05

September

2010

Return of the Tom Cat!

Well, guess who decided to finally come around? Tom Cat! I hadn’t seen him in so long, I was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t kicked the bucket, left town, or been snatched up by some tom-cat collecting weirdo. Still as friendly as ever, he was chilling outside my gate. So, I scooped my favorite stranger-cat up and cleaned his ears, brushed his fur, and did a basic check. As usual, no fleas, good teeth, no mats, and his ears are the dirtiest piles of crap I’ve ever seen! Took ten cotton swabs to clean those babies out, and he tolerated it pretty well so he got some cat treats when he was done.

Somebody takes good care of him. Never a flea on him, always well fed. Just those ears. Dirty, dirty ears. We still have the foster cats, three tabby kittens and their mom. I received an e-mail from someone interested in adopting one of them, but have not heard back since I replied. We went and got them fixed last week for the low, low price of $280. That isn’t bad for three spays. Now they won’t be having kittens of their own, and hopefully will find a forever home. They sure are cute.

We went to the recycling trailer yesterday to volunteer, and there were just not a lot of people stopping in at all. I’m not sure if that’s because we now do two recycling trailers a month or if it had something to do with the drop-dead gorgeous day out, the temperature being in the mid-seventies with a nice breeze and plenty of sunshine. It’s been getting hot during the week and then perfect during the weekends. We would have barbecued, but I made a beef stew. We had a dinner with our friend down the street, who brought two bottles of wine. Still had some red left over and used it in the stew. Would have been great but I added way too much pepper, and it was like eating beef-stew-flavored peppercorns! A trick to fix too much pepper, for those who don’t know, is to add lemon juice. Then you can add sugar if it’s too sour, pepper if it’s too sweet, lemon if it’s too hot, and so on in a circle. Next time, though, I think I’ll just watch what I’m doing!

25

August

2010

Here Comes Fall! (Apple Pie)

Yesterday, the weatherman said it wasn’t going to get past ninety-five degrees today, and I thought, heck had I but known that today I wouldn’t have spent two hours in the hundred-and-two degree heat…and today, the forecast had dropped down to eighty-six degrees at the hottest, and you bet I opened up all the windows in the house! As I write this, an hour and a half before noon, it is only seventy-three degrees outside, and that breeze is making my home smell wonderfully fresh. Fall is finally on its way!

I’m tempted to make an apple pie, but here at the Zilinski home we are watching what we eat. Hubby and I have already lost several inches following the You on a Diet book. Just in case you’re not in such a bind, though, here is my favorite apple pie recipe from The Big Book of Backyard Cooking. Use your favorite sweet pie crust recipe with it–it always tastes better than using a pre-made crust, and you can decorate the top with lattice-work and apple cut-outs:

Filling

  •  2/3 c. sugar

  •  2 TBS flour

  •  ½ tsp cinnamon

  •  ¼ tsp salt

  •  5 c. diced GD apples

  •  2 tsp lemon juice

Topping

  •  1 c. pecans

  •  ½ c. flour

  •  ¼ c. sugar

  •  2 TBS brown sugar

  •  8 TBS butter, chilled and diced

Directions

  1.  Preheat oven to 450F and prep your pie dough.

  2.  Mix dry filling ingredients. Add wet filling ingredients to dry filling ingredients. Toss to coat. Pour mix into crust.

  3.  Combine all topping ingredients. Press topping over filling. Use extra pie dough for lattice-work crust over topping.

  4.  Bake 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F and bake 20 minutes. Check pie and cover edges with foil if necessary. Bake 20 minutes more.

  5.  Cool 15 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.

Oh, and the garden work from yesterday? I finally remembered to google the blight that’s been affecting my roma tomatoes, and it turns out that it is a simple (though unsightly) case of Blossom End Rot, which makes the bottoms of my tomatoes turn black. So, I groomed the plant, took off all of the rotted tomatoes, gave the whole garden some nutrients and water, and hoped it would rain soon. And I got my wish because it is cool and cloudy out, and rain is in the forecast. I’m hoping the tomato bush will recover in a couple of weeks so that I can barter tomatoes for relish. Oddly, only the romas seem to be affected. All of the other vegetables in the garden, including peppers, squash, pear tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, remain fine. Weird, weird.

23

August

2010

Roasting Marshmallows

The hubby and I went out at one in the morning to roast marshmallows under the clear skies of Texas Hill Country. By then it had cooled off to a brisk 75 degrees…There’s this huge bright star out there that I swear looked like Jupiter through my telescope. I couldn’t be sure because I remember looking at Jupiter probably a decade ago now, and it looked like a big red star in they sky, and through the telescope you could see the big red spot and four of the moons. Now, this Maybe-Jupiter looks kind of pinkish in the sky, and I think I see moons, but it could be wishful thinking, and I barely see something that looks like the Great Red Spot. Maybe wishful thinking. If anybody knows, please leave a comment.

We roasted marshmallows in the chiminea because our other fire source is a gigantic smoker/grill combo that he received as a birthday gift. He loves that grill, but in the early morning it’s not really marshmallow-appropriate. So, we were outside until about three roasting marshmallows and enjoying the pre-dawn coolness before throwing ashes into the pit and calling it a night. We slept spectacularly well.

21

August

2010

Bi-Monthly Recycling Trailer

Twice a month my husband and I volunteer with Keep Brownwood Beautiful, which involves helping citizens unload their recyclables into four trailers, sorting plastics and metals, and drooling over the local produce the farmer’s market that shares the space on Saturdays brings to barter. I was lucky enough to find a ten dollar bill on my lawn last week while mowing it, and decided to peruse the market since I could actually buy something! Well, I ended up getting a free watermelon, a hanging flower plant, a jar of super spicy relish for the husband, and a bag of fresh sprouts for me. I also found out that the sprouts/relish dealer is willing to barter my garden tomatoes or buy them, as hers did not come up this year, and she needs them for some of her relishes. So, I may well be getting rid of my plethora of tomatoes in exchange for a plethora of sprouts and gourmet relishes, which would be awesome!

Howard Payne University students were also on hand to volunteer this time around. I do wish that those who volunteer for merit badges and community service credits would stick around after their work was “done” and their credits and badges had been earned. Unfortunately, the majority of those I worked with today probably won’t be back at the trailer in six months time, when they’ve earned their badges/back-pats/whatever. But, they did an awesome job today and really made it easier for all of us regulars, so I give them thanks for a job well done!

What sucks is that I did have my camera…on the counter. So, I didn’t get any pictures of the market or the recycling day. But, next time around I’ll try to remember.

19

August

2010

Insomnia and Cutting My Own Hair

So, I get bouts of insomnia sometimes, but the one this week is really taking the cake.  My body is exhausted, but my brain won’t shut up.  I lay down at 11pm, couldn’t sleep.  Read in bed ’til 12:30am.  Still up.  Like, wide awake up.  Nothing stressing me out, just brain not tired.  Solution: television.  Put in a Venture Bros. DVD, listened with my eyes closed until 2:30am. Thought I fell asleep, but noticed my husband walking into the room, so clearly my eyes were open and working…at 3:30am. Hopped back into the bedroom, brain still humming along…still wide awake right now. But my body is tired. And, I have a cold sore now, too. The herp. It is on my face. Nobody can see it but me yet, but it will grow, and I should look like Quasimodo by tomorrow. Sigh. On the plus side, that means that my body is probably fighting something off, and either a.) I’ll finally get sick and exhausted and sleep, or b.) I’ll get well and sleep. Hubby told me to take a vitamin and some Omega 3, which I did. We’ll see.

Hubby also told me to cut my hair the other day. My old college roommates know I cut my own hair when I can and then have the nearest victim even it out for me (used to be Linda). My hair is naturally curly, so for me this works. If I mess it up, I just wear it curly and nobody knows! Well, I pulled my hair into a top-of-the-head pony-tail and lopped off two inches. He goes, “No, shorter.”

So, I pulled it back up and lopped off another inch. Let it down, combed it out. Hubby looks at it and says, “shorter.”

I look at him and say, “Just how short do you want this baby to go?”

He puts his hands up to the bottom of my ears, a cut I had about, oh, fifty pounds ago. I tell him the truth, which is that I’m fat now, dear, and that’s just not going to happen on this face. He pouts, but I stand my ground. His defensive strategy: “you’ll be cooler at night;” “it will look really cute when curly;” “it will make you look younger;” “you don’t look that fat.” Nope, standing ground.

So, I go back into my bathroom and throw some mousse on my hair, take out my aging blow dryer complete with diffuser attachment and let the curls fall as they will. I experiment with hiding two inches of curly hair to see how it looks, and, well, it didn’t really look half bad. That’s about three inches dry, though. Well, what the heck. I pulled out my scissors and cut two inches of curly hair off of my head.

He thinks it looks adorable. I gotta say, I’m wearing it straight right now, and it does kind of look cute. I’m getting used to it, and not sweating my (non-existent) balls off at night, either.

Guess who’s supposed to be here right now, and isn’t? The cat knows somebody is coming:

The exterminator, that’s who. Dude comes out four times a year to tend to our abode. 9am, he tells me. Why, it’s 9:34am right now. Where are you, Exterminator Man? The carpenter ants in the bathroom are back. I know because of all the dead ant body parts they throw out onto the back of my toilet. Ewww.

Speak of the devil, right after I wrote that paragraph, Exterminator Man called and said that he was running a bit late because his previous job’s square footage had been miscalculated, but he wanted to assure me that he was on his way with many an apology. I do so love my exterminators. Even when they’re late, they’re awesome. Also, he says my appointment was put down as 9:45am, so technically he’s not late yet. Andy’s Pest Troopers does have excellent customer service, that’s for sure.

18

August

2010

Site Redesign

Yep, I did it again. I revamped the whole site. I just can’t help myself. And it’s not just my website, it’s everything else. My poor, poor husband has to deal with me rearranging the furniture in the house one a month or so. I’m not talking about angling the couch or something; I turn bedrooms into libraries, dining rooms into living rooms, and the master bedroom is currently a home-theater retreat. It’s not just furniture; it’s also decor. The bathroom went from mauve to navy blue; the bedroom went from cream to burgundy. Of course I get his permission to do all this first, and if he says no, inevitably we end up with a new landscaping project in the works!

Ah, well. I am thankful I am not alone. Today I found a fellow compulsive re-arranger, Janet. She has a blog called The Decorating Diaries, and it’s interesting to note that she, like I, tends to get super-human strength during bouts of furniture rearranging. Even I can’t explain how I am able to nearly effortlessly pick up a 52″ television and move it across the house, when at any time when I wasn’t compelled to change things up a bit, I wouldn’t be able to budge that damn thing.

Howard Hughes, the famous aviator, was known to have “a compulsion to rearrange objects,” though I’m not sure if that obsession involved furniture or knick-knacks. I suppose that I’m lucky in that it doesn’t drive my husband nuts. Poor Ely‘s boyfriend threatened to leave her if she didn’t stop rearranging the home they were planning on sharing. I actually feel…anxious if I get too familiar with my surroundings. After a while, as Ely says, I feel depressed in the lack of novelty. I get a probably unreasonable amount of pleasure from moving furniture room to room and everything being different. I change out my table settings; I even switch out jars on my counter-tops that I don’t even use. Yes, empty jars must be replaced, replaced, and replaced again!

Such a silly thing. I suppose we all have our own quirks to deal with, though, and how much of a nuisance they are truly depends on the people around us when we engage our oddities. If nothing else, visitors to my home are always in for a super-fun house tour each time they come join us for a get-together.