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End of August
Aug. 27th, 2020 08:16 pmAnother week in this Groundhog's Day scenario.
Every week feels exactly the same, with tiny little changes.
Last week I made enchiladas, this week I'm making spaghetti.
Last week I did more cooking, this week I'll do more cleaning.
Stuff like that.
I'm definitely starting to look into things Jameson and I can do to entertain ourselves for the holidays.
For example, outdoor mini golf. Drive-thru haunted houses, which we've seen ads for.
Maybe we can visit that blueberry farm haunted hayride again if their setup is covid-considerate.
I don't know. But I still want the holidays to be special.
It goes without saying that if we find ourselves alone together for the holidays we'll cook ourselves a fancy meal and watch the classic holiday movies and all that junk. But I want to add in a few things on top of that to bring a little more holiday spirit, to help ease the ache for family.
I say that, but this month has been incredibly expensive (my own fault). The main costs were car maintenance, and buying some stocks unexpectedly in hopes that they'll pay off thanks to covid (what? All the wealthy people are profiteering. Can't let them have it all.) Plus lately I've been buying all the ingredients for my little food experiments, and while it's cheaper than eating out it also ain't cheap.
And then I went and got a new phone last week, which is worth it and was needed if not now then soon, however that doesn't make the new phone bill any less painful.
We are also going to invest in soundproofing for our bedroom windows. Our bedroom is directly across from the pool deck of the rental house next to us, putting it maybe two yards away from loud parties and enthusiastic conversations at night. We can hear every word, and the music sounds like it's being played in the bedroom. The current renters have been having a non-stop party for almost two weeks now, and while they do tend to wind down at midnight, idk, what if we wanted to go to sleep BEFORE midnight?? It's just obnoxious. So Jameson found a company that makes soundproofed window inserts. They're expensive, but we think they'll definitely be worth it.
On Wednesday I had a very chill day, just watching Jameson play Call of Duty and Fall Guys and checking on my plants. My tomato is pretty tall but is not producing fruit, so not sure what to do about that. The meyer lemons are looking pretty good, they're supposed to be ready to harvest in fall/winter.
The cranberry hibiscus cutting that I got from my little plant exchange is doing well, getting taller every day. I think when it's about twice as tall as this I'll harvest some leaves and practice brewing tea. Today I broke off a leaf to taste...it IS a lot like a cranberry! A kind of tart/sweet sour flavor. I hear the leaves are good in salad too.
My vanilla is SO BIG. It's taller than me, and disappearing up into the branches of its tree.
I love the gradient of the light leaves near the base to the dark at the top.
If it survives the winter, I'll start the process of getting it to flower. Supposedly what you have to do is make sure part of the vine is dangling back down toward the ground, which encourages flowering. We'll see!
The pollinator garden is doing well, although one of my coreopsis flowers died for unknown reasons. Most everything else seems to be either flowering or getting larger, so perhaps it got crowded out. The milkweed is at my eye level, not sure whether I'm supposed to cut it back. The bulbine has bloomed again and the bees absolutely love it. The slomo on my new iphone is definitely higher quality. Can't wait to catch butterflies with it!
The butterflies were not out in force on Wednesday, probably because it was pretty windy. I also notice they don't sit still on the flowers for very long when it's hot out.
But while I was checking on my plants, I found a tiny baby racer hiding underneath my lemon pot!
Oh my gosh, look how CUTE he is! And I love how some of his scales are irridescent and pearly-looking.
I wanted to pick him up so bad! But he was very anxious that I had found him and got defensive as soon as I got close. So I ended up just herding him gently to the grass using the pool net. What a nice surprise :)
For dinner I made knockoff PF Chang's chicken lettuce wraps. Mostly I just wanted to use up the ground turkey that's been in the freezer for like three months, and the cashews that have been in the cupboard left over from another recipe. And the zillion types of Asian seasonings taking up space in the cabinets. If you have ground meat, onion, soy sauce, honey, hot sauce/sriracha, and ginger, that's more or less all you need to make this. You can add whatever veggies you like, this time I used a red bell pepper and water chestnuts. Then grab butter, romaine, or iceberg lettuce, and fill the leaves with the mixture. Top with nuts or chives or just eat straight up. Yum!
After dinner we watched some Game of Thrones making-of clips while eating dessert (strawberry ice cream for him, leftover peach popsicle yogurt and lemon poppyseed cake for me), then I had steno class for the first time in a week and a half. It went pretty well, although it never fails, my teacher always goes over the thing I studied least haha. This time I was supposed to review ten chapters over the break, and I did, so she went over the new material only which of course I'm not as strong on yet. Figures!
Thursday I tried to get some butterfly footage but they just weren't out. I do definitely still see butterflies around but they just won't settle on the flowers. Maybe I'll cut back one of the milkweed that has smaller sprouts at the base and see if the small sprouts will flower after the large sprout is cut. Not sure what else I can do. In a few weeks I want to get a Joe Pye weed, which I hear is good fall food for butterflies...maybe that will help.
I did see this cloudless sulphur actually land on a flower...before I knew what it was I called this a "spaz butterfly" because it never seems to land on anything, just rockets all around the yard. Even once it landed it was really hard to photograph because the wind was blowing.
I didn't do much for most of the day, just swept the pool deck, practiced steno, watched some anime, prepped my meals, and took a dip in the pool. For dinner I made "summer spaghetti", a recipe from Dude Diet that we've made many times because it's easy and tasty. Zucchini, tomatoes, pancetta (or bacon), shallot, pepper flakes, vinaigrette, pasta of your choice, basil. In the pan, on a plate, top with shredded ricotta salata (or parm reggiano which is similar and easier to find), put it in yer face. Easy weeknight dinner.
After dinner Jameson did some Twitch streaming while I enjoyed ice cream.
Tomorrow I work from home supposedly...forgot to mention that on Tuesday all the work from home people had to come to the office because none of us could access our monitoring system. Hopefully I'll be able to do my job at home for real.
It was a good week, but the weeks are so repetitive...I'm glad for little differences like finding the baby snake or getting an email from my dad or having a video chat with one side of my family. If it weren't for these differences I don't know if I'd even know what day it is.
My family.
Every week feels exactly the same, with tiny little changes.
Last week I made enchiladas, this week I'm making spaghetti.
Last week I did more cooking, this week I'll do more cleaning.
Stuff like that.
I'm definitely starting to look into things Jameson and I can do to entertain ourselves for the holidays.
For example, outdoor mini golf. Drive-thru haunted houses, which we've seen ads for.
Maybe we can visit that blueberry farm haunted hayride again if their setup is covid-considerate.
I don't know. But I still want the holidays to be special.
It goes without saying that if we find ourselves alone together for the holidays we'll cook ourselves a fancy meal and watch the classic holiday movies and all that junk. But I want to add in a few things on top of that to bring a little more holiday spirit, to help ease the ache for family.
I say that, but this month has been incredibly expensive (my own fault). The main costs were car maintenance, and buying some stocks unexpectedly in hopes that they'll pay off thanks to covid (what? All the wealthy people are profiteering. Can't let them have it all.) Plus lately I've been buying all the ingredients for my little food experiments, and while it's cheaper than eating out it also ain't cheap.
And then I went and got a new phone last week, which is worth it and was needed if not now then soon, however that doesn't make the new phone bill any less painful.
We are also going to invest in soundproofing for our bedroom windows. Our bedroom is directly across from the pool deck of the rental house next to us, putting it maybe two yards away from loud parties and enthusiastic conversations at night. We can hear every word, and the music sounds like it's being played in the bedroom. The current renters have been having a non-stop party for almost two weeks now, and while they do tend to wind down at midnight, idk, what if we wanted to go to sleep BEFORE midnight?? It's just obnoxious. So Jameson found a company that makes soundproofed window inserts. They're expensive, but we think they'll definitely be worth it.
On Wednesday I had a very chill day, just watching Jameson play Call of Duty and Fall Guys and checking on my plants. My tomato is pretty tall but is not producing fruit, so not sure what to do about that. The meyer lemons are looking pretty good, they're supposed to be ready to harvest in fall/winter.
The cranberry hibiscus cutting that I got from my little plant exchange is doing well, getting taller every day. I think when it's about twice as tall as this I'll harvest some leaves and practice brewing tea. Today I broke off a leaf to taste...it IS a lot like a cranberry! A kind of tart/sweet sour flavor. I hear the leaves are good in salad too.
My vanilla is SO BIG. It's taller than me, and disappearing up into the branches of its tree.
I love the gradient of the light leaves near the base to the dark at the top.
If it survives the winter, I'll start the process of getting it to flower. Supposedly what you have to do is make sure part of the vine is dangling back down toward the ground, which encourages flowering. We'll see!
The pollinator garden is doing well, although one of my coreopsis flowers died for unknown reasons. Most everything else seems to be either flowering or getting larger, so perhaps it got crowded out. The milkweed is at my eye level, not sure whether I'm supposed to cut it back. The bulbine has bloomed again and the bees absolutely love it. The slomo on my new iphone is definitely higher quality. Can't wait to catch butterflies with it!
https://instagram.com/p/CEW2J4wAQJK
The butterflies were not out in force on Wednesday, probably because it was pretty windy. I also notice they don't sit still on the flowers for very long when it's hot out.
But while I was checking on my plants, I found a tiny baby racer hiding underneath my lemon pot!
Oh my gosh, look how CUTE he is! And I love how some of his scales are irridescent and pearly-looking.
I wanted to pick him up so bad! But he was very anxious that I had found him and got defensive as soon as I got close. So I ended up just herding him gently to the grass using the pool net. What a nice surprise :)
For dinner I made knockoff PF Chang's chicken lettuce wraps. Mostly I just wanted to use up the ground turkey that's been in the freezer for like three months, and the cashews that have been in the cupboard left over from another recipe. And the zillion types of Asian seasonings taking up space in the cabinets. If you have ground meat, onion, soy sauce, honey, hot sauce/sriracha, and ginger, that's more or less all you need to make this. You can add whatever veggies you like, this time I used a red bell pepper and water chestnuts. Then grab butter, romaine, or iceberg lettuce, and fill the leaves with the mixture. Top with nuts or chives or just eat straight up. Yum!
After dinner we watched some Game of Thrones making-of clips while eating dessert (strawberry ice cream for him, leftover peach popsicle yogurt and lemon poppyseed cake for me), then I had steno class for the first time in a week and a half. It went pretty well, although it never fails, my teacher always goes over the thing I studied least haha. This time I was supposed to review ten chapters over the break, and I did, so she went over the new material only which of course I'm not as strong on yet. Figures!
Thursday I tried to get some butterfly footage but they just weren't out. I do definitely still see butterflies around but they just won't settle on the flowers. Maybe I'll cut back one of the milkweed that has smaller sprouts at the base and see if the small sprouts will flower after the large sprout is cut. Not sure what else I can do. In a few weeks I want to get a Joe Pye weed, which I hear is good fall food for butterflies...maybe that will help.
I did see this cloudless sulphur actually land on a flower...before I knew what it was I called this a "spaz butterfly" because it never seems to land on anything, just rockets all around the yard. Even once it landed it was really hard to photograph because the wind was blowing.
I didn't do much for most of the day, just swept the pool deck, practiced steno, watched some anime, prepped my meals, and took a dip in the pool. For dinner I made "summer spaghetti", a recipe from Dude Diet that we've made many times because it's easy and tasty. Zucchini, tomatoes, pancetta (or bacon), shallot, pepper flakes, vinaigrette, pasta of your choice, basil. In the pan, on a plate, top with shredded ricotta salata (or parm reggiano which is similar and easier to find), put it in yer face. Easy weeknight dinner.
After dinner Jameson did some Twitch streaming while I enjoyed ice cream.
Tomorrow I work from home supposedly...forgot to mention that on Tuesday all the work from home people had to come to the office because none of us could access our monitoring system. Hopefully I'll be able to do my job at home for real.
It was a good week, but the weeks are so repetitive...I'm glad for little differences like finding the baby snake or getting an email from my dad or having a video chat with one side of my family. If it weren't for these differences I don't know if I'd even know what day it is.
My family.
