I’m Still Here

I have not in fact shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. I’ve been busy with gardening, crafting and gaming…. Probably too much gaming. I think I am down to 3 games per week but there is one in the wings that will be starting up soon, one that’s on a hiatus and another one waiting to replace the one we currently play on Wednesdays so, no shortage of games.

This summer I have had the most successful gardening season of my life! It’s been freaking amazing. I got armfuls of zucchini, cucumbers, kale, beets, onions, and enough mint for pretty much everyone. Behold some of my harvest and be amazed!

I know this is nothing compared to what most people get out of a garden, I promise I know this would be considered pathetic by most people, but I am terrible at growing things. Just … awful and this harvest is off the chart… for me. I shredded over 33 cups of zucchini yesterday and I will be able to make 22 loaves of zucchini bread over the winter. Oh, I can make zucchini bread now! That’s a new thing! I’ve made 3 batches of 2 loaves each so far and it is delicious. I skip the nuts, because of my allergies, and add in all kinds of dried fruit. So good. Between the farmshare and my little gardens it has been an amazing summer for veg eating. Here are the new beds we had put in:

Next update I’ll try to post pics of all the little zombies I’ve been making and maybe the sweaters and other things I’ve been crocheting and knitting. Be well. XXOO

A Dusting of Snow

I’m doing a little better now. I made Christmas cookies round 2, hung up some indoor decorations, and hung multi-colored lights up around the porch. It’s all Xmas up in here now! I keep playing Christmas music and keeping the fire going. Starting to get over the stupid cold we’ve had, it is NOT Covid-19, test was negative. YAY! Annnnnnd… it’s snowing! ^_^

Those are some of the good things in my life. I have so much to be grateful for. I can only assume it is human nature to sort of focus on the bad, on what’s missing or inadequate or whatever. I think I just need to fight that and try to focus on the good while working on solutions to any issues that crop up. I was just reading that happiness is something you can have welling up from within. It was put forward as something you could keep going, I’m assuming to varying degrees, through all the trials that life brings.

Here are a few pics of things adding to my happiness right now:

Peppermint thumbprint & Chocolate crinkle cookies, one nearly perfect Moroccan pancake, and my goof advent calendar.

My wonderful husband also put lights on the tree so we can decorate it soon. They are new lights and weirdly bright. The camera in my phone had an interesting time trying to focus on the tree.

These pics are in order showing the struggle to focus. I kind of love all of them. It’s okay, Tree, you’re beautiful even when you’re blurry.

Today will be dedicated to cleaning, laundry, getting organized in general and specifically getting ready to launch myself into the new year with shiny good intentions to change my life for the better. I have my free-form bullet journal and a free wall calendar from the grocery store and I’m ready to start building some more structure into my life. I will also be working on an experimental craft today. It goes along with many crafts I’ve done in the past, and I have a pattern for the structure of the item, but I’m winging it on the design. I can’t tell you more because it’s a present for someone who has been known to read this blog but I will post pics as soon as I can. ^_^

I hope you will all have a good, stress-free day today, the kind of day that makes you feel a little happier.

I’m trying

It’s December 7th and it just doesn’t feel like it. I’m trying to get into a jolly holiday mood but it’s tough this year. There are over 280,000 people dead of Covid 19 in the U.S. so far and that is a whole lot of grieving families. There are 20,000 people with cases severe enough to be in the ICU right now and many more infected. In many places around the country our healthcare system is close to collapse and we still haven’t even gotten to the post Thanksgiving spike. Cases are on a massive upswing while at the same time my library is continuing to open back up. This scares the hell out of me. I love my job, and I need my job, but if I bring Covid 19 home to my husband it is likely to kill him. Every time I see my mother, from 10 feet away, outdoors, masked, and brief, she cries and says she can’t take it anymore. She 74 with a heart condition and this whole thing has worn her down. So fa la la la la and stuff.

Still, I’ve been trying. We went and picked out a tree and set it in the stand… like a week ago… and it still has no lights. I set up our advent calendar and we keep forgetting to open the drawers and read the little slips. I got the kids involved in a bit of holiday baking, that went pretty well, everyone loves cookies. I played Christmas CDs and tried to keep things light and happy for a while. This was the most successful I have been at getting into the holiday mood lately. I’ll keep at it.

Cookie making festivities… (to be continued soon, I like to bake.)

There are many cookies still to bake, there are some presents to be wrapped, we are all here together and as safe as we can be in these mad times. So well, bake, we’ll game, we’ll wrap up the presents, we’ll keep the wood stove going and we’ll get around to decorating the tree real soon. I can’t believe all the protections put in place to help people weather the pandemic will probably be allowed to expire soon. I just cannot fathom the heartlessness that would see a massive wave of evictions during this time of crisis and in winter. I can only hope the incoming administration will leap to the rescue of the American people and do everything they can to get help and relief to folks, and PPE and other critical support to our frontline healthcare workers. Too many people already struggle to get enough to eat, too many have already been evicted, too many are stuck in a whirlpool of tragic events, grief and despair. It’s all too much and I’m not personally facing these issues, yet.

November is Here!

It’s windy and spitting snow this morning on the edge of Cold Swamp. Welcome, November! Halloween/Samhain didn’t really happen here. We wore no costumes, didn’t honor our beloved dead, didn’t hand out candy. We watched a couple of scary movies and ate spider donuts, that is about it. Ah well. We’re all stressed and trying hard to just maintain these days.

I harvested the last of the mint yesterday and made fresh mint tea to go with our sausage, meaball, and potato dinner. It was a ridiculously hearty meal. Tonight’s plan is lentil soup to make up for it. I’ll be at work when my little clan eats it but I’ll either bring some to work or eat when I get home. I love Fall and Winter, love the cold, love coming in from the cold to find the warmth of our fire and drink hot drinks, love the dark that makes our home a little island of light and comfortable coziness. I love wearing the cozy layers of soft clothes, I love being able to stand wearing them without dying of heatstroke, and I love the long, long season of baking and making soup. I love the contrast of the cold and raw outside with the heat indoors. And I love the long, dark nights, the hush of falling snow, and the scent of woodsmoke in the air. I will be making my usual lentil soup, squash soup, and hopefully leek and potato soup, as well as searching for new soups to add to the line-up.

And baking! Oh the bread, the cookies, the homemade cakes! I’m all geared up and ready to shop for feast food here. Got my lists ready to go and might do a few practice runs of some of the trickier items. Muahahaha. Yum. I might try to flip lemon bread and make it with lime since I can’t have lemon anymore. I may have to learn to make pies… I’m not great at it, I can do it, but everyone else’s are better, it is known.

Fun fact: The house banners from last Xmas/Yule are still up. Yeah, I know, but it’s true. I like to leave them up till sometime in February but this past Feb we were looking at the progress of Covid19 and I thought how the banners coming down each year made me all wistful and I thought I’d leave them up a while longer, you know? until the crisis was past? Yeah, at this point I just don’t know what to tell you. Will it ever be past? I hope so. I really hope so.

Our 18th wedding anniversary is coming up. My husband asked me yesterday what I want to do for it. He is not in a good headspace at all and this was clear as anything when he asked that question. So I asked him what he wants to do and he said something like: “Our options are nil.” It’s sort of true in that we don’t have the option to go out to dinner, or to a movie, or even to go out and browse a bookstore together. (all traditional anniversary activities for us) But I mean we do have options. We could make a nice dinner and eat by candlelight, we could read aloud to each other, we could borrow a movie from the library or watch one of our favorites we already have kicking around. We could even go freeze to death in the shed to get away from the kids for a bit. Insulation and a tiny woodstove have to be the next things for the shed. Yep. How cool would that be?

As much as I love my shed it seems the garden is the priority. I have a very cool lady coming next week to start preparing the first of our gardens. The idea is that it will be sitting there ready for next Spring when it’s time to plant. She’s also going to work on expanding and diversifying our berry patch. I have such endless dreams for this project/series of projects, endless. So many things I want to grow. I can’t wait to be growing and harvesting FOOD.

Tune in next time for who knows what rambling! I should have garden progress updates sometime next week,

It’s a Weird Week

It’s a weird week so far. My son dropped out of my Pathfinder game, for many reasons, including the fact that he’s in so many games he can’t keep his characters straight anymore, makes me sad.My Director let us know the library is opening in some capacity on August 1st which I find greatly disquieting. A coworker then questioned the need for all of us to stay 6 feet apart all the time, terrifying. On the plus side, I have 2 new players joining my game and that should be a lot of fun.

Side note: I woke up with no inspiration or motivation to bake this morning so there are no muffins. Alas. Perhaps, if it stays cool long enough, I will bake cookies or something later. It’s probably ok to take a day off now and then. Though there is value in habit and inertia is definitely a thing. If I don’t bake today will it be weeks or months until I get back to it? I hate to lose the momentum but I’m tired and stressed today. Probably partly the Benedryl, it does a number on me.

I’m reading Among the Fallen; by N. S. Dolkart now. I’ve barely started and it’s already lovely. I want to sink into it but I can’t seem to focus. My TBR (to be read) pile is just ridiculous and I’m expecting more books any day now. I’ve been watching movies more than I’ve been reading lately, I blame the Benedryl, thank you So Much, Allergies… I watched Rocketman, The Color out of Space, and Doctor Sleep. I actually enjoyed them all. Rocketman started out very surreal and continued to occasionally stray into a dreamlike quality, but it was compelling and the music was great. I thought all the acting was excellent and the story, at times, heartbreaking. The Color out of Space, a Nick Cage movie so my hopes were not high, but it ended up being quite a solid movie. There were odd moments, odd patches of dialog, typical “humans don’t talk like that” moments that happen in almost every horror film, but overall it was creepy and became atmospheric and deeply disturbing. I did get the feeling that there was probably a fair bit of film on the cutting room floor that would have brought the movie up to a higher level though. The hydrologist could have been a more fully-fleshed character if given a little more screen time and I feel like they cut some stuff they thought wouldn’t fly because of how people feel about certain animals. Definitely one of the best depictions of actual Lovecraftian horror I’ve seen and one of Nick Cages better movies. Doctor Sleep was my favorite of the 3 and a great film just flat out. Great acting, cool bad guys, I’d say it’s Stephen King at his best but I haven’t read the book yet so I’m not sure how true the rendition is. A great movie, see it, see all of them, they are all worth at least a few hours of your time.

The morning is slipping away from me. I should probably be cleaning something, or planning something, or, at the very least, be painting something or creating something. I need more time out in my fort to destress and unwind. Now that I work 2 nights a week and we’re still gaming 4xs/week, I feel like we’re always so busy. If I could drop a game I would but it isn’t looking like a very good option. I’ll have to find some other way to loosen up my schedule.

Baking, Work, & Speculation

I baked scones yesterday. With rose petals and pine nuts. I think I’m allergic to pine nuts now. I still don’t feel right. I can’t take more Benedryl because I have to go to work later. Today is going to be less than ideal. Oh well. Anyway, the scones were pretty and quite tasty. I’ll probably have to make coffee cake muffins again this morning instead. Bummer.

This morning I am baking a sour cream streusel coffee cake and it is taking FOREVER. The recipe said 35-40 minutes and it’s been an hour and counting. Oh! I just realized why! My pan is 8″x8″ not 9″x9″…. yep, that’ll do it. It smells so good I can’t believe it. We are going to demolish this thing. I predict a lot of burned mouths due to impatience.

Yesterday’s “allergy scones” (delicious if dangerous) & today’s coffee cake

Verdict is in. Husband gives the coffee cake 10/10 and I think it would be if it were 100% cooked which I don’t think it is…. I will use a 13″x9″ pan next time and bake it for probably about 20-30 minutes. I think it’s worth saving. We’ll see how it goes over with the offspring in a bit, they are all still sleeping. I’m a little bummed the middle isn’t quite cooked. Presumably I didn’t insert the toothpick far enough in? Rookie mistake and you hate to see it.

In other news, my state is going to “stage 3” of reopening today, despite the fact that it hasn’t been long enough for us to see how stages 1 & 2 are affecting infection rates yet. *sigh* We have gotten some calls at the library from patrons who are upset we haven’t opened our doors yet, one said they were going to complain to someone. My Director has said we will not open until our plexiglass shields are installed but I fear she may cave to pressure as people keep barrelling forward. I will quit if it comes to it. Gods, I hate that I have to even consider that. I am watching my friends starting to go out to eat in outdoor seating, resuming getting haircuts, even massage, and I can’t believe it. It seems so clear that the guidelines we are being given through official channels are inadequate, I don’t know how people aren’t seeing that. We wouldn’t have the infection rates we’re seeing if the virus was carried on droplets that are gone in 15 minutes, scientists are telling us it is actually airborne, meaning it can hang there in the air, floating, for far, far longer than 15 minutes. They found Covid-19 in air samples from that cruise ship 17 Days after everyone disembarked.

There are also continuing stories of people attacking store clerks etc, forcibly removing their masks, even breaking their arms. I don’t like thinking that that happens to anyone, let alone that it could happen to me, I wish everyone could just keep it on the road and behave. I like to think of the library as a peaceful place, a relatively quiet & civilized place, a place where assaults don’t happen. But they do. Libraries are for everyone, so we get all kinds, some of bigoted and violent and they absolutely, if they follow library rules while in the library, have the right to check out materials, use computers and so on. I like to think maybe those types will learn something when they visit, that they might gain a broader perspective. That is certainly my wish for them. And yet, because of those types, I am forced to assess the risks to myself in simply going to work amid this pandemic. Once the doors open how safe will I be? Only as safe as the most selfish, deluded patron allowed through the doors lets me be.

So where is the other side of this? I mean, what will the other side of this be when we get there? Do things ever really go back to normal again? Just as they were, as far as handshakes, hugging, attending events, and so on goes? The shocking swiftness of the spread of this disease makes me think we would be unwise to ever return to what we used to call “normal.” If the next disease to spring into being is as contagious as this one, has a similar, long incubation, but also has a higher death rate like some others we’ve seen, say 30%? It will be an unstoppable, global calamity. I’m not freaked out about that idea, I’m just looking at what we’ve got in Covid-19 and thinking about other related infections like MERS. We may or may not see a disease that is that “perfect storm” of highly contagious, stealthy, and deadly, but we certainly cannot rule it out. What am I hearing this morning? Bubonic plague in Mongolia? Brain eating amoebas in Florida? Is anyone keeping track of the giant murder hornets in the Northwestern U.S.?

This is why I hide my poor, tired brain away, it’s hard to hold onto any kind of metal balance if one stays adequately informed about the world. So I paint, and I bake, and I read, and, most of all, I game. I become other people, in other worlds, I stride around like a badass and conquer all my problems head on. It’s nice when problems are imaginary and can be solved with a few good die rolls. I wish I could bring about world peace & social justice with a few natural 20s in diplomacy. I wish I could conquer world hunger by creating a gathering of Druids who could travel the world creating adequate food and clean water for everyone. Crazy diseases? Meet these fine clerics of Iomedae or Desna! Boom! Solved. I wish. So, I keep hiding in my little home life, in my books and games and such.

Experimental Cooking Exploits

So, I’ve been having a very fun week cooking and such. I have learned to make muffins, which I now like, apparently. I made chocolate chip coffee cake muffins and peanut butter muffins with peanut butter chips, both delicious. I made mint chocolate chip ice cream yesterday, came out pretty good and I know what I’ll do differently next time so, I’m counting it a win. This morning I got up and made donuts for the first time. I made cinnamon & sugar, vanilla glazed, and chocolate glazed. All good! My husband has declared them preferable to commercial donuts.

After eating some fresh, warm donuts this morning he said; “Wow, it will be so much easier to stock up for the next shut down. You’ll just need a bunch of basic supplies and you can make whatever you want from them.” He then compared me to the astronauts on the space station somehow, which I think is something of an exaggeration….

I am attempting to propagate my peppermint plants into more peppermint plants. My goal is a vast, unstoppable supply of fresh mint. Normal people could just toss a mint leaf in their yard and it would be overrun with mint in a month. For me this is not so. I must work at it, try, fail, try again. Eventually I got 2 types of mint to take hold in my yard. It took me 3 years. I could still easily wipe it out making tea so I’m trying to get some real, strong patches of it developed. We’ll see.

Peppermint on the left, spearmint on the right.

There exists a real chance that we demolished the mint ice cream without getting proper pics, something I will remedy with batch 2, coming soon to a goofy blog near you!

Ancient Wonder

My husband reads the news a lot more than I do. I find it disheartening to read much of it, it’s pretty much all slanted toward scaring us, upsetting us, a lot of it makes me angry so I avoid it. This morning he told me something that, while it could be construed as concerning, actually makes me feel oddly happy. People are baking so much that there is what amounts to a worldwide run on flour. Supposedly you can’t get it anywhere at the moment. I have no idea, I haven’t entered a store in weeks and weeks and I haven’t tried to order any, because I always keep a fair bit on hand. I buy it on sale and keep in the freezer until I have room in my airtight containers. I think I may be getting low by now but I haven’t been checking. Hmm, I probably should… not that I can remedy the situation apparently.

Anyway, there is plenty, PLENTY of wheat, there is NO SHORTAGE. According to the article my husband read it just needs to be milled and processed and that, so, somewhere in the U.K. they are reopening a One Thousand year old mill to help meet demand. This is where I need a large pool of silence where I sit absorbing this information and my imagination goes zipping down rabbit holes picturing what a 1,000 year old mill could look like, how it’s still standing and existing, just the sheer amazing awesomeness of it being reopened in the modern world. Honestly, it brings tears to my eyes, I LOVE this. I want to order flour specifically from this mill. I looked it up and the one in the U.K. probably looked(s) something like this:

Ok, maybe it looked like this, I don’t know I haven’t been there, but this is an old form of mill. It could be turned by river power, there are versions that were driven by animals or people power as well.

I love it because it’s so simple and pure. I’m sure this early tech had problems but if it can be pressed into service 1,000 years after it was built I am humbled by the genius of its enduring design. I watch a woman on Youtube who lives on a farm in rural China who grows, processes and cooks food using very old methods. One of the things that intrigues me most is the mill she uses to grind things like corn & soybeans and so on. It’s built something like this one but more rustic:

Hers has a base to it so it’s at about waist height or so. She slips a wooden bar into a hole in the top and walks around and around adding water and beans as she goes.

So, what I love, what makes me happy about all this is that we’re all baking. Lots of people who never had time to bake before are baking. Houses are full of the smells of banana bread, cookies, muffins and sourdough bread. There are kids crowding their parent’s elbows to watch the mysterious process that only became so mysterious pretty recently. I love the activity, I love the wholesomeness, I love the continuity of doing this thing that our ancestors did for so many generations. I am so happy people are gaining this skill. That some are finding the satisfaction of making bread with their own hands, delighting in the alchemy of yeast and sugar, glowing with pride as their family eats and loves the delicious taste of fresh, homemade bread. I love the old mill, or hopefully mills that will or might be pressed into service after a long and quiet time in stillness. There is much to love about the modern world, some of it very good indeed, we have the means to travel far, far, far and return home again, we have the miracle of vaccines that have all but eradicated certain dangerous diseases, we have the means to see storms coming days in advance in many cases, global communication, the list goes on. But we left behind some valuable things in our rush to adopt new ways of doing things, and I love to see us returning to some of the things that are simpler, more wholesome, that give people satisfaction, that require skill, labor, & time.

I haven’t been baking bread but I’ve been making cookies and scones more than usual. Have you been baking? Is it a new skill, a renewed skill, or a long habit for you? Have you picked up any other types of skills during lockdown? I’ve heard buzz that knitting, sewing, and crafting of all kinds are having a moment. Let me know what you’re up to in the comments! It’s nice to know if I’m not talking to myself. ~_^ I like biscuits, maybe I’ll make some tonight.