a week in the life

It’s starting!

Our week or so of cool mornings and not blistering days came to an end yesterday (last Tuesday). Hot and muggy already when I ventured out. Supposed to be the same today, Wednesday, but rain is predicted which we still really need so we’ll see how the day pans out (we did not get any rain). On Friday though, the first real ‘cold’ front comes in with highs in the 70s and lows between 51˚ and 48˚ for three days. Woohoo! Then for the foreseeable future, highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s. 

Well, Thursday turned out to be a day. First I had a whole list of errands to run. I did the ones that I could take the dog with me first…taking stuff to the recycling center, the vet for flea treatment for Minnie, Tractor Supply for flea treatment for Cat and the three outside boys. Brought Minnie back and headed out for Hesed House to take the new shadow box and talk to Stephanie about volunteer opportunities and we considered a few ideas like tutoring or helping people with their reading and comprehension skills; from there to the Evil Empire for a few grocery items I can’t get at the HEB, and then last the liquor store. 

And then Jade arrived for a visit and to pick up her cat from her parent’s house. She had just gotten back from a week in Utah for her best friend’s wedding and then she planned to visit the national parks but it rained all week so that was a bust. Instead she hung out with her friends and their families. We went across the street to visit with Robin and Harrison, Paisleigh was sleeping, until it was time to put Harrison down for his nap. When Paisleigh got up she came over here to visit her Aunty and they got out the coloring books and the crayons and markers. Did I take a single picture? No, I did not.

Now it’s Friday and the cold front is blowing in with gusts up to 40 mph, cold being a relative term here but it’s supposed to get down to 51˚ tonight. Neither the dog nor the cat like this overcast windy weather and are showing no interest in going out. Well, Cat is outside in the little backyard half hidden in the fern and ginger watching the birds at the bird feeder. Speaking of Cat, I knew we had a mouse because Tuesday night I opened one of the drawers in the kitchen and there it was! It scooted off the back of the drawer and into the bowels of the cabinet. I set up a trap that night which it ignored but Wednesday night during dinner there was a commotion in the kitchen and I jumped up in time to see Cat scurry off into my studio room/office where she let it go! She caught it again and then let it go again and this time it got away. Damn it Cat.

Saturday morning and it’s downright chilly enough for sweat pants and flannel shirts. Mostly what I’ve done all week is work on editing the book my friend is writing on pate de verre, finding inconsistencies in formatting or better word choices or misspellings or duplications or confusing instructions. I manage about an hour and a half a day and then send her a list of my corrections for her to use or not. Last night was one of my nights to cook dinner. Our regular dinner time is 7:30 but last night I wanted to make stuffed cabbage rolls from an actual recipe instead of just winging it like we usually do with meat, rice, tomato sauce. So because it was pretty involved and had to cook for 90 minutes I started about 3:30 right after starting the dishwasher which I had forgotten to do after breakfast. Cut the core out of the cabbage, put it in a large pot covered with water, bring to a boil for a minute or so, remove cabbage, peel off softened leaves, put cabbage back in the pot, repeat the recipe says. Except, cabbage floats! There was no covering it with water. Anyway, that’s how it started. Then I had to wait for the dishwasher to finish its cycle so I could get the pan we use for cooking rice which was also confusing. It called for 1/2 cup rice, cooked. Did it mean 1/2 cup of raw rice cooked or 1/2 cup of cooked rice? I went with 1/2 cup raw rice, cooked which took nearly an hour itself since we use short grain brown rice. I finally got it all in the oven and the kitchen looked like a tornado had swept through and dinner ended up being only about 20 minutes late. And it was really good but it may be one of those things I only fix once in a blue moon. Meant to take pictures but, oh well.

Today is Paisleigh’s birthday party. She turned 5 last Saturday but her mom, who moved from Arkansas to Corpus Christi so it’s much easier for the kids to be with their mom now that she’s only 2 1/2 hours away as opposed to Arkansas, had to work that day. This will be Paisleigh’s first birthday party that includes her classmates instead of just family and adult friends. She handed out invitations to everyone in her class, 20 something kids. 

I’ve only taken four pictures this week, the one at top this morning and these last three; the underside of a big garden spider, an invasion of ants one morning in Minnie’s empty food bowl, and these two shredded toilet paper rolls from a beetle trapped in the cabinet (the beetle was unceremoniously tossed outside).