The latest freeze got the basil and marigolds, and the lemongrass doesn't look at all happy, but the parsley, oregano, and lavender are doing just fine.
Close inspection of the lavender shows that some new growth at the base has been nipped.
The laundry divided neatly into black, white, yellow, and striped cotton jersey.
I took my Saturday tour today, since it's likely to be wet tomorrow and the Farmer's Markets are closed anyway.
I've just now realized that there was no work going on at the construction site where Avila burned down; since I usually go there on a weekend, I hadn't expected activity, so didn't miss it.
The front of the building looks finished — except that the lower part of the walls is ornamental concrete blocks, and from the tops of the windows up it's plain, raw-looking blocks, so I presume that some sort of decoration is to be added.
Much to my surprise, the doors — or at least the door that I tried — aren't locked. I stepped in, read my watch, and stepped right back out. Even though it wasn't locked, it *felt* like trespassing. I suppose locking the doors would be pointless when the back wall has three large holes where doors are to be installed.
On the way back from Penguin Point, I dared, for the first time, to ride through the alley behind the building. Up until today, I was afraid of broken glass and other sharp debris, but it appears to have been swept.
The laundromat having its front door back has changed the pattern of parked cars.
I hit Walgreen, where I bought some stick sunscreen — good for preventing windburn in cold weather — Owen's, where I dumped some plastic bags, the construction site, the Lake Street Penguin Point, where I ate a Pointer Burger with The Works. *Very* messy to eat, but I don't think I got any on my jersey. Then to Marsh, where I didn't find Smith Brothers cough drops (but did buy a package of toilet paper), Lowery's, where I didn't find straight operating scissors, the boardwalk, which is clean (no piles of leaves), the emergency room, where I dumped some magazines, Dr. Darr's office, where I got stuck with a needle. I had to take off three shirts to expose my arm. Which occupied most of the waiting-in-line time, but then I had to put them all back on before going back into the cold. Then back to Owen's — they had emptied the plastic-bag barrel while I was gone — to buy milk and cottage cheese.
Dave had had a huge lunch and I was tired, so we didn't go to First Friday. They didn't seem to be promoting it any this month; I couldn't find an ad or a press release in the paper.
There wasn't much wind on the fifth of November, so I built a little bonfire. Didn't throw any effigies on it, only a rotten fence post.
Washday, token amount of sewing done. Pizza for supper. I put in extra yeast and made the dough into crust without letting it rise first. My recipe makes two crusts; I made a small loaf of bread out of the other half of the dough.
On Saturday, I cut out a pair of slippers, and made some muffinlets so I'd have bread to eat with my chili yesterday. The cornbread wasn't as sweet as last year, but I ate my bread anyway. Not much was eaten by other people.
The people at our table all threw money on the table and bid in Martha's "left-over Halloween candy" cheesecake. I brought my slice home in a cottage-cheese container. It disappeared by bed time.
I thought that the "asian fusion" chili was the best, but I don't think it got any of the prizes. The camel chili was gone by the time I got there, but I scraped a taste off the walls of the crock-pot with a cracker. Couldn't taste the meat in it.
One of these years I'll enter my hamburger soup in the contest. I'd have to borrow a bigger crockpot. Or set my iron kettle on my candle warmer. The warmer doesn't overheat my cheese dip, so I doubt that it puts out enough BTUs to keep a kettle hot.
We did note when it was eleven o'clock.
Tomorrow looks like a good day to take a card-table tour. It won't be a quarter century, but it will be exhausting, and that's the point of a long ride.
I want a card table, and my Walmart-Meijer tour re-crosses US 30 right at K-Mart. So I can check all three X-Marts, and Lowe's as well.
I think I'll wear walking shoes for the entire tour; there's only a short stretch where I have to climb hills, and one of the hills is so steep I can't climb it even with cleats. Leaving the cleats home means walking the hill on 300 N too, but walking is good exercise.
Hmmm. If I go to Meijer first, then Walmart, I can skip both 150 E and 300 N. That makes the trip shorter, but it's *cold* out there.
Then coming back from Walmart, I can stay on 250 N all the way to — oh, wait, that's Husky Trail, which is devoutly to be avoided. So it's Bell Drive yet again.
For a while we thought this guy morphed into a doe in some of the pictures that the motion detector caught, but then we realized that his antlers match the color of the door.
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Well, well! All summer long I've been looking for a stick of sunscreen that I bought on clearance and stashed away last fall. This evening, while getting out a pair of wool gaiters to wear on tomorrow's ride, I found it!
I thought I'd had everything out of my weird-sock drawer more than once during the summer.
Now, if my split mittens would turn up . . .
and the half-knit sock with my #0000 needles in it
. . .
I've been complaining for a long time that I'm short of presentable shirts that I don't mind spilling stuff on, but you can't buy new old shirts. Yesterday Dave cleaned out his closet and piled up shirts to take to Goodwill. (On the treadle sewing machine, but he's lucky: my current project is sewn entirely on the zig-zag machine.) The pile included every T-shirt he had, and I sorted them out (except for the undershirt) and hung them on my side of the closet — about a dozen of them.
I may end up putting pockets in some of them; I've frequently been frustrated while wearing my Becoming an Outdoorswoman T-shirt around the house because I can't put a timer into my pocket.
There was one long-sleeved black cotton T-shirt — where did it come from? I can't see Dave buying a long-sleeved shirt, and I don't remember it. It's almost, but not quite, too small for me; it made an excellent base layer for today's ride.
I didn't go to Lowe's, and decided to give Aldi and Big R a miss in favor of getting to Big Apple Bagels while I could still buy a roast-beef sandwich and three sliced whole-wheat bagels.
Otherwise, things went according to plan. Each of the three stores had just one style of card table, though one of them — Walmart, I think — also had a square table that folded in half like a banquet table. I couldn't see any difference among the three card tables. They were in boxes so I couldn't see how the legs worked, but each had the same black leatherette top. The lowest price was at Walmart, so that's where I'll go to buy one.
I was much surprised to find that there was nothing but two fortune cookies to unload from my panniers when I got home — all those stores, and I didn't buy anything.
If I lunch at Panda Express again, I'll go in at the back door, look over the menu, then go back outside and get in line. The side dishes are listed where you can read them while waiting in line, but the entrees are listed only on the labels on each — uh, what is the name for the compartments in a steam table?
I learned today that peanut bars aren't a good snack when chilled to thirty degrees. I had to bite it with my back teeth. Fruit and grain would have been good. I don't think I've tried very cold protein bars.
Department of well, duh!: I've been using all sorts of elaborate ways to prepare my tea. This time I just put a couple of heaping teaspoons of tea leaves into a water bottle, filled it with water, and let it sit at garage temperature all night. Worked great — though I did take a caffeine drop just before beginning to drink it. I didn't remember that I had it until I had already started getting sleepy, so I wanted fast action, and it takes a while to drink a pint of tea. (Though it does go down faster than water.)
If you look closely, there is snow on the ground. When I opened the door to take the plastic under the litterboxes out to air — the Roomba is working on the bedroom today — Al said "lemmy out, lemmy . . . uh . . . "
Just discovered the count function of this word processor. The average size of the words in this document is 3.7 letters.
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Things are not going well on the housekeeping front. Dave dumped the filthy water out of the humidifier pot and cleaned the thick deposits out of it — which revealed a hole half an inch across in the bottom. One of us needs to go shopping tomorrow.
I made a superb onion lasagna for supper, then spoiled it with a thick coat of spaghetti sauce. But it was on top, so we scraped it off.
After supper, I went to Owen's to pick up my prescriptions, and decided to buy some paper towels because I'd gotten pickasize by mistake last time, and little half-size towels don't do for everything. I carefully inspected all the offerings, checked the towel size carefully, and put an eight-pack into the cart. When we looked at it after I came home, it was pickasize.
I made the bottom layer of the lasagna by frying a beef patty while chopping it into crumbles, then I added a little olive oil (it's very lean beef) and half an onion (cut into quarters and sliced), and fried it until translucent, then I drained a can of mushrooms into the left-over hamburger soup, dumped the drained mushrooms into the skillet, and stirred them around until they were dry enough for a little oil to stick. I'm definitely going to do that part again. Would be better with fresh mushrooms, but I'd need less than a quarter of a package — what would I do with the rest?
Gorgeous morning, and clear weather is predicted to stay all day. I began by sleeping late — I think I'll stay home and sew.
Some time today, I must put a coat on and walk down Montague Lane to see how the construction is coming. Pity they blocked off access between Montague Lane and Union Street/Heritage Greenway. Well, if I recall correctly, Montague didn't exist before Heritage was built; it was created as compensation for cutting that house off from Union.
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The freezer is clean. Now we have to put all that stuff back. After the freezer airs for a few minutes, then chills down again.
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Putting it back was quick and easy — perhaps because the freezer was fairly well organized to start with. Helped that we didn't have to allow space for a big sack of cat food.
Dave bought a bag of cat food when he went to Big R for another enamel stock pot; I may un-tidy things a bit when I put it into the freezer, but I don't plan to do that until I've opened it. The garage is cool enough for a sealed bag.
Soon after we succeeded in getting the label off and put the new humidifier on the stove, I noticed an enamel pot I never use in the garage. Could have resumed humidifying at once instead of waiting until someone could go shopping — not to mention getting a useless pot out of the garage.
Didn't take a single stitch in my new slippers today.
Finished my new slippers, and edited all the pictures I took for my Web page. I still need to take a couple of pictures, and write up the construction details.
I haven't taken any exercise since Wednesday. Good thing I have to walk to church tomorrow.
I realized this morning that I have only two winter dresses and both are spectacular. Then I remembered that I also have a spectacular black blouse to go with my spectacular black skirt.
But today it's warm enough to wear a fall dress. Thirty degrees fahrenheit — how long ago was it that I was complaining of bitter cold at fifty-eight?
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Oops! That was chocolate-coated almonds I was chomping down at nine o'clock. I'm accustomed to finding carob-coated nuts in that dish.
A good day to stay inside and do wash. I hope the snow sticks, but there's a chance of rain on Sunday.
Just followed a series of links to the game of British Bulldogs. I was surprised to see that it's identical to Relay Tag despite British Bulldogs never having penetrated the States past Rhode Island, according to Wikipedia.
Well, Relay tag had just one base, and players ran around the schoolhouse instead of running from one end of a field to the other. Quite impossible to play at a consolidated school, so I suppose it died when Sugar Creek did.
Tried out my winter boots with a lap around the block — out Heritage Trail, back by Boys City. On Park Avenue, I thought I'd worn a couple of shirts too few; wind totally ignores my yellow jacket. But I ducked down the first alley I came to, and once out of the wind off the lake I was quite comfortable. Took a look at the house under construction on Montague Lane. It's going to be impressive.
I ordered two yards of wool to make myself a yellow jacket to wear on the bike; I'm increasingly convinced that I should have ordered three yards. Two will make it, but just barely, and the fabric is certainly going to shrink. And it's nice for a cycling jacket to have a double front.
Oops. My first act on returning home was to put Dave's mittens back into the pockets of his black coat — but his black coat was missing, and his other mittens are still in the pockets of his other coat. [Later, he told me that he didn't miss them.]
My test of my winter clothing was successful. I do need some wool tights so I wouldn't need so many layers of cotton sweatpants. And I need some polyester sweatpants so I won't have to wear cotton outdoors — I was careless this fall, and didn't read the fiber label in my sweatpants before I bought them, and they are mostly cotton, as are many of the old pairs as well.
My wind pants sound funny when I walk, but I was glad I was wearing them.
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Today Dave bought a heavy-duty curtain rod and used it to support a shelf for two of the IP cameras he brought in for the winter.
When setting out condiments for our sliders at suppertime, I realized that I'd forgotten to buy pickles while I was at Aldi. For weeks I've been resisting the lure of sour pickles because we had too many jars in the cupboard — but when I ate the last of the pickled pepper rings and went to the cupboard, there was nothing pickled but a jar of sliced beets, and those are too sweet to eat on a hamburger. (But I did have most of the marinated cucumber quarter that came with our latest bagel sandwich.)
I do have cloves of garlic in pickled-pepper vinegar in the fridge; when I put a clove of garlic into something, I put the rest of the bulb into the vinegar. And add a pinch each of calcium chloride and ascorbic acid, in case garlic juice is diluting the vinegar. The garlic is starting to sprout, so I really ought to peel the rest of it.
Another "we're overstocked on that" item bites the dust — I put the last of the sliced cheese on the pizza and that leaves only a stick of white cheddar and a small piece of the colby that I bought at Spring Creek. I ate the last of the Ohio Swiss for lunch.
I've been thinking the carry-in dinner was next week for two weeks now. Oops, gotta make something out of what's on hand. I bought an extra dozen eggs, but it's too late to set them out to get warm. I don't have enough potatoes to make potato salad, and I want one of them to put into the left-over soup tomorrow. But I'd already mixed up some flour etc. to make pizza or bread or something sometime, so we're having pizza for supper and I'm making the left-over dough into a small loaf. I'll take what's left of the loaf — I plan to have some for breakfast — and a small plate of mandarin oranges.
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The pizza was great; I had three slices, one of them huge. The bread is in the oven. I fear that I let it over-rise; there was no oven-spring at all. I re-heated the oven to 450, then turned it to 300 immediately after putting the bread in, and it seems to be progressing nicely. For the pizza, I heated to 400, waited a few minutes to replace the heat I'd let out while struggling to get the pizza in, then set it for 300. And half an hour later, we ate it. Could have been browner, but it was brown enough, and the cheese wasn't tough and tasteless.
There was a fierce wind out of the west when I took the Aldi tour Thursday. I didn't notice it while I was riding east, and when I turned around, I was mostly behind the buildings of Sprawlmart, but when I rounded Staples onto Frontage headed for Eastlake, I had to shift into my lowest gear to keep moving, and when I got partway up the gentle slope on Jefferson, with the wind coming down the street unimpeded, I had to get off and walk.
Friday was predicted to be much like Thursday, so I went west so I wouldn't be riding into the wind when I was tired. I didn't notice the wind at all, and it was much warmer. I never put on the mittens I snitched from Dave (now safely back in his pockets), and took spells of removing my windbreaker. Never considered getting out of my wind pants, though. I went first to Lowery's for thread, then to Marsh, which still doesn't have Smith Brother's cough drops, then to the construction site.
There are three doors in the back wall now, and the two front doors are locked. Well, I only tried one, but I presume all doors are locked; they left a lot of valuable lumber and stuff inside. Wood framing for the partitions is started; I hope they plan to put fire-resistant wallboard over it. It looks as though they are planning to put it back the way it was; I hope that means that Avila is waiting to move back in.
Thence to Penguin Point for lunch; a cup of hot chocolate and a chicken-barbecue sandwich. I *know* better than to order chicken that isn't fried! It was all fibery white meat that did nothing to conceal the white squishy bun. And there was probably a pork barbecue sandwich on the menu, if I'd spent a little more time reading it.
I came back by way of Hepler, stopping at Owen's West for a jug of milk, Warsaw Health Foods for corn flour and some candy, and Ace Hardware for a stainless-steel pocket ruler — the one I keep in the pencil mug has vanished.
Today was rainy and I stayed in, played with the computer, and drafted a back pattern to go with the wool I've ordered. (It hasn't been shipped yet, presumably because it's a weekend.) At supper Dave was surprised that he could see the table — the stuff I cleared off to work on the pattern hasn't had time to migrate back yet. The table should stay clear for a while, because I've yet to draft the front, the sleeves, and the back pocket. (I can use my old pattern for the front pockets.)
I think I'll make it up in yellow nylon taffeta before cutting the expensive wool. I've been needing to replace my windbreaker for years, if not decades.
I *think* the yellow taffeta is on the top shelf in the sewing-room closet. Now where did I put the separating zipper I bought for this project?
I'll need another one for the wool jacket.
I stepped outside for something today, and when I opened the door, the curtain rod supporting two cameras fell down. Dave thinks a wire broke inside one of the cameras. The shelf is back up, with non-skid pads on the ends of the curtain rod.
I bought the card table yesterday, and picked up a few other things while I was in Walmart. I picked up the card table first, which made wheeling my cart around the store interesting. I wanted to buy canned cat food, but couldn't find the pet-food aisle in Walmart's grocery store. I mentioned that to Dave when I got home, and he told me that pet food is in the pharmacy. Of course! Why didn't I think of that!
Walmart could *really* use a site map somewhere. The Walmart in Albany had one — drawn by hand and taped to a post near the entrance.
I intended to have lunch in Walmart Plaza, but the wind was so ferocious that I had to tie my hat on with a scarf just to get from the car to the door, and when I came out again, the wind hadn't dropped a bit and the temperature had dropped a *lot*. I had the impression that the rain was getting crunchy.
So once in the car I came straight home and cooked for myself. I made up for that by driving to Penguin Point to bring home supper — I didn't feel like cooking and Dave didn't feel like left-over pease porridge. I stopped at Owen's on the way and bought cat food, and cream cheese for the devilled eggs. Also sour cream, and I noticed a little pack of chipotle-flavor instant potatoes and couldn't resist grabbing it. I'll take it to the party, together with a "saucemaker" that can be used on the stove or in the microwave, depending on which can spare a spot long enough to boil water. Four servings will be only an appetizer for that crowd, so I haven't said dibs on the potatoes. (I wish I could remember where I put the handle to the saucemaker.)
I'm planning pizza for supper tomorrow night, and a little loaf of bread from the left-over dough. Red wheat instead of white, but otherwise exactly like my previous pizza.
Well, it also had mozzarella purchased especially for the project, instead of using up the "deli-sliced" cheddar. I think I like white wheat better than red for pizza dough. Either that, or put on something a little more assertive than pepperoni. Hmmm . . . tamale-pie filling topped with sharp cheddar and some shavings of parmesan . . .
I had a bookalanche while getting something or the other off the top shelf yesterday, and the pile of books still clutters the sewing-room floor, because they have to be put back in a particular order. Not to mention that I no longer trust the brick that holds them in place.
I took a short ride this morning, just to Aunt Millie's and back. Pleasant weather, but I could have used a little more clothing.
It's about time I remembered where I stashed my balaclava. I think it's in the cedar chest with Dave's watch caps. But I have to move the printer to open the chest; pity I didn't think of the balaclava when Dave was looking for a watch cap.
The lake-effect snow extended all the way to Peru, so we were concerned about driving in the dark when we left Alice's house half an hour late, but it turned out that not only was the snowfall over, there was no evidence that it *had* snowed.
On our way down, we saw at least two sets of flashing lights on the northbound side of the road, one of which had backed up traffic for miles, and I may have glimpsed a squareback in the act of sliding off -- he *could* have been leaving the road on purpose, but I couldn't see any driveway or side road -- but we didn't see any trouble on our side.
(I couldn't see whether the vehicle was still beside the road because that part of 31 is on a high embankment.)
We've got geese, ducks, mergansers, sea gulls, and coots, but the swan left.
My wool fabric was shipped from Earth City, Missouri to Indianapolis, Indiana on Tuesday, and on Wednesday they shipped it to Belleville, Michigan.
I just Google-Mapped Belleville, and it is less than twice as far from Fort Wayne as South Bend, so that isn't as daft as it first appears. But the last line is "shipment information sent to U.S. Postal Service" and our mail is sorted in South Bend. But upon checking the wording of that, I see that the previous line is "Departed FedEx location", so I presume it's on its way to South Bend.
For some strange reason there hasn't been any activity since Wednesday.
<Foghorn Leghorn>That's a joke, son, a joke, I say!</Foghorn>
I made a bunch of square osnaburg tablecloths for everyday use, and they got so stained they didn't look any better than the beat-up table, then Dave refinished the tabletop and I quit using them.
They are back in service now: they are just the right size to cover the card table when I leave a partly-drafted pattern on it. (Al loves to claw paper when he is sleeping on it.)
I found only one, but one is all I need. Perhaps I made the rest of them into dish towels? Probably not, as I made a vast surplus of osnaburg towels out of the scraps from the tablecloths.
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FedEx says my fabric is at the Warsaw post office.
We had left-over pease porridge for supper tonight. With thin slices of toasted home-made bread.
I never left the house, except to carry garbage to the compost heap. Oh, I also dumped the cat litter in the flower bed nearest the door, and went out to hang the plastic under the litterbox out to air, and again to fetch it back in when Roomba was done with the bedroom.
The fabric was on my typing chair when I got up from my nap on Saturday. I haven't washed it yet.
When I got back from church, the defragmenter was still working on JOY98. More than two hours and only ninety percent done? But it finished before I could calculate how much longer it would take.
Quite warm when we got up, and getting warmer. But the weather chart predicted that the temperature would peak just as I got out of church, then drop. So I wore my shawl and took my gloves, in case church ran late and the weather moved in early. It turned out the other way around, but I was pleased to have a shawl over my right elbow when I came home by way of Park Avenue in the wind off the lake.
The microwave just said my lunch is ready.
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I mixed up red-wheat flour yesterday, but neither of us felt like pizza, so I fried sliders. Bread mix will keep for days at room temperature. Not weeks, because it's all whole-grain flour.