7 Quick Takes (Vol 83)

1.
I am trying to clean some things out from my pantry. I love my pantry with a deep and abiding love. It is big and roomy, just like a pair of my old sweat pants. But the problem is things sometimes get “lost” in there. I will put something on the shelves, thinking I will use it. And then as time goes by it migrates to the back of the shelves and then it sits there, for years in certain cases.

Case in point, I found a package of “Herbed Focaccia Bread that I think came in some gift basket that was given to us years ago. So long ago that I can’t really remember when. That is not good if you are dealing with a bread that has a yeast packet in it. So, I will use it up today only I will get rid of the yeast packet with it’s ancient yeast and sub some fresh. And we will see.

Of course, in cleaning out a drawer in the pantry yesterday I also found a plastic bag with four FULL SIZE Hershey bars.

SCORE!

Just to let you know, even with the addition of fresh yeast the boxed mix was…..not so good. A disappointment but it was OK when dipped in olive oil. But then isn’t anything made better with the addition of olive oil.

2.
Can I say that it is really quiet around here during the day. It always takes a few weeks to get back into the “empty nester” routine after having a progeny home for the summer. It wasn’t like Shoe Queen was hanging around Chez Knit for three straight months, she did take a couple of trips (more than me!) and she was gone here and there.

No, it is just the fact that there is another person inhabiting the house besides just HHBL and I…and of course Max the Wonder Dog.

But I am not complaining. Just adjusting.

3.
Well, the garden is winding down. We are harvesting a lot of tomatoes. Our green beans are done, prematurely both LookLeap and I feel. Another flood in the garden didn’t help and then something, a bunny or ground hog perhaps, ate the tops off the very healthy plants and then it was all down hill from there. But we are already thinking about next year and what we want to plant.

The broccoli goes in earlier as do the beans and zucchini. I would like a row or two of beets. I think LookLeap needs to try cantelope again. And I would like more Roma Tomato plants.

What we REALLY need is another plot. She is working on that.

4.
Here it is, Friday morning at 5:45a and I am still writing Quick Takes. But then, that is sort of how my blogging has been lately. There are days when I am not sure what my blog post will be when I wake up in the morning. I used to plan them out for the whole week very meticulously. But now, nope. Oh sure, there are some that are planned. But it seems more recently that I am flying by the seat of my rather large capris most days.

I will try to do better because I hate having to do Quick Takes on Friday mornings. I don’t rushing for anything. For me rushing = mistakes.

And I hate to make mistakes…..because then you all won’t think that I am perfect.

Cough, cough.

5.
I might have mentioned I used to be a Creative Memories consultant. I was not meant to be a consultant. I am not cut out for that but it took me 4 years to realize it and it another story for another time. But it did show me that I love scrapbooking. I have A LOT of scrapbooking materials.

But then we decided to sell our house, or try to sell our house. That hasn’t happened yet and I am tired of not being able to scrapbook because heaven forbid you would have scrapbooking stuff set up in your basement when people come to look at the house.

So I have decided to raise my hands in defiance of Joyce the House Stager and put up a small table in the basement so that I can work.

Take that Joyce! You aren’t the boss of me! I will scrapbook.

Just don’t tell Joyce that I said that. She is small but mighty.

6.
I continue to be controlled by my desire to buy school supplies. Post Its rule my life. I had coupons, Wally Mart had the super sticky post its for $1 a piece, it was like getting them for free. I just couldn’t resist. I continue to tell myself that I need no more packs of post its. And yet they call to me with their siren song of sticky noteness. I struggle not to heed the call.

I have, however, resisted buying any packs of paper. That is definitely something that I don’t need. But I did linger longer than I should over pens and pencils (mechanical only and .05 lead). And I did have to talk myself out of crayons.

Oh how I loved to color. I would carefully plan what color each section would be. I would carefully out line the section with the color and then shade in just up to the line. Coloring outside the lines was unacceptable to me when I was growing up. Lines were there for a reason and should not be violated.

Hmmmm, rabbit trail there. And now I really want some crayons.

7.
You would be very proud of me. I have managed to clean out two boxes of books from the pile in the basement. I put some up on Paperback Book Swap. I listed some for sale on Amazon (and sold 3 so far). There are some very old books that need to be assessed and then put up for sale on Ebay. But I am making progress. Some of the books were ones that I had not even read. They looked interesting. They still look interesting. But I tried to think of it this way. I would make a list of the books and get them at the library. The enjoyment of them comes from the reading itself and not the actual owning of the book.

Believe me, there are plenty of books that I am still keeping for the moment. This is a slow process for me, like loosing weight actually.

To quote Bob from What About Bob, “I’m babystepping! I’m doing the work!”

Just as an aside, What About Bob has to be one of the funniest movies that I have ever seen. It makes me belly laugh every time I watch it and we quote lines from it all the time. But then we are a family that lives by our movie line quotes.