Morning coffee & stuff

Every morning I get up out of bed, take a quick shower, get dressed, and go make a cup of coffee with some kind of flavored creamer in it. There are so many varieties available now. My favorites are Blueberry Cobbler, Cinnamon Vanilla, Vanilla Hazelnut, Pralines & Cream, Creme Brulee`, and just plain French vanilla. I then take my coffee to my computer and check my emails, and then look to see what my blogs are doing. Usually, not much going on in the early hours. I then check the news pages, funnies on Yahoo, along with Odd News. Same routine every day, unless there is someplace I have to be, or if we are on vacation.

Hot tub is still not done. He is still waiting for our middle son and his friend to come over and help him lift it onto its side, once again. They were supposed to come by yesterday but my son had to work later than expected and then had to meet up with friends to see the new Transformer movie so the hot tub has to wait. Hubby hates to wait. He hates for me to demand something be done NOW, but when he wants something done, he can be quite impatient. He says last night that he can do it himself. LOLOLOLOLOLOL............. that is ridiculous. The thing is nearly a thousand pounds. If I didn't prevent it, he would definitely try it. Then when he injures himself doing such stupid things, he says he doesn't complain about any injuries he might acquire, but he groans, moans and sighs so loudly that everyone around him feels sorry for him even though he did do a stupid and preventable thing.

So, he goes on vacation as of tomorrow, and he will be home for a whole week. While on one hand it is very nice to have him around, and nice that he can have time away from that insane job of his and the frustration of all that, it will also be a week where I have to listen to television nearly non-stop except when he finally decides to go to bed. He will turn on the television even when nothing is on. He was watching a commercial the other day for some garden gizmo. I know he thought it looked cool. I could tell by the way he was interested. This man has an attraction to gizmos of all sorts.














A couple of decades ago he bought the Bucket Cooker.
It's still out in the garage somewhere. This is literally a metal bucket with holes in the bottom for ventilation. You wrinkle up sheets of newspaper and set it on fire, and then put whatever you want to cook in the metal grate thing that sits on the top. To turn the food you are cooking, you have to be quick. If you are cooking hamburger patties, for instance, if you turn it too slow, the patties slip out from between the grates and fall on the ground or into your flaming newspapers. The burning ink gives the food a weird taste, too. We used the bucket cooker a few times, and then it was resigned to the garage and holds some miscellaneous junk.

By far, the worst gimmick he has fallen for is the "power painter." That thing takes more work to set up, and clean up than just doing it the old-fashioned way of paint pan and manual roller and brushes. You still have to tape everything you don't want paint to get on, and you still need brushes to get into corners and along edges. The power painter needs constant attention, and it sputters and clogs up off and on throughout the whole painting process. Clean-up is not easy. You have to have a large container of clean water, and you have to have someplace to pump the paint and water into as you are cleaning it. One time when still a young teenager, my husband asked one of our sons to clean the power painter for him. He did it in the driveway, and white paint was EVERYWHERE...down the driveway, all over the garage floor, all over his shoes which then was tracked up the front steps. Haven't used that damn thing since. If it was up to me, the thing would be in the garbage dump right now. But it is sitting there, for someday when hubby is feeling especially masochistic.

He is fascinated by stuff sold on infomercials. Like the fruit dryer/jerky maker. Make your own beef jerky! yeck..pftt...yuck. Or the rotisserie that cooks whole carcasses of meat at one time. For years, he has dreamed of owning one of those huge turkey vat-like fryers that uses a couple gallons of peanut oil to fry a whole frozen turkey in about 45 minutes. Then there is that thing that "cooks pasta in minutes" that is simply a plastic Tupperware-like container that you put your pasta in with boiling water, seal the lid and let set for several minutes and wow...just like it took the same amount of time to cook in a pan of boiling water! I keep saying, no...no...no. If I didn't, our house would be full of gizmos and odd contraptions.

Ok, enough picking on him again. I think he is just intrigued by things that are different from the norm. He gets bored with reliable and ordinary.

Off to make myself another cup of coffee, and then try to think of something constructive or productive to do today.