Rainy morning study with rumpled daybed. It's nice to have my space back, with its refreshed and brightened woodwork. Except for one mystery stack of books in our bedroom, everything's back in its place all over the house --- I spent yesterday doing that, not finishing my essay, which is set to go up Monday, but that's what today is for. Good thing it's a rainy, dreary day, and we have no plans except to get stuff done and clear the decks for a restful Sunday tomorrow.
Among other things, I washed three sets of curtains yesterday: one in the kitchen, two in the living room. It was a sunny day, and even though I'd hand-washed the curtains in the kitchen sink in Blue Dawn dish liquid and didn't wring them out all that much, they still all dried within half an hour of being hung on the line. There is a place for polyester in this world, I guess . . . these are all extremely cheap Walmart curtains, bought because I needed window coverage fast and held up by equally cheap and easy tension rods. But they are Battenberg-lace patterned and look extremely nice on the windows --- nobody has to know how cheap they are. And now they're fresh and clean, so that's one spring-cleaning task done. What with clean curtains and freshly painted baseboards, we're way ahead of that game.
And now I can function, like an actually functional person.
When I changed into trousers yesterday, I took the opportunity to rinse out the tights I'd been wearing and hang them, with all my other wool tights, on the line outside in the sun for a while. I don't wash them often, but sometimes you do need to get in there and kill dust mites --- tumbling them (dry) in a hot dryer from time to time will also accomplish the same end. I brought the tights in, thank goodness, though I think I still have a couple of towels hanging out there in the rain. Oh well. They'll get wet, and then they'll dry.
Looking over my outfit plan from last Saturday to see what I haven't worn and what looks appealing on a wet day . . .
Aside from finishing this essay, I also need to order groceries. We've been eating pantry staples a lot, but now we're out of milk and eggs. I still have curried red-lentil soup from last night to eat for brunch, but nothing for dinner, given that we probably don't want to eat beans yet again.
This is the recipe I riffed off for last night's dinner, by the way.
My riffs:
*I didn't have any carrots, so I left them out. I did have celery, which I minced very fine, because I hate chunks of celery in things.
*Also no onions (see: need to buy groceries, above). So I subbed in onion powder, which I always have. Not as good as real onion, but in a pinch, fine.
*I sauteed the aromatics in butter, not olive oil.
*Also no prepared broth. I just used a whole can of tomato paste, not the prescribed couple of tablespoons, and water (adding more water as the lentils cooked). And I added a can of coconut milk toward the end.
*Spices: curry powder (a pretty generous amount), cumin, plain paprika because I didn't have smoked, salt and pepper. I also snipped in two dried cayenne peppers.
*I added a dollop of sour cream to each bowl when I served dinner.
This was very good soup. It might be even better if you follow the recipe, but what I did was plenty delicious. I love red lentils, not least because they cook so fast, but also because they just taste good, so buttery and smooth. The husband had bought a loaf of sourdough at the general store on Main Street, so we had that with the soup.
Going to get dressed now. I think I might bathe and wash my hair this afternoon, but I don't feel like it at the moment. I could also just get up in the morning before Mass and do it, which might really be what I do. I'm just not feeling wet hair right now.
OK, I picked something very much not on my outfit list, but it was what I felt like. Also, yeah, I need to wash my hair, just not right this second. It's dank and wet out --- not freezing, high of 52F, but feels penetratingly chilly --- and I wanted to be warm and cozy.
SO . . .
Wearing today:
While I'm sitting here, and the dog is content to stay in her crate for a few more minutes, let me knock out a quick plan for next week, when we're going to have lows in the teens and highs in the 30s.
To wear, starting Monday (I have a plan to wear my Cinnamon Rose NPL Leila dress with my crystal cashmere cardigan, Keens boots, Sand Dollar wool tights tomorrow for Mass):
*Wool& Washed Navy Sierra dress, possibly under NPL Dark Gray-Blue Smock linen dress, with Storm Cloud merino tights, Tari boots, and a cardigan of my choice (pink merino again? that was a nice outfit a couple of weeks ago)
*Wool& Ocean Teal Willow dress with Sapphire merino tights, Keens boots, and cardigan of my choice (cobalt-blue merino? Connemara green merino?)
*pink wide-leg jeans with teal cashmere cut-off pullover sweater (maybe Devold tee underneath), Devold wool socks, Birk Melrose boots or Taris, depending on whether the weather is wet or dry. If need be, I can wear wool tights under those jeans for more warmth.
*Wool& Audrey dress with Connemara cardigan, indigo wool scarf, Storm Cloud wool tights, Melrose or Keens boots (depending on whether or not it's wet).
*NPL Smock dress in Grape Wine, oatmeal Icebreaker base-layer tee, Red Velvet Cake merino tights, Tari boots
*Levis with green merino-blend pullover, a base-layer tee (maybe sky-blue WoolX cropped tee), Darn Tough Socks, Tari boots
*Sunday Mass: Emerald Green NPL Smock dress with Wool& Maggie in Aegean Teal as under-dress, cardigan of my choice (pink again? or cobalt?), Crocodile merino tights or black cashmere footless tights, Keens boots.
This seems like a good round of outfits that lets me wear a wide range of things in my closet, with variety, repeating some outfits I've really liked and don't want to forget, plus trying some new combinations, especially with jeans. Yes, outfit repeating is in and is good. No, I don't want to get stuck in a rut.
Oh, by the way, I continue to wear and love the down-filled Land's End parka my mother gave me for Christmas. BUT already the seam below the right pocket has come unsewn. I'm going to have to fix it. Let me tell you, buying new does NOT equal high quality, even from a brand whose reputation rests on its supposed quality. I do really love this coat, and I'm grateful to my mother for buying it for me. But is it better than the 20-year-old $20 longline down coat I bought from Burlington Coat Factory when I was broke? No, I do not think it is. I have mended that coat, too, but only after about 15 years of continual wear. Let the buyer beware . . . and shop vintage when you can. Old LL Bean is the gift that keeps on giving.
And now I really had better release the incarcerated dog for another day of mayhem.
EVENING UPDATE:
I did wash my hair this afternoon. Still haven't combed it --- some interesting curl patterns today.
Partway dry:
After dinner, all the way dry:
I don't get those sausage-roll curls all over, but they happen a lot in front, and sometimes also randomly throughout my hair. Usually I just break them apart with my wide-toothed comb, but today I let them be. This isn't slick, shiny, perfect, defined hair, but my husband said it was pretty, so there.
When I got dressed again after bathing, I switched up my outfit, just for fun.
It seemed like a fun thing to do. I haven't knotted a tee over a dress in quite a long time.
I also changed our sheets, washed the sheets I stripped off in a load with towels and kitchen linens, and hung a good bit of that load to dry on the line, drying smaller, lighter things in the dryer. Then it was getting late, and the weather had clouded over again, so I took out and folded what was in the dryer and banged all the stuff on the line into the dryer, where it should have dried pretty fast.
Our dryer is not very . . . muscular . . . which is one reason I get sick of using it. You typically have to run a load through two dryer cycles to get it dry enough to put away. I figure that a few hours out on the line is at least the equivalent of one puny dryer cycles, and time and air cost nothing to use. Anyway, I should pull that stuff out and fold and put it away before I go to bed, so as to start the new week with a clean slate, chores-wise.
I also ordered groceries, including two family-size packs of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which I promptly cooked up on a baking sheet this afternoon. You just put some parchment paper over your sheet pan for ease of cleanup, line up your pieces of chicken on the parchment paper on the sheet pan, season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika on all sides, then bake until done. You can also grill the chicken thighs for even less cleanup, but the oven was right there in the house with me, as opposed to outside in the cold, so that's what I did.
I let the cooked thighs cool, then divided them into two half-gallon storage bags, which I hid behind other things in the meat drawer so that I won't discover that all my chicken thighs have been snacked out of existence. I took out about five thighs tonight and shredded them to cook with grape tomatoes, artichoke hearts, whole garlic cloves, feta, and a good sprinkling of Italian spices, all drizzled with olive oil, for dinner (which also included green beans sauteed in butter with salt and pepper). This is one of my favorite things to make for dinner, quick and easy to put together if you have a jar of artichoke hearts hanging out in your cupboard (I did).
You could do a vegetarian version of same by substituting portabello mushroom slices for the chicken, maybe marinating them in a little olive oil with Italian seasoning before putting them in the baking dish. Basically you want enough meat or meat proxy (like mushrooms) for visual balance in the dish with a whole jar of artichoke hearts and a whole container of grape tomatoes. You want to be able to spread those things out in the dish and have them look evenly mixed. Then you want to add enough cloves of garlic just to kind of stud the mixture (or to taste --- I happen to love a lot of roasted garlic). Then you crumble on enough feta to cover but not completely hide the layer underneath and sprinkle Italian seasoning mix over.
This is easy and delicious, and easy to make in large amounts (just get two jars of artichoke hearts, two containers of tomatoes, twice as much chicken or mushrooms . . .) for company. Crusty bread is a nice accompaniment, or a salad, or both. Anyway, that's what we had for supper, and it was very nice, a winner as always.
Now we're drinking tea by the study fire, and shortly it will be time to walk the dog again before bed.