CarpeAcum

Cream of Broccoli Soup

This was dinner the other night--Wednesday? Thursday? It all runs together. I just wanted to get a record of it so I would remember what I did, and it's already kind of fuzzy.

 

1 quart chicken broth

2 big baking potatoes (from Costco--biiiiiig potatoes)

dried onion

garlic powder

thyme

savory

celery seed

salt and pepper

about a cup of milk (I used nonfat, because that's what we have)

about 3-4 cups of leftover cooked broccoli

Peel the potatoes and cook them in the broth, along with the seasonings. When the potatoes start to fall apart (really done), blend them to a creamy consistency.

Right before serving, add the broccoli and let it heat up, then blend just a little more and add salt and pepper as needed.

I have an immersion blender. If I had to use a regular blender, I would do the blending all at once. Maybe blend the potato part, then add the broccoli and blend just a little more, then heat the whole thing up in the pan.

This would be better with more milk, but DH is allergic, and this much milk is about all he can take.

This was a big hit at my house. Next time, I'll make a LOT more--like 4 quarts at a time. My family likes soup! And leftovers.

 

(I really hate my harvest gold 1970s countertops)

 

Out of Steam

So. . .I was trying to blog every day, and I was actually doing it, but I felt like I had nothing to say. I was even boring myself. So I gave myself a couple days off. So much for resolutions, but I made a good stab at it. Maybe 3-4 times per week would be a better goal. Then maybe something will have happened that I want to blog about.

Mid-Winter Break has been breakneck. We had something planned every day except Friday, and Friday, Punkin and I had a Glee marathon. Sort of. We didn't get started until about 2 p.m., so we only got in 3 or 4 episodes. It was enough to get us going, though, and I think we'll try and watch some more tomorrow.

Yesterday, I cut out a top for Punkin to wear to her piano recital. I had a splitting headache last night, so I put it aside, and finished it this morning. It looked great! I used swimsuit fabric, so it's a little heavy, but that makes it draped really well. It's a dramatic black and white geometric print. I'll have to get a picture of it later. All the pictures we took today are videos. Her recital went *really* well. She's playing a Chopin Nocturne, Op. Post, and the first movement of the Beethoven Op. 10, No. 1 Cm piano sonata. The Chopin didn't go as well as I have heard it, but she really hit the Beethoven on the head. Everything should be resolved in time for her competition on Friday.

Tuesday was the orthodontist: Punkin got a bracket on her last 12 year molar. When she complained about it, I told her she should have planned ahead and had her 12 year molars come in when she was 12--then she wouldn't have this problem now. <GG> (We love the sarcasm in our little family).

Wednesday, Punkin had a marathon dance practice (dance exams are ALSO next Friday--yike). I had piano lessons. She ate nothing, because her teeth still hurt.

Thursday, she had piano and dance, as usual, except that we travelled 1/2 hour north for lunch with my mom first. While there, we also hit the dancewear store (cha-ching!), and went across the street to one of the few remaining Hancock Fabric stores in the area--that's where we found the swimwear knit.

I feel like this is disjointed, but as often happens with blogging at night, I'm too tired to read it over before I post. Ignore all mistakes, please. ;-)

 

Pulled Pork and Risk

I made pulled pork sandwiches for dinner, only they weren't in the crockpot long enough, so it was more like sliced pork sandwiches. I put the rest of it back in the crockpot, and after an hour or so it was perfect. I also made the buns for the sandwiches. Yum!

My nephew came over for sandwiches, and we all played a game of Risk. Punkin and I been playing it on Facebook, but it's been a long time since I played a real game. And speaking of a long time, it took over 3 hours. Punkin lost interest and went to play Skyrim, but she won anyway <g>.

I've been looking over this year's posts, and I don't say much. I'm really just trying to get into the habit of posting to the blog again. Maybe I'll try and do something more ambitious one month--a post a day with a picture, or with sewing tutorials. For now, I'm just sitting down and getting words on the page.

This is the boot sock that I dropped on the floor at the car dealer. It's finished now, and I'm just about to start on the foot of the second one. They're not really turning out how I hoped, but it will be nice to have boot socks again. I felted the last pair, and they went home with our German exchange teacher as slippers. I hope she's enjoying them!

Lots of Squares

I am attempting, in a long-term project, to clean extra stuff out of my sewing room. When I tidied up during the summer, I filled a laundry basket and a small collapsible basket with flannel scraps (I make a lot of flannel pants as gifts, so I have lots of scraps). Today, I am proud to say that I have finished cutting squares from all the scraps. I cut 6.5" squares and 9.5" squares, and I have lots of both sizes.

I have a lot of ideas for the squares, like making baby blankets to donate or cuddly blankets for the TV room. But for today, I'm just happy to have 2 (TWO!) laundry baskets out of the sewing room, plus one small one. To celebrate, I went to Target and bought two sterlite containers to put them all in. I'm proud to say that both containers are completely full. I hope that it will be easier to keep up with the squares if I cut the scraps right after cutting out the pants.

Flannel squares: Check!

Jerry Springer? Seriously?!?

Did you even realize that Jerry Springer was still around? Still alive? I guess I figured he'd crawled back under his rock some time ago.

Having to share a TV with "the great unwashed" is probably the worst part of having car work done. You're stuck in a room with strangers, some of whom are probably watching the wretched show, trying to read or knit or whatever you do to distract yourself while you're waiting. I assure you, I don't distract myself by watching couples have ridiculously nasty and showy break-ups and break-downs on television. It was horrible. I to not watch, but I couldn't not hear. Blech.

It's the worst of human nature, on steroids.

As one of my bridge partners remarked Friday night, ". . .and these people vote." It's true. The crowd who was chanting on the Jerry Springer show are all old enough and citizen enough to be voters. Let's just hope they haven't figured out how to register or fill out a voting form. They are, more than likely, very excited about who is beating up whom on Jerry Springer, but not so much about exercising their civic rights/duty.

The big question is when did we, as a society, decide that the lowest common denominator was not just okay, but desirable? Why does Jerry Springer have an audience at all? And how do we discourage it?

To top of my little adventure, I dropped my finished boot sock as I left the waiting room. Luckily, someone saw it and brought it into the cashier's room before I left.

In good news, though, I finished the heel and turn on the second sock, and moved on to the gusset. Yay! I have gotten a lot of knitting done on those socks while watching videos in the physics class! Maybe the socks will be smart.

Look! It's our deer. This is most likely the same deer that left hoofprints in the snow. She enjoyed eating leaves off of the trampline--like a buffet!

 

Burned Out

I got a little burned out with all the sewing for $$$ last week. As I was sewing, I would think, "next week, I can work on this or that project." This week, I'm just kind of floating. In addition, the sewing room is such a mess that I don't want to be in there. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be able to share pictures of what I worked on. It's all been very hush-hush. I just checked the website and there's nothing there yet.

The Beard has been sick for two weeks. He was home Monday and Tuesday of last week, then he felt better, but then over the weekend, he seems to have gotten a *different* virus, and he stayed home Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of this week. Having him so sick convinces me that I must be sick, too, or maybe I really am. Twice today alone, I had to lie down for a nap. The cats love that part.

I finally got around to getting my shopping done: Target, Staples, Safeway and Costco all got big chunks of my money today. I also splurged a little and bought something I've wanted for several years: A Foodsaver!

I can't find a picture on the Costco site, but this one is from Amazon, and if it's the same one I bought (it looks the same, but who can tell without walking ALL THE WAY into the other room to check the model number), it's about $12 cheaper at Amazon. Go figure.

I have been looking at them for literally years, and I was feeling like I wanted to get one today, and then there was a woman demo-ing them in the store. Sucker! I didn't buy the bags, though, and I'm not completely convinced that I'm keeping it, so I haven't opened it yet.

So now I'll distract you with more pictures of our snow days, since I've figured out how to post pictures. Maybe you won't notice the lack of sewing content. . .

There used to be three of these dogwoods. I just realized that I took this picture on Wednesday. The one on the left is gone now, too, leaving only one. The ice on each little twig weighed so much that the top of the tree fell over, splitting the trunk into 3 pieces. I wish I had a picture of the back yard after the ice storm. The whole yard was about 12" deep in greenery.

There were about 10 of these birds on the feeder, but of course, by the time I could get a picture, about half of them had left. They were so cold and hungry.

On Thursday, after the dogwood toppled, we took down the big bird feeder (on the right) that hangs from a high fir branch. It was sagging down nearly to the ground, and we were afraid it might snap the branch. When the ice melted, the branch snapped back up, sending the twine high into a neighboring tree. It took some careful maneuvering to get the string back down so we could rehang the bird feeder.

Physics

I subbed for the Physics teacher today. I love his classes. First period, he has an Algebra class, but there are only 13 kids in it. There were more last semester, but apparently some have moved elsewhere. It makes for a really nice class. The rest of the day is Physics and AP Physics kids. They're all pretty self-motivated, so I plop a movie in, and they know what to do. He always gets really interesting movies, too. Today, it was a mythbusters episode with an airplane on a treadmill. I watched it three times, and I'm still certain that they didn't understand what myth they were trying to bust, but whatever. There was another section with cockroaches and fruit flies and radiation (oh, my!), and that was interesting, too.

I actually had to get up this morning, so now I'm totally pooped. I'll leave you with this:

 

It's a goldfinch!

Deer hoofprints in my backyard snow.

Compatability

I changed the compatability view in Windows 9, and photo uploading seems to be working now. Let's try inserting a photo, just for fun.

 

Yay! Look at that! Boy, do I feel dumb. It really only took about 5 minutes of research.

Ah, well. Now! My Blog! New and Improved! With PICTURES!!!!

Lazy Day

Today was one of those Sundays that got broken up into small chunks. I hate small chunk days. That's one of my favorite reasons for sewing retreats: nothing to do but sew.

At any rate, all I got done toward my sewing for $$$ was some knitting for the back of one of the bags. Everything that was done went with Bridget, so it's all cleared out. Whew! What a good feeling. Tomorrow, I gotta sew. Hopefully, no juicy sub jobs will present themselves at 6 in the morning. If they do, I'll just have to sub, then sew FAST.

Nearly Done

I spent the day sewing, and I am nearly done with the bags I'm sewing for $$$. I have two left: one that I'm knitting a back for (!), and one that is a big project that will take a while. Also, the handles for that one should arrive in the mail on Monday.

Here's what I learned:

1) Wooden handles are a pain in the patootey. If I do them again, I'd like to use a snap on the inside: sew the tape into the seam, then snap it on the inside of the bag.
2) Hand sewing is not so bad.

3) It's better to machine sew if you can. Using a zipper foot and tipping the fabric makes it possible to use a machine to sew the lining to the hooked fabric. It would be good to put some fusible web inside first, so you can keep it from rolling out.

4) This sewing hasn't been difficult, but it's futzy. I have to reinvent the wheel on every project. If they ask me to draw up directions for these, I'm going to wish I had taken better notes!

I also attended a GS Thinking Day event today. It went okay; the girls had fun, but I wish my girls had done more detailed planning, and that they got the idea of being available to the younger girls instead of clumping together like birds.

Tomorrow is an exciting day! I might even get to sew something for fun!