Whew!!

WARNING: MUCH RAMBLING AHEAD.

I took some new pics at Jessica's place on Monday afternoon so I'm just going to scatter them throughout this post without any captions. I think they're pretty self explanatory even though they don't have a thing to do with the rest of this post.This has been a long, busy, tiring but productive week. And I'm sure I could add some more adjectives, but you get the picture.

Now to update everyone on our plumbing and sewer woes. If you'll recall, every time we tried to wash a load of laundry the sewer would back up the drain for the hot water heater in our inside utility room. Our landlord had worked on it last Friday but hadn't fixed it, and had promised to come back and work on it Saturday but didn't show.

So bright and early Sunday morning Lamar called him and he came right over, believe it or not. It was about time! He fixed the flapper in the toilet tank first thing, thank goodness. He poured some kind of stuff that was supposed to dissolve clogs into the drain behind the washing machine and left, saying he'd be back that afternoon.

Well, he never showed that afternoon or all day Monday while we were home. Lamar and I both were gone most of the day but we couldn't see any evidence that our landlord and been here or done anything else to the plumbing, but we were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Monday evening Lamar started a load of laundry and stood over it when it started pumping out the wash water. As soon as it started pumping out the water it backed up the drain in the utility room.

Drat and double drat.

Early Tuesday morning Lamar called our landlord again and he surprised us again by coming right over to work on it. Our landlord climbed up on the roof and ran an electric drain rodder through the sewer trap. After 30 minutes or so he came down from the roof and told Lamar he thought he had it fixed. He said he pulled out a sock or some kind of rotten cloth and he thought that was clogging the line and causing the sewer to back up.

Now the only way for a sock or anything else to have gotten in there is for it to have gone over the side of the washing machine tub and through the water pump. I can barely get my fingers between the top of my washing machine inner tub and the plastic baffle that's there to keep things from going over the side of the tub.

I'm thinking it almost had to be one of Emmy's tiny socks or one of Lamar's handkerchiefs, possibly one of my thin trouser socks. Those are about the only things that could have fit through that tiny opening AND fit through the water pump.

I've been doing laundry ever since Tuesday and I'm happy and relieved to say that so far it seems to be working fine with no more flooded utility room. Other than a load of sheets and a comforter all my laundry is done up now and all put away, praise the Lord.On a related note, I've got my spare room cleaned and decluttered with the exception of running the vacuum in there and I hope to get that done on Saturday. Hopefully. I also hope to get those sheets and the comforter laundered and put away.Remember the sewer that backed up in my utility room? Well, thank goodness it was just water from the washing machine that backed up in there. There didn't seem to be any nasty stuff from the commode, if you get my drift. But still, it was nasty water and it left a yucky residue on the floor in there.

I have a good mop that's the kind with the hand action wringer that squeezes out excess water so you don't have to get your hands in the gunky water. I wasn't about to ruin my good mop on that nasty floor in my utility room, so when I did my monthly shopping today I bought the cheapest ($4.97) sponge mop that Wal*mart had to use in there. That's another project that I hope to get to on Saturday.This afternoon Lamar and I went to Jonesboro with his Mom to do our monthly shopping at Wal*mart. I'm almost sure there were no people anywhere you may have gone on Friday because they were all at the Wal*mart where I shop.

Good grief what a madhouse! It was almost as bad as it is during the Christmas holidays, and I'm not exaggerating by much. If it wasn't for needing silly stuff like toilet tissue, trash bags, nonstick aluminum foil and Coke*Zero, not to mention cat food and litter, I wouldn't brave that crowd.

But I'm glad to have all my shopping done for another month and everything put away. Of course I'll have to go back next week to do my grocery shopping but at least it won't be on Friday evening.Ever since Sunday evening I've been making deer jerky in my dehydrator. My nephew Danny, Ducky's son, had great luck this past deer season and shared his bounty with us. In return he asked if I'd make him some deer jerky, which I'm now doing.

I make deer jerky the same way I make beef jerky and really, except for the deer being a little leaner than the beef, you can't tell much difference between the two once it's made into jerky.

I trim the tough bits and what little fat there might be from the deer meat then slice it diagonally across the grain into 3/8 or 1/2 inch thick slices. That may sound pretty thick but you have to keep in mind that it's going to shrink by at least half when it dehydrates, maybe more.

I marinate it overnight in a basic marinade of equal parts soy sauce and liquid hickory smoke. Sometimes I add some coarse ground black pepper or crushed red pepper to spice it up a bit. I also like to substitute teriyaki sauce for the soy sauce sometimes. It gives it a smoky and salty/sweet flavor at the same time.

I've made Danny some jerky marinated in Louisiana hot sauce and some more marinated in A1 sauce at his request. Those are both new for me, and I have to say I still like the soy sauce and liquid smoke version the best.Talk about your strange weather swings. It's been extreme here over the last week even for Arkansas. Thursday it was beautiful but windy here. The high was nearly 70F and sunny. I opened my windows to let the fresh air blow through my apartment and blow out some of the Winter stuffiness.

Thursday night we had some mild thunderstorms and showers. When I went to bed it was still in the upper 60'sF and comfortable in here. By morning the temps had dropped into the low 40'sF and it was downright chilly when I got up and put the windows down!

We've had more showers on Friday evening and the weather geeks are forecasting 3-6 inches of SNOW for Saturday afternoon/evening.

Get out! If we get that much snow it will be more than we've had all Winter and Sunday will be March 1st!

I'm prepared if it does snow. I bought some canned evaporated milk so I can make snow cream if we get enough snow. I'll personally gather the snow because I learned a long time ago that Lamar isn't very particular when he gets the snow. There's too many sticks and dead grass in it to suit my taste, but maybe I'm just too finicky? Blech.Now that I've written a small book I'll publish this and rest for a while before I head to bed. Lord willing I'll be back on Saturday evening to do my Sunday Dinner post.

Y'all have a great Saturday, y'hear?