Woohoo! I Still Got It

This afternoon my list of "have to do today" opened up so I dialed up the 5 hours of nature sounds on my Kindle (just in case my muse came for an extended visit), unlimbered my Alphasmart,  dug out the last 2 chapters of The Seaview and the scene I was aiming for, and got to putting letters together to make words.  Real words that turned into sentences and then arranged themselves into paragraphs.  Lo and behold, within an hour I had 3 printed pages (just over 1000 words) that segued nicely into the scene I wanted it to.  Made me feel like a real writer.

DS and I swapped cars last week so I could get some work done on my little red HHR and I decided that I'll keep it and let him use the big van which will be much better for beer keg hauling and other brewery and parent-y type stuff.  Plus there's a DVD player in the second row of seats in the van that should make extended trips a lot more bearable for passengers big and small.  So I spent an hour this morning rearranging the junk I keep in there, making sure I had an umbrella handy, putting the basket of reusable grocery bags back on the passenger side floor, making room for my farmer's market basket and straw hat in the back back, and reconfiguring the box of grandkid entertainments (2 knitted owls, a stuffed gorilla eating a banana, lap blankets, and books) that stays in the car.  It wasn't until I got the HHR back that I realized how much too big the van felt to me.  I enjoyed being up higher but didn't enjoy the vast emptiness around me.

I made the best stuff for supper.  It's Jumbo Shrimp with Cuban-Style Black Beans from a

WW cookbook and it's so good.  Since WW made over 200 foods zero points the points per serving have gone from 10 to 2.  !!!!!  I know.  You saute an onion, then stir in garlic, diced peppers (I use bell instead of jalapeno; it's what I have), salt, 1/2# of peeled and deveined shrimp.  Once the shrimp are opaque you add sugar free orange marmalade, a bit of chicken broth (water with a dab of granules, I'm not opening a can or carton for 1 Tablespoon) and some cilantro.  And that's it.  You divide it in half and I squirt some green sriracha on mine to spice it up because I left out the jalapeno.  Mmm, delicious.  Now I have some left for tomorrow.  Lucky me!  (BTW, I was halfway through the serving before I thought to take a picture; a serving is a lot)


 

I got the heel flap knitted, the heel turned, the gusset stitches picked up, and now I'm decreasing down to the original number of stitches for the long slog of round and round foot knitting.  I'm not a fan of pink, we all know that, but I find I like this combo of gray, yellow, pink, and a kind of lilac-y pink.  It's a sock, it'll do its job. 

On my short erranding round today I detoured out to our storage locker to survey the contents.  I'm determined to sell what will never come back into the house, toss the trash (like the mattress and box springs that have been there for years and I am certain have become a complex of mouse condos), and bring home a carefully curated selection of pieces.  I'm tired of us paying $66 a month for it too.  Think what a nice bump that sixty-six bucks will make in our savings account.  (money in instead of out, gotta love it)  I'm seriously considering keeping the cherry drop-leaf dining table that Grandpa made in addition to the walnut writing desk & chair he built and the maple cedar/hope chest (he called it a "despair barrel") he made me that I'm definitely keeping.  Is anybody in the market for a pair of genuine late-1960s early-1970s era electric fondue pots (one avocado and one flame red) complete with cookbook, sectioned plates, and fondue forks?  I know where you can find some, cheap.

Look what bloomed!  It's a stargazer lily I found hiding behind some coleus when I went out to water across the front of the house.  The stake for the lily had fallen down so I pushed it back into the ground and then tied up the lily stalk.  Evidently I brushed one of the anthers (that's where the pollen is) with my left eyebrow and carried the orange smudge around with me all day until our renter stopped over this evening and asked what that orange stuff was.  Shows how often I look at myself in the mirror.



July 18--Roman, late Republic or early Empire, Necklace, 1st Century A.D.  Damien recognized the necklace.  He had seen it, or one exactly like it, in the museum in Naples.  He remembered it because of the large Baroque pearls that alternated with emeralds on the woven gold band.


And that's when I fell asleep.  I had a cracking good idea too but those few sentences were all I managed to scribble.  One of these nights I'm going to write more than a lead in.  Finally, I don't know if you can make it out but there's a hummingbird way up in the top of the apple tree.  See the tiny little bird shape in the middle?  When the Two Stooges built the fence a couple years ago they butchered the apple tree where it got in their way and evidently compacted the soil around it enough to kill the tree top.  Anyway, I saw the hummer on the feeder and just as I got ready to take its picture up into the tree it flew.  But I could still see it so I'm showing it to you.
--Barbara