Soledad's Journal

Not necessarily in this order but yeah, that was what filled our day. Even though it didn't start pleasantly. The effing bedding refused to dry out properly during the night (since temperatures have dropped but we no longer have heating), so we had to postpone Mum's weekly shower. Which is annoying; we do have a somewhat regular weekly schedule that enables me to deal with the housework in a manageable way. But some things just can't be changed.

The current weather causes Mum's joints to ache something fierce, so I didn't want her to cook today. Chicken paprikas was on the menu; one of the traditional family meals that are usually her thing to do. Not today, though. Today I made it - for the second time in my entire life! It turned out quite yummy, plus this way I won't have to cook tomorrow, so it was good. Even though dealing with raw chicken meat isn't my idea of a grand old time.

Crafting-wise I was working on the small, circular felt plaques that will go into the lids of the sewing kits, holding (later) a number of assorted buttons. I planned to make 6 of them, but - to my pleasant surprise - I managed to make 10, meaning that this particular task will (hopefully) be finished tomorrow or the day after. Yay!

While I was at it, H. called. She, her daughter, son-in-law and grandkids were on their way back from Lake Balaton, where her son & family live in a moderately large town and wanted to drop by to visit Mum. Mum was on cloud nine with happiness, of course; we hadn't seen the little ones in the flesh for a year or longer. Video calls just aren't the same and even those are rare enough.

So, all in all it was a really good day. We did have some rain, but the really big downpour hasn't arrived just yet. There's a lot of wind, which is not promising: wind and rain together is what usually causes the leakage. But perhaps we'll be lucky and the wind blows the rain clouds out of our vicinity. *fingers crossed*

I planned to do a bit of grocery shopping today. And to sort out at least one shelf in my craft cupboard. And to finish all three remaining pincushions, just to get them out of my hair.

Well, I have finished two of the three pincushions. Other than that, I did literally nothing but reading, solving crossword puzzles, watching telly, taking naps and going for a walk with Mum. There are so many things in the flat that need to be done but I just don't feel up to actually doing them.

At least I talked to my friend Evie on the phone. That's one thing not related to household things. Ah, well, tomorrow I'll have to leave the house to buy some food, perhaps that will break me out of my grey mood.

... was I this morning. I fetched Mum's medicine - well, they didn't have all three packages, just two, but they ordered the third one, and I'll get it on Monday.

Then I brought my new dresses and trousers to a seamstress to get them shortened. That will about take care of my summer wardrobe. Yay!

Then I rode the bus to the Campona shopping center. There's the only newsletter's within reach that sells German crossword puzzle books. I'm now well-equipped for months. I also visited Tedi and Pepco there and brought some craft supplies I didn't really need but you can never have enough of them, right?

On my way home (after having done a bit of grocery shopping) I saw that our corner coffee won't be open till next Monday; meaning that we won't be able to visit it on Friday. So I bought Mum's favourite croissants and we had them with iced coffee for lunch. We also ate the remaining peanut bars - not the most healthy of lunches, but definitely a sumptuous one.

After all these activities I took a nice, long nap in the afternoon, then had a short phone chat with my friend Evie - and now the day is over again.

Of course it doesn't! It's housework, after all. *sigh*

Today was wasted spent with preparations for tomorrow's cleaning frenzy. I emptied the balcony and half the kitchen, putting everything I could move out onto the corridor, scrubbed the bathtub clean, gave the new limescale remover a try (it appears I'll have to give it several more tries before any sign of improvement would show), cooked lunch... and there are still are several things I'll have to move, staple on top of each other, dust, scrub and the likes this evening and next morning. And all that on 5 hours of sleep. Well, at least I had a nice, long nap in the afternoon. That's the advantage of not having anything to watch on TV.

BUT: this is also an important day, and we mustn't forget about it!

Happy Birthday, the_wild_iris! I hope it was a pleasant one.

I was all over the district the whole morning. First I did some grocery shopping. Then I tried to fetch Mum's medicine; the one for osteoporosis. Guess what? The thing was nowhere to be found. Again. At one pharmacy they said they might get some next week. I certainly hope so, as Mum ought to take it on May 1 - it is the kind of thing she needs to take once a month.

It is partially our own fault, of course. We know the thing - Ossica it's called - periodically vanishes from the market, no-one knows why. So we should have had the new dosis prescribed at least a month ago; Mum just thought she still had one last pill. She was mistaken. Hunting down somebody - anybody - at the clinic was a two-hour-act in itself; her own rheumatologist simply didn't answer the phone. Then I cruised between various pharmacies in vain. Ah, well, we've (hopefully) learned our lesson.

On my Ossica-hunting cruise I also dropped by at Kik and bought some acrylic paint to replace all the pots I had to throw out recently. Only a few basic colours and only because I had a bon that allowed me a 15% price reduction for everything I bought. So there came some good out of the whole thing, after all.

The afternoon was socially active. First, I called H. and we chatted amiably for a while. Then two of my friends/ex-colleagues called, and we did the same. Consequently, there was no time left for a much-needed nap, and I could only finish one pincushion. But it was worth it.

... but at least I managed to sew together another three pincushions, to type up the two pages of Chapter 5 that were already written and to take Mum out for a walk. For a totally unmotivated day it's not bad.

We ate leftover soup and a sandwich for lunch, watched some telly and took our respective naps. In the afternoon I called H. to see if she'd survived the family invasion; she had, but was rather run down, poor woman. And that was it, basically. I hope the weather remains nice tomorrow, as we're planning our weekly visit to the corner café.

To start with the most important part: we actually made it to the café! Yay! And they even had freshly made butter croissants, the kind that Mum loves. So, that was a nice start into the day. We made two rests on the benches along the way, sitting in the nice, warm sunshine, and Mum enjoyed herself tremendously, even though she was a bit exhausted afterwards.

Having parked Mum at home, I went back to Lidl, to buy potatoes for my Easter bread dough - and creme freche because we've run out of it. Of course, I ended up with a lot more than just these two items (as usual). They had raspberries, which I absolutely had to buy, since those are the only fruits save for bananas that Mum can eat without butchering them first. And I used my extra coupons on the Lidl app on my way too smart phone to snatch some gift cheese and drastically reduced ice-cream-on-a-stick. Not the brand I usually buy, but one shouldn't look into the gift horse's mouth, right?

Back at home, I shared my ice cream with Mum; then I managed a tiny bit of writing before kitchen duty called. I boiled and mashed the potatoes for tomorrow; since I had boiled too much, I made potato salad out of the rest. Tomorrow we'll traditionally eat sardines, which will go well with the potato salad. I'm planning to make Blätterteigpastetchen (also known as vol-au-vents among people who like sounding snobbish) of the other roll of ready-made puff pastry and fill them with a sardine-based filling. I've found a recipe for a crab filling; I'll replace crab meat with sardines and hope for the best. *g*

( Boring crafty stuff )

When all this was done, it was half past six already, so we dropped into our seats in front of the telly to watch the GBBO and "Salvage Hunters", respectively. And that was, basically, my day.

Yes, today was hard. I got up early to clean the kitchen, the bathroom and the loo before our cleaning lady would arrive; some window cleaning was planned for today, and I wanted the entire flat done within two ours, due to her... specific method to charge. I won't pay for 3 hours when she only works, say, 2 hours and 10 minutes. Thanks to me prep work and my organizing skills, the cleaning was done within the time limit - but boy, was I exhausted afterwards! In fact, I still am!

Anyway, after she left, I did another food run, collecting the things I managed to forget yesterday. And after that, I went to choir practice. So yeah, pretty much dead on my feet.

But at least my choir mates loved the little egg baskets, so there's that. :)

I'm planning a slow day for tomorrow. The only thing on my working plan is the asparagus quiche, and since I make it of ready-made puff pastry (I can hear the shocked outcry of every self-respecting housewife, but since I'm not one I don't care) and the asparagus has already been peeled, chopped and pre-cooked, there isn't much to do. Fortunately.

Still no decision about the Easter bred recipe. I might actually make a yeast Gugelhupf instead. We'll see.

I made good progress today - wrote roughly two pages and almost finished the current chapter. A couple of paragraphs more and I can actually post it. *fingers crossed*

Another accomplishment today was that I made the Easter ham, with garlic and cumin, like every single year in the last, oh, three decades or so. It is this recipe, in case anyone (who understands German) is interested. It is easy to make and very, very yummy. I'm glad to have another Easter-related task ticked off of my to-do-list. Now only the Easter bread is left, but that's not something I could make in advance. Besides, I still haven't decided which recipe to use; or if I should make an Easter cake instead. But since I've saved enough cookies for ourselves, I'm tending towards an Easter bred, which isn't that sweet.

What else? I've made first preparations for the cleaning frenzy on Tuesday, put away some baking utensils that had been lying around for weeks and are no longer needed, watched some telly, solved a few crossword puzzles, watched some YouTube videos and took Mum out for a walk. My like runs along the same lines, most of the time, but that isn't always a bad thing. Routine can be calming sometimes. (At other times - not so much, but that's another problem entirely.)

I've finished the egg basket project. You can take a look at the finished product here. I'm so relieved I could cry; there were moments when I nearly gave up hope that they might be done in time. But they are done, and I won't do anything crafty until after Easter. I've had enough for the time being.

Of course, the fact that my little pots of acrylic paint had all dried in since I last used them two or three years ago didn't help things. I won't be buying any new paint, unless there's an actual project for which I'll need them. Still, it's a bit sad to throw out the little pots; most of them are still half full. Ah, well.

In other news I did the grocery shopping today. Among other things I bought a small marble cake - the taste is just a tad artificial, but it's soft and moist, just the thing Mum needs, and it meant that I didn't have to cook today. We ate it with the rest of the carrot soup. The Tunfischauflauf got saved for tomorrow, and I'm going to make some tomato cream soup, since I happened to buy some stone hard tomatoes last week (because the price was reduced - now I know why). Combined with some tomato juice and cooking cream they'll make a decent soup... or so I hope. *g*

My friend Evie called again in the late afternoon, which was nice. I really miss people. This hermit existence isn't my cup of espresso. But there are worse things, so I try not to complain (too much).