Cheaters will get theirs! Karma!

My daughter did not win the Ugly Shirt Contest at work. She was not even given a fair shot. There was a “ballot box” for people to enter their votes. My daughter saw a woman, stuffing the ballot box with her own name. My daughter complained to a manager who did nothing. Surprise! The ballot stuffer won first place. All I have to say is:

Karma is a beyotch! 

Some supposed adults lead a great example, don’t they?

I know I made the Ugly Shirt, but my daughter had the guts to wear it. 

I get angry when my daughter is ALWAYS complaining about stuff that goes on at her house and day program. She’s constantly saying “but it’s not fair”.  

Well this is really NOT FAIR! 

It’s not that I necessarily think she should have one first place. I do think she was in the top 3. But when you cheat to win, you’re an a$$hat!

In other news, to our surprise, my daughter did get a lock on her bedroom door at her group home. Truly, they could have saved the money and kicked out the trouble maker, but for some reason she’s like Teflon, nothing sticks. At least my daughter won’t have to worry about the housemate bursting into her room unannounced and without permission when my daughter is in various states of undress. And my daughter won’t have to worry about her housemate bursting into her room at 3am screaming like a banshee. 

At least my daughter will feel safer. 

I do have to laugh though. I have been to her house twice this week. The first time the troublemaker sat across from me at the table (I didn’t recognize her, she gained a lot of weight.) she never said a word to my daughter, but kept whispering to staff who waived her away. 

Lola’s Diner cc. 2008-2018

‘Twas the night before Christmas

A lot of prepping and cooking to do on Christmas Eve. 

We don’t have a regular meal on Christmas Eve. It’s more like grazing, grabbing a few things and getting back to wrapping, assembling, or Christmas movie watching.

So, what’s on the menu?

T=Tradition N=New

Vegetable tray with Spinach Dip-T/N the dip is new.

Olives, pickles, pickled vegetables-T

Cheese and Sausage Tray-T

Bacon wrapped oysters-N

Herring-N

Mini meatballs in marinara sauce. (Usually did the grape jelly or cranberry sauce, but can’t have all that sugar.)-N

Sfincioni (Pizza Dough, olive oil, tomato paste, thinly sliced red onions, anchovies, Parmesan cheese). It’s a cross between pizza and focaccia. It’s eaten cold, but can be eaten warm. Tradition from my grandmother-T.

Jalapeño poppers-N

Kidney Bean Salad-N

Prepare ahead a frittata for Christmas morning breakfast. Bake, cool, refrigerate. Everyone helps themselves whenever they get up. Take a slice and warm in the microwave-T

I used to make pizza dough from scratch. In the interest of saving my sanity, I switched to Pillsbury Pizza Dough a few years ago.

I used to make Quiche. But since I’m low carb and my son can’t have gluten, it’s much easier to do a frittata. I could make a low carb GF crust, but it would be a fussy, time consuming endeavor.

The kidney bean salad is hopefully like the salad you get on a relish tray at a supper club. Very hard time finding a recipe. Ended up modifying one. Serving bean salad because beans are low on the glycemic index and help manage blood sugar levels. I try to sneak beans or lentils in whenever I can.

I prepped all the vegetables 12/23, except for the red onion. I have a good head start and there is a lot I can get the kids to help with. Christmas Eve the kids and I will handle everything. Jaime Sommers needs to stay off her feet and elevate. Christmas Day is on my spouse. She will be preparing the roast beast and roasted Brussels sprouts because that’s her thang. We’ll also have leftovers from the night before for 12/25 lunch and dinner apps. 

Lola’s Diner cc 2008-2018

Merry Christmas Eve

I didn’t find all the missing Christmas decorations. I did find my Mom’s big antique ornament, so I’m happy with that. I’m hoping my Mom’s Nativity is found when we pack things away the day after the Epiphany. I want to organize it all and wrap the breakables better. My Mom’s ornament was in a gift bag with tissue paper. I know I didn’t do that.

Still recovering from late night ugly Christmas shirt creating for my daughter’s contest at work. She said everyone loved the snowman. She was the only one with a DIY ugly Christmas shirt. 

Christmas cards mailed 12/23. Spent the last 2 hours copying Pinterest Low Carb appetizer and side dish recipes to recipe cards. I shopped for the ingredients 12/22 and got my daughter’s holiday discount. Good start on wrapping gifts. Usually it’s Christmas Eve, nothing is wrapped and I’m up until 3am watching “A Christmas Story” over and over on TBS and wrapping. 12/24 we will be decorating store baked gingerbread men. I think that will be a new tradition. In the past I’ve baked a dozen different kinds of cookies and I just made myself do too many things because that’s the way my Mom did it. I would work myself into a frenzy. With my health issues I need to keep the traditions that matter and modify those that I can. Hoping to add watching family videos on Christmas Day. I’m calling this year’s Christmas, Christmas Lite.

I feel like I’m forgetting something, but I just can’t figure out what.

Lola’s Diner cc 2008-2018

Ughhhhh!

My spouse has refused to allow me to go in the attic. I don’t know how Jaime Sommers thinks she is going to accomplish that. She’d probably tell my son to stop me. She can barely do stairs. Something is seriously wrong with her right implant. She sees the ortho doc after Christmas. Praying this isn’t caused by an infection because she would have to go through a year + of surgeries. I do have a feeling he will need to do one surgery to reposition the hardware. Not looking forward to that.

Even though my son can’t remember where the combo tv/vcr he got from Grandma (Anastasia), he did remember the same Grandma gave him a vcr to set up a man cave in the basement. Anastasia’s Mom was always very generous. Even though they were hand me downs they were like brand new. You may be thinking, Lola, how does he not know where the tv/vcr is? It’s part of his illness. He moves things around, goes through stuff (probably why we can’t find all that Christmas stuff) and he doesn’t put things back. For all I know, that tv/vcr could be in a closet or armoire behind his clothes. We go on treasure hunts a lot. 

I pulled out my VH-C tapes. They go back to 1999. That sounds about right. I got the camcorder in CA when I picked up the ex from his 5150. There were VHS tapes of the kids from birth but the ex stole them. After we moved I asked if I could make copies and return them to him, he refused.  He doesn’t trust me. Really? After all I did for him and all I went through, I’m going to steal the kids baby tapes to get back at him? I don’t operate like he does. Still makes me angry. He is supposed to grace my son with his presence in January (Yes, not my daughter. He refuses to see her because she cut off phone contact shortly after we moved here. Props to her.) I’m going to try to get him to bring the tapes. I’m probably going to have to talk to his wife. 🤡 Wish me luck on that. 

A handful of items were found off the list. The search will continue...good times!

Lola’s Diner cc  2008-2018

Murphy’s Law and...

Tree has some bows and a few ornaments. 

Two family members, who shall remain nameless, insist up and down that ALL the totes and boxes of ornaments and Christmas paraphernalia have been brought down, along with a bunch of Tupperware that someone felt the need to randomly grab items, bag them, and put in the attic some time after I came home from surgery. It’s holiday time, I need my serving stuff. Who takes someone’s stuff and randomly bags it and puts it in the attic?

I took a Sharpie to paper and filled THREE pages of items I know for a fact are missing and still must be in the attic. There is no way they brought everything down. I am not pleased. I’m that other “p” word!

I went through the tote that was marked with Sharpie “Do not place anything on top of this tote.” Before I even opened it, I could clearly see the lid was indented, meaning the note was ignored. My Mom’s antique ornaments were in there. (Not all of them, because there are many, many missing, including the jumbo 5” diameter one. It was the last one left after some kid knocked the tree down and the rest got smashed. I treat it gingerly, it has a place in a clear glass bowl on the entertainment center bridge, far away from kids and cats.) I found 5 broken ornaments, ornaments that can never be replaced, ornaments that held memories. 😰

Murphy’s law:

My spouse messaged me a gift idea for herself. I promptly went on the website. 50% off most items, sale ends soon. Created an account, placed the order, took screenshots of the onscreen order # and confirmation. I still haven’t gotten an email confirmation. Half hour after I order she sends me another gift idea. I try to sign in and it’s saying my email is not recognized or password doesn’t match. I wrote down the password, triple checked what I typed in, same message. So I put in the required information to check on my order:  order number, email, zip code. Same thing. I have to call customer service in the morning. Good times! This is a legitimate website, not some oddball, questionable site. 😡

After my phone call guess who’s going up in the attic? Lola. Cuz whatever Lola wants, Lola gets, even if I have to go up in the attic where I shouldn’t be going. If you want something done right, you do it yourself.

No worries...the attic floor is finished, no falling between rafters like Clark Griswold in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

And where is my train set?

Lola’s Diner cc. 2008-2018

Tree update

We are moving closer. There has been some progress.

The bookcase has moved to the dining room closet and my daughter’s love seat has been moved. Not much was accomplished yesterday because my daughter needed a ride to PT. Thankfully she had a cookie decorating event by us and caught a ride with her group back to her house. 

Car issues again. I didn’t want to drive far after I saw what it was. Looks like a rear brake caliper rusted and broke, so I’ve got 3 brakes instead of 4. (Caliper holds the brake pad against the drum to achieve braking) My spouse took the car to the shop today. Our mechanic, what a sweetie, he kept trying to reassure my spouse, if my diagnosis is correct the part will be $60 + a little for labor, but he won’t know til he takes it apart. He’s always teasing my spouse about our key fob. The screw kept loosening so I bought a rubber cover on Amazon to protect it and keep it together. 

He calls it a key condom.

Anyway, vacuuming and carpet shampooing will commence today. Fans are out of storage and at the ready to speed up drying. If all goes really well, boxes could come down tonight, otherwise tomorrow and then the tree assembly can begin. Or as I’ve been calling it “The Santafication Process Can Begin!” It’s a riff on one of the Tim Allen Santa Clause movies where an elf says “The Desantafication Process Has Begun!” I think it’s the 2nd movie where he has to find a wife.  Yeah, I’m weird like that.

Lola’s Diner cc. 2008-2018

Is there a way to fix the “WRONG” in the world?

Last night I was reading the news stories on Google. I don’t watch TV news, but I pick and choose what I read on Google, CNN, and HuffPost. 

There was an article, from the New York Times. It was about opioid overdoses. Several videos of overdoses. First, a young woman on the side of the road near a bridge that opened for a boat, barge, whatever, to pass. Thank God the bridge went up. People waiting for it to go down saw her. One video taped the entire thing. The other jumped into action and started chest compressions. A man was there, said she was his sister. He called 911 and the operator instructed him how to try to resuscitate her and prompted him when to do the breaths. The woman had to be an angel. She kept up the chest compressions until paramedics arrived and took over. Then she disappeared. The young woman was revived and was given Naloxone. She survived. Another video was a woman lying on the floor in a dollar store. Overdosed. A couple of people watched and took video on their phone while the woman’s 3 year old screamed and kept trying to wake mommy up. They called 911 and WATCHED. They did NOTHING. They didn’t try CPR or try to talk to the child. Police and paramedics arrived, the woman survived. Another video, 2 women in an SUV overdosed, children in car seats in the backseat screaming. A man parked next to them, saw them, called 911. Police arrived and the video was from their body cameras, not from a phone. The next video, even more disturbing than the dollar store video. Two people overdosed in unusual positions. One was squatting and face planted by the curb. The other was sitting on something and fell backwards and overdosed. Several people taking video on their phones...LAUGHING. Someone did dial 911, but no one did anything but LAUGH.

Saw an article today (why can’t they show the blood and gore photo in the article after you click, instead of on on the Google page?) A woman shot earlier this month in a foreign country, I can’t recall. People just took video on their phones and watched as she cried out and said the name of the shooter and fell over and passed out. Someone called for medical help, but they all  just WATCHED. No one even tried to put pressure on the wound. The woman survived, I don’t know how, all the blood loss. 

What’s my point? We all know this world has already gone to hell in a hand basket. How do we as a society get back to respect, decency, and helping our fellow man? Where have all the Good Samaritans gone? Do people not know about the Good Samaritan laws? Even if there weren’t Good Samaritan laws, do you just watch and laugh? We’re just going on this downward spiral. Is there a way back, or are we destined to continue the downward spiral? Is this the beginning of the end? Are we in the end times? (Yes, I’ve read the entire Left Behind series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.) 

Have I lost my mind...talking about the end times?

Where is the Good News? Where is the care for our fellow human beings?

I need to read some happy news. I wonder if there even is any.

Lola’s Diner cc. 2008-2018