Today after Mass, provided it's not raining, we want to curb-mart two large pieces of furniture from the upstairs room I was cleaning yesterday: one dresser that's falling apart and the farmhouse table in the corner, which the boys sort of used as a desk but mostly used as a clutter catch-all. It came to us secondhand about 20 years ago, and while it's a good table, sturdy and (I think) all wood, it's also the kind of table you can easily find again on Facebook Marketplace, and we don't have room to store it. Soooo . . . our loss, somebody else's gain. Everything I put out on the curb the other day --- except the stripped-down but still functioning desk chair --- has been picked up. Broken suitcase? Check. But the desk chair, which isn't actually broken? So far no takers.
We are going to reassemble the bookshelf that fell apart when I moved it. It's solid wood and worth salvaging, as the husband (who will be doing the actual reassembling) noted. That should make room for the remainder of the books, many of which I did reshelve yesterday, and for the vinyl records currently housed on the table that's going away. My idea is to have both those bookshelves laid end-to-end under the windows, with the top as more space for books and memorabilia. They would be good window seats and could be cleared off and topped with cushions, but for now I think I'm going to put the turntable there, and just have a whole kind of console cabinet under the windows. If I don't arrange things on that horizontal surface, it will fill up with clutter.
I think I will angle the smaller desk, which I pulled out of the dormer alcove, at 90 degrees out from the windows --- that way the desk lamp can plug into the outlet/power strip by the windows, and the space can be somewhat divided, between living space and exercise space, which will be the corner where the big table now is, and which will be occupied by the punching bag and its stand, plus a number of weights that the guys have amassed up there. Eventually, if the punching bag and its stand ever go away, we could make another seating area in that corner with a lamp and one or two small armchairs. OR even a kitchenette with a mini-fridge, a microwave, and a coffee station. Again, this room is as big as many studio apartments, and we can arrange it to be one.
Not sure what I want to do with the dormer alcove. It would be nice to have a window seat/ledge for plants in that window. If I could find either a wooden trunk or a solid wooden bookshelf about 40" tall to lay on its side, that would be the ticket.
I'm pretty stiff and sore today after all my exertions yesterday, so I plan not to knock myself out, especially as it's Sunday. But it will be so good to have that room clean and organized, ready to welcome guests (including but not limited to the people who used to occupy it).
It also needs a good vacuuming (after the sweeping and dusting), including lampshades, which I so often overlook.
I don't have any in-progress photos, but maybe I'll take some later today. This room is likely to be in-progress for some time.
Cooler today, with a high of 71.
Wearing:
*Wool& Fiona dress (M) in Marine Blue, bought October 2024, last worn May 4. Wears in 2025: 9
*Secondhand Eileen Fisher silk-rayon cardigan, first year of wear
*Secondhand Art Company shoes, first wear
I did walk the dog after taking these photos, and on returning and putting her in her crate with her breakfast, I pulled the front of my hair back in what is by now, surely, what I could call my signature style, if that didn't sound totally pretentious, which it does.
Anyway: trying to hit this blue theme for May before it's over altogether. I'll have to do a retrospective to see how many times I did actually wear blue in this month when I meant to wear it every day and thought that that would be easy. I guess pink does also count as a Marian color --- the Spotless Rose and all that --- and I did wear a lot of pink, even when I wasn't wearing blue, so I guess . . .
Well, what I guess is that it's probably a mistake to make a rule too soon after Lent. Eastertide is for freedom from penances, and even a rule that's not meant to be a penance can start to feel like one. Yeah, but I want to wear that, not this --- that's the impulse that has won out a lot this month, but I'll be interested to review just how many times I observed my intended little devotion.
BUT TODAY I am wearing both blue and pink. Can't get any more Marian than that. AND my Our Lady of Guadalupe earrings as well.
AFTERNOON UPDATE
A lovely Mass, with Fr. David preaching and celebrating. We came home, and I made sweet omelettes/flourless crepes with cottage cheese filling and blueberry topping for breakfast. What I did basically was this:
1. Set the table.
2. Get out a carton of eggs, some butter, the cottage cheese, and a bag of frozen blueberries.
3. Eyebball an amount of frozen blueberries to pour into a small saucepan with a little water to keep them from sticking. Later I would use a slotted spoon to top my crepes/blintzes/omelettes/whatever you want to call them with warm blueberries. I could have thickened the liquid with some butter, but I didn't.
4. While the blueberries simmer, crack four eggs (a 2-egg omelette for each person) into a measuring cup and add about 1/4 c. honey, beating the eggs and stirring in the honey. Then a dash of cinnamon.
5. Melt at least a tablespoon of butter on my cast-iron flat pan/griddle, which is about a foot in diameter. Medium heat.
6. Pour half the egg/honey mixture onto the flat pan and swirl it around a little to make sure the egg fills the whole pan, up to the lip around the edge. Keep swirling it for a while as it starts to cook through and solidify. Once it starts to solidify, carefully loosen the edges with a spatula and make sure it's not sticking. Lower heat if necessary so as not to burn the bottom.
7. Once the top side has solidified, add about three soup spoons of cottage cheese to the middle and carefully, using a spatula, fold the sides over. If you can, you can roll the whole thing up like a crepe, but folding it is fine. It will taste the same regardless.
8. Carefully slide onto a plate. Top with warm blueberries and hand off to the first person in line, instructing them to eat it while it's hot.
9. Repeat the same process for the next omelette, which is presumably yours.
The caveat here --- which is the general caveat for learning to make omelettes if you haven't done them --- is not to sweat it if things fall (literally) apart. Amazingly, sweet scrambled eggs with cottage cheese and blueberry taste exactly like a nice neat thin omelette/crepe/blintz kind of thing. You just have to keep practicing. But this is a nice way to make an omelette when you want something kind of sweet, but you want nutritional density and fewer empty calories. I had had some crepes with cottage cheese and fresh fruit at a cafe in Dallas a couple of weeks ago and had been craving the same ever since, but with less sugar and no flour, for more nutritional wallop per calorie. So I more or less made this up and am happy to report that it's pretty good. The husband was delighted with his after-Mass breakfast today.
You could do the same thing in a smaller pan, if that's what you have, using one egg per person. The main thing is that you want your mixture to be thin enough, in the pan, to cook all the way through fairly quickly --- just thick enough to support the filling, but no thicker than that.
In other news, I have done a little more work in the upstairs room. The husband carted the broken dresser down to the curb, and I went through all the strata of detritus on the big table, carefully saving anything that even remotely suggested a sentimental attachment and throwing away only obvious trash. That's done, with items transferred to the desk drawers or a Doc Martens box marked Do Not Throw Away: Contains Sentimental Items. Now that box contains more potentially sentimental items than it did, and it's stored carefully on top of the bins of the Viking's other memorabilia.
Everything's currently a bigger mess even than it was before, but that's just the way of it.
Things have to get worse before they get better. There are still all those books to contend with, and I can't contend with them until the other bookshelf is put back together. But that's really the last big actual mess. Everyone's belongings are carefully stowed (and accessible), and the room itself is a lot cleaner than it was. In a while I might take the steam cleaner up to work on the windows, and a rag with some cleaner to wipe woodwork where just dusting wasn't quite enough. I still need to hang the fresh curtains, though I hate to cover the windows and block the light. I might wait on that for a while, since nobody's sleeping or dressing in there at the moment. Should houseguests appear, I can put curtains up in a flash and be ready to roll. I'd really like to get some new bedding for the twin bed, because the current comforter for that bed is gray, which is . . . blah. Even the person who sleeps in that bed when he's at home thinks it's blah, and the only reason I bought that color is that he couldn't decide on a color. BUT it's a functional comforter, so for the moment I'm not going to do anything about it, just make up the bed when everything else is done.
I still have four bags of Goodwill donations to haul down to my car, but other than that and taking out another load of trash, it's really just
*get the table out to the curb
*get the other bookshelf together
*put all remaining scattered items in place
*clean and vacuum.
I also need to find an extension cord so that I can put a lamp in the corner next to the futon/sofa. That corner is a bit cavelike and would benefit from a light source. I have the lamp --- there are four in that room. I just need to be able to plug it in where I want to plug it in.
So I'm trying not to do servile labor on a Sunday, but I'm not sure this counts as servile labor. I'm choosing to do it --- nobody is making me. And it is satisfying, but I'm also taking breaks, as I'm doing right now. Currently Dora and I are lounging in the back yard. The sun has gone in, however, and it's looking as though it might rain, so I think shortly I'll take a break from my break and return to the task at hand. I won't finish today, but I'd love to make more headway before I stop for supper. I'm looking forward to the finished room, with its defined zones for living and exercise, and I hope the guys don't hate it when they come home.
Still wearing my Fiona, though I've traded the Art Company shoes for my Birk Rosemeads, which are comfy for shuffling about in, and shucked off my cardigan. I don't think I'm going to get quite as dusty and cobwebby as I did yesterday, when at the end of the day I had to bathe and also wash my dress. But I don't mind rinsing out Fiona if I need to.
I should really sketch myself an outfit plan for this week, the last week in the month. Maybe I will wear blue with some consistency --- who can tell!
*NPL Chocolate Brown Leila dress with cobalt merino cardigan and either Crocs or Xero Jessie sandals
*Japanese linen pinafore with blue Indian gauze tunic, Crocs or Jessies
*NPL Dark Blue-Gray Smock dress with cobalt cardigan, Crocs or Jessies
*Wool& Beetroot Brooklyn dress with cobalt cardigan --- if Thursday night, change to jean jacket for the pub --- Crocs or Jessies (at least I have a rotating set of default sandals, instead of just one pair)
*Floral pinafore with blue NPL tank, cobalt cardigan, sandals
*Either Sierra dress for a Saturday knockaround
*Sunday Mass for Ascension (transferred): NPL Cinnamon Rose Leila with pink silk-rayon cardigan, Art Company shoes I wore today, but with bandaids or moleskin, because they rub blisters --- must wear and break in! They're otherwise fine, though, and very cute with a flare-y dress.
I shall arise and go now, and go upstairs again.
SLIGHTLY LATER UPDATE
I arose and went and shuffled some stuff around. The husband hauled my Goodwill bags to the car, and we're just generally starting to have more space and see how things are going to look. The table is still there, so we can't move the punching-bag stand into the corner yet, but on the whole, it's starting to take shape:
I don't know what they set down on that trunk to leave a scorch mark like that, but I think we found that trunk on the curb to begin with --- it's not a family heirloom, and if people want to abuse it, that's their business. It is a nice, solid trunk, though, and one day somebody might be moved to refinish it. It would be worth the effort. And now it's clean. I keep finding various bits of sentimental stuff that I've been putting in designated drawers: the top dresser drawer for the Fire Son, desk drawers and that "sentimental" box for the Viking.
I am happy with how the desk looks, floated in the middle of the room like that. It's not too big, and once the table is out, I think the look will be really nice and not cluttered. I can move it down the room a bit, too, to open up the bed/sitting area a little more, once the table is gone. The second bookshelf still needs to be bolted back together, but now it's out of the way AND in the place where it will live. That's going to be very nice, I think, almost like a built-in under the window. The turntable can live there, and albums can go in the vertical slots below, with room for the rest of the books.
Just noticed the Star Wars poster sliding out of its frame in the photos above, and went up and fixed it.
In a while I'm going to marinate some chicken to put on the grill. The husband wants to grill steaks tomorrow, so I think we'll do a little lighter supper tonight. Still waiting for the predicted rain to start . . .