some things in general

I did a whole lot of crocheting and knitting trying out this toy pattern I saw a picture of - winging the entire thing, unhappy with some of it, trying other things to push it along etc.  I learn a lot when I do these, and the knitted ones usually turn out great but the knitting takes so long and is so small and hard on my fingers sometimes.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other - since I'm not on duty at the post office I thought I'd work on it yesterday and hope I didn't strain my hand for whatever I do on Wednesday.

 

Talking yesterday I know there was a lot that I wanted to say but couldn't find the right frame of reference.  It's taken me thirty years to realize a lot of the methods I now operate by - and a lot of those were just trial and error.  I just have to make my ADHD tendencies work for me, because this is me, I'm the one getting things done in here, so knowing how it gets done best for me is the way to go.  I'm sure a lot of my methods looks painful to others, and trying to put it out in speech is really hard for me because you can't edit and insert and delete like you can in text without becoming a Mime with a whiteboard /ha - but also - in life you can get all the instructions and all the tools put on your workbench but you have to figure out yourself minute-to-minute how to get things done with them.  I think my dad said it as 'wherever you go, there you are, work with that'... I'm still working on it... and I get things done, eventually.

Then, at forty, I found out more about dysautonomia and Ehlers-Danlos, which run in my father's family and affects individuals differently.  I knew about the dysautonomia from being diagnosed with POTS at nineteen, but learning about the entire 'umbrella' of EDS disorders and genetic links was like getting to see the actual operating manual for something you only learned by hunt and peck.  And even with all I've learned so far, I still haven't completely processed that because life doesn't slow down often - and then you have to decide whether to rest or catch up on things you've set aside for the moment - to decide whether to use up your energy while you have it, and what on etc etc.. or to reserve it and hope you still have some when you need it next.

What I've learned in general about hEDS (hypermobile Ehlers Dalos syndrome, "EDS type 3"):

I can give no advice at all on healthy eating to anyone really - but diet has been about the only thing that can be managed since hEDS has no 'cure' and is genetic, and just naturally gets worse with aging, which is why more people with it start to realize and learn more about it in their thirties and forties, even though they've had it all their lives and sort of just 'got by' until they began to age.  First off every body is so different you just have to find your own middle ground over time, and my body is even worse because hEDS is just so hard to understand in the first place.  The body is always under constant repair, and as you age, your body repairs slower, so in hEDS the damage starts to build up and snowball if you aren't taking care of it.  hEDS is a problem at the base level of how the body makes collagen, slightly too stretchy and fragile, and the body replaces these structures all the time, but slower as you age.  'Dietary collagen' doesn't help because it does not replace the collagen the body is always making in every cell of your skin, muscles, blood vessels, even eyes and gums and so forth, that is just slightly wrong here and there, a little like swiss cheese.  So things break down and strain and 'degrade' in weird and unexpected ways, sometimes heal, but not always quickly or correctly without help, highly confusing unless you at least know why.  A lot of the dietary things that help are advice bodybuilders would follow - even though it isn't expending the 'exceptional' effort of perhaps a bodybuilder, the muscles are constantly still needing that kind of fuel to rebuild themselves from what is just normal activity for most other people.  I'm still figuring out the very strange needs of this condition and I'm sure it doesn't really add up to healthy, but it's healthier than before I understood why everything was going haywire trying to follow the advice a 'normal healthy person' would thrive on.

So when I'm hungry - I follow my weird-food instincts because they're usually pretty correct, high 'good' fat to process the fat-soluble vitamins, high protein, lower carb, lower sugar, lots and lots of anti-inflammatory foods and spices.  Some of the stranger things I like, green chiles, hot peppers, bananas, cucumbers, avocado, olives, peanut butter, celery seed and seaweed etc.. are because they contain specific nutrients that my body needs and are hard to get elsewhere.  I'm craving avocado, not donut - but sometimes I crave tacos or Indian type recipes because of the spices and the antioxidants that come with those foods - black beans, coconut milk, butternut squash, egg yolks, hot curry etc...  And, combinations that other people would find odd sometimes taste really good to me - because I need all those things, and tastes are made up partially by our body's responses saying 'oh yes, more of that!'  I've tried methylfolate once, but should try it again.  I hate that it has to be ordered and I can't get it locally.  There are studies saying a lot of the dietary issues can be helped by adding that, because the lack of some enzymes in EDS gene carriers can cause problems processing folic acid, which is in nearly everything, and then that also causes trouble processing copper and other micronutrients, which are necessary for the muscle repair etc.. snowball effect, too much of what the body can't process, tying up some of the things it really needs to process, and inflammation.

Coffee causes other people to be overjittery and anxious and can't sleep - but again, I'm a case of opposites.  These are things I swear my body 'knew' before I really consciously did, but I often had a very hard time 'listening' to it over the magazine and health advice that gets constantly blared at us in society.   And I always have drank so much coffee at times, you'd think I should be a constant interdimensional blur, but it also has a key anti-inflammatory in it and keeps the vascular system's constriction vs. dilation function constantly exercised which helps combat the POTS dizziness and fainting problems I had so badly years ago.  The few times I tried to stop coffee 'for my health' resulted in inflammatory nightmare weeks that I was told was 'withdrawal' and I'd feel so much better if I just waited until I 'detoxed'.. no, nope, I wasn't 'just in caffeine withdrawal', I was in pain and angry, all my joints felt like I had been thrown from a horse and I was so tired and brain-fogged but couldn't sleep well, and I felt nauseous from drinking plain water that drinking the water was a constant effort where I drink down cups of coffee before I even realize it's empty and stare into the empty cup with little cat-whimpers before levering myself up to go get more. 

Although - I'm really glad my cousin finally tuned me into corn being an inflammatory for us, because that little bit of information to cut that out wherever possible really changed a lot.  Once I started watching where that was in my diet and trying to avoid it there was a huge change in all of my healing and muscle inflammation processes.  And there is corn meal and corn starch in so many things!  It's a lot easier to manage the inflammation that is still here when I'm not actively adding to it with something I didn't realize we were 'allergic' to.  Most of all, understanding the cyclical nature of constant repair and energy expenditure that is present in hEDS really helped me understand energy-fatigue cycle that comes with it, and the exercised 'in shape' vs the overuse 'injury' of the hypermobile muscles.  It also explains why doctors would always think I was 'fine' and then I would turn into a melting type mess and they were like 'how did it get so bad??' and then I'd get back into a repair cycle and it was like 'wow, you must be better' etc etc.. In general though, I 'run myself into the ground' less often now that I know better, although it still happens - and I remind myself to stop early at 'good enough for now' on some things sometimes to assess and not OVER-overuse things that will already be needing to rest and repair later.

 

finally reached the 1000 day streak on my PC account, which I've had since 2017  I was doing French and Chinese yesterday, got Super preview and will try to finish up some sections today in the French and maybe another language.

This week:

I am not on at the office, that I know of, this week - that's good and bad.  It's bad in that I'm not getting the hours, and that will catch up to us later, but it's good in that I had been working a lot and needed a little bit of a break.  The garden is in rough shape - but still producing tomatoes and a pepper here and there.  Something took advantage of my more infrequent visits and ate some of the cucumber plants on one side of the raised beds.  I tried to pull the fencing back up there - it must have been a deer reaching over the fence since there was such an obvious bite through three of them and bits of the plant was left down on the ground with the fence pushed down.

I didn't find the biryani spice I was looking for at the supermarket yesterday, although I got the juice.  What I ordered at the restaurant yesterday was three times what I normally would, when I go to the other place I only get one set of rolls and that is more than enough, but the recipes are entirely different, too.  But I was glad to be able to use the leftovers at home for dinner.  I used five-spice powder and additional black pepper, a finely chopped shishito pepper from the garden, frozen white onion, soy sauce and a handful of the fine egg noodles to add to the leftovers I took home and make a refried fried rice for dinner while Esme and Mark made a pizza.  My food was VERY spicy.  The olive oil I'm using is Bertolli Light Cooking Olive Oil? ( The price went up three dollars a bottle since the last one I bought, which was a shock. )  But I rarely just fry any food in oil - Mark says he has no idea what kind of cooking style it is - but I add a bit of oil to the pan, maybe a tablespoon, and then actually dilute that with about twice that amount of water - heat it up, add onions and peppers and/or other vegetables, and then when they are hot and sizzling, I'll add more water and soy sauce and powdered spices (and the noodles here), sometimes add the frozen greens from the garden in this step because they get really soggy if added in the earlier one, and get that boiling again, then add the rice which I cook up a half cup or a cup at a time and store in a glass container in the fridge.  

I did that sleep four hours and check on the sick chicken thing again, and now I've been up for three hours again.  Yesterday I fell back asleep for two hours later - and today I actually got about four more after I had been up for three.

Writing this is keeping myself from getting back into that crochet and straining that hand before I get a chance to have the effect of yesterday 'hit' and tell me what the muscles feel like today.  (often a ten to twelve hour turnaround on pain there)  I don't think the poor little chicken will make it, she seemed a bit more deflated yesterday even with drinking the bit of yolk I gave her and more antibiotic water and a warm wipe down instead of the soak that I thought might have been worse for her the other day - but mostly the left leg that was hurting her still looks fine but she isn't putting any weight on it at all now that I can see.

Japanese food

 

met up with an old friend to have Japanese food - got this as a fortune cookie 'Education is the movement from darkness to light'.  Some to that.  Somewhere between being able to 'do the things anyway' as my father told me (which I shared with her) and being able to see myself in multiple points in time as if looking at myself from the outside - I have been able to at least get somewhere, publishing a few of my books, studying languages, juggling things in general to get things done, if only incrementally.  This blog is probably one of the things that helps me focus in the big picture - but mostly it is just a holding space for thoughts that run too fast otherwise, and don't really need to be jotted down but I do it anyway to keep them from bouncing in my head.

Now home, and time to decompress.   Social anxiety still does get me, but it usually hits me before and after - in the moment, people say they can't tell (although I can).

 French and Chinese today, touch of Spanish on the phone, we'll see what else later.  I feel good I remembered to get juice on the way out of the restaurant - which is why I parked over by the supermarket *ha* it's these things you do because you've met yourself sort of thing... even though others don't get the why, if it works.. it works.

I had started a crochet toy this morning, and should take that a bit further.  There's laundry.  Esme was sitting with the sick chicken when I got back from town just now, going to try to give her some egg yolk in an eye dropper and see if that helps her any

 

body and one leg - then I put it up and did other things

bits

 

I should be sleeping, but woke up to check on the chicken downstairs in the garage, and now I'm still awake two hours later.  I have a luncheon date later today with a post office colleague, which was set up three weeks ago but had to be cancelled.  We're going to the Chinese buffet but hoping to try out their adjoined Sushi bar since the other restaurant I like to get sushi at is strangely closed on Tuesdays.

(Above : Lyffan, sleeping by my computer - she woke up and stared at me intensely when I sneezed earlier!)

The sick chicken is still drinking, but I followed the instructions on a site and gave her a ten minute soak in warm epsom salt water yesterday, and she actually hasn't been quite as happy since then.  So, I'm not sure - She isn't eating anything - just drinking, and standing up and moving a few steps, but not running around.  We gave her a good look over - all three of us, and couldn't see any external damage or anything obvious except where she had lost some feathers with the yuck that had been on her (that we washed off).   I stopped putting her in the cage and just left her in the kiddie pool because she isn't moving around much and I wanted to reduce the stress of putting her in and out of the square opening in the cage.  

I put 'electrolytes and vitamins' in the water I was giving her, and she is trying to drink out of it all by herself when I'm not there (drinks much more I think when I squeeze the bottle for her right there, but Mark says that is a false observation) - so I might try to find a better way to set up the waterer for her later.  There is food right there available for her, but she hasn't even tried to take any out of my hand since yesterday morning, and that was just one piece.  Really, I'm just not sure she is going to make it - I needed to get to her sooner and Esme told me yesterday that she had been 'broody' and not wanting to get off her nest for several days, so maybe she had been without food and water holed up in the house longer than we realized.  It's so hard sometimes when you have twenty of them to notice some of the less obvious things you'd notice more if you only had a handful.

I finished the second blue crochet bag - and a few dishcloths, and am thinking about making a few toys in a simple style that I saw and liked.  But I said that yesterday and I knit another dishcloth to finish up the yarn I had - so we'll see.  I took a try at making a stand for the bags out of some things I have - pvc pipe and a wreath ring - but will have to keep working at that, it needs a more stable base.  I've been looking at a lot of yarn online - so many different kinds unlike anything I have, but I'm not willing to buy any of it sight unseen, especially.  

recipe : olive oil, frozen white onions, half a tomato, soy sauce (2 caps), garam masala, about 1/4 tsp or less, brought to a sizzle, add about a 1/3 cup of water, brought to a boil - then added a chunk of the jasmine brown rice that had been cooked yesterday : Esme said it was good, not too strong of spice (Minerva was drooling by my elbow the entire time I was eating), but the rice was 'chewy', not bad, but different  we had the same rice in a fried rice with egg yesterday and she hadn't noticed the chewiness then, but it was only a few hours cooled off and not in the fridge all night - I'm still evaluating whether I need to buy some biryani masala, this was pretty good this way

Still doing mostly French - touched into Chinese.  Played the meadowlands ranch (in the Stardew Valley game) up to the end of Spring - about to build the barn.  I was in the second year on the other game before I decided to try that - somehow I always start over more interested in trying some other method etc. 

work weekend over, now for the week

Well, as far as I know, I don't have to work tomorrow.  Did mostly French the past few days, and played the game (Stardew Valley) in French, as well.  Have been trying out some of the new things there, meadowlands ranch etc.  Hoping for a more quiet and restful week before school starts.  

I was enjoying using the new soap I had bought at the farmer's market and a cleanser sample I picked up at the store.  I haven't finished the bag, but am still working on the dishcloths.  I'd like to put the bags and new windspinners up on some sort of clothesline thing at the market, but I haven't figured it out yet.  Last night I dreamt I worked at a store again, but it was a cross between the craft store and the hardware store again -- they both had red aprons --  but the merchandise was definitely much more the craft store this time, the layout of the store was a cross though, between the Michael's Store in Fargo (before it got moved to West Fargo) and the Lowes store.  It is quite weird how much my brain retains in details and then builds out while I sleep - it's 'real' -feeling all through the aisles, the signs, the products in the shelves, all the way down to the price tags, but the UPC numbers and the paperwork and the computer systems always seem off enough that it breaks the 'mirror'.  I woke myself up trying to log into the computer on time with the proper password that is always so annoying.  

I was scared a bit by a large cow that jumped up out of a ditch in the twilight of dawn - I thought it was a garbage can but then it got up on the road and looked at me - but I got around it and hoped it got back in it's fence okay.  It's not the first time I've seen a cow there - but it definitely was one of the larger ones. 

I was also faintly dizzy yesterday morning- like a water compass in the back of my head wasn't pointing correctly, or taking a very very long time to point correctly compared to what it should - walking back and forth across the office while I sorted mail I could feel the 'tilt a bit sideways, and then you stay upright' response kicking in.   I stopped on my way out to the route and bought an extra drink and some peanut butter cookies and took it easier than I normally would for a time, and by about 10 am I was feeling much more manageable.  I had already eaten a breakfast and drank coffee before I left in the morning - sometimes you just don't know what the issue is, possibly barometric pressure this time overall, but I thought having the extra things with me was a better idea than not.  POTS is not fun - and still sometimes, as I have mentioned recently, it lets me know it isn't gone.  But I'm glad I have a better idea what is going on than I did when I was younger.

c'est la vie du poulet

We had a chicken in the yard that needed some assistance, one of our four Sapphire Gem hens, and Esme came in from feeding and watering them to tell me she saw the hen having trouble walking.  So we went out and were lucky enough to be able to catch her up easily - she really was having some trouble for us to catch her without a fight.  We gave her a warm bath on her rear and made her a separate cage in the garage and are trying to do what we read she needs for a clogged vent.  It still might not work, but it's better than not trying anything.  She already took some antibiotic water from the hanging water bottle, which is a good sign.  Will try to check on her again through the night and if the treatment works, it says it could be up to a week of keeping her separate and clean before she is ready to go back with the others. We've been needing to make up some sort of isolation system for a good long time but never had a full need to do so until right now.  It is still something we do need to do more permanently so we can pull one or two out.

 

après des,  après des ça: after this, after that - something I usually say in place of 'oh boy' or 'here we go'... we're gonna get this done, and think again whatever was annoying or worrying me after this gets done

 

Made the jasmine brown rice and used some in fried rice for dinner tonight (before we heard about the chicken from Esme).  I made the rice the same way as my regular natural long grain brown rice - washed twice, then put with a bit of salt, a bit of olive oil and a bit of rice wine vinegar in the water, and 2.5 cups water to the 1 cup of washed rice.  After it had been boiling, I turned it down to low I let it go thirty minutes, then turned off the heat, and let it sit for nearly another twenty cooling down, and put it up in a glass container in the fridge until I was ready to use a little bit in this fried rice. I'll try frying some up with the garam masala another night - just used peppers and onions and porkchop seasoning and soy sauce in this for Esme and I tonight.  The week looks pretty clear - except for possibly the farmer's markets, working on the budget and I've got something planned to do on Tuesday.

French : I am in Section 5 : Unit 14 on Duolingo on my main account, and Section 3 : Unit 6, on my phone.  The phone has speaking exercises and a few other things that the PC account does not have, plus I use it to fill time often when I'm doing other things, like sitting with the chicken while the washing machine spins to make sure she didn't take offense to that (she didn't).  In Spanish, I am at Section 4 : Unit 19 and Section 3 : Unit 10.  I was thinking a little earlier that I wondered what the French lessons would be like once I reached section 5 - because I was looking at someone talking about something on their phone that I had never seen yet - and realized I was in section 5 already, just not on the phone.

more patois

 

a bit more of the strange things I always say, that probably don't mean exactly what they are supposed to - and who knows about the grammar.. it's a patois of probably a rural type of French my grandmother would have learned??, maybe some Welsh, and probably also mixed with Latin that I've picked up over the years to fill in some of the gaps of what I didn't learn correctly from my grandmother.  Between today and yesterday I noted a few more of the ones that I use often.

ga se ve ça va! - translate says it means, 'its okay'??? Not really! I need to know more about this one!)  // I said this today, and I didn't realize it until it had already come out of my mouth.  Why?  I saw a dead spider in the bathtub, that wasn't there a minute ago (had probably been in the overflow when I started to run the bath!).  What do the words mean?  No clue where it comes from - but I've said it many times before.  It's definitely a description of surprise and means I don't like that at all.  I would say in a pinch it means the opposite -that whatever that it is, it is NOT okay.    Esme would come running if she heard me say that loudly and ask What's wrong?!?!

engré savoir ne quoi // something on the order of 'it's difficult to know why (that it is difficult)'

on se la // that is how it goes?(translates to 'we are there' actually), maybe 'we are like that' it is usually part of a sentence,  like c'est la vie, but having to do with how things go in general  c'est la vie, on se la ceci ce vie, je ne sais pas être aussi ne toute ça mais c'est la vie, c'est la vie- it's like remembering parts of an old song I don't ever remember hearing??

on prêts , on prêts ça , often sounds like 'amprets' or 'empress' when I'm talking fast // we're ready, we're ready for that, like allons'y but a different tone that means things are correct now for us to proceed, where allons'y means 'let's go'

em brasé // it's bruised, it's damaged (when I picked up a tomato and the underside was leaking)

We really did a lot out in town yesterday, but today I realized I still needed to get chicken feed before the weekend ties me up.  So I pushed myself up, did some chores and went out and did town again, and got gasoline in that car at the same time.  That is still harder for me than it is for most people, I'm certain of it.  I thought about a lot of other things I could do - all the cost-analysis and psychological things that sometimes keep me on reins and just wanting to get home and be done... even getting done the two things I really did need to do was going to be exhausting, no matter how enjoyable some of the rest would be - it was just even more relief to get it done and be home.  And now I'm home and cleaning out leftovers to eat for lunch, looking at recipes for other things to make and thinking about what I can do for the afternoon.  I've started a dishcloth in that yarn from yesterday already, and still need to finish that bag.  There's always more laundry.

 

(at the top) : some more of the geometric windspinners Mark has been working on.  His 'extra large paperclip' sold a few at the market yesterday - the lady said she was going to use them to keep sheet music pinned down.  Several others picked them up and tried them out - but they didn't buy any.  He has sold half a dozen or so of his ergonomic lighter holders that keep hold of a bic-type lighter without letting it fall out even when it is upside down.

I did some Japanese at about 2 am... I should probably tune into my French lessons today, but we'll see where I go from there.  I'm still playing the Stardew Valley in French, which makes it difficult at times to talk to Esme about new things in the update - I give it to her in the French on the screen and the approximate translation I think the English should be (without going to the wiki) and she says OH I know that one, I haven't done it yet, but I think I've seen it.  Jus de Igname de neiges (juice of the snow yam).  She made a crack about that while we were in the canned vegetables at the store yesterday, I don't see any snow yams yet, do you?

I do like my madeleines pans - the pair of them I got this Spring.  I also like trying to remember the recipe from scratch each time and just winging it - it still turns out good.  The dogs appreciate it, as well.  I dropped two of them popping them out of the pans tonight and had to throw them in the sink to cool - but there was much happy hound at the end.  They always do get a few lately, and over the course of the next few days in the fridge they'll beg every time I open the bag.

simplest recipe : 3 to 4 eggs (from our chickens), 1/2 cup white sugar, 3 tbsp brown sugar, vanilla extract (BEAT), 1 cup flour, baking powder, salt, 1/2 cup softened butter (BEAT) - put 1 tbsp in each madeleine pan well, bake at 375 degrees (preheated) for 10-12 minutes, do not flip, use a spoon AND a fork to take them out (fork to hold, spoon to scoop), rub darkened side on a plate of powdered sugar and place on another one to cool, put up in a plastic bag with a paper towel set in the bottom of it.

Did the French language lessons - then began to research the biryani spices and recipe variations some more.  I saw the difference between garam masala (which I have) and biryani masala (which I don't have), and figured I can probably use the entire research to just make something similar enough and find what I like.  That's the goal, really.

long day

We went out to help get groceries this morning with Grandma, and to get a few school things for Esme.  Then when we got home, I made a salad, and we turned around and headed out to the farmer's market to sell plants.  So, Esme and I have both had a long day. (above: Lyffan yesterday telling me she had a long day and would I just serve dinner already, please?)

I bought some fine egg noodles and some brown jasmine rice while we were at the store - we had plenty of time to look at the ethnic foods and discuss things.  I used to really like to make some Chinese noodles that were a bit like this with simple olive oil, soy sauce and black pepper on them - we'll see if they taste anything like that.  I had read a recipe for biryani rice (an Indian dish) the other day but hadn't felt like it was really something I could make (yogurt in it, and I tend to not keep it because when I do, I always worry it is going to go 'off').  This rice was on clearance, so I decided to try it.  I'll read up a bit more now that I have some of the rice.  Esme pointed out some dinosaur-bone brownie mix and said she was imaging a birthday party that was all archaeology themed - too bad she doesn't like chocolate that much.  She reminded me she did like hazelnuts, but everything that had hazelnuts also seemed to have chocolate in it.

Not much else to report - working on a few more crochet tote bags, bought a little more yarn for dishcloths, playing my game Stardew Valley some more and working towards some of the new update things, like the fish smoker, which I finally got last night, and the greenhouse (which is a community center reward), also finally got last night.  I did some Hungarian and Japanese today on Duolingo.

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

of triangular cats

 Loki happened to be walking through the kitchen when I was taking other pictures tonight, and I caught one in focus of him.  I had found a spiral 'geometric resonance' shape the other week and tried to capture a picture of it for Mark - and he worked with his 3D printer and made me something similar to it as a drink coaster.  For the record, Loki says he is not a triangular cat - but, look at those whiskers!

Mark said he knew there was a name for that shape - and I jokingly said 'big guitar pick' - which Esme had agreed with was the shape /ha but he went a bit further and found that the outside rounded triangle shape is called a Reuleaux triangle.  It is very artistic - and he created it from mathematical equations, not the picture I had sent him.

Did a longer route today - I was only scheduled for the small one, but they called me after 6 last night and asked me to do it.  I had already strained my wrist picking up too many heavy things one-handed, but was able to baby it enough today that it feels better now than it did last night, even after doing that route (which was long, but luckily not as package heavy as my usual one).  I have the small route tomorrow, again. We made a good dinner, but we'll have to go grocery shopping tomorrow as we are out of so many things.  These long work weekends get tough! 

I worked on Spanish, Japanese and French today - and touched on Hungarian for a few minutes just because it has been forever since I looked at it.  I truly had forgotten so many words in it.

engres cau'r ça va

/philosophy post/ I find myself saying this little mantra to myself, and others, even without knowing the true provenance of it, when I'm just trying to get over the hump between now and 'a little ways from now'... was talking with Mark about that, I've gotten so much better on the postal route with the 'encapsulation of useful time'... I'm not wasting time, I'm getting paid and doing a necessary job, but still, it often feels like I'm just pouring the time into a bottle, corking it, and setting it on a shelf to look at but nothing really 'happened' during that time.  I delivered mail, another day, and I'm tired again.  

engres cau'r ça va 

It's hard enough, but it's okay.  / We've closed the hard thing up, and it's okay.  

après ci ca va

after this, it's really okay

aux troussé / à ses trousses 

It's on my heels, I'm being chased by it

Assez quoi! / Quoi?  / A ne se très se quoi / je ne sais quoi

Enough already / What is it? / It doesn't matter a bit / I don't know what it is

 

Some of that feeling, I've come to realize, isn't all anxiety, some of it is my ADHD.  And I'm using my own brain against myself (in a way) to keep myself on the task at hand, and since that is a huge effort, it feels like anxiety, but it IS getting the job done.  And I'm getting better at it.  But the 'extra tired' also comes with that territory, of doing the task and also doing the task of keeping myself on the task.

In the past, when I first started doing mail, there was so much more to worry about overall that I would actually feel mini anxiety panic attacks - because there was so much to worry about, and I was here pouring time into this task and trying to make it make everything else okay, eventually.. finances, life, goals, ultimate understanding etc etc.. I let my brain spread out too thin and didn't keep it on task - and then when I was finished with the route I STILL had all the regular worry waiting at the end of the 'string' of time.  I would spread it all out all day long like a huge four dimensional matrix in my head and look at all of the red flashing lights and then turn myself into a ball of stress.

It took a long time to hold my feelings in my hand, separate them down into their elements and look at them and not feel that domino-effect cascade of panic with it - and not have that panic come and take me over at the end of the day or whenever something else went wrong later.  That's a lot like the kids who sit still all day and then have a meltdown at the end... but all this time it was just masquerading as something else in me.  But also, the answer to it was in me - I just had to look at it for what it was telling me, so I knew what I needed to respond with.

So sometimes I have to take myself by the lapels (figuratively), and go through the paces:  I am one creature, at one sequential time, that this sequence has a beginning, and an end, and is moving at a set pace that I cannot change much.  The only thing that will make this feeling better is to continue along this time-string doing this task until it is done. (small breaks can help sometimes, but that's also a bad habit - it's like stopping while climbing a rope, you're still hanging there, and getting through to where you can put your feet down is so much better)  So, I'm doing this, and will continue to do this until it is done.   Because it is a task that does need to be done, and I'm the one here to do it.  And then, later, we will think about the other million things.   THEN I can let it overwhelm my timestream and matrices like a Rubik's Cube and work like an overactive pinball machine trying to make sense of this Universe.  But not while we're doing this NOW... and yes, somehow, that still feels a lot like anxiety, but a different color.  And treating it just as 'I have anxiety and worries' never helped before, like having this reminder about time does when I know it is this.

 

an attempt at what it feels like, to be stuck doing the one thing, but your brain continues to bounce while you try to hold it to the one orange line that is the shortest distance between the two points, it is naturally wanting to be a quantum particle anywhere at all within the triangle 

languages : I did mostly French, Japanese and Russian today with just a touch of Finnish to see if I still remembered the words.  I also did the 'minimum' on both profiles (about 50 xp) and we'll see how much time I have tomorrow.

friday bits

 

We had been out to the farmer's market last night, and then I had a small route to run this morning.  I woke up way too early for it *puff air up forehead*  So I would like to get myself to sleep earlier tonight for the larger route tomorrow, but so far I've gotten up and strung the warp (above) and haven't achieved laying down to try to sleep yet.  I haven't done anything on the blue weaving for a little while - and I didn't add anything else to this but the warp because I want to save my hands for tomorrow.

Last night at the farmer's market I had gotten some peppers that weren't quite 'sweet' and weren't entirely hot - but my fingers stung a little for three hours after chopping them up.  So I made sure to get some sweet peppers to cut up today to mix in with them in food to counteract. 

When I got home from that route, I chopped the vegetables and kielbasa I had bought and put them away in the freezer for quick dinner stuff.  I took care of the garden, then since it was way too early for Mark and Esme to have dinner - and they had just finished making cashew butter fudge, I made my own beans and rice dinner at 3 pm.  They made a larger dinner later, at 'regular' dinner time. 

Did finish the 'smurf blue' bag just a few minutes into starting the market yesterday, and started another one.  I've been thinking about other things to make to bring to the market - dishcloths and potholders and so forth...   I've been thinking of what to do with the cone of cotton yarn I bought and looking at ideas on Pinterest for different textures and designs.  I like some of the fancy things I see but they aren't practical things, wall hangings and such - and for sale as art is one thing, but for myself I like it to be something with a purpose and something that can be washed and used.  Most of what we are selling lately is plants - begonia and coleus, and a few 3D printed things Mark has made.

I did French, and Spanish, and Danish today, and played a bit more on the farming game to get it into the Winter months, and start being able to have cows, make cheese and so forth.  

Mark caught Loki sleeping in the downstairs bathroom sink - and asked me to sneak up on him with the camera.  But, he heard me coming!  I had posted that he is our 'Batman' because of the little double cloak shape that is on the back of his neck.

bits of smurf, plants and rocks

 

 

I didn't even sleep until 5:30 this morning.. and I can't say it was a specific dog or chicken noise... it just was, and it was morning, and I was awake.  It was 5:23 and I turned off my 5:30 alarm.  And then I puttered around until 8:30 to feed the chickens!

I made curry rice and egg, and drank two pots of coffee (12 cuppers), and potted two houseplants, took pictures, and did the dishes, and some laundry, watered the gardens and worked on this bag, and French, and Danish, and Russian.  I still need to do something on my mobile Duolingo.  I looked at art supplies, and yarn, and plants online, and a few other things.  It just makes me want to use what I have all the more... although some Italian sketchbook paper did catch my eye enough.  The paper I currently have is so bright white that sometimes it annoys me.

begonia plants

the begonia cuttings we had ordered came, after being lost for TWO days in the mail (misdelivered) and we were a bit unhappy, not with the seller, but I told her we'd give them every chance we could and if they don't bounce back she said to let her know.  This was the picture Mark took right after he opened it.  When I came home after work Esme said 'That package finally was delivered, although it didn't turn out well...'   She and Mark put them in pots and in the room with the other begonias and we can see if they do anything.

 

 

apparently, I'm a penguin

I have rocks in my pockets, my wallet, my purse, on my desks, and in numerous dishes and drawers...

Amanita type mushroom (poisonous, of course)

I succeeded at making a 'dog joke' today, when I told Charlotte not to eat that, just because I was taking a picture of it.  She 'said' to Daphne beside her something on the order of 'sheesh, humans / can you believe she said that?'  and Daphne must have 'said' something that I didn't catch entirely as she was looking the other way towards Charlotte - and then Charlotte 'said' 'LOL oh you made a joke!' to me.  

  

spider plant

 I checked the umbrella plant - it's almost ready, but not quite.  The roots are just beginning to be tiny hairs on it, and I need to change it's water and hope it gets some good light for another few days.  BUT - as I was doing that, there were several little spider plant babies (this is one, just one! - and then I put two smaller ones in another pot together) that had fallen down behind the shelf and I clipped them and gave them pots.

bit of fried rice

 Lots of errand running today, to Esme's school, and feed store, and grocery store et al et al...  and I work tomorrow

I have been getting a bit more sleep in the mornings, but Esme's school had texted about something needing to be picked up for all students this morning while I was still trying to sleep, then texted again, and again.. with updates to the info.  So, I pulled myself out of bed long before the alarm I had set.  And THEN- when we got there, apparently I had missed the part of one of the texts where it said 'after two o'clock', and it was noon.  *sigh*.. luckily we had other things to do as well but it required a roundabout trip back there later to get it all done.

Once we were finally and actually home, I could do laundry, and make dinner, and other things.  Esme had to fight a broody hen for the eggs.  I picked up all the rugs and put them in the wash, and then Charlotte gave me such moon-eyes and looking at the one clean one on the shelf that I gave it to her - and she immediately thanked me and curled up on it, even though her whole body didn't fit on it, it was primarily nose and paws buried in it and the rest of it shoved up under her chest.  Ten minutes later, without Mark knowing that I had given this rug to Charlotte, Sweetie asked him for 'her rug' that is usually in the kitchen and he came and told me about her 'bee dance' that she needed one for her cold butt.  I had to laugh, and told him I was currently upstairs drawing this sketch about giving Charlotte one!

I guess I do need to finish crocheting that other big one so I will have more than one spare.  I thought one spare was doing good!

Cleared out leftovers in the fridge - and used some of the still good things to make fried rice.

olive oil

frozen peppers, frozen green onions

prepared ground beef we were going to put some on a pizza

seasoning salt, soy sauce, water

raised all that to a sizzling, added some of the rice with white sesame seeds I've been making up and using in the fridge

porkchop seasoning (ginger, sugar, garlic, paprika, and a few other things, we make a big batch and then use it up)

one egg at the very end

That was some pretty good fried rice!

 

We had banana and cherry and ice cream for dessert a few hours later - which we hardly ever make a dessert.   Mark asked if it was a banana unsplit, since I had chopped the bananas.  I told him it was a kind of Sundae.  He said, what a Sunday on Tuesday?

I did some Spanish today, very little French, a couple rounds of Latvian vocabulary, a little Cyrillic children's book reading, I'm still at the 'I know that word is Dog, and that word is Milk' etc etc... stage, much like I am with Japanese - but I am recognizing more and more.  I saw the word Animal and Bird today and knew them by sight.  Will have to do something on my phone, have alternated between a lot of Portuguese and some Spanish on there lately, sometimes a bit of Russian.

I had ordered a bright purple begonia cutting for Mark to start propagating for next season - and the post office (not the one I work at, but the zip code I actually live in) has delivered it to the wrong house.  It was marked delivered here yesterday but the postmaster over there checked the GPS and said it was obviously elsewhere, and would have to be retrieved and then brought out here.  With it being a live plant, I hope they do find it tomorrow, deliver it, and it isn't dead.

I added a couple of cartoon animals to that accordion sheet of paper I was working on. 

Sketch

 

A digital sketch of mine.  My husband said he liked what I did with the turkey birds, it took him a couple of times seeing it and saying 'what is it about that' to realize it was mine and not just something I had shared on from another artist... he said I should do some more of those.  Although this one is a bit more contrived (the birds fell together as I was playing with shapes, and this one I planned to make some sort of dog or fox-shaped thing) it brings through a bit of the same style.  

 

I am still working on putting my head back together from this weekend - that sort of throw the ball back and forth between 'past stress' and 'calm moment' and 'future worry' that I know is an inherent part of being me.  Onward, through etc.. all that.  I've done some French and Russian, Spanish and Portuguese today.  I feel like I want to take on something a little bigger after finishing that A1 Russian course.  But I'm not sure what, and I've been quite tired in between things I really needed to do, so I've taken ambitious things only as they come.  

(I remind myself that I'm always doing better than Marco Fogg lying on the floor of his apartment staring at the Moon Palace sign, I wouldn't read that book again, but it gives me hope that I was screaming 'idiot' at that guy and his choices and that it still comes up in the back of my brain among the 'you've seen worse examples' column of the matrix)

 

I have to work again on Wednesday, and Mark would like for us to go to the farmer's market and sell things tonight.  I took the truck out to return the loaner battery and get some grocery items, and brought it home- it seemed to work fine on the battery that (Esme and I) installed.

 

 This is one of the things I was taking up time with while waiting for the mechanic the other night - the other one is just a huge tangle of bird and mask stuff in ink on white paper like I did in the past - I need to find some new textures to draw, perhaps.  It might be a good time to go look through all the magazines I still have and then draw another one of those afterwards.  My brain picks up patterns and themes that I don't even realize until I begin to draw.. and I love that about it, but it's also like shaking a Magic 8 ball.  

Kick self :  Olive oil, and milk, and cheese.  I know I use them, and I tell myself to use them up, and then I can buy more, but the instincts of my mother's household take hold and I start conserving them to the last teaspoonful... which actually doesn't help me, because I still need to buy more of them, and I can't really make anything useful, and sometimes even they go bad before they're actually used usefully.   Writing this here is a sort of sonar blip that I will remember I said this about them, and maybe work better at that, it's like walking by that hose in the hallway that I meant to install outside over and over, and then Esme said something about it, and when it was connected to her voice echoing as I passed by it, I did something about it.

 

 

 

 

bits of nothing much

Well, Friday was a bit frustrating, but it ended well.  Our mechanic brought the mail vehicle to us around midnight, and a loaner battery for us to get the other truck to town to have a new battery installed in it at our convenience.  And I got to work on Saturday.  Because I hadn't known if I would have a vehicle working, I didn't volunteer for Sunday and here I am, with a Sunday off.

And I'm playing a game - Stardew Valley, that has had a new update and Esme has been playing it for a while and chatting with me about little bits here and there.  I'm playing it in French, and trying to read the wiki in French as well and with lots of new things, that is a learning experience.  You see lots of words that you normally wouldn't - and wonder if they are just translation oddities or if that is the way it would actually translate to French.

my new farm and house have a long way to go, but I spent some time on it already.  Some new crops are carrots, summer squash (yellow) and broccoli.  And there are some very strange new events, like 'Green Rain', in which large fiddlehead ferns grow as tall as trees and moss grows on everything.  You'll also find Demetrius (the local scientist) outside his house in a Hazmat suit doing experiments.

Those are 'tomates marinées' (marinated tomatoes) and I just since those pictures got my little chicken coop with two chickens.  

I've been to my studio table the other day, while I waited anxiously for the mechanic to arrive... and just messed around a little with pens and then with paint.  With finishing the one language course, and feeling generally stressed - I've been doing French on both Duolingos.  However, because of algorithms, that doesn't stop my FB and emails and ads from showing up in everything from German to Greek.  I still find that hilarious.

 

Yes, there are a million other things I could be doing other than playing a game.  My brain reminds me of that every other ten minutes or so.  And yet.  //fall on floor in starfish formation (yoga, ADHD stuff)  Yes, it's been a hard week. 

3pm //we've gotten the new battery... it'll be a family effort to install it

bits of surrealism

a sketch : Turkey Mama and her Chicks

I couldn't convince myself to get into paints or pencils last night, even though I've been sort of 'itching' to - I can't get over the hump of spreading out even more things, among the things I've put away and those I haven't yet ... and doing messy work that takes physical time, and then putting it away or leaving it out - having yet another physical thing that no one else will ever see except maybe here etc etc... even though the urge to create is really really strong -- I understand most of our society's response to such a creative SPLAT as I used to make daily was : 'Do you ever sleep?  What do you do with all of that?' and those are both valid and further confusing questions

it's an ongoing existential crisis thing and I feel like I deal with it pretty well considering the absolute event-horizon space-warp thing that goes on in my head all the time.  I've worked hard to 'slow my clockrate' as Mark calls it - we're both 'high clockrate' people in his terms, but it's all mental work and sometimes especially after waking up from dreaming, it feels a bit futile and like I really SHOULD race around doing eighteen things, and then I remind myself that I'm only human and it's impossible to do everything at once, no matter how much coffee you drink.  It all feels so surreal, finite vs. infinite, NOW time vs. all other time.

 

So part of my coping with the exact difficulty of 'create--don't create' at the moment is reminding myself I can open my graphic processor, which is not very technically advanced, use it to choose colors and put some things down like a digital etch-a-sketch and just because I don't want to go to my studio table or art easel, it doesn't mean I have to choke that urge down to put an image 'out' of my brain, or play with the process, like the turkey mama and her chicks above.

 

 

and I can try to urge myself to finish other things I've started

pulled this off the little loom and finished it up  

It has a button closure underneath there and is big enough for a pair of glasses, a checkbook or several pens

It's 8 am.  I stayed up until 10 last night (didn't even make nine the night before) and was up only once with a dog, and then slept until 6:30 am.  

Finished the A1 Russian course.  I'll keep going on Duolingo now as I had sort of held off of it and done the other languages because I was guaranteed to get some practice every day doing that.  I feel I can read Cyrillic a lot better than when I started that - which was a goal for Bulgarian learning.  The Bulgarian site sends me a word of the day every day, written in Cyrillic, and I've been able to pronounce it from the word quite a bit better before clicking it to go to the page with the translation, trans-literation and pronunciation audio clip.

did a smattering of Greek, Danish, Spanish and French, will do something on my phone later

started another crochet tote bag to make during television time, it's smurf blue

have to call the mechanic later today (he didn't respond yesterday but I only called him once) and see if he has ordered the parts for the truck.  Work Saturday - of course that is still a worry about getting home, but what can I do about it other than call the mechanic today, which has to happen a little later.  I'm feeling lately like Samuel Beckett just before the Quantum Leap... like I have way too much energy but if I begin to expend it instead of save it for the things I need to do, I will fall to exhaustion instead.  So it's a bit like having your physical body on a leash while the brain is a bouncing puppy.  And yet - I don't want to get into other huge things either, because I can't sustain them.

Baking might help.

Watching a bee gathering nectar in the clover, while watering the garden and filling the chicken dishes, helped a little, too.

Made breakfast, egg and cheese on toast.  Set out a stick of butter from the freezer to thaw to make something with later.

Made cinnamon rolls, with just a glance at a recipe and hardly any measuring (the butter was pre-measured, because it comes in a stick) - they turned out pretty good, at least, while hot and with coffee.  Sometimes these things get hard as a rock when they cool down - will look at that.  I can see why some people use cream cheese in this type of recipe, and perhaps with more flour and something like that I could roll the dough even thinner on the parchment paper and still get it back up without it becoming lace.  It's been years since I even tried to make them from scratch, coffee cake used to be my goto because it didn't require the rolling.

sleep schedule, snails, and pancakes

 I'm thinking back to that big storm we had where the dogs had me up three times during the night, and then all the postal route, and trying hard not to fall asleep when I got home, but still going to bed 'too early', ending up waking in the middle of the night anyway...  I tried really hard not to go to bed too early last night, and still was up for a few hours around midnight.

 

My husband made this 3D model (and the pencil cups, and the extra large paper clip, as well) and here it is in action.  It is Deco Desk Snail at printables.

 

desk snail and Extra Large Paper Clips

 

Pancakes, to use up a bit more of my blackberry syrup

Esme was still asleep, and Mark doesn't eat breakfast

but the dogs were very happy I made food, as they usually get some

Mark assisted some with helping me figure out the cord routing on my television up here - so it works again.  It turned out to be one loose plug in the back of it.  It gets no reception, but I can see the collection he has downstairs and pick from it - which I can do from my computer, as well, but it's not as comfortable to knit in the desk chair as it is in the bed.  Then we got Esme a game on Steam I'd been looking at, but didn't think it would work on my computer.  He asked why - and I have been having driver issues with two of the other games I did used to play.  

So, based on his 'you shouldn't be having problems' *sigh* I went and looked up the error codes and found the right commands to put in the user interfaces and finally, yes, got both of those games running.  I don't really play games that often, though.  I've been tuning in to Stardew Valley a bit more since their update, just to see the new crops and because I find catching all the fish a worthwhile challenge while juggling all the crops and animals every day.  I'm also playing it in French.  One of the first things I asked Esme about the new game was 'Can you play it in Spanish?' since she starts Spanish class next month in school.  I hear Mark let out a huge guffaw from the other room that was one of my first questions about it.  I went and found a tutorial on how to change the language (from the Options screen, under the Play, then pick español)

If we hadn't had that strange issue with the truck yesterday (I put it back on the charger down here, but it is likely to need a new alternator) these next two days, today and tomorrow, would have been nice and restful.  I felt like I was on a good roll, except for the sleep thing - which can only work out with time and mindfulness about it.  

Hoping Saturday will not be an issue, or the mechanic will finish up the last bits on my mail truck and it will be driveable while he replaces this part.  If we can get it started with the charger here it can get to work for me - (getting home is maybe need a jump, maybe it will start, and no stops on the way home etc.) or definitely get us down to the mechanic to exchange vehicles.  Not a worry I wanted on my brain but as I told Esme sort of it's not one thing it's another and you just have to figure out how to work with every item as it comes up.  She was a big help yesterday walking some of the cords and things up with me to the vehicle, which was a ways up the driveway and around the corner and almost in Grandma's yard.  Then she learned how to test the voltages, and how to untangle the extension cords, and how to hook the charger to the vehicle, how to take it back off, and what the required voltages were that we were testing for.  She said she enjoyed getting some more car knowledge.

 

Duolingo: did Welsh, French, Spanish, Greek, Danish (one round each) and Portuguese (mobile, full 50xp) , then put a border on and tied up this dishcloth

 

It's 9:30 am... off to do my rounds on two Duolingo profiles (computer and phone) and decide when to do the Russian program, tie up the dishcloths and weavings that I had made the past few days.. garden, clean up my art supplies desk perhaps, but probably also get sucked into Stardew Valley again for a bit as I planted a bunch of summer squash seeds (courge d'été in French) and that is a new crop.  In my real garden I was going to start putting to rights those back two beds that I couldn't use before the long garden hose was bought.  But, that was yesterday, before the truck issue took up the entire afternoon.  I don't know how much I'll get to, or if we are going to try to do anything with the vehicle this afternoon, either.