Ongoings

Yesterday, I took a cheesemaking class at Sur La Table. I now know how to, in theory, make Greek yogurt, chevre, mozzarella, ricotta, and butter. I say in theory because there were fifteen students and one stove and two hours. Only the butter, ricotta, and mozzarella were really "hands-on"... and then, because we ran out of time, my group of five didn't get to finish our mozzarella as there was no time for the kneading and stretching bit. Still, I feel I came away with some new skills.

I also descended into our back bedroom (guest/storage room) and started going through things there a little bit. The Goodwill mound has grown to the point where I want to do a donation today, but OTOH the storage closet is, mm, shall we say "in disarray." I ran out of energy and went to bed at the end of it, so I'm likely making it my project today as well. I'm hoping that I can get rid of and reorganize enough stuff that we will have room for something I want to buy, but we shall see. I'd like to get enough stuff done and tidied in there that I can do a couple refinishing projects (Maggie's box, the small green bookcase that's been around as long as I can remember) and then drag the white paint out and, two years later, resume painting doors and the like. We have a guest coming on the 8th, so I have a deadline!

Finding the surface of my desk sometime would also be good, but we'll see.

Invisible Splinter is Invisible

When we got our windows replaced, they of course took out the old ones first. For the mobile windows (sliders and the crank-operated outward openers) this was not a problem. For those panels which were stationary, however, the method of removal apparently involved punching through the glass. Which meant, no matter how careful the crew tried to be, that a few glass shards ended up on the floor of each room. Those first few days, we were never barefoot, and the house got a thorough sweeping except for the back bedroom, as it wasn't finished yet.

During my cleaning spree of the back bedroom today, I was mostly shod, and swept carefully. But now it feels like I have a very fine splinter in the base of my foot. Except when I look for it, and feel for it, there's nothing there.

Psychosomatic splinter?

Parental Update

My parents are both back home, my mother having drive both to and from Fountain Valley to Placerville yesterday to retrieve my father from the hospital. Which was something like fourteen hours' driving in one day.

My mother? Is a rock. I could never have done it. I would've done a hotel overnight and driven back the next day.

Dad has two fractures in his foot and one in his hand, a pair of casts, and a serious case of road rash. So he's doped up on the good painkillers and has a walker to help him get around, though he's probably going to switch to crutches as they annoy him less. It could have been worse. It could have been much, much worse, so we're all very thankful it wasn't. Now we just wait to see how long it takes him to heal up.