Thursday, September 22, 2022

what's going on, mostly nothing


I have been such a slug the last two weeks since I finished the box and got it packed up and sent off. Other than my usual chores, I've done nothing but be lazy and read. I did get a little weeding done but no further artwork, model making or watercolor. Started the watering cycle again as we're back to no rain.

My old keyboard refuses to type 'a's unless I am consciously pressing the key. I'm reaching for it with my pinky, I press it down but then after typing a sentence I have to go back and insert the 'a's. Also, I'm spelling a word in my head as I type but my fingers get confused and add letters or transpose letters or I misspell a word I've never had trouble with. What the fuck? It gets even worse if the dog is in my lap as she likes to rest her head on my arm. Makes it difficult to type with a dog head on your arm. Just now, I typed 'with' in the previous sentence as 'whith' and no dog head weighing down my arm.

I tried two new recipes last weekend. Friday night, a curry chicken sauteed with onions, ginger, garlic, salt and pepper (the curry powder went on the raw chicken before it went in the pan) and simmered in coconut milk til it thickened with cashews on top and basmati rice with lime juice, baby spinach, and cilantro. It was really good and really easy once I managed to clean all the fat off and cut up the boneless skinless chicken thighs into bite sized pieces. But, no picture. The other recipe was a frittata for Sunday brunch; eggs, milk, onion, red bell pepper, baby spinach, salt and pepper, feta cheese; vegetables sauteed, add in the beaten eggs and milk, stir to mix in the vegetables and then bake til done. I thought at the time that it called for a lot of salt and didn't use quite as much as it called for and even so it was so salty. Half the amount it called for would have been plenty.



Tuesday night I fixed one of my favorite salads with naan for dinner. I'd been pausing on it for a couple of weeks when I flip though my recipes so I've been wanting it for a while...mixed baby greens, celery, dried cranberries, granny smith apple slices, mandarin orange sections, pecans, and orrecchiette pasta. Also no picture.

Saw this little shield spider web out by the driveway with the sun hitting it just right.




Also these two surprise lilies, what Mary Moon calls hurricane lilies, popped up. There's a few of these bulbs scattered around the property but they don't all bloom every year. I think the most I've gotten at one time is four.



I broke a small piece of this althea (rose of Sharon) off a shrub at an estate sale and got my sister to root it for me (she's more successful at that then I am) and it's grown to about 3' tall in the pot it's in and has been blooming very prettily.



Abby texted Monday afternoon that she wouldn't be able to make it to yoga class that night so I led. We had a new attendee. I told her at the end that I hoped she enjoyed the class, that I was tougher than Abby, Mauri pipes up, yeah she is, and that she's lucky I didn't do the vinyasa that includes the splits (joking), Mauri pipes up, but she will, and that I hoped she comes back which she said she would (and she did yesterday). They don't usually, if they're unlucky enough to draw me for their first class. It's not that I'm a taskmaster, I start out slow with breathing and stretching, move into beginner then intermediate and then some advanced poses with fewer, if any, rest poses in between so everyone gets challenged and I go the whole 45 minutes. Abby tends to accommodate new people with an easier shorter class. But then, they don't always come back after Abby either. Or they'll come a few times and then we don't see them again.

Here it is the Autumnal Equinox and we are still having temperatures in the mid 90s. This has been such a long hot summer and we have all had enough!



14 comments:

  1. Supposed to get up to 96 here today. Yes. I'm tired of this. It is getting a little cooler at night.
    You are probably mentally exhausted from the entire project of your beautiful box from the initial visualization to finally getting it packed up and sent. And of course...this heat. It's just so wearying.
    Sometimes my typing brain doesn't work. It's frustrating and it's real.
    Love your hurricane lilies and your Rose of Sharon. It's that time of year again.

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  2. My dad has a SLEW of those surprise lilies - made me smile last time I was at his house. And I would eat everything you cooked - all of it sounds amazing. I might would leave the celery out of the salad, but my mom liked to add it to things so maybe I'd keep it in just for her. Ha!

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  3. Your list of food dishes sound so delicious and inspiring. I've been wanting some new ideas for dinner, and now I have some. Thank you! Hope the temps cool down there.

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  4. I really like the sound of the chicken curry, note to self here. And you've all had such a long hot time it's okay to veg a bit now.

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  5. Your food sounds yummy and your flowers are beautiful. It is cool here today, finally! Hooray!

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  6. I really enjoyed hearing about your cooking...may have to try some of those...though I'm steering away from eating animals these days. I've made crustless quiches, and a fritatta sounds close, and better that it has less cheese.

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  7. I love your food and am now that you mentioned them, really looking forward to mandarin season - just weeks away here. The mandarins come from Spain and Italy and are only available in late autumn/winter.

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  8. Love the surprise lilies. My son's fiance is from Peru and wanted to experience sounthern food, so we went to a restaurant "Grits and Greens". My son had a sandwich called major mother clucker. It was a chicken sandwich with collard greens on it. He said it was tasty, but I don't think I will order one.

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  9. I like most any food cooked by someone else and even love a lot of it.

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  10. "I've done nothing but be lazy and read" - this seems like a virtuous state of affairs to me. Don't knock it, go for more of it!

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  11. I love the rose of Sharon! It always amazes me that all we have to do is break off a piece of a plant somewhere on our travels and grow it on to get a completely new one. Plants are incredible.

    I don't blame you for taking a break after finishing the box! Why not?!

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  12. Reading and sleeping are good things! Love the Rose of Sharon.

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  13. I've never heard of a shield spider. I tried looking them up, without much luck. Is there another name? The interesting thing about that web is that it seems to have the same kind of 'decorations' that the spiny orb weavers will add to their webs: those evenly spaced bits of white strung along the web. I thought the zig-zag spiders (the big garden spiders) were the only ones who added those decorations, but they're not, and this looks like a variation. I'm developing a real affection for some of the spiders -- although I'd prefer not to get a faceful of web.

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