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Wake me up when it’s over

It is VERY rare to see the NOAA “HOT” icons in my (Northwest Montana) forecast…

Holy cannoli!!

So, I am a bit hopeful that since NOAA has made such a BIG deal about this forecast…that like Winter Storm forecasts…the bigger the deal, the greater they are likely to fizzle … this is one forecast, I seriously hope is WRONG.

To help that along, I have gone overboard on preparation. My thinking is that if I have prepared to the max, then via Murphy’s Law, the max will not happen…

So yesterday (Wednesday), I went to the grocery store and bought like a Winter storm was forecast. I bought fruit and veg and meat and all manner of supplies so that I could hunker down and wait out the heat wave.

I have roast, shredded chicken in the freezer.

I have turkey meatballs in the freezer. And bread and rolls and hot dogs and cooked sausage and cooked bacon. And salmon and halibut. I have canned salmon and canned tuna.

I pickled a mix of onion/cucumber/radish, I made a veggie-chicken broth, cold brew coffee, cranberry salsa and pickled jalapeno.

You might think the broth is a bit of a head scratcher, but a brothy soup with a bit of whatever else…it can be a light meal on a hot day…especially with a bit of that chicken or a couple of turkey meatballs!.

Foodwise, I am ready for good meals that do not require the stove or the oven.

Example: cold, roasted garlic broccolini with hard boiled egg for breakfast.

Bear and Auggie practice staying in the shade…

Last night, it clouded over which meant that it stayed warm overnight. Fortunately, it stayed cloudy this morning so took longer to heat up.

But, it did heat up … to 92F.

The chairs said they were glad to be in the shade.

The A/C is on in Wild Thing. She is our backup if I can’t keep the house cool enough.

The first day of HOT and Auggie headed for the cool of the porcelain.

WHAT??? I keep it clean :)

Wake us all up when it’s over…we do NOT LIKE the HEAT!

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Still Pleasant

We are to have one more day of low 80’s before the weather turns on the heat.

It is warm in the afternoon: 82F today, but a light breeze and pleasant in the shade.

I am amazed everyday at how well the fuschia are doing and how many blooms they have! I may even have to move them to larger baskets. I hope they do ok with the coming heat but they are in the shade except for early morning.

Meanwhile, we enjoy the still pleasant weather and hope that NOAA is wrong!

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Weekend catchup

I got the new machine completely set up in a record 2 days. AND, it wasn’t even all of the 2 days: 3 hours on Saturday much of which was downloading which didn’t require me to be sitting at my desk … 4 hours Sunday for my work environment which is a kind of tricky “do it in order” thing of primary tools and plug-ins … but again much of that time was downloading. No glitches, no pulling of hair or swearing or rending of clothes. This was by far, the easiest setup of a new machine that I’ve ever had. Maybe it feels so good because it took me 4 months to transition to the Acer two years ago.

It wasn’t all “new computer” stuff over the weekend. The “Auggie tree” was moved …by the Jeeper! (Auggie Tree)

It used to be there…

The Jeeper dragged it over to the firewood staging pile.

So much fun! Auggie was safely in the house, but Bear was in the Jeep with me and seemed fascinated as we pulled it onto the driveway and then over to the log pile. It is the first time I’ve used the Jeep for a chore. I did manage to scrape the corner of the garage so ended up doing a bit of touch up painting, but even that was fun.

A bit of baking happened also. I’ve been make these whole wheat rolls: hoagie buns, hot dog buns and hamburger buns, for several months. They are Mel’s Kitchen Café’s Fluffy Whole Wheat Rolls and I nearly cried for joy the first time I made them. I have been experimenting with various mixes to get a sandwich bun that I really liked and these are it! If Mel sees my photos, she might cry. Mel shapes her rolls to perfection! I am a LOT more casual. The key to using mostly or all whole wheat (white whole wheat) flour is to add vital wheat gluten. This dough is easy to work with and makes wonderful fluffy buns that stand up to burgers, hot dogs and subs. They freeze wonderfully – I let them cool, then into the frig overnight and then a repack for the freezer so no freezer burn.

Although we’ve had no rain since June 2 and it is scary dry, especially for this early, the days have been sunny with temps 74-80 daytime and 45-55 overnight … kind of perfect. NOAA says that will end this week as we warm up again to the mid to upper 90’s by the end of the week. Blech. So, the other thing we did this weekend was enjoy the relatively cool and pleasant temperatures before we need to retreat to air conditioning later this week.

It was a great weekend with much accomplished and also some relaxation in the shade in the quiet of a Sunday afternoon.

***NOAA’s exact words:
Next weekend through early next week, dry conditions prevail as the
ridge strengthens quickly and high temperatures move well into
the 90s for the weekend. Next Monday currently looks the warmest,
with Missoula and Kalispell forecast to break 100. Kalispell has
not seen 100 in June since record-keeping began. We will continue
to keep an eye on the exact numbers, but the overall message
remains the same: Prepare for multiple days of peak summer heat.

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New stuff: it keeps getting easier

About 3 months ago when I was reworking my Windows 7 backup computer, it suddenly quit. I tried all I know and let it sit for days and tried again, but it was done. It was 5 years old which is ancient in my world, but still…as a backup, I thought it would work for some of the older software I was supporting.

My production machine, my Windows 8.1 Acer is two years old and I bought it to have a Windows 8 machine and as an interim machine as it was inexpensive and kind of light in the memory and processor speed. But it has been doing fine until several weeks ago when suddenly the “P” key and the left arrow key stopped working. And it was not because there was a crumb or something in the key. The touch keyboard’s P and left arrow didn’t work either.

In a panic, I considered another inexpensive computer.

But, I went online and found that other people had the same issue with the Acer and some of it was resolved by a reboot. Although, a reboot is typically the first thing I do, I started the whole trouble shooting issue thinking the problem was mechanical. It wasn’t until later in the day that I realized the touch keyboard was also having an issue. Bottomline, I rebooted and both keys came back on board.

Still.

I make my living on the computer and a non-working computer = no $$ and I was a bit nervous about an already not so robust machine that was 2 years old, possibly failing completely.

I had been looking off and on and putting off a purchase but the glitch got me looking seriously and today the new machine arrived.

I bought a customized Toshiba. Toshiba customizable laptaps ship direct from China.

The new machine has 16 gb RAM, 256 gb Solid State Hard Drive, an Intel i7 quad core 2.6 ghz processor with integrated graphics. This baby should fly like the wind!

The cool thing is that after starting up, the start screen had the usual extra stuff: games, various extra this and that. But after I signed in, the machine got itself ready and before I new it, my new start screen looked like my Acer start screen…just the way I like it.

Wow. So happy! I still have to set up my work environment, Quicken, Photoshop plus some utility programs that I use, but they are all subscription and/or downloadable and the only time consuming thing will be my work environment.

I’m guessing that instead of days to set up, I should be good to go in several hours.

New stuff: it keeps getting easier.

Elsewise, another beautiful day that topped off about 74F with a nice breeze.

Happy Friday.