My daughter’s paras have been a mixed bag but on the whole a very important part of her life. I think I’ve said this before, but where your child’s disability is, there your exhaustion will be. I think our paras have more staying power as physical exhaustion is easier to bear and recover from than the emotional exhaustion your paras will take on. You just always hope the next one is good too.
My wife and I have both done EMDR and my sister-in-law is a practitioner. I hope you can get in soon.
Today my work had the first “chili and cornbread cook-off” since Nov 2019. I have participated every year since joining the company, and usually placed in the top three.
For cornbread, they judge on taste, texture, aroma, and appearance. For chili, they basically do the same, but also throw in a decoration/ theme category.
As for the chili, it is a bit different every time, and no exact measurements, but:
Brown 3 lbs of ground beef (80/20) with half of an onion chopped up, as well as half of a sweet onion chopped up. Once browned, drain away the grease.
In a Dutch oven, we heated some bacon grease and added the meat and onions. Then we added 3 cans of red kidney beans (after rinsing off the goop they were in), a jar of salsa (medium heat, but can use hot if you like more kick), most of a can of tomato paste, most of a pack of chili seasoning, a few splashes of beef broth to thin it out a bit, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
After that simmered for a bit, I did end up adding a bit of hot sauce as it was a touch too mild, and also a handful of dark chocolate chips for some richness. Simmered for about an hour overall and then it was done. Since it was for a cook off, we transferred it to a crock pot and put it in the fridge for the night, but it could have been eaten then.
An hour before serving, I stirred in some sauteed onions that my wife had prepped the day before, which are always tasty.
I did, in fact, make chili that night, but with enough variations that I hesitate to say I made your chili…
I substituted out 1 lb of beef, added 1 can of beans, changed the three cans of red kidney beans to one of red, one black, and two pinto, added the entire can of tomato paste, two half-jars of medium salsa, one entire onion, and skipped the bacon. Oh, and I bought dark chocolate for the dish, but it wasn’t packed and therefore somebody at the store got a little treat.
Was driving to work yesterday and when I turned my heater on, noticed that the air was cold unless I was accelerating. I was already halfway there so I kept going. As I got close, I saw my temperature alarm light turn on and saw that I was in the red on the dial, so I quickly pulled over into a lot and turned off the car. Opened the hood and found coolant all over the engine, and it was steaming. Let it sit for 10 minutes or so and tried to hopscotch my way to work (go a bit, park and let it cool, repeat). I got to a public transit park and ride when I called that idea quits, because there wouldn’t be any areas to pull into.
I walked the rest of the way to work, which took about 30 minutes. Someone was nice enough to drive me back to my car at the end of the day, and I had arranged for a tow from AAA to a repair shop closer to my home. Got there right before they closed, so they would check it out this morning.
Which they did. They did not see an obvious leak, so they had to do a coolant system pressure test, which revealed a massive leak, but they could not see if it was from a cap or behind a plastic plate without removing the battery and a number of cables and wires. They did that and determined it was from the plate. Normally you’d remove the battery box for easier access, however my model of car is special and the bolts holding the box on tend to get really rusty, and they said it is common for them to snap if messed with, so they’d recommend doing it without removing the box, though it will add some labor time.
So I’m looking at an estimated bill for just under $1k to fix this.
Sorry to hear so many people are having troubles. It really does feel like the general state of things has been grinding down everywhere in recent years.
I’m in the middle of a long weekend, which I booked off at short notice because I was worn out. Don’t think I’ve recovered from whatever stomach virus I had a fortnight ago. Although tbf I was thinking earlier today - I’m not convinced I fully recovered from Covid, or from my burnout a couple of years back. Maybe humans just don’t entirely recover from lots of things and we have to soldier on regardless. Cheery stuff! I’ve been feeling for a while now that I could really do with just having six months off…
So far I’ve spent most of my time sleeping, which was not what I hoped for. A little bit of tidying’s happened, and a little bit of writing. We’re trying to book Christmas arrangements and I’m still looking for jobs, and motivation is somewhat lacking. Last week I asked my line manager when my annual review is, and she doesn’t actually know… I want to bring up how stagnant everything feels at work. It’s hard to care about any of it.
But I did buy some boxes and start organizing the study and wardrobe, which feels a bit better. And I have been slowly making progress on latest Ridiculous RPG Project, which is gratifying.
Things are at least a bit positive here. I had a persistent cold from the 16th to Thursday, which meant I was too fuzzy-headed to work. That was a pain, but I rebooted on Thursday, decided to ignore work e-mails until Monday and got some difficult development done on Thursday and Friday. The tests I set running Friday are still going well, and I know what I need to do about the Mac problem on Monday.
I ran a game session today that seemed all right, and I know what I’m cooking tomorrow evening. Things could be a lot worse.
However, we have a stove burner that we have not used for a while because it was always going to the hottest setting, even when set to low. Looking into it, most likely the controller for that dual needs to be replaced. $35ish, so not too bad.
And as of last week, our dishwasher stopped spraying water and actually cleaning dishes, so I have taken a bunch of it apart and think the issue is the wash pump. Got quoted a price for about $280 for that part. Or I can get the entire assembly which also includes the drain pump and diverter motor for $155. So, yeah, just going to replace everything.
Hopefully it’s not the control board, as if it is bad, it may not be powering the pump correctly, but I tested the resistance between the terminals on the pump and got 8.5, when from what I saw online, I should be closer to double that, so I am pretty certain it is the pump itself. Should find out in the next day or two when I get the parts and can install them.
