A Number of Days

I am still letting Spotify decide what my weekly listening theme will be.

This week my Discover Weekly playlist had the song 96 Tears as the first song. To my brain it meant I needed to listen daily to a song with a number in its title. It was harder to think of them than I thought it would be, especially the last couple of days. So the week began!

Monday: I stayed home and honestly, other than the necessary chores, I did little but read a lot.

What I learned: Sometimes a good meaty book is just what I want to read, so I can ponder each sentence. This week was not one of those times, and I tossed a wonderful book to save for the winter, and started reading a faster less complicated book.

Listened to: 76 Trombones

Dinner: This was on the plan, I had everything on hand, so it became our meal.

Stuffed bell pepper, brown rice, coleslaw

Tuesday: This was my day to go to my Happy Place. My Beloved Sister and I headed to Independence Place with an experimental idea, peanut butter and jelly pancakes. The participants made the batter, had the jelly and butter melted, and I was all set to cook them. Oops! I realized I brought the wrong griddle. The induction burner they have requires a magnetic connection and I had packed my aluminum clad larger griddle, rather than the smaller cast iron one. We had to punt. Luckily they had some vanilla wafers on hand, so the treat turned into plain peanut butter with the melted jelly concoction spread on said cookies.

Mea culpa. When we left they voted on what they want next time and they obviously still had peanut butter on the brain because it was unanimous__peanut butter milkshakes. (I am thinking of having them make a hot fudge sauce to drizzle over the top to make it more like a Reese's shake, but don't tell them)

Once home, I read a little more while waiting for our regular trivia evening. Some nights we know most of the questions and some nights we are so far out of the demo it is not funny. This was one of those nights. Oh well! It was still fun to be around folks and not just sitting at home.

After trivia we swung by Publix to grab the final day's BOGO for Hershey candy bars. I am the Halloween big candy bar lady and 16 packs later, I am set for the big night.

What I learned: The hypocenter is the exact location underground where rocks start breaking at the onset of an earthquake. I know earthquakes can happen anywhere, but our area is not known for them, consequently I really don't know a lot about them. However, ask me  about thunderstorms and tornados, because those are pretty regular around here.

Listened to: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover 

Dinner: The Electric

Flatbread, coleslaw

Wednesday: I have said before, I have the worlds largest laundry room. It was supposed to be a laundry room studio, with an attached dressing room and bath for the pool. Instead it has become a laundry room catch-all. The thought of organizing and rehoming or releasing things all at once is overwhelming, so I have been attacking it one wall at a time*. 

The upside is finding things 

What I learned: We did a little home study about life in Tasmania. I guess we were bored and looking for something we knew virtually nothing about. Just on case you are wondering, the collective noun for a group of wombats is a wisdom.

Listened to: 634-5789

Dinner: TheHub had run by the produce stand Tuesday morning and the veggies were yelling at me from the fridge.

Black eyed peas, squash casserole, leftover collards, sliced tomatoes

Thursday: I woke early and got ready for the day. TheHub and I ran to the produce stand to stock up on some items to prepare for the freezer. Peach season is at its end, along with most summer vegetables and we love having them through the winter. Processing them was going to wait until Friday since I had plans for the rest of the day, though I usually do like to do it the same day I get them.

I met my 2 elementary school friends, M and C for lunch. We started meeting quarterly or so, and it was wonderful to pick up where we left off after such a long time seeing each other. They were 2 of my 3 favorite friends when I was growing up. 

When I got home I had a long chat with Son2. He must have been bored!

What I learned: Grand dog, Trixie weighs 100 pounds now. She was a rescue they got as a puppy who grew to be a much larger dog than they anticipated.

Listened to: 99 Luft Balloons

Dinner: I had a head of cabbage that had gotten pushed back in the crisper and needed to be used right away. It required a meal change from what I planned. And this is why having a freezer helps with a punt meal.

Corned beef and cabbage, new potatoes, cucumber tomato onion salad.

Friday: That boatload of peaches we bought needed to be processed. I spent the morning getting them peeled, sliced, tossed in citric acid and frozen.

The worst part of it is having peach juice up to my elbows, but the best will be having delicious icy peaches in the winter that taste like summertime.

After that I moved back into the laundry room. Yes! I only have one more wall to go before it is finished. Of course I have not even begun in the dressing room. It still has a lot of items from Mom and Dad's house that I don't know what to do with.

What I learned: We learned all about Svalbard, an archipelago of Norway. We have been watching videos about "off the beaten path" places that we will never visit. If you do go there, evidently you are required to carry something to thwart polar bears from getting too close.

Listened to: Mambo#5

Dinner: We both wanted a simple meal

Asian lettuce wraps, leftover brown rice

Saturday: We woke and had a little bit of running around to do. The couple who set up our favorite produce stand are going to be closing early this year. The extreme rains early and the blistering heat afterward had a serious impact on their crops. 

Brenda, the wife, always brings packs of various shelled beans and peas. When we were there Thursday, we told her we wanted enough to freeze for the winter, and she brought pleanty. We stocked up on lady peas, butter beans, zipper peas, and butter peas.

After a couple of other quick errands we headed home. and the first thing on my list was to rearrange the freezer to accommodate all the peas and beans.

Roll Tide! This was the beginning of our college football season. TheHub has season tickets and usually goes to the game, but it was insanely hot and the game was at 11 a.m. He would have been sitting through the hottest part of the day and it did not sound appealing at all. Instead we gave the tickets to our nephew and his family and we watched the game in cool comfort. They have young sons and wanted to use them. That is what I call a win/win situation.

What I learned: Whatever ball game came on after the Alabama game was a good game for a 20 minute uncomfortable while sitting on the love seat nap. I have got to start going to bed before 2.

Listened to: 1999

Dinner: This became an unplanned leftovers meal. 

Leftover black eyed peas, leftover squash casserole, toasted sourdough bread (found in the freezer), coleslaw

Sunday: We woke, and instead of going to church we stayed at home and watched the service online. It was a holiday weekend and instead of having everything we normally go to, there was only one service, no early communion service or Sunday School. 

After that I headed to the master bath (and yes I know it is now referred to as a primary, but old habits die hard and I have never thought that referring to it by the older name gave any dominion of the room to TheHub)

Our bath is divided into 2 separate rooms, the actual bath room and a dressing room with cabinets and drawers and a double sink vanity. I decided to remove each item in the drawers and cabinets, toss anything that needed to be tossed and rearrange everything giving the entire space a thorough deep cleaning.

Then I moved into the bedroom itself and started a huge fall deep clean. (Ok it's still summer here but I can pretend can't I. If I wait for real fall weather it will be almost Thanksgiving and that is just too late)

One day not too long ago I was listening to a YouTube video while I was working. After it was finished another video started playing. It was some professional cleaner and though I was not paying close attention to what she said, one thing stuck in my mind and I thought I would give it a try. Her advice was to thoroughly deep clean 4 foot sections as a time. 

I turned up the volume of the music I was listening to and followed her advice. I have to tell you it really did work. I managed to get 4 different sections totally cleaned from the walls down including all drawers and cabinets.  

What I learned: Nothing, I was busy working.

Listened to: 28 Hours**

Dinner: Fresh tomatoes were calling to me.

Tomato pie, green beans

Read: Daisy Jones and the Six

          The Birdwatcher

Have a great week.

May all your weeds be wildflowers

*The laundry room has cabinets, shelves, or wardrobes on each wall and there are all kinds of places for random things to hide.

** I normally never in a million years would have thought of this song, but I had been looking at the seating charts to buy tickets to a local performance of this play. We have seen it once before, and it is one we wanted to see again. While looking for tickets I was playing the Broadway Cast recording