Author: erinreeve

Sorry I haven’t blogged in such a long time.  I think my last entry was before Thanksgiving?  I would sum up the holidays….but, eh, I don’t really feel like it.

We DID have a pretty great New Year’s — we went camping at Montgomery Bell State Park, and the temperature both nights got into the 20’s.  We went through a LOT of firewood, believe me.  We made some good meals using the dutch oven, and overall had a great time.  I personally much prefer that kind of NYE over going to parties, but.  Maybe we can take turns and do a party next year.  Maybe.

The leather stuff is going fine, except that I had a lot of commissioned Christmas presents to make (and still have one that I’m not finished with…Vicki, if you’re reading this, I’m omg so sorry it’s taking seriously forever…!!!!).  So I’m feeling sorta burned out.  Also I’m out of leather.  I will make more stuff to list.  And I should go ahead and just make a few really small things, but……..eh.

Although I’m sort of trying to focus on purging instead of buying more stuff lately, because we’ve decided to move into a new place.  (!)  So last night I filled up my big city-allotted trash can with clothes that I don’t wear anymore.  I got rid of all the coats in my hallway closet that smelled of mildew, also.  Today is trash pick-up day so I can technically fill it up again tonight if I want to.  I need to clean out the closet in the library too — it’s mostly full of the craft supplies that don’t have any better place to go.

Probably my biggest priority right now should be cleaning the garage, though………ugh.  Not excited about that.

I’m excited about the final result (moving) but not so much about the process.  However, the lack of excitement about the process usually means that I’m motivated to get it done quickly, which is a good thing.

I’m also rediscovering my love of drawing, after finding this YouTube channel that comes out with a new life drawing video every week.  I’ve wanted to take a life drawing class for like forever, and this isn’t really the same, but it IS free and does have “live” models so is great practice.  Stephen has been practicing with me too, which is also exciting!!  I have gotten friends to draw or paint with me before, but no one ever seems to get excited about it…but Stephen said that he’s enjoying it!  😀  Anyway, I like it.  This is my latest hobby which might be eclipsed by more leather stuff soon, since the leather stuff can actually make money.  But.  We’ll see.

ALMOST finally here.

This weekend, we’re picking up the turkey (tomorrow).  So until this year, I’ve only done frozen turkeys, and I got a little nervous this morning because apparently the FDA recommends cooking fresh turkeys 1-2 days after you buy them.  But I just asked one of the guys who works here, who hunts and cooks VERY fresh meat on the regular, and he said that it should be fine until Thanksgiving as long as I keep it very cold.  Sooo I’m going to like buy bags of ice to pack around it in the fridge, I think.  I would be the most depressed ever if it went rancid before Thanksgiving.  Would end up just having wine and tears for dinner, I’m sure.  SO not going to let that happen!!

Anyway, also we’ll go grocery shopping this weekend.  Thanks to the CSA we have most of the veggies we’ll need already; plenty of sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts and green beans (frozen from earlier this year).  Will have to purchase shallots and regular potatoes, but at least most of the veggies will be ethical.  I want to go to K&S for shallots (because you can get like a 5lb bag for super cheap) and also to see if they have any fresh herbs, before I buy them at Publix.

Of course, to go along with grocery shopping will be cleaning out the refrigerator and freezer.  I’m going to go through all my condiments and ask myself, “Would I eat this?”  And if the answer is not “Definitely yes,” I’m tossing them.  Same for all the who-knows-what in my freezer.

I have cleaned the library, kitchen, and bathroom this week.  Stephen has volunteered to help straighten my garage some, so I’ll probably do that this weekend too – and the bedroom too.  I will likely wait until Tuesday to clean the living room though.  Since I’m still using it.

Oh yeah —– so Anna Laura, I don’t really have a step-by-step tutorial for turkey-cooking.  But I will say this: to avoid over-cooking, 1) follow the instructions for cooking the turkey exactly, BUT 2) check the temperature of the turkey semi-regularly, and if it says it’s done but the timer says there’s still 45 minutes left, it’s done.  Go by the thermometer.  Which I’m sure you would — so what I’m really saying is, don’t assume the cooking time is accurate all the time.  Check the temp anyway.  Dry turkey is just disappointing.

ANYWAY!

Because Thanksgiving is two weeks out, as of tomorrow, and I need to feel like I’m organized in order to be excited and get stuff done.

I ordered a free range, organic, ethical turkey yesterday and am not sure how much it’ll end up costing, but won’t tell you anyway.  I have the menu planned out, and just made a preliminary grocery list.

Menu will include:

Cheese board, as mentioned earlier (cheeses, charcuteries, olives, nuts, apple butter, honey, grapes, etc)

Wine, apple cider

Pear-Thyme brined turkey, with pear-thyme gravy

Aunt Carol’s sweet potato casserole

Browned butter mashed potatoes

Green bean casserole with fried shallots

Cranberry sauce and cranberry salad a la Faith

Stuffing (I think Stephen made a cornbread stuffing last year but can’t remember for sure)

Also Faith said she can bring some bread or rolls.

Grandma’s magic chocolate pie, of course

And Faith also said she might bring a custard pie

So like I said, if anyone wants to come, there will be PLENTY of food.  The leftovers is like half of my motivation behind doing Thanksgiving at home.  Oh my gosh I can’t wait.  Last year I had a cold on Thanksgiving and it was really sad because I couldn’t really taste much.  But THIS year I am going to be healthy.  I can just tell.

Things to do before the week of the 26th, then, include

• Cleaning up the garage so I can easily get to the roasting turkey
• Bring roaster down from attic, clean it
• Wash all linens, iron, etc
• Figure out table decorations
• Deep clean entire house
• Make pie dough, freeze
• Clean out refrigerator (need to have enough room to brine the turkey)
• Grocery shopping probably the weekend of the 21st (if we don’t go camping that weekend)

It’s going to be hard to forgo Fallout for these tasks, but I’ll get it done.  Although I might play more Fallout tonight.  It’s basically the same as Skyrim, guys, except that the setting is completely different.  But otherwise!

Some things.

Firstly, Thanksgiving is fresh on my mind because Stephen told me yesterday that his mom can for sure come up for it, which means that I can start planning everything now!  It’s probably just going to be the three of us for dinner, plus Cathy during the afternoon (but she has family dinner) — unless anyone reading this wants to come too, in which case you are welcome!  There will be an awesome lot of food.  So far all I know is we’re doing a charcuterie and cheese platter again, and will have a crock pot of mulled wine and a crock pot of mulled cider.  And obviously there will be turkey, stuffing (which Stephen can make), Aunt Carol’s sweet potato casserole, yeast rolls, mashed potatoes of some sort, gravy, Grandma’s magic chocolate pie, and maybe some green beans or something.  That green bean casserole that Katie made last year was really good, come to think of it.  May do that.  Hm.

ANYWAY.  I should really NOT be thinking about all this right now because I have to wait until 1:30 to go to lunch (normal time is noon) and I am already SO hungry.  Made some cabbage soup last night – I think it’s the same soup that Mom and Dad made a few times when we were little.  It’s not terrible, but it’s certainly not loaded potato soup, or broccoli cheddar.  At ANY rate, thinking about Thanksgiving food is making my stomach very angry at me.

So tonight after work, I have to glaze those skull cakes.  The cakes themselves are lemon flavored, so I was thinking that I might do a lavender glaze.  Dammit, talking about food again.

I will probably put on a good horror movie tonight too.  Maybe…Rosemary’s Baby?  Or the Ring?  If I’m going to be glazing cakes, it needs to be one that i have seen before.  And I’m waiting to watch the Changeling with Stephen, who has finally agreed to watch it with me.  😀

Been doing a terrible job of making leather stuff lately, let me tell you.  But I have been baking cakes and reading more, which are both good and productive.  Bought Stacy Schiffs new book, The Witches: Salem 1692, which is about the Salem Witch Trials (duh).  I’m just a couple of chapters into it, but it’s really good so far.  We read an excerpt from it that was published a couple of months ago in the New Yorker, and have been waiting for the book to finally come out since then.

Anyway.  I feel more organized now.  Don’t forget to let me know if you want to come for Thanksgiving.

I am going to have a productive week.  I am not going to spend money on things that I cannot justify.  Instead, I am going to stay home and bake skull cakes for Halloween, and do my laundry, and clean my house.  I am going to buy candy for trick-or-treaters before it all sells out.  I am going to iron both of my cloaks.  I am going to act like an adult.

Furthermore, I am going to be productive until the end of the year.  I am down to two listings on Etsy, which is terrible – because it’s hard to sell things if you don’t have anything listed.  Therefore I am going to list a bunch of small wallets again, which i figure will take me maybe 1-2 days to pull together, so that at least the shop won’t be empty.  I have too many custom projects right now to be listing big items, but after Christmas I’ll start doing that again.

These things are utterly realistic and I can totally do them.

Since I have this entry started, I might as well mention what my Halloween costume is going to be.  I know, I don’t usually dress up, but THIS year.  So I made that green cloak for wearing to the ren fest earlier this year, right?  I wanted to think of some way to dress that up a little so it seemed more like a costume and less like an outdated piece of clothing.  So I decided to make something of a woodland crown with matching cuffs for my wrists, and I am going to be a dryad (a wood nymph!).  (I trust no one will notice that my crown doesn’t have any oak leaves or acorns on it….)  I also made a little crown that I’m hoping Stephen will wear at least long enough for me to take a picture.

Note: I am not wearing the wig for Halloween.  I ended up liking the way it all looks with my natural hair better than the blonde stuff.  So….

“Numinous,” Ursula said, breaking the silence eventually.  “There’s a spark of the divine in the world — not God, we’re done with God, but something.  Is it love?  Not silly romantic love, but something more profound…?”

“I think it’s perhaps something we don’t have a name for,” Teddy said.  “We want to name everything.  Perhaps that’s where we’ve gone wrong.”

“‘And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.’  Having dominion over everything has been a terrible curse.”

Afterwards — because it turned out that there was to be an afterwards for Teddy — he resolved that he would try always to be kind.  It was the best he could do.  It was all that he could do.  And it might be love, after all.

(From A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson)

I had a mini break-down last night after trying on like every dress that I own and hating them all.  So TODAY, because I need more discipline in my not-at-work free time, I’m going to do the following.

• Clean the kitchen
• Go grocery shopping OR exercise (because I don’t realistically see both happening as long as I have other stuff to do, as well)
• Dust
• Wash my dirty laundry
• Actually hang up my dresses
• Iron clothes that I will like better if they are ironed
• Change my sheets if I’m feeling energetic, but this isn’t a priority as I just recently changed them

Not time for my big comforter yet right?  Hm, I might get it out anyway, since it’s been getting into the 50’s lately, and I do love it.  Stephen says it’s too heavy but, I mean, there are ways to work around that.  (Like keeping the floor clean so I don’t feel bad about kicking it off of the bed.)

And after I finish all this, I’ll probably read.  I finished the Elizabeth McCracken book last night (OMG SOOO GOOD) and the reason I was despairing yesterday of wearing clothes again was because we went to see Jonathan Franzen speak at Vanderbilt, so I have his new book to read now.  Or, hell, I might reward my good behavior with some Skyrim.  We’ll see.

Anyway.  Starting my day off with lists at least puts me into the right mindset.  Now I just need for it to last until 5:00pm.

I’m reading two right now, and have a growing back-log to hurry up and get to, as well.  THIS ONE, though.  This was a random find at McKay’s the other week – hardcover, brand new, autographed.  I did a quick search, standing in the fiction aisle, to make sure the book wasn’t going to be a dud, and when I saw this review on Amazon — “If you’re looking for happy, pleasant tales then do not read this book. At the same time if you want a maudlin tearjerker, you should go buy a Nicholas Sparks book instead. If, however, you want a grown-up book about real humans facing the seedier side of life then this is your book” — the decision became a no-brainer.

And I’m a little over half-way through these short stories now, so I can’t exactly claim that the whole book is brilliant, but so far I have absolutely loved each story.  I don’t make any claims to be a book critic, but I will claim to have good taste in literature, which makes me feel like I should say a little more about the book.  The stories – so far – are about broken people, and broken families.  Broken relationships.  Trying to navigate these broken relationships, and finding good ways to do that but also finding what seem like dead ends, and having to start over.  The stories are written with compassion and warmth, which make the brokenness seem beautiful and heart-wrenching (which, I mean, brokenness has a tendency to bear these traits anyway, doesn’t it?).

Do read the book, if you get the chance, and want a “grown-up book about real humans.”

Furthermore, I’m still trying to get through the first book in the Foundation Trilogy.  I’m making good progress too — got a lot of reading in the other night while trying (vainly) to download the new iOS software for my phone.  I’m understanding more and more why people say this series is one of the best ever written (a statement many would take issue with) — or at least why it’s one of the best in science fiction (a statement that only a fool would take issue with).  So, that’s coming along.

I also found a novel by A.M Homes at McKay’s – same day I found the McCracken book, and the Homes book is also autographed!  (It was a good McKay’s day – got the newest Mary Oliver poetry book then as well, though sadly that one was not signed.)  So this is on my list to read.  Also, we went to a reading last Sunday at Parnassus by Mary Norris who has been on the New Yorker staff for like 30 or 40 years, and has just written a new book that seems to be partly memoir, partly punctuation guide.  (This one not merely autographed, but personally signed “to Erin, a fellow stickler.”)

And tonight we’re going to see Jonathan Franzen read from his newest novel, Purity (the purchase of which was admission to the reading).  I haven’t actually read any Franzen, but Stephen has read (listened to) two novels over the last couple of months and hearing them described has made me want to read Purity.

All this book excitement is a very good thing, because I am currently broke as a …um, is there a simile for “broke as”?  “Broke as an English major.”  “Broke as a squirrel on the plains” (no nuts, but I assume they eat other things too?).  “Broke as a 500-lb crack whore.”  Anyway, you get the idea.  I’ve been daydreaming a lot lately about camping and reading.  Or even just going to Percy Warner and reading.  Ahh.

Yesterday, I walked past the place where I dropped Matt of at work the day he killed himself.  It’s a spot you wouldn’t even notice unless you had cause.  I walked past, then stopped to look back and play the scene through in my head again.  He wouldn’t look me in the eye that morning.  What would I have done if I had noticed the gun in his bag?

I read something recently about how laughter is as natural a reaction to death as tears are, because death is so utterly absurd.  That a person can be there one minute, and be gone for good the next minute is laughably hard to wrap your head around.  Like, how is that even possible.  And yet, how is it so hard for us to embrace death when we are literally surrounded by smaller deaths and lives every day of ever week?  The leaves are drying up and falling outside right now, and there will never be a set of leaves exactly like these are again.  Is it silly to compare people to leaves?

Hm.

Anyway.

Just this —— Stephen fixed my laptop, and I successfully installed Oblivion, along with dlcs. 😀