Author Archives: Pamela

My favorite sweater for the past many years has been the Pendleton cardigan. I have worn 3 out. I have at least 4 in my closet right now. I wear a sweater almost every day of my life because I am cold when it’s cold outside and I am cold when it is air conditioned inside. My favorites are the merino wool because they are thin but still warm.

I haven’t had great luck with my cardigans the last few years. It seems like the colors were icky or the color I wanted was sold out. This year, I started early and I went to the new downtown store in October to get myself a new sweater. I did not have a good experience.

The new store is smaller and there were at least 4 people working there and they all seemed to be really busy doing something that involved avoiding customer service. When I asked about the cardigans they told me I needed to look at a catalog.

I stomped off in a huff.

Eventually, I commenced with a clicking exercise and searched around for cardigans online and found Woolovers. (wool overs or woo lovers?)

Check out all the colors!.

I almost bought 4 sweaters on the first go but I got nervous about the sizes. I bought a trial black sweater since my black cardigan is the one I had to retire. (For work use. It’s still fine to wear at home.) It just got here and it’s perfect. More sweaters to come.

I very occasionally look at Craigslist ads for recreation. Don’t do this. It’s such a waste of time and no good will come of it.

One of my favorite ones was someone looking for a housekeeper. They wanted deep cleaning every single day–they had a whole list. You had to move furniture and climb under things and dust on top of things. Every day. Plus help with childcare, cooking, cleaning and errands and I think it was a flat rate like $400 a week. You could smell the crazy just from reading the ad. You knew these people were never going to be happy with whatever their worker did. I was afraid for anyone who answered the ad.

There was another one for a short term roommate and I get that when you’re looking for someone to live in your home, you have to have some rules. But this person had a very short time period, like three months, and limits on what you could bring into the house and when you could use the kitchen. You had to be quiet and not park your car close by and on and on with the rules. And the rent was above market. I wonder if anyone answered.

You can tell I’m running out of steam. Two more posts.

• The proper way to use the video on a phone which includes sideways not narrow ways and not whipping it back and forth when showing the scene.
• Titling electronic documents in some meaningful way which includes re-titling documents from the scanner.
• Using relevant email subject lines.
• Running a meeting which includes how to act in a meeting.
• Correct usage of I, me, and myself.

If there are skills you’d like to add, please leave a comment. I will be sure to see it in the next 2-3 weeks.

This rose has been blooming in the front yard for the past week. All the other roses are long gone. I appreciate its sturdy optimism. I should have snipped it and brought it in the house the moment I saw it. But it’s hanging on out there bright and shiny for everyone.

It used to be that if you left a comment, I would get it in my email. That’s no longer happening. I checked the settings and nothing has changed so maybe my email is filtering out my own messages. I couldn’t figure it out in the 5 minutes I allotted for problem solving that, so for now while I will eventually see your comment, it might take awhile.

I can’t wait until we’ve come full circle and it’s cool and edgy to name your business using real words. This place could be called Happy Juice Bar, or Aunt June’s Delicious Juice Drinks, or Pacific Northwest Juice and Beverage Co.

This is from when Kira and I made little pies and then baked them into cupcakes.

On more than one occasion my mother-in-law described a borscht recipe that she used to make. I have only made vegetarian borscht and none of my cookbooks had a borscht recipe so I set out to find a recipe online so I could make it for her.

This lifestyle blogging thing is out of control. I can’t tell you how many recipes I found that consisted of long homey tales of mom-ery and family lore with dozens of photos of the same bowl of soup, sometimes close up, sometimes from far away, sometimes with a gauzy filter.

Then the recipe itself was about 40 photos with every conceivable step illustrated as if seeing a photo of a cutting board and onions being scrapped into a pot is necessary. And every single blog has a giant popover so you can sign up for Beautiful Nourishing Wellness Mommy’s newsletter because who doesn’t wish for even more email? Especially with gauzy photos.

I ended up using a combination of recipes and the outcome was disappointing. We all ate it. It wasn’t terrible. But it wasn’t great either.

This is from a trip to Germany and not relevant to Thanksgiving or this post except the part about my awesome extended family.

I was trying to think if I had any great Thanksgiving stories and I don’t. My extended family is awesome so I don’t have any terrible family stories.

When I was a kid, we used to go to Alhambra, CA and have dinner with my Great Aunt Ivy. My recollection is that she didn’t have a house set up for little kids but she would have some coloring books for me and my sister. Her house had a tiny kitchen and it was chaos at the last minute getting everything on the table.

This house was way before the day of the open floor plan. We all crammed in the dining room for dinner. There was a separate room — probably called the family room with the TV and a bar (?) and there was a seat that opened up and that’s where she stashed toys for us. I should ask my sister if she remembers any of this.

Not relevant to Thanksgiving but this house had a GIANT avocado tree. Aunt Ivy always brought us avocados.

I wonder what that house is like now. I would zillow it if I knew the address.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Today I am writing on the same day that I’m posting. I had a half day at work and relaxed for an hour and then made my pumpkin pie. I didn’t hear the timer so it was in the oven a teenie bit too long. I don’t think it’s tragic. We’ll find out tomorrow. I also made my gravy and called it good.

Tomorrow I’m going to write out my timeline for the rest of my cooking. I’ll start with the rolls in the morning. These are my favorite rolls. They are total squishy white bread rolls. Normal mashed potatoes. Stuffing in the slow cooker. Spatchcocked turkey. Last year went smoothly, I think I can do it again.

I finished season 2 of Stranger Things last night. I can’t express hard enough how much that show works for me. I LOVE everything about it. The music, the setting, the actors. I am so in love with every character. The writing is great. I would love to spend a weekend re-watching and outlining from a writing point of view. No time. Gotta keep chugging on my own project.

I wish I took better food photos. This is the giant apple pie I was talking about. The dish is extra big. I was going to put 10 apples in it but 9 already looks like a lot so I stopped. Ten would have fit. It’s a mixture of Granny Smith and farmer’s market varieties that I found in a drawer in the outside fridge. I nuke them for a couple of minutes but they still have a little bit to them which is perfect.

Originally I wanted to make two pies for Thanksgiving dinner but since we have this pie I’m only making a pumpkin.

At one point I had this idea that I was going to make my own reading challenges.

Like for one month I would only read books written the year I was born. Then the next month I would only read books I’ve already read. Then for one month I would only read volumes of America’s Best Short Stories.

It’s still a good idea but since I am barely reading one book a month right now, not a good time to put into action.

Right now the reading challenge is to read the books in my pile.