08.01.08
Cornmeal & computers.
Well this morning, no wait, I have to go back to last night. Last night I was determined to go to bed early enough so that I would be able to wake up before Daniel left for work. I turned in at 01:50. Daniel woke me at 7:40, ten minutes later than the usual, but I was still able to sit out on the front porch with him for a few minutes. It was nice. Then he left for work, we said our good-byes at the front sidewalk and I went right to the pond and watered his squash garden. Some of the plants have sent our their first set of leaves.
I did a water change in the pond and a load of laundry while I performed my moderator duties at the Poets org forum. Around 11:30 today Mom stopped in for a bit on her way to the grocery store. We sat on the front porch and talked for a while. I told her I couldn’t think of a thing to make for dinner. In the last two weeks I’ve cooked beef, pork, chicken, fish, chili, more chicken, more fish, more beef, and shrimp. Mom wasn’t any help with the menu. The only thing left is stew or soup and it’s too damn hot for that. After about a half hour Mom left on her way to continue her day.
The UPS delivery man stopped by today. Our new mailbox arrived. It’s one of those huge rural route boxes, black in color. The old one lost its door last year and I haven’t been able to find one locally. I found it on Amazon three weeks ago and ordered a green one. Turns out I ordered a large, and I needed a Jumbo (it is huge). It can hold a decent size package. Daniel will most likely install it this weekend.
I drove to the bank, then bought gas, now $3.899 a gallon, still highway robbery if you ask me, and my last stop was to the post office to pick up the mail. When I got home, I took two grilled chicken breasts out of the freezer just in case. Then I remembered I had a 4 pound spiral ring of sweet Italian sausage in the chest freezer in the basement, so I dug it out and sat it on the stove to defrost. While it was defrosting, I made cucumber salad, boiled another half pound of penne, and whipped up a batch of cornbread from scratch. I baked the cornbread out on the front porch in the toaster over. While the cornbread was baking, the sausage had thawed just enough to cut it up into hot-dog length pieces with my poultry shears. I set the first three pieces aside that were about half thawed from up the outer ring, and rewrapped the remaining eight pieces in freezer wrap and refroze them. They still had frost on them and were a bugger to cut.
Speaking of the word thawed, have any of you ever heard the word dethawed? Daniel uses that. We had a discussion (argument) as to whether it’s a word or a local colloquialism from where he grew up. I said there’s no such word, seems like a contradiction to me. Daniel said it’s a word. Damn if he wasn’t right, dethaw is a dang word. Looked it up in the dictionary. Just seems wrong to me.
I put the sausage on the grill and scrubbed down the mandoline. Before the sausage was ready to turn, Daniel called to let me know he was on his way home from work. Seems I timed everything just right. He took about a half hour to unwind from work before we ate dinner. The cornbread was a little dry, my fault, as I thought the batter was a little thin and added an extra half cup of 50/50 cornmeal and flour to the mix. It was an experiment, as I combined two different recipes. I didn’t want to have to cut in shortening, so I used vegetable oil and cut back on the milk the shortening recipe called for. Basically I used the dry ingredients from one recipe on the Indian Head Corn Meal bag and the liquid ingredients from the premixed recipe. I should have just left the batter be, but I’ll know for next time. Daniel ate his cornbread with honey, I used Brummel & Brown.
Daniel is building a new computer for his mother. Her computer died about a month ago, but until recently, Daniel hasn’t felt that he could travel the three hours it takes to drive there. Building computers is one of Daniel’s favorite activities. All the parts arrived yesterday in two large cartons. He’ll be in his glory this weekend.
That light was back in the southern sky again tonight. I’ll have to ask Christine what it is.
Sleep well everyone.
O.P.W.
chrissiemkl said,
August 2, 2008 at 11:17 am
Yes, it’s Jupiter. I looked at it a few weeks ago through the telescope and could see its distinctive bands, as well as three moons! 🙂