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!

Cool enough to sit outside

A lovely day Sunday, cool enough, in the eighties, to sit out and read. No sound but bees in the butterfly bush.

And to read in Kindle, love my Kindle, which is so old it's just called a Kindle. It was the first on the market, withdrawn after a few months and replaced by the next shiny thing. 

Latecomers to Kindle insist on asking the model and are baffled when I explain there wasn't a model name, since there was nothing else on the Kindle market. 

I won this as a prize in a library summer reading program years ago. Funny to get a prize for doing what you liked all summer.

Here are the current two selections. 

Lucy Worsley, Doctor that is, is a personable historian on tv and YouTube, terrific researcher and an accessible writer. Also a lot of fun to watch.

She has a conversational style that makes history really what it is -- a story. She's devoted to Jane Austen's work and life and this book is one of the results. She's also the joint Chief Curator of the Historic  Royal palaces in England, big job, and I wonder when she manages to write. Or maybe when she manages to curate.

E. Nesbit, famous for The Railway Children, beloved of BBC children's drama programming, also wrote fantasy, and I'm not sure if I like this one or not. It's a weird mixture of real life and magic, with children who talk as if they're on a permanent stage. I won't give up on it too soon though.

There was more work on the beaded head, but it can wait to show you till I've done more.

Lucy Worsley, recommended reading

Her latest, seen here with a handwoven bookmark. Stick weaving, done as a demo for a summer class I taught township kids, if you're interested, where was I.

Oh yes, she's an excellent historian and researcher, and writes exactly like her tv scripts, accurate, readable and funny.

She also points out which events and actions, originated with Victoria, have come down to the present day. White wedding dresses, public events, balcony appearances, photoshopping, Victorian style, of unflattering pix of royals.

Well worth your time if you like the nineteenth century, its quirks and foibles, as well as its history.

I'm a Worsley fan, any period of time. She shows how to be a fine scholar and researcher without being self important. And she's not above dressing the part, and having fun at work, a big point.