Random Tall Tales

"It was a dark and stormy night..."  In the first place this is slightly redundant--it was night, therefore it was dark.  And I don't know how stormy it actually was, but I do know the wind was blowing.  For some strange reason, the latch on the screen door does not work, so whenever the wind blows, we have to make sure that we lock the door or it flaps merrily in the wind--making a lot of racket and threatening to break the glass.

For some reason, I had forgotten to lock the screen before I went to bed and I didn't really ever hear the door banging in the wind.  Oh, and I can't forget that the door also squeeks and screeches like a Halloween sound effect...I didn't hear the door--what I thought I heard was mice.  We have been waging war against the mice and are not always the victor...Anyway, I was sure that I heard mice squeeking and rattling in the cabinet under the kitchen sink!

When I explained this to Kent, he looked at me oddly.  "I only heard the screen door.  Why didn't you get up and lock it?"

"Well, because...I thought I was hearing mice."

"Mice??  Any mice making that kind of noise you only want to see over the sights of the gun barrel."

"No, no, no!!!"  I exclaimed, "You may not shoot the mice!"

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want my kitchen walls to be ventilated!"

"But it would be a great way to get a new kitchen," explained Kent.  (We need to remodel the kitchen, but it's not in the budget just yet.)

"Ha!"  I commented.  "I wouldn't get a new kitchen.  Oh, no!  I'd have to go around and repair all the holes that you shot in the walls with flattened tin cans.  I can see it all now.  'Look, Dear, I did it all by myself.  I fixed the holes with the bottom of a  shortening can.'  Or maybe you could make the holes big enough and we could stuff them with old glass bottles."

All nonsense aside, we did have a lovely, restful Thanksgiving and my bathroom sink is now repaired and draining nicely.  I can now entertain myself by watching the water happily drain instead of backing up gurglingly into the sink.

Company Dinners

 Last weekend we attended my husband's annual company dinner.  He wanted to go since he's now been working ten years for the same company.  I don't really enjoy these affairs.  Mostly they are extremely boring and the food is incredibly mediocre. 
There was a small bit of entertaining conversation this year, however.  There was a comment about how there was a Harbor Freight nearby where we could go shopping.  Well, I would love to go to a Harbor Freight right about now.  I have a rather long wish list of tools that I would like to have to get started in metal work.

So I said I wanted to go to Harbor Freight.  I needed a whole bunch of tools.  The man gets a slightly indulgent look on his face and asked what I wanted.  Well...I want a disc cutter, a dapping block, the accompanying punches, a hole punch, the embossing punches for both the alphabet and numbers, oh, yeah, and a rolling mill.  Also a jeweler's saw...you get the idea.  So his next comment is: "I really don't need to know."  My husband kind of snickered and said, "Well, you did ask."  "Yes, but I thought she'd just say she wants one of these and one of those things.  No, she knows exactly what she wants."  "Yes, she does," responded my husband.  I have a list...

I always get funny looks when I start telling people I want this or that tool.  I also get funny looks when I go into an automotive parts store.  I complained about this once to one of my friends and her response was,"You are always going to get funny looks when you go to those type of stores because you are too girly!"  LOL!

Lunch and Lilac Blooms

 This is one of my purse charms.  They're quite a lot of fun to make and I can get really creative with the bead combinations.  I call this one "Lilac Blooms".

As I am getting ready to leave for work this morning, I am aware that there are no leftovers in the refrigerator to heat up quickly for lunch.  So I ask Ariana to please put potatoes to bake for us to eat, since we have to leave quickly again after we eat  and go back in to work.

Just before I leave I ask her what she is supposed to do for lunch?  One--to make sure she'll remember, and two--to make sure that I actually asked her to do something.  Today her answer was..."To heat up potatoes for lunch."

"No!"  I said.  "I don't want you to heat up potatoes for lunch. Heating potatoes would indicate that they have been previously cooked.  I want you to BAKE potatoes for lunch because I want baked, totally cooked potatoes when I get home."

For some reason this struck Ariana as inordinately funny.  She was laughing so hard that she nearly fell over.

Here is a completely unrelated factoid...If you are desirous of making leaf and wax-paper decorations, make sure that you get the leaves between the wax paper as soon as they are picked.  The wax-paper acts as a preservative and will help the leaves retain their color.  If you gather leaves and wait a few days (like I did with the children at preschool) before putting the leaves in the wax-paper, much of the color will have been lost and the leaves will be a uniform and fairly unappealing brown.  This might not be the case with sycamore leaves, but that is what happened with our maple, hawthorne, and redbud leaves.

Burning Questions

 Yes, I voted...that is all I'm going to say.  I realized that in spite of all the histrionics, I still have things to deal with in life that will not be resolved by this presidential election...

There is my bathroom.  About the only good thing to be said for it is that it is indoors and I don't have to trek outside fifty to a hundred feet in the cold, damp and wind to use it.  The sink hasn't drained right in years and seems to suddenly not want to drain at all!  It gurgles and bubbles like there is a mud monster living and breathing in the pipes.  And then there are the times it spits back!

I don't really want to add plumbing to my skills, but this sink is really testing my patience.  Part of the problem is the hard water has coated the pipes in mineral until the actual size of the drain has been reduced to the size of a pea.  I just installed a new towel bar and shelf--complete with screw anchors.  How hard could replacing the pipes be?  Probably harder than I suspect.  Mostly I see a recipe for a huge mess...

And then there's my car.  The poor thing needs tires.  I already had one unrepairable flat.  The nice tire store very kindly put a used one on that will get me by until I can manage to replace all the tires at once.  It's only tragic that their fall tire sale doesn't include the ones I need...

I'm not done cooking through the Veganomicon.  I really couldn't see myself cooking through one of Julia Child's cookbooks (being most definitely vegetarian), but I'm having the best fun trying the recipes in Veganomicon--and I'm not really vegan.  It seems that it is mostly the dairy products that jump in price whenever I'm shopping, so I'm mostly trying to cook without them as a way to save myself money (and also protest the ridiculous price increases).

My metallic black monster is part of the order that went to Canada...I love working with the metallic black in this size bead--it has so many variations.  I also love his gooseberry green eyes!  Hmm...I think I forgot what color green I used for them.

My newest necklace "Summer's End"  practically made itself and will be photographed soon.  I didn't run fast enough and the current cold/sinus infection caught me.  Then when I felt great on Monday, I overdid it just a trifle and had a relapse...So, hopefully, after the weekend I will get busy with the camera and get pictures taken.