Moving day

 Hello everyone.  I've decided that now is a good time to move my blog.  I've chosen WordPress.  I struggled with this site and struggled with it and finally got tired of struggling with it and have started over.  

I think this is a link to my most recent post.    https://lanewilhite-mecak.wordpress.com/2026/01/19/mlk-day/

I don't know anything about Wordpress so we'll be learning together.  

If you decide not to follow me there, know that it has been my pleasure to share my life with you for the last 20+ years.  Thank you so much for reading.  

Lane

Not supposed to be this way

I did not plan on this being quilt folding weekend.  I did not plan to open my closet to put away quilts and end up pulling out all my quilts.  I did not plan. 

But, then when I came up with a plan I thought was brilliant I couldn't wait to implement it.  

Rob said it looked like my quilt closet exploded when he came round the corner and saw it.  

I was putting away the Christmas quilts and noted how hard it had been for us to find wintery quilts to hang.  I was basically pawing through everything trying to find blues and grays.  And, then I thought, why not store all my quilts by season instead of by size.  The clouds broke open, the sun shone down upon me, and four angels sang "Ahhhh."  And, I was off to the races.  I pulled, I refolded, I sorted and I took all but three quilts off the pool noodles they were rolled on.  I found this quilt that I'd forgotten I'd made.  If I remember right, this started as a bag of brightly colored hexie flowers that I bought at a quilt show boutique.  The background quilting is stunning, if I may say so myself.  

And, when I was done, the closet looked like this.  I can quickly grab a brightly colored spring quilt or a bold summer or muted autumn quilt to display.  And, the table toppers are stored with the quilts so everything is handy.  

I was putting plants in the greenhouse yesterday.  I have a large snake plant that I needed to lift.  I very carefully held my face so there was no chance of getting one of those spiky points in my eye.  And, just as I got it at eye level, one of those spikes let go and whipped around and the sharp edge caught me in the eye.  So, now I have a scratch that's not so much painful as annoying because my eye won't stop watering.  So much for being careful.  

I can get books at Goodwill for $2-$3.  I buy something that strikes my fancy once in a while, but mostly, I shop for cookbooks.  Oddly, they've gotten kind of hard to find lately and I wonder if someone isn't buying them up to resell.  I ended up with 5 recently; four easy meal cookbooks and a baking book.  I've set the goal of finding and making a recipe from each of the four cookbooks over the next four weeks.  One night I was up with Bella and started reading the baking book and got really intrigued and decided to make something from it.  The first chapter is cookies and when I was reading recipes, I realized they're all to make a couple dozen cookies, which is much better for us than recipes that make 4-6 dozen.  (Don't tell anybody but I ate four dozen peanut butter cookies in a week and a half by myself and I just don't need that kind of temptation around the house.). I made oatmeal, raisin, dark chocolate chip cookies yesterday and they are fantastic!  Slightly chewy, not too sweet.  The author said to let them sit in the fridge for a half hour before baking so the liquids could permeate and soften the oatmeal, and it worked.  They've very chewy, without the oatmeal being hard.  

I'd never heard of Rose Beranbaum.  I don't know if she's regionally known or I've just lost track of who's writing cookbooks over the years.  Apparently she's written several.  I like the way it's set up and the tips and tricks she includes.  And, I'm looking forward to making other recipes from this cookbook.  

I was definitely on a cooking roll yesterday.  I made an egg casserole, beef and veggie casserole, meatloaf, chicken stew and a batch of cookies.  It was a good day, but I spent nearly the whole day in the kitchen.  

If lying was McDonald's the president would look like Violet Beauregard after she turned into a blueberry.  If he turns to the side, he looks like he's getting close.  Really, y'all.  I know I keep tapping my fingers waiting for the turning point.  It feels like it's getting closer.  

Everybody have a great week!  Lane

No resolutions

I didn't need to make resolutions this year.  I'm on a constant quest to do better, be better, be nicer and spend a little more time relaxing than I did the day before.  So far this year, that last one has been a complete fail.  Almost all the Christmas decorations are down and the house is getting back to normal.  But, there's a pile of Christmas quilts sitting on the sofa next to me that need to be folded and put away.  I spent a good bit of the last two weeks in the sewing room, not particularly doing what I should have been, but having fun anyway.  I've made some really good food and some not so good food and worked in the yard some and cleaned house a lot...I guess I try to start every year with a clean house, but as fast as I straighten up one place, I make a mess in another.  I feel like I spent the whole two weeks in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, cooking, cleaning...I have dishpan hands.  And, I can't wait to retire and do this all the time.  

I was un-decorating the tree and started playing a game with myself; what's our strangest ornament.  I decided it wasn't the kitchen sink (our tree has everything, even a kitchen sink).  It wasn't the shoes and umbrella combo.  Not the pink flamingoes or the 3 ballet dancers.  Not even the frog prince.  We have a Yoda ornament.  Don't you?  This is a new ornament we found this year.  A great addition to the collection.  

I picked all the quilting out of the Wedding Ring quilt the other day.  There were too many technical errors.  I have two black quilts and they are both riddled with technical errors and I hate them both.  They are lovely to look at, but I know the back story and can't enjoy either one.  I don't need another black quilt that I don't love, so I picked it out and will start over.  I can do better.  The errors were because of my attitude.  I 'had to' finish the quilt.  I 'had to' quilt it a certain way, even though it was harder.  There was no 'want to' or experimentation going on.  No looking forward to sitting down and quilting for the day.  There was no 'play' in it.  It was all 'work.'  So, I took it out.  I'd only done about 10%, and anybody that's followed me for long knows I've picked out a lot more than that and started over before.  I need to enjoy it.  I need to take it slow.  And, I need to re-pin baste that corner I was working in and am hoping it doesn't mean I have to re-baste the whole quilt.  But, if it does, it does.  Too late to change that decision.  And, when I start again, I need to quilt small spaces, not try to quilt the whole thing in one go.  It's a domestic machine, not a long-arm.

I also did some piecing while I was postponing the pin-basting.  I'm still getting moved into a new sewing space and getting tools where they need to be and piecing is a good way to do that.  I put together this little Christmas runner...after Christmas.  I got on a cutting binge this summer and this is one of the little quilts I cut out.  Easy to assemble and got me in the mood.

I wanted to do a block of the month this year.  Something with a little challenge.  But, I didn't find anything I wanted to do.  I found one little shop in a small town that was doing a beautiful BOM.  And, while it was a walk in only BOM where you show your completed block to get the fabric for the next block free, I realized I could draft the blocks.  They were simple blocks, set on point and the color and dyed fabrics made the finished quilt stunning!  For a challenge, I was going to make it half sized and use my batik scraps.  But, then I thought 'what am I doing?'  I have about 23 projects in my closet where everything is kitted up and maybe I should do one of those if I was so interested in creating another UFO.  

I let Rob choose.  

He chose a Christmas quilt kit I've had for a long time.  I picked it up somewhere for a song.  The center is a panel, so easy enough, but when I looked at it closely, I had notes.  Let's face it.  I can't follow a pattern.  Always gotta strike out on my own.  I'm not a big fan of the 4 pointed stars.  And, the flying geese trees up both sides of the panel felt too busy.  So, I did some playing around and came up with a different star that I can squeeze out enough fabric for and drafted new trees that I think will be less distracting and will feel more "Christmas-y."  

The way I've kept my sewing studio set up, I've had a quilting machine, a piecing machine and a serger always available.  If I got bored while I'm quilting something large, I'd piece something or make a shirt on the other machine.  But, now I have two machines that both quilt nicely set up.  And, there's no reason I can't take a break every now and then to quilt something small in the middle of quilting something big.  There's a ton of small quilts in my studio closet that I could finish in a weekend.  When I need a distraction from quilting the Wedding Ring quilt, I hope to start quilting one of them instead of piecing another something new.  

But, you just never know when I might start piecing something new.  Everybody loves starting something new, right?  

So, like, I'm confused.  Is it America First, or Venezuela First?  Oh, yeah, it's all the money somebody's going to make stealing oil from another sovereign nation.  I got it.  In Trumpism, you only have to find where the money's going to find the reason for doing anything.  

Everybody have a good week.  It's back to work for me.  Yippee.  And, an in-office day tomorrow.  what fun.  

Lane

Looks like we made it

Another good Christmas in the bag.  Or box, or tub or whatever we're storing Christmas in between events.  Christmas Eve, we planned a nice, easy dinner that I messed up by not having all the ingredients.  Rob was still putting out Christmas decorations on Christmas Day.  Sydney came and we all had a nice visit and lunch.  Neither of us wanted dinner that night.  The day after Christmas, Rob started taking down decorations and we spent the rest of the day visiting friends, lunch with one couple, cocktails with another and a serious nap between.  Saturday found Rob still taking down decorations and me cleaning the kitchen, putting away dishes...and resting.  Yesterday, I did a lot of cooking for this week and we took down the swag in the living room.  Today, we're both looking forward to lounging in our desk chairs at work.  

I almost named this post 'I knew I could, I knew I could...'  And, I did.  Three layers, white frosting...well, whiter than the white chocolate I used for the flower.  

I actually made two cakes on Tuesday.  I had a recipe picked out and I made it and was putting it in the pans and remembered I hadn't added the food coloring.  And, because it was a chiffon cake, I'd lost my opportunity, if there really ever was one.  How was I going to fold that cake batter enough to get a consistent color without breaking down the beaten egg whites that were the leavening?  So, I baked those two layers and soon as the pans were cool, I started over with another recipe. 

The cake is really something I do for me.  It's the challenge.  Getting better every year.  I don't want to spend a lot of time learning to frost pretty cakes, mostly because we wouldn't eat them.  A big chunk of this cake is going to be tossed because it got really dry before we could eat it all.  I need a plastic cake form to just decorate and enjoy and scrape off and start again.  

Early mornings (and any other time I could sneak off), I worked on this little quilt.  It's all together now.  I think I needed to pour some pre-holiday stress into this quilt as I was piecing it.  I got all worked up over it a couple of times because pieces weren't going together right.  And, I was re-orienting to my Singer 301, which will do what I ask it to every time, but it takes a little practice to figure out what I want to ask it to do.  Anyway, I struggled and picked out seams and picked out seams and did I mention that I picked out seams until I got it all together.  And, I got most of the points.  

The camera angle on that picture isn't doing me any favors.  It's not that wonky.  I swear, it came out square.  And, the few places where there's a little extra fabric will probably quilt out.  Probably.

Everybody have a great New Year's week!  Find a blessing and hold it close.  And, pray that the next year is somehow better than the last.  And, for the strength to withstand whatever comes.  

Lane

Christmas week and all through the house

Just think, in a week it will all be over.  In a week, the presents will be unwrapped, praised, complained about, boxes will have been played with more than toys, awkward holiday dinners will be over and the dishes will have been washed.  And, we'll likely be eating something other than ham...but I don't know, it's a pretty big ham.  Merry Cheesemas everybody!

There are only a few decorations left to get pictures of.  There are trees everywhere.  These two sit next to my desk.  My Mom's ceramic tree was all white, so when I saw the little one, it reminded me of her.  

And, there's one in the bathroom...because why not.  Sydney always put up a pink tree in this bathroom, but I found this white one at goodwill for $2 including 12 little ornaments, then spent another $12 on additional decorations.  Twelve little balls was not enough.  Christmas is about excess!  And, I excessed it up.  I don't think it's too cheesy.

I don't think I gave quite enough attention to this little tree.  This is the tree with the oldest ornaments on it.  These are from my Grandparents and from my parent's first Christmas.  Rob found a cute way to display them that doesn't draw attention to their condition, but lets me enjoy a nice display.  

And, we can't forget the reason for the season.  I've seen a lot of these, but this one used almost the exact same molds that my Grandmother used for the one she made my Mom, except in that one, the baby Jesus can be removed from the manger and our angels are different.  I've had mine for 30+ years and my Mom's would likely be 65 years old.  And, these are still my favorite.  

I took the CRV to the shop last week for regular maintenance and a couple of minor recalls.  When the man asked how many miles and I said 3100, he was so skeptical that I started the car to check...3109.  And, caught him looking over my shoulder to make sure the old man hadn't forgotten how numbers work.  We drive.  I swear we do.  But, I don't commute, so we mostly drive on weekends.  Maintenance was smooth.  They gave me a ride home and I took a Waymo back, just for the lark.  If you're not familiar, Waymo is driverless.  Rob said he had anxiety when I sent him this picture.  Couple times when we were approaching a hill, it slowed to a crawl in heavy traffic.  Scared the be-cheesus out of me.  It took a route through my neighborhood on streets I'd never driven on and I said "you're lost aren't you?"  Thankfully, it didn't answer.  But, suddenly, we were at a red-light.  It had driven there rather than make an unprotected left turn onto a busy street, so my overall rating is that it's overly conservative, but that's not really a bad thing, right?  The Uber driver that brought me home crossed 4 lanes or traffic at 70 mph because she'd nearly missed her exit, and that made me feel a lot less safe.

I made my sugar cookies yesterday.  Well, actually, I made them last weekend and just got around to baking them yesterday.  No frosting this year.  I told Rob it was too much.  I think it cheesed him off a little, but he was a good sport about it.  I keep talking up this year's cake to take his mind off it.  Orange flavored.  One red layer and one green layer, each cut in half horizontally and alternated red/green/red/green with orange filling and a buttercream frosting as close to white as I can get.  Then, I'm going to paint bay leaves with white chocolate and peel off the leaf, leaving me with a white chocolate "petal" for a poinsettia that I'll place on top with some silver balls in the center.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

We'll see.  

Cheese'nRice, surely I can follow a simple set of instructions.  

I made homemade chicken dogfood to try to give Bella something good to eat and she turned her nose up at it.  Dottie says she'll be glad to help me out and not let it go to waste.  It had a lot of dog friendly veggies and ground chicken and I cooked it in the crockpot, then ran it though the food grinder that attaches to my Kitchenaid.  I even tasted it and all it needed was a little salt and pepper and cheese and I could have fed it to Rob.  

It's clearly going to be a very cheesy Christmas around here.  If you're not having fun this week, try to be cheesy.  Remember  that by next Monday, it will all be over and in a couple weeks, it will all be back in the box.  And, in a few months, it will be time to do it all again...oops, lost my positive spin there didn't I.  

Merry Cheesemas Everybody!!  And, stick it to the man...you know which one.  

10 days and counting

 I think Rob is still putting up decorations.  Where does he find the time?  I'm mostly focused on cleaning and keeping us fed.  I spent both weekend mornings in the yard, prepping for freezing temps and yesterday afternoon in the kitchen.  I'm ready for a workday so I can just sit down.  

Last Sunday, we were in the grocery and I saw these amaryllis on sale for $7.50.  I joked that they were probably prepped for Christmas bloom but were going to bloom late, so they were on sale.  The poor plant was so dry the spikes looked dusty.  Brought it home and gave it some water and a week later, we have blooms.  So, maybe they were on sale because they're going to bloom before Christmas.  Doesn't matter.  They're beautiful!  Rob has challenged me to keep the bulb and try to get it to do this again next year.  The flowers are about 7" across and there's a second spike coming up.  .

We have a fireplace, but it's rarely cold enough to use it.  And, if it gets cold enough, it's quick enough to move the quilt and a few things and light a fire.  

But Rob goes all out on the mantle.  We try to buy a Santa every year to add to the collection, tho they seem to get smaller and smaller out of necessity.

Rob sets up two villages every year.  There's the Victorian village and Retroville, which was a limited edition collectable village from JoAnn's many years ago.  He's short one piece and it's so hard to find that we haven't been able to get it for him.  

And, there are Christmas quilts.  This one was a paper pieced block of the month that I found online many years ago.  Thanks to whoever posted it!  I altered the Christmas ornament block to have 6 ornaments instead of 5 so that I could use the colors of the rainbow flag there.  

And, this one.  This is one of the first quilts I made while still working with my mentor.  She had purchased this as a kit and let me use the patterns to create my own version.  

And, this one, from when I was learning to machine quilt.  Look at how much of the quilt's pattern is from the quilting.  So, much quilting.

We went Christmas shopping on Saturday.  We talked about going to large retailers, but decided to go to the small boutique "booth" shops where vendors can rent a booth and you never know what you're going to find.  One of the things I found for myself was a copper bowl.  It was heavy and large and black on the inside.  I'm pretty sure the previous owner used it as wall decor and only polished the outside, which wasn't in great shape either.  But, I know what to do with copper and in just a few minutes yesterday, I'd turned it into this!  It will be so much nicer to unwrap on Christmas morning now that it's all shiny.  It's about 50% larger than the copper bowl I already have and I pulled out my ginormous whisk and gave it a test run and I can't wait to whip egg whites in it.  I barely have to move my wrist at all to get the full effect.  Too bad it will be wrapped in a box when I make my Christmas cake next week.

One more work week to go and then I'm taking a bunch of time off.  I deserve it.  Everybody have a great week.  If you like decorating, do it all over.  And, if you don't, then let your open loving heart be your Christmas decoration for all to see.  

Lane

Decorating and then some

We really need to work out this greenhouse/holiday thing better.  Right now, we're doing all the things we do to get ready for Christmas.  But, we're also putting the garden to bed, setting up greenhouses and moving tender plants in anticipation of a freeze in the next week or so.  Yes, I realize some of you are reading this in front of a fire on a cozy, white winter's day...but in TX, the grass still needs mowing.  

I spent both weekend mornings in the yard, getting plants ready to go in the greenhouse.  I've learned this lesson.  I can't just drag them in and expect everything to be fine.  I have to clean them up, take out dead leaves and branches and take the fall leaves out of the pots.  If I don't, I get mold in the greenhouses that can take years to recover from.  

We've been doing our usual "it looks like Santa and his reindeer exploded in here" level decorating. 

This is the Li Bien tree.  The ornaments are theoretically hand painted from the inside.  The older ones probably are.  Anyway, we'd go shopping at Pier 1 close to Christmas when they were on sale, sometimes buying 5-6 a year for us, and we gave them as gifts.  When Pier 1 closed, World Market started to carry them, but they're not the same and they're a lot more expensive and they don't go on sale as far as we can tell, so the collecting is probably done.  They make a nice tree, tho.  But, we forgot to change the quilt behind them to the Christmas quilt.  Oops!  On top of the china cabinet, there's a small wire tree hung with vintage ornaments from my parent's first holiday together and from my Grandparents.  

Rob puts these spring curtain rods in the windows and hangs vintage "Shiny Bright" brand ornaments from them.  But, first, he had to clean all the windows.  And, I got him to clean the kitchen window too, while he was at it.  Thanks, dear!!!

This is the ceramic Christmas tree Rob's Mom made.  He had strong memories of this, so before he got this one from her, we'd bought another at a garage sale (where the lady didn't know the value, so Rob paid her double what she was asking...talk about surprised!)

Every year, Rob creates a new display...that's how we've gotten here.  I bring you this year's display (drumroll).  He found these glass shelves when he was cleaning the garage and built the display around them.  When he was building it, I asked why it needed to be temporary.  I can certainly think of things I could display here, so it became a permanent installation.  The little ceramic tree in the bottom right is the one from the garage sale.  It needs a brighter light.  

This is the swag that hangs across the living room ceiling.  Every year, I say I'm not going to put it up and every year, I do.  

To really appreciate it, you have to look close at the variety of red ornaments.  Rob and I have been collecting them for 25 years.  

There's candy and cardinals, Santas and apples,  reindeer and snowmen and every other kind of red ornament we could find.  Before I got the ornament collection from my Mom, we did red trees with white lights and a white pearl garland.  That was lovely too.  

Okay, couple pictures from the garden and I'll let you go.  I stopped in the middle of setting up the greenhouse to build this trellis for the blackberries.  Rob asked if I had time to stop and build a trellis and I explained this was part of putting plants in the greenhouse, but I think he was still skeptical.  Anyway, it took a nondescript plant and made it look really nice.  I hope it still looks this good when it comes out in spring.  

And, this is the Japanese maple, doing exactly what I always hoped it would.  Last year, I put it in the greenhouse too early, while the leaves were still green, and they just browned and dried and clung to the branches.  That usually means a tree is dead.  When I pulled it out in spring, I pulled the dead leaves and set it to the side to see what happened and it leafed out, so I was very happy.  This year, I've left it out and the leaves have turned purple/red.  Loving it!

Everybody have a great week!  My boss is in town tomorrow, so I'll be in the office and will have an after work dinner.  Yay.  Not sure who all will be there, but it should be an interesting day.  

Lane

Back to work

It's back to work for me today after 6 days off.  I am not looking forward to it.  But, it will be easier than what we've been doing for the last three days.  Most of the Christmas decorations are up.  I'm pretty sure Rob has a couple other things planned and there are a couple things he's still tweaking into perfection, but the big things like the trees and the swag are done.  It's not that they take so much time, but my shoulders ached when it was done from reaching up and down.  

This is Rob's village tree.  He built this A-frame shelving unit out of old fence wood, so it looks very aged.  He has stories about what the people are doing. 

Last night, everyone was gathering at the pub for shenanigans.  

I was decorating the tree yesterday.  I unpacked all the ornaments in the collection.  There are more than it looks like.

This is where I almost gave up.  

This is where I took two Aleve.

But, I got them all on the tree.  The tree doesn't have the 'sparkle' it usually does.  There's a box of balls missing.  I asked Rob about it yesterday and he decided the tree had enough on it.  Who was I to argue?  I definitely went and sat down instead.  

It's fine, but it's as lackluster as my Thanksgiving dinner was.  It was just the three of us.  I pared down the menu some this year, including all the favorites, but not the extras that no one but me likes.  Sydney had trouble with her corn casserole, but it came out good.  My cornbread dressing had too much poultry seasoning and I baked it til it was dry as sand.  And, I added sautéed onion and bell pepper to the green bean casserole.  Don't do that.  The sweetness of the peppers made the cream of mushroom soup taste sour.  No one liked it and most of it got thrown away.  Oh, and that butterball turkey was very moist, but it had NO flavor even though I did all the things I normally do to impart flavor, even putting seasoned butter under the skin.  But, we laughed and visited and had fun together and that's what really counts.  

Rob and I were done with the leftovers Friday night and yesterday, I rendered the turkey down and made a small pot of turkey soup for me to have for lunches and enough leftover to make tetrazzini.  

I danced around with a sewing machine on black Friday sale over the weekend.  Ultimately, I decided not to pull that trigger.  I didn't know that you can buy a new machine without a computer.  I don't want a computerized machine, partly for the cost and partly because that stuff wears out faster than the moving parts and when it does, it becomes a large paper weight.  Anyway, I discovered that you can buy a "mechanical" machine without a computer for a fraction of the price.  If it had been something I was actually shopping for and not a black Friday impulse purchase, I probably would have done it.  It was on sale 40% off.  But, maybe I'll start studying sewing machines because as much as I love my Berninas from the 80's, they're not going to last forever.  

I tried working on my Mom's machine the other day and it exceeded my skills, but I found another machine that fits her cabinet.  I think I'm going to like this as my sewing station.  I worked on a little quilt over the weekend.  I struggled with seam allowances and was kind of frustrated until I realized that it wasn't the machine or the seam allowance I had set...it was the pieces I'd cut that were off, so I'm paper piecing some flying geese to get the right size out of them.  This is my Singer 301 machine.  It's lightweight like a featherweight, but a full sized machine.  I'v used it for piecing and it's great at free motion quilting.  

The noose tightens.  I can't think of any other way to describe what we're watching in politics.  There's a knot that tightens the more you struggle with it.  It's like we're watching that process in slow motion.  But, slow is still motion.

Everyone have a great week!  I hope your holidays were all you wanted them to be and that you're looking forward to round 2 in a few weeks. 

Lane

Thanksgiving week

Like most US households, we have a turkey thawing in the fridge.  It was easier this year to get a small bird and I don't know why, but the butterball was on sale for about the same price as the store brand, so we  upgraded.  The menu is written up and soon I'll assign start times to everything and later, I'll assign casserole dishes.  The goal this year is smaller amounts, sometimes cutting recipes in half, sometimes breaking them into two casserole dishes and freezing one to pull out for Christmas, which has a similar side dish menu.  It always seems like there's so much waste at Thanksgiving (even though we waste very little food) and there's no need for that.  Sydney is bringing the pumpkin pie.  Last year, I gave her our traditional pie plate, our traditional mixing bowl (same as the one featured in the cookbook photo), and a copy of the vintage cookbook the recipe comes from...and told her I was not planning to ever make a pumpkin pie again.  From now on, that's her job.  If I need a pie off-holiday, I'll call her.  

We love pumpkin pie and I really should make it more often.  But, I also love apple pie and chocolate pie and peach pie, pecan pie and cherry pie and...well, you get the picture.  

I've learned better than to try to feed Rob turkey for a week, so I splurged and bought a roast.  And, it was quite a splurge.  Over the last week, I've been reading about why beef is so expensive.  People don't think enough about how fragile our food supply is.  Another example is cranberry sauce.  I pointed out that our can was 2.50 this year, way up from last year and commented that it was probably because there was no one to pick the berries.  He said a machine does that, but while I continued grocery shopping, he looked it up and turns out it's not pick the berries, it's a shortage of workforce to can them that's affecting the cost.  Anyway, this year I plan to make all the traditional dishes because I can, and because I may not be able to next year.  

Eat, drink, and be merry...

I'm always looking for new ways to use my spaces and have recently rearranged furniture in my sewing room and yoga/music room.  Is it better?  Yes, it's a more efficient use of the space.  But, mostly, it's change.  I crave change.  The unofficial motto at work as long as I've been there has been 'the only constant is the change.'  And, that has carried over into my personal life.  Rob grew up with constant change, so he craves stability.  I grew up with an oppressive level of stability and I crave change.  We are who we are.  Anyway, some things in the house that should be in the garage now have places out there, and a whole lot of stuff has gone to dumpsters and Goodwill and it feels like there's some space to breathe.  I swear, this is going somewhere.

It's resulted in some new places for plants.  I've had this little gossip bench (phone table) for many years.  Many, many years and it came from a couple of friends that sold all their stuff and moved to California.  I wonder what happened to them.  Anyway, there was a little corner that it fit perfectly, but we decided to do something else there and it came into the yoga room and sat there with nothing on it, or when it had something on it, it wasn't the right thing.  I used it to create this plant emergency room.  There's a grow light in the lamp and it's on a timer and the sickest of the houseplants are there.  It was an idea I had on a lark in Lowe's one day when we were shopping for lightbulbs.  And, it worked out.  I had my first graduate the other day that moved into a more visible place.  It's not fully recovered yet, but it's not dying anymore and has put on a good bit of new growth, so that's a win.  

When I moved furniture around in the office/studio, I created this plant station in front of a sunny window.  Some of these plants won't like it in summer, but they'll love being here this winter.  

And, yesterday, I cleaned in the greenhouse (yes, this is clean).  I had to so I could work on those two pencil cactus in the back right corner.  Pencil cactus love it here.  Right now, we have 5, one 7' tall, one 5' tall and three 3' tall.  We started with the big one in a 2" pot, 25 years ago.  They've been in tall slender lightweight plastic pots for years but have gotten so big that the slightest breeze knocks them over, so we bought larger, heavier pots with wider bases.  To help with the transition, I wanted to get them in the greenhouse where I can tie the tree to the rafters where it will be steady as the roots get used to the new pot and the soil compacts.  I sure won't need it tipping over in the greenhouse this winter.  

Bella on a good day.  She had a couple bad days last week and I was pretty sure it was time, then the next morning, she attacked her breakfast like it was going to try to escape and put weight back on and got back to normal and wanted to be walked.  Like Lazarus, y'all.  She may look sad, but she was feisty enough to both lick me on the nose and bite my hand this morning, before she peed down my pants leg on the way out the door.  (the things old people get away with...)

Today is my only "work day" this week.  I'll work my butt off the rest of the week, but it's not the work I get paid to do.  Sydney's the only one coming, so I'm not quite sure what I'm doing all this housecleaning for.  Being prepared, I guess.  I have some back yard chores to do to give us a better view, and some inside chores to do, and then Wednesday is prep and Thursday is cooking, Friday I'll put away dishes and decorate the first Christmas tree.  Saturday is swag day and Sunday is big Christmas tree day.  Rob has already put the lights on the outside of the house.  Other people put theirs up and he couldn't let us fall behind.  But now, what's he going to do while I cook on Thursday.  That's traditionally been how he stays out of my hair.  I might have to teach him to knit...

Everybody have a great week!  I'm intentionally not focusing on negative thoughts...but what about that Lindsay Halligan, y'all?  I'm glad I'm better at my job than she is at hers...wait, is that wrong?  No, it's right.  I'm glad she's so bad at hers, which makes me even prouder to be good at mine.  

Eat, drink, be merry, be kind.  Be thoughtful.  Be uplifting.  And do your best to ignore cousin Durwood, who you know is going to be an asshole at your dinner table.  Because he is every year.  But, you love him, so you keep inviting him.  And, on Black Friday every year, you wonder why.  

Lane

Fortress of solitude

Okay, last week was unusual.  There was a thing at work and I took a couple days off.  By the time Rob got home from visiting his Mom, the house was very cleaned up and I'd done some pre-holiday reorg and now, it's time to start another week.  And, they were playing holiday music in the grocery store and it's just too early y'all...way too early.

Last week, I planted a fig tree in the garden to replace one of the crabapples that we lost.  And, somehow, I didn't manage to take a picture.  I didn't even take a picture of the ginormous hole I had to dig that I was so proud of.  I've got to get better at taking pictures of the interesting things that happen...like being able to dig a ginormous hole at 63.  

I did some laundry last week.  I do laundry so rarely I have to study the machine a little before I hit start to make sure everything is set up right.  I put the dry towels on the sofa and forgot about Dottie's love of warm laundry.  She didn't waste any time getting in the middle of it and going to sleep.

And, speaking of Dottie, in the latest furniture move, the chair that used to sit next to my desk got moved into the 'music room.'  Rob took these pictures and narrated for Dottie.

"Rob, this is my chair."

"Lane, why is my chair in here.  This is not where it belongs"

Unfortunately, this chair is too low for playing ukulele.  My knees are up around my chest if I sit forward enough to play.  So, my previous chair is still in this room and I'm still working out how to incorporate it.  

Did you know that snake plant will bloom?  I grew up calling this mother in law's tongue.  I started with one a few years ago.  Now, I have several.  I'd never noticed them bloom.  The bloom isn't a "feature" of the plant.  Kind of straggly, but it must be happy or it wouldn't have bloomed.  The others are in more sun and have more white in the leaves but maybe they'd prefer a little more shade.

I got a little sewing done this weekend, but no quilting.  One of the things coming out of the music room is this foldable bed.  It's a comfortable mattress that Rob bought when he was sleeping on the floor next to Dottie's crate.  I want to move it to the garage, but don't want it to get dusty, so it needed a bag.  I spent about 3.5 hours Saturday afternoon and when I was done, I had a pretty nice custom bag.  It has mitered corners and a drawstring.  The fabric I chose wan't quite enough, so I made a sleeve for the drawstring and attached it to the opening.  It worked out great!  And, I made the whole thing on my white featherweight.  Because it really is a grown up machine in a small body.

I was going to use my Mom's machine, which I've set up in the sewing room.  But, the bobbin gear that I replaced when I got it it broken again.  That means I installed it wrong or that it was a cheap replacement part.  I've ordered another from a reputable parts warehouse and will install it when it gets here and hopefully be able to use that machine.  

I've been feeling a little low, so it's been a good time to stay away from the news.  I have to take breaks every so often.  I did see that t was pushing for the release of the epstein files, which can only mean the doj has altered them to make him look uninvolved.  Or, we'll find out they've been 'lost'.  It's definitely corruption by the hour around him now.  I wonder if my birth family would still support him if they found out he was a statutory rapist.  And, I'm very afraid they would, so I hope I don't have to find out.  

I checked my deleted email folder the other day and was surprised at the number of democratic party fundraising emails that my email blocks were sending there.  I'm in favor of starving the party of money until they accomplish something.  I've stated my terms.  There should be one of them on the news 24 hours a day speaking about he corruption.  Until that happens, they'll keep losing.  

Everybody have a good week.  Keep your chin up.  If you can, take a break from politics.  It's helpful for keeping everything else in perspective.  

Lane