In other words, I worked today. I am taking a couple of hours off tomorrow a.m. to watch the ceremony on TV but otherwise, the news waits for no one. Or else they’d call it “olds.”
Anyhoo, the weekend:
The dried cilantro went all gross on me. So did the dill. It’s just not warm enough to dry herbs outside these days, and the air is too moist, I think. I could have used the dehydrator, but electricity and all that. I will try the ice cube trick or a baggie in the freezer method next time around. These three bunches of herbs ended up in the compost pile.
I did a bunch of kitchen prep, making bread, bagging salads for 3 people’s lunches, using my new Freecycled plastic bag dryer to reuse ziplocks; presoaked beans for tonight’s dinner, made cookies, and cleaned out the fridge of leftover odds and ends.
One of the weekend projects was to make some gardiniera. I have a recipe for pickled carrots, but I modified it — left out the tomato soup that the recipe called for, which sounded unappetizing to me anyway. I had a bunch of radishes, and then added purple cauliflower and some stalk chunks from rainbow chard. The end result is a colorful melange in a half-gallon jar in the back fridge, which will sit for a few weeks, then end up on a relish tray, in lunches or on top of salads. No food waste, made it myself. I took some time in the garden to prune roses, chop back the wildly overgrown salvia, and finally put all the bulbs into the ground that had already started to sprout. We just had a false spring here last week and it made the garden go crazy. The roses and the fruit trees look like they’re about to burst into new growth. Spring hopes eternally. If I’m going to move the plum tree (just planted it last spring but it’s in the path of the new chicken coop to be built) — I’d better do it soon. Clean-up of the crap-piles continues — I started emptying an old filing cabinet, and discovered it to be full of crap. That’s right, I have filed my crap for future reference. So out it goes. Do I really need old bills anymore? To houses or cell phone plans I don’t even have anymore? No, no, no. Cleaned the crap-pile behind the bedroom closet door (where the cat likes to sleep because it’s so — soft) — in other words, put my clothes away, finally unpacked my bag from when I went to NY in April, and put everything away. I can see the floor. Really. Down to the office, where the tornado continues — more paper crap went into recycling or the paper bin to be printed on the other side. You can actually WALK into my office now. In a straight line. From the door to the chair. I swear to G*d. And….Mr. Husband and I went through all of our bills, paid off a bunch and got up to date on our financials. Mr H and I had a good conversation about saving vs paying off bills vs funding retirement, etc. We have a solid plan now of bill payment (using the pay-the-lowest-first, then go after the larger ones with the extra cash). I’ll also make sure to add to my IRA this year (since I have my own company, we don’t have a lot of the perks like 401Ks, etc — I have to remember to do this now, or boo-hoo later) Last but not least, we watched a really wonderful movie at home Saturday for Date Night (FREE)! The movie is called “Things We Lost in the Fire” with Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny. Although it is about a well-to-do family, they are struggling with a death in the family and it has a really powerful message about “it’s just stuff” and what is of value to you, and rich vs poor/success vs failure, how the characters each needed something from each other. I found it to be quite moving and, in fact, I highly recommend the movie to anyone, but not for little kids, since it is pretty sad about losing a parent, etc. It doesn’t show any gratuitous boobs, car chases, explosions or even tread down the same old Hollywood path. Julia gives it 5 stars. Raise your hand if you’ve seen it.