Wednesday Morning

Greetings and Salutations, Blog Readers!

Today, when my post went up, Daily Blog #147, WordPress sent me this notification…

200 posts. Can you freaking believe it. I have posted 200 blogs.

Wild. It has been a straight up wild ride already and I am so excited for the next hundred.

I guess now is as good a time as any to talk about my thoughts at 200 blog posts, and talk about the next 200.

The first two hundred posts I did ranged in variety, from traditional blog posts with fun blog lessons, to daily blogs describing my blogger/writer lifestyle, to skin care product reviews, informative blog about cannabis and cannabinoids, and yes, even tons of creative writing.

It has been a hell of a ride, these past 200 posts. In the next 200 posts I anticipate that we will see many more Daily Blogs, as i prefer for every type of blog i write to be numbered now, but i also plan on releasing more of my cannabis specific content, not just my cleaning your pieces blog, but recipe blogs, and more informative blogs about cannabis. I also plan on dropping more skin care review blogs, as many of you have asked for more or at least received them well with glowing responses.

I plan on dropping lots of creative writing, including but certainly not limited to stories from Flake City.

I plan on doing much of what I have done for the past two hundred blogs, but with more knowledge, experience, know how, and with more purpose. I have a better idea of what I want to blog to look like, and while I have’t got everything sorted out, I look forward to putting it all together and finding exactly what I like. From what I understand, blogging is an ever evolving thing, so, I look forward to the next 200, and seeing how it goes. In 200 blogs I have already grow so much, so I can’t wait to see what the next 200 bring.

Wednesday Evening

Greetings again, my dear readers! It’s several hours later, and I am ready to blog properly! I was trying to blog earlier but I wasn’t on hold as much as usual, and I can’t just blow off my job and blog instead. So, work finished out, a bit stressful, so I left right at five instead of staying late, and walked home with Bret, who spent much of his day doing boring work stuff, but also got to go to an awesome/not awesome lunch meeting.

Now we are home, Bret is getting ready to either stream and record, or just stream, or just record…that part all seems vague, but he is actually testing and working out the “how” of it, which is great, because he is trying to record more, and put out more content, much of which will likely be helpful for you, or anyone who follows his stuff, or music in general.

He and a friend of ours, Drew, are thinking of starting, in addition to live streams of their music, educational videos teaching people how to do various components of music composition and creation.

So, while Bret works on that, I have Zomboat! on in the background, on headphones, so he can work in silence and I can work in noise, ironically he works with music, and I write, which tickles me to no end.

We just finished dinner, I made Bret a frozen pizza at his request and I searched for comfort food.

I had fries, but no, I knew I had something that would likely be even better.

Stouffers Mac n Cheese. I don’t know your thoughts on the stuff, and sure, home made may be better, but this stuff is a damn good fill in for home made, much better than some nasty box mix, and, notably, doesn’t require a ton of dishes. A fork or spoon for eating, thats it.

Beautiful, as that we don’t have a dishwasher, I have a blog to write, five thousand words or so to write in Flake City, some editing I am actively avoiding, and a goal of going to bed at a reasonable hour…A big thing of dishes is not conducive to any of that.

So, I popped the Stouffers out and as soon as I opened the box, my heart sank.

The bottom of the container you cook the Stouffers Mac n Cheese in…Broken.

And not just broken.

Like MAJOR broken. Like, some parts were shattered, and the whole container lacked any structural integrity.

So, bummed, I thought about it, and realized I could still pop the Mac and Cheese square, still frozen, and put it into a container. I grabbed my glass baking pan, and, not wanting to have more dishes, lined it with parchment paper.

A few disclaimers, before I get into the “How to save your frozen dinner when the container is broken” part of this blog.

I absolutely do not blame Stouffers in ANY way, for the broken dish. I tweeted about it, and they seemed to care and told me to DM them. If anything comes about from the DM, we shall see. Frankly, I would be fine with a blog shout out to this post, to let other people know how to fix the problem because damn, that could have sucked- I was fucking hungry!

I think the container likely broke in shipping, hell I ordered it from Amazon Prime Now, because as you know, we don’t have a car and often have groceries delivered when we can afford it and when the work van is otherwise engaged.

The Stouffers was likely at the bottom of the back and slammed down onto the concrete outside our apartment when it was delivered, by some underpaid Amazon work, or, it was dropped in the warehouse by someone with cold fingers from handling frozen goods, or who knows…But, I don’t blame Stouffers for the broken container, and I am not blogging to put them on blast. I am telling you this story to help you if you are ever in a similar situation, and who knows, maybe I will add a blog lesson at the end.🙂

So here are some steps, if you are having similar issues, and found this blog by searching something like “Can I still cook my Stouffers Mac N Cheese if the container is broken?” or “Help! I’m so hungry and don’t want this money I spent on a cheap frozen dinner to go to waste, and me to go to bed hungry!”

-Open box, make horrifying discovery. Recover. Find oven safe pan and line with parchment paper. Maybe foil if you use that, but I suggest ditching foil 100% and getting into parchment paper.

-Peel off the plastic wrap, remove any remnants of the black plastic container it normally cooks in when not hopelessly broken.

-Pop the frozen square in, and away we go!

-So, I had the oven at 400 for Bret’s pizza, but ten minutes in, the pizza was done and I lowered it to the posted temperature. For instructions sake-

-Put baking pan with the frozen Mac into a preheated to temperature based on box specifications. My box said 375, but I think I may have even pumped it a bit lower. Temperature won’t matter as much, as you are going to be keeping an eye on it, and-

-When its warm enough for your fork to go through the middle easily, stir it up, add any seasonings you may want, pop it back in the oven for a couple of minutes.

-Remove mac n cheese from the oven. Put container on a oven mitt or some other heat protectant, and eat carefully, so you can use the pan you cooked it in and save dishes.

-When finished eating, remove parchment paper, revealing still clean (or close to) pan. Quickly wash, without dealing with baked on cheese, and wash your fork, to have dishes already done and you full on delicious food.

-Rest well knowing you didn’t cost yourself any extra money for food you couldn’t eat.

And there you have it, a delicious meal salvaged. This is the true blogger experience, I think, experiencing something, solving the problem, and posting it…Holy crap, am I that chick from Sex in the City? I know I’m not Gossip Girl.

That would be a totally different blog.

“Rumor has it a certain zombie obsessed writer brought a broken frozen dinner back from the dead? Who knows, maybe before too long she’ll bring the art of reading back too. Good job A, you just may be figuring this blogging thing out. XOXO Gossip Girl”

I digress. 200 blogs in, and it looks like I am really doing this whole blogger thing. I blog pretty reliably, certainly more days than I don’t, and I don’t see an end in sight. If anything, I have learned what else I need to do, and have worked hard to try and teach myself those skill sets.

“But Abbi, have you really?” Yeah. I have. Here’s how.

You see, earlier, I had a broken frozen dinner, and with my brain and some work, I had a delicious hot meal. 200 blood posts ago, I had a broken mess of an idea, and with my brain and some hard work, I have a blog I love with regular readers and viewers, and it grows more and more every day. I have grown skills, not just my writing skills, and really cemented my writing habits.

My writing muscles are doing big, meaty, bench presses for fun.

Because instead of wallowing in the miserable shit that was going on, like being miserable at a job, or worrying you will never find an audience who gets what you are doing with “meta writing”, you can work hard, apply your brain, and before long, you have a delicious dinner.

Or maybe a badass blog.

Happy 200th (201st with this one) blog everyone, I could have done it alone, maybe, sure, and I am so glad I didn’t have to.

Thanks for reading, this time, and every other time.

❤️

Abbi