bitteroldhag

I was typing this out and hit something wrong and it went away. But I'll try again. I get the cheap ready-made pizza dough stuff in the blue envelope from Walmart (It makes about a medium regular pizza) and mix it up with some warm Water. Then I wait around until it rises and divide it in two. I freeze half of it and roll out the other half. I roll it VERY thin (about 1/8 inch or less) and it comes out to about an 8" pizza crust. I crimp the sides of the crust and put on some bought pizza sauce though one can make one's own sauce. I don't like a lot of sauce so I skimp on that. Then I put on vegetables or whatever and put on some mozzarella and bake it at 415 degrees for about 15 minutes. I have a very high powered stove so you need to check your own stove to see how it works. It turns out very well and doesn't involve making the crust from scratch. I find that I can eat about half of this pizza. I cut it in small pieces and chew and chew. It's good. I love pizza. I have never liked hamburgers since I don't trust other people's ground meat. I have had too many incidents of foreign objects in my ground meat. But I have loved pizza from my first introduction to it. Hope this helps. It's easy and doesn't take long to make. You can make the whole dough recipe for the family. If you roll it out thin you can make a big pizza, but if you want a super large pizza, mix up two envelopes of the dough. I can't make bread to save my life, but I can make this pizza dough. Amazing, really.

I don't know. My friend, Ken, married his wife's nurse. His wife died of cancer, and the nurse was awfully nice to them. He was married to the nurse for several years before he died. His family wholly approved of the marriage and I'm glad he was happy after Pat died. I miss them both a whole lot, but I never even considered thinking that Ken was wrong for marrying the nurse. Pat would probably have liked that. Sometimes a person needs someone and caretakers are people who are kind. Maybe Mr. P just need someone to love. Maybe he just wants a new, whole family and the new Mrs. P can provide that whereas the old Mrs. P cannot. I don't think we need to think that a new wife is necessarily a murderer or a gold-digger.

Get someone to look at it NOW. The dimple worries me. I have a big cyst in my right breast that I've had for about 30 years and it's no big deal. But dimples are supposed to be suspect. So get it checked immediately.

I gained 30 pounds in 3 months drinking beer in the early 70s due to clinical depression. That was the beginning of my long bout with fat. I weighed 130 pounds before that. Of course, they have finally figured out that depression changes the brain so that one rapidly gains weight. They didn't know that then, so my doc put me on tranquilizers. He said I could take up to 6 a day. Three a day caused me to sleep all day, so I slept a lot. Then I'd drink beer to kill the pain and gained weight. I think the average weight gain is supposed to be about 1 pound a year as we age. So I was at 160 and in the next 30 years I gained more than 1 pound a year though not before I had to take care of mother. I am down to 180 and hope to get to 160 someday, but I no longer drink beer. I drink brandy. Thank God for brandy. It's low cal and very potent.

I got this card last year. It cracks me up. I can eat sweets of all kinds, more's the pity. Happy Easter folks.

I absolutely loved this video. Of course, I had to post a few acidulous comments. Young people can be so rude and stupid. I hope I skewered them.

I'm a big believer in spanking though I don't have any kids. I do have 6 animals since Nose, the cat, disappeared this week, and I spank them. I only have to do it once and they learn that when I get out the flyswatter, they are in trouble. My mother did the disciplining when I was young and she used a flyswatter. I didn't hurt much, but we danced around so much she'd hit us with the wire part. That hurt. I just have to swat something like a chair and the animals sit up and listen. But worse than any spanking was having to "talk" to daddy. He would logically point out why we were such idiots and we would crawl out of the room. Both my brother and I are upstanding citizens who are quite successful in life. I think a spanking get a kid's attention, and then they can "talk" to daddy. Horrible!

I am not worried about criminals having guns. I'm worried about the military and police being the only people with guns. I absolutely oppose any gun bans and I'm a bleeding heart liberal. Given the move toward monarchy of the present administration, I don't want to the military and police to be the only ones with guns. That scares me a whole lot.

Hey, this is part of higher education. Personally, I can't wait to know what you found out. My own dissertation was a little over 300 pages long and mostly boring. But your research is interesting. Keep us posted.

I had an Unjury shake for breakfast, two pieces of bacon and two eggs for lunch and smothered steak, mashed potatoes and peas for dinner. I made gravy with the steak and covered the meat and potatoes with that. It helps it go down. Then I ate some more steak without gravy and it got stuck and I slimed for 45 minutes. So I ate some chocolate kisses and two packs of chocolate pudding to get it to go down. It worked. I also had some Dr. Pepper and some brandy. No wonder I'm not getting thinner.

I am a major fan of Unjury. I use the chocolate and drink it every morning. It tastes great and since it is a powder, it doesn't go bad. It's sort of expensive, but it's worth it.

This evening I ate a piece of smothered steak. I had eaten some before, but got hungry later in the evening. I slimed for 45 minutes and never did throw up much of the steak. I'm thinking of having my band loosened since I'm not losing much weight since I can't seem to get myself to exercise. I loathe exercise. I eat chocolate kisses because they seem to help get stuff to go down. I eat bacon and eggs just about everyday at about 2-3 p.m. I have a Protein shake for Breakfast because I can't eat anything until later. Then I have dinner. We eat a lot of pork chops because I can get them down. I don't eat much salad because it doesn't go down very well, but I eat cooked veggies and drink V8 a lot. I never liked V8 until the band, but I think it's wonderful now. I'm not the best dieter. The point of the band for me was to avoid dieting and being hungry. It worked. I'm not very hungry most of the time, but I'm also not losing much weight. I lost 40 pounds and stopped. Still I'm happy with the 40 pounds. I'd like to lose another 20 and stop there, but I'm not working on it very hard. I have a lot of other stress in my life. My cat whom I've had for 14 years disappeared this week. The dog has mange. Mother's blood pressure is very strange. I'm tired. I'm not sure I'm the best person to diet at the moment. I seem a little depressed. I'll have to get over that. I also have found a new adoration of oatmeal raisin Cookies. One of those suckers is enough and helps the old digestive tract. I never liked them so much before. My brother came down for my mother's colon surgery and he noted that my entire eating program had changed. I don't eat a whole lot of stuff I used to eat and I don't eat very much. One would think I'd get thinner, but I guess that chocolate and oatmeal cookies can put a damper on that. But it's amazing how much my food choices have changed in less than a year. I do make my own pizza with a very thin crust and I like that though I can't eat very much of it. I get full on half of a personal pan pizza size pizza. But I love pizza and I'm not giving it up. chicken is very difficult to eat as is prime rib. But I'd like to get rid of this slime stuff. Did you know that you can blow bubbles with slime? Just thought I'd let you know. I blew some really big bubbles tonight.

I think they put a bunch of pork barrel stuff in to get the blue dog Democrats to vote with the party. They do this all the time, and the budget seems reasonable, but they have really put GWB on the line here which is what they intended to do. If he vetoes the bill, he will be seen as not supporting the troops and if he signs it, he will be committing himself to a deadline. He can't win for losing. I'm just tickled to death that the Congress actually stood up to him. I'm getting sick of having a king instead of a president. I personally think the Dems are setting up the 2008 elections and the Republicans really don't know what to do with such a junk yard dog Congress. They haven't experienced this in years. Ain't politics fun?

Pizza. I have figured out how to make a lower cal pizza with a very thin crust though I do pile on the cheese. That's protein. I have pizza at least once a week though I find that I can't eat much of it. I figure I'd be challenged to eat a whole slice of New York pizza. I absolutely loathe cilantro but love tarragon. But I also love French food.

Kyethra -- You certainly sound like a nerd to me if you like grammar. I hated grammar, but I taught it for several semesters. It was traditional grammar and the students were better at it than I was. Advanced grammar is probably the new stuff and would be more interesting. I'm glad you are interested in this stuff. We don't have enough people who understand the value of English studies.

I have so many embarrasssing moments that I don't know which to choose as my most embarrassing. I suppose it was the time that I was teaching in a very small classroom. I was standing about 1 foot from the front row of students when I farted. It was quite loud and unexpected. I was so embarrassed that I blushed to hard I sweated. I didn't know what to do, so I interrupted myself and said, "Well, that's enough of that," and went on to some group work. Now if I fart in class, I just glare at a student and pretend it was him or her. Also, I was studying for comprehensive exams at T.U. Their comprehensive exams were really comprehensive starting with the Epic of Gilgamesh and ending yesterday. I was exhausted and went to my classroom for my comp. class. It wasn't there. This was the week after spring break and I immediately assumed they had turned my classroom into a language lab over the break. I sent most of the students home and went to complain about this. The secretary asked me very gently if I was sure I was in the right room. It occurred to me that I was on the 2nd floor of the building while my classroom was on the third floor. I was mighty embarrassed about that.

My dog has hereditary mange. He apparently has some northern sled dog genes. They are prone to mange. It flares up periodically and he's getting worse. Mother's BP is an enigma. No one can figure out why it's high. I'm suspecting renal artery stenosis because she's had that before and has a stent. If it is that, we can cure it. But it would be nice if the doc would come home from vacation.

The House held an important vote today and my congresscritter, Dan Boren, voted against the bill to impose some sort of rules on the war in Iraq. I am very angry about this. Boren says he doesn't think Congress should micromanage the war. I think it's high time that Congress did some micromanagement. I read something in DailyKos about conservatives just cming right out and saying they are conservative, and liberals just saying they are liberals and sorting out the parties on this basis. I like this idea. Republicans are conservative and Democrats are liberals. They have been since the early days of the Republic. I'm getting sick of conservative Democrats. There are a lot of them, and they mess up the party. I think there are some liberal Republicans, but there aren't many of them. There seems to be a lot more conservative Democrats. I say, vote them out and get some real progressives who can roll back the fascist stuff the Bush administration has done. Of course, in Oklahoma this will be difficult since people here are so stupid they don't notice that their civil rights are being abrogated. I am totally disgusted. My problems might explain my irritation. I have two baby birds dying in my homemade nest. The cat dragged them in yesterday. My dog, Ozzie, has serious mange. Mother stayed up until really late so I couldn't have my "down" time. Her blood pressure is high and won't go down. And spring break is almost over and I haven't graded one paper yet. I have about 50 to grade. I would like to retire. It was so wonderful getting to sleep late and just do fun things this week. But the papers are waiting and my age group can't retire until we are 66, and I'll only be 60 this year. I'll probably be dead by the time I'm 66 which is what the government is hoping for. That's really crappy since I've paid into social security for about 46 years. I hope the rest of you enjoy all that money I've paid for retirement. Of course, it will probably go to the war in Iraq which appears to be never ending. Boy, I'm grouchy.

The Borens have been running this state for 20 years and Dan Boren is the next generation. But he's way more conservative than his forebears. Oklahoma is known for stupid people and there are still some who love GWB. But I have to say that the number is dwindling even here. However, most people here are just trying to make ends meet and having plenty of trouble with that. One wonders why they vote Republican.

Me too. This sounds like inexpensive heaven. But I have to teach summer school. Bummer.

While there may be legal problems in treating pets as more than property, I have to admit that all 7 of my animals are my kids. I don't have human kids, but I have had lots of animal kids. I am highly irate that my kids would be threatened by some corporation's quality control failure. Luckily, I feed my kids Purina Dog and Cat Chow, but I was feeding the puppies Iams dry food to try to fatten up Sergeant. I also was giving Ozzie Mighty Dog wet food to hide his pills, but it wasn't the gravy kind. I had better not wake up and find that the non-gravy kind of Mighty Dog is tainted. That will really make me mad. I suspect pesticides and did so right off the bat. I read to today that the scientists are going to check for those. As we know from the human slaughter at Bhopal, India, back in the 70s (?), pesticides are highly dangerous and their use needs to be closely controlled. If it's a pesticide, maybe the scientists can come up with an antidote. But I'm seeing big lawsuits for the pet food company.

I'm not a pro, but mine does this when I'm under stress or when my blood pressure is high. I have "soldier's heart" which includes an extrasystole beat. It's not life threatening, but is scary as hell. I haven't had it much since I had my bypass, but on occasion, it happens. I just ignore it. I have a bad valve which is much more worrisome. But I'd have it checked out if I were you. Docs are just beginning to understand the women have heart problems as much as men do. I could have died because at the time I was 45, had estrogen and women with estrogen weren't supposed to have heart problems. Luckily, my female doctor didn't agree with that idea and sent me to the cardiologist and I ended up having a double bypass. That was about 14 years ago and I'm still kicking. But have it checked. All women (and men) should have their hearts checked out with more than an EKG. Everyone should have a stress echocardiogram pretty regularly, especially if one is overweight which stresses the heart. They have a new way to do stress echoes which doesn't involved trotting on the treadmill. I can hardly wait for my next one.

Oh, yes. I relate to this. I should be doing A, but I'm really doing B. Edgar Allen Poe called this the Imp of the Perverse. It's a great little story about a guy who killed another guy and got away with it, but it droves him absolutely nuts worrying about it, so he finally confessed even though no one suspected. People are just perverse. On another topic, why are they screwing around about your surgery? I'd find out. There's no point in putting it off. If that surgeon can't do it, find another one.

I'll be 60 this year and my advice about work is to do what you love. Money isn't everything and if you love the non-profits, hunt around. They may not pay much to start, but you may move up. I spent too much time doing what other people thought I should do. In my 30s, I decided to do what I wanted to do and I've made more money and been happier ever since. I always tell people to do work that makes them happy. Otherwise, one's life is wasted doing crap work you don't love. Take it from me, find the area you love and go for it.

I have a student with a cyst the size of a grapefruit. You can see it sticking out. She's having trouble getting the docs to take it out. I guess they are waiting for it to go down, but it isn't. These things can get really big and are painful. I feel for you.