Brain Drain

Hey, y’all. 🙂

I was kinda having a blah week last week. Didn’t cook or really even eat anything all that interesting. I saw a new Rheumatologist and she was fantastic. I really really like her and am so happy to finally have a good Rheum. The funk was because she said that the Scleroderma stuff is a serious thing that has to be watched closely. I had to have a bunch more tests and x-rays. The lungs and kidneys look good and the next step is to see a GI specialist. She also prescribed Methotrexate injections. 🙁  I didn’t want to start back on the pills because they gave me a horrible ulcer last time. The injections are supposed to help bypass that.

Anyway…I’m better now. 🙂

Before I add some pics…if the pics ever look really tiny on your device…just refresh the page and it should make them regular size.  I have no idea why it’s happening.

Some eats and stuff…

Tried these Dorito-like taco shells.  Y’all know I love me some Doritos but I didn’t really care for these.

McDonalds breakfast at 2 pm.  Big Fan, McD’s. Big fan. 🙂

My favorite new thing.  A home PT / INR monitor.  Thank you, TA. 🙂  This makes testing my blood thinner levels SO much easier.  No more being poked (multiple times) by bad blood draw people.  They’re very expensive but if you’re on a blood thinner and can afford it or your insurance will cover it…I highly recommend this.

Randoms:

  • What a good dad.  Not letting his kid be forced into traditional gender stereotypes.  The junk in the comments is so sad. Presumably grown adults calling a 5 year old a freak, gay, saying they should start his transition shots now. What horrible people. This is a five year old CHILD you’re talking about.

  • Probably the only time you’ll see any pro UT stuff on this blog…but Cocks not Glocks is genius. All the wackadoos with guns on college campuses now…can y’all even imagine the mess we’re gonna be dealing with when they’re in the hands of many emotionally and hormonally quick triggered young adults in relatively confined spaces?

 

  • FYI…obviously I’m a proud card caring liberal but the one and only issue I usually cross party lines on is gun control. Everybody should have the right to protect their homes…to hunt (even though I find hunting repulsive)…or whatever else you think you need a (non- semi automatic) weapon for. I DO NOT however support your right to get into an emotionally charged shootout in say Walmart while I’m trying to pick up some groceries. If anyone I love gets caught in y’all’s crossfire…I hope that gun is worth it ’cause you aren’t gonna have one cent left when I get thru with you in court.

 

  • Are y’all watching Quantico? I wasn’t prepared to like it but they’ve got me hooked. Who do y’all think is the terrorist? Blonde girl with the Arabic phone contact and mysterious calls is too obvious. I’m kinda thinking maybe surfer looking boy. He seems so dumb and self – absorbed most of the time. Like the last person you’d suspect.  I don’t bother learning names on new shows til I make sure the show is gonna stick around.

 

  • Roku watching… Longmire (Netflix).  Used to really like this show. I’ve watched a couple of the new Netflix produced eps now…not enjoying it so far. And if they hook up Vic and Walt I’m gonna lose my ish.
  • I hope they work something out and are able to save this ship. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that Papa B and my Pappy were both Navy guys but I just love old ships.  All the memories and stories they must hold.

 

 

  • Sign says…Man Not Animal. Dump Obama.  About once a month these LaRouche loonies camp out in front of our post office. They usually have their favorite poster with them…a picture of our president with a Hitler mustache. So tacky. So disrespectful. So dumb. Today they had this new one calling him an animal. They were spewing some gibberish about the 25th amendment / the Glass – Steagall Act and taking back the country. The guy seriously said to an elderly lady “Have you heard of Glass Steagall? He…”   No. Just No. You’re not smart. You’re not clever. You’re white, uneducated, childish, ungrateful and disrespectful. You live in a country where you’re allowed the freedom (and clearly the time) to stand on public land and scream your uneducated nonsense but yet you think YOU’RE disadvantaged and need to take ‘your’ country back?   Get real.  And an education.  Oh and hey…Glass and Steagall…were TWO different people.  Both democrats.   Education, dude.  Invest in some.

  😉

Hope y’all are having a good week. See ya soon. 🙂

 

 

Pushed to the Limit

Happy October. 🙂

Y’all know what that means…I can officially buy some Halloween Oreos. 🙂  I know they’ve been out for a while but I refused to buy any til October.  Yes, our scarecrow is wearing an Aggie cap…as should all good scarecrows. 🙂

I’m gonna do the health update at the bottom. 

Let’s start with some eats…

Made a pressure cooker pot of short ribs.  That pressure cooker is worth every cent just for short ribs alone.

Tried out this new potato soup.

It’s Gluten – Free

You just bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Dump in package. Stir. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. That’s it.

It was delish. Those of us who ate it gave it thumbs up.  I had mine with some grated cheddar and a handful of croutons.  I went back to pick up a couple more packages for when the weather cools down and other people must have been thinking the same thing because there were only 2 packages left.  Next time I’m going to add some chopped up chicken and some corn for Chicken Corn Chowder.

Best Casa in Tejas. 🙂

Ok now to the end of my rope…not really but it feels like it.  AKA…the health stuff…

When we last met I was going to see another specialist.  She was great. I really liked her and it turned out her husband is a rheumatologist so she asked if I cared if she consulted with him. She got him on the phone and sent him all the pics of my blood spots / bruises.  He said the spots on my arms looks like vasculitis but the two on my toes (which I thought were the same as the arms) where not and looked like little tiny blood clots in the tiny vessels.  He told her to send me to the hematologist in her building and to also test me for Scleroderma.

Hematologist number two was miles better than the first one.  She agreed that they’re tiny clots but said that I have good blood flow in my feet so it’s just a part of my clotting disorder and that I didn’t need to freak out about it unless another one pops up.  Then I’d have to have a scan and possibly start heparin shots (a different blood thinner).

Both of these doctors were so much better than most of the doctors I’d seen before them.  They were located in Tomball…so a pretty good ways from me…but it was worth the drive.

Now the blood results are in and…wait for it…of course I tested positive for the Scleroderma antibodies.  As if I don’t have enough to deal with.

Oh and I forgot…the night before I went to see them I fell so the first doctor wanted to do an x-ray.  Yep you guessed it.  Small fracture on my tailbone.  Nothing to do about it.  Just manage the pain and let it heal.

I’m starting to wonder if this will ever end. 

So now I don’t get to just forget about all of this for a while and stop the doctor trips as planned.  I have to find a rheumatologist to sort thru the Scleroderma stuff because it can be serious.  The reason I can’t see the husband of doctor number one is because he’s currently waiting out a non-compete and won’t be working until January.  He’s going to be working in his wife’s building and I was planning on waiting til then and seeing him but when she called to tell me the results she said I needed to be seen by a rheum much sooner.

So that’s where things stand with the health stuff.  Still no definitive answers and couple new things added to the pile.  Oh well…

It’s October.  Birthday month.  I think I need to celebrate everyday in case it’s the last one. 😉  And by celebrate I mean…ya know Mexican and cake every day.  😉

Have a good weekend. 🙂

 

 

Crockpot Migas + Hodgepodge Brain Dump

Hey, y’all. 🙂

Here in the texas girl household we’ve all got what the Dr called ‘that crud that’s going around’.  Earache, cough, sore throat, congestion, body aches.  It’s like something between a fall cold and the flu. I caught mine early and started meds so hopefully it won’t be too bad.

Made some crock pot migas for Sunday.

8 eggs

Sausage crumbles

Cheese

Tortilla chips

You add whatever ingredients and as much of them as you like.

The eggs look gross next to that red of the crockpot but that’s…

8 eggs beaten with 1 cup of water

You use 1/4 cup of water per 2 eggs.

Add the rest of your ingredients and stir.

Cook on low for about 2 hours.  Longer depending on what you add to it.  Stir it around a couple times during cooking.

Sorry about the pic.  The familia got to the finished pot before I could get pics.

Serve it with tortillas, salsa, sour cream, more cheese, etc.  Some of my fam eat it with syrup. Yuck.

Took the whole fam to the doctor…it’s seriously starting to feel like I’m spending my life in a medical facility…afterwards we ate at this little small town restaurant…

They have a chicken buffet.  I was the only one in the group who hadn’t been there before and Papa B raves about this place all the time. It was actually really good. That’s fried chicken, smashed potatoes, corn, green beans and seafood etouffee. The etouffee was so completely out of place with all the other ‘country’ type foods but it was so good we got some to bring home.

Some kinda red velvet cake.  As good as the main meal was this was equally awful.

So the overall meal was really good but then something happened that I haven’t seen happen in ages…another diner lit a cigarette.  Can you believe that?  In the year 2015 someone actually lit a cig in a public…non-bar type place?  I’m pretty much a live and let live kinda girl…I mean I don’t hold back my opinions on stuff at all…but as long as you’re not hurting anyone else I pretty much think you should just ignore everybody else and do you.  EXCEPT when it comes to smokers.  The fact that I’m full on asthma attack / highly allergic to smoke aside…in general I think smokers are disgusting and openly judge them.  Even more so if they’re smoking around a child.  Don’t know if I’ll ever go back to this place.

Randoms

  • I really don’t enjoy what The View has become…and one of my best friends and favorite people in the world is a nurse so before I say anything else let me say that I totally respect the good ones. I’ll save my uproar for the ones who are starting their 10th night shift in as many days though over the one who is using the job to pander for votes… or whatever it is they whore themselves off for in those ‘contests’.
  • And really Johnson and Johnson / advertisers, you pulled your ads from The View over this? Where were you in December when Whoopie was telling RAPE victims to shut up and calling them liars for DAYS?  THIS moves you to action more than verbally attacking a RAPE victim?
  • Normally if I see a car with a political sticker on it I silently make fun of the driver but those of you supporting Donald Trump …I’m gonna need y’all to identifiy yourselves. Need to know the exact level cray I’m dealing with on this one.
  • On the plus side…if by some miracle he does win the nomination it will be absolutely hillarious to watch the ‘base’…all the hypocritical Sunday morning ‘Christians’…having to throw their support behind that particular piece of human garbage.

  😉

Let’s see…I probably won’t do much cooking the next few days til the germs leave the body / house.  I’m seeing my last specialist on Thursday.  I say last because I’m done after this. I’ll either get better or I won’t but I’m tired of doctors for a while.  This one specializes is coagulation issues so I’m gonna be hopeful that she’ll have some answers or at least will be able to help me get the yo-yoing PT INR (blood thinner measure) under control.

Hope y’all are well and that the germs are staying clear of your homes.  🙂

 

 

 

Another Keeper

Yesterday would have been my Meme’s 96th birthday.  I’ve written about her here and here.  As a way of keeping their memories alive I always make certain foods on my loved ones birthdays / aniversaries / etc.  Normally I’d do some chicken fried steak in her honor but I just don’t have the energy for that right now so I stuck with chocolate chip cookies.  And let me tell y’all…they were fabulous.  🙂

These weren’t just any old cookies.  They were malted milk chocolate chip cookies. Recipe at the end of post.

The tan-ish color stuff is the malted milk powder.  I’d never used it before.

Forget what I said on Monday about making the apple dumplings right away.  Make THESE right now. They were so delicious.  And I think made a perfect tribute to my Meme.  🙂

Along with my love of cookies, chicken fried and cooking in general she was also 100% responsible for my love of Elvis.   Happy Birthday, Meme.  You were the very best. 🙂

Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies 

1 cup (2 Sticks) softened Butter

3/4 cups Brown Sugar

3/4 cups Sugar

2 Eggs

2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

2 cups All-purpose Flour

1 1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda

1 1/4 teaspoon Salt

1/2 cup (scooped…don’t level off) Malted Milk Powder

1 bag Milk Chocolate Chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 325*.

Cream butter.

Add sugars and mix til fluffy.

Add eggs and vanilla and beat until combined.

Sift together flour, malted milk powder, baking soda, and salt.

Add to butter mixture til combined.

Add chocolate chips.

Bake for 8 to 12 minutes.  I used the convection oven and it barely took these 8 minutes so keep an eye on your first pan to gauge time.

 

 

Make this Now + Arm Update

Hey, y’all.  Happy Monday.  🙂

So I did it.  I got in the kitchen this weekend and made a couple things.

I think y’all know me well enough by now to know that we’ll just go ahead and start with dessert first. 😉

This was really good and so easy to make.  Perfect for fall apple / cinnamon time.

Apple Dumplings

I was pretty much done with the recipe by the time I realized the camera lens has a smudge of something on it.  Sorry for the haze on some of these.

1/2 cup White Sugar 

1/4 cup Brown Sugar

Couple dashes of Cinnamon Spice

1 can Crescent Rolls

Apple Pie Filling.  You can use real apples but I wasn’t in the mood to mess with peeling and coring.

Rolled up.

1 stick melted Butter  and a splash of Vanilla added to the cinnamon / sugar mixture.

Mixed well.

Pour over dumplings.

6 oz of Mountain Dew poured around and over dumplings.

Baked for 25 minutes at 350*.  I used my convection oven which cooks a little faster.  Regular oven will probably be closer to 30 – 35 minutes.

Blue Bell.  All the Blue Bell.  😉    If you know me in real life you know that I only tolerate 2 kinds of ice cream…homemade and Blue Bell.  Blue Bell you were gone way too long.  🙂

Not that I wouldn’t eat 3 big scoops…but those are little scoops of ice cream.

This got thumbs up all around in the texas girl household.  So simple and definitely a keeper.  🙂

I’ll have the main dish up later in the week.

I have more doctor stuff tomorrow but not sure what else the week has in store.

****Gross Pic Warning****

So this was how my left arm looked a couple weeks ago when I first shared pics here…

…and this is how it looks today…

A lot better.  But…

…this is how the right arm looks today…

…worse than it’s ever looked.  🙁

This is just so frustrating.  Oh well…maybe I’ll get some for sure answers someday soon.

In the meantime…

See y’all soon.  🙂