Well…with adopting all of the new cooking technology that has become hot over the past few years like the instant pot, we sometimes forget the methods that we used to use that worked great and sometimes the old school stuff works as good or  better. As you know, a couple of days ago I made an 8 pound pork shoulder in my instant pot, cooking it for over an hour and a half under full pressure…but, I wasn’t really happy with how it turned out…it was not really the fall off the bone tender that I was expecting and that others had come out before….it didn’t look or feel tender or done even with adding an extra half hour to the recommended cooking time…now, I could have put it back in the pot for another hour but I was done with cooking and didn’t want to put in any more time…but yesterday, I got a brainstorm to take the partially cooked pork and put it in my big slow cooker that I haven’t used since I got the instant pot….so this morning when I got up at 5:39, I took the pork and put it in the slow cooker along with some celery, garlic, and onion along with some veggie broth and let it cook on high until almost noon…and it came out so darn good…tender and tasty and it broke up all of the huge pieces that were left after the instant pot so I now have two big containers of shredded, tender, tasty pork that I can use with the gravy and mashed potatoes I made Thursday and will make much better pork soft tacos than the undercooked stuff did….I just have to remember that the old school stuff still works great for some things…especially if you have the time….

Well…it you’ve been here at all, you have heard my laments about weekends not meaning anything in the long time I was unemployed and now with being retired…and I complained quite a bit that I didn’t care what day it was since they were all the same and there was nothing special about them and no reason to think they were…but, in the time I have been working on this house for hours every day, it has become kind of a job and I am trying to recreate the patterns I lived by my entire life to….and by taking weekends off from that work, I am starting to feel that weekends are special again…after the Saturday bike ride, I am making a conscious effort to limit the amount of work that I do and the guilt that I feel by not working…and the possibility of doing what I want instead of what I have to do is really pretty cool and I am looking forward to the freedom that it gives me…but, it’s more the languid feel that I get from this new attitude that is getting me back to normal a bit….for the first time in forever, I’m not rushing around here being so task oriented that I don’t enjoy life and I am finally just letting the days happen…it’s like I’ve shifted down a gear and I don’t have to be wide open anymore…okay, that’s a car analogy that I use and I hope you understand it since it is a good description of what I feel…I just hope I can sustain it….but I’ll take this small bit of progress if I can’t…

Well…it’s new coffee day! One of those days where I have fresh coffee and it is from a container that I opened yesterday to make the first pot….the bad thing is that this is the best pot of coffee I’ll get from this 32 oz container and it’s downhill for the next 6 weeks until I open the next one….oh, well…I’ll enjoy this one while it lasts…it’s the damn middle of March and it is 16 degrees out here and it snowed last night….where the hell is spring? Okay, that will be my last bitch…for now….I was up and down all night last night starting at 3:02, then 5:09, then 5:39, then I gave up…but I feel okay so who cares? The big pork shoulder I made the other day was not done as well as it needed to be since it was not fall off the bone tender and I probably should have put it back in the instant pot for another hour…but I didn’t…I did come up with an idea that I am doing right now and that is to put the pork into my slow cooker that I haven’t used since I got the instant pot and I am going to run it on high for 6 hours or so to see how that works…and I added some veggie broth to it for liquid to change the taste…do you think I have too much time on my hands? I am in the last two days of my healing week off and my hands are better but still hurt so I guess I’ll just have to deal with it as I get back to work….I am a little excited to get after the bathroom but I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with the built in cabinet that is in there…I really like all the storage but it needs to be stripped or sanded and re-finished with a urethane that will hold up to the humidity in there….and there is not a lot of room to move around in there so I think I’ll take the cabinet apart and do the work downstairs like I did for the kitchen….and I may have to wait to work on it until I can open the window and let the fumes out…I think it will be a stand alone project that will take a week or so since it needs to be re-stained before the finish….not much to do today….it’s kind of nice that I have gotten to the point that my living space is pretty organized so cleaning it doesn’t take a lot of time..and that is what I’m going to do today after the bike ride that starts in 18 minutes….more later…

Well…I don’t know if my son has done anything to my site but it seems to be working better now so I will say thank you…when I fired it up this morning…the start pages looked like text and not html and nothing worked…so I opened a new tab and tried the bookmark I have for adding a new post and, after a long wait, it started to work a little…but it still was taking about a minute or more to go from one page to another and at times it wouldn’t go between them at all…especially when trying to add a new post but it just worked fine for the last one and for this one so I am keeping my fingers crossed that whatever was wrong is fixed. Man, I don’t know what to do when this thing isn’t working…it has been such a major part of my life since 2010 and almost 10K posts that it just doesn’t feel right when I can’t do it first thing in the morning and then whenever I get an idea for one of these…so, it looks like at least a five post day today or even more…haven’t even got to much of the news yet and there has to be another topic that will grab me….more later….

Well…after going without a mask out to the grocery store the past two weeks, it looks like that is over again for the time being…it appears that there is a new Omicron variant that is spreading fast across the world and I am going to go back to taking the precautions that have worked for the past two years no matter the dirty looks I get from the right wing assholes who think they get to make health decisions for me. We have set up this country for another surge by ending all of the mask mandates and any other mitigation efforts that have been working for the past two years but I am still going to protect myself since they have discovered brain damage in some people who just had mild cases of the disease and I really don’t have a lot of brain left to give at my age….I did read an interesting article about the pandemic fatigue that happened with the 1920 Spanish flu epidemic where they just got tired of doing anything about it after two years and gave up and did nothing to stop it’s spread….just like today, people are tired of the pandemic and just want it to be over and are going to act like it is over no matter how many people are still getting sick and dying….but not me…back to the masking….

Well…it looks like I will be having problems with the site today and may not be back to add much today if this keeps up….will be back later to give it another try after I get on the bike….more later…I hope…still no progress…I can make it work if I want to wait for it to respond so I guess I can live with that for a while…darn…

Well…having some problems with my website this morning and I’m not sure what is going on….the original tab I had open just sat there and did nothing as I tried to get to adding a new post…I opened a new tab and it appears to be working but we’ll see…got up before 6 again today and I kind of like having the extra time before I get on the bike in the morning so I don’t feel rushed…but screwing around with the site this morning is putting me back to being a little late today…I did get the huge pork shoulder cooked yesterday and it came out pretty good and I did get to making a soft taco later in the day and that was yummy….and I now have leftovers that will last until next week and won’t have to cook at all….I did try some beef broth to cook the pork in and I’m not sure it’s a favorite…like veggie broth better and will probably use that next time….damn, still having problems with my site and I’m not sure what is going on….think I’m going to have to talk to my son who is not talking to me to see if he can figure out the problems….didn’t get anything done yesterday but cook and today looks like another easy one unless I decide to start stripping the hinges for the bathroom door with the new strip to see how it is going to work…it should work better than the 40 year old stuff I have been using….not much to do today…just the bike ride and then laundry after I’m done and then trying to figure out what is going on with this site…more later…

Well…who knew that stopping the antihistamines that helped me sleep would allow my allergies to go completely nuts and make me miserable with lots of sneezing and a nasty headache to go with it? But, I think it’s a good thing to know how bad my allergies are and then try to selectively target the symptoms instead of the shotgun effect the overnight medicine had. That doesn’t make me any less miserable, though, and I am dreading when the tree pollen hits…I may have to try some of the stuff I have in the drawer in the bathroom since I can’t get the stuff that works the best…or they won’t let me buy enough of it to be able to even use the dosage that is on the box…and I never understood that…why do they say two tablets is the recommended dosage when, if you follow it, you run out about two weeks before they let you buy more? Oh, well…may have to go back to the generic flonase that I bought on Amazon but that is 25 bucks for 5 bottles of it and I am almost out…and it depresses your immune system and that’s still not a good idea with covid still floating around…oh, well….I guess I’ll just deal with it and keep on sneezing….

Well….okay, the coffee just finished so I have to go get a cup before I get started….that’s better…had an okay night of sleep but was up at 2:44 and then for good at 5:31and I think I can cope with no sleep aids pretty well…I do remember sleep like this and it’s really not too bad…one weird thing is I’m not as cold as I used to be when I’m in bed and I wonder why that would be? I do know that I feel okay with how I’m sleeping now so I’ll take it….I did do another small cleaning project yesterday when I was in the dining room and finally got tired of looking at the dirty ceiling fan with one light burned out so I went to work on that and spent an hour cleaning the globes, taking the fan blades off and washing them, and then washing the motor to get the dust and crud off it…just like everything else in this house, the whole thing was coated in a greasy, dusty dirt that took a lot of scrubbing and soap to get it clean…and the globes looked like they were frosted when they are clear they were so coated and hadn’t been cleaned in years…one side effect of the clean globes is that the three bulb light on the fan now lights the dining room up like the damn sun it’s so bright…I may even have to go down to 60w led bulbs from the 100’s I have in there now….and that would help with getting rid of the cfl’s in the rest of the house that are so weak they barely light anything…I do have to try to balance the blades since the fan swings when it runs and that is a little annoying….but a piece of duct tape on the top should do it when I find the time….not much to do today….it’s going to be a cooking day today with doing the 8 pound pork shoulder in the instant pot this morning and everything that goes with that and the cleanup that comes with it…but I am looking forward to both the lunch of pork and mashed potatoes and gravy and the pork soft tacos for later and I won’t have to cook for 4 or 5 days after today…not sure what small project I’ll do today but I know it will be something…probably laundry and cleaning to finish out my week off….more later….