7 Quick Takes (Vol 256)

Greetings from the part of the country where we still have our furnaces on and it may never get warm. OK, that might be a bit on the exaggeration side….but not much.

Conversion Diary is hosting again this week so you know what you need to do. When you are finished tip toeing through the blather tulips here you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of my ever expanding yarn stash (I might have bought some Christmas related yarn) over to Conversion Diary.

No matter how long the winter, blather is sure to follow.

1.
Reason #1247 to love smaller Chez Knit. On Saturday I washed the windows and put in the screens. The entire task took me about an hour to do. Wash window, put in screen, move to next window, repeat. This is in contrast to the TWO DAY job that washing windows and putting in screens was a OCK.

That is right, TWO DAYS.

At OCK there were 50+ windows to wash, twice a year. And the screens were buggers to get in and out and store. I dreaded the task with fierce passion. No need to see out of those windows! We can just tolerate the build up of grime. So what if the screen are light limiting. We don’t need any light in the winter time! It is dark anyways.

But that is no longer my problem. 

Including the upstairs windows I have 16 windows that need to be cleaned.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

2.
I have been trying to put better blog and podcast habits into place. Not writing of my blog (which has suffered a bit but what can you do) but the reading of the blogs that I currently follow in my blog reader and the podcasts that I listen to. I have found that I am a “blog hoarder” of the first magnitude. I am unable to clean out the blogs that I follow, to decide that I don’t want to read that blog any longer. I might need them someday. Having a boat load of blogs in the reader means that it doesn’t take all that long before I look at the count of blog posts not read and it will be at 499+ and I will be discouraged. I like to think that when I post something to my blog that people take the time to read it and therefore I like to take the time to read others blogs with as much thoroughness. But if there is an avalanche of unread blog posts in my reader then the reading with intensity just isn’t going to happen.

Plus I find that if I am threatened with a blog post tsunami I tend to spend too much time sitting at the computer or iPad trying to get through them. So, as of this week I am trying to clear them all out on a daily basis and then not look at the blog reader again for the rest of the day. So far it is working.

The same goes for Podcasts. I am trying to listen on a daily basis to the ones that have “dropped” into my Downcast app. Much more manageable and then it gives me time to work through the absolutely huge library of audiobooks that I have at the moment.

3.
Our little area of the Frozen Northeast Ohio has a wealth of agriculture and Farmer’s Markets and Pick Your Own places.

This year HHBL and I are trying something new……a Poultry CSA. Specifically the CSA from Brunty Farms. Oh my gosh I am so excited.

I am basically a frugal person. I am the one who goes to the grocery store with my little notebook that has my shopping list with the items to be purchased, the coupon that will be used, how many to buy, what my final price will be and the sale that is going on. I am all about the savings, baby!

Obsessive?

I have no idea what you are talking about.

But joining a CSA of any kind really isn’t about the savings. I am paying more for my poultry and my eggs when buying from Brunty than I am when buying from Giant Eagle or Heinens. And no, I do not buy ANY meat from Walmart, it may be cheap but who knows where it actually came from. And I have decided that I really and truly want to know where my meat comes from.

This was a two fold decision and one that it took me a while to come to. I want to know where our poultry comes from, since we eat a boat load of chicken (cluck) and I want to have a small part in encouraging our local farmers. If that means that I pay more for chickens then I will do so. I knew approximately how much it was going to cost and had been saving for that amount. I will let you know how they taste. If I were a betting woman I would think they are going to taste AWESOME. The best chicken soup I EVER had was in the interior of Mexico and was produced with a local chicken. I can still taste it in all it’s intense chickeny goodness.

I will stop now cuz I am making myself hungry.

4.
Wondering what HHBL and I did for Easter?

Absolutely nothing.

We didn’t have anyone over. We went to the Saturday evening Easter service (which was PACKED) rather than Sunday because we knew that they would need every square inch of butt space in the pews. We didn’t even have anyone over for Easter dinner.

Nothing. Nada.

This was actually a conscious choice this year. I had thought perhaps we should invite people over to have lunch with us but we honestly just needed some very quiet time. Our lives have been so busy for the first part of 2014 with travel and work and stuff. We have been go, go, go. The weekend before had been SO full of people and talking and food and memories that I was all talked out.

Stop laughing.

So we planned for a very quiet day, which it was.

It was very good for us.

5.
I have spent a ridiculous amount of time this week again fiddling with my iTunes. Why cannot I be someone who just lives with things as they are in iTunes. Why must I have my music “just so” in the perfect categories, all with appropriate album art attached and showing up in iTunes Match.

iTunes Match was really the problem this week. There was a bunch of music that I knew I had but that for some reason wasn’t showing up in Match. I figured out the problem but then it was a matter of converting the tracks to an AAC format and then refreshing Match and that takes time.

Obsessive? Whose obsessive?

The other big music project is going through all of our CD’s and making sure that I have the music in iTunes. HHBL and I have/had a VAST collection of CD’s at one point. I say “had” because I had already disposed of all of my CD’s before “the big move” last year. I went through every one of “my” CD’s by which I mean all the music that HHBL wouldn’t care about (all the Bluegrass and Klezmer music), made sure it was in iTunes, sold some CD’s on Amazon, traded in others for Amazon cash and donated the rest. HHBL is slowly going through all the rest of the CDs and then we will work on getting rid of those as well.

We are a lean mean CD machine.

However, that means that I spend time fiddling with my iTunes.

6.
In the past week I feel like I have come out of “winter hibernation” as far as decorating at Chez Knit. Really guys, I have been a whirlwind of decoration. There are things up on the walls, I have rearranged some things and unpacked some things. Of course I still have pastel walls in many rooms but I figure if I cover them up then I can live until they are painted.

I do have to say that whenever I pass by the walls that now actually have stuff on them, I am all happy happy joy joy. It may have been that despite my feeling so at home in the new Chez Knit, I didn’t truly feel at home. A house doesn’t really feel like a home until you claim the walls as your own.

This Spring fever of activity hasn’t just been confined to the interior. I bought a small patio table and two chairs this week as well as several pots for the front step. Oh how I wish that it was time to plant things in those pots but I think I will wait until after Mother’s Day just to be sure. There is a new fern in a holder on the back patio and I am thinking about planters and herbs and flowers.

Egads I feel like a bear that has been released from her den. Except for that bad bear smell.

7.
Because I am a supremely lazy individual and I seem never to actually be able to produce a #7….here are some Instagram photos for the week.