Go on with our lives.

 Today's marked with all kinds of ceremonies and remembrances. My own is a quiet video moment on YouTube by the town fountain. Just breathing.

But I think the real work is to go on living our lives, undeterred by outside forces, still fighting them, but without deforming our daily lives.

Yesterday I was out at the library because the house cleaners were at work at the house.  I  spent the time partly indoors, making videos and people watching, partly out sitting in the shade by the fountain.

Meanwhile the Misfits delivery arrived and the proof of delivery picture showed it in the hallway inside the open front door, meaning my lovely cleaners had received it. When I got home it was safely indoors, on the counter, still cool.

Then prep happened, yesterday and this morning. Yesterday the masses of kale, washed, torn and frozen. 

Then I made jam with the blueberries, diced the ginger, made a sauce of ginger, garlic and soy sauce.

This morning I set up the chicken with soy/ginger/garlic sauce to roast.

And diced the apples to macerate with cornstarch, cinnamon, vanilla, and amchur.

And steamed the carrots, ready for quiches or chicken dinners, or something.

This is all part of the resistance, taking care of our health and strength, despite the attacks on both.  Just sayin.

All the major players for me yesterday were women, gay and straight, different races and ethnicity. The close friend who drove me yesterday accepts me as an ally in female solidarity. Anyway, there we are. 

Happy day everyone, it really can be.

Can you identify this and improve my day? Early morning picture. I'm wondering evening primrose.

And here's one of my narrow bands at work in another international spy outfit. 

Bouquets continue, Tuesday Knitting and Textiles and Tea

I'm more inclined to be home reading, walking, cooking than going out these days. 

But I did get to the knitting group yesterday, where there were great projects in progress, from a sock to my latest project 

The sock knitter is now the owner of all my size 2 bamboo needles, easier than using a circular needle. 

Here's my latest stitching, an old pair of jeans now to be embroidered. I've been thinking of this for ages and finally, needing a portable project for my group meetings, started on it. It's the kind of thing that can go in whenever I feel like it, but I can still wear the jeans at any point.

Talk ranged over sheep festivals -- local one this weekend, and I have two offers of rides, but it's crowds, not my thing, broken bones, travel, adult learners in the arts, cat rescue, fountains and more.

Home to Textiles and Tea with weaver and collage artist

She translates her collage work into her tapestry weaving. Her pieces often have political messages, such as race and the isolation of COVID. This was particularly significant to her as a Chinese-American woman when the Chinese were blamed for the pandemic. 

Her joyful and open attitude are a contrast to the seriousness of her subject matter, and the high level color and pattern skills of her work. More on her website. Go there!

Meanwhile food and flowers continue to feature around here.

Today's little bouquet, Flowers still going, but slower now. Soon I'll take out the foliage and get the garden ready for the next planting season. 

Meanwhile here's this year's entire potato harvest.

Last year I had a plateful, a glut. This year it's a platonic ideal of a potato, deserving some special tiny recipe to do it justice.

The garden is still green and growing but the season's showing, oh I'm a poet and I don't noet.

Another Large Quiche happened 

This one with red onions, fresh garlic, potatoes and a range of cheeses. The mozzarella accounts for the nice browning. I'm still calling it a quiche, though it's getting further away from the original recipe. 

More adaptation and I'll make a nice peach thing with a crumble and call it a peache quiche!

Happy day everyone, I think the more I'm in the company of books and plants the less interest I have in people's shenanigans.

Animals, too, I'm involved in helping rehome a rescued cat who needs a one-cat home. She's currently safe with a friend, but needs a permanent home.

Reset review, food and other good things

I'm finding my new less-filled schedule is so much better for my current energy level. I'm learning to dodge the kneejerk response and it's so much better.  I'm not doing All the Things.

But I have got back into daily exercise with yes2next, which is reviving my energy, oddly. My doctor would say what did I tell you? Move less it's harder to move, move more it's easier.  

The heat and humidity have hit my walking, and yesterday I got in half the distance then was so fatigued and hot I turned back. But indoor movement is good. Back into strength training, too.

My neighbor I haven't seen in a while, gardening expert, came out as I passed on my walk, to  chat plants,  and exchange Gary updates(!). She commented that he's trying to live in two places at once, too true.

Then, great news, my contractor artist friend came Thursday to measure and decide the bathroom work, yay. He's very apologetic about having me wait so long, but this year he's been slammed. 

Not just work, his faraway widowed mother needed a visit, he's the only child, more health issues. He also got involved in fostering, retraining and rehoming a dog for someone who couldn't cope (pause for phone search for pictures, cavapoo, beautiful).  

This ended up in driving the dog to Florida, many hours, to rehome the dog with his own daughter, great choice. He will not fly with his own dogs, airlines terrible with animals, so he wouldn't fly with this one.

Then various work issues including rescuing Gary more than once, and more Gary updates.

This is the nice thing about a small town with friendly neighbors. Contracting is not just a commercial transaction, though he did leave with decisions and paint and tile samples, it's a local verbal newspaper.

And I'm still getting flowers, probably a couple more weeks yet

The yellow ones are from a seed mix, not sure what they are, but likely black eyed susans.

And Misfits arrived in the midst of the bathroom caper

This involved one of my least favorite tasks, chopping onions, yellow and red. I use a lot, chop them into eighths, freeze, and they work in every recipe. Sometimes I chop further when I cook, but cutting semi thawed onions doesn't make a person cry. It's a chemistry thing.

I cooked the strawberries and apples together, with diced fresh ginger. I'm really liking these fruit combos with apples.

And of course the potatoes are now parboiled and great for dicing and roasting. My orders are smaller just now, doing catch-up with the freezer, read on.

Lovely shrimp with baby bellas and scallions, both cooked down in butter, over rice flavored with Better than Bouillon.

More for two more days, too. I posted a little video of this but YouTube really distorted it and it displayed without the veggies. But it still got hundreds of views, search me.

And I'm reading several books at once, what else is new, a Horowitz, a Worsley and a whole lot of Thirkell. 

I love Horowitz for his first person narrator. We know about the omniscient narrator and the unreliable narrator, and he introduces a new one. 

The aggrieved narrator, always mad at his character Hawthorne and how he gets better deals everywhere than Horowitz does, from hotel rooms to contracts.  This one is set partly in Yorkshire, many familar scenes to this North Yorkshirewoman.

Lucy takes me back to the world of the Tudors 

And Thirkell to the early twentieth century, and the world of the pre-Raphaelites, as the  granddaughter of Burne-Jones, all bases covered

And handsome Son continues, with my fervent encouragement, to declutter.

I bought this calligraphy from the artist long ago, had it for several years, passed it to Handsome Son, who asked me after several more years, to Freecycle it.

Several competitors for this including two who could read it. That was an easy placement.

Then more miscellaneous stuff -- there's more in the can there -- all of which was claimed in short order.

The cutlery tray is now in my junk drawer, all the junk organized and why didn't I think of this before, the others all gone to various destinations.

Happy day everyone, as Handsome Son routinely says in his morning text, all's good here!