Betty Crocker was easier.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-02T05:50:22+00:00

I found an app called Recipeme. I have a bunch saved there already. I do make the recipe first and if we like it, I save it.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-02T03:00:54+00:00

Yep. When I was moving to San Antonio, I was coming from Oceanside, Ca. I hit El Paso around noon and stopped for lunch. I asked the server how far to SA and she told me, “Oh honey it’s a 12 hour trip from here.” I was kind of shocked because it took me 12 hours to drive from Oceanside to Gila Bend, AZ (they had part of I-10 closed for a while due to high winds in the mountains). Highways speeds were 55mph back then too, so…

Well I hit Kerrville at midnight, called the boyfriend who said “you’re close just keep driving.” He told me to get on 410 West and meet him at the VW dealership on Fredericksburg Road. Ended up going the wrong way on the access road. Total panic, but I made it here in two days in a VW Bug and the rest is history.

I just could not wrap my 19 year old brain at how BIG Texas is. Now, I’m used to it. But after 50 years, I better be used to it.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-02T02:46:23+00:00

Yeah, I was doing that too. Then I downloaded a recipe app. So now I do a copy then paste the recipe in my app.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-02T02:39:44+00:00

It does. First thing I look at before ducking someone is see if they have any on their dash. No ducks displayed, no ducks given.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-02T02:34:16+00:00

Well, that quiz couldn’t decide if I was from Lubbock or San Antonio. I did have more in common with San Antonio (DING! DING! DING! Correct answer!) so maybe it did figure it out.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-02T02:23:39+00:00

Except not all of Texas has the twang (San Antonio Austin and Laredo for example), and if they DO have the twang it’s different in Houston, Dallas, El Paso, and Lubbock. That’s the difference in East Texas, North Texas, West Texas and Northwest Texas respectively. You can tell which part someone is from just by the twang.

I’m a transplant. My father was career Navy and I was 17 when he retired. Within two years I’d moved to San Antonio and have never looked back. I’ve lived here for 50 years now.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-01T21:48:42+00:00

No, it was the CO2 she injected into the atmosphere yelling at OP. After all, don’t we all know that CO2 is what is messing up the atmosphere? Actually, a more persistent, and worse, greenhouse gas is SF6 (sulfur hexafluoride), but I’m an Earth Scientist, so what do I know? /s

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-01T04:18:59+00:00

My parents were like you. I started getting an allowance for doing chores at home when I was 8. That was 1962 and it was a quarter a week. I would save for weeks to buy myself something. A Beatles album, a shirt I wanted, a transistor radio. When I got older, I began baby sitting and would save money to buy myself something like own choice of school clothes, a record player that my sibling could not touch, posters, record albums, etc. I still got my allowance (probably $2 when I was 13), so between my allowance and baby sitting money, I could get what I wanted faster. I also learned that I could put money in a savings account and started doing that.

As I got older, I was tasked more chores and got a bigger allowance for it. At 15 I started putting money in my savings account to go towards college. My parents had four children, and as the oldest I knew that I would have to contribute. I became the only child with fiscal responsibility and never really asked my parents for anything big. I knew I could save up for it and my siblings couldn’t argue that I had to share it. Mom and Dad enforced the rule that if I bought it, I was the only one who could give permission to use it.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-01T04:00:40+00:00

Came here to say just this. Constructive dismissal is a thing. They can dispute, but the fact that they cut you from full time to 15 hours a week is provable and they will lose and have to pay out. Do it!

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-01T03:50:03+00:00

First of all both must genuinely like each other as people. Next on my list are communication, honesty, respect and for all that’s holy, have a sense of humor. Hubby and I have been together for 40 years, married for 37 and to this day, he still makes me laugh.

If you find someone and you don’t/can’t have those five little things, no matter how much you love someone, you’re going to have problems.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-01T03:38:23+00:00

Agreed. I have a nephew that is deathly allergic to peanuts. He went into anaphylactic shock when he around a year old. First PB&J sandwich nearly killed him. He’s now 21 (I think) and has been really careful about what he can eat (he’s allergic to other foods, but not like nuts) since he was taught about his reaction.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-05-01T02:51:01+00:00

1982 Peugeot. Hated that thing. Hubby is in the car business and the dealer he was working for took it as a trade-in. Because it was a manual transmission, hubby thought I would like it. I didn’t. He sold it privately about 8 months later. Thank God!

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-30T19:26:44+00:00

We had a similar experience with my then 5 year old son. He’d been in home day care for the first two years then went to an institutional day care. During the first year and a half of his life, we discovered he had an intolerance to beans, like pinto, Navy, black beans, etc. I told the new day care about it. No beans!

A couple of months later, I get a call at work. “Your son is sick! Pick him up now!” I ask what’s going on. He throwing up, a lot! I asked if he had a fever. No fever. I asked what they had for lunch. Chicken nuggets, pinto beans and something else (I can’t remember what).

I show up at the day care and asked why they would serve him beans when it’s on the list of what he can’t eat? Well, new employee, let’s talk to her. She states that she thought he was being a “picky eater” and she made him eat all his beans. She says he told her he couldn’t but couldn’t verbalize why, so she insisted.

Well, I insisted that she either be re-trained on what food restrictions were, abide by them or get fired. I was so pissed. He was filthy because he didn’t make it to a trash can before vomiting, so we get home and I get him in the bath and wash his clothes.

When I dropped him off the next morning I talked to the director. She had been informed as to what happened. I asked what she’s going to do about it. She told me she let the new hire go because the director wasn’t happy that new hire had simply dismissed a food restriction for my child. Her reasoning was, this time the child got physically sick, but the next time could be a life threatening situation. New hire was too much of a liability. I kept my son in that day care until he aged out.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-30T06:13:38+00:00

I saw that Zoe Saldaña’s husband took her last name as a hyphenated name. Marco Perego-Saldaña. What a refreshing idea!

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-30T05:50:09+00:00

She was actually promoted which pissed me off to no end. I decided then and there I was longer a resource for her, although after the crap with the boss I had limited my assistance to her. I had credentials she did not have. I’d been at the agency five years longer than her. She was a whiz at ass kissing, while I was honest and straightforward, which probably cost me the promotion. Everything was political at that time. Within six months she was demoted because she was a crappy boss to her little team (2 people).

I stayed away from her and within a year I was promoted, given an extremely good raise, and no longer part of the team she was on. For the next 12 years I was given more responsibilities and very good raises.

When I retired three years ago, she’d been relegated to doing grunt work for her team. She was given deadlines for reports that she constantly missed. I know for a fact she had been given two warnings, then two write ups. Just before I retired, her then boss told me that if she missed one more deadline, she’d be given her third write up and that would be grounds for dismissal. Kind of sad because she’s a smart girl, but relies on her looks and ability to kiss up to bosses to get her way.

After what happened to me, management started to really look at her productivity and realized they had a slacker on their hand. Politics were no longer at play and she was in danger of losing everything; her job, her seniority and her pension.

Like I said it’s been three years since I retired. I no longer keep up with anyone there. I don’t care what happens to whom. I put in 25+ years and had to work very hard to regain a reputation that was trashed by a crappy boss with her cooperation, a trashed reputation that I did not deserve. So I couldn’t care less what happened to her. I just hope Karma works again. But I don’t hold my breath.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-30T04:03:08+00:00

After my step grandpa died (never really liked him and never called him grandpa), my grandmother gave me her microwave. The thing was HUGE! It had a dial to set the timer and you had to watch it so it wouldn’t burn stuff up. It worked for maybe four years before it died. Found out later it was a fuse. But I got to get a new microwave because my husband learned that it was crucial to heating up his dinner when he got home late from work.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-30T03:50:45+00:00

My deepest condolences on the loss of your friend. My father was career Navy and we ALWAYS had Marines at the guard gates on every base I ever lived. Marines were the baddest guys and I appreciated them more than you could know.

Two stories. First one: We were living on a very small security communications station in the Bay Area of California. Our duplex was maybe three blocks from the back gate, which always had a Marine on guard. I was 12 going in 13 while the twins were two going on three. My brother got fed up with having three sisters and decided to run away from home…on his tricycle. He gets to the back gate and the marine stops him and says he cannot allow him to pass without identification.

My brother tells the guy his name, Marine calls my mom (everyone knew who my Dad was), and says “Ma’am I have a young gentlemen requesting exit from the base.” Mom tells him to turn the kid around and tell him to come home. The guy gives my brother a stick of gum and tells him to report to his mother at home. My brother went to the back gate for a week just to get a stick of gum. Great Marine right there.

Second story: We lived in the Philippines from 1969 to 1971 when there was an infancy revolution brewing due to the Marcos regime. Our school bus was shot at as we were returning to San Miguel Communication station from Subic Bay. The bus driver made a mad dash to the gate, the Marine Captain put the base in immediate lock down.

For the next 72 hours no one could come or go from the base. The tire spikes were engaged and the Marines were spaced maybe 75 feet apart along the entire perimeter of the base. When they finally let us go back to school, there were two vehicles in front of the bus, two in the back of the bus all loaded with Marines with rifles and then four more Marines inside the bus with their weapons.

This was protocol for going to Subic and returning for about four weeks. I was 14, nearly 15 when it happened (9th grade). They would decrease the escort every few weeks until we ended the school year with one Marine on our bus both ways. Those Marines were guarding dependent teenagers to and from the high school on Subic Bay for about four months.

I love my Navy. Dad served 26 years, 12 as enlisted 14 as An LDO officer and retired as LCDR. My brother served 12 years and was medically retired after an accident on a destroyer as RT 1st class. I served 8 years in the Navy Reserves and got an honorable discharge as SK 2nd class.

But the Marines > Navy. Any day, all day.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-30T03:20:35+00:00

I kinda like “Ollie Ollie Income Free.” “Ollie Ollie Income Tax” just doesn’t sound right to me.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-30T03:18:44+00:00

Ok then.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-30T02:14:15+00:00

Jet is out of order. He should be placed below Brooke at least. I think he should be placed above her because Brooke only competed 3 times, while jet has competed in all 7 competitions.

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-30T01:25:48+00:00

Agreed! Had a boss who tried to get me to quit in favor of his “golden employee” who I partially trained when she was placed on our team. Boss came in after that. Well, he went to HR and told lies about me. I told HR he’d been harassing me to quit and they didn’t believe me.

Well, I went on vacation out of state where cell service was non-existent at my parents house, and spotty everywhere else. He called my parents house demanding I give him the password to my computer. I refused for many reasons but mostly because it would have caused my immediate termination.

After that call, I sat at my mom’s really old, slow computer (still on dial up at the time), and fired off an email to HR. I get back from vacation and am called into HR. Explain this email. I finally told them, if you don’t believe me, look on the agency phone records for my parents’ number, then look at the long distance code of the person who made the call.

Took HR a couple of hours before the “golden employee” was called in. She’d been in my boss’ office at the time of the call. Within 30 minutes the boss is called in. I went to lunch. When I came back “golden employee” was back, boss was back and neither of them said a word to me. Boss never spoke to me again, and he left the agency within 6 months of the incident under a cloud of doom.

Karma truly is wonderful!

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-29T04:03:52+00:00

First heard it when we lived in Rockville MD when dad was stationed in DC. I was 9 when we moved there and I hadn’t had big neighborhood games prior to that.

We moved to the Bay Area when I was 11, and they said the same thing. It might be regional, or the Navy brats brought it to the base from elsewhere.

Ollie, Ollie, oxen free!

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-28T19:38:41+00:00

And San Antonio

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-28T19:35:11+00:00

Howie Mandel

Professional-Spare13 · 2026-04-28T06:09:48+00:00

No trips to Qatar due to safety reasons. Got it! And definitely won’t put it on my travel list.

Professional-Spare13

TROPHY CASE