1 December 2007

Sliced the bread this morning: it's as lovely inside as
out. A perfectly-uniform crumb! I hope I can repeat what I
did. I ate one heel, put one slice and the other heel into
a sandwich bag, and froze the rest in the loaf pan, which, I
figure, will prevent the slices from sticking together.

Sad news with Dave's new toy: he's finally found
instructions for saving a route -- but only a track that you
have driven, not a route that you have calculated.

So far. I may yet get a print-out of that wandering route
to send to Alice!


2 December 2007

The slices didn't stick to each other -- but they stuck to
the pan just fine. One came out, and levering the
others into the space broke them loose.

Went back to shave my chin, carefully painted beige eye
shadow over my biggest age spot, and trotted off to church
with my face still fuzzy. At least my beard is white now.

Made half a batch of oatmeal crispies, with corn oil
instead of butter. I'll think of it a day sooner next time,
and firm them up in the freezer -- I can't make drop cookies
fast enough to keep ahead of the oven; would have been a
royal pain if I'd made nine sheets instead of five.

It's still raining a little, but I think I can walk to the
church for the decorating party. Hope Dave doesn't freak
out when he comes home to find me gone and the car still here.


3 December 2007

It was raining just a tad too hard, and I went by Buick. I
think I'd have stayed at the party longer if I hadn't had to
drive afterward. There was a vast surplus of sweet stuff,
so I re-labeled the cookies and put them with the goodies
being collected for a Kiddie College party today.

<grump> Right after doing all the wash, I spill hot-dog
sauce on my everyday pants. </grump>

Chickened out of shopping tonight, but I absolutely must buy
milk tomorrow.


4 December 2007

Didn't check the UPS site until now: my package is out for
delivery. The arrival scan at Bourbon is only a minute
before the out-for-delivery scan; they must have been
unloading directly into the delivery truck. I suspect that
the delivery truck didn't leave at 4:04 am.


7 December 2007

Did the pizza-and-a-loaf bit again; worked quite well. Used
much less cheese on the pizza, and liked it just as well.

But the loaf wasn't as well-formed as before -- there was a
pronounced seam across the bottom; on the other hand, it
doesn't seem to have affected the slices.

And this is enough bread to last us until I want pizza
again. When do I get to make red-wheat bread?

I froze the slices in the pan again, but this time I put
them into a plastic bag first.


12 December 2007

And that worked much better.

I'm reading old posts in the hope of finding one more
sentence for the Christmas letter: it's in large type on a
quarter page, but still looks a tad skimpy. I've got to
February, where I couldn't find osnaburg for the Valentine
Date Night embroidery class. A few days ago, I found quite
a lot of osnaburg under my checked wool when I took it down
to see whether it would look better in the parlor than the
old brown blanket I've got on the new sofa to keep Al from
clawing it.

But this doesn't seem like the sort of incident that would
add punch to a Christmas letter.

I was due for blood tests and Dave had to get allergy shots
yesterday, so he dropped me off at Snider's office and went
on to the allergist. Dave said he'd be at least twenty
minutes, there was only one person ahead of me, and she was
half through, so after I got my knitting back in order, I
walked across the street intending to resume knitting at the
allergist's. But just as I located the pickup, out came
Dave, almost exactly as far from the truck as I was.

So we went home.

Got a pair of socks darned at yesterday's Handwork Circle.
Does not represent a gain, as it was one that I found a hole
in the last time I washed socks. Musikgarten was cancelled
for slick streets, and I left as soon as I'd finished my
sock -- only about fifteen minutes early, but soon enough to
catch the beginning of Eureka, which Dave had from NetFlix.
Only the beginning. By the time I'd finished the evening
paper, it still hadn't made any sense, so I switched to
reading Usenet. Dave watched the second episode this
morning, but says that he's going to cancel his request for
the others.

At the fellowship-committee meeting, we learned that the
kindergarten party had also had a vast surplus of sweets, so
I brought home a bag that contained many of my oatmeal
crispies and put them in the freezer. I added a few
brownies, and found some peanut-butter cookies in it later.


13 December 2007

I planted a new pot of wheaties for Al yesterday -- away
past time; his old pot is nearly dead, and I caught the poor
little guy nibbling on hay. Next problem is to keep him
from mistaking it for a litter box until it sprouts! I've
set it on the counter instead of in front of the patio
window, and spraying it several times a day to keep the seed
damp should make it less attractive.

I printed the envelopes for our Christmas cards yesterday.
Got some exercise doing it, because I recognized that trying
to do it efficiently would lead to nothing but trouble, so I
started one printing, then went off and cleaned the parlor
or ran the sewing machine until the printer finished and
reset.

Despite putting it on a quarter page in large type, I had
trouble filling up the Christmas letter this year.

And it's *really* time I got around to mailing the 2006
Banner! I have a new box of four-part paper.

-------------------------------------------

A succinct explanation of usenet ettiquette, snitched
shamelessly from r.a.sf.c.:

In message
<e26bac36-9ad3-4439-a3a8-a62563196323@s12g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,

mjveno <literary.fiction@gmail.com> writes
>Hi Jacey [et al],
>
>This is very true...
<snip>

Whoa, Marnie, slow down.
It's lovely to have a new poster on the group who wants to
talk about writing, but you keep replying to posts without
quoting the relevant passage you're replying to (either that
or you quote 2,000 words and add a 'me too' which goes
against most usenet conventions).

It would make life a lot easier for us if you could snip
out all the irrelevant stuff, but leave a big enough quote
from the post you're responding to so that we know what
you're talking about. You can indicate where you've cut
something by <snip>

Then you can intersperse your comments against the test
[text] you are commenting on. So it reads like a
conversation... which is exactly what it is.

As you're posting via google groups it may not be
immediately obvious that r.a.sf.c is a usenet group and not
a google group and we have different conventions here.
Because this is a high traffic group it saves time for
everybody if we all follow the conventions.

I hope you don't mind me saying something now, rather than
waiting until the regulars are at screaming pitch.

Have a virtual chocolate.

Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

-------------------------------------------

There are "sad news" subject lines all over Usenet: Terry
Pratchet has Alzheimers. Since I was looking forward to
many more Discworld novels, I'm taking this as a personal
injury. Or, at least, property damage.


16 December 2007

Al's wheaties are up, but not tall enough to set on the
floor yet.

Christmas dinner at the church went well, but the Christmas
program this morning was canceled. I went to church anyway
because I'd left some ham and chicken in the fridge.

I set a one-yard sample of my new fabric to soak Thursday
night (or maybe it was Wednesday) and washed it the next
day, together with everything that could go into the same
load with white, which may mess up my system tomorrow. It
lacked a tad under an eighth of an inch of being a full yard
when I put it in -- I must have stretched it a little when
cutting it off -- and lacked a tad more than an eighth of an
inch when I took it out of the washer, but it was a good
inch shorter than a yard when I took it out of the dryer.
So it's a good thing that I decided to dry it.

I'm going to run it through with the whites again tomorrow,
just to be sure. And take it out almost dry. It looked
ironed out of the washer, and when I checked it halfway
through the drying, but was distinctly rumpled when fully
dry. Had I known what *good* linen it was, I'd have gotten
enough to make some garments as well as sheets. It's all
sold now, of course.


21 December 2007

The linen was entirely dry when I took it out of the dryer
the second time, and rumpled again, but it didn't shrink any
more. It's lighter than the rest of the bolt; more like
white than cream, even though this was the cold whites,
which have nothing in but All "free clear" detergent.

Later, I set the dish towels etc. to filling for a hot soak.
Because I wanted to leave the lid closed to keep the steam
in, I set the washing time for max to be sure I'd catch it
before it wrang. I did, but not until it had agitated
rather longer than was necessary. Never mind, it's all
cleaning rags, stained tablecloths, and other things I don't
mind wearing out. Then I noticed the empty bucket and
wondered where were the hand-knit socks I'd spun out just
before putting the hot whites in.

I had to get them out; they *might* have survived the hot water and excess agitation, but were sure to dissolve in the bleach I meant to add after the soak.

I found one of them by poking around with a wooden spoon,
but had to take everything out, hand-wringing as I went, to
find the other. When the socks were rinsed and dried, I
found that they hadn't shrunk or felted. Alas, when I
hand-washed them again today, I found that unduly-severe
washing hadn't even got the excess dye out of the black
toes. But, perhaps, the wash water was a lighter shade of blue.

Today was a follow-up visit to the dermatologist who took
the cancer off my nose. He says it's healed nicely, and
there's no reason I need to see him again.

This trip was a bit of a surprise. My library books were
due tomorrow, and Dave's book was due today, so I planned to
ride my bike to the 10:30 appointment and come back by way
of the library and the health-food store. Late yesterday,
we learned that the appointment is in Fort Wayne!

Why the follow-up wasn't scheduled for his day in Warsaw,
I've no idea, but it was too late to do anything about it,
so this morning Dave drove me to the appointment and we had
lunch at the Northside Grill in Columbia City on the way
back. I had a taco salad, though I should have settled for
a bowl of chili. Dave had a cup of chowder and a hamburger.
Good food, and they turned on the electric train. Three
boxcars painted up for Purdue, IU, Notre Dame, and a blue
caboose for the Colts.

Which led me to wonder whether there are any cabooses still
rolling on the real railroads. I'm pretty sure that I heard
of somebody buying one for a private car. But it's been so
long since cabooses went out of style that it's probably
worn out by now.

We also stopped at Krider's Meats, since we were already in
Columbia City. They had ham hocks, and we are going to have
bean soup tomorrow. I also bought a package of hocks for
the freezer, and some frozen chorizos; Dave bought a package
of bacon.

We renewed our books on the library's web site. I wasn't
done with "The Whimsical Christian" anyway.

Al's wheaties have been on the floor for a while. Some of
the sprouts are four inches tall, some are still thinking
about it.

Dave says that yesterday Al got all excited and kept running
into Dave's room and back to Dave. So he followed him in,
and found a deer looking in through the window. It ambled
off when it saw Dave looking at him, so he didn't get a
picture.

I wonder whether Al thought his pack leader could bring down
a little venison?


23 December 2007

Now that days are getting longer, I hope I'll feel a little
more ambitious. Busy day tomorrow baking fruitcake, and I
might devil some eggs.

Linda's party was postponed to Saturday because Matthew is
sick and she thinks it might be contagious. Poor little guy
-- babies can't understand why Mommy can't make it better.

I made a shepherd's pie out of the left-over stir fry I made
out of the left-over chicken. There was some left over!
Then we went for an abbreviated point seven. We turned down
Cherry to avoid the wind off the lake, then after I
complained that instead of changing from my cotton long
johns to the capilene long johns, I should have worn both,
we cut across on Oakwood instead of going around the loop.

And we cut across the lawn both ways. On the way out, it
was because I was afraid of stepping on ice patches under
the snow; on the way back, we were in a hurry.


24 December 2007

If I'm not calm, cool, and collected when I re-comb my hair
from pointing down for a pigtail to pointing up for a
gibson, I have to do it several times. While laying out my
red-silk blouse and a long skirt to wear to the Christmas
service, I reflected that rushing off in a pigtail because
I'd overslept wouldn't do.

So I combed it tight and slick Saturday night, so that it
would be little disturbed by being slept in, but quick to
put up Sunday morning. It came out looking very like the
'do Mama Katzenjammer wears. But I *really* overslept, and
had only fifteen minutes to dress, take my pills, and grab a
little food.

I always put the horn comb I bought from James Townsend &
Sons in my pocket and re-comb my hair after taking off my
coat and hat, so I hurried off without touching my hair at
all -- a 'do that can stand up to Hanz und Fritz isn't at
all disturbed by a night in bed.

In the ladies' room, I pulled my comb out of my pocket and
the pin out of my hair -- oops! A Mama Katzenjammer is
firmly secured with only one pin, but a Gibson requires
*four*!

Fawchunately, I remembered that I carry four hairpins in my
coin purse for just such an emergency.

Lovely weather for this evening's walk, a sharp contrast to
yesterday's cold wind.

The first fruitcake out of the oven broke, and we had to eat
it. Awwww . . .

Looks like there will be four fruitcakes left over.


26 December 2007

I wish we'd gone for our walk yesterday, because there was a tree down in the Wildman's drive today, and there hasn't been any wind today. I don't *think* there was any last night, either. But we don't know whether it was there yesterday.

Washed two loads of clothes and changed the bed, and that was pretty much the whole day. I made some cornbread to have with left-over bean soup for supper.

--
Joy Beeson
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/
http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather)