Category Archives: doing it wrong

Happy New Year, 2024.

Have I posted a picture of my square bread yet?

I feel like I’ve told this story but don’t see it in any past posts.

Colleague was asking me about a Pullman bread pan and describing what it was. I rolled my eyes. Who needs a bread pan like that? Then I researched it for myself and somehow decided that I had to have one.

This was my first loaf made using a Cook’s Illustrated easy sandwich bread recipe.

I also made a loaf using a whole wheat bread and the pan was overfull and not a true disaster but not pretty. More loaves to come.

This is from Christmas Day — we opened our Christmas fruit spread. It was both super delicious and also not quite like any flavor found in nature. The label on the jar says 50% fruit which is a pretty ominous percentage. It tasted like apples, strawberries, cinnamon, and a little bit of Christmas.

Best wishes for the new year.

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Don’t Get Misty, Look Who’s …

Before, with my chubby pumpkin face:

After:

Bob wanted me to do a duplicate pose. I said, “I can’t fit in it now.”

Bob tested positive for Covid on 12/24 so the plan for today is sit around the house, do puzzles, read books, and watch movies. Steak dinner to be rescheduled.

Previous posts on this topic: 2003 and 2013.

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The Case of the Missing Watch

I lost my watch. I don’t know if it would properly be called a smart watch. Maybe a fitness watch? It’s not the fanciest kind and I’ve had it at least a couple of years. I bought it to try to be more mindful of how much I walk after getting an earful at the doctor’s office.

Last week I was getting ready to jump in the shower and I realized I had it on. I yanked it off, tossed it on the bed, and never found it again.

Obviously it had to be tangled up in the bedding.

The next day Bob washed the sheets and no watch. I went through everything in the laundry room and no watch.

Over the weekend I deconstructed the entire bed area and moved everything. While I was back there I vacuumed and mopped up 20 years of flannel bedding lint. I crawled around with a flashlight. I moved everything from under the bed.

No watch.

Where on earth could it be? I figured the only explanation was it became tangled up in some clothes and dropped somewhere that we didn’t think to look.

Then came the night where I was awake at 3am and engaging in some light fretting. I had the idea that maybe it was caught up in my workout clothes.

The next day I opened the drawer and dug around and: yay! I found my watch.

It wasn’t the end of the world and I had resigned myself to just buying a new one but it was still exhilarating to find it.

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Time Keeping

I’m not retiring yet and I can’t actually see it on the horizon, but I know it is coming up.

Every month I try to purge or archive things a few things at the office. We have been in this office in 2008 and I have worked with colleague since 1999.

According to my little “this is your life” cheatsheet – I did my paralegal training in 1991 and started my first legal job in 1992. I’m overwhelmed by how much time has gone but but I guess the real attitude should be proud of all the things I’ve worked on in the last 30+ years.

I found that I have saved all my calendars going back to 1995. 1995!

My calendars are older than our law clerk. My relationship with my colleague is as old as our law clerk. She found a photo of herself as a baby on Halloween 1999 being bounced around by our boss. We started working together the next day.

Sometimes we lament getting old but it’s also fun to have all these experiences to look back on.

But back to the calendars that I forgot were even there: there’s no need to keep them but it feels weird to throw them away.

There must be a word for this is some other culture: not wanting to throw away old things even though they don’t do anything. Or maybe there is a word in our language: hoarding?

But it’s not really hoarding because I get rid of tons of stuff. I had the honor of showing our law clerk what a zip drive disk is because I found one in an ancient file. Then I tossed it.

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Like Christmas!

Bob bought this fruit spread. One of the flavors is Christmas!

My Tante Irmgard lived in a very small apartment in a high rise in Germany. Once, when we were visiting, her balcony was closed due to renovations. During our visit the balcony was opened again and Irmgard opened the door to the balcony and was so happy she said, “It’s like Christmas!”

I am having a really hard time getting into the spirit. Just feel like I never have time or energy.

Also, there was an issue with my credit card and I was issued a new one and you know what that means. All my millions of autopay things pop up with a nasti-gram telling me my payment didn’t go through. Always at an awkward time, too. Like you’re just trying to get one thing done and then you have to run the gauntlet of clicking and menus and hoop jumping.

After this week I have some time off. We’ll work on the attitude then.

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State of the Garden in November

This is what the garden looks like right now on a frosty morning. There is some work to be done out there but lately when it’s clear it’s too cold otherwise, it’s raining. I’m not a big fan of gardening in the cold and mud. I will get out there at some point.

I discovered this great trick where I can snooze emails. Sometimes there are things I want to remember to deal with but can’t deal with right now. It sounds like a good idea except it’s also great for putting things off for later.

The last 5-6 weeks have been so hectic that I snoozed about 25 emails until Saturday of the Thanksgiving long weekend thinking I would finally have the time and energy to deal with them.

Then I looked at these fresh chores in my email on my holiday weekend and sagged in my seat.

But I got through a lot of it. I did my 25k words on my writing project. I did 30 posts in 30 days.

I will collect my participation trophies and fabulous gifts and prizes. On to December.

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Baby Old Apple Tree

National Park Service article about old apple tree.

There was a super old apple tree at Fort Vancouver. We visited it a number of times. Here’s a quote from the website:

Recognized as the oldest apple tree in the Pacific Northwest, its longevity derived from its anatomy as a seedling tree that grew upon its own roots, as well as from the particular robustness of its genes.

It has been in declining health for some time. A storm did a number on it. In 2020 the trunk disintigrated and left behind rootsucker trees that will be the new old apple tree.

Bob was out in the world and he was able to get some cuttings from the tree. I have two on my windowsill. I thought it was a lost cause. The leaves dried up and it looked like a sad stick in dirt.

But look! A miracle sproutlet!

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The Sad Closet

These are the very last of the summer tomatoes. They don’t taste great and the texture is not good either. But seeing these little reminders of summer on the windowsill when I get up in the morning makes me happy.

I am running out of steam on this post every day stunt but I am so close to the end I’m going to power out the few last posts.

Over 20 years ago I did a post very similar to this. Nothing changes.

At various times I get this idea that I am going to improve my style. As in my fashion look.

But I hate shopping and no one ever sees me. People don’t come to our office and I don’t go out and talk to people. I suppose that brings up another idea of who benefits from nice fashion? On one level – shouldn’t I just be happy to look nice and not care if people are seeing me? But also, if you’re going to spend money and chase after a look, don’t you want someone to notice?

Back in the day when you had to go to stores, I didn’t love shopping and the Internet shopping hasn’t made it any better. You can’t see how things hang or get a feel for the fabric and obviously the fit. Plus if things don’t work you have to send them back which for me is a big pain I would rather avoid. That leads to me hanging up clothes that I don’t like and either guilt-wearing them or shoving them in the donation bag after some time has passed.

To be fair, it’s also led to me loving clothes that I would never have picked in other circumstances.

I am wearing the same boring office slacks, long sleeved t-shirts, and cardigans that I have worn for years. Why change now? It looks nice but doesn’t take too much time to figure out what to wear each day.

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The One With The Fat Test

This is, L to R, Cookie and Summer, my sister’s dogs. They are not especially fond of each other but here they are being good dogs.

When I was younger, lets say teens to mid-thirties, I was endlessly unhappy with my weight. Over the years I had any number of terrible ideas about losing weight and inspiring myself to get fit.

I randomly remembered wanting to get my body fat tested. There used to be a gym by my old office (this was in the 90s) and for some reason I arranged to have my body fat measured there. I went into the pool and somehow they measured it that way.

Everything about this is sad: Why would I do this? What benefit did I expect from having this information? I must have had to pay to get this done. I wasn’t a member of this gym. I would have liked to but it was clubby and super expensive. If the gym did it for me, they must have done it for other people. Maybe gyms still do this now, I don’t know. Why was this a thing? It just seems unnecessary and unhelpful.

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Sandwich Nubbin

Sometimes I come out of my room to find that I have been left a sandwich nubbin.

My husband loves sandwiches and he is very creative at making his own. He can take almost any kind of random bread product and leftover and shape it into a sandwich.

He likes to leave me a small portion for my own lunch.

Often they are delicious. Sometimes they are a little too busy for me.

He especially likes mustard(s), pickles, and cheeses plus lunch meat(s). In his book there can never be too many flavors.

Here is the sum up of NaNoWriMo:

25502 / 25000 words. 102% done!

I made my goal. It isn’t pretty but I kept up my efforts. It’s still not the end of the month and I thought about moving my goal to 30k. But I don’t have the time or energy for extra credit right now so I’m going to call it good.

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