Tired

           I get tired sometimes, or maybe I just get lazy. Sometimes there are things I mean to tell you, then, for a myriad of reasons, don’t.

          I wanted to tell you a couple’a more things last week, show you a couple’a more pictures, but because last week’s letter blog was already ten pages long, it would’ve pushed it on to one more page.

          If I keep it to ten, I can use a regular stamp this week, was what I thought. It’s not that my postage is too bad. It’s not. I only mail two letter blogs a week. Ten pages prints on five sheets of paper and that’s what I can get for a first-class stamp. Six pages pushes it over the one-ounce mark and the postage jumps from fifty-five cents to seventy cents. Most weeks my postage is seventy cents. And it’s not that I mind or can’t afford the seventy cents a week for each of my two faithful readers, it’s that I think it’s kinda a waste — and if you know me at all, you know I hate waste.

          “Why’s it a waste?” you ask.

          It’s a waste because I can put ten sheets of paper in my seventy-cent postage stamped envelope, that’s why. If I’m going to spend seventy cents, I want my money’s worth!

          Maybe I should’ve started my letter blog this week with, I get tired sometimes, or maybe I just get lazy, or maybe I’m just cheap.

          “What’d we miss?” you wanna know.

          You missed, and I wanted to tell you, where the inspiration for Miss Rosie’s Valentine’s gift came from. When Momma died, my beautiful and much-adored older sister brought me Momma’s suncatchers. Most of them I’d made but there was one that she’d gotten someplace else and was plastic. It looks like this.

          I searched online for ideas for a Valentine suncatcher and was only finding hearts. Mulling it over, standing at the sink washing dishes, I glance at my window and see Momma’s rainbow suncatcher hanging there. It’s got hearts, I thought, why not do that.

          It took a little work to figure out how to replace all those tiny hearts with a big one but there wasn’t any way I was going to try to make nine little hearts. It would’ve been a nightmare.

          And now, when my Miss Rosie looks at her rainbow hearts hanging in her window, she’ll think of my mother too!

          Last week, what you also missed, was a visit from my little squirrel. He doesn’t come around often, probably the cats have something to do with that, but when he does come around, he eats from the suet feeder. The birds aren’t the only ones who like my homemade suet!

           “Peg, this seems like something you could’ve skipped,” you say.

          Aww. You hurt my feelings! But I do have a reason to bring it up. Right on the other side, behind the squirrel, the same distance from the pole as the suet feeder, is a sunflower seed feeder. I just think it’s interesting that given a choice between the suet and the sunflower seeds, he chooses the suet.

          And you missed a car wreck. This one I find kind of amusing but I bet the people whose cars were involved didn’t. When we drove past this multi-family housing unit, this car right here…

          …was backed tight against these two cars, his back bumper right in the vee where they kissed.

           It looks like he backed into the first car, pushing it into the second.

          “Do you think he was drunk and they parked him in so he couldn’t go any place?” I asked Mike, but as you may well guess, Mike didn’t know.

          “You should turn around so I can get the picture,” I said but didn’t pressure him to do so. “They might be gone when we come back.”

          And they were gone. The driver of the Grand Marquis pulled his car around the end of the house. I laughed. “Does he think they won’t find it there or know that he did it?”

          ♫Someone’s in trouble!♪

          Lastly, you missed something else I find amusing. Our local news does a segment they call Talkback 16 where they allow callers to air their grievances. Some people get so upset — you wouldn’t believe how upset! — over the anchors matching his tie to her dress or visa-versa, her dress to his tie. I don’t know who decides what color they’ll wear but I like it. In fact, I think the morning anchors should do the same! I think the splash of color in his tie tastefully mirrors the color she’s wearing and it shows unity. They are a team after all.

>>>*<<<

          I did it!

          I finally did it!

          “Did what?” you ask.

          I broke down and bought a computer game, something I haven’t done in years. I’ve had this game before but sent the disc to Kat so she could play it too. When it comes to time-wasters, matching gems on Jewel Quest is a good waste of time, but you know what would be even better? A time-waster that might actually be good for you. A game that makes you think. And that’s why I like 3003 Crystal Mazes. The goal of the game is to get all of the crystals into the gold boxes. The rules are as simple as can be. You can only push a crystal and you can only push one crystal at a time. That’s it. Sounds easy, don’t it. (Not really a question, more a statement of fact.) Some of the puzzles have taken me months to ‘puzzle’ out but I refused to move on until I solved it. I never did get through all the puzzles in the game, I doubt I even finished half of them, and that’s why I bought it again.

“How many puzzles are there?” you wonder.

I bet there are 3003.

>>>*<<<

          Michael.

          Michael, Michael, Michael.

          That handsome mountain man of mine is, among other things (which will become clear later), subject to advertising.

          “Peg!” he calls from his recliner one day last week. “Look at this.”

          I leave whatever I’m doing and go see what he’s yelling about. On the TV is an infomercial for an egg cooker.

          “Yeah?” I question.

          “You can make hard boiled eggs in it,” he tries to tempt me.

          “I can make hard boiled eggs in a pan on the stove,” I say. “I don’t need one more thing sitting around.”

          “You can make poached eggs too,” he adds.

          “Yeah?”

          “You know what I wouldn’t mind having?”

          “What?”

          “Eggs Benedict.”

          Mike had gotten Eggs Benedict once at a little hole-in-the wall in Lake Ozark, Missouri and they were the best he’d ever had. He still dreams about them.

          “I can make poached eggs,” I tell him. I’d never made them for him but Mr. B., one of the old guys I used to take care of, had me make him poached eggs a few times. “Besides, it’s not just poached eggs, you need Canadian bacon and hollandaise sauce too — and I don’t need one more thing sitting around!” I emphasized.

          Mike’s sister-in-law died and his brother Cork is alone and missing Pam a lot. Mike’s been making more of an effort to be there for his brother and calls him several times a week. Sitting at my computer, Mike in the other room talking to Cork, I hear my name and tune in to his conversation.

          Guess what he’s talking about?

          “An egg cooker?” you guess.

          Yep. “Peg doesn’t want one but they’re really cool!” Mike says and goes on to describe all the attributes, sounding just like the infomercial.

          The next time Mike talks to Cork, just a couple of days later, Cork had gone out and bought one! He gave us a report.

          “It works really well for hard boiled eggs,” he said, “but it didn’t cook my omelet all the way through. It was still runny on the bottom.”

          “How about poached eggs?” Mike asked.

          “Haven’t tried ‘em yet,” Cork answered.

          This whole thing has set in motion days of experimenting with different recipes and methods of making poached eggs and hollandaise sauce.

          We bought Canadian bacon and English muffins. Then I tried a method of making poached eggs in the microwave. They came out rubbery and hard. They were topped with another recipe from the internet for hollandaise sauce made in a blender. It was too lemony. Mike ate them anyway but I know he was disappointed. “It filled my belly,” was about the best he could say for it.

          All of the recipes, both on the internet and in my cookbooks, call for the same measure of lemon juice.

          “If it’s too much lemon, cut it back,” wise words from my beautiful Minnesota sister. Phyllis called mid-week and we had a mouthwatering conversation centered around recipes. “Basically, I called to share this Lemon Bar recipe with you because I know Miss Rosie likes lemon,” she said.

          “That she does,” I affirmed.

          The next time we had a ‘crack’ at Eggs Benedict, I broke out my Fanny Farmer. She was famous for not only giving you a recipe but giving you the method of preparing it too. Pans started clanging as I dug around in the cupboards. Mike wandered out into the kitchen to see what all the noise was about.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Looking for two pans to nest together to make a double boiler.”

Mike went to my computer and I knew what he was doing. He was searching for double boilers. I glanced over his shoulder to confirm my suspicions. “I don’t need one! I can use two pans like my mother did when she needed one.”

“Here’s one that’s only fourteen dollars.”

I went to look and it was a pan with hooks that sat over a pot you already own. “Okay,” I gave in. “If we’re gonna to do this, we gotta have the right tools.”

          Mike clicked a few buttons, pushed the chair back, and stood up. “Okay! It’ll be here the day after tomorrow!”

For hollandaise sauce, Fannie gives two methods and I tried the first one, taking Phyllis’s advice and cutting back on the lemon juice. I stood over the pan whisking it, watching for it to thicken.

“This is too much trouble,” Mike said looking over my shoulder now.

“No, it’s not. It’s just new. Anything new seems hard until you learn to do it.”

“What can I do?” he asked.

“You can make your English muffin and warm the Canadian bacon.”

          I cooked the hollandaise as long as I dared and set it aside to make the poached eggs. Water gently simmering, slide the eggs in one at a time, Mike puttering around fixing his part.

          “This is too much trouble.”

“No, it’s not!” I assured. Then I considered. “It’s not too much trouble to make you Eggs Benedict — especially when you help! I just feel sorry that you have to eat all of my mistakes until we figure it out.”

Muffin toasted, bacon on top, Mike came to the stove presenting his plate. I lifted the poached eggs from the water and laid them on top and added a generous portion of hollandaise sauce.

We sat at the table, across from each other, and I watched as he used his fork to cut into the eggs. The yolks ran! Yay! I hadn’t cooked ‘em too long! He had to work his fork back and forth to cut the muffin, eventually gave up and got a knife. The first forkful of Eggs Benedict in his mouth, I let him chew for a minute before I asked, “How is it?”

“Not bad. The muffins a little hard though.”

“Don’t toast 'em as long next time,” I advised.

This egg cooker thing was rattling around in my head. It would be easier to poach the eggs and I wanted them to be perfect for Mike. “I was thinking,” I started. He stopped chewing and looked at me. “If you want to take care of the poached eggs while I’m making hollandaise sauce, you can get the egg cooker.”

Mike’s face lit up. He’d already done the research and checked the reviews and knew which one he wanted. He didn’t waste any time getting it ordered and on its way to our house.

Amazon. I don’t know how we ever lived without it — and you can find anything on Amazon!

Mike watched the tracking and one morning it shows up as Out For Delivery. He kept checking until the ticket changed to Delivered and he knew it was in our box. He put on his coat and went to get his precious egg cooker. I watched out the kitchen window where I stood washing the lunch dishes and saw him coming back carrying the box. I didn’t see any mail in his hand. No letters for me today, I think,

Mike unboxed it, I read the directions and washed the parts. Eggs Benedict would be on the menu for supper that night and I was going to try Fannie’s second method of making hollandaise sauce.

“It’s funny we didn’t get any other mail,” Mike mused. “Maybe it was under the box when I pulled it out and it fell on the ground.”

I didn’t say anything. Just waited for him to put his coat on and go look, if it bothered him enough. It didn’t.

Later that afternoon, I went out to burn the trash. I was halfway to the mailbox and took pity on Mike. I knew he’d feel better if he knew for sure he hadn’t dropped mail on the ground. I had to get pretty close before I was sure there were no white envelops sitting on the white snow and since I was that close, I opened the mailbox and looked inside.

I laughed. He was so excited to get the egg cooker that he left the mail behind.

“No way!” Mike said when bestowed with the evidence. “I think the mailman forgot to put it in our box and came back.”

Whatever.

The egg cooker made perfect poached eggs with no fuss, no muss. And Fannie Farmer is my hero. I need look no further for a hollandaise sauce recipe or method of making it.

While on the subject of things Mike likes, he likes this frozen lasagna that we bought at Aldi’s. We got it last week but didn’t make it till this week.

“If you like it, we’ll go back and get more,” I said. It was in the center aisle cooler at Aldi’s and that means it’s a seasonal item. They won’t carry it long so if you want it, you better buy it. With an expiration is December of 2021, I think we could handle four. After I make it, I freeze the rest in portions for later meals.

Mike liked it and didn’t want to wait until they ran out to get more. “Let’s go now,” he said.

“After I wash the dishes?”

“Okay,” he agreed.

“It looks like they’re putting new wheels under that engine,” Mike said.

Aldi’s didn’t have anymore. Whether they’ll get more or not, I don’t know. We’ll go next week and check again. But no shopping trip is ever a wasted trip. We managed to pick up a few things to stock the pantry.

I didn’t take many pictures because we’ve traveled those roads a lot.

But we made a second foray out into the wilds of Pennsylvania and I took a lot more road pictures for you but before I get into those, I’ve got a few odds and ends to clear up.

          My sink developed a leak. I opened the cabinet under the sink for something and when I picked it up, it dripped water.

          “My cabinet’s wet!” I exclaimed.

          “Can you see where it’s coming from?” Mike asked.

          I opened the other door and started pulling everything out from underneath. I sopped up the water and laid newspapers down to see where the water was coming from. Tiger helped.

          I filled the sink with water and watched for the drip. “It’s from the drain.”

          “Can you tighten it?” Mike wanted to know.

          I reached in and turned it. “Yeah, a little.”

          Mike came to lend the strength of his big ol’ man-hands.

          “How does it all of a sudden develop a leak?” I wanted to know.

          “Just from running hot and cold water. Over time it expands and contracts enough to get loose,” he explained.

          Speaking of Tiger, he and his antics were such a hit last time that I thought I’d show you what he was up to this week. He tickled me when he took a shortcut across the bottom of the butcher block and decided to stop for a snack.

          “Peg, speaking of the butcher block…did you clean the dust off?”

          Not yet. You can’t rush this stuff! But thanks for asking.

          I’d gone into Dollar General and saw one of the face masks I’d made behind the counter.

          “Is that Carl?” I asked. Carl is a big handsome man and goes to my church. He reminds me of my oldest son. I normally have a hard time recognizing people with masks on but even so, I knew it was Carl.

          “It is,” he answered.

          "I like your mask," I told him.

"I got it at the church," he said. "And I love it. I wish I'd’ve picked up two of 'em." Then, after a pause he asked, "Did you make ‘em?" 

Sheepishly I nodded. "I'll make you another one if you want," I offered.

"I'd love that!" he said. “They fit me so well. The other ones are so tiny and only cover this much of my face.” He indicated a swath not much bigger than his nose and mouth.

And I glowed.

There’s nothing better than knowing your talents and gifts are liked, loved, and appreciated.

So, this week, Tiger helped me make face masks!

          Sometimes it’s hard to work around here with all the love and adoration he gives — but I’m willing to suffer.

>>>*<<<

          I don’t know about me sometimes, I swear!

          I made the memorial baby for Austin Wayne and didn’t even take a picture of it. I had so much trouble getting his name to fit that I only put it on one side instead of both sides like I did for his brother and sisters.

         Then, since I was sending a box, I wanted to include the Farm Dust seasoning I’d gotten for the kids. I love this stuff! I use it on my cottage cheese and red beet snack in place of salt. But my favorite place to use it is on my nightly popcorn.

          Sorry. Got sidetracked there — but I love that stuff! Thanks to the Kipps for introducing me to it.

          I wrapped cardboard and bubble wrap around the baby and filled the box with other goodies. I was getting ready to tape the box shut when I remembered I’d forgotten the Farm Dust. I had to pull everything out and do a little rearranging to get it and everything else back in — but I did it! And I have to tell you, I was mighty pleased with myself. I was pleased I’d remember the Dust before I sealed the box and pleased I’d managed to cram everything else back in too. The top might’ve bulged a little but, if it fits — it ships, the post office promises.

          I taped the box shut and reached for my address book. That’s when I saw it. That’s when I saw the little easel that will hold Austin Wayne. After taking it out of the box, I’d missed putting it back in. And just like that, I wasn’t so pleased with myself anymore. But at least I’d remembered before I mailed the box!

>>>*<<<

          Our crown molding job has taken us from the living room to dining room to kitchen, back to the other side of the dinning room and on into the bedroom.

          “Just that little bit of crown molding makes a big difference in how it looks,” Mike said smiling and satisfied.

          “Yeah, it really does look nice.”

          We still have to finish the French doors for the bedroom, carpet, kitchen floor and cabinets, then the house’ll be done.

          “Peg!” you exclaim. “Is that a toilet paper pyramid I see in your closet?” you ask.

          Listen! When I show you a picture of my house, I don’t want you to see my clutter. I don’t want you to see my dust. I don’t want you to see any of the extraneous stuff at all! I just want you to see what I’m showing you! But since you brought it up, yeah, it is. And that’s the other thing I was going to tell you about Mike. I knew you’d see the toilet paper and I’d have to explain. Mike bought into the whole toilet paper shortage thing. He’s afraid, very afraid, of not being able to buy it when we need it, so every few weeks he buys another bundle.

          I let him. If it makes him feel better, it’s okay.

          “When you’re dead I won’t ever have to buy toilet paper again,” I tease.

          “Yeah. I’m just doing it to make sure you keep using the right kind. I know you. You’d buy that other stuff.”

          By the ‘other stuff’ he means something thick and soft and, in his opinion, bad for the septic system.

          After finishing the crown molding in the bedroom, Mike wants to start on the utility room. Me? I think it’s silly to fuss with putting crown molding in the utility room but if it makes Mike happy…

          By the way, have you noticed I spell molding m-o-l-d-i-n-g and not m-o-u-l-d-i-n-g? According to the internet, spelling it with a u is the way the British do it and here in the States, companies are divided on how to spell it. So, you can find it spelled both ways. And just so you know, the British spell other words wrong too. They spell color c-o-l-o-u-r.

          Again, I digress.

          While planning out where to start in the utility room, Mike realized he’d never finished a section of the ceiling. He needed a couple of boards.

          “Let’s go to CC Allis and get them,” Mike suggested.

          CC Allis, you may remember, is out in the middle of nowhere. Can you say, “Road pictures!” 

>>>*<<<

          Sometimes I see what other people are reading and look for the book on my library app. One of my friends on Facebook loved the book Caroline by Sarah Miller.

          “I wanna be just like Caroline!” Jess wrote.

Without knowing anything more about it than that, I checked it out of the library. I wasn’t far into the book before I realized it was a story told from the perspective of the mother on Little House on the Prairie.

It takes me too long to read a book and my loan was up before I finished. Since someone else was waiting for it, I couldn’t renew my loan.

Another one that came up on my Timeline was a set books by Dave Pelzer. He told his life’s story in four books chronicling his journey up out of child abuse. EXTRAORDINARY INSPIRATIONAL, it says, so I checked it out to read while I waited for Caroline to be available again.  

          I’ll tell you what, this woman, Dave’s mom, had four kids, singled him out, and subjected him to things I can’t ever imagine any mother doing to her child — yet I know it happens. I had to stop reading it. Her atrocities against this innocent child were escalating and I just couldn’t read anymore. I had trouble sleeping that night after putting the book down and knew I wouldn’t pick it up again. Some things are better left to experts capable of handling it. Some things we just don’t need to know. 

>>>*<<<

          I have one more story to tell you — but you’re going to have to wait. I want to make it an extra letter blog this week, my first extra of the year. I already have a name for it too. Trapper John.

          “How long will it be?” you wanna know.

          I don’t know. I never know until I write the last word. 

>>>*<<< 

          Let’s end this week with a couple of sunrise pictures. I know you’re used to seeing awesome sunrise pictures form me, full of color.

          How about something a little different this time.

           Let’s call this one done!