Tourne à droite et textiles

 

 

I was thinking on textiles again last night, and working a bit on the navy item above - and then started another small pouch one and got it almost all the way to done, in comparison, the one above isn't too much wider but the density of the weave is much much tighter.  I have that bigger rug to finish in orange and grey (crochet, acrylic scraps), and I keep saying to myself I need to make new kitchen dishcloths (knit in cotton) again.  And this is another reason I feel I don't have enough time to make a lot of things to sell at the markets right now... or in September even, as I barely make time to make the things I want to use in my home, but I'm trying to make time for that, at least.

It's going to be very very hot today, especially if it does not rain.  So, I watered the garden in the early morning and just went out and got some vegetables and milk and bread etc. this morning - and then retreated back into the cool house.  I've done a little bit of language exercise - and we were trying to get some pictures of the tile set Mark has made for my Czech spelling.

 jam, carrot, seven, hoe, tiger, dishwasher, wing, wave, claws, garage, frog, apple, cheese, straw, barn, wire

Hey, I remember them all, too!

/yawn

I really liked that 'plateau' last night that I felt, for at least that moment, that I was doing about the best I could for the day and I had done a LOT.. four loads of laundry, dishes twice, cooking, languages, gardening... and then I took time with music and that green and navy weaving until I was tired enough to sleep.

I did Greek and even Japanese this morning, but as you can see by the title. the French review is on my mind.  I should listen to some radio or podcast or something...after I do the Russian lesson.  I also still need to cook my eggplant lunch, since I settled for using up leftovers last night - the last bit of our pork barbeque leftover from last week, refried with peppers and tomato on a few pancakes and with peaches on the side- which was a huge dinner but Esme ate it with me.  

 

I had read something about the heat-related thing that my inner knee, just to the left/right of the kneecap on the inside, does swelling when it's hot, and the veins popping out there (but nowhere else, my weird body *sigh* probably harder for people with Ehlers Danlos syndrome and hEDS in general, as I'm reading up on it now) and realized I hadn't been getting or eating bananas lately because of the heat and how they don't keep so well then - and that bananas, and peaches, and making sure you are drinking enough fluids (I never drink enough normally, even when it's NOT hot, I have this thing about the pH of water and choking on it, so I drink mostly coffee and very specific liquids I have come to tolerate, like the kool-aid/tea mixture I bring cold in my thermos) and not sitting putting hard pressure on your legs all day long is the key to all of that -- I have only had trouble the past two years in the hottest part of the year with it - and it was odd I hadn't connected the bananas <--> hottest part of the year bit, but yes, I tend to stave off them for a month or two there, and I need to stop doing that and buy one or two and stick them in the fridge and make sure I eat them...  they turn black on the outside in the fridge, but a day or two they're still good to eat plain, and anything beyond that they can still be baked with

 

with tomorrow a holiday, and then work the next two days after that - I expect the variety to fall off... we'll see what happens.  I'm glad I got what I consider some of the harder languages in today.  I need to keep up with the Japanese it can get so easy sometimes to just let the words 'fall to pieces' in the hiragana and be staring at it trying to guess instead of decode and remember... but for not having done it for several months I still did good - one or two errors, and a good refresher on vocabulary.  In Greek I consistently got 'seventeen' wrong *smack forehead*.. guess there's a gap there and I've got to write it out a couple of times (along with several other words, to reinforce the differences)

 

Sauce Recipe for Eggplant :

light olive oil, water, balsamic vinegar - set in pan to heat

add 1.5 tablespoons to 2 tablespoons brown sugar (not packed)

stir while adding 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, and a large squeeze of lime juice

once heated, add about 1/4 tsp of less of garlic powder (Mark says I always put in more garlic than other people can survive next to *ha*) or however much minced garlic you want 

taste, and adjust ingredients if needed - there is a taste right in the middle of everything balanced that is SO good - for stronger sauce, less water at the beginning, but you'll have to watch the soy sauce and oil with the sugar closer as well

This same sauce is really good on kale - wash the kale, make the sauce, and then put the kale in the pan with the sauce and place a cover on it, steaming the kale in the sauce.  Maybe add some red peppers to that and it would be amazing.

I baked five small thai eggplants in some sauce at 350 degrees while I made other things - but putting them in the recipe below makes their skins less hard

What I made Esme tonight : 

light olive oil

1 large tomato cut up

a good handful of frozen onion

a handful of frozen kielbasa pieces

three kinds of frozen peppers (orange, yellow and green banana peppers)

some sauce from above PLUS some smoked paprika

I served that to her beside some of the chicken rice she likes and peaches from the last of the big can we had opened up a few days ago.  I put several strips of eggplant and some extra sauce on my plate with a bit of aged white cheddar on each piece.  It doesn't look great, and it's a bit slimy, but it tasted pretty good anyway.  I never get even that good of a result from trying to cook the large 'regular' eggplants - the long skinny ones seem to be the best fit for me.  Although, I'd like to get more eggplant after another week or so and make it in the recipe to get it written down better.

kick me in the pants - err.. I need to get some things done this weekend, including pants

Esme has been asking me two weeks now where her gold pants and blue shirt are - not in a mean way, which is good.. but I haven't gotten to them.  I know that means she wears one of two or three coordinating items each week for Blue and Gold day....  And I've had days off - we've just been focusing on other things, like her behavior, reading and math.  I have the blue and gold fabric ready to lay out.  But, the chair I was making for her is also taking up the table and I haven't dove back into it yet.  I also promised a playground trip and 'fun things' this weekend if she brings home a moderately good report 5-10 minute timeouts per day etc.. I think she is there - and I will take her out and spend time with her regardless. 

She is making so much progress.  Her words still turn inside-out sometimes and she will pick the wrong one and not even notice it still.  Sometimes she corrects herself, other times I have to choose if it is a good time to correct her.   She is also picking up lots of other phrases from school she wouldn't get at home, and trying to use them, and when I ask her about a word I am not sure she knows she often gives me a good definition of it.  We talked about 'obstacle' the other day and 'reception' today.  We've been talking about 'the rest of'', 'since' and the topic of verbs vs. nouns and nouns becoming verbs vice-versa. She keeps surprising me, which is excellent.

This is also the weekend before the 'full week on', so if I don't accomplish some things in the next few days it will have to wait a long time to get a moment.

I have been wrapping my brain around the math course I am taking online and I think it is coming along very well - it is not for credit - although it could be if I arranged to get into one of the study groups and really participate... with clothes to make and work and other homeworks, I think my efforts are pretty good. 

bit

We had an eventful morning.. try again for the zoo on another day.  Mark demonstrated his excellent road skills and made me aware I need to practice them more, too.  Esme is up at Grandma's house and I went out to the garden to weed corn and mark some plants to *especially* save seed from later...  I should finish the second pair of pants I abandoned halfway through last night.  My right hand is green as grass and probably will be quite sore later tonight... and my shoulders will be glowing with sunburn.

Tomorrow is 5:30 am sunrise - I checked... and contemplated more in the garden while I was down in the corn pulling grass, on places I have been over time, and the memory of being at the experiment station down in the corn and pumpkins weeding and stealing shade in the plant rows in the middle of the afternoon....cold water evaporating on skin that was beginning to speak of sunburn and dust sticking up to the elbows in the splatter pattern, the smell of grass and roots and the sound of water gurgling down into holes that are invisible to the eye..carrying water again and again over the land tracing the same steps lightly and carefully through the field while leaning lopsided to balance the bucket weight.  That is a muscle memory that still 'feels' the same even twenty years later...  I didn't quite appreciate it as much back then - when I was fourteen - but I do now, and the moments string forward to me across the years as I unwind a vine from this or seek the roots of a weed there...   I imagine living in an endless summer to just grow corn and pumpkins and beans all year long... and think about time travel being in actuality this specific skill - to pull a moment forward and 'mix' it across all the years and learn more from time in a 'stack' of moments year after year.   That is because this is how my memory works -- a moment is only a moment because you have done something in it that 'sticks' and it can pull you back to it time and again - a twisted stitch or stop in a seam, looking deeply and seeing light shining a certain way, unexpected discoveries, a word of advice that suddenly makes things clearer and purposeful...

This is the time of the year I am the most contemplative...my habit to be reflective and think about 'being' in general.  As I weeded I thought distinctly of the moment last year watching the sun rise over the Duluth cityscape, receiving a beautiful birthday text from Mark, but not liking where I was, who I was with or what I was faced with and feeling all of the buoys of my spirit, Mark, Esme, home... were far away from me.. they were somewhere, safe, .. but I wanted to get back to them and could not yet.  I remember pulling the jacket around me...feeling 'bare' as the other clothes we had worn were in the washing machine, seeing people stream by in vehicles as the morning just barely lightened, and being whistled at for being out on the street with a newspaper that early in the morning...    I am home this year and where I want to be - family safe, corn in the garden growing, sewing on the table in the house... and time in time, to feel the sun rise up and turn.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

//In Other News//  :  The Cherokee White Eagle corn is almost as tall as the Glass Gem corn, although they were planted two weeks apart.  The Peaches and Cream Sweet Corn is tasseling and silking.. while the Mandan Bride mixed Indian corn is tasselling at half the height and no silks yet to be seen.  The Japonica corn (planetd just after the Glass Gem) is just as tall as the Smoke Signals corn... and the Pink Hopi Corn is hanging on in the very back of the garden.  I should have kept better records on it all - but tied some orange tags around some stalks to indicate that I think they are doing better than their peers and I should save their seed for next year. 

The pea crop is excellent - our first in many years, maybe ever for me, that has produced 'food'... I did not keep them separate either, the Mammoth Melting sweet peas seem to be the ones that are dying off now and the Wando Peas are the ones that are just starting to go gonza... the Bosnian Bean is starting to put on beans and is wandering as high as it can - over six feet.  Shackamaxon beans starting to climb, the King of the Early have flowers on them already.. lots of green tomatoes getting ready, cucumbers.. the zucchini family is not doing very well out there - very little produce but there is some.

bit

Another early day off to work, still not sleeping extremely well but Mark let me crash early and put Esme to bed again. I hope today will get over the rainyness.. Just received a text that someone I worked with passed in the night, an older gentleman. Very sad, I'll be thinking about his family. Made Esme a pair of pants last night and she was in a better mood, right up until I had to crash.