Sunday at home

I did run out Saturday afternoon to the shops. (And to get lunch out, but that turned out to be a run-around- the Chinese place I intended to go had closed up since the last time I went there. So then I tried Olive Garden, the next nearest place. Minimum wait of 25 minutes (at 1:30 pm on a Saturday. I guess people here eat late). Finally wound up at the Red Lobster, which was okay, waited for a table there but not as long).

I did get the yarn I needed for the Big Stupid Rectangle (and some yarn for a couple of toys) but wow, there's a difference between going to the Hobby Lobby at 10 am on a Saturday and at 2 pm on a Saturday - while in the store, I nearly had TWO people (one a bored teen, one an adult woman) collide with me because they were walking down the aisle texting and not looking where they were going. (I hate what cell phones and texting are doing to our society).  Also there were a lot of bored teens being snotty in the way that bored teens can. Then why on earth did you go to the store with your parents? Why not stay in the car? It was only 60 degrees out so it wasn't like you'd suffocate....

Went to the Target, again had to dodge rude people, including  the large family groups that form a flying-wedge and totally block an aisle, and then only AFTER you are pulling back to go up the next aisle and around, one of the parents tells the kids to "tighten up the pack, guys."

So I got what I needed and scrammed, cut out a couple places I was planning to go because I couldn't deal with it any more. I'm not really agoraphobic but being in stores that are packed with people who are doing things like blocking aisles, texting without watching where they're walking, pushing past others without even an "excuse me," it's enough to make me want to be a bit of a hermit.

(Or go on a Friday afternoon - but NOT "payday Friday" - next time I go.)

So anyway.

I mostly stayed home (except for church) today. I re-decorated my mantel, and decided to do the closest thing to a St. Patrick's Day theme I could with what I had on hand...



All my little cottage teapots (and a set of salt-and-pepper shakers, and a creamer and sugar...) They could also be English cottages, I don't know. (Most of them are made in Japan, one of them says "Made in Occupied Japan," even...meaning it was made between something like 1946 and 1952. (I used to know the exact dates of "occupied Japan" on stuff like china but I've since forgotten).

I also went out to my back garden and cut some of the  many daffodils that are up. I figured that since I don't go back there much during the week, I could enjoy the daffodils in my house. (And that's not even all - or even most - of them. It's a good year for daffodils, I think)



(And yes, I know: daffodils are really a symbol of Wales, not Ireland. Well, I don't have any Bells of Ireland in my garden).

I also baked a loaf of bread for my "birthday observed" dinner tonight:



Yeah, it looks "charmingly rustic." I hope it tastes good. (I always have a hard time shaping bread when it's supposed to be a "rustic" loaf.) This is honey wheat germ bread from that British bread book I've spoken of before. I think this is the first time I've made this recipe.

I also did make the Dirt Cake to take to Soils class Monday, because it amused me too much not to.

This is going to be super rich and I hope the class eats most of it (Or that I can pass it off to other people.) It's chocolate pudding, Cool Whip (which I otherwise never eat but wasn't sure if "real" whipped cream would work, and didn't want to try), crushed up oreo cookies....and gummi worms.



For something that uses so many "convenience" foods, it was certainly a pain to make. And messy. I'm probably going to be finding oreo cookie crumbs in different spots around my kitchen over the next few days. (I also learned that you cannot pulverize oreo cookies by putting them in a blender.)

Seriously, this took me far longer than the Hot Milk Sponge cake that is my go-to cake for the bring-a-cake-somewhere kind of things. (And I wonder now if some of the people who think that from-scratch baking is so hard and is akin to some kind of wizardry have most of their "baking" experience with stuff like Dirt Cake, which really IS kind of involved and a pain and, as I said, takes more time and more bowls and pans than something like the Hot Milk Sponge...)

Tonight, I have slow-cooker pork ribs (they taste ALMOST like smoked ribs from the barbecue places, not quite) and red cabbage and some raspberries (the organic ones were a decent price at the Kroger's) and a slice of my bread. And for dessert, rather than make a cake, I made a batch of flapjack, which is almost as great a treat and is less effort (and probably better for you).