Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Shifting Seasons

G & I are on "vacation" this week.  At home, doing chores we never have time or energy to do while working.  And the new Fall TV Season is beginning and I had to go on line to find out what's ON.  I discovered a few favorites are missing.   I am also making the daily pot of marinara from the ripest tomatoes.  I had that going by 9 am this morning.  I was up early to fill the "water test" bottle. My home is one of the test subjects for lead contamination.  So far, in the 20 years we have participated, the test is always good.  No lead.

The cable guy came by (9am) to check out whatever is going wrong with the new Digital Cable.  Seems we didn't have enough "umph" or power for the signal.  Now we do.  And he switched the computer to the faster outlet and the TV to the slower.  And he happily switched us to the Digital Preferred package of cable channels and I now have BBC America.  I watched, on the computer, the three episodes of The Hour that I wasn't able to watch without paying $4.95 each (for one viewing).  Lovely!!  Well worth $17.98 extra a month.  It's my birthday. (soon)  I love my new cable channels.

We worked too.  One cord of firewood was unstacked, tossed into the truck and then unloaded across the street in our neighbor's yard.  I'm allergic to wood smoke so we never used the wood except when we had an ice storm and no heat.  Then we cleaned out the mouse nests and other strange things that were in the wood pile and G took two loads of junk out into the woods (ours).  Mostly bark, rotten wood and weeds. G walked the dog and ran the rototiller around the shed.  He didn't get around to applying mulch.

I carried a whole bunch of boxes down from my Yard Sale cleaning in the attic last week.  Today was recycling Pick Up and I wanted to get everything made of paper or cardboard out there.  The truck crew sorted out the non recycle stuff.  A Grimace pen, a rake head, some fabric and some foam.  They tried the pen to see if it worked before throwing it into the reject box.  G found an extra big box of Happy Meal toys in the basement.  Barbies!!!  Matchbox cars!!!! Legos!!!!   I'm excited about the number of Cute Toy Wreaths I will be able to make this Christmas.  Great to donate to fund raisers.

When we do the Staycation thing, G likes to eat out every day.  Last night it was Memphis BBQ and tonight it was BackStreet Bistro.  I had the bistro steak and requested a "special" dessert.  Whipped cream, chocolate sauce and almonds.  These are things I can have on Atkins.  I looked at the menu and saw all these items as additions to the listed desserts.  It was delicious, filling and a perfect ending to a lovely meal.

I have only three or four more Cadfael books to read.  That's my summer.  I plan to read the Roman Zen books this winter.  Nice to have a plan.  If we can figure out how to get the Tivo to acknowledge the new channels, I will be recording any and all past episodes of the British version of Law and Order.  I just may watch everything on BBC.  They have cooking shows also.  Such fun.

1 comment:

  1. You've got a lot on the plate but it all is made better by being on vacation.
    I've got a renewed interest in the Cadfael series. I was only able to catch a few of them when PBS played them years ago and I loved that actor. He was in I, Claudius as well. I will see what Netflix has to offer and maybe even see about reading the books instead.
    Our cable com. is upgrading(gasp) our local connections. This is often their way of saying they're going to annoy the crap out of me for days on end by having power blips and outages. I agree, this time, with the need to fix things though. My favorite channel, TCM is unwatchable. They go black every ten minutes and the movies are all chopped up. Same with Bravo. Last week a whole evening was totally black. We're stuck here with Cablevision so you have not much choice in the matter...grrrr. I hear that Verizon Fios is coming. Can't be soon enough. British L&O-who knew??

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