Cranberry sauce and a cold

 I have the first cold in years, coughing and congested. Not up to much. No fever, few aches, not panicking yet.  I have so little contact with people , masking when out,  it's amazing how I managed it.

I did get to the library yesterday to change my jigsaw puzzle, vital need 

And I got in a supply of tissues, seems like a good idea. On the way to the store, my car alerted me that my car fob battery is low, so I went home and added in my backup fob and the alert went away. It's a tricky job changing the battery without exploding bits of fob all over the floor, so it needs to wait for now. Also till I get a new battery.

Knitted a bit, reviewed my Arabic alphabet, made cranberry sauce, now in the fridge

And today visited with my plants, looking cheerful, good as medicine.

And I'm having a breakfast cranberry muffin baked yesterday, I seem to have done a lot for someone who's moaning about being sick.

Today's about resting and seeing if Sunday's Christmas doings should be postponed. Hoping not, but Handsome Son knows I'm not quite well, so he'll  see what he wants to do.

Happy day, everyone, take care, rest, drink fluids, or not if you're feeling fine. Enjoy what you can.

Great caroling, and timely greetings

I posted yesterday before the official first night of Hanukkah, so happy H, dear celebrants

And

Fervent thanks for my home state, from a born again, meaning naturalized,  Jerseygirl, who nevah pumps gas, nor takes nonsense. 

Meanwhile yesterday at the carol service, which, I realized at the last minute, was London time, five hours earlier than I'd planned. No time to get presentable, which why I kept my camera off 

Here's Jacqueline Bee Durban, host and MC

who was a load of fun, introduced a series of great clips, some pagan, some Christian, some just wintry, with carols in between which everyone could join in, muted, because the time lapses on zoom create chaos. 

Except at the end where she invited Christmas chaos with an unmuted rendition of the Twelve Days of Christmas, some people leaping while others were drumming and dancing and milking, just great fun.

It was exactly right for my down lonely mood yesterday morning, this time of year hard to navigate, especially this year with such losses. So that was my carol sing for the season, and it was great. Perfect timing.

Then this morning I looked out to see these little fellers in the best seat in the house, noshing on squash seeds and rinds

They saw me there, started to run then obviously thought oh we can take her anytime, and returned to continue their interrupted breakfast.

Speaking of animals knowing what's what, here are dogs modeling excellent theater manners

And I needed a little batch of cranberry muffins after the caroling excitement 

About learning cording, I learned it from YouTube, Sally Pointer to start, and I also searched on daylily cordage, having learned the term from her. If you do a search on "string" on this blog, that box at the top left, you'll find my early tries.

There are quite a few YouTube videos. Try it, you'll like it! 

I really like the whole process because it's so intelligent. It's a form of spinning, and the physics of it are the same.

Briefly, when you spin, here I'm talking as a spindle spinner, you first spin your yarn single in one direction, often clockwise, known as z. Then when you ply singles, you ply, that is spin, your singles together, in the opposite direction, known as s. The physics cause the resulting plied yarn to hold tight together.

That's exactly what your fingers do when you make cording, turning one set of fibers clockwise then drawing them, counter clockwise, down over the other set. 

Now they've changed place and again you turn clockwise what was the bottom group and is now the top group. Once you see and try it you'll quickly get it. 

That's why you see my cordage staying together, not unraveling.  If it unravels you know you did something you need to fix, probably you turned the top group in the wrong direction.

I'm always lost in awe at the people who originally figured all this out, thousands of years ago, with no tutorials.

Speaking of shock and awe, you'll be mad at yourself when you see the solution to the puzzle, if you were wrestling with word meanings, derivations, semantics snd semiotics, to find:

dynaMITE

wANT

mamMOTH

brieFLY

Yes, the words all contain insects. Patti (pictou) gave a huge hint in her clever comment.  

One of those puzzles which lead you instantly down an etymological rabbit hole, instead of seeing the words as just collections of letters.

Happy day everyone, don't make life harder than it has to be, it's hard enough already!

 

 

Short life of fungi, also muffins

Yesterday I went to get more pictures of the chicken of the woods which had been exploding on all sides of the fallen logs, and found it has a very short life.

Wonderful October day

Where there had been big brackets, only a couple of shriveled little bits remained.

A short and vivid life. I also noticed a downed tree trunk from a couple of seasons ago showing what I think is damage from Sandy. 

That twisting happened to a lot of mature trees from the force of the storm, bringing them down all around us. Think Ian, only over my house.

The short and merry life meme can't be said of the endless jigsaw puzzle about the parrot. After about three months of occasionally managing to get a piece in, I'm here

I may have to apply for an extension of my lease on life to finish it. But I'm less convinced that there are pieces missing now that the choices are fewer and the discoveries easier. I puzzle while my tea's brewing. It may take a vat of tea to get there.

And as a change of pace, I marked out the lines for overstitching around edges of the upcycled vest.*  The lines are done in ink which disappears in heat, so if they don't disappear with handling, ironing will do it.

And since the pumpkin walnut bread was so great, completely displacing banana bread as a go-to, I thought I'd make it again, but ended up changing it.

It became pumpkin cranberry muffins, same batter, higher oven temp, shorter baking. Handsome Son is visiting tomorrow, so he'll have a selection of paneer cookies, the last one, pumpkin walnut bread and pumpkin cranberry muffins.  I don't think he comes for the food, but it doesn't hurt.

Rain today,  and I still haven't put on the heating, mild October despite recent light frosts.

Happy day everyone, enjoy your stitching and knitting and cooking and puzzling and walking, or just sitting peacefully on the sofa not bothering anyone.

*New readers: this is made from an upcycled pair of jeans, and lined with sari fabric. I'm a hand stitcher. Anyway this is a way to stabilize the lining at the same time as echoing the sashiko stitching on the back, as well as the running stitches on the original pockets.

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