It's just fried dough

I made donuts last night, well sort of. They look like donuts but they were just fried biscuits. I remember back in kindergarten the teacher showed us that you could take a can of biscuits, cut the center out of them and fry them to make something similar to donuts. I made a mess with the powdered sugar trying to dust the donuts evenly but ended up with clumps of it everywhere.

Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt

I have this salt shaker that I found in my house when I moved in. It was one of the few items that I kept when I cleaned out the kitchen cabinets. For two years I have searched on eBay trying to find a match so I can use the set. It reminds me of a miniature sugar shaker with the fluted sides and flared out base. I had hoped to have found a clue with any markings on the bottom but it only has "made in china" and 15 so no luck there. Maybe one day I will stubble upon its mate until then it lives in the spice cabinet.

I can finally see coming and going now

So I put Hella 500 off-road lights on the front of the truck. I wasn't happy about the headlights being brighter than the off-road lights so I upgraded the hella's with KC 100w bulbs. I also upgraded the truck's factory fog lights with Philips 45w bulbs. I been content with all this extra lighting on the front.

Backing the truck up in the dark is a different story, the stock reverse lights are simply inadequate. Most guys will swap these bulbs out with something brighter and I'm planning on doing the same but I also want something to light up the rear so I can see while hooking up to a trailer. My solution was to take a set of white strobe lights that had a steady burn mode and mount them to the bottom of the receiver hitch cross beam using angle iron as brackets.

I used a rocker fog light switch from a earlier model Toyota and mounted it to a empty slot on the dash. Wire was ran from the auxiliary fuse box into the cab and then out under the seat to the rear of the truck. Since these were strobe lights they had two extra wires, one to sync the two together and one to set the flash pattern. I laughed to myself the first time I turned the switch on to test everything. I had a disco party going on behind my truck. Once I had everything wired properly I wrapped everything up wire wire loom and electrical tape.

Factory reverse lights and auxiliary backup lights on

Factory reverse lights on.

Auxiliary backup lights on.

Revamping the kitchen hardware

I have been slowly replacing pieces of hardware in the kitchen. Recently replaced all the cheap plastic measuring cups with heavy glass cups. All my drinking glasses finally match, I had a selection that didn't quite match my style or the rest of the glassware I had recently purchased. Finally got rid of the cheap mixed match set of steak knives replaced with a nice set I got for Christmas.

I finally got around to adding to the set of Corelle plates that my sister gave me. There were only five dinner plates and four bread plates. I added two more dinner plates over the past couple years. Couple weeks ago I decided that I wanted to compete the set with bowls and a few more plates. I visited Wal-Mart only to discover they were no longer available on the shelf. I checked online and the sets were there but Wal-Mart didn't offer open stock in Classic Cafe Blue. Even Corelle's website don't offer much of a selection. I did purchase six of the larger 28oz bowls from them and will be getting a set of lunch plates. Replacement.com had a better selection; I ordered one dinner plate, two bread plates, and six cereal bowls that matched.

This gives me a total of:

8 dinner plates
6 lunch plates
6 bread plates
6 18oz bowls
6 28oz bowls

I currently don't know if this design has been retired or just most places stopped selling in favour of a more popular or fresh design. I have always liked the simple blue striped design, the nostalgia of it makes me think of a small diner sitting on the side of route 66. The plates stack more compact than most and they are not as heavy as ceramic plates.

My flatware is also getting some new additions. For years I have tried to find more pieces to add to the set of Watertown stainless steel flatware made in Japan. I knew nothing of the set. One Etsy listing has me to believe the set was produced in the 1960's. My mom and sister saw that I was looking for more of this design and took a look through their flatware and found a few more spoons and knives for me. Ebay has a few listings that were reasonably priced and I have about 16 pieces in the mail already. The flatware has a simple but interesting design, the handles has a border made up of a repeating pattern of crickets or maybe they are praying mantis.