Adzuki Beans!

This is just fun to say: Adzuki Beans! AddddZoooooKeeeey!
These are little red-purple beans with a white fleck. They are actually a color called puce, which is the color of a tick. I know, highly appetizing, right?

I had heard and read a good bit about these beans. Gillian McKeith, the Scot Tyrant Holistic Nutrionist, says they are helpful for weightloss. Lots of fiber, good nutrients like potassium and magnesium (good for you if you are a charlie-horse person) but a lot of calories. The latter adds up to 320 calories per HALF CUP! I know, a lot - but it is very filling, lots of protein so you can have a bowl of these with no meat and feel pretty good about yourself.
I soaked mine overnight, drained and rinsed and then added 3 cups fresh water to my 1 cup of beans with about a tbl of Vigo Ham Base (powdered soup base) and a pinch of sea salt.
My stove is still new to me so I had to adjust, but I got a boil for about 5 minutes and then a nice simmer for an hour. I added a little water to get the amount of pot likker (bean juice in this case) I wanted and simmered until the beans were just tender and good from the seasoning.
I had a nice bowl of beans, which amounted to 3/4 cup of actual beans and 1/2 cup nummy bean juice.
And I wasn't hungry an hour or even two or three hours later. I am 4 1/2 hours out now from Aduki/Adzuki bean dinner and am STILL food happy.
Maybe hateful Gillian has a point. I guess I'll try the warm glass of water with lemon tomorrow morning...
**Gillian McKeith is the host of "You Are What You Eat" on BBC America.

It was My BIRTHDAY!!!!

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of my arrival upon this stage and I spent the evening alone by choice.

I wasn't grumpy or feeling sorry for myself - my husband has been spending weeking at the hunting camp and there are only few weekends of hunting season left so I gave him a guilt-free pass to the woods. He gave me a really nice fat Bed Bath and Beyond gift card and brought me a bottle of champagne and some soup from my favorite restaurant to have for dinner.

My BFF stopped by and had a glass of champagne with a float of Chambord across the top then it was just me, the cats and the television.

The rain kept the cats inside and since they couldn't run around outside to play, they tore around the house like furry Gran Prix racers. I left the back door open in hopes that they'd run around on the deck but I didn't get many takers. I stepped out the door myself to try to encourage some of them to follow me and admired the bounty of my calamondin tree's fruit. It was hard to get a good picture, but imagine the fruit you see above covering the whole canopy of the tree. The fruit are small, the size of a jacks ball (remember playing jacks?) and rather like kumquats. The peels are sweet-tart and the flesh will make your mouth pucker!

I've got a jar of liquour I made with them and some oranges from a neighbor's tree 'curing' in the refrigerator.

There was a 'Murder, She Wrote' marathon on and I got hooked into that until about 3 am at which point I decided that my birthday was over. I then slept until about nine, decided I wasn't really through sleeping, and snuggled down again until noon-ish. I had to get up and dress then in order to get some food for the cats. I tried to get them to eat some of the Old Roy dogfood I bought for the possums and that was a no-go. I even sprinkled cat treats on top, but they just ate those and then glared at me.

I brought home acceptable food and the cats were pleased. I can hear one snoring now:)

Little Enchantments

Bobble scarf!

I am very pleased with myself today. I not only lost 2 pounds, I finally found a way to do something with a pretty treasure I found.

I am a sucker for these tiny pretties that weave their enchantments around my fingers, my eyes, my sense of joy. I have pieces of fabric that are over 20 years old that I bought just because I liked them. I can't sew. I just like fabrics. I have buttons and bows and frogs (decorative button-things) that do nothing but exist for me to look at and touch. I have to stay out of fabric stores or be on my mission with self control at the helm to avoid adding to this almost useless collection.

Now that I have entered the "fabric arts" so to speak, I thought I'd try to use one of my treasures if I could.

This is a scarf made with a warm pinky-beige fun fur and trimmed with a bobble trim that I think was meant for curtains. I found it in the drapes/curtains/upholstery clearance section at Hobby Lobby and fell in love with the colors and the feel. The bobbles are plushy, the ribbon has satin stitches and rougher fabric and is just fun to touch.

I had been working on the scarf without any particular end goal in mind, I just wanted to do something with the color and keep up the habit of crocheting nightly. The more the scarf shaped, the more I thought -" wish I could find a way to add that bobble trim!"

After a lot of consideration I convinced myself that if it didn't look right I could probably remove it without runing the scarf.

So I threaded a quilting needle with some hamoniously colored strands of embriodery thread, trimmed the bobble line to meet the scarf's dimensions and went to work.

I sewed the trim to the front and back of both ends of the scarf and then sewed the open ends of trim closed to make it neat. BTW, this is the limit to my sewing abilities. Like I said, can't sew!

I am pretty sure the goddess of handicrafts (Isn't that Athena?) was just indulging me with this success in making something using one of my little enchantments!

What do YOU think? Does random stuff call your name? Do your hands reach for interesting looking stones, sticks, bits of glass?

Iconic Institutions/ Archaic Practices

These cultural constants are about to become rarities. Perhaps just memories of people born before 2010.
Last night on the news I saw that the Post Office will be closing more outlets. The price of a stamp has jumped more times than I can count (off the top of my head) since I have been over 30 after years of same-same. They are still suffering financially. The internet allows people to talk to each other with more ease (email) and pay bills with little effort (no stamp!).
Newspapers are also hitting the dinosaur wall. My local paper has shrunk in size and now in content. At the minimum we used to get 3 sections of paper; Front page with big news and editorial content, second section of local and entertainment, 3rd section of sports and classifieds.
Now it is only two thin sections of perhaps 8 pages each. And they still want the same price for it!

I grew up in a small town with a post office that looked like the temple of a minor Greek God. There were porticos and columns outside, marble floors, walls and counters inside. The walls of PO boxes almost glittered from the windows showing the box interior and the gilt numbers and trim painted on each one. On the hottest of summer days, the inside of the PO was so cool it was almost chilly. I walked bare-footed on those marble floors many times, just like a lot of other little kids before me.
Because I lived in a relatively rural town, our daily newspaper from the nearest metro arrived late in the afternoon. Reading the paper was the way to see what the world was up to in those days and one of the first "adult" habits I acquired.
Soon books and stories that reference the post office or the newspaper will be considered tales of days gone by. One day readers of those stories will have to find reference web pages to understand how the PO worked and why anyone wanted to work for a "news paper."

what a happy busy day!

I woke up earlier than I had planned, thanks to 4 kitties staring into my face and breathing on me. You know you have been thoroughly stared at when you open your eyes to 4 sets of eyes, ranging from pure gold to pale green, focussed on your face.

They were mainly bored and ready for words and action so I got up and started talking and moving. They do talk back, but it is along the lines of "prrrup? RRRRRRiii? mraa. MEEEEEEya."

My goal was to get to an art fair at a historic building in my little town. This part of Florida is relatively new compared to my home area, nothing in the state is really old except for St. Augustine.

Anyway, this lovely old building just off main street had been falling apart until the Historical Society got interested in it. It was built in 1912 and is the property and meeting place of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, who were still meeting there even when the building really should have been condemned. Only members could have unescorted access to the building, so, the Historical Society members joined so they could have access to the building to rennovate and voila.

Upstairs is the meeting area for the IOOF and there is more to talk about there than I will mention here.

My favorite was a set of wall murals that had been done through the WPA during the Depression when the government actually made jobs. They hired a trained artist (JW Zelm) to paint the walls of the Odd Fellows meeting area with scenes of NW Florida themed with Biblical material. Yah, I know!

Apparantly it offended the artist as well. The huge mural that was supposed to deal with the Burning Bush had a smoky little pile the size of a dime in a distant corner.

I will get some pics of those murals since they were lovely and still in danger of destruction.The art fair was my main focus today. So much of the work shown was of situational art. People have a craving for beauty and will make it from whatever is at hand, like the sweet potato vine plant my mom put in her first rooming house window. She had a small sweet potato, put toothpicks in it to suspend it in a cup of water and let it root and develop leaves. A little beauty in a dreary window.

There were a lot of handcrafts; wooden utensils, jewelry, wind-chimes made from found objects and key art. This fascinated me. The cultural anthropologist in me always locks in on folk art, the southern country girl in me thinks about the people who found beauty in these objects.

Rainy, Lazy, TGFTDW

I went to bed at a reasonable hour last night and still slept til nearly noon! I just wanted to get my money's worth out of this Three Day Weekend and sleep until I was good and ready to get up.

I am almost through with the laundry I have procrastinated about doing all weekend. I have spent time crocheting, watching kitchy 90's TV shows (Sliders, for one) and generally lazing about. It has been nice to rest. I've also been eating food that was as minimally processed as possible and have lost 5 pounds since last week. YAY!

Tonight's meal won't be tops for health since it incorporates salty, country cured ham but it is the kind of thing perfect for a cold night - ham pie. I am using organic milk and cage free eggs and that should help:) I am looking forward to those fat little biscuit dumplings:)

Tomorrow night will be healthier. I found some cooked yellow summer squash and mustard in the freezer to have with baked boneless skinless chicken and green field peas. Since I bought all three of the vegetables fresh from a produce stand I know how they were cooked, so that's good on the "minimally processed" front.

I am trying to cut back on the meat we eat so I'll probably hold back some of the chicken tomorrow night to use for another night. I just have to figure out how...

I have to learn how to post pictures so my text doesn't get messed up! The top left picture is the beginning of the project, the top right is the completed scarf:)

Full Steam Ahead

For years I have gotten Garden Fever when the first warm wind of spring blew my hair into my face.
What I kept forgetting was that was a bit late for some of the gardening plans I had. This year is different. THIS year, I thought about spring here in January so I can start my garden prep over time instead of in one expensive rush.
I bought a tiny seedling green house and some lavender seeds and started them last night. They will germinate and end up in larger pots in about a month - and I will buy those larger parts in a few weeks.
I don't own those pots yet, or the next round of seeds or peats pellets to start them in, but only because of the application of exteme restraint on my impulse to Get It All Now.
This is an impulse I have battled for as long as I have had my own money to invest in a project.
I pick up hobbies and then buy more supplies than I need to execute any planned projects. I have jewelry fittings, loose stones and magazines that I haven't touched in a year. I have yarn called "Fun Fur" with which to make scarves in a multitude of colors and haven't picked up a crochet needle in six months. I still have a yoga mat, yoga block and yoga mat spray (not to mention yoga clothes) I bought for a class that I attended twice.
Those examples are just the tip of the iceberg. I almost think that my purchases are the curse that ends my interest in these hobbies.
Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your view), Christmas ate me up financially and I have to be cautious until some card balances come down before I fling myself into a frenzy of propagation supplies purchasing.
Maybe I'll actually remain interested in this project long enough to get my French Mimosa tree started:)