Living In The Present

Oh.  I am reminded of reading this the first time.  Feeling so sad.  My father lived this life.  Never selling the house he hated and buying (or even renting) a small place on a lake where he could fish or just sit and look at the water.  Always complaining that life had cheated him out of happiness.

We cheat ourselves out of happiness.

I try to be reminded of that as I sit on the back stoop--with G or with Riley, alone or with both of them.  I love being here.  I love listening to the tall trees creak and moan as the wind moves them.  I love going out at night, with the dog, to look at the stars.  I don't want to be anywhere else.

We carried the tree out of the house today.  I will miss it.  Such a beautiful tree and still fresh after all these weeks.  I think it may have been one of the most beautiful trees we have ever had for Christmas.  And it was charming in it's imperfection.

I want to bake bread one of these days of my work furlough.  I did make the new to me pizza crust twice.  I like it but need to tweak it a bit.  And I want to make naan.  Seems simple enough and now that I have learned to use the oven light to proof the dough--my house is very cold--  I think I could also use the oven light to keep milk warm enough to---do whatever turns milk into yogurt.

I have been trying to cook different things in the rice cooker.  I make good rice but tried cooking soaked dry beans in the rice cooker.  Too much water was a problem but the beans were perfectly cooked in very little time.  The internet says I can also make a frittata in the rice cooker.  Will try that next.  I like the "fix it" and "forget it" part of using the rice cooker.  It shuts itself down to warm, unlike the slow cooker.

I have to work on the library interactive art thing I said I would do.

Vaccumed the floors and have the  throw rugs in the washer.  I will have to tackle the baseboards one of these days--they are dirty.  I folded all my dishtowels like that Kondo woman suggests.  Not sure if I think it's better.  The drawer does look neater.  But does it spark enough joy?