Happy daze !

Current Mood : Happily exhausted.

What a nice day we had ! Very hot, but breezy in the morning. I was still shuffling and redoing my space today when I realized that I needed another milk crate for an idea I had. Reclaimed one from the garage where we’d abandoned them, and noticed how awful dusty-dirty it was. Started to wipe it down, but that’d take forever. So I took it outside and turned the garden hose on it.

That cooled things off quickly ! And it was fun, too. In the breezy heat, it was nearly dry by the time I finished taking water-jet pot shots at Dearest Son. Turned the hose over to him, who got me good twice before he concentrated on making mud pits for his Hot Wheels, and went back to shuffling. Transferred the fabric from the dollhouse to the ‘new’ clean milk crate from an older, dirty one, then took that one outside for a hose-down, too. Much better. Once it dried, that one was just the right size for all the backdrops and props I like to keep on the photo studio shelf.

Moved the Barbie Friend Ship and Country Living Home to the empty big shelf, which left the top of the bookshelf free. I may leave it like that. More light this way. Or reserve it as the future home of the Monster High school playset, whenever I get one. For now, though, once I finished some scanning that was sitting around, I boosted the all-in-one printer up there. It’s out of the way, and I can still get to it when I need it. Then, with that done, it was off to the Library !

I’ll be honest here. I’ve been studying cookbooks. It all started because I wanted some biscuits and either 1) didn’t wanna deal with McTraffic first thing in the morning,  2) didn’t want those bland canned ones either, or 3) didn’t wanna shell out for Bisquik, although I love the stuff. It’s kinda expensive for blended flour, baking powder, and shortening. But the truth is, I’ve missed cooking. I miss making chicken pastry from scratch, with flour everywhere and a huge mess in the kitchen. I’ve missed experimenting with leftovers. I’ve missed having ‘trial’ nights where there’s frozen pizza if the planned menu didn’t quite work out. I’ve missed having actual ingredients besides leftover vintage spices and stuff I know I had a few weeks ago that’s AWOL now. I’ve missed feeling that it’s OK if something doesn’t work out, I haven’t wasted anything we’ll need desperately next week. I’ve missed the smell of my own fresh-baked cookies, so much…

You’d think I could do all that here, but the IL’s kitchen…(sigh) Well, to put not too fine a point on it, it ranks. The counters are cluttered with appliances and FIL’s tools and AirSoft guns, and even if I braved his wrath and moved all the appliances and stuff elsewhere, there’s not much counter space to clear in the first place. The biggest counter area is a corner I can’t reach, just from the way it was built. The oven only occasionally works, the stove burners have to be hand-lit, and go from ‘melt butter in 15 minutes’ to ‘Dante’s Inferno’ with less than an eighth of an inch turn of the dial. And knowing ‘here’ pops the corn and ‘there’ boils the water doesn’t help, when ‘here’ and ‘there’ changes nearly every time I go to use the thing. I’ve mostly been doing ‘heat and serve’ dinners, which are OK, but not very nourishing to anyone.

So I tried to find a cookbook to suit me, but it isn’t easy. One uses mostly pre-made stuff, so that by the time I’ve made it, we could have gone out to eat, another expects me to eat beans and rice twice a day, and Heavens help me if I don’t like lima beans and dandelion greens. (I don’t.) I’ve gotten so I take one that’s ‘beginner boiling water’ level and one that’s just shy of ‘experienced restaurant chef’ level and dig around in both books to see if I can find anything. First one I got didn’t even have a biscuit recipe. The third one did.

I’m also wondering what happened to ‘be quiet in the Library’. Today was bad. Some guy two stacks over would. not. shut. up. He was going on and on about books for his teenage daughter to his wife.  At a voice quality I’d reserve for the hard of hearing.  Said daughter was over at the other end of the Library, looking for ‘mann-gah’. Probably blushing furiously. I heard more about this loud guy’s family than he might have wanted, but then even their baby, who had been so silent, I didn’t know he/she was there, started screaming. Probably wanted Daddy to shut up, too. Did they take the little scream factory out ? Nope. Kept joshing about what books daughter ‘should’ like, but doesn’t. Over the best howls from Baby Ticked Off.

We also saw where someone left crackers all over a computer desk including the keyboard, with wrappers and papers underneath it, met roving gangs of kids whose parents apparently dropped them off and fled, and got to hear all about one teen’s dating woes as he related them loudly to a friend via cell phone – and he was working there ! (sigh) It was almost as bad as the kid’s birthday party in one of the meeting rooms. Some sort of comedian was creating balloon animals while encouraging the guests (over a microphone) to scream as loudly as they could. Yes, we could hear this in the Library proper. Loud and clear in the bathrooms, too. I know they gotta make up for budget shortfalls, but, wow. I envied Dearest, who’d appropriated my headphones.

I will be sooo glad when we move ! There’s things I’ll miss, surely, but so much I won’t !