One Little Corner

Take a big deep breath in ... let it out.  Repeat.  I seem to be doing that a lot these days, which is obviously a good thing.  Even with my back on the mend, I'm not getting much done.  Distraction comes easy to me and suddenly I find I've been on my phone checking out new recipes and new photography ideas for two hours!!  I suppose it's cheap entertainment!   

However, it keeps me from doing what needs to be done.  Mrs. Chance send a note to me.  If you are overwhelmed with cleaning and organizing, just do ONE little corner.  Ha!!  This is a pretty big corner that looks just the same today as it did yesterday!!

The star of this little headache is my grandmother's rocker.  You've probably seen these with the strange wooden mechanism underneath that allows it to rock.  The tapestry was done by her many many years ago.  Surprisingly, it's even still sturdy enough to sit in and rock.  

Instead of being hidden in the back bedroom, it needs a place in my house where it can be seen and enjoyed.  I just haven't found that place yet.  

In case you wondered why I'm so scatterbrained sometimes ... this is it.  My sewing room is an absolute disaster.  It makes me crazy every time to go in, which is multiple times a day!!  Cleaning this little "corner" is going to take some doing!!

It being Sunday and all, I didn't do much but hang out with Mr. Cooper.  I did work on this quilt and got two more squares done.  These patterns are pretty complicated, requiring sewing, cutting, ironing, sewing, cutting and MORE ironing.  If I don't concentrate, I make mistakes, so progress is slow.  You'll see lots of different varieties of this since my wall isn't big enough for the king size quilt it will become.

Towards the end of the day, Cooper and I went out for a walk.  What??  It's RAINING?  When did THAT happen?  I never heard a sound the entire time.  No, the gardeners have STILL not trimmed all the rose bushes!!

For dinner I whipped up a dish left over from the old ranch kitchen.  When I say old, I mean OLD.  The kitchen was the biggest room in the house.  It had the stove in one corner, the sink in the far corner, and a built-in buffet/display cabinet for the fine china.  Since there WAS no fine china, it held the jelly jars we used for water glasses and the mason jars we used for canning.

When you walked in the door, you noticed a definite slant to the floor.  That was for cleaning purposes.  You scrubbed the floor with a mop and soap, then tossed an entire bucket of clean water at the highest point of the floor.  The water ran down to the low corner, where two big slots were cut in the wall at floor level.  That's where you swept the dirty water out.  

Did critters come in those inch high slots?  Why yes they did!!  A broom was kept close by to smack them.

That's where we cooked the toughest chunks of meat.  Our stove had one burner that would drop down into the stove.  It held a big pot for long slow cooking, kind of like a slow cooker today.  We would cut up the meat into chunks, chop up some onion, add a can of chopped tomatoes (for the acid) and a can of green chilis.  It would simmer on the stove the entire day, making the house smell wonderful!!

Even the toughest piece of an old cow that died mysteriously, would come out tender enough to eat.  Surprisingly, we never died from eating any of it.

It was quite tasty and brought back memories of the old kitchen floor.  It might have been better over mashed potatoes.  I may have to go to the store today.

But first ... I'm off to DMV to get my truck registered.  Why not register it out of state?  I'm basically honest and mostly afraid I'll get caught.  It only takes one time of getting detained in a jail cell in Santa Cruz at 17 years of age to make you follow the rules.  But that's a story for another day!!