"You've spent the best years of your life in prison"

 It makes me sad I had to cut myself off for so long.  

My orange glop turned out very well.  I had some for breakfast and I'm still not hungry at 4 PM.  It's not heavy though but it does have a lot of fiber.  

I think I put the recipe up already so I won't, again.  

Friday I think it was, I was wanting a veggie stew, some beans, potatoes, carrots, in a rich broth.  I am working on that now.  I didn't figure it out until after I started it but it will be great for those nights when I come home from work wondering what the hell to have for dinner.  

I have potatoes, carrots, barley, diced tomatoes in it.  The nice thing about cooking for myself alone I can add or remove things according to my taste.  I don't like cooked celery, for instance, so I don't have to use it.  I have bay leaf, thyme, oregano, and sage in it.  A little black pepper.  

This is another nice thing about living alone.  I have a nice, 4 ounce, jar of black pepper.  We have some great, regional, spice companies in addition to the imports and national brands.  This was Bolner's, they're headquartered out of San Antonio.  Spicy World actually imports spices and repackages them for retail sale in Houston - good stuff.  Bolner's is a good spice brand on single spices but I have found many of their blends have MSG.  Anyway, I got a nice jar of pepper from them.  

My cheaper spices have a screw cap.  Undo the cap and there's a flimsy shaker top.  The top is easy to remove and stick my measuring spoons in there.  The Bolner's has a very stubborn shaker lid.  The main lid unscrews easily but I have spilled the pepper twice now trying to get it off.  

So, when I got it off, I threw it away.  I don't shake pepper on my food.  I use measuring spoons to get it out and put it in what I cook.  Why keep the annoying lid and spill all my pepper?  So I threw it away.  No one's going to object.  

That's the kind of thing Ron would have been livid over.  

I'm watching NCIS reruns on ION.  After Ron died, the first thing I did was turn off the cable TV.  I have internet of course and it's Rico but very reliable.  I watch TV on my day off (one day) while I cook.  It's over the air tv with my antenna.  

Anyway two characters were talking.  A terrorist tells Ziva "You've spent the best years of your life in prison" and I thought, wow, that's entirely true.  But I still have a good 30 years left and I'm going to enjoy them.  Share the Gospel.  Be kind.  Love my cats.  

It's been very nice today and Scrappy has been out more than in, but when he comes in he meows very sweetly, finds me (I talk to him), gets some pets, checks out the food situation.  

My washer was making very unhappy noises and then got out of round on the spin cycle.  Horrible noises.  I've decided I'm going to do what I can to fix it.  I'm very sentimental when it comes to things, my fridge, the washer, my vending machines.  It's 8.5 years old but maybe I can fix it.  I'm going to look into it, at least.  

Ron called an appliance repair company to come work on the fridge.  They charged us $200 and didn't fix it.   So much for that.  He found a commercial refrigerator repair technician who thought it would be great fun to work on a household fridge for a change, especially when he found out it was made in 2001 (my food is still cold!).  It was having an icemaker issue.  He came out, had a look at it, and said "It's going to be cheaper to replace your built in microwave" (when he saw it was dead) "Than repair it.  Also they don't make parts for this fridge anymore.  Just use it as long as you can if ice doesn't matter to you."  It didn't, to me.  Ron and I had some bitter arguments he wanted to replace it.  I wouldn't allow it.  

I don't have his number.  And I have zero faith in the appliance repair guys in Houston, now.  So I'll call the Sears Repair #.  They are about $200 to come out I think.  But I want to at least try.  

Sentimental, I know.  If I really do go full time (boss says she wants it) I will be able to afford it.  I think I'll do that first, Scrappy is OK for now.  

Then I'm getting his little furry butt neutered, a chip, shots.  He's not full grown yet I'd say between 6-9 months.  Old enough.  

Of course he'll get fat once I do it but that's OK.  I love black cats and he is very, very, sweet.  

I have been talking to Spotty who is conflicted about this and we had a good nap together today.