Soledad's Journal

... since it is Saturday, and Saturdays are always crazy busy. Well, not exactly crazy today, but busy nonetheless.

We had laundry day. Granted, Louise (the washing machine) does the actual washing, but pre-soaking things, filling Louise and then emptying her takes time and effort.

( Shopping spree )

Coming home, I made carrot soup, and we decided to have sandwiches, coffee and Quarkdessert for afters, as I really, really didn't feel up to cooking anything else. I then had a lovely phone talk with my friend Elise and subsequently took a nap.

Craftiness: I've finished the pencil holder cover. This is what it looks before gluing to the actual tin:

https://hu.pinterest.com/pin/341640321756295071/

Writing-wise I've produced two-thirds of a Din A4 page. I so love writing Vulcans, their mindset is so different, it's an adventure to try getting into their heads.

So yeah; a busy day, but a successful one.

Since I've been getting old and tired, I could only achieve one major thing a day as a rule. Today was a welcome exception. Not only have I done the grocery shopping in the morning, I also managed to work quite a bit on my pencil holder, and even wrote a full page for the next chapter of my alternate Voyager pilot. And took a nap in the afternoon and gave a friend/former colleague (now also retired) a call. *is proud*

Granted, I didn't have to cook today, save for frying a handful of frozen fish fingers, and Lidl didn't have any frozen blueberries (usually they have mountains of them), so blueberry jam with lavender will have to wait. It doesn't matter, I'll make the apple one instead, before my free apples would rot.

I've just typed up what I wrote in the afternoon and am very pleased with it. Yay for the muse ending her hibernation!

I spent the morning at the dentist's. Got there by taxi, survived the spiral staircase, got home by taxi. Price-y but safe. Or as safe as getting into the car of a complete stranger can be.

Things are developing slowly on the dental front. I'll have to wait at least two weeks for my next appointment because the dental technician is having knee surgery. By this speed we won't be finished before the year ends. *sigh* I just wish to be done with it!

The rest of the day was spent with doing absolutely nothing. Well, I did make toasted sandwiches for lunch, but that was basically it. I talked to my friends, Evie and Erna, on the phone; that was nice. I slept an hour and a half in the late afternoon; walking with tiny, careful steps is exhausting. Much more exhausting than marching energetically. I hate being restricted in my mobility.

Today was me-day... sort of. Meaning, that beyond the usual chores I did things I actually enjoy.

Firstly, I made sour cherry jam. With lemon and thyme. It turned out delicious.

Then I gave this recipe a try:



Because my friend had brought me free apples from school and I wanted to use them before they'd go bad. The cookies turned out yummy, too, although not quite that soft as promised. Mum still enjoyed them. We had them for lunch, after the leftover potato soup.

Then I finally finished Chapter 20 of my "Alternate Caretaker" story. It's posted to both Ao3 and otherworlds_lib. AO3 counts it as Chapter 26, because of the Prologue and the various Interludes, but as regular chapters go, it is the twentieth one.

Then I labelled my little jars of spicy mango jam. The lids are decorated with a star anise, each; that gives you an idea about their actual size:

https://hu.pinterest.com/pin/341640321756252333/

Also, I talked to H. on the phone and had a nice, hour-long nap in the afternoon. So, all in all it was a very successful day.

Addendum:
Oh, and by the way, I've finally managed to take photos of the finished birthday journal. They can be viewed here:
https://hu.pinterest.com/ekunster/my-journals-cards-boxes/ilonka-70-birthday/

Good news #1: My hip is almost back to its normal function. I still took a taxi to the eye doctor and back, just in case - the walk from the bus stop to the clinic is a fairly long one for an old hag whose hip had been acting up just two days previously.

Good news #2: The eye doctor didn't find anything alarming, even though the sight of my left eye might have worsened a bit, according to the see test. Or it was just tired. In any case, I have to go back for control in three months' time, and that was basically it. Only cost me three hours of waiting or so.

Not so good news: The eye doctor is switching jobs, so next time I'll see a different one. I just hope the new one will be a sensible one, too. I still don't want the surgery, and I'd prefer if I wouldn't have to fight the doctor about it. In the end it is my decision, but some doctors can be fairly unreasonable about such things.

All in all, the news are good, so I decided to celebrate tonight. By baking a Women's whim cake, for which I've just found a very simple recipe on YouTube. When I mentioned my plans, Mum asked for her favourite cheesy scones, so I'm going to make those, too. It's cold over here, there'll be only 7 degrees in the night, so having the oven running for two hours will warm up the flat very nicely.

Well, she had two of those, obviously, and so have I; only that I managed to ruin one of them today. With the simple method of trying to close the buckle on my sandals. A move that I've performed hundreds of times in the last forty years. Nothing ever happened... until today. As always, I stood on one leg, raised the other one and leaned over to reach the buckle - and something in my hip made a crack and I nearly fell over. I literally couldn't do a single step for several moments afterwards. When I finally could, I fell into an armchair and hoped the dizziness would fade. It did. But walking was till difficult, and to add insult to injury, I was due at the dentist's within the next 90 minutes.

At first I tried to be the proverbial strong woman, borrowed Mum's cane and started croaching towards the tram stop. I got as far as the next entrance of our building when I had to admit that it won't work. So I called a cab. Cabs are faster than trams, especially when one has to switch to a bus eventually. so I was at the dentist's half an hour too early. Fortunately, I had crossword puzzles. Dental procedure took another two hours or so, after which I called a cab again. The dentist asked if she could help me get down the steep and narrow spiral staircase leading from her practice to the ground level; alas, she is too small to pick me up and carry me down, so we agreed that I'd brave the stairs on my own.

I survived. The cab came relatively soon and took me home. We had leftover soup and sandwiches for lunch (taking all this from the kitchen to the living room was a challenge in itself), watched the GBBO, then I called my friend Evie as previously agreed. She, too, had a dentist's appointment today, and we wanted to discuss our experiences. And since she is an angel, she promptly offered to do the grocery shopping for me tomorrow when she heard what had happened to me. She had gone through similar things, only with her back and knee, a couple of years ago.

So, here we are. Mum can barely walk and absolutely can't carry anything while trying to get from one room to another. I'm slightly better on my feet (at least the right one), but walking and carrying things at the same time is difficult. And the day after tomorrow I have to go to the eye doctor for control. That will be another trip in a cab; or rather two because I have to get home somehow, too. At least this trip is much shorter than the one to the dentist's, and I haven't got to pay the eye doctor thanks to my insurance.

I did the grocery shopping in the morning. Capers were reduced in price, so I bought 4 little jars of them. Not because I needed ungodly amounts of capers - I hardly ever use them - but because those neat little jars would be well-suited for the jams I'm planning to make for the Christmas fair. Spicy mango jam, for starters. Then sour cherry jam with thyme. And blueberry jam with lavender. Also, perhaps plum jam with gingerbread spices. And sweet orange and pink grapefruit jam. Yeah, I'm insane.

Anyway, H. pointed out that capers can be frozen, one portion a time. I foresee several portions landing in the freezer. I'm also going to made Königsberger Klopse later this week - the white sauce asks for capers. And that's a dish you can make for several days in advance.

Otherwise, not much happened. I made soup, did a bit of writing (the chapter is still not finished), talked to H. and my friend Evie on the phone and watched the live feed to the Parliament session. That was... educational. Then I typed up the stuff I had written before and now the day is over again.

One of my provisorial crowns (installed on Wednesday) simply broke away in the morning. I haven't even biting on something hard. I was eating a Lindor chocolate ball, filled with cream. Cream is soft. So I was surprised to feel something crunchy in it. It was the crown... in two pieces. It isn't a tragedy in itself, it would have come off next Wednesday anyway, and the tooth beneath is sturdy and healthy - just too short because it has been filed down for the permanent crown that is coming. But now I can't properly close my teeth on either side; on the right side because I don't have any upper molars left and on the left side because that particular molar is too short. Very annoying.

On the plus side, yesterday I've got a lovely birthday card from meathiel. With some sparkly foam stickers. Thank you so much! We both loved the card, and I'm going to use some of the stickers on the birthday album I'm currently making.

Speaking of the birthday album, 8 out of 10 pages are finished. I'm fairly content with the outcome, although I might add some small embellishments to some of them. Or I might not. I'll decide when the whole thing is done.

Other than that, we had laundry day, then I made cauliflower Strudel and took a nice, long nap in the afternoon. This had been an exhausting week, and I feel the tiredness in my very bones.

Today I spent three hours at the dentist's. Plus two and a half hours getting there and back again, to quote Bilbo Baggins. Dental processes are still very much ongoing, with little new problems being detected along the way. By current estimate, it will cost me two months' pension. That's what you have from getting old: your teeth abandon you and as a consequence so does your money.

I was pretty much floored for the rest of the day. In the afternoon my friend Erna called and we discussed tomorrow's phone renewal event. She's gone through the same a couple of years ago and pointed out a few things I should keep an eye on. Now I'm nervous.

On my way home I decided that I'd earned a reward. So, from now on I'll buy a chimney cake each time I have a dentist's appointment. Mum found the idea wonderful. So this will become our routine as long as I have to visit the torture chamber regularly.

I posted a few pics of the currently existing pages of my newly started birthday journal to DW. Unfortunately, I can't copy and paste the url here; or rather I can, but it won't appear. So, you can view them in my comment to this entry:

https://get-knitted.dreamwidth.org/556572.html

I must mention that the little flowers on the front page are in fact sparkly white, not pale pink as on the photo. My old iPad gave white things a pale blue tint, the way-too-smart phone apparently prefers pale pink. *shakes head*

I was glad I could use the English tags from a sheet of scrapbook paper, since the friend in question is a language teacher by trade (albeit a retired one). So I did the hand-written stuff in English, too.

Other than that, it was a housewife-y day. I made a food run in the morning, cooked for two days in advance and was pretty much useless for the rest of the day.