Did some stuff

So Saturday, I looked around my house, and decided "I have to clean this place up." I had papers scattered all over (papers that normally would be in my office over at work) and stuff like an opened box of printer paper (an Amazon order a couple weeks back) sitting near the front door.

For a while, I just couldn't be bothered to - part of it was being busy with trying to "pivot to online" but I think some of it was really just situational depression. (What got me calling the counselor again? I read an article online someone - maybe it was Purlewe? - linked to on Twitter about a woman writing about her depression, and her comment about how a sock would fall on the floor and she just LEFT it because she didn't have the volition to pick it up, and I kind of looked around my house and was like "holy cow, it me." But I'm doing better now, I think)

So I put lots of things away, and got rid of a lot of unnecessary things, and then swept the floors and scrubbed the tiled floors. And I did laundry. I didn't get the tub scrubbed (my most disliked task) and didn't do a lot with the bathroom counter, but that's okay - the kitchen is clean, the living room is clean, the floors are all clean, I broke down the many, many boxes from mail orders and carried them out to the garage pending figuring out if there's still somewhere I can take them for recycling.

A cleaner kitchen has the added virtue of it makes cooking more fun. I have some beef marinating for fajitas right now. (This was "surplus" sliced beef - from Imperfect Foods - apparently the meal-kit industry is doing less-well than it once was? They said it was packaged for meal kits and was surplus. It smelled pretty good when I put it in the marinade so I am assuming it's good quality beef). I am considering making either the pumpkin cake mix I bought shortly before my birthday, or a batch of muffins, tomorrow. Or maybe wacky cake? I think I have everything I need for that...(That's the one that's a vegan cake - no eggs or butter, and you make the three wells in the dry ingredients and put the oil, vinegar, and vanilla in the wells, and then pour water over the whole thing). I have squirty whipped cream that would go well on it....just not tonight, I had a pretty big lunch and will probably just have a few fajitas and some fried onion for dinner.

For next week, I am getting ground meat and chicken breasts in the box (provided they don't sell out, but the past couple weeks that's not been an issue, so maybe they've got their supply chain straightened out). So chili will be a thing next week, and maybe homemade (oven fried) chicken strips.

I figure, as long as I can get meat protein, I should keep eating it - my body seems to be adapted well to it and I seem healthier and "brighter" when I am eating a little meat regularly (I have experimented with being vegetarian and I guess since I have to be careful about soy - I have a mild food intolerance - it's hard to get enough protein without overloading on cheese).

Today, after virtual church, I went out and used the brand new string trimmer (It works fine, it's just a bit more awkward to use than the old one, and it's heavier because of the battery, though that's a welcome tradeoff for not having to mess with an extension cord) and also mowed the front and back yards. So the house is taken care of for a while.

I also found that cardinals are apparently nesting in the abelia - I could just see the nest in there, and the female cardinal also cussed me out when I was looking.

The Cherokee Purple tomato plants I got last week already have flower buds on them. Not sure they're big enough to successfully set tomatoes and maybe I should pick them off to let the plants grow a bit more. The lavender are getting ready to flower but they're pretty big, too. That will be good for the bees when that happens.

(I am still thinking about, in a couple weeks, making a quick trip - with a mask on! - to Twin Oaks Nursery, which is entirely open air and so is probably pretty safe. But I'm going to keep an eye on Texas infection rates after the opening up and wait maybe 3 weeks before I even go).

I've been picking away at various projects - most actively knitting on a simple slouchy sockyarn hat, which I will probably eventually donate somewhere. I also found my working notes for the gray cardigan, so I plan to start on that again some time.

I am thinking maybe this coming week, I plan on a couple nights of re-watching Miyazaki movies and knitting - with classes effectively done, all I have is grading, which I can do during the day. I feel like I want to see the old favorites (Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service, and Spirited Away) again.


Also, my King Arthur Flour order (a couple of mixes, a jar of clotted cream for on biscuits, and some chocolate chips) are SLOWLY coming towards me - in several shipments. Still no flour sold on the site, but I have almost 10 pounds of plain flour yet, and I suspect Green Spray still has it in stock. (Surely, surely, eventually the availability will catch up with demand? It seems weird that it's been almost six weeks we've been on lockdown and flour is still so scarce. I admit that's the only thing that still really alarms me about this.)

I also placed a small order yesterday with Quixotic Fibers, on the grounds that that's probably where I'd have been if the coronavirus hadn't changed all our lives. Some pink and peach yarn which may well wind up as a shawl, and a peacock colored yarn for socks. 


I'm also thinking as a "grades are finally in" celebration, I order a pick-up meal from the good local barbecue place - it looks like they are doing the "drive through window" thing still (at first from their facebook page it looked like they were just doing a few things, and selling those in large quantities, presumably for families to use and have as leftovers.

I might also schedule sewing time each day once school "lets out" for me - maybe I spend a couple hours in the morning reading/teaching prep for fall, and then spend a couple hours in the afternoon working on quilt tops - either sewing them on my machine or maybe pull out my quilting frame again and do more hand quilting.

If I can rig some kind of a book stand on this desk, I could also do super-simple (like: all stockinette) knitting while I read about probability or soil invertebrates. I think I will need a regular schedule for my lockdown summer, since I mostly won't be over at my office (they are still asking us to stay off campus until June 30, and there's really no point in my being in anyway)

This is such a strange time, though - it's like "making it up as I go along" (which is the usual state of things anyway) but on steroids. Maybe I just tell myself that since I'm not getting paid for the summer (= not teaching, I never teach summers any more) it's okay NOT to work every single day for six or eight hours?

While I want things to be safe before we go back out full-scale again, I admit I will also be happy when I can go back in person to Ulta and not worry about going through the grocery store (not having to do *extreme* situational awareness, where instead of just watching out for that random person acting suspiciously, you have to be careful about people getting too close or people who might be coughing or sneezing)