Mishmash post: snow, a malfunctioning snowblower, turning cherries into goo, and socializing
--So many end-of-year memes popping up all over! I like those memes, and will probably do a couple, but I'm not sure when. Since meeting my Monday deadline, a corner of my brain has felt convinced that my time pressure has lifted, only not so much, brain. (I have a full volume to rewrite by next Wednesday and a half volume to do by next Friday. And plenty of stuff going on between now and then, on top of 
bosonator being here until Monday. [Well, right now he's visiting family an hour or two out of the city for a few days. But he'll be back soon.])
--I'm already desperately hoping this winter isn't nearly as bad as last winter, but today was our second significant snowfall. Getting home from Ginny's today was a bit worrying, at least as a prospect; Kas drove us back, and the roads weren't actually all that bad. But they sure looked treacherous.
--Directly related to the above, yesterday
scruloose went to use the snowblower on the first significant snowfall--the snowblower we bought last February or March--and it wouldn't start. O_o
scruloose researches these things a fair bit before committing to them, so it's not a case of having bought a brand prone to failure; interestingly (and usefully in terms of info), the father of our neighbor across the street is visiting from Newfoundland for the holiday, and he saw
scruloose troubleshooting the snowblower and came over to help...as he's a snowblower repairman with 25 years' experience. And he was forced to eventually concede defeat, noting that he'd never seen our brand snowblower have this problem before. (Apparently he was very displeased about being unable to solve the problem. Professional pride! But again, the info/insight still sounds quite handy.) On his advice,
scruloose has now purchased a new spark plug (his recommended brand), and tomorrow will investigate and see if it fixes things. (We got home lateish tonight.) Fingers crossed! We'll have to take it back to the dealer if the spark plug doesn't do the trick. At least it's less than a year old, so it should still be comfortably under warranty, but still. -_-
--Anyway, today's occupation--and let me say up front that even if I say "we" a lot for shorthand here, I basically hid from the kitchen, as I get a bit anxious in other people's kitchens and am by far the least kitchen-savvy person among us--was going over to Ginny's to start processing some of the fruit we picked this summer. I think the bulk of the cherries have now been dealt with, although there are still several large bags of raspberries in our freezer, plus some other stuff, and an unknown (to me) amount in Kas' freezer. The result is both cherry butter, using a recipe from the Food in Jars cookbook, and cherry jam, using David Lebovitz's "no-recipe cherry jam" instructions (with modifications as we went). It was a very cozy day!
wildpear & family were there for a few hours, and I mostly cuddled on Ginny's excellent-for-snuggles chair with
wildpear and Pumpkin.
After all that (and once we were the only ones still there),
scruloose, Ginny, Kas, and I ordered pizza etc. for dinner (and were told by the delivery guy that we were his last delivery for the night because of the weather (o_o), and then watched the first half of The Hogfather, which I've been wanting to see for ages. I've read the book (it's the only Discworld novel I've read so far), but it was ages ago, so I'm pretty fuzzy on details. Not sure when we'll watch the second half.
--Pumpkin hasn't gotten to see me or
scruloose nearly as much as she'd like over the last couple of months (mostly due to Casual Job), and has been wanting to have a movie night like the one we had a few months ago where she got to show Tangled to several people (some of us saw it for the first time!), so that's happening tomorrow. I think this involves rather a lot of people (seven adults and two kids, I think?) hanging out at Chez
wildpear and ordering dinner (Chinese, I think? ^_^) and watching Lilo & Stitch, which I only saw for the first time a year or two ago, and which
scruloose and Pumpkin have never seen.
Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/656160.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:
bosonator being here until Monday. [Well, right now he's visiting family an hour or two out of the city for a few days. But he'll be back soon.])
--I'm already desperately hoping this winter isn't nearly as bad as last winter, but today was our second significant snowfall. Getting home from Ginny's today was a bit worrying, at least as a prospect; Kas drove us back, and the roads weren't actually all that bad. But they sure looked treacherous.
--Directly related to the above, yesterday
scruloose went to use the snowblower on the first significant snowfall--the snowblower we bought last February or March--and it wouldn't start. O_o
scruloose researches these things a fair bit before committing to them, so it's not a case of having bought a brand prone to failure; interestingly (and usefully in terms of info), the father of our neighbor across the street is visiting from Newfoundland for the holiday, and he saw
scruloose troubleshooting the snowblower and came over to help...as he's a snowblower repairman with 25 years' experience. And he was forced to eventually concede defeat, noting that he'd never seen our brand snowblower have this problem before. (Apparently he was very displeased about being unable to solve the problem. Professional pride! But again, the info/insight still sounds quite handy.) On his advice,
scruloose has now purchased a new spark plug (his recommended brand), and tomorrow will investigate and see if it fixes things. (We got home lateish tonight.) Fingers crossed! We'll have to take it back to the dealer if the spark plug doesn't do the trick. At least it's less than a year old, so it should still be comfortably under warranty, but still. -_-
--Anyway, today's occupation--and let me say up front that even if I say "we" a lot for shorthand here, I basically hid from the kitchen, as I get a bit anxious in other people's kitchens and am by far the least kitchen-savvy person among us--was going over to Ginny's to start processing some of the fruit we picked this summer. I think the bulk of the cherries have now been dealt with, although there are still several large bags of raspberries in our freezer, plus some other stuff, and an unknown (to me) amount in Kas' freezer. The result is both cherry butter, using a recipe from the Food in Jars cookbook, and cherry jam, using David Lebovitz's "no-recipe cherry jam" instructions (with modifications as we went). It was a very cozy day!
wildpear & family were there for a few hours, and I mostly cuddled on Ginny's excellent-for-snuggles chair with
wildpear and Pumpkin.
After all that (and once we were the only ones still there),
scruloose, Ginny, Kas, and I ordered pizza etc. for dinner (and were told by the delivery guy that we were his last delivery for the night because of the weather (o_o), and then watched the first half of The Hogfather, which I've been wanting to see for ages. I've read the book (it's the only Discworld novel I've read so far), but it was ages ago, so I'm pretty fuzzy on details. Not sure when we'll watch the second half.
--Pumpkin hasn't gotten to see me or
scruloose nearly as much as she'd like over the last couple of months (mostly due to Casual Job), and has been wanting to have a movie night like the one we had a few months ago where she got to show Tangled to several people (some of us saw it for the first time!), so that's happening tomorrow. I think this involves rather a lot of people (seven adults and two kids, I think?) hanging out at Chez
wildpear and ordering dinner (Chinese, I think? ^_^) and watching Lilo & Stitch, which I only saw for the first time a year or two ago, and which
scruloose and Pumpkin have never seen.
Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/656160.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW: