Hot hot hot, and humid, like a hot sweaty thing… Houston in summer.
Went to do some of my pickups. Hit the goodwill outlet on the way home. Bins were mostly full of clothes, which don’t usually interest me. One vintage made in USA work boot, but no pair. Some vintage electronics but nothing worth enough to grab. I did grab a FoodSaver unit as backup to the ones I use all the time. I’ll test it and if it’s working, just clean it. If not, it’ll go in the parts bin. Most of the FoodSavers have very similar parts with cosmetic changes. It’s a recent, higher end unit.
I grabbed a nice sturdy folding keyboard stand for D2, like new, with tags. I’m working on setting up a music workstation for her. She’s been writing lyrics with a friend from school, and wants to play around with making music and recording. I’ve got almost all the pieces of a decent workstation, just need to find the time to get it all together.
Not much lego, only a couple of hot wheels, and a handful of Pokemon cards…. really a very slow day at the bins.
Dinner was an experiment. I have leftover chicken breast from a whole Costco chicken, and none of us really like the white meat, so while I was grocery shopping I picked up a “skillet meal” pouch of sauce. I’ve had good luck with the other HEB sauces, so I thought I’d give cilantro and lime chicken over rice a go. Meh. Glad I only bought one pouch. If we’d liked it, I’d use it with the Costco canned chicken too. I’m always looking for ways to use the canned chicken, it’s my primary long term protein. I was careful to add enough rice to the pot this time and it came out as expected. I can learn…
My trip to the grocery store earlier in the day had only one surprise, chicken gizzards are $2.68 a pound. Freaking breasts don’t cost that much, legs are $1.o9 and thighs are $1.39. Chicken was limit 2. Why would the dang offal be more than the breast? No hearts either, but plenty of feet. (Oddly, they are usually labeled chicken “paws” on the package.) There were bare spots throughout the store. Everyone was complaining about high prices. A bag of chips was $5, that I used to buy for $2.50 on sale. A pleasant surprise was prime top sirloin steaks for only $5.99/pound. I bought the limit. Temporary decrease in beef prices due to culling herds, or just my local store shedding excess inventory as usual? Don’t know, wish I could have bought more.
Good hamburger, 93/7 % was over $5, while cheap 70/30 was about $3.49. False economy though, you pour the 30% fat in the trash, even though you’ve paid for it. And for a dollar a pound more, I’d rather eat steak. Granted that hamburger is more versatile… The bacon I buy was unchanged, that’s going on months now without a price fluctuation. Weird that. Bought some.
There were a lot of unfamiliar brands filling out the shelves. The cookie aisle was very noticeable. Given that we’re in Texas, a lot of the brands were mexican with spanish names, and might just be catering to the buyers. HEB has their own spanish label house brand, and that is gaining prominence on the shelves too. I think that it’s more about supply issues than stocking for a demographic though. If it continues, I’ll notice.
Today I’ve got another pickup, and I need to start pulling stuff together for my show/swapmeet. I have bins full of stuff, scattered across 3 or 4 locations. And load in is Friday morning. I better get busy.
Stack all the things! Learn all the things! Know all the beings!
nick