Travels in the South

Living in the south, there are lots of comfort foods. But sometimes on a cold and rainy day, you want something that soothes your soul. Mom’s choice for that is grits with cheddar cheese and crumbled up turkey sausage. It’s hot, gooey and delicious. I hear your naysayers turning your nose up at grits. But let me tell you something. When done right like this, grits can be delicious! 😋

 

National Inane Answering Machine Day

Journalist Rocky the Squirrel here –

keeping his paws on the nuts of the world –

All important announcement – today is National Inane Answering Machine Day and is always on January 30th.  It is actually a copyrighted holiday?  Negative that is not a typing error, it is “Inane”.  You don’t even know what that means do you?  Go ahead and admit it, Bacon’s mother had to look it up too.  Poor kid needs to advance her vocabulary besides talking gibberish to that oinker all day.  I went ahead and copied this from the dictionary for you.  You’re welcome!

“inane”, Pronunciation: \i-ˈnān\
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): inan·er; inan·est
Etymology: Latin inanis
Date: 1662
1 : empty, insubstantial
2 : lacking significance, meaning, or point : silly
synonyms see insipid
— inane·ly adverb
— inane·ness \-ˈnān-nəs\ noun

With that being said and us knowing what ‘inane’ means now, let’s continue on this grand holiday of “National Inane Answering Message Day”.  First lets clarify the meaning of an “inane” answering machine messages. We all get them and they drive us crazy which for some cases is a short trip – HA!  An inane message is a senseless or meaningless message, or a prank call. Or, it could be an insane message.

So, National Inane Answering Message Day is a day to end those numerous, annoying insane answering machine messages. We all *know* that’s not going to be accomplished in one day but we can try, can’t we?  So for today, no prank calls!  Chatters and laughs.

 

National Corn Chip Day

Journalist Rocky the Squirrel here –

keeping his paws on the nuts of the world.

Today is mandated as National Corn Chip Day! Corn chips are right up my alley if you know what I mean. Who can turn down a good chip? Can you believe that 50 years ago (way before this journalists time), few Americans even knew what corn chips were? That’s amazing to me. Today, we can’t imagine life without those tasty little morsels. They were first marketed in 1961 and have been going strong since.

So, in honor of today being National Corn Chip Day – go out and eat some chips… with salsa… with dip… plain… with a friend… yeah, I know the pig is going to get his share!

 

Rocky’s Nut Brunch

Welcome back friends to another week of Rocky’s Nut Brunch.  I’m coming across so much interesting information these days.  Today is another great one to share.

Do you know the name of Edward “Steady Ed” Headrick?  I bet you know his work.  Headrick was the inventor of – wait for it – the frisbee.  See how it’s funny that we know the inventions but not always the name, right?  Headrick felt that the frisbee had some kind of spirit involved and wasn’t just a playful toy thrown back and forth.  He thought of the frisbee as making beautiful flight.

Headrick passed away in 2002.  And like many other creators, he wanted something special done to his ashes.  For years he joked with his family but when it came towards the end, he told them he was serious.  He wanted his ashes mixed into new versions of the frisbee into limited editions.  Headrick then wanted these special edition frisbees sold and all proceeds to be put towards a museum in his honor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally Found in my Magical Backyard

There you go my friends.  My magical backyard – booyah!  Pictures don’t lie, right?  I mean this would no way be photoshopped.  Nope no way.  I couldn’t get a clearer picture than this.  It was that perfect off of my backyard camera.  Yeah that’s it.  Move over friends.  I can’t give you the exact locations because well you know for obvious reasons – snorts and rolls with piggy laughter.

 

Paw Time with Houdini

Hello sweet friends – we finally made it to Friday.  Thank goodness for that!  I just had to share my picture from this week with you.  This is me laying with mom cuddling me.  See Mr. Elephant?  That’s my new toy that mom bought for me.  He’s just my size.  He still squeaks and I keep dragging him around the house by his nose.  It’s perfect.  Can you see my eyes in this picture?  Barks with puppy laughter.  That’s what I keep telling mom too.  I need a haircut.  I think I need a spa day for sure.

 

Shopping Around the World

Welcome my friends to a new year of adventure and great food!

Today we are highlighting great sandwiches of any kind.  Mom/dad here at the Hotel Thompson are the king and queen of sandwiches.  Sometimes they are huge and sometimes they are just something thrown between two slices of bread.  You never know with those two.  One of dad’s favorite sandwiches is a club on wheat bread.  There is a local sandwich shop that he always wants to frequent… that is until mom created this monster for him.  Now dad welcomes mom’s club sandwiches any day.  So without further ado – take it away mom!

What you will need:  Hoagie buns (a package of six cost $2.00 – $0.33 each bun); Meats – you get whatever you want from the deli.  We get a 1/2 pound of roast beef, ham and turkey.  Of course, a 1/2 pound makes multiple sandwiches.  They range from $4-$6.00 for each selection.  If you had to break it down, it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.75 per sandwich with all three meats.  Cheese – we also get 1/2 pound of provolone for $3.50.  It costs around $0.50 per sandwich for each sandwich.  Chips – we buy the store brand of chips for $1.00 a bag.  There are multiple servings per bag.  So somewhere around $0.25 per serving.  And we always keep pickles and olives on hands – always for nibbling.  So each sandwich will cost you around less than $3.00 per sandwich.  Not really bad and they are yummy!

Here is the fun part – arrange the sandwich however you want.  Pure and simple, right?  LOL – we prefer a little mayo on one side of the sandwich and  a little mustard on the opposite side.  You can use a sampling of all three meats or just the ones you want.  Add the cheese.  Now we have even used a panini press in the past and squished this sandwich making it hot or you can just serve it cold like this picture – whichever works for you.  It’s a simple sandwich but so delicious and easy.

You can even make them in advance and cut them into little pieces for a big football party.  We’ve done that before as well.  These are so easy to fix ahead of time.  Just a thought with the Super Bowl coming up my friends ❤

 

Shopping with Mom/Dad

Okay soon there will be a law that mom/dad can’t go shopping together anymore in the future without a chaperone.  I’m just saying.  They went out this weekend and returned home laughing and joking about something.  You know I’m a curious pig so I investigated in mom’s cell phone.  Shaking my head.  Those two – Oh My Piggy Heavens!  No daddy.  Pink is not your color.  Absolutely not.  Do not try it on.  Do not buy it.  Put it back!!

MY EYES!!  What is the worse thing you have seen in your humans cell phone??

 

National Compliment Day

Journalist Rocky the Squirrel –

Keeping his hands on the nuts of the world.

 

Here for another important message for the day. Today, January 24th, is commemorated as National Compliment Day every year. It is a very special day and celebrated in most parts of the world apart from the USA. This day represents a positive theme – a positive tone in a positive atmosphere – everywhere you are whether it be at home, the grocery market, work or that place the humans feel to punish themselves by what they call “working out”.

Compliments – compliments – compliments – that is what we most do today. Have you ever noticed how someone just brightens up at a compliment, even a complete stranger? Do you notice how much harder you work when you get a compliment? So today, we shall compliment our little hearts out.

So here are some suggestions that can help you today on your National Compliment Day.

• Give your co-worker an honest to goodness compliment on something at work. It doesn’t matter how small or big, express your thoughts in a generous compliment. Hey go for the gold here and even try to compliment that boss. Let them wonder what you’re up to..ha!
• Compliment that person who is losing weight.
• Compliment that human that is consistently working out in their hamster ball.
• Compliment that human that really has touched you in some point of your life in a good way.
• Compliment your spouse. Sometimes you humans don’t express your feelings enough to each other. Maybe if you compliment them, they’ll give you more nuts for the winter.
• By all means, compliment your pets. They’re always there for you no matter what, even when you come home upset. They just want to love on you.
• Compliment the guy that cuts you off in traffic this morning. Maybe he won’t hear you but you can smile and wave. Maybe instead of uttering fowl language under your breath, think to yourself, “Isn’t he a nice guy for getting in front of me blocking me from any danger.”
• Compliment your mother and father – if it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t be here. Heck, have your spouse compliment them too. If it wasn’t for them, your spouse wouldn’t have you.
• Compliment your pups… I mean children. I’m sure they do something else besides being destructive.
• Compliment your teacher. Compliment your bus driver or your chauffer.
• While you’re at it – compliment nature and all of its little creatures, like me 🙂 Hey, you can even throw us some extra feed outside, we won’t say no.

You get the drift. You give out compliments and you give a positive sense of well being. You make someone feel great with just a few words. We all know that words can be so destructive. Let’s turn it around today.

I, Journalist Rocky the Squirrel, challenge you. I challenge you to give out a minimum of FIVE compliments today. I bet you can do more but FIVE is a good start. Are you going to take the challenge?

This is Journalist Rocky the Squirrel signing off. Have a fantastic day you beautiful humans!

 

Travels in the South

We all know by now that dad has no limits when it comes to eating.  He doesn’t get these things every day or sometimes not even every week.  But this is another one of his favorites – blackberry pancakes with whip cream.  Of course there is thousands of worth of calories in this dish – that dad gets either for breakfast or dinner.  And no he never finishes it all but enjoys every bite he can get down.  And we won’t talk about how he flies like a kite the rest of the day if he eats it for breakfast.  Snorts and rolls with piggy laughter.