Soledad's Journal

Happy Birthday, dear badly_knitted!

I hope you had a lovely day. Here, have some virtual calories:



In local news, we had the balcony door fixed. That's one item ticked off a long list of things-that-need-fixing.

I also gave my friend Evie's chicken-and-broccoli gratin recipe a try. It is easy to make and very yummy. Plus I used the boiling water of the broccoli to make Tütensuppe. The result: I won't need to cook tomorrow. Hurrah!

This was a day filled with small (but time-consuming tasks).

( ... and it's boring like hell, so feel free to skip the details )
Mum had a visit from the PT lady, during which I dismantled the artificial tree and wrestled it back into its paper box. It gets harder every year. Or I'm getting clumsier. One of the two, certainly.

The only truly positive aspect of the day is that I actually got a tiny bit of writing done. Just a few paragraphs, but every little bit counts.

Today it was snowing again, so the walkways that had been clear and almost dry all around our building are now covered with snow again - probably with hidden patches of ice beneath. Joy, joy - NOT! I'll have to go out today to buy some basic necessities. Which means I'll have to be extremely careful and slow; knowing that Mum will be biting her nails (with teeth she no longer has) because it will take me much longer than usual won't be helping. *sigh*

I started the day with finally washing my hair (something I've been postponing for the last three days). Then I baked savoury scones and cooked a thick potato cream soup, enriched with sliced sausages, sweet chili sauce and the rest of the egg I had spread the top of the scones with, all this for lunch. Enough for tomorrow's lunch but not a day longer, hence the need to do the shopping tomorrow when I won't have to cook.

After lunch I gave my friends Evie and Erna a call, which took almost an hour altogether. Then our neighbour - the only person talking even more than our chiropodist lady and presumably breathing through her ears, so that she wouldn't have to stop even for air intake - came over. And stayed. And stayed. And talked. And talked. When she finally left, Mum and I were both brain dead. So nothing else got done today. I mean, nothing in the way of actually enjoyable activities. *sigh* Some days are just like that.

... was a blast. Granted, I didn't follow the method description entirely because the chicken thighs I bought were quite large and I was afraid they won't get tender enough that way. So I fried them first the same way I'd do for chicken paprikash and returned to the recipe after that. But the meal proved excellent. Mum was impressed. Plus, we have enough leftover so that I won't have to cook tomorrow, freeing me up for baking, which is a double win.

Planned are the ginger hearts and the nougat cookies tomorrow and another version of Orangenbusserln for the day after. We'll see how much I'll manage.

Not much else happened today. Cooking took all morning; I also performed small kitchen tasks like grating zucchini and putting away stuff that had been waiting to be done for days. We watched some telly and H. called; we discussed Christmas baking for about half an hour. She's an avid cookie baker, too. *g*

As for writing, no actual words today. But I was toying around with an idea that had occurred to me last night - for a later installment in the EMV series.

... or rather in process already. Today I actually cooked. Actual, honest zucchini cream soup from the scratch. Got the recipe from H - she made it when we visited last Saturday, and Mum liked it so much that I gave it a try. It turned out yummy, but once again I realized why do I make soup from scratch so rarely. All that peeling and chopping! *shudders*

I also made Spätzle with Milanese sauce - probably an outrageous combination in the eyes of both the Bayern and the Italians, but I used up things in the freezer to free up space. Go me!

Crafting-wise I finished wrapping the last batch of Christmas candy - the silky tissue paper was actually less of a challenge than I feared - and cut out 24 tiny labels for my tiny spicy oil bottles. I'll glue on the labels on Sunday, most likely, as tomorrow I'll finish the big cleaning first.

So, this was basically my day. No Halloween celebrations here - we don't have such tradition, and I see no reason to spend on "scary" sweets and items. We are two old ladies. What would be the point?

However, picowrimo starts tomorrow, and everyone who wants to contribute and/or just read the snippets and leave supportive comments is welcome to join the fun.

We had laundry day. It is Saturday, after all.

Then I had to make lunch. I made potato cream soup - it turned out very yummy, which is a relief. Mum loves soup, all kinds of soup, and I try to keep her happy. There are too many foods she can't eat anymore since she no longer have the required amount of teeth. I made toasted sandwiches for afters, as we had leftover bread that needed to be used up. That I cut a fingertip with the potato peeler in the cooking process was but a small inconvenience.

In the "keeping Mum happy with the help of food" department I'm going to make Topfenknödel and cheesy scones tomorrow. Healthy food is overrated.

I did a tiny bit of crafting - no actual progress, as I simply got another idea about another detail that I added to the dressing room page, so basically I'm still where I was days ago. *sigh*

I missed my afternoon nap; too many stupid YouTube videos, then I couldn't fall asleep because my eyes were tired from staring at the iPad for an hour or so. I tried to rest them a bit, lying down, and when I suddenly jumped up because the landline rang, I got dizzy. Not much, just a bit, but it scared me; and reminded me not to take my comparatively good health for granted.

The best part of the day: I managed to talk Erica (another former colleague) into joining us at the café outing. I'll have to ask the café whether we need to reserve a table in advance, seeing that we'll be seven people... or so I hope.

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.

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

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!

... but boiled alive in my own skin. We've had steady 34°C since noon. Thank God I had looked up the weather forecast and decided to prepare luch before breakfast. I know it sounds silly, but waffles are almost as good cold as they are when still hot; besides, I wrapped them in tinfoil and in a kitchen towel, and by these temperatures they were still lukewarm at 3pm. And the iced fruit soup (basically a powdered thing that I just had to stir into cold milk) was even better after a few hours in the fridge.

After breakfast I did a tiny bit of writing, and was basically vegetating in the darkened room for the rest of the day. Well, I did take out the rubbish, not wanting it to ferment in the kitchen, but that was the most activity in the afternoon. Mum heroically did the washing-up, then she joined the vegetating. What else can two sensible people do by such weather? I pity those who have to go to work in these days.