Super-snow and Government Shutdown

Well, we're actually getting some snow.  Not a Northern Utah snow (at least not yet), but it's more than we've ever seen here.  We're at about five inches right now, loving it!  Charlie thinks it's great--he is, in fact, ringing his little "I have to go outside!" bell every five minutes or so.  It was adorable.  Now it's getting to be a little less so.  A little more obnoxious.  Good think I like him, huh?

My poor computer is so bogged down it doesn't like me to watch home-shot videos (it does fine with YouTube stuff), so I haven't had a chance to pre-screen this.  Hope I didn't swear.

Snowing hard enough now it's blowing sideways and sticking to vertical surfaces.  I love that.  They're saying we may get thundersnow.  I love that even more!  Don't love the lights flickering, though.  We're on NOVEC, and we have yet to lose power here.  Hope this isn't a first time.

It's a bad, sad pay period.  Talk about BROKE.  If we pool together the $10.72 in the credit union account, the twenty I keep in my wallet, and the $6.02 in the checking account, we've got . . . not really enough to last nine days.  But it's going to have to, isn't it?  Cross your finger there's no auto-pay disaster out there we've spaced.

Luckily, we are pretty good on food, and we have a half a tank of gas, so we'll make it.  But it's gonna not be fun.

Pasta tonight.  One of my favorite meals.  With the Dreamfield's pasta, I can keep my carbs good and my glucose happy, and by mixing in julienned carrots, I can bulk it up and feel full without going over on servings.  Instead of garlic bread or some other carb-y thing, we have cheese crisps--just parmesan (or parmesan and asiago) grated in the Cuisinart and mixed with Italian herbs, then spooned into a non-stick muffin pan.  This is not the Kraft-type parmesan sprinkle stuff, which has all sorts of emulsifiers that might not do well in a muffin pan.  This is real hard cheese, ground at home.  Super-tasty, not a lot of calories (a little cheese goes a long way).  I'll have a chicken Italian sausage, too.  Plus a salad, and it's a big, happy meal without a big, awful dietary price.

I've lost two more Facebook friends.  Don't know who, I'm sure eventually I'll figure it out.  Makes me sad--I take a lot of trouble to try and split my friends list between "folks who are okay with the political" and "folks who don't want to deal with that."  And I have, so many times, told folks to please let me know if they don't want that, I'll take care of it.  Funny, the same folks who have screamed and ditched me over politics (or my lack of religion) are the ones who have no problem flooding everyone else's walls with their Rush Limbaugh quotes and their Bible stuff.

Typical, I guess.  Freedom's only freedom when it's THEIRS, it seems.

Snow seems to be picking up.  Maybe six inches now.  Loving it.  We'll want to break out the shovel and the ice melt, though.  As soon as it stops, of course.

Hubby's home today--OPM announced that the government offices in DC are shut down for a snow day.  I know that sounds great, but he's still working.  He had an hour-plus teleconference this morning, then another meeting, and now he's doing his usual work up in the office.  No, the Feds didn't provide that office.  They didn't provide that desk, that chair, that computer, that wide-screen monitor, or that internet connection.  No, they don't pay the electric, either.  That's all on us.  Thanks for asking.

Here's a cute picture of Charlie in the snow.  He's almost as cute as a Wombat, and certainly cuter than bad paneling:

Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ

Sad, Crazy SoCal Gunman

Have a friend in Glendora, they're watching this pretty closely.  We were talking about how some are already screaming that this is proof background checks don't work.

That's like saying dying in a car crash is proof seat belts don't work.  Hey, nothing is fool proof.  Nothing.  Doesn't mean doing our best to improve matters isn't worthwhile.

Anyway, guy's been holding onto this grudge for a long time, and, to be honest, I've known more than one cop who seemed to be dancing on that edge.  And this guy's got a more recent Navy stint under his belt, too.  That's a lot of stress and a lot of access to weapons for a guy who feels he was devastatingly wronged by the LAPD.

I hope he doesn't kill anyone else.

So, I was thinking I would post about dinner, since I was talking about it earlier.  With my diabetes, we like to keep the carbs lower (not LOW, I don't play any fad diet game).  So here it is:

2 ounces Dreamfield's Spaghetti (yes, it does make a drastic difference in my blood sugar)
2/3 cup Wegmans Parmesan and Romano Sauce
4 ounces julienned carrots (mixed in--that's what keeps me from heaping on the pasta)
1 Bistro Sensations sausage (low cal, lower fat)
3 homemade parmesan crisps--they're made in a muffin pan with home-ground parmesan and herbs.  Each crisp is 1/3 ounce of cheese.  They're super-tasty, and they keep me from wanting garlic toast.

Dessert, if we have it, will be smoothies--that's light vanilla almond milk, plus frozen blueberries, strawberries, black berries, and raspberries.  Oh, and banana.  Gotta have banana.  It's markedly lower in calories than most store-bought smoothies, and everything is fresh.  After sampling our boy's Dragonfruit the other day, I'm wondering if it might not go nicely in a smoothie, too?

I just reviewed Gold Bond Ultimate body powder over on Epinions.  Was looking over here to see if there's a picture, and instead found an advert for James Bond 007 Signature Gold Eau De Toilette.  Spray, of course.  Dang.  Okay.  Hey, maybe it smells super, duper good, right?  After all, my favorite perfume is called "Unforgivable."  Doesn't get much more stupid than that, fragrance name-wise.

Well, dinner is started, carrots cut, and here comes the hubster.  So here, have some bad paneling!