Weekend accomplishments
Mar. 30th, 2026 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
box_cameraI spent the weekend thinking about the Easter menu, and this morning my weekly Budget Bytes newsletter delivered the only things I still needed: a creamed peas recipe, and one for carrot cake bars. I was looking for a dessert that would be seasonal but not too difficult, because I'm making the entire meal myself. But actually, it's not going to be that hard. Mom wants to get a Honeybaked Ham, I'm doing boxed scalloped potatoes again (we never tell her they're boxed and she always raves about them LOL), and I'll get Hawaiian rolls. The peas are easy, it's basically just a light roux and some heavy cream and seasoning, and bars are always less work than cake. Making a dozen deviled eggs will probably take the most effort.
Saturday I did the CVS/gas station/grocery store round, then at home I dusted off my bureau and vacuumed my bedroom. I had some moonshine and read; I like to keep it at room temp but pour it over ice so it dilutes just a little as the ice melts. You can't really use a mixer because you don't want anything distracting from the apple pie taste; also it already has a lot of sugar so you definitely don't want to add more. I guess i just described whiskey on the rocks; technically moonshine is unaged corn whiskey. 'Murica! We grow so much corn we need to invent new uses for it.
Dinner was leftovers and I wasn't that hungry so I just had a PB&J, then I finished the most recent season of 48 Hours and read for a while.
Sunday I made a dutch baby and bacon for breakfast. I watched The Predator of Seville on Netflix while I changed the sheets and did laundry. I wonder why that guy seemed to mostly attack American students, was it just that was who he had access to, or did he especially hate Americans? Did he see our internalized misogyny and puritanical character and assume most women wouldn't report out of shame? (He wasn't wrong, he'd been assaulting women for years before one finally spoke up.)
I didn't really have any meal prep to do so other than baking a batch of strawberry white chocolate scones, my afternoon was pretty leisurely. In between moving loads of laundry along and taking Penny out, I sipped some more 'shine and finished reading Michael Wehunt's October Film Haunt. It had great atmosphere and some interesting ideas, but it never really cohered for me and started really flailing at the end.
I decided to re-read Elyssa East's Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town, which is one of my favorite non-fiction books published this century. It's part true crime, part American history, and part art history--the artist in question is Marsden Hartley and his poem Return of the Native is where the lines on my LJ home page are from ("He who finds will to come home will surely find old faith made new again and lavish welcome").
I wanted to do an easy dinner since next Sunday is Easter, so I got a carton of roasted red pepper and tomato soup and made some cheesy pinto bean quesadillas. After supper I watched the new episode of Dark Winds, then read for a while.
Did I mention we have new next door neighbors? Someone bought Tim and Barbara's house. They have a dog that they keep in the backyard a lot, and it started barking at Penny when I took her out for her last pee. Normally she ignores barking dogs--the neighbors across the street have what sounds like 27 of them--but she must have felt like this one was intruding on her turf and she started barking back. Fun.
Saturday I did the CVS/gas station/grocery store round, then at home I dusted off my bureau and vacuumed my bedroom. I had some moonshine and read; I like to keep it at room temp but pour it over ice so it dilutes just a little as the ice melts. You can't really use a mixer because you don't want anything distracting from the apple pie taste; also it already has a lot of sugar so you definitely don't want to add more. I guess i just described whiskey on the rocks; technically moonshine is unaged corn whiskey. 'Murica! We grow so much corn we need to invent new uses for it.
Dinner was leftovers and I wasn't that hungry so I just had a PB&J, then I finished the most recent season of 48 Hours and read for a while.
Sunday I made a dutch baby and bacon for breakfast. I watched The Predator of Seville on Netflix while I changed the sheets and did laundry. I wonder why that guy seemed to mostly attack American students, was it just that was who he had access to, or did he especially hate Americans? Did he see our internalized misogyny and puritanical character and assume most women wouldn't report out of shame? (He wasn't wrong, he'd been assaulting women for years before one finally spoke up.)
I didn't really have any meal prep to do so other than baking a batch of strawberry white chocolate scones, my afternoon was pretty leisurely. In between moving loads of laundry along and taking Penny out, I sipped some more 'shine and finished reading Michael Wehunt's October Film Haunt. It had great atmosphere and some interesting ideas, but it never really cohered for me and started really flailing at the end.
I decided to re-read Elyssa East's Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town, which is one of my favorite non-fiction books published this century. It's part true crime, part American history, and part art history--the artist in question is Marsden Hartley and his poem Return of the Native is where the lines on my LJ home page are from ("He who finds will to come home will surely find old faith made new again and lavish welcome").
I wanted to do an easy dinner since next Sunday is Easter, so I got a carton of roasted red pepper and tomato soup and made some cheesy pinto bean quesadillas. After supper I watched the new episode of Dark Winds, then read for a while.
Did I mention we have new next door neighbors? Someone bought Tim and Barbara's house. They have a dog that they keep in the backyard a lot, and it started barking at Penny when I took her out for her last pee. Normally she ignores barking dogs--the neighbors across the street have what sounds like 27 of them--but she must have felt like this one was intruding on her turf and she started barking back. Fun.
