I forgot to take the gift cakes to the party AGAIN. What am I going to do with sixteen fruitcakes?
I think I can take the Rubbermaid egg carrier to Goodwill; I'm well pleased with the Snapware carrier. I don't think it will last too many years, so I hope it's popular enough that I will be able to buy another one when it wears out.
When we got home, I discovered that when there is melted ice in the bottom of the box, it's impossible to get the tray out by the finger notches: they are straight up and down, so if there is no friction, there is no lift. But prying with a spatula lifted it enough to get a finger under it.
I should have drained off the melted ice one more time before putting it into the car. Driving sloshes the water around and it got into the cups. But it didn't get on the tops of the eggs, so no harm was done.
Only two eggs brought home, but there *were* eggs brought home. (And I moved two into Sara Lee's salad bowl before leaving, since the party hadn't quite broken up yet.) That's what happens when there's corned beef and cabbage *and* ham and beans on the menu.
I forgot my cornbread, and I'm sure the bread that raised too much would have made better fried bread pudding than the batch that raised too little. (I do have plenty of that in the freezer.)
Donny said he'd save my pan. It's one of a pair of square aluminum cake pans.
I just validated the December issue. Only two mistakes were found, and only one mattered; I corrected them and uploaded the valid file.
Starting the new year off right: I washed the crisper drawers this morning. The drawers were fairly clean, but the glass shelf over them was revolting.
Oops. I'd better get up and fetch the corned beef back in from the soda fridge. The label says I have until the end of March to cook it, but I think that I'll cook it as soon as we've drawn down the left-overs in the fridge. I already have a head of cabbage. And there are several home-grown potatoes left in the bucket. I pushed newspapers down over them to keep the light out.
Now it's time to empty Thunderbird's junk folders.
I got no mail of any sort at my third address.
The second address got ten spams. So far in the new year, this address has received one incoherent spam.
My primary address hasn't (knock wood) received any spam yet this year. There are 889 messages in the junk folder. After deleting the reports, 626 remain. Less than two per day, on average.
Deleting those hung up the machine for about half a minute.
I cooked the corned beef today. We liked it very much. Perhaps we'll have reubens tomorrow night. We have kraut and swiss cheese, but no rye bread.
I put dish towels in to soak overnight, to wash in hot water and bleach in the morning. It will be too windy to dry them in the sun, but I've decided that a hot dryer will do. While filling the washer, I found most of Dave's missing shop towels.
I've been pining for exercise, and I missed cleaning the church fridges two Sundays in a row, so I walked to the church this morning. Spent half an hour suiting up against the cold wind. I took my cane, but there was only one icy walkway and I took to the street to get around it.
Vern Gross is sending someone to strip the wallpaper out of the bathroom tomorrow morning. I doubt that that will take long. Dave took down the shelves, and in the process dropped a bathmat into the toilet, which is what reminded me that we need to wash dishtowels. But the bathmat isn't in that load.
He also took down the towel bar, and threw it into the recycle bin. He didn't think he could put it back up — and didn't think that he wanted to.
I took down the shower-curtain rod, which I've been using as a sheet dryer. It fits nicely behind the fire extinguisher beside the door of the laundry closet, which is where I plan to keep it when we have furniture where the tub was.
Dave's been shopping for furniture. He's found an attractive bamboo bench with boot racks that would do as towel shelves — but the lower shelf is too low for Roomba to get under.
It's been cold, but the lake hasn't frozen any. I presume that that is because of the wind.
It snowed in the night. Hardly any of the lake is white.
Scraping noises are coming from the bathroom. There appears to be a layer under the wallpaper that also has to come off. He hasn't finished the first wall, an hour after arriving, but the other walls have much less paper on them.
I put the wet bathmat in eight minutes from the end of the bleach soak. If the washer ever finishes spinning, I can start the hot-water wash.
With the wind and the cold, I haven't been going outside to comb my hair. Roomba has noticed.
I haven't touched my sewing this whole year, if you don't count making a bouquet garni bag for the corned beef. They appear to have left the glass-like shards of bay leaf out of the spice packet, but I put the spices into a bag anyway.
Jawdrop: I went to check on the washer, and the water was running in, not dribbling. And when I went back to check again, it was agitating!
Much to my surprise, all the dishtowels went back into the drawer with room to spare. But the load included a huge bath towel.
I didn't count the shop towels. I draped them over the lid of the toolbox in Dave's office.
I forgot entirely that today was First Friday. Dave remembered, but decided that he didn't want to traipse around in ten-degree weather. I just checked our weather station, and it's seven point eight degrees. Weather Underground says seven.
I went to Sprawlmart by car, and took this opportunity to fill the trunk with groceries. Not all the frozen dinners would fit into the meat bin and I put the shepherd's pie into the vegetable bin.
On the one hand, I parked in the middle of K-Mart Plaza and went to a store at each end, thereby getting a little walking in; on the other, I stood still too much, and made my hip hurt.
I have a check to deposit, so I'll get a proper walk in tomorrow. Weather Underground says I'll spend more time putting on insulation than I spend walking.
As we were lying in bed this morning, discussing our plans for the day, Dave reminded me that the bank isn't open on Saturday. So I have a lovely day and no place to go.
This morning we removed the broken scanner and the old printer from the printer stand, and plan to take them to the recycle center. The old printer still works, but it's out of ink and a new cartridge would cost as much as a new printer. Not to mention that if we had ink, we wouldn't print color often enough to keep the ink jets from clogging.
The last time I went into the copy room at the church, I noticed that the color copier is available for personal use. I don't recall how much money was to be put into the jar per page, but it wasn't much. Sooner or later I'm going to have a use for that.
The lake is white all over, at least the parts of it that I can see, and the part of the creek that's visible from the house is iced over. The geese have gone elsewhere — perhaps to the place where cooling water from the foundry flows in.
The northern end isn't white quite all over, but I think the dark spot is bare ice, rather than open water.
Some ice fishermen were seen today.
I saw the north end while walking to the bank to deposit a check. Should have worn three layers of pants instead of two.
Vern Gross came today to rip out the tub and some wallboard, and fill in the hole dug for the tub's drain.
Too good to fact check: according to a Facebook post, Canada and Denmark are at war over an uninhabitable rock. At intervals, the Danes visit the rock, take down the Canadian flag, and leave a bottle of schnapps. After a while the Canadians visit the rock, take down the Danish flag, and leave a bottle of whiskey.
The post didn't say what is done with the schnapps and whiskey.
For a long time, JOYXP has been driving me up the wall by obeying commands I never issued. It's impossible to move a map without changing the zoom, it's almost impossible to move an icon at all because it keeps wanting to open the file instead.
Today JOYXP swapped mouses with the computer in the bedroom, and now it's behaving itself! The mouse wheel sometimes notices that it's being spun and sometimes doesn't, but I can live with that.
I haven't asked Dave how the computer in the bedroom is getting on.
He said, not seriously, that we needed a computer for the parlor so that there would be one in every room in the house — the two IP cameras don't count. I said that it wouldn't be one in every room of the house until the bathrooms had computers. Just now, I realized that there are none in the kitchen, if you don't count the microwave. But the kitchen and the living room are practically one room; if you counted them separately, you'd also have to count the kitchen and dining room separately. (Two walls are kitchen, two are dining room.)
We do have a computer in the laundry room — an ineptly-programmed computer in the washing machine. So we also need one for the walk-in closet. Does keeping my cell phone in the pocket of a pair of pants on a hook in the closet count?
This warm rain would make the ice really nice for skating — were it not that we are scheduled for above-freezing weather tomorrow and the next day too.
And on Saturday, it's going to snow again.
Friday should be pleasant.
We have a man in the bathroom scraping wallpaper glue off the wallboard. Verne took off the tiles around the bathtub wallboard and all.
Which exposed the wiring, and made us realize that we could use a couple of outlets on that end of the room. We haven't discussed it with Verne yet, but he's a licensed electrician or has one handy.
There's a thin layer of melting ice on the concrete walk between the shop and the outdoor fireplace. I scraped my knuckles finding that out, so I washed dishes in laundry detergent and bleach this morning.
By good luck, I landed on my gluteus maximus instead of my hip, and it quit hurting before my pants dried.
No wonder it was so easy to get the dish towels back into the drawer: when I wanted to put Dave's socks in to tumble, I found about half the hot-white load still in the dryer. Can't imagine how I came to take some and forget the rest. But it went into the drawer easily.
I skipped washing yesterday because sorting clothes in the hall would interfere with work on the bathroom; today I realized that I could sort in the living room just as well.
Well, mainly I skipped because I wanted to take a walk on our last pleasant day.
I just noticed that I still flinch a little when I move an XP icon. But they just move, and to where I push them.
Noises came out of the bathroom this afternoon. I hadn't quite gotten up from my nap yet, so I didn't investigate. I saw one of the crew going up into the attic, and wished that I hadn't deemed it too cold to carry the suitcases to the north end where they belong instead of leaving them beside the hole, where they block the path to the north end. Figured at the time that if I wanted to use the path, I'd take the cases with me.
The crew were still here when Dave got home.
I don't appear to have done anything today, except throw out a nail of obsolete patterns and, when the paper-recycling box proved too full to accept them, tie the papers into bundles and put them in the huge recycling bin.
Also deleted a useless icon from my cluttered desktop. And started cleaning up a 2016 Web-log file.
This evening, I went up to the attic, put the suitcases where they belong, and brought down two typewriters, the old Singer portable that I bought with my first paycheck, and Evelyn's Silver Reed. I think the Executive is up there somewhere too.
I had to partly-fold the staircase and set up the "work platform" stepladder to get the Silver Reed down. I think it weighs more than the Executive, and it's harder to take hold of.
I know where the typing stand for the Executive is: my electric sewing machine is on it.
The bathroom is ready for paint, which they plan to do on Monday.
Coming out of hibernation: I rode to the grocery store for a gallon of milk. Stopped in at Ace and Zales on the way — I blew twenty dollars on a West Bend kitchen timer while I was at Ace, but didn't want anything I saw at Zales.
On the way home, I noticed a patch of open water near the shore a little north of The Hotel. A flock of geese had also noticed.
It took me a while to un-bury the bike and get it ready to ride — and, of course, a good long time putting on layers. The Spalding tights are not insulation; I plan to wear a ragged old pair of wool tights tomorrow. But the same polyester "fleece-lined leggings" (footless opaque panty hose, lightly brushed on the inside) and sweat pants.
I'm planning a dump tour, and the bike is already packed with plastic bags to recycle at Owen's, magazines to leave at the emergency room, and some old shoes and socks for Goodwill.
There is a large streak of open water coming out of the creek and running parallel to the shore in both directions. The geese have noticed.
⁂
The open area was a lot smaller when I got back from the dump tour. (Plastic bags at Owen's, magazines at the emergency room, old shoes and socks at Goodwill.)
I didn't see any open ice at the north end of the lake when I returned. I didn't look on the way out.
There was an open streak on Pike Lake, from shore to shore at the mouth of that bay that looks like a horse's nose at certain resolutions of the map. Ummm . . . from Pike Lake Park to the general direction of Jenny Lane. All the other parts of Pike lake that came into view were frozen, except for the creek under the bridge on Sunset Drive. It was flowing pretty fast and has a lot of cross section, which I've never noticed before. But then this is the first time I've steered onto the sidewalk so that I could stop to blow my nose. (Mittens, couldn't get at hanky without stopping.)
The inlet under the bridge on Arthur Street looked as though it had recently been thawed.
On our way to the Great Wall, we stopped at Steve and Martha's house to drop off three typewriters. Dave thinks that there is another in the attic somewhere. And I want to look into that case that was near the typewriters; it's plainly not a typewriter, and I don't think it's a slide projector. But it's really *cold* up there!
We ordered P3 and C7 at the Great Wall: pork tenderloin with broccoli and Kung Pau chicken. We liked it altogether too much; I came home in dire need of a nap, but afraid to lie down.
Caught Dave eating a cookie a bit later; I guess he didn't pig out as much as I did.
If I'd known how rotten I'd feel when I got up from my nap, I wouldn't have gone to church to expose everybody to my germs. I did wash my hands every little whipstitch.
My temperature tonight is 100.3F. I felt hotter at nap time than I do now, but my eyes still burn.
I may skip washing clothes tomorrow.
I'm devoting today to being sick. I think the nose-flow is easing off.
⁂
We got a coat of paint in the bathroom today. I was in bed during most of the action.
I've been nibbling, rather than eating. I did have a bowl of cereal for breakfast.
Finally punched my receipt from the Bargain Barn into Quicken — and twigged that the mysterious $1.89 was a subtotal, not a forgotten item. I still don't see "subtotal" on the tape, but the two other items add up to $1.89, and the tax brings it to $2.02, which was the total.
I woke up yesterday feeling much better, and did the wash. I'm still coughing, but it's close to baseline.
The linoleum was laid in the bathroom today. It's a better match to the linoleum in the kitchen and the other bathroom than we expected; I think we might be able to tell the difference if we laid a sample of the old stuff right on it.
Now there's a painter in there doing the final touch-ups.
During the linoleum job, there was a huge shop vac in the hallway. I had no idea how often I walk down that hallway! (But I was clearing the drying racks at the time, and I don't usually take them into the bedroom until bedroom stuff is all that's left on them.)
I'm typing up notes to take to my whatever appointment tomorrow, and finally noticed that Open Office does have a "you have saved this" indicator. It's subtler than PC-Write's "read/edit" space in the status line: the "save" button turns gray when you click it, then turns back to blue at the next keystroke.
We did the Wednesday Roomba-run this morning. On Wednesday, there was dropcloth on the hallway floor.
Yesterday Vern (and Pete and Sara) finished up the job and cleared out. I tried to take a picture, but the room is so small that all I could get was detail shots.
I took another detail shot this morning, after Dave figured out what to do about not having decided where to put the towel rack:
Everything went into one load today. I wonder what I missed?
At which point, Dave asked me to sniff for paint fumes, and I noticed his washrag and towel. Oh, well, we have plenty of those; the pile in the linen closet is teetering.
I detect a slight new smell, but no fumes.
He's still leaving the exhaust fan on.
------------------
I'm improving on "feel uncomfortable when standing still", but making zero progress on "don't yap yap yap to innocent bystanders."
Yesterday was a lovely day for walking; I went a little out of the way on the way home, and passed Steve & Martha's house just as they were getting into the car to go to Taco Bell. I should have accepted when they invited me to come along.
I went on to the circle walk to see what the noise was; it was two people blowing leaves off the hill above the walk.
Came back along the canal; nary a coot in sight. (They congregate there in bad weather.)
Another lovely day, and I spent it indoors. But I did dig down to the ironing board and expose it to work on. I cheated a bit, in that my leg board had been lying on it and picking that up carried away most of the clutter. On the other hand, one of the items on the ironing board has been repaired and won't be put back. I haven't gotten around to ironing the dress I washed yesterday, but I've made a start at shortening two skirts.
The new cabinet Dave ordered for the powder room arrived today, and has kept him busy all afternoon. It wasn't so much "some assembly required" as "build it from pre-cut parts". I'm sure I heard the drill.
At least it really is bamboo. The "bamboo" wastebasket he ordered turned out to be hardboard with a bamboo-print veneer. A convincing print, though. If you viewed it from the side (instead of from overhead the way wastebaskets are always seen) you would think it was bamboo until you picked it up and realized how heavy it is.
Just looked up Masonite in Wikipedia to see what the generic name is, and learned that it's a specific kind of hardboard invented by William H. Mason. But the article capitalized every occurrence of the word, so I still think it's a brand name. And while I'm sure it's hardboard, I'm not sure it was made by the Mason process, so I went back and changed "Masonite" to "hardboard".
Went shopping today. Spent nearly eighty dollars and forgot to buy potatoes. But there is enough left of the last of our home-grown potatoes for tonight's baked steak even though we've already had two meals off it. That was one BIG potato.
Dave wondered whether leaving a candle burning in the powder room would help get rid of the paint smell. I told him to burn up the tea lights and I would buy votive candles — the tea lights don't burn very long. I didn't stop to ask myself *where* I'd buy votive candles. Neither Ace nor Owen's has them (we stopped at Ace before going to Owen's this morning). But I didn't shop very hard at either place.
Anyhow, I found a candle in a glass in the pantry; it will do to de-scent the hall toilet, and I have until July to find something to burn in my cheese-dip warmer.
Duck-Duck-Go says I should have looked in the air freshener aisle.
Just looked at a map, and was somewhat surprised that Pike Lake does not, at any point, drain into Center Lake. But then, the same map says that Lones Ditch doesn't drain anywhere at all.
I *think* that it sort of peters out into a swamp that drains into the Tippy.
Dave had a little excursion in his heart rate today. While cleaning up his disk, he deleted the driver for his Web cam. After a bit, he remembered that he still has the original installation disk.
I bought a box of clearance yogurt that had the phrase "barn free cows" on it, by which they appeared to mean "barn-free cows"; the inside of the label showed a picture of a pasture taken in late spring, with a caption saying that this is what the farm looks like 365 days of the year. I deduced that the company had hired a design firm like the one that charged the pet shelter big bucks for a generic paw print to use as a logo.
I searched the Web for "barn free cows" and got only five hits, all of them the Facebook page of a label-designing firm. Saw no sign of ept, but I didn't try to untangle the Facebook page.
This morning, I realized that the creamery wouldn't put anything that stupid on their own site, and searched for "Dreaming Cow". They use the "professional designer" label on the Web site, but with the stupid part on the side of the container away from the camera. They also have a picture of ankle-deep grass in the pasture, with a note that it was taken in February.
A prolonged search of the site revealed that they are in Georgia, U.S.A. And have "cooling misters" instead of shade barns.
Only one load of wash today. But it's only six days, since I washed on Tuesday last week.
I've been sorting icons today. Dave switched my monitor to normal view — it's normally rotated ninety degrees — while he was trouble-shooting Comcast. Rotating re-arranges the icons on my desktop because I use the full length of the screen and they don't fit in landscape view.
Since I tend to identify icons by where they are instead of what they are, this took a little doing. I deleted at least half a dozen obsolete icons, and sorted some into more-sensible categories than they had been in before.
I cleaned a hot pepper this morning so that I could put half of it into the stew; the other half is in the freezer. I forgot that I have new skin on two of my fingers, and had to wash dishes to stop the stinging.
I used laundry detergent and put bleach in because I also have a cut on one finger.
A whole day of effort revealed that Comcast prefers Firefox to Pale Moon. I harbor a copy of Firefox for reading PDF files. Well, I sorta read them. PDF files are so prevalent because you don't have to know anything to make one, and it *shows*.
Since Firefox is readily available, problem solved, but Dave found some things that made him itch and he had to fix them.
When I sat down to read my funnies, I found that he'd deleted my bookmarks while thrashing around. No sweat, I freshened my back-up copy this morning.
*After* he had deleted my bookmarks; for a while there I thought that "import from HTML" didn't work. Fortunately, I had a slightly-staler version on my Web site.
Which I'd better drop everything and replace Right Now.
⁂
So I did, but I think I've done some more fiddling since then. Several links that I haven't used for a long time have died.
Two of the knuckles that I scraped on the tenth still have red spots.