Monday, February 27, 2012

General Talk - Sadly Neglecting

I have to admit, I have not been on-line nearly as much since my surgery in November and through the better part of this year already and have even gotten a couple of readers asking me when I'm going to post something new in my recipes.

Truth be told, there are a lot of real life things going on right now that have just been more important and so very time consuming that I just haven't had the time to get here. The winter was rather mild with exception of about 3weeks worth of 'really' cold weather which consists of about 20 to 25f or something in the range of -5 to -10c. Not terribly bad considering I'm a Wisconsin gal but still it gets to me. It makes me irritable and grumpy not to mention when I'm in a bad mood, the last thing I want to be doing is dealing with my kitchen nor the mess I would make trying to create/try recipes.

On top of that streak, I also took on a real life job that although wasn't suppose to be totally solid in hours they expect until March, I've put in 2 or 3 days almost every week since I was hired. I LOVE the hours, the job and the people I work for but what is more troublesome is the fact that there is now something wrong with my right foot. I am ok it seems while IN my shoes but once at rest, with or without shoes on, the right side of my right foot some where between my little toe and the one next to it is a very sharp pain that only is noticeable if I bump, pull or try to weight bare on top of the foot (such as last night when I needed to move the heavy winter blanket while I slept to get comfortable and did it with the top of my foot... ooo that HURT!).

And if that wasn't bad enough, for years now we have had a problem with our hot water boiler for our hot water supple for the day. It's a storage tank which works on a heat at night when electric is at it's lowest cost and store it for the day time use. Well, there is a 3 loop heating element that doesn't even sit in the water itself but in a kind of cylinder that sits in the water so never touching water. It's been replaced at least 3 times in the 10years we've lived here and it's on the way to having to be repaired for a 4th. I can at least be thankful that it doesn't give up all at once but instead that it breaks one of the 3 elements at a time. I can tell each time one of the elements breaks because the amount I can do with hot water becomes less and less. Like now, I know I'm on the last of the 3 elements as of the cold weather spell we had because my wonderful husband who has a faithful wake up shower every morning can have his very low water usage shower and I can do *1* sink worth of dishes before I run out of hot water. I now have to run my boiler's force function any time I think I might want to cook/bake or clean this place and that really put a damper on my want again to cook because it's always a struggle to keep my kitchen clean, the apartment clean and make sure that *I* feel clean when I am always fighting for every last ounce of hot water I can get.

If the machine is working the way it is, I can get by.. it's a small tank of like 50litres.. maybe 75 at MOST so it's not really fit for even 2 people but at least there is hot water. And when it working right, it should heat that tank of water from cold to scolding hot within 3hrs. When the elements start to break that time goes to something around 5hrs with the first break and then about 6-7hrs with the 2nd break.... the 3rd break and we're screwed basically.

So to all those that are watching my blog, I promise you I will find my drive again soon, start baking/cooking and exploring my kitchen (as well as all my wonderful birthday/christmas presents!) and get to posting about them again. I am sorry I have been absent but I hope this explains why. It's just simply a pain in the butt when you have every thing working against you from real life work, to things not working right that help with your love of cooking to being in pain with almost every step even if it's in a small square of your kitchen. I am due to see my foot doctor again a week from this Tuesday (that would be the 5th of March) after having x-rays taken. I hope he can tell me what is wrong or at least give me some relief other then trying to put me on drozy/stomach upsetting pain killers. I don't want to lose my job do to pain or any thing, I do actually love the job and I would be heart broken if I lost it.

Oh that reminds me, I'll be posting about it sometime rather soon as since *I* work there, I can offer people 100% promised gluten free food at least in salad form that is without ANY cross contamination of gluten products and that being said that I work in a sandwich shop! More to come on that when I can get out on a nice sunny day with my camera to get some wonderful photos of the place.

I also want to thank all of you that have been visiting my blog and told the people at the Leonidas Chocolate about how you found the store on my blog! It did my heart good to know that the store is getting hits from my blog! They are a VERY nice couple running that store and they put in a LOT of effort to make their store stand out from the other stores that are in the tourist area of the Ghent city centre! I hope you'll continue to open your hearts to them and let your love of gluten free chocolates fill your tummies! You won't regret it! Remember to visit the post for Leonidas Chocolate that I posted a couple of months earlier to read more on it.