All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
Family, Food, Stories, Uncategorized

Spilt Coffee

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At Caribou this morning Nonny and I spilt an entire cup of coffee while navigating the “add cream and sugar” part of the transaction. Very quickly two gals jumped in to help, with napkins and a little towel that one of them asked staff for.  Between us we wiped and wiped and eventually got it all cleaned up.  I thanked them profusely and asked them if they would come later to my house and do my kitchen floor.  One of them stopped at our table a bit later as she was leaving to say “have a nice day” and Nonny was surprised to realize that she wasn’t an employee.  I said they were both just innocent helpful bystanders – which had made me all the more thankful at the time.

What the last kindness someone did for you?

Family, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, work

Leaf Vortex Conspiracy

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YA and her boyfriend raked the leaves yesterday. If you live in the Twin Cities you’ll be saying to yourself at this point “the last yard waste pick up was two weeks ago – why did she wait so long”.  Well, I’ll tell you why.  I live next door to the tree that waits until every other tree in Southwest Minneapolis has dropped its leaves to start shedding its own foliage.  Every. Single. Year.

In addition, we live in a leaf vortex, right in the middle of the block. My neighbors to the south routinely have 5-6 bags of leaves, my neighbors to the north 4-5 bags.  My house this year – 20 bags.  I really think that my neighbors have figured out a way to get their leaves to blow into my yard at this time of year.

It doesn’t help that I detest leaf raking. Actually that’s not quite true.  I don’t mind the raking part.  It’s the bagging part I don’t like, especially now that we have to use paper bags; the paper bags are so unwieldy and hard to fill.  This is kinda how I feel about yardwork… I don’t mind the work, I just hate the clean up.  A perfect gardening day is when YA follows me about and bags up all the weeds and detritus from my work!

Anything you’re sure of, even if it doesn’t make sense?

 

Family, History, home, Kids, pets, Uncategorized, work

Cleaning Up

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I don’t like cleaning. Organizing yes but cleaning no.  When I was living in Milwaukee I audited a class at the University of Wisconsin called “The Politics of Housework”. This was a LONG time ago but one of the things I remember about the class material was that housework is deeply dissatisfying for almost everybody due to its repetitive nature.  The housework never stays done.  No matter how earnestly you mop the floor, the dogs are going to wipe their muddy paws on it, probably within an hour.  This theory was very validating to me.

When YA was little, a co-worker asked me once how I get everything done and I replied “my house is dirty”. She laughed until she realized I was serious.  Then she laughed some more.  Any time I have a list of things to do, I can guarantee that cleaning is at the very bottom.  One of the upsides of entertaining a lot is that I’m forced to face the cleaning so my house doesn’t become a reality tv series.

With Nonny arriving on Monday, we’re in the last couple of days of getting the house clean (again). YA and I have a pretty good catalog of chores and luckily she likes to clean more than I do.  But mopping is still at the bottom of the list.

How do you get yourself to do the housework?

100 Words, Art, holidays, Movies, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

Let’s All Go to the Lobby

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The holiday movie season has started; I just saw that Fantastic Beasts 2 is out now. I will admit that I haven’t yet seen the first Fantastic Beasts; I’m a marginal Potter fan so not excited about seeing it in a theatre with the cost that entails.  But the concept of a pre-Harry world is appealing to me so I’m looking forward to seeing it one of these days when Netflix or one of the cable companies picks it up.

Who would star in a prequel of YOUR life? Theme song?

 

books, Food, Gatherings, Stories, Uncategorized

Dairy Ephiphany

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Thanks to Charles Dickens for setting the scene….

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

And in the midst of the chaos it sat, surrounded by its golden foil wrapper. Artisanal butter – a golden yellow color, soft and salty.  It made believers of us all.

Do you have a secret indulgence?

Art, books, Media, Movies, News, Uncategorized

RIP Stan Lee

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I’m not a huge comic book or graphic novel fan. Not sure why since I AM a super hero fan; probably  because super heroes have special powers, not unlike wizards and witches.  The last several years have been a real boon for super hero lovers and Stan Lee was behind a lot of that:  Spider Man, Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Black Panther, X-Men.  It was fun to see Stan Lee in small cameos in all the Marvel movies, a little like seeing Alfred Hitchcock showing up in the films that he directed.

Stan Lee passed away on Monday at the age of 95 from pneumonia. I’m sure his characters and movies will live on but it won’t be quite the same.  I’ll miss you, Stan.

What super hero would YOU like to be.

Food, Gatherings, Stories, Uncategorized

Soups Galore

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A friend of mine hosts a Soup Swap twice a year. The rules are pretty simple.  You bring 6 quarts of soup, preferably frozen.   One at a time you tell the group what soup you brought and what’s in it. This is when you “sell” your soup: why did you made it, where you got the recipes, what add-ons you brought along (croutons, bacon bits, etc.)  Then you choose a number (there were 27 of us this time). When it’s your turn, you get to choose one of the soups.  We go from #1 to the end, then from the end back to #1 until all the soups are parceled out. To help with the process, there is the “Wall of Soup” where everyone’s soup is listed. Once all of a soup has been taken, that soup gets crossed out.

Of course there is also wine, appetizers and my friend always serves tomato soup over rice. If it’s your first time at a soup swap, you are a “soup virgin”.  One woman often has her mother make her soup.  Occasionally someone buys their soup and that’s part of their soup story. Everything is OK.

The first time I went to a soup swap, I was the only one who brought a vegetarian soup. I came home with 6 meat soups that I promptly gave away to neighbors and co-workers.  Most of the time there are a fair number of vegetarian options, but it’s the experience that draws me back.

This time I brought “Any Squash Shooters” and my add-on was a little cello bag with two shot glasses and a small packet of popcorn. I came home with Tomato Pesto, Creamy Butternut, Coconut Curry Squash, Tomato Red Lentil and 2 quarts of Vegetable Salsa Soup.  I’m already planning what to bring to the spring Soup Swap.

What soup would YOU like to bring to a swap?

Family, History, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Paper Drive

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This weekend’s post comes to us from Bill.
Photo Credit:  Ann Arbor District Library

Here’s a stream of consciousness for you:

Today I bought a roll of sisal twine to have on hand when I bundle tree trimmings or flattened cardboard boxes for recycling and I reflected that sisal twine always makes me think of paper drives. Remember paper drives? When I was in grade school and when I was in Boy Scouts, paper drives were a common way of earning money for extra-budgetary purchases. I especially remember the  school ones. We would each be given some lengths of twine and then, singly or in groups we would pull a wagon around the neighborhood asking neighbors, door to door, if they had any stacks of old newspapers we could have. There must have been a competitive aspect to it but I can’t remember specifically how it was set up. I don’t think it was individual; more likely it was grade against grade to see who could collect the most. I don’t recall a reward for winning either, other than the pride of coming in first. Paper drives have gone away because recycling has reduced the value of scrap paper and nobody has stacks of old newspapers lying around anyway.

It seems like there were a lot of fundraising schemes back then, most of which involved going door to door and trying to sell some commonplace item, like light bulbs, at an inflated price. An easy albeit unimaginative solution for some group of PTA parents to foist upon hapless students as a means to raise funds. Presumably, your native charm and powers of persuasion were supposed to compensate for the poor value of the transaction. Usually what happened is that your parents and grandparents ended up with a stockpile of off-brand light bulbs they had purchased at a non-competitive price. The only party to the scheme that made any real money was the company that supplied the fundraising products.

Door-to-door sales is almost extinct, it seems. Gone are the Fuller Brush men and I can’t remember the last time a kid came around trying to sell something. Although I imagine that would be considered child endangerment these days, most of us had some experience with that kind of commerce. I briefly considered trying to sell waterless cookware when I was in college. I had picked up the sample case and tried out my spiel on some female friends. I was so inept and so unconvincing that they were in helpless tears of hilarity before I finished. I returned the sample case the next day.

How about you? What did you sell?

gardening, Media, Nature, Technology, Uncategorized

Leaf Pile Loss

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Today’s post comes to us from Crystal Bay.

Have you ever lost your cell phone? If so, you know what it feels like to lose all contact with the outside world. A friend installed an ap on my computer recently called “Find my iPhone”. All you have to do is open this feature and it’ll make the phone sound alarms. I mistakenly thought I’d be home free with this feature, but without my phone, I couldn’t read what my password was in my contact list!

Today, I completed five days of blowing leaves into three very large piles – 3′ high and 15′ wide. Lots of leaves . Somewhere in one of those huge piles, my cell phone fell out of my pocket. Panic set in at the prospect of digging through the gigantic piles to find it.

It then occurred to me to then email a whole bunch of people, hoping one of them was home, labeling the subject EMERGENCY, and asking him/her to call my number until I answered it.

Mary, thank God, started calling me as I waited outside in the hopes of hearing the ring. It was like the old game of “Hot or Cold”. I frantically tried to follow the ringing. It took a few minutes to find it but not before tearing apart much of the work I’d done.  Last winter, I dropped my cell phone in a 2’ deep snowfall and had to dig up a lot of snow to find it. That time, I walked out to the country road, flagged down a car, and asked the driver if he’d call my number until I found it in the snow. He kindly did this.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s to never have my phone on me when blowing or snowing.

 

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU LOST YOUR PHONE?

100 Words, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

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Sometime yesterday between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. I lost my winter attitude! It was exactly the same temperature when I went to work as when I exited my building at the end of the day.  I had on the same clothes, wore the same jacket.  But on the way home and doing errands I was COLD.  I turned up the heater in the car, rubbed my hands together and even sat on my hands at one stoplight.  I’m afraid it’s going to be a long winter for me this year.

What’s your favorite way to keep warm?