Weekend accomplishments
Saturday I got an early start because I had gotten a postage due slip in the mail Thursday night, and the Abbeville post office is only open until noon on Saturdays. The amount due, I kid you not, was $4.20. I initially thought this was some kind of prank on the part of sirena73, who said she is sending me some, uh, "treats" from her local cannabis dispensary. But when I messaged her she said she'd never send a friend a package without enough postage. Anyway, I made breakfast for the 'rents and I, then showered and dressed and headed out.
Turned out to be some pins I got for supporting the podcast Knowledge Fight, which breaks down and criticizes primarily Alex Jones/Infowars, but also some of the other far right assholes in the same orbit. They were sent months ago and I'd given up on ever receiving them. What apparently happened is my post office classified it as a package instead of a letter, since it contained items. They tried to return it to the sender, but the host had only written "KF HQ" in the return address spot, so they sent it back with postage due. $2.10 a pin is still pretty cheap for merch, I was happy to pay it.
After that I went to the gas station--the RaceTrac near work is now $2.67/gallon, which makes those "I did that" Biden stickers the MAGA dorks plastered all over the pumps last summer somewhat ironic--the carwash, and the grocery store.
I made lunch for the 'rents and I, then vacuumed all the living room rugs, dusted pretty much everything downstairs (except for the 'rents' bedroom), and cleaned the downstairs bathroom. I put the window gels up, which so far are the only Christmas decorations. But one silver lining to Rian showing up nearly a fortnight before Christmas is he can usually be talked into doing the Christmas decorations. We started using a pre-lit artificial tree some years back, so it's not actually that much work.
After supper I watched the first two episodes of the new/final season of His Dark Materials. Maybe it was just the gummy I took before supper, but it seems extra intense so far. I mean, The Amber Spyglass is the most bananas of the book trilogy, with the Magisterium going full psychotic Spanish Inquisition. Before bed I finished Deliver Us and went back to My Name Is Red. I'm like 2/3 of the way through, so I want to just power past my vague discontent with it; mostly because I think the discontent is coming from my own fractured concentration and not because the book isn't good.
Sunday I made apple pie crepes and bacon for breakfast.
I made the crepes, but the topping is just canned pie filling. I like fancy breakfasts, but not getting up at dawn to make them, so I'm not too fancy to take shortcuts.
I changed/washed the bedsheets and did some cross stitch while finishing the 2nd season of Girls5eva. If you've ever wanted to see a middle-aged lesbian dentist beat up a Property Brother, this is the show for you. After showering, I did a load of towels and one of clothes, then made Claire Saffitz's salted cashew blondies. David likes her YouTube videos, but he rarely makes desserts because he's diabetic, although he'll have small pieces of whatever I make. He spoke particularly wistfully of this recipe, so I made a note of that.
I had used the meal decider dice for supper, and they landed on "egg" and "simmer". The only solution to that seemed to be egg flower soup, but that's basically an appetizer, so I also grabbed a freezer bag of pork and vegetable potstickers and a steamer bag of snow peas. I didn't take photos of dinner or dessert, by the time it was cooked I was kind of dead on my feet. It's been a busy weekend. No one told me when I was a kid how much work Christmas was, I thought it just happened.
After supper I signed back up for Disney+ so everyone can watch Andor and watched the first couple episodes. A friend of Rian's that I'm Facebook friends with (he was basically friends with the whole family; he was also a substitute teacher at his old and my present high school while I was an upperclassman, which was weird to me and probably doubly so for him) said Diego Luna in the show is a dead ringer for post-Beatles 1970s Paul McCartney and I cannot unsee it.
Here's this week's cross stitch progress.
It probably doesn't look that different from last Sunday's photo because this week I mostly filled in more of the yellow background. Boring but necessary.
Turned out to be some pins I got for supporting the podcast Knowledge Fight, which breaks down and criticizes primarily Alex Jones/Infowars, but also some of the other far right assholes in the same orbit. They were sent months ago and I'd given up on ever receiving them. What apparently happened is my post office classified it as a package instead of a letter, since it contained items. They tried to return it to the sender, but the host had only written "KF HQ" in the return address spot, so they sent it back with postage due. $2.10 a pin is still pretty cheap for merch, I was happy to pay it.
After that I went to the gas station--the RaceTrac near work is now $2.67/gallon, which makes those "I did that" Biden stickers the MAGA dorks plastered all over the pumps last summer somewhat ironic--the carwash, and the grocery store.
I made lunch for the 'rents and I, then vacuumed all the living room rugs, dusted pretty much everything downstairs (except for the 'rents' bedroom), and cleaned the downstairs bathroom. I put the window gels up, which so far are the only Christmas decorations. But one silver lining to Rian showing up nearly a fortnight before Christmas is he can usually be talked into doing the Christmas decorations. We started using a pre-lit artificial tree some years back, so it's not actually that much work.
After supper I watched the first two episodes of the new/final season of His Dark Materials. Maybe it was just the gummy I took before supper, but it seems extra intense so far. I mean, The Amber Spyglass is the most bananas of the book trilogy, with the Magisterium going full psychotic Spanish Inquisition. Before bed I finished Deliver Us and went back to My Name Is Red. I'm like 2/3 of the way through, so I want to just power past my vague discontent with it; mostly because I think the discontent is coming from my own fractured concentration and not because the book isn't good.
Sunday I made apple pie crepes and bacon for breakfast.
I made the crepes, but the topping is just canned pie filling. I like fancy breakfasts, but not getting up at dawn to make them, so I'm not too fancy to take shortcuts.
I changed/washed the bedsheets and did some cross stitch while finishing the 2nd season of Girls5eva. If you've ever wanted to see a middle-aged lesbian dentist beat up a Property Brother, this is the show for you. After showering, I did a load of towels and one of clothes, then made Claire Saffitz's salted cashew blondies. David likes her YouTube videos, but he rarely makes desserts because he's diabetic, although he'll have small pieces of whatever I make. He spoke particularly wistfully of this recipe, so I made a note of that.
I had used the meal decider dice for supper, and they landed on "egg" and "simmer". The only solution to that seemed to be egg flower soup, but that's basically an appetizer, so I also grabbed a freezer bag of pork and vegetable potstickers and a steamer bag of snow peas. I didn't take photos of dinner or dessert, by the time it was cooked I was kind of dead on my feet. It's been a busy weekend. No one told me when I was a kid how much work Christmas was, I thought it just happened.
After supper I signed back up for Disney+ so everyone can watch Andor and watched the first couple episodes. A friend of Rian's that I'm Facebook friends with (he was basically friends with the whole family; he was also a substitute teacher at his old and my present high school while I was an upperclassman, which was weird to me and probably doubly so for him) said Diego Luna in the show is a dead ringer for post-Beatles 1970s Paul McCartney and I cannot unsee it.
Here's this week's cross stitch progress.
It probably doesn't look that different from last Sunday's photo because this week I mostly filled in more of the yellow background. Boring but necessary.