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We're slooowly dialing in pizza. Thursday has been frozen Costco pizza night with better toppings for a long time for dh and me, started when there were no rowers to feed, LOL. Then we got ambitious. I found a recipe/method for some allegedly great pizza dough and... it was! What's more it made a lot so I just froze it. And damned if it wasn't fantastic even frozen. I'm out so I have to make more. We've tried a lot of doughs over the years but this is by far the best: what makes it so spectacular isn't just how it cooks but how it handles. It doesn't tear and stretches nicely even without a rest. The recipe is a youtube video so this weekend I'll probably sit down and transcribe what I can, but here's the link in case! How to Make Perfect Pizza Dough. The guy is a bit over the top, making the video painful to watch but the data are good so.

I ignored his sauce and am working on another method that I started tinkering with a few years back but lost interest.

Cheese is our final piece. Dh says it's toppings, but if we can dial in an excellent cheese pizza, who cares about toppings? But tbh (dark marital secret here) one of the reasons I decided to get back on the perfect pizza quest is that he'd overload the poor Costco cheese pizza with toppings, and it would never cook properly, the cheese never got completely melted. Ick. Anyhow, cheese. On the principle of changing one variable at once, we continued to use Trader Joe's shredded mozzarella as we worked out the kinks with dough and sauce. Yesterday we tried fresh mozzarella. I am not a fan. It doesn't melt properly but dh liked it. I think I'll try a whole milk low moisture self-grated mozza next. That's what we used to do when we made pizza but got lazy!

Then it'll be onto toppings.

Here was one of last night's pizzas. This one was pretty small it was the second to last dough ball of the frozen ones, and then other one was larger but I didn't get a photo.

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This might be more than three things! It's been a while since I've written, and it's been hectic. Mostly good, but hectic. Or maybe I'll keep my work rants for another thread.

1. Christmas. My sister and BIL came up from Bend, bravely bringing my mom. Tuesday, I cooked Christmas Eve dinner, it was delicious and oh, hey, hectic and exhausting, since I was also cooking things for brunch in Vancouver the following day. It came together more or less ok. It's much easier to make these big holiday meals now that dh has taken over all the meat cooking on the smoker, lol. Prime rib this time. We also made two briskets and two double-smoked hams to be frozen for Anne-Chloe and Linnea. Christmas Day, we drove up to Vancouver and had a good visit with my aunt. It was good to see her, she honestly is looking a lot better this fall than she did last summer. Surprisingly, she kept on talking about how she needed to start a walking program again and seemed to be talking much longer term than March, which is when she has her Date set for. Sigh. The people who see her on regular basis tell us she's very excited about MAID and so very positive about it, but I still get worried when she makes long-term plans that are not compatible with two more months of living. The only desperately sad part of the visit is when we had to leave -my mom was done- JoAnn seemed to think she was coming with us. We helped her through it, and made sure the front desk knew she was restless, but it made both me and my sister cry. Also, a shout-out to Linnea, who came with us. She is SO freaking good with my mom and JoAnn. Also positive, talking to them like they are her homies, and they absolutely love it and both light up at any conversation with her. That kid is a gem. Anyhow, got home at about 6, and did our presents. Everyone got stuff they liked and wanted! Linnea got me a 1950s bead necklace that I'd been coveting and Perry and AC got me a Le Creuset bread baking bell or whatever it's called. Not in the color I'd wanted, but I'm SO excited! Since Christmas Eve was hectic and my SIL, MIL, and nephew were there, we didn't do presents then, so we still have to see Anne-Chloe to give her hers.

2. My dumb-ass bitch of a SIL managed to throw a wrench into Christmas Eve preparations, making everything more stressful than it should have been. She decided that her son needed to make a "box" for his girlfriend, and asked dh if he could help. Dh, being an idiot at times, said sure, thinking we'd been talking a small box, and he carefully told her sister about where to get a kit that would help. At 1pm on Christmas Eve my MIL and nephew show up with.... three 12inx1inx8ft pieces of lumber. So dh has to spend the after when he was supposed to be helping prep things essentially making a 4x4 box for his nephew's girlfriend. No, I don't get it either. And that also meant that my MIL, who is negative and annoying, was here all afternoon, getting in the way in the kitchen and wanting to bitch about her neighbors to anyone who would listen. This added a lot of stress, and I'm still angry. I should have known there were going to be problems when dh told his sister that sure, Robert could come a bit early, and he'd help. Tbc, I'm not angry with dh, but with my stupid bitch of a SIL who routinely disposes of other people's time.

3. This is perhaps the truest two sentences on climate action ever written:

Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling. Greta Thunberg
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I need to start writing again. Desperately.

But my thoughts are all over the place in a chaotic panicky mess.

If anyone is interested in a better social media platform, bluesky is totally a better place than twitter, LOL. I've had an account for a while, read but did not post there since then, but started transitioning there sometime last month, when twitter got too toxic.

Work is shitty. New postdoc and I'm the one who is supposedly training him. This sucks and again, not what I want to do in a job. Add in that my PI has all of a sudden decided that there must be something wrong with my cell culture technique and is observing and critiquing me as I work with cells. Comments like "you have some theoretical knowledge of cell culture, but not much practice". Dude, I may not have been doing it for twenty years, but a) you haven't done anything in over 5, by your own admission and b) I've been passaging, freezing, thawing, and otherwise dealing with cells for 6 months now, with no contamination and plenty of live healthy cells to show for it. The one experiment that is not working is something else. Not sure what, but I'm 99% sure, as was the previous postdoc -we worked out the protocol and the parameters together and did the experiments in tandem- that is has zip to do with the cells or my sterile technique. I was very close to walking out yesterday. Plus, my dude. You have bigger hands than me. There are manipulations I cannot do without putting down a cap. "Practice," he says, but practice not going to make my hands bigger. Other annoying thing. He gave me a bit of an independent piece of research to do, YAY. He keeps on asking me where I'm at with it. That's nice. The holdup? Purchasing. I'm waiting on the stuff I need to start the experiment, and it took purchasing three days to get a PO to the company. They're fast when it's a simple please order me this product, but when it's paying for a service, it always takes longer and there we are.

I've been avoiding the internet and doing more reading. I like that.

Weight loss is going fine. I'm up a bit these past few days, which is frustrating, but overall, I'm thrilled. While BMI isn't something I trust as, well, indicative of anything, I'm at this point within spitting distance of "normalweight", a status I never thought I'd even approach. We'll see if I get there. These meds are a fucking miracle. Dh's work plan is high deductible, so I'll be paying a lot for them next year until we meet that deductible, but I can afford it and it's totally fucking worth it. Life changing. Not perception changing, though. I still see myself as a fat person but I'm starting to think that other people no longer do. Body dysmorphia is real.

Planning the holidays. Tonight, I'll start the first Tday shopping, and this weekend I'll start to prep the base for the gallon for so of gravy that I make every year... ok, maybe not a gallon, but a lot. I usually end up with plenty for the turkey, and I freeze the rest to use in chicken stews etc over the rest of the year. I'll also get apples to pre-cook for a pie, I'm going to try to make an apple pie this year. I'm terrible with pies. It looks like Christmas is going to be here. My sister will come up and probably bring my mom. We'll celebrate on Christmas Eve and then on Christmas day, get up early, pack brunch, and go to Vancouver to spend the day with my aunt. It'll be her last Christmas. Not thinking about that right now but focusing on the logistics of "a lot to do, lots of food to prep for two holidays, while working, and a house to get in order for guests".

We went to Bend last weekend for four days; I took Friday off. My aunt flew down with a friend of hers, and we had a good time. She's slipping quickly, but still there. My mom is doing SO much better in memory care. I mean, the issues are the same but she's happier, and even not seeing her daily, the slippage in cognitive function in the time between visits isn't at all jarring, in contrast to my aunt, whose is. Sigh. Anyhow. Dementia fucking sucks beyond words.

Funny idea. Dh has done a "twice smoked ham" in the smoker a few times, and his briskets are now legendary in the family, LOL. I am planning fancy roast beef (Perry and I are mulling beef Wellington) for Christmas Eve. I'll need a separate port gravy, so I suggested dh smoke a brisket so I can use the non-smoked tbc trimmings for gravy/demi-glace. Then I came on the brilliant idea of packing and freezing ham and brisket for Anne-Chloe and Linnea as part of their holiday haul. LOL. I think they -especially Linnea- will be thrilled.
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Yesterday I made an icebox cake for dessert for the fam today.

But Nabisco discontinued (sob!) their wonderful chocolate wafer cookies. Probably because few people bought them: they were hidden on the top shelf and waaay too expensive.

So. I bought the mega pack of Oreos from Costco and started making Double Stuff Oreos (blech) and saving the plain chocolate cookies.

I am going to mail Nabisco to ask if we can get just plain Oreo cookies with none of the filling, for a decent price. Call them Zero-Os. Or 00s? Double Os, ala James Bond?
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1. I made a Tang pie for dessert last night, along with a chocolate cream pie. There were supposed to be more people for dinner but everyone begged off (one of the everyones was my sister-in-law, no loss there). Anyhow, since I knew Linnea doesn't like citrus based desserts, I made both. Everyone hate the Tang pie, except me. Don't they know that Tang is astronaut orange juice? Bah! ๐Ÿ˜‚ Anyhow, I'll probably freeze it in tiny portions. As far as I'm concerned, it tasted like a tart creamsicle.

2. Memory care sitch with my mom isn't great. I've called her, she just sounds terribly sad and lonely. There is just no other solution. If laws in this country were better, we might have other options, but with the cost of memory care, our only finally possible one is to let a facility that takes Medicaid get every single cent she has until she's eligible for Medicaid and they have to keep her. If we were to have her at my sister's with the support she'd need, she'd have to go to a different type of facility, and the ones we visited were absolutely dreadful. So. But yeah. I hate this.

3. Let me just say this. I am not body shaming, or really, I'm not trying to body shame. I mean, I've had "some people should never wear spandex" said while looking at me right after I finished a 204 mile bike ride (by a father to his tween son, btw, neither of whom were riders), so I'm pretty clear that people who want or need to wear spandex should go ahead and do it. But! Men should not EVER and I mean EVER wear spandex bottoms in any color other than black or navy. Because oooh boy, the Italian (light blue) and Wisconsin (red) bottoms left little to the imagination. And really, no, please. ๐Ÿ˜‚
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Had a fantastic trip, and a very lucky one with regards to weather.

We had a perfect clear day for the eclipse in Conway, AR.

We were the last plane out of MSY yesterday morning before pretty bad storms with flooding etc came through.

I'll consider the very bumpy plane ride payment.

Perry picked us up at SeaTac and I was able to get a half day of work in. Updates when I can.

Oh. Perry's coach feeds them dinner most nights (Perry coaches, Matt makes dinner for that session) and I think Perry lived off of that and instant pudding while we were gone. The kid is a very decent cook, but mostly doesn't bother with routine feeding of himself.
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Flourless chocolate cake = chocolate omelet. No thanks!
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Happy 2024! Let it be a good, fun one, with good election outcomes and democracy intact at the end!

Three things for a start to the year:

-- I gained 11 lbs over the holidays. FML. About 1lb/day. Sigh. But hopefully back on track. I tried. There was just too much food in the house. I don't think it was the meals or the desserts, but just the overwhelming amount of snacks all over the place.

-- I did 2024m on the erg this morning. I'm not going to make a habit of it, but eh, I'm glad I did it. I've got sore shoulders from yesterday, but not a sore lower body, so that does tell me I do need to get my act together to do some upper body work this year!

-- Perry just got exposed to Covid. Sigh. But yesterday he and I made beignets for dessert. They worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself. Won't be an 'often' but it's nice to have that as an accomplishment. We had muffuletta and jambalaya for dinner, so this kept it NOLA themed!
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Rather than 'how it started/how it's going' I'd like to paint a picture of 'aspiration/reality'.

Aspiration: a delicious Thanksgiving dinner is ready to be served and I am dressed in pretty clothes and even wearing the shoes we don't wear in the house.

Reality: a delicious Thanksgiving dinner is ready to be served and I am dressed in sweats, a tee shirt, and my apron, my hair is under a bandanna, and I'm wearing my slippers.

Maybe this is the year when I can get at least as far as getting the apron off!!!!

I'll shower tonight and tomorrow night because I always feel like food smells cling when I've been cooking all day, LOL.

Here's to aspirations!
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1. I finished _The House of Doors_ and it's... incredible. Highly recommend, and preferably in audiobook. OMG. I may actually buy the Kindle book just to reread bits and pieces.

2. Squirrel has been eating the suet at a rate of a cake every two days. This cannot last, LOL, so the first attempt at keeping them away from that feeder has been initiated. "The game is on!" says dh.



In other birdie news, we had a pileated woodpecker show up at the feeders today, as well as a hummingbird I could not immediately ID. Usually, we see rufous and Anna's. I hope he or she comes back so I can get an ID.

3. Linnea's bf is coming for Thanksgiving, which is great. The one dish he apparently likes? Green bean casserole. Umm.... OK. I've never made it before, but I guess there is a first time for everything. Yes, I'll make it from scratch, I have zip intent of starting with canned soup, LOL.
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1. I asked our music teacher if she would be willing to come over and hang out here. Hopefully my mom will sleep late and it won't be too much of an issue. Heidi might have to teach a class from here, but if so, we should be back, it would just be a quiet overlap. Part of the issue is that WSDOT is closing roads and exits to the freeway around UW and that makes getting home something that will take longer than expected. Ah well, we'll figure it out, I think.

2. youtube's ads are really pissing me off. I have an adblocker, but when they demanded it, I did ad them to my exceptions list. Of course, they're shitty google scum, and it's not just an ad at the start of the video, it's ads every 2-3 minutes on videos that last maybe 7-10 minutes? I'm probably going to be cutting down on my political viewing as a result. You can skip the ads in the middle of the videos, but most of the time, I'm listening not watching, and either teaching myself to knot, playing Candy Crush or doing a Microsoft Games jigsaw puzzle so pausing to dismiss the ad is a pita. Add to that that the ads are all crappy clickbait take advantage of the gullible type. When I see shit like this I am again reminded that after Trump's stupid comment, I could have sold homeopathic bleach pills and been a mega-zillionaire. Right now the workaround is to bring up the share button and watch the video in the embed. Again, if it was ONE or even TWO ads at the start, I'd grit my teeth and bear it. Interrupting twice in ten minutes is egregious.

3. Some bready thoughts. Perry bought me a bag of 6 cardamom rolls from the Norwegian bakery last weekend and I've been having one in the morning in addition to my usual skyr. I love love love cardamom. These are not sweet, even less sweet than Finnish pulla (I love that too), but just a wonderful plain not enriched roll with cardamom. I need to learn to make them. Which brings me to my other November project, this one for Perry and me. Dinner rolls. I've never found a recipe that balances 'fussy to pull off at the last minute' and 'good'. David's aunt Greta used to have one, I'll have to ask if she still does. Perry and I have tried recipes over the years, but nothing was ever a repeat. I think this year I'm going to start baking a few batches, or maybe half batches now, and pick the best recipe in that way. Perry coaches every day and food that goes to the boathouse does NOT come home, so we have an obvious outlet for extras, LOL. So. Anyone have a good roll recipe to share?
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1. OMG, this is interesting. Last night, at 12:37AM according to Perry's sleep tracking app, the cats threw a hissy fit, literally, some kitty yelling (Perry and David say 'shrieking'.) My ring camera, at 12:37AM, shows.... a big kitteh nonchalantly walking by.

2. I guess I'm doing Thanksgiving and Christmas here this year. Dh's aunt will come up for TDay, which will be fun, and my aunt says she'll come down for Christmas, and my sister and BIL will be here too. I'll start planning in a week or so, because I love having everything in hand, it helps with any potential anxiety.

3. I should have kept track of the number of banana bread loaves I've made since my mom came to live with us, LOL. About two every ten days or so....
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1. Perry and dh are going up to B'ham, Linnea is already there, to move her stuff from Apartment A to Apartment B, and to bring whatever Perry has left up there down. Dh was at trains Friday and Saturday. Perry was at rowing all day Friday and slept most of yesterday. My mother has been getting up between 8-9am and I've been 'on' both days already, and there is about to be a 3rd as soon as they leave. I'm exhausted. It's not like Perry and dh do that much, it's more that having them there means someone else can answer, for the zillionth time, the exact same fucking question. Caregiving sucks. I am not good at it.

2. Perry and Anne-Chloe are going to be rowing a double together at the PNW Pink Ribbon Row. Alas, I'll be at Crater Lake camping, so won't be there to cheer them on, but the coach took some video of them today. The last stroke was crappy -you can hear Perry's reaction to it- but aside from that, they look pretty good. Perry and Anne-Chloe the canal with the Aurora (tall) and Fremont (small drawbridge) Bridges.
And yeah, note the color of the sky. The horrid wildfires both in WA but especially the ones in BC (OMG, Kelowna!) are the cause of that.

3. I don't even know how to broach this as a minor issue. When we camp, we're pretty minimalist. Tent, sleeping bags, and food is pretty basic one pot meals, nothing elaborate. The past few years, we've been going camping with my sister and BIL and they have a GIGANTIC RV with kitchen, bathroom, TV, and even a freaking microwave. Which yay, if you enjoy that kind of camping. The issues that have come up: nobody wants to spend any time outside. As soon as it gets chilly, rather than extra layers, sis and BIL use the excuse of my mom (*) to move everything inside (note that my mom, who hates camping even in the luxury RV is usually inside already). So that. And then the meals. Since they have a stove top with multiple burners, a microwave, and an oven, they prefer to plan more elaborate meals than us. Which is fine, but... really? Yes, we can grill burgers, but, really, we don't need to make oven fries to go with, we can open a freaking bag of chips, and apples are a hell of a lot easier than chopping lettuce for a salad, LOL. This trip (in mid-September) they won't have a water hookup, so they're talking about using only paper plates... it's like... my dudes. There are faucets, we have a small basin, we can wash dishes... oh wait, you want to make an elaborate three course meal with loads of dishes. Nothing serious, just an annoyance.
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What I sent my family this moring:


I think this is the proper declination... but sic vicit gloria matrisโ€ฆ thus passes the glory of the mother, who used to be the sticky bun baker. Perry's are better than mine.


He made the dough, I decided when it was proofed enough, made the rolls, put them the fridge to finish proofing overnight, and then baked 'em this morning, but his dough is seriously and objectively great, pillowy and delicious.

We have, of course, saved some for him, but he's rowing and coaching this morning and won't get them until this afternoon.



We made a mocha cake for her birthday: cake, ganache filling, buttercream. As usual, I made the components, dh turned them into something that looks like it's worth eating.

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1. My baby girl will be 20 tomorrow. It's my last full day of having a teenager. Sob.

2. She's headed out hiking with friends. Bless his little heart, Perry was going into Seattle later to coach but volunteered to go in a bit early so he could drive her to the rendez-vous point and I didn't have to get up and out.

3. Which is nice because last night's dinner was a grilled cheese and waffle fries (at home, fries were purchased and baked) and that's a lot more fat than I'm used to so I was awake wtih an iffy tummy for a good part of the night.

and bonus 4: She has friends coming over this evening. Menu is brisket, baguette (I may make soft rolls if I'm feeling ambitious), and either roasted asparagus or roasted green beans. Appys, a variety of little things to accommodate her friends' allergies and sensitivities. Dessert is a mocha cake, so I'm buying a small cheesecake for Perry and MIL (*), and something gluten and dairy free.

(*) Texted this to my sister a few days ago. OMG. Conferred with Linnea re her birthday cake. She is still insisting on a mocha/espresso cake. Which is fine with me... only I'm going to have to listen to my MIL complain for the next months that I ruined a good chocolate cake with coffee etc. She still periodically brings up the coffee icebox cake that I made when AC was in high school, still lamenting the 'waste' of the butterfinger topping. BTW, when I made that cake, I made a pineapple-maraschino cherry icebox cake for her and Perry. And again, that was Anne-Chloe's request. So yeah, I'm preparing for at least a decade of reminiscence about how delicious the cake look and how tragic it was that it was contaminated with coffee. ๐Ÿ™„๐Ÿคฃ๐Ÿ™„
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1. Linnea's boyfriend is a darling. Really like him.

2. Been meaning to make Welsh Cakes since we got back from Europe but never got around to it, plus, eh, lard, which, just no. So I made this recipe with some modifications for breakfast this morning. My sister and BIL were in town before heading out on an Alaska cruise, and there was Isaac, so a good number of people to try it out on, LOL. Delish.

3. My weight, OTOH. Up several pounds this morning, and tomorrow is going to be worse, since I didn't pay attention to what I was eating today.
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1. Heaven help us, Linnea is planning on fighting the court system. She was called for jury duty. It looks like it's at least in Seattle... but the expected length of the trial is... a month. If she can't get out of it (and being a student is not an excuse), she'll have to drop the math class she was planning on taking, as well as spending half her summer in a courtroom. I see two potential outcomes. The first is that they let of out of duty. The second is... the cops at my door to take her to serve. ๐Ÿคฃ Seriously, though, this makes no sense to me. That's a major time commitment, and I hope they'd allow people for whom it is a hardship to get out of it. Not taking the math class this summer could be bad. We shall see. Shame she can't send me in her place, LOL.

2. We finally decided to delay my mom's going to memory care. She'll spend the summer, or a good part of it, with me, and then move in with my sister once the remodel is complete. Several reasons. One is that the timing is really iffy for right now, because of my sister's planned vacations, and that my brother couldn't make it out. The other is just her continued resistance to any sort of assisted living. And she's isn't too difficult to take care of at home, the biggest issue I have is that she can't be left, so I do have to either stay home with her or get my kids to grandmother-sit (and we do pay them, LOL). It makes sense, even if it isn't the easiest choice, I think it'll be the best one for her. Plus, tbh, I don't think my sister was ready to put her in memory care.

3. I consider myself a decent cook. I've had three recipes fail on me in the past few weeks, which vexes me to no end. The blah butter cake from a few weeks ago was one. The other was a toffee recipe (American toffee) that started burning before it hit hard crack, something I've never had happen. The third was tragic: a chocolate fudge Bundt cake that failed to release from the pan. I've only had that happen a few times ever, and this one was disappointing because the recipe itself was incredible, and the cake, broken into pieces as it was, was delish.
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1. Rowing banquet last night in B'ham. It wasn't horrid at those things go. Saw several other parents who were on the TN trip and they all took the time to tell us how absolutely wonderful Perry was, and how much they'd enjoyed talking to him etc. That was so awesome to hear. I mean, I think he's a great kid, but it's always so nice when others notice too.

2. It's been... rough having my mom here. At first, she was sleeping a bit more, now she's up by 10am (or earlier) and I have to nag her to get to bed by 11 or 11:30. Since dh and I get up at 6am, we've been wiped! What we've been doing for walking is that the alarm goes off at 6am, and I basically go pee, brush my teeth, and throw on clothes. I'm at the trailhead by 6:20, back usually by 7:20 and that gives dh time to go on his walk, he's slower than I am in the morning. So it's been working, though I miss our morning walks together. But my mom did like the time she spent at the Senior Center so when we get back from Bend, hopefully that'll be a twice a week routine. It's in the middle of the day, so it doesn't solve our morning walk issue, but hopefully it'll tire her out enough to get her to go to bed a bit earlier. I really need the bit of evening downtime, I think dh does too, this is just emotionally exhausting for both of us. Also, even though she annoys me at time, my MIL is awesome good people.

3. I made a cake today and I'm bitterly disappointed in it: John Kanell's Butter Cake. It looks gorgeous. It tastes sweet and flat. Why, you ask? Because unsalted butter, which he says to use, is of the devil. I added all the salt called for, plus a bit more and it just was not enough. So it's overly sweet and not very interesting. If I make it again -and I might, because form factor and crumb are great- I'll use salted butter and add the salt.

4. OK, fine, four things! We're headed to Bend tomorrow for a few days, the idea was to get my mom assessed at the Memory Care place. Not sure it's a good idea, but eh, hopefully we'll talk more tomorrow evening. I think my mom is still too aware of us and our relationships to make this a good transition, but I also don't think she could quite manage with just assisted living, she needs more "prompting" and reminders. But anyhow. Since sister is in the middle of a remodel, dh and I got a campground nearby. We'll probably spend most of the day at my sister's, but we'll get to sleep in a tent. Since, what with my mom, that's probably not going to happen again any time soon, I'm SO looking forward this!
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It was a nice weekend, if a busy one!

1. Still looking for some titles for my novel. My two current top choices -which are the only two fucking titles I've been able to come up with that make even vague sense- are You, Me, and Maybe Tomorrow and A Hand at the Edges, or something to that effect.

2. Can't get my Kindle, my beloved Paperwhite purchased in 2013, to read epub files, at a time when amazon has abandoned mobi and gone to epub and more and more of the books at the library are in that format. I'd get a new Kindle, but as usual they put too many features and degraded the experience. The main thing I hate with new Kindles is the fact that the screens are flat. My older one has a bezel around the reading area and it keeps grubby fingers off the screen, and just feel better to me. The reviews on the newer ones are not as good as on the older ones. Ugh. I hope amaszon figures this out.

3. My aunt's birthday was officially 21 March, same as my MIL's. We celebrated MIL's yesterday, with pot roast and a vanilla cake with chocolate filling and chocolate buttercream. This should be it for a while, I'm so done with cooking, cakes, and celebrations, LOL.
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๐Ÿ’œ Attachment and loss of everyday things. Amazon tells me I bought this set of earbuds cases back in 2017. We each had one, mine was of course purple. I've used it since then to hold my Skullcandy wired earphones. My purple-no-longer-available earphones, sob. I lost case and earphones last week, I'm guessing at IKEA which is the last time I definitely remember having them. I'm surprisingly sad. I mean, I have a set of nice Bose overear headphones, but I've travelled many miles with my wired ones, rebuying the same ones as needed. The case itself went to Europe a few times, Canada several, cross country etc. Ah well. Dh still has his case in a computer bag, since he doesn't really use wired earbuds at all, and I'll probably steal it unless I decide to spend $9 to get 5 small cases when I only need one. I can still find wired earbuds but they are getting harder and harder to locate, can't find them in purple at all, and the new models all have a mic, which I don't like. In part because I hate the different feel on each side of my face, in part because Google Assistant seems to un-disable itself more often when it senses a mic. Ah well. Anyhow. I'll miss my pretty purple case!


๐Ÿ’š So we did my aunt's 80th birthday party in Vancouver this weekend. It was both fun and utterly exhausting. I baked three gigantic lemon cakes (of which we consumed 1.75, so I'm glad I had three). David did a beautiful job with the decorating! My aunt was so happy, and it was so nice to see a few of her friends that I've known for a long time again. Best part of course was hanging out with my siblings! And my kids all made it up, which absolutely thrilled my aunt. We of course had too much food, much of which is now in my fridge and freezer, sigh. I wanted to drop most of it off in Bellingham with the kids, but we had a two hour wait at the border (longest wait I've had in over a decade) so we just wanted to get back. I'll bring them frozen stuff later.


๐Ÿ’™ My mom is... well, aside from the dementia, she tripped in the kitchen the night before they came and caught herself on the edge of the counter. She didn't complain, brother noted that the wrist was swollen the next morning, and we debated if they should come, but since the swelling went down with icing and that she was using the hand a bit gingerly but normally, it was decided (we all agreed) to come and deal with it here if needed. Which we did the next day, when she woke up with swelling and serious bruising. She's on blood thinners, so some is always expected but this was, to my eye blood settling. Like it did after AC broke her arm. And her foot. And Linnea her foot. Sure enough, displaced fracture of the distal ulna, sigh. My sister went with her to Urgent Care and told them clearly that she would remove anything they put her in. My mother is notorious for taking out IVs, taking out her O2 canula, removing bandages too early, once removing stitches before they dissolved etc, so this isn't a new thing, and my sister was insistent. So instead of a plain "sugar tong" splint, they decided to use a "cast" that hardens. LOL, it was off the next morning, sigh. Basically they put us in the worse of both worlds situation: not a hard plaster cast, not a removable one, but a temporary that is supposed to be "difficult" to remove. We used a wrist brace and the splint to immobilize as best we could. Anyhow, she'll need surgery. A word about my mother and pain: she broke her arm as a little girl, went a week without telling anyone. While pregnant with her first child, who died shortly after birth, she needed a root canal. It was done without anesthesia, because they were afraid of the effects on the baby. When I was 7 or 8, she cut her hand on a broken glass in the sink. I could see the fucking BONE. She put a bandaid on it. We should know by now that her pain cues are not great and the dementia has just made that worse. She's seeing a surgeon today; we'll see what happens. Update: surgeon says it's not displaced, she's getting a molded removable cast. Fingers crossed it heals well.

๐Ÿคฌ I gained 7lbs over the weekend. FML. I don't understand how that can be the case, but there it is. That's about a month worth of <1000 calorie days erased in three days. And while I did eat more than normal, it wasn't outrageous. Sigh. Makes me want to cry. Back on track since yesterday (well, Monday, but I did have cheese and crackers for dinner on Monday.) And everyone always says "Oh, it'll come right off" but that isn't how it's ever worked for me. Those massive gains that people always claim are temporary because they came on fast etc because of an event never are for me.

๐Ÿคฎ I've been taking vitamins for the past month. I ended up getting the gummi ones from Target and while I didn't love them, they were ok. I was told that the Vitafusion from Costco were "great" by a few people. I bought a bottle and ew. I don't expect my vitamins to taste like candy, but ew. I'll go back to artificially colored and flavored asap. Of course I didn't open them until this morning because if I'd tasted them yesterday, I'd have given the bottle to my sister, it's what she takes.

๐Ÿ“ฑ My phone is usually a symphony of light blue and darker blue. I made some changes for spring, LOL.



๐Ÿ˜ฅ ๐Ÿ“˜ I'm so sad and angry at myself about my poor little novel. I just cannot find a title and without a title, I'm dead in the water. I can't send out queries or do anything to attempt to get my silly story published without one. I did a full re-read, trying to get some new ideas, but nothing came to mind. I've asked my sister and she has no ideas. And apparently -gulp- my BIL read it too. OMG, it's full of sex, excuse me while I hide. But even he liked it. No title suggestions, though. Sob. I've gone so far as to try title generators on the internet. I really think ChatGPT is going to be my next step.

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