All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
2026, Family, home, Mysteries, pets

Foamy Mystery

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Every rescue dog comes with its own set of baggage to sort through.  Freya loves to chew – probably some from anxiety but more likely from being caged most of her life and now finding a whole new world of tactile sensations.

Even though I pick up the toys most nights, by 9 a.m. she has most of them out of the bin and every one is missing something – an ear, a fin, a flipper.  Once she finds a way in, then she goes all in looking for the squeaker so the white toy stuffing goes all over.  Our living room right now looks like a stuffy toy abattoir.  Even the hard rubber toys are no match for her little shark teeth.

Unfortunately, it’s not just toys.  We realized right away that pretty much anything is fair game.  It took YA a bit longer to come to terms with this – she’s lost a shoe, a slipper and a pair of shorts.  We’ve taken to limiting her smorgasbord a bit right now by putting up gates to keep her in a smaller area and by keeping a very close eye on her.

She is however quite stealthy and if your attention is elsewhere, she can get around you quite nicely.  On Saturday I spent some time on the phone with one of my BFFs from Madison.  I had been upstairs before the call and when I came down, I neglected to put up the gate at the bottom of the stairs.  A few minutes into my call, I looked up and saw Freya chewing what looked like a big chunk of yellow foam.  At first I figured she had gutted a stuffy but most toys these days are white fiber fill; I also didn’t see any stuffy carcasses nearby.  When I took it from her and headed toward the trash, I noticed more yellow foam on the landing.  I had reconfigured the dog bed situation upstairs so I thought that maybe Freya didn’t like my renovation. 

When I got off the phone, I went to check it out.  No trail of yellow foam to the landing. No cover to whatever the item had been.  Both upstairs dog beds were intact.  In fact, everything upstairs was intact.  I even checked rooms with closed doors.  I moved the gate to YA’s room and looked around in there.  Bupkiss.  I even did a slow-pan video of her room and sent it to her (she’s out of town for work) and she says it looks fine.  We haven’t replaced bathroom rug yet.  All my pillows are fine.  Downstairs everything in order.  Piano bench fine, dining room chairs fine, breakfast room dog kennel fine (I checked this twice).  Not one bit of yellow foam anywhere else.

At this point I have given up looking for whatever it was in its past life.  I’m figuring that in three months or so I’ll be looking for something, won’t be able to find it and a lightbulb will go off.  Maybe.

Have you lost anything lately that you think you might find… eventually?  Any mysteries in your life this week? 

2026, Automotive, books, Business, pets

Restoration

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The other night I had a glasses mishap.  In getting out of the car at PetSmart, I was completely unorganized, trying to grab the vet records (Freya had to have vaccine proof for her class), dog treats, leash, purse, keys.  During this mess I managed to knocked my night driving glasses out of the car without realizing it.

When we got back to the car over an hour later, I noticed something a little shiny on the ground and when I reached down, saw that it was indeed my glasses.  They were a little wonky with one arm stuck and not opening.  I’m not sure what happened.  I’m pretty sure that if I had stepped on them in my kerfuffle getting out of the car, I would have noticed that.  On the other hand, if some other car had parked in the spot next to me while we were in class, it would have had to park REALLY close.  If I had to bet my own money, I somehow crunched them.

Luckily the lens seemed fine.  I was afraid to force the arm myself, so I took myself off to Warby Parker when they opened yesterday morning.  I knew they wouldn’t charge me to look at the glasses, but wasn’t sure if they would charge me for fixing them (if they could).  I was perfectly prepared to take them back home, force the arm and use duct tape until next summer, when I can get a new pair. 

The technician started looking at them and twisting them without quoting me any pricing so I quit worrying.  Then he set them down and went to “ask somebody something”… my worry-o-meter clicked on again.  But he came back and went back to work.  They looked good to me; he still wasn’t satisfied.  At that point he went into the backroom and came out with a new frame, just the same as my old frame; I didn’t even know my frame was still being made – it’s been three years.  He quickly popped my lens out of my injured frames and squeezed them into the new frame.  Heated the bridge to make it fit me, cleaned up both lens and handed them over.  No charge.  I told him to be sure to send me a survey. 

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about Warby Parker before but their books of haiku are still for sale in the store and still too pricey for me but I thought I’d do quick haiku to great customer service:

Night glasses broken.

Warby Parker hits a run –

Night vision restored!

Any good customer service lately?  Or absolutely rotten customer service?

2026, education, Family, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

To Wrinkle or Not to Wrinkle…

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When I was growing up, ironing was as art form.   In my family, EVERYTHING got ironed, from my dad’s work shirts, to shirts and dresses, towels and sheets.  I don’t remember underwear getting the once over, but I could just be suppressing that memory.  My mother had me ironing pretty early – starting when I was in first grade – and she instructed me in the correct way to do every kind of garment/fabric.  When my dad’s ship came in, Nonny’s first luxury was to send out the laundry to be ironed.  She still washed and dried everything but then it went into a bag to get picked up by the ironing person twice a week.  I can still see the ironed items (in garment bags) hanging in the front closet after they were returned in pristine shape.

I do have an iron, but it gets lonely in the closet.  The only thing I’ve ironed in the last year was the quilt that I inherited from Nonny (well, inherited is probably the wrong word.  “helped myself to” is more like it).  And the only reason I ironed it was that I was adding sticky fabric tape to several places where the fabric had basically disintegrated over the years.  YA probably uses the iron and ironing board maybe once a quarter.

When I went off to college, Nonny did send a little travel iron with me.  Snort.  The very first things that I quit ironing were my sheets.  They stretch out on your bed and you sleep on them, for goodness sakes.  Sheets were quickly followed by just about everything else. I never looked back.

With this in mind, I’m not sure what the heck I was looking at on YouTube a few days ago, but for some reason, a few posts came up about how to fold a fitted sheet.  Then I made the fatal error of clicking on one.  Now my feed is full of folks seriously showing me how to fold a fitted sheet — all of them basically the same method – sticking the two lower corners into the top upper corners, then folding into thirds or fourths and then folding again.  It LOOKS easy, but I remember trying this years ago and it’s not that simple.  And if you’re dealing with slippery sheets, of which I have several sets for the summer, the method doesn’t really work at all.  I did find a YouTube of how I do it…

I don’t actually chuck it into the closet.  After I’ve wadded it up, I then put the folded top sheet and the pillow cases on top and then gently slide the whole pile onto the shelf.  I’m not a savage.

Toward the end of her life, I know for a fact that Nonny was still ironing some of her clothing, but she had abandoned ironing the sheets, thank goodness.  Whenever I would visit and help her with laundry, she would have us do the two-person fold.  I’m now sure what she was doing on her own.  I hope she was wadding the fitted sheet into a ball, but somehow I doubt it!

Do you fold fitted sheets?  What method do you use?  Do you use a top sheet?  Linen closet or drawers?

2026, animals, Fantasy, home, Mysteries, pets

Detente?

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When YA and I started our search for a dog, the #1 trait that I was worried about was “does this dog have a strong chase instinct”?  For eleven years, Guinevere chased Nimue.  It was just her instinct to chase, especially when startled.  Any time the cat surprised her (like jumping off the bed when Guinevere was snoozing nearby), the dog would lunge out of her sleep.  As soon as she lunged, the cat would run.  The minute the cat ran, Guinevere would chase; she couldn’t help herself.  Unfortunately this ended with the cat getting injured a couple of times early on.  After that YA and I set up a couple of serious gates that allowed escape routes for the cat in the two places where the trouble was happening.  That solved their problem – it was a pain for YA and me.  We did not want to have this problem repeated with a new dog.

While Freya does chase squirrels and rabbits in the yard, she’s not shown any interest in chasing the cat.  In fact, she is afraid of the cat. If Nimue is on the back porch when I open the door to let the dog in, Freya freezes on the back steps until I shoo the kitty back into the kitchen.  If the cat is on the steps to go upstairs, Freya will stay at the bottom of the steps until Nimue has gone all the way up.  And the only way I’ve been able to get Freya on the bed when Nimue is already in residence is with a bunch of treats; as soon as the treats are gone, the dog is gone.

Nimue is loving this.  After all those years, she is definitely enjoying having the upper paw.  She will turn and give the dog the stink eye.  There has been some hissing and I’ve even caught her chasing Freya a couple of times.

It’s been three months and I’m starting to see the very first signs of an eventual détente.  Freya is a little braver about coming in or up when she sees the cat.  The cat is ignoring more.  And a few times it seems clear that Freya would like to play with Nimue.  She follows behind, doing some sniffing and then plopping into that classic “Wanna play?” pose with the butt in the air.  Then yesterday morning, when Freya came into the kitchen, Nimue was sitting on top of the kennel.  Fraya approached slowly, nose stretched out.  Nimue didn’t exactly stretch to meet, but she didn’t back off and for a few moments they were nose to nose.  Then Nimue moved back a bit to lay on the blanket, out of Freya’s reach. 

I didn’t realize how much I was longing for this until I saw it.  All my other dogs and cats have gotten along well until Guinevere came along to rock the boat.  I do miss her but I don’t miss the chaos.  Now I’m eager to see how long it takes for Nimue and Freya to settle into, if not friendship, or even companionship, but détente.

Tell me about someone you’ve had to learn to deal with.

2026, animals, Family, Nature, Seasons

Early Hours at the Zoo

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When YA was four, we had a nice day at the zoo.  As we went through the Minnesota Trail, there was a beautiful lynx right in the middle of its habitat.  YA was mesmerized; she stood right in from of the glass and stared at the lynx.  The lynx stared back; they literally had locked eyes.  The two of them stood still like that for a good five minutes.  YA broke eye contact to look to me and at that point, the lynx bolted for another part of the habitat.  I probably should have realized at that moment that YA had some animal whisperer talent.   Maybe it started that day – the lynx has always been one of her favorite animals.

We get emails from the zoo so we were aware that there were two lynx kittens born at the zoo in late spring.  The email announcing that the kittens were out for viewing came a couple of weeks back; YA has been on me ever since to get to the zoo. 

Yesterday, since I had Blevins in the afternoon, we zipped down to Apple Valley at opening time, 9 a.m.  The plan was to go see the lynx first, then see other stuff, then circle back to the lynx before heading home.

Going in the cool morning was great!  All the animals were up and about (except the beavers).   We even got to see the two martins, who are NEVER awake normally.  The wolves, who are usually all sacked out in the back of their area were up, rolling around and even coming right up to the windows!

Saw the red pandas, the sloth (who is usually sleeping when we’re there), all the otters, the caribou, the big moose.  Even the prairie dogs were all up and working on their breakfast.

We did go back to the lynx – the kittens had found a way to climb up to the top of their habitat and were looking down at all of us.  Even though we could hardly see them and they weren’t doing much, YA had us stand there almost 10 minutes.

All in all, it was a glorious day at the zoo.  I think we’ll probably head out early and get there at opening from now on!

Are you a morning person or a night owl?

2026, Family, Food, gardening, Seasons, Weather

A Cooking Day

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A cool wet morning yesterday was perfect for some time in the kitchen.  Especially since my tomato plants are still going gangbusters.

Normally I look for easy recipes but for some reason I was drawn to a complicated Macaroni & Cheese with Roasted Tomatoes and Chilis that I found in my Tomato cookbook.  It had several steps that needed to be combined at the end, which always spooks me.  I’m usually fairly casual about cooking so having to get everything to come together at one point isn’t my favorite modus operandi.  But with nothing else on my to-do list, I thought I could handle it.

Part of the recipe was a layer of roasted tomatoes; the recipe called for big tomatoes but I have tons of cherry tomatoes, so I looked up an alternative recipe.  I made this first and as the tomatoes were roasting, I laid out all the other ingredients on the counter.  It felt like I was doing a cooking show!   Then the poblanos got roasted over the gas flame; it’s so much fun to hear the peppers popping and sizzling!  Added the peppers to the tomatoes with a couple large cloves of garlic.

Next up was the cheese sauce; it’s been quite a while since I made a roux and then a cheese sauce from scratch.  SO much cheese – sharp cheddar, fontina and parmesan.  And so much stirring!   Managed to get the pasta cooked so that it was done right when the cheese sauce was ready.  (leaf-shaped pasta that YA and I found at Trader Joe’s last weekend.) 

Laid the tomato/poblano mix in the bottom of my 8” square cast iron, then layered the mac and cheese over that.  Then came the breadcrumb topping – breadcrumbs and melted butter – and finally popped the whole thing in the oven for 25 minutes. 

Looking at this description, it doesn’t seem as complicated as it felt at the time.  The whole dish, including roasting the tomatoes and peppers, took about an hour and a half.  I had thought it would take longer.  I managed to clean as I went, so there wasn’t a massive mess when I was done.

It smelled heavenly and tasted heavenly as well.  YA liked it as well, which isn’t always guaranteed.  I guess this means I’ll have to keep this recipe in our roster for another cool rainy day!

Any foods you’re trying to eat up (or put up) this fall?

PS: The left-hand photo is before it went into the oven and the right-hand is the finished product.

2026, Automotive, Family, Uncategorized

Karma!

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One of my mother’s life lessons for me and both my sisters was “who said life was fair”?  This was in direct contrast to the lessons most of us absorbed from cartoons, television and movies; usually, the bad guys get their comeuppance in the end.  Considering how little comeuppance a lot of current bad guys are getting, I’m glad my mom taught me some balance to always expecting fair.

Yesterday I had to run an errand over to St. Paul.  On the way over, I had to go north on Highway 280 – a left exit off 94.  There was quite a bit of traffic, so the last 2 miles before the exit, I just hung out in the left lane.  Even though I was going about 5 miles over the speed limit, there was one person behind me who was really impatient and got pretty close.  I ignored them.

Then on the way home, I had to go south on 35W, another left exit.  Same scenario – about 5 miles over the speed limit and again, somebody on my butt.  But this one was really aggressive and even flashed their lights at me.  Good grief.  They did a quick rush into the lane to the right to get around me.  The car that was already in that lane actually put their brakes on.  The impatient car swerved back behind me; the car in the right lane sped up a bit.  The impatient car tried again to swerve over and around; again the right lane car put on their brakes.  There was some long laying on of the horn and more flashing lights.  When we got off at the 35W exit, I slowed down a bit so my right lane friend could get ahead of me.  As we got onto 35W, the impatient car finally was able to swing out and pass us both.  I was wondering if he would pull in front and then stomp on his brakes, but he just left us inn his dust.

I completely get that things like this can turn into road rage but as impatient guy raced off, I realized I had a big smile on my face, having seen some instant karma.  I’m sure we didn’t make him late – the whole thing only took about 2 minutes, but I’m hoping the exasperation and anger he felt was a bit of karma coming his way (yes, I did eventually see that it was a guy).  So at least for two minutes yesterday I got to see a little bit of fairness in the world!

Have you ever seen someone get their comeuppance?

2026, In Memorium, Music, Songs

Keepers

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Over the weekend I was surprised at the emotions that welled up when Renee posted Waltzing with Bears.  Boy, I still miss the Late Great Morning Show.

I do have all the Keepers CDs and often ask Alexa to play a few songs from the show, but it’s just not the same.  If you go to The Current/Radio Heartland online and search Morning Show Dale Connolly or Keepers Request, you can find the Keepers on Request show that Mike Pengra did for us back in 2015.  I haven’t listened to it in a while but probably will today.

Another of the songs that always chokes me up a bit is The Mary Ellen Carter by Stan Rogers

And I don’t just love the mushy ones.  Another of my favorites is this one:

And this one, of course.

Now I gotta go get all the Keepers CDs from the stereo cabinet.

Any favorite songs for you today?  LGMS or otherwise?

2026, Automotive, Business, Food, Gatherings, Kids

Vroom, Vroom…

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Apparently, I am too easy to please.  Despite the State of Minnesota spending a gazillion dollars to entertain me at the fair this year, YA says my threshold is too low.  Why, you ask?

On Saturday, the company that watches over my investments (my, doesn’t that sound grand?) had a Shredding Event.  They’ve done this in the past but I was never free; this year there was space on my calendar so I filled up a bag of papers to be shredded and headed to St. Paul. 

It was an absolutely beautiful day and they had everything well organized; there were a couple of guys directing traffic and parking and then there were a couple more guys helping folks unload their shreddables.  Since all I had was one bag, I was easy!

Something new this year was a “car show”.  It was extremely low-key – about 18 cars, all just sitting out.  Each one had a tag with make, model and year.  Other than that, no other hoopla, although I did find a few owners standing around next to their cars.  I did ask before I took the photos in the header!

I noticed the red things (my car equipment vocabulary is not robust) on the wheel so the two Mercedes-Benz’ that were there.  Luckily one of the Mercedes owners was there so I asked him what the red things were.

He explained, in very simple words that even I could understand) that they were the brakes/brake pads; he even used hand movements to illustrate how brakes/brake pads work.  I asked why they were red and got the answer “because that’s what Mercedes-Benz does”.  Hmmmm.  Sounds a bit like grandstanding to me.  Another MB owner who was standing nearby commented that you can now order black ones.  Guess some MB owners don’t want to stand out? 

After seeing the cars, there was a complimentary food truck, so I had a nice black bean burger with kettle chips for lunch and talked to another couple at my table who were new clients.  Followed that up with some cookies `n cream ice cream and conversed a bit with my two financial guys.  Then I headed home – I was there about 30 minutes.  Have I mentioned what a lovely day it was?

When I recounted my experience, I got a big eye roll from YA with the comment that some folks are easily pleased.  I think that’s better than being HARD to please.  I had a fun time, had good reading time on the way there and back (CD audio book) – what’s not to like ab out that?

Any classic/vintage car stories?  Are you easy or hard to please?

2026, Family, Food

2026 Foods of the Fair Reviewed

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You knew it was coming.  The review of the foods that YA and I sampled at the fair this year.  I’m thinking of this as a public service announcement for any trips to the fair that you might be considering for next year!

Staples/Old Favorites (Some of them anyway)

  • Sweet Martha’s Cookies – every day. What doesn’t get eaten right away goes into my Tupperware to be dipped into as the day progresses.  Still yummy when they are warm and gooey.
  • Potato Cheddar Crepe. This is YA’s favorite.  They make the crepes to order so they are also warm and gooey.
  • The corn stand is an amazing piece of production and, of course, the corn is also fabulous.
  • Pickle Pizza. Another of YA’s staples.  They’ve added a second outlet this year so while the lines were long, they weren’t as awful as prior years.  What she likes best is that the base is a white sauce, so the pickles aren’t sparring with tomato sauce for the lead.
  • Cheese Curds. Like usual, the Mouthtrap curds in the Food Building are the best.  They also have a fabulous set-up so while the lines look long, once you’re in line, it goes really fast.  Warm, crunchy, not too greasy.  They’ve got all the other curds beat.

New Foods This Year

  • Pimento Cheese Puffs at Shanghai Henri’s (International Bazaar). Pretty good, could have been fried a bit less; the crunch was a bit much.  Nice cheesy insides, not too spicy with a nice sweet and sour sauce.  5 stars
  • Three Cheese Mac Savory Cone at Roons (near sheep/poultry barn). Like it says – mac & cheese in a waffle cone.  The mac & cheese had too many savory spices for me and the cone was a little “tough”.  3 stars
  • Vegetarian Spring Rolls at Panda Palace (International Bazaar). YA ate most of these and reported that they weren’t anything special.  3 stars
  • Sweet Squeakers at The Blue Barn (West End). White curds, battered, fried, dusted w/ cinnamon/sugar.  Topped with a lemon whipped mousse and raspberry sauce.  Header photo!  Interesting concept but WAY overdone.  You really couldn’t tell that the base of cheese curds wasn’t really recognizable.  4 stars
  • Strawberry Crunch Mini Donuts at Solem’s (North End). They looked good but most of the strawberry flavor was in the topping, so after the top layer of donuts was eaten, the donuts themselves didn’t have a lot of taste.  And I have to say, putting crunch around the edge of the bucket looks striking, it is a MESS.  3 stars.

This isn’t by any means all the foods we plied ourselves with but a good overview.  Sad to say that there were no new foods that received 5 stars from us.  Next year when we print out our food list, it won’t include any of them.  But the old favorites didn’t disappoint.

If you do the fair next year, hopefully our research will be helpful to you!

What cheese is never yours?