So pricey I used short ribs instead the last time I made the soup, because it worked out cheaper! I don’t know what is going on but they are. Enjoy it while you can, all the odds and ends that used to be cheap are not anymore, here.

Oxtail soup is amazing. I make it with a whole bottle of wine, and never eat it the first day. Unfortunately oxtail is very expensive here right now.

Do you eat meat? Big hunk o’ pork is one of the favorite meals of my kids. Salt the meat then broil or sear it in a pan. Put it in the slow cooker. Use broth, water, or wine to deglaze the pan and pour that over the meat.

Cut a couple of garlic heads in half horizontally, you don’t have to peel them. Toss them in.

Pour in the rest of the bottle of wine or box of broth, some orange juice is good too, lime if you didn’t have wine. Or some vinegar works if you don’t have lime. If you have cilantro put the stems in, if you don’t, don’t worry about it.

Close and cook on low all day. We usually have it with rice and black beans the first day, it’s good in tortillas with salsa, good on nachos, good in enchiladas, it’s just good

Magnesium L-Threonate was the migraine trigger. Supposed to help prevent them, but did the exact opposite. I do actually use a very small amount of “calcium and magnesium citrate with vitamin D3” as part of a bladder health mix I made with mostly D-Mannose. No problem with that one.

But I’m still not convinced on adding it to water, they’d buy some crappy industrial byproduct most likely if adding it

Warm and Cool

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter

Dark and Light

Opposites on color wheel

Neutrals

Pretty and Ugly

ETA I think my color vision is at least average, though my vision in general is not great.

Tried taking magnesium and discovered magnesium supplements give me migraines so hard no from me. I do grow vegetables in good soil without chemical fertilizer, so hopefully get those micronutrients. And we do have hard water where I live, plenty of minerals in it.

Maybe your brain gave your body a hangover, I once got sick from reading a very vivid description of how a sinus infection starts. Like reading it convinced my body it was happening. The only sinus infection I have ever had. Or maybe you were already getting sick so your mind associated the feeling with drinking. Mind and body are so connected.

Hope you are feeling better now.

The US is too big for a single answer, but here in Florida bananas are cheap, but potatoes and apples are expensive. Sweet potatoes are often cheap though.

I grow some stuff here, that’s not free but is cheap for sure. Okra, jalapeno peppers, watermelon, purple sweet potatoes, basil in the summer. Greens, lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, fennel, cilantro in the winter. Mint all year. Have citrus trees and a fig, all dwarf trees so not a huge harvest but an easy one.

I think wine and most booze will get very expensive, grains, so flour, pasta, bagels. Good cheese. A lot of produce since it comes from Mexico and South America and our supreme leader here seems determined to piss them off. Milk will probably stay around the same, maybe domestic cheese. I would logically have said eggs, but apparently not.

Yeah me too. Whoever or whatever this is, is casting a wide net.

Yes of course. We have had to stop and go take care of life several times. Sounds of crashing glass, someone at front door, kid knocking at bedroom door (at least all are trained to knock “NEVER try to open my door, you do not want to accidentally open it at a bad time and traumatize yourself”)

Doechii didn’t win that Grammy out of nowhere, her new album is really good. My kids love Roman Holiday by Nikki Minaj, I am less convinced but they do love it.

I had a shitty house and it is so stressful. Just do things as you can. #1 was metal roof so I didn’t have to think about the roof ever again. Get tented for dry wood termites after paying off the roof (they are everywhere here but very slow eaters). Get flooring one room at a time. Learn enough plumbing to replace fixtures, and get new piping throughout house after recovering.

My only real tip is get roommates, split these costs among more wage earners or if you know someone handy and homeless let them live with you for free and pay them a little for the work too.

I had an old Mustang and used to say I could cuss start it.

Oh I believe in precognitive dreams, because I used to write down my dreams and had some that happened later. And I don’t mean big things like deaths or pregnancies. I mean piddly details that meant nothing and can’t have been foreseen. Once dreamed that I was at the local bank, three people were in line, I got on the scale they had there to weigh myself but the dial went backwards then I turned around and saw this girl Joann that I’d not seen since middle school. Wrote all this in the dream journal.

Couple of weeks later went to the bank. 3 people in line. I got on the scale but it was broken and said I weighed 30lb. I got off the scale and turned around, and yep, Joann from middle school, turns out she’d moved away but had moved back to town.

That’s the one I remember and I would have just thought I had dejavu if I’d not written that dream down.

And honestly it pissed me off pretty bad. I want to believe in free will, that we can choose, that the future has not happened yet. The dreams kind of broke that.

Mind-body. That you can think yourself sick, or well. Not like magic, but a lot of the time. Like how people won’t get sick until vacation a lot of the time, they say “don’t have time to get sick” so then on the day off, the mind tells the body “ok now you have time!”. All of my kids were born on a day off or weekend, same thing in a way. And once I read a book where the protagonist’ hands were burned, very vividly described, and got blisters on my fingertips.

I just really believe a lot of physical illness, and health, comes from thinking.

We do? At least where I live I see mango trees all over, saw a longan the other day, there are loquats all over too, and until citrus canker there were orange trees in most backyards. At my old house we had loquat, tangelo, lemon, lime, carambola and bananas, and a papaya tree.

At this house we have lemon, lime, Valencia, and sugar bell citrus trees, a fig (all of these are dwarf trees) and a vegetable garden but all are in back. In front a small lawn, a few ornamental plants and sometimes I plant bulb fennel out there.

When I was nursing my first kid I squirted some milk out into a cup because the guys I lived with wanted to taste it, and it didn’t seem like a shockingly odd request. Also squirted it across the room into my ex’s mouth, like why not have fun with it while you can?

Would NOT have wanted my ex nursing like a baby though. No. Not wrong or anything just a turn off.

The second time I made a starter it “took”. Just regular unbleached all purpose flour and water. From there it was smooth sailing, it’s a lot easier than yeasted bread for me. Main things that help:

Always refresh the starter at least twice before making bread with it (so if you want to bake Saturday, refresh Friday morning then make the big starter on Friday night with some of that refreshed starter.)

Refrigerate the dough after it’s shaped. Untill it’s cold or even overnight. This does two things. Makes it possible to do the scoring, and cold dough into a hot closed cast iron pot will create steam that helps it rise.

Which leads to - bake it in a closed hot heavy pot. Commercial ovens can do things home ovens can’t. I do all sorts of baking with the starter but for “the sourdough” as the kids call it, the one that comes out like a $12 Artisan Loaf, baking it enclosed by the hot pan is the trick. I tip the cold dough out onto parchment, score it then use the parchment to carefully move it into the hot pot.

There is a sourdough community on Lemmy, they are a nice group and I’m sure would have more tips but those are mine.

I bake fancy sourdough, grow vegetables, do landscaping (but not mowing) make great cocktails for people, ferment foods and drinks. Occasionally draw things for decorations.

On the other hand, we pay someone to mow, and also to clean the house every other week.

Not me but my friend was at a wedding and when they did the “does anyone here have a reason these two should not be wed” part, the crowd broke out in laughter.