The HOTTEST last hot day of the summer – apparently, according to predictions, which we now have to pay attention to, as we’re more at the mercy of them. Today was the last scorcher and after this, it gets gradually better and better until there’s beautiful, crispy snow again.
Yesterday I was absolutely dying. I can almost bear 85, but over ninety and I start to fall apart. Melt. Swoon. Darling says “That’s because you’re a princess! Princesses are delicate!”
That’s me, a delicate princess 🙂
Yesterday I felt like the fire-worm and not very princessy. Today I was griping on messaging while sending pics of our surrounds, that it’s supposed to be 92 again today, and the plan is to “sit around and be miserable”. Then I was explaining about one of the pics “you can see our little boat in the background” and that’s when the light bulb came on over my head.
Marched out and told Darling to drop his tools, we’re not boating later when he gets a certain amount of work done, we’re boating today and he can work later when the boating’s done.
So we floated around on the lake in the shade of a big hill, and it was blissful, cool, quiet, just ahhhhh
Darling stopped rowing and lay back and looked at the sky, and that’s how you know you’re retired. When you’re floating around on the lake looking at the sky.
He met me when he saved me on a boat. Today he saved me on a boat again 🙂
Oh he had to ask for help when he lay back, because the creature thought it was all in fun and cuddle time. You mean you can’t do a sit-up with a 60 lb dog on your rib cage??
Two hours rowing. He’s not tired. I’m tired after two hours sitting in a boat, and ready to go home, once the sun was sinking.
Pics of me. For the pics of Jeffy, go to MeWe! Oooh this is awesome. I’ve finally settled on a plan for sharing that makes me comfortable-ish, and now I can just share. So much fun!
I had a butterfly apron I couldn’t use for an apron because I don’t like the shape. I was waiting for some use for the butterflies as motifs. Finally, the first use! Patching a hole in a screen. I zigzagged around the butterfly, then tacked it to the screen by hand. When the sun comes through, it looks intentional!
Last time I walked down to that Little Free Library, I had a pile to donate and I wasn’t intending to pick anything up. But then there was this. “The Wisdom of the West” compiled by Criswell Freeman. I opened it and found several pertinent sayings that I ought to try to remember. I walked away, then walked back and picked up the book.
“I would rather live as we do, in a sod house we own, than to rent and have someone boss us around.”
This is the heart of the matter. I’ve dreamed my whole life of a place where I could feel like I belong there. I belong with the darling of course and would live with him under a bridge if necessary; but it would also be peachy to have a home assigned on earth. This is where Janel goes. When we are done playing with Janel, we put her back here.
We finally have a chance to own our own place without obligation. That’s the big dream and doesn’t have to include the creature comforts, hehe, it’s all about surviving that first winter, and if you’re lucky, write a book about it later. Now I get to do that, too.
“Where would you go? Back to the place where you were dissatisfied before you came out here?”
This is a concept that might help me at the new place when I begin to get cold. In fact, I think it already has. We were out there camping for two weeks when it was 24 degrees. I sometimes wished I could go– well, not home, this is home!
Not back. Anything but that.
After only a couple weeks, I did begin to wish I could go inside. We’ll have an “inside” soon enough. In the meantime, ONWARD.
“People on the Pacific Coast think of themselves as belonging to the “coast”; the “West” is quite something else again.”
We have been marveling and giggling over the concept of heading east to get to the West.
I spent my early years deep in the heart of the old West, far south of here in gold country, where except for the cars and telephones it was still 1849. That place was excellent in all ways except that it was, unfortunately, politically situated in Cali (cough) Forn (cough) – sorry, I can’t say it. If the State of Jefferson ever became reality, I’d move back there instantly, but for now, no.
Anyhoo the West was alive there and I loved it. But right now we’re heading eastwards inside our good old birthplace WA, to get back to something a bit more West.
“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
Right. There are so many limitations, but we have “a lot” and we can do “all kinds of things” and it is deeply satisfying to do as much as possible with what we have, rather than to just stay stuck. Knowing you’re doing everything you can do is all that’s necessary to be able to sleep at night.
“We have learned to follow the customs of the country, and get along as best we can with what we have.”
Exactly. I dunno about the customs, I’ve never been good at that. But I’m def making do with the things that I have. Funny, but I think I’ve been preparing for this my whole life. I’ve scoffed at spoiled American women, and yet when it came time to leave “civilization”, it turned out I’d been comfortable there so long, I had started to get a bit dependent. Well, I’ve scoffed too much to deserve any sympathy. Toughen up.
Can’t we live without hot running water? Can’t we wake up cold and make a fire like our ancestors did, who craved freedom? Yes! If that’s the price of freedom, then absolutely yes, and that’s a cheap price.
Can’t we do without the internet? ::cries::
I’ve collected candles all my life. Whenever I saw someone’s used wedding tapers on the giveaway table, I picked them up. Now I finally get to need them. And the wool blankets, I’m gonna need those, and warm quilted clothing, for real. I have a self-constructed hand crank sewing machine for exactly this exigency! In case there’s no more electricity. There’s no more electricity, so yay.
I was one of many who was a bit crestfallen when Y2K didn’t happen. I was hoping for TEOTWAWKI while I was still young. And now, here it is! Because I brought it on myself.
“A dose of adversity is often as needful as a dose of medicine.”
It’s true. I can feel it coming. A bit of actual discomfort might just do wonders for my seething. There’s no time to be nuts when you need to carry some water to wash dishes and get the firewood in before dark.
It’s the thickest heaviest flannel I’ve ever come across. It’s a queen size flat sheet and it is absolutely going to end up as a dress with long sleeves.
ChatGPT takes a crack at it –
Ummmmm wut? That’s pretty, but I want the stripes going vertically.
Okay!
Oh, boy, ChatGPT.
There was lots of attempts to explain in words.
How about another AI? “thenewblack” gives a free sample.
THAT’S what I had in mind!
Then I realized I gave that AI an advantage because I rotated and cropped the image of the fabric first. I explained to ChatGPT that it was an image of a folded sheet, buuuut… baby steps.
Given the same advantage to start with, ChatGPT does better. But unfortunately I said “illustration” and I didn’t say “a girl wearing…” and that’s the end of my free images for today.
I remember ripping an ad out of an old magazine when I was a kid. I don’t know where the picture went. When the internet became a thing, I started looking for it online but never with any luck, until I just today thought of asking the AI.
Me: Can you find a picture for me? It was in a magazine I saw back in the 80s (but could have been from an older magazine) I think it was an ad for some kind of whiskey. It had a mountain man out in the woods wearing a long fur coat.
ChatGPT: I’m pretty sure you’re remembering the Yukon Jack campaign—tagline “The Black Sheep of Canadian Liquors.” Late-70s/early-80s print ads often showed a fur-clad trapper/mountain man by a snowy lake or forest, sometimes quoting Robert Service. Here are examples of the exact layout and imagery from that series.
Me: YES THAT’S IT!!!! That’s wonderful, thank you, I always thought that looked so romantic.
ChatGPT said: I’m glad I could track it down for you! ✨ Those old Yukon Jack ads really leaned into that rugged, romantic frontier vibe—half whiskey promotion, half daydream of living out in the wild with a fur coat and a campfire.
HA. The machine gets it!
Yes indeed. I remember looking at that ad as a teenage girl and thinking that there is a real man, who no doubt sewed that coat together himself, out of the skins of things that tried, and failed, to eat him.
I’ve been looking for that ad since my darling started talking about Alaska. He was going to go up to Alaska in an old wood boat to see if he could survive the winter.
I didn’t miss that “IF”.
Well, the boat part didn’t work out.
And I’m just as glad we didn’t go to Alaska after he told me it rains more than western Washington! I’ve been trying to escape the consarned rain for thirty years now.
We went east and got just the good parts instead, the snow and trees and the c-c-c-cold. Break out the fur.
(I didn’t kill that poor little furry dude. He’s a third-hand donation.)
Scroll down to “How to Switch Template Designs” and watch the 19 second silent video.
OH.
Didn’t know that was there. ALL THIS TIME THAT WAS THERE AND I DIDN’T KNOW and it’s not like “you’ve had the ruby slippers on your feet all this time, but you wouldn’t have believed.”
I would have believed. I just didn’t notice.
And really that’s the key, the one that turns everything on. Notice the difference between those two tabs and how to move around them, and the options open up. You kinda gotta know that.
I’m finally figuring out TwentyTwentyFive and LOVING it! (I went to Carolina Nymark’s blog and read some of her posts, including one with a tragic long ago love story with a boy with a terminal illness that nearly made me cry. I love reading the good stuff from random strangers) and I love T25.
I’m not going to say it was easy to figure out – the key above is necessary and is non-obvious – but two hours work max, and I’m getting it. I have T25 on JWH, Playground and Friends and I feel like I’ll never need another theme. (I “know how” to work with CSS but if you don’t do it regularly, you forget the details.)
In the olden days, installing WP was hard, then cropping an image was easy. Now installing WP is easy, then it takes, well, at least more than just a casual glance, to figure out how to change things. Once you do WOW, so much power and possibilities!
So with a little fiddling, I can make my theme look how it’s supposed to, like a 1990’s girl crafts website with a floral allover background again XD
I still have my FABBDAlous background! And AI just made me a cool blue vines tile for JWH, too. I didn’t have to go searching, or create it myself.
Craving for heart waffles. Darling says we can run a 700 watt appliance – in the summer – and not for very long.
What’s the alternative?
Only half a waffle iron. For only a few dollars more
I could have had the real thing with both halves and the trivet that used to come with it. But I don’t want those, so it would have been a few dollars wasted.
I had a cast iron waffle maker back at that other place I used to live. It was left behind of course. And we say no more about that.
It was the typical round style. Oh, here, Walmart still has them.
When I first got it, I fiddled and fumed, and made a mess, and made another mess, was hot and bothered, frustrated, etc. Then figured out you only need one half. After that, it’s a snap. It works like this.
Easy. Use two burners. Have half a waffle iron and a frypan on the heat at the same time. Pour the batter on the waffle iron, and it ISN’T going to make a mess, because nothing’s going to come down and squish it out all over the landscape. It’s not going to rip apart, because you don’t have to lift anything to check if it’s done enough. When it’s done enough, lift the corners with a fork to loosen them, and flip the whole thing over onto the griddle to cook the back.
Srsly nobody’s going to lift their waffle from the plate to see if both sides are the same.
My darling says (of my infernal honesty), “You’ll have to tell them!”
No, I won’t. This is technically and truthfully a waffle. It’s crispy and made of hearts.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hearts despite some of the theories of their origins. No shapes are inherently bad. Not gonna digress here (although would love to) but geometry isn’t bad, any more than guns are bad. It’s people who are evil.
I also bought one of these.
It was just so very beautiful. So very swirly, and made my heart sing. My darling is mostly Nordic and has never eaten krumkake, and I felt the need to remedy that.
He still hasn’t eaten krumkake. I made a fantastic mess, and cleaned it up, and made another one, and later tried another method, and grumbled and groaned and lost my temper. The fails weren’t even edible, just scrapings of mess. He may be Norwegian but I’m not, so I couldn’t manage. I’m German and this thing is NOT efficient which means it’s out the door. It’s for sale again. Let me know if you want it.
Oh, he kinda had krumkake because I made him heart-shaped half-waffles with the rest of the batter, with whipped cream and blueberries, and he said three times that it was DELICIOUS!!!
The krumkake recipe called for cardamom. I’ve never even heard of it, and had to look up what to use instead. The internet says to substitute cinnamon and nutmeg, or allspice and cloves. Christmas, basically. Make it smell like Christmas, with whipped cream.
I saw the darling whittling something. He was turning a piece of dowel into a beautiful replacement handle! He oiled it up and, “Now I just have to find the perfect screw!”
Notice the website change?
Messing around again. Tried to adjust the margins on twentytwentyfive mobile view, and ended up mired in similar frustration level as a two-halved krumkake iron. Do I really have to sit in front of this computer when it’s ninety and things aren’t working? I put Kadence back, which is the perfect FOOL proof theme. Fools can make it look personalized, but can’t fiddle with the settings until they make their websites into a pile of mess, as I had done to mine. So here we go again, with a fabbdalous background and not even a header. That’s okay.
Hey, I might have solved the posting thing! And I can break out of my posting doldrum. All the regular chitchat can go here, and the family stuff on MeWe. I had to wrestle with MeWe for a bit (in my overparticular, stubborn noggin) but I’m past it and emerged into the sun on the other side, with a sense of peace (ish) about using it. It’s funded by the users, not the enemy; it’s nothing the same level of objectionable / controlled / controlling as Facebook and simply is not over my boundaries, so, say thanks, Weinstein / Berners-Lee, and here we go.
