Movin' Along

 The Warsaw Public Library has a display case that it uses to feature community people's hobbies, collections, etc. besides some library themes throughout the year.

 

My husband and his woodworking buddy do serious projects, but also they enjoy Big Boys' Toys. For the month of April their wooden vehicles are on display.

My husband made one of the dump trucks. The other dump truck, pickup truck, tractor, and Hummer were made through the years by his friend. There are very detailed plans to follow to get to these end products. It takes a lot of time and patience besides skill.

Other projects my husband has done lately are creating a bracing mechanism for the Grace Village chapel organ bench; a decorative box; and a table requested by a new resident for his laptop computer to sit on in his apartment.

The organ is played by several people throughout the week, and the joints became loose on the bench.

Woodworking is a good hobby because it has many practical uses as well as creating beautiful or whimsical items. Residents of Grace Village are fortunate that a workshop with a variety of equipment has been created for their use. My husband does some of the procedures in his garage, but a spacious shared workspace makes for a good camaraderie and sharing of ideas and skills.

Home Chef

 

The calendar still says spring, but we had some snow overnight and around 9 a.m. this morning. Enough that I had to brush the back window of my car after physical therapy.

One of my husband's friends received from his two daughters a gift of Home Chef meals. Since he isn't paying for them, price isn't a consideration. He and his wife really like the meals. As part of Home Chef's promos they allow the member to give away a $35 gift card. (They also receive a $35 credit on their account if someone uses the card to sign up.)

After looking over the Home Chef web site I wasn't sure I really wanted to use the card. I had to set up an account with a credit card to even select the meals. The requirements are at least two meals per order. The shipping charge is $13.99 added to the order. That right there makes the whole program less desirable. The default is weekly delivery. However, you can skip weeks. I am going to try one order a month for a few months.

We received our first order Wednesday.

We were gone when it was delivered. My husband brought it inside when he got home before me. There is some foam insulation and 2-3 cold packs. My husband took the items inside the box and put them in the refrigerator so I did not see how they were packed inside the box. When I got home I removed the potatoes; when I looked over the recipe/menu card I saw that it said to keep the potatoes at room temp once they arrive. It also says to prepare within 5 days for the two meals I ordered.

My first impression is that this product is not eco-friendly. They say that you can thaw the cold packs and pour out the stuff inside so you can recycle the plastic. We have a recycle center across town, but nothing as part of our trash pickup. The foam is marked that it was made from recycled water bottles; however, I know our recycle center does not accept foam.

For the most part any seasonings, sauces, liquids, etc. are wrapped in portioned out amounts in individual containers. Even the white wine was in a plastic pouch.

This makes it easy for cooking, but again lots of "wrapping" to discard. 

The recipe cards are very detailed. They give the grams of fat, sodium, etc. They mention anything that might be a dietary problem such as milk, gluten, nuts. You can see those details before ordering.

 They automatically select two dishes for you, but you can edit and change to other choices. Scrolling down week by week it appears there is quite a bit of variety. They tell you to have salt, pepper, cooking spray, baking pan, skillet and olive oil on hand.

The first meal I prepared was the white wine chicken scallopini. There was quite a bit of chopping. The chicken had to be pounded really thin. This meal was graded as intermediate hardness. There wasn't anything difficult for me, but it did take effort and time. It was quite tasty but we felt kind of salty. 

The glazed meatloaf was graded easy. I had to slice the potatoes and green onions; mix the ingredients for the meatloaves; mix up the glaze mixture. All of the amounts are pre-measured. The beef had garlic salt, some of the onions, panko, and ricotta cheese added to it. They suggested adding more salt and some pepper. After our experience with the first meal, I did not add any more salt. I see on the ingredients details they list the amount of sodium for each serving as over 1500 grams.

I would make the meatloaf again using my own products. It was moist and delicious.

They provide you a notebook to store the recipe "cards". One problem in re-creating the meatloaves would be that the amounts are listed as grams not tablespoons/teaspoons.

The base cost per serving is $6.99 to over $14.00. You can change the protein so if you choose steak for example the serving will cost more. Add to that the delivery charge of $13.99 and it adds up. It is not like going to a restaurant because besides doing the cooking, you have to wash the utensils and pans and mixing bowls, etc.

I have changed our preference setting to Fast and Easy for the next order. I am ordering for April 28th. When the meals are shipped you get an email telling you that it will be delivered by the end of the day. I was counting on this for dinner but did have something else if it had arrived late evening. It came a little after 1 p.m. according to the tracker. 

I might try this once a month for a few months. My husband's friend got his credit for referring. His situation is different since he isn't paying the costs and his wife is having some cognitive difficulties so having a step-by-step meal prep that he can help her with solves some difficulties for them. You do have to be proactive and look over the choices they make for you by Friday mid-day; also request to skip a week or it will automatically come and your credit card will be charged. 

I have seen Home Chef kits at Kroger; that might be a more thrifty way since there is no delivery charge. However, the choices are quite limited at my Kroger store.

The meatloaf meal was for a family of 4 so we have half to warm up and eat tomorrow night. We'll see how well the left-overs keep quality.

Rainy But Good Day

 We had rain start up last night and now it continues on and off today and probably thru Saturday, except on Saturday snow might mix with the rain at times. 

The grass has greened up and I see flower buds on my daffodil plants. Today is still fairly warm (around 60), but we could see highs only in the 30's as the week progresses and into next week. 

We went to Creighton's Crazy Egg cafe for lunch today. We had eaten breakfast here before, but this was the first time for lunch.

 On the way home we stopped at Meijer to buy some grapefruit that had been advertised. My husband is the grapefruit eater. BOGO free so a good deal. I half-heartedly walked to the back of the store where the soft drinks are. They had some caffeine-free diet Pepsi! I have been trying for over a month to find this in several stores. Snapple was also on sale. And we even managed this shopping while the rain was stopped. We turned onto Highway 30 from the parking lot and drops started falling all the way home. 

I have been coping with lower back and hip and thigh pain for several years now. It has gotten worse in the past few months. I can only walk about 4 blocks before I need to find a place to sit to relieve the pain.

On March 4th I woke up with a stabbing pain on my left hip. When I lifted my leg to put my sock on the stab was terrible. I managed to communicate through the portal with my primary care doctor. She said to see an orthopedist. But since she thought all of the pain was related to the back, I saw the nurse practitioner of a back specialist. I will be starting some PT next week. However, the stabbing pain which is different in nature than the deep aching pains, the NP thought was bursitis.

 Last Monday I saw a hip specialist. He did X-rays and an exam. He also thinks it is bursitis. I am to take a strong anti-inflammatory prescription med and do some PT related to the hip. 

Falling apart is not fun. 

No News Is Good News, Right?

 I haven't posted for a while because things have been fairly routine around here. I did finish and electronically file our federal and state income tax returns this afternoon. I also wrote my book review of the Fives Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride for this coming Wednesday's Winona Literary Club meeting.

A few weeks ago I used Hoopla for the first time through my public library because I had seen a review of a book I wanted to read but didn't want to purchase because I was unfamiliar with the author. Art and Faith by Makoto Fujimura was an interesting listen. Yes, the only thing available on Hoopla was an audio book. I prefer to read (even electronically) because I remember things visually better than by listening. For that reason, I won't post separately about the book. It becomes inaccessible on my tablet on March 17th anyway.

 Mr. Fujimura was born in Japan but became a United States citizen. He lived near enough to ground zero on 9-11 to have to find other accommodations. He writes on how the terrorist attack in New York affected him and his art. He starts the book with comparing the Christian life to the Japanese artform of repairing broken pottery (ceremonial tea cups) with gold. The gold represents the suffering and brokenness in our lives that God redeems to create something extraordinarily beautiful. He also has an intriquing chapter on the tears of Jesus. 

Once when I accompanied my husband to Chicago where he had a conference, I signed up through the Chicago Historical Society I think, for a tour of the Ukrainian Village, an ethnic neighborhood.

The Ukrainian National Museum was a delight to see. I learned about Chernobyl's nuclear accident, how Stalin starved Ukrainians by taking all of their grain and food products, and more pleasantly about the painted Easter eggs and the folk costumes of the country.

The museum tour guide had originally come from Ukraine. He mentioned that there were a lot of undocumented Ukrainians in the neighborhood who came on tourist visas but did not return. They blended into the community because so many people still spoke Ukraine in every-day life. 

We visited the nearby Eastern Orthodox Church where I was surprised to learn that the church ladies were preparing lunch for us. There had been no mention of that in the tour description. 

I mentioned several years ago about the Marcel Fund that provides for impoverished babushkas in Ukraine. I saw in an email from a local church that they had to relocate some of the workers in the eastern part of Ukraine to safer places. That was before the recent fighting by Russian forces, the actual invasion by Russia. Some of the workers decided to stay in danger in order to be available to the elderly ladies.

Our local newspaper had a story today about 2 local men who joined 2 others in a ministry in Poland to help distribute aid. These men had gone to Poland many times to preach and teach and had friends and contacts in Ukraine. They will be there a few weeks. They described the ministry of a church that they knew from their trips.

Continue to ask God to intervene and stop the killing. It looks dark from a human perspective, but a miracle could happen.