Taste Like Chicken NYE Weekend 12/30-31

Chele, I just saw the OSU final score. WHAT?!?! Did they have a bunch of players opt out? After seeing the Bucks play my Wolverines, I was expecting it to be a blowout for the scarlet and grey. Missouri had a good team this year but nothing outstanding. Will NYE/NY be easy kitchen preps for you (and/or Iggy)? What recipes do you have picked out in the new cookbook for this coming week? Did you have snow this morning? We were below freezing with flurries and "chunks". The blackberry plants arrived after dark last night, so they didn't get planted until this morning but they look good. I have to fertilize and mulch tomorrow.

Clemson almost missed their window for victory, Kathy. If the game had gone a little longer, I think the outcome would have been different. I hope FSU will vindicate the ACC because to this point, the "so called Power 5" comment is looking more plausible to many, especially with both UNC and NC State going down in defeat yesterday. Good luck to your underclassmen in this afternoon's game. Georgia didn't look like the juggernaut it had been all season when they played Alabama, so I hope that will be the Bulldog team that shows up. LOL on the Pop Tarts Bowl mascot's fate. It's been decades since I ate one, but they were in the house until about 10 years ago for "someone else". My rule when I went to a conference for one or more nights was that he had to eat real food and nothing with "pop" in the name (aka popcorn and Pop Tarts). I always thought they were kind of nasty. We would be fine with streaming only with Starz. We have most of our apps through Roku anyway.

Linda, like everyone else here, I tend to get clothes and wear them either until they get too baggy or start to show significant signs of wear. I wore a sweatshirt the other day that was a gift in 1986 and it still looks good. Until there is a new postmaster, I'm afraid things won't change much with USPS. This summer I had a package sent to me from California that bounced around to 15 different states and took 3 weeks to arrive, even though it was sent Priority. After it finally arrived, I created a map of its journey and emailed it to the sender. We got a laugh out of the package going on vacation across the US. Where we live it's Dish or DirecTV, so no good options. That's bizarre on your neighbors' phone. I wonder if they can do something through Experian or one of the other credit monitoring companies to get it expunged as erroneous information. That tree has turned into quite a project. I hope the knees and ankles are feeling better. You definitely overdid yesterday. Thanks for the new year blessing. I hope that for all of us.

Liz had a couple of rough days but worked from home yesterday. The hospital is on crazy status with all the viruses going around, so best that she doesn't have to be there more than a couple of days each week. Wally is still hanging in.

I had a weird evening after I posted. I was on the phone with DN#3 for over an hour. It seems her husband has decided he no longer wants to be married. She was completely blindsided. They've been married for over 12 years and together for almost 20 and he told her just before Christmas. They moved this summer and, fortunately, they never put their old house on the market, so she has a place to land that is mortgage free. This was a couple that would have been voted most likely never to divorce, so it's a shock to say the least. I was going to text her to say Merry Christmas but figured she would be busy with family stuff so I thought I would just call her this coming week. She apparently spent Christmas by herself so I felt bad that I didn't reach out. The husband has been displaying some uncharacteristic behaviors, so I hope it's just midlife crisis and not something serious. No major plans for today. I plan to make a bean "meatloaf" for dinner. Got another package delay email from Staples and the supposed delivery date is now Tuesday. I'm trying to cancel and get a full refund but I can't get a response from anyone. Grrrr....

Karen, I watched most of the OSU game and it was 3-0 OSU until later in the game. I think Chele is right in that it didn't look like OSU's best game for whatever reason. I'll probably go ahead and take the Starz deal. I have an Amazon Fire stick that I could use to stream it on the tv. I never hooked it up since I got the new cable box right after I got the fire stick and it had all the apps on it. Or so I thought until I looked for the Starz app! I don't think FSU has much of a chance with more than 20 opt outs, but you never know. The ACC bowl stats have been disappointing.

Thanks for the update from Liz. I'm also glad she only has to go in to the city a couple of days a week. That's still a lot and has to be hard. Glad Wally is still hanging in. That's frustrating on the delivery. I had a package that made it to the Orlando facility and then started going all over the country. It took it another week or so before it made it back here.

Chele, there's a video of the Pop Tart mascot on this page. I love that he threw his sign away before being swallowed up by the toaster! Ouch on the burnt tongue! I've never had a molten lava Pop Tart, but I think I'll avoid them.  Sorry about OSU. FSU is probably next. They're starting out with the 3rd string QB, so if he gets hurt, they'll be down to a walkon player.

Linda, that was a busy day! Hope there aren't too many fireworks over the next few days. Glad the ocean sounds work for Minni.

Karen, I thought the article was a pretty good assessment. Christmas Invasion with David Tennant is still my favorite "first" episode. I liked Matt Smith's too. What did you think? And one strange bit of trivia that's stuck in my head is that the "T" in Russell T Davies doesn't stand for anything. He spells it with just the "T" and not "T." Well, I had to turn off the game before the end of the first half. There are 23 FSU players that opted out or were injured and very few from GA. That final score is going to be really, really ugly.

Kathy, YOWZA! Did you watch the entire game? Did I see them carting Robert Scott off the field at one point? If so, have you heard an update? I saw something from the Georgia coach this morning that pretty much says it all. I wonder if getting so many players from the transfer portal didn't help the team build the cohesiveness that might have happened if many of these players had been with the program for multiple years. I know some of the TN players opting out were picked up through the portal in the last year or two (including the 1st string QB), so I don't have a lot of hope for a victory tomorrow. From the article, it seems that the Georgia players decided they had something to prove and talked players into staying for the bowl game. I'm sorry that didn't happen for FSU because that should have been the best non-championship bowls. Was there a regeneration from Doctor 8 to Doctor 9 that would have occurred either in the final episode of 1996 or the first episode in 2005? That regeneration wasn't mentioned in the NY Times article, so I wondered if it was just assumed. The article certainly wasn't complimentary about Doctor 13. I liked Jodie, but the storylines were sometimes difficult to follow. I liked Matt as well. Not so fond of Peter, however, but I did like Clara as his assistant.

Never had a Pop Tart, Linda? IMO you didn't miss anything. What recipe are you using the endive in? You should be tired with all you have been doing the past few days. "The other woman" angle crossed my mind, too, but I never mentioned it to my niece. If that's the case, I'm sure it will come out sooner rather than later.

Chele, what activities will be on your NYE list besides the food? Did you ever rewatch the Lord of the Rings trilogy like you intended to do on Christmas?

The loaf of sourdough I baked yesterday turned out amazing. I usually don't cut into a loaf until the next day, but this one smelled so good that we had some for dinner and it tasted as good as it smelled. Hope I can start doing that with every loaf. Good NY Times article about ways to take care of your mental health. We all need to be sure we do that in the new year. I got the blackberries mulched in after it warmed up late morning. I had exactly as much mulch as I needed. That hardly ever happens. Hopefully it will keep the weeds at bay or at least manageable. I hope everyone has an enjoyable (and quiet) NYE. See ya'll next year!