For those of you not at Blevins yesterday, I tried out a new cookie cutter. It was very cute and I couldn’t resist it when I saw it.
Unfortunately it was a big bust. The little ears and feet often got stuck in the cutter and pulled off when I took the dough out of the cutter. I tried extra flour, baking spray, even washing it off and re-flouring (repeatedly) but nothing helped. I would get one, maybe two good cuts and then the problem began again. For many of the cookies, I had to add little teeny bits of dough for the ears and/or feet. It was really irritating and took the fun right out of the project.
At Blevins, the cookies were a hit and got gobbled up by the end of book club. (I used a cinnamon roll out cookie recipe and a roasted almond.) It almost made me want to retrieve the cookie cutter from the trash can where I had thrown it. I humored myself by sending off an email of complaint to the company. I don’t know if I’ll hear from them – I’ve never had an issue with them before.
Not sure if I will cave and rescue the cookie cutter before the trash gets picked up.
Not much happening on the crop front this week, other than it was 17° one morning, and the weeds are finally dead. Still a few Boxelder bugs around.
I got everything put away that shouldn’t be frozen. Except for one hose that was kind of in an out-of-the-way location, and when I pulled it down the hill to let it drain, I had a flashback to how many times I did that when I was feeding and watering calves. Depending how much water they needed, sometimes I would just use 5-gallon buckets, and sometimes I would use the hose. When finished, I would pull the hose down this hill so it could drain as I coiled it back up and hung it on the inside door of the feed room. The door closed into the dairy barn and it was always warm in there in the winter time. In fact, we needed exhaust fans because it would get too humid from the cow’s breath. But we didn’t need heaters. I have mentioned before what a cozy place the barn could be on a winter night.
All that from draining a hose.
The college kids put on 12 performances of our play this week, two per day for elementary school kids plus two Saturday shows.
It was fun to have that energy back in the theater, fun to see the kids and hear their reactions: everything from being impressed with the stairway up to the second floor, the candy machines in the hallway, to the art departments drawings of bodies.
Wasn’t anything lewd, but they sure did gawk. I took to standing right there just ahead of the drawings, talking to the kids, and trying to keep them moving. As long as the line ahead of them didn’t get bogged down, it wasn’t a problem. Thursday morning, I noticed the art teacher changing the display. Just a routine change, not complaints or anything. 😊
I finally got back to working on my shed. I got some of the steel on the east wall, 10-foot-tall pieces below a beam. I hope to have a balcony on that end so there will be more steel above the beam. I cut a bunch of sheets at 5 foot and them on the north wall, Then I put a 2 x 6 on the wall above them so I have a place to hang tools if want, and then will have more steel above that. I also need the outside of my windows trimmed. I thought I had a guy that was going to do it, but he stopped returning my phone calls, so I’m doing it myself. I have a plan for some of it, and the rest I’m making it up as I go.
The other day, as I took daughter into town, we heard the song “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas. I mentioned the band Boston, and wondered how many other band names there are based on places. Other than the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and Chicago, I didn’t come up with any. The next day she mentioned a song called “The Final Countdown” by the band Europe. I was impressed with her! She’s perfecting her sense of sarcasm too. We couldn’t be more proud.
The dogs are doing really well together. Luna doesn’t seem to like the snow or cold. Kelly sent me this picture with the caption, “Luna watching and waiting for the snow to melt”.
*Header photo from Gonda 14 at Mayo Clinic. On the horizon are two towers. They’re along our driveway.
I got the first calendar of the holiday season in the mail yesterday. It’s pretty – scenic destinations from all over – but useless. Nobody on the planet needs additional calendars less than I do – I know that you all know this.
My most expensive calendar is my Daytimer. I was actually given this portfolio-type calendar by my boss over 30 years ago. After he had gotten a good annual review, he presented his three employees (me, Alan, Ann) with this gift saying that he could not have gotten a good review if we weren’t all doing good work. As you can see from the frayed edges, it’s the original binder but I do spend the money every year to update the innards. In the various pockets I keep stamps, address labels, deposited checks and my old vaccination card (before I started carrying around the covid card in my purse). It also contains an address book that I update every couple of years.
Every month I do all my birthday/anniversary/occasion cards at once – on average about 20 cards a month. I pick them out, stamp the appropriate greetings/sayings, sign them, seal them, affix a stamp to them and stick on the address label and then sort them into my Daytimer for the week they need to be mailed. That’s why a lot of the time, my Daytimer looks like it does in the photo above. If I do cards for a holiday, I usually stack those on my dresser next to the Daytimer. Right now I have Thanksgiving cards and National Origami Day cards stacked up. (I have to justify all these stamps/dies/papers you know!)
I’m pretty sure that I could devise a cheaper system for storing cards that are waiting to be mailed but my current system works great and I do have a sentimental attachment to the Daytimer. My boss back then was a fabulous person to have as a boss – I was sorry when he left the company. Alan, Ann and I weren’t long with the company after that.
I’m sending the scenic calendar to work with YA – free stuff goes fast when left on a lunchroom table!
I’m finally warmed up. This time yesterday morning I was sitting in my stadium chair outside the Aldis in River Falls. That’s right, the annual advent calendar day at Aldis.
Even arriving at 6 a.m. (store opens at 9), there were already two gals there – they have been the first in line for three years straight now. So I set up my chair in the #3 spot and since it was 22°, I retreated to my car and the heater. I was in good company – for awhile it was only carts holding spaces.
I got stiff and tired of sitting in the car so I settled into my chair with my blanket and big mittens at 7:45 a.m. At that point, the other four women and the man in the #6 position came out as well. I brought cookies this year and shared them around.
Aldis corporate made changes this year (because of course since it wasn’t broke, they tried to fix it). No tickets to guarantee an alcohol advent calendar and no limit on quantities per customer. The manager did come out at 8:30 and explain the changes and he repeatedly suggested that everybody have a little consideration for those further back in the line. You know that didn’t happen; the picture above was taken at 9:03. The two women in front of me were particularly piggy.
But I got the one I wanted as well as the cheese advent calendar so I’m happy. Can’t wait to get started on December 1!
You wouldn’t think that making a batch of cupcakes would be a full-morning event, would you?
First, I had to decide what cupcakes to make. I have a couple of cookbooks that embellish box cake mixes so I started there. First there was a good looking lemon filled cupcake but this would require going to the store for lemon curd. (In addition to the contractor being here, I’ve been trying to make inroads into what I think is just too much foodstuff in the house.) Then I moved on to a cupcake made with juice concentrate – oops, no concentrate except apple. Coming off the autumn, I’m a little appled-out. Maybe a cinnamon toast cupcake – shoot, no pudding mix. By this time I was thinking I should just use the box mix and be done with it.
Then I saw the white chocolate cupcake. I knew I probably had the 1 cup of white chocolate chips (or the equivalent) and I knew I could approximate whole milk with the skim milk and the heavy cream I had in the fridge. Of course, when I was pulling out the chocolate chips, I found an unopened jar of lemon curd. Oh well, next time.
So I finally had cupcakes in the oven by 10:30 (a full hour and a half after starting this project). Luckily I did have cream cheese for the frosting so at least I didn’t have to spend time looking for alternatives. The cupcakes turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself!
When was the last time it took you too long to make a decision?
When I was growing up my family and I used to drive around at the holidays to look at homes all decorated up with festive lights. But that was the only time of year that folks decorated outside. At Halloween, most folks put out jack-o-lanterns but usually just on Halloween or a couple of days beforehand. It just wasn’t a thing that people did.
Well, it’s a thing now!
YA and I spent a little time driving around on Saturday, looking at the fall colors and some of the fascinating displays in yards around South Minneapolis. Lots of ghosts hanging from trees, lots of skeletons lounging around on porches or adirondack chairs and, of course, pumpkins galore. We saw one house with their long windowbox filled with little bitty pumpkins and squash of all colors. We also saw a huge blow up arch that looked like a monster with outstretched arms that you had to walk through to get to the front door. Wondering if that will too scary for small kids on Halloween night.
There were two stand-outs of the afternoon. First was the class of skeletons, apparently waiting to have their school photo taken. Very creative and very funny. Also a LOT of work I bet. I kinda wish I lived across the street from this house so I could have watched as this scenario was set up.
The second photo YA snapped was such a mish-mash of stuff that we couldn’t resist. Little ghost lights along the sidewalk, a funny looking ghostbusters car (looks a bit like a VW Beetle), a dog with a pink hat, a minion, pumpkins, and over-sized skeleton and (my favorite) a dragon! We did see two other yards with this blow up dragon but this one won the prize for being part of such an eclectic collection.
I’ve never been big on decorations outside, although I will admit to a cornstalk along with my pumpkins this year, but I do enjoy looking at others’ displays. And I did look up the inflatable dragon online – not horribly expensive, but a bit much for someone who isn’t prone to overdoing décor outside.
Any Halloween/fall decorations (outside or inside) at your place?
We have a new church Worship and Music director, who also directs the choir. She is our son’s age, and we have known her since we first saw her at her infant baptism 35 years ago. She was an elementary music teacher and has a lovely mezzo voice. She has purchased lots of new, challenging music for us. We had got pretty entrenched with the same pieces with the former director.
Our church choir is pretty small with about ten regular singers. We are often short on sopranos, which we were yesterday on Reformation Sunday. This is a big day for Lutherans, and there was a display of Luther’s 95 Theses in the front of the church. Our choir director planned big, and we sang three very challenging choral pieces, and recruited the high school band director to play timpani, a college trombone student, a high school trumpet player, and three sopranos who sing in the Badlands Opera organization. Ironically, four of our visiting musicians were Roman Catholics, but they sat cheerfully through two services and sang “A Mighty Fortress” with gusto. They even took communion!
Our bell choir director is also the organist. She has been taking the choir director’s lead and giving us very challenging music, too. It is fun, but sort of daunting to try new things and stretch ourselves in ways we haven’t had to before. The congregation is very happy with our efforts. I believe it was Gustav Holst who said in reference to small church choirs attempting difficult musical pieces that “anything worth doing is worth doing badly”, which I take as encouragement to keep performing these challenging works even if we don’t do them perfectly.
What are some of the positive challenges you have had lately? Have you been part of an organization where positive “shake ups” have happened? What is the most challenging musical work you ever performed?
This week has all been about the theater. Well, Covid and Theatre, I guess. Wait, Covid was last week. It’s all a blur. I’m over the symptoms, but still testing positive. Good thing I work alone most of the time. And by now I shouldn’t be contagious anymore.
It’s rained a lot lately. And now it’s getting cold. We’ve had more than six inches of rain since the end of September. Oh well.
We open a show Saturday, and then next week will be two shows a day for all five days. Kids are bused in from the local area elementary schools. This kid show has always been a big hit for us, and of course we haven’t been able to do one since 2019. We were afraid we had lost a lot of the contacts at the schools and weren’t really sure what kind of reception we’d get this year. We feel really lucky to have an audience for all 10 shows, including three that are sold out. The play is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth night’ called “Lions in Illyria” by Robert Kauzlaric. Very cartoony and big and goofy and the kids should enjoy it. And short at 65 minutes. The three days I missed with Covid would have been helpful about now. I’m sure the paint will be dry by Saturday afternoon. Things will be ‘good enough’. I did take a few shortcuts, I called in some favors. The show must go on. As long as we can keep cast healthy.
I have a can full of stir sticks at the college. I’m pretty sure some of them were here when I started the job 17 years ago. I do know that I threw out a bunch a few years ago and for this show I decided to put all the ones that I’ve used a different container, because I feel like the sticks at the back of the first can were being neglected. Kelly was in to help paint one day and her goal was to use up all the stir sticks. She made a good dent in it. The can on the left is the unused sticks for the show, and the can on the right are the ones that I have used.
I learned how to paint marble for the show. The white and pink one I painted using a ripped T-shirt. My friend Paul came in and painted the green one. He makes it look so easy. And he enjoyed having an easy project like this.
I’ve talked with Crop Insurance about my soybeans. We started some preliminary claims just so the paperwork is out there. I’ve got until December 10 to get them harvested. After that we just write it off and let them go to insurance. This week of 20° temps at night will certainly freeze everything, but honestly, I’m not sure if the beans will ever dry down enough to harvest. We would need a good week of clear sunny, warmish temperatures and that’s really pushing it this time of the year. But with these weather patterns, who knows. I get home about 10:00 PM these nights (after rehearsal) and I was out picking up hoses and taking the outside faucet off the wellhouse. I need to pick up the pressure washer and hand sprayer yet.
Luna has moved right in and made herself at home. Our bed is her favorite place to be now. She loves to play catch and Tug-O-War. She’s shredded a few toys. And we’ve left her home alone and she’s just fine. Doesn’t like it, but at least she’s not chewing up the furniture.
Yesterday was a snow day for me as my agency was closed. Husband had a morning Zoom meeting for his Bismarck agency, which he did on his computer at the kitchen table. It didn’t last long, and we made a somewhat treacherous trip to the grocery store before the snow got any deeper. The city plows hadn’t been out and it was very slippery.
I made banana bread when we got back from the store, which filled the house with a wonderful aroma. Smells can be so evocative. The smell of Charteuse brings me back 45 years to memories of warm summer evenings in Moorhead having a drink after dinner with friends. I wouldn’t touch the stuff now with a ten foot pole, but the memories are good ones.
Kyrill has a very powerful sense of smell, and he can tell whenever we have been to the pet store and picked up treats for him without even taking them out of the bag. He mobs us when we walk in the door and tries to get to the bags. He can smell wrapped hard candy in my pants pockets, and tries to put his nose down my pocket to extract them. He may not see the bunnies as he walks past them, but he can smell where their holes are and tries to dig them out. I think it would be very distracting to have such a keen sense of smell.
What smells and tastes are evocative for you? What are your favorite smells to have wafting through your home?
The main north-south highway route through my town sports a deep underpass beneath the east-west rail tracks that pass through the middle of town. It is prone to flooding, and for many years it was the only way to get from the north side of town to the south side of town when a train was passing.
The underpass has large cement walls. About 10 years ago a civic minded friend, with the blessing of the City and State authorities, commissioned a California mural artist to paint the sides the the underpass. He painted regional images, like Ukrainian dancers, rodeo cowboys, wheat fields, and Badlands on the cement walls. It was really lovely.
Over the years, moisture has leached through the paint and it has become unstable. The paint was peeling off with no way to restore the images. There was surprisingly very little vandalism, I should add. A couple of weeks ago, the city closed the underpass and painted over the murals with white paint. It was sad, but there wasn’t anything else to do. I wonder how much public art we have lost over the centuries due to problems like this.
What are your favorite public art works? What would you want to paint on a mural?
Trail Baboon 