Last Night's Storm

  Today I'm feeling very blessed. First, I'm very thankful I didn't know how bad the storm was as it was happening last night. We knew we might have severe storms, including a chance of a tornado. We began watching Ryan Hall early in the evening and it seemed the worst of the weather was going to stay south of us in the area around and west of Bentonville, AR and north of us west and into Kansas City. We pretty much let our guard down. Ryan Hall was still on and about 11:00 p.m., he started mentioning Joplin. My phone started going off with alerts from the local weatherman - get to your safe room! The weather radio was going off. Then Vince said "I hear the tornado sirens!" I can't hear them at all from inside the house but Vince can. I know - they're not meant to be heard inside the house. Funny because Vince never hears me when I ask him to do things but he can hear the sirens and I can't!   <G>

I was saying we should go into the safe room, then the electricity went off. Vince said he was NOT going to the safe room. We were already in the basement. I took a battery operated lantern and went and took a shower. I figured I'd just go to bed but by the time I got out of the shower, our power was back on but it was on and off - on just long enough for the internet to reconnect, get the TV on . . then electricity was off again. That happened probably 8 times over the next hour so we went to bed. The storm appeared to be over by then and we did hear that tornado sirens are activated when winds are more than 80 (or was it 85?) mph so it wasn't a tornado in the area that caused them to go off. Now we know we can have sirens without an actual tornado but if winds are 80 or 85 mph, it's probably a good idea to get in the safe room anyway.

This morning I went out expecting to see fence panels missing, trees down, but nothing! I figured the storms weren't that bad and then I looked at Facebook and the news. Oh, my . . I think for half of Joplin, Carthage and the surrounding area - so many are without power and will be for days. Crews have come in from other places to help but lots of power poles have to be replaced; lots of trees on lines and lots of downed lines.

There are so many people in our area with electricity right now. When I walk outside, I hear quite a few generators running. 

We don't have any trees down. We don't have any huge limbs down. One neighbor has quite a few big limbs down and one landed on their fence.  One friend down the road lost four big trees.

The church near us didn't have services this morning because they had flooding; I heard some of the stores in the mall have water in them.

A tornado would have been worse but this was quite a storm and I'm so thankful we didn't have damages.

Stitching, Gardening, Finger Update

Not much around here is newsworthy these days but I wanted to check in.

We'll start with the finger. I am still not 100% convinced that it's gout but I guess time will tell. There is much less pain but there is still pain and swelling and still very sore. We're into the 4th week so I'm sure I don't have to tell you how ready I am for this finger to get back to a point where I can write, type, stitch, and lots of other things without pain. My biggest complaint is that I have lost so much strength in my right hand mainly because I can't grip anything. There are lots worse problems that I could have and I remind myself of that a million times a day so I am not complaining (or I'm trying not to complain) but . . I just want it to go away!

On the garden front . . this evening (Wednesday) after I got home from a day of stitching with Debbie, I pulled out the garlic. I think there's upwards of 150 bulbs of garlic. I would like to have left it in the ground another week or so. It's been weird. The top was dying and the bottom leaves were not dying. I've always pulled it when the bottom third or so leaves were brown but that wasn't happening this year. I think I'm going to find that it would have benefited from another week or so in the ground but if I don't get my okra planted, it's going to be too late to get as much okra as we need for the year. If I had to choose between better garlic or more okra, I vote for more okra so the garlic is out. The okra seeds are soaking and I will plant them tomorrow. 

This evening I dug a few potatoes for tomorrow's dinner, picked four tomatoes and several yellow zucchini. I'm getting lots of peppers. My favorite peppers will probably always be the Giant Marconi but I'm loving snacking on the Bishop's Crown peppers when I'm out working in the garden.

I think I'm supposed to let them get red and they may be much hotter then but Vince and I have both been eating them while outside working.

I don't think it's going to be a good year for the tomatoes. It was so late when I was able to plant them and we're already having temps in the upper 90's and lows in the mid-70's. We are still having a fair amount of rain but I think those temps are not working in my favor with the tomatoes.

The best garden news is that we seem to have control of the squash bugs. I planted lots of mint and basil and fennel and dill - every strong smelling thing I could plant . . and wedged a squash or two in the middle of it all so almost every bed, tub and bucket had at least one squash plant in it. I also have marigolds and other plants that were said to deter insects. So far, I've found squash bug eggs on three leaves and killed two bugs. That's kind of a miracle but . . there's still a long way to go with the squash bug season. I've also been using lots of food grade D.E. out there and Vince came up with a possible solution which I'll talk about more once I know for sure how well it works.

On the stitching news, I am not getting much done. Out of the last 7 days, I've had two stitching days with Debbie and those are the only days I've stitched. Mostly it's because of the finger so I'm hoping very soon I can get back to stitching and have something to share.

Poor Man's Crockpot Beef Ragu

 Chad made this Poor Man's Crockpot Beef Ragu last week and he was telling me how good it was. I made it yesterday for today and it really is good.

The best part: Ever since I met Vince, over 30 year ago, he's told me that every Sunday they ate meatballs and sauce. Apparently they saved the leftover meat during the week - roast beef, steak, pork - whatever, and that went into the sauce. I've tried all kinds of recipes and nothing was ever close to what his dad made. It's kinda hard when I never even tasted it and Vince isn't 100% sure if he even remembers it after all these years.

So . . I made this recipe.

Chad was cooking his in the Instant Pot so he made a few changes.

I made a few changes even though I cooked mine in the crockpot.

1. I had pork . . I call it backbone but I think everyone else calls it some kind of boneless ribs. I cut that into good sized chunks, seasoned it and browned it in beef tallow on the stove. I used this because it was in my fridge and needed to be cooked and my chuck roast was on the smaller side.

2. I also cut the chuck roast into chunks, seasoned it and browned it.

3. I had a bit of ground beef left over from yesterday's grilled hamburgers. Our ground meat is in 1-1/2 pound packages so I usually make hamburgers for us and then use the rest for a meatloaf. Because I'll be gone a couple of days next week, I made extra burgers for Vince to have so I probably had about 1/2 pound of ground beef left. I browned it and added it to the crockpot.

4. I didn't have red chili peppers so I chopped a couple of jalapeno peppers and sauteed them along with the celery in onion in the leftover drippings from Browning the meat.

5. Since I was cooking it yesterday for today, I cooked it (crockpot) on high for 6 hours, then let it all cool, put the whole crockpot container in the fridge overnight, then scooped off as much of the hardened fat at the top, put it back on low and cooked it for several more hours so it would be ready for lunch today.

6. This morning I took it out of the fridge, scooped out all the hardened fat, put it back in the crock pot for about 6 more hours on high. I did add a bit of water.

Before it was done, I decided this would be a good day to make egg pasta so I made that.

I ended up with two nests on two trays for the freezer, and plenty of pasta for us for our meal.

The first bite Vince took, he said "This is as close as any sauce has come to tasting like I remember my dad's sauce tasting!" I was so happy to hear that. I had not been trying to make his dad's sauce and accidentally did it.

Hopefully I can repeat this . . just maybe not every Sunday!

A Little Italian Cream Cake

 Making bread is fun for me. I don't mind making pies but I love eating pies so I gladly make those. I will occasionally make cookies but cakes . . I do not like making cakes. I don't like making icing and I don't like putting it on the cake. So, I rarely make cakes.

There's a lady in a neighboring town and I've seen her cakes on Facebook. She has one that 5 or 6" round and I ordered one - an Italian Cream Cake.

Vince was a little frustrated with me. They are not cheap but neither are the ingredients to make a cake like that and I'm not going to make it and I wanted it so . . what's a girl to do? Vince is perfectly happy with the marked down, past the best buy date cakes from Walmart.

He ended up saying it was probably the best cake he's ever had. We each had one small slice. I saved two slices for tomorrow, sliced the rest and wrapped it - two slices per package wrapped in plastic wrap and then all stuck in a ziplock bag and put it into the freezer. Counting what we had today, what we'll have tomorrow and enough for us each to have a slice three more times, that's 10 servings of cake. 

I think even Vince will agree that it wasn't a bad deal. I may order one for Thanksgiving - a carrot cake! We won't get them often - neither of us needs that much cake but that Italian Cream Cake was so delicious!

Finger Update

I'm hoping this is the end of the finger story.  At this point in my life, I think what scares me the most about aging is the medical care. I am 100% sure there are places where medical care is good. Vince uses doctors in Kansas City, all of whom are associated with KU and the care/service he gets there is amazing.

It took visits to four different doctors in 2-1/2 weeks before I got a diagnosis that I feel is correct and got meds that have helped. The diagnosis is gout! It's certainly painful -- pretty sure some of you have experienced it but I feel like it's better than having rheumatoid arthritis. There are supplements that purport to reduce uric acid levels. I will not start taking those until after I'm done with the Rx med I'm taking to stop the current gout flare. 

There are way worse things that can happen but for a few days, I was pretty sad thinking if this was rheumatoid arthritis, my cross stitching days may be over. I'm a bit more optimistic with the gout diagnosis - not happy about it but, again . . it could be way worse.

Today I'm able to type gently using the bad finger. I was able to use a fork/spoon/knife the way I usually do without the index finger poking out hoping not to be touched.

The good news is that this was painful enough for me to commit to reducing sugar/high fructose corn syrup intake and that means goodbye to my beloved Dr. Peppers. Stopping drinking those is something I've known I've needed to do but hoping to not repeat this painful experience again any time soon, the Dr. Peppers will sit and mock me but I will not give in!  :)

Week 23, 2026 Project - G. Leger by Reflets de Soie

 The project for this week is G. Leger by Reflets de Soie. For the start this week, there are 2,265 stitches made and that's 5.52% completed.

I'm going to change things up a bit this week. My goal for each day (except the day I'm with Debbie) is to stitch 300 stitches on G. Leger. After I've stitched 300 stitches, I will switch to the Cross Stitch Camp project. I'm going to do a separate post about the camp project.

Week 22, 2026 Stitching Report - Autumn Moon

 This is likely the least stitches I've made in a week in a long time. I'm blaming it on my finger! Tomorrow I see yet another doctor for that uncooperative finger! Let's hope there's good news and new meds that do the trick.

I made a total of 1,081 stitches in six days! My goal for every day is 400 stitches. I will still get a few stitches made tonight but not enough to make much of a difference in the numbers.

I thought I would completely fill in the moon. Nope - didn't get half of those done.

I did get a few bricks and a couple of leaves to the left of the roof done.

This one will come up again the first week in August. I don't see it getting finished this year!