Am having a ‘Why do I FRACKING bother’ day…

And I’m having a difficult time getting motivated.
Cuz, I really don’t want to do this anymore. No matter what you do, or don’t do, there’s always too much to do, and there’s never enough time to do it. So, if you do the thing that you really want to do, yer guilty of stealing time from the things you have to do, so you don’t really enjoy what you want to do. Life is a steaming pile of crap that never ends
See? I’m having a bad day.
And I feel bad about that, cuz it’s a beautiful day, and mowing the lawn in Granite will be a chance to spend time outside. I should be happy about that.
And that fuels the sense of failure. Which leads to ever-downward spiral…
I’d rather spend the day, and what little energy and stamina I have, working in the garden here. But, I gotta go mow Granite.
And I’m getting a late start so I’ll have to work tomorrow. Which means I won’t have all day to work in the garden, which means the trees don’t get pulled, the mulch don’t get spread. The seeds don’t go in. The carpets don’t get cleaned. The dishes don’t get done. Yadda, yadda, yadda….
But, my life is a mess. It’s always been a mess. I make bad choices. It never works out the way I think it will. So why Bother? I am a failure. I can never do better. So why bother?
Because, I’m still here and I have to do something. Going back to bed and staring at the ceiling is not really an option. I tried it once and it made shit worse.
And it’s not all bad. We’ve been watching Dr. Who in the evenings, and that’s been fun. The weather has been beautiful the past couple of days. The garden is progressing. I do get paid Monday. There are things I want to do, and things I care about. I will get the positive thing back. It’s just a struggle, a constant struggle.
And I realize that in my present mood, every little thing frustrates the hell outta me. I’m trying to get to a calm center and get back to letting things roll off. I’m doing the best I can with what I have. Things will get better. Interesting that this popped up in one of those stupid little FaceBook quizzes:




 That's supposed to be my theme song.  I don't feel much like titanium, but I always pick up the pieces and move along.  Cuz, really, what else are you going to do?
And I'm writing this post cuz I've learned that the best way to deal with the negatives of life is to acknowledge them, accept them, feel them, deal with them, let the energy work through, and leave them behind.  Life is a river and water flushes out the bad stuff.  It's best not to block the flow.

                Late

As I wondered defrocked forest

Lost in welter and confusion

Lost to illusion

Found in collusion

Collision

Incision

Prometheus's friend to pluck out my heart

Time cleaves time

Imp in the eyes

Son of lies

Eats my soul

Gobbles it whole

Fodder of flies

Totter and lies

Cold in slime

Warmed to strife

Prodded to life

To wander defrocked forest

So with that final whine.  I'm gonna get off my ass and start moving.  I've got things to do and I have to go do them....

Today's time waster....

What could they really do....

Imagine, if you will...
You sleep late.
Have a good lie in; reading, listening to music, having sex, whatever...
When you finally get out of bed, there's nothing you have to do.  It's just a nice lazy, relaxing day around the house...
Now imagine if every worker in the country did this on the SAME day....
What if everybody who works for less than $15.00 an hour just stayed home instead of rushing off to cheerfully serve their corporate masters?
What if, instead of rushing out to the mall to buy crap you don't need you took a day to do nothing?
Think about it.  They can't afford to fire everybody, and even if they did, the fast food restaurant across the street is gonna be looking for new workers too.
The loss of a couple days revenue would be noticeable in even the biggest business.
And all we have to do is NOTHING!

(Had to renew the Image on this one.  Wasn't showing in the blog...)

What could the really do?

My contribution to the John Goodman memes...

Time wasters from the last week....

Happydale Homestead's Taco Chili....

 It is good!
We all like food.  3 of us like to cook.  We have enough crap to outfit 3 kitchens.  Maybe even more than that.  Food around here is always interesting.
Kathy and I started talking about this a while ago.  I think we were talking about the taco meat for the taco pizza, or something, and the idea of making chili with a taco flavor floated.  It sounded good, and was a topic we kept coming back to.  Over the weeks we crafted a theoretical recipe, and an idea of the procedure.
On impulse theory was put to practice last Saturday night.
It was impulse, so we weren't as organized as we could have been.  We ended up using caned beans when all of us would have preferred dry, but that's the way things go sometimes.  I ended up being the only one in the kitchen when it came time to put it together so I got to make the final decision of what went into it.  Kinda scary, if it had totally bombed I was gonna blame it on the beans....

 The first hurdle was getting ground beef with the proper flavor without the packet.
I'm not a fan of the dump a bunch of salsa in the beef and call it taco.  Tried that several different ways and it always comes out too bland.
So I surfed the net for taco seasoning recopies, they're all pretty much the same stuff in varying measures.

What I ended up with:

2 teas. chili powder 
2 teas. paprika
1 teas. onion pepper
1/2 teas. sea salt.
1/2 teas ground cumin
1/2 teas. oregano
1/2 - 1 teas. cayenne pepper
1/2 - 1 teas. red pepper flakes
1/2- 1 teas. chipotle pepper

Throw it all in a bowl and whisk it.
Whisk it good....

Note on spices:  The original recipe called for a 1/2 teas. of garlic powder.  I left it out cuz I added 5 cloves of garlic to the meat.
Most of my spices are the cheapies from Shop n' Save.  They work just fine.
The onion pepper and the ground chipotle pepper we got from The Olde Town Spice Shoppe in St. Charles MO.  It's our favorite spice shop.  Their garlic pepper is fantastic.
I went with a whole teaspoon of the various peppers cuz I added some after the beans and everything were in the chili.  If I were gonna do this just as taco meat I would start with the 1/2 teaspoon and see how hot it was before adding too much more pepper.

I started browning about a pound and a half  of ground chuck.

And whisked together the taco seasoning. 
And then it was time for chopping and slicing and dicing.

I minced 5 cloves of garlic.







Course chopped 1 medium onion.
I added both to the meat after draining the fat off.
When the meat was mostly browned I added the spices and 1 cup water and let it simmer till the water was gone.




While the meat was simmering down.  I seeded & chopped the peppers.

1 minced jalapeno pepper
1 chopped red bell pepper
1 chopped Anaheim pepper
1/2 chopped green bell pepper.

Added those to the meat and let them cook while I opened the cans....
This time I ended up using 2 15oz cans of Hunts Fire Roasted Tomatoes and 1 15oz can of whole tomatoes, with the juice.  Next time:

3 cans Hunts Fire Roasted Tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce.

I let that simmer for a few minutes and then added

3 15oz cans black beans, drained
1 15oz can red kidney beans, drained

I let the whole concoction simmer for about 30 minutes.  Added a 15oz can of refried beans, let that melt in and called it Taco Chili.

This is the fulfillment of a life long ambition for me.  I've always wanted to make a good batch of chili.
It's got a gentle bite to it that fades quickly.  It'll warm you up without hurting.  Good flavor.  Goes equally well with just crackers or topped with cheese and sour cram.

I am an exile....

 House Republicans Kick Off 2014 By Ignoring Everything the American People Want

 'Will repealing the law create even one job, contribute to GDP growth, or address the income inequality devastating the economy? Of course not, and Republicans admit the only reason for pushing the repeal effort is to “make overseas Americans far more sympathetic to Republicans and have an impact on fundraising”'

Where's the will of the people in this?

'Rape audit refers to requiring a rape victim who sought an abortion to prove to an Internal Revenue Service auditor that they were “legitimately raped” to claim a deduction under healthcare expense on their tax return.'
'However where women’s rights and healthcare is concerned, the Republican religious right will force, by legislation, the IRS to access, monitor, and audit women’s health and wellbeing. Will the “rape audit” bill create one job, boost GDP growth, or address income inequality decimating the economy? No,'

WTF?

The country that I grew up pledging allegiance too, the country I believe in, is gone.  It has been usurped and overthrown.  In its place sits a changeling, a Fascist empire, run by a psychotic, lunatic fringe seeking to control the world and enslave the majority of the population of the planet.
What I see around me, the avarice, ignorance, and apathy, the fear and division, is not the land of the free and the home of the brave.  This is more like the land of the feeb and the home of the slave.
If we are brave; why can't we tolerate people who don't look like us?  Why can't we respect people who hold different beliefs?  If we're so brave where's all the fear, anxiety, and hatred coming from?  If we're so brave why can't be comfortable with teeth that aren't gleaming white?
As for the free,,,,
Well I just paid to be able to drive my car on the public roads.  If I want to go fishing next summer I'll have to buy a license.  I have to watch where I walk, or I could possibly step on someone else's property.
This country has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
The police are gearing up for a war.... 
The United States of liberty, equality, and justice for all, has one foot in a grave and the other on a patch of oil.
What I see when I look around is the corruption and decay of the Roman Empire, not the reason and compassion of the Enlightenment.
People, the United States I pledged allegiance too was born in the free thinking of the Enlightenment, not the legions of Rome.
You want me to swear allegiance to a second rate empire?
I don't think so.
People so afraid of their neighbors that we feel the need of stand your ground laws?  People so stingy they don't want to chip in a little so their neighbor can go to the hospital after he's been shot by some rabid gun nut?  People so selfish that we'd rather pay for bigger and better bombs than help out after a catastrophe?  People so unaware and unobservant that they can't even see what's in front of their faces?  People so apathetic and oblivious that they can't even be bothered to help govern their country, when they have the opportunity?  People who think problem solving skills and a good education are elitist and suspect?
This is not my country.  These are not my people.
And these are not the citizens that the founding fathers crafted this country for.
And this is not the city on the hill.
This is a will-o-the-wisp that's gonna suck the human race right off the face of the planet.
Except for the better few who have all the resources.
I don't think anybody should pledge allegiance to that.
Stop buying, everything, the hype, the fear, the chemicals, the tooth whitener....
Just stop buying.
And start thinking about what you really want to spend your life on.
Cuz that's what those green paper slips really represent.  That's what you're selling so you can buy into the system.  That's the real currency of our grand and glorious Risk and Monopoly shell games.

Yesterday's time waster....

 Ear worm....

Contemplation of an Ungodly Hour....

Back at the beginning of the holiday season I started ruminating on an Ungodly hour.  Which started a thought train steaming through: Ungodly hour part deux to Ungodly Hour Director's Cut Part 1.
I called that last post part one, cuz I knew the train was gonna run for awhile....
  
And it has.
Like all the other steaming thoughts it has receded to the depths to boil up at odd times.  Usually when I'm in the middle of, or on the way to, something else.
And sometimes those ideas boil over and I find yet another dimension to the subject.  Which launches yet another train of thought.
And they all simmer in the background, jostling and bumping, mixing, melding, breaking apart, and reshaping....
And the Ungodly Hour has grown.  Like a lizard blasted by 1950's SciFi atomic energy, it's grown.
And so, with this post I'm giving it a tag all it's own.  That way I don't have to spend time pondering new and different variations on the title....

And, you might be wondering, cuz I have, why a proclaimed unbeliever is pondering anything ungodly.
Well, this is where the atomic expansion enters, cuz at first blush it was just a turn of phrase.  Then the cliche got sucked in by the currents of my mind at, Christmas time....

First we have to clarify semantics.
I am agnostic.
Now yer wondering what bearing this affliction has...
 Well...
A theist believes in at least one, sometimes more, divine being.
An atheists believes there are no divine beings.
Christians believe that there is one divine being and that they know him personally.
An agnostic neither believes or disbelieves.
While most atheists believe there is nothing beyond this physical realm and the theists believe there is more than meets the senses in the universe and the christians insist there is something beyond, an agnostic weighs the evidence.
For myself, I believe that there is more to the universe than what I can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch, but I'm not placing any bets on what it is or isn't.  There's no way I can know for sure.  I accept that there might be a God.
And if there is a God, and if he is the God of Jesus and The New Testament, I'm not seeing much of him in the present Zeitgeist.  At the time of the year when the birth of the New Testament God is celebrated, I saw very little evidence of his existence in the real world.
And so the Ungodly Hour is hatched.
And I have a lot more to say on the subject.
But right now daylight is burning and I've got stuff to do...

Note's on names, snowmageddon, and other stuff....

With the new year I'm changing the name policy.  Back when I didn't see anybody, referring to the infrequent friend by first initial was workable.  Now that the situation has changed, and I see people daily, and more people, the alphabet is going to soup and getting confusing.  From now on I will identify people by first name.
If you know me, and have a problem with that, let me know.  I'll make up a name for you.
And make fun of you while I do that....

We have decided to name the hawk Mortimer.  After Cary Grant's character in 'Arsenic and Old Lace'.
If I haven't mentioned it before, the homestead here is named after the sanitarium in 'Arsenic and Old Lace', one of the funniest movies ever made.  The sanitarium that Mortimer is trying to have Teddy committed to.  Because Teddy, who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, blows a bugle at all hours of the day and night and runs up the stairs yelling 'Charge!' and creeps the neighbors out...

So some of the names around here are being drawn from there.  Not all, but some.
Cuz we have a Teddy...

Teddy

Cat took that picture the day we got him.
We got him for free.
Right now Teddy is living in a cage in the entryway.  He's got food and water.  The cage is big enough for him to move around in.  He gets out to stretch his wings everyday...

Cat took this picture too.  I swiped it off her FB page...

We want to find him some ladies before we put him outside.  He needs someone to snuggle with.
He seems to be a smart bird.  He's not thrilled with being picked up, but now that he knows we're not going to hurt him he doesn't fight it as much.







We got Teddy Jan. 4, 2014, the day before......

Sunday Jan. 5, 2014 the arctic vortex dumped on us.

And no, the arctic vortex is not a liberal conspiracy to further some evil global warming scam.  I've heard the term before, when I read about the band of winds that used to blow east to west that kept the arctic air in the arctic.  Thanks to climate change, that band is weak and dips way farther south than it used to.
Yes, I do believe in climate change.  Even if it was colder here than it's been in a long while last week.  Global warming was the term when we first started looking into it.  It's a simple term that was used to describe something that was way more complex than we knew at the time.
And things are way worse than that term implies.
And, as others have pointed out, what's the worst outcome if we accept climate change as a real thing?
We end up with a cleaner planet, with better air and water, and a more sustainable life style?  For no good reason?
And what's the worst if we don't accept climate change as a fact?
We end up with a burned-out, poisonous cinder and no fall back planet?
The cockroaches take over.....
And ya know, I'm with Marty from 'Cabin In The Woods', a fantastic film, if you haven't seen it yet...
Paraphrasing here...
If my friends have to die for you to live in your world, then maybe it's time for something else to have a shot.
If anything or anybody needs to die or suffer, and I include poverty as suffering, for you to have your perfect world, then you don't deserve to continue in this beautiful world we have been given and if we can't stand up and stop you from destroying this beautiful world, then we don't deserve it either...

We return you to your regularly scheduled post...

It started early.  It was a very fine, powdery snow.

 

 The dogs rather enjoyed it.

 

Doeman

The temperature was dropping.  The wind was really kicking up.

And everybody was ready to go in....

 The attraction of chicken, in a cage, on the other side of that door, helped to motivate them.










It snowed all day and the winds were wicked.  The temperature dropped into minus numbers.

The windows frosted in interesting patterns.  I stayed home and kept the fire burning, and the dryer running as much as possible.
The dryer really heats the kitchen with moist heat.
It snowed all day and was really too cold to be out very long.
We were not putting Teddy out in that.






I don't have a lot of pictures of the aftermath.  Monday was too cold, and Tuesday I could get out of the driveway so I worked.

We got about 13 inches of snow.

The drifts were deep.
The depth of snow throughout the yard varied from barely over your shoe to up over my knee.  You could tell where the wind was blocked by the depth of snow.  All the trees had a shadow of shallow snow on the upwind side.
It was cool!

The wind piled and sculpted snow into ridges, grooves, and swirls.

Looks a little like an Alien head under the snow....

Wish I had gotten more pictures, I kept meaning to go out and take more, and getting side tracked by other things....










On Monday the winds were still strong and there was a real chance of frostbite.  Sunday and Monday I didn't spend a lot of time outside.
Sunday I put out food for the squirrels and birds.  Still no feeders up.  Nothing fancy, just some seed in an old saucer sled.  But it's been a popular attraction.  Got a rock sitting in it to keep it weighted down.  We had a flock of Cardinals last week.  Looked like 2 family groups.  2 males, 2 females, and a juvenile of each.

Considering that my window is far from clean that's not too bad a picture.  This male has black on his back and wings.

On a sad note, and pertaining to names, Rusty, our first resident squirrel, passed away last Thursday.  I've mentioned Rusty and Ruth before.  We've only had 2 squirrels around the place.  So it was easy to name them.  If we ever get too many more that will stop.  Jokes have been made about my penchant for naming things.  But even I will not try to name more than a few squirrels...
Now we are down to just Ruth.
She hung out at the food dish for 2 1/2 hours Friday morning.  I put the food dish under the tree where Rusty and Ruth used to meet every morning.  I put it there cuz that's where they met every morning.  I think she was waiting for Rusty.  She hasn't really been hanging around that tree much this week.  I put a squirrel block out under her tree, and she's been eating there the last couple of mornings.
Last Thursday one of the guys from the electrical co....

THIS is Rusty's Tree.

 We share the lot with a small business.  The building to the left of the tree is, I think, an electrical co.  They use the driveway and the roads.  Not a lot, but enough to be familiar with the place.

 







One of the guys asked Cat if LJ had a gun and told her that there was a squirrel at the end of the drive that wasn't doing well.  Cat went out to look and he went up the pine tree at the end of the road.  She said he didn't scamper up the tree, it took some effort for him to climb up.  So she knew he wasn't in good shape.  LJ came home and went up the tree after Rusty.  Rusty jumped down into the snow and Cat was able to catch him.  He didn't struggle or bite.  At that time he was cold.  LJ put Rusty in his jacket and they brought him and a cage we had out in the barn, that had been set up for Indy, a baby squirrel Cat and LJ brought back from vacation last summer.  LJ held Rusty in his jacket and he was starting to get active.  He was calm and mellow, not struggling.  We got a heating pad all set up for him in the cage.  But when we transferred him he seized.  Before we could get him back into LJ's jacket he died.
I think it was age more than anything.  He was a big, healthy boy.  But his teeth were worn.  I don't think the recent severe weather did him any favors, but I think it was age, more than weather, that prompted his passing.
 We still have Ruth running about, and we're making sure she can always find a meal here.  Keeping our fingers crossed for a passel of babies this spring.
We buried Rusty under the big pine at the end of the drive.
Seems there was some confusion over which was his tree....

Rusty's dining tree.

This week we've been working, dealing with weather.
Snowmageddon was not without aftermath, but when all was said and done not too bad.  Monday the 6th we had problems with the power.  We had a burst pipe in the upstairs bathroom.  Vehicles wouldn't start.  But after the rush of all that happening in the span of a couple of hours things were not too bad.  The house was fairly warm.  The horses had shelter.  The power problems were internal, so easy to fix, sort of.  This house needs to be rewired.  Until that happens, we'll have problems here and there.  When the plumber finally got here, he capped the cold water to the upstairs.  For the last week we've had some minor adjustment to that, no real big deal.
The plumber was back the day before yesterday to fix the pipes.  They've gotta come back one more time to put in a decorative panel over the hole in the wall.
Yesterday was the great kitty fixing event....

Jethro

Riley

Dixie

Yesterday 3 of the cats took a trip to the vets.
Actually 4 of the cats made the trip over.  Tom Traveler, one of the upstairs cats, made the trip over as well.  But he was too old and would have cost a lot more money than we had budgeted.  So he didn't get to stay.
The 3 from downstairs are now recovering from surgery.  They are all doing well.
None of us was happy about the trip over.  Traffic sucked, and nobody liked being in a crate.  Traffic sucked on the way back.  The cats had a traumatizing day.  Tom and I got the easy end of it.  He got out of the cage and I stayed in yesterday.
Hence this post.  Which I've been meaning to do and need to wrap up.  I've got 2 long jobs due tomorrow.  Wanna get as much done today as I can.  The longer I sit here the more that slops over into tomorrow.
But the internet, which has sucked for the last 3 days, is running fairly well, and I need to strike while the iron is hot...

Cuz another big thing happened yesterday...

LJ took this picture.

They put the star back up!
The star was there when we moved in, but there was only 1 strand of lights working.  A few weeks back the guys from the electric co. were nice enough to get it down for us.  Cat restrung the lights, and yesterday it went back up.
And last night...

The star was fully lighted for the first time.

So, all in all, not a bad couple of weeks.
Now I gotta move.  I've gotta clean litter boxes, move laundry, and go to work....

Today's time waster....

Wasting time is an essential part of life.  Everyone needs, and deserves, down time, R&R, me time, creative time, restorative/regenerative  time.
For me, wasting time is an art.
And besides I had fun....

2014

Yeah, I'm a little slow on the uptake.
But I didn't think of this till this morning.
Been thinking about some sort of New Year's graphic.  Was thinking about something with the spuds, but I don't have any streamers...
Have this picture on the desk top right now and something popped.  But then I had to cobble it together.  These things take time.
Not a lot of time, but it is time none the less.
I'm still feeling crappy, and I've been busy. 
Tried a couple of new things with the bread.  The 2 loaves yesterday were a modified failure, but I'll do more on that in a separate post.  Gonna try again today and see if I can get it right.
Been splitting my time between cleaning, baking, and resting, or rather working up the ambition to move.
Some things never change.
Wanna make some candy and fudge, but I needed space in the fridge.  So yesterday I made bread and cleaned out the fridge.  Everything that was expired is now gone.  Everything that could be condensed is.  There's a little more space in there.
Still not sure what today will bring, but I'm getting there.