I live in a cozy old home in the Piney Woods of east Texas.
This is my journal
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My daughter loves iced coffee. Her favorite place to get a cup is 7 Brew. We have always bought the mocha coffee that comes in the cartons as a fill in, but she can drink that really quickly and it isn’t cheap. I decided to try and make it. Here’s what I used.
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup Hershey cocoa
1 cup water
6 cups brewed coffee
whole milk
Put the sugar, cocoa and water in a small pan and heat it up. Whisk, whisk, whisk until it’s all dissolved. You do not want to burn it.
Next I put the mixture into my blender and blend it up. I then add the coffee a little at a time.
I pour all of the coffee, cocoa mixture into a glass container and top it off with milk.
This is actually the second batch i have made. My daughter said it better than 7 Brew and the carton coffee. I like it better because I know exactly what is in it and it’s much cheaper to make than when we buy it. So if anyone in your family likes mocha iced coffee, you should give it a try.
A little FYI: give it a little stir before you pour it. I use the handle of a wooden spoon.
If it’s too strong for you just add milk once you pour it.
If you have a TikTok account you must follow Kevin Ashton. He is a chef for a sorority house. He is the Bob Ross of cooking. You’ll know what I mean if you see his videos. His voice is so soothing and I just love to watch him make each magnificent dish. I saw a recent video of him making green Verde chicken enchiladas. Because he cooks for about 25 girls, you kind of have to guess the measurements, but it isn’t hard. I had leftover chicken in the fridge that I needed to use up so this is what I made.
shredded chicken
tomatillos
poblano peppers
jalepeno peppers
white onion
chicken broth
oregano
salt
cumin
cilantro
garlic cloves
shredded Monterey jack
shredded colby
tortillas
Heat olive oil in a pan. Add the tomatillos, poblano peppers, onions and jalapenos. Just stir them around until they start getting soft.
Add the chicken broth and cook for about 30 minutes on a simmer.
After it has simmered add the oregano, cumin, salt and cilantro. I used a stick blender, but you can use a regular blender. Just blend it until smooth. Add a generous amount of sauce to your chicken. Next add a generous amount of Monterey Jack. Mix that all up.
Pour some sauce into your baking dish. Grab your tortilla and put the mixture in the middle and roll it up. After you’ve done all the tortillas, spoon the sauce over the enchiladas and add more Monterey jack and Colby. Pop it into a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes. Y’all, it was so good. I should have added more peppers, but they were so hot that I was afraid it would make the sauce too hot. As for the spices, just add as much as you like. I used 1/2 of a large onion, 4 large garlic cloves and 10 tomatillos.
A few years ago Donny and I had to be in Oklahoma City. It was just an overnight and I found the cutest Airbnb.
It was a four Plex and our space was the upper right unit.
Not only was it just so cute, but it had the MOST comfortable bed. We felt like we were in a nest. It was so hard to get up the next morning.
It doesn’t look like much, but oh how looks are deceiving.
After we left we couldn’t stop talking about this bed. I went so far as to message the host to find out what kind of mattress it was. Come to find out it was an iComfort Serta. That’s the exact mattress we have. Then he let me in on a little secret. He had a mattress topper on it. He couldn’t remember what brand it was. I looked around our town, but couldn’t find anything that matched what his topper felt like. I put it out of my mind until last week. I decided to look online to see what I could find on Cyber Monday. I found what I thought would be perfect. I found it on Amazon. It has 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of fluffy topper.
I couldn’t wait to open it.
It actually takes a full 48 hours before it’s fully fluffed up. Well, we needed to sleep on it so it only got about 14. Luckily the mail person delivered it at 6:30 in the morning. I didn’t tell Donny I ordered it. I wanted to see if he even noticed.
This was just after I put it on. I left the sheets off all day for maximum fluffing. Let me tell you, It was worth every penny. We finally have our own nest. Now if only the cat would stop waking me up by laying on my neck it would be perfect.
I am not a Black Friday shopper. I had no intention of going out and getting in the melee of crazy shoppers trying to run me over with their shopping carts. There was only one problem, I was almost out of cat food. Hannah had to be at work at 2. I figured by that time of day it would be safe to hit Walmart because the Black Friday shopping would be finished. As memory served all of the deals happened in the wee hours of the morning, right?
When Jackson and I pulled into the parking lot I knew I was wrong. After finding a parking lot in the nether regions of section 8, we got our steps in as we made it into the store. There were maybe 5 carts to choose from and I finally found one that didn’t have a wobbly wheel.
We headed to the Holiday shop because I needed ornament hangers. It was crazy in that department. Then as we were walking toward the pet food area I told Jackson that I remembered I needed something in housewares. I just needed to pick up some more glass food containers, but Jackson said, “are you going to get an air fryer?!?”. He has been hinting for me to get an air fryer for over a year. The thing is, we have a small kitchen with limited counter space and those things aren’t small. He found the display on a shelf and said, “look at this one”. Then he saw the $150 price tag and knew I wasn’t going to go for that. I told him that there could be some in the center isle on sale and if he found one at a good deal we could get it.
And look at what we came home with. We found it on sale for $50. Jackson was one happy camper. In fact he was so happy that Saturday morning he got up early, took a shower and, before I knew it, he had it out of the box setting it up.
He decided to christen it with pizza rolls.
The jury is still out on how much we will actually use it, but I do like the dehydrator feature. At least Jackson is now wanting to cook a little more so I’ll call it a win.
I sometimes, well most of time, have an event planned in my head. In my imagination I know exactly what I want to happen, when I want it to happen and everything is going to go perfectly as planned. Two years ago I planned what I thought was going to be the perfect Thanksgiving. It was a fiasco. Like a big, I never ever want to celebrate this holiday again, fiasco. So this year I decided to just roll with the flow. We had one goal: we were going to eat at our traditional Thanksgiving restaurant, Cracker Barrel.
We didn’t set a time the night before. In fact, I turned off both mine and Donny’s alarm. I had mentioned to the kids about going to the movies, but in truth, there was really nothing that anyone wanted to see.
I slept in until about 7. Took a shower. Kids still sleeping. Donny and I watched the parade. Jackson was actually up early. He thought we should leave by noon. I woke Hannah up at 10:30. Then we waited and waited and waited. Luckily for everyone in our home I had decided to not stress out. I knew we would have lunch maybe dinner at some point. I didn’t want to eat anything because it could be 30 minutes until we left. It could be 3 hours. No one knew. Well, one person knew, but she wasn’t spilling the beans.
I did slice up some fruitcake so that we wouldn’t go into a low blood sugar coma.
Don’t judge on the fruitcake. Donny and I both really love it.
Then we waited some more. I guess Donny pretended that he had already had a nice Thanksgiving meal because he fell into the obligatory after meal nap. Coping skills are necessary when waiting on a teenage daughter.
Finally, after almost 4 hours, we were on our way. There is no greater Thanksgiving joy than 4 hangry people, in a small car, anticipating the wait list and knowing it could be hours before we see food.
Don’t let the smiles fool you.
Admittedly, once we got inside and found out the wait was only going to be about 40 minutes and we were surrounded by all the Cracker Barrel extravaganda of Christmas we were all back on an even keel. Because we arrived between lunch and dinner (3:30) the crowd was actually not bad. We were able to move around the store part without knocking people over, unlike last year.
If you have never shopped Cracker Barrel they have some really good deals. It gets us into the Christmas spirit every year.
I don’t have words for this poor Santa. Donny said it was freeze dried candy. I think there are some things that should just be left alone.
As it turned out, we got the exact same table we had last year and everyone ordered the same meal as last year also. I got Chicken fried steak, Hannah got Chicken and dumplings and both Jackson and Donny got the grandma’s sampler. It was so good.
We don’t have phones at the table, but Jackson was trying to find out if a certain movie was still showing. It wasn’t. Then we discussed watching a Nicholas Cage movie he had wanted to see when we got home.
Actually smiles because we finally got food.
When we got home, fed all of the animals and settled down, the kids were already doing their own thing and didn’t want to watch the movie. Donny and I watched the end of the Cowboys game, the new episode of Survivor and the Packers game. All in all it was a very good Thanksgiving. I guess when I get rid of all of my expectations and just accept what happens, when it happens, it all turns out okay.
P.S.
If you have Drug Emporium near you, they have these cute Christmas candles that are made in the USA from soy and beeswax and scented with essential oils. They smell so good and burn clean.
Yesterday the wind picked up. Everything was blowing around. The cats didn’t want to be outside. The chickens stayed in their coop most of the day and even put themselves to bed early. All of the blustery weather was worth it because today was the perfect Fall day. It was a flannel shirt and boots kind of day.
Since I knew Donny was going to be off today and that we needed to get some errands run, I made tonight’s dinner yesterday. The recipe also said that it’s even better if you let it sit in the fridge overnight.
It’s called short rib ragu. Donny watches the Today show every morning and they had a chef on making it and it looked so good I just had to try it. It’s time consuming because you have to let it simmer for 3 1/2 hours, but I was in a cooking mood and had the time. I actually used a roast because it’s what we had in the freezer.
It calls for 1 1/2 pounds of short ribs or roast
3 T olive oil
3 large carrots, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups of beef broth
1 3/4 cups of red wine
fresh thyme, rosemary and basil (however much you like)
freshly grated parmesan
Heat olive oil in a heavy Dutch oven. Salt and pepper the meat. Sear the meat on all sides until nice and brown. Remove meat.
Add the carrots, celery and onions. Saute until fragrant (about 7 minutes). Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds. Add the broth, wine and fresh herbs. Add meat and bring to a boil for about 5 mins. Cover and cook on low for 3 1/2 hours.
After it has cooked, remove and shred the meat. The recipe said to remove half of the sauce and put it in a blender until smooth. I just used my stick blender and it worked just fine. Add the meat back in. I let mine cool and then put it in the fridge. If you don’t have time to do that, boil your pasta. While it’s boiling, add 1 cup (or more) of the cheese to the sauce.
It was SO good. You can use any type of pasta you prefer. I forgot to take a picture when it was finished, but I took one after everyone had eaten.
It looks a mess in this picture, but I promise you, it is so flavorful, hearty and stick to you ribs kind of meal. I served it with garlic bread. Does anyone else use a peeler to shave off butter for toasted bread. I haven’t owned a toaster in forever because I like to make mine under the broiler.
I can’t believe that November is almost over. I was outside getting the Christmas decorations out when I saw Queso playing with something in the grass. The cats are always finding lizards or bugs to chase around. This time it was neither of those, but this cute little guy that Queso would pick up, let go, chase and then repeat the whole process over again.
He snuggled right up in my hand. I took him into the backyard and let him go into the tree line. While I was back at the shed, about 20 minutes later, I saw something running toward me with Queso chasing it. It was the little mouse running to me. I scooped him up and put him inside the chicken coop where he seemed very happy. Some chickens will eat mice, but mine don’t seem to care. They have very different personalities than most chickens as they don’t like worms, but love tortillas, Mac ‘n cheese and french fries. Plus the little guy will be safe in there away from the owl that seems to like to hang out in the trees behind our house. Maybe I’ll see little mouse again soon.
I love citrus. I can’t drink iced tea without either lemon or lime in it. I don’t know how it changes the taste so much, but for me it does. I love lemon bars, lemon candy, basically anything lemon. When I was at Aldi a few weeks ago I went down the “weird” aisle. I call it that because it never fails to disappoint me with products from other countries that you just don’t see on standard grocery shelves. That’s where I spotted it. It’s now my go-to for my morning sourdough toast.
It is tart, sweet and heavenly. It’s made in Belgium and I highly recommend it. It’s my new favorite toast topping.
The other deliciousness that I found were these beauties.
I probably could have eaten the whole jar in one sitting. This plum little peppers aren’t terribly spicy but they have the most robust flavor. Add in the creamy cheese and they are the perfect little bite. They are packed in oil so I think that brings down the spiciness. The sad news is, is that Aldi has been out of them the last 3 times I’ve been back. I’m hoping they get more in. If they do I’ll buy several jars because they are that good. I only have one left and I’m going to be sad when it’s gone.
And just because Monkey loves any bags or boxes. Plus she’s really cute.
She doesn’t get along with the other cats, but the other day when Hannah was at work, I walked by her room and saw this.
It has been a rough several days. Friday I did way too much lifting when I rearranged the shed, which caused by lower back to spasm up again. I do know better, but when I want something done I want it done right then. Plus, I knew that we were going to have bad weather coming.
My goal on Saturday was to go through my closet and clean out all of the summer clothes, which required more lifting. I did get it done and it feels good, like a weight lifted off my shoulders. Since Donny and I share an extremely small closet I have to be intentional about what goes in. I filled a laundry basket full and then emptied the drawer with my swimsuits, tank tops and cover ups.
These space bags worked so well.
Because our closet is so small I store my jeans and pants in baskets I picked up years ago for $3.99 at a thrift store.
I’m a very casual dresser as you can probably tell.
Sunday was Donny’s day off. He gets every third Sunday off. We were out of milk, which I need for my coffee, so he got up early and came back with cream horns that I happily ate at the patio table. They were so flaky and creamy. It was a decadent breakfast, but it was so good.
It was a very grey day with showers predicted in the afternoon. I don’t mind days like this especially when I’m feeling under the weather. It means true Fall weather is on its way.
Donny was able to clean out one of the gardens. We got a nice little haul.
Donny has lost his glasses months ago. He swore he lost them at work. He looked everywhere and I tore the house up also looking for them. Then lo and behold, look what he found in the garden.
We’re not sure how he dropped them out there, but I think I can straighten them out so he can wear them again.
By Sunday night my back was killing me. The TENS unit gave a bit of relief. I got on our shake machine and it helped.
I took a hot bath with a lot of this in it.
I am NOT a bath person, but I was getting desperate. It made it bearable that I took my laptop into the bathroom and watched Twisters while I soaked. It’s actually a good movie and I would have loved to see it in 4D, but we didn’t have anywhere near us that it was showing with those effects.
The bath, shaker and TENS seemed to have done the trick about 60%. I’m just going to need to be very careful until, hopefully, everything heals.
We were able to get so much done yesterday. Thankfully it was a gorgeous day outside. I was able to mow in a sweatshirt and joggers and not even break a sweat. When the weather is in the low 70’s it seems like everyone is in a better mood, even the chickens.
Donny worked on doing a deep clean on the chicken coop getting it ready for winter. It never gets very bad because they are only inside to lay eggs and roost at night. He added more hay than we normally do in the summer to keep them warm since the temperatures will be dropping later this week.
He had to run to the feed store to get more shavings and when he did he accidentally left his phone and wallet on the roof of the car when he was leaving. He saw them fly off when he was on the loop. He had to go back and as he pulled over an 18 wheeler ran over his phone. If you need a good phone case get the ONN brand from Walmart. There was only a tiny crack in the case at the corner. Everything else was fine. He did lose a couple of dollars when his wallet flew off, but managed to find his fishing license so that’s a win.
While he was running his errand I was busy in the shed going through clothes that we had put away. I ended up donating 8 bags. It’s such a good feeling to lighten the load.
I had washed out our Brita pitcher. I couldn’t relate to people saying how long it took for their water to filter. Mine always just filled up so fast. I always wondered just how it did it so fast. That’s when I took the filter out and realized I had never inserted it correctly. So basically, we’ve just been drinking tap water for months.
I also realized that I like the taste of tap water better than the filtered.
Since the cats DO NOT like the mower I decided to give them a little catnip treat. Queso hogged all of the first pile. When Milo got a pile he REALLY like it a lot.
He’s done so well with coming inside at night. Last night Donny was in Milo’s chair. He feels safe in that chair because he’s still afraid of the ceiling fan and a/c. He laid like this watching Donny until Donny realized that he was wanting to go to sleep on his chair.
Happy boy!
One that isn’t so happy is Monkey. She does not like Milo or Queso. All they want to do is be her friend, but this is the face they get when they are in the house.
Now I’m off to do a quick clean on the house so that I can go through my closet and do some purging. We bought some space bags to condense everything. I hope they work.
I don’t know about anyone else, but for the last week I’ve woken up daily feeling like I’ve got a hangover. I think it was the whole election. A week ago I was so anxious. I don’t watch main stream media. I find that I’m in a much better head space if I don’t. Donny, however, loves to watch it. He argues loudly with the television and, at times, it can really stress me out. I didn’t really watch any polls. I held steadfast that the candidate I voted for would win even if I live with a slight pessimist that would tell me not to get my hopes up because of what he would see on the news stations. Tuesday night I couldn’t even make dinner so Jackson and I picked up Wing Stop. Then when Donny got home from work we started watching as the polls closed one by one. Because we use streaming services and our local stations can be somewhat spotty, we ended up on CNN, ABC and NBC. I was watching The Charlie Kirk Show live on TikTok. I had been on a prayer Live for three hours the night before as the prayer wave crossed all of the time zones. I was exhausted from that and it didn’t help the headache I was beginning to get. By 11:00 I was done. I just couldn’t stay up any longer. What happens would happen whether or not I was awake or asleep.
The next morning I actually slept in until almost 7. I had only been getting about 5 hours of sleep per night the last week. Donny was still asleep so I quietly got up to go make coffee. When I unlocked my phone, the first text I saw was from my friend in Oklahoma. I hadn’t turned on the news yet. She sent me a TikTok with the election results. All of the stress that I had felt, but just kept to myself, came flooding out of me. I just started crying. I went into the bedroom to tell Donny the good news but I couldn’t even get the words out. He thought something bad had happened. Then the only words I could squeak out was “he won”.
There are so many people devastated by what I consider one of my best mornings ever. I don’t hate them and I don’t blame them for feeling like they do. I did go back to see some of the the highlights of the propaganda they were being sold. It was disgraceful. They were lied to and I can’t even put into words the fear mongering they were subjected to. The main stream media should be ashamed of themselves and I do believe they should be held accountable.
I was raised in a home that openly talked about politics. My dad was a democrat and my mother was a republican. I have voted both ways. I vote for the candidate that I think will do the best job and I think that Trump, with his amazing team, will do just that. No matter what side you are on, pray for unity in our country because it really needs it right now.
My 2016 voting sticker. I loved that it had Blue Dog on it. A blue dog exhibit just opened here and I can’t wait to go see it.
My 2024 sticker.
Now to get on a less serious subject. Donny and I went to Home Goods the other day to pick up some more glass food storage containers. They had just put out carts of 50% off items and I found the best candle ever.
The lid looks just like Milo!
Not only am I having that hangover feeling, but I also hurt my back again. It hasn’t been the same since I face planted on the bounce house slide. Donny picked up this TENS unit from Walgreen’s and boy has it helped. It’s much fancier than the one I used to have because it has so many different modes. I highly recommend getting one if you have any pain.
We’ve been having so much rain these past few days that it has really caused my allergies to flair up. I saw this trend online where you put garlic cloves up you nose. Even though Donny thought I was nuts, it did make my nose run A LOT when I took them out.
And last, but not least, I’m still feeding our little crew of animals. The skunks are definitely the alphas of the group. The other raccoons won’t even come out if the skunks are there. I also found that we have a little mouse living in the coop with the chickens. They aren’t bothered by it. I guess the little guy just snuggles up with them at night.
The Funky Frugalista 