You're Doing It Wrong

I think this is a tomatillo skeleton. I saw it when I was taking out the compost.

We received a giant Whitman’s sampler box for Christmas.

My spouse is a choco-fiend and I sometimes get after him for eating all my See’s Candy or in the alternative, eating it all except 3 little crummy pieces. The most recent box I bought still had a few pieces in it that he’d left for me. I thought I would be clever and consolidated it all into the Whitman’s box.

I kid you not less than 48 hours the See’s were all gone. Just the wrinkled paper wrappers left amongst the Whitman’s chocolates.

(I still have a box of See’s stashed away. I also still have Christmas candy including a box of Harry and David’s truffles. I’m not hurting.)

I couldn’t make anything clever happen with this photo. I tried a bunch of clip art and goofy shapes and it all looked too stupid for words. So I added a filter and gave up.

I have this habit of fiddling with my wedding band. As in taking it on and off. I do it all the time and there have been times when I was sitting in bleachers or standing on a pier where I said to myself: if you drop this, you are going to be sorry.

Which is why it’s funny that when I finally dropped it I was sitting on my couch. And the ring fell into a very narrow crack. Too narrow for hand or fingers.

This happened Thursday night. I still haven’t gotten it out. But I haven’t exhausted my ideas yet. I tried putting duct tape on things that would fit down there and tried a hook. At least I know where it is.

Can I take the couch apart? Probably but will be major undertaking so I’m holding off on that for if I become desperate.

Can I use the vacuum? Maybe. Haven’t tried that yet. That’s the next attempt.

I’m also wondering if I tilt the couch it might slip into an easier to reach spot or even better, fall on the floor.

I have a couple of other ideas.

I take the ring off sometimes, like if I’m cleaning something really ooky, but I’ve never not worn it and it feels really weird. I keep grabbing my ring finger right there and it feels indented. When Bob came home I felt really bad and kept apologizing and he reminded me that he lost his ring and didn’t wear one for years. I finally bought him a new band last year.

I try to give myself Photoshop assignments which end up being revised and revised to my skill set until I end up with three ghost chickens and a misty tree. Once again, my artistic vision was compromised by my weak skills and being in a big hurry.

We’ve been getting mail addressed to a different person at a similar address but not the same and a different zip code. I kept writing wrong address on it. I couldn’t figure out why these items kept coming to us.

I finally figured out these were from a student loan company and fired up my search engine and figured out that the address was correct except for the house number was missing a single digit. So the most recent one I forwarded and hopefully it will get to the right person and he can fix the address.

I hope I win some good karma points on this.

I remember when one of my greatest goals in life was collecting lots of flavors of Lip Smacker. I think I had a giant one in peppermint and then a bunch of small ones like strawberry, watermelon, and cola.

Bonne Bell is no more. According to the article the company was founded in 1927 and the Lip Smacker created in 1973. They also had this face toner called 10 0 6 lotion that supposedly helped my zitty face.

There was another kind of lip gloss that was a liquid roll-on thing which I don’t even understand the point of. I think I put it on and then licked it off. I think I had bubble gum flavor. And while it was on, my lips looked slimy. Those were the days.

I was missing my summer favorite berry and peach pie so I decided to try to make one with frozen fruit. We have lots of strawberries and blueberries that we froze ourselves. I bought a bag of peaches at the market.

I looked at recipes online and they suggested doubling the thickener to make up for the liquid released from frozen fruit. This was not a good suggestion. The pie is juiceless. Next time I would maybe use one extra tablespoon. (I use tapioca.)

I was also a little bit timid with sweetener, for no clear reason. I guess I thought the fruit got magically sweeter in the freezer. This was also a mistake. I’m afraid of things being too sweet but fruit pies taste bland without enough sugar.

Finally, the recipes recommended a much longer baking time. You don’t thaw the fruit first. This was operator error. I had it in the maximum time recommended and I thought it looked a tad under-baked but since I over-baked a pie last summer, I was nervous about leaving it in too long.

So overall, a decent pie and better than store bought, but lots to improve next time.

My sister is visiting and she brought me a manatea. Isn’t he cute hanging out? I hate to get it all gungy with tea but it will come in handy at the office.

At least once a year I try to do a thorough bookshelf cleaning. I take things off the shelves, dust as needed. Remind myself what I have. I try to put stuff away that’s stacked around. I try to find things I am willing to part with. This is getting harder and harder as most of the stuff I have right now is stuff I want to keep.

I belong to the school of: we have enough stuff. If you want to bring something in, you have to take something out. Five bags to Goodwill on Friday! But not books. That was clothes and linens.

I found two books that we had unintentional duplicates of including one where I shelved both copies side by side. We have intentional duplicates too, but I’m not going to explain right now. I did put together a stack to pass along or give to the Friends of the Library.

This is the item in my collection that I’ve had the longest and never read. I went through a phase when I was a youngster where I thought I would collect and read classics. Over the years I have periodically revisited that idea, thinking I should read more classics. I sometimes manage to plow through one but more often I find that I would rather read almost anything else and give up on them. I am a simpleton. I don’t deny it.

The book says it was printed in 1972 and I was hoping it was a collectible and I could get $50 for it so I’d be motivated to get rid of it. But no such luck. I put it back on the shelf because I still might read it someday.