Food, books, votes and glue

Today I got a ride to donate a bunch of food to the food pantry, getting all the food to some of the people. Getting rides has aroused interest in my drivers, one of whom is now a donor, and today's was asking what they accept. Now she knows where to take donations, too. This is all good. People are generous once they know how. 

And I picked up two reserved books at the library, which Blogger won't insert in here, keeps putting after the end of the post. 

Anyway, one's Live Lagom by Anna brones which I  think works very well as a regular book, because it's a nice size and shape, with soft illustrations and a good feeling. 

The other's Antonia Fraser's Must you go? an account of her marriage to Harold Pinter, which should be interesting, two big egos.

I remembered to check the status of my primary ballot, our primary is in early June. Ballot tracking was one of the things I helped bring about (played a tiny part).  This is important particularly in view of the USPS today.

There we go. It's been received. So far so good. I had to change my password to get in, no doubt a security feature.

And I Got The Seeds In, complete with squirrel-deterring peppermint oil soaked qtips. I have another packet to plant and I think I'll wait to see if any container doesn't do well, to add in seeds. I put out the cotton plants, too, in great hopes.

The back forty is now ready for the season.

In other news, I will get some gorilla glue today and set about the BrokeLoom.  

I'm also figuring out if I can finish the cowl backstrap style, though I don't have a big enough rigid heddle in the right dent. 

Meaning I have one with the right spacing -- like knitting needle size -- but it's not wide enough for this item, not enough openings. Still considering this.  It will be much harder to maintain good width and selvedges without a heddle. That's the part that keeps the threads evenly spaced.

When something goes wrong like this broken part, it really triggers a lot of possible solutions. It's all good. My inner Rube Goldberg is on it.

Happy day everyone! It's not a problem, it's an AFGO.

New photo reminder of trans sisters and brothers, seeds and more

 Swiped from Debra, She Who Seeks, to remind us all

Thank you, Debra and if I knew the creator, I'd credit them.

Today is about returning an item via UPS, and, while I'm out anyway,  going to the dollar store and seeing about some seeds for this year's flower containers. 

So here's the display, smaller this year, no cosmos, no marigolds, but we'll survive. 

The price is up from four packets for a dollar to a dizzy four for $1.25. So this year's garden, seeds, potting soil etc still totals a modest $25 or so. I can do this.

My chives finally gave out last year after many years, so I'll try a new start.  I may need to get marigolds from the local farm stand.

If I fill and place the containers ahead, I think I'll be able to get the planting and squirrel proofing done early May. Anyway that's the plan. 

I would like a flower garden again this year. I have plans about walking, then sitting on the deck admiring my surroundings! Great ambitions. 

Happy day everyone, always have plans of some sort, dream big. Sez the lady with three dollars in flower seeds..

Mail and in person

Lovely mail incoming including SEEDS! As promised. All the morning glory seeds available around here are one season, and don't self seed. Lately they haven't even flowered. 

So these are seeds a friend collected and sent to try next year, a great thing to look forward to. Thank you, Ch.  Gary has been interested too, since he's been unable to get them going, but remembers his childhood garden with them all over the fences. Accompanied by a monarch. The seeds, not the fences.

Afternoon tea and toast with the mail, beautiful handmade card, thank you, C, and various greetings. 

Then, on Friday, my artist/contractor/cook/friend/neighbor came over with Christmas treats before they got on the road to visit family for the holiday.  

Glazed ham and peppermint chocolate bark. Homemade. I may possibly share but then again, life's short.

Later he came back, cleaning out the fridge of perishables before leaving for ten days, could I use this container of baby bellas? Since I routinely do, favorite mushroom, this was welcome. I'll add it to the ones I have for Christmas.

Thursday was about soup. I'd thought a large bag in the freezer was veg trimmings for stock. I found it was a bag of red onions. The little bag next to it was stock. The label had come off the big bag.

So I made a small stock, and rummaged around for other makings. Remember when I last poached fish in milk? I froze the seasoned milk, and yesterday brought two containers out to add to the soup.

Meanwhile I cooked a large handful of red onions and seasonings, including umami seasoning from Yeung Man Cooking, and turmeric, in olive oil, then blended it before I added the stock and milk, to make a cream soup. 

Seen here with a sprig of curry leaves, really good added flavor. 

I also had this soup with a slice of seedy toast and the spicy cheese spread. The milk base was great and there was the occasional little chunk of fish. 

Light snow and rain on Friday, so Thursday's walk was just in time.  It's amazing how your spirits lift from just a short while outside.

The current glove is now at the knitted cuff stage

And there was bed changing, laundry, masses of dishes, always amazing in a household of one.

I finished the Horowitz which I hugely recommend. He's so entertaining and you have to stay alert at all times. He darts back and forth, present to past, braiding real life with the fiction of the book, till you wonder which is which. 

I've downloaded a Horowitz audiobook to accompany my knitting, though I'd rather read him on Kindle.  But I can't get another without another wait. Also I can't knit and read. So sad, having to do one thing at a time. 

Happy day everyone, do one thing at a time or more if you can.

Oops, I did it again, and new exercises

 You know how I've always said I accept speaking engagements far out, because I've always thought I'd be safely dead by then? And  I never am, and I have to go through with it? I just did it again.

Late July I've agreed to speak online in a pod, as part of an Invictus Games fundraiser, by the Sussex Squad. They're a brilliant group, who support Harry and Meghan's charities with very effective targeted fundraisers. I've been taking part in their Spoutible twice-weekly pod since it started. They can get up to several hundred participants.

So they asked if I'd speak about my own life experience, as far as I feel okay.  This probably came from my recent comments about D-Day, and my point that everyone in a war zone is at war, some, mothers and children, without weapons, and memories of what war does to you if you're in it.

The Invictus  Games, created by Harry for wounded war veterans, are a marvellous way for veterans, women and men,  disabled physically or mentally, to compete at their own level and regain the dignity they lost on being invalided out. Heroes all.  It's a tribute to all veterans of any war, and an acknowledgement of what we owe. So yes, considering my family record, I can do this. 

But, then,  I may be safely dead..;)

Speaking of staying alive, I've been getting creakier as I go, particularly a hip which is a pain in every way. It's been an issue on and off for decades, result of surgery, but lately a bigger nuisance.

I've been doing the chair yoga and started to get a bit bored with knowing exactly what was coming, so I switched to Bob and Brad, great physios, for specific hip exercises, which are helping a lot. 

Their presentation is hokey, but they're excellent physios, and teach the anatomy of pain and its sources.  And they're men, but do treat women and include them firmly in their thinking, yay.  I've had quite a bit of help there.

I know these moves from other exercises such as chi gong, yoga, all that, so it's just a different approach to the same  moves. I'm doing the stretches lying in bed, before I get up and go to sleep. For now they're definitely helping. Anyway, just sayin'.

It's not about living long,  it's about keeping well enough to enjoy it. I don't want to eke out a sad old time!

Meanwhile in between sitting on the patio, admiring my potatoes about to flower 

and my burgeoning, burgeoning, I tell you, flower seeds 

otherwise doing nothing but listen to birds and the wind in the trees, I did more stitching.

 

Trying on here 

The seams are sticking out because this is the first pass, and I was trying on right side out.

The side seams are French seamed. You first stitch up, wrong sides together, then turn, right sides together,  roll the seam between dampened fingers and thumbs, to bring the stitch line to the surface, then stitch again, to enclose the raw edges. 

I was watching Marion's World while I worked on the second pass, and, lookit, she's working on a linen top, too. Smocking though.

This gave me an idea. My sleeves are wider than I want, as a small person, but why not slip a couple of tiny smock type pleats into the sides of the sleeve hems, as a design feature and a fitting move, to bring them in a bit? So that might happen.

Happy day, everyone, try not to commit too far out! Do as I say, not as I do. Except do stretch.

Butterfly sighting, drumroll stew, seeds

Today I had the first sighting this year of a red admiral checking out the blossoming sage, with several kinds of bees, shiny, furry, large, small, not a bee expert. 

I had planned on planting seeds today 

then remembered I had to soak the morning glory seeds overnight, and one thing and another, after I'd assembled the squirrel deterrent you see on the counter, found the containers, trowel, spare potting soil, cleaned up the upstairs houseplants in search of another container, it seemed like a good idea to do it tomorrow.

I did a load of laundry, changed the bed, wrangled one friend who dropped in with an HOA question, another who called with not so good news about another who fell and we didn't know. Among all these tasks and interruptions, I cooked this terrific lunch.

Spicy sweet potato, cannellini and red beans, onions, garlic, rainbow chard, loads of spices, paprika, cayenne, including what turned out to be a habanero pepper. And fresh picked thyme. 

I handled the pepper through a cloth, removed the seeds to dry them, and though the stew was hot, with toasted naan, it was great.  The pepper was in a mix of Misfit hot peppers in the freezer, and I looked it up after I'd added it. Oh. 

The neighbor who stopped in with the HOA question gave the stew, smelling and looking,  many stars, a good review! I'd just set it up to take a picture when she showed up. 

Timing, boud! How rarely people see and smell something at its best. I didn't offer samples because this is a nice acquaintance who tends to take more than give.  No need to raise expectations. Prudence prevailed.

Enough spicy stew for three more meals. 

Lovely afternoon eventually, finishing The Reluctant Widow on the deck, I love that book, and loafing.  A bit tired.

Happy day everyone, I recommend prudence in giving, once in a while, and a bit of loafing when you're tired. Do what I say and rarely do! And tomorrow is another day, about stitching and planting seeds. 

The Haggard Hawks puzzle solution 

SCENIC.

Caro got it and maybe other people who just didn't post a funny clue. Or who posted one so subtle I missed it. That happens, in the Bluebird puzzle group when you're a Robin with ideas above your station.

Seeds, Textiles and Tea

Cleaning day meant I went out and did a few errands, like getting gas for the first time in many weeks, and, sudden idea, checking the Dollar Store just in case they had this year's flower seeds 

Which they had

And some fell into my cart somehow

And at home I admired my haul

Last year I planted seeds in containers and ended up with a whole cutting garden, from $2 of seeds. So let's hope this year goes well.

Knitting group this afternoon, talk ranged over families, catch-up about a young couple I haven't seen in years, Tunisian crochet, spinning, incontinence (program scheduled same room, after our group, I add hastily), the fire district budget, the Sock Ministry,  the current gallery show, and more.

Home to Textiles and Tea, with a shibori, Japanese style, dyer and stitcher. She works in natural dyes as well as acid and other dyes.

Her work expresses concern about the environment, and upcycling. She uses whatever materials work, whether upcycled or on sale at the local craft store. A designer and dyer, rather than a sewing professional, you can see how flexible her mind is. She doesn't like production work, and will move on from an idea that starts to flag with repetition. 

Her particular interest is in various Japanese forms of design, stamping, image transfer and dyeing, and she's very careful about the line between homage and appropriation, always crediting the origins of  traditional dyeing patterns she might use. Very interesting woman, on her website you can see more. Go there, she's fun.

Then supper, small but a powerhouse. Toasted mini naan, bed of steamed spinach, hardboiled egg chopped over, black pepper.

I'm old enough that my appetite is small, so it's important to have small powerhouse meals, to stay well. I can't afford to use appetite on snacks and that kind of non food item that's fun to eat but doesn't give much fuel.  This is just right for supper.

Then hot chocolate made with whole milk, while I watched the end of Northern Exposure Season Two. I've requested the next season, since I'm on a roll.

Speaking of which, are you up for a Haggard Hawks puzzle?

Happy day, everyone, so much to enjoy, life's a banquet, channeling Auntie Mame.

Cleaners, seeds and plans

Today being the day the cleaners come Chez Boud, I usually stay out and group my errands to do then. After a fruitless search for non-box-store plant nurseries, for my spring planting, my old faves apparently gone, I turned my thoughts instead to seeds.

Tried the local dollar store which I've never been in, and oh look, seeds

So for two dollars I scored eight little packets, for annuals. If you scream and point at the dreaded morning glory , here they're a harmless annual, wiped out by winter cold, not an invasive. And I love them.

I think it will be fun tending seeds, haven't done it in a while, other than basil, Italian and Thai.

Then to another store to pick up potting soil in small enough bags I can heft them.

And a lovely little coleus, haven't had one for ages, also a chive plant since my own finally stopped going last year and I do like chives.

So here's the homeward trip

And the coleus repotted and in its new home out front

The seeds will take their turn, maybe in the earth, maybe pots, TBA.

While I was out, my dear cleaning family accepted my Misfits box, which I found in the hallway, must have arrived very early

And here's the array, missing only the shrimp I'd ordered, which they'd messaged me about ahead. So my shrimp curry will be postponed, but I think I'll manage not to starve. 

Lovely dried apricots available, which I eat for breakfast, or any time, and which will be a great chutney ingredient any minute now.

About dried apricots, I found that there's a difference between dried Turkish apricots and Turkish dried apricots. 

The first are supposed to come from Turkey, and the second refer to the drying method. Turkish dried is where they're dried,  then pitted, instead of the other way round. They can and do come from California.  It results in a much juicier and tender fruit. 

I'm sure you've been living just to learn this. On the subject of dried fruit, both Gary and Handsome Son loved the maroo raisins without knowing they were anything special. So maybe the growers have a point.

In case the excitement of this post is getting too much, I am also reading a very entertaining Marie Benedict

Apparently this is a fictional account of the sisters, one of them the writer Nancy Mitford, one married the fascist Mosley among other people, another married  a Duke, one was Jessica, who famously wrote an expose of the American funeral industry and was a passionate communist, and there was Unity, close Nazi friend of Hitler. And one sister lived a quiet life as a farmer.

And there was a son who died in the Spanish civil war fighting against the forces some of his sisters supported. Interesting family in real life, so I'll see how they unfold in fiction. 

This writer evidently works in this pattern, taking famous actual people, including Agatha Christie, as her characters. It might be my summer's patio reading.

Are you up for a puzzle before I prep and put away my Misfits and do the laundry?

Here

Happy day everyone, take it easy, aka, do what I say, not what I do.