Memory Exercise - August 3, 2026

Do you wonder why I bother writing about such mundane crap?  

It's memory calisthenics.  I'm trying to keep my "pencil" sharp.   And mundane crap is about all there is to recall, most of the time.

Last week there were a couple of non-mundane events.  I had lunch with The Old Boss on Wednesday.  When she retired, we made a pact; we'd have lunch on the first Tuesday of every month.  We kept to that schedule for a couple of years, but I do believe that last week was the first time we'd had lunch since January.  One or the other of us couldn't make it.  It was so good to see her.  We sat and chatted and caught up for nearly two hours.  After visiting with her, I went to my niece's house to pick up some cast-iron cookware that had belonged to her father, who passed away last fall.  I have more cast-iron cookware than I need, but my sons said they could use it.  It was all in pretty bad shape, but the boys know how to clean and season it.

Another non-mundane thing we did was an overnight trip to Nashville.  It was The Husband's thing, a work-related dinner.  We ate at Fleming's restaurant.  The food was really good. The best part was that I didn't have to cook!  

Yesterday, I tackled two weedy flower beds.  July was hot and rainy, and I let the flower beds get away from me.  While I was pulling weeds, I felt a sting on my arm, looked down, and saw that an ant was munching on me.  I squished it and kept weeding, and when I worked my way around to the flower bed where jewelweed grows, I crushed a leaf and rubbed it on the bite.  Evidently, jewelweed is not all that great at neutralizing ant bites, for a big red knot rose up around the bite and itched like crazy.  For the rest of the afternoon, I dosed it with every anti-bite anti-itch medicine I could find in the cabinet.  The itching woke me up in the night.  I got up, dosed it again, put a band-aid on it, and managed to get a few hours of itchless sleep.  

I have to drive Nanny to the doctor later today.  She had a "spell" Friday - while we were gone - chest and back pain - and DROVE HERSELF to the hospital.  They ran some test but did not detect any heart issues.  Gave her some antacid, which made her feel better.  Her doctor wants to see her, anyway.

When we get home, I think I'll mow the yard.

Another Monday - July 27, 2026

Saturday night, The Grandson came home with a few ripe home-grown tomatoes that a friend had given him.  I was thrilled.  Although I planted a few tomatoes this spring, I did not take care of them, and we haven't had ripe tomatoes.  (We ended up mowing the entire measly garden plot down last weekend.)  I said to The Grandson, "We'll have one of these with some gravy tomorrow morning."  So, yesterday morning, as soon as the household began to stir, I started cooking our breakfast.  

Sunday morning breakfast with us is something that The Grandson remembers fondly from his childhood.  I decided to go all-out and make scratch biscuits to go with our gravy and tomatoes.  Fried some sausage patties, scrambled some eggs.  It was yummy.

As we were cleaning up the breakfast dishes, the kitchen sink stopped up.  We tried baking soda and vinegar.  Didn't work.  We got out the plunger.  Didn't work.  We ended up having to snake the drain.  Big old greasy clog. 

Kinda ruined everybody's post-breakfast lazing.

* * * * * * * 

I got out early this morning to do the grocery shopping.  Now I'm sitting here on the porch, watching butterflies swarm the lantana in the sunny flower bed.  I got out there one day last week to pull weeds in the hope of finding the clippers I lost the week before.  It was hotter than hell, but I stuck with it and made a big dent in the weed/grass situation.  Never did find the clippers.  It's a mystery.

There are a lot of UFOs in that flower bed, plants I've never grown or even seen.  I believe that the cause of these alien invaders is the bird feeder on a pole just a few feet away.  There's no telling what's in that seed mix we've been feeding the birds.  While weeding, I pulled up a chunk of grass with the biggest seedhead I've ever seen on a grass, barring pampas grass.  Reminded me of milo.  And could've been milo, I guess.  There's another unidentified plant that I'm watching to see what it does.   It's taller that I am, and bushy at the top.  If it makes a pretty bloom, it can stay.  Also taller than I am are some purported rudbeckia plants my niece gave me.  I've never seen rudbeckia this tall and am beginning to wonder if that's what it really is.  It's not showing a sign of a bud yet.  It may be something that came out of the bird feeder, landed amongst the rudbeckia I'd planted, and shaded it to death.  Imposter!  

You won't catch me doing any work in that bed today.  It's supposed to be 98 degrees today, and 99 tomorrow.  I don't see how even the butterflies have the energy to work in this heat.

* * * * * * * * 

I did not have many successes in the craft room last week.  Or this week, so far.    

I'm sitting here on the back porch this morning, sipping coffee and watching the bird battle going on in the back yard.  A few minutes ago, a group of crows landed.  A resident hawk has taken exception to the invasion and is doing his/her best to run them off, one at a time.  When the hawk runs off one crow and turns its attention to another, the first crow comes back.  It looks like the hawk needs to call in the reserves.  I know they are out there, for I hear them screaming every day.

It is soooooo much more pleasant on the porch today.  Yesterday, the temperature reached 100 degrees in this area.  Sweat dripped off my face as I sat here with a fan blowing directly on me, twisting wire to make chains for pendants.   Last night about 10 o'clock, it rained, and I could feel the temperature dropping.  

This morning I have errands to run.  This year marks 50 years since I graduated from high school, and I was drafted into helping organize a class reunion.  At the most recent reunion committee meeting, the "treasurer" job got lobbed onto me, which means I, who can scarcely add, am in charge of the money.  In a little while, I have to go out to collect some checks.  Fortunately, I'll be driving in the opposite direction of the hobby store . . . . 

Speaking of hobbies, for a couple of days this week, I put polymer clay aside and worked on some wire jewelry, attempting some pieces that a few months ago I would have considered too hard for my skill level.  Two pendants turned out okay.  Some videos I watched used coiled wire.  They coiled their wire with a drill.  I tried it, but my wire kept breaking, so I coiled it by hand, instead.  Took forEVER, but it'll make a pretty accent on a pendant or bracelet.

Over the weekend, I was fed a cooking video in which an elderly lady made tomato dumplings.  Yes, TOMATO dumplings.  She used about a pint of home-canned tomatoes and a small can of biscuits.  She brought the tomatoes to a boil, dumped 1/2 cup of sugar in it, dropped biscuit bits into it, and simmered it for about 10 minutes.  I made some that day, minus the sugar.  It looked a bit like . . . well, vomit . . . but it was SO GOOD.  It reminded me of the macaroni and tomatoes that The Husband's grandmother used to make for big family dinners.  She sauteed onions first, then added the tomatoes and macaroni.  I'll put sauteed onions in my tomato dumplings next time.

Hot! - July 20, 2026

The weatherman says it's going to be 99 degrees today, and 98 tomorrow.  If you're looking for me, I'll be in the house.

This past weekend I braved the heat to do a little yardwork.  It all started when I noticed the fabulous squash plant in the flower bed.; it had been a week since I'd picked it.  I grabbed my clippers and, sure enough, there were several squash too big to use, lots more coming along behind them.  I snipped the big ones off and started toward the compost pile with them.  On the way, I stopped to snip a dead bloom off a rosebush and yanked a few weeds from around it.  Tossed the big squash onto the compost pile and headed back to the house with two squash I'd kept.  

As I approached the porch, I realized I didn't have my clippers.  I had absolutely no recollection of what I did with them.  They were not near the rosebush.  They were not on the compost pile.  I put the squash in the kitchen and went back out to find the clippers, thinking they were most likely in the weeds near the rosebush.  I started there, pulling up creeping charlie, working my way toward the squash plant at the other end of the bed.  Something buzzed my head.  I looked up and there was a swarm of wasps rising out of the creeping charlie.  I took off running for the wasp spray on the back porch.  The can was almost empty.  I abandoned the clipper search for the day.

The yard needed mowing, but I was kind of hoping The Husband would see to it.  About 4:00 when he said he was going to mow Nanny's front field with the tractor, I reckoned he was hoping I would see to our yard.  

Nanny met me at her back porch when I went to get the lawnmower.  "It's too hot!" she hollered.

I waved and hollered back, "Don't start!" and went for the lawnmower.

It took about 3 hours to do both our yards.  The Husband was coming back with the tractor as I was making my last few rounds at Nanny's.  I had been circling what was left of the "vegetable garden" - a few sprawling tomato plants and some sickly okra - debating about whether or now to just mow it down.  The Husband saw what I was doing and asked if I wanted him to mow it with the tractor.  I said, "Have at it."

So much for this year's garden efforts . . . .  

Yesterday, I bought some wasp spray and tricked The Husband into finding out where the wasps had come from.  They'd built a nest in a container concealed in the creeping charlie.  He doused it good.  I'm still scared to mess around in that area. 

Still haven't found the clippers.

Monday - July 13, 2026

I'm having a hard time getting my act together this morning.  

Once again, we are tending Roscoe, the Great Dane, while his family has gone on vacation.  If Roscoe wasn't such an egghead, he could stay at our house and it wouldn't be troublesome to keep him.  But he is an egghead, and so he has to stay at his own house while his family is gone, and we have to go over several times a day (he lives across the road) to let him out to do his business.  Every morning since Friday, I have gone over there at 6:30 with my coffee cup in my hand to let him out and fill his bowls.  Thankfully, with the weather being so hot, we are not having a hard time getting him back inside the house.  

When I came back home this morning, I tidied up the craft room.  (I KNOW!)  The Husband gave me some craft tools and some polymer clay for my birthday (good job, Hubby), and I had to find a place to put the stuff.  I've probably hidden half of it from myself.

I learned a good tip about polymer clay yesterday.   The tip was to condition hard clay by bashing it with a hammer while it's still in the package.  I tried it.  Remember the clay I bought from Walmart that I said was too hard?   I bashed it into a cube with the flat side of a claw hammer.  It went right through the pasta machine, no crumbling.  

No charge for that tip.  ;)

C'est fini - July 9, 2026

The tooth-pulling is over, thank goodness.  I can't honestly say that the dread was worse than the doing, but it was close.  The appointment was at 7 a.m.  Worried that I'd oversleep, I asked The Husband to make sure I woke up when the alarm clock sounded, then I set a second, more annoying alarm on my phone and put it on my side of the bed.  I needn't have worried, for I was up and moving an hour before the alarm went off. 

At one point in the torture chair, I worried that the dentist was going to break my jaw trying to get the tooth out.  

But he didn't, and I was out of there by 9:30.  I came home, took two acetaminophen tablets, and moved on with my day.  The worst part was that awful hunk of bloody gauze.  Yuck!

My BFF called after lunch.  When I told her I'd just had a tooth pulled and probably shouldn't talk much (the gauze was still in my mouth at that point), she said, "Good!  Now you won't interrupt me so much!"  

Bitch.  ;) 

* * * * * * * 

Tuesday afternoon, I tried making a silicone mold from a slab of clay I'd sculpted and baked the previous day.  First, I tried the water method in which you just squirt silicone caulk into a tub of soapy water then gather it into a ball and apply it to the form.  The silicone stuck to my hands to bad that I feared I'd never get it off.  I tried rubbing alcohol, acetone nail polish remover, and lots of soap, but none of those things worked.  Finally, a hefty coat of petroleum jelly helped to slide the silicone off the ends of my fingers.  I'm still picking silicone from under my fingernails.

I tried the cornstarch method next.  Mix cornstarch with silicone and knead it until it makes a sort of dough.  I did this in a ziplock bag.  Used way too much cornstarch and ended up with a crumbly mess.  Meanwhile, silicone was oozing out of the caulk tube when I wasn't paying attention . . . . 

Eventually, between the slime from the first attempt and the crumbles from the second attempt, I managed to coat the baked clay mold with a thick layer of stuff.  Laid it aside to dry.  When I got home from the dentist, I peeled the silicone off the mold and pressed it into some raw clay.  (Broke the clay mold in the process.)  It was not a very good image.  

Yesterday, I sculpted another mold - same basic design as the first one, but with improvements.  I think I'll just stick with using it instead of fooling with silicone anymore.

Pickles - July 10, 2026

Yesterday, I discovered a big bag of cucumbers on the kitchen table.  I knew The Husband must have put them there.  They were big cucumbers.  I didn't weigh them but estimated there were probably 7 or 8 pounds of cucumbers.  

We could not eat that many cucumbers before they go bad.  Unless I wanted them to go to waste, I'd have to pickle them.

We need pickles.  There are a few jars that have been shoved far to the back of the pantry.  They were made in 2015.  They should have been dumped years ago.  

I didn't really want to make pickles, but I washed the cucumbers and sliced them on a mandolin.  Sliced off a bit of my pinkie in the process.)  Put them in pickling lime water to soak overnight.

The use of pickling lime is frowned upon these days.  Apparently, the lime lowers the acidity of the pickles and creates a danger of botulism.  Nevertheless, I've always used it, always washed the cucumbers thoroughly, never had a jar go bad.  

The cucumbers are washed and ready to make pickles, but I'm not ready.  The jars must be washed and sterilized. I will have to make a run to the store for sugar.  I don't want to do any of this, but I will.

* * * * * * * * 

The four Granddaughters came bursting through the door yesterday afternoon to bring me a gift, a Cardinal (bird) that they'd sculpted from air-dry clay.  They did a fabulous job.  But it was freshly made, and not quite dry, and I set it on the back porch to finish curing.  This morning, its tail broke off when I picked it up to take inside.  Hopefully, I can repair it and touch up the paint before the girls find out!