FINALLY - QUILTING AGAIN

 Guess what showed up at my house in sunny California.  Loads of puffy white clouds flew by all day, soon turning black.  It rained most of the night, meaning I hope to get a nap in before heading out to the Magic Castle!

As usual, my crew kept me company in the dark office while I worked on the blog.  Apparently we have ALL become night owls.  

This one is here for the moment, but will soon head out to the back yard to gopher hunt.  She especially likes it when it rains.  It must bring the critters out.

Still frustrated over the sourdough problem, I got out my book and read for almost an hour.  They say this is for beginners, but they make it SO complicated.  They lie ... it's NOT easy and the recipes are not easy to follow.  It's all about grams when I go by cups, not to mention it takes two days to make it ... rest here, punch down, rest again, stick it in the fridge overnight ... nothing is easy.  Maybe I should stick to my bread machine!

I hooked the battery charger to the van in anticipation of a long drive this weekend.  That was BEFORE I found out I have to attend two events and represent Bingo!  As I walked by, this little beauty was fighting with another for the top spot.  You can tell this is one of their preferred perches.

Finally, with a big sigh, I headed to the quilting machine.  There's no use putting it off.  It's time to try the bigger quilt and see if it is working correctly now, or if those two small ones were just a fluke.  I already loaded the backing, and now the top.

Here's the tools of the trade, most of which I had to pick up off the floor because of someone named Kitters.  Why do cats like to knock stuff off the table?

First thing, I changed out the needle.  The pins and needles are never sharp enough to go through the fabric like butter, but they sure do go through skin easily!!  Finally ready to go, I hit the QUILT button and held my breath.

Away it went.  This is the screen I monitor constantly.  It takes a lot of pattern setup and brain power to get to this point.  I held my finger VERY close to the STOP button at the bottom left.  Woohoo ... it just kept going.  No loud scraping or breaking noises could be heard.  That was SEVEN rows of holding my breath.

I did have quite a bit of trouble with the tension of the thread.  The front looked great ... the back, not so much.  After many adjustments, it finally dawned on me what the problem was.  I fixed it on the last row.  No worries, this one is for me, so I don't care if it's not perfect.  It probably won't fall apart until I'm gone from the earth anyway.

I spent 3-1/2 hours quilting this one, standing and moving around the entire time.  That was probably a good thing since my legs are so very sore from running.  It's not a good feeling, but it's a good feeling if you know what I mean.  No pain, no gain, right?

YAY ... a big one finished with NO mechanical problems.  I'm guessing all that previous trouble was caused by the expanding battery messing up the computer brain.  One more big one to go.

I celebrated with a Pepsi!  This picture is for Chef Patty.  Her hoosier came to live at my house several years ago, now home to absolutely everything that doesn't go somewhere else!

That's when I discovered this cave.  I'll give you three guesses as to who is living in it.  Whether outside or inside, Miss Kitters likes to be hiding.  Under a chair, under a table, under my saddle rack and under this quilt.

And so a long day ended with several phone calls over closing the Bingo kitchen early.  I don't blame our cooks for wanting to get out the door as soon as possible.  Nor do I want to lose ANY of them!  Volunteer cooks are like hens teeth to find. 

Yessiree ... I'm putting the armor on as I type!!!

RUNNING - IT'S ADDICTIVE

 It's another gorgeous day in Central California.  Every day is a good day now that Kitters can come and go as she pleases.  Lately, she seems to be out more than in.  Though she used to spend lots of time next door in the field with the goat (I had no idea that they still HAD a goat), she now has just a little trouble jumping up and over that 7' tall fence.  I told her she needed to be on a diet.

With nothing going on for the next day, it was time to get back to walking/running.  It's addictive, this running stuff.  Truly, it's jogging, or as we runners call it, clydesdaling.  We just run along at a nice jog until we are dying for breath, then we walk for 3 minutes, then jog again.  

There's a point after the first half mile or so that you can take a really big breath.  From then on, you can run for some distance before completely running out of air once again.  

Breathe in to four steps, breathe out to three.  In to three, out to two.  By the time you get to two steps in and two steps out, you feel like you are underwater.  Once you get your breath back from walking, you go again.  WHY?  I've no idea.  There's something wrong with the brains of runners that say I can do this.  Or maybe it's just being challenged.  I've been that way all my running life.  If they can do it, "I" can do it.

Pretty soon ... months that is ... you can run for 4 or 5 miles without stopping.  If you keep it up, you really go crazy and start entering races.  Not to race, because there's no way I would ever win, but just to see if I could.  The first one was in Lake Tahoe.  My friend who had run this before, forgot to tell me it was mostly uphill.  I only ran the 10 km race (6 miles), but felt like I had run a 26.2 marathon.  

This is the ONE MILE mark on this day!!!

I kept practicing and running with her, though she kicked my butt on every occasion.  Eventually we entered many races, starting with half marathons, working on up to marathons.  Who in the world EVER would have thought I could run that far.  

Having San Francisco Giants season tickets turned out to be the perfect excuse to run.  Low altitude, cool (the colder the better), with lots of uphill training.  I won't mention how many times I got lost in the hills, once ending up at a Fire Station where the guys took me back to my starting point.  

Soon I was running two marathons in San Francisco a year, along with several in Sacramento.  There were no trophies, but lots of medals, T-shirts and fruit.  Ten feet across the finish line was a pile of fruit for you to grab to regain some of your strength.  The more I ate, the less sore I was the next day.

That led to Triathlons.  Swim, bike, run.  I tried it a few times, but I was a terrible swimmer and finally gave up that endeavor.

As I trotted on down my measly 2.5 miles on this day, the peacock was still hanging out, though hard to see through the fencing.  

After the first marathon I ran, I thought I was doing so good ... I could still walk!!  The second day was another story altogether.  I was so sore I could not go up or down stairs, which were required for me to get to my office.  

From then on, I ran even MORE because I thought if I was in BETTER shape, I would not be so sore the day after a race.  It became terribly addictive.  And time consuming.  Practice included running every other day for about 3 hours, with a 5-7 hour long run on Saturdays.  I ran my last race at 66 years of age.  

I kept running, but just didn't want to spend all that time when there were more fun things to do.  Besides, I had two puppies to take care of by then.  Not to mention, San Francisco became a homeless nightmare and was not a safe place to run any more.

Unfortunately, I STILL have that I-need-to-run thing in my head.  It just does not go away, so for the next few weeks, I will probably be out doing my thing in the country.  I got in 2.5 miles yesterday, with more running than walking.  I guarantee there will be no 10k (6 mile) runs, but at least I can stay in a little better shape ... I can run up those Elks Lodge stairs ... and probably even sleep a little better.  

Regarding those nasty Rip Van crunchy things ..... TRY THESE!  I do love peanut butter and have a terrible sweet tooth addiction.  These are SO much better than the other ones.  Still not quite enough sugar, but enough to quiet the craving.  MUCH better than ice cream or cookies!!!

Diner wasn't exactly a gourmet treat.  I finally just boiled all twelve leftover potatoes from the bag I bought and mashed them up.  They aren't too bad if I don't eat too much.  Add to that veggies and a roll that I thought only needed to be heated up.  Alas, they actually have to be baked first.  I know, I eat weirdly.  Whatever I can find without actually having to cook.

I'm sorry to say, I'm pretty sore from yesterday's run.  When you start running, you run out of air quickly, so your muscles don't have time to get in so much work that you get sore.  However, there is a point at which you can keep running and NOT run out of air.

That's where I'm at right now.  Since you are not restricted by your LUNGS, you keep running until your legs give out ... and that's when the SORE begins.  

No worries, I only run every other day, so I give them a little time to heal up.  I just walk funny!!!  Running ... it's addictive!!  But it also keeps me OUT OF THE FRIDGE, so it does have its benefits!

DIVE BOMBED!

 This is the view in my house every morning.  Treats are a big thing around here, so I try to make them sort of healthy and not give them out too often.  This face however ... it wins me over every single time.  That means the treats have become smaller and smaller.  He doesn't care one little bit.  

THIS on the other hand ... this one gives me the LOOK every morning as I type.  It does not matter what's on the desk or what ends up on the floor ... she has to be CLOSE.

I only had one project on the menu today.  One of our wonderful (very young) Elks girls has a knack for sourdough.  She volunteered to give me a piece of her starter to get my own started.  That would require me to ride out to our Elks RV Park for the Stag picnic.  Isn't this gorgeous?  Our guys keep this place immaculate.  

It comes with a big canopy building and a full commercial kitchen.  On the menu today is steak (I'm so tired of steak), Cole slaw, chili beans and a roll.  Sounds like a Thursday night dinner.  Who would have thought I would get so tired of steak I would not want to eat one AT ALL!  I passed on the food.

What I did get was a jar of delicious cabbage salsa.  I have a Bingo friend who is the Queen of salsas.  Every single one she makes is amazing.  HOT .. but amazing.  I have to take four tiny bites to get used to the heat before actually having a REAL bite with chips.  The jar was full when I got home.  Somehow it magically disappeared.

And so I picked up my tiny little cup of starter and tried to understand the directions.  10-50-30.  What the heck does THAT mean?  I tried and tried to understand the explanations, but was completely confused.  What the heck!  Now I have TWO of these things to feed.  

Sadly, mine had turned to liquid, meaning it's meant for the trash can ..... and HERS.  Well this morning it looks just exactly like it did yesterday.  Nothing ... not a bubble to be seen.  I used bread flour and mixed it according to the directions, but there's NOTHING.  Big sigh.  Apparently I was NOT meant for sourdough making.  How disappointing.

I landed on the chaise for awhile, even though it was quite chilly.  Fifteen minutes later I was burning up.  I tried my hardest to stay put for another 15 minutes, staring at the shadow of my earring, but the sun won out.  I headed inside to the kids.

Mom gets a snack time the same as they do, so I grabbed a Rip Van wafer.  You know how you are trying so hard to diet and not eat sweets?  So you buy stuff you have never tried before?  They sounded good ... low sugar, low carbs ... but sadly, that equates to THIS TASTES TERRIBLE!  That crunchy exterior tastes like three week old dry bread, with a mildly dark chocolate flavored center.  This is SO bad!!  

On the other hand, I bought them ... and they were not cheap.  So I'm going to eat them if it kills me!!  My tip of the day is DO NOT BUY THESE.

That brought about a flurry of tree trimming.  Yes, I have no idea what I'm doing here, but I cut all those little branches off the tree trunk and piled them on the lawn.  If the gardener isn't going to do the trimming, he can do the carting off.

Right next to the tree is the REAL miniature bottle brush that is currently covered with honey bees.  I try to stay clear, but there were some very healthy weeds growing beneath it.  While trying to pull them out, I was dive bombed by this guy.  No kidding ... an Anna's Hummingbird smashed into my hair trying to get to the flowers.  This has to be the most gorgeous thing in our neck of the woods.  

This was the thrill of the day, though he didn't stay long.  Gramma you were SO very right about hummers liking bottlebrush.  I'll be keeping an eye out for more.  

Now if only my starter would START and I could get to baking some lovely sourdough bread!!  In case you don't know how stubborn I am, I ordered starter from the internet.  An entire big bottle!!  Lucky for me, it comes with SPECIFIC DIRECTIONS on how to keep it going.  Whether it works or not, remains to be seen, but I'm not giving up yet!!

LET'S EAT CAKE!

This is the view every morning around here.  Mom ... Mom .... where's the food!!  He's just like me.  The older he gets, the bigger his appetite!!  Sweet Cooper is doing okay I suppose, for a 99 year old.  That's figuring his age the NEW way.  MY way, he's 112 with a little heart so full of love it just keeps on ticking!!

The other morning creature is just the same.  She jumps up here every morning ... WHERE'S THE FISH!!  Mostly because her food smells like stinky fish.  That goes well with the eau de lizzie that I found on the bedroom floor at 4:30 am.  I was hoping it was from the last foray under the bed, but alas, I think it is too small to be the same one.  It was unceremoniously tossed out into the front yard.  It may even still be alive .... who knows.  Don't you just love those eyes??

It's going to be an interesting week weather wise.  We are back up to 84 with rain.  That's funny, I don't EVER remember THAT happening here in all my many years.  It should make a great day at the Elks RV Park where we are having our Stag Picnic.  It used to be men only, but they have been kind enough to allow us women to attend, mostly because we do all the cooking.  No steaks this time, only hot dogs and hamburgers, so I don't expect a big turnout.

This would be MY choice for breakfast, lunch AND dinner!  My favorite bakery cake.  No I haven't bought one ......... YET.  That crazy looking bug thing at the bottom is actually a bracelet worn by the girl holding the cake.  Does this not look AMAZING?

After feeding the kids, it's time to feed the starter.  I thought it was too cold to be working, so I left it in the oven overnight with the light on.  That was maybe NOT a good idea.  It feels like 80-something degrees in there and I think I cooked it!!  It doesn't smell yeasty like it should either, but rather like a tad bit sourdough dirt.  Some people have great luck with this stuff.  I don't.  

And so the reason to go out to the RV Park is to snag a chunk of starter from another member who makes it perfectly every time.  She says it's easy.  I doubt that, but I will give it one more try before erasing that permanently from my file.

It was a very long morning of recovery.  Though I work out with weights and run around the block, I still seem to be exhausted after those meetings.  Maybe it's the stress, or walking up and down those stairs six times.  At any rate, I landed on the chaise for a little sun before noon.

Of course I was stalked by this.  She follows me around like a puppy dog, meowing for scratches.  I always accommodate.  The good news is she is FINALLY not gulping down every little morsel of food in one sitting.  She now wanders over to the food, eats a bit, and wanders away.  She is actually turning into quite the nice household pet ... and I don't have to worry about gophers or mice!!

The next phone call brought about a flurry of phone calls.  Bingo donated $5,000 to the local Boys and Girls Club for their fundraiser.  That means we have to fill up a table of eight for dinner.  Honestly, there is nothing worse than being there and seeing empty tables.  We try not to do that.  Sadly, that means my reservation to the coast had to be cancelled.  RATS!  It's okay as I'm not sure how Cooper is going to fare while traveling now.

It does not help that last year the speaker was terrible and went on for almost an hour.  While they usually have lots of great items to bid on, including CAKE, last year they had maybe ten items total.  To be quite honest, it was a terrible event.

 

It took lots of phone calls to convince 7 other people to attend this one.  The only way was to promise they could leave right after dinner!!  It's next Friday night, so we shall see how it goes.  

While on the phone, I wandered around the garden to see what was happening.  It HAD to be better than what was going on in the house, which was nothing!

My Japanese Maple is the happiest I've ever seen it.  Just look at the color of these leaves.  

The color never lasts long however.  The other side is already turning green.  Yes, it needs to be pruned, but neither I nor the gardener have a clue how to go about that.  

In the front of the house, we have even MORE red.  No kidding, everything is reddish around this place.  This is my eight foot tall miniature bottle brush.  I think I planted it three years ago and have never paid attention to how huge it has grown.  I think this is a garden nursery joke ... we'll tell them it's a miniature version.

The good news is it is COVERED with honey bees.  I kept my distance.  No use tempting fate.  It too needs to be pruned.  The only thing I know how to prune is roses, so I guess I'll look this one up on the internet too.

That was it .... my entire boring day trying to recover from a too early morning followed by a too late night.  Boy am I getting OLD!!

I will probably be ON THE COUCH!!

BURNING MY TUXEDO

 Ugh ... okay Cooper, I'm up, I'm up.  Gee whiz!  It's just too early in the morning to be moving around since I got home WAY past 10:00 last night.  Of course HE went to bed about 7:00!

Let me see if I can drag yesterday out of my foggy brain.  It started as usual with Kitters sleeping on the ottoman again.  It's funny how she keeps a close eye on both Cooper and I.  This time she hit the bed WAY before we did, so I was surprised that she went to sleep almost immediately after eating on this day.  

That was followed by the removal of kitty hair.  That is a BIG dog brush I was using.  She has the finest kitty hair, which of course was all over everything when I was done.  

It's okay though ... I saw this yesterday and knew she was supposed to be here.  I'm sure this is what happened to her.  They left her to starve, so I'm very thankful she found me in time.

On another front, my sourdough starter isn't exactly going so great.  We always made it using a bit of yeast.  This time I followed the instructions, only using wheat flour and water.  I'm thinking it's just not summer enough.  My house is cold, and it supposed to be placed in a warm spot.  I tried the oven with the light on (my Mom's old trick), but so far it's not so great.  

It's just like another PET.  You have to feed it every day.  It's going to die a garbage-can death if it doesn't shape up soon!!!

Though I thought to just hang out in the sun, it was another very windy cold day.  They say we are expecting 65 degrees days for the next entire week.  Here we thought summer had arrived, but apparently only for four days.  We are back to winter weather here.

Lunch was quick and easy, though after it was all made, I discovered I did not have any salad dressing.  Well that's not good!  With very little mayo left in the jar, I dumped in a bunch of "stuff" and shook it up.  That's the old use-up-every-bit-of-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink recipe for Thousand Island dressing.  You're not going to believe this, but it was DELICIOUS!!  That doesn't usually happen in MY kitchen.

In no time I had to be off to the lodge.  My plan to play hooky blew up when I realized I had to submit our four budgets for approval on the lodge floor.  Here I am absolutely miserable in spite of the half smile.  That starched neck and too tight pants are just as uncomfortable as they can be.  

So in Elkdom, the newest officers have to memorize their lines for an initiation, before going to a ritual contest to see which lodge can do it better.  That's why they decided we HAD to have this rehearsal to install only ONE person as a member.  Lots of grumbling could be heard coming from 14 tuxedoed individuals because this adds an hour to the meeting.  

I thought maybe I would not grumble (mostly in my head) quite so much if I had a small glass of wine.  It didn't help.

Here's the kicker!!  We all go upstairs to find our leader said she was sick and could not perform the initiation.  That meant a BACKUP leader had to run the entire show, and HE was sick with the flu!  Wait ... we all dressed up for this and now she isn't even going to practice?

It got better.  She came in and sat down to watch.  Oh boy did the grumbling get loud then!  The wine worked because I just sat there with my mouth shut.  I'm praying that germs don't like wine. 

It was a long meeting, so I made my part go by in a flash.  Let's vote for the budgets.  DONE!

Dinner will somewhat make up for the two hour meeting.  I got home after 10:00, threw it in the fridge and hit the bed.  Cooper and I will share the leftovers.  For whatever reason, Kitters will not eat any human food.  Too used to gophers and lizards I guess.

It actually was a good night because we celebrated our biker members.  We had almost an entire parking lot full with 125 dinners served.  These were the early birds who got the good parking spots.  

Since I only got maybe 4 hours of sleep, I'll be slow on the go today.  I have to feed everyone, including the starter, before I can crash on the couch.  And I'm considering burning my tuxedo so I don't have to go to any more of those LONG meetings!!

THE ICE CREAM BIKE

 GOOD MORNING WEDNESDAY!!  Goodbye Wednesday.  That's about how fast yesterday went in this house.  It's always such a shock to my system to stay up late at Bingo, that Wednesdays are for healing up.  Unfortunately, that's the best day to do accounting at the multi-faceted company.  

But first ... I stock up on all the puppy and kitty love I can.  This is actually my view every single morning in my office.  FOOD .... WE NEED FOOD!  Lucky for me, there have been no more gophers or lizards deposited on the floor.  I'm not holding my breath.  And no, I still have not seen anything of the lizard that's living under my bed.  All I can say is at least it's not scorpions!!

This was me yesterday ... and again today!!  Actually, ice cream and cake do more for me than coffee.

By 10:00 I was out the door and heading off to a big fat mess which hopefully will be fixed eventually.  It's called consolidation and the switcherooo game.  The trouble is these Quickbook accounts set themselves up because you know, they know more about your business than you do.  That meant rebuilding three entire accounts with different classifications and numbers.  Oh my aching head.

Then it was on to creating spreadsheets to track everything.  This is not one of them.  I stole this from the internet.  In no time, both my training gal and I were exhausted.  We got a lot accomplished, but ooowweee that used up a considerable amount of brain power.

I crashed on the couch when I got home, to the dismay of Kitters and Cooper.  I'll have to make up for that today to keep from receiving "gifts"!

At last I got up enough gumption to cook up a plethora of chicken for lunches and dinners.  I fried half, and ran the other half through the air fryer.  You know what?  Pan frying was much easier and FASTER and hecka easier on the dish washing.  Who knew??  The chopped one is for Mr. Cooper.  His is always cooked before any seasonings are added.  Easy peasy ... this should last me a week!

By the way, does anyone have a Ceasar salad dressing they really like?  I'd love to make some salads with this too.

At last I settled in for a little TV entertainment before I crashed for the night.  That's when I heard it.  Rudolph the red nosed reindeer ... It's a Holly Jolly Christmas ... Old MacDonald had a farm .... Twinkle twinkle little star .... The wheels on the bus go round and round.  I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!

We have an elderly Sikh gentleman who rides his bicycle around the neighborhood with a small freezer on the front end.  No kidding ... he plays the loudest music I've ever heard.  Yes it's mostly Christmas music, but there's a few country songs in there too.  He has a beard like Santa Clause and speaks little to NO English.

How could you NOT want to buy some ice cream.  He comes by at least twice a week, so I rushed out on this day for a little treat.  He has a pretty wild variety of things I've never heard of before, so I always get these.  I don't see him stop on our street very often, so I also give him a big tip.  Anyone who can peddle an old bicycle with a heavy freezer on the front, deserves every dime.

That was it for the day.  I could not have ended it better.  Unfortunately for me, on THIS night I have to present the budget to the Lodge.  For some ridiculous reason they have decided to initiate ONE SINGLE PERSON, meaning we all have to wear tuxedos and the meeting will be two hours long.  Truly, I had no intention of going until I remembered the budget.  RATS!!!  I think playing hooky has now become my passion!!