Flower divas, Misfits box

 My $2 of flower seeds have developed into a seemingly endless lovely supply of cut flowers. Every time I cut the positively last bunch of the season, they're all not so fast, missy,  and there's more.

Here's today 

One maybe last daisy, zinnias, marigolds, forgetmenots. 

Long ago I made a New Year's resolution to have fresh flowers once a month in the house. The pandemic interrupted, then I continued,  but with homegrown flowers whenever available. I think improving your life is a good resolution, not just improving yourself. That's a pretty hopeless endeavor at this point with this fallible character.

Since there was a bit of time available, I did an unusual thing. I ironed. These are linen, thrift store buys long ago, altered to suit. 

I don't iron much, and then it's more fiberart projects than clothes, but every few launderings, linen really appreciates it. 

I've upcycled quite a few linen shirts, cutting off cuffs and making them into pockets, making cuffed sleeves into roll sleeves, cutting shirttails to make straight hems. Simple changes, but they work a treat. 

My theory is that almost new linen items end up being donated to the thriftie because someone didn't want the fuss of ironing. I've paid about $5 for name brand clothes going for at least ten times more at retail. Then I wear them for maybe twenty years. 

So Misfits arrived, along with my deciding what's for lunch.

Which turned out to be a green salad with dried cranberries, chunks of Cheddar and homemade mayo. Fresh plum for dessert.

 

And instead of slinging the chicken along with the shrimp into the freezer for future reference, I roasted it right away, why not, for instant use.

Here seen in progress.

The sugar pumpkin is on the step, that and the wooden cat forming the entirety of my Fall decor.

In a few days it will be soup, but right now it's a decorative item.

The mushrooms will do something cooperative with the chicken or maybe the shrimp, we'll see.  Or chickpeas. 

Happy day everyone, even if your formatting has gone funny as here. Happens to the best of us. Not to Harris and Walz. Wouldn't dare.

Travel, it's not just about moving around.

Lately I've been hearing a lot about travel, usually meaning coach tour tourism, from people who love it, good for them, and are quite rude about people who don't, not so good for them.

I've had to travel a lot for work and life, and find it tiring and disturbing, not fun and games. It's not related to vacation, really. Some of my best trips have been to familiar local places which don't yield exciting stamps on my passport.

The travel I love is the interior kind, from making, creating, thinking,  reading, paying attention to the lives of other people. It's not about throwing your body around then boring your friends rigid with accounts of holdups in airports, ripoffs conducted in foreign languages, total mileages, you know these well enough to set them to music!

One of my friends who'd traveled in the form of staying long enough to pay rent, receive mail and make friends -- it helps if your job is portable like this -- used to say she didn't count it as travel unless you had a street address, not the American Express office, for mail delivery, an interesting definition. 

So this is where I am this mild rainy Sunday.

In other news, I find that the second spiral sock, several inches of which is done

as you see, turns out to be a different gauge from sock one. I evidently picked up smaller needles when I cast it on, chatting in my group. Oh.  Given how I'll do anything rather than unravel, I now have various decisions. 

Door One. I can continue, making this the first one of a yet another new pair. Door Two.  I can use bigger needles to knit yet another sock,  matching the size to the first sock. Door Three. I can replace two of the current needles on the current sock with bigger ones, to maybe adjust the gauge gradually. At this rate I'll never get away from this @#$% yarn, unless I open Door Three.

Door Three it is. If this doesn't work I may give up everything and buy a ticket to a round the world cruise, just to escape.. Or something.

And the coleus, started in water, is now potted up ready to grow for the winter indoors before moving outside next spring

This is not my garden, it's a shot from a flower show 

Happy day everyone, prayers and vibes and good thoughts to the poor folk in North Carolina who'd give anything right now to just worry about a bit of knitting.

To improve lives in Florida, please, Florida friends, note this when you vote

Postcard update, the ears have it

I'm halfway through my target amount of postcards, and beginning to see light at the end of this boring tunnel. 

I'm at the point of snarling you better damn vote after I've done all this work!  And I note that the instructions for mailing point out that you must not rubber band the pack for posting. I guess people may not realize the post office won't separate them.

Years ago I experienced this when I found in my mailbox, after a few days away, a banded bunch of calls to artists, all separately addressed and stamped.  Mine, beginning of the alphabet, was on top, so they all came to me. 

I called the venue, a prized one for regional artists, explained, promised to remail the invitations separately, right away.   They said they wondered why they'd had no acceptances yet!  Very unusual. I'm guessing they had a word with the person in charge of mailing. But you can't count on someone realizing all this and resending.

I'm going to separate my cards and mail them in different boxes, to spread the load and make sure they don't stick together.

The audiologist appointment went well, she's very happy I had no complaints. So I'm boosted to 90% now, and adjusting again. I learned how to maintain the aids, clever design, easy to replace the end bit and the filter. Everything sounded loud going home.  

The door saga continues. We got a ruling from the HOA board which didn't surprise me. Owner responsibility. No help on where to buy them. My  neighbors are annoyed and upset, but I'm oh well. This too shall pass!

And I find that my mail rx people, after taking months and many requests, to process the smaller dose of one medication, have now apparently removed the larger dose of the same medication. I'm guessing their program doesn't allow for two different strengths, both taken daily, which add up to the right amount. Sooo I'm once again trying to get them to get it right. Sigh. 

And I have to call about the car recall. I've waited a few days in case they had a rush after the mailing arrived.

Meanwhile my bone doctor is very happy that I now no longer have osteoporosis in my hip, much increased bone density, and my spine is now totally normal, no bone loss at all. So this is good.  The medicine works. 

She diagnosed the dodgy hip as bursitis and gave me instructions on taking care of it.

Someone suggested that you not worry about something that won't matter in five years. At my age, that's just about everything😂. So there's that.

And you can catch a flower break 

These blue flowers are quietly increasing their territory. I'm hopeful for next year.

It's all relative.

Happy day, everyone! I'm thinking about fall activities now.  So's Gary. 

He came over to say he has a large bag of bulbs for fall planting,  red and white striped tulips.  

He was going to MEASURE for 6" apart. I suggested he just strew them and plant wherever they landed. Another neighbor came bustling over to add her opinion, that you place them here and there, no measuring, no strewing. So we'll see. I bet he still measures.

Cookapalooza, leaf, flowers, Clever Girl

Today was mainly about the Yeung Man Cooking dish of jasmine rice, tofu, mushrooms and broccoli, with all kinds of stages, including making an umami seasoning.

At the same time as

I was making a batch of yogurt, which you see on the stove.  This picture series works backwards from the finished meal which was a whole lot more interesting than it looks, back to creating the seasoning.

It involved, aside from the umami seasoning, the surrounding ingredients ground together to a powder, some of the red chili oil you saw me make a while back, hot peppers and soy sauce. 

Tofu is like cannellini beans, bland enough you can go wild with flavoring and it will work. I was missing a few ingredients but I don't think I noticed. I love the steady progression of Will as he stages the dish so everything arrives as planned, flavors in layers you find as you eat.  

It doesn't take as long as you'd think. About 30 minutes including finding the spices and dicing the mushrooms, crumbling the tofu and cooking the rice. 

And things like the red chili oil and umami seasoning last a while. I've found that roast potatoes in red chili oil are an order of magnitude better than in olive oil.

You have to stay alert though, particularly if you get involved in making and timing yogurt at the same time.   But wise people try to keep things simple. I still have to bake the muffins, but maybe Sunday..

The lunch was really good, and did I mention I made chocolate pudding? Too late for a picture, all gone. It was a great contrast to the spicy main dish.

Meanwhile I'm posting things to keep people's spirits up, away from the T person trying to take up all the oxygen.

Here's the latest bunch of flowers

And this lovely leaf. Look at the design, the colors, shape, contrasts.

Happy day everyone, I'm writing postcards, trying to be legible, reading Clever Girl, sitting out drinking tea, watching a silver spot butterfly engrossed in the butterfly bush, hearing a happy birthday party down the street, laughing, singing, little kids running about, I love my neighborhood.

I wouldn't mind this one either

 

Sunday morning flowers, postcarding

The new arrangement for Sunday morning. That's a coleus rooted in water, which will become a houseplant this winter. 

My postcards encouraging registered voters to get out for Sue Altman in NJ district 7 are on the way. I already have a roll of stamps, so I'm ready when they are.

This race is the result of redistricting which lost us Tom Malinowski, an  excellent House member, when his district was reorganized into a pretty solidly red one, handing the election to Tom Kean Jr, a maga man, now up for reelection.

He's the son of Tom Kean Sr, from the 9/11 Commission, former Gov of NJ and a very decent man. That apple disproved the adage about falling near the tree.  Altman is a good candidate now in a tight race in a difficult district. I'm giving her all the help I can. 

Yesterday's winnowing, aka displacement activity, finally cleared out this area. 

The slide out shelves  I had installed by Mike the Artist Contractor after I had the dishwasher removed. 

There was an exciting period back when Handsome Partner was living, and needing full-on care,  when the old dishwasher finally gave out. 

I replaced it, and the new one, a couple of weeks after the warranty period, went on fire after the heating element collapsed onto the appliance floor. Very exciting in a home with a completely helpless partner to safeguard.

I replaced it and the new one, different mfr, burst into a flood, when a friend was sitting with Handsome Partner to give me a break. Fortunately she knew where the shutoff was and was busy mopping when I got home.

After that I decided washing dishes by hand was less stressful, so I had these shelves installed in place of the dishwasher, and love them. The top one is the dish drainer, the bottom one my cordage grasses and washing detergent materials storage area.

Over time other things got in there, silk dyes, papermaking gear, various pots and tools. So now it's sorted. The dyes and other things are back upstairs in their own crates. I can now find the various grasses I use. The long-lost cheesecloth was hiding in there, also the mate to my small saucepan. It's all good.

And for lunch I enjoyed all the colors. 

Mixed green salad and parsley,  with feta cheese crumbled over, and egg salad, paprika on.  Cantaloupe with yogurt, ginger powder sprinkled around.

I've run out of watchable productions of Sense and Sensibility, so I think I'll move on to the 117 versions of Emma or Pride and Prejudice next. The Austenfest continues. 

And a bit of stitching, the first patch in the medley quilt. Or whatever it becomes.

Monday morning mammo recheck, and I finally managed to complete preregistration, website working better. I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE: ALL'S WELL, TESTS NORMAL, YAY. EXHALING.

Happy day everyone, did you see Harris wowing her fans in Penzeys? They're good people, so I'm glad. 

Flowers and fashion

 Happy Sunday! With flowers from the patio 

And a stroll down memory lane.

Here's a shot of London in the 50s, when you made your summer dresses, some of these very recognizable as Simplicity patterns. In fact I made dresses like these. I was a teen then.  

Then, way back, in the early 1900s, my  mom was about six when this movie was shot, very likely dressed like the pinafored little girl you see, far left, with her older sister.

Some changes. 

My birth order mirrored my mother's. Both the youngest, with three older sisters and three even older brothers. Both had favorite brother killed in combat. Both had one older sister with two children, one unmarried. But when it came to our own children, big difference. She had nine, I had one! In fact my entire generation of sibs had a total of nine children. So I guess replacement sort of factored in.

Happy day, everyone, but who's counting. This afternoon I'm taking part in an online political forum looking at the current US voting outlook, with insider people who know what's happening, and are there, seeing events around the country.

Meanwhile

Just like the August bank holidays of my youth. Grasmere is in the Lake District, Wordsworth country.

And today celebrates

If you're interested in goddesses and ancient mythology, go to the blog of Debra, She Who Seeks. She's very knowledgeable and definitely worth a follow.

Coda on birthday chocolate cake -- large slice went to Gary yesterday, he loves chocolate cake. He advised me about the valve handle, possibly simple fix, handsome son now on it, and the ongoing saga of the storage area doors. Stay tuned!

And if you're a US knitter or crocheter thinking about cool weather projects, consider this. I've done a lot of blanket squares for them, nice people.