Sunday morning with snow and coffee

Since Gary's tree went down in the last storm, my view opened up. Snowy Sunday with coffee and banana bread 

I finished the bergamot boxes, leaving the inside unpainted to keep the lovely citrus scent, and the tops actually fit quite snugly 

And here they are in a mini gallery 

Today's deed is to finally repair a few rips in the pillows I made several years ago, in a summer frenzy of English paper piecing and patchwork, using batiks, silk, and designer fabric scraps. 

I also converted some dyed beaded and stitched wall hangings into pillows. And the knitted pillows I made for use in the car have come to join them.

They've all had wear and tear from visitor handling, so there's a bit here and there needing a stitch. Invisible repair this time,  they're busy enough without more decoration.

The spicy banana bread is very good on the second day, for breakfast with coffee.

Happy day everyone, enjoy something, what ever you can.  

If Minnesotans can do fun costume runs down the slopes, we can certainly find fun somewhere.

And we can resist AI. AI is theft.

Shoveling light rain, banana bread, clothes wash

The forecast was for light rain. Then

11am 

Noon

Still going. Local police now advising inches of snow, roads are slippery, many collisions reported. Shoveling in progress.

 Meanwhile I had stuff to do 

The makings for banana bread. See the cacao nibs, Wilma? 

And, not to be confused, the makings for laundry soap

The Windex jug is empty,  just a handy gallon container for the mixture. The little wrapped thing next to the funnel is the last of the castile soap, to be grated in.  I don't add scents or color or anything, just a simple mixture. 

And later, after a strengthening cheese and tomato sandwich, here's the rest of the story.

The laundry soap needs 24 hours to cure, the banana bread a few minutes to cool.

In the cooling process I turned the loaf out onto a rack, and made handy discovery.

The rack made handy cutting marks for slicing. How clever.

The knitting is moving along 

The boxes are coming along, one repair almost done. Reveal tomorrow.

Then the plan is a pot of tea, cake and a murderer mystery under a knitted blanket.

Happy day everyone, it's okay to cut straight to the tea and cake, if you're not as driven as some of us.

 

Boxes, cabbages and dogs

I rasped the edges of the bergamot bits, then painted one set in light bronze, one in gold. I didn't smooth the main areas, because I wanted a beaten metal effect. 

The blob you see on the paint tray will dry and I'll peel it off to use in another artwork, maybe part of a box. 

I like how this turned out. Since they will be boxes this time, I left the peel inside unpainted so the smell would remain. The right hand gold piece needs more repair, so after the paint is dry, I'll glue it. Wabi sabi. 

And I was up very early this morning so I did a bit of cooking. To wit: roast cabbage with spices and a nice spicy yogurt-based dressing.

Since it was only mid morning when this was cooked, I just did a cook's privilege sample taste and liked this a lot.   

This can be a side dish with chicken or to spicy plant "sausage".  It's certainly more interesting than cabbage usually is.

Once it got light -- yes, this is not coming at you in chron order -- I broke down and tied up a couple of boxes, and took them to the recycle. On the way I stopped to leave the empty container from my neighbor's soup on her step, now holding a helping of chocolate almonds. Never return a container empty!  Her email when she picked it up seems to be happy.

And between all these varied activities, I finished reading the latest book in the Andy Carpenter series of lawyer detective mysteries.  

At this point I think I could write these myself, so formulaic,  but they're still fun to read. This one is set at the beginning of his defense career and features his meeting his soulmate dog Tara, and his new investigator, Laurie, later to be, oh, sorry no spoilers. 

Later today online chat with friends, meanwhile I sent yet another message to Gov Murphy to get crackin and sign the newly passed immigrant protection bill. It's been on his desk five days. To be fair he had to present his final State of the State speech in the meantime, but he can still get signing.

Happy day everyone, enjoy what you can otherwise what are we fighting for?

Sez Ted and Big Ursy 

Activist post

Resistance anyone can do. Please help apply pressure. This is from the Chop Wood, Carry Water newsletter.

Ed note: my email to corporate was rejected. Maybe blocked or full box.

Strength, cardio and misfits

Thursday is misfit day, and I did a workout to get my strength up ready for the Big Lift. In fact I bring the food in bit by bit, so the big lift is usually the almost empty box with maybe a few apples in it.

April and Aiko again. I hadn't done resistance, the physical kind, that is, for a few days, just walking and stretches and dancing in the kitchen, so I was pretty feeble. I did get through it, strength, cardio, isometrics, not resorting to sitting.  Strength really melts away if you take too many days off.

Yesterday I donated a bag of food to the food pantry with the help of a ride from Gary, and he carried in the bag. I did have a little agenda here, because he's been talking about donating and hasn't been doing it. 

But once he saw how local the pantry is and how easy it was to donate, no bureaucracy, he was all fired up with ideas about cans he has in the house that he'll donate.  He tends to over buy, so he can do this.   And he has plans to buy for giving in future. That will be good.

On the way home he said his phone, yet again, was out of action. Until he could get it to the shop later that day, he couldn't get on with some urgent calls. 

So while his latest top of the line $$$ iPhone, carrier some big name,  was out of action, I lent him my cheap and cheerful $Motorola, carrier Tracfone, and he got caught up.  I was nice. I didn't gloat.

Today's haul, delivered by Jeff. Pure cane sugar, fair trade, for general use, red onions to dice and freeze because I'm out, yellow onions dittto, I use a lot of onions, ginger and garlic likewise, spinach to go in everything, more or less, canned goods for the food pantry, beautiful brown free range eggs. 

These are real eggs, that need a sharp rap on the counter to crack them, and have a deep yellow stand up yolk. I don't crack eggs on the side of the bowl since Jacques Pepin said it was a way to drive eggshell fragments into the egg. 

Blueberries to go with the yogurt, bread because I'm too bone idle to bake, chocolate almonds because everyone needs a little something now and then. Some to my neighbor across the street whose soup container needs to be returned. Never return a container empty!

Look at these beauties. Too big for the supermarket -- this is two pounds each of the onions. They're now more or less diced and frozen, and the red onion skins are in a jar of water to make a nice pink dye for some future purpose or other. 

Happy day everyone, do all the things, follow the Yorkshire saying: break eggs with a stick. Meaning plunge in, regardless.

Marigold looking down from the blanket in the sky saying look at that, still running about doing stuff, she hasn't learned a thing.

Daily activism, saving the landfill, bergamot boxes

Wednesday morning I realized voting is on soon for renewed funding for a lot of things including Homeland Security which contains ICE.  I messaged both senators to urge them to work to defund and abolish HS, ICE included.

The day's walk took me past this dumpster with useful stuff I don't need. 

I put it up on Freecycle with directions on how to find it. There are more items than you see, evidently someone unenlightened, moving out, who isn't considering the optics, or the options.

Tuesday  when I wrote my post I was a bit tired,  full day, and plenty of material already, so I postponed the usual account of the subjects the knitting group ranged over.

Catching up: growing cotton, using whistles, local charity shop, downed trees in storm, Christmas markets, gluhwein, poutine, pelvic floor health, Korean churches, spinning wheels, soft toys, cars, creative playthings, large boxes, artefact restoration, lost violins and more. 

And here's the bergamot boxes 

The one on the left cracked as I was taking it off the glass, but I can repair it when I do the finishing. These are more brittle than the lemons were. I can maybe match the outer ones as one box, the inner ones as another. There was a gust of scent when I took them off the glasses, lovely.

Happy day everyone, say all the things! She does anyway, sez Ted and Big Ursy