little happy things

* Maud now has a head and ears. I have not attached the ears yet but they are done.

* I decided to take Purlewe's advice and just bind off the sleeve now - if you stretch it a little it makes 20". And what was the old gag from "Are You Being Served"? "It will take up with wear"? Well, I find that sleeves on sweaters often stretch a bit with wear. So one more sleeve on this....

* Waiting expectantly for my first "Doki Doki" kawaii-stuff box, which is supposed to ship out this week. Yes, they're expensive but if it brings me great joy - well, I might stay subscribed, at least for a while. (As my mom often notes: I don't eat restaurant meals, I've never smoked, I don't drink alcohol....my fiscal vices are relatively few). And really, they cost less than a dinner in a relatively expensive restaurant, so....

* DEFINITELY better. So, so, so grateful that this was just bad gastritis. I made a salmon loaf tonight and it tasted really good to me - for the past few days I've eaten mostly with little relish and just knowing I *needed* to eat to stay strong.

* I also made coconut baked custard - I just subbed coconut milk (I can get "culinary coconut milk" in brick-packs kind of like what the coconut water comes in). I also added some coconut flavoring I had. It was good, though it had a slightly more "curdled" or less-smooth texture than custard made with milk. I supposed it was the coconut that did that. It wasn't offensive, it was just different. (I also use whole eggs in my custards. I know some recipes only call for yolks, but I neither feel like having leftover whites hanging around - I don't eat scrambled eggs that often - or messing with making a meringue for the custard)

I should make baked custard more. It's a more nutritious dessert than many things (mostly milk and eggs, and really not much sugar). I am now wondering how it would be subbing brown sugar for the white....

* I don't usually watch "Jeopardy!" but one of the local channels runs a 4 pm afternoon news, which I sometimes do watch, and "Jeopardy!" comes on after it. Today, I was working on the custard and had left the tv on, and walked back in to the sight of Alex Trebek reading quotations from "hard" rock songs (though one was Van Halen's "Jump," I am not sure how truly "hard" that is). It was worth leaving the tv on for that. Alex Trebek is one of the better of the game-show hosts (IMHO) but he still reminds me of that terminally unhip math or chemistry teacher we all had in high school....so it was funny. I mean, it's just funny to hear someone reading song lyrics anyway. (Didn't Steve Allen or someone have a bit where he read the really dumb teenybopper songs like they were poetry?)