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Vic303

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Everything posted by Vic303

  1. We recently added some new TVP items to our pantry to try out, from BePrepared.com (aka Provident Pantry). Great folks to do business with, btw. So no complaints on the transaction itself. We had an older can of this in the pantry that had a code of some sort 09/03, which I took to be a month/year code though we did not buy it that long ago--maybe 5yrs ago? Regardless, I knew the contents should be fine, but as the older can, it should be rotated (eaten) first. Product reports on their website indicate about 1 year of storage life after you open the can, so that alleviates one concern I had, which was a short life after opening. Plus if I want I can vacuum bag some and pop it in the freezer too. Instructions were to place in a skillet and cover with water, simmering for 10min (until water is gone I guess). I did this to about 1/3c dry sausage crumbles. Note: They're fairly tasty if chewy, in their non-hydrated state. I covered them with some water and simmered until the water was gone. I did add some onion flakes to the water, as I was planning on dumping a mess of scrambled eggs into the sausage. Once the sausage was done, I dumped in the egg (with fresh ground pepper) mixture and cooked it all to done. Monkey2 thought it looked good and begged a bite. He said he liked it! I ate the rest, and it WAS good. Sausage had some texture (would've been better if I had dried them out a bit after rehydrating), and the flavor was good. It tasted enough like sausage to convince my palate. I don't as a rule, dislike TVP, especially if it is quality TVP (not the stuff they used to feed us in school!). It did need a fair bit of salt to taste perfect to me, but I am a bit of a Salt Vampire.... Now to see if there are any gastric side effects to note, but that will take a few hours to percolate through the system. Planning on testing this on Dave tomorrow!
  2. I know a prepper who might be close enough. PM me the info and I will send it to him.
  3. On a front loader you need to run a cleaning cycle regularly. Bleach and hot water cycle, with ZERO fabric in it. Once it ends, then make sure every time you use the washer and the cycle ends, OPEN the door and keep it open. You have to dry the gaskets to reduce any chance for mold. Also if you look at the schematic for it, you can usually remove the kickplate at the bottom front of the unit, then you can open the drain pipe to clear out the trap which is just before the impeller (which forces the water uphill out of the discharge pipe). This will make your washer run much better and extend the life of the motors. PUMP CLEANOUT
  4. Hope you had a wonderful day with your family!
  5. Uh, the capacity of most ereaders should be unlimited. You don't put the books on the ereader, you put them on your SD cards and insert the SD cards into the ereader. I have over 1300 books on a single 2gig SD card. They have SD cards up to 64 gig that I have seen and I bet there are even greater storage level ones out there...
  6. SEveral reports of large tornadoes in DFW today, and damage in several communities including Lancaster, Forney, Cleburne and others. We however are safe and fine here in our town. We just had lots of rain, and there was a bit of large hail a few miles west. Folks in Arkansas, Okla & Missouri should keep an eye out. These storms may well hold together long enough to reach you.
  7. I get mine at Ace Hardware, or Wamart, in the laundry supplies aisle. BTW I am just now finishing the last of that first 5gal bucket of soap, and we do a LOT of laundry here. This mix is a surefire money saver!
  8. Vic303

    Mrs S T-shirts...

    GP, that 3rd one is a true classic!!
  9. It's a lot tougher to be frugal when you are doing the low carb thing to manage diabetes in the family...
  10. Winter?? What's that?? It was 85degF at 06:30 this morning. We are on day 40?? I think of consecutive 100+degree days with zero rain. I've forgotten what rain looks and feels like... Winter in NTX means you do not have to turn on your A/C. Winter in NTX means you don't HAVE to turn on your heat, either--we did not use heat at all last winter, even during the 19deg high week. The house just never cooled below 55degF. There are really only two seasons here... Summer, and Not Summer. Summer lasts up to 10 months of the year, and Not Summer lasts 1-4mo depending on the year and solar cycle. Another way to think of the seasons here is as A/C Required, and A/C Optional.
  11. Have you ever gotten tired of paying a fortune for laundry soap? Do you have a front loader and have to use low-sudsing expensive HE soap? Well, both those statements apply to me, and so whilst perusing an online forum I stumbled across a recipe tutorial on how to make your own gel laundry detergent for cheap. I watched the video a couple times, and thought, "Hey I can do that!". So I went out with Monkeys in tow this past week and bought my supplies. You will need: 1 box Arm & Hammer Washing Soda 1 5 gallon bucket with lid 1 box 20 Mule Team Borax 1 bar Fels Naptha soap A measuring cup, a wisk to stir with, a pot to boil in, water and a cheese grater. First take the bar of Fels Naptha and the grater and grate the soap all up. You can use either the large grate or small, it doesn't really matter. While you are doing this, put 4 cups water in your pot and bring it to a boil. Now add your grated soap to the pot of boiling water slowly, and stir with your wisk, until the soap all dissolves. When you are done, it will look like this. Then dump it into the bucket. Fill the bucket in the bathtub, half full of HOT tap water. Now add your 1/2 cup of Borax and stir well. Now add your 1 cup of washing soda, and stir well. You will notice it foams a little with the washing soda, and starts to thicken some. Be sure to stir it well from the bottom of the bucket to mix it well. Once you have mixed it well, then you fill the bucket to about an inch or two from completely full, and stir some more. Then seal the lid on top, and let it sit overnight to cool and gel. When you check it the next day, it will be a semi-firm gel that stirs easily by hand and reliquifies as you stir it. Mix it well, especially from the bottom up, as the particulates can settle a bit. Now all you do, is take your dispensing container (old laundry soap bottle is perfect), and fill it half full of the gel goo. Add more water to the bottle, till full, and shake well. Measure out 1/4 cup of the diluted soap mix for a full load of laundry, and wash! This recipe will yield approximately 10 gallons of laundry soap!
  12. Hey...some of those sound useful!
  13. Vic303

    Fish!

    Oh we threw them all back. More fun that way.
  14. Hope you get a chance to post pics of the quilt eventually!
  15. Got back from vacation last week and found the blog feature seems to be working! YAY! So this is just a picture post to show off some of the nice fishies we caught on vacation at our lil' secret piece of heaven on earth. We don't own it, but we get to camp there... So here are the fish pics! Red coffee cup is DH's Just so you don't think all we caught were lunkers... But most of 'em were! At least for bass. This one was DH's fish, held up by Monkey1
  16. The family names I am wanting info on are: Klamm, Stearns (both in the Kansas area) Millar, Floyd (Northern Ireland mostly) or Millar (NOT miller.) in the USA/Canada
  17. Just when you thought it was safe to click on the upside down picture of OBL on the Drudge Report last weekend....I sure hope you did NOT do it like we did...there was a most evil computer virus embedded in that. It ate my computer. It installed some malware called INternet Securite 2010, and then when we tried with some professional grade disinfectant to clean the drive, it nuked our access to it. In fact when we gave the drive to a friend of a friend in the biz, so to speak, it managed a cross-platform, cross-OS lock up of his Por MAC unit...they're not supposed to be able to do THAT! We knew it was bad, when our IT friend said, "Wow...I've never seen THAT before!". We had to get a new machine...luckily we had been planning on upgrading anyway, just not then. Oh well. The last thing we saw before they nuked the drive was rambler.ru which is a russian domain. So we blame the Russkies for this. Lesson learned? Don't visit the Drudge Report any more. Too bad, but that's twice now we got hit from thier site, so it's now off limits. Have to get our news elsewhere.
  18. All my grandparents were dead before I was born.
  19. I love it Stephanie! And what a grand family you have there! All your kids look HAPPY and LOVED! Backyard camping it wonderful, and we'd do it more, but for the everpresent fireants... Vic
  20. Hehehe...that is a funny goofup! I thinkI ammaking strawberry jam this weekend too. Berries on sale at Sprouts for $1.25/#
  21. Remember this blog? Early this morning, suddenly, I hear a wee "CHIRRUP" noise. Now, I had replaced 2 smoke detector batteries earlier this month, so I waited to see if I heard it again. Blast it! "CHIRRUP". Again...about every 30 seconds. I couldn't tell exactly which of the half dozen of the things it was, but it sounded somewhat fainter than last time, so I was guessing it was in a Monkey bedroom. Suddenly, after the latest CHIRRUP, there was a whining, frantic cold wet nose stuffed in my face, followed shortly after by a pair of paws on my head! Much spluttering aside, I shoved the offending mutt off the bed, whereupon he promptly did it again after the next CHIRRUP. Shoved off again, I realized dimly that he was shaking like a leaf--terrified of the CHIRRUP. Now, this is a large Rhodesian Ridgeback...3 times or more he tried to crawl into my bed (not permitted). He tried hiding under the bed--I even let him into the warm bathroom with the 2nd RR, and DH, where he sat shook & whined most piteously... Well, this morning, at 5:45am, I was rudely awoken as a whining shaking not-quite-drooling Ridgeback sought to hide in my bed from the Evil Space Alien Smoke Detector that was chirruping from the garage...From a sound sleep I was trying to figure out Why the dog was in my bed, occupying DH's spot without the attendant Marine Corps Language from DH! And where on earth was DH? I knew he was on pager duty, but I am the one to answer the phone if it rings at night, and I could not for the life of me remember any callouts. Turns out DH had just gotten up and saw the dog freaking out, and thought he had heard the CHIRRUP, and had wandered down the hall to investigate. Maybe the dog is afraid the smoke detector is trying to echo locate his few remaining brain cells? Sheesh...what a Big Chicken Ridgeback!
  22. Today we reinforced the lesson of "Do not poke the snapping turtle!" at the local drainage park. Lotta ditch parks in NTX ya know... We also confirmed the location and identification of a Brown Turkey Fig tree and that the fruits are in fact edible. We also said hi to the wild beehive we walk past regularly. Now if only I could figure out a way to get at the honey in that wild hive...it's inside a stone fence support.
  23. Vic303

    SEW Excited!

    Sewing can be fun. I do quilts sometimes. I learned as a kid, but have never done a lot with it, except for quilts. Right now, our church is having a monthly Women's craft night at church. I have managed to attend once, per scheduling conflicts, but it was fun and I got a chance to work on my next quilt project==a T-shirt quilt for DH & I.
  24. The Lord DOES provide to the faithful! Praise God indeed!
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