Tuesday Talk- This n' that

I couldn't think of a single topic about which I could write an entire post so I decided to write about a few things that have been on my mind and/or things that I've noticed recently.

No Olympic watching- I didn't watch a lick of the Olympics. Mostly because the TV was not on the past two weeks unless we wanted to watch something specific. And since I wasn't really into any particular Olympic event, I had no desire to turn the TV to watch anything. Donnie pretty much only watches college basketball games (this time of year- obviously in the summer he's not watching college basketball) so that's the only time we have the TV on. We did just start to watch a series together- The Night Agent; it had been months since we'd watched a series. (We do look for movies to watch occasionally on the weekends.) Anyway, so no Olympics watching for me. But for someone who is pretty interested in the culture just via reading news articles, I'm aware of a lot of the Olympic highlights and lowlights. I was glad to read that team USA won gold in both men's and women's hockey. 

Energy Bill- Well, it happened. We had our highest energy bill to date. I mean, we also had some of the coldest weather in years so it isn't too surprising that our energy bill was super high. The time period of the bill also encompasses the time period of nine or ten days (I've blocked the specifics from my memory...) when our gas furnace wasn't working. So, while no gas was used to heat the house, we had our gas fireplace on almost non-stop and we used six or seven space heaters also around the clock to adequately heat our house. 

I'm somewhat curious as what our neighbors who have a similar sized house as ours bill is. But really it doesn't matter. If our furnace had been working, I'm sure our bill would have been way higher than normal.

Chocolate chips- The last time I made chocolate chip cookies, I rather absentmindedly ate a chocolate chip when the chip bag of Nestle Toll House chocolate chips was out on the counter. As the chip was in my mouth, I couldn't help but think that the chocolate chip didn't taste as good as I remember chocolate chips tasting. Part of this was likely due to my taste buds being a bit off ever since I completely lost my sense of smell and taste when I had Covid a few years ago. Though both senses have since returned, the senses did not return to their pre absent for a time state. I have noticed regarding sweet things and taste- the sweet items do not taste as good as they used to taste to me. You'd think that I would eat less due to the taste not being as good as it was; unfortunately, it's some weird psychological thing where I think that the next bite might be the one where things taste completely normal. So what do I do? I keep on a' biting! And a' biting! One of these days, things just may taste normal!

Anyway, so, like I said, when the chocolate chip didn't taste quite right to me, I chalked most of it up to my taste buds being paranormal. But  I also know that food manufacturers aren't above changing the ingredients for a product if it will save them money and I thought maybe the ingredient list would give me some indication of changes (not that I had a baseline knowledge of chocolate chip ingredients but rather just common knowledge of what typical ingredients for chips may be). The only oddity I noticed were the words, "contains a bioengineered food ingredient." Well that didn't sound normal. I've seen that phrase before on foods that I've purchased. I decided to do a deeper dive into what that meant. According to the USDA, bioengineered food is food that contains genetic material that has been modified through laboratory techniques and for which the modification could not be obtained through conventional breeding or found in nature. That cleared it right up- sort of kind of not really. 

Since the taste of the chip wasn't that great (though I can't say I find the chips' taste a detractor in say, chocolate chip cookies), and I don't really know much about bioengineered food even after reading a couple of articles about them, I decided to look into Ghirardelli chocolate chips. A bit of research indicated that they do not contain bioengineered ingredients; it's nice to know that G. chips are an option to purchase when my current bag of chips is used up if I don't want to have chips with bioengineered food in them. 

Oh goodness, though I just compared the prices of chocolate chips. I bought a 72 ounce bag of Nestle chips at Sam's Club for $15.98 while Kroger is selling a twelve ounce bag of Ghiradelli chips for $8.99. EEKS!

Bioengineered food... not for the win but for the savings?

The girls- I think (hope) it's going to work out to get to see both girls soon. Alyssa is incredibly busy right now- mostly loving college but not liking the pressure of hard classes which is understandable. (She has also placed the expectation on herself to get straight A's.) She has TWO jobs!! We are paying for all of her college expenses but we don't give her spending money. She realized during the first three semesters of college that she can get good grades, have fun with friends, and still have a bit of free time left over so she decided to work part time on campus to earn some money to offset her spending. Recently, she secured an internship for the summer and the place she will be working for asked if there was any way she could work a few hours each week remotely leading up to summer so that she's ready and trained when the summer starts (the beginning part of summer is their busiest time apparently?). Of course she said that she would but that means that she is working two (albeit not many hours at each) jobs.  So proud of her work ethic!

The last time Alyssa was home- we were cracking up at our selfie taking. We had some shots where only my head was visible and we were laughing about it. 

Food for thought- Jacob and Donnie thought these colored carrots were too odd looking to enjoy. I purchased them at the Farm on Central and though they cost an arm and a leg (for carrots- definitely not as outrageous as $9.00 for a bag of chocolate chips) it seemed worth it to me since they were organic and different looking and buying them supported a small business. 

Speaking of organic and different, I realized at our last library board meeting that thanks to a community organization comprised of local gardeners called Grow Getters (I may have to join this organization for the name alone 😆), our library now offer seeds to patrons to check out (and presumably to not return...). My only qualm is that I'd feel bad "taking" seeds away from someone needy; on the other hand, seeds are so cheap that I don't think the cost of them would be a barrier to many if anyone in our community. The concept of free seeds is so neat and picking them out of a refurbished card catalog to boot sounds like a good time for this lover of all things book, libraries and gardening :).

Linking up with Joanne for Talking About it Tuesday.