All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
2026, Food, Gatherings, home, Kids, Uncategorized, Weather

Fuzzy Pi

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Big snow storms and big parties don’t go together.  I watched the weather like that proverbial hawk for a couple of weeks and was a little dismayed when just a few days ahead of Pi Day, the forecast took a turn for the worse.  For the next few days we were hoping the snow would hold off until Saturday night, but it became clear that our hopes wouldn’t be realized.  YA suggested that we move Pi Day up to 5 p.m. (instead of 6) to give folks a little more wiggle room so I sent out an email.

I was a bit worried about whether I could be ready by 5.  On Thursday and Friday I was… well a little fuzzy.  Just not firing on all thrusters.  Around noon on Friday, I had some pie shells par-baking; as I waited, I took a quick break on the sofa.  When the timer went off, I headed to the kitchen, faced the oven, turned off the timer, put on the oven mitts and then promptly turned right around and opened the dishwasher.  Just a smidge loopy I’d say.

YA was an angel and by the time the first folks arrived at 4:30, everything was done except for the whipped cream on the last three pies.  We had everything on the table and ready by 5.  Phew.  Of course not everybody got the email so there was a 5:00 influx and a 6:00 influx.  One friend came at 7:15!  No worries – enough pie for everybody!

Here is this year’s menu:
Blueberry
Dutch Apple
Peach
Pear Croustade
Oreo Cream
Double Lemon Chess
Nectarine Almond Crumb
Key Lime
Crack
Banofi
Fudge Pecan
Coconut Macadamia
Root Beer Float Whoopies

So you can have a Pi Day celebration when there is a storm and even if you’re a little discombobulated.  However I did make everybody who left after 7 call/text me when they got home safe and sound!

  What kind of pie is best eaten underground?

2026, Automotive, dreams, Travel, Weather

Hawaii Bound?

26 Comments

It was cloudy here a couple of weeks back for the latest lunar eclipse.  I knew it was cloudy but I set my alarm for 3 a.m., just in case.  Crickets.  I re-set the alarm again for 4:30. Hope springs eternal.

Before that alarm went off my dream world went a little crazy.  For some reason in my dream the alarm had gone off and when I got up, instead of looking out the window to the southwest, I put on my slippers, got into my car and set my GPS for the Big Island of Hawaii.  Unlike reality, in which my GPS says there are no directions available between my house and Honolulu, in my dream the directions were going right there.  If you figure not stopping to eat or sleep, I could get to San Fran in about 30 hours.  If I could drive from San Fran to Honolulu (snort), it would take me another 60 hours; guessing the eclipse would be over by then.

If there was a reason that I was driving to Honolulu, other than to see the eclipse, it wasn’t clear upon waking up.  Why I couldn’t just look out my window, I don’t know.  And it certainly wasn’t clear why I thought I could drive my little Honda Insight across the Pacific Ocean. 

The capper was, of course, that when the alarm went off at 4:30, it was still completely overcast.  Guess Hawaii was second best?

What’s the longest distance you’ve driven?  Any good ferry stories?

2026, Art, Kids, Music, Theatre

Never Need a Reason….

40 Comments

Thursday night I went to see my little friend Minnie in Mary Poppins at the Wayzata Community Church.  I’ve been to several of her performances in plays the past couple of years but this was the first one at this venue.  Apparently they’ve been doing productions for 25 years. Who knew?

It was a quite a production with a cast of close to 40 with a huge stage (in the sanctuary) and a nice-sized band.  (So, in addition to Minnie in the play, I got to enjoy her father playing the trombone as well!)

It was a little overblown (in my opinion).  Every now and then the band’s background music drowned out the dialog but the biggest problem was really the size of the cast.  Every big number had almost the entire cast on stage with all the “main stars” in the front; normally not a problem but a lot of the not-main cast were the younger actors/actresses so you really couldn’t see them easily.  It was just kind of a mass of bodies.  For those of us there to see a friend or family member (probably most of us in the sanctuary), it was difficult.

Minnie really shone  in “Step in Time”, the number done by all the chimney sweeps.  She was the youngest of the sweeps but she held her own.  She knew the steps and kept up with the older/bigger dancers.  She clearly knew all the words and she has a great smile.

Another great piece of the evening was sitting with Marie, Minnie’s little sister.  Marie had a fabulous Mary Poppins dress and shoes, along with her Mary Poppins doll and umbrella.  She looked so cute.

So it was a fun night.  I get to see Marie in a “showcase” next week.  I love being the neighborhood grandma!

What do you wear when you’re out for the evening??  Favorite musical?

2026, Art, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Scrappy Do

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My neighbor Don once asked me about how I keep up with supplies for my paper crafts.  I think I snorted.   I’m pretty certain that if I didn’t buy anything else ever (except for tape, which I go through at a prodigious rate), I could keep making cards until I’m 105.

You’d think that with stacks of paper, I wouldn’t be so stingy with it.  I keep almost every scrap, unless it’s thinner than 1/2”.   There are two plastic bins in my studio with paper scraps – one is for solid-colored cardstock and the other is for patterned paper.  Both these bins are full and I spend a bit of time sifting through to see if there is something I can use rather than cut into a new piece of stock/paper.  I try to keep it organized, but many days when I’m straightening up after I’ve crafted, I just toss the scraps into the bin willy nilly.

That means that a couple of times a year, it’s time to sort out the scraps.  I go through each bins separately; solids get divided up into colors (blues, greens, purples, etc.) and patterns get laid out by pattern type and/or season (stripes, dots, floral, Halloween, etc.)   At this point I usually jettison a lot of the smaller pieces, especially the patterned stuff.  The header photo is what it looks like (this is the solids).

This whole process takes about an hour.  It’s not hard by any means and I can’t say that I actually enjoy it but it does feel quite good when it’s done.  And I don’t have to think about it for another six months or so!

What do you have that needs periodic organizing?

2026, dreams, gardening, Nature, Seasons

Is It Time Yet?

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This is a hard time of year for me.  I grew up in a place where spring is already sprung at this point.  Grass is poking up, flowering trees are beginning their glorious bloom and folks are out starting to clean up their yards and gardens.  I’ve been in this part of the world for decades so I know that this current warm weather is just a tease.  But there are no other signs; it’s just too early to be dreaming of the garden just yet.  I know this in my head but my heart is so ready to get out there.

Then yesterday I saw my first SunSetter Retractable Awning commercial on TV.  How is this not one of the first signs of spring???

How do you survive the “not quite winter anymore but not quite spring yet either” time?   

2026, Art, Food, Kids, Stories, Uncategorized

Julia!

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Last Thursday night, YA and I headed over to the Minnesota Historical Center to see the Julia Child exhibit.  It’s been there for a bit but we just got around to it… plus the free Thursday aren’t EVERY Thursday, so it does require a little pre-planning.

I’ve seen Julia Child’s actual kitchen at the Smithsonian, but this traveling exhibit if much more extensive, covering details of her childhood, how she met her husband Paul, their life in France and, of course, her culinary journey.  There are quite a few fun bits in the exhibit:

Pots w/ smells.  There were a few pots next to copies of her most famous recipes.  When you lifted the lid, that recipe’s aroma wafted out of the pot.  Ingenious.  There was a mock-tv studio and if you stood in certain parts of the room, your image was filmed and showed up on three different screens.  Another fabulous part of the exhibit was a 12-foot high copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking; the inside of the book was projected from two different screens and every minute or so, the “page” would turn, taking your to another recipe in the book.  What a marvelous idea. 

I guess I know more about Julia Child than I thought (couple of biographies); the exhibit didn’t have anything that was a surprise about her life but it was enjoyable nonetheless.   

I had been surprised that YA had wanted to come along but she seemed to enjoy it.  We then went on to see a couple of the other exhibits that are showing right now but she didn’t want to stay for the free concert that was going on that night.  Oh well, I take what I can get!

What’s the last museum you’ve visited?  Any good biographies lately?

2026, books, home, Kids, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Rocks & Hammers

27 Comments

Not quite sure where I got the idea to read And Then We Hit a Rock by Greg Buenzli – it had a catchy title – sometimes that’s all it takes.  Greg and his family bought a catamaran and sailed around on it for a year and a half.  Four stars. It would have been five stars if the good stuff / bad stuff had been more balanced.  It was about 90% the bad weather, the things that broke (legend!) and other things that went wrong; only about 10% (most of it in the last 10 pages) of why it was a good experience.  An OK read, just not as good as it could have been. 

The reason I’m telling you this is a warning.  Do not attempt any home improvements projects right after finishing this book.  It’s cursed.

Now that YA has finished painting all the hallways, she’s been at me to re-hang all the pictures.  I was ready; I had purchased some new picture hangers, I’d sorted through the photos and stacked them by where they should go, I’d dusted everything off.  No worries – I’ve certainly hung pictures before.

It was a nightmare.  If it could go wrong, it did.  Hallway is just dark enough that everything I dropped (repeated little nails, anchors) needed the flashlight to find it.  I only dropped the hammer once – the only luck of the day was that it didn’t land on any of my toes.  Two photos had to be re-hung because I just did a bad job the first time.  The wire on the back of one photo ripped off after it had been on the wall about 15 minutes. The box with the various tools was right underneath it at that point or the glass would probably have shattered. Also the number of tools kept expanding as I went along. Level, hammer, pliers, painters tape, scissors, flashlight, ruler. And have I mentioned my poor fingers?  Mashed, crushed, banged, pounded, beaten, whacked, smashed, bashed, battered…. I’ll stop now.  Suffice it to say I hung 17 pictures and bashed a thumb or finger at least 20 times.  I did try using a little pliers to hold the nails, but it wasn’t very effective.

I couldn’t bring myself to do the destination photos that go down the stairway after getting the upstairs done; hopefully I’ll have the nerve tomorrow.  Maybe 24 hours between me and the cursed book will make it not so painful!

Ever read a cursed book before? Bashed a finger recently?

2026, Business, Food, Kids, Mysteries

Derby Delights

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YA and I actually have a lot in common.  I probably mention the ways we are different more often than not – makes for better stories sometimes. 

Anyway, we both really like the Derby cookies that they make at Great Harvest Bakery.  Chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, pecans (plus all the other good cookie ingredients).  And they are huge – really too big to eat one a day, but yummy enough.

Great Harvest doesn’t make the derby cookie very often.  They make four or five cookies a month but for some reason they only make the derby a couple of months during the year.  At the beginning of every month, both YA and I scour the bakery’s monthly newsletter to see the monthly cookie listing.  I was expecting that we wouldn’t see our favorite until May.  I don’t know much about the Kentucky Derby but I do know that it’s in May.  YA was the first to see the newsletter this month and when I asked her how many I should get (the packages of six are a much better deal), she responded, two now and then maybe two the end of next week and two more at the end of the month.  She figured we can freeze any “overage”.  Like the two of us can’t eat 36 cookies in a month.  Snort.

Anyway, I obediently went up to Great Harvest today… ended getting three packages because once you purchase a certain amount at the bakery, you get a discount.  Did the math quickly in my head (and had the math confirmed by the bakery clerk) that buying one extra package of cookies actually made the price go down a bit.  Win/win.  I put one of the packages in the freezer for now. 

The capper to this story is that when I bought all these cookies and bemoaned the fact that the bakery doesn’t make them very often, the clerk concurred and also said that since the base of the derby cookie is the same as the base of a couple other cookies, we can special order our favorite on any month those others are made.  Which is most months.  Wish I had known this any time during the last several years!

Will you watch the Derby this year?  Will you wear a fancy hat?

2026, Food, Kids

Full Cart

42 Comments

YA and I cannot be trusted at Trader Joes. 

As I mentioned in the past, I do not have the shopping gene; YA has double.  She has resigned herself to this and does all her window shopping and browsing on her own or with my good friend Brenda, who also has double of the shopping gene.  (Once they went off shopping at about 10 in the morning and came home at around 5.  When I asked what she had gotten, YA said “nothing but I did look at a sweater that I almost got”.)

My shopping Achilles heel is Trader Joe’s.  It’s big enough that any shopping excursion doesn’t take that long and all the stuff in there is edible, which makes it easier for me to plunk down money.  YA has discovered this and every couple of months says “I think we should go to Trader Joe’s” — she usually has a date/time in mind as well.

Last Friday, we headed off with only one thing on our list – salt.  We have plenty of rock salt for the grinder but were out plain old table salt.  Truly all we did was walk around and put things in the cart.  Three bags and a lot of money later, we headed home.  At that point YA wanted to stop at Taco Bell (yes, after just buying 3 bags of groceries) and I suggested that since I had ponied up all the money at Trader Joe’s, she should cough up for lunch.

This triggered a feisty discussion about who had put more in the cart.  For every item of mine that she mentioned, I countered with one of hers.  This did lead eventually to us going through the receipt and adding it all up.  Surprisingly, we were very very close.  I had put more things in the cart, but her items were more expensive.  We did agree to not count the ginger beer since we had both wanted it. 

The brioche waffles were the last thing to go into the cart.  They’re pretty good but I won’t rush out to buy anymore before they are discontinued – to be replaced by some other goodie that will tempt us.

In a surprising turn of events, Trader Joe’s doesn’t stock plain old table salt (except for one pitifully small bottle)!

Any establishments in which you can’t control yourself?

2026, books, Fantasy, History, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Surfing Queen

19 Comments

Halfway through my BritBox “gift”, I have not yet developed a British accent, but wouldn’t be that surprised; the majority of the voices I’m hearing these days are British (or Australian).

As you can imagine, I’m getting my fill of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie.  It’s been years since I saw all of the Jeremy Brett/David Burke episodes.  I do think they are my favorite.  No offense to Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freeman or Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce but the Brett/Burke are more accurate to the original stories.

I’m a little hit and miss with Agatha Christie.  Some of her stuff I can’t get to because it’s “Premium” and some of the stuff I’m finding is just dreck.  But I’m getting enough.  “Why Didn’t  They Ask Evans” was excellent and I’ve watched a lot of David Suchet as Poirot.  One of the most fun things was a documentary that followed the Christies on a worldwide trade mission trip around the world in 1922-23.  Archie Christie was on the trip as an assistant to the British envoy and the Agatha was part of the mission to support the support.  Although her first book (The Mysterious Affair at Styles) had been published two years earlier and was a huge success, she still wasn’t the wildly famous author she was later to become.

The best tidbit in the documentary was that Agatha Christie learned to surf in Muizenberg, South Africa during that trip.  In fact, she is believed to be the first Western woman to stand up on a surf board.  She apparently adored surfing.  This is an excerpt from a letter to her mother:

“Oh, it was heaven! Nothing like it. Nothing like that rushing through the water at what seemed to you a speed of about two hundred miles an hour.  All the way in from the far distant raft until you arrived, gently slowing down, on the beach, and foundered among the soft flowing waves.”

There were also trips in her life to Hawaii, where she again spent time riding the waves.  It’s wonderful to think of Agatha as young and vigorous, since most of her fame came after this and most of the photos we see of her are from her older years.

Makes me hope that some of my favorite authors have a secret life that we don’t know about.  Maybe John Scalzi has swum with dolphins.  Maybe Andy Weir has time traveled to another planet and back.  Maybe Naomi Novik has flown dragonback.

What fun facts would you love to know about your favorite authors?