Bouquets and Misfits

The flowers are doing very well this year, and picking has promoted more buds. So here are two bouquets, one in the living room, one in the kitchen.

Misfits day, and the returns are out ready. Notice the bags of garden debris are gone, clever me, tossed out back to feed the ground under the trees.

Green beans for three bean salad soon, hydration additive for water, just trying this because water isn't always enough in this heat.

Honey wheat bread until I bake again, for toast with those beautiful brown eggs. Baby bella mushrooms to slice and freeze for future omelettes with those eggs.  Bananaz for smoothies with the berries, straw and blue, which will be jam or sauce.  Not eating raw berries for now.

Little sugar plums to macerate and cook with the apples, nectarines to slice and freeze for future crumbles. Shrimp because Mary's not the only person who can have shrimp, so there. I might toss them in the three bean salad. 

All good. I'm taking advantage of the fruit season while the going's good. It's wonderful to have such food literally put on the step. Another friend has signed up for Misfits, said they had her at heirloom tomatoes!

Early mornings are good just now. I'm out in my bathrobe before six, while the water's heating for coffee, to visit the plants and pick little bouquets. 

There's more shade now as the Japanese maple has extended her canopy and the butterfly bush overtops the fence. 

This is good for the people and the house, but raises an issue for next year's flower seeds, which may need more sun than they'll get. That's next year's issue.

 Speaking of issues, I had a little jolt when I got an alert from the bank about a deposit from my Brit (tiny) pension. This is deposited in my bank every thirteen weeks. Don't ask me why HM Gov works on lunar quarters, but anyway I looked again. Forty cents.  Yes, that's what it still said. 

Now this pension is small, based on a few years of work before emigration, but it's not usually that small. After panicking then trying to figure out who to ask, the bank certain to be no help, I went online and after plunging about all over the various websites the Brit gov directed me to, I'm a niche recipient, finally found my little slot.

Which told me to expect a credit of about $1 about now,to put right an underpayment. This is definitely granular accounting. Evidently it's what's left after the bank calculates the exchange and the handling fee.

However I usually have a time trying to figure out the thirteen weeks, usually miscounting, and thought it was time to be paid. But I rationalized that I must still be in the system since they're sending me my 40c.  And I think I should be paid next week. Everything crossed.

I should explain that unless they're sure you're still eligible, meaning alive, they'll stop payments. This happens when their mail fails to arrive so you don't know they're asking. It happened to me after 9/11  because of the anthrax attack.  

Our post office was the target, as if there wasn't enough to worry about, already being within the footprint of the 9/11 attacks.  Local people involved with all of it, local lives lost.

All the post office workers had to be tested and observed and injected with Cipro, after battles with the Feds, Bush the Second unwilling to release lifesaving vaccine to a blue state, sound familiar? 

And the mail had to be irradiated. This was a hit or miss operation and many people including me, received a bag of charred scraps, with an apology. 

Among the cinders, aside from now overdue bills of all kinds though a lot of agencies waived overdue fees and penalties because of our situation, was evidently the Brit pension are you alive form. 

When I finally found I'd been dropped I got in touch explaining and they were very helpful, also seemingly quite excited to be corresponding with an actual survivor, and they resinstated me after a few paperwork issues, many weeks late.

This is why I won't change my bank, after all the obstacles to getting this foreign, oh dear, foreign currency, oh dearer and exchange rate and handling fees oh dearest, set up in the first place years ago.  I don't think I have the fortitude to move banks and go through it again.

All good now though. Delicious food helps.

Happy day everyone, we got this, sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula 

Spring plans and Misfits

 This is today 

So it's a good day to stay indoors and plan fall planting for next spring 

Since we've had so many massive downpours and flooding issues, I've decided to abandon the idea of a paved patio out front. The less paving the better at this point.

So I'm going to plant. I can transplant some daisies from the back deck area, my neighbor plans to give me some of her echinacea in fall, because she has too many, and I've ordered some of these for right near the front step 

Jessie's Star flowers. Small and flowering after daffodils and before daylilies.

Yesterday after the downpour I went and weeded again out front, and notice the pachysandra is moving in quite well. So I think this will work.

And I'm Freecycling this handy folding chair I haven't used in years, excellent condition. Gary used to borrow it occasionally, but I've rarely taken it out of the bag 

Complete with drink holder!  I got a taker, a reliable lady I've dealt with before, in minutes.

I'm so sorry for the Misfits driver in this weather

Did I mention I got all carried away and replaced my ancient doormat?

A non pink truck just doesn't seem as exciting, but  Handsome Driver Rameer is as cute as ever.

MIA are my strawberries, so no excuse for jam this week. The potatoes are beautiful, like golden fruit. They'll be roasted with the fake beef from last week, now  frozen into patties mixed with egg and Cajun seasoning, how did I manage before CS.

Eggs for carrot, spinach quiche from last week, carrots now steamed. Nonfat yogurt because I couldn't get full fat but I'll live. Bananas for smoothies, and maybe banana bread. Chocolate melt things for Handsome Son's upcoming birthday cake, he already requested chocolate. Choc almonds, nutritious, that's my story.

Honey wheat bread, nearest I can get to the seedy bread I like. Canned food to share with the food pantry. Tuna for tuna melts. Plenty of cheese in the house already for these and quiches. Also plenty of green veg in the freezer.

That's chez Boud for now. Now to parboil the potatoes and steam the spinach. Advance prep definitely keeps me cooking good food, less work at the point of hunger.  

Happy day everyone, happy birthday to every August person, including e, who blogs as Life in Progress, go there and leave wishes, and Handsome Son.

Fauci, podcast and Misfits

Just to support a public health hero 

IYKYK

And a nice new podcast I just came across, from Alexander McCall Smith 

This is so calming and a great antidote to current daily life.

Also Misfits came, right van but not pink.

A couple of items were out of stock, no yogurt, shock, horror!  But it's still a good box.

Peaches, plums, strawberries to cook, the strawberries probably as jam or sauce.  

All the cheese you need for great quiches and pastas, carrots for roasting and to go with the potatoes and chicken I roasted earlier this morning 

With shawarma spice mix 

Bread because it's still too hot to bake regular bread. Bananas for breakfast, and plant based beef stuff, a new try for me.

I'm still having fun with my mini videos, which will form a kind of local nature journal. They're a separate adventure from blogging, but while we're talking nature, the patio zinnias are getting under way, and a fresh crop of daisies.  

The wandering dude is summering under the self planted butterfly bush.  The bush has already grown about six feet this season, and much straighter since I pruned it heavily at the front in spring.  It's not leaning over between the chairs now.

Happy day everyone, life's good.  And I sent a little donation to ActBlue to support their Run for Something program, funding new Democratic candidates for office. No more letting GOP run unopposed.

 

Watercolors and Misfits

Summer is when watercolor painting appeals, and I do tiny to small landscapes, just playtime, not expecting much. I might assemble the month's output into books. 

I did get a new set of watercolors because I liked the physical layout but the colors are a bit meh, so I added in the old better quality tubes which had hardened. I cut off the metal and I'm using the pigment like pan colors. I'll replace some of the pans with this better pigment.

Recently I scored another set of storage drawers at the dumpster, which stacks nicely on the other one I found at the dumpster, and with useful deeper drawers.

Art materials and crafting tools can go here. 

Enough of this frivolity, I had fasting blood work early this morning, friend drove me there, not one of my better times. 

The techie needed a couple of tries to get anything. Tiny thready veins. I was already feeling a bit loopy from hunger. Then home again to egg and toast, the last slice of bread before the Misfits delivery. Talk about just-in-time inventory.

The driver friend plans to give me echinacea from her overgrown front yard across the street. I think I'd rather have planting than the patio idea, after thinking about it. Better grow than pave over more land. In September we'll do it.

And a Misfits rental van again showed up, not the usual authentic pink Misfits van, but the driver was, I think, Ronaldo, and the food, in two boxes, why, was  fine. As is Ronaldo.

Cans for the food pantry, added to what's already set aside for them. Olives, cream cheese and honey wheat bread for  great afternoon tea sandwiches. These are the best olives. Very Downton Abbey. I leave the crusts on though. That's how I got curly hair.

Yogurt because it's a staple, and will go with the blueberries and Envy apples. I will stew the fruit with that brown sugar because my faith in raw produce is on hold for now. I'm also finding I really like cooked fruit if it's chilled. I thought I didn't like it when I had it growing up, because it was a hot dessert. 

Potatoes to roast, with chicken breasts which I'll pound and bread, with Cajun seasoning. Beautiful free range eggs and block cheese for more quiches with leafy greens I already have. Many bananas for banana bread and smoothies.

Life in the food lane I'm glad I can afford decent food.

Happy day everyone, enjoy what you can when you can. Paint silly pictures. Here goes nothing.

Hot, smoky, but Freecycle and Misfits

I've been listening to a YouTuber who has the best understanding I've heard about how clutter then hoarding happen, and how stuff takes energy just by being there. 

I'm nearer a minimalist than a hoarder, but this hot weather has sapped my energy and I may as well move on some items on my mind instead of using mental energy over them.

So I looked at three drawers of yarn, nice stuff mostly donated. I've used all I can,  and winnowed out the yarn in colors I don't like or have used enough. Just one drawer, didn't get carried away. Here's the haul 

Mostly it's lovely and I've had all the use I'm getting, so now it needs to be with someone else. I have another drawer full of yarn I like and will use, either weaving or knitting. 

In about two minutes I had several requests, one to pick it up a couple of hours later, very enthusiastic, too.

She took it as promised, then got back to me after she'd had a chance to look.

isn't that just what you hope for? Everyone happy.

Then there was Misfits, poor guy delivering in this weather, bad air and heat. He seemed cheerful though.

Here's the box just arrived, and the Freecycle bag about to be picked up 

And here's the haul. Quite a bit of fresh produce including leafy greens, ordered before I knew about the cyclo bad bacteria.

I checked and found it's destroyed by cooking. Soooo, I steamed the carrots and mixed green salad, and made a quick quiche type pie thing, in an abundance of whatever they said during the pandemic. I now have an abundance of vegetable quiche,

and red fruit  Tomorrow I'll make strawberry jam. Today I stewed the apples and plumcots together, nice combo. 

So I have easy and safe food for a few days.

Meanwhile, cream cheese which I usually make but thought I'd try their product. Tomorrow I'll have some with bread and that future strawberry jam, for afternoon tea.

Yogurt because it's a staple, shrimp for Cajun shrimp again, it was so good last time, beautiful eggs, never fail to admire them, some went into the veg quiche. Pumpkin for various uses including beating into yogurt for dessert. Butter because I'm getting low, unsalted because I like to decide how much salt to use.

Next time I'll catch up on food pantry offerings. 

One thing and another,  I didn't get into the weaving set-up as planned. The bad air really knocks out your energy even if you don't go out. I expect it gets in via air conditioning. I'm so thankful that I got the dental work started before the heat returned.

But I think I got a lot done that I wanted to, and tomorrow is another day.

Meanwhile I'm reading and dozing over this, frothy mystery, the kind with recipes, I love it. There are three in one book.

Happy day everyone, sufficient unto the day be the weaving thereof.