This Is How I Do It

This is an ancient device I found when I moved computer cart for home improvement. I used it back in the olden days when I had a computer and telephone that had to be plugged into the wall.

I don’t have any knack for home improvement. I can see how a lot of it is just getting some practice but I hate doing it so much I don’t want to invest any more time into it than I have to. I was having a tough time wrapping my mind around how awful the windowsill looked after the first coat. I went online and looked up: Tips so your paint job doesn’t look like total crap.

I suspect it had something to do with drinking a couple of glasses of wine and then slapping on the paint as quickly as humanly possible. I didn’t find any tips that covered that precise set of facts.

In addition to the windowsill I had this small area on the wall where the paint looked wrinkled. I thought I could just sand it a little and then dab a little paint on it and it would look good as new. I sanded and it looked weird so I sanded more and then paint started peeling off in big strips. Obviously, that was the point when I opened the bottle of wine.

Then I got that patching stuff out and my putty knife and frosted the wall with it. There was more sanding but by the time I got the paint on it, it looked okay. I did a couple more coats on the windowsill and it looked less terrible.

By Monday the project was finished and I cleaned up the dust and put everything away. It doesn’t look too bad as long as you’re on the other side of the room and don’t put your glasses on.

Once I get the windowshade back on it, it will be good enough and at least it’s crossed off my “to do” list.

Here’s the basil from the seeds in my cracker box that I wrote about here.

The house next door to us turned into a rental about 8 years ago. The first tenants I barely ever saw. The next set were the ones with all the surly twenty-somethings coming and going and a mean barky dog and possible pathological lying. I can’t find the post to link to it. Ever since I had to move my blog I can never find anything.

Then we had the woman who just moved out.

A sign went up last week and a couple of days later was already gone. All I know so far is a Subaru with California plates and a loud child in the backyard.

This is everything I harvested today.

There has been no more sign of the mouse or mice and the traps remain empty. Good? Has he moved on? Gotten sneakier? Ran off to find his friends and bring them back? I thought maybe we could borrow the cat next door if it shows up again. Since he leaves his cat turds around the yard, he should at least do some work for me.

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Update

Home improvement: just as odious as I remember.

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It’s Already Started

Another photo from Seattle trip.

I was out in the world gathering provisions at 10am and already the “it’s the end of the summer holiday weekend” crowd was out in full force, shoveling hot dog buns and giant boxes of beer into their carts. Trader Joe’s had a huge crowd of retirement aged ladies with sunglasses roaming through the aisles as if they were enjoying an art show. Also, TJs rearranged the wine aisle AGAIN. Normally I can stock my cart blind-folded. I don’t like to have to search around.

I’m working on my windowsill this weekend and that involves sanding so my computer needs to be moved out of here. I’m not sure if I’m going to set it up in another room or not. I have the laptop but my presence will be spotty.

Enjoy your weekend.

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Everything You Need to Know

From Seattle trip

On the way home from work I had to stop at the store and buy tampons, mouse traps and a 1/2″ drill bit.

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Best Dinner Ever, So Far

This is the best pumpkin I’ve got right now. One of two. The rest of the vines are going crazy with blossoms but I don’t see any pumpkins forming. The one in the photo is bigger than a softball but smaller than a soccer ball. I can’t think of a ball that it’s the size of.

The cucumber vines are going crazy with little cucumbers. In a couple of weeks I will be weeping about the over-abundance of cucumbers I have. I can’t wait.

I realized this afternoon that I haven’t made ice cream once this summer. Probably because it was only hot for about 5 days. I might make some next weekend just so I can say that I did. I have a lemon buttermilk recipe that’s delicious. I can’t the proper link right now.

I’ve taken a half dozen photos of this particular dahlia trying to capture the amazing color. This photo isn’t doing it either. The flowers are an amazing deep purple color with smoke on the water overtones.

My cooking magazine had a two page spread on “fool proof” pie dough.

Making pie dough is like trying to lose weight. You think every “fool proof” article is going to have the answer but after all is said and done, you have to do it right or it doesn’t work. This article didn’t have anything I haven’t heard before and the “trouble-shooting” section didn’t include any of my troubles.

“My pie dough is like sand no matter how carefully I measure everything and think good thoughts.”

My new dinner-plate dahlias are finally blooming. I don’t usually love the ones that look manufactured — but these are bigger than my head. It’s tough not to be impressed.

I’m working on the home projects. I’m fixing the wall in the shop so I can re-hang the shelf that fell down. It’s been really nice to hang out with my putty knife again. I wish all of life’s problems could be fixed with putty and a little sanding.

I bought some titanium anchor-tanker toggle whatsits that are supposed hold elephants if you use them to bolt your shelf to the wall. I think our wall is made of toilet paper and spit so it probably won’t work but I’m going to try anyway.

The big news is our amazing dinner we made tonight:

We grilled corn using Mark Bittman’s tips and couldn’t believe we’d never had such delicious corn before.

The other score was the Berriyaki Sauce we discovered at the market this morning. We were doing the rounds figuring out what we wanted to buy when Bob stopped at the River Wave Foods which we’d never been to before. She explained their products including this yummy sauce perfect for brushing on grilled salmon: our menu plan for tonight. We bought a jar.

It was so delicious it should have its own national holiday. Not too sweet, not too salty. Really amazing. I know what people are getting for xmas this year.

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Mom’s Garden

Someday I’m going to actually write posts here again instead of posting a bunch of photos with breezy captions. I’m not really sure when that’s going to start so if you’re looking forward to it, no need to mark your calendar yet.

We were back in California last weekend for one more trip before summer winds down.

Figs = Food of the gods. If you’ve never had one outside of a newton, I highly recommend.

We had the family regular squash casserole plus another recipe that was basically a variation of this except with tomatoes, bell peppers and a white sauce. And grilled squash.

I don’t have a squash connection this year so I enjoyed every bit.

The view from Auntie and Uncle’s. That little building on the lower left is the school bus stop.

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My Prince

Guess who got married 14 years ago today?

That’s us with my parents. Look how young we look.

It’s pretty much impossible for me to look at photos of that day without making fun of Bob’s glasses and my doughy white arms.

But look how happy we are.

Oops. Updated to add: Photo courtesy of Aileen Wilder.

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Surprise

Look!

Yesterday while I was watering I decided to get rid of this chard plant that I intended to harvest when I was going to eat it. Then I never got around to eating it and it was almost big enough to be a shade tree.

When I pulled it out I found this hiding out.

Best moment of August so far.

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Pain in the Neck

I was going to use a picture of my Korean Taco lunch but it came out too blurry.

I’m suffering from August ague.

You won’t find it in WedMD but August ague is when you have a viciously bad attitude about everything and its the month of August.

I’m still searching for the cure.

I finally went and talked to someone about my neck pain. This has probably contributed to the ague. My neck started bothering me shortly after the World Cup and I figured it had something to do with watching 25+ hours of TV a week for a month. At first it just felt like I slept funny.

But it never got better and the pain became more persistent and started making normal life activities uncomfortable.

My strategy with medical stuff is to assume everything will go away by itself. Sure, if my head fell off, I’d pick it up and seek medical attention with some urgency. But generally I hate to go to the doctor. And I will tolerate a fair amount of pain without worry. So it took awhile to finally break down and do something about it.

It feels better now but not pain free. But it’s not so much burning and more like a gentle ache. Hopefully this is close to the end of it. The pain in the neck and the ague.

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Garden Update

All my tomatillos are volunteers. Mom gave me actual tomatillos a number of years ago and I didn’t use them all and composted some and I’ve had them ever since. I yanked out tons of plants at the beginning of the summer. They love my garden.

No acorn squash volunteers this year. Last year I had a bunch.

I’ve got lots of pumpkin vines but few pumpkins. The ones that form have gone rotten. Except for this random one that’s climbed up into the middle of the sunflowers and is floating there. We’ll see how that works out.

The Roma tomato has about 12 greenies on it. I have a volunteer tomato that has a few green ones, too. The other two have lots of flowers but don’t look promising for putting out anytime soon. The cucumber vines are going nuts but I don’t see anything that looks like it’s going to make a cucumber.

This has is a sad year for gardening.

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