Saturday

 I had a really good opportunity to share my faith at work.  

Now, I can't preach.  That is a big no no.  I can't hand out material or leave Scripture booklets in the break room (much as I'd like!).  

I did a lot of thinking over the last year, since my attack.  One thing I concluded I needed to give more at work.  I was going in and giving them a good day but I felt convicted I could do better, give 110%.  So I've been doing that.  

Also my spicy boss had a very honest talk with me early this year, she basically said she really needs me so she can keep her job.  I respect that.  She made a clear picture.  She sincerely asked for my help.  So that gets way more out of me than the critical tone I usually receive.  Interestingly enough since I stepped up I am not getting the critical tone.  

I like being the fixer, bring me the problem.  

I have been doing that a lot lately and it's appreciated.  One of the ladies at work, a different faith, commented on it yesterday.  I said I've told everyone I'm a Christian.  She nodded.  I told her if I say I'm with Jesus I have to honor Him by being a good worker.  That if I'm not it shames Him and I don't want that.  She had never seen it that way.  

And I kept working.  She was literally agape at all I did in 5 hours.  It was fun.  

Then I came home on the bus, talked to my parents.  

I had bought 2 meats that had to be cooked last night.  I hadn't had the time or motivation to do it.  I had a depression out of my accident and my big symptom is "lack of interest" and I had no interest in cooking which you know I love.  

Plus it is hard to live life with a bad arm.  I have a lot more respect for Ron and how easy he made it look.  

It has been really crazy at work as well so when I got home I was just exhausted, I was getting up as late as possible as well.  

So I had to cook it, especially the beef as it looked so delicious and it was $7.  I'm not throwing out half an hour's work.  After I hung up with my parents, I got out my 2 crock pots.  $7 worth of beef is not that much these days, I think it was about a pound, bottom round roast.  It was meant, I think, to be sauteed but I did not have the bandwidth for that.  I put it in a crock pot with a lot of potatoes, carrots, onions, a little bit of garlic (I'm allergic), smoked paprika, beef broth, and tomato paste.  

I very carefully set the timer, set the crock pots, had one on each side of the timer.  Set the timer to cook 1 AM (I got home pretty late) to 10 AM.  The pork I had more, it was the value cut pork chop ends and pieces, I like working with those, that was about 2 pounds.  

I had a nice bag of red potatoes and some really fine carrots so that went into both crock pots, along with some nice yellow onions.  For the pork I did a little bit of whole cumin (I have some amazingly strong cumin), and oregano.  I like to have a good pantry so I have what I need when I do cook, and I had a nice poblano pepper.  I roasted that on the stove (I have an old gas stove with the grate on the burner so I put the pepper on the burner, turned on low, and turned it now and then), diced it, seeded it, put it in there too.  So I had onions, potatoes, pepper, spices.  I didn't have any chicken broth so I used water with a dab of Apple Cider Vinegar.  

That all took about an hour I think, once I verified it was going to cook OK I went to bed.  Now I have a weird tic, if I cook the crockpot overnight I wake up with a  bad headache.  I did.  Even the Excedrin didn't touch it.  It went away with the protein shake and putting the food up.  

But first I had to clean the fridge.  I didn't have any bad meat in there unless you count the 50cent value hot dogs.  But I have good lunch meat, cheese (lots of cheese - that was the worst thing about last year's week long power outage, throwing out the cheese!), good bread so I can make sandwiches or toast to have with the crock pot food.  I had some iffy vegetables too which I tossed, but most of it was good.  

I like to provide my sanitation workers with a little goodie box every week.  I put it on top of the can, the usual evangelism candy in English and Spanish, fresh fruit, and bottled water.  They have a horrible, thankless job and my life would be so awful if they didn't come.  I feel very strongly about this.  I was happy to see I have a really nice selection of fresh fruit for them this week.  

Then I was able to put the crock pots up.  

I soaked some lentils, I want some.  

I need to do some dishes and clean the litter boxes but other than that I did a lot.  My arm is yelling a little so I think I may need to take a Naproxen and wear my arm sling when I'm cooking later.  

That's it for now.