When I get to a point where I need another knitting project, I am going to consider this, what appears to be, simple sweater.
I am pretty sure that I can fake the pattern, somehow, as the design is a simple seed stitch, one of my favorites. It will take a bit of working out how to do the neck, but I’m a fairly smart woman, and I’ve been knitting for years.
A few YouTube videos, and I should be set. If I ever get that far, I’ll let you know.
Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
(Read that while imaging me moving my bent arms in that particular elliptical motion that is common with those words.)
Only 2 more rooms to go.
I have done all I can in the living room today. I have been cleaning, and rearranging for the past 4 hours.
I’m done.
I don’t have the whole room as a “before”, which is a shame, but I do have most of it.
Here is the miracle transformation.
Before. #1Before. #2After. #3After. #4After. #5
I swept, vacuumed, and mopped the entire floor.
I know, I know. I had to sit down, too. Well, I had to sit down because my back was yelling at me to do so, so I took a gram of Ibuprofen, then sat down.
Behind the two chairs facing outward, in the photo directly above, #5, there are 11 empty totes, with lids that need to go upstairs. Until they do, they will be “hidden” behind the chairs. (You didn’t even notice them, did you!?!)
And, towards the window, just under the painting, in the same photo, is a small TV, and my foldable bicycle. The two totes have vacuum sealed bedding that go to our single bed, in the spare bedroom, that is next on the list to be gutted. (It’s the room where my father in law spent his last weeks with us, 2 years ago.)
Under the painting on the left, in photo #4, that my friend Connie M. painted for me, are 2 totes with various bits of this, and that, but able to be accessed as needed. What you can’t see, on the floor, in front of the totes, is an entire tote’s worth of gardening bits, and bobs. They are better where they are. Trust me.
Then, in photo #3, you can see that we keep a large tote on the “diablo”, the dolly, at all times. We use it, mostly, to store all of the cardboard we collect from ordering supplies on line. When it’s overly full, we take the contents downstairs to the basement, and put it in the cardboard area to be recycled.
We also use it to bring up our mega haul of groceries, like we did just the day before this. We went to the 3 different stores, and bought each of them out of business. (Yes, we still share our bounty with our friends upstairs). There is absolutely no way we could bring all of the groceries upstairs when we buy in bulk.
We separate the disposables here, in the condo, by glass, cardboard/paper, plastic, organic, and “regular”. In photo #3, there is a large black garbage bag hanging off the left side of the metal cart, between the lamp, and the diablo. That is for the “regular” garbage; stuff that isn’t any of the others, like bubble wrap, and bathroom garbage. It’s all put into various boxes, bins, or bags to be taken, again, to the basement, and put in their allotted bins.
The white buckets are mostly for organic waste; kitchen scraps, to be precise. They are the only organic waste allowed. I do put in an occasional paper towel, napkin, or tissue because they, too, are organic. I’m trying to get the garbage collectors to think outside the box. JK.
Well, that should have been enough for you to have waded through for one sitting. Thanks for that.
I hope you have enjoyed the fruits of my labor. I sure do. It is so much more peaceful, less anxiety causing when I come into the living room. It was sooo worth the time, and effort. We are no longer living in a storage unit.
Will we be able to find anything when we need it ? Only time will tell.
Until next time, please, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Post script: the only downside is that now the rest of the shelves are reachable, so I have no excuses to ignore cleaning them. Damn!! 😉
Post post script: I have to keep looking over my shoulder to make sure nothing has changed; that everything is still where I put it. 😉
It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way that it actually registered in my consciousness.
I am acknowledging it as having been the result of a bit of a domino effect.
Firstly, I have been sleeping amazingly well for the past two, or maybe, three weeks, as I have been listening to Better Sleep™, in the hypnosis venue. When I can find the narrator I prefer, I try to listen for at least 30 minutes, up to 1 full hour.
I never finish the episodes, or whatever they are called, but I can sleep, deeply for about 2 hours, wake briefly, adjust my position, and fall immediately back to sleep for another 2 hours. Reposition, and repeat; from 10:30pm., until 6:30-8:30am the next morning.
Secondly, financial security. I have put us on the road to security, as I mentioned a few posts back, and, with the lack of alcohol every f’ing night, we are saving tons of money. We’ve cut way back on ordering groceries on line, so that’s a big savings, even though we did go to Sam’s Club, (haven’t been there in almost a year), Costco, and Soriana the other day, and put out an inordinate amount of money. I have no idea where we’re going to put everything but it’s stuff we’ve done without for so long, we just did it.
I’m not going to complain about how much we spent; it’s for that very thing that we have our retirement income. Thank you Jesus.
I want to say thank you, specifically, to Mayra, for all of the effort she has put into sending our CARE packages as we’ve needed things from the US. That, as per a recent post, has all but come to an end. She will only send us the odd item that is able to be shipped, that we can’t get here. Thanks Mayra. We love you tons.
Until next time everyone, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Post script: Never again. I bought 2 Christmas mugs on eBay the other day for $5 USD for the pair. The shipping is over $50!!! WTH(F)? Live and learn.
Just kidding. (Does anyone remember what the Red October was? No, I don’t mean the movie!!!)
We have been looking for a new electric kettle for our morning coffee, and refilling the 20L water bottle in which we have our drinking water. I forgot, I frequently heat water to wash dishes, as well.
I have come into the kitchen several times in the past few days to find the kettle completely dry, with the entire contents of the kettle in a mass of condensation on the bottom of the cabinets above it. What a mess. (Though they are getting cleaner;)
Most recently, I came in to find the kettle completely dry, and hot, having not turned off automatically. Argh!!!
In the above photo, the water has finished boiling, and when I went to lift up the kettle, the lid popped open of its own accord. Really annoying. I have since thwarted said “popping open BS” by doing the following.
You will stay shut, and that’s an order.
Haven’t had a dry kettle since.
As we have used this poor thing mercilessly for the past few years, it has given in to the inevitable. It is being replaced.
I just bought a SS kettle, from Amazon.com.us, which should have been delivered by the time you read this. I’m having a hard time waiting for it.
It has a lid that actually comes completely off, the spout is part of the actual body of the kettle, and, has a hefty rubbery handle. It’s preprogrammed with 5 different temperatures for different teas, 1 for coffee, and 1 to just boil. With 1500W, it has a fast boiling time; it claims about 4 minutes. The Chefman, from Costco, takes a lengthy 8-10 minutes, depending on whether I’m in the kitchen waiting, or elsewhere, having forgotten that I’m waiting.
I am expecting a beautiful relationship going forward with the above kettle, lasting, hopefully, several years. For the price, it should be working for/with us for many years to come.
Unfortunately, nothing is made to last anymore; we are a disposable society.
Just wanted to show you what’s going on in our hum drum lives.
Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe.
Post script: It came the other day, on the 10th. Here it is, and it works like a dream, though it’s quite loud as it heats the water. In fact, he can hear it in “his” room. However, when the water is cool, I can add it directly to the 20 L jug without having to add any disinfectant. Yea! (That always changes the taste of the water a bit.)
Sitting next to our jar of Clemente Jacques jalapeños en vinagre. Jalapeños in vinegar. They are the best of the best down here.
Remember me telling you about the chicken soup I was going to remake? The one using fideo?
I made it, a couple of days after Christmas. I had a bit of energy, and decided to get in the kitchen, and just do it.
I typed up what I could remember from making it a few weeks prior, only needing to adjust the amount of chicken base when I made it again.
It’s still yummy. Although I feel there’s some spice eluding me, Ivan says it takes fine as it is.
Maybe one of you can tell me what would give it that WOW factor.
Anyway, here is what my caldron looked like when it was finished.
Here’s what I did.
My Chicken soup with fideo
- 500 gm chicken, roasted (I used 2 thighs, 2 legs, 1 breast, each with skin, and bones)
- 3 L. water, hot, or boiling (adding more as needed)
- 2 Tbs. Avocado, or Olive oil
- 1/2 white onion, peeled, and chopped
- 2 large carrots, cut into bite sized pieces (I used a dozen baby carrots because that’s what I had)
- 2 stalks celery, chopped
- 3 large cloves garlic, minced
- 3 Roma tomatoes, very ripe, chopped
- 1 green pepper, peeled, seeded, roasted, chopped (I do all of that when I buy the peppers, then freeze them.)
- 4c. mushrooms, cut into bite sizes
- 2 c. Raw spinach, torn into pieces
- 4 gm thyme, dried, crushed (I crushed the thyme, and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle.)
- 5 peppercorns, crushed.
- 1/3 -1/2 c. Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base
- 100 gm Fideo (If you have real egg noodles, use those. I don’t have them.)
1. Roast chicken pieces at 400ºF for 40 minutes. Set aside to cool.
2. I suggest mise en place. Get everything ready while the chicken is roasting. Prep all of the vegetables, spices, etc., then cook.
3. When cool, shred, or cut chicken however you like. (Remove skin, fry it in the Dutch oven, and eat it, before frying the Mirepoix. It tastes amazing.)
4. In a Dutch oven, on medium high heat add oil, and sweat onions, carrots, celery, (Mirepoix), until just transparent. Add garlic, and continue cooking another minute.
5. Add tomatoes, green pepper, and mushrooms, and cook another 5 minutes.
6. Add 3 L. hot, or boiling water, chicken, fideo, bouillon base, spinach, crushed peppercorns, and thyme to pot. Stir to combine.
7. Cover, and simmer 1 hour.
8. Check water level after 30 minutes, adding more as needed. Adjust seasoning, adding salt, or bouillon base if needed.
9. Enjoy.
This makes about 14 servings of 1 cup each. (More or less). I have put 8 1 cup servings in their containers to freeze, and will vacuum seal them when they are frozen. I have put 4 1 1/2cup servings in the fridge to eat through the week.
These are 1 cup servings each. There are 2 1 1/2cup servings in each container.
Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Post script: we are making steady progress on cleaning, and, more importantly, decluttering the apartment. I’ll show you photos when I stop and take some.
All good things, the best things, must come to an end.
And they have.
My sister in law just informed me that she can’t send down our CARE packages anymore that contain food, and medications. Estafeta has changed their shipping regulations.
So have all of the other shipping companies I have checked. MyUS.com looked most favorable, but they, too, can’t ship food stuffs, or medications out of the US!
We can no longer have General Mills Cheerios, or dried spices, or Nexium sent to us. The US no longer allows those items to be shipped out of the country. WTH(F)?
I tried Amazon.com, and that was a “no go”. I tried Mercado Libre. Nope. Walmart.com? No, again.
What is an expat supposed to do? The only thing that really concerned me was the Nexium, but we can get a generic form down here, for an arm, and a leg.
Guess I’ll have to exchange him for someone less expensive, huh?
Just kidding. About the exchange 😉
Enjoy all of the riches the US has to offer, in our names.
Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Post script; We will learn to adjust, and become welcoming of the items we can acquire here. Be assured.
As many of you know, I’ve been working, periodically, on my beautiful Celtic style woolen shawl.
For the past 5 years.
Here’s how it looked recently.
I laid it across the dining room table so you could have some perspective. I didn’t measure it at the time, for reasons unbeknownst to me, but going back, and measuring as the photo indicated, it is approximately 50” in length at the moment.
Not bad for this old girl!
I’ll keep you apprised of my progress as it happens.
Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
You probably already have a wonderful, flavorful recipe that you use (though you’ve never shared it with me!!). I made a batch last month that I put in the silicon 1c. freezer containers I bought recently, to enjoy at a later date.
I highly recommend these 1c. containers to freeze portions.
Christmas night was that later date. We were both under the weather, and Ivan asked it we had any soup, like chicken soup. I didn’t have any canned soup, except beef, then remembered the frozen yumminess I made earlier.
It was absolutely delicious, I’m here to tell you. Ivan said so too, and that, my dear readers, is quite the accomplishment. (I never add enough salt to anything I cook. I’m learning to be liberal with spices, salt especially.)
Anyway, I had put what I had used prior on my NOOM account, as an added recipe, so I copied it from that, typed it up, and hd chicken sitting on the counter, just waiting to be made into more chicken soup.
Why the “” in the title you ask? Because “noodles” down here are close to nonexistent. and to buy them online is not recommended- they’re too expensive. So, what did I have to substitute, you ask?
Fideo.
Yep. Those tiny, thin strips of vermicelli used to make sopas in any good Mexican household. You gotta use what you have. Right?
It was fabulous. As I said, I have printed my recipe, and will tweak it as I go. If it turns out as good as the first batch, I’ll post it here, sometime. Everyone needs a good chicken soup recipe.
Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Post script: happy belated birthday to my favorite sister in law, Mayra.
Post post script: whilst recently looking through some online documents I have saved over the years, I found a copy of the recipe I made for Cream of any Vegetable Soup, and printed it. I showed it to Ivan, and we both got a good chuckle out of it. I wrote it on 9/30/2011. It was delicious. Someday, if you’re interested, I’ll share it with you too.
You may already know how great it tastes, but it was new to me.
Bananas, chocolate syrup, unsalted peanuts, and cinnamon.
We got a fresh container of cinnamon recently that is so much more flavorful than its predecessor as to be an entirely different spice. Just one shake of the container, and the kitchen is perfumed with the rick scent of cinnamon.
So, I break up the quite ripe, probably too ripe for the rest of you, banana, sprinkle the peanuts, drizzle the chocolate syrup, then give 4, or 5 good shakes of the cinnamon powder, and off I go. Happy as a lark. (I used to say happy as a clam, but I’m confused as to what that might feel like.)
According to NOOM, this whole concoction has only 296 calories. Yay for me. I’m not much into sweets, but this combo is my new after dinner go-to dessert.
Either that, or papaya with Chantilly cream on it. Another gently sweet dish I could eat every day. I can have 2 cups of papaya, with 4 Tbs. Chantilly cream for only 156 calories. I usually only eat 1 cup of the fruit, with the cream so it’s even less. I more of a carnivore.
Hope you’re enjoying the weather wherever you are, as we are here. It’s getting a bit warmer both day, and evening. Makes walking in the park so enjoyable.
Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves. Please.
