Monday miscellany

in which our plucky heroine attempts forward momentum...

I keep struggling to do more than just self maintenance, though at least I am managing that. I've several different commission works that must needs be done in the next week and mailed out. I have personal creative projects that are all languishing scattered around the house. I need some kind of company to keep me on track, but since that is impossible, let's see what I can get done this week, and with luck I can start the turn of the year with my creative self engaged and enlivened...

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~ surprise! ~

So very unexpected to see a large parcel leaning against the front door here at Acorn Cottage, since I didn't remember ordering anything... inside the big box was a sturdy double thickness rotary cutting mat from my wishlist, sensibly shipped flat rather than rolled up, so it will be immediately useable, and a very good addition to my sewing space. So far none of my assorted cohorts I've asked have admitted to this surprise, so I am still left wondering...

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well dang! Yesterday I finished the first I-cord border around the body of my future stripey sleeve cardigan. Then I tried it on and realised that somewhere in the process I miscalculated, and there is a significant gap, of about 4½" that needs filled in so that the center front will close. The only thing I can think of to do is to frog all the I-cord, and add front border panels. I feel right foolish for not checking the size against other garments I have made from the same pattern.

Still, there is no great hurry for the cardigan to be finished, so I can take some time and decide what will best be a pleasing and complementary texture or pattern for the center front, before finally completing the borders again...

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~ Advent Swap day 16, 17, 18 ~
. .

Three days of tiny gifts: Day 16 - a sparkly winter season charm, Day 17 - a small reminder, and Day 18 - a very small beaded trinket, which will either end up as a stitch marker for my knitting, or a tree decoration for the tinyfolk...

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Friday night I made gravy. I never make gravy, indeed I almost never ingest gravy, but there was all this tasty smelling stuff left in the pan after I roasted the roulade. So I thought "why not". I doubt that what I did was official gravy protocol, but it made quite a bit of something with a good flavor and texture, that will be a savory sauce for roasted veggies

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December SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	7 jars quince	kitchen plumbing	old plumbing
2	dried pears	heat pump installed	old furnace
3	dried persimmons	return vent vanes	high pitched whine
4	linen gauze privacy curtains	bedroom register	-
5	-	bike flat tire	-
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. gravy for my potatoes... it can be something tasty, unlike school lunch tray gravy...
2. surprise gifts warm my heart, reminding me I am not forgotten
3. Lupa just posted that the shampoo formerly made by Nature's Gate are now available under a different name by a different distributor: "iHerb"... I've sorely missed the Nature's Gate herbal shampoo ever since they went out of business several years ago; nothing else has such a pleasant scent... I am delighted that I may be able to return hair-washing days to something I can enjoy again. It will make an everyday task into a subtle treat again!

Time of Isolation - Day 1264

Friday figments and fragmenta

in which our plucky heroine notices something important...

I've been thinking about some core things, between all the usual chores. A few weeks ago friends and I were talking about life purpose, and mulling over what we each feel like we want to accomplish, not in an employment sense, but in the sense of our deeper selves. I found this a very challenging thing to examine. But recently, with the Advent swap, I was thinking about how in setting this up, gathering folks together and having people I know, and some I don't know, all want to participate, I have been feeling like I am making a difference.

The world seems so very troubled, and the issues so large, and I feel very helpless to have any effect at all. In this very small but real way, the Advent of A Better Year swap brings a modicum of creativity, connection, anticipation, and whimsy into being, not just for me, but for others as well.

Back when I was in the middle of my cancer treatment back in 2012, I was shopping at New Seasons the day before my first radiation treatment. My favorite cashier asked me, like they do, "how are you doing?" I told him that I was pretty scared about going into the radiation bunker the next day... he said "Don't you realise what that means?! Tomorrow is when you get your super power!!... what super power are you going to get?" Without even thinking twice, I told him that I was going to get the "Cheerfulness Ray", so I could zap people who were having a bad day and their day would immediately improve. He said that was the best super power he had ever heard of, because there was no way it could be used for evil purposes!

So, these things are all part and parcel of what I am here to be doing, and the Advent swap is a way I have been successfully using that Cheerfulness Ray in realtime and not just in my imagination

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~ fit test ~

This is how the shipping boxes will fit in my bicycle pannier basket(s), in preparation for a trip to the post office next week... I'll be able to fit most of them in the baskets, and the rest will have to ride in my daypack. I'll be offloading them into a big canvas tote when I get there, to carry everything inside to be sent on its way! (and for me to get tracking numbers for everyone...) Just checked the weather forecast for next week, and it seems so far to be mostly dry and in the low 50's during the day, so not too bad for riding my bike, which I try and do most days it isn't raining or snowing.

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Planning a nice dinner for next week, and parking the Useful Links here: turkey roulade (because this is the only time of year turkey thighs show up at the meat counter in the grocery store, candied quince (instead of cranberry, since it is equally vivid red, homegrown, and I like the flavor better), pan roasted sweet potato and minces (brussel sprouts)... I may add in a green salad, and possibly something special for dessert

about the turkey roulade; about how to bone a turkey thigh; and about using a buttermilk brine...

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I found the links to Whole Foods corporate and regional offices, and will be sending them a hardcopy letter regarding the incident on November 16th. Which was in direct contradiction to their stated "core values" as posted on their website

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I gave up on the current batch of quince paste. It just wasn't working out. Then I left the orange peel in syrup on the stove too long and it went from not ready to partially burned before I realised it. Today was not my day for confectionary. Fortunately I do have another orange, and I do have more quinces to play with, and this time I will stay hanging out in the kitchen with my current knitting project while the orange peel is on the stove, and I will try a different protocol for the quince paste... I've been successful at both of these in the past.

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November SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	6 jars quince jelly	glove thumb re-knit	yard waste bin
2	tiny tiger stripe dress	persimmon pruning	recycle bin
3	Elphinore brooch	steamer basket	imperfect cold packs
4	candied quince	shadowbox painted	recycle bin
5	x	-	-
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. the weather has been holding steadily dry enough that riding my bike is possible. Tomorrow I will see about moving the summertime plywood shield, that kept the plum tree safe, back into the carport for the winter.
2. My back hurts less than it did a week ago
3. I seem to have coordinated an activity, the Advent of a Better Year in 2024, which is congruent with my life purpose.

Time of Isolation - Day 1233

yet more Sunday snippets

in which our plucky heroine has a busy day...

and just in case there wasn't enough going on, for some unknown reason I decided that cooking up a double batch of Awesome Sauce this evening would be a good idea. Thinking it would be a grand idea to begin to use the last of last year's frozen tomatoes...

Not thinking about how it takes quite a while for it to cook down properly into a nice thick condiment. Not thinking about how even after it was the lovely sweet and savory and spicy delight, that I would then need to process all the various jars full. (I do have the jars, and the lids, and the rings, but still....) And how once begun, there is no option to put the whole process on hold and finish it tomorrow, nope, the maslin pan does not fit in the fridge, and I don't think I've suitable containers to put it in the freezer overnight, though that will be my next look around the kitchen cupboards, as I don't really want to stay up late enough to get this done, but I also don't want to waste all the effort so far... Tune in tomorrow to find out what happened...

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I gave a presentation online today: "Care Tasks are Morally Neutral, or, Good Enough Is Perfect" as an introduction to the concepts and suggestions in How to Keep House While Drowning. I think my talk was received well, as there was some good discussion and comments afterwards. Here is a Powells Books interview with the author KC Davis

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on why it is important to label freezer containers... I had intended to make egg drop soup for lunch, and yesterday took out what I thought was a tub full of broth to thaw in the fridge overnight. Nope, not broth, but applesauce! (I have no idea why I froze a container of applesauce, since usually that gets canned for pantry storage)

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~ so tasty ~

I might need to try making this recipe, as it seems very doable, and I have successfully made other kinds of steamed dumplings. I love soup dumplings, but eating out at XLB is a rare treat. Recipe makes 20 dumplings, so you will need 20 wrappers, and some water and a setup for steaming...

Soup

⅔ cup hot water
1 packet gelatin powder
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon chicken stock

Filling

5 oz ground pork
1 green onion, finely chopped
2 shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
½ inch piece ginger, peeled and grated
1 clove garlic, grated
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon sake

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Last night I fell asleep around 9. When I woke at around 2:20am and picked up my phone, I ended up texting with M, who was still awake. that the "nightlight" function on my phone (that I never used) is not a different way to use the phone for lighting. (I had thought it was like the "flashlight" function) I found out it changes the blue light colorway of the phone screen (which our brains think means "sunrise, time to be awake") to an overall "amber" hue, intended to tell our brain that "the sun is going down, time to go to sleep"... Old dog, new tricks; maybe this will help with my insomnia and sleep derangement.

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September SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	-	prune grapevine	yard waste bin
2	-	-	-
3	-	-	-
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. I gave a presentation today that went well, none of the dreadful things I feared happened, and my friends all said it was quite splendid.
2. the kitchen smells amazing, filled with the combination of tomato and garlic and ginger...
3. the more I allow my mind the option of thinking of alternatives, the more willing it is to do so.

Time of Isolation - Day 1164

the good, the bad, and the annoyingly messy

in which our plucky heroine had ups and downs...

Woke up early enough that I was able to get in a good long walk before the weather became opressively hot. Which was good, but even so, adding in the extra mile meant that by the time I got home again I was exhausted. Which was okay, because how else will I get stronger.

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~ printmaking progress ~

Day 18/100 - My idea of just going ahead with overprinting with a lighter grey seems to have worked, more or less... When I look at the print so far, which doesn't really look how I envisioned it before I began, I must keep reminding myself that this is very much an XP1 project, that I have never done this sort of thing before, and that there are a lot of variables inherent in this process.

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Last thing last night I opened the fridge, and out fell the plastic container full of cooked rice. Which burst open at my feet. The rice will go in the compost, and one important chore of today will be to wash the floor (I mean, I cleaned it up well enough at the time, but still...) and the other will be to cook up another batch of rice!

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I think that "How To Keep House While Drowning" is a very useful book. I am on my second listen to the audiobook, and have some different thoughts than I usually do about my situation.

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It is the time of year when the duvet gets put away, and lighter bedclothes take its place. One of these years I will finish up the patchwork I cut out when I first moved here to Acorn Cottage. I got a quarter of the way through and just bailed. Patchwork just isn't my jam, apparently... It is all up in a box in the top of the closet in the small bedroom, and would make  a pretty bit of summer bedding. All it would need is to be backed with a flannel sheet. Maybe one of these years...

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May SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	grey canvas hat	front yard mowed	apple tree prunings
2	tiny pomegranate	hooks on drying rack	more dead ferns
3	print drying hooks	scarf printed	recycle bin
4	layer 1/5 linoprint	re-done engraving	-
5	layer 2/5 linoprint	-	-
6	layer 3/5 linoprint	x	x
7	layer 4/5 linoprint	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. It could have been eggs. And it wasn't.
2. walked over three miles today
3. my bike is ready to be picked up from the shop

Time of Isolation - Day 1065

a bird list for Kestrel: House Finch, Scrub Jay, Crow,...

blue roses on toeses...

in which our plucky heroine follows a wild hair down an internet rabbit hole...

I had a sudden desire to add British canal boat style roses to the toes of my just-painted-blue canvas shoes. The blue roses remind me of the 1978 Winterland Grateful Dead poster*, and I hope that these shoes will remind me to keep whimsy in my heart as I continue down the path...

The shoes themselves were originally a (boring) beige canvas, and I painted them blue last week. (The previous pair I painted blue lasted 4 years before they fell apart, but the paint was still in good shape. Just plain ordinary craft acrylic paint is surprisingly durable, unlike whatever the microfiber is that they use for shoe linings.) I found some good step by step tutorials and images online which helped me get the style of rose I wanted, and I used ordinary blackboard chalk to mark out where I wanted to paint the roses, because it wipes away with a damp cloth after the paint is dry...

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Saturday I took a small adventure and went to see my friend's display at an outdoor "art picnic" in one of the local parks. It was a treat to see them, and their artwork in person, as well as to get a sense of the hyperlocal and mostly youthful art scene. There was a wide range of media and imagery, of course, and it rather reminded me of my youth, when folks would gather on Cambridge Common on Saturdays to vend and be social.

I was totally wearing my P100 the whole time, and the middle of the day on a Saturday afternoon the bus was not terribly crowded. It felt fairly safe as the location and layout meant that there was plenty of fresh air, and enough distance between folks for comfort. Almost no one these days seems to be wearing masks, which makes me sad though.

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~ 100 day stitch book project - day 94~

Day 94/100 (page 19) - Sunday added some more subtle hillocks to the landscape, with stem stitch and a bit of French knots, and I began adding stars to the sky at the top to better balance the geology at the base... Today I plan on finishing up the starry sky, which will complete this colophon page.

(Saturday) Day 93/100 (page 19) - finished stitching the various hillocks in place...

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Saturday I took a small adventure and went to see my friend's display at an outdoor "art picnic" in one of the local parks. It was a treat to see them, and their artwork in person, as well as to get a sense of the hyperlocal and mostly youthful art scene. There was a wide range of media and imagery, of course, and it rather reminded me of my youth, when folks would gather on Cambridge Common on Saturdays to vend and be social.

I was totally wearing my P100 the whole time, and the middle of the day on a Saturday afternoon the bus was not terribly crowded. It felt fairly safe as the location and layout meant that there was plenty of fresh air, and enough distance between folks for comfort. Almost no one these days seems to be wearing masks, which makes me sad though.

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well dang... making haste slowly would have been better! Trying to clean up the kitchen by carrying all the jars of quince jelly to the pantry shelves, and I dropped one. Glass shards mixed with jelly are a Big Mess. I hope I got it all; wiped repeatedly with damp paper towels until I couldn't see any more "sparkle"... And I still have the rest of the putting away and washing dishes left to do.

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April SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	page 15	taxes done	jars to Mud Bay
2	custom Tullia daypack	shoes painted blue	recycle bin
3	page 16 and 17	shoe elastics transferred	extra plant pots
4	page 18	roses on shoe toeses	yard waste bin
5	-	-	grapes to compost
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. The roses for my shoes turned out just fun as I imagined them
2. Avgolemono (aka demonology soup)... always good
3. The person I hand embroidered a label for their quilt was quite happy with my efforts. And I learned how to better estimate how long it takes, and managed to get a successful result on double gauze, which is not trivial.

Time of Isolation - Day 1041



* This is the concert poster I had in mind...