I have never heard of mustikkapiirakka but now that I looked it up- I need it in my LIFE! 

I have been obsessed with blueberries for a couple of months. I don't know why, I never overly cared for them before but I eat blueberries like they are going out of style. 

Blackberries have always been my favorite berry, I am just waiting for summer so I can hit them up in farmers markets! 

My eff is the same -- Eff off to the behemoth of the medical system of tyranny in the U.S. DH has been denied drug coverage (out of pocket is nearly three-quarters of a million dollars annually, so eff off to the pharma companies too). Alternative treatments are available, but generally less effective or more complex. The docs seem to be doing nothing, although maybe they are and just not communicating to us. And DH won't turn me loose to be his best advocate. So, eff off to DH too.

Blueberries. Definitely just simple, fluffy blueberry pancakes. Real butter, real maple syrup.

I have been waiting to vent about this since Tuesday.

Eff0ff:

Eff0ff to ladder climbing dipshits.  We had a Sr. VP tour this week.  The VP part of if went great. She was engaging, interested, looking to gain knowledge and perspective, and she had great input......  However, her ladder climbing minions were playing the "LOOK AT MEEEEEEE!" game so pathetically that their goal was to find something wrong, embarrass people, and get noticed.  So, the Ops Director keyed on a RED TAG where my team had tagged an air leak on a component on a production line. It has zero impact on production. This particular compent is one of more than 10,000 in my facilty.  This componet is installed every 19 inches and only has impact if several are out in a short section of the production line.

Nope, dumbass would not listen. Even worse, my customer boss was standing next to the dumbass throwing a steady sequence of Mantrums every time the dumbass would ask me a question or point something out.  A mid 60s man crossing his arms, pouting, huffing, puffing, stomping his foot and shaking his head.  It was all I could do not to ask him he had to tinkle and if he needed me to walk him to the potty.

So, while the VP was extremely complementary, the other two lost their ever loving minds over trivial bullshit.  3 items were escalated. A section of equipment that has 3 inches of clearance that had dust and debris under it.  The rest of the equipment you could do surgery on.  That was on me. I missed that when I inspected. It won't happen again.  Team coached.  Item 2, aged work orders. The ladder climbing dipshit and his Mantrum side kick asked how many open WOs I had. I didn't know. Dozens are opened and dozens are closed throughout the day. So we went to my on duty manager that leads my team during that shift. 36 were open.  The end of prior day there 24 open.  It can go into the 50s periodically.   Dipshit and pissy pants asked how old the oldest one is.  5mos. Waiting on a long lead time made to order part. ZERO impact to prodcution.  My team did a safe and qualty temp repair. Holy shit BatMan. You would have thought someone was waiting on a heart valve while lying on the table with their chest cracked open and their internal bits spread all over the room.  That one was also on me. So now, we close WOs no less than biweekly with an observation comment and open a new one for the same crap.  Administrivial moronic crap.  Have I mentioned that I detest dipshits?

I truly detest people who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground on something then play the look at meeeee game to get attention from the execs.  

F0rn:  DW baked some amzing low carb pastry dishes. A bundt cake that is to die for.  

Have a great weekend STalkers.

My eff off is to myself and my inability to cope with the future. Let me explain... I have spent the last 20 or so years learning to accept that our daughter who has Down Syndrome would be with us for the rest of our lives. Yes, she would go to a day centre but come home at night. Well, umm, no. She is currently testing two places where she would have her new home and only "visit" us. It's a shock. I haven't let anyone know how I feel for the moment but, to be honest, I am thrilled that she is carving out her life! But, man, it ain't easy... I'll get there, I am sincerely happy that she is mapping out her future. I just need a bit of time.

Forn... A friend I haven't seen for 25 years and her new man, visited this week. He is vegetarian and she worried it would be an inconvenience - are you kidding?! We went crazy with local produce, asparagus, goat cheese, eggs in an Indian creamy sauce,laden with cilantro/coriander. The highlight was local strawberries. Good food does not have to be complicated, especially when you have high quality ingredients.

I'm feeling this today. 

EFF OFF TO EVERYONE!! I'm starting to do things for me!! I'm over everyone and their feelings, what they think, what they want, trying to be the better person for myself and just over all of it!! 

Weather is getting warmer... I'm going to take more sundays off this spring/summer and enjoy it!! I bought my car for these seasons specifically! I'm going to use It!! 

My grandparents had raspberrie bushes on side of their house.. red and golden. They were always delicious. I miss them dearly.

Happy Friday everyone!  My favorite off the vine fruits are raspberries and (technically a fruit) tomatoes!  I am growing tomatoes and snap peas this year in my garden. I should plant some raspberries, too. I'm just not sure they will grow here, but it would be cool to pick them off the vine. 

Eff off to Beanie boy, who is finally moving on to greener pastures. Now our department doesn't feel like a kindergarten anymore. 

To all the drag asses that hold up my job and then whine because they don't "have their numbers". I can't "give you your numbers" without effing data to compile them, dumbass.

Wild strawberries. When I was young we had a small patch of wild strawberries. They are much smaller than commercially grown but WOW the taste. Alas, I will have to settle for the ones I planted last year...hopefully they produce well this year. Just plain ole berries. Yum.

EFF OFF to training people some days. I'm helping train TWO new people and their personalities couldn't be any different. One is laid back, easy going, asks pertinent questions and listens. The other just.doesn't.stop.talking. She derails discussions all the time and professes to be the expert. She's not like the other person I managed who (ahem) left recently. But she's been here a whopping two months and was telling the new new person to go to her with questions, which I corrected. I may be managing them both so have to start ramping up my manger hat with her. I was getting aggravated today because it should have been a 30 min training that turned into almost an hour and I had told them both right up front I have a busy day so let's get this done.

BERRIES!  I love all berries but for red rasperries. Especially fresh blackberries. We live in a semi rural area and I have several blackberry picking roads I go to with no cutbacks and no pesticides. In August, dress in long sleeves, long pants and a big hat and we collect BUCKETS. Blackberry jam, muffins, pancakes, compote for desserts, crumbles, yummmmmm.

To DH who wanted to have cocktails and play backgammon last night.  Up until 11:30 and way too much to drink.  This day has been long and hard.

Raspberries and blueberries are my favorite.  I make a lemon raspberry bundt cake in the summer.  Light and refreshing.

I live 5 minutes from the "Blueberry Capital of the World" so once they come, we get them by the crates.  Yummmm

It seems that every Friday is now wall-to-wall meetings starting at 7 and on a good Friday, ending at 4.  I used to be able to use Friday to catch up....not anymore.

I love red and black raspberries.  Jam, pie, muffins, but especially just the way they come off the bush.  I yearn for the days of late June when mom would get us out of bed at 6 so we could pick the berries before the birds got  the best ones.  We had rows and rows of berry bushes.  I have wild black raspberries growing near my cabin and they usually start to ripen around the 4th of July.  Nothing like sitting out on the deck as the stars are coming out with a big bowl of vanilla ice cream topped by just picked raspberries.

- Eff off to the folks that decided a levee did not need fixing, so it broke recently, flooding a nearby town. Totally preventable.

- Eff off to friends who really arent.

- Eff off to SD24 Feral Forger, and haha I got the last word finally.

- Eff off to Toxic Troll who seems to be shiny and golden, may her money go away quickly and then shes got to move again.

Berry Love - Each summer I love picking olallaberries (like black berries or boysenberries) and this year I want to make pies and jams...

My GP's home sat on acreage. A few areas on their property had patches of Dew Berries. A small very tart black  berry variant.  They made amazing jelly, jam, preserves and the home made hand cranked icecream made with dew berries is amazing.

The first home my parents purchased had several fruit trees onit. A sour cherry tree, a red plum tree, a purple plum tree. Across the street the neighbors had two large sour crab apple trees.  The jam, jelly, spreads, fruit butters were incredible.  One of the many reasons why my early to mid teen memories are so pleasant. I know, not berries, but the memories are sweet none the less.

Back to berries.  When I was 19 we took a vacation to a ranch on the Rogue river in Oregon.  The wild black berry bushes on that ranch produced huge amounts of berries many that were golf ball sized.  Mom baked incredible pies, strudels, crisps, and cobblers during that vacation. The ranch hands would bring fresh trout from the river, steaks, venison, sausage, etc.. from the ranch to trade with mom for her baked magic berry items.  We had to give away a bunch of fresh food when we finished that vacation because of mom's magic. I learned about 20yrs later that those berries were Marion Berries when I married my Oregonian bride.

Every Christmas my ILs give me a selection of sugar "free" Marion Berry amazing products.  All are amazing.  Though sugar free does not mean carb free so to keep my blood sugar at sane levels, I have to be measured in portioning when I indulge in my IL clan gifts.

Today is the bulldozer's last day. While she was quiet and had good attendance, she did the extreme bare minimum and bulldozed through the work. Put out decent numbers but lots of errors and created lots of duplicate work. Refused to follow the jobs aids provided. Would hardly respond to emails and IMs. One of the managers has a soft spot for her for some reason. 

Eff off to annoying people at work. 

LookatME types - If you want to step on my toes and run a project that I should be managing, then you have to pick up the whole thing and not just cherry pick the bits you think are interesting and try to deligate the vital but not visible tasks back to me.  I can deal with this nonsence and get people back into their lane but it takes time I don't have to spare.

Sloppy shoulder types - if we agree you are going to do something it should be done.  I shouldn't have to either babysit you or magic the finish product up.  I'm the numbers person so why would you think that I would write the business case or design the comms powerpoint.  Don't get me wrong I can do both but its not "what i went to school for" (made me suddenly think of Busted song).  I'm my own worst enemy on this one as I'll run around like an idiot to just make sure the project is done even if I have to do it myself.

F0rn - I love berries on classic french tart.  Its a sweet pastry crust filled with creme patisrie and topped with fresh fruit and an apricot glaze.  Normally features strawberries or raspberries. Delicious but a pain to make at home if you are non baker like me.  As a result I normally get my berries via a yogurt smoothie.  Always with mango as bananas are evil.  *diablo*

I pulled about 9Lbs of ham out of the freezer earlier this week. It was most of the ham that I smoked for NY this year.  

I chopped it up, put it in a Dutch oven with a couple of cartons of broth, sliced up some onions, sweet peppers, carrots, green beans, fresh pea pods, celery, and broccoli and set it to simmering on the stove.  It was missing something. So, I searched through the refrigerator for something... one of those "you'll know it when you find it things."  I found it. About half a bottle of Trader Joe's Jalepeno Sauce. It is a creamy sauce.  I had opened it a couple of months ago and it was shoved to the back.  Being open that long, it was HOT!!!!

In it went.  Way too hot, so... one more carton of broth, some more veggies, and .... 2/3 of a container of sour cream.  

That did the trick. Yummy stuff.  Now we have room in the freezer after pulling out the ham, and we  have a couple of soup meals for lunches or an evening when I don't feel like cooking.

DW has a couple of more weeks of Tax season.  I am going to hang up my apron for a few weeks after that. I have been doing ~95% of the cooking for a year or more.  She has started baking again since joining her new firm.  

I am loving seeing the woman I make my life with come back to who she really is.