I needed that

I think perhaps the greater intellectual stress of this fall (prepping a new class, working on research, essentially prepping Biostats new as well) require me to take more "serious" downtime (as opposed to at-home downtime, where I am tempted to do things like haul work home with me).

I went out to Denison yesterday afternoon. I debated doing it - between writing an exam, doing my piano practice, and baking a couple poundcakes (more on that later), it was about 2 pm before I was done with duties for the day.

But I went anyway. I'm glad I did. I went to a few of the downtown Denison shops I was thinking of visiting about a month ago when I took the trip to Sherman, but wound up too tired after the first antique store. (I think I'm losing some of my shopping stamina, which is sad...it used to be I could spend an entire day scouring antique shops for cool stuff, but now, one or two, and I'm ready to go home).

The first place I went had some "midcentury" furniture (I think Mad Men is definitely having an effect on what is fashionable in vintage stuff). One thing I note is that the chairs...the chairs seem SO LOW. (I'm contemplating someday replacing my big overstuffed chair...the mock-jacquard upholstery did NOT wear well, and it would probably cost more than it's worth to reupholster it. I'm thinking of getting a slipcover as a stopgap, but it's an odd size so I might have to special-order it or make it myself). I'm not unusually tall for a woman but I have sort of long legs and have ongoing hip and knee issues...so having to get down so low to sit, and then having to cantilever back up to stand is not that appealing.

(Also: I would never buy an upholstered piece of furniture used these days. I did buy a couple of vintage chairs a few years ago...and wound up with a flea infestation for a few months. I guess I'm lucky it wasn't bedbugs...I was able to get rid of the fleas, eventually, by using diatomaceous-earth powder)

But anyway: they also had some art-glass pieces. (Denison is kind of known for its art galleries and for all the artists who sell stuff there). One thing they had were fused glass necklaces. I wound up going back to buy one after looking at it, deciding "$35 is kind of a lot" and walking out and going to a few stores.

But it was the kind of piece I will wind up wearing all the time, because it goes well with so many of my clothes, and because it is Relevant To My Interests.

See, it has a tree (actually, a tree and what I kind of imagine are prairie grasses) painted on it:



I love jewelry like this. For one thing, it's pretty close to unique; you won't see many other people with a similar thing. And it was made by a local artist, which makes it more special to me. And it's not so flashy and sparkly that I feel odd wearing it with "everyday" clothes.

I also hit the "big" antique mall, wound up buying a couple of books ("Onions in the Stew" by Betty McDonald - another one of those "family living in fairly rustic conditions" books like "We Took to the Woods" where I can vicariously enjoy that sort of life while nicely tucked up in bed some winter night with the furnace humming and indoor plumbing a few steps down the hall. There was also yet another international cookbook - this one an old Sunset edition).

There was also a small uber-fancy boutique set up right next to the antique mall, run by the niece of one of the owners. They carried designer clothes. (I wasn't in the mood to look at clothes, and besides, being "designer," the chance of there being something in my size and that would suit me was small) but also fancy hand lotions and lip balm and little tins of tea...so I bought a tube of coconut-honey hand creme (I get very dry skin this time of year) and a couple little tins of fancy tea.

I also stuck my head in an "antiques and books" place. (The nice used-book store that used to be there either is no more, or has moved somewhere not obvious to me. This place was different, it had clearly different stock than what I remembered the other place having). I did find a nice old reading copy of Eliot's "Romola" (probably over 100 years old, though it had no printing date...not in fantastic shape but a nice old book and it will be a good copy to read from) and a book on the history of the Impressionist era.

After that, I decided to run to a few of the chain stores - my plan was to run to the bookstore (I was looking for the Folger edition of Richard III - which it turned out they did not have) and the craft shops.

I decided to run into Tuesday Morning. I rarely go over there, despite the fact that they have some interesting stuff and sometimes quite good deals. Part of it was simple pique: I had heard people tell of finding good yarn on a good price there, but whenever I went in there was either no yarn or it was yarn that didn't appeal to me. So I figured our "local" branch just didn't get the good stuff. But this time I went in because I needed a new mattress pad (The old one I have is QUITE old, and the elastic on it has perished) and I figured they'd have a decent one for a good price. (They did). So I decided to check for yarn.

And I guess it was my day to be lucky. I wound up with five skeins of Auraucania Ranco - a sockweight yarn - for $6 a skein (they are 100 g skeins - I see them for sale online for $18, and by comparison, a 50 g skein of Paton's sockyarn is $6 at the Hobby Lobby).



So, I got the one intact green skein (There was another one that had been partly unwound - a nightmare to try to ball up, I'm sure). And the last pink one. And three skeins of blue, with the vague plan to make a shawl with it someday.

And a couple skeins of what turns out to (apparently) be a Tuesday Morning house-brand bulky yarn, for a hat pattern I bought earlier this week.

The pink skein will probably become the cabled socks in the new Jane Brocket knitting book I was talking about, and the green yarn may become the Nemesis pattern from Knitty.

So, I don't know. I had mainly gone into Tuesday Morning in the past when I needed something that would work as a gift in a "blind" gift exchange (where you didn't know who was getting what you gave, so you have to choose something like a nice set of hostess towels or a teapot and fancy tea or something and hope the person likes it) but maybe I'll have to check back more regularly to see if they have nice yarn ever again...

Oh, the poundcake. I had a bunch of the custardy dressing left from the fruit salad and got to thinking that it would be good on pound cake - so I made one. Well, not a true poundcake, because it had only 1/4 pound of butter and maybe 1/3 pound of eggs in it (4 eggs, 2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 3 cups flour, plus a cup of buttermilk and a tiny bit of baking soda, vanilla extract, and almond extract). I wound up with two because the recipe called for a 9" tube pan but I wanted to do it in loaf pans instead - I got two average-bread-loaf sized cakes out of the recipe. So one of the loaves is frozen, and the other one I'll pick at over the next week or so. (I think probably, if you're going to eat sweets, something like a good honest homemade poundcake where you know what everything in it is, is probably better for you - despite the butter and sugar in it - than some kind of "diet" treat from the store that's full of synthetic chemicals and artificial sweeteners or fake fat. And there was a certain satisfaction in making the cake and seeing it turn out - especially the very last moment, after cooling it for fifteen minutes and experimentally tipping over the loaf pans, hoping the cake would come out and not crack...and both came out just perfectly.)