Tuesday, July 03, 2007

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 tel
evision 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.

10 comments:

Fiery said...

My mate is totally into gadgets and infomercials too. Thank god we no longer have tv reception.

It's a running joke everytime we get to Wallyworld that he isn't allowed down the toaster aisle. He likes looking at toasters and is in heaven if our toaster gives out and he has to buy a new one.

Toasters!!!! ??????????
lol

Men...gotta love 'em!

Fiery said...

We were at Wallyworld yesterday and he started joking about heading down the toaster aisle. My son caught his arm and drug him back to safety.

TOASTERS?????

Stardust said...

toasters....LOL. That is unusual to have a toaster obsession. LOL

With my hubby, it's new-fangled kitchen appliances and cookers. Well those things and toasters are related to food, and so it's not too surprising. LOL!

uma said...

That coffee sounds great. I feel sorry for myself that we dont get all those varieties out here in India.

Fiery said...

Kitchen appliances. *groan* I actually have an entire closet that I call the Appliance Cupboard because I can't even store it all in the kitchen. We have a meat slicer (big enough for picnic hams), a juicer, the Rotato (as seen on tv) a spare mixer, a blender, a slow cooker, and that's just off the top of my head without looking.

I guess there is worse things that he could be buying. *rolls eyes*

Stardust said...

uma, and we Americans get "bored" with available flavors and want new and different kinds. The various kinds of coffee creams fill two cases in the dairy section now. There is a whole aisle for coffees, teas and flavored coffee creamers.

Stardust said...

fiery ewok, we have the Oster Kitchen center that I never use. It has a meat grinder/slicer, ice cream maker, food processer, food chopper, blender, mixer with bowls. We have a crock pot, a coffee maker, bread maker, George Foreman grill, juicer.

Fiery said...

lol Do you know why I forgot to mention the george foreman grill? Because it lives on the counter near the sink! :-D

Stardust said...

fiery ewok,
We use the George Foreman grill all the time. Chicken breasts, fish and hamburgers turn out really good on it, and also steaks. Since I've been on this diet, it's a good way to cook without using oil or butter.

I haven't used the meat grinder in 25 years, though. He went through a fad of buying round steak and blade roasts and grinding his own hamburger, but that didn't last long. The ice cream maker was used once. I did use the blender part of the Oster kitchen center once in awhile, then when our middle son still lived at home, he for some reason stuck a knife in there while he was whipping up a smoothie and shattered the glass. A replacement costs almost as much as an entire new blender.

I think he really would love one of those double rotisseries that cooks two whole chickens at the same time. He can watch that whole entire infomercial dreaming of all the things he could cook in it. Personally, I think he just wants the food. Since I have been on this diet (since Feb 5th) I have made him eat and I know he is craving a big hunk of BBQ or something.

Fiery said...

I love our George Foreman, it is a pretty great grill, although it is showing some signs of wearing away of the teflon portion. *sigh* But- how excited will my mate be if he gets to pick out a new one?

:-D

I knew I was forgetting an appliacne too, we have an ice cream maker. It's not one of those that uses salt, you pre-freeze the container and chill the milk, etc... in that.