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There’s no doubt that Amazon and I have a love-hate relationship. I purchase a lot of products through Prime to avoid shopping, okay, not really to avoid shopping, but to avoid people in general. It just seems that every time I go to the store, I get to see a whole lot of stupid. These days, my patience has been very limited in dealing with this. Secondly, my time is valuable and I don’t have a lot of it to spare. By shopping online, I am able to save time. To some I save so much time that I keep my UPS driver in a job!
Anyway, a byproduct of this shopping are boxes — lots and lots of boxes. I hate boxes. Primarily I hate boxes because we do not have any way to recycle them here. If Amazon ever would see this, maybe they would consider teaming up with UPS and starting a recycling program… I mean, they’re here already… but I know it doesn’t exist and I am stuck with boxes. Wouldn’t it be nice to at least know what the sizes of these boxes are?
At times, I try to reuse these boxes when I sell items online, take things here or there, etc. Knowing the box size definitely helps when trying to figure out the shipping costs involved. Well, I found a website that has all of the boxes listed with the name of the box (you can find this on the bottom of the box). I am going to share that list here so that if you happen to be looking, you’ll not need to any longer!
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Blog / Cooking / Editor's Choice / Featured / Food / iCook / Lifestyle / RecipesFebruary 4, 2019
2 Min ReadThe other day I was watching some cooking show and Chef Jet Tila made rice for the guests on the show. He went through the process of describing that Fried Rice can be made a couple of ways with eggs. One of the ways was called Golden Fried Rice (I think the other was Silver Fried Rice but I cannot find that anywhere…) and it piqued my interest. We had
somea lot of left over rice one nite and I decided that I would make a quick and easy Golden Rice with what I had around the house… slightly inspired by Hibachi restaurants. It would have been nice if I had some peas, carrots or other vegetables to add, but it turned out very good so I’ll share the recipe here.Ingredients
- 6 cups of cooked rice
- 5 pieces of Any’tisers honey barbecue chicken, cut up into bite-size chunks
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 stick of French salted butter
- 1/2 cup of Teriyaki soy sauce
- 1/4 cup of soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons hot chili hoisin sauce
- 1 tablespoon garlic
Directions
- Melt butter in large hot pan.
- Add garlic and rice, mix well.
- While stirring, add beaten eggs covering the rice well. Continue stirring to ensure eggs do not scramble.
- Once a coating begins to form, add remain wet ingredients. Add more or less to taste.
- Finally, add in chicken and stir well again.
- Serve hot!
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Since purchasing our house almost eight years ago, we have been in the “process” of remodeling. For anyone that has done this before, you already understand what we have been through… if you haven’t and plan on it, may God protect your soul! We have had plumbing, electrical, and flooring issues. We’ve added walls, removed walls, split rooms and combined rooms. We have added a large deck, enclosed a garage, added walkouts, poured concrete driveways and sidewalks. We have added a roof, added siding, adding stone, and even redone landscaping lights. We have added dirt, moved dirt and landscaped. In other words, we have done it all. Do you know what I hate more than anything? Plumbing.
If anyone tells you that plumbing is easy, do not believe them. They are lying to you in order to make you part of their club.
The old adage that copper is best and will last forever, is false. What you see here is a tiny, tiny pinhole leak that only leaks when the water is pushing through. It happens to be on a toilet so every time it flushes it has a little bit of what come out. Over time, it has made little mess that needs fixed, but all in all this gets to be replaced. Want to guess what is to the let of this? PEX. We had an agency come and “Make it like it never happened” and this is where they stopped. They left three foot of copper. Needless to say, if you want it done right, do it yourself. This part is soon to be replaced with PEX, leaving us with maybe ten percent new copper in the entire house.If you have ever doubted whether or not to use PEX, heed my advice, use it. Copper leaks. Perhaps it didn’t before the chemicals began to be added to our water supply, but it definitely does now.
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Let me start off by saying that I hate being sick… I truly do. I don’t like coughing, sneezing, snotting, runny nose, sore throat, fevers, bathroom issues, or anything else that might come along with any kind of sickness. More than anything though, I hate to throw up. There are people out there that are always claiming they are sick. I think some even might enjoy it. I don’t understand those people at all. I hate being sick. I don’t want the attention it brings. I don’t want to stay at home in bed. I have things I need to do. I hate being sick.
Right now, I am sick, probably a sinus infection, but the fear of what if it’s the flu always tries to sneak in. Earlier today, the local school system closed for two days (Thursday and Friday) so that it could be sanitized due to record low attendance across several schools in the system due to Flu. I hate that thought. I feel lucky so far that I don’t have to worry about throwing up. Instead, I’ll continue to cough and hack, blow my nose and just be a bit miserable.
I am still thankful tho. I’m thankful it’s only an infection. I’m thankful I was able to get the doctor to call in antibiotics. I’m even thankful that I work for a place that I can stay home. I’ll still have to grade papers, respond to emails, etc. but I won’t have to drive the three and a half-hours to sit at a desk and be miserable. Did I mention I hate being sick? I really do. I am also thankful that I know that this sickness will run its course and leave me sooner than later. It will only be a memory, albeit a bad one, but one that will go away.
Did I mention I hate being sick?
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Isn’t it awesome how you can earn points that will take $$$ off of your fuel prices by doing what you are already going to do? Since I commute back and forth, I tend to need tanks of gas over the month and can’t really take full advantage of the Kroger Plan, but it never fails that we will get a $1.00 off per gallon each month. How does one get these valuable points towards money off your gas? Let me list the ways…
First and foremost, if you have prescriptions, you’ll get 50 points for every script you have filled. Next, you’ll get 1 point for every $1 you spend in the store and 2 points for every gift card you purchase. If you watch the papers and digital coupons, you’ll also see specials that will give you bonuses to add to your allotment for the month. One example is fuel point weekends where you get 2 points for every dollar spent.
Some things to remember, you cannot join points from month to month. In other words, what you get for one month is good for next month but doesn’t combine with points being earned that month. They will also expire after next month, so make sure you use them! One last limitation that you need to be aware of is that it’s only good for 35 gallons of gas. This is important as it means that you are generally able to fill up two vehicles meaning you can save a maximum of $35.
My wife and I do our best to take advantage as much as possible, her on one side of the pumps, me on the other. I’d love to always have an empty tank, but can’t always end up that way. Today was one of those days, I had 2/3 of a tank of gas and could only tank limited advantage of this perk. As seen by the receipt, I still saved $23 today so I’m not complaining too much!
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What did I do before Kroger came up with the most wonderful idea ever? How did I ever get groceries before the ClickList Service, soon to be rebranded Kroger PickUp, was introduced? I remember the old days… aimlessly wandering around the store trying to figure out what I wanted. Looking at the coupons in the app, then looking for the grocery item in question. No more since this service was introduced!
What is it exactly? It’s a service that allows a person to use the Kroger app or simply go online and choose your groceries. Before any of this happens, you must first have an account, easily remedied by registering online. Once this is done, you are prompted to select a time period that you’d like to receive your groceries. If you plan ahead, actually wanting your groceries the next day, you’ll have a chance to make edits to your order before midnight. After midnight, your order is locked in and your card will be charged.
For me, the best thing feature I have found of the service is when you are going through coupons. I recommend visiting this section, look through the coupons, and click on the ones that interest you. From here, it will show you grocery items that the coupon applies to. I do this on every trip and in the end, the cart is full of items that I know will work with my coupons. If you have paper coupons, you can go to the cart and search items that way as well. In the end, it’s a good process to go through if you want coupons and to save money.
As with every service, there are some notable issues.
- For instance, if something is not in stock, they can substitute if you mark to allow substitutions — otherwise, you don’t get the item. When the sub the item, they also price match it to the item you would have had. It’s a good compromise and sometimes you’ll end up with more expensive items, other times you get the Kroger brand. When these items are subbed, it can also affect the coupons you have selected. I tend to mark on the notes of mine which ones use coupons so that I can tell in the end what has happened. If I mention this to the baggers, they’ve always went in and applied the coupons — it just takes time.
- There is a $4.95 fee involved to use this service, which in my eyes is more than worth it. You can get this fee waived by looking at special ClickList offers that allow you to get the fee waived by buying certain items, number of item or even dollars of some brand. My guess is these sponsors are paying your fee. If you need the items (or don’t), pretend like your putting your $4.95 into the grocery bill.
- The app and online website also has issues sometimes when you are looking through coupons as it will default to a set number, not letting you look through all of the available coupons. This is pretty annoying as you might have to exit and go back in. It doesn’t lose where you were, but it’s still more time.
- One other issue is that if you look through the ad, you can only add to the shopping list but not directly to the cart. How hard would this be to make a change that skips a step?
In the end, I can’t imagine my life without this service. It has saved me time nine times out of ten. The baggers have been courteous and thoughtful.
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I commute three and a half hours back and forth to work during the Fall and Spring semesters. People think I am crazy, sometimes I believe them. I had a student ask me during the first day of class why do I do that? Wouldn’t it be easier working from where you live or doing something different? My quick answer… and one that I truly believe, is that I truly love doing what I do. I enjoy teaching. I was once told that if you do what you enjoy doing, you’ll never work a day in your life. I hold this to be true. HOWEVER, this commute makes sure that I know I am working.
You see, the older I get, the more I feel this drive. Seven hours in a car for a day is a lot. The day after my drive, I feel it in my hips, my legs, my arms, my eyes and everywhere else for that matter. I call the next day a recovery day because it doesn’t’ truly feel like I get anything done until some time after noon at the very earliest, and even then it still hurts. Yet, I still can’t see myself doing anything different.
It’s true that I could do something different, go back “into industry” and work with computers in some other way. If I were to get a job closer to home, I’d still end up driving quite a bit, just instead of all in two days, it would take five days for the same 14-15 hours of drive time. Unfortunately, my heart just isn’t in it. I still do work on the side, I keep my skill set current; but going back to punching a 9-5 time clock…. I don’t think I could do it. I don’t get the satisfaction of seeing the next generation smile when they finally get it. I don’t have people telling me that they’re Team Professor Brown. These moments help remind me why I do what I do.
So, tomorrow, or actually in a few hours, I get to hit the long road with Audible playing “Storm World” by B. V. Larson. I’ll make some phone calls, make my stops and have office hours when I finally get to where I’m going.
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Blog / Business / Lifestyle / Ramblins / Reviews / Technology / Thoughts2 Min ReadDuring the Christmas season, Hulu ran a special where a person could get Hulu with commercials for $1.00/month. Even though I had used Hulu before, in its infancy, I figured it was time to give it another go. Afterall, my cable bill is now approaching $200/month including Internet. Personally, if I had 10 channels, I would be more than happy as everything my wife and I watch can be found on those 10 channels — especially if I can watch them whenever I want to.
My thoughts so far? The picture is already much better than what I get from Spectrum. The audio is comparable at the very least and in some instances, even better! It’s a bit getting used to the My Stuff area, but so far it has done a good job of collecting what I want to find.
I’m used to using a DVR and having everything in a folder but ordered by Most Recent. Truthfully, I’ve not spent a lot of time to see if there is a way to set this or not. In any case, I don’t see any benefit of cable over Hulu or even some of the others I have seen mentioned, except for Sports.
As long as I can see the Kentucky Wildcats play, I should be okay. I don’t watch them Live now, so it shouldn’t really matter. I’ll spend some time trying to find the options for this, and then I’ll make a choice. Another key will be if Jacque can find what she wants to watch as well.
Want to give it a try? Here’s a referral link that you can use: Hulu Referral Link
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The Brown Household has a new kitchen gadget being added to its arsenal — another Ninja. This Ninja is the AF101, a 4 quart air fryer which should go along quite well with the other Ninja equipment that we have in the kitchen. So far, the other items, a blender and food processor –part of the Ninja Mega Complete Kitchen System 1500, has performed nicely! I am anxious to test it out, and plan on doing so tomorrow. See the Po’ Boy recipe’ coming up next…
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[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ello Fresh had provided a very good meal a couple of weeks back that was truly out of this world, Peruvian Shrimp Ceviche Tacos with Pico de Gallo and Avocado. Hello Fresh says Ceviche has been declared a part of the Peruvian national heritage, and for good reason! Composed of “raw” seafood, fresh citrus, onions, chilies, and spices, this dish celebrates the fresh, delicate flavors of the sea. Believe it or not, tender shrimp are so delicate that mere lemon juice alone can cook it!
