respublica

Tax Relief?

Yesterday Gov. JB Pritzker and legislative Democrats held a news conference publicizing coming tax relief. To say this is a modest bit of relief is putting it mildly. They were thrilled enough about this to hold a press conference, but in reality the amount of tax relief is minuscule.

A suspension of the 1 percent sales tax on groceries through June 2023.  This amounts to one cent off a dollar or ten cents off of ten dollars spent. The motor fuel tax break would save 22 cents on ten gallons of gas.

There are other tax breaks or tax credits which may be helpful. But not all that much.

• An income tax rebate of $50 per individual with income below $200,000 a year, or $100 for couples filing jointly with income below $400,000 a year, plus $100 per dependent child, up to three children.

Meanwhile New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham also put out a press release yesterday with much better tax help. Single households that do not have any dependents will receive a $500 payment, and married couples will pocket $1,000. She raised Pritzker's ten cents and raised it by a lot.

The Governor designates

This is really creepy. Illinois Governor Pritzker had nothing much else to do yesterday so he designated the official state snake. I don't like snakes at all and the photo of this official snake had me closing the link. If you are fascinated with snakes, the Eastern Milksnake has the honor. There is a photo of this thing all curled up at the link.

The eastern milksnake is found all across Illinois — it lives in fields, woodlands, rocky hills and river bottoms. The milksnake ranges from 24 to 36 inches in length, has smooth scales, large blotches with brown or black borders and a y- or v-shaped mark on its head. It is not a venomous snake and is even bred as a pet.

I've never come across one of these and hope I never do.

Want to try a new dinner option?

I came across this recipe the other day and was kind of intrigued. It uses an item I've never cooked with before, but I think I'm going to try it with maybe some adjustments. The main food is potato Gnocchi and mixed with Brussels sprouts. I know it sounds rather bland and possibly weird, but it looks good the way it is fixed. The dried potato Gnocchi is found in every pasta aisle and although I've seen it I've basically ignored it until now.

The recipe is named Crisp Gnocchi with Brussels Sprouts and Brown Butter. Here are the ingredients, I most likely would not use an whole pound of Brussels Sprouts:

• 1pound brussels sprouts (or cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower or even cabbage)
• 1lemon
• ¼cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• ½teaspoon red-pepper flakes
• 1(18-ounce) package shelf-stable or refrigerated potato gnocchi
• 6tablespoons unsalted butter, sliced into 6 pieces
• ½teaspoon honey

1. Step 1

   Trim and halve the brussels sprouts. Using a vegetable peeler, peel thick strips of lemon zest, then coarsely chop. (You should have about 2 teaspoons chopped zest.)

1. In a large (preferably 12-inch) skillet, heat 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high. Add the brussels sprouts, season with ½ teaspoon salt and a few grinds of pepper, then arrange the brussels sprouts in an even layer, cut-side down. Scatter the lemon zest over the top and cook, undisturbed, until the brussels sprouts are well browned underneath, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the red-pepper flakes, stir and cook until the brussels sprouts are crisp-tender, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl.

2. Step 3

   In the same skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high. Break up any gnocchi that are stuck together, add them to the pan and cook, covered and undisturbed, until golden brown on one side, 2 to 4 minutes. Add the butter and honey, season with salt and a generous amount of black pepper, and cook, stirring, until the butter is golden, nutty smelling and foaming, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the brussels sprouts until warmed through. Serve with grated Parmesan.

 

Let real life enter in

With the beginning of early summer and all the great things popping up and new produce maturing, I realized this morning I much prefer real daily life to the constant harping and anger that is regularly on the news.

Primary Day again

I was looking over the sample ballot for today's Illinois primary election and I was kind of overwhelmed by all the offices involved and the candidates I have never heard of. This is not a good thing and at one point in time it was not the case because this area had good local papers which kept us regularly informed on what was going on locally and by whom.

The loss of newpapers is a sad loss.

What color are your bed sheets?

Wouldn't you just know, some sleep expert would develop a theory on how the color of our bed sheets affect our sleep. This is something I have never given a thought to and buy sheets in colors that I know won't run in the wash. But it seems there are bad sleep inducing colors and those colors.

Right off the back is the number one "don't use" color and it is white. "While white bed sheets may be crisp and clean looking, they can also give off a sterile feeling in your bedroom." "It’s better to go with off-white or beige sheets because bright white fabrics may be too stimulating for the brain. It might associate them with daylight, which can lead to decreased levels of a sleep-inducing hormone called melatonin."

I still sort of like white sheets, they seem cooler in summer and more crisp.

Then comes light blue for the same reason as white because they are too day lighty for good sleep. Sorry, but we do have light blue. They suggest dark blue or navy.

3. Red. For obvious reasons. Too aggressive for sleep

4.  Brown--too depressing

5. Black-anger inducing

Frankly, really dark colored bed sheets like red or black or navy often run when washed.

When I choose new sheets they are usually fairly neutral but what I most look for are cotton percale, the fabric which has some crispness as opposed to the type which are too soft and silky.

 

Primary Day

Tomorrow, Tuesday June 28, is the Illinois primary when voters for each political party choose which people they want on the November ballot. I have no idea what the turn out will be, often this is punk poor unless there is some sort of major issue at hand. For 20 years or more I was an election judge in Collinsville precinct 1. The only election day more boring and endless besides the primary was local elections. So few people actually make the effort to vote in either of these elections that it makes for a really long long day for judges. Go vote!

What has caught my eye regarding this primary election is who is funding the republican candidates for governor. There are two hoping to defeat JB Pritzker in November, Richard Irvin and Darren Bailey. I'm certain Pritzker won't have much of a party challenge so the interesting race is from the GOP. So who is paying for the two GOP candidates ads which play one against the other? A group of Illinois democrats. Watch the tv ads all the way to the end and you'll see.

This seems unseemly to me and tells me something about how worried JB is. I'll be very interested in who becomes Pritzker's opponent after tomorrow's election.

 

Just one more piece of technology

Dale is one of the speakers at a Lutheran district convention this week and when he called this morning he surprised me with a new idea. He is interested in us getting Apple watches. Now this came out of no where and I am not especially thrilled by the idea. It seems to me to be just one more thing that has to be always with us, but worse, one more thing that has to be set up.

Setting up means finding all the user names and passwords which is a real pain. But even more I wonder how much I'd like to be looking at a small display. I know people who have them and they are using it like an ipad or iphone. They can keep track of everything and everyone by looking at their wrists.

After doing a bit of checking I was surprised to learn that these watch also check fitness levels, heart rates, oxygen rates and even know if you fall. Do I want all this? I just don't know.

Saving when grocery tax is suspended

Illinois lawmakers felt sympathy for residents struggling with the higher and higher food prices and suspended the grocery tax from July 1 to July 1, 2023, the end of the fiscal year. This sounds great but the grocery tax is 1 percent which won't amount to very much, but it's better than nothing. An example of savings from the article is this: a food bill of 145.29 would get a savings of 1.45.

Over the course of a year this would add it. But there are exceptions to which groceries will be part of this and which will not. "The tax suspension will include "food for human consumption that is to be consumed off the premises where it is sold," other than things like alcoholic beverages, food with adult-use cannabis, soft drinks, candy and food that has been prepared for immediate consumption. Drugs or medicine will not be included."

I'd guess food for immediate consumption will be tricky to decide.Will putting a deli sandwich in the cart be taxed? A rotisserie Chicken?

Food search days

In the post below this one, I wrote about my constant search for Mexican Coke, but this one is about Dale's search for something else in the grocery department. He has gotten into the habit of having a Kellogg's Vanilla Protein drink with lunch. These have long been readily available at our Collinsville Schnucks as other stores in that chain. But for weeks they have been out of it which meant I've been searching high and low for them. They come in 4 packs and after trying at least 4 Schnucks stores I've given up. I did find some in Dierbergs, the last carton, on Saturday. Then I happened to be in Walmart and that store had them.

But here's the most shocking thing I learned during this search. Dierberg's charges 9 plus dollars, Schnucks is now charging 8 plus dollars up from 6 and 7 dollars. And Schnucks changed the price at the shelf even though they don't have any.

Walmart's price is 5 something! Will I ever buy this at the grocery stores again? Never. That is a 4 dollar difference in price for the same thing between these 3 stores. Ridiculous.

Once again the search is on

I've mentioned on here before that I am mildly addicted to Mexican Coke-the soda not the illegal stuff. This Coke is made the original way with real sugar not corn syrup and the taste is much better. But it is not available in Collinsville at any store unless you count going to one of the State Park Mexican grocery stores and get it by single 16 ounce bottles. All this means is a trip over to St. Louis in the area near Concordia Seminary. The Schnucks next to St. Mary's hospital almost always has it unless it is temperarily sold out. Or, further up the road, the Dierbergs on Eager Road near Brentwood usually has it. Both these stores carry the Coke in 4 packs of 12 ounce bottles.

The other day I was just about out of this drink and did not feel much like going to St. Louis so I gave in and ordered some from Amazon. The order arrived yesterday (one day wait) and in the box were 6 12 ounce bottles of Mexican Coke each individually wrapped tightly in bubble wrap. It was an interesting sight and even more interesting trying to unwrap each one. But I learned that there is such a thing as bubble wrap with one side having sticky adhesive which gets away from having to use scotch tape to hold it together.

I did not know this type of bubble wrap existed and I plan to try and find some. It will make wrapping up things for shipping so much easier.

I still don't understand why our local grocery stores do not carry the Mexican Coke.

Truth

I came across this the other day and realized there is a lot of truth in it.

Two views of Paris

Our oldest grandson is in Europe with members of his Lutheran South High School class and he has been sending back photos. Yesterday we received two very different views of Paris. The first was of a gorgeous cathedral, the name of which he neglected to mention. The second picture is of something he called the highlight of the trip-a Nike Store.

Where oh Where have our newspapers gone?

After a brief pause in actual newspaper delivery lapses, we are now back to not receiving our papers. This was an issue a few months ago and got rectified by some miracle. But for the past 4 days we have not gotten our 3 daily papers. The problem is unknown. Calling the company or distribution company does nothing more than get words of apology instead of actual papers. 

We've called and talked to whoever is in charge to no avail. They really do not know why this is or won't say for fear we will cancel our subscriptions. We'd just like to know where the problem lies. Is it the paper, the printer, the distribution center or the delivery people.

I believe it's time to get the local news outlets, like TV or radio, involved in this. Frankly this has become infuriating. Calling or emailing the paper people does nothing. Do they not care that many of us who are paying for papers we don't get will be unsubscribing?

Hey KMOX, KMOV,  KSDK, KMOV, FOX 2.. Here is a story for you.

The Potato Plants are a mess

I have been babying our potato plants which are in big pots on the deck. The past week has been cruelly hot and caused the big strong plants to shrink by the end of each day. This was bad enough, but early this morning a bad storm rolled through bringing rain and strong winds. I looked out at our potatoes and my heart sank. I don't know if those poor things will recover and this will be devastating. Last year they turned out so well and delicious I'd hoped for a repeat.

But plants do recover, I just hope these will. click photo to enlarge

Another good-bye to Illinois

This was pretty shocking news to us this morning. "Less than six weeks after defense contractor and airplane-maker Boeing announced it would move its global headquarters out of downtown Chicago, leaders of another major corporation are set to leave the region. Longtime Illinois company Caterpillar Inc. will move its headquarters from Deerfield, Illinois, to an existing office in Irving, Texas, outside Dallas, the company said Tuesday.

Caterpillar has long been a huge mainstay in Illinois and follows the exit of the Boeing company which headed to Virginia.

Guiness World Record broken in Illinois

There are many weird attempts at World Records and so it is with this one. The world's largest fruit display was put out in front of a Jewel-Osco grocery store in Chicago in which 70,000 pounds of bananas were used for display. Pictures of all these bananas are shown at the story link. This is almost overwhelming and my first thought was, what is going to happen to all these bananas after the ceremony is over? Bananas do over ripen pretty fast especially when it's hot outside.

Here is what happened. Customers were given free bananas and Remaining bananas will be donated to Northern Illinois Food Bank.

Jewel stores sell 140,000 pounds of bananas a day! I wonder how many the Schnucks stores sell down here, I buy them every two days and there are always shoppers in front of the banana display.

I grew up in Chicago suburbs and we always shopped at the Jewel.

Now comes all the cooling advice

We've been under a heat alert this week with temperatures hitting 100. This mean many news outlets are telling us the best way to keep our homes cool. It has gotten so hot the past couple of days by late afternoon the air conditioning is really not up to the best cooling task. It's ok, but not refreshing like more moderate days.

This article gives a lot of advice on this score, some good, some perplexing. I'll just itemize them here and the entire explanation is at the link.

• Ceiling Fans
• Window Fans
• Evaporative Coolers (Swamp Coolers)
• Air Conditioners
• Closing up the House to Keep the Cool Air in
• Radiant Barriers
• Shade Trees and Awnings

Okay, I can go along with most of these but I have no idea what an evaporative cooler is and don't plan on getting one. We realized rather quickly this week how much having ceiling fans help. By turning them on in reverse (having low air pulled up) we found almost immediate difference in the comfort level. We have a ceiling fan in the family room and one in our bedroom. Last night the reverse fan in the bedroom made such a difference and by the time I woke up this morning I was actually chilly. I don't know how much good this does without air conditioning, but better than nothing. 

We are thankful we had whole house shades installed when we moved back to Collinsville. Pulling them down over sunny windows helps as well.

It's summer after all better than 5 above 0.

The good news is tomato plants and peppers love this  hot weather and are really going to town.

Bagging them

For quite a few weeks we've been doing a lot of yard work with most of it being trimming or cutting back bushes and trees. Plus much weed pulling. Weeds are having a field day this spring. All of this means we have had to use lots of brown paper yard waste bags and set them out on the curb for pick-up each Monday. I have to give lots of kudos to the trash guy who picks them up regularly and always in a timely manner. I find most of the bags almost too heavy to lug around and feel guilty but Dale claims it's because I'm a woman. Men are stronger he says, and isn't too heavy for the pick-up guy.

In any event we've used enough of those bags this year that we have come to realize not all are created the same. Some bags turn out to be too thin and tear easily, others are so strong it is hard to open them and keep them open. A couple are just right.

We have purchased them from Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Walmart and Schnucks. Home Depot bags are the hardest to get open and stay open with Ace a close second. Plus Ace bags are kind of thin and tear. Walmart bags open and stay open easily. But surprisingly it is the Schnucks bags which are the best for us. They are strong enough to take what gets put into them and they open easily and stay open.

Today is our yard waste pick-up and I still wonder what the trash hauler guy feels about all of our constant yard waste. Looking at the house from the front it doesn't look like we'd need all those weekly bags. But it's the back and west side which are the culprits.

I am so thankful for this service each week. Today we woke up to high humid heat so much humidity that we can't see out of our windows or doors.

About that spacing

I read an amusing post this morning written by someone in the Air Force. This is what he said: "Dear friends older than 37: You don't have to put two spaces after the period anymore. That was for the typewriter era. You're free.

This made me laugh because my term paper and essay era was mostly done on a manual or electric typewriter and the two spaces after the period was the rule. We could get points taken off our papers if we did not do this. So, I mentally went over how I type on the computer. Do I use two spaces or one? Now I know. As I'm typing this post, I automatically only put one space after a period and I doubt I learned that single space anywhere, it just came sort of naturally.

I now wonder why the old days of two spaces came about? Were typewriter letters much closer together or larger or some such which would make two spaces important?