Thursday Thoughts - summer's long, but I guess it ain't very sweet around here anymore

1.I feel like my brain looks like this. Yesterday was my 10th day in a row of work during which I logged 100 hours in advance of a deadline for a document. I went to bed thinking about it, woke up thinking about it, had dreams about it, worked through the entire Fourth weekend for it. It feels weird to let it go but also nice to return to being a balanced person. 

2. When receipt was confirmed, I floated out of my house on autopilot and did a bunch of shit that I had not been doing the past 10 days. I returned something to TJ Maxx, picked up storage bins and outlet covers from Lowe's, returned shit to Target and got a few things, picked up a few things from Aldi. And since I was cutting through Feasterville to avoid traffic I popped into Trevose Pizza and had a slice. Penndel Pizza forever but as always Trevose will do.

3. Still in the process of getting shit together upstairs. This artful shot was taken while I was laying down at the end of the day referenced in the two bullets above. This is our old room, which is now a guest room, but right now specifically will be my Dad & Carol's room/has all their stuff in it. Still need to hang curtains and some stuff on the walls and remove some extraneous shit like MFD's freaking moon pod from in there. All of my Grandmom's bedroom furniture is in here and I love it so much. I am thrilled to have it. The other spare room is completely empty. We will likely get the floors done in there before the twin bed that is temporarily in this room to make one large bed goes back in there. Maybe paint? I don't know. The walls probably just need to be cleaned. No one ever goes in there. 

4. Speaking of home items, aside from the Target threshold printed sheets (NOT the solid sheets), the Tommy Bahama stone washed (There are a few different types of these and I like them all. NOT other random Tommy Bahama sheets, only the stone washed) are my favorite. They are hard to find and definitely a Marshalls/TJMaxx/HomeGoods score when found. 100% cotton or death. 

5. When my brain can take in information again...I'll finish out The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives from Netgalley. I tried reading it last night and 10 minutes in I was like what am I reading? So I put that down. LOL Show Us Your Books is Tuesday! I need to get my ass to the library to pick up some holds too. That's on my list for this afternoon or tomorrow. 

6. We've come to the point in the summer where I'm ready to throw out all annuals. It comes earlier every year. These are gaillardia perennials. I planted them and they didn't come in. The next year I planted annuals over them. This year, here they are. 

7. There was a weird incident out front Tuesday night in which a Penske rental truck that had been parked immediately in front of our house since like 2 pm was half in and out of the road, apparently ran out of gas? It was a huge thing and now there is a fucking river of gas on the street. I am convinced it was a mobile meth lab. The picture is blurry but it sets the scene. 

8. Not even a thin line of iced tea in this pitcher. This is, of course, and act of war.

9. Reminder: It's just not. Art via Letter Shoppe, a lettering artist & shirt designer in Michigan. I just bought a poster of another image for my office. 

10.  Ecards: Can the humidity not.

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to or most recently heard when I'm starting this - this week is Incident on 57th Street by Bruce 

Tuesday Kitchen Tips Talk

Cooking can be a lot of fun, depending on the day. I mean after cooking three meals a day for an eternity through much of 2020 I think most of us went off of cooking, but in general and global pandemic keeping us in our homes aside, I do enjoy it. If I have a few hours of afternoon stretched before me, fun. Therapeutic, even. If I am hungry and know I need to make something to not eat junk, not fun. If you enjoy or at the least don't mind cooking but find that your efforts to make a healthy dinner tend to end in a messy kitchen and a giant pile of dishes to be washed, it probably makes the activity more of a burden and less of a joy. Here are some things I do to alleviate the mess on the front and back ends and during and to add a little pizzazz. 

Clean as you Go

As a rule, straight out, clean as you go. Nothing will be more important than that if you truly want to stop making a disastrous mess in the kitchen. Chop all that needs chopping, clean up. Use pan, clean or at least set to soak. Etc. 

Use Tongs

Spatulas are the right tool for anything that you need to flip, like eggs or pancakes. For everything else, tongs are the best option. Tongs are nimble and easier to use than other kitchen tools, and you’re far less likely to drop things. If you have non-stick pans, choose tongs with nylon tips, and choose long ones, so you can keep your hands out of the way. It took me a long time to come around to tongs and I'm sad about that. 

Store Everything In Containers

No matter how good your intentions are, it can be easy to end up with a fridge and freezer full of wilting herbs and mysterious leftovers wrapped in foil. Keep things tidy, fresh, and organized in  containers instead. Container storage keeps just about anything fresh for much longer, including fresh herbs, cut-up produce, or leftovers like this super easy monkey bread (who remembers making this in junior high Home Ec class with Ms. Paxton?). It’s also much greener to use containers instead of single-use foil or plastic wrap. I use mostly Pyrex glass or ceramic to store. 

Don’t Bother With A Garlic Press or other Gadgets that Add Work & Mess

Peeling and pressing garlic takes ages and is a waste of time. To use a clove of garlic with minimal fuss, put it on a cutting board and use the flat side of a large knife to smash it flat. The skin will come off easily, and you mince the garlic very quickly. I detest gadgets that add work and mess. Now pineapple corers? I use that a lot and find it makes life easier and equally or less messy as without.

Use Separate Cutting Boards

You need more than one cutting board in your kitchen. If you’re following recipes, you’re going to use your cutting board to prepare garlic and onions. A separate board that you keep aside for other things like fruit, cheese, and meats is a good idea if you don’t want these ingredients to soak up the flavors of the onions and garlic you were chopping. Gross gross gross. 

Grow or Buy Fresh Green Herbs When Possible

Apart from perhaps dried oregano, almost all green herbs are much better bought fresh instead of dried. Fresh herbs are cheap, and easily available to those of us who do not live in food deserts. Herbs are also the easiest thing to grow even if you don't have a penchant for vegetable gardening (me). Parsley, basil, cilantro, thyme, tarragon, and chives are especially good when you buy them fresh. Dried herbs are perfectly good and usable but make sure you don't let them languish in the cabinet for years. The flavor leaves. 

Avoid Overcooking

Vegetables that have been overcooked go mushy and taste of nothing. Overcooked meat can be tough, and grains go soggy. Overcooked food is rarely enjoyable. Learn to take your food off the heat just before it’s done and allow it to finish cooking with its own internal temperature. You can always cook something a little more, but you can’t cook something less. Super important life lesson.

What do you have to add?

TWTW - the no dayer

Friday I worked until 6:30 and we ate out inside a restaurant for what was my second time since March 2020. I packed a bunch of shit for the weekend and fell out around 12:30.

Saturday Up at 6:15 and out of bed at 7. I changed the sheets, loaded the car, and we were on our way to the shore by 8, gassing up along the way. We talked to our departing guest for a long time and then they were late leaving, but we still did everything we needed to do before and after our cleaning crew left and got back on the road by 12 to make it back to Philly by 1:15. We picked MFD’s car up from getting inspected, I picked up soft pretzels, and after yelling because we have extremely different leaving for a trip styles and keys lost, we were headed north by 3:15. We drove through every storm hitting the area and arrived at the lake by about 6. Notice my stuff and dog stuff all ready by the door in the top middle and MFD's entire life emptied out of his car not prepared at all to leave. These were taken at the same time and his clothes were not yet packed LOL

We drove through every storm hitting the area and arrived at the lake by about 6. Lori and I got groceries and I put in four hours of work work. I showered and read until 11:30.

Sunday I was up at 5 but not out of bed until 6:30. I worked from 7-11a and 5-9p. Nothing says the Fourth of July like Capitalism! In between we got more groceries and whiled the afternoon away outside with dogs and books. I painted my nails. We were outside all the live long day and the weather was absolutely perfect. Jack grilled and we had a delicious Fourth meal on the new bar on the deck. The entire renovation is just fabulous. MFD went out fishing in the kayak and at night him and Jack went out on the boat. We saw fireworks from couches and from bed after I got out of the shower. And Gus walked into the lake three freaking times requiring three separate drying off periods of which he was not a fan.

Monday Lori and I left at 8:15 for the Montrose  Festival on the Green and to stop in a few small shops. I love this little town. It always feels like the promise of America to me - a place for the community to gather, dotted with a square of small businesses. We can live up to this promise for everyone. We just have to choose to.

I worked a full day even though we were closed in observance of the Fourth. Deadlines are a B. At least I had a picturesque setting in which to work. MFD fished and swam and we set out for home at 7:30 and were back in Philly before 10. 

I am usually driving but got to take drive pictures this time. Pennsylvania is beautiful, and I love the Endless Mountains region. I'm glad Lori & Jack live there or I probably would not have been so many places in Bradford & Susquehanna counties. 

I should have brought my second screen, and I was going to. If I had we probably would have stayed through my deadline Wednesday LOL. It is beautiful and quiet and relaxing and we all love it there, especially the dogs. Thanks to Lori for always welcoming all of us, dogs included, into her spaces. It was a wonderful weekend and we're trying to figure out when to return this summer. 

Show Us Your Books is a week from today!

How do you record your travels?

The driving reason I have maintained this blog since 2011 in whatever posting frequency fits my life at the time is so it serves as a digital journal. The first few years I did this, I had no real notion of anyone reading it aside from me for myself, and the few people who knew I kept it. I obviously don't put everything here because I have personal boundaries between me and whoever might read it, but it has served well for me as a digital journal or planner of sorts. The best thing is that literally anyone can do this, keep a  digital journal of daily (weekly? monthly?) life. It's also a great place to store recipes and travel itineraries and such without the need for a bunch of papers or word docs. As I try to wrap my mind around traveling again in this big beautiful world, I am already thinking ahead of how I use my online tools to plan but also to remember trips to come. 

Blogging

Creating an online journal is really simple. Free platforms such as Wordpress (I do work sites on WP) or Blogger (I keep it simple personally here and use blogger) give you the opportunity to create a blog to store your memories. WP is much more customizable than blogger, but there are definitely plenty of ways to customize on either. They both provide storage as well although I don't really use blogger for that. If you are only journaling for you, not for the world to see, you can set your settings to private. Of course, if you change your mind and want to share, you can always switch those settings and share your life and travels with the world. 

Storing online

If the thought of creating a blog to store everything on doesn’t float your boat, you can just organize your itineraries, reservations, travel photos, etc online using storage. Of course you lose the opportunity to add little stories and memories that accompany the pictures. However, if you are hyper organized, you can manually change the names of the photos and add little stories that way in google photos. I find it annoying to do that, but maybe you don't. The frustrating thing about this can be the amount of duplicate photos that you discover. If you read the post about removing photos, you will learn how to remove those duplicates and free up some space. Of course, sometimes I keep all of those 50 photos of the sunrise but whatever. Dupe photo removal is on my To Do list this year. .

Write that book

They say that everyone has a writer inside them, so why not take advantage of that? Using free software like Google Docs, you can easily create make a trip you take into a book. In this format, you may be tempted to fill the page with more writing than pictures but at least there is an option to include both. It's easy to keep track of days on trips like this since you can open a fresh doc everyday, label it with the date, and capture your experiences and thoughts. One of the reasons I love to travel is the way it expands my mind and worldview, and I am someone who likes to jot those down as I go. I have done this for most of my life with a travel notebook, which I still bring along, but I also keep notes on my phone during trips now. Some phrases pop into my head and are gone in a blink if I don't write them down.

Create a digital scrapbook

Hang on, isn’t that what we have been talking about this whole time? Yes and no. The thing about scrapbooking is that it is a specific craft that combines a series of elements to tell a story. Some of those elements are the photos, but it also includes pieces of memorabilia and a specific theme or mood. Adding those elements such as cute backgrounds and digital stickers are kind of hard to do in Google Docs, especially if you want to create a scrapbook vibe. Sites such as Canva allow you to mix all of the traditional scrapbooking elements into a digital format. And if you really like what you have, you can get it printed into a photobook. I used to be a physical scrapbooker but lost my taste for it. 

Try a digital diary

There is an abundance of sites and apps that are designed to help with the journal process. These places are about more than throwing words and photos at a screen. They can be programmed to help you write about different things too. Some of these apps have the option to add the temperature or the weather, as well as the option to share it. The sharing options can also allow other people to add to your journal and share their memories about meeting you. I'm considering doing this on my next trip.

YouTube

Video journaling is a perfectly valid form of recording your travels. Some might argue it is the best way. When we say YouTube, the last thing we think of is using it as a journal. As we use video more and more, we need a place to store our stuff. YouTube offers unlimited storage for free, and you don’t have to make your videos public. Instead, you can set them to private or share. This means that you can send the link to your friends and family but don’t have to share it with the world. Of course, you could edit some videos into interesting highlights and make them public rather than share your entire hour-long ramble. 

Voice notes

Am I the only person who has wanted to carry one of those small pocket reporter recorders around forever but has never actually done so? Yes? Anyway voice recording is a great middle ground between writing and videos. You can sit down at the end of the day and ramble on about what you have seen or done. You can talk into the mic while walking. Hell now you don't even need the cool little pocket recorder because most phones have a voice recorder and access to cloud storage. This is you recording your own personal audiobook. 

There ar so many options when it comes to creating a digital journal for your travels. The beauty of digital means you can mix and match these with ease. You can add photos and voice notes to your writing, embed videos into your blog posts, and even print everything off if you want to make a physical backup copy. The opportunities to create a unique digital travel journal are almost as endless as the places to travel to. 

It's so nice to think about travel and trip planning again.

Happy Friday! Where are you thinking of traveling to next? 

Thursday Thoughts - Well, it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me

Trying today but Bill Cosby out is sending me and my rage is spilling out everywhere. I understand why he's out but I am sick of living in a system that does nothing for women or Black people. How in the fuck can we expect people to report rape and other abuse? I read this on Jennifer Weiner's Instagram yesterday and this is it,: "The system is rigged. It was not built by women, it was not built for women, and it's not serving women well. I am so angry, and so frustrated, and I don't know what to say except that I stand with survivors, today and always. I want my daughters, and all of our daughters, to live in a better world, and I'm committed to doing whatever work I can, to telling whatever stories I can, to getting us there." 

Experiencing a Marshalls Miracle. If you know, you know. A while back I found a table for the porch at the shore at Marshalls that was perfect. The porch is super tight and this is small, infinitely moveable, and folds up. I wanted another and put a plea out on Instagram. I freaking found another, two weeks later. Scouring the same Homegoods. Far away from where the first one was. I felt the benevolent and electric hand of the universe tap me on the shoulder. 

Buckling under the weight of work this week. It is not easy for me to do 11-12 hour days for sustained periods of time with a pandemic brain, and I don't say post-pandemic because we're still in it and also I don't think anything will change going forward. Like people hold over things from the Depression, we'll surely be holding over things from this.

Wanting to know why no one is talking about Old Navy removing the super popular for eons printed poplin (summer weight) pajama pants from their site for women this year? Are they planning to carry that through the winter? You'll all be bitching when you want your matching Christmas jammies, mark my words!

Having dinner with my family last night at my brother & Aubrey's to mark the end of an era. My Dad and Carol closed on the sale of their house yesterday, which has held our family for 25 years. It's the last place I lived in before I moved out on my own. I was going to make a final visit, but what I love about it there just moves with the family and it's time for that one to give shelter and solace to another. 

Sitting with my old boy. He's still out here farting around, pooping where and when he pleases. 

Eating summer foods. Aka foods that require me to do basically nothing.

Looking for cotton summer weight quilts. I hate the synthetic feeling shit. Shore bedding is taking an absolute beating this year. Remember when Marshalls used to have a ton of bedding? Now everything is white. In a vacation rental home, no thank you. Not in mine anyway.

Bidding this shitfuckerdickholeassholebrokendownidiotmachine washer adieu today. Fuck you and your persistent unbalancing issues and constant and incessant refilling three to four times wasting so much water. If I had a sledgehammer I'd go Office Space on your ass as they drug you out of here. I'm going back to an old school agitator. Fuck off and good day to you and your Samsung appliances brethren.

Reading The Therapist by B.A. Paris, an ARC from Netgalley. Not a favorite. I always read BA Paris books even though I'm usually eh over them.

Reminding us all. In this heat and in this world where whatever you are comfortable in. Period.

Here we are in fucking July. Half a year gone.

What's new with you?

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to or most recently heard when I'm starting this - this week is Last Christmas by Wham!