can just drive over there and see what we find. Sometimes you get a good surprise.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
I waxed two cars today and found a blemish that needs to be fixed (piece of trim coming loose).
I have wanted to go back to J D's for hush puppies for a while, but it's so far away that it slows me down. Instead I took the BW to the Magnolia Grill at about 1:00. It's a small restaurant that serves great food, with a slant toward southern cooking. It's one of the few places you can get fried green tomatoes. It turned out they don't have hush puppies on the menu as a separate item, but the waiter talked to the chef and I got a Budweiser and six hush puppies, which suited me just fine. The normal order is only five hush puppies. The BW had a cup of tea and Key Lime pie, so when I was done I had a piece of pecan pie and a cup of coffee to keep her company.
Then we went to Ace Hardware for entertainment and bought a ton of stuff - my father once had a hardware store, and you can always find something you need in one. The longer you stay, the bigger your bill becomes. I just had a bag of popcorn, but the BW went wild.
When I came home and looked up pecan pie I got a shock - it reinforced the idea that you shouldn't order anything if you don't have some idea of what you're getting. Today's lunch totaled up to almost as much as the Thanksgiving dinner we had Thursday.
PS - We had mashed potatoes, turkey, peas, cranberry sauce, and bread for supper. I had a cup of turkey soup for breakfast. The soup was so thick that I had to carve a spoonful at a time out of the pot. I should have put it in plastic containers when it was cool, because it's not very easy to serve cold. In the end, I ate more today than I did Thursday.
Friday, November 26, 2010
I couldn’t believe it was black dark at 6 PM yesterday – and just getting light at 7 this morning. I washed both cars and cleaned out the insides today. By the time I was done I fooled around more than four hours, but I had started waxing the white one. When I figured out that it was about the same effort as painting, the Sparks site said 1363 calories, which really surprised me. It sort of explains why I gave up on finishing today and accidentally had a two hour nap after lunch. I just laid the recliner back and passed out.
Later I made Turkey Noodle Soup. The recipe for chicken soup calls for four quarts of broth, and I only had four quarts of stock, so I plunged ahead. I used another soup pot so I could follow the recipe, and when I tried to pour the stock into the other pot I found that the bottom was just as stiff as Jell-O, and a lot of it stuck to the bottom and sides. I tried scraping it out, and eventually just put the pot on a burner and warmed it up so the remainder was like water and easy to pour.
We had soup for supper and it was good even without salt or nutmeg. We both had three cups; I figured out how many calories per cup afterward. I was surprised at 144 Calories per cup when the pea soup was only 110, but the noodles added a lot. In spite of everything, I’m still only at 1547 calories today, so maybe I’ll have a cup of yogurt before I go to bed. I was the same weight today as I was yesterday morning, but it was a 2000 calorie day. The BW says she gained four pounds, and I suspect it was the late night eating that did her in.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Yesterday we drove down to Largo, making a big detour around something involving a lot of cops on Starkey, a very busy four lane street. We had lunch at Freda's Café and Bakery. The BW found that they didn't have cranberry sauce on any sandwich, but the did have a hot turkey sandwich on cranberry bread, pressed like the Cuban. She went for the straight turkey sandwich, and I had a chef's salad in honor of Walt Wooster.
To get home we drove over to Indian Rocks Beach, where ordinary people live, then up through Bellaire Beach, where the millionaires live, Sand Key, which is covered with giant condos 20 or 30 storied high, and then through Clearwater Beach with the world class beach, tourist traps, hundreds of cabanas, and tourists even at this time of the year. That was about the top 10 miles of the 30 miles or so of barrier islands along Pinellas County.
Today we drove up to I75 and Route 50 to meet the BW's sister and husband for dinner. We had a fine turkey dinner with all the trimmings, even pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and no leftovers. The dinner was more than big enough, but I ate all mine, and so did everyone else. The only problem was the noise - the place was full all the time, and it was noisy even outside on the porch where we spent another hour and a half afterward.
The BW asked where her camera was, so I gave her the only working one we have left. I gave away all the film cameras, and she dropped the Cannon just once, which was fatal. She practiced and between her (A) and her sister (B) they took the following pictures:
This is me and A on the porch. The following is Rich and B on the porch. A is reflected in the window behind them.
It was a good satisfying visit, and long enough to suit everyone. We have gifts brought home which include some pumpkin soup that B made, but we weren't sharp enough to think about trading gifts.
PS - I didn't think it was that much, but I just finished listing everything in the thanksgiving meal, and it came to 1100 calories. I'm still in my calorie range for the day, but fortunately I'm still not hungry seven hours later. I think I'm sort of like a boa-constrictor that eats only once a month.
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