Even though Leofwyna works Thursday I put the last of the chicken legs in the crockpot and finished them out in another chicken biscuit casserole.  I got the last plants out of the garden; the brussel sprouts weren't going to get the time to get any bigger so I have a single batch of pea-sized vegetables I'll cook up and serve as part of Thanksgiving next week.  There were so many sprouts on four of those six plants if they had achieved any size I would have been eating them for weeks!  I did drop off the bag of stalks and leaves at the zoo for the animals.  Predictions have us very cold all through the next week, putting us into December.  I don't think there's going to be any more warm now until next year.  We've had first snow that thankfully was light and dry and not enough to scoop.

We did get rain Sunday evening, hurrah.  

Monday my assignment was to pick up the pendant lamp before the sale ran out and to return the drapery samples.  I put a couple beef roasts in the crock pot with coconut milk and Thai peanut sauce.  Leofwyna had a continuing education class in York so I didn't finish supper preperations; the cooked meat went into the fridge for another night.

Tuesday I made a second attempt to return the drapery samples (I didn't have the receipt Monday), then seeing there was a sale in the quilting fabric I picked up some 'bilaterally symmetrical with major color changes' material for my stash.  I confess I got a wee bit carried away but there finally was some very good stuff to be had.  Coming home I noticed the check engine light came on.

Wednesday I took the car to be repaired (again); this time it was apparently a spark plug misfiring.  I picked up a swag lamp conversion kit for the new pendant lamp.   Moot was a pre-event meeting and I have quite a lengthy to-do list for the next few days.  Back at home I dealt with getting the little cupboard off the wall finally.  Leofwyna and I had both tried on a couple different occasions and had to back off and re-think it.  This time I went for brute force while she wasn't there to interject reason.  There was a little wallpaper behind it which I got stripped and then I primered the damaged wallboard above the tub suround and sink area. 

I learned Gabaldon's Outlander is being made into a TV series along the same lines as Game of Thrones.  I can only fervently hope it will be on a channel we get. 

Leofwyna worked Sunday and I mostly immersed myself in the ethernet hitting all my bases.  One of the blogs I follow (A Year of Slow Cooking) had a crock pot recipe for chicken that I just had to try for myself Monday.  The idea of using lemon Jell-o for seasoning seemed odd but worked out very nicely.  I'll use it again but I think I'll add some lemon zest or maybe try orange Jell-o with beef sometime. 

Monday Leofwyna and I set up the dorm refrigerator she boughtfound at a rummage sale recently.  Eventually it will go in downstairs but for now it gets some things back into the kitchen from the refrigerator outside the back door while the renovation is going on.

One of the family jokes regards Leofwyna's love for anything pickled.  So when her other activity Monday evening was to wash down all the now-wallpaperless walls with vinegar... I commented that I'd never have dreamed she would ever "pickle" the house.  The smell was very evident throughout the house as I went up to bed.

Sunday I pulled out the crockpot to cook pork ribs to go with the potato salad for supper.   Because of the heat indexes all week I'd finally decided I'd have to deal with getting up early enough to catch some cooler temps to do the mowing.   A very pleasant surprise Monday morning was that Leofwyna slipped in and turned off my alarm clock cause she mowed the back yard for me.  How great is that?!?

Sunday morning JG wanted me to come confer with him about the format for this grant transcription.  Once that was done I treated myself to lunch and a session of computer at the library to read email and stuff.  Back at home I put in 9 hours on the transcription, heading to bed at 3am.  I'll also mention here that JG called three times during the evening.  During one of the phonecalls an appointment was made to meet at VI to pass on an up-dated hard-copy at 9:30.  I thought he meant this for Monday morning; we both laughed during the last phonecall when we realized we'd been talking at cross purposes.  He brought me a piece of pie when he brought the hard-copy on over Sunday night.

Monday I called to get the car in.  I'll drive it over tonight when Leofwyna can bring me back and they'll look into it tomorrow.  Made a quick run for lunch and picked up a pork roast to put in the crock pot with an Apple Butter BBQ sauce for supper.  I put 10 hours on the transcription, talking to JG on the phone four times and late this afternoon he brought over the final updated hard-copy.  One portion down and one to go; I finished with it about 1am.

I'm certainly learning a lot about John Steinbeck, author, that I didn't get in school.  I don't think I ever read any of the books but I've heard about them and seen some of the movie adaptations.  I've always learned a lot doing the various production transcriptions so I'm glad to be able to keep my hand in this way.

WEDNESDAY

I'm dealing with the Fischbach and Haeger lines in my genealogy and there's some interesting stories attached to them concerning bringing this group of Germans into Gov. Spotswood's Virginia in 1714 to develop an ironworks.

THURSDAY

Leofwyna asked me to start the crockpot today with some of her groceries; chicken legs, crushed pineapple and barbeque sauce.   With fingerling potatoes, green beans and brownies supper was pretty good this evening.

During the afternoon I sorted through three boxes and three dresser drawers, filling a garbage bag with rejects and putting away things I'll keep.  That bag is already in the car now awaiting delivery to the Salvation Army bin.  Since most of this stuff is things I haven't seen or used for 2-3 years it was easy to get rid of some of it.  One sofa is cleared off in the living room so some progress is made; I'm more than a week behind schedule though.

I made up a pair of pants from some blue striped cotton I ran across while sorting.  I needed to have something ready for an April birthday so for once I'm prepared well ahead of time.  It remains to be seen if I remember to deliver it at the appropriate time.

FRIDAY

Karina and I had a nice day for the drive down to KC and finally arrived (we weren't lost, just weren't sure where we were relative to the destination).   Coming the long way around, though, we found a veritable mansion.  Really!

Upon unloading our things into the handy-dandy alligator driven by the also handy-dandy house husband we were driven back up two very steep drives to the backdoor where we we decanted into a small hallway containing an elevator!  Way to live!  After finding a nice spot for my air mattress and making up my bed I settled with a group in the dining room and worked on The Quilt while chatting with new friends. When I stripped the threads in the wing nut on my quilting hoop, I ended the evening in the indoor (perfectly heated) pool.  I thought this might help me sleep soundly; unfortunately this didn't work so well. 

SATURDAY

I sought out the house husband to see if he could replace the stripped wing nut on my quilt hoop.  A few hours later he brought me a cobbled together standard nut (which fit the screw) that he'd welded to a HUGE wing nut.  Works great!

After breakfast I put together my apple-bean-sausage recipe in the crock pot.  While I was cutting and saute-ing onions and apples in the kitchen I heard a good amount of the silk lady's discussion on the art of silk making... including a demo on how to prepare the caccoons for processing.  The silk lady even handed out silkworm eggs to those who were interested!   There's a lot more work involved than I want to deal with, I'll tell you that!  There were other classes including spinning and I'm not sure what all else.

I spent the afternoon finishing Maude's pillow before I went back to working on the quilt.  I spent a good deal of time visiting with Betty and learning about the dog show business.  I also eavesdropped on an interesting discussion on the details of medieval dress by Eleanor that was an eye-opener and will have me looking at garb pictures differently.  The total sign-in for the weekend was 57, three of whom were men!    One of those men made up three batches of bread Saturday morning for his contribution to our meals, Yum!

I slept somewhat better that night but I woke up at some point to add air to my mattress to get my hip up off the hard floor.

SUNDAY

Another lovely day for the drive home, we were loaded and on the road before eleven.  I don't even recall what the weather was Saturday; it didn't occur to me to look out a window I was so involved.  After dropping Karina off at her home I stopped at a thrift store where I found some yellow wool fingering yard and a scrapbook.  Got caught up with my email and blogs and Leofwyna pumped me about my weekend.  Her's was two full work shifts on very little sleep.

MONDAY

After nearly a week of poor sleep Leofwyna finally got a good long one and was in much better mood this evening.  We went out to hit three thrift stores before having the Valentine's Day special at Granite City.  Back at home we started another jigsaw puzzle.

TUESDAY

Well, there've been enough moderate days for a lot of the ice and snow to have disappeared, except of course for the plate of ice at the end of our drive and street due to those DAMNED trees!   Perhaps the next four moderate days will deal with that, hopefully.   I do LOVE leaving the coat at home.  I'm starting to really have garden fever;  I have a source for aged horse manure.

THURSDAY

I put half a pork tenderloin into the crockpot this morning, no seasonings 'cause pork has such delicious flavor all itself.  I got the snowblower out and cleared the driveway and sidewalks.  I got boxes and a few other things cleared out of the living and dining rooms preparing for guests this weekend.  Sometime the next couple weeks I'll have to empty my room back out into the living room, sort, repack and eliminate some of it all so I can move about in my room and then AGAIN empty the living room.  Hopefully this process will have lots of stuff cleared into the garage for a rummage sale next  spring.  I know this process will locate the supplies for a couple projects I've been wanting to accomplish, one of them being the Florentine ensemble I want to make.

For supper Leofwyna made corn from the freezer, rice, and lovely simple gravy with the pork.  That's one of my most favorite meals.  Later she made double chocolate cookies for this weekend's event and we had a few cookies and milk for a treat.  We've been watching the Caprica DVDs Leofwyna borrowed.  I'm finally seeing them all in order and complete.  Definately an interesting series.

MONDAY-FRIDAY

I've been jumping onto the Internet and working up my genealogy just ALL the time this week. Today I finally stopped long enough to put another batch of chili in the crockpot, roast a couple turkey thighs and bake a small apple crisp. Now it's back to Ancestry.com. I'm re-building mostly stuff I already know now but I want to get it all in this new site so I can start really "working" it. A lot of it is still learning the program's capabilities and checking details.