Time apart

So I kinda let last weekend and week get away from me – actually all of February so far, since my last post it was still January. And it was freezing cold & snowy then, as opposed to the sunny & 42° it is now. Or, well, one of the weather apps says 43 and the other says 39, but at least they both agree it’s sunny. I’d love to go for a walk, but still crutches; I might go crutch down the driveway or something in a bit.

But that’s really why I haven’t written much: still on the crutches, still stuck inside, so I feel like nothing new to report. Although I think maybe, just maybe, it’s healing.

And I guess there is some new to report, some progress being made.

Although I do want to digress for a minute and say that I am aware of my woes with my aging body and being stuck in the house are nothing in the face of what’s happening to people in Turkey and Syria and Ukraine. I’m all kind of wrapped up in my own troubles, but I have a place to live and food to eat.

Monday I went to visit Jasper, and even though I still can’t carry him around we hung out on the couch for long enough that Emma went and rode her exercise bike. He was already in a different outfit by the time I got there, not these foxes, but Emma put this same blankie with hanging toys on the couch and we hung out and talked and cuddled and it was all good.

I mean I feel like even Jasper’s getting out more than me. He had his first restaurant experience Saturday morning; on the way, see below, at the restaurant, see overleaf. Emma’s (and Jasper) going skiing with her family and will be gone on Valentine’s Day so they did their Valentine’s brunch today.

I guess I did a whole series  of work-from-home breakfast shots with crutches. Well, and I guess a couple w/o the fricking sticks. These are sourdough toast for breakfast without & with crutches; oatmeal for breakfast with crutches (BTW, don’t want to sound like an ad, but this is Bob’s Red Mill oatmeal and it costs more than the bulk oats at the co-op that I have always eaten but they were out last time I needed oats,  and it has more calories, but it’s way creamier); rhubarb-filled muffins for breakfast without & with crutches; and the last of the challah with strained cherry jam and the crutches didn’t sneak into that picture, either.

[portfolio_slideshow pagerpos=disabled size=full]

And oh yeah here’s the whole loaf I was eating toasted. It rose really well, and actually hit the lid of the Le Creuset it was getting baked in. And I tried to do a double layer of parchment to keep the bottom from getting too brown, and of course the parchment round stuck to the bottom of the loaf.

What else … we got the trees trimmed around the house, and I’m happy with it. At least the part I can see, at the front of the house – I can’t get to the back and sides. Mark doesn’t like it because they left some lower branches on the yew tree at the front of the house, but I mostly wanted them to make it easier for someone taller than me to walk up the front walk and they did that. I even saw the arborists talking to the mail carrier when they were working, so I think it’s probably to their satisfaction, too.

We’ve also hired contractors to get started on the big remodel job. Scrape and paint and replace boards in the wood siding on the whole house, and also repair and replace rotting window frames – that’s the part I want done the most. We’re also going to get a screen porch built on top of the flat roof of the addition at the back of the house. There’s a little deck there now, and we’ve enjoyed it but the railings are rotting. I’m not as in love with this part of the job, and foresee hidden disasters when they start uncovering things, but I bet eventually when it’s done I will love sitting out there.

I do have a few more random in-my-kitchen shots:

Oh, and today I tested that giant cimmy bun again, and used a 10-inch spring form and I think it came a bit better; less burnt. I also tried the let the dough rise a bit, then chill, shape, and fridge overnight before baking in the morning. This method works, but I still prefer the mix the dough, bung it into the fridge to rise overnight, then shape & bake in the AM. I think it rises better, and there’s less timing to worry about, and it doesn’t have to rise very long after shaping anyways, only 45 mins to an hour, so you don’t have to get up way too early to get it ready in time for brunch.

 

Returning to that crutch down the driveway idea from paragraph 1 – more 1st world problems – the garage door is refusing to go down unless you hold the button down until it’s all the way down. And you can’t do it from the car. Mark says the runners are out of alignment probably from the cold, and I should call the people who installed it to get it adjusted. I agree, it seems like the garage door closer is running into some obstacle on the runners that prevents it from closing, but I don’t want to call the installers to come and adjust it because it’ll probably cost at least $150.00 and I feel like it’ll just need readjusted as soon as the weather changes again. So I’m going to go out and check the model so I can find the the manual online, to see if there’s any troubleshooting advice.

I guess that’s it for now.

Closing with the now-traditional baby picture.