The Heinous Bitca

Moving to Dreamwidth

heinous_bitca — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 04:13:30 GMT

So of course I've not been posting here in like ages, but I do still read every now and then. Not happy with the changes to LJ, as many people aren't, so I'm making the move to Dreamwidth. You'll find me there as the same here, heinous_bitca. I've imported everything except this entry. Now I have to figure out if I can do mood themes over there.

I'm not deleting this yet, but no more comments and no more posts.

CSA #10

heinous_bitca — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 23:23:34 GMT

I had been wondering why I couldn't fit everything in the picture when I used to be able to, no problem. The phone setting got moved to square, and I hadn't noticed. Oops.

1 large bunch of bok choi, 3 ears of corn, 4 tomatoes, 2 summer squash, 1 other squash, a pint of cherry tomatoes, and 6 nectarines.

Lou ate the front tomato with dinner tonight, as I warned him it was going to go bad really quickly. We'll need to eat the corn on Friday. No idea what we're going to do with the gigantic bok choi. Or rather, when we're going to be able to eat it. Tomorrow is date night out, Friday is our GURPS game and we'll need to eat the corn then or it'll get bad, Saturday is Lou's parent's 50th anniversary party. Sunday? I guess I can do a stir fry with them, maybe get some steaks (we haven't had steak at home in ages). That might be good. But it's so huge, we are totally not going to be able to eat it all at once. I guess it could reheat for leftovers, if we have enough of something it could go with!

Still have the summer squash from last week, and now 2 more this week. With the gastrointestinal distress I got from the zucchini, I'm not fond of cutting it up and eating it raw. The other one looks too light for a zucchini, so I'm wondering if it's one like we got in a previous year (that I can't find right now) that was a kind of middle eastern squash. Might just be a variety of zucchini though. Still need to figure out what to do with them.

CSA #9

heinous_bitca — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 23:13:53 GMT

Oops, forgot to post last week's share

3 ears of corn, a nice small head of lettuce, 2 summer squash, a bunch of cherry tomatoes, 3 peaches, 3 apples, a pint of blueberries, and a bunch of plums.

We ended up cooking the corn on Saturday but didn't eat it, so I scraped it down and it's in the fridge. We need to use it up, as we have one ear from the previous week's corn in the fridge too, and this week's corn. I may end up cooking the ears tomorrow night and cutting off the corn and freezing it if it doesn't look like we'll eat it Friday. I had a few leaves of the lettuce on a sandwich, but that lovely head of lettuce hasn't been touched by me for salad reasons. I just don't have the time/energy to make salads, as I can't make small ones and it takes me a long time to prep. I do need to get back into that habit, tho.

Lou ate the cherry tomatoes, we had at least one peach go bad but I ate the other two, and I think one apple went bad but I know I had one.

I chopped up the 2 zucchini to make into zucchini fries, and they were okay, but not great. I had a TON of leftover sticks (seriously, the recipe I use called for 4 zucchini, I cut everything in half for 2 and there was NO WAY I could have gotten everything on all the leftover "fries" I had). So I had Lou put some in my bag for snacks at work, with some blue cheese dressing for dip.

And this is when I learned that eating raw zucchini is very bad. I had stomach cramps so bad, basically as bad as the last time I had a banana, which was horrible. I felt bloated and like crap all night. Googling showed me that yeah, this can and does happen, so the rest of the zucchini fries (YES we still had a ton left) got thrown out. I will always sautee my zucchini now. Or just put one or two slices on a salad.

I think we still have those leeks, so I'll have to figure out something to do with them.

Backdating this post so it will show up in the proper week.

CSA #8

heinous_bitca — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 23:45:59 GMT

2 zucchini, 1 pint of tomatoes, 1 head of lettuce, a bunch of leeks, 2 nectarines, 3 apples, and 3 ears of corn.

The corn didn't get eaten today, but we'll plan for Friday so it won't go bad. The lettuce is really wilty this year, I'm hoping it's just from the massive heat we've been having up here this year. The tomatoes look good, and might go into salsa or sauce. No basil for that sauce this week, though! So maybe salsa. The apples we were told were very tart, so I might try to bake up some mini tarts. I still have the blueberries and strawberries and now we have some nectarines and apples. Might make a good combo.

I have to figure out something else to do with the zucchini. I could probably get away with putting one in pasta again, but these are larger ones than the previous, so definitely not 2. I have enough bananas that I don't really want to make zucchini bread, and every time I shred and freeze the zucchini/summer squash since we started these CSAs, it never gets used. Except maybe when I make stock. But basically it gets stuck in a bag in the freezer, gets ice crystals on it from being in there so long, and then it gets tossed.

I do need to make more veggie stock, so I should try to do that this weekend. I have a scraps bag and we really need to start another so we're not wasting all these lovely veggies.

We're also going to seriously start looking at apartments now that we're back from GenCon, so it's possible I could be posting more frequently talking about that if it takes some time to find the right place. Right now, just finding a place that will let us have 2 cats that isn't on the 3rd floor is the biggest hurdle. Especially once that don't charge an extra $25-50 per month in rent for said cats!

CSA #7

heinous_bitca — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 23:28:24 GMT

(backdating this post now so it'll show up in sequence)

Picked up by our friends since we were away at GenCon. 2 ears of corn, 1 zucchini, 2 small squashes, blueberry jam, 1 head of lettuce, 2 peaches, 2 plums, a bunch of basil, a pint of tomatoes, and 2 red onions.

They seemed to have plans for most of the stuff they picked up, but I haven't checked with them on how they did. As I think I already mentioned, we cleared out the fridge before we left on vacation, so the only things left are some radishes, the onions, and the lone kohlrabi.

Lou picked up the stuff for this week, so I'll post that next.

CSA #6

heinous_bitca — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 04:16:07 GMT

A bunch of red onions, 1 kohlrabi, 2 small peaches, 2 ears of corn, a bunch of leeks, a bunch of basil, 2 zucchini, and a pint of blueberries.

We used up all the leeks/green onions (the ones from 2 weeks ago I thought were green onions but may have been little leeks. I don't think so, though) and the spinach from a few weeks ago in some quiche. The last of the old half-dozen eggs were used up prior to the quiche, in eggs Sunday morning! (quiche was made later). I gave away this week's basil and zucchini since we were going away to GenCon & I knew they wouldn't get used. We ate the corn on Wednesday; it was definitely new corn. Froze the blueberries today, will use them to make scones when we get back. I've never made scones before, and I've always been nervous about it for some reason. Hopefully all will go well!

Still have the kohlrabi, and some radishes from ages ago. Chopped off all the greens from the onions so they wouldn't deteriorate and moisture-up the crisper drawer. We did use half of one onion in the eggs this morning, and I decided to try chopping up & freezing the rest. Then we had some more onions & part of a pepper left, so I chopped that up & froze it separately. Will have to try to use them when we get back.

I think we still have the small peaches, but they were pretty green. I'll see if Lou takes them tomorrow to work, otherwise I might have them when I get up.

I did throw out all the lettuce. It was pretty wilted to begin with, and we just didn't eat it in a timely manner. I also never used the mint, so that got thrown out too.

We used the zucchini in a pasta recipe I found that also used up half of the cloumage. It called for ricotta (actually requested "artisanal ricotta"!) and zucchini, onion, basil, garlic, Parmesan, and pasta. It was pretty good and even was good cold. The only thing I didn't do was make a paste with the basil & the garlic as it said to use a mortar & pestle (which we don't have) or a mini food processor, which we also don't have. Next time I'll break out the big food processor.

We made the sugar snap peas by just cleaning/de-stringing them, blanching, then sautéing them in some garlic & olive oil, very similar to what I do with green beans, actually. They were good!

Next week our friends Pat & Betsy get the farmshare, so I'll get a pic of it from them. We did a pretty good job this year of cleaning out the fridge before vacation, and we've done okay with using up what we get from the CSA. In fact, Lou swapped out, at my suggestion, the Asian braising greens we were supposed to get with more blueberries, because I knew we wouldn't eat them before vacation. Especially with me working second shift bothe weekend nights (which means a double today, because my normal shift is midnight to 8:30. I'm about halfway through right now, and really starting to drag! I have a piece of quiche to help get me through the night, though!

See you in just over a week!

CSA #5

heinous_bitca — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 06:35:45 GMT

4 leeks (one is out of frame), 2 zucchini, a very limp head of lettuce, a bunch of baby spinach, a bunch of basil, a bunch of green onions, & blueberries.

I still have the blueberries from previous weeks...I need to make some muffins, I just haven't felt like it. We did eat some of the peas, the snow peas, with the bok choi and some shrimp, stir fried. I used last week's braising greens with all the previous kale with dinner on Monday, and ended up tossing the Asian greens, as it looked like it was mainly kale with some snow peas and a bit of bok choi mixed in. Still have the lettuce, though I used up the one from the week before. So we're doing okay on using up what we can. We still have some radishes, and the sugar snap peas, so we'll need to work on those this week. Going to use up the baby spinach in some quiche this weekend, so we will need to get some more eggs, and check for ham in the freezer and but it if we don't have any. Or maybe use a lot of bacon. We'll see. Not sure what to do with the zucchini; Lou's not a huge fan of raw and there's not really enough for bread. Maybe do something with the leeks, too.

CSA #4, 2015

heinous_bitca — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 05:18:27 GMT

This week's share includes bok choi, lettuce, a few springs of mint (across the former 2), Asian braising greens, braising greens, sugar snap peas, and snow peas.

Lou commented that he feels we haven't been getting as much as previous years, and I thought it always started out smaller, then we got more as it got more into the harvesting season. But I did look back at last year's, and we definitely aren't getting as much as before. Now with winter being a PITA and refusing to leave (which I reminded him about), there may just be a delay. We still have all the greens that we normally get early on, so hopefully it will improve.

As for how we did - well I used up the kohlrabi and one radish in salads on Tuesday, though the lettuce I used was not the one from the farmshare but the bagged one I had gotten before it started. We also ate the strawberries (though actually, I think Lou had most of those). I sauteed last week's peas today with some garlic and onions and it was quite yummy. We still have all the old kale, so I will try to braise that on Friday with the other braising greens (not the asian ones). Will possibly sautee the bok choi too.

Not sure what we're going to do with the mint. It was suggested by the farmshare to use it with the peas, but I'm meh about that. Lou said he had the option to pick 2 of the 3 kinds of peas, so skipped the shelling peas, which makes me sad. I like making that roasted red pepper and pea pasta salad, and that requires snow peas and shelled peas.

Need to start making more salad to use up the lettuce, too. Lou's already bored of salad tho, I can see it. But there's not much other use for lettuce, as he doesn't like it on sandwiches (unless we're at a restaurant), and otherwise I could use it as a garnish, but that's not really using it. Ah well, I'll have to get creative!

We still have the cloumage; maybe this weekend we can try mixing it with some of the hot pepper jam. We also still have the last half-dozen of eggs, I believe.

CSA #19, 2014

heinous_bitca — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 05:41:39 GMT

Looking back, I never uploaded my last farmshare picture from last year to Flickr, so it was never posted here! Just posting for completeness.

1 head of napa cabbage, 1 bunch of kale, 2 small heads of lettuce, 2 apples, 3 green peppers, a 1/2 pint of cranberries, a jar of hearty mustard, and I believe some potatoes there behind the lettuce.

It being like 8 months later, I have no recollection of what we ate. I'm sure we didn't eat the peppers or the cranberries, the hearty mustard is probably still in our cabinet, but the rest probably got eaten, especially the apples. The kale probably got put into Portuguese soup, as I know we made a lot of it last year. The cabbage and lettuce probably got eaten, and the potatoes. Though I seem to recall having some potatoes go bad, but since we did the Fall farmshare, it may have been those.

Backdating this so it'll be in the right place.

CSA #3, 2015

heinous_bitca — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 05:30:05 GMT

And finally caught up! This week's Farmshare below the cut:

1 kinda limp napa cabbage, 1 kohlrabi, 1 jar of spicy pickles, 1 bag of peas, 1 pint of strawberries, 1 head of limp lettuce

I managed to get up early enough to get the CSA last week, but didn't this week. I'm not sure if the very limp napa cabbage and head of lettuce is because of Lou picking it up near the end of the day, or if it was like that anyway. If they perk up at all, they'll get eaten this weekend, otherwise they'll probably be tossed. Lou's getting tired of salad already, though we did have one each day for the past 2 days. I still have a bag of cut lettuce I bought, intending on using it before we started the farmshare (or at least the first week), but it still isn't used.

Definitely need to use up the peas, though. They look really good. I haven't cleaned those strawberries yet, but I'll likely do it tomorrow. I have to work a double shift on Friday, but it's third and 2nd, so I get to sleep in the middle. Ugh, not my preference, but we have no real other way to handle vacations/holidays, especially when people take vacations ON holidays. Well, by people I mean either me, Terry, or Ted, as we're the ones in the data center on the 3 shifts. Kevin works weekends and a few days during the week to fill out, but he can't work every shift. As it is, he's working a double on Saturday covering Terry's shift (as Terry works Tuesday through Saturday), and then he works the 12 hours on Sunday, and then a double on Monday (he normally works Monday days), and then covering Ted's shift for the rest of the week, including another double Friday-Saturday. UGH.

Maybe Saturday night I'll suggest to Lou we roast the vegetables and if the kale is still good, I can saute that up and then we can have chicken or something with it. Hmm...I wonder if I can saute the cabbage as well? I'll think about that.

Okay, now I'm caught up, hopefully I can keep on track.

CSA #2, 2015

heinous_bitca — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 05:20:22 GMT

Catching up with last week's share.

Kale, arugula, lettuce, hot pepper jam, strawberries, half-dozen eggs, radishes, and cloumage.

We have eaten all the lettuce, but that's about it from this week. We were really bad about using it up. I'm still not sure what to do with the arugula. Oh yes, the strawberries got eaten too. Still have the radishes; forgot about those. Lou's interested in trying the cloumage with the hot pepper jam, so we might try that this weekend. He's not into soft cheeses (though he likes grilled cheese, but that was hard before it got soft! hehe), so I'm surprised by this. We'll see if he likes it or not.

I need to look at the kale and the arugula and see if it's still good. I think I may roast the radishes with the small kohlrabi from this week, because the taste of the radishes mellows out a lot with roasting.

I also bought 2 quarts of strawberries from a local pick-your-own place (though I did not pick them) last Friday. I washed and froze one quart, and just today washed and cut up the other quart, and put a 1/4 cup of sugar on them to macerate. Now we just need some dessert (or maybe ice cream) to spread them over. And we still have the ones from this week, but again, ahead of myself. On to this week!

CSA #1, 2015

heinous_bitca — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 05:14:15 GMT

Belated CSA posts, sorry. The job change has not made it convenient for me to post. This started when we decided to do the fall farmshare and I started working 3rd shift, so Lou had to pick up the farmshare. I was an absolute mess for a few months while my body tried to adjust to the new sleep schedule. Which didn't end up working. I took pictures for every one, but only uploaded 2 pics to Flickr, it looks like. I'll have to try to fix that, just to update. I don't think we'll do the fall one again. It ended up not being as many squashes as Lou had hoped for, I think. We got a dozen eggs EVERY week tho, and we were ROLLING in them.

Anyway, we're on the 3rd week, and I've not posted but to Flickr and Twitter, so I am now trying to catch up.

Braising mix, kale, pea greens, apple jam, half-dozen eggs, fresh thyme, pint of strawberries.

I'm drying the thyme, we ate the kale and braising mix by braising it all together, but I need to learn to braise better; I added too much water, and it really should have just been a small amount. Still, it was good. I ended up throwing out the pea greens this week as we hadn't had them and they'd gone limp. The strawberries were eaten, and the eggs have been all used up as well. Still have the apple jam, along with a bunch of jam from previous years. We had a dozen eggs in the fridge when we started the farmshare, so I ended up hard boiling 8 of those (the others got used in egg dishes), and they've been pretty good with the de-shelling. I think we have a half-dozen still in there from last week, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We started out pretty good, with finishing most of what we had from Week 1. On to Week 2!

Fall CSA #1, 2014

heinous_bitca — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 23:44:11 GMT

As mentioned previously, Lou wanted to do the Fall CSA offering. As we are financially in a place where we can do this, I agreed. I think he mainly wanted it as it promised squash nearly every week! So we will have pictures for another 7 weeks after this, though we'll be away at Thanksgiving and have to have someone else pick up our share.

1 bunch of kale, a dozen eggs, 1 head of cabbage, 2 apples, 2 parsnips, some kind of root vegetable, a bunch of broccoli, and a green pepper.

I'd love to know what that root vegetable is! I will likely email them to ask if no one can identify it.

Lou will likely be picking up all the fall shares, as I am still trying to get my sleep during the day under control. He went today, and there was no one there, but there were big plastic buckets stacked, with clear labels for full share and half share, and he grabbed a half-share box, waited around a while for someone to come, but no one did, and then left.

As for the old summer/fall share, we still have a TON of lettuce, some potatoes, and a few squashes left to eat. We will need to clean stuff out so we can make room for all the new stuff we'll get!

Husband update #2

heinous_bitca — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 14:41:06 GMT

So the past day has been a blur, but I've slept now so I can update better.

Thursday morning, I was at work, finishing my shift with my friend Kevin, whom I was training (he's taking my old weekend shifts, but not Monday's, as apparently our boss has decided to have no one work the Monday day shift). 6:15 came and went, which is usually the time Lou texts me when he gets up and gets ready for work. I was thinking hey, he's sleeping in, when he CALLS me, which is something he doesn't do, at 6:28, to ask me to come home and take him to the hospital. As he believes he's back in afib.

I relay this to Kevin, and head home. Note now, I've been at work since Midnight and up since about 3:00 yesterday afternoon.

I come in and drop off my laptop (not leaving it in the car for who knows however long it's going to take) and help Lou with this stuff (he's prepped for it this time, putting in an extra t-shirt and pair of underwear in his bag, along with a charger for his iPad and iPhone). This time, we head to Charlton Hospital here in Fall River, where we COULD have gone before but Lou didn't know until he was AT RI Hospital, getting off the ambulance when the ambulance guys told him this. I drop him off at the emergency room while I go park the car.

I get into the hospital and find him and we're escorted into an emergency room "bay" - it's not really a room as the walls are basically curtains. It's about 7:00 by this point, and the nursing staff is just coming on duty (7-3 shift), and so we get him situated and he's all hooked up to machines. I dread seeing his heart rate back up over 170 again, but there it is on the monitor. They start him on a saline solution as well as the diltiazem. The nurse/tech who gives him the IV is amazing - it's on the back of his right arm, and he doesn't even really notice that she's done it.

There's all the usual rigamarole with the first doctor (I assume the ER doctor, some sort of triage guy) coming in and asking him for details. We wait around a bit after explaining everything, and then we finally get a doctor, Dr. Pellegrino, who I believe to be a cardiac guy, but I actually think later he's just the attending doc, to talk to us about what's going on. They're trying to regulate him with the diltiazem, but of course it's not working.

Eventually we find out that they want to try to cardioversion him, but since he had a protein bar at 6:00 a.m. to take with his meds, they have to wait until noon before they can begin, as they don't want him to vomit anything up when he's sedated. Since that means waiting until noon, I decide to go get some breakfast. It's about 9:00 by this time. Note again: still operating at no sleep since 3:00 Wednesday afternoon.

I head out, originally thinking to go to McDonald's and grab a sandwich, but Lou's suggested I go to Newport Creamery. I pooh-pooh that idea in the hospital, but as I'm out and about realize that it's not a bad idea, it'll give me more nourishment than the McD's sandwich and also allow for me to take more time outside of sitting on the terrible chair in the ER bay. So I head to the Creamery, only to see a note that their credit card machines are down. I start to leave, then check my wallet, and I have some cash in there, so I head in. I get scrambled eggs, home fries, a grilled English muffin, and a side of bacon, with tea. I take my time eating and drinking, and the waitress notes that the mugs are small when I ask for my second cup (they're not that tiny, but I much prefer larger mugs of tea). She brings me, after my 2nd cup, a nice travel cup of tea, and I thank her and say I'll bring this back to the ER with me. We end up chatting then, and I find out she's studying to be a nurse, and is doing a semester off, but starts again in January. I highly encourage her to continue studying to be a nurse, as we definitely need more nurses out there. I leave her a generous tip, and head back.

It's about 10:00 when I leave, but I head to the nearby hardware store first, because my car has died (I took Lou's car to work on Thursday because I couldn't get mine started. It's been slowly dying all week, but we have an appointment for Saturday so I was hoping it could last that long. It might just need a new battery, but it could also be the starter). At the hardware store, I pick up a portable jump-start battery pack, hoping to use it to get the car going, and then head back to the hospital.

I'm back in about 10:30 I think, and now we wait. We find out the reason for the delay - RI Hospital sucks at sending all the requested data. They finally get it all, and the doc who did the cardioversion at RI Hospital, someone neither one of us has ever met, finally gets on the phone with Dr. Pellegrino. Eventually about 1:00 things START moving, but I think it's closer to 1:30 when they try the cardioversion. I leave at this point, because the bay is being crowded with people and I'm just in the way. (oh thank god, I can check my twitter timeline for the proper time on this. Yep, it's about 1:30 when I leave the bay, and 2:00 when they call me back in.) It doesn't work (possibly because they were using a smaller voltage? wattage? machine than they had at RI Hospital, which may not have even been enough, as we learn that the doc there pushed down hard on the front pad connection to get it to work (they had to do it twice) because of Lou's size), so I head back in at 2:00 and we wait for more decisions on admission.

Thank god for my twitter timeline, it's giving me timestamps.

So at just before 3:00, we start seeing a true cardiologist. Dr. Baig is explaining everything to us, about what happens next. They will be admitting him, but there is options for meds first. He explains that there's 3, possibly 4, med options, but if those don't work, then they'll recommend an ablation. However, Charlton has a whole group of electrophysiologists who are dedicated to cardioversion and ablations, and he wants one of them to see Lou first. Not long after, we do see one of those specialists, who wants to try the medicine option first. He is suggesting Tikosyn, as the other med options can cause more serious side effects, and he doesn't like to prescribe them for patients under age 70. But as one of the serious side effects of Tikosyn is an abnormal heart rate (and looking up online, possible kidney issues too), they will be keeping him in the hospital for 3 days, as they can keep a better track of him to monitor for these side effects.

I have no recollection of the time that they finally start bringing him up to his room, but it's actually not long after seeing the electrophysiologist. Now I'm operating on 24 hours of non-stop being awake. I think it must be about 4:00 as the 2 nurses who have been there since he was admitted are still with him (<3 <3) even though their shift ended at 3:00. But they are great (Katie and Heather) and if Lou gets one of those hospital surveys to fill out, I am definitely going to make sure he names them with absolutely glowing remarks. Hell, I may just write a letter to the hospital anyway. We get him to his room, and I depart as I drop off his stuff and they start doing all the taking of the vitals and such. I'm going to go home and pack up his own cpap machine, and I've asked a friend if he could bring it back to Lou at the hospital, as I am concerned about my lack of sleep and driving not only from the hospital, but back to and home again.

I head out and on the way back, decide to grab some food at McDonald's. I've not eaten since breakfast, and I'm actually now starting to feel hungry. I originally wasn't going to, but decide that I should so I don't wake up in the middle of the night starving. Of course, at 4:30 the McD's drive-through is PACKED for some unknown reason, but I get my meal (with Sprite so I don't have caffeine that will possibly keep me awake) and head home, managing to bring in all my crap and with the jump-start kit as I know it needs to be charged first.

I get inside and just have time enough to drop everything when the friend indicates he's outside and to let him know when I'm ready. I tell him to come up (I've left the outside door ajar and the door to our apartment unlocked) and start packing up the cpap. I get it ready and I can feel the beginnings of utter exhaustion really beginning to take hold (I really felt it at the drive-thru at McD's, where I got irrationally angry at the line), and he offers me a hug, which is the queue for total breakdown for me (I fall apart when I'm upset and people express concern for me. It's the absolute worst). I take the hug and just shoo him out of here, as I really just need to sleep/collapse and I'll be fine.

As I eat, I look at the manual for the jump-start kit, and it not only needs 24 hours of charging, it needs to do it in a well-ventilated area, as it apparently lets off explosive gasses while charging. That ruins that idea, as there's no place I'd consider safe in venting IN the apartment, and in the hallway, the 2nd floor smokes there, so that's out too (not that there's an outlet in the hallway anyway). So I eat, and then eventually head to bed. I let Kevin know (as I'm supposed to be training him on Friday too) that I may not be in, it will depend on how much sleep I get, and after posting a bit more on twitter, I probably collapse around 5:30.

I think I may have woken up about 8:00? Not sure. 8:00 p.m. that is. I go back to sleep, and wake up again at 3:00 a.m. for a bio run. I think I'm kinda awake now, and wondering if I'll get back to sleep again. Thankfully, I do, and then wake up again about 7:00 a.m. I manage to stay in bed, dozing, until I get a text at 8:00ish from said friend about him being available tomorrow (Saturday) if needed to help me with the car. I finally decide to get out of bed, and later when Lou's mom texts me about her also being available on Saturday if needed for the car, I realize Lou's talked to EVERYONE about this, making sure I'm taken care of. Since I haven't charged the jump-start kit yet, my plan will be to call AAA and have them try a jump start today, and if it doesn't work, then I will get it towed to the dealership and they can deal with it tomorrow when the appointment comes around.

I text Lou, to see if he's up, and he informs me that he is up, and better yet, the medicine has worked. He will not need another cardioversion, but he will need to stay in the hospital for the 3 days, so they can monitor him for side effects. I'm very thankful, and after a breakfast, some tea, and a bunch of updates to a bunch of people, decide to write up this post.

So there you have it.

CSA #18, 2014

heinous_bitca — Sat, 18 Oct 2014 14:03:12 GMT

2 ears of corn, 1 bunch of bok choy, 2 small heads of lettuce, a bunch of greens that I forget the name of, 1 small squash, 1 jar of jam, 2 apples, and 7 purple potatoes.

I ended up having to toss the corn from last week, because with Lou's heart issue, we just never got around to cooking it up. I also tossed last week's unknown greens (I recall catching the name this week, but I didn't write it down so it's out of my head) because they didn't keep well in the fridge due to the same issues. So this week I was determined to not let that happen. We had pizza on Wednesday night and I rinsed and chopped up the greens and this week's boy choy, and sauteed them both in mince garlic. The unknown greens wilted nicely and tasted great. The bok choy is really way too big to wilt easily; the larger stems should almost be braised or something to make them not so tough, or chopped into smaller pieces than I did. But we did eat most of them, and Lou said they were good, so I count it as a victory!

I did finally toss the husk tomatoes/ground cherries, while Lou was in the hospital. I realized I just hadn't had the time to make anything with them, and likely wasn't going to. We still have all the potatoes and the small squashes. We did cook up the buttercup squash, but I didn't oil and spice it, so I'm not sure if Lou just didn't put enough in or if there was some other issue, but when it was cooked it came out really dry. It's possible it was too hot for the squash, or that he didn't use enough oil and used too much spice, or something, I don't know. Maybe the squash was too old. But it didn't come out as tasty as our previous squashes did.

Just one week left!

Husband update

heinous_bitca — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 03:35:19 GMT

I alluded to this in my CSA post, but Lou had a sudden health issue spring up during a routine follow-up with his doctor on Wednesday.

His blood pressure was a little high when he went to see his primary care physician for a routine physical a few months ago, so she wanted him to follow up. He tells her that he had a bit of lightheadedness a few weeks ago, but felt fine right after. He wasn't sure if it was low blood sugar, or something else. She was concerned about the blood pressure then, so she ran an EKG. And then tells him she wants him to go to the ER, as his pulse rate was high and his beats were irregular, I guess.

He calls me, and I'm awake (thankfully, more on that later), and tells me this, in his "I'm going to remain calm, because if I don't remain calm right now, I will freak the fuck out, and I don't want my loved ones to see this" voice. It's rare that he uses it, because it's rare that he gets freaked out, but I've heard it before, so I know what it sounds like. I am dealing okay with this, and get dressed and actually beat him to the hospital, even though I went to get cash, back to the house to get some changes of underwear for him (and that's an adventure, trying to find it). He went to Rhode Island Hospital, instead of the local Charlton, likely because his doctor is in RI. He didn't know he COULD have gone to Charlton until he was AT RI Hospital. :( And Charlton has a top-rate cardiac center too. :(

Anyway, we finally meet up, and they have him all wired to the gills, and start giving him some IV meds as well as pill (Diltiazem). It brings it down some, yay. They start him on a low dose, because they're not sure how he'll react (I find out later from his mother that she had an allergic reaction to this med, an all-over-body rash). But it works...somewhat. He tells them repeatedly that he feels fine, no pain, no tightness, no light-headedness, etc.

It doesn't come down enough for him to go into a normal room, though. They keep him in the ER, trying to get it down below 130, as that's apparently the rate at which they can move him. But it stops cooperating at some point, and won't stay that low. He'll have to go into the cardiac care unit for more monitoring.

Meanwhile, I have to work at midnight! See, I just this week started full-time at my job, since the guy who works third shift left. He worked midnight to 8:30, and they asked if I wanted to take his shift. So yeah, I'm due at work at midnight and my husband still doesn't have a room.

I leave at 11:30 (still am late to work because I go home and change and prep a snack, but I warned them), and he texts me at 1:30 to tell me his room number. The rest of the morning passes boringly at work, and he texts me when he wakes up. He doesn't know what is planned, but will get in touch with me when he does. I go home and go to sleep somewhat (just a few hours, sadly).

He says they're going to try to regulate with the meds today (this being Thursday), and if it goes well, he can go home. If not, then they'll try the procedure on Friday. Okay, so yay, he can eat today. I go up and visit him, and he seems in good spirits. I note his heart rate monitor doesn't dip much below 100 though, hovering mainly around 120. :( A friend comes by to visit while I'm there, so we chat for a bit. He leaves, and then I leave to go pick up his mom to take her to somewhere (she just had her meniscus repaired, so can't drive, and Lou had promised to drive her before all this shit happened, so I volunteered). He goes to bed and I go home and try to sleep a bit before work (bad idea, I don't fall asleep until 10:30 with the alarm set for 11:00, and I'm wicked fucking tired when it goes off).

Work happens, and Lou sleeps in this morning and calls me late, which means yay, he slept in. No idea what will happen, the doctor made rounds, but no decision that he knew of. I go home, go to bed, with him saying he'll call me in a few hours when he knows more.

At about 1:00, something makes a text noise. It shouldn't be my phone, as it's set for DND from 9-5, with only favorites allowed through, and these's a text, but not from Lou. It's possibly my iPad, which is not in DND mode but does have Messaging turned on again, is what I heard. But I look at my phone, and my m-i-l texed me at 9:15, and my nephew just a bit ago. I reply back to both of them (nephew is relaying stuff to my mom), which is bascially I know nothing new.

Not a minute after, Lou calls me. He says they're going to do the procedure now, and he should be done by 3:30, so I can plan on being up there for then. I make such plans.

I know that they will be knocking him out for this, we know that much from our discussion with the nurse yesterday. They were going to give him a tracheal ECG first, which requires the sedation, and then do the procedure after.

I get up there for 3:30, and he's not back. He doesn't get back until about 4:15, and he's fine and chipper. I learn from him after all this that they basically showed up at 1:00, ready to take him to the procedure, without ever even TALKING TO HIM ABOUT IT. Thankfully, he's a good man, and put his foot down and said they weren't taking him anywhere until the cardiac doctor came and spoke to him. Which she did, and she apologized for not getting back to him, she meant to, but had just forgotten.

All that done, they brought him out to where it was being done, and then after a bit, moved him to another area, because of his weight and his beard, they wanted the anesthesiologist to do the stuff necessary. Turns out they didn't knock him out with whatever is usually done, they just sedated him and then used propofol (the stuff that kills Michael Jackson because it was misused), and he was out. No big recovery time with being disoriented either, so he liked that a lot (they do that when he has had his lithotripsies, so he knows what it's like). So he was coherent and such, so I stayed with him, chilling, watching TV. He got dinner, and then I realized I should get going home, so I did.

I texted everyone I thought of to let them know he made it through okay. It was SUCH a relief once he got hooked back up to the monitors in his room to see his heart rate staying in the 80s, and the beats much more relaxed and regular. If all goes well tonight, he'll be home tomorrow.

CSA #17, 2014

heinous_bitca — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 01:34:55 GMT

! bunch of bok choy, some Japanese greens Lou doesn't remember the name of, 1 squash, 6 potatoes, 2 ears of corn, one onion, and 2 Asian pears.

This is a belated post, as you can tell. I'm going to do a follow-up post after this, explaining why in more detail, but if you follow me on Twitter you'll know that Lou was admitted to the ER on Wednesday. So thins have been a bit ... well, at loose ends, I guess.

So a quick bit on how we did previously: yeah, well, we still have all that bok choy. I think the oldest one will have to be tossed; I took it out to cook it up for Wednesday night's dinner, planning on sauteeing it, but that didn't happen, and I put it back in the fridge on the top shelf (yeah, there's absolutely no room in the crisper drawers), and it's all wilted. Same with whatever greens we got this week, as those were too big for any crisper drawer we have.

We did eat the buttercup squash with the curry spice mix we usually use on the acorn. It was good. Still have the delicata, and then this week's. I cooked up the corn last Friday, but then we didn't eat it, so I cut it off the cob. I will likely do that with this week's corn, and maybe I'll see about making a corn chowder. Give us a chance to use up some potatoes.

Lou picked up this week's share, and he traded in an eggplant for that onion, which was good, since we are not fond of eggplant. Still have the husk tomatoes, though I think I'm just going to toss them all out this weekend. I never got around to making the crumble with them. Still have the lettuce, and the white radishes (and the French breakfast ones; this week's meals got all out of whack). The apples totally got eaten and were quite tasty. Did use up all the green beans, but these ones just weren't as tasty overall as the earlier ones. They never got dark green enough for me. Not sure if was a different breed or what.

I think the farm stopped growing cabbage, as we've gotten NONE this year, and is growing the bok choy instead. I just need to use it up more frequently; it's really good when sauteed/wilted up, either in fried rice/stir fry or just as greens.

CSA #16, 2014

heinous_bitca — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 23:31:29 GMT

1 bunch of bok choy, 2 heads of lettuce, a bunch of husk tomatoes, 2 ears of corn, 6 red potatoes, a bunch of white radishes, a delicata squash, and 2 apples.

We still have the bok choy from last week, so I need to saute all this up soon, as we have so much and it looks so good. It will reduce down a lot, I just have to keep remembering that.

I used up the cucumbers from many weeks ago (the first ones we got), as they were finally really starting to go. In fact, we had so much lettuce that I made 4 salads (2 for tonight, 2 for lunches) using up the lettuce from last week, some of the lettuce I had bought at the grocery store that was starting to go, the radishes from about 4 weeks ago (going to give last week's radishes to a friend, as we still have the French breakfast radishes to use up too), and the last of the good peppers. Of course, there were other grocery store things in the salad too - carrots, celery, feta. Oh, I did use up the last 3 of the small red onions from ages ago (that would be week 10!). Thankfully those keep really well in the fridge.

We also used up all the fingerling potatoes last night in a sausage dish Lou made. We used the other of the small red onions, but they really just crisped up to crap, so next time, I'm going to suggest that he use larger onion cuts instead of the smaller ones. Plus, probably using the small onions didn't help because they were so small.

I had to toss the okra; didn't use it and it got all slimy and gross in the fridge. I think next year I'll just pass on the okra unless we KNOW it's coming and can plan for it. Ate the corn, which was yummy. We'll need to eat or cook up the corn by Friday. The apples were most definitely consumed, and the ones we got today look AMAZING.

The plans for this week will be to use up the green beans on Friday with pork chops I bought today, and then cook probably both squashes to use as a side with the meatloaf Lou plans on making on Saturday.

I REALLY WISH they'd stop calling the ground cherries/husk tomatoes "tomatillos," though. This is the 2nd week in a row that they did this, and they are NOT THE SAME THING, DAMMIT. For one, tomatillos are GREEN, and these are most definitely NOT when the husks are removed. Grrr. I may say something if they're still listed like that next week. Assuming we have them again. We HAVE had tomatillos from them before, too. They are not the same!

So we still have all those, and I think I may try (depending on how my first week of full time work goes this week, especially after working this weekend) to make another husk cherry tart/crumble thing like I did last year. Lou only had one slice, and I had none, and then it got tossed, so idk. He said he liked it, but he only had the one piece. There's just so few recipes out there for them.

Job Stuff

heinous_bitca — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 22:46:53 GMT

As alluded to in my CSA post...

In other news, I've been offered a full-time position at my company. It's third shift however, midnight to 8:30 Monday through Friday. The reason is because the guy who worked that shift gave his notice on Monday. His old company offered him a job with a HUGE pay increase, and he just bought a house. This will mean my weekends are free again (yay), but my sleep schedule is going to be so fucked. Once I get used to it during the week, I'll be fine. But if I wanted to KEEP to that schedule on the weekends, I'd sleep the day away. So that won't go over well with my body. BUT it's full time, with sick days and vacation and benefits. I'm just waiting to hear on those benefits before signing the offer letter. And, in fact, getting the offer letter. It may be waiting for me now, but I hadn't gotten it as of midday today (I got the call about the job yesterday but didn't take it, as I was busy doing CMs at the time and we had JUST STARTED, so I called him back this morning and that's when I got the offer).

I've also mentioned that I have already made plans to go away for a week at Thanksgiving, but a lot will depend on vacation and such. If I only get a week of vacation, then I won't be taking it right then. I'll save it for GenCon or something. If I get two, then we'll see. We could also manage a week without pay at this points, but we'll see. I knew this was going to happen. It would have been better if I got this offer AFTER Thanksgiving, of course! I wouldn't have been able to drive down with Lou (as we leave the Saturday before Turkey Day and come back the Monday after), but I could have come back with him. Now, I can leave on Saturday, but we'll have to come back on Sunday so I can head to work (pretty nearly once we get home; depending on traffic, I'll have a few hours to chill before I head to Monday work).

I do just really wish I could get a M-F 9-5 job, as it were. It made life SO MUCH EASIER. At least this shift doesn't rotate.

CSA #15, 2014

heinous_bitca — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 22:40:35 GMT

2 ears of corn, a bunch of bok choy, 2 small heads of lettuce, 2 tomatoes, 2 apples, 2 handfuls of green beans, 1 buttercup squash, another bunch of husk tomatoes, and 15 fingerling potatoes.

Well, we didn't eat last week's corn before it got all squirrely, alas. I also went through the crisper drawers and tossed all the old stuff; the beets, the turnips, the bunches of mixed greens and pea shoots we didn't eat. Kept the kale for now, might see if Lou wants to make some more soup. Still have ALL the potatoes, and all the green beans; need to eat everything up this weekend, or at least cook it/blanch it/freeze it. Not the potatoes, though eating those up would be nice. But they'll last a bit.

Lou did a good job on the tomatoes, but ended up having to toss the last 4 or so. Apples got eaten, mainly by me in my "snacks" for my overnights at my job. Sadly the lettuce we got last week had to get tossed. I kept it on the top shelf as there was no room in the crisper drawer, and it got all ice crystals on it/froze. I think we ate the pepper, but it might have been some of the older peppers (had to toss some of those too, they'd gotten all soft) when I made chicken fried rice. Used up the bok choy from ages ago in that. Possibly I can save some of this bok choy for that, but omg it's huge. We did it 2 of the cucumbers and still have 2 in the crisper drawer, so I need to make some salads (probably tomorrow) for lunches and use those up with the peppers and lettuce. I like to make 4 salads at one time; 2 for eating that night, and 2 for lunches. Still have the okra, so that needs to get used up. I have a recipe to try with it, involving shrimp, but the biggest issue is that come the weekend, I don't want to make anything as I'm so tired. If they keep to next week, I'll see about making them for Monday or Tuesday's dinner.

We've also fallen out of the habit of planning our weekly meals, and we have to get back on that. This is one reason why the greens have piled up. The other reason is just fatigue from so much fresh food. I know that sounds weird, but after a while, you're like, UGH, I have to cook the corn. UGH, I have to wash all the lettuce. UGH. lol I'm so bad.

I have some more news, but I'll put that in another post.

CSA #14, 2014

heinous_bitca — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 23:36:20 GMT

A bunch of green beans, a bunch of husk tomatoes, a bunch of fingerling potatoes (new this year!), 2 ears of corn, 1 green pepper, a head of lettuce, a bunch of radishes, 2 apples, and 2 tomatoes.

As to how how we did - pretty much everything is still here but corn. Lou ate most of the tomatoes; we still have a few left. He also had one of the smaller cucumbers from last week, and for dinner tonight, we ate most of the other one (with pizza!). I was going to go through today to clear out the veggie drawer, but I got called into work today. So tomorrow. I think I will clean up all the radishes and roast them for Friday night, and check on the beets and turnips. The apples did get eaten by me, mainly. And of course, as I said, we had the corn.

I'm excited about the fingerling potatoes, but I need to figure out something to do with the husk tomatoes. Lou liked the crumble-like thing I made last year, but only had one slice of it, iirc. I didn't like it too much. I'll do some more research, I guess.

Maybe have some baked fish with roasted potatoes and radishes and such on Friday. Or maybe pork chops. We'll see.

CSA #13, 2014

heinous_bitca — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 18:28:43 GMT

2 ears of corn, 1 bok choy, 2 peppers, a bunch of French breakfast radishes, 2 apples, a bunch of green beans, 2 tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, and 10 okra.

We ate last week's corn, of course, and I used the older tomatoes to make salsa. Sadly I forgot to put in garlic and didn't put in enough jalapeno. I used sugar to cut down on the tomato-yness of it, but I'd probably have been better off de-seeding the tomatoes first, as that's apparently (with the inner juices) the place where most of that taste comes from. Next time, I guess! I did use a food processor, but I kept out 3 tomatoes (originally 2, but I added in the last of the previous week's batch) and cut them up myself. That kept some of the seeds and juices out. They were not peeled though. Perhaps next time. Lou liked the consistency of it, it was just bland.

We still have about 6 of last week's tomatoes. Lou ate all of the cherry ones, and has been eating the rest. The ones from last week are getting soft, so I need to do something with them tonight. Maybe make some tomato sauce.

Of the rest of the stuff...yeah, we still have it. We were not good on making salads this week, mainly because we lack lettuce. We have some of the greens from the farmshare, but they're not lettuce! I will have to get some this week so we can use up what we have. We still have a ton of peppers from previous weeks, and the beets and turnips. Probably need to check and possibly toss those.

We have one apple left from last week; the other went bad. One of the peaches went bad, and I had the other with my weekend snack while working overnights at work. I think we have half of one of the yellow onions and maybe the other one, not sure.

Need to eat more veggies, so maybe tonight I can cut up some to nosh on. We had lunch out today (I went up to meet Lou for lunch), and that means we usually don't eat much for dinner. Maybe some cut veg will be okay. And corn.

Oh yeah, Lou didn't eat his ear of corn when I prepped it on Friday night. We had hot dogs and tater tots (I think?) and after all that, he wasn't hungry for his ear, so I let it cool and cut the kernels off. That's still in the fridge, so that needs to get used up too.

Probably should check on that kale...

CSA #12, 2014

heinous_bitca — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 20:26:06 GMT

2 ears of corn, a bag of greens that looks like it's mainly pea shoots, a 1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes, 10 tomatoes, a bunch of radishes, 2 peaches, 2 peppers, and 2 cucumbers.

Literally, so many tomatoes. We still have 9 from last week's batch. I'm going to make some salsa, but I guess we'll have to make some tomato sauce too, because there's no way Lou's eating all these tomatoes.

As to how we did - ate the corn. That was about it. Still have the kale, the peppers, the apples, and potatoes. Hard to figure out what to do with just two small potatoes, honestly. I think one of the onions got halved and used in something, probably the tuna salad Lou actually made last night. I say Lou actually made, because he never makes it, always asks me to. But I was so tired after all the work of the weekend, holiday, and more that I just came home last night and slept.

I ended up tossing the other basil we still had. Still have the turnips and beets, so we should check them and see if we should use them or toss them. I think we used up peppers from a few weeks' ago, but still have last week's and this week's. The peaches did get all eaten, thankfully.

Week 12 means we have 7 more weeks to go (stops at 19 IIRC). We should start getting more apples and potatoes soon, I hope.

CSA #11, 2014

heinous_bitca — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 18:16:59 GMT

A bag of greens, 2 potatoes, 2 ears of corn, 2 apples, 2 bunches of kale, 10 tomatoes, 2 onions, and 3 peppers. Not pictured: a 750ml bottle of olive oil purchased separately.

Doesn't seem like much, but that's a lot of tomatoes! As to how we did...

We used up all but 2 of last week's tomatoes, most of them being used yesterday. Lou has eaten at least one on his own, and then another he cut up on some chicken patties we had and on the salad he had with them. The others that were used yesterday were done in an "Italian wonderpot" which is basically pasta and stuff in one pot. I used but modified this recipe. I didn't use the spinach, but used up one entire set of bunched basil from last week (thankfully still good). I also used a full 16 oz. of fettuccine, 5 cups of broth, about 28-ish ounces of the fresh tomatoes, diced, and I added the shrimp after as Lou was concerned he might not like it with shrimp (this was an entirely new-to-us recipe, so he was cautious). The shrimp, as it turned out, were a good addition, and if we do it again next time (we still have some shrimp in the freezer), I will likely saute them in garlic as well as butter before adding them in. I also completely forgot the feta cheese, which would probably have added the right amount of salt the recipe needed and didn't have. Lou liked it enough that he went back for seconds.

I didn't take the lid off early enough, so we still had a good amount of liquid in the pot by the time it was done, but I added a few more minutes and that helped. I will probably experiment with this a bit, but it was definitely good enough to keep on the list.

Two of the peaches got used up in peach pancakes, and I had one with my "snacks" that Lou preps for my overnights at work, and I had the last one on my Cheerios this morning. It had gotten really ripe but wasn't bad. The skin was peeling right off, though.

We at the corn, still have most of the small onions (but they will keep for a LONG time), and I used up 2 of the peppers in salads. We have more this week, so we'll have to do something more with them. Still have all the beets from last week and the previous weeks, as well as the turnips. Have to do something with them this week/weekend, before they all go bad.

All in all, we've been doing *pretty* good at using up what we have. I still have some of the small leafed basil from last week to use up, and thankfully I bought cilantro (and dammit, Italian parsley that I forgot to use with the pasta last night!) so we can make some salsa with some of these tomatoes.

CSA #9 & 10, 2014

heinous_bitca — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 22:03:10 GMT

We were away at GenCon last week, and we let our friends Pat & Betsy have our farmshare, with the requirement that they take a picture of everything when they pick it up. So our first picture beneath the cut is his, followed by this week's for us.

Lemon basil, 3 tomatoes, pint of blueberries, 2 peppers, 2 summer squash, 2 ears of corn & a bunch of kale. I know they made blueberry muffins with the blueberries, as he sent me a picture of them, but I don't know yet what he did with the rest.

Now onto this week's:

2 ears of corn, 2 bunches of basil, 2 beets, 6 onions, 4 peaches, 10 tomatoes, and 4 peppers.

I sense pasta sauce in the making here. If not that, then definitely some salsa!

As to how we did on cleaning out the fridge before our vacation - we left the beets and the turnips, but used up, gave away, or tossed everything else. I left my mother-in-law the basil and the kale. I shredded all the zucchinis (except one that went bad) and froze them as well. I will likely make some bread or muffins with them, but I need to use up all the frozen bananas I have in their for banana bread first.

The bok choy and mizuna ended up getting tossed, sadly. Just never got around to using them. We also still have the previous red onions, but those will keep for a long time, and we will definitely use them up.

We're having "corn and" tonight, which is something that we started last year, trying to make sure we use up the corn early after we get it, so it doesn't go bad. So we're having "corn and .... something else" on these days. Tonight, it's a pizza.