Stevie Smith Saturday

[helia]

Wow. It is really difficult for me to move around this website. But if I'm persistent, I can get in in the end.

WEEKLY ACTIVITIES
Sat 1ish - go kayaking on the river
Sun 10 - church/ 6 - host dinner for up to 10 people

Mon 1:30 - 3:30 payroll: teach AIAS D3
Tue 9-12ish KS2J get together/ 3-4 payroll: academic ci with AC
Wed 1:30 - 3:30 payroll: teach AIAS D4
Thu 8 - WW/ 2-3 work out with AS/ PACK?
Fri 12-1 to go talk at CSS?/ 1:30 - 3:30 payroll: teach AIAS D5/ Travel up north
Sat go to the big dune (I probably can't hike up it)/ beach/ visit the charming town
Sun other sights/ Travel home/6 - host dinner for up t0 10 people/ 8:15 family zoom call?

9.7 - 9.13 Dinner Menus
M - bbq at the girls; bring grilled zucchini
T - tamales, rice, leftover zucchini, leftover potatoes try new pasta with lentils recipe, steamed or roasted squash
W - new pasta recipe with lentils and kale, roasted or steamed broccoli
Th - K and SP cook: spaghetti with tomato sauce, green salad
F - OUT with S and K
Sat - Dutch pancakes, salad
Sun - host Sunday dinner for 10? rotisserie chicken, bread, cheese, pizzas

August Brain Dumps
This Week - House
- spend some time decluttering in MBR - need to do more

This Week - Deskwork
- Writing progress - wip
- figure out another knitting project - after our trip
- order baby gifts: dniece's 3rd baby + BD gift - baby I
- message for coffee dates: SS, JK,
- write baby cards: CM and M

This Week - Errands
- put baby gifts in the mail: CM and M
- oil change

General Brain Dump
- progress decluttering clothes - wip
- transfer info from old to new laptop (will require a trip to a specialist)
- new running shoes

[helia]

Oh hi trissie! LOL! Yes, you're right. They did their own laundry last week. Although, it sounds like they don't do their own laundry at home. I'm looking forward to a photo! Is it very common in the Czech Republic to process as much homegrown fruit as you do?

Speaking of food: Yesterday, SP, our Dutch niece living in Germany, told us that they're quite happy with the GF bread I buy. They also like dd28's homemade bread, but it's not that much better, in their opinion. She also said something very funny - that German bread isn't like Dutch bread, i.e. isn't as good as Dutch bread -- so maybe our standards of good European bread are too high. These teens crack us up from time to time. K wasn't there to defend German bread. SO, I'll just keep buying that brand of GF bread! It's easy. Expensive - but easy. Money for time.

[Harriet]

Have been on the phone with customer support since 8:50 (an hour). They were then able to navigate and so were we at that moment. But now again it's still doing this. I will try again.

[helia]

Yes, it took multiple tries at different stages for me to get in. But then everything seemed to smooth out. . .

I've scoped out the bnb situation for our trip next weekend. I have just conferred with dh and requested a reservation. Not much else has happened, although I did get to chat with dh. With the girls here, our time to chat and connect one-on-one has been curtailed.

Next:
- back exercises
- s2s and self care
- squeegee and wipe down shower

[trissie]

Oh hi trissie! LOL! Yes, you're right. They did their own laundry last week. Although, it sounds like they don't do their own laundry at home. I'm looking forward to a photo! Is it very common in the Czech Republic to process as much homegrown fruit as you do?

I was thinking about it the whole time I was in garden, helia, and at first I wanted to say that it depends on whether people are into growing vegetables/fruits (because if you have it, you are not letting it rot!), and how it's the way I was brought up because my mom's family was poor but they had a large garden (my grandfather was cheated out of inheritance by his sister, but he was gifted a large plot to build upon prior to my great-grandfather's death) so they basically had a town-minifarm (even keeping their own chicken for eggs and rabbits for meat) with a huge orchard, and how every visit to my grandparents included a bag of preserves and canned fruit and vegetables to take home, and how I subconsiously try to recreate the good things from my childhood...

but then I remembered the "Life in DDR" (Deutsche Demokratische Republic, aka East Germany) that I had seen in Berlin, and realized that no, this is actually bigger. It's a whole cultural phenomena across the entire former Soviet republics and Eastern block, because the centrally planned economy has this ugly part of shortages of everything and lack of variety in stores, so home-growing (or cottage growing, because cottaging was a huge thing as that provided both a destination to travel to and a certain free-ness otherwise unavailable under the Big Brother) and canning / preserving became a way to be self-sufficient and not have to rely on the empty shelves in the stores.

I found this wonderful article about Bulgarian canning: https://www.copernico.eu/en/articles/pi ... od-culture
which describes the very same traditions and cultural phenomenas that we have, so... yeah, a lot of people's weekends in September are spent by a water bath canner!

[trissie]

Harriet, thank you for letting us know - and thank you for taking the time on your weekend to handle the admin stuff!

TaDas
- midday routine
- 15 on food preps (start CPot, label and put away jars, portion, label and freeze freezer cooking)
- repot the flowers I bought
- deadhead climbing roses
- pick up - front garden / porch
- spiff up the shed
- wipe and rearrange empty jar shelves in shed

ToDos
- afternoon routine
- 30 outside
- 15 on home admin tasks

Braindump
routines
- evening routine
food
- dinner
- bake something sweet
- feed breadstarter
organization
- DBD's speech therapy
- homework and backpacks
- pay for DtDT's air dance lessons
- paperwork and payment for DtDK's kick box lessons
- pay library fee renewal
- book order
- arrange for drop-off of old mattresses at the dump
- order new vacuum cleaner and cooker hood
- make apt - obgyn
- 15 on filing
- plan for September
- print materials for H&H plan
cleaning
- clean office
- spiff up master bedroom
- spiff up master bathroom
- spiff up DBD's room
- spiff up twins' room (oversee it done)
- spiff up DS15's room (oversee it done)
- spiff up kitchen
- spiff up living room
- spiff up downstairs bathroom and hallways
- clean out / reorganize attic
- H&H plan - deep cleaning in office
- H&H plan - deep cleaning in master bedroom
laundry
- load of towels
- ironing
- folding
- mending
- laundry put away
garden and outside
- watering and feeding flowerpots
- feeding veggie gardem
- weeding in veggie garden
- weeding in front garden
- pick up - backyard
- spiff up carpool
- spiff up garage
- reseed in veggie garden
me time
- 15 of exercise
- Bible study
- reading
- sewing?

[Doggedly]

Thank you for that friendly start, Kittykatt. Big WTG on painting the garage door. Enjoy your time in the garden.

FrenchFly, I think that you are very clear-eyed about the decision to apply or not.

Enjoy your kayaking trip, helia.

I'm sorry that the dkids don't want to go to the cottage, trissie, but at least you have only one house to clean this weekend.


I've been seeing Error 503 too, helia, but so far it lets me in when I click a second time. Fingers crossed!

Thank you, Harriet. We appreciate your efforts!

I really am locked out this time, so I'll just save this in Notepad and go do stuff.

--later: trying again

Saturday
15:
Heart pill for Germane
Find/pack shower cap
Started packing duffle bag

Retrieved Germane from the bathroom where she was stuck beside the toilet and couldn’t remember how to back up.
Sat with her a bit and set her on her pee pads.
CUOP

15 X 2:
Put on a pot of coffee
Covered dw
Brought out a new container of coffee
Searched for k-cups in pantry. I must have given them away at the end of my last vacation. I’ll have to buy new.
Quick walk through shopping list for when I have the rental car
Found roasted seaweed snacks. Those will be good for the trip.

[Lauralind]

Morning all. Yup been a bit sticky for me getting around too. Hmmm canning and growing stuff. You are so good at it and using your abundance trissie. All the fruit and such. I'm struggling. I used to can peaches and pears and tomato sauces and pickles... then I did it a few times and didn't use ip the produce so what's the point ... I shrunk my garden.

But it's hard up here. Some years are good. But this year was really bad. Cold until July. Things really didn't get going till mid July. Now everything is just starting to produce. And too cold to keep growing. I got about 10 or 15 good tomatoes. A couple small meals of beans. Tons of tiny starts but it's almost freezing at night and 10 or 15 maybe 18 mid day.

Carrots are probably fine. But they can stay there a while yet. Beets are really good but that's my problem. All I know what to do with beets is pickles. Yum. I got way ouf of practice canning. Wrong stove now and no side burner. I can go use my sister's side burner but how do you keep everything hot. I think I'm gonna have to procrastinate and take it all to dd place.

No baby yet. 5 days overdue now. Poor girl I feel so sorry for her. So done. Gramma is impatient too.

Now I have a problem . The canning frustration is going to make me lose my motivation for doing much again.

[helia]

Thank you so much Harriet, for giving up time on your weekend to look into this.
That is so interesting, trissie. There's no culture of doing that sort of thing in dh's family, which made me wonder - except maybe making blueberry jam. There were many patches of blueberry bushes near the family summer home. They also ate a lot fresh in yogurt.
Glad you were there to rescue Germane, Doggedly.
Oh -- the new baby is overdue!! Any day now. . . Lauralind, I really like roasted beets, especially with other root vegetables, drizzled with some balsamic glaze and a little crumbled goat cheese on top.

I haven't been very productive yet. I did just update gradelink for week 1 - not much since they haven't had any assignments or quizzes yet. BUT - I need to get going for real. We're leaving for kayaking in 1:15.

Next:
- check in with friend BVE
- back exercises
- s2s and self care
- squeegee and wipe down shower

[trissie]

Morning all. Yup been a bit sticky for me getting around too. Hmmm canning and growing stuff. You are so good at it and using your abundance trissie. All the fruit and such. I'm struggling. I used to can peaches and pears and tomato sauces and pickles... then I did it a few times and didn't use ip the produce so what's the point ... I shrunk my garden.

But it's hard up here. Some years are good. But this year was really bad. Cold until July. Things really didn't get going till mid July. Now everything is just starting to produce. And too cold to keep growing. I got about 10 or 15 good tomatoes. A couple small meals of beans. Tons of tiny starts but it's almost freezing at night and 10 or 15 maybe 18 mid day.

Carrots are probably fine. But they can stay there a while yet. Beets are really good but that's my problem. All I know what to do with beets is pickles. Yum. I got way ouf of practice canning. Wrong stove now and no side burner. I can go use my sister's side burner but how do you keep everything hot. I think I'm gonna have to procrastinate and take it all to dd place.

lauralind, there will always be good years and bad years (even with fruit - I may lose everything with a late bad frost, and then have over abundance the next year or even the one after that), so I am fine with things not being used up before next summer! The general understanding round here is that homemade canned goods don't have a best before date and therefore are good forever
Bad years mean more free time in the fall, so I am happy either way.

Re beets, well i like them pickled classic style, but I've seen recipes for grated beets and apples and caramelized onions in a jar, which looks really good! Or are you looking for a "normal" recipe for beets?