Soledad's Journal

So, I didn't go for the price-reduced bananas after all. When I got up I felt so flattened that I knew I wouldn't leave the house today. Instead, I took down the dried washing, gave Mum her weekly shower, washed my hair and - drumroll! - made a quick and easy peanut butter traybake. It was an interesting recipe, using mineral water in the dough, but turned out very tasty, even though the consistency was a bit odd. Too thick perhaps; I could barely smooth it in the baking tin. But the end result was very soft and crumbly, which is the best thing for Mum, so it's okay.

I'm afraid I was useless for the rest of the day, though. I took two hour-long naps, one in the late morning, one in the early afternoon (we had leftovers, so no cooking was required), solved half a crossword puzzle, wrote about two lines, and that was basically it.

We allowed us our daily dosis of "Richterin Barbara Salesch" via YouTube and I talked to my friend and former colleague Erna (our art teacher) on the phone to see how they had survived the school's annual Faschingsball, which used to be the lowest point of the year for me while I still worked. Thanks to retirement, I'm now spared that ordeal, but I feel for the colleagues who still have to go through it.

So, my former colleague, Cathy, came over today. She brought me an industrial amount of cherry pits - I think I'll be able to make as many as six pillows from this heap - and a box full of candy wrappings: small, rectangular pieces of tinfoil in various colours. Those will be rolled into small, tissue-paper lined balls and made into Christmas garlands. Crafty times are heating up over here.

Other than that, I went to do the grocery shopping today. Fell into the reduced price trap again. But now I have raw material for making Mary Berry's Panang Chicken Rice tomorrow or the day after: a nice, easy stir-fry that will last at least two days. Three if I'm lucky. *fingers crossed*

The bug guy came and told us that they'll continue doing private flats, after all. That's good news. I'm not sure I could do an adequate job myself, and besides, we like the guy.

I also talked to my friend Evie today. School has started - for the teachers - on Monday, and they were greeted with the good news that both the repairman and basically all cleaning ladies had quit. So my poor ex-colleagues have been cleaning the classrooms, washing the curtains and the likes between long, boring, totally unnecessary conferences. God, am I grateful for being retired!

I started the day with putting red icing on my carrot-shaped biscuits (that contain actual carrots). I wanted orange icing, closer to the natural colour, but mixing red and yellow food colouring resulted in a sickly pink hue, so I added drastically more red and now I have red carrots. I'll ice the leaves green tomorrow. The poor things should at least look nice, considering that they have the consistency of rubber. I've seriously messed up the measurements, apparently - and that after I'd made those biscuits several times with no problems, even with twenty-some children involved! Ah, well, I'll tell the recipients to consider it chewing gum - their little ones will have fun with them. As long as they don't try to blow bubbles...

In the early afternoon I went back to school, where Erna, our arts teacher had her weekly workshop with the kids. I painted all 24 styrofoam eggs and the six existing little baskets - with various degrees of success. Styrofoam sucks. It refuses to allow the paint to stick properly, resulting in striped and spotted eggs. I'll never use styrofoam again! And I'll tell everyone that the somewhat marbled results were intentional. Marbled eggs are very fashionable. That's my story and I'll stick to it.

To add insult to injury, I had to discover the hard way that metallic paint isn't suited for cardboard or for styrofoam. And I had bought two 200ml bottles of it last week, thinking that it will look good. Grrr! I'll try them on lolly sticks, perhaps they work better on wood. If not, I'll throw them into the rubbish bin. The fact that I got them 30% cheaper at Kik doesn't really lessen the pain of having thrown out precious money for them.

Well, that was my day, basically. At least I met quite a few of my former colleagues at school, as I was there by 2pm. I usually don't met them before choir practice, which takes place at 17.30.

I was all over the district today. In the morning I went to three different supermarkets and to the selective garbage place withing an hour and a half. I didn't actually plan to do any more grocery shopping till Thursday but I had miscalculated and we've run out of bread and cold cuts.

In the afternoon we had pensioners' meeting at school. This is a yearly event, when all retired colleagues receive an invitation to show up at school, have some scones and soft drinks and chat a bit with each other and with those still actively teaching. There even was a short, funny play performed by a 6th-term-class. It was a nice get-together; some of the retirees I haven't seen for years. Everyone was asking about Mum and I got to show off her pictures in the café and on the bench halfway to the café. I think I'm one of the very few lucky ones not only to still have a mother but one who's still in full charge of her mental capacities. I must remind myself of that when I get grumpy about my life.

Still, going out of the house twice pretty much ate my whole day and made me extremely tired. I'm no longer used running around all day, it seems. So, not much got done at home, save for a bit of writing... until I fell asleep over my notebook. *g* At least I didn't have to cook - we still had pulled pork, mashed potatoes and salad from yesterday.

BTW, I've picked up next week's special offer flyer at Aldi. It seems they'll have the most extravagant baking supplies from Sunday on. It's a good thing I don't really have anything to spend my money on (except crafting supplies) because I foresee a shopping spree of epic proportions.

My personal boxing day. *g*

This morning, I spent about an hour and a half to sort out 24 different kinds of biscuits for the first five recipients (=those who had brought cookie tins). That freed up some space in my boxes for the next batch of biscuits that will (hopefully) be baked in the weekend. I've only left eight sorts to bake, and I'm determined to make at least four of them. The rest will be made if I feel like baking even more. If I don't, I'll leave them.

In the early afternoon we had a short practice with the children's choir. We're going to have one piece that we'll sing together with the kiddies, and since they are really young (6-10 years), they needed to get used to some middle-aged ladies singing behind them without turning around and watching us all the time. ;)

It was snowing and raining (it still is) all day, so I asked my friend Eenie to give me a lift, as I also had to get my wares for the fair into school. Many of those are of paper, they wouldn't have survived a trip on the bus and the long walk from the bus stop to the school in this weather. I'm so fortunate to have such a generous friend! (Well, she said this is the least she could do for all the baking I do for her, but still...)

Afterwards, I made a short trip to Lidl and ended up with a full shopping bag again. Price reductions are so tempting... But at least I won't have to leave the house for several days again, and that is a relief.

The balcony doesn't like this weather, either. Fortunately, there was only some minor leakage last night. It is still annoying that they can't be arsed to come and fix it, after two and a half years!

... are not the only ones to go out in the midday sun, as the song would like to make you believe. Alas. For some reason, the biggest cemetery in our beautiful capital always schedules funerals to take place in the midday heat. At least in summer, when it really counts; because why would they bother in the dead of winter, right?
( Read more... )
I left the house at 9.15am and got home at 1.35pm or so. It was hot and oppressing and, as we say in Hungarian, I felt like a wrung-out lemon. Which is still better than what my poor (ex-)colleagues went through, who had to sit through completely useless conferences all morning and then had the big term-closing celebration in the afternoon - about half an hour ago, when it's the hottest. Perhaps they're still at it, the poor things. God, am I glad that I'm such an old hag and retired already!

Today was Elise's private farewell party due to her immediate retirement, so I got half a day free from Mum to go to my craft shops before that. Because one needs some happy money spending now and then.

I don't want to spam you with dozens of pics, so I'll link this to my Pinterest board. The "Atelier des Arts" papers from Stamperia can be viewed here and the 12"penny emporium gallery papers from BoBunny are here. I also bought some simpler stock, for further use for paper embroidery.

Updated two hours later because the urgent need for watching some telly:
Elise's farewell party was lovely... what little I participated in. I didn't want to spend too much time in close quarters with 20 other people, even though we were outside, so I just stayed for the festive speech and the congrats. Adrienne, a young colleague of us, has brought her seven-month-old little son, so the cuteness factor was extremely high. Elise didn't know of the party in advance, her hubby cajoled her to the place under false pretenses. She was so touched that she cried. It was really moving and nice.

Update the second - just one Stamperia sheet, called "Faces and Writing", to give this post a little atmosphere:

So, today I took half the morning free; I needed to pick up my lovely surprise gift from manue7a at the post office, I had to order eggsies at school and I had to go to the Müller drugstore for some dental products that you can only get there.

( Lots of details and picspam behind the tag for fellow paper enthusiasts )

Meeting the girls at school was nice, too. I got an invitation for the farewell event of one of the 8th-term classes; the last one I spent a full year with in the afternoon shift. It will be held in the school yard, with only the three eighth-term-classes present, so I think I'll risk it. I won't have to mix with the masses, just sit in the classroom where we used to bake together and wink them as they make their round in the room. Masked, of course. :)

OTOH, I still don't go to the Oldies' choir practice, and I won't go to the get-together with my main choir, either, even though it'll be held in some terrace or other open place. Not only for myself; I've got Mum to consider, too. And I do want to go to Elise's farewell party. She'll be retiring at the end of the term, and the 14 of us who'll hold this private little party for her will be in some open place, too. I might not stay long, just until we hand over our farewell gift, and to chat with the others I haven't seen for a while from a distance, but I'm planning to go to that one.

Admittedly, St. Nicholas's Day isn't until December 6, but I couldn't be certain if schools will be closed or not, so I went in today and distributed my little presents. My girls were very happy with their cards, pencil holders, cherry stone pillows and stuff, and Erna was particularly happy with her Advent calendar.

It was good to see them all, even if only from a distance and for a short time. Then my friend Evie gave me a lift to the next best ALDI, so that my shopping time was cut blessedly short and I could avoid the bus. I did walk home with all the shopping, though, so I did have some exercise nonetheless. *g*

By this morning, I've come to the decision that I'll go to school, wave my girls from the distance, drop off their season-opening gifts (a bunch of the patchwork cards) and won't stay for the actual choir practice. I felt really bad about it, but didn't want to expose Mum to any possible infections.

However, the PTB were obviously ahead of me, as choir practices as such have been summarily prohibited by the Ministry of Health, as of today. So I did go to school (since I had to pre-pay for the eggs I order every month), waved my girls (all four of them who were still in) from the distance, dropped off the season-opening gift on everyone's desk and left again. If only the Ministry guys could have made up their minds a bit earlier, no-one of us would have worked ourselves up about the whole thing.