Soledad's Journal

In a sense, at least. Getting old makes the running part relative. But yeah, I was all over town today. Started with school, where I left a bag of religious-themed book for our rel.ed. teacher, in the hope she could put them to good use. If yes, I'll hand her over more. My interest in feministic theology had died down decades ago.

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Not much else was done today; I was completely floored by the time I got home - not surprising, as we had 31°C today again. We ate leftovers, watched telly, and then I slept a bit. And that was basically it.

The other inspiration of the day was that I finally figured out how I wanted to celebrate my upcoming birthday with Mum. We're going to call a cab and visit the Stühmer Café that used to be one of our favourite places. We can't go there by tram anymore, but I can stuff Mum into a cab, and the café is situated so that the cab can basically stop right at the entrance. I will invite my friend and retired colleague Ilonka, who lives in the house next to the café, and we could have a nice outing together - or so I hope.

I overslept again. Only by 20 minutes, but that was enough to make my morning schedule fairly hectic. Especially as this is our laundry day, and I had to fill Louise (the washing machine) before Mum would get up. Well, I almost managed to be done on time. Almost. The fact that I also had to empty the balcony in preparation for tomorrow's cleaning didn't help.

Morning routine being over, we took a short walk in front of our ten-storey concrete monstrosity. Only a short one because Mum's bad knee was acting up. Small wonder; in the last couple of days we had at least three abrupt weather changes, with drastic rises and drops of temperatures. 90+-year-old joints are not made for such things.

We came back, started the washing machine and I made lunch. Only a simple one: plum soup and Käsespätzle. Still, it took enough time for Louise to run her cycle, so I could hang up the washing afterwards. Joy, joy, joy.

At least after lunch we both had a period of peace and quiet. I watched some inane YouTube videos, made some more surprise packages for the fair (having rediscovered small items to put into the boxes), and then worked a bit on my dollhouse themed quiet book. Among the rediscovered items were a bag of glow-in-the-dark shapes, little stars mostly, two of which I decided to use as the dressing room lamps. This is my first quiet book with built-in illumination. *g*

So, that was my busy Saturday. Tomorrow will be the second part of my scheduled cleaning: the balcony, mostly. Which won't be that bad, seeing that it's now almost completely empty. Just a table and two stools need to be brought in in the morning, and then I can buzz through like a crazed lawnmower.

Today was quiet and peaceful with very little household obligations, so I faced the task of starting two new pages for the dollhouse quiet books. Those are the same pages for each book, so I basically did everything twice, but that sped up the process, so it's okay.

These will be the wardrobes/dressing rooms/whatever they are called in English. I cut out the respective parts for two large wardrobes, the doors of which can be opened to reveal the clothes within, as well as for the mannequins that will stand next to them and for the vanity table with its large mirror (the latter is made of sparkly felt and looks great). That took the whole morning, so the only actual sewing I did was to fix the strip of felt that serves as the floor line. But the whole thing promises to look nice, even though the thousand little details might drive me strong barking mad. *g*

Other than that, I only did a tiny bit of cooking. We had leftover salad and I had already boiled the potatoes in advance yesterday, so making the Rösti and the Tütensuppe only took me half an hour or so. Then we watched some telly - Richterin Barbara Salesch has a brand new season at the moment -, took our respective naps, and now we are ready for The Great Canadian Baking Show, that will start in, oh, two hours or so. Until then I can scan the action flyers of Lidl and Aldi for tomorrow's shopping tour.

Today we have not only just one but two birthday girls, so double congrats are in order. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,dear akane42me and dear lindahoyland!!!



I hope you both had a fantastic day, spent the way you like most. Many, many happy returnings!

Fortunately, with only mild rain that stayed outside (so far). Schlafwetter, as the Germans would say. Only that I didn't have time to sleep all day (as much as I'd have liked to). Cleaning was on the menu - I did the kitchen, the bath, the loo and the anteroom. Those are the easy parts, without much furniture moving. I'm dreading the living room and the balcony already - those are the real nightmare.

Other than that, I took it easy. No crafting; I've planned to draw the cat faces on the toilet rolls that would serve as surprise boxes, but it was so dark all day I couldn't do it in front of the telly; and having the lamps on when watching telly is unpleasant. They'll keep.

Cooking was easy. I just made a salad and boiled the Semmelknödel that came ready-made in cooking bags. And heated up the leftover pulled pork. It was all very yummy together. In the afternoon, I finally came to solving a few crossword puzzles, even wrote about two measly lines of dialogue for Crossroads II, and then took a nap.

In the early evening my Erna called; then we watched Season 12 of the GBBO. It was bread week, which is my favourite; that and cookie week. Which reminds me: I really need to bake something yummy in the not too distant future, now that the jam-making is nearly done.

All my cherry pit pillows are sewn closed, and I find they look really cute.
What do you think?



Other than that, I did the grocery shopping in the morning, fetched our medicine from the pharmacy, took a nap in the afternoon, watched inane YouTube videos (I really ought to break the habit!) and had a nice, long chat with my friend Evie in the evening. All in all, a nice day.

I've made two sorts of apple jam today: one with elderflower syrup (not elderberries, as I said last time - I keep missing these things up) and one with raisins, orange zest and gingerbread spices. Both turned out very delicious. The tiny jars will go to the fair, the bigger ones will stay with us and used for palatschinken or topfenknödel. Yum!

I also finished the little pillow cases and started filling them with cherry pits. Only it turned out that I got so many cherry pits donated that I'd need to make at least four more pillow cases. I'm not sure I'll actually do it. 14 of the things are more than enough. I might just put the cherry pits into jars - they've been sterilized thoroughly, after all - and keep them until next year. Then I'll have a start of supplies already.

Part of the reason why I don't want to make more of the things is because two of my fingers are mildly injured. The corner of a fingernail rubbed my index finger sensitive, and I burned my middle finger while jam making. Even so, I'll have to sew nine more cherry pit pillows closed in the upcoming days, which is bad enough.

I called H in the early evening. We discussed decluttering and letting things go for quite a while. I wish I could visit her, but that would take at least four to five hours, due to the distance and the fact that her house is on top of a steep hill, and I don't dare to leave Mum alone. It's one thing to leave her when I don't go very far and can be home within the hour if I have to. But going to an outlying village where the busses only run twice in an hour, plus over an hour from the bus to our building by tram... that's too much of a risk for me.

Our choir leader has managed to cajole back her pet soprano soloist. As a result, the rest of us have been demoted to background singers again. I seriously doubt that I'll last much longer.

At least I managed to deliver another bag of books to the "Book saver" wagon. They were suitably grateful. I hope many people will enjoy those books in the future. I still have more to give away, and since the book saver is on the same way as school, I'll attend to choir practice for a few more weeks. Until I run off of books I want to get rid of.

I've made bread pudding today. Not the authentic British version, just days old rolls, vanilla custard and tinned mandarine oranges. Originally I wanted to give the canned jackfruit that I had bought out of curiosity a try, but they smelled oddly and tasted of old rubber, so I threw them out. Never buying the stuff again!

I've finished another mini pillow case and started the penultimate one. I hope to finish the last two this week and then fill in the cherry pits. I also brought lots of leftover apples from school, so I'll probably make the apple jam during the weekend, too. Two sorts: the spicy ones with raisins noadvertising gave me the recipe for, and the fragrant ones with elderberries. Well, elderberry syrup, actually, but it's the taste that counts, right?

Meaning the Christmas tree garlands made of tinfoil. This year I've produced six of them, thanks to Kathy's contribution (her family heroically ate lots and lots of chocolate, marzipan and candy that comes in tinfoil packaging), and with the three left from last year, I'll have nine to offer. In order to make them more appealing to potential customers I'm planning to take the upper part of my artificial Christmas tree to the fair and decorate it with the garlands. I hope it will help.

Anyway, here are the new garlands:



I think they've turned out well enough, even though the stuffing proved too thick so I had a hard time to push the needle through. Might have deformed the little balls a bit in the process, but hopefully they'll sell nevertheless.

I also finished the little pillowcase I had started yesterday and made another one, too. That means six down, four more to go. Or five, as one of the finished ones is much smaller than the rest and I might keep it for a different purpose. We'll see.

In the morning I managed to jot down a few ideas concerning Crossroads II. Then I cooked lunch - nothing fancy, just a quick cauliflower dish (sorry, noadvertising!) with Tütensuppe made of the boiling water of abovementioned cauliflower. We had coffee and ice cream for afters, which was the best part. But Mum liked the whole lunch, so that was good.

It was also the day of Mum's weekly shower, after which I took down the dried washing. Another task out of my hair.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with a bit of napping and feeding my addiction re: inane YouTube videos. I sincerely hope that I'll get overfed with the trash, soon, and can stop wasting my time with them. But for the moment they're good for my overtired brain.

Update: I've just typed up another character sheet for Crossroads II. It can be viewed as the latest entry at otherworlds_lib

Well, if that isn't a pleasant surprise! The jelly not only set, it didn't melt when I took it out of the fridge and let it stand in the kitchen, either. I wrote the labels, labelled and decorated the mini jars, and now they look like this:



Don't they look cute? The flip side of things is that the camera app of my way-too-smart phone seems to have migrated somewhere where I can't find it. I swear, I didn't do anything to cause it (not that I'd know it); the day before yesterday it was still there. I made the picture through gmail, but I'd love to use my app as I have done for over a year by now. It makes jpg pictures, while the gmail version makes png ones, and I've got my preferences.

Where is a teenager when an old hag needs technical help?

Other than that, I took Mum for a (very short) walk today. Just to the playground right next to our house, where I parked her to watch the toddlers while I want to Lidl. Apparently, one of the little ones came to her and examined her cane with great interest. *g* She had fun, but complained about the heat and about aching joints. We definitely need to go out more often to keep her in form.

I also processed all my differently-coloured pieces of tinfoil that will become Christmas tree garlands, and I finished one more pillow case. Since the outing with Mum basically took the whole morning, that was the most I could manage today.