Good morning, my friends. It's been a long while since Friday meant the end of the work week to me. It's been nearly 20 years since I retired. Yes, I retired young. It happens when you're a social worker working with people who have been traumatized. I've whined all week about how busy the past several days have been, but it ends with dinner guests tonight.
It isn't the fault of the dinner guests that I've been too busy. It's my own darned fault for putting virtually everything off until after our camping trip the week before. And before you go thinking I'm some kind of clean freak, I can assure you that I am not. Thus, I've spent the week trying to hurry up and make the place presentable for our guests. Not to mention cooking. And gardening. And canning. Yes, it all adds up to a lot of work. Anyway...we're nearly done. One casualty of all this has been the shoulder I broke 2-1/2 years ago. It's been killing me. When I went to bed last night, it was hurting from shoulder to elbow. I blame too much vacuuming and too much hoeing in too short a period of time. It's the "too much" problem. Too much of everything.
Okay, but enough whining. Let's pause to smell the flowers. Deep breath in....now let it out. Regarding echinacea, did you know that several laboratory and animal studies suggest that echinacea contains active substances that boost immune function, relieve pain, reduce inflammation, and have hormonal, antiviral, and antioxidant effects. Right now, I'm going to take advantage of its pain relieving and inflammation reduction properties. Do you think just looking at pictures will do the trick?
Maybe not, but the bees seem fairly calm when they're around it.
The Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia has opened all the way.
And the second flower is opening on Checkers.
Insert here a whole bunch of stuff I did yesterday, including spending many hours making a cheesecake that was doomed to failure. Everything was going along fine until the final step of adding a glaze. I'm not sure what I did wrong. I suspect it was not using the full amount of cornstarch required, or else not cooking it long enough. In any case, it wouldn't set up, and so my cheesecake was topped with a watery runny lemon syrup. Sigh. I was distracted by a text conversation I was having with my son, Matthew, and I think that caused me to mess up. So if anyone asks, be sure and blame it on Matthew.
Oh well. These a problems are easily solved with dinner out and a trip to the bakery section of our local megamart. Carrot cake was our choice. And I really like carrot cake, so it's all good.
While I was considering the possibility of failure on my cheesecake, I distracted myself with some sewing. I finished up Tiny House #27. This one took longer than any of the others, I think.
And there was just enough time left in the day to finish the second row of Vintage Linen blocks. There is one row to go, and I should be able to finish this part today.
After that, I'm going to need to decide how to finish it off. I'll probably add two narrow borders, but I've yet to decide on any fabrics for that. I was hoping to use some of those purples from my stash, but maybe not. It might require a trip to the local quilt shop. (Wouldn't that be just terrible?)
Okay, so most everything is done. Already this morning, I spatchcocked two chickens and dunked them in some marinade. (By the way, when did we start using the term "spatchcock" for "butterflying"? I tried Googling this, but my curiosity was not satisfied by the answers I found.) Mike will smoke and roast them on his Traeger grill. I have just a few small things to finish getting ready for our guests, and then I'll have plenty of time for sewing.
Still on my to-do list is Tiny House #28...this one:
It has far fewer sections than the previous tiny house, and so it shouldn't take so long.
The kitties are channeling me just now. After guarding the house all night, they need their morning naps. In an hour or so, they'll be yapping at the door to go out.
Right now, I'm heading for my slow-stitching. The weekend is coming, and things will slow down considerably at this end. I hope you have a relaxing weekend planned for yourself. Stay cool, everybody. There's a lot of hot weather out there. Don't forget to drink plenty of water.
