Cooking, cats and working with my brain

Notice there is a comma there, we aren't cooking cats, this is about cooking, cats, and working with my brain.  Which of course, yells about that comma /ha

 

I know my 'ADHD' isn't as bad as some... and that I can use my brain to load 'new programming' and sometimes it even sticks.  But I still feel like maybe I can offer something, to someone - that might help things 'stick' for them.  So I'm continuing my collection of 'Neurodivergent Cooking' ideas and recipes at the Patreon website.

 

I was trying to explain this to Esme this morning - how sometimes I have two or three 'alarm locations' for the same thing I had already done - but I find them useful, and encourage them.  It took a while to try to get it written down in something I hope someone else can understand and use.  I tried to explain it in this post about 'Redundancy'.

 

Got the pictures off my phone from the past few days.  A cicada I saw at the end of my mail route yesterday.  I've heard a lot of them - but hadn't been able to catch one up close till then.  When I opened the box because I did have a letter for them - the cicada just plopped down on the ground.  Sorry dude... I can't help with that.

Lyffan (above) said she didn't have any part in spilling coffee on that shelf below, which just doesn't wash clean well anymore, and I tend to put shoes on it, besides cats, and soforth.  This is another example of why are you doing that now?  Because I think of doing it a lot - (cleaning, painting) but I just don't have the energy for a lot of it always, and sometimes I can break it down into a small task that can be done right now - and if I can get myself to do it right now - it takes a chunk off the bigger task.  

So, this picture pushed me to get out the white gloss paint and put a new coat on the shelf -  after it dried from cleaning and wasn't really looking that clean even after scrubbing.  It is just a particleboard garage shelf anyway - it started out that way, and I haven't painted it in a long time.  If I can just keep cat paws off it while it dries.  I scrub the desk down every couple of days, too - but it always seems to have a bit of coffee on it even when I use coasters.  Cats don't fit on coasters, apparently.

 

better, cleaner... for the moment

'make it better' doesn't have to be a huge thing every time.  But it does require that extra push to get over the hump and all the 'buts' (but a cat might walk on it again while it's wet!) and just do it.

Not a Quiche - maybe Strata? recipe at Neurodivergent cooking

That applied for this 'quiche' that was actually perhaps Strata ( a greek egg casserole dish, but usually containing old bread, eggs, and vegetables).  I knew it wasn't an actual quiche, spent time looking that up.. and then realized that I didn't even actually know how long it was going to take or what other people would use for ingredients.  But hey - I know what I'm doing.  But what I'm doing is usually not what others are doing.  What I'm doing falls in between the gaps of what other people do ALL THE TIME... but I still seem to get things done and sometimes I get a lot more done than others, except all over the board and it looks 'painful' to others.  That is why I am making that website - because I feel like what I do now, vs. what I did twenty years ago, works better for me.  I do things at odd times, in odd ways - but it is still good.  In fact, it's great - because I do it, instead of waffling or being stuck in 'but it isn't the proper way'.  I find benefit in that, and someone else might, too.  And it is delicious, if you like eggs and green things.  *ha*

 

Maybe someone else who doesn't have cream or a crust for their quiche, or needs to use brown rice flour instead of regular flour, will find it, and like it.  Maybe it will give them an idea to make something of their own that becomes part of their repertoire of recipes.  

 

for posterity - the boildown

Not a Quiche, maybe Strata : Recipe

six eggs, about 3/4 cup of whole milk? (that's a guess - look at the recipe, I took pictures), assorted green things from my garden, well washed and chopped fine (arugula, parsley, lemon basil, chocolate basil, a green onion, a shishito pepper), stirred together, then added about 1 cup (little less) of brown rice flour, salt, less than one teaspoon of baking powder, all mixed up, bits of hard white cheddar cheese cut up fine and strewn on top - bake at 350 degrees, took about a half hour in a ceramic baking dish.

Languages : I've done French, Chinese, Japanese and Russian the past few days.  I read a children's book in Spanish that used grammar I am still learning about past tense and another one that was in Cyrillic and I'm not sure entirely if it was Czech or Russian because I only got a few words here and there - but it was still practice.  I read another children's book in Japanese, and only got a few things here and there, but was really happy for what I understood before I looked things up.  There was a box at the post office yesterday that I recognized the kanji for 'white' and the kanji for 'wood' in the checked boxes on the side of someone's dresser they had ordered.  That was a 'I bet no one else gets that, or cares, but I smiled anyway because a year ago that would have been garble to me and now, it's words!'

rabbit rabbit it's August

 

Library books, probably won't finish them but there is a chance I'll read them, the one on the right is about Paris, and magic, but the text is on the small side.  The center one is about a Native American community, and the library has the sequel out which made me go see if they had the first one.  The one on the left was on sale for two dollars and the premise is quite scary and intriguing (future, one child per family, identical twins and mother died, father made an elaborate ruse in her memory to appear as if there was only one daughter and now the daughters are older and trying to figure out how to go on when they only have one identity and fear of death on discovery).  But, now that I own that one - however intriguing it is, I will look at the other two first since they are two weeks loan.

 

our local library had such cute children's decorations I had to take a picture of it - mushroom window, waterfall in the back (out of streamers) and paper chain tree leaves on a column made to look like a trunk (complete with owl)

we had donated a lot of coleus one day after a farmer's market trip - and they put some out front in planters :)  We were so glad they were loved

the community garden raised beds were full of interesting plants

 

Also, little chicken did not improve, and I think perhaps she also had a fractured bone in her leg that had actually caused the other problems and was the reason she could not improve even with warm baths and eye-dropper feeding.  There wasn't anything else we could do for her, and she wasn't eating and barely drinking.  Esme was sad, but we did what we could - cleaned up all the care things this morning and then I continued and cleaned out some garden beds and the dry goods pantry - trying to sort my brain out, by sorting what is in front of me ie ie....  I hate losing one, even when there are twenty - and twenty was a bit much for us, but when you buy them small you almost expect to lose several - and we were lucky in that we raised all of the last batch to adulthood and hadn't lost any of the batch before (which we had also expected).  We let them have as long of lives as they can, whether or not if they are laying eggs keeping up 'production'.    At the same time we don't do anything elaborate, like the heated houses that look better than doghouses that I see, or go out and spend hours with them every day as I see online as well.  We will give them greens and vegetable cuttings and make sure they have layer feed twice a day and clean water, and collect the eggs - that's a pretty good life for a chicken, especially around here.

Knitting a little this morning, going to go take a look at that crochet bear or cat I was working on.  Doing laundry and sweeping and wishing I had more energy to go further and deep clean other things but the pantry did need it.  I want to 'make it better' on a lot of little things but the little things add up.  That is good - because they should add up to better, but they also add up in exhaustion, so a little at a time, easy does it et al.  And I washed one of the dogs, she is always so sensitive she was begging me to give her another bath.  She hasn't quite figured out how to distinctly ask for a bath - but I've been getting more signals from her a few times lately and trying to see if we can get an actual trained signal.    I finally studied amigurumi stitches and see what I'm doing that makes the weave not tight enough - will see on the next if I can correct that.  We do plan, at least Esme and I, to go sell at the market this afternoon, and then we need groceries tonight or tomorrow.

Doing French at the high-grammar level, Chinese at the lowest level when the French grammar annoys me, and Spanish on my phone although that is a higher grammar level as well and I might have to switch down to something else there for a little bit, as well.

me(brain)-->kick studio <--laundry crunch

 So the long work weekend is over - and it looks like I have today off.  It is dim and humid from the rains the past few days, so I am still feeling a little quiet and wondering how much effort I want to put into things that need effort put into them.  And if I should play a little hooky from sweeping and laundry and etc for a few hours and work at my studio table, which would be very much more enticing if there was adequate light.  I've been playing with Hungarian again the past few days, remembering what I had nearly forgotten before it ran out of my brain - same thing I did with Finnish a week or so ago.  And I've done some French today to counterbalance it.  I worked on a bag yesterday while we watched the Hunt for Red October. 

After the small route yesterday, in the rainstorm, I was SO tired - enough to go to sleep, but I had gotten the pork loin on the way home anyway, and rounded everyone up to go out in the afternoon (since the rain had stopped, and that also makes me tired), and go get our major grocery list (still forgot a few things).  I was standing in front of the aluminum foil with Esme, trying really hard to do the 'bouncing ball map thing' with the entire list so I knew where we were going and how fast etc.. which I usually do in the back of my head -and I couldn't even focus on which aluminum foil we had at home compared to the assortment in front of us - and for a moment, couldn't even realize if Reynold's Wrap was aluminum foil or saran wrap.  Esme saw that and she knew I was very very tired, if I couldn't do that, and also didn't know ten steps ahead of myself where we were going next (I knew maybe the next two).  I was honest with her about that, so she knew why I wasn't doing my usual thing.  Mark was off on the other side of the store (he drove, luckily) getting other things.  

That kind of tired feels like being drunk, knowing that my brain isn't working to the potential I'm used to - I said it was a lot like this Princess Bride quote to both of them in the store, as we walked out- and then I had to make the meme.

But, I snapped up enough to get all the items that were on the list and a few that weren't (but missed two or three non-urgent things, because I didn't want to go across the store, and the other we weren't entirely out yet).  And we got home, made dinner and I didn't even crash hard until at least nine.  And then the dogs got me up and down half the night - so I'm halfway to brain power this morning and starting on my second pot of coffee at 10:30 am.

I'd like to push myself over to that studio table to work on a large sheet of paper with all my pencils, but I know that will take a few hours -

hours that could be used folding laundry, making a bed, washing counters and sweeping floors, and just general pickup from having been on at the post office for five days - and then there is just general buildup of stuff overall that happens with my ADHD and I don't find it bothersome until I actually get time maybe to do something about it (and even then, bah)

I think about the ink I was so excited to get four months ago, and have used twice?  That almost does it.  I think about yarn that looks like yarn the computer keeps advertising to me and I say 'if I just dug that out, maybe I could do something nice with it'.. and again, I counterbalance that potential use of time with the laundry, and cost-sink-analysis of how much benefit I'll truly get out of it as future me scowling at present-me wasting time doing-things as much as wasting time staring-thinking-things.  I think about time and space and that feels like lighting up a giant light bulb, I think about lots of things, chemistry, geometry, baking, the garden - and still the biggest factor is the dimness and the outside weather.

since it was wet outside, and she didn't want to miss dinner when it was eventually served yesterday, Lyffan slept in the table space just behind my computer monitor for a while yesterday.  I caught a couple of pictures of her, although it was entirely voluntary- she let me know she could have gotten up and left during that 'snappy eye thing' but she didn't - and please let her know when the tuna was ready.  *can opener did that, and Esme still had to poke her a bit to make sure she understood yes, now, come downstairs!*

Esme also made up a great batch of our Dragon Spice porkchop spice from Mark's metric recipe.  I have trouble sometimes without the scale he has doing it by hand.  I ordered some maple sugar chili spice the other day and will be interested to see what that is like when it comes.  I like to look at what the spice combinations are and keep some on hand to add to rice and stirfry stuff - but only for things Esme and I eat.  Mark keeps his mixtures for things specific, like meatloaf and porkchop spice, and they're good - but I like to try some different things. 

*stare into coffee cup a bit more*  if it wasn't so dank, I'd think more about baking

it's going to be one of those days, and the pinball method is probably the best thing for it.  do three things here, do three things there, continue moving until you're tired, try not to sit too long before getting up and pinballing a few more things - look at progress - decide the next three things etc etc...  the look at progress thing is just as important as the small break to drink coffee etc.. and to say 'that needed to be done, and now it's done' helps to do the next three things

11:30 I decided, after folding and sorting and starting another load of laundry, and putting away all the eggs from last night that had been set out to dry - that I needed to make a little french toast and then see what I wanted to work on next after that.  I've turned on some extra lights up here, picked up a few things, and planning some more steps.

4pm :  I've done some Japanese, and finished the laundry stuff, and Mark had roasted one of the ends of the pork loin since this morning so we all had sandwiches

7 pm : I did something at the studio table, and it wasn't half bad.. but I played a lot of my game, as well  I also went out and filled the chicken's nest boxes with fresh chips and poked around the garden, then cut up a bunch of cherry tomatoes, a few peppers and some of the lime basil and put it in a freezer container to make some food with in the next few days - the cherry tomatoes had just been in a bowl in the fridge building up but it was high time I did something more with them

drawing

the swirling bits

 So I'm downstairs, heating up coffee and 'swirling' - and by this, I mean my brain is constantly washing and swirling over multiple regions of thoughts again and again and it's a little like sitting with a big cup of coffee swirling it around in your cup to make sure you aren't drinking the grounds??  Exit now if you don't want to see my representation of just a slice of what goes on in between these ears..

I'm also doing while I'm swirling, and it is just the most classic form of ADHD housekeeping and planning and some inside-out form of reminisce--now--plan middle-out thinking you could ever imagine.  It gets things done, but I've had others (Mark included) explain observing such is 'painful' and 'I have no idea what you're doing at any moment there, it seems to be five things at once, always.  And I cook the same way.)  And- it is, five things at once.  And it adds up, as long as I keep at it and don't sit.  I'm : washing rugs, sweeping floors, wiping counters, staring at the window (involves thinking about moths that have often been there), thinking about sewing, upset about the sewing machine, optimistic about the sewing machine (cycle), thinking about weaving, thinking about baking, planning on cooking rice, thinking about a sketchbook from twenty years ago that is in the left hand pull-out shelf of my desk and paging through it mentally while I'm washing a sink, reminding myself I have three pages left in my current little sketchbook, sketching the last few things I saw on Pinterest in my head in a mental sketchbook with pencils that I have upstairs, layering schedules around me like rings of Venn diagrams in space and guessing what will happen later today, reminding myself about chickens when first light hits (did I mention it is 3:30 am?).. *drink coffee*

 

I'm reminding myself to sort laundry (which is upstairs), brain-sorting the laundry that SHOULD be in that load and where it has landed and where it goes (before ever doing it in real life), doing a review of Welsh on my computer, bouncing back up from that thinking about that crochet project in the bag I did one row on yesterday, yarn for that, thinking about the yarn on my desk (how it got there, where it's going, how necessary it is to be there right now, the effort it takes to move it, how soon it will get back there again), the project I started and tore back out yesterday, my library book (it's due date, the depressing about not finishing it vs. the depressing it felt reading it, it has such a cheerful looking cover, bah, the trip to the library, Esme saying she was fine with her own book for now and didn't need to go again soon), thinking about the gas level in the truck after yesterday's running around and fuel efficiency logarithmic models vs exponential growth which is the best 'asymptote' representation and if that is even a word, yes it is, why is it in my head right now though, and return to thinking about the art supplies to be sorted, (mentally emptying the entire desk piece by piece and wondering if it is worth the effort), 

 

thinking about when I was looking for that ring yesterday (blue box, 2 inches, tucked into drawer but not the original drawer vs. constellation of four other rings that are similar and where they are), that when I was looking I thought I should be throwing out and going through that other stuff I found, sweeping the entry way, throwing out a frog, exchanging cats, bringing the goat in for breakfast, knowing I should clean the cat counter but being frowned at by large cat currently eating there knowing what I'm thinking, thinking about eggs - quantity, storage, value, where to use them, thinking about rice, thinking about leaves outside (maple, veins, soft) (and it's still dark out there, so why? because when I'm sweeping I so often look up and see them there and it is pleasurable to see them, the thoughts are intertwined), thinking more about laundry, wondering where that other red dishcloth is now that I've replaced it and did the laundry, well not all the laundry, will start that after this load and it's probably in that bag, thinking about the laundry bag upstairs and exactly which items are in it 

 

drinking more coffee, thinking about making coffee, thinking more about baking, thinking about all the array of ingredients and where they are and how much there is of them and what they are used for, return to thinking about rice and all the ways I used last week's and that Mark has this other kind he makes for himself which the kitchen dinosaur toy is currently camped out on the lid of, telling myself I should sweep that back hallway, talking to the cat and the dog about the rugs, being glad I made the rugs, saying I should make another one - oh right, it's in that bag but I haven't committed to it being a rug yet, 

And now it's five a.m, but the laundry is started now and hopefully won't wake anybody up when it spins down, and the dogs and cats and goat are happier - and the roosters are crowing, but they'll be happier when I go feed them and change their water when it's light.  Then I can check on the pepper I planted yesterday and all of the other things, and maybe push myself to do one or two other little things like move the French book on my desk back to the shelf and so forth...

5:30 Put the French book away, and ten other things - found the ring, it still fits, I still don't like how it feels against my vein in my hand, there are twenty other little things in that box, beads, a pair of dice smaller than a dime, old earrings, a sachet pouch of Allspice and Star Anise flowers, put it back where I had kept it.  Onward.  Chickens want food.

3:30 pm  : Too much adventure, episode 99

Took Esme to town earlier this afternoon, got greenhouse potting soil and some groceries Grandma had wanted ( and two we had forgotten ) and came back home - forgot to give Grandma the groceries at her drive before we went to our house, and so started the truck back up at our house just minutes after parking it, and drove up to give her those - and just as we would have turned into her driveway the car went completely dead - flat.  We had stopped at a lot of places in town, much more than usual, but still I wasn't expecting this problem in the summer at all (it has the problem in the winter if you let it sit too long between starts).   I joked 'I was thinking too hard right there', and I was thinking too hard at exactly that moment because she was riding in the back up the driveway and I was thinking at that exact moment that I was in charge of her safety when I turned into Grandma's yard and to slow down and take it very easy and -- flat, no lights on, no sound, no movement, just like the car turned into a brick. (ask me about how I used to make the lights flicker at Lowes and the electrical team would tell me I was thinking too hard, they even tested it a bit, asking me what was in boxes in topstock and how many of something was up there without looking etc).. 

 

but anyway, Esme got lessons in what a car battery voltage should be, what ours was (10.6 volts, and 11.7 after beginning charging, and 12.7 more than an hour later before we gave up and came back down to our house to to rest again) and then she got more lessons in how to put the charger on it and continue to monitor progress.. but it took Mark walking up with me the third time to push the truck out of the middle of our gravel road and into the ditch to get it to start up again.  I pushed it, and he steered.  It didn't start for him before I pushed it and Mark wasn't sure if it was possible that could have kicked it over.  I've seen it in old movies, but who knows?  

Frankly, I was very reluctant to reverse it into the ditch by myself or even with Esme there because I am responsible for her safety and a car running backwards in neutral even with good brakes still makes me tense)   It started and stayed started so we brought it home, and are going to mess with it a bit more later tonight and tomorrow to see if it has deeper issues like needing a new alternator.  I had been texting the mechanic a couple of times during this and he told us to check what the voltage was running and it should be 13 to 14 volts running, if it isn't - then he needs to know so he can order the part.

After that many times walking up there I'm 1.) really glad that it wasn't further down one of the roads around here where there isn't anyone for miles.  2.) grateful we were able to get the charger extension cords to reach that far  and 3.) really tired after being up so early in the morning as well and going to do things

8:00  It is so tempting to go to sleep now, but that means I would be back up at 2 or 3 am so I'm holding out... 

faire le ménage ou apprendre quelque chose?

One small layer of my brain says I should be cleaning - I'm doing some laundry - I should be baking more madeleines because I'll eat them, but there are no eggs (except under chickens) as they were all boiled and fed to dogs.   Instead I'm practicing my French to Spanish, because I keep reaching 'through' the French to get the Spanish from the English... and that is just how my brain is set up.  I will be doing my Russian lessons later, as well, but for now, this seemed to be the rubber-band effect I needed in my brain.

Spanishdict.com : using that for 'blind' retrieval of Spanish words from English - and that is hard - spelling them and not grabbing the French word.  When I consistently keep reaching for the French, I've been writing it down on a list of things to practice, to connect the three angles of the triangle (French--English--Spanish) a bit better.

Mark made me the extra colors of the pushpin magnets I was asking for - the red for French a week or so ago, and now the blue for Spanish - and I've been putting them to use this morning putting up the words I have a hard time grabbing the Spanish word (blue) for from the French (red).  And as I was reaching through this brain network I sat down and drew a little map of some of what it feels like where languages are stored.  Of course, the more I work with a language recently, the more it takes up more space and connects in with other things.  That 'pool' of blue for Spanish isn't completely a good thing - because it is pooled there half isolated and hard to retrieve.  But there is always the base of French, ASL And English that were there in my infancy.. wrapped and flowing through everything - and everything else gets connected and shoved in and around it like a big squishy purse or drawer where the files are not well organized.

(separate thought : perhaps Latvian shouldn't be such a tiny dot, I recognize and can insert words on Clozemaster far better than I do many of the others - although I get 10/10 on French there, and 9/10 on Spanish, getting 7/10 on Latvian, which I've barely studied, is nothing to sneeze at, and I do a pretty good job on BaltoSlav languages on Latvian words and Ba ba dum has Lithuanian that is closest, flag striped yellow/green/red : I have played a bit more on Bern Istaba as well, the children's site for Latvian similar to the English site Starfall Esme used to play on)

But I have swept and put the rugs in the laundry - I'm afraid perhaps the valve is leaking again, but we have to pull everything out to look at it, take the screws out of the wall and shut off the water - I've cleaned the floors in several places, looked in the fridge for anything to chuck out and so forth... with the truck not easy to get to town in, I don't want to get into a plumbing job or other major project.  If the valve is leaking, it is a tiny trickle that I have only barely noticed from a low spot in the garage floor that holds the water there if it gets there...  So many more things need to be dusted and cleaned, it is neverending.  And this is my first day off that didn't automatically come with 'ten other things' planned for me to do, so I've been sort of drifting from one thing to another and not held fast onto any one big thing I have to do today.  I haven't done a shred of art in a long time, well maybe a sketch or two, and the language map above probably counts in some way.

I did go look at the garden - everything has been very wet and is wanting warmth and sunshine, maybe even some fertilizer.  I pulled some weeds, fed the chickens, gave them fresh water - and Mark and Esme are doing things with the greenhouse plants.

bits and pieces

If all you can do is bits and pieces, with your energy, with your time, with the tools you have right now available to you - do some bits and pieces towards making a whole...  Didn't sleep well, had hodge-podge dreams that, even though they really didn't seem to be saying anything in particular, the main theme was that I feel like I don't really know what I'm doing and when other people seem to know exactly what they're doing - I don't see the point.

 

 

Some of my desk creatures on a high shelf I moved them to while I dusted yesterday, looks like they are peering down at me from sitting in my desk chair here
 

poem grumble

Four AM

I have been robbed of sleep again

by dreams of selling purple flashcards

and software applications and paperwork

in a little store – late to get out,

dragging a vehicle up a snowy hill

it would not go up under it’s own power

parking it oh so carefully, tucked between others

in order to get in line for dinner in fancy dress

in the middle of a lumberyard canopy

and yet no one else seemed to get the irony

and continued eating their linguine

in tuxedos and satin dresses

at little placard-graced tables

set up so gracefully on the smooth concrete

alongside the marine plywood sheets

so now, fully awake, unable to continue dreaming

I make multiple trips to the microwave

to heat midnight coffee, barely grown cold

and I ponder, I ponder so many things

And today, I'm doing bits and pieces all day, but it is adding up.  Ugh.  more cleaning - I can only do so much vacuuming before 1.) the limit of the hose really upsets me and 2.) I start to wheeze with some sort of asthma reaction because I'm so close to the floor with it.. it is what it is.

Also did some weeding out in the garden, repotted a plant and started cuttings from it, planted a few seeds, threw some scraps in with some chicken broth (tomatoes and zucch from freezer, carrots from fridge, lentils from cupboard, kale from garden, some of the seasoning packet I've been meaning to use for 'chicken parmesan' stirfry) and now letting that cool down so I can eat some with some bread for lunch/dinner

washed French lentils, 2 carrots, peeled and chopped, three large leaves of kale, washed and chopped, 1 small zucchini (was in the freezer), chicken broth, seasonings, slow simmered in the oven

A mystery seed, some brassica, kale? mustard?  I'm not sure, but it's in a place I can look for it now and it will get watered with the kale, radish and onions.  The poor little rose hip got thrown out.

Did a few more rows on the grey and orange blanket, while I waited for Duolingo to reinstall on my phone.  Pecking away at a high level Welsh section on my computer trying to get the spelling right for political and religious terms **facepalm**  and catching up on Spanish on the phone app after it finally let me back in.

where the cabinet was

 

oh, the bits...  this had been a cabinet that had been there, screwed to the wall and full of flotsam, since Esme was a baby - it used to hold her baby clothes, once upon a time....  and today I demolished it with my vacuum cleaner, well.. 'our' vacuum cleaner because I really don't like the thing, but it seems to be the style we always end up with *sigh*  

Other bits : doing Welsh on the whiteboard, heading up some of the grammar and spelling mistakes both that I keep making.  Also, now trying to find places to put the things (many of them keepsakes) that had been in that cabinet, regular cleaning and this 'advanced cleaning'.. that other shelf is also screwed to the wall, but intact, and I can never clean behind it adequately and so often don't try too hard *sad* but there had been a flight of carpenter ants that came through a crack in the wall right THERE and fell down to the floor under the cabinet, and I was trying to pull it out just enough to clean behind/under it.. and it was screwed to the wall until it WASN't... and then the plastic bits actually shattered, so it is off to the curb (which here means the dump, eventually, after it sits in the garage for a week or so)

I should make more madeleines - but I got into this, and I'll probably skip it today and just keep cleaning some odd things, doing language, and then clean myself up and make dinner instead.

Here is a bag I made while we watched the Librarians this week - it was meant to be a rug and it had so many joins I put them all on the inside and made it a bag for carrying apples and peppers and soforth  - I'm also working on a blanket sort thing in orange and grey with a yellow stripe in it.  I really didn't like the yellow when I first put it on, then it got softened by the other colors again, and I like it a lot.

bits

It's been more than a week and I'm still getting a littler further each day with the house cleaning... organizing et al.  I had read an article that said a disorganized or messy environment raises a level of stress hormone in your body even when you don't 'feel' particularly stressed.  Cleaning up will reduce that level and seeing the progress you have made can also be a mood elevator.  Sounds a bit 'out there' and domestic but I thought it was a good energy sink for this stress about school.. and the exercise can't hurt, either.

I have to admit I have been feeling more like I can 'kick a** and take names' the more I get done.. and it is starting to overflow to getting things done at work, too.  I'm working on some useful little habits for maintenance, as well - sweeping the floor a bit in the morning and at night, washing down the countertops, generally keeping a three level 'list of what's next' in my head so I can complete the closest one to me the next time the idea hits...

We rearranged all the computer stuff upstairs to make the desk cleaner and give Esme and I more space between our computers.  That looks much better -and she wasn't using that desk in her room anymore - so that gives her more space in her room, too.   My new ring came in the mail yesterday and it fits nicely and is quite pretty.  It is a silver Celtic braid design, noticeably heavier and harder to get off of my finger than the thin gold band I had worn off and on for the past nine years..  I cleaned up the counterspace below some, but we use all of these things almost every day so there aren't many more things I can put away.  It does look neater than it did.

I'm into the third book of the Outlander series.  There is cornbread and poached pears (with honey, brown sugar and butter) in the oven (shown above) for dinner.  Esme said it was 'kind of good' and she did eat it over time.

bits

I've been getting more done... tackled a few more areas of the house for cleaning.  Just trying to get a little bit done here and there.  I was proud of getting a new top put on Esme's old toy table.  I used vinyl covering over a piece of brown matboard and it covered up the old scratched and ripped top really well.  It looks like a new table and it can be cleaned easily.  I also got this painting hung on the wall that I really love - we had the poster frame elsewhere and I just turned the poster in it to the back.  I put a coat of dark cobalt blue paint on the little stool we keep in our kitchen and mopped the entire floor with the Libman Wonder Mop.. which is a cool seven dollar toy.  It's starting to look really nice downstairs - although I have to tackle the counterspace next.

This is a painting I made in February, 2001, more than fifteen years ago.

The weirdest thing is this painting almost looks the same turned upside down..

And I didn't notice it until the other day when I carried it upstairs and kept wondering what was wrong - this didn't look quite like the same painting I remembered.. even though it had been a long time... then I noticed the signature and righted it and was shocked at the way some of the fish 'work' right side and upside down.

Productive and dreamcatcher

Esme has been asking me to make a 'dreamcatcher sort of thing' for her out of this piece of bark and her feather collection for a while - tonight Mark drilled the bark and we added some shells and a little silver charm someone at work gave me for her... it turned out neat!

Today: I had a dentist appointment early in the afternoon, and after we got home I was able to get some things done around the house.  I took the weaving off my loom and started to make it into a bag for my Kindle.  I have to knit the strap yet.  I;m thinking if I can make an inner pocket in it to hold my phone it can almost replace the big purse I'm currently carrying....but because I've been carrying the big purse I have things in it now that I would never normally carry, like a bottle of ibuprofen, a sewing kit, a ziploc with an assortment of tea.. how did that stuff happen?  It will probably be a 'day bag' sort of thing not for carrying to work but for days out to the library etc.

I started sweeping and cleaning the house in the middle of all of that - I didn't have enough courage to tackle my sewing area early on (where I was knitting the strap and a bit dismayed by the piles o stuff)... so I started downstairs.  After getting into cleaning the fridge and several other really yucky jobs that needed doing, I finally came upstairs and made a new pincushion, cleaned up the sewing area SOME... and then  got Esme involved in making decisions about the dream catcher.  We hung it up in her room and she likes it.

I have tomorrow off, too -- maybe Brigadoon coming in the mail and a few other projects to try to get to.  Laundry.. don't forget laundry.  I'm reading the Outlander series and am in the second book.  OY, let's just say I wasn't quite ready for these books but OK, I'm reading through.

I still need to take the loom entirely down tomorrow too... so I can reclaim that space.  The embroidered name tags came for Esme's lunchbag and backpack.. and I can try to get the one on the lunchbag tomorrow... maybe?

Corn!

Mark says: 'Our produce has produced.'  We have some tomatoes to pick out there, too - but first to blanch and bag all of this and put it in the freezer!  Snoopy (shown below) and the black kitten Tink would not stop coming into the garden with us.  At one point Tink had put his head inside the bottom of my pants leg and was sitting there purring because he felt like he was getting attention by being that close to me.  Silly... I kept telling him he was a black caterpillar corn worm and we really had to do something about those before they eat the crop!

Esme with one of the first tomatoes from the garden

Esme with Snoopy puppy, one of Nova's - and a bluetick coonhound mini-me!

Different kinds of beans in the garden - Provider green beans on the left, straight and round - the White climbers I was trying out again from the odd seed that showed up last year, purple Shackamaxon and the Rattlesnake beans with tiny purple stripes, which makes it so easy to tell the difference!

Mark did a major floor cleaning in the kitchen and hall yesterday, and all of the laundry.  I followed suit today with a major cleaning in Esme's room... it needed it badly.  She had rocks and sticks stashed in toy boxes, one toybox had a hole in the bottom of it that water had gotten into.. some boards that had water and mold on them underneath...stashed candy in plastic bags inside toys and empty boxes scattered around, paper, school hats and cards and it wasn't really possible to walk in there without falling over anything.  I made her help me organize after the worst of it was done - spray down her dollhouses which were full of dust and grime, empty and spray out her garbage can, collect up and throw out anything food (except a few recent things from sleepover bag which went on her dresser), gather jewelry, her purse (she couldn't find it last week and so couldn't buy anything), teaset stuff, play food, my little ponies, playmobil people, stuffed animals  etc etc etc... It ended up looking, smelling and being SO much nicer in there you could almost believe it was new!  We moved her dresser and changing table, got a dress-up station set up and took out some things she had outgrown, as well.

The knit net I had made for her stuffed animals came in very very handy.  When bedtime rolled around she went and picked out exactly who she wanted to bring for sleepover ;)

We also went to the fast food and park in McKenzie with Grandma - and she ran a lot of energy off.  Even with taking five kitchen bags of junk/paper etc out of her room she was on excellent behavior all day.  In fact, I think she appreciates her room a bit again.. heard her in there playing cars on the floor and she has her Dreamlight again to use at night because it had slipped behind her bookcase and she didn't know where it was.

bits

 I continued the busy streak today - both with the cleaning, and the other projects.  I started to put a border around this knit bathrug that was never large enough... and it is turning out okay for never having crocheted around a square before.  I'll put a few more rounds of blue on it when Esme is in the bath later, and it will be ready.

I cleaned some more - and then did some plumbing (which will lead to more) cleaning out p-traps in the pedestal sinks.  I discovered they really need to have the drains inside the sinks replaced soon - and that is on our list.  There is a drawer slide in the kitchen drawers that can be repaired, too.  I did the cleaning in the hallway I had set out to do - have a tiny bit more there later after Esme is home.  I am actually going to recruit her for the vanity sink p-trap, and see if she helps.

I also got tired of not finding a pencil among my knitting needles - and all of the short items that get lost in the tall ones etc etc..  So I took two jars which I had originally cleaned off of the vanity cabinet and painted them with some gloss paint which says 'for use on glass only for decorative purposes'  check.  This makes some nice use out of something we already had - and makes them look a lot cleaner than they did before.

Also need to make more dishcloths in the next month or so - have yarn set aside.  I'm using them all over the place.  The empty coffee cans have also become buckets while cleaning... our recycling bin for containers is paying off ;)

Tried sushi for the first time today - 'california roll' with avocado, cucumber and crab.  The pickled ginger 'gari' and wasabi made it extremely good.  This is a new restaurant for our town and has been here nearly a year?  I will probably be back some other time.

a few thoughts on patterns

Patterns I have marked for 'later' to buy and sew, someday.
I would have to alter or find the right sizes for them.


McCalls 2329, centennial dress
the bodice front shape is interesting


6042 McCalls
gorgeous child's dress and apron


McCalls 7089
child robe and nightgown, raglan sleeves draw me to this one

LATER: Was looking at all of those patterns stalling doing something I knew I really needed to do while I still have one morning of sleeping in ahead of me :) Mark spurred me forward a little - and I'm glad he did. Pulled apart Esme's bed and washed it down of all the junk she got caught in the corners of it. Washed the floor everywhere around where she eats and under her old changing table. Took bleach to a large area of the shelving she used to use more often than she does now. Kept the roll going and washed down her table and computer desk. Moved to the kitchen for the last leg and mopped most of the floor down and around the dog food and water dishes. I'm a simple girl when it comes to that - I just want a simple mop that can be washed out in the shower and reused, and that the head does not come off of the mop every few minutes! Mine does the latter... so often I am doing better to actually just sit down on the floor and scrub. Now I know my back hurts much more than it did last time I did that much crawling around the floor... getting older, but it was worth it and I keep reminding myself that dirt is coming up, getting out and getting gone. There is more that could be done.... but now it is time to sit and eat some chips and knit on the blanket and drink coffee... I have tomorrow off, too.

I mention that last bit because I was reminding myself last night - hopefully I can remember to remind myself as it comes up then, when my back hurts I will keep moving - maybe not in the exact ways that made it hurt (putting toilets up on three foot high shelves etc.) but I will keep moving, walking, cleaning, staying active. I have a deep belief that is one of the things that made my mom get sicker and sicker - when she hurt, she stopped doing things because some of them hurt... and then with her diabetes (which I do not have, but have a good chance of getting if I am not careful and maybe if I am careful) she put on more and more weight, which made her back hurt more, and then she deteriorated further and further until now she is at the point where her weight interferes with doing nearly anything. I am very scared of that. I want to take after my father in that regard.... I'm really hoping I do.

Thought I'd sit down - but went to wash my hands and the bathroom sink being slow running got to me again. Put the mop bucket under it and cleaned out the p-trap. YUCK and yuck and yuck. But, success. Note to myself for the future - when putting the pop up clip back on, make sure the round nubbly circles are facing towards the front. I have been a plumbing specialist for how long and still failed on the first reassembly on my own faucet? And I even had the luck of having it put together for me the first time but hadn't taken a good solid note of that fact.

Cleaning Help

Esme insisted on helping me clean up downstairs last night. She definitely has her own sense of style. She said she was a Cinderella and a 'chef' last night, because she was helping to clean. I'm not sure why she thinks she is a chef, maybe that is why the hat? "Look at all this MESS. gotta clean this up. Now where that hand wash go?"

I had her put all of her downstairs toys into the box in the background - which was a lot. She was wearing rollerskates for a while there, and eating pizza and drinking milk while watching Wall-E. She told me I was being awful cleaning the bathtub because I was moving toys, but that the cleaning was a good job. In the end I had to make her get a towel to clean up the large expanses of water she had left on the floor, as it wasn't really dirty at that point - I had already mopped it.