Just a Note

In between loads of laundry there was bread rising and baking. 

 

We've had quite a bit of rain the past three days, with more coming later today. It is currently sunny and mild out there. We were in a bad drought last year, rain is much appreciated. Everything is a vibrant green. I believe verdant is the word. The word of the day.

Rainy

We have another rainy day today and part of tomorrow. We really need it, so no complaints from here. Everything is greening up and sprouting. I made soup for our rainy weather lunches. Soup is always good, but soup on dreary, wet days is even better. Roasted eggplant soup with feta. I roasted the vegetables last autumn and froze them. It isn't pretty but really good. Feta crumbles or goat cheese sprinkles.....perfect. A repeat for lunch today.

 

Otherwise, all is quiet on the West Metro front. This once was a very rare and appreciated state. Quiet. There was always something with the equines. I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm not up for the stress I lived with back in the day. It is normal when you are living it. When not, it makes a person wonder about their own sanity. Horse obsession and sanity do not keep company with one another. They and we are now oldsters not too interested in youthful drama. Well, they still have some interest. 

Comfy Frieda

From very scared stray kitten to Lady of the Manor.

After my driving adventure and then lunch I mowed most of the lawn yesterday. It seems spring has sprung. Dare I say it? We are having a rainy day, which is much appreciated. We're out of drought, now we need to stay out. There's a lot of flower bed cleanup needed. Phlox have invaded everywhere. How is something so beautiful also such a menace? That could be said for people, too!

We've had pasta in one form or another nearly every evening. I haven't had interest in cooking and it's fast and easy. Tonight I plan to make steelhead trout. Wish me luck.

 

Driving

I made it to Waconia and back. No one was injured.

 

Kitties

A new kitty.

This fine looking fellow attached himself to my son's wife in the past few days and hung out at the door of their house. They brought him in a couple of days ago, took him to the vet yesterday. He is about 18 months old and has an appointment for the snip snip. The other cat, Twinkles, has been lonely since Murphy died and as you can see, both cats are chill. That cannot be said for Homer. Matthew says he  is in high alert mode, he knows another cat has invaded his territory. Homer is too aggressive to be in the same space as the cats so they live upstairs and have the roam of the house at night. He is a pretty fellow.

There is a stray orange tabby I am feeding. He was skinny but is looking good now. He doesn't want anything to do with me, but he is fed and has access to shelter. So many cats out there.

Tomorrow will be my first practice drive. I placed a pick-up order at Aldi and I have a prescription to collect, so that will be my mission. Mark will come with me. How weird that this is a bit frightening for me. I have been driving since I was 16 and most of that driving was in a city environment. Now, jello legs.

It's another nice day. I accomplished some things yesterday and plan to continue today. Tomorrow afternoon is set aside for some lawn mowing. So exciting!

Working Hard. Mark, That Is

Good Morning

It's a beautiful day in my neighborhood, sunshine and mild temperature. Perfect for the outdoor labor Mark is doing. Finally removing the falling down outdoor arena fence. Yippee!! I can hardly believe it.

On other news......really, there is no other news. Life is stumbling along, I am still doing well. My big plan for the day is to tackle the broom closet. How does something like that become such a mess? Because a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place has not been happening. Mystery solved.

I am going to start practice driving. Because of the very limited mobility I've had for three years I have not driven a vehicle. At all. I needed to be dropped off at the door for appointments, which is about the only places I went, because I wasn't able to walk from a lot to the building. It is time to regain independence. Also, Mark has a procedure in the middle of May that will entail my driving him home. On a freeway. The things which happen to us that we would not think would. That's poor sentence structure!

 

I will leave you with last evenings dinner. Sometimes the simplest things in life are the sweetest.

Ups Downs and All Arounds

Bouncing into a new week.

Yesterday Neighbor Bill showed up. We haven't seen him at all this winter. I spent about an hour in conversation with him, ranging all sorts of topics, although he wants to spend more time on the state of our Union than I do these days. I think besides us, he is the only non-trumper in the area. He hasn't been feeling all that well lately. He did comment that it looks like I feel better. I told him in this case looks are not deceiving.

My grand plans for starting some organizing went by the wayside yesterday, for no reason other than I didn't do it. I know once I start it will be rewarding, it's the starting I am having trouble with. I think too much time where I couldn't do much, no matter if I wanted to or not, has normalized doing nothing. I'll see what today brings.

It's a lovely day. Sunshine and a high of 60 F/16 C. We are coming into a warming period. Mark is planning to spend the day lopping saplings. We live in a softwood woodland, which means the trees sprout up overnight. Half a lifetime is spent beating them back. Our changing climate does seem to have accelerated the sprouting.

That's all I got. One more cup of coffee and then a conversation with myself about moving myself into action. Ciao.

You Know, Stuff

The sum total of my day.

Pretty much. It was dreary and chilly yesterday and it's the same today. I think spring may be coming next week. Stay tuned. I've been feeling pretty good. The Celebrex has been a godsend for me. I'm feeling really quite hopeful. It was nice to have a quiet day because I felt like it as opposed to because I am in pain. Score one for me!

Now that I can do more I'm going to try implementing, slowly, my longtime habits which went far by the wayside for four years. One of those years not because of pain, but because my mother had died. I had the job of going through and clearing out sixty-two years of life in the house. It took eight months. Don't do that to your kids. I'm talking mostly to myself. I am an orderly person. My friend, who is a psychiatric nurse, has told me he believes my need for control (order) is due to my abusive mother and the unpredictable life I had with her behavior. I believe he is right about this. I'm feeling good, so far this morning, and think I will start with the most un-orderly parts of the house and move onward from there. That's the plan anyway. In the meantime I will do some blog reading whilst I have my coffee.

Homer

A little something to brighten the day.

 

It's His Birthday

This guy, my only child, turns fifty today!

No one would put it together that he is my son. He looks absolutely nothing like me. He's tall and has a bulky frame. I'm short and small framed. He is built and looks like his bio-dad's family. Only his personality reflects who his mother is. He does have an opinion on everything! Fifty years, wow.

Life is a Crapshoot

 

I was knocked off my feet yesterday by some news, old news to all but me, that the man I was going to marry in the late '70s, but did not for various reasons, died in a motorcycle accident five years ago. I haven't known anything about his life since about 1982, when a mutual friend told me he had married. I had been pleased for him, he did want to be married and have children, which he did have. And grandchildren. This wasn't going to happen with me. I felt so sad. For his family and for the memory of someone I once loved. Long ago. I did feel there was some reason why Staying Alive was playing in my head when I woke yesterday. 

Staying Alive

I awoke this morning with this song playing in my head. Omen?

Don't laugh, but I loved the disco era. Believe it or not I could be quite flamboyant in my youth! It was fun, you could dance your heart out and be part of what everyone else was doing. I loved dancing. I still dance in my house, but I look like those old ladies you see in memes. 

I saw this clip and thought "If this isn't the image of cool, what is?" I love dancing, yeah. Sorry, I've got Bee Gees on the brain. Anyway...I loved to dance but I never had these moves. Stay alive. Stay cool.

It's going to be unseasonably warm today, a high of 80F/27C. The kitchen doors will be open, one to the screened porch, which makes the kitties very happy. Happy kitties, happy two-leggers.

This is the result of a 20 hour ferment of whole grain bread dough.

                                              Spelt                       Light Caraway Rye

I'm really pleased with it, lots of air in the crumb, especially for spelt. I bake the loaves in a dutch oven at high temperature for about 35 minutes. Mark tells me he doesn't like rye bread, he has said this for years. I make rye bread and don't tell him it's rye. He always says "this is good". Sneaky. When my son was small he loved tomato soup and clam soup.The reason he loved them is I called them red soup and white soup. I may have been born sneaky.

A Photo Says it All

Miss Havisham comes to mind.

Yes, I have no shame.

This morning while in the kitchen I happened to look up. The sun was shining and something became quite visible to me. I'm not showing this photo simply to point out the chandelier needs some attention. Seeing this brings home how many different ways one is affected by aging. What once was just another task becomes something akin to climbing Everest. Now I'm writing like a Dickens character. A very few short years ago it would not have looked like this. Ah, well....I will get it done. On a side - I bought this chandelier in an antique shop in the '70s. My father wired it and it's been in use since, moving from home to home with me. It's not showing in the photo, but its crystals twinkle even when dirty. I don't do fussy but this light fixture caught my eye and kept it.

I have been doing the overnight fermenting method with bread dough lately. I've done it on and off but am wired inpatient, so I did not like to wait. I've changed my mind. A world of difference in the crumb. Earlier in the week I made a light caraway rye, so good. I mixed dough yesterday for a spelt loaf. It will be formed, proof, and then be in the oven this afternoon. The whole grains make a dense bread, a long ferment opens the texture. I'm anxious to see how this one comes out. 

Yep, Miss Havisham meets Bread Woman. 

Frieda

Good Morning. We will see 68 F today! 

I have nothing of any interest or import happening at the moment. Stock is simmering, that's about it. I do have a very naughty, yet adorable, little girl kitty who decided to make herself comfortable on her two-legged mama. I am so glad she decided to knock on the door, come in, and live her life with us. She is a little pistol!

Bits of Things

I was AWOL yesterday. I sat at my computer for a few minutes and then gave up. I inherited my mother's terrible sinus condition and yesterday it kicked my butt. Much better today. Tomorrow I go in for a med check with the Nurse Practitioner. Otherwise, it's unremarkable in my life. Mark is busy, manageable busy. I am not! I plan to make a couple of loaves of bread, but we will see what comes of that. I'm looking forward to working in the flower beds that have been mostly neglected for a few years. That's not happening soon.

I'll leave you with this adorable photo of Chloe and Malika. Chloe adored the foals, I could not keep her out of the stall when one was born. The mamas weren't disturbed by her, so I let her have her way. This would have been in the late '90s. Such an interesting dog.

 

Accomplished

Finally.

I finally got my cleanup of the office done. I had absolutely no motivation to finish the job last week, but found my mojo yesterday. 

 

As I was dusting I thought back to what my life was for about twenty years and how, other than the barn, this is where I spent my time. I  spent most of those twenty years in the barn, but this was my inside place. We really did not use the front of the house at all, except 

for holidays or visitors. The past decade has been different, more proportional. Not running a business which included boarded horses(the horses came with people), and breeding mine and clients mares. Foaling those mares, often the clients mares as well, then raising them. Teaching them to be good citizens. This all consuming work was my world. It certainly kept me fit! 

So I got it cleared of all the items which were just set there, you know, until I got around to deciding what to do with it. So much from my mother's house that I didn't have time for then. Now the air purifier doesn't need to work so hard. 

It's a beautiful, sunny morning. Supposed to reach 58 F/14 C today. Not bad. I don't have any plans for the day, which means anything or nothing may occur. Maybe I'll pretend I'm a cat.

Just Stuff

Yesterday was the windiest day I can remember in a long time. The house was shuddering. I took this photo through the window, I didn't feel like walking around the house, so it's poor but it shows a fallen tree from the wind. I formed it into a tree after I planted it 30 years ago. It was a sumac I dug out of the tree line. It looked a lot like an olive tree. It was partially dead last year, so it went over, roots and all. As you can see, another is there to replace it. I'll be applying my bonsai skills on it.

Cats....many cats. They all love Mark's radiation belly, especially this one. You can tell by the sweatshirt lots of cats spend time on that belly!

Gatto knows how it's done.

 

McCool prefers to lay between my legs. He needs room to stretch out.

Today is sunny, just a slight breeze and will be 50F/10C. Mark is busy with his clients taxes, I'm about to resume The Great Office Cleanup. It went on hold for about a week. I was having a bit of despair over the collapse of a nation, but I got over it. One must, as it is, for the most part, out of our hands. All we can do is VOTE. There, that's the end of the doom and gloom. 

I think I will take a cue from the kitties. Enjoy life as it is at the moment. They have the right idea.

No April Fool

Good Morning Fine People

I hope all who celebrate had a Happy Easter. It was a fine day here, sunny and mild. I took a break from my energy burst and lolled about.

Today being Monday, I have a hamper full of laundry to get through. Other than that I don't have plans. I think I may finish the book I'm listening to. Things will remain in the dull zone until we come into spring and the out of doors will give me something new to engage in.  We are going to warm into the 60s F which will move things along. I don't feel bored, but I really have nothing to ramble on about, there's only so much bread and soup! 

That said, I'll leave you with last evenings dinner.