Fake casserole and sin stocks

Hayley called me at work today and asked me to come home and make her a casserole. Well, many of you know that I love to cook, but guess what? I wasn't in the cooking mode. It is 75 degrees and lovely outside. I was in the 'sit on the front porch, drink wine, and watch traffic go by' mode. Then, I found out she unexpectedly had to go to work which means she wouldn't be around to watch me 'cook'.

So I go to Kroger's to look at prepackaged meals in the deli area. Seriously, a small piece of lasagna is $5.20. It's not even enough food to fill up my daughter.

So I go to frozen foods. I buy two TV dinners (baked ziti) for $4 total. Now, Hayley likes home-cooked food. So I put these in my baking pan, added more mozzarella, added shredded cheddar cheese on top, and breadcrumbs. For good measure, I made sure to leave cheddar cheese on the stove so she'd think I cooked from scratch. Just kidding, that was not intentional. That was me making a big mess while shredding the cheese. Oh, and let me tell you, this fake home-made casserole is really good.

I'm feeling very clever. I put the TV dinner boxes in the trash, so I know that she'll never run across those. Every week we have a contest to see how much trash can fit into a bag....'cause neither of us are taking it out until I do it on trash day. The joys of living with only females in the house...Sigh.

So speaking of NOT winning the lottery lately...Today, my sin stocks came through for me even thought the market was down. I don't intentionally hold sin stocks, but they just seem like a good way to make money. My sin stocks include liquor, ammo, and ecigarette stocks. I own other things too, but the sin stocks seem to do best in most instances. I bought a couple of REITS for old people stuff like hospitals and medical centers. One is doing well, and I have one that turned out to be not-so-good lately and I'm not sure why. Anyway, since everyone that I personally know is getting older, I'm going to hang onto the both of them.

So I'd appreciate it if you'd all shoot your guns often, drink your alcohol, smoke your ecigs, and continue to get older.

Oh and my boyfriend, Nicky, really cracks me up. He told me that when we go to Spain next year, that I can go topless on the beach. Seriously? I'm 48 years old. I don't know if that's such a good idea, but it makes me smile that he even suggests it.

Thieves don't like my stuff, wrap rage, and Zena went to a new doggy jail

So this weekend, my car was broken into.....but not really 'broken into' because I left the driver's door unlocked. Oops.
 
Thieves rifled through my stuff, but they didn't like it. My red jacket, glasses, feminine products, hair brush, hand lotion, and corkscrew.....still there. Note to "most likely young, teenage, male thieves"....breaking into a woman's car probably not such a great idea.
 
As I'm feeling very indignant about this, I had an "Oh Sh*t" moment. I pop the trunk and am sooooo relieved to find that the thieves neglected to take my $1500 set of golf clubs. That would have been a serious buzz kill.

So this morning, I realize the one thing the thieves took. It was a pocket knife. It was part of a gift bag from a golf tournament. I'm going to seriously miss that knife. I have a bad case of wrap rage. I don't remember what I was opening, but I just used it last week to open something I bought while at lunch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrap_rage

So Zena escaped AGAIN. WTH? I'm not sure how she is getting out. I have a 2" opening between my gate and fence and I think this 96 lb dog may be getting through there some how. So this week she was at the Plano shelter and this time, I went to get her instead of Hayley. I asked the lady where she was found.

The consensus from my family and friends would be that she was most likely picked up in my front yard, but au contraire.

She was picked up 8 miles away in Southeast Plano. That is across a major highway and my dog can only walk about .75 miles before her body just shuts down.

Now I'm wondering if someone stole my beautiful dog and she escaped them too. According to animal control, the lady who brought her in didn't want to leave her. She was afraid they wouldn't find me and that Zena would be put down. Apparently, the finder kept calling and checking in on her. They let her know that Zena was microchipped and that I was on my way. Thankful to the sweet lady who took care of my dog. Glad Zena's not dead in the street somewhere.

Zena went to doggy jail

Friday night, I was visiting Arlington. I get a call from Hayley, that she got a call from her dad, that he got a call from the animal shelter. Zena must have escaped and she is in doggy jail. (Her microchip is tagged to my ex-husbands's phone number and he now lives in Austin.) 

Now, for those who don't know Zena,  she may look really big and scary, but she is a gentle giant. If you open a car door, she will jump right in...especially if it's the driver's side door.

So Nick said he would like to have seen the surveillance tape when they picked her up. They probably opened the truck door to get their dog harness catcher thingy and she probably jumped up in the front seat wagging her tail as happy as can be. 

So Hayley says she'll pick her up Saturday. I'm thinking its' going to be really expensive. Hayley said it was $20 to redeem her and only $8 for the night. Okay, from now on, when I go on vacation, I'm letting the dog loose outside of animal control. The kennel is expensive. I went to New Orleans once and stayed in the French Quarter and my 2 dogs that shared a kennel cost as much as my hotel stay for the long weekend. I mean they shared a small steel cage for goodness sake. I had a private bath, big comfy bed, cable TV, Internet and walking distance to Bourbon street.




So Nick goes to Chicago every week and for some strange reason where he works, they always have soup for breakfast. He sends me these lovely pictures that always put a smile on my face. I talked to a coworker with family in Chicago and he says that soup for breakfast is NOT a Chicago thing.




So I've been playing a little more golf lately. This is the time of the year to do it. Gorgeous outside. My short game has not improved. I have not practiced, but I do contemplate what I should do different quite a bit. Unfortunately that contemplation does not include trying to improve my short game by actually going to the driving range to practice.

Real Food and the Year of the Pecan

So my daughter calls me and says she wants 'real food' for dinner. This means she is broke. So I call and tell her I'll make French Onion soup and she says that is not real food. This brought back a memory of when she worked at TJ Maxx. They were having a Thanksgiving pot luck. Her boss told her to bring 'White People Food'. Hayley asked what that was and the manager told her it was broccoli cheese casserole, so I made that for her potluck.

So anyway, I told her that tonight I had decided to make Caprese salad with home-grown basil and fresh bread, creamed spinach, roasted red potatoes, and filet mignon. My daughter says that is not real food. But then she follows up with ......you better make me two steaks. Sigh.

Notice my nice paper plate. Hahaha. When I said I was decluttering my house a while back, I got a little overzealous and now I have no dishes. Whoops.

So tomorrow I'm making my home-made French Onion soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. It might not be considered 'real food' to Hayley, but it sounds pretty good to me and Nicky. I don't know why Hayley says it is not real food. She loves my French Onion soup.

So for the first year in 2 years, I'm going to have home-grown pecans and I'm so excited. We have big plans for these nuts.

So today, I stopped by Ford to take a look at convertible Mustangs. There is not a single convertible in all of the 'group' dealerships in the entire metroplex. Well alrighty then.