Down from the heights of Evee Erb

Chop wood, carry water, roast vegetables, admire diamonds, neighborhood exchange program.

Early this morning, the diamonds were on show. I think these may be the things Shammickite was describing the other day, not spiderwebs. Still pretty though.

Then roasting vegetables for lunch, well, three lunches. Broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, yellow potatoes, thyme, Thai basil, olive oil, Old Bay, baharat, seasalt. 45 minutes at 400°f. 

Good, too. I might add a few capers on the second day.

Mail arrived with my tea supplies, yay.

Also with official notice that my supplementary medicare policy has gone up. I have great coverage, and pay quite a bit. Medicare monthly payment, gap policy, the one that's gone up, rx coverage. They all go up every year. Oh well.  I've got the insurance.

Then neighbor shows up with a large bag of laundry. His dryer broke down, they have the part, waiting for the official service people, gas dryer, utility company has to do it.

So he loaded the laundry into my dryer here, and I took it downstairs for pickup once dry. And asked his advice about the downstairs toilet with the dodgy mechanism, that wasn't flushing right. Then it wouldn't stop running. He said on no account get a plumber, I'll do this.

Here he is removing the works to take to the store and replace. The bathroom is now full of wrenches and pliers. He'll shop, he loves shopping of this kind, then fix it. 

My neighborhood at work. 

Statice, the return of spag sauce and why

There's a reason for the first spaghetti sauce in I dunamany months. It's comfort food. Largely because of my stressful recent events and the impending dryer, which is weighing on me all out of proportion.  

So, nice old fashioned red sauce with added tomato paste, onions, garlic, sage pesto, parmesan

And plenty of it,  over pasta whose name I forget. Any blogista who knows, please say. 

Extra hot peppers scattered over, extra parmesan grated on.  Very calming.

And it was flower time, so statice is the pick because of that saturated blue

While I was buying flowers I added in groceries including the first chicken since February 2020. I can't ask anyone to guess what I want in the way of chicken. 

It depends how it looks, how it's priced, what parts are available,  maybe I'll buy a lot if it's a good buy, all that. So I bought what is, for me, a lot of boned chicken breasts, pounded them, and roasted the lot so as to have them in the freezer for various meals. Had one with a side of pasta last night.

 
Good thing I had loaded with comfort food, because the installers failed to make the promised call yesterday to set the time. 

The appliance people had assured me they would call Friday night, when I got in touch late Friday afternoon. Nothing. Emailed asking for their number so I could reach them. First thing this morning, I have to hand it to the appliance guy, he's on it, email with number. Which I call and the voicemail box is full, it hangs up on me.

Tenant happens to have today off, promises to stay home and let them in and alert me. I don't think he should have to. He gets little time off and I expect had other plans. Irritated email to the appliance man.

Shortly after, installer calls, sets up time, apologizes for yesterday, now we're set. He sounds competent, and will call again as he leaves previous job, so I have time to get over and meet him. 

Doing better now. Hoping for an otherwise uneventful installation. I only do this once about every ten years. Just as well.

Breathing.

Yesterday there was a phishing attack I think on a number of Blogger blogs including mine. I think it's resolved now, in case you were alarmed. No, I don't do bad things on my blog, I have safeguards in place,  and if you get messages in red telling you to click for better protection, don't. They're not from me, and I wouldn't give you weird links to follow. But I expect you figured that.

I can't say it was a welcome addition to the day, though.

Patience and waiting

Before I plunge in, I did get the radiology results yesterday after a protracted afternoon of calls because the radiology people wanted to do more testing than the rx specified, and eventually got an agreement, then mammos then another wait for ultrasound, then another wait for radiologist to study same. No waiting for results, though -- they tell you immediately what they're seeing.   

The rad doc saw something probably not a problem, one more scan in six months. No need to do anything else. Good enough. Breathing now. And thanking all the blogistas who waited along with me. This called for patience! 

I'm waiting along with someone else now, for a test, helping with the breathing. She has a few more days.  So hard to wait. It does help when friends are keeping you in mind.

And the dryer is to be delivered Saturday. Handsome Son, on being informed of both pieces of news, texted "good news on both fronts".  Which cracked me up, one being my personal front!

Meanwhile back on the windowsill.

A row of pears is a favorite art subject of mine. I've done drawings and monotypes of this kind of scene. Here I'm content with a photo showing the pears, with shadows,  ripening on the sill, looking out at the pansies and, left, a struggling little pink azalea bush fighting the pachysandra.

And I was thinking about baking pasties, then: why not a pie lid using the last of the dough? And the large bag of spinach which steamed down to a little bowlful, handful of steamed carrots, diced yellow potatoes, mushrooms sauteed in butter, onions, crumbled feta cheese.

And here's a thin crust with little fancy leaves from the scraps left over. Egg wash.

20 minutes at 400°, then edges covered with foil, 15 more minutes at 350°. You can see the lid is so thin it's transparent! 

Smells very good. This will make a couple of meals, with a salad. Wondering what to call it. Yorkshire Greek Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie. If the shepherd's a vegetarian, that is. 

Back in the studio, I added six squares to the jacket so it wouldn't be skimpy. Two of them were woven originally for pockets on the vest I spun/knitted/wove, but I changed my mind. And they're the same size as the Mitered Squares, so it was meant to be!

Couple more seams, couldn't settle to stitch long yesterday, and we're done. Since we have plenty more cool days forecast, I'll get to wear it right away.

I'm already thinking about those linen squares M gave me, and how they might work with the silk sample squares.

Always new things to try.