These are words that bring a chill to my husband because they usually mean I want to change something and if there's one thing Pisces does not like it's change.
This time, though, it's something entirely different. I've been thinking about how people have expectations of how others should behave when it's really nothing to do with them. And what set this off you might ask? Well one of the Australia wide Lotto games reached a jackpot this week of $110,000,000 which is a heck of a lot by any standard. Now I'm not a regular player - I probably take out a twelve game randomly generated entry six or seven times a year. I never expect to win anything - which is just as well because I've only won a few dollars ever - but because the profit from Lotto in this state goes to charity I don't feel I'm wasting my money either.
But this very big jackpot set off those who seem to begrudge anyone who had the good fortune to win the whole lot their luck. (No one person did by the way. It ended up being shared out among a number of folk who all had the winning numbers). There were letters to the editor in the newspaper saying so much money was too much for any one person because other big winners have made bad investments or wasted it. Part of this was no doubt because a big winner a while ago made a bad decision in handing over his winnings to someone who purported to be a financial adviser but wasn't and he lost the lot. This is now before the courts because there was obviously misleading behaviour and if he's lucky he may get some of it back. Does that mean he shouldn't have been given the money in the first place? Should it have been divided among a number of people - and if it was would that be any guarantee that they wouldn't all be defrauded?
Why shouldn't any big winner be allowed to do whatever they like with their winnings? After all what one person considers waste another might consider well spent. If someone has a big win and decides to have a year long party and ends up broke at the end surely that's their choice. Equally if they do nothing except put it in the bank, or play the stock market and lose everything it's their decision. It might not be wise in my view - I'd probably try to secure myself and my family's future and give what was left to charity - but it would be their choice and unless they were incapable of managing their financial affairs for some reason I can see no reason why it shouldn't be left to them to do what they want. One thing is sure - I would not judge them whatever choice they made. Who's to say that they might not benefit from the whole experience even if it didn't leave them secure for the rest of their lives and if they ended back where they started financially well, why is that necessarily a bad thing?
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Tuesday, July 09, 2019
Been Cooking Up a Storm
It's a pity I'm not one of those who take photos of everything I make or this whole post would be photos.
The question probably is why do I suddenly have an urge to cook. It's not as if I don't usually make our meals from scratch - with my dietary problems that's a given - but I had accumulated a pile of different veggies when the surgeon finally allowed me to go out and do some work in the garden. As a result I had the last harvest of the eggplant and capsicums sitting in the fridge and I knew they wouldn't keep much longer. Added to that were a couple of nice parsnips I bought last time I was at the shops and some bags of onions I'd asked Pisces to get me a fortnight ago intending to cook them up but hadn't gotten around to it. (In something quite unconnected this reminded me of one of the birthday presents Pisces got many moons ago. He's pretty good at procrastination so a friend gave him A Round To It which was a nicely finished wooden plaque lettered in gold with - you've guessed it - 'A round to it'. It disappeared quite quickly so I suspect he didn't appreciate the joke as much as I did).
All of these goodies were going to go to waste if I didn't act soon so the cooking flurry began and we now have:
Slow cooked onions - they were sliced and then went into the well greased slow cooker with a slosh of olive oil and a couple of dabs of butter where they cooked away for 6-8 hours. I packaged what we didn't eat immediately into serving size amounts and popped them in the freezer to make a useful starter for all sorts of goodies. One of my current favourites is cheese and onion toasted sandwiches.
Baba ganoush - I roasted the eggplant until very soft with a bulb of garlic wrapped in cooking parchment alongside it, scooped out the flesh of both and mashed it with Moroccan style spices and lemon juice. I made some pita crisps (sprinkled with Moroccan spices) to go with it and both are seriously good.
Pear and parsnip soup - simple but very tasty. I just chop up the parsnips and microwave them in vegetable stock until tender, add a can of pears, drained, and it's back into the microwave until all are piping hot then blend the lot with a hand held blender. Top with some finely chopped parsley. Yum. (You can do the same using canned apple instead of pears - also yum).
Chickpea and pumpkin vegetable stew - this has a Middle Eastern twist, too, with added chopped dried apricots. Yesterday we had it with fresh pita bread and a dollop of Greek yoghurt. This time I'm planning on fruity couscous - a handful each of toasted pine nuts and currants soaked boiling water for a few minutes added to the cooked couscous.
Does this all sound good? It is.
The question probably is why do I suddenly have an urge to cook. It's not as if I don't usually make our meals from scratch - with my dietary problems that's a given - but I had accumulated a pile of different veggies when the surgeon finally allowed me to go out and do some work in the garden. As a result I had the last harvest of the eggplant and capsicums sitting in the fridge and I knew they wouldn't keep much longer. Added to that were a couple of nice parsnips I bought last time I was at the shops and some bags of onions I'd asked Pisces to get me a fortnight ago intending to cook them up but hadn't gotten around to it. (In something quite unconnected this reminded me of one of the birthday presents Pisces got many moons ago. He's pretty good at procrastination so a friend gave him A Round To It which was a nicely finished wooden plaque lettered in gold with - you've guessed it - 'A round to it'. It disappeared quite quickly so I suspect he didn't appreciate the joke as much as I did).
All of these goodies were going to go to waste if I didn't act soon so the cooking flurry began and we now have:
Slow cooked onions - they were sliced and then went into the well greased slow cooker with a slosh of olive oil and a couple of dabs of butter where they cooked away for 6-8 hours. I packaged what we didn't eat immediately into serving size amounts and popped them in the freezer to make a useful starter for all sorts of goodies. One of my current favourites is cheese and onion toasted sandwiches.
Baba ganoush - I roasted the eggplant until very soft with a bulb of garlic wrapped in cooking parchment alongside it, scooped out the flesh of both and mashed it with Moroccan style spices and lemon juice. I made some pita crisps (sprinkled with Moroccan spices) to go with it and both are seriously good.
Pear and parsnip soup - simple but very tasty. I just chop up the parsnips and microwave them in vegetable stock until tender, add a can of pears, drained, and it's back into the microwave until all are piping hot then blend the lot with a hand held blender. Top with some finely chopped parsley. Yum. (You can do the same using canned apple instead of pears - also yum).
Chickpea and pumpkin vegetable stew - this has a Middle Eastern twist, too, with added chopped dried apricots. Yesterday we had it with fresh pita bread and a dollop of Greek yoghurt. This time I'm planning on fruity couscous - a handful each of toasted pine nuts and currants soaked boiling water for a few minutes added to the cooked couscous.
Does this all sound good? It is.
Saturday, July 06, 2019
How I Spent Yesterday
- it wasn't all that interesting, I'm afraid.
I started out with the laundry that had to end up cluttering up the family room on the clothes airer 'cos it kept on raining. I'm not complaining about the rain, of course. Heaven knows we need every single drop of that but it certainly doesn't help with getting the washing dry. It was chilly enough for us to have the heater on for most of the day, something we rarely do, so the washing was dry enough to fold and put away this morning.
Then I decided to do a bit of on-line shopping. Got on amazon.com, found what I liked and they wouldn't let me buy it. There have been some taxation changes here - long overdue and quite reasonable - and Amazon can't or won't work with their third party sellers to incorporate them so you can't buy anything that is not directly from Amazon like say Kindle e-books. Dang.
Okay, I thought, I'll go directly to the manufacturer's website and buy from there. Nah uh, they just flicked me back to amazon.com. This was seriously frustrating. The item I wanted is a gadget for fastening bracelets and necklaces. My arthritis makes this pretty much impossible these days and Pisces makes such a production of it when I ask him to help that honestly it's not worth the hassle to try to wear anything I can't fit over my head. To be fair he does have bigger fingers than most and this makes gripping small jewellery catches difficult. Why do they put such tiny catches on jewellery you and millions of women ask? I'm guessing it's largely to save on costs but the reality is the cost increase would be infinitesimal and it would make life much easier for everyone who wants to wear a piece of jewellery.
Having reached peak levels of frustration I wandered out into the garden between showers - and this was much more satisfactory. The seedings I planted earlier in the week - kale, broccoli, pak choy, bok choy, lettuce, coriander and dill plus some Sweet Alice and kangaroo paws - are all looking great and obviously enjoying the rain. As well the seeds I put in a week or so ago are almost all up so soon there'll be sugar snap peas, snow peas, carrots and beetroot plus more lettuce and pak choy - these will replace those already in the garden as they're harvested. The only ones not yet showing are the red onions and spring onions. I'm particularly pleased the seeds are coming up because most of them were on trays out in the open when the drenching storm we had at the beginning of the week hit and when I finally managed to get out to check on them they'd been standing in pools of water for at least a day. I figured that if the over watering hadn't finished them off the pelting rain would have washed them out of their seedling containers but most - for now at least - seem to be doing well.
Add in a couple of hours of French and German study and a bit of writing where I fixed up some very obvious plot holes - well not so obvious now - and my day was pretty much done with equal parts of frustration and pleasure.
I was tired by then and ended up watching It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World - a very silly but thoroughly entertaining movie. Pisces, who almost never watches a movie, enjoyed it, too.
So that was yesterday. I wonder what today will bring.
I started out with the laundry that had to end up cluttering up the family room on the clothes airer 'cos it kept on raining. I'm not complaining about the rain, of course. Heaven knows we need every single drop of that but it certainly doesn't help with getting the washing dry. It was chilly enough for us to have the heater on for most of the day, something we rarely do, so the washing was dry enough to fold and put away this morning.
Then I decided to do a bit of on-line shopping. Got on amazon.com, found what I liked and they wouldn't let me buy it. There have been some taxation changes here - long overdue and quite reasonable - and Amazon can't or won't work with their third party sellers to incorporate them so you can't buy anything that is not directly from Amazon like say Kindle e-books. Dang.
Okay, I thought, I'll go directly to the manufacturer's website and buy from there. Nah uh, they just flicked me back to amazon.com. This was seriously frustrating. The item I wanted is a gadget for fastening bracelets and necklaces. My arthritis makes this pretty much impossible these days and Pisces makes such a production of it when I ask him to help that honestly it's not worth the hassle to try to wear anything I can't fit over my head. To be fair he does have bigger fingers than most and this makes gripping small jewellery catches difficult. Why do they put such tiny catches on jewellery you and millions of women ask? I'm guessing it's largely to save on costs but the reality is the cost increase would be infinitesimal and it would make life much easier for everyone who wants to wear a piece of jewellery.
Having reached peak levels of frustration I wandered out into the garden between showers - and this was much more satisfactory. The seedings I planted earlier in the week - kale, broccoli, pak choy, bok choy, lettuce, coriander and dill plus some Sweet Alice and kangaroo paws - are all looking great and obviously enjoying the rain. As well the seeds I put in a week or so ago are almost all up so soon there'll be sugar snap peas, snow peas, carrots and beetroot plus more lettuce and pak choy - these will replace those already in the garden as they're harvested. The only ones not yet showing are the red onions and spring onions. I'm particularly pleased the seeds are coming up because most of them were on trays out in the open when the drenching storm we had at the beginning of the week hit and when I finally managed to get out to check on them they'd been standing in pools of water for at least a day. I figured that if the over watering hadn't finished them off the pelting rain would have washed them out of their seedling containers but most - for now at least - seem to be doing well.
Add in a couple of hours of French and German study and a bit of writing where I fixed up some very obvious plot holes - well not so obvious now - and my day was pretty much done with equal parts of frustration and pleasure.
I was tired by then and ended up watching It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World - a very silly but thoroughly entertaining movie. Pisces, who almost never watches a movie, enjoyed it, too.
So that was yesterday. I wonder what today will bring.
Tuesday, July 02, 2019
Updating
As I sent off yet another message yesterday apologising because I couldn't attend a social event due to health problems I thought I should fill you in on my life for the past eight months - and it hasn't been a bowl of cherries. I've posted about some of this before but in case you haven't seen much of me - my husband said the other day that the number of social events I've left the house to go to in that time wouldn't even fill up a count on one hand and he's right - here's a brief run down.
I've had three separate surgeries and one of these left me with severely compromised vision for close to five months. That has now resolved but was very scary. My vision is still deteriorating but with the help of a wonderful optometrist I can now see well enough to read and watch television and with luck this will stay at a level where I can function fairly independently for quite a while.
Then there was some major surgery from which I'm still recovering slowly. My surgeon has had me on very restricted activity for the past two and a half months and since I don't want to have to go through this again I'm being a very compliant patient.
Added to all this I've had a major flare up of an auto-immune disease I've had most of my life which has made physically doing even simple things very difficult. Walking any distance has been impossible and I've struggled to do something as simple as hold a sewing needle - my husband bought some new work pants three weeks ago and yesterday was the first time I could cope with pinning and sewing up the hems.
So, if anyone has been wondering where I've been and why I keep having to pull out of social activities now you know. With luck things will continue to improve. I certainly hope so because I'm more than a little fed up.
I've had three separate surgeries and one of these left me with severely compromised vision for close to five months. That has now resolved but was very scary. My vision is still deteriorating but with the help of a wonderful optometrist I can now see well enough to read and watch television and with luck this will stay at a level where I can function fairly independently for quite a while.
Then there was some major surgery from which I'm still recovering slowly. My surgeon has had me on very restricted activity for the past two and a half months and since I don't want to have to go through this again I'm being a very compliant patient.
Added to all this I've had a major flare up of an auto-immune disease I've had most of my life which has made physically doing even simple things very difficult. Walking any distance has been impossible and I've struggled to do something as simple as hold a sewing needle - my husband bought some new work pants three weeks ago and yesterday was the first time I could cope with pinning and sewing up the hems.
So, if anyone has been wondering where I've been and why I keep having to pull out of social activities now you know. With luck things will continue to improve. I certainly hope so because I'm more than a little fed up.
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