so maybe not

I had planned to go to Sherman or Denison for antiquing this weekend. But both places are doing "fall festivals" right in the vicinity of where the antique stores are.

In other words:

- most of the easy parking will be taken up with booths, and what remains will be hard to come by
- there will be crowds, and I dislike crowds, I get shoved around and have people push in front of me and stuff
- I'm reminded by the families and friend-groups how alone I am.

I might go in town and go to the one antique store we have, and to the gourmet shop - I want to look for smaller loaf pans and see if they have something like a kneading board for bread. I want to try to make small batches of bread again. And I'm going to do a half-sized batch of the meatloaf in my new Amish cookbook so I need a small loaf pan.

Also, I could do more "cleaning sprints." I started on the bedroom last night and kind of got sidetracked into sorting books. I boxed up a few I can get rid of...though where, I'm not too sure. (The local library's book sale is this weekend, and I doubt they would welcome a donation they'd have to store for another whole year. And there are zero used-book shops in my vicinity where I could get credit....maybe I just store them until I figure out what to do).

I did come across this. Dorothy gave it to me and while I won't read Thoreau ever again (I came to him too late, I was already too cynical and I knew that he had more "help" in his "hermitage" than he let on in the books kind of spoiled him for me, but). I can't quite bring myself to just pitch them into the "donate" box (and they're paperback, so I doubt my uni library could use them). If any of you want them, I'd send them out (book rate, which is slower but cheaper) to you for free, send me an e-mail.

It's a nice box set, it's just....I won't ever read it again and I don't feel much point in keeping them, but I am sentimental enough (because Dorothy gave them to me) that just randomly pitching them out feels wrong. So if you want it, send me an e-mail.

(I *am* keeping the nice old hardback copy of "A Sand County Almanac" she gave me).


I also intend to mow the lawn this morning, and I have Sunday school lesson to do. I might also work some more on the current quilt top. I do worry though that staying mostly home will make me melancholy, I don't know. I find some weekends when I stay "inside my own head" too much do that to me. (I'm hoping maybe getting out at least to the gourmet shop, and doing a bit more cooking, and maybe having a cleaner house will help).

And I get the cities' desire to have festivals; it tends to bring in more people than would normally go to the downtowns on a weekend. It's just, I'm the oddball who doesn't like being jostled in big crowds and surrounded by what seem to be happy couples and families and friend-groups and feeling a bit like I stick out like a sore thumb. (And it's also the first weekend of the month, when things do seem to be more crowded because everyone got paid last week)

I did go to the wal-mart for shopping. I think wal-marts are lowgrade hellmouths, I always feel worse after walking out of there. I try to go early in the morning because there are fewer crowds and fewer arguing couples/parents yelling at their kids, but now that they've started their "order online and pickup" early mornings are both when they restock and when they pull the orders that came in overnight, and so you're dodging workers instead of shoppers. (And, this being the first week of the month? A lot of the shelves were picked pretty bare. Wal-mart is not good these days at restocking).

Still, I managed to get the few extra things I needed for the meatloaf, including bacon (SOMEONE needs to make "single person packs" of bacon that's just like four or six ounces. And no, I don't live somewhere with meat cases where you can buy just a few slices). So maybe I make baked beans later on this week. And I got some more onions and potatoes with the thought of making potato soup at some point - it's supposed to get cooler this week and that sort of thing will be appealing again.

(One thing I think I need to do is write out lists of "what you could cook" given the food I have. Last night I was midway through heating up a leftover thing when I thought, "Oh, you could have made this other thing, you were thinking of that other thing at one point" and that's one of the specific things that my state of mind has done to me; I think of things too late to do them.)

(I also must, must remember to make copies of the z table and t table to hand out with the exam Monday; I said I would do that and I forgot to attach them to the exam I sent to Print Shop)

***

Actually, not so bad: I got my laundry done (sheets are washing right now) and I mowed the lawn and trimmed back some branches so at least I was outside for a while and doing something active (that helps). Once my hair dries I am going to go to the gourmet shop here in town (well, it's more a kitchen-goods store; I wish we had a store that sold gourmet tidbits of food). And to the little toystore because it's probably not too early to start thinking Christmas for my niece. And I want to get another pound of ground beef - I'm going to do the full meatloaf recipe (well, it calls for one egg, which is trickier for a half-recipe) because I also have rye bread, and leftover meatloaf makes good sandwiches...