weekend at home

I'm guardedly hopeful* after this weekend; this is the first weekend home more-or-less alone since late July that I haven't felt a certain howling loneliness or existential dread; maybe things are starting to get better for me, maybe I'm starting, on some level, to go "Yeah, those things happened. But I gotta live my life" and have gotten back to looking for the little things that bring me happiness.

(I remember this on a much smaller scale when Steve died, and on an intermediate scale when I lost my maternal grandmother. It was very much a Dementors sort of thing - a feeling like you'll never be cheerful again - until one day, you realize, "Yes, I actually could be cheerful again")

(*Yes, I very much know it's not a linear process and I am still apprehensive about the entire Thanksgiving week because that's not just my dad's memorial service, but there will also be Too Many People including a person or two I don't....always get along great with**....and also a seven year old in the house and I remember being seven and not processing the death of a grandparent (my paternal grandfather) all that well and being kind of clingy and weepy, so I'm bracing for that.)

(** not so much in the sense that we fight, but that one of those people is rather extremely critical and also tends to like to tell other people how to live their lives, and the fact that I never married seems to be particularly odd and disturbing to them, so I'm expecting some kind of a "you're not getting any younger and what if you get sick when you get older, who will look after you" lecture and you know? I'm hoping my mom will be able to rescue me by asking me to help her with something if that starts up, because my mom knows well how much that sort of thing bugs me)

But anyway. This weekend was a weekend at home, because Sherman and Denison seemed like they'd have too many crowds and not enough parking, and I suspect I was right.

So I shopped locally. Got a few things at the Mart of Wal (they have a few things I use that Pruett's doesn't have) but I also did run to Pruett's for a few things.

I also mowed my lawn and cut some brush, so I got work done outside. And I cleaned in my bedroom and changed the sheets and did all the laundry and put it away.

And I also went downtown to look around at the shops. I had had half a thought of looking in the toy shop to see if there might be anything for my niece for Christmas (no, it isn't too early).

I did:



Two kits - one for bouncy balls, one for bracelets (not terribly girly-girl, because my niece isn't super-girly) and a sea creatures sticker set (she is really interested in nature and animals).

I decided to buy them then because (a) I want to support the shop, I realized that if I want something other than medical cannabis shops in my town, I probably need to support the shops *I* want to see, (b) stuff sometimes sells out, and (c) sometimes small businesses here close up shop unexpectedly. I hope that's not the case with this store, but the couple times I've been in there they've not been busy, so you never know.

I also bought something for myself....



His name is Fatty Lumpkin. I considered, briefly, Sir Mix-a-Lot (after seeing someone's pet rabbit on Twitter who went by that name) but I think Fatty Lumpkin fits him better (he is small and fat, kind of like a Shetland pony).

I also went to the local "gourmet" (really: fancy kitchen gadget) shop. I wound up buying a dedicated meatloaf pan, the kind with the insert that lets the fat drain out. I make a fair amount of meatloaf (and also lamb loaf, and sometimes salmon loaf, though that has much less fat to drain out)

I made meatloaf last night:



I had bought an Amish cookbook (recipes contributed mostly by Amish people) last weekend and I wanted to try out the meatloaf. It was very good, and I think I have a new go-to meatloaf recipe; it's not complicated and it's good:

2 lbs. ground beef
1/4 cup finely diced onion
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup tomato juice (I used tomato sauce, which is what I had on hand)
1/4 cup ketchup
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon mustard (I used Grey Poupon)
1 egg
3 strips bacon

You mix everything up (my standard is to mix the dry stuff first, then the liquid goes in, then the egg last) and put the bacon on top. Bake it for 45 minutes at 350, and then top it with a glaze that is 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 teaspoons mustard, a tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, and "enough vinegar to make a stiff paste" (less than you might think and I had to backtrack and add more sugar and then more mustard to balance the taste because I got too much vinegar in). You put that on top and bake for another 15 minutes.

If you like green pepper, you could certainly put some in. Or leave out the mustard and use a seasoned tomato sauce or maybe even something like Ro-Tel if you wanted.

It is remarkably good for such a simple recipe. I like simple food anyway, especially farm food like this.

Also, before going back home, I ran to the newish antique shop ("The Pickery") on Main Street. I found one thing I kind of liked:



I need to get some kind of Formby's product (if those are still sold) and clean them up and maybe see if I can even out the alligatored varnish on the one, but they are the style of thing I have in my house. I *might* put them up in my bedroom, not sure what two small items I will display on them (A favorite Pony maybe? or perhaps a couple of small historical-costume cloth dolls I made years ago.) but I do want to put them up somewhere to showcase some kind of small items (ideally: nonbreakable ones, because there's the possibility that they will eventually fall down; sometimes the drywall here is not great at holding things)

I just liked them. They are very much what I think of as "grandma style," they are very like the little wall-sconces my maternal grandmother had up in her house (for some reason, a lot of my decorating style choices mirror hers - more color than is typical now, and a preference for patterned rather than solid-colored upholstery, and liking floral patterns....)

Today, after church, I mostly stayed in and knitted on the pair of socks (one of, hopefully, three or four pairs) I am making my mom for Christmas:



I had bought this yarn up at my mom's house, and started the socks there, and she admired the color pattern (those are colors she wears) so I decided to make them for her (she and I wear the same size). I'm glad to be done with the knit-purl patterning, that takes longer. My mom usually wears closed shoes with her handknit socks, and just plain stockinette is more comfortable for wearing socks like that, and I'm actually pleased at how "okay" it looks - the original pattern has you carry the broken rib down onto the instep.

And my friend Laura and I have tentative plans next weekend to meet up in Sulphur Springs; there are a couple of historical things there that might be interesting; she is going to be playing at a wedding kind of near there and it's only a couple of hours for me...(Google maps says about 2). It'll be good to get out. There's supposed to be a "healing well" there (well, it IS named Sulphur Springs) and a historical museum. There's a dairy museum but they are not open Saturdays. And there's a German restaurant; I hope Laura would be up for that - I like German food and rarely get it. But I will be flexible because I know musicians have to be careful about what they eat before a performance...