Slow Sunday

Woke up at a more respectable time today (7:00 AM) and checked outside. We had a light dusting of snow overnight, but no I'm getting freezing rain. I'm glad I took the time to fill the bird feeder, the suet cages and the squirrel feeder yesterday. Those poor little guys are gonna need it!

I really am still full from yesterday's dinner, so just had a cup of coffee for breakfast. Remember the stuffed pork loin that I wasn't too crazy about last Sunday? Well, I ate about 1/3 of it and cut the other 2/3 in half and froze it. I took one of the bags out of the freezer yesterday and thawed it. This morning, I saut�ed a small onion, finely diced, two good sized Jalapeno peppers (de-seeded and finely chopped) and two diced garlic cloves in olive oil and butter. Then I cleaned out the stuffing (down the garbage disposal with you, offending stuffing!), took two forks and shredded the pork loin (this is not bad when something's warm, but it was a b*tch with a cold pork loin!) Finally, with aching arms, got it all done and added the meat to the pot, plus a whole bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce. Letting it simmer and will have pulled pork sandwiches on Kaiser rolls for lunch.

Even though I was very, very careful to wash my hands after handling the Jalapeno peppers, I still somehow touched the corner of my mouth and its burning!

Next came a shave and shower. Then, I got out a photo album of Luanne and my honeymoon, looking for the picture of my VW Thing. Sadly all the photos in that album have lost their color and are now sepia. However, Jake volunteered to play with the photo in Photoshop to try and make it look right. He returned it to me and I posted the results. My God I had a flat stomach in 1976! Not to mention a full head of hair...

Anyway, lunch was great! Just the right heat in the pulled pork. After eating, I took a break and watched "Tears of the Sun." I love that movie, BTW. Good examples of the maneuvers of a Special Forces Group.

After that, I cleaned out the fish/newt tank. That was this weekend's big project. Quite a mess, with the old fish food and algae. But, I scrubbed the walls, drained the water and replaced it, along with a new carbon filter. Both the Newt and the goldfish are acting funny, though. I'm not sure why, just concerned.

Now I'm watching the NASCAR race, though once again, I'm cheering for Mark Martin, although he has left Spacely Sprockets Racing. Fell asleep and got a nice � hour nap. BTW, now it's just after 5:00 PM, the freezing rain has stopped, it's 33 degrees F. and the snow on my roof is melting and dripping.

I started my Sunday dinner. The side dish is a winter butternut squash, this time with butter, fresh thyme and fresh tarragon in the hollow created after cleaning out the seeds. It's in the oven for an hour at 350 degrees F. The main entr�e is chicken legs that were marinated overnight in buttermilk, drained, then dredged in cornstarch and flour, dipped in a mixture of three eggs, more buttermilk and enough hot sauce to turn the mix orange. Then, dipped into flour and house seasoning (1 salt, � pepper and � garlic powder), and put into a pan with 365 degrees F Canola oil. 14 minutes later, I put them on a rack to drain, over paper towels on a cookie sheet.

Right in the middle of this, the door bell rang. It was two elders of the Church of Mormon. We chatted a bit. I basically told them based on my research (I had studied all the major religions back in the '70's) that I thought their religion was flawed. We agreed to disagreed until next weekend, when they will attempt to convert me and I will attempt to refute their beliefs. (Oh my God, I am becoming my Mother! She used to love these verbal religion jousts).

Dinner was good, though the squash was a bit under-done and I didn't like the tarragon taste as much as I did the Rosemary the time before.

Watch more TV, then went to sleep.