Yeah, I’ve been busy but this is the first time I missed a Cherry Saturday ever. Rats. It’s particularly bad because it’s Cherry Month. Yesterday was Be Humble Day, a possible reason I missed it because that’s not within my skill set. Today is Banana Bread Day, and that is within my skill set. Let’s go with the banana bread.
Happy Cherry Month. What else made you happy this week?
This week, in the midst of our early spring, we had a beautiful snowfall. It started on a Thursday afternoon, and continued well into the night. The schools closed, so when I left work I had no trouble getting home. The next morning everything was coated with a couple of inches of fluff — except for the roads which were reasonably clear. It was really lovely. (Yesterday we were in the upper 50s so most all except the most densely shaded areas are already clear.)
I was happy to have a chance for snow one time this year.
That describes my area perfectly! Looking out through the window, I can see that the neighbor still has some snow on his roof, shaded by the pines, but you can see his roof like ribs under the snow, and now it’s in the 60s F. (That temperature is high enough to cause the institutional air conditioning to start where I work.)
I’m enjoying the fact that the sun is coming back into my house and garden faster than expected. And the days are getting longer and longer.
I spent Thursday rereading the highlights of my ideas for my fiction project; woke on Friday feeling daunted, and thinking it’s not sensible to try and revive it right now. But I had another session with it, and decided to keep going, which made me happy.
Just two more weeks until Daylight Saving Time begins.
Longer than that here – 29 March this year.
I was on a nonprofit board with most of us in the US and one of us in UK, and I could remember that he was 5 hours ahead of us, but then we’d have a meeting and not realize that he hadn’t switched in/out of DST yet, and he didn’t know that we HAD switched. It was crazy.
More and more daylight!
After a kind of lonely week, I went for a great hike with a good friend on Friday. Birds, wildflowers, sunshine, exercise – all the stuff I needed to perk me up. Was productive yesterday and today I’m going to bake potatoe chip cookies since I already have banana bread in the freezer. Plus block 4 shawls, coffee dye some paper, and organize my stencils!
There was so much to make me happy this week!
Sunshine!! We have had multiple days with sunshine! It has been wonderful!
I took a class this week. This let me work from home for 3 days. Also, I was brilliant and took it on pacific time (I’m in the eastern time zone.) so the class started at 11:30 am. I don’t do mornings well.
Finally, the best was that 4 of my co-workers will have their reporting lines returned to the library. Nearly 2 years ago they were centralized in a hostile IT takeover. The dudes who instigated it are gone. {happy dance} The people who replaced them seem much more sane and intelligent.
As a bonus, thanks to Argh & working Wed., I’m on instagram and started following fosterbabycats. A pregnant stray she took in, gave birth to 5 kittens. SO adorable! Also, occasionally being lived streamed on youtube.
Oh, the rabbit hole of kitten rescue on IG! Want some more? Check out thecatlvt (not exclusively kittens, but a fount of great info, because she’s a licensed vet tech), myfosterkittens (in Las Vegas, takes on the most difficult cases), littlewanderersnyc (mostly cats in New York), bottlebabyfosters, CharliesArmy, kitty_fostering_oz (she also fosters Australian wildlife). And so many more! Oh, and kitten.nuggets and kittenxlady — how could I forget her? And youngestoldcatlady And for a guy into feline rescue, check out the_original_trapking Or Iamthecatphotographer
How did I find all of them? It’s research. I swear. I’m working on a proposal for a mystery series where, among other things, there’s a crazy old cat man, and he convinces the protagonist to do some fostering, with each one a little more difficult in each book, until eventually she’s dealing with bottle babies and incubators.
Anyway, these IG accounts make me happy, even when occasionally the o utcome isn’t so good, and they make me cry.
Gin, as you know, I fostered kittens this year. Let me know if you need any first-hand info when you start writing. I have stories…
Thanks! I’ve also had first-hand experience! And in retrospect, I’m really glad I hadn’t followed all those accounts before I fostered a feral momcat and her five kittens, so I didn’t know all the ways that kittens are fragile! I wouldn’t have slept for four months!
Seriously. Mine were sick, little Miss Diana to the point where she almost died. I actually ended up putting them all in the bathroom with the shower on full to steam them, like a baby with croup. Never again.
Have you discovered TinyKittens yet? They’re in western Canada, have a YouTube channel with (usually) two livestreams, a dot com, and are on Facebook.
They take care of a large colony of ferals, and assist with several more groups of ferals or barn cats in the area.
They do TNR (trap neuter return) but also lots of socialisation and care for handicapped or chronically ill former-feral cats, trying to get them socialised and adoptable.
In kitten season they try to trap the feral moms so they can have their kittens in safety, and the kittens get socialised and adopted; the moms get sterilised and either adopted or returned to the colony they came from, depending on their inclination to be socialised and their health.
Happy to be having a lazy Sunday. Happy my annual diet has gone well and looking forward to being done and eating pizza and chocolate on Friday. In the spirit of banana bread, I am also contemplating what cookies I will be baking in the next few weeks, which is always fun.
Thank you. I have now decided today is Saturday.
crazy little dogs. Writing. Anticipating having this week off. mopping the living room floor.
It’s the little things.
The sun has been out and we are having a warmer streak of days in between cold snaps.
I got to get together last Wednesday with the woman (Elisabeth Alba) who does the amazing illustrations for my tarot and oracle decks. She, her husband, and new baby (well, he’s eight months old, but this was the first time I got to meet him since he was born) were going through this area on the way to somewhere else, so we met up to double-sign some decks and have lunch. It was a real treat. And the baby was SO adorable. (Other people’s babies are wonderful.)
The cozy I’m working on is finally moving along fairly steadily, for which I am both happy and relieved.
I have run out of the good chocolate I’ve become addicted to (L.A. Burdick), but I ordered more and it will be here on Tuesday. I don’t believe that any of them are banana bread flavor, but I will check each one carefully to be sure.
Omg, SO happy that you mentioned those chocolates. I’d never heard of them, but they look and sound amazing and magnificent. And the animal rescue theme is great as well. Thank you!
I have become terribly addicted. I blame my friend Karen who gifted me with my first box when I was having a rough week. (All my weeks are rough, therefore I must buy more chocolate.)
I consider my duty done if I have passed my addiction on to you. They’re all made in small batches with no crap (mass market chocolates often have additives I can’t eat, and frankly, most of them don’t taste good enough to make them worth the calories). They’re so good, you really only need to eat one or two (or possibly three on a Very Bad Day).
I gave my son who is in Boston,as is Burdicks, a gift certificate to them. Their hot chocolate is amazing, and anyone in Boston needs hot chocolate.
Happy to be able to set my daughter two times for dinner this week. She was in town for a conference.
I’m working today. The flu has temporarily claimed the coworker I share the evening shift with – he normally works Sundays and Mondays alone, I get Fridays and Saturdays, and we share the rest. So, I’m working today and possibly tomorrow. No overtime – my days off just migrate later in the week.
I love banana bread, and did even before I read Maybe This Time. I’m tempted to stop at the grocery store bakery and buy some, not owning an oven of my own.
I tried to make a French Canadian Pork Dressing this week. Somehow, I screwed it up. Seasonings? Probably. Still mostly edible, but not what it was meant to be. Banana bread may make up for it.
When I someday retire, I think I may adopt a kitten. I’ll be home enough to enjoy them, then.
You could get one now. Particularly if you have some vacation time scheduled so it gets acclimatized sooner. And if you have children around they will be more than happy to spend time with a kitten. Although you do have to make sure the kids don’t play too rough. Kittens who are played with roughly are more likely to scratch and bite. If you get two kittens , they will keep each other company while you are at work.
My husband had never had a house cat until we got our first kitten 40 years ago, followed by our second within 3 months so the first kitten would have a friend. Now, we always have at least one cat at all times, topping out with 5 when my mom had to give hers up and gave them to me. They are incredibly entertaining and my husband would not be without one. They don’t have to be walked. They do have to have the litter box cleaned daily, although now there is septic tank safe flushable litter which makes life much easier. And mine have typically lived longer than dogs (3 made it to 20 and were in relatively good health up until the very end). They tend to be politically conservative: no changes ever, and everything here is mine. They provide so much joy.
Adopt two together — in fact, ask at the shelter if there aren’t two which SHOULDN’T be separated. They do especially well when they have someone their own size to roughhouse with; we’re a little big.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a big happy. Not the daily happies that we share here, but something big that I could indulge myself with, like most people would view a major vacation trip (except I don’t travel, so that wouldn’t be MY happy). I’m not entirely sure what it means that I can’t come up with something. Does it mean I’m actually content in my daily life, so it gives me all the happies I need? Or does it mean that I’m so sunk in … not despair, but let’s say a rut, that I can’t even imagine a big happy?
I’ll be mulling this over for a while yet, I think.
I’ve been happy with the daily happies for sometime now. Not worrying that there aren’t many big happies. I’m a ‘no news is good news’ kind of person.
Maybe make yourself a physical space that makes you happy–a nook?
Learning the philosophy behind Yoga and how I can incorporate it into my life. So much to learn. ♥️
This week’s happy was going to the Asian food market and buying a whole duck to rotisserie on my grill and 4 duck legs to confit in my Instant Pot. I have been wanting to try rotisserieing a duck for years so this takes another item off my bucket list.
This was the least amount of money I have ever spent on a fresh duck, which are expensive in my part of the world. And it was a really high quality duck. The one iffy thing was that the duck came with its head and feet so I had to remove them myself. Growing up on a farm and helping butcher chickens did not help with the squeamishness since that was 60 years ago. But I will roast them and they and the carcass bones will go into the duck stock I am going to make.
I spent most of yesterday brining the duck then watching youtube on how to rotisserie (I rotisseried a chicken once three years ago when the grill was new). Then I did it. My only problem was that I did not slash the skin so more fat would melt and drain off. But it was delicious. Today I will use the bones to make a duck stock so that once I have the duck leg confit I can make a cassoulet. There are enough boutique butchers here that I can locate all the right kinds of sausage.
And this morning for breakfast we had hash browns sautéed in duck fat. They develop a nice crust and the flavor is a little different – a very little. It was tasty enough that I will use up the rest of the duck fat that was generated but not so much that I would give up the mixture of butter, bacon fat and olive oil I usually use.
I love duck. I have found it difficult to make on the grill because the large amount of fat always causes flare ups. Of course, I have a small grill with no rotisserie, so maybe that’s where I have been going wrong. So jealous.
Slash the skin and the fat, but not the meat
Use a roasting rack that stands the duck up on end so the fat can drain off into a conveniently placed drip pan
You might be able to use the beer can roasting technique — I’ve never tried it — to hold the duck upright and out of the drippings.
Once the fat is mostly gone and the skin is crisping, rearrange the duck breast up or breast down until done.
I will try the rotisserie again with the bird further away from the heat so it cooks slower. So far my instinct says that slow roasting in the oven after brineing it in a mixture of black tea, honey, soy sauce, thyme and salt may actually be better. However, I spent a large part of the day making a broth from the carcass, head and feet and assorted fresh herbs which I used to cook a mushroom pasta and the rest of the duck meat. I served it with just a green salad and a bottle of Willamette Valley Pinot noir, it surpassed the original dish so maybe learning to perfecting rotissering is worthwhile.
Yum!
So, daily happies. Lunch with my favorite cousin. Only two meetings coming up this week and no doctors. (Do have to get a urine sample from my dog and run it up to the vet.) Sunnier and warmer days. My new percale sheets. A wonderful show ‘Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom’. (Check it out if you get the chance. It’s about Bloody Sunday and the March on Montgomery with pleanty of freedom songs.)
I was very happy to visit my grandmother in Chicago for her 100th birthday (although she’s not official till 9 tonight) and see a lot of extended family on my dad’s side at the party. My grandmother has slowed down and her hearing is not what it was, but she’s still very sharp and with it and it’s nice to just feel like we all get this bonus time with her. I always feel very much middle aged at these family things and I mean that in the best way possible. I look at the older generations there and remember what they meant to be growing up and I look ahead to younger generations and think of who they will be and wonder will they remember these moments. We’re not a terrribly tight knit bunch, so get togethers don’t happen that often, but they still feel special to me. It just feels good to stop and really appreciate those moments were together, even if also always feels a bit poignant as well.
Happiest! The advancement in medicine over the years. This week my husband had a balloon inserted as part of his latest heart procedure.
He is all stented out and will have to have a further procedure called breaking in a couple of weeks and could possibly look forward to a bypass in the future. So it was another trip to Boston in the early hours. We had to get up at 4 AM in order to be at the hospital by 6:30. He was home the next day and is doing well.
Huzzah for modern medicine. I’m glad your husband is doing well.
Forty years ago my FIL struggled to reach the age of sixty with a heart condition. He and two of his five brothers had heart problems. Hereditary, yes. My husband and his older brother are still going strong in their mid to late seventies with the wonders of modern medicine.
Lots of adventures this week. We went to a hockey game on Wednesday and did a little shopping in the city.
Friday I went to the doctor to talk about my knee and he’s going to send me for an MRI, hopefully that will be soon.
The store where I buy my Annie Sloan paint is closing and we bought a large work table from them so we went in yesterday and picked it up. I bought a little more paint and a few decorative items. I am sad to see the store close but the owner is happy to be retiring.
Today I’m sewing, baking dog treats and pumpkin muffins.
My nearly 90 year old grandpa fell and broke his femur last weekend – which DIDN’T make me happy, of course. He’s already had both hips and a knee replaced over the last 10 years, as well as a repair for a crack in his other femur. He’s so slight (I doubt he’s ever weighed more than 150 lbs in his life, the bastard, why couldn’t I have gotten those genes?!), and has so much damn titanium in him now we worry about him constantly. He’d come out of all his previous surgeries like a champ, but suffered from post-op delirium this time, which gave us quite a scare.
I was able to spend nearly all of Wednesday with him; we watched old westerns on TV and went through old family photos. He told exaggerated stories from the past and flirted shamelessly with nurses. By evening he was pretty much back to his usual self and in good spirits. The hospital staff were amazed with his improvement. He’s been maintaining his progress the rest of the week, and that makes me very happy!
My grandfather had surgery some years back and the nurses were sure he was irrational when he didn’t know exactly what day it was in the ICU afterward. My aunt pointed out that he’d been knocked out and was still under the influence, and that he knew the answers to the OTHER questions they asked. He made a perfectly good recovery and lived to be 95 (died of something else, in fact), so we’ll hold the thought for your grandfather!
Thank you, Ann. This was almost like he woke up with full blown dementia, he was totally confused and combative with the nurses – which isn’t like him at all, he’s usually a model patient. At one point they asked him who he lived with and he said his mom and grandma. His mother died in 1947, so I’m not sure what aged he’d reverted back to at that point!
Aside from some typical elderly forgetfulness, normally he’s still pretty sharp, so we were really worried this might somehow have triggered a permanent problem. Very relieved the fog seems to be lifting now.
It’s very common for that to happen to elderly people and also very common for them to recover. His doctors should have warned you this might happen.
My dad, when he was 89, had postsurgical dementia, (which he kind of went in and out of for six months, as he had complications, a long and sad story) and spoke first German, which was his birth language, and then French, which really surprised us as the only time he lived in France that I know of was as part of the American army for a few months.
I went to an amazing con last weekend. I only had to go to work three days this week (though they were horrible days and I had another asshole ripped into me on Friday, sigh). I went to a storytelling show and I went to Stitches West, an awesome yarn expo thing where I bought a lot of accessories and even some yarn. So the weekend was good, at least.
We went cross country skiing in Eastern Washington for a couple of days and stopped to go hiking in Western Washington on the way back. It is so green here. The ferns, the moss, the trees. And there were water falls, many water falls.
Were you skiing in the Methow Valley? I never did that although this year I finally visited Winlock. So much fun.
Yes, that’s where we were. We stayed in Twisp.
I visited my family for their winter break and I had a few firsts. I got a cheap flight from the airport that wasn’t convenient but I ended up driving on my own and parking in long term as the local bus shuttle went out of business. Process wise, every move from door to door went perfectly with no waiting, on time/early flights and no glitches, going or coming back. Not bad with Mercury In Retrograde. My grands were delightful and none were sick ! We went skiing, swimming, to the aquarium, and my other son surprised me by coming down with his wife and children so I got to see them all together. and they were so happy to see each other. Not one tear or spat. We all went ice skating and the three youngest (5, 4, 3) skated for the first time and loved it. The out of town son loved to skate but hasn’t been on ice in a decade but it was like he never stopped. Good to see him out on the ice. I especially enjoyed being with my 7 yo granddaughter who I just adore and get a kick out of talking with. We pajama partied every night and on our last night to surprise me, she created a scavenger hunt with clues leading to my prize being a bracelet she made for me. We also played catch and made a lot of noise and got lectured by the parents. Oh and we snuck out of bed for ice cream at midnight. My little grandson said he wanted grandma to live with them forever!! So yeah, it was a great week. Even though it was freezing up there!!
Had lunch with my cousins, one of whom told me about her recent conference with one of the legal staffers of the House Judiciary Committee on the current status of the ERA (complicated). It was fascinating, and I reckon to get at least one program for a ladies’ group out of it. Hope I don’t put the ladies straight to sleep.
Got to hug the Grandboy yesterday after spending most of the rest of the weekend glued to my computer trying to finish a book that’s due on March 16–third act and we’re almost there… YAY!!