Just got back from the lunch buffet at Monelli’s in Portage. So much food, the prices are great and the food is pretty good, but it’s all carbs so this afternoon is going to be a bit of dragging anchor. Dear Keurig Wan-Kenobi, you’re my only hope… LOL!
Today I’ve meditated 100 times in an unbroken streak!
Hooray!
The start of this Winter season inspired me to organize my wardrobe and store my summer clothes and reveal my winter clothes. Living in Michigan as I do, Winter is something you do not fool around with and the best way to prepare yourself for anything that the outside may have to offer is to dress for the conditions. As I was pulling previously stored winter gear out of storage, I came across a pair of Darn Tough socks I had bought, or were a gift, years and years ago. They were woolen, featuring Merino Wool and quite long, definitely over-the-calf in length. Generally I cannot sleep well unless my feet are warm, and so I almost always sleep with some sort of socks on my feet, and since these were woolen and the warmest I had, they served that purpose quite well.
Then I noticed there was a hole that had been worn into the heel of these particular pair of socks. I have a pronated gait, so this sort of wear and tear is common for me. I noticed the label down by the toes and figured I would replace them with another pair, since they worked so well for so long. I went to the website and discovered more about the Darn Tough brand. They take incredible pride in their products, even to go so far as to offer a unconditional lifetime warranty on their socks. Send in the blasted out pair, and they’ll credit you for a new pair. I was blown away by this, you don’t see pride and pro-consumer qualities like this anywhere, at least never in my lifetimes memory, except for Darn Tough. This started me exploring and reading and discovering that Merino Wool is not scratchy, that it has a litany of really quite shockingly good features, warm in the Winter, cool in the Summer, naturally fire-retardant, and naturally anti-microbial. It also dries very quickly and transports sweat away from the skin and releases it better than a lot of other fabrics. Pretty much every review I read online flogged the daylights out of Darn Tough, claiming they were the best socks that they had ever owned. So I gave them a shot. I washed the blasted out pair, then shipped them to Darn Tough. A few weeks later I got a gift card for the cost of the original pair!
So I bought three pair to see what all the hubub was about. I prefer long socks, so practically knee-high are for me, which in the industry is called OTC for Over The Calf. I picked their Paul Bunyon socks, the pricetag was rather shocking for socks, but after a while of wearing these socks as my daily pairs I can say that they are the best socks I have ever owned, hands down! They are soft, they check off every expectation claimed by the manufacturer, and then some!
After that, and with the gift card in hand for my warranty claim, I bought a few more, some for sleeping, some for work and daily use. If you are tired of cotton or polyester-blend socks leaving you with sopping wet feet, smelly feet, or cold feet, find something you like at Darn Tough. You won’t be sorry you did.
What an adorable pair, these two! Keeping my lap nice and warm!
Our water, like almost all municipal water is hard as a rock. There’s nothing in it. Just water and whatever maximums and minimums are federally mandated. Including lead and PFAS. And arsenic. To which we laugh and nod, right, yay.
Lime deposits build up over time and that leads to a cockeyed shower head. Water sprays sort of where it is expected to, but buildup of lime has altered the streams. There are about a hundred little nubbins where the streams exit. Last night? A random orientation of streams. Some going as expected, some going up, or left, whichever. Very helter-skelter.
But I have a trick. After learning that Vinegar can dissolve lime deposits given enough time, I find a water-safe plastic shopping bag, fill it with a cup or so of straight vinegar and tie the entire thing around the shower head. The entire shower head soaks overnight in the Vinegar brew. Then I take it off and pitch all of it. I tested it this morning after waking up. Hey look! It’s brand new! Yay!
The wonders of chemistry.
When the City of Kalamazoo successfully repairs their water system you can definitely tell. The pressure goes waaaaay up. You can have a real good time with your Bermuda Blast buddy! Whoa!
Found this on Reddit, totally adorable.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/awysn3/have_you_ever_seen_a_baby_seagull_me_neither/
I’ve noticed for a long while that no matter how long you microwave a dish, the center of the thing you are reheating is always colder than the ring around whatever you are cooking. Even if you use a flat plate and put it off-center on a rotating micowave tray inside the device.
I have taken to putting whatever I want to cook on a plate and then move it around so there is an empty spot in the middle, and that maneuver started me thinking about the general shape of what I was doing. I’m making a form similar to a bundt pan.
This started me to think about a microwave accessory, a ceramic shaped dish that could you could put your food into, it is shaped to avoid this center dead-spot, so your food cooks faster and more evenly. I call it a Bundt Buddy. LOL.
Anyhow it would be silly as it just is one more thing to clean, but if you want to avoid a cold spot in your microwaved food, make it a ring with nothing in the center, like a food doughnut. Smooth it out afterwards.
I’m 84% of the way along reading Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. So far the read has been a slow go, as he is setting up a lot of backstory and covering a lot of characterization. I don’t mind it, and it’s nowhere near the level of setting work that Stephen King is known for, so I am thankful for that. The twist near the end is quite good, and reminds me, yes Virginia, Hell is Other People.
Our local Costco is absolutely jammed with people! It’s as dismaying as Meijers on Saturday. So, Costco on Sunday is now a thing.