Lavender Oil Next Project
I have all this lavender and glass decanters. So, I’m going to make lavender oil. Then I have something to put in the glass decanters, in the bathroom. I hate empty decanters.
Also, I am out of bath oil.
How to Make Lavender Oil - a simple lavender oil recipe
How to Make Lavender Oil at Home – a basic lavender oil recipe
# This can be prepared by filling a jar with lavender stems with leaves and flowers that have been lightly crushed.# The high quality almond or olive oil should be poured on top thereafter and this mixture should be allowed to steep for about a month.
# The jar should be gently shaken daily to ensure that the lavender and oil mix well.
# After about a month, the mixture needs to be strained through a strainer and the oil needs to be transferred to a clean covered jar.
He is On to Me
This is what DH says to me last night, “I’m on to you. Don’t try to pretend to be somebody else. I know how you are. You get some idea in your head and won’t stop until you make it happen. See, see! I can see the plan forming already in your head!”
Uh, right. I was showing him a photo of some tile I like. And he ran off on this tirade about my relentlessness and how he must stop the plan before it usurps other plans, like deck painting and pressure washing.
Marriage.
Thank You for Not Being a Cheating Bastard
Think I could sell it to Hallmark? Actually, I don’t try to sell anything to the card companies, because they buy all rights. But I digress.
Today I am doing laundry and going through DHs pockets. He has tendency to leave small pencils and things in his pockets. And it struck me that I am really glad not to find phone numbers of other women in his pants. Sounds bizarre right? Then I am thinking, I could die tomorrow and not have said, you know, I’m really glad that you aren’t a cheating bastard.
[jeans pocket]
So off I go to the next room and say to DH, “I just want to tell you how glad I am not to find the phone numbers of other women in the pockets of your pants.”
Of course he gave me that look, the one that says, I picked you?
Then he said he is not sure how to respond to that. I think he thought it was a trick. But no really, not a trick. I actually mean this. I have been reading this book by Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
And also, my grandmother having recently just died, I have decided, again, that life is too short to not just say things. So, there I am with DH looking at me like I have grown a second head…
And I say, well, it sounds ridiculous, but as I am going through your pockets just now, I thought, how nice it is that at least if you were a lying cheating bastard like my ex, you have the courtesy to be discrete.
Poor DH. He is looking really puzzled and starting to get offended.
Finally, I say, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to trick you. I could just drop dead and not have said, I’m so glad you aren’t a lying cheating bastard. Really, just glad you aren’t that sort of asshole.
Right. He finally catches on, declares himself a proper pain in the ass, but not that kind, and goes back to work.
Clearly I need help.
9pm Friday
Feeling a bit squiffy. Hung shelves and drank draft cider. Woo, what a party animal I am. Not.
Now I am reading blogs. Yeah, dangerous.
My home is mostly clean. Clean compared to what it has been anyway. I can see the countertops. And I don’t think the fire department will condemn us, as there are clear paths to all the doors. Or at least, not that much stuff to leap around.
I need to make something. I have two UFOs (Unfinished Objects). A skirt that I cut out and then set the piece somewhere. And a bag, which is several pieces, rather complicated and made entirely from recycled materials (except for the thread). I even went so far to photograph it in progress. And yet it is not done. I decided to wash the slightly icky straps, thrifted from another bag, and hang shelves instead.
Bah. No glory. I smell like shelving and think DH is sound asleep somewhere around here.
Sour Cream Pudding Cake
This a very easy recipe. And it doesn’t crumble, or need frosting.
How to make sour cream pudding cake:
- Get a box of cake mix and a box of pudding mix, any flavor. Sift together.
- Follow the instructions for the cake.
- Fold in one cup of sour cream. The batter will be thick and glue-like.
- Bake. You may need to adjust the temperature, a bit lower, a bit longer, like you would for baking in a dark or glass pan.
Cut out your cake with large cookie cutters or sprinkle with powdered sugar for fun.
Regular Programming
I hope to return to my regularly scheduled programming. I am tired. Really, really tired.
This is how life has been: three days last week pack grandmas apartment. Saturday, move furniture. Sunday go to Home Depot, buy shelves and Rubbermaid tub. Hang shelves to have somewhere to put some stuff. Arrange stuff on shelves. Shelves and area around look better. The rest of the house and me, look like Hell.
Tub is for Christmas stuff from Grandma. Try to pack half in box marked donate. DD knows the word donate. This is one of her sight words. She yells, No Mom, I like this don’t donate it! She’s four. She likes everything.
Today, Monday, clean out remains of apartment. Car bulging like I’m running away from home. Turn in key. Hallelujah.
Return home. House and me still look like Hell. Nobody has been to grocery. No dinner. DH kindly cooks. Yeah! I still look like Hell but am fed. Shower.
Ugh.
It looks like I we are moving. Saturday, after moving Grandmas furniture, we loaded up the truck with stuff to be rid of from our place. Did I mention we are tired?
This is the antique thermometer. Cute isn’t he?
Blog Award Etc
I won an award for my sewing blog yesterday. It was a total surprise. Even better though is that DH is happy for me. Ah, I am so easy to please. I celebrated by turning on the air. How lame is that?
And now, a random stream of comments from your host.
I have spent so much time packing grandmas apartment this week that I feel hung over and haven’t had a drink. That just isn’t right. Don’t bother leaving me a note about dehydration. I drink a lot of water. I’m just tired.
Bribing preschoolers pays. DD is sleeping in her own bed, without a pullup. Own bed consistently for two weeks. Pullup free for one. It only cost me a set of princess sheets. A small price to pay in my opinion.
My new entertainment obsession is The Wire, more on it later.
SS took my spam. Actual spam, the meat product, yes, it is edible.
Census and HUD
Hello Uncle Sam. Again.
Sword in Toy Box
I have here two documents from organizations representing gigantic bureaucracy, the United States. One of them I thought would be the current Census. But it says instead that it is a survey for 2007 business owners. wtf? I was hoping to improve on last decades census when I was living in sin. I thought my dad could finally rest in peace. I filled out that damn form ten years ago with his voice in my head telling me that I’m going to hell and the least I could do if I’m going to live in sin is not tell the U.S. government.
The other is a letter about my grandmothers apartment, which is senior citizens only, which falls under HUD regulations. And it says I have to clear it out. That’s opposite, of course, to what Georgia law says, which is that it must stay put.
Right, off to the census site to see if this form has been lost in the mail for two years.
Yeah, went to Census Bureau and am still confused. Imagine that.
It can’t possibly be normal for me to receive two communications from the government in one week.
Strange Discoveries 1 June 2009
Weird things I’ve learned, or at least noticed today.
- I had no idea how many photos of me were at my grandmothers house. No wonder people thought I was her daughter, not granddaughter.
- She had at least as much tomato sauce.
- DH she liked as much as spices. Yeah, he really rates.
- 24 acrylic frames. What is the purpose of this?
- Even raging alcoholics, narcissists and the clinically insane look good when they’re young. If you get burned by one keep their picture (just one). In 50 years, you can look at it and say oh, yeah, I remember now why I got snookered.
- All things in my home must perform a service in order for me to respect them. If you’re an inanimate object, residing here, somebody really likes you. (It doesn’t have to be me.)
- I think measuring the temperature of my home in Celsius is providing enough service to allow a thing to stay. You can’t tell 25 degrees C is hot?
- I don’t have to like you to keep your portrait. But if I don’t like you, and keep you, we’re related, and you’re going the bottom of the box. And I’m writing a little note on the back of your photo so that when DD finds it after I die she’ll know why you’re there. Because now it’s me, telling DD all the things I’d better tell her, because eventually, I die.
- My first husband was accurate when he said people grow on you, like fungus.
Tomato Plants
We have tomatoes!
That probably isn’t as exciting to an accomplished gardener as it is to me. But DD and I are seriously excited. I’m especially excited to see three of them in this photo. I thought I was photographing two. But then when I cropped the photo, voila, we spied a third one!
Also, the first tomato to appear on the plant, DD picked and brought to me. Not cool. I could have cried, seeing the hard little green ball away from the stem. I was so disappointed. She did cry because I yelled, omg you weren’t supposed to pick it! Oops, not so diplomatic mom. I had told her to look for one. I didn’t say pick it. Ugh.
She has started eating tomatoes. I read somewhere years ago that a child will eat almost any vegetable that they help to grow, even if they hated it before. Apparently, it is true. I planted them because I want fresh tomatoes. Her eating them is a bonus.
DD will also eat anything that “the food lady” prepares. That is what she calls the person who cooks in the kiosk at the Publix. She loves the Publix and tells me all the time that she wants to go there “because people give me food.” Last week we went in there to do our shopping close to lunch time and she began pestering me to go see the food lady before we got through the front entrance. They were serving fish, with tomato salad. She wolfed it down. The food lady was very impressed. Apparently, other children do not eat fish and tomatoes just because the food lady has prepared them.