I like my Wet-Jet, but…

I woke up at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday. I tried to fall back asleep, but then I gave up and got up. I fixed a cup of coffee and filled in the rest of the Blog entry.

It was 15 degrees F., BTW, with a predicted “high” of 25 degrees!

I started watching the local morning news. After a bit, I shaved and showered.

Then I started my Sunday supper. I had bought a five-pound bags of precooked meatballs and a large can of Swedish meatball sauce from GFS last week. I thawed out the meatballs overnight and put them into my Dutch oven. I stirred in the sauce and added the only thing I ever do to this mixture: lots of fresh parsley. BTW, the parsley was frozen when I went out to pick it, but it thawed quickly inside. The parsley really brightens this dish up.

Why so much food?  Well, for starters, they only sell it in this size. And, I plan on freezing most of it in four-cup containers so I can have a good, satisfying meal on a moment’s notice. All I will have to do is warm them up in the microwave, boil some wide egg noodles and dinner’s done.

So, when the Swedish meatballs were done, I boiled a half package of wide egg noodles. I drained them when they were al dente and added some butter, so they wouldn’t stick together. I plated some and added the Swedish meatballs on top for a most excellent (if somewhat unusual) breakfast.

I was watching my little friend, the red-headed woodpecker, attack the suet cake when my glance happened upon the rain gauge. Oh, crap! I didn’t take in the rain gauge! So, I ran outside and retrieved it. There were two inches of rain/snow frozen in the plastic tube. I set it in the downstairs bathroom shower to thaw, praying it didn’t split the tube.

Since I was freakin cold anyway, I made my belated trip up into the attic to retrieve my suitcase (hey, I’m a wimp, okay?) Then I started to clean the house.

Now, I’ve had some issues with my vacuum cleaner. When you started it up, there was a “puff” of dust, then it worked fine. I couldn’t figure it out! I took it apart and blew out everything with the air compressor and it still did it. I even went so far as to decide to take it to Banks Vacuum on Five-Mile and have it looked at. But, (fortunately) they had moved to a new location. Anyway, to make a long story short, I came across the Owner’s Manual a few days ago while searching for another one.

So, I read it. Turns out there were two (not one but two) pre-filters I was totally unaware of. I took them both out and blew them off (You wouldn’t have believed the dust and cat hair that came off them), reassembled it all and it was working perfectly.

Note to Self: Read the damn owners guides when you first buy stuff!

Then I proceeded to vacuum the whole house. I moved the kitchen chairs and the rolling cart into the living room. I pulled the car outside and locked it. It was my plan to fire up the propane heater and work on the bike after I finished with the house cleaning, you see.

So, next I fixed a bucket of steaming hot water and Pine Sol. I normally just use my Wet-Jet for quick floor washing, but I decided I needed to deep clean the floors today.

I grabbed the mop and my bucket and washed the downstairs bath room. Then I moved onto the kitchen floor.

I was more or less locked into the bedroom, office, living room and office, so I turned on the TV. Fortunately, “Cliffhanger” was just starting, so I watched it. I love the scenery! Unfortunately, before it finished, I fell asleep and took a nice nap.

It was already dark when I woke up. So, I gave up and pulled the car back inside. I put everything back in place in the kitchen and dusted the living room. The Nightly News was on so I watched it.

When I got hungry, I heated up the rest of the egg noodles and some of the Swedish meatballs and ate a hearty Sunday supper. The rest of the Swedish meatballs went into containers and then into the freezer. I filled up the Dutch oven to soak, and then caught the last period of the Red Wings game. We won!!!

From there, I switched to the “Wild Bunch,” the 1969 Sam Peckinpah bloody (very bloody) western on the Sundance channel. I really like the Sundance channel because they don’t censor the films at all and they are currently showing the “101 films you must see before you die.”  I’ve seen four of them so far, so I guess I won’t die for a while…

That got over around 10:00 p.m. and went to the “Unforgiven” with Clint Eastwood, which I’ve seen a million times. But, I watched it until I got tired and then went to sleep.