Not Quite As Frenzied

I cooked again today so that all of the packaging went out to the curb for the garbage guys to pick up tomorrow but it didn't feel quite as much of a frenzy as yesterday.  First up was getting the Chicken Cacciatore into the slow cooker.  That cooked all day so it was the last into portions and into the freezer.  Man, it smells good when it's cooking.  The bell pepper and onions are fragrant and made my stomach rumble all day.  Not the greatest when you're watching what you eat.

The House Finches visit the platform feeder every day.  Today the couple wasn't the vividly colored male and his consort but a more subdued couple.  I'll have to go out and refill the feeder tomorrow because it's a popular spot.

Next in the cooking lineup was Chicken Breasts Pierre which smells great too.  It has Worcestershire Sauce, brown sugar, and mustard powder in with the stewed tomatoes that the chicken simmers in.  Piquant.

The last recipe was Chickpea Curry which also smells heavenly.  Surprisingly the layering of aromas wasn't a bad thing.  Each recipe had it's time to shine.  It made it difficult to choose what to have for supper since I had all three available in the last week's worth from the last Investment Cooking bout.  I finally went with Salisbury Steak with some steamed baby carrots because I try to eat the beef dish early in the week just in case it affects my Monday morning weigh-in.

I noticed that there are buds on the new maple tree in the front yard.  Go, little Pacific Sunset
maple, go!

 

And I found one more variation of daffodils.  It was a trick getting a picture of it because it's blooming in the midst of a shrub and I couldn't reach it to take its picture.  I had to hold the camera aimed where I thought it was and just shoot.  It took about a half dozen shots to get this one.

Once the two stove-top recipes were done and I was waiting for the slow cooker to finish, I had time to sit at the table and write all of the prompts I do every day.  I'm lax about getting to the Art Gallery Page-a-day pictures one but I did a couple days' worth this afternoon so I'm caught up and will try to do better.

I even had time after supper to knit a couple stripes on the Striped Stix hat for the guild meeting on Thursday.  We got the handout in an email the other day so I printed it out and I'm knitting ahead.  I had to try the simplest way to knit jogless stripes.  See, knitting isn't really rounds, it's a spiral, so when you change colors there's a jog where one ends and the next one starts.  This lesson teaches us ways to avoid that jog and I'm just working ahead.  I forget what a pain it is to keep the two yarns from tangling as you change colors and turn your work but then I love to complain.  It's not that much of a pain.  It is but it's not.

Today's toss was four of the Dress no. 1 that I made the last couple years and are now way too big.  I can't take them in because the neck and armholes are bound and that's impossible to pick out and resew.  That's okay, I"m enjoying wearing my jeans and having my thinner body be more apparent.

The prompt today asked what you'd pack for an expedition to a newly discovered planet.  I figured that the expedition planners would take food and water and suits and breathing apparatus in case the atmosphere doesn't agree with humans.  I'm packing my knitting and my writing and my Kindle with as many books and audiobooks as I can cram on there.

--Barbara