Wednesday, September 25, 2013

There's a story there, I'm sure of it



Note that tiny white and gray thing on the far left:  a little mousey toy. It vibrates when you pull its string, but that, it turned out, is kind of a dumb cat toy. 1) Cats can't pull the string. DUH. 2) Even when you pull the string, the vibrating only lasts about 3 seconds, then it lies there, inert.  The scenario goes: Cat: HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THA-- Oh, nothing.  HOWEVER, when it is left out of sight, say under the sofa, or behind the bookshelf, long enough, then when it is accidentally happened upon, it is a source of great joy and much batting and racing and rolling and dashing about in random directions. 

Note the sun - spot: Adams haz it, AND the mousey.

Note the cardboard claw-sharpening/catnip-scented box on the right: O'Keefe haz it. 

I feel quite sure that a few minutes before I glanced over and saw this seemingly peaceful tableau, some extremely complicated bit of diplomacy/warfare had been negotiated.  It is clearly diplomacy, despite the visible tuft of gray fur behind and between them, because the catnip-scented cardboard box is Adams's favorite thing EVAR DOODS, while sun - spots are O'Keefe's domain. They've both been playing, on and off, with the mousey since it resurfaced yesterday. Since neither cat has ALL THE THINGS, I deduce that this event *was* diplomatic, perhaps (probably) backed up with demonstrations of military might.

Now see the next photo, which I took trying to get a better version of the first one:


I AM O'KEEFE, DESTROYER OF PHOTOGRAPHS.

She does this Every. Damn. Time. The first flash goes off and gets their attention, and by the time my camera's ready for the second picture, she's on the way toward me to see what I'm doing.

That is all.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Looks like we'll have some cool weather for awhile, anyway

and I have so god-awful many yard and garage and shed projects I need to do, I am going to try to get out there and work every single day on them. If I take it in little bits, my theory goes, I won't get so worn out or so sore that I'll dread going back.

Today, I used my saw!

My first target area was next to the rollup garage door where I keep the yard tools:


Tidying up this scene will, I hope, also encourage me to keep my tools in better repair.  



After moving all the tools out of the way - and sorting which ones will go to the back yard shed - I used a broom to sweep away (most of) the cobwebs and leaf bits.  Then I yanked out all those old, bent, rusty nails someone had pounded into random locations.  This looked much more promising:


I wanted to wedge another board between the front wall of the garage and that brick pillar on the right, on top of the in-place board. These won't have to hold much weight so they don't really need to be nailed extensively. A tight wedge of the upper board should be sufficient. The length should have been 51 1/2 inches.

And it fit perfectly, first time! (I measured twice, cut once. Somewhere, my dad's doing a slow clap.)


That really *is* a tight fit - I had to hammer really hard, a lot. It's not coming out.

That was when I discovered I lack hooks to finish the job. So, I turned my attention to the plus one for the day:


That workbench-top space was NOT there before. The far end looks jumbled? Well, it's quite organized, really and each item will have its own place when I ultimately get done organizing. When I went out there this afternoon, there was stuff piled up level with that middle screwdriver shelf across the whole bench-top! And now I have more working space! I'm chuffed!

Saturday, September 07, 2013

Getting Ready for All Hallow's Read!


(one of last year's posters. Come ON, you guys, it's time to be getting this year's out to the world!)
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The Friends of Omaha's Public Library has a sale the first Saturday of every month. I went over there today to see if I could find any good kids' books (age-appropriately scary, preferably) for All Hallow's Read. LOL - I really made a HAUL!!!




That's THIRTY books.  Grand total bill:  $9.00.  Woohoo I'm in business, friends! So now I just need to clean them all up a bit. Peel off the OPL and other stickers, wipe the covers down, and go through to make sure there's nothing untoward written in any of them. I saw that one has a workbook-like format, and one of the blank boxes had been filled in, so I'll figure out some way to cover that up. Stuff like that. Then I'll sort them into Little Kids - Grade school - YA piles.

I was astounded at how excited the kids last year were to get books! So I'm doubling down this year. I'm *ready*!

Give a scary book for Hallowe'en! See details by going to All Hallow's Read.



Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Where angels fear to tread...

I have a habit of plunging into the deep end of the pool. I won't beat around the bush here (am I collecting cliches today? Oh well): This past week I bought enough eggplant, zucchini, butternut squash, tomatoes, onions, and green peppers to make several gallons of ratatouille.  Up until the movie "Ratatouille" came out a few years ago, I'd never heard of the stuff. I went online to find a recipe, and discovered hundreds! So I made one. Loved it. Made another. Loved it. Etc etc etc. I am a ratatouille convert. I love it more than spaghetti sauce (and that's saying something). I love how I can freeze it and later pile it on top of noodles, potatoes, or rice, or have it with salad and a baguette or even pile it warm on crackers. Or pita and goat cheese...mmmmm.

And we have the wonderful Wenninghoff's here in Omaha for all of your fresh produce needs. So this week I went there and bought all that stuff, and today I'm going to make ratatouille by the vat-full.

Yesterday I went back and bought 25 pounds of Missouri peaches. I hadn't realized quite how many peaches that is until I got them home. *gulp* I'm going to freeze those, too. I have about half the volume in my chest freezer available for all this stuff.

And today I'm freezing peaches. (I'm using the lazy way; washing off the fuzz, slicing them and laying the slices on cookie sheets and freezing them then putting them into freezer zip-style bags.)

This is a LOT of work. But I'm going to love myself this winter. And I'm very glad I have Netflix to keep me company during today's labors.

3 hrs later: Well, 21 of the peaches are halved and sitting in the freezer, freezing. The two giant pots of ratatouille are cooking. There is about a half-gallon of tomatoes left over, which I don't know what I'll do with, but they'll get used.

And my feet hurt and I'm tired, and I still have to bag up all this stuff for the freezer.  *groan* but here I am groaning about having too much food? in THIS world? Really, Terry? Shame on me. So instead, I shall be grateful down to my sore arches.

2 1/2 hrs later:  Got about 2/3 done with all this. Will finish tomorrow. Too pooped to keep going tonight!

ETA photos:


Freezing peaches!  The butter tubs are to hold the next tray above the peaches.

Next: my two batches of ratatouille. It turned out really really good.  :^)



And, because there aren't enough pictures of cats on the internet, here are my cats:


They both HAD been lying on the floor, one right behind the other, so I thought it'd make a cool floor-level picture. Of course, as soon as I put the camera down O'Keefe had to come investigate it, so you can only admire her toes here. As if she'd never seen it before. That's her more nonchalant brother Adams being cool about the whole thing.