Bread

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

The dryer was delivered today, and the delivery guys were great. Because they had delivered the washing machine last week, they found the house without a problem. Last week they got lost, and I had to walk down the road, knock on the cab window, and direct them back to our house. The street numbers on our street defy logic! Other deliveries have been left down, and across, the street. I have to keep my eyes and ears open for trucks on delivery days.

I spent the day gathering all the clothes I could find. They were scattered all over the house, in plastic bags. My clothes were all sorted by the time Attila arrived home from work, so after dinner we tackled his clothes. After sorting, two large green garbage bags are full of serviceable men’s clothing, and I will take those to the local men’s mission.

My Cowichan sweater, and my new parka, are nowhere to be seen. We searched high and low, no sign of them. I hope they will suddenly turn up in an unlikely spot. It is hard to imagine how we might have permanently lost them! I will mourn the Cowichan sweater if we do not find it, which I bought for myself in Banff in 1992, and have worn it ever since. It is the best sweater I have ever owned.

The first draft of my genealogy book was sent by email to a local printer, to be printed for editing, and for assessing formatting issues. I will be picking up the printed draft next week sometime.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Today the first loaves of bread came out of the oven at Mist Cottage. Finally the kitchen is organized enough to manage bread baking. I have not found my regular recipe yet, it has to be somewhere, I remember plucking it from the back of the cupboard door at the country house, but I do not remember where I put it!

I used a recipe I found on the internet, and I have to say that I do not think that this woman tested the recipe, although she said she did. I had to bake the loaves three times as long as she recommended, to ensure they were cooked through. The loaves were a bit disappointing, as I used the last of the whole wheat flour in the canister, and I think it was a little “off”. Whole wheat flour does not keep well over long periods of time. We have an unopened 25 pound bag of whole wheat flour, that I will try and use for the next bread baking session. I have my fingers crossed that it is in better condition than the flour in the canister.

Still, the salami sandwich I had for lunch, with the homemade bread, was very good.

The moving bills are beginning to roll in… not fun.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Well, here we are! One month since we started our move to Mist Cottage. Chaos reigns still, but we make daily progress on settling in. And as October prepared to enter the scene, fall weather moved in with a flourish. Yesterday was rainy and chilly.

Last night we visited Terra and Lares, who had invited us to supper. They prepared a steak dinner that was incredible. The beef is from the cows in the field at the back of the house, truly free range. These are the cattle that Terra and Lares take care of when their neighbours have to be away from home. The meat tastes unlike any you buy in a store, it is so good, and tender. We purchased some of their neighbours beef several years ago, but it lasts a long time in our freezer, so we declined to purchase more this year. When we sold the country house, the deal included our newer freezer, the large chest freezer. So we are down one freezer. The chest freezer here is small, old, and very beat up, but it works. I bought it through Kijiji for next to nothing. Maybe we will get a more energy efficient chest freezer one of these years, but not right now.

I setup my old G4 667 desktop Mac for Terra, it has full legal versions of Photoshop and Illustrator and Quark Express, which she wants to use for her various projects. It was the last machine I owned that would run the old versions of that software, as the versions I had require OS9 to operate. It turned out that Terra did not need much help from me, other than installing software. I have kept my software install disks though, in case she doesn’t like the machine. If she decides she likes it and wants to keep it, I will pack up all the software and pass it over to her. It is a great machine for what Terra wants to do, just not so great for the kind of coding projects I am involved in now.

The dryer is not hooked up yet, we had to purchase the parts to exhaust it to the outside. I want to put wire mesh over the exit, so that mice don’t come in that way. This, of course, takes a lot of thought, and is slowing down the installation. Better safe than sorry though, when it comes to mice. The sun is shining brightly today, another perfect day for hanging the wash out on the line!

Friday, October 2, 2015

Attila installed the dryer last night, and put it good use with a load of his freshly washed work clothes. He says it works very well, and drys the clothes quickly.

Tomorrow we complete the move. The truck is rented, to be picked up near the country house. We will drive the five hours to get there together, then I will drive home in the car, and Attila will take the truck to the storage locker, load it, and head home with the last load of our belongings. He will pick up our mail while he is in the area near the country house, then we will have our mail forwarded to Mist Cottage, another moving expense.

The expense of the move is beginning to wear holes in the budget! It will be a month before the dust settles. Balancing the new budget is quite a challenge through this costly time, and will be quite an adjustment ongoing, as our income is half of what it was just a month ago. “Adjustment”, what a wealth of experience that term hides in its succinctness!

With money so tight, I have been feeling a bit guilty about giving away used items, instead of trying to make money by selling them at a yard sale. It dawned on me why we favour giving used items away, rather than trying to sell them. We feel good when we give used items away, to people who need them, and will use them. We feel as if we can “afford” to be magnanimous, which is something people at our income level seldom have the opportunity to feel. Giving, without the expectation that the favour will ever be returned, not even as kudos, or as gratitude, is good for the soul.

Here I would like to recognize several people who read my blog, and have offered us assistance when we seemed to need it. We favour struggling along as best we can, with what we have, but these kind offers have knitted for us a warm blanket of community, a priceless gift.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

What a day! I just arrived home, after spending the whole day in the car! We left at 6:00 a.m. this morning, heading for the truck rental place. The only place we could get a truck was a one hour drive away from the storage locker. We took it, what else could we do? So we arrived at the rental place close to noon, then I got in the car and headed back to Mist Cottage, and Attila got in the truck and headed for the storage locker. Attila loaded the truck, and headed towards home at 5:00 p.m., he will arrive here anywhere between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. I will be waiting for him to arrive tonight!

The wind is wicked today, which made driving the car much more difficult than is usual. However, I think it is going to make driving a big 27 foot truck a truly miserable experience for Attila.

I arrived home at 5:25 p.m., and I have to say the last hour of the drive was challenging. I stopped at a convenience store and bought a chocolate bar, which I gulped down, then headed into the last hour of the trip. I sat forward in my seat, eyes glued to the road, concentrating and repeating to myself over and over again, “I’ve got this, I’ve got this…”

Tomorrow morning we unload the truck, and return it locally. Then Attila tries to get a good “night’s” sleep before he goes back on the midnight shift tomorrow night.

This is the last truckload of the move. Hopefully now we can turn our complete attention toward unpacking, and getting settled in.

Worldly Distractions

Weather

7°C
Date: 9:00 AM EDT Thursday 1 October 2015
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.8 kPa
Tendency: rising
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: 6.6°C
Dewpoint: 1.9°C
Humidity: 72%
Wind: NNE 18 gust 30 km/h

Quote

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

William Shakespeare
1564 – 1616