May 28: A Mix of Everything

 

May I ask a personal question of you readers?  Comments have gone down to pretty much zip.  I might get one or two a week these days.  So, I wonder:

Are you too busy to read just now?

Is the material I'm publishing to your taste?

Do you prefer the former format to this freer flowing form?

Am I being relevant to what you want/need to read?

I would so appreciate it if you would reply in the comments section.  

I confess I personally enjoy this means of communicating but I am curious   

Now let's move on to other things.

I failed entirely to post yesterday because frankly I jumped into my week feet first yesterday morning after enjoying the holiday on Monday.  I cleaned one section of my master bedroom closet.  I noted on Friday when I was going out that my size 22 pants are now roomy.  I had gone up a size months ago with Stitch Fix because the pant they'd sent for months were all far too small. The size 24 pants are really big on me.

Mind you this weight loss has not been as dramatic as it sounds.  Online information tells me that you need only lose 8-10 pounds to lose a size.  I will tell you that in my personal experience, I need to losse 15 or so before I lose a full size.  

Remember that I've now been doing this since February and I assure you there are weeks at a time when nothing seems to move at all and then I put on something from my closet and it hangs on me like a sack, where before it had been more like a tight sausage casing!   I un-grew three t-shirts I liked very well that were size 2X and put on the smaller ones I'd bought by accident and then just kept.  They were XXL (which really shouldn't it be the same as size 2X?  Well, it's not.)  Those XXL's fit just fine.

Anyway, I went online and adjusted Stitch Fix sizes.  I haven't had a Fix in months and I'm not sure I'll keep anything from this next one, but it seemed worthwhile to at least change sizes and see how it goes.  John suggested I go down a size more and start building a new wardrobe, but I can't bring myself to do it.  I'm afraid I'll jinx myself!!  And goodness knows that the past me wasted many and many a dollar on items that I just knew I'd lose weight to fit into somewhere down the road.  I didn't.  Then it was donated to the thrift store.  

I went outdoors yesterday morning and planted coleus, African White Marigolds, transferred a clematis from one spot where it's suffered long and fought valiantly to a new place.  I know that clematis don't like to be moved, but it hasn't done a thing where it was so it seemed I might as well take a chance with it.  

I sorted out the pots and things on the patio, looked over my wee bit of a garden.  The parsley I planted on Saturday is gone.  I don't know even know what happened to it.  I truly don't.  The dill is there but barely hanging on.  The tomatoes are valiantly holding up their heads, but they are looking peaked.  I planted some very old green bean seeds just because I had them and I figured I might as well.  If they do nothing, then I'll have gotten the same results I did with them sitting in my seed box.  

I came indoors to cool off.  It was so humid outdoors.  Gracious!  When I was cooler, I sorted out my fridge and planned meals of all the leftovers.  I went into the produce drawers and looked at what we had and what I needed to use right away and sorted those things out, too. 

And then it began to rain all over again and I spent the rest of the day running down rabbit trails and reading.  I felt a mild twinge of guilt over it and dragged myself to the kitchen to rescue some bananas that were firm but fast becoming too ripe to consider using as anything other than an ingredient for bread.  

I peeled and cut them in half and then skewered them on a plastic spoon (no popsicle sticks to be had) and put the halves in the freezer.  Later, I melted chocolate chips and spread on the frozen banana halves.  I used to make these for my kids ages ago and they enjoyed them.  I thought it would make a nice lower sugar treat for myself now.  I had noted they were now selling these in the grocery store freezer section, and I kept thinking, "I should make those again."  Goodness knows mine cost me a LOT less than those in the grocery store.

I also washed and picked the leaves off a bunch of parsley I'd bought last week from the produce clearance rack.  I popped them into the oven when I removed our supper last night, turned it off and left them overnight.  This morning, I had lovely, dried parsley.  The bunch I bought was 75c and I got a good 6 ounces of dried parsley from it.  

I also made good use of other things.  I kept the stems from the parsley and put in the freezer.  I've been watching Jacques Pepin, and he is always dropping frugal little kitchen tips.  He said he saves the stems of parsley and cilantro and puts them in soups.  I thought I'd put mine in the freezer and next time I make soup, or even spaghetti sauce I will use those stems as seasoning.

I saved those banana peels.  I've been reading about banana peel tea in various places.  I've got two jars in the fridge just now.  And I'm saving the last lot of banana peels to make another jar.  I need to water plants with it and see how it actually works but we've had so much rain that it would be wasted to put on my outdoor plants.

I've been washing my eggshells and drying them in a low oven then crushing them.  They are supposed to make fertilizer for plants too.  

We shall see.  I figured I might as well try to use all these things and if I don't see worthwhile results, well, we shall just go right back to composting them.  That I know does do something good for our plants!

Today I've puttered in the kitchen.  I've been craving a peanut butter cookie.  I recalled this afternoon that I have Stevia and that when we were doing the Atkins diet, I used to make peanut butter cookies quite often with that easy little recipe of 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup sweetener and 1 egg.  

Then I thought I'd make some low-calorie popsicles. You take a packet of your favorite flavor Kool-aid, the amount of sweetener recommended on the package and use HALF the water.  This made popsicles with some leftover.  I took the remaining amount of liquid and added as much water to that.  Now we have a sugar-free drink, and we'll have sugar-free popsicles, too.  

I also took time to do more of the master closet cleaning.  I now have space in that closet to spare.  I have a little more work to do in there and it will be finished.  

John has been gone this afternoon to do a visitation for a former boss's dad.  Funnily enough we'd just spoken of the older man on Monday as we were preparing to leave the house.  That evening Joe called John to tell him that his dad had died.  

I've worked plenty and now I feel I am ready to go run down rabbit holes and read.  Supper is pretty much ready and needs little work to finish off.  I've had my iced coffee and I'm going to call my workday done.  

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