Random 3 for December 15, 2024 – Friends, holiday baking, glucometers

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We looked like this just yesterday! Ok, maybe a few decades ago!
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Not a lot going on this week so it’s a short one!

It was one of those weeks – I was scheduled to have lunch with some friends from my gym days. I was excited as I hadn’t seen them since before the pandemic. I went to the restaurant and nothing. I waited 20 minutes and left. I emailed my friend to see if I had gone to the wrong place (of course assuming it was her fault!). I was there at noon. The time for the luncheon was 1 p.m. Oops!

Will this be the last year? – I have the stuff to make pastries. I only make one kind, and I made the dough yesterday. My plan is to make them tomorrow. It will involve being on my feet for several hours. One of these

Homemade kipfels/rugalach.

years will be my last. I can’t buy them locally that are as good as the ones I make. I’ll only eat a few. The rest will be gifted to friends. When you get to be a certain age, you don’t want gifts unless they are consumable. No one needs more tchotchkes to sit around. At least with cookies, you can serve them to someone else if you can’t eat them.

Well, that’s annoying – I wanted to check my cat Sasha’s glucose level. When she was in for a dental procedure, her glucose level was high. She has no other symptoms of diabetes, but the veterinarian wants to keep tabs to be sure it was a fluke. My cat Mollie was diabetic in

Mollie in the porch in 2015.

2020. At that time, I bought the latest and greatest (and most expensive) glucometer that was out (and she died two weeks later). It was made specially for pets (which BTW have the same glucose numbers that people do). I pulled it out to use on Sasha. Technically all I should have had to do was get current test strips. That model has been discontinued. No strips available. That means I need to buy another glucometer at another outrageous price. I will go back to a people one. They are cheaper and the numbers are the same. Anything made special for pets seems to cost twice as much.

So how was your week?

50 thoughts on “Random 3 for December 15, 2024 – Friends, holiday baking, glucometers”

  1. It’s outrageous that they have discontinued the testing strips for the glucometer. Ridiculous that you’d have to buy a new one, but we do what we have to do to care for our beloved pets! And I admire your pastry baking. I have a few family favorites that take a lot of time and I am still trying to work myself up to at least one day of intense baking! Sorry you missed your lunch date, Kate. That’s something I would have done! 🤦‍♀️

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  2. Bless you for going to the trouble of hand-making rugalahs for friends/neighbors. Like you, I wonder how many more years will I make Christmas treats. It’s a lotta time and trouble, not to mention it gets more pricey every year. I bought some eggs and nearly had a stroke. Yikes!

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    • Yes it does and I eat less and less of them. I find as I get older I just need a little to satisfy myself. If I could buy cookies and pastries just like my mom’s, I would do that and give friends Pepperidge Farm!

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  4. I used to bake four different kinds of xmas cookies every year, with a different grandchild on different days. Now the grandkiddies are teenagers and too busy for baking. And I’m too old (ur, mature) to bake that many cookies. So I baked brownies and put red and green sprinkles on them. Does that count? Hope Sasha is okay!!

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  5. Mollie was quite a looker! I get it, I barely decorate for Christmas now and have tons of decorations that I need to use or lose but I can’t seem to make myself get rid of them. But with each passing year, I don’t see the point. I also hate cooking more and more lately. Things about aging I never imagined. You hate extra stuff laying around! The cookies look good though.

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  6. The only baking I’m going to do this year is EASY – the brie puff pastry (from Teddy’s blog last Saturday) to take to our neighbors where we’re having Christmas Eve dinner. That’s it. I used to make all kinds of things – cookies, etc. Same here on gifts – I think the best gift my husband could give me would be dinner out at our favorite restaurant. We used to go a couple of times a month…..what ever happened to that little treat? Anyway, onward – Christmas is here and we’ll get through it. Right? Right!

    Hugs, Pam

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    • I used to enjoy dinner out more than I do now. So many restaurants are crowded and noisy. We have become that “old” couple that goes for 5 p.m. to get in and out fast. You are lucky to have a neighbor hosting. My ‘hood is full of equally old people who don’t want to cook! 🙂

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  7. we learnt this too… people stuff is cheaper than pet stuff.. we got a people med for less than the half price… the drugstore dealer said, but well then you have to break the pills apart every time instead to give one from vet department… hmmm….. its doable for this much better price I think, but thanks for the advice … ;o)))

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    • I don’t know why that is. When my first cat was diagnosed with diabetes, there weren’t pet glucometers. My vet said to buy a people one. That one served me well for more than 10 years. I can’t believe the fancy new one I bought 4 years ago is discontinued already. Drugs from the vet are always more expensive (sometimes more than twice as much) than those I can buy from Chewy or an on-line pharmacy.

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    • When I first started blogging, every Christmas they gave you the option to put snow on your blog. Then it stopped. This year they are doing it again and I jumped on that bandwagon!

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  9. It’s true–there’s a pet tax in this country as well as a pink tax! Glad to know the human ones work fine–will file that away for future reference, though I hope I don’t need one. I made rugelach this weekend also–mine is filled with maple sugar. What’s inside yours?

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    • Hmm…maple sugar? Mine has apricot preserves and walnuts and brown sugar. A pink tax! 🙂 When I worked, I occasionally could get a large boys size that fit (think casual shirts, tees and hoodies) and was a fraction of the cost of a woman’s size.

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  10. Your pastries look delicious. We used to go to a produce market that featured many items for different nationalities – one of those items was rugalach. We always bought them if we got there early enough on a Saturday as they went fast. My mom did not make pastries with yeast, so it was always a different treat for us.

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  11. Bless Mollie. She was so beautiful and fluffy.
    Christmas will be just us and Maya this year. We haven’t put the tree up yet, maybe next weekend. Maya was very good last year and didn’t bother. One year I put 12 chocolate santas on the tree without thinking and Maggie could easily have pinched the lot. When it came to putting everything away, I still had 12.
    Did you go back for lunch with your friends?

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    • No. By the time we emailed back and forth it was late afternoon and lunch was long done. Mollie was probably my most beautiful cat of all time. She was a great cat too. Still miss her. I was hoping she would live to see 20 but she died at 16.

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  13. Your Kipfels look wonderful! We don’t have any traditional Christmas goodies that we bake each year, but my father baked Springerles which were wonderful. Unfortunately, they take a lot of pre-planning since they have a 3-day baking process and then need to rest for 2 – 3 weeks for best flavor. By the time I think about making them, I’ve missed the window.

    I’m sorry you missed your friends. I hope you can get together again in January.

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    • Umm…yes, that would be too long for my patience too. I’ve split this into 2 days. I make the dough one day and then roll and bake another. I don’t have too but it’s less stressful on me.

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  14. I haven’t baked for quite a few years, although I used to enjoy baking. My favorite Christmas treat is the kringle a Scandinavian bakery near here makes.

    All the in-laws, not only mine but also my daughters’, exchange food for Christmas. Yes, I’m at the age when I only appreciate gifts that are consumable.

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  15. Great news that you can just use a people glucometer, Kate. Mollie♥ Too bad about lunch… lunch out is always fun especially during the holidays. Our week was COLD! Warming up today but cold again for Christmas. In the past I would have enjoyed the cold but now I am greatful to not have cold that makes me wear three layers on top and long pants of some kind… an intersting development! I googled your pastries… yep, those gotta be good!

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  16. Kiffels! We used to make them too – three kinds! We don’t anymore, because they are pretty time consuming, and not as many of us to eat them either. Did you go back and meet up with your friends?

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  18. I find myself forgetting or not being on top of things as well as I used to. Not liking it at all. And you’re so right about not needing more stuff…there’s very little stuff I need anymore. Give me a gift card to a restaurant or something fun to do, and I’m happy.

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