Soledad's Journal

Sorry, I don't know how to say that in English and inspire the same feeling. That's the difference between one's second language and third language, I guess.

Anyway, I've started the Easter baking today. Huge piles of Nutella bunnies and coconut lambs got baked, and I've made the dough for the chocolate chip and tahini cookies. That one needs to be refrigerated overnight, but if the baked cookies are anything like the raw dough they'll be delicious. (Yes, I like raw dough. Yes, I'm strange.)

Tomorrow the bunnies and lambs will be decorated with dark and white chocolate icing, respectively, and the lambs will get a coconut coating. The tahini cookies will be backed and boxed, after they have cooled. My friend Elise is coming on Monday (unless family life interferes - with an ailing father and five grandkids there are no guarantees), so she can take home her share right away.

We also had laundry day, and I baked up the apple and cinnamon rolls I had bought at Lidl on Thursday. And that was, basically, our day.

Here we go (click to enlarge):



As I mentioned before, they're made of large pom-poms and some felt rests; save for the googly eyes which I bought in the craft shop. The baskets are also hand-made by yours truly, woven of narrow paper strips. They've gone out of shape a bit during all those months of waiting on a shelf for their moment, but, well, they're still pretty. Or at least I think they are.

Still in the crafty corner, I worked a bit on my third felt mini-kitty. This one is a boy and his facial expression is shockingly similar to that of a 5-year-old I happen to know. Not intentionally; it's just how he turned out. *g*

Speaking of plushies, my politically incorrect, slightly garish elephant went to his new home yesterday. My young cousin called in the morning to tell me that his 4-year-old son loved it. It's fortunate that small children know nothing about political correctness. His big sis (all 7 years old) got one of the Bolshie rabbits and loved it, too. Have I corrupted those kids somehow?

In other news, I did the big grocery shopping today and rearranged my book cabinet to make room for future jams, since this flat came without a pantry. I'd like to have a few choice words with the architect who designed these flats...
Alas, the pear jam turned out a bit runny; we might eat it ourselves and I'll make a new batch for the fair. In the not too distant future I'll have to make a tour to the second-hand bookshop to get rid of a lot of Star Trek novels and other stuff I'm unlikely to touch for the rest of my life.

Then we ate leftovers, watched some telly and I had a phone chat with my friend Elise concerning the Easter baking. She's one of my very few remaining customers; I eliminated the others because I no longer feel up to the challenge to deliver cookies to 12-17 different families. Four or five are still doable, so I kept the ones who appreciated it most. Is that selfish?

Also, it rained today rather copiously, so I couldn't take Mum out for a walk. Let's hope tomorrow will prove better.

Not much, actually. My Sundays are always the same: we got up an hour earlier, so that Mum could attend to Mass via TV, she gets her weekly shower, I try to find the easiest way possible to produce something to eat for lunch, I take down the dried washing... nothing terribly exciting.

On the other hand, boring, routine days are safe. So, for that price I can deal with the lack of excitement. Safety is something rare and precious in these times.

The only thing I keep missing is people. In smaller doses than at the time when I was still working, but I'd really like to have them around me more often. So, since I had to give up on people calling me, I called our recently widowed choir leader instead. Poor soul is in a really bad shape. As if the loss in itself weren't bad enough, she also has to deal with bureaucracy, financial problems and greedy heirs. Life can be really cruel sometimes.

In the creative corner I've finished the second felt kitty. Not a significant progress but progress nonetheless. Especially considering how unmotivated I've been lately. Which also means that the Easter baking will be cut back considerably, with only three or four sorts of biscuits and likely the same number of recipients.

Back in Romania we'd be wearing little badges called "märtisors" on this day. Mum once had a colleague who also hailed from Transylvania and gifted those tiny things upon us every year. A long, long time ago...

Anyway, we had nice weather but stayed indoors as Mum's knee is acting up again. Arthrosis isn't something that would get better with time, unfortunately. So we had a quiet day. I wrote a good chunk, almost finished the new teddy (I'd have needed fifteen more minutes with natural light but didn't get it) and we rested a bit. And watched telly.

In the evening my friend Evie called. She's going to do a play with her lower primary class for the school's annual cultural event and asked for help with the dialogue. We agreed that she'll come over on Tuesday after her shift and we shake the little scene into proper shape. For many years I used to do plays with my pupils for these occasions, so I have a lot of experience with this.

And now I'm going over to picowrimo and make the daily post.

After three or four months (I don't really remember how long it has been), one of Mum's medicines that was in short supply finally resurfaced in the pharmacy. Phew! She was down to half a bottle already, so it's a relief that the thing is available again.

Lidl was fairly bearable today. They had caster sugar for a reduced price, which is great as I'll need lots of it for making experimental jams for the next Christmas fair. I bought four kilos. Fortunately, sugar will keep (unless it gets wet, but I'll see to it that that doesn't happen).

We had leftovers and I also bought Pogatschen and a Babka for afters. The Babka is very economical; you can slice it paper thing, so it will last us three days. It isn't cheap, as only the corner café sells it (they have their own recipe for almost everything), but worth every cent.

In the afternoon I worked a bit on my red rabbits. Both little Bolshies have now a face, and I started sewing together the front and back panels. If we didn't have two days of deep cleaning waiting for us I could finish them in that time. As things are, they'll have to wait. But at least I'll have help with the cleaning now. Or so I hope. I only believe it when said help actually turns up. *fingers crossed*

I tried to call two of my friends but neither of them answered the phone. Grandmother duties, most likely. I'll try again tomorrow.

Our janitor showed up today and repaired the light switch in the living room that had a contact problem (the light switch, not the living room) and the sparkling wall socket in my bedroom. He also brought the locksmiths with him, so the balcony door will hopefully be fixed in the not too distant future. We forgot to ask the locksmiths to take a look at the toilet door, which we haven't been able to close properly for years - but perhaps we can do so when they return to repair the lock on the balcony door. That would leave us with only the disfunctional door of the kitchen cupboard, but that would need a carpenter, not a locksmith. Perhaps our versatile janitor will be able to do something about it eventually.

All these repairs cost money, of course, and while we can afford them, thankfully, the prices are a bit staggering. We'll have to start saving for Spring, when the repairs of the water damage in the kitchen, loo, bathroom and floor are due - that means having all these rooms repainted. Joy, joy, joy. And that is without mentioning all the emptying the rooms, and moving furniture and cleaning up afterwards. *headdesk*

In the rest of the day I did a bit of writing, made a horrible soup for lunch (it turns out you can't make a decent potato cream soup out of three rather small potatoes and a teaspoon of creme freche, after all), had a nice, long phone chat with my friend Elise, who's down with a bad cold she'd caught from her three-year-old grandson and watched some telly. Time flies when you're having fun, eh?

I mean the fact that I'm so tired all the time. I know it mostly comes from the fact that I haven't had a day off for over six years but still. The last time I was this drained was almost forty years ago when I left my convent and vegetated at the house of a German friend for several months. But that time it was a quiet nervous breakdown. This time I'm just mentally exhausted, I think.

That said, I made peanut butter cookies today, first thing in the morning. Partly because I had half a jar of peanut butter lingering in the fridge since Christmas and partly because the currently re-run season of the GBBO had cookie day yesterday and that always causes the words cravings in me. Cookies are the thing I find very hard to resist.

So I made the cookies, which turned out excellent... and then nothing for the rest of the day. Absolutely nothing. I took a nearly two-hour-long nap before a very late lunch, then we watched some crap telly, then I had another (much shorter) nap, and now the day is over. I intended to call my friend Evie to see if she came down that steep hill of hers in one piece (yesterday we had lots of snow again) but I overslept, and now it's too late. She's my polar opposite: she goes to bed with the chickens, as we say in Hungarian and gets up with the first light of the day... or before. So yeah. I feel a bit guilty, but calling will have to wait until tomorrow.

... how deep cleaning half the flat (which I absolutely hate to do) seems to have cured my neck and shoulder pain - again. My theory is that the repetitive movements with the vacuum cleaner and the floor mop must have loosened the nerve that keeps getting pinched time and again. Which doesn't mean that I'm planning to scrub the dratted flat more frequently in the future, which I told Mum in no uncertain terms. She laughed her head off.

Aside from the cleaning frenzy I gave Mum her weekly shower, washed my hair, cooked lunch and fed Louise (= the washing machine), so I was properly housewife-y all day. And that on less than four hours of uninterrupted sleep - for some reason I hadn't slept well last night.

Accordingly, I sneaked in a nap after having emptied Louise; then I gave two of my friends/colleagues/choirmates phone calls, and that was basically it. At least I had some semblance of social life.

Neck and shoulders are all but healed - now it's my back that's acting up again. But that's nothing new. Ever since a bad move 30 years ago, when I had to reposition my bedridden grandmother quite frequently, this little problem pops up at irregular intervals. Slept in the wrong position again, apparently. Ah, well, it needs time to right itself, but it usually does.

Other than that, it was an eventful day. I did a tiny bit of sewing in the morning, then made lunch. Then Mum had a visit from the physiotherapist lady, in the middle of which our neighbour - a different one, but every bit as talkative as the one from last week - came over to discuss with me the guy who's made our secure front door 13 years ago. (It turns out, he's still in business.) This mutated into her long-winded report (which she delivered without actually breathing!) about her most recent visit to ER that apparently led to no-where. I lost track after 20 minutes.

A colleague of me used to call such people energy vampires.

Fortunately, the PT lady read my body language (she's known me for 6 years, after all) and came to my rescue, asking for a drink of water from the living room (the verbal steamrolling took place in our front door). Neighbour realized we weren't alone and left. I thanked the PT lady most profoundly, but my brain needed at least another hour to recover.

After lunch I called H. who's still quite ill; only that Little Emma has also caught her bug, so they are suffering together at home. I also talked to my friend Elise, who was very glad to postpone snow-shoveling duty for those five minutes because yes, a ton of snow has fallen during the night again.

As for the rest of the day, I did some more research and even wrote half a scene for a further story that might or might not take shape in the foreseeable future. But it was writing, which always makes me happy.

That's what I've been for quite some time by now. Of course, the water damage only made things worse. And the fact that I'm wasting so much time due to the total lack of motivation isn't encouraging, either. *sigh*

Today I had to cook. Just a simple potato casserole and a salad, but still. I really, really don't like to cook, unless I want to try out something new. Still, it was good; only that it was a one-day ration, which means I'll have to cook tomorrow again.

I thought I'd do a great deal of crafting today. Well... I didn't. I managed to do a tiny bit, about ten percent of what I should have, and then I gave up. As mentioned before: zero motivation. Which is unfortunate, as these poor quiet books have been in the making for a year by now, and I originally hoped they'd be done by Easter, but things don't look very promising in that area.

We watched some telly, in the middle of which my friend Evie called and we talked for about an hour. She lives in one of the outer districts and today she couldn't go to work because of all the snow. Outer districts aren't visited by the snow ploughs often enough, and her house is on top of a steep hill. She tried to leave early in the morning, but her ancient car couldn't deal with the ice, so she was sensible enough to turn back after a few metres. Good for her, bad for the colleagues who had to take over her lessons. Even though she sent them plans and exercises via the internet.

I didn't leave the house today and I'm not planning to do so tomorrow or the day after, either. We'll make do what we have in the fridge and the freezer.