Cousin Roger is Quarantined - September 29, 2021

 Last week, Cousin Roger told me that everyone at his girlfriend's workplace (except her) had come down with covid.  She had gone for a covid test and had tested negative.  I told Roger, "Well, she's gonna get it, and when she gets it, you will, too.  So I want you to stay at least six feet from me at all times."  Neither of them has been vaccinated.  He's been over here every day, but has kept his distance.

Roger called a few minutes ago to tell me that his girlfriend tested positive today and is trying to schedule one of those infusions they give to covid patients.  He said, "I guess I'm quarantined now."

I said, "You sure are!  Don't even think about coming over here!  And stay away from your Mama and Daddy, too!"

Almost as soon as I hung up the phone from talking to Roger, Nanny called to tell me that the girlfriend had tested positive.  She was relieved to find out I'd already told Roger to keep his distance.

I am afraid for Roger.  His health is not good. 

Stinkbugs - September 28, 2021

 Grrrrrr!  I have HAD IT with all the (#*!@ bugs in my world.  First it was gnats.  Now, it's stinkbugs.

The porch screens are absolutely crawling with stinkbugs.  Or, rather, were crawling with them; I just gave them a dose of Raid.  It wouldn't bother me if they would stay on the outside of the screens, but there's a good-sized gap at the top of one of the screen doors where they can get in, and they do.  And they buzz my head and crawl up my neck, and that's where I draw the line.  I swatted about half-a-dozen with the fly-swatter, and so my newly-cleaned, newly-sealed porch floor is littered with stinkbug guts and carcasses.  

Aaaannddd one just flew past me.  <sigh>

Cousin Roger motored over on his lawnmower while I was battling the blasted things.  He says their window screens are covered in them, too.  He said he heard you could spray peppermint oil on them.  I guess the smell runs them off.  Neither of us had any peppermint oil, so the experiment could not proceed.

I gave up and went inside to find something for supper.  There was a big, raw chicken in the refrigerator.  I roasted him (her?) and picked the meat off his backside to use for supper and made a whopping big bowl of chicken salad with his front side.  

You may not know this, but my chicken salad rocks.  It is a savory chicken salad - no relish, no pickles, no fruit.  

I'll give you the recipe.

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

1 roasted chicken (roast it at 350 degrees, breast down so that the breast meat stays moist - takes about an hour - or buy an already- roasted one at the grocery store).  Pull the meat off the bone and chop it up or shred it.  (Save the good pan juice for soup, or whatever.)

3 chopped boiled eggs

1 cup of chopped pecans 

2 to 5 chopped green onions, depending on how big they are or how much you like onions

2 stalks of celery, chopped -  if you like it

Mix all the chopped stuff together.

The secret is the dressing.  Mix together:

1.5 cups of mayonnaise 

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

1-2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard 

(In a pinch, if you don't have the two mustards, use regular old yellow mustard.)

Now, here's the must-have ingredient:  Cavender's Greek Seasoning - start with a teaspoon, or less.    Cavender's is *salty*, so you have to be careful.  Shake it up before you measure it.  Add the teaspoon-full to the mayo/mustard mixture, and stir it up good.  TASTE IT.  Keep adding Cavender's until the dressing is salty enough to suit you.  (I probably use about a tablespoon full of Cavender's to that much mayo.)   Stir the dressing into the chopped stuff.  Voila!

I sometimes add chopped roasted red peppers or pimiento peppers, fresh or canned.  Tried green olives, didn't like it.  Kalamata olives might work, or a touch of tapenade.  

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

With the back-side of the chicken, I made alfredo fettuchini.  Cheated and used jarred sauce.  Chopped two big green onions (saved some of the green tops for garnish), a yellow bell pepper, and some mushrooms from a can - I'd have used fresh ones if I'd had them.  Sauteed those in some olive oil until they were tender, then added the chicken, the jar of sauce, and noodles, let the flavors "marry" for a little while in the skillet.  Garnished with the tops of the green onions and some chopped kalamata olives.  It was yummy.

 

Mission accomplished! - September 27, 2021

 I went to Home Depot early yesterday morning to get more water-sealant for the back porch.  The walls needed a second coat.  Since we had almost half of the first gallon left, I sort of expected that The Husband would get busy applying it so that we could start on the floor when I came home.  But, no.

We got right to work, though, when I got home.  It didn't take long to do the second coat.  We moved the furniture off the porch.  I swept and vacuumed the porch, and we applied the first coat on the floor.  Two hours later, we put down the second coat.  Two hours after that, we began moving the furniture back to the porch.  

I am so happy to have this job done.  It's been bugging me for years.  The best part is that the porch is clean and spider-free (for a minute, at least).  We put away or threw away a ton of stuff that had somehow collected on the porch.  It's now a suitable place to entertain the parson.  :)

Not the way I planned it - September 26, 2021

My yesterday did not turn out the way I'd planned.

Friday evening I'd brought home those two big wooden circles, which I intended to paint yesterday.  Cousin Roger had already base-coated them, but on close inspection I saw that they needed base-coating again.  I re-painted them and set them to dry under a fan while I cooked breakfast.  They were dry by the time we finished eating.  I put on my painting clothes and settled down to work.

Some days, I can pick up a pencil or a paint brush and get exactly what I want from it.  Yesterday was not one of those days.  By 10 a.m. when The Husband came out to the porch looking like he had something on his mind, I was ready to lay down the paintbrush.  

Since it hadn't rained for several days, I thought perhaps he was contemplating water-sealing the back porch, which I have been itching to do.  He seemed amenable to the idea, so I washed out my paintbrushes and switched gears.  Moved the furniture to the center of the porch.  Got out the step-ladder.  Poured some water-sealant in a paint pan.  Started to work on the wall boards.  

But The Husband had faked me out.  

As I began to slap water-seal on the first board, he said, "I need to do some tractoring."  The pasture in front of Nanny's house needed mowing.  Well, I thought, that shouldn't take long, and he'll come back to help.  So I kept water-sealing.

I was finishing the first coat on the last wall board when he came back home 4 hours later.  "Perfect timing," I said, when he walked onto the porch.  "But that was just the first coat.  There's still some fun left for you."

But daylight was quickly fading by then.  And there wasn't enough water-sealant left for a second coat on the walls, and I hadn't even started on the floor.  And I was pooped by then.  And hungry.

While The Husband showered off the dust, I ordered us a pizza for dinner.  I changed shirts - the one I was wearing was a bit sticky - and rode with him to get the pizza.  (It is possible to have pizza delivered out here, but we'd probably have to buy the driver a tank of gas.)  We stopped to get beer on the way home.  By the time we got here, I was so stiff I could barely get out of the truck.  

I ate, showered, popped a couple of Tylenol, and went to bed.  

The plan for today is to do the second coat on the porch walls and do the floor.  Before that can happen, we need another gallon of water-sealant.  So, when The Husband finally drags his lazy butt out of bed, one of us is going to the store while the other starts the second coat with the remaining water-sealant.  

I plan to enjoy the drive.  ;)

Pop the Clutch - September 25, 2021

 Yesterday I saw this on social media.

It reminded me . . . . 

When I was about 19, I bought my first car.  It was a 1978 Pinto, fire engine red.  No A/C.  No radio.  Stick shift.  A friend's husband "hot-wired" a radio in it.  He didn't even put it in the dashboard; it was somehow wedged on the console between the dashboard and the stick shift, and if I slammed on my brakes, it would slide off the console and dangle by the wires.  And it would continue to play after the key was turned off unless I switched it off manually, so I had to be careful not to leave the radio on when I wasn't driving the car, else it would drain my battery.

At the time, I worked as secretary to my brother, who had just opened up his law practice.  His office was in a high-rise building downtown.  There was a multi-level parking garage attached to the building.  Every day, I would park in the same spot on the 5th floor of the garage.

One day, I got in the car to come home, and the battery was dead.  I'd turned down the radio volume at a drive-thru window and had forgotten that it was on, and it had run my battery down.  I went back to the office and asked my brother if he had any booster cables.  He did not.  But then he said, "It's a stick shift, isn't it?  I'll come push you, and you can just pop the clutch."  

I did not know such a thing was possible.

So we went back to the parking garage.

He got in front of the car pushed me out of my parking spot, and said, "Now, I'm going to push you from behind to get you rolling, and when you build up a little speed, pop the clutch."  So we commenced the process.  He got me rolling.  I popped the clutch.  The tires gave a little screech on the concrete pavement and came to a dead stop.  The engine did not start.  We tried again.  And again.  

He pushed me down ALL FIVE LEVELS of the parking garage.  Push.  Pop.  SCREECH.  Push.  Pop.  SCREECH.  All the way to the garage entrance.

He was puzzled.  Maybe we hadn't gotten up enough speed in the garage for the trick to work.  "Let me go get my car," he said, "and I'll push you on the street fast enough to get it going."  I waited at the entrance while he got his car.  

Out on the street, it was push, pop, SCREECH.  He pushed my car with his car for, like, TEN BLOCKS, red light to red light.  Push, pop, SCREECH.  

Finally, he got out of his car and walked up to my window.  "I just don't understand this.  Do you have the key turned on?"

"Oh."

I turned the key on.  

He pushed me one more block.  Push, pop, VROOM!

I waved and kept on driving.  ;)

* * * * * * * * 

I'll be painting wooden things again this weekend.

Yesterday, I went to a craft store and bought some supplies that Cousin Roger needed to finish the lanterns the flower store had ordered from us.  I'd half-promised Roger that we'd go to the craft store together when I got home from work, but Roger had later told me that all of his girlfriend's co-workers had come down with covid, and since neither Roger nor his girlfriend have been vaccinated, I did not want to ride in the car with him an hour each way.  I went straight to the craft store after work, and dropped off the supplies to him when I came home.

He said he had sold some of the things I'd painted last weekend.  I said, "Cool!  Let me know if you need me to paint anything else."  He said he had two more big wooden circles (like those we used for the snowman/scarecrow yard signs) primed and ready to paint.  I took them and said I might paint a Christmas ornament on one of them.

He said, "I kinda like that bag you gave me."

What?  

This is the hard thing about trying to communicate with Roger.  He'll start a sentence in the middle of a thought and expect you to know what he'd been thinking.

I said, "What bag?"

"The one you just gave me."

"Show me." 

We went back in his workshop, and he pulled out the bag from the craft store.  It had a very pretty wreath on the front.  He said, "You can paint that, can't you?"

I said I probably could.

So I brought home the wooden circles and the craft store bag, and when there's enough daylight, I'll commence the masterpiece.  ;)

Equinox - September 22, 2021

 Brrrrr!  Who turned off the heat?  It's a mite cold on the back porch this morning, barely 50 degrees, according to the local weatherperson.  It makes me dread the coming of winter.

We've had a lot of rain this week, or so it seems.  Nothing major, just short, scattered showers, but enough to interrupt my plans.  We really, really wanted to get the porch water-sealed before winter, and before the boards get grimy again, but the wall boards and the floor around the edges have stayed too wet since the cleaning two weeks ago.  

While waiting for the wood to dry, I've been helping Cousin Roger with his projects.  Monday afternoon, when I was in the sewing room whipping out my new house shoes, Roger left a wooden candle-holder/lantern on the back porch.  He called later to tell me it was here.  Though I wasn't too crazy about his paint job, the lantern, itself, was cool.  It would be perfect for a flower arrangement.  So yesterday when I went to work, I took the lantern with me and showed it to a local florist.  She immediately ordered 9 lanterns.  I was stoked!  When I got home, I went over to Roger's and told him about the order.  He said, "Damn, I gotta go to Home Depot."  

In between Roger's projects, I've done a few painting projects of my own.  I'll show you later.

  

Happy feet - September 21, 2021

 

Check out my funky new house shoes.  I made them yesterday from an old wool sweater (from Goodwill) that I shrunk in hot water.

I wish I'd taken a picture of the house shoes I threw away yesterday.  I'd been wearing them for several years.  They were laughable, even when new.  They, too, were made from a Goodwill sweater.  They were toasty warm, and made absolutely no sound as I walked around in them.  I'd worn half-dollar-sized holes  at the heels, and at the balls of my feet were holes so big that sometimes my big toes would get hung in them as I slid my feet into the shoes.  The only drawback was that the felt bottoms were a bit slippery on hardwood floors.  

There must be half-a-dozen pairs of store-bought house shoes in my closet.  One is too noisy.  One is too squishy.  One is boot-like, and even have microwave-able inserts for extra warmth, but they can't be stepped into without stooping to pull them on.  Plus they're about 2 sizes too big.  Inevitably, I went back to the home-made shoes.

The new ones are the bomb.  I sewed pleather to the soles for extra durability and lined them with quilt batting and satin for extra warmth.  They are a little oddly shaped.  The "pattern" I saw wasn't actually a pattern - there was just a picture of the unassembled shoes with the instruction to cut the fabric like the picture.  So I put my foot down on a piece of paper, drew around it, and tried to draft my own pattern.  It took a couple of tries before I got it reasonably close to the picture.  

Yeah, they're a little wonky.  But so are my feet.  ;)

Paintin' Pumpkins - September 17, 2021

For the past few days, I've been painting wooden things in my every spare moment.  I'm using latex enamel paints because I think they're more durable, but it's glossy paint, and it's hard to work with.  Plus, I only have primary colors, so I'm having to do some mixing, and that's extra-messy work.  PLUS, it's been raining, and the paint doesn't want to dry.

This week, I painted two more of the original large scarecrow/snowman reversible signs.  This afternoon, there was one more big, blank circle left to paint.  I thought I'd puke if I had to paint another scarecrow/snowman.  Time for something different.  I spray-painted the circle orange on both sides, and then finger-painted a pumpkin on it with the yellow and brown latex enamel.

It's not finished yet.  I'm going to work on the shading a little more, and add a leaf and some curli-ques.  But I like where it's going.  Putting down the brush and doing the shading with my fingers was kind of liberating!

I should be doing something productive instead of writing this.  But I'm kind of stuck at the moment, waiting on paint to dry, and it's been raining, so it's going to take a while.

Cousin Roger's projects are working my ass to death.  He comes over here while I'm at work leaves wooden cut-outs for me to paint.  Last weekend, I couldn't fool with it, because The Husband and I were scrubbing and painting the porch.  When Roger came over here with even more stuff to paint, I sent him  home with a handful of stencils/patterns so he could do some of the "artistic" painting.  Turns out, that's not quite his thing; he'd rather run a scroll saw.  I get it.

If I weren't such a clutz with paint, it wouldn't be so bad.  We are making double-sided "signs."  I paint one side, let it dry, flip it over, do the other side.  And, invariably, I get paint on my fingers, and I screw up Side 1 while painting Side 2.

To make matters worse, I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to paint.  I bought high-gloss paint, and it does weird stuff in the wood grain, so I have to do several coats.  And when I do that, I screw up Side 1 AND Side 2. 

So maybe it's me who's working my butt off, and not Roger.  :-/

Porch Purge - September 11, 2021

 O.M.G.  

The Husband and I worked ourselves like two rented mules yesterday.  My bad knee is all swollen, and my feet feel like somebody's been hitting them with a hammer.

It's all because of that gallon of paint I bought.

About mid-morning, I was on the porch, fooling with one of Roger's projects, when The Husband came out.  I could tell he had something on his mind.  It turned out that he was thinking about that gallon of paint, planning the mission.

I believe his original plan was just to scrub the boards on the outside of the porch, to prepare them for painting the next day.  We mixed up buckets of water, cleaner, and bleach and went to work with scrub brushes.  (We own a power washer, but The Husband was afraid the high pressure would ruin the screens, hence the scrub brushes.)  When the outside was scrubbed, we moved all the furniture to the middle of the porch and tackled the inside walls.  I could not believe how filthy they were.  To make them suitable for painting, I had to scrub the corners with a toothbrush.  And the floor was even filthier than I had imagined.

It took us about 3 hours to scrub the boards, inside and out.  I still had a good bit of energy left, and so I said, "Let's move the furniture out in the yard and do the floor."

The Husband rigged up the power washer, and we went at it.  About halfway through, the water hose had a blow-out.  I went in search of a new one.  

When the porch was finally clean, we started on the furniture.  Every chair and table had spider-egg sacks under the bottom.  Every cushion was coated with dust.  We power-washed everything.  The rug had soaked up nasty water from the wall-washing, so we unrolled it on the driveway and power-washed it, too.

Finally, about 6:30 p.m., we quit.  We were both so achy and tired that we could barely move.  

I guess we'll paint today.  The floor needs to be water-sealed, but we sprayed so much water on it that it probably needs a week to dry, so I'm not even going to think about the floor today.  

Once the painting is done, I'm going to have a throwing-away party.  The porch has become a catch-all for everything we don't know where to put.  The garbage collectors are going to hate me on garbage day.

Spoke Too Soon - September 10, 2021

 

Still fighting gnats.  We trap a few dozen one day, see only one or two escapees for a day or two, then one day we're battling them again.  WILL THIS EVER END?

* * * * * * * * 

I must have a talk with Cousin Roger.

The telephone rang Thursday afternoon as I was prepping ingredients for a meat loaf.  

Roger said, "Hey.  Them little circles?  She wants one for her mama's grave."

What?  What little circles?

I peeked out the back door and found four unpainted wooden circles - two large ones, and two small ones and two unpainted wooden hats - leaning against the settee.  Roger had been busy with his new saw and had delivered me a task while I was at work. 

It took a minute to make sense of what he wanted me to do with them.  Did the woman - whoever "she" was - actually want a snowman on one side of her small circle, and a scarecrow on the other, like the prototype?  For her mother's grave?    Roger said he reckoned I could just put a snow man on both sides.

Once the meatloaf was in the oven, I went out to the porch to see what he'd brought.  The circles were made of plywood, not corrugated plastic like the prototype.  The back side of each one was rough - knot holes galore.  I took the two little circles and one of the big circles out in the yard and began spray-painting them.  They soaked up the paint like sponges.  It would cost us a fortune to spray paint them.

And the circles weren't *quite* round.  I measured the big ones.  They were 26" wide.  Why did he settle on 26"?  Plywood is 4' x 8'.  Roger could double his yield from a sheet of plywood by making the circles 24" rather than 26".  We must have a talk about "cost of goods sold."

After dinner, I got out my quilting ruler and made Roger a perfectly round 24" cardboard circle.  He was glad to get it, said he'd go cut some more circles.

So today after work, I stopped by the hardware store and bought more paint and a sheet of thin, wood-like stuff.  Don't yet know what we'll do with the wood-like stuff, but it might come in handy for something.

Some of the paint that I bought was not for Roger's projects; it was for the back porch.  We built this porch five or six years ago and have never painted the exterior wood.  I've brought forth the idea of painting or water-sealing on several occasions.  It was not something that The Husband jumped right on right away.

Anyway . . . . 

When The Husband came home from work, I said to him, "I bought you a present," and pointed to the paint, brushes, and stir-sticks on the kitchen table.  I told him it was for the outside of the porch. 

"Oh, thank you," he said.

He didn't sound like he meant it.

Fingers Crossed - September 8, 2021

 I'm scared to say it - the last time I said it, it back-fired - but I *think* we've put a serious dent in the gnat population.  Yes, we're still seeing one occasionally, but we're no longer collecting dozens in the traps every day.  

I think we had a "hatching event" inside the house.  Seriously.  And I think they may have come from that bag of half-rotten onions that the grocery store put in our pick-up order.  It kind of makes me leery of letting store workers select our produce.  

* * * * * * * * 

When I came home from work yesterday, the "prototype" of the project I designed for Cousin Roger was leaning against the settee on the back porch.  To satisfy your curiosity, it is basically a big circle on a stick (with a hat on top) to use as a holiday yard ornament.  It's reversible, with a fall theme (a pumpkin or scarecrow face) on one side and a Christmas theme (snowman, Santa, etc.) on the other.  I'd told Roger to build the thing and bring it to me to paint.  My plan was for the sign to be built out of wood, but he constructed the prototype out of corrugated plastic that someone had given him.  

He motored over on his lawnmower not long after I came home.  "Whaddaya think?" he asked.  I told him that he had the basic idea right, and that I'd get some paint and see if I could come up with cute designs.  

Since he's anxious to work, I went on to the hardware store to buy durable paint.  I came home and sketched out one side of the design.  It turns out that it's pretty hard to paint on corrugated plastic.  Spray-painting the large parts was no problem, but painting the design across the corrugations was tricky.  A straight line painted on wavy stuff doesn't look very straight.  This would not be a problem on wood.  I made cardboard patterns for the facial features for side 1.  Will do the other side this afternoon.

I spent $40 on paint.  

Keeping Roger busy is expensive.  ;)

Dog-Pecker Gnats - Sept. 6, 2021

 OMG

I can hardly write this for laughing.

Cousin Roger rode over on his lawnmower a few minutes ago.  I was on the back porch, working on an embroidery design.  I said, "Hey, Rogerrrrrrrrr.  What's up?"  He came in, and sat down, and The Husband came out, and we started shooting the breeze.  He told us about some flea markets he'd visited, and about his new scroll saw he got on sale, and now anxious he is to put it to use.  During a lull in the conversation, I asked him if they were having a problem with gnats across the road at his house.

He said, "Aw, yeah.  We been fightin' 'em for a week.  'at's 'em ol' dawg pecker gnats."

I fell over on the table, laughing.  

He said, "You know what I'm talking about, them little bitty thangs that swarm around a dog's pecker."

I said, "YES, ROGER, I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT."  

Good god.

You might need to have grown up in the country, with dogs laying by the porch, to get that visual

Anyway, we talked about how to get rid of them.  He already knew the vinegar trick.

Then he steered the conversation back to his new scroll saw.  He said he wanted to use it, but couldn't think of any project to do.  

All this time, I was trying to work on my embroidery design and was royally f'ing it up for listening to Roger.

So I said, "Roger, I'll give you something to do."  I grabbed my sketch pad and drew what I want him to build.  I said, "You build it, and bring it to me to paint.  We'll set it by the road and see if it will sell, and if it doesn't, I'll buy it."

He said we had a deal, and took out of here like lightning.  In 30 minutes, he was back with a pattern.  Meanwhile, The Husband said there were lumber scraps in the shed that Roger could have.  Roger went back home to put his trailer on his lawnmower, and came back with it and raided the shed. 

I guess we'll be buying back our own lumber if my idea doesn't sell.  

The Gnat War Rages On - 9/5/2021

 For a while yesterday, I thought we about had the gnat problem licked.  Over the past few days, we'd seen fewer and fewer carcasses in the gnat bait bowls, which I've been refreshing every day.  Last night before I went to bed, I put out fresh bait.  This morning when I got up, the bowl in the living room was gnat free, and I thought, "Hallelujah!"'

I went out to the back porch and worked on an embroidery design.  

Two hours later, I went inside and passed by the bowl, and glanced down, and found this:

In two hours!

WHERE ARE THESE M*TH*RF*CK*RS COMING FROM????

I've read that they can live in potting soil.  My living room windowsill is lined with pots of African violets, but they don't seem to be living there.  There's no swarm when I water the plants or poke around in the soil.  Every vegetable in the house - onions, potatoes, everything - is in the refrigerator.  We're taking the garbage out every day and spraying the can with Lysol.  We've put stoppers in all of the drains when we're not using the sinks.  And still they come.  

They're driving us nuts.  We've learned to look in our cups and glasses before we take a sip, because if it's been sitting there long, there's a gnat in it.  This is like a horror movie.

I have resorted to putting a rubbing alcohol and soap mixture in a fine mist spray bottle.  When I see a gnat flying or crawling on the rim of the bowl, I blast it with alcohol.  It's supposed to kill them - I'm not sure it does kill them, but it slows them down enough that I can smack them as they attempt to shake it off.