Is the question everyone asks, and TBH, I still don’t feel all that retired, so I’ve been saying I don’t really know yet. I mean I still get two more paychecks.
So I dunno. I’m still really worried I haven’t done all the paper work right and something’s going to screw up, especially because my knee’s been hurting a lot, so it’s be just my luck for a health insurance glitch. Like I said I had a set back because I fell off a bike in Denver. Last Monday I happily biked to the library for my book sale shift, but then when I got off the bike my knee was like, “uh, uh. no. you’re not putting weight on me and expecting me to bend. That’s going to hurt”. Also happily I had a doctor’s appointment on Thursday and they determined that I had not re-broken the original fracture, but had probably done some bone bruising lower down on my shin. So I got a new care plan, primarily two Aleve per day and ice 2X per day, and things were actually feeling a bit better. Until I fell up the cement front stairs at Al & Emma’s on Saturday (I was babysitting Jasper so Al & Emma could go see Bon Iver) and skinned both knees. Another set back. Ugh. Sunday I did one short bike ride, and spent the remainder of the day resting and icing. Finished my book: another Inspector Gamache, a mass market paperback that I liberated from the book sale, since we don’t really put those in. I am reading them hopelessly out of order, but oh well.
Although – now that it’s Monday morning! – I do have to say that it is starting to feel different. Retirement, that is – and I think the knee feeling different, better, too. Way better than last Monday when we went to IKEA for porch furniture and basically every step hurt. Did almost 2 miles and it must’ve been all in the store because like I said I biked to the book sale.
This week, the last week of summer classes for UW-Madison, from 2010 to 2019 was always the in-person orientation for the new online Masters students, a four-day event where I was the lead planner, as well as a speaker & teacher, etc. Starting in 2020 it became an online orientation, and then in 2022, we did a little later in August, the 16th and 17th, I believe. But either way this was always crunch time. Plus I’d be getting at least two classes ready to start in the regular semester.
This year we are getting an exchange student so I will need to start figuring out when high school registration is for them and various other deadlines, in other words all the stuff I was always doing in prior years in addition to work. Going back to my original point – I still don’t feel all that retired as yet, but I’m starting to.
As usual I’m running behind on blog posts. This is the last Sunday in July’s brunch: broccoli hand pies, roasted potatoes, salad.
I also made challah last weekend
Power to the challah
And broccoli coleslaw
This is from Love & Lemons; it’s got a nice dressing with maple syrup. I used raisins instead of dried cranberries
Tuesday was Jerry’s 81st birthday. We are now in the days between; between Jerry birthday and his yahrzeit, August 9.
Happy 81st Jerry
And a Jasper day.
I made green bean salad as one of my originals for CSA. Here’s the recipe. And, I have two weeks off now because the other recipe writer has returned from their travels. The week of August 24 we will go back to every other week, so I’ll only be doing recipes on weeks when I get a box.
I also made stir fry veggies with ground turkey & peanut sauce. The pic I posted for CSA looked a little gloppy. This is leftovers I ate for an early dinner before we went to see Barbie on Friday, looking a bit better. Barbie was a lot of fun, BTW.
And what else – we’re up to Saturday now in food pics.
Saturday after Farmers Market (and a memorial for a librarian and friend from the neighborhood) brekkie: challah, some with PBJ and some with Jarlsberg and cherry tomatoes
Like I said Al & Emma went to Bon Iver and I hung out with Jasper. We partied until almost 8:00.
I made a take & bake corn & bbq pizza with sourdough crust, and Mark brought it over and we baked it there, ate half, and left the rest for the kids. I also made a rice and cucumber salad from the DCFM Cookbook that was good but a little disappointing, maybe because I made it with only Thai basil instead of a combination of herbs. Or else it needed more vinegar or sugar or salt. Now I have half a bunch of Thai basil I’m not sure what to do with. Maybe some kind of raw tomato pasta sauce because I think I get tomatoes in this week’s CSA.
This Sunday we had scrambled eggs with zucchini and cherry tomatoes and cream cheese and cheddar cheese. And fried potatoes. And choice of challah or sourdough toast. And King Arthur Espresso Coffeecake. I swapped the proportions of chocolate batter. They said to use 3 tablespoons espresso powder and 2 teaspoons of cocoa. I used the reverse.
Oh, yea, and in other cooking news, I think I found a new use for yellow summer squash (besides squash casserole or subbed in for zucchini): I used it in pasta melanzane. CSA gave me one small eggplant and I supplemented that with the squash. Made it a bit caponata-like with some balsamic vinegar, capers, and brown sugar. Here’s the recipe.
Somewhere in there I made an REM playlist. They did a top 40 list with 10 from each band member, partly in honor of some of their music, especially the song Strange Currencies (on Stipe’s list)- being used on The Bear. I’ve done the Peter one so far – here’s Peter, Mike, and Michael. Surprisingly, I had to buy a couple of songs, I thought surely I’d have everything, but I guess I never bought Up. Interestingly, my top 10 is probably most like Mike Mills‘ tho they all have songs I like a lot.
And I think I’m leaving it there for now. G’night.