Baby Bolero

Back home late last night from a week at the temple.  A great week at the temple, though are there any other kind?!  Today was a pick up the house again, put away the stuff from the motel stay, wash all the clothes kind of day.

After doing the needed things I thought I would try to make some nice vegetable sushi rolls.  Not a great idea.  I made the quick cucumber pickles to go in the sushi, julienned the carrots, and made some wasabi paste.  After cooking, and sort of cooling, the sushi rice I got out my rolling mat which I covered with a large ziploc bag to keep the mat clean, and started mashing the rice into the size and shape I wanted.  I painted the center line with some wasabi paste then place a lovely green lettuce leaf over the whole thing then placed the carrot and pickle slices and started rolling it up.

It was not a  total disaster, but it was close.  The middle three cuts were sort of sushi looking but the other ingredients just fell apart.  Gr-r-r!  So, not wanting to invest any more time in this project, especially since I found out I was going to be the only one in the house to eat it, I mashed the ingredients into sushi rice balls and served it with the same kind of dipping sauce that Hisayo Oshima made when she made rice balls for us many summers ago when visiting our home as an exchange student from Japan who participated in the Rassias Method Language program at Dartmouth College.  The sauce was mayonnaise and catsup.  Heavy on the catsup.  It was really tasty then and I enjoyed it tonight, too.  Bob had a nice melted-cheese-on-tortilla thing.

Another thing I learned while making the sushi rice mess is that wasabi is VERY VERY spicy.  In fact, just about impossible to eat.  Or at least, the wasabi powder I used to make the paste was so pungent that it brought tears to my eyes and severe choking.  Water did help. I put the leftovers in a small glass jar in the refrigerator in case anyone comes by soon who likes that kind of stuff. I was afraid if I put it in a plastic container the stuff would eat a hole through and contaminate the whole refrigerator!

After semi-cleaning up that mess I headed to Wing's Market to get a few supplies for Bob's hiking trip next week and came home to find he had picked a large bag of apples for me to make into applesauce. I did get them cut and cooked but cannot make the sauce tonight.

Upstairs I picked up the baby bolero sweater that I am making for little Rhea.   I finished the back and the left front and started the sleeves.  About 40 rows till bind-off then sewing together and picking up stitches for the border.  It is going to be a sweet little sweater.

Another cool thing I did today was to set up the  Bond knitting machine in the dining room.  I had taken everything to the motel thinking I could clamp the board holding the Bond to the bar at the motel but found that the bar was at least 6 inched deep and I only had 4-inch clamps.  The clamps I have can be used on the table we have here but I am thinking of returning them and getting one more QuickKlamp which has a 12" opening.  I used one on the table and it seems to work fine.  Returning the two 4'-clamps to Lavalleys will give me enough money to purchase a second QuickKlamp.  I am just dying to get started making a little sweater.  Elsie will teach me a great way to insert the sleeves as I knit.  I did watch the first "Making Your First Sweater" video but I was too tired to take in everything. I will try again, maybe next week if things quiet down here a bit.  I am actually not very hopeful there.

Megan sent me the new America's Test Kitchen Cookbook and the video for the 2011 Season!!! I am so excited. I can hardly wait to watch it and go through the cookbook....

Apples, apples

Yesterday was a busy apple day at our house.  I picked a big Trader Joe's bag of apples from our Lodi tree around 6 AM and got them cut and cooked before leaving the house at 9 AM.  Owen and Robbie had arrived to help on the porch roof project by the time I was cooking the apples.

After a day of errands and appointments I arrived home around 3 PM and went immediately to stretch out for a little while.  Soon Bob needed me to go to Fairlee to pick up a quick clamp or something like that, which I did find.  It was good he told me it was blue!  I picked up two orange C-clamps for my own schemes while I was there.

After supper (fresh delicious sweet corn on the cob from Killdeer stand--plus some leftovers) I set up the Victoria strainer to make the applesauce.  The first go-around I had put the plastic guard on incorrectly and applesauce dripped everywhere...which I partly alleviated by putting a black plastic garbage bag under the collection bucket...but then realized my error, fixed it, and then the applesauce just slid into the bucket happily.

Bob kindly cranked for a little while before going back to the porch roof/lawn watering projects.  In the end there were twelve quarts of applesauce, very lightly sugared, ready for the freezer.  And I was totally ready for bed!

Here is the applesauce project set-up...making applesauce in a construction zone has its drawbacks, but it does work.  Notice the nice orange C-clamp.  There are two of them holding the sturdier board to the wimpy board.  There was a bit of bounce as we cranked, but all is well that ends well.

Ready for the freezer.  Now to make space in the freezer...!

A memory

Yesterday I was working on the computer to prepare for my Dartmouth email account to migrate to the cloud (yay for clouds, I guess...) and found an elderly email from daughter-in-law Laura...well, actually a report of a phone message from Laura.  She and young Anne had been out driving.  Anne asked if they were on the Freeway.  Laura told her they were on the Freeway.  After a brief pause Anne asked,  "When are we going to be on the Fourway?"  I thought that was really funny then, and I still think that is really funny!  Hooray for angel children and their thought processes.

Another one from last weekend.  Jonathan, Alissa, and children were at our house for dinner, but really so Jonathan could help move heavy stuff and do some electrical wiring.  After their long walk following supper the kids were at the table, newly moved into the new house from the storage shed, and were eating a delicious lime and raspberry dessert their mom had made and brought.

When 4-year-old Caleb finished his dessert...the first one to do so...he turned in his chair and looked at his grandfather and me and said, "Powered up.  Ready to work!" and jumped down from his chair and headed out the back door as fast as he could go.   As you might expect, there were smiles all around.  What a great attitude!  More of us could develop that one...

Another Day...

Yesterday was a busy day swimming, doing errands in the Upper Valley, doing laundry (AT HOME!!!), getting ready to come to the temple.  I left the house about 2:30 and finally arrived at the motel in Lexington at 7 PM after several stops (library, coop for Kosher salt, Sam's Club, rest stops, etc).  I made up some of Orchid's Cool Tangy Noodles so Jonathan and family could have them while they are here.  they arrived around 8:20 or so.  The children were in good spirits and acted well until bedtime, which was shortly. I was worn down and in bed by 9:45.

This morning breakfast was hectic with many other motel guests, some of whom were pushy-pully types of guests.  If you were courteous, which we tried to be, you waited and waited and waited.  Jonathan has just driven the family in to the Boston Aquarium to drop them off and will then come back to the motel to work from here while they are gone.

With the peace and quiet prevailing, I think now is a great time to shower and get ready for the temple!

Larry Godfrey came to do the remaining excavating and back-filling for the porch.  Yay!

Hot Water Showers at last!

Yesterday when Sister Vogel and I got home from the temple, there was Bob with clean clothes on, damp hair, shaved face...on a Friday!!!  That has not happened since May when the hot water heater was removed from the log cabin.  Since then Saturday showers at Jonathan and Alissa's house has been the norm.  I was too tired to shower last night but have a lovely hot more-lengthy-than-usual-for-me shower this morning.  Heavenly.

New house coming along

The builders and Bob have been working like crazy on the new house.  As of today, Day Eight, both levels have floors, outside walls, and interior walls framed in.  Bob is cutting out the windows and doors.  We are waiting for the roof trusses, which have not yet arrived.

My part in the deal has been to stay out of the way...easy to do with so many other activities to take care of, and to prepare for the trip to Utah which is next week.  Really looking forward to seeing all my babies, both the 30-somethings and the 14 and under crowd!

Time flies...

It has been ages since I wrote.  I was working furiously on the Sock Madness Forever project. I just missed getting into the fourth round.  Being horribly sick for five days put me out of the running, but I did finish my round three socks, a lovely yellow cabled pair.

Since then General Conference has come and gone. I have listened to the talks since then multiple times and am trying to put into action in my life the action items I got out of the talks...particularly Elder Oaks' talk on Desires.  My actions in the past have not supported my desires.

Also since the last post the log cabin that Bob built for us 39 years ago has been taken down and the logs burned.  We are getting ready to put up a stick-built house on the same location after excavating under the porch and putting in additional foundation.

The cellar room under the porch will be a food storage room so the main cellar can be used for other things.  Maybe we can actually have purposed rooms all over the house instead of everything a mishmash of uses.