I have NO idea what I’ve done in the past 2 weeks.
Seriously. I have zero idea. Normally when I try to think back at what I did in the past while I just pick up my trusty life recorder (Instagram) and scroll through the proof. Scroll, scroll, scroll – OH! That night was so fun. Scroll, scroll, scroll – I wonder if anyone else takes pictures of their impressive bruises? Scroll, scroll, scroll – That dinner was good but it made me tooty.
You can have WAY more fun and live a lot more of your life when you aren’t constantly recording it. You just can’t remember it.
I know that I peeled my luffa sponges last week because it’s the one thing I posted on Instagram. It’s very possible I rescued a whole tribe of kittens from the mouth of a volcano but I can’t recall it.
I can tell you what I was doing LAST year this week. I was picking little nuggets of devil poop. You may know them as Brussels sprouts. I can tell you that because it was on Instagram.
Would you like to see an outtake that hasn’t been converted to black and white and boosted? O.K. Here you go …
Remember that the next time you see me looking great on Instagram. Or in real life. Because mainly I look like the above photo. My neighbours grown son was in my house last week (omg I just remembered something that happened last week by using my actual memories not my photo memories!!). He was picking up a piece of pumpkin pie for his mother so he came into my kitchen.
To get to the kitchen he had to pick his way through a photo setup for pictures of the pumpkin pie at my front door where the light is good for taking photos late in the afternoon. Then he had to carefully weave through the clutter of pie, dishes, napkins, baskets of beans that need shelling, bounce cards and other photography paraphernalia in the hallway before he finally made his way into the dining room – its floor covered in my underwear. It was laundry sorting day.
I mean there were MOUNDS of clothes on the floor.
Anyhow, he wandered through my unmentionables minefield and I looked back at him and said – I’m sorry, it isn’t normally like th… Then I stopped myself and said, You know what? It is. It’s pretty much always like this. And sometimes I find weird things in my hair. Like feathers and once a centipede. Then I gave him his pie and guided him back towards the front door.
STUFF I DID THIS WEEK.
So there’s one thing I did. I showed a grown man my dirty laundry.
And peeling the luffas.
Like I said, I peeled my luffas which grew well this year. It wasn’t a banner year, like I won’t be building a shed out of luffa sponges or anything but I got quite a few. None of them are huge, but that doesn’t actually matter because you don’t need a HUGE luffa. You just need a luffa. I usually cut them into pieces anyway for scrubbing pots.
If you want to grow luffa’s next year here’s my Guide to Growing Luffas in a cold climate.
I bought a chair!
I bought a $90 chair from a thrift shop. I’ll be recovering this when I get my living room redecorating act together. HAHAHAHAHA. Like that’s ever going to happen. The chair has good lines, is from Vogel, a relatively good manufacturer and is the most comfortable chair I’ve ever sat in. Which is why I bought it.
The back is 100% down and the seat is down wrapped foam. For the moment I suppose I should order a slip cover for it so its upholstery doesn’t continue to bother me for the next decade or however long it’ll be before I redo my room. It’ll cost about $700 for new fabric and to have it recovered. New it would be about $1,600.
Here’s a tutorial on how I often reupholster chairs myself.
And finally (that I can remember) I went to the movie premiere of my 12 year old paperboy. He lives in Brooklyn and just finished his first full length feature film. He’s a very accomplished and independent 12 year old.
He’s not 12 anymore. But he was when he was my paperboy. How do I know he was 12 when he was my paperboy? I have a photo of it.
For some unknown reason, when he first came to the house to collect money I had my boyfriend at the time take a picture of the two of us. Cyrus the paperboy never came back to my house after the photo shoot. Yup. Me and my paperboy Cyrus Baetz who is now a filmmaker in Brooklyn and understandably wary of strangers.
You can see a trailer for his first feature film “Speak Your Mind” here.
ON THE MENU LAST WEEK
On the Menu Last Week
It's chili season so I made a batch of that and put two servings in the freezer.
O.K. It's all about the toast and the toppings. Cilantro, sour cream, cheddar cheese and avocado are my favourite toppings, and a thick sourdough is my favourite for toast.
I make a batch and then use it all week. Perfect.
I use this recipe as the base of my own curried cauliflower soup. They're almost identical, so if you make this one it'll be great. Adding the sautéed onions on top MAKES this soup so don't skip that part if you have the time to do it.
On The Menu Next Week
Pizza cheese was on sale soooooo .... If you haven't yet tried this technique I outlined last spring on making pizza at home I BEG you to try it. I spent months figuring this out & perfecting it. I gained 7 pounds. It will create results as close to a wood fired pizza as possible. I teach you how to make the sauce, stretch your dough so you get a proper airy crust and tell you exactly down to the minute and measurements of how to prepare and cook it.
I haven't quite decided if I'll make cast iron pizza or fire up the pizza oven outside. It kind of depends on the weather and my degree of laziness and such.
I have a whack of squash from the garden and this is one of my two favourite things to make with it for the fall. The other is pumpkin ravioli which is insanely delicious, but that's more of a weekend thing.
Hope you’re having a good weekend! Try not to forget what you did.
That chair is a perfect candidate for a custom slipcover. It can be made to fit the bottom edge, attached and kept in place with Velcro. I’ve made many such slipcovers with great success.
Forgot to say: I love that chair (I’ll love it more when you get it covered) and your luffas are beautiful.
Okay, I won’t mention that my daughter (who is NOT anywhere near menopause, according to her) has been experiencing some forgetfulness lately. Which is unusual for her. She’s about your age, I think. Forget I brought it up. Never mind.
LOL! I’ve been wishing for menopause for about 25 years now. I’m hoping it will get rid of my migraines. So BRING IT ON. Although my doctor has told me do NOT wish for menopause because it’s a horror. Migraines/memory/migraines/memory … hmm. ~ karen!
Menopause is a horror??? Not so! Mine had NO hot flashes, night sweats, or any other thing menopausal ladies complain about!
Oh that chair! Beautiful. Good job I don’t have it or I’d never get out of it …
Oh, the chair! I once found a similar looking chair at the end of a driveway in rural Wisconsin. Obviously, they were throwing it out but I went up to the door anyway and they said of course you can have it. It was one of those wonderful old Wisconsin farms…I could drift off there and start rambling on about that, completely forgetting my point, but I’ll fight it. Having it reupholstered cost almost $600. It’s beautifully made, one of those old things you rarely come across and it was free! Well, kinda…
Karen, don’t you recall the fun we had going shopping together last week at that fabulous little boutique in town, after trudging through that little blitz blizzard of snow and then making matching snow angels? We laughed, we ran through that field near the graveyard, and then shared a bottle of wine and some chocolate cake at the little French bistro? Afterwards, we bought matching Christmas scarves to commemorate our day of fun and madness…and you invited me to your house for Christmas dinner? How could you forget the glorious time we spent together? It’s a sad commentary on modern life; I must drink some tequila now, to soothe the disappointment I feel (along with Billy and Ann); after all, not all of your fans would be willing to stand out in your yard all night burning candles and calling your name…this is truly a hollow moment in our history together. I will see you at the next full moon once again, wearing my grandmother’s white nightgown holding a candle in your yard and calling your name…because I don’t forget. No, I don’t forget!
You’re sure that was *this* week, right? Because I remember the scarves and the candle and the graveyard and the french bistro, but I definitely don’t remember laughing. We laughed? I’m suspicious you might be making that part up. ~ karen!
You know what I did this week? I threw out three pair of leaky boots! I was so proud of myself and even prouder that I scored a great deal on a pair of muck boots, I mean they’re perfect and who needs anything else right? I don’t know how two more pair of new boots made it back into the house…or THE coat. You know? The puffy coat you bought with all the zippers and pockets that I said “noooo, it’s ugly!”? Yeah that coat! I LOVE IT! My daughter says I look like a turtle…but I’m a warm turtle 🙂
So it wasn’t that ugly after all, lol? I bought it for my niece for her birthday. She loves it! ~ karen
My heart stopped at the chair! I love that chair, what a great find! I have an ugly dusty rose chair that I have tried many different slip covers on. They just do not work. They always slip off and move every time you breath on them when you walk by the chair. You never want to sit in the chair because you know you are going to have to straighten the damn slip cover when you stand up. They call them slip covers because all they do is slip around on the chair or sofa you tried to cover up. But after 6 years of looking at the ugly dusty rose colour I made a slip cover myself from a thrift store bed spread. The slip cover is pure genius on my part because it is the simplest of things to sew. It is all straight line sewing. I think I will take photos of it and show you how I did this.
Please do.
I really, really miss the chickens….how are they?
They’re fine! I’ll let them know you were asking about them. 🙂 ~ karen!
Karen, are those casters on the new chair? I can’t help but think of the havoc they’ll wreak on those wood floors!
I know! But I love castors on furniture. ACK. But yes they’ll put big divots in my floor so I’ll have to come up with some sort of solution. Either those glass pads underneath or felting them or something. If all ideas fail then I’ll have to remove them, but that would screw up the angles of the chair seat and back. :/ ~ karen!
That’s a fabulous chair, Karen, and ‘yes’, you’re right … Vogel was/is a good name just like other manufacturers such as Barrymore, Cooper, etc.
You wore a necklace that I want to know more about to an art fundraiser!
OH, lol! I’ll post a bit about the fundraiser next week. I went to it a few hours after writing this post. And since I put some of it on Instagram I’ll actually remember going. 😉 ~ karen!
Maybe you were doing the tasks on your Christmas list? But you can’t talk about any of them because they are Top Secret?
Mmmmmmm maybe!!! I did get ahead of the game and make some appetizers to freeze so you’re right about that one thing that I forgot about! ~ karen
I am in unspeakable spiritual pain. When I left that morning, you said you would never forget our magical night of shared ecstasy. My heart was leaping from my breast as I left, knowing that I had at long last found my true soulmate. Then, when I saw your denial of our experience, I could not contain my pain.
My agony knows no bounds. You will only be forgiven if you acknowledge our love. I need more tequila to assuage my pain. This is all your fault.
(Don’t tell my wife. She would not understand what we had that night.)
Billy, I feel your pain. How Karen could have forgotten that she flew to Illinois because I was having a wart removed and needed emotional support… Words fail. I’m sure the comments will chronicle other things she has forgotten this week.
I look forward to reading them.
Yeah, yeah. I might vaguely remember the wart! Sort of! Kind of. A little bit. A wart you say? ~ karen!
See? This is why it’s sometimes best NOT to post everything on Instagram. ~ karen!