The View from the Top of the Ladder

The garage hasn't seen a car inside it in nearly 15 years. I doubt it ever will.
There are fewer boxes and stuff in it. I can see across the garage to the door now. Everything just needs to be squished up against each other so that we can finally move the stuff from the rental locker into the garage. But, before that can happen the Husband and I need to look into all these boxes and figure what to do with the stuff in them.

Shudder.

But, that task is not for today. Sometime this week, we'll tackle it. Yes, sometime. I'll even write it on our TO-Do board in the kitchen. Yes, I will.

Today the Husband and I have bigger plans: We're running away to the beach. 

The other day I decided to keep a daily Have-Done list. For awhile, that is. Until I no longer need to let myself know that I have accomplished something each day.

Every day, I add things to my To-Do list. As you can see in the photo, the items don't always get done right away. Sometimes, not for weeks after I put them on the list.

The Have-Done things, so far, were not on my To-Do list. That's okay. They were usually stuff:

•  I would've distracted myself to do so I wouldn't do anything on the To-Do list. For instance, dig up a narrow piece of the front lawn to create a new home for a bunch of jade plants that no longer fit in their pots.

•  I would've discovered I needed to do before I could do a To-do item, such as clean the freezer in order to start it up again.

•  I needed to do that moment because they needed to get done then and there. We needed to pay that water bill, you know.

•  I would've eventually put on my To-do list. That would've probably b…

What happened? My serious—as opposed to maybe I'll do it—To-Do-List got very long just now. Yuck. All I can do is do what I can. And, stop now and then and play with Molly the Cat. That's very important for my sanity.

I like this photo of Molly. Can you tell it was taken upside-down?  Molly seems to like the camera that way. By the way that fleshy stump next to her is my leg.

Until tomorrow.

Hurrah! I completed item#1 on my list of seven things to do before the summer ends.

The Husband has his second tunic. It sports a couple of boo-boos. One pocket is lower than the other. And, there's a triangle of fabric missing in the interfacing. I cut it out as I was sewing because the fabric was overlapping in the oddest way.  I should've had more faith in what I was doing. We'll see how the tunic holds up with each washing.


The blue print on the pockets and on the sides looks weird. What can I say other than it brings out the happiness of the shirt.

The Husband is so cool.

When you have much to do. Yup. Time flies. Fly, fly, time.

Within the next six hours, I plan to do this:

Finish the Husband's tunic. All I need to do is attach the sleeves and sides, then hem it up.

Make an appetizer.  The Husband and I are going to a party tonight. Fun. Maybe I'll make cheesy olive balls. They're easy to make, but that means going to the store for olives and cheddar cheese.

Put together a photo collage.  It's for a luncheon fundraiser tomorrow. I could probably do that after the party, if I print the photos beforehand. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Get this post done.  I threw this in so I can feel like I'll have accomplished something once its published.  Always look for the positive, I say.

Thank goodness, I finished reading my novel last night, otherwise I'd forget about doing these things I plan to do. Enchanted  August by Brenda Bowen.  Just like the title, the story was enchanting.

I could go for either a cup of coffee or a lovely cocktail.…

Ha! I completed  #4 on my list of seven things to do before the summer ends. 

A jar of lemon peels covered with vodka is now sitting in the cupboard with the glasses. In four to six weeks, it will become lemon extract. I hope, I hope. 

The first thing I plan to make with the stuff is lemon cookies. They were the first—and when I think of it, the only—cookies that the Mama baked when I was a small kid. They were perfectly round, golden, and yummily lemon flavored. I have yet to taste a lemon cookie that rivals my memory of the Mama's cookies. 

If you're curious, this was my recipe, which I adapted from Mommypotamus's.
Zested 9 medium lemons. Don't get any of the white peel. Place lemon strips in a jar and cover with about 1.5 cup of vodka. Shake well, then put in a cupboard. The rest of the instructions are from Mommypotamus:
Shake the mixture every day for a week.  Shake every so often for 4 to 6 weeks, which I shall translate as once every 3 or 4 days. Strain the lemon pee…

It's time for me to make a list of all domestic diva things I want to accomplish this summer. Otherwise, I will just vaguely think about doing them, which in my world means "I'll do it tomorrow." As we all know, tomorrow really never comes.

I shall ring Tilda-Hilda's ding-a-ling bell and...and...and...proclaim my list of things I shall complete before the first day of Autumn.


1. Sew the Husband another tunic.

2. Sew myself a tunic.

3. Sew the Christmas vest for the Husband, which I said I would do....uhm, two Christmases ago.


4. Make lemon extract.

5. Make limoncello.

6. Make candied ginger.

7. Bake energy bars. So, Tilda-Hilda and I can pedal farther and further down roads.

I can do these seven things. I can!

Cu'Pie Baby Bird says "Chirp. Chirp." was the first blog I wrote and published. That was back in 2007. Did I really say, "back in 2007"? It was only eight years ago, but it certainly seems like much longer. I bet I still have things left to do on my To-Do list from back then....Oh, yeah, I do! The big one: Have a garage sale. Hmmmm.

Where was I? Today, I decided to share a post from my first blog. Here thou goeth.

Movin' On UpOriginally posted Sunday, June 17, 2007

We are moving up in the world. Or maybe the cliché should be -- we’re keeping up with the Jones’s. (Edit from Dick: “You can say either. It means the same thing.**)

Yesterday we stopped at Bed, Breakfast, and Beyond. (Another edit from Dick: “No. It’s Bed, Bath, and Beyond.”) This was our second stop in over a month, a very unusual thing for us. The only stores we grace more than once in a blue moon are the grocery store, the drug store, and the bookstore.

Our mission this time round was to buy a cher…

My town does not have a bookshop, an art supplies store, or a music store. Once upon a time it had all three. When I was a teenager, I fantasized about one day owning a bookstore with a ceramic wheel in the back so that people who want to play with ceramics can do their thing. I even knew what space in town I wanted to have my bookstore. Sometimes the fantasy of having a bookstore pops up when the Husband and I stumble upon a vacant space on main street or thereabouts. I no longer want a ceramic wheel. But, I do think of offering a service for people to have their packages delivered to my bookstore so that they don't have to fear about them being stolen off their porch.

In a tiny way, I am living out my bookshop fantasy by having a virtual online book store at Amazon, which  focuses on books about my town and county, as well as local authors.  I could expand this virtual shop by adding other categories that interest me. Yes, I could. Maybe, I will. I'll put it on my To-Do lis…

I need to put up my "Gone Reading" sign more often. I got some good reading done yesterday. It did take awhile before I actually ran to the bedroom and escaped into another time and place but when I did I read for two hours before it was time to make dinner. In the evening, I went back to the mystery I was reading until I turned the last page of the book, which I will tell you about another day.

To feel okay about going reading, I decided to cross a few things off my To-Do list. I finally put the photos I had scanned back in the Mama's albums. Some of them even went back on the correct pages. Hopefully, the Mama won't notice. I filed away some documents and put papers to shred in a neat pile on the floor.

I even researched what kind of milkweed grows in our area and where to purchase the milkweed seeds. Milkweed is what monarch butterflies munch on as they pass through from here to there. When I was a kid, monarch butterflies were a common thing to see around here…

Does anyone put up a "Gone Fishing" sign anymore?

I think it's a good idea to check out now and then. So, I'm posting my sign. Hopefully, I'll get some good reading done. See ya tomorrow.

If I want to, I can start my social security benefits at the end of the year. So, do I really want to finally learn about social media? This came to mind yesterday afternoon when I wanted to know something about Twitter hashtags. Yes, indeed, I can cross that off my January To-do list.

Learning about Twitter hashtags opened up a new can of black beans. (Not worms, because there are a lot of them in our compost bin.) Just like that, I found an easy-to-comprehend article about hashtags. That got me curious to go to my Twitter account, which I rarely do because I plead the old person's lament of "I don't understand how it works." Yet, I have a Twitter account that is hooked up to the Facebook pages for my two blogs -- this one and Take 25 to Hollister. A technical friend told me I could do that, so I did and left it at that. Until yesterday morning when I daringly added a hashtag to a Facebook post. I had to find out if I used it correctly and appropriately.

So, there I …

I'm one of those people who has good intentions of doing things. I'm also one of those people who needs to make a To-Do list to keep her focused on performing the tasks. Some times I even complete every item on the list. That said, here are the things I want to accomplish in January.

Put photos back into the Mama's albums. Now, this item I ought to be able to finish in a flash.

Make cafe curtains for the kitchen window.A few years ago, I made easy-peasy yellow curtains that are not the easiest to scoot along the rod. I did not put the centerpiece for holding up the rod in the precise center, which bugs a certain precise person, who shall be nameless, and possibly the other precise person, who shall also be nameless, in this household.

Make a bird feeder.The screw mechanism for the cover of the feeder failed sometime last year. But, because the birds can still balance and eat on the feeder, I've ignored replacing it. Recently, the birds have taken to pooping on the cover…