New front load washer - FINALLY

 My washer was finally delivered on 25 Jan ~ five days AFTER it was supposed to be delivered and two weeks after it was ordered.  That is just too much of a wait for something coming from a warehouse only an hour away!

The guys who brought it on the 25th were fantastic.  They didn't find my driveway scary at all!  And it didn't take them long to have it installed, and then take me on a washing machine 'test drive'.

This is my first front load washer and I am impressed.

After it was delivered I called the Home Depot 800-number and made a fuss about how awful I was treated regarding the delivery.  Laid it all out and said I wanted compensation for the horrible customer service.  After a long wait on hold the service rep offered me 10% refund on the total I paid.  

I accepted.

Teri's "Everything Bagel" Blend

Himself loves the 'seedy' bread from Publix grocery store.  However the quality of their mix has been going down.  Last time I bought it, the blend was rather pathetic.  Gone were the sesame and flax seeds. In their place was was oats, corn meal, and white millet.  That's just bird seed!

So I did some online recipe searching and added a couple things to the traditional recipe.  A quick trip out to the Amish bulk foods shop and we were ready to mix up our own blend!

(From top going clockwise- white sesame seeds, toasted sesame seeds, poppy seeds, minced dry garlic, flax, minced dry onion, and sunflower seeds.)

To make about 3 cups

·         1/2 cup white sesame seeds

·         1/2 cup black sesame seeds OR toasted white                     sesame seeds*

·         1/2 cup dried minced onion

·         1/2 cup dried minced garlic**

·         1/2 cup sunflower seeds

·         1/4  cup poppy seeds

 Mix together and store in glass jar in refrigerator.

Not only is this good on bagels and bread, try it on salad, meats, pizza crust, and much more.

*To toast white sesame seeds, put your half cup into a dry pan and toast until medium dark tan.  You need to stir constantly as they can get away from you quickly.  When done, put onto a plate immediately and place in refrigerator to rapidly cool.  Add to mix only after they have cooled.

 **Take care with the minced garlic.  Ours was pretty hard and had to be crushed further.

A Heavyweight Swap

 A few years ago Himself considered taking up blacksmithing as a hobby.  Among other things, he purchased a  # Village Forge anvil by the Trenton company from his blacksmith friend LC.

Then he changed his mind...

So the  anvil he bought became mine.  Do you ask "Why?"  Well, it is very useful in my jewelry making and for setting rivets in some of my other projects.

I already had a small anvil I'd gotten from LC at the same time, so now I had two!

However, I think LC had some seller's regret.  Over the years he let it be known that if we ever wanted to part with that ol' Trenton anvil, he'd give us what we'd paid for it.

Himself told him, "No thank you, Teri is happy with it."

Then we got an email saying if we wanted to SWAP for a different anvil, he had 3 I could pick from!  I laughingly said to Himself that if LC wanted it that bad... yes, I would swap.  I didn't want to keep 'his Precious'!  

Before Himself could answer, LC messaged again to sweeten the deal.  There were now FOUR anvils to choose from.  My acceptance was sent and just a few days later LC rolls up into our driveway ready to deal!

Hmmmm... which one to choose?

LC tells me about each one he brought.

This one caught my eye.  I liked its shape, I liked the size of its face plate, and I REALLY liked its history.

You see, it is a Mousehole Anvil from Cornwall, UK.  It has been around a while as it was forged in about 1865!  Yep, 156 years old.

Its weight is in 'stones' not pounds.  I love how it has been used but carefully taken care of.  That is character!

The swap was made!  And each of us knows we each got the better end of the deal.

Then LC surprised me with a wee gift.  Another small anvil that is about 80 years old.  Love its blue patina. 

Oh, almost forgot!  Earlier LC gave me a tiny cedar anvil he had carved.  It's so cute!

Now my four anvils sit in my studio on a rolling stand made for me by Himself.  The stand itself is 'flotsam' I found along the roadside (an excellent homemade rolling frame) and the boards are driftwood boards we had picked up.

The Rescue

 When you've been in seclusion for 22 months, just about anything is entertaining.  Today we only had to look out the window.  Our neighbor up the hill has been working on his 'dirt bike' motorcycle for well over a year.  Always sounds terrible and it usually has a hard time getting it back UP our hill when he drives it down ~ sputters and backfires.

 It is getting worse.  Now it couldn't make it DOWN the hill without dying on him.  When he tried coasting down and popping the clutch... sputter, sputter, sputter.

 After a bit of him messing with a fairly silent bike, I hear the sound of a tractor driving down the hill and saw this...

 

...he had called his brother to come down and rescue him!!

Bye Home Depot

 I have bought all my major appliances, lights & fans, etc from Home Depot.  Not any more.  No complaint about their products but they contract out their deliveries - apparently to the lowest bidder.

At this moment I am typing, I should be starting my wash in my brand new washing that I ordered on 11 Jan to replace my old one that died.  That is TEN days to deliver.

But instead there is a load of laundry in my deep sink being hand washed.

The JERK that was to deliver it pulled up to THE. END. OF. MY. DRIVEWAY.  Then he called me and refused to deliver it!!

He did not want to drive down (100 feet) my gravel driveway.  He wasn't going to "slip on ice and hurt himself".  I said "it's GRAVEL!  There is no standing ice!  Pull your truck in, it is fine!" 

Nope.  Him was too scared.

I said, "Fine.  Get it off your truck and this almost 60 year old woman will hand truck it into the garage, and then you can finish the install"

"No.  My dolly isn't going down that driveway."

OK, below is a photo of my terrifying icy horrible dangerous driveway that I walked my 59.5 year old body onto to get this photo.

So scary...

ALL of my business will be done with Lowes from now on.

Birthday Girl

On Saturday Persia turned 7 years old.  We made sure she had a purrfect birthday.

Lots of "bird TV" time watching them chow down on seeds on our deck (we put out extra so Persia would have a lot of viewing time.

Her food bowl was filled up over the top, which she loved.  

There was a new ice cream bar stick for her to sling up and down the hallway.

And there were naps all over the house.

The day was absolutely 'the cat's meow'!

Tamago Kake Gohan.

 New recipe night!  I made Tamago Kake Gohan.  It’s considered by many to be the ultimate Japanese comfort food breakfast.  It is very easy to make.

Make a pot of fresh rice and scope out a bowl full.  Sprinkle with what ever seasoning you like (we used a Japanese one).  Make a hollow in the middle of the rice.  Break in one egg.  Add a dash of soy sauce.  Stir vigorously until it is all mixed together.  Eat.

My opinion:  it is quite OK.  A bit of meat would go a long way to increase its appeal to me.

Retro Keyboard

 

This is a computer keyboard... seriously.  I absolutely love it as it  brings back some very old memories of an item that was already old when the memory was made.  

I found it on Amazon when I was buying a new keyboard for Himself.  If I'd had $300 laying around useless I would have bought this baby!

A Real Treasure Hunt for Lost Cash

There is a way to perhaps find some lost money you are owed.  This is serious here… give it a shot. 

As a part of each state’s Department of Treasury, there is a place where you can search to see if there is money you are are owed.  There is NO fee for doing this.  Tennessee even sets up at public events to help people search. 

 

From the TN Dept of Treasury web site: 

What is unclaimed property? 

If banks, credit unions, utilities companies, governments, or other organizations owe you money—and cannot locate you—then you may have unclaimed property.  Common forms of unclaimed property include savings or checking accounts, stocks, uncashed dividends or payroll checks, refunds, traveler's checks, trust distributions, unredeemed money orders or gift certificates (in some states), contents of safe deposit boxes, and more.  Generally speaking in Tennessee unclaimed property is intangible (ex. un-cashed paychecks, savings accounts) or tangible property (ex. safe deposit box contents), in which there has been no activity generated or contact with the owner for a one-year or longer period—at which point, it becomes unclaimed or "abandoned". 

Here is how to check for yourself: 

Google "unclaimed property" with the name of the state you live in behind that (and if you have lived in other states do the same for each of them).  Go to the web site and follow the instructions on how to do your search.  Each state's web site is very close to being the same but there are some differences.  You'll 'make a claim', send it in, and in a few weeks a check will arrive in your mailbox (or maybe several checks... can't figure out how they split out the payments...). 

When I searched for Himself and me, there was a nice little chunk of change owed to us.  I told folks in a group I'm in about this and one woman was thrilled to tell me she was getting back $1200.  Better yet, one person from TN found she was owed $13,466!  The Tennessee site states that "1 in 10" people in the state are owed money.

Good luck searching!

Hit the Road AT&T Cellular

 

(Not my phone but VERY close to it.)

Cells phones… basically you have to have one now.  But we only wanted basic so we always had a ‘flip phone’.  It makes calls and I can text if I must.  And that was good enough for us because... 

1.  We don’t use them much – only when we are away from home - since we don’t want to be bothered.  

2.  They were just too darn expensive for our budget (yes, we could ‘afford’ one but we want other things more). 

So for years we have used our prepaid flip phone thru AT&T.  As little as we used it, it only ran us about $12 a month.  Good enough! 

But then about 6 months ago I’d get a message at some times when I tried to make a call saying my 3G phone was going out of commission on 22 Feb 2022.  It stated we would need to get a new phone before that date.  OK fine, that was almost a year away.  I’ll get around to it. 

But then… 

The beginning of September, AT&T started high-jacking my phone weekly.  I could not make a call until I listened to their high pressure sales pitch on how they would “help” me to switch my phone NOW.  

I had to tell them to release my phone so I could make my call that I had paid for.  They would put me on hold “so they could verify the request went thru…”  During which time I was subjected to a 3 minute (every time) advertisement on upgrading my phone.  The whole process would take about 10 minutes. 

EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. 

I ‘was’ going to continue my service with AT&T until this customer DIS-service campaign happened. 

I am now the happy (and very confused) owner of my very first ‘entry level’ smart phone with a prepay plan through a different company.  

AT&T received this email from me:  Hello AT&T!  I am so very happy to let you know I have upgraded my cell phone service from my old 3G.  Even tho I had until 22 Feb to do this your harassing weekly highjacking of my phone line (which denied me the service I'd paid for) motivated me to do the switch now.  TO A DIFFERENT COMPANY!!  Bye-bye AT&T.  You forced this customer to run. 

(I will review my new phone and company) a bit later when I’ve used it for a while.   

Good Morning 2022

 

I'm not holding out enough hope to say "Happy" New Year but 2022 do you think that maybe you'll not be a total wench like your last two predecessors?  

Is it too much to ask for just a little bit less malignant political drama?  It would be really nice if the country AND world would start working on fixing problems rather than selfishly making even more new ones.  And let's all work together to NOT work all the way through the Greek alphabet with yet more new Covid variants.  (BTW... does anyone know how the heck we went from Delta variant to Omicron?  What happened to the other 10 letters in between??)  A bit less media manipulation would be nice too. 

The saying goes, "If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem". 

So this year no stupid shallow New Year's Resolutions. 

Instead I'll make a pledge to become part of the solution to help fix the crappy place the world is becoming.  Would you care to join me?