brain dump, inspired mostly by food

Today is going to be one of those odd brain dumps y'all.

Why?
Because my brain is scattered, and I basically have to do a brain dump post every now and then to keep things functioning properly.

Speaking of running properly, my condolences to you shugpies out there who deal with UTI's on the reg. {Is this TMI for the bloggage? If so, my condolences on that too. We doin' real talk around here, shugs.} Not a good feelin. I'm 29 years old and thankfully to God, have never had to deal with this until now. No bueno. Mine is a happy little perk from having a catheter during surgery. Yayyyy!
Went to the doc on Monday and the antibiotics are doin' their thug thizzle as we speak. And I was told by my acupuncturist and the wise women folk in my family to drink straight up, pure, organic cranberry juice.
Mmk. Easy enough.

Ummm....
Have y'all ever had this shit?
Ohhhhhmyyyyyworrrrrrrrrrrrrd.
You might as well just suck the life out of 18 lemons in a row. Sourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ain't even a strong enough word, friends. I woke up with low blood sugar in the middle of the night earlier this week, and thought,' This will be a great time to consume 19g of carbs because since my blood's low anyway, it won't make my blood sugar high.' {I'm diabetic for those of you are wondering what i'm talkin 'bout.}

Y'all.
I seriously felt the heat of my whole body rising to my face as soon as I finished it. i thought, "Oh, shiz. Here it comes. I am going to throw up! Nooooooooo! What can I do?!" {I haaaaaaaaaaate throwin' up. I would rather feel pain. (I think.)} So, I took a swallow of orange juice to attempt to get the taste out of my mouth, and then I quickly woofed down a couple tablespoons of peanut butter.
Shiz is sick, y'all.
So, from then on, I've been putting 1/4 cup with 16-20 oz. of water and it will still turn your mouth inside out. Mess ain't for poohs. On a brighter note, I do think it helped though! {A good thing, at $10/bottle.}

Movin' on.

Ranch.
Do y'all love ranch as much as I do? Sometimes I just crave ranch, so I will open up the fridge and cabinets and think, "What do we have here that I can use to carry the ranch to my mouth?" {I know Alexa gets this because we talked about it the other day.}
My favorite is our homemade pickles. Hubs and I {and sometimes the SIL - remember, she's the one who told me about the Ritz Crookies?} can pickles from Big Silas' cucumbers. I feel like a real deal Holyfield southern chick when I can pickles. But it's so worth the effort when you hear the "pop!" when they seal. I always refrigerate mine after they've sealed and cooled, and don't eat them until a couple months after they've been canned.

Anyhoo. They are magical, out-of-this-world. I wanted to enter them in the State Fair, but do y'all know in NC, they only judge on appearance? They don't even taste the pickles! Seriously?

There is nothing more magical than drizzlin' Ken's Steakhouse Ranch on a vinegary dill pickle. Mmmm- mmmmm!!!
It's all good until I run out of pickles, and then I'm all devastated because I can't just run out and buy more. Oh well, until next year.

We also decided to make some delicious his & hers salads last night.

And I have to tell y'all this:
{Well, first, let me say, if you already know this, don't leave me a "duhh" comment, because I always feel stupid sharing "tips" on here for fear that people already knew that shiz and I'm the only one on the planet who didn't. Anywayyyy ...}

We love some hard boiled eggs on our salads, and I learned {Don't ask me from where. My memory is not that stellar.} that soaking the eggs in colllllllllld water for about 5 minutes after they're done boiling makes them sooooooooooo much easier to peel:

Hey, if it makes life easier, do tell, am I right?

In other news, I still have to finish the hubs' stocking. Do y'all do stockings with y'all's shugpies?
It is my favorite part, but only if there's creative stuff in there. I feel like girls' stockings are so much easier than boys'. If you have any magical ideas, email me or message me on the fb page. {Hubs be checkin' out the bloggage every now and again.}

Oh, one more thing. If you are a non-gluten shugpie like me {except maybe onnnnnnnnce in a while when I can't resist a biscuit or a Ritz crookie}, you should definitely look into makin' you a little breakfast sandwich out of toasted {gf} cornbread with some hot meat inside, friends. My favorites: sausage//cheddar//mustard and ham//provolone//mayo//mustard. omyworrrrd.

Welp, that's all shugs. Thanks for stickin' with me through the world's most boring and random post ever, inspired by food and procrastination.

Happy Thursday!