29 January 2023
That’s a phrase that my friend, D, uses, and in the past couple of days it has certainly applied to me. :-D You’re just not going to believe this . . .
So. Friday. I go to the club for a great workout, and then I got on a kidney stone accountability group call where I was talking about eggs and how challenging it is that I cannot have them very often. My body has developed a sensitivity to them that causes severe intestinal distress (in case you don’t know, that’s A-speak for The Poops). I can usually get away with an egg salad sandwich one day, as long as I don’t have anymore the next day. So, I came home from the club and, later that afternoon, I decided I would hard boil the six eggs I had that were older and use a couple of them to have egg salad for dinner. I boil my eggs for about 30 minutes. I know, that sounds bizarre, but I cannot stand even a hint of softness in the yolk. In fact, I’m happiest when there’s a green ring of sulfur around it, which means that the eggs have been boiled too hard for too long. It’s how I like them.
Anyway, I put the kettle on for some tea, and when it whistled, I made my tea and sat down with the last of the floss colors I was trying to put together for my next cross stitch project. I successfully finished that, put the eggs on, with the plan to check them as soon as they boiled and set the timer, and then I headed back into my office for just a moment to work on the chart for my next cross stitch project.
Three hours later, I looked up from my computer screen, realized it was six o’clock and I really needed to drink the rest of my tea because I usually don’t drink it after three o’clock. I walked out to the kitchen to get it, and something smelled off – a little burny. I looked toward the cooktop and panicked. I immediately shut the gas off, but here is what I saw.
I KNOW better than to leave the kitchen when I have something on the stove. My creative brain just got so caught up in what I was doing with the stitching chart that I completely forgot about the eggs.
JesusMaryAndJoseph.
AndAllOfHisCarpenterFriends.
I know I was lucky they hadn’t exploded and even luckier that I didn’t burn the house down. While they were cooling, I went back to my office and then heard a noise suspiciously sounding like a big pop. My heart sank, and I headed back to the kitchen where I carefully poked my head around the refrigerator to look at the cooktop. Thank. God. Nothing had exploded and I never did find out what the “pop” was. I had to spray Lysol throughout the entire house, but the smell was not horrible because the shells had remained intact. Once the eggs were cooled off all the way, I put them in a ziplock bag and then put them in another ziploc bag and put them in the bin (so far, not smelly at all). Even I think boiling for three hours is too long to safely have eaten them. :-D I heaved another sigh of relief that I had escaped what would sure have been a very expensive homeowners’ insurance claim. All I was left with was a burnt pan.
I thought for sure it was ruined and I was heartbroken, because I have really great (read: old) Revere Ware copper bottom saucepans. They don’t make them anymore. I actually have two of the larger sizes because my mom had them, as well. I did a little research online (I made my living for close to twenty years researching things online, so I’m pretty good at it) and found what I thought would be a good process to try. It entailed a small amout of boiling water, some vinegar, and some baking soda. So, this morning, I crossed my fingers and figured I’d better try sooner rather than later.
HOT DOG!!!! Success!!!
And because the inside looked like new, I decided to pull out the copper cleaner and do the bottom as well! You have no idea how happy I am that I did not ruin this pan. I just made some rice in it, and there’s no burnt residue. So grateful!
So then, Saturday. I have been having trouble getting out of bed lately. I’ll wake up around 6 or 7, but play on my phone, and before I realize it, it’s 9 o’clock. This is not a good habit and it’s one I will be working on very soon. It’s not like I have somewhere I have to be most days, but lazing around in bed is not best for me. Anyway, I read a Facebook post from my church minister that he was doing a funeral that day and I realized it was one that I wanted to go to and had put on the calendar. So I got up, got cleaned up, got my eyebrows on, and finally opened a box containing black Sanitas clogs that I wanted to wear with the black outfit I had on. I originally ordered these in May of last year and had mistakenly ordered the wrong size (Euro size 42). So I returned them for some 40s. The exchange package arrived in June, and sat on a chair in my living room until yesterday when I wanted to wear them with my black outfit. I know, I could have opened them sooner than seven months after they arrived . . . but I hadn’t. I opened up the box to put some neutral cream on them – SOP for any new shoes before wearing – and discovered that Zappos had sent me the wrong size. They were 39s. Crap. So I got on the phone and got an exchange figured out. Then I put my regular really dark navy clogs on and hoped no one would notice. I got in the car, and was halfway to church before I realized I had completely forgotten to brush my teeth.
Great.
There was no way to get home, do that, and get back to church in time for the service, so yet another reason that I’m happy I still mask in public indoor spaces. How did I manage to do this? Well, I was actually going to eat breakfast before I went to the service and I wanted to brush my teeth after I ate. With not getting up until 9, the clog mess-up, phone call, and the service being at 10:30, I ran out of time to eat and completely forgot to brush my teeth. Then, I’m sitting in the pew with a friend of mine – the son of one of my late mom’s closest church friends, and I look down and think there’s a hole in my pants. Dammit. Well, it wasn’t a hole – I had spilled something on them the last time I wore them and didn’t realize it.
Great.
It’s never a good thing for me to not have breakfast. After the service I ended up at the McDonald’s drive thru, which I almost never do, but I was really hungry. Then, back at home, while actually enjoying my quarter pounder with cheese, a huge blob of ketchup squirts out the bottom of the burger on to my best black top.
Great.
So, as my friend, D, says, I’m a mess! :-D I also have a sense of humor about it, and it’s more and more clear to me that the human brain is NOT made to multi-task. The older I get the more I need to focus on one thing at a time. Today has been a better day – particularly since I managed to rescue my Revere Ware saucepan. :-)
Self-Care Bingo Update . . . BINGO!!!
I did it!!!
Last time I checked in, I needed to go outside – which I did. I needed to stretch, which I did on Friday at the club – I did an extra long post-workout stretch that felt really great. I finished a book on my Kindle app that I can recommend: The Storyteller of Casablanca, by Fiona Valpy. Here’s the blurb about it:
In this evocative tale from the bestselling author of The Dressmaker’s Gift, a strange new city offers a young girl hope. Can it also offer a lost soul a second chance?
Morocco, 1941. With France having fallen to Nazi occupation, twelve-year-old Josie has fled with her family to Casablanca, where they await safe passage to America. Life here is as intense as the sun, every sight, smell and sound overwhelming to the senses in a city filled with extraordinary characters. It’s a world away from the trouble back home—and Josie loves it.
Seventy years later, another new arrival in the intoxicating port city, Zoe, is struggling—with her marriage, her baby daughter and her new life as an expat in an unfamiliar place. But when she discovers a small wooden box and a diary from the 1940s beneath the floorboards of her daughter’s bedroom, Zoe enters the inner world of young Josie, who once looked out on the same view of the Atlantic Ocean, but who knew a very different Casablanca.
It’s not long before Zoe begins to see her adopted city through Josie’s eyes. But can a new perspective help her turn tragedy into hope, and find the comfort she needs to heal her broken heart?
Morocco is one of my favorite places, and WWII is one of my favorite subjects, so when this came up for free on Kindle Unlimited, I grabbed it. It’s a very good story.
I still have Yoga, and I had Dance Break – so I put a bra on (less chance of bludgeoning myself to death with my boobs), and took a dance break here in my office. Yeah, baby! BINGO!!!
I have to say that my dance break was just shy of five minutes long, and my knees were not all that happy about it, but I danced one entire song. I think this is something that might be really strengthening for my knees, so I’m going to see about doing it again in February, and when I think back to having danced for hours on end in my twenties, I’m inspired to see if I can get my legs and knees stronger. I mean, what would I do if I got asked to go dancing? Dance one song and have to sit down?! Hell no!
I picked some more squares from my tin throughout the week. First, I got:
Not a hard one for me to do, but I need to focus to do a good reading, so I will do this in the next day to have a reading going into February. Then, this morning, I got:
Perfect timing, and I will do it tomorrow and get a second Bingo for the month!! Yay Me!! I’ve actually meditated a few times this month, and yesterday I watched two movies (Downton Abbey: A New Era, and The Lost City – I liked them both, but Downton Abbey was better), but I haven’t picked either of those squares this month so I didn’t count them.
I’m working now on my February Bingo card.
And finally, here’s my set up for my next cross stitch project. I made my own design again. It will be a smaller pin cushion for my word of the year, Self-Care. There is a bottom border from a Celtic book and then motifs from other books and patterns of things I like that are forms of self-care for me. I like all the floss colors I have picked out and I’m using a sandy color of 34 count linen (it’s some of the fabric from my friend who gave me all her cross stitch stuff). I hope it will be beautiful (and colorful!) when it is stitched.
I know you want to know what tune I did my dance break, to. Don’t you? Well, it’s a tune I’ve shared here before, but I never tire of it, and if you bend your knees and attempt to do the dance they do, which is called The Rock (not to be confused with Dwayne Johnson), you will likely soon see why my wonky knee was complaining a bit. Rock on, my friends ;-)