Killin' time on a Saturday evening . . .

Not much to blog about these days. We've had an interesting weekend, so far. Bill has come down with a bad cold, and I've been fighting one for about a week now. I just kind of have been nibbling at the edges of symptoms; poor Bill has the full-blown sneezing, sniffling, coughing, stuffy head cold. Otherwise known as the Nyquil cold. LOL Poor guy. He was pretty miserable both yesterday and today.

Friday night, we normally go out to dinner, but we had gone out to Italian Cottage on Thursday night instead because we were both tired and Bill was pre-cold, and neither of us felt like cooking the pork chops I had taken out of the freezer. Of course, this meant that I had to cook the pork chops on Friday night instead, because otherwise they would have gone bad and I would have had to throw them out. I have this wonderful recipe for smothered pork chops that takes a lot of prep time but is so worth it because it is delicious. It takes an hour to bake, so while Bill was upstairs resting, I fixed dinner and popped it into the oven. Bill came downstairs and we started to watch the tv show Medium that I had TiVo'ed. I kept smelling something burning, and so I kept getting up to check it. I cooked the rice that I serve with it, and when I went over to take the rice off the heat, I mentioned to Bill again that I was really puzzled about the burning smell, since every time I checked the oven (with the light through the door) nothing seemed to be spilling over and burning. I double checked the temp on the oven, and it was set for 350.

So when the rice was done, and I made that comment to Bill, he suggested that I open the oven and take the foil off the dish and check it. Holy cow!!! When I opened the oven door, it was painfully obvious what the problem was, as the heat that rolled out of the oven felt somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 degrees!!! Holy crap!! Needless to say, when I pulled the foil off the pan, it was seriously burned! I mean, I burned the crap out of that dish. It was so hot, and it was burned so badly, that I just turned off the oven and opened the oven door. It was so hot, that even with using the oven mitts, I couldn't move it out of the oven. I let it cool off, and the next day (today) we just threw it all away, pan and all. It was so badly burned that it wasn't worth the time and effort it would take to clean it, and probably it wasn't even salvageable.9x13 glass Pyrex pans are only about $10, so no biggie.

So the oven is totally unusable at this point. The stovetop burners still work, but the oven is totally out of whack! Bill thinks it might be the thermostat. However, there is something seriously wrong with the electronic controls, too. The panel at the top of the stove, where the temperature, time, timer, etc. is supposed to appear is blank -- it obviously isn't getting any signal from whatever electronic thing its supposed to.

So, I notice that I start a lot of paragraphs with the word "so" . . . . LOL

So **giggle** this is probably related to a weird thing that happened a few days ago. We had Papa Murphy's pizza recently -- I think it was last weekend. I pre-heated the oven to 425 and began to cook the pizza. Bill noticed that the electronic panel was "freaking out"(my words) and it was flashing and going on and off -- weird! Bill couldn't get it to stop, and finally went up to the breaker box and flipped the breaker off and on and it seemed to work okay, although in hindsight, the pizza seemed to cook awfully fast and the oven seemed awfully hot, but at the time I didn't even think about it, since the cooking temp for Papa Murphy's pizza is 425, which is pretty hot.

It just so happened that the dinners I fixed last week were all BBQ or stove top -- things like spaghetti, BBQ burgers, etc. The first time I tried using the oven after the thing last weekend was last night. What a way to ruin $10 worth of pork chops!

So anyway, after I burned the crap out of dinner, it was nearly 7:00 p.m. Bill and I just decided to do take-out. Neither one of us wanted fast food, but Bill didn't feel like going out anywhere (he was feeling pretty yucky by then) and so we decided to treat ourselves and do Outback "take away". This is a pretty cool deal. You call and order the food you want (their menus are right online) and they tell you how long its going to be. They ask you what make, model and color your car is and instruct you to park in the special "curbside take-away" parking spaces, where they monitor them by camera. Then, after the alotted time, I drove to Outback (which fortunately is only a mile or two away from our house!) and parked in the spot. I brought my book, just in case I had to wait. But within two minutes of arriving, the gal came out to my car and handed me the food through my window. She took the credit card and went back inside and ran it. She brought the slip back for me to sign and I was on my way within five minutes of arriving! Wow what service! I had my sweats on and my slippers, and I didn't even have to get out of the car. Terrific!! We ended up enjoying our delicious salads, ribeye steaks, bread and baked potatoes very much!

And the best news of all, is that we don't own this house, and all we have to do is call the landlord and they will repair the oven for us. Yahoo! The bummer is that we can't cook anything in it. Tonight we just got pizza from Pizza Guys and that was yummy. I will have to plan simple meals next week, such as BBQ, crock pot, and things I can cook in the microwwave or stove top. Shouldn't be too hard. I just hope it doesn't take forever for them to fix the oven. At least we have a new landlord, as the owners have switched from Action Properties to Sheraton. I hope Sheraton is more responsive. Hopefully Sheraton Property won't claim that the oven isn't critical to habilitation and they aren't obligated to fix it, the way Action was about the ice maker. Geesh! We both can't wait to move. Our PG&E bill last month was $275.00!! Holy crap! No doubt some of that was due to the fact that it was Christmas and we had Christmas lights, and that was colder than a witch's -- well you get the idea.

Anyway, that's been our weekend so far. Bill has gone to bed early tonight after we watched the movie "Crash" on our Blu-ray player. What an amazing movie. It won several academy awards, including Best Movie, and I certainly can see why. I highly recommend it -- it is a very thought-provoking movie. Wow!! Good stuff.

So I am just sitting here, after flipping through all 90-something channels and I "can't find a darn thing to watch." Nothing on TiVo (everything's in reruns until Sweeps Month in Feb.). **Sigh**. I hate reruns. Today I ran a couple of errands (Wal Mart for a new 9x13 pan, and Costco). Both places were crazy busy. I stocked up on a lot of stuff at Costco, and used coupons that were expiring tomorrow. That's probably also why Costco was particularly crowded today -- I saw a bunch of people clutching coupons in their hands as they shopped. I stocked up on t.p. (can't ever have too much t.p.!!), Kleenex, Bounce, Pepsi, aluminum foil, Swiffer refills (LOVE Swiffers -- both sweepers and dusters!!!), and one guilty pleasure -- I bought a new book that I'd been wanting (what book DON'T I want?!). Its the latest J.A. Jance novel. Yayy!!

I am almost finished the current book I'm reading ("Abduction" by Robin Cook -- WEIRD book but I have to finish it to see if any of this crap is going to make sense. I mean, he writes about another world under the ocean?!?!? Puh-leeze.). Anyway, I look forward to starting my new Jance book after this one is done -- only about 75 more pages.

So, that has been our weekend so far. Sickies (Mark and Scott both have colds, too), burned dinners, broken ovens and lots of take-out. Oh, and checking Alicia's blog every 10 minutes to see if she's gone into labor yet!! LOL I can't wait.

Oh, and Bill's mom is still in hospital. She was hospitalized over a week ago with pneumonia, and just about the time they were getting ready to release her, she had some chest pain, and also developed a staph infection! Poor lady. It turns out her chest pains are some leaky heart valves, and she is in isolation for her staph infection. She is on some heavy-duty IV antibiotics and she was switching to oral antibiotics. If all goes well, hopefully she will be home by Wednesday, which is Jennie's 40th birthday!!! We thank God every day for Jennie, as she is bearing all of the burden of caring for Bill's mom and dad while they await the move-in date to assisted living. Jo (Bill's mom) says that Jennie comes over and bathes her and washes her hair. We feel SO helpless being 2,000 miles away and unable to help in anyway, except to say that we wish we could do something for her. Bless her ever-loving little heart!! We love you, Jennie!!

Oh, and I found out last week that my parents and my aunt and uncle are all taking an Alaskan cruise together this coming July!!! I am so excited for them. My cousins Claudia and Linda will come up to Etna and stay with my other cousin, Dan (he is developmentally disabled and cannot stay alone) while my aunt & uncle go on this trip!! In fact it was Linda and Claudia's idea for my aunt & uncle to go on this trip, and to ask my folks if they wanted to go, too -- which of course my parents said YES!! They will have such a good time. I am so glad they get to do this.

Oh, and apparently I also like to start paragraphs with the word "oh" also . . . . LOL

Well, I'm sitting here enjoying the fire, with a warm blanket and a cat draped over my lap. But I should haul my sorry butt up the stairs and get to bed. I think I will read for a bit before sleep; try to make it through the rest of this weird book. Hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday, with lots of R&R. I should go grocery shopping . . . but we shall see.

And the winner is . . .

"So" paragraphs: 7 occurrences
"Oh" paragraphs: 3 occurrences.
One "Well, one "Anyway, and one "And" all tied for runner-up.

LOL

G'night everyone!