Soledad's Journal

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, dear just_jenni!!!



I hope you are having a lovely day and have found your new rhythm in life.
{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}

In other words: Sunday wasn't exactly uneventful, either.

It started with a short trip to Lidl and Aldi, respectively. Dratted supermarkets have different offers in the second half of the week, to force us to make more trips to them. But Aldi had bananas and the Actvia yogurt for considerably reduced prices, and since we start each day with exactly those things, I went and filled the fridge... with other things, too, of course, but these were the main items. I also bought six packages of Tütensuppe, as those are our way of survival when neither of us feels like cooking.

Today I did cook, though. The Topfenknödel were overdue, as the Quark was closing up to its "best before" date, and 1/3 little jar of home-made strawberry jam was waiting for its chance to be eaten. So we had it with our Knödel.

Crafting was a bit subdued again. I worked a bit on the tinfoil garland project while watching telly with half an eye. Then I've sewn on the felt appliqués to the remaining eight pillow-cases and pinned the front and back panels of said pillow-cases together. The rest of the sewing will be fairly easy and straightforward and will be done one piece at a time.

I also prepared the bio-oranges for tomorrow's jam-making. I had to buy bio-oranges, as this particular recipe asks for the peels to be included. I washed and sliced a kilo of oranges into paper thin slices, dumped the sugar over them and they're now quietly absorbing the sugar and producing juice in a big pot. The recipe says they should do this overnight; it's one I've already made two years ago and it worked, so I'm carefully optimistic.

As I don't have to cook tomorrow, I'll give those peanut butter cookies a try - again, because I have whipping cream that needs to be used up. I hope it will be better than those horrid condensed milk cookies I was making last week.

The "promised" storm never came, thank God. We had some mild rain, which was very welcome after the long period of draught, and it stayed outside the balcony, so everything was fine.

I've put the about two kilos of cherry pits into the oven for an hour, at the lowest heat, just in case they had unborn tenants. That (hopefully) took care of the potential problem. After they cooled down (the cherry pits, not the tenants), I refilled them into glass jars until I'll need them for the little pillows.

Speaking about those, I've cut out the necessary parts for ten more pillow cases. I hope that would be enough. If not, I still have some leftover fabric to make more. I've sewn one pillow case today; nine more to go. At least this fabric is easier to sew through than several layers of felt.

I also started processing the pieces of tinfoil to turn them into garlands for the Christmas tree. Once finished, they'll look similar like these, on the right side of the board.

Otherwise, it was a quiet day. We ate leftovers, I finally cleaned most of the dirt from the outside of our front door, now that the floor works are finished. Those look nice, BTW. I might take a photo if I don't forget.

H. called, and we had a nice, long phone chat. And now we're waiting for the promised big storm and the inevitable leakage on the balcony. The wind has already sped up; we'll see what happens. *sigh*

... and I'm pathetically grateful for it. At least I managed to bring up the energy - barely! - to wash my hair. It was overdue. It's a good thing that I've got so little of it; that makes things faster and easier.

I didn't really do much today. In the morning, inspiration hit unexpectedly, and I wrote over two pages of dialogue for a "Cadfael" story that has been in planning for years, without as much as a single word being written - until today. I don't know if I'll ever get around to write the actual story, but I'm glad I put those lines to paper.

We ate leftover soup and cheese-and-ham toast for lunch because we need to consume our bread before it would get mouldy. It is surdough bread, and as such more sensitive than regular yeast doughs.

After lunch I slept for an hour because I was still exhausted from all that packing and cleaning that we had to do in recent days. Then I did a bit of crafting: sewn on the other six tiny felt apples and tried to make one interactive bit, namely the rain, working. I failed. Two different approaches didn't work out. After that, I got annoyed and put the whole thing away.

Later in the afternoon a former colleague called. She'll come over tomorrow, with cherry pits and other crafting supplies she'd collected for me. It promises to be a fun visit, or so I hope.

Today I nurtured my shopping addiction. I rode the bus to the Campona shopping centre - the only place within reach with a newsletter's that sells German crossword puzzle books. Alas, only the huge ones (why keep the Din A/5 format that's practical and can be put into a handbag when they can keep the large ones for which one needs a dining table to spread out, right?) but at least they have them. They're outrageously expensive, compared with the original price that can be seen in Euros on the front page, but at least available. I bought two; that will have to last till Christmas or so.

( Crafty purchases )

Coming home, we watched some telly, ate leftovers and I packed the kitchen together, so that the exterminators that come three times a year, profilactically, can spray the hidden corners, too. Guess who didn't come? Right; the exterminators. Mum phoned them, and they said they had said August 26 both times she had called them previously. Mum swears they said August 25; actually, that was what she told me after the previous two calls. She was very angry, and so was I. I can't stand unreliable people. So the kitchen will remain in refugee camp mode for another day. God, I'm so fed up with this!

Not much else got done today because I was tired and fell asleep in the afternoon for two hours. But tomorrow I'll give these condensed milk cookies a try. Because my mental health requires some baking - it has been too long! - and I need to do it before the heat returns (presumably with the worst storm of the year) on Thursday.

Now that the front pages are finished (see yesterday's entry), I've switched to the back covers. They were partially done already; that means, I had the floor, the sky and a tree sewn on for each and a cloud for each made but not fixed yet. I've been hesitating between adding a dog house or a bird house next, and today I decided that it would be a bird house.
( Read more... )

Aside from the crafting progress, I also did the grocery shopping in the morning, and we had Apfelstrudel again. The Alpenfest version is so good, as long as Lidl has it I'll probably buy it once a week; all I have to do with it is to put it into the oven, which is the easiest way of baking I can imagine.

Speaking of baking, I'm mildly frustrated that I couldn't actually get to it for effing weeks. There are at least half a dozen recipes that I'm dying to try, but first it was so very hot, then there was so much housework, culminating in the carpet cleaning this week, and now that the weather behaves, I still have to put everything back in place. Including all the china Mum has insisted of washing up for the last three days - and it still isn't finished! I wish I could do things that I'd like to do at least from time to time before I get mad out of sheer frustration.

The front pages of the twin dollhouse books. Take a look:



And this is one of them, with the front door opened, so that the staircase would be visible:



Once again, the colours are not exactly true, the pale blue background looks more grey, and the berries on the bushes look too pale, but it gives you an overall impression. I'm fairly proud of my accomplishments, despite the fact that one of the houses stands askew and there are other mistakes as well. Still, it was an ungodly amount of work, and I'm glad it's done and that it's turned out well.

Two pages done, fourteen more to go.

Other than that, we washed the bedding and I cooked lunch - a very dumbed-down version of fish and chips. I also did a fair bit of writing, so I'm very satisfied with my accomplishments today.

Also, my friend Evie called, and we had a nice, long chat. Happy news in every corner, yay!

I made the last preparations today: emptying the balcony and wiping it, so that the clean carpet won't have to be laid back on a dirty (well, dusty, mostly) floor. Doing the same with the anteroom. The kitchen looks like a refuge camp, and we'll have to move at least some pieces of furniture around during the cleaning process due to the fact that the corridor can't be used at the moment. And to add insult to injury, weather forecast promises storms for tomorrow afternoon. The cleaning guy comes early in the morning, so he'll be able to do his job, but such weather certainly won't help with the drying. *sigh*

Not much else got done today; we were both exhausted. I made Käsespätzle for lunch (thank you, fresh Spätzle from Alpenfest!), did a bit of writing and we watched some telly. I wish it were tomorrow evening already. Waiting for the carpets to dry so that we can put things back to their places isn't much fun, either, but at least that's the aftermath of the battle.

As today is St. Stephan's Day (our first king and the founder of Hungarian state), Mum called my eldest cousin whose name is Stephan to congratulate him to his name day. She also told him off a bit, as a representative of his entire generation, for not giving a sh*t about whether she still lives. Very politely, of course, Mum's a real lady, but she spoke her mind, and I'm proud of her.

No, it doesn't have anything to do with the festival in Michigan. It is simply a brand that offers various kinds of ready-made food, from Wiener Schnitzel through Spätzle and Semmelknödel to crumble cakes, Apfelstrudel, pre-cooked pig knuckle and dozens more. Lidl has these things twice or three times a year, tops, so when it's that time again, I usually spend way too much money there. I just love this style of food.

Today I bought a package of pig knuckles, two packages of fresh Spätzle, a box of Semmelknödel, a cherry crumble cake, an Apfelstrudel and a bag of potato balls filled with spinach and mozzarella. Most of those things were either frozen or needed to be kept cold, so both fridge and freezer are quite full at the moment, especially as I also bought haddock filets in dough coating. So full that I had to bake up the Apfelstrudel right away because I couldn't squeeze it into the freezer. But that's okay. It's absolutely delicious, and tomorrow we'll have it for lunch, after some tomato soup. Well... what's left of it. We've ate half of it for dessert today. *g*

Anyway, it was a great shopping tour, even though I had to get up an hour earlier and I didn't find the announced cheesy pretzels. Coming home I baked up the Apfelstrudel, then I worked a bit on my dollhouse quiet book project. The little bushes of the front pages now have somewhat oversized berries (plastic pearls, actually) in red and orange, respectively. That was finicky work. I also added tiny stripes of lace to the windows. I think they look quite nice. Now I only have to make up my mind whether I want to add chimneys or not, since there's no way to make the disappearing and reappearing smoke that I originally wanted. The house is too big for that, and the narrow stripe of sky above it is already full enough with two clouds and the sun. Ah, well.

Not much else was done today. Mum decided that we need a day of rest (sort of) before we start the big packing action. The man who cleans our wall-to-wall carpets once a year is due on Thursday, so we'll have to empty the rooms as well as we can, considering that the corridor floors are still not finished and the workers might show up on Thursday, too, in which case we can't put out anything next to our entrance door. That promises to be... interesting, as the kitchen is basically the only room where no carpets will be cleaned, and it's definitely not big enough to transfer everything there. We'll see.

Added later:
YouTube seems to suddenly have developed a dislike towards my main PC. The vids start like always, then stop after a minute and a half and nothing happens. No problems detected when on my tablet, so this must have to be something with my aged operations system; or with the PC itself. Very annoying!

Oh, and before I forget:

Happy Birthday, wanderingmogwai! I hope you are having a lovely time!

The weather is supposed to cool down, soon. Not today, though; today we still had 36°C. Okay, one cooler than yesterday, but that doesn't really count, does it? Tomorrow we'll apparently have thunderstorms, which means the balcony might give in again. I don't know which one is worse. Although lower temperatures will be welcome.

Today I had to cook for two days. And we had laundry day, too, since it's Saturday. The blinds were still down for most of the day and the windows firmly closed. We had to switch on the lamps to see our lunch. My understanding of fun is somewhat different...

At least I made a tiny bit of progress with my quiet book #2. The front door of the doll house is sewn on and functioning. I also did a bit of stitching on the suns. These ready-made felt ornaments are always just haphazardly glued together, and I won't risk small children to swallow the parts that come loose. So I added a circle of stitches to keep sun disc and rays safely together.

In the afternoon I basically lay on my belly with Methuselah the laptop. Poor thing can't really connect to many websites and besides, I couldn't install the update to the antivirus programme, so I just did some fanfic reading offline. I still enjoyed it, though. Original BSG/Star Trek crossovers are fun.

Tomorrow, there will be a bit of cleaning. I just hope the bucket I use for wiping the floors won't be needed for the balcony leak instead. That would make things complicated.