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It feels like it's been ages since I've posted anything here other than to-do lists.
I'm not sure how much that's going to change today, but we'll see. :-)
Right now, I'm transfering (some) of my music files to my new computer. Thumb-drive by thumb-drive. It's taken a good 2.5 hours already (but this isn't the end of the world, and there are still a few files to shift.
I find I tend to listen to Jango more than anything else these days, but I uploaded most of my CDs to my computer with intention of being able to put the actual CDs into CD-binders and, thense, into Somewhere That's Away (because I tended to access the music on my computer rather than reach for a CD to play). And I want to keep that music easily available for when I want it. So. Onto the new computer it goes (five months after the fact).
That's basically what I've spent my morning on. That and reshelving books.
I'm loving the cool, rainy day we're having. I've got the patio door open and am enjoying the refreshing breeze that's coming in off the (balcony) garden.
The garden is in, by the way. Tiny Tim baby tomato, cinnamon basil, chocolate mint, dill, dianthus (think miniature carnations with edible petals), lebanese cucumber, nasturtiums, morning glories, scarlet runner beans, kentucky wonder beans, lavender (sorry Raynedaze), garlic chives, and five-colour swiss chard.
We're going to raise a dandelion in a pot, just to see how it does. :-)
This afternoon, I'm taking a walk in the rain and hitting up the grocery store.
I'm sorry to see Knick Knackers has closed and moved to Smiths' Falls (unless they've moved, along with Biogenie, to the new place on Gladstone? Can anyone verify this for me?)
My grandmother, who will be 94 at the end of the month, was having a Good Day on Monday. That was really good to hear. :-)
This Thursday, Ghost and I are going to see "Echoes of the Dead" (the storytelling show based on CSECooney's "Braiding The Ghosts"). I'm going to Do my hair, but beyond that I don't know what we're going to do, dress-wise. :-)
Oo! And we have all of the music transferred as of 1pm. Go me! :-D
Ghost and I were talking yesterday about refrigeration and possible modifications to our apartment.
We are considering (I'm seriously not sure if we could get away with this in a rental space, but maybe we can check?) changing things up a bit:
Ghost has a small chest freezer (probably ~150L? I'm guessing here) which is typically used for The Freezer Project. However she hasn't had a freezer project call in about a year and a half at this point, we're considering repurposing it to our own ends.
The chest freezer - with some intelligent oranizational planning like this idea to use re-usable grocery bags for different "themes" of food (froze fruit, frozen veggies, ice-cream/frozen-desserts, fish, poultry, roasts, meal-for-two packages of critter, etc) - would take over where our current, not very functional fridge-top freezer currently works, thus allowing us to indulge in (a) ice cream, and (b) getting 1/4 of a pig, or something, from a Reputable Local Farmer (suggestions welcome). The freezer would be placed on a roll-out platform while, above it (on a very sturdy, non-roll-out platform) we would have a bar fridge (that would allow us to hold 2L jugs of milk, wine, and/or juice upright in the door, while having space for all our other food in the fridge propper).
If there was room next to the bar fridge on the platform (there might not be, I don't know), it might be nice to have an extra "pantry" shelf put in or something... We'll figure it out.
This would be a big change.
The last time I used a bar-fridge for All My Refigeration Needs, I (a) was eating most of my meals in the University Cafeteria, and (b) was only shopping for ONE when it came to snackish things.
This would be very, very different.
Right now, a lot of our fridge space is taken up with (in no particularl order)
1) leftovers
2) Condiments (frequently multiple open bottles of the same kind of condiment, no less)
3) Things that don't need refrigeration - like fruit - in order to avoid atracting/encouraging fruitflies and/or other bugs
4) Milk, eggs, and cheese
5) Juice, wine, cider (alcoholic or otherwise)
6) Maple syrup
7) Cream-based desserts (not currently, but that's where they end up), left-over frosting, and other sweet things that are somewhat perishible but VERY attractive to bugs that thrive on sugar
8) Yoghurt
9) Root vegetables, mushrooms, (currently) cocktail tomatoes, and some kind of (typically) crucifer/brasica or other fairly sturdy green vegetable.
A bar fridge would be no more than half the volume of our apartment-sized fridge.
This would mean making a fair few changes how to how store food.
For example, I would want to make sure we only had one kind of jam open (and thus in the fridge) at a time. Similarly, restocked condiments (ketchup, mustards) would have to live in the cupboard until they we needed.
Multiple kinds of potatoes or beets (for example) would be Right Out, replaced by one type of each vegetable at a time. Similarly, large vegetables would have to be bought in easy-to-use-up portions (to a point, I already do this - I get white turnips instead of rutabagas, and the smallest butternut squash, red cabbage, and celeriac I can find; while aiming for delecata and sugar loaf squashes when they're available, rather than larger buttercups, if I'm going for something stuffable). Fresh greens[2] - asparagus, chard, spinach, rappini, broccoli, etc - would need to be done in a cut-and-come-again way from the garden (assuming the chard acutally germinates and produces enough greens for more than one meal, I mean), or else used up Very Quickly[1].
I would have to learn how to successfully make no-left-overs meals.
I'm getting better at this already, but it still needs work.
I would also need to get used to (1) using everything in the fridge up before going to the grocery store for re-stocking, and (2) making sure anything big (like, say, a slow-cooked picnic shoulder roast) got processed on its First Night Out - that is, to continue with the roast example, make sure all the fat was removed and that the meat was carved up into two-person-meal sized portions and then put into as small a recepticle as possible.
I think if I were to do a "compost/toss/otherwis-remove everything we don't actually USE" clean of the refrigerator, we'd (a) get rid of a lot of sauces and marinades, and (b) find out exactly how much empty space we've got in there, once that stuff is gone.
Anyway. That's kind of where my head is at right now.
TTFN,
Amazon. :-)
[1] Again, I already do this to a point. I buy baby spinach in "enough for 1-2 meals" portions, in bulk.
[2] Frozen greens are a different story, and I look forward to being able to have multiple kinds - spinach, broccoli, edamame, and maybe a mix or two - on hand in the Frozen Veggies Bag in the chest freezer.
I'm not sure how much that's going to change today, but we'll see. :-)
Right now, I'm transfering (some) of my music files to my new computer. Thumb-drive by thumb-drive. It's taken a good 2.5 hours already (but this isn't the end of the world, and there are still a few files to shift.
I find I tend to listen to Jango more than anything else these days, but I uploaded most of my CDs to my computer with intention of being able to put the actual CDs into CD-binders and, thense, into Somewhere That's Away (because I tended to access the music on my computer rather than reach for a CD to play). And I want to keep that music easily available for when I want it. So. Onto the new computer it goes (five months after the fact).
That's basically what I've spent my morning on. That and reshelving books.
I'm loving the cool, rainy day we're having. I've got the patio door open and am enjoying the refreshing breeze that's coming in off the (balcony) garden.
The garden is in, by the way. Tiny Tim baby tomato, cinnamon basil, chocolate mint, dill, dianthus (think miniature carnations with edible petals), lebanese cucumber, nasturtiums, morning glories, scarlet runner beans, kentucky wonder beans, lavender (sorry Raynedaze), garlic chives, and five-colour swiss chard.
We're going to raise a dandelion in a pot, just to see how it does. :-)
This afternoon, I'm taking a walk in the rain and hitting up the grocery store.
I'm sorry to see Knick Knackers has closed and moved to Smiths' Falls (unless they've moved, along with Biogenie, to the new place on Gladstone? Can anyone verify this for me?)
My grandmother, who will be 94 at the end of the month, was having a Good Day on Monday. That was really good to hear. :-)
This Thursday, Ghost and I are going to see "Echoes of the Dead" (the storytelling show based on CSECooney's "Braiding The Ghosts"). I'm going to Do my hair, but beyond that I don't know what we're going to do, dress-wise. :-)
Oo! And we have all of the music transferred as of 1pm. Go me! :-D
Ghost and I were talking yesterday about refrigeration and possible modifications to our apartment.
We are considering (I'm seriously not sure if we could get away with this in a rental space, but maybe we can check?) changing things up a bit:
Ghost has a small chest freezer (probably ~150L? I'm guessing here) which is typically used for The Freezer Project. However she hasn't had a freezer project call in about a year and a half at this point, we're considering repurposing it to our own ends.
The chest freezer - with some intelligent oranizational planning like this idea to use re-usable grocery bags for different "themes" of food (froze fruit, frozen veggies, ice-cream/frozen-desserts, fish, poultry, roasts, meal-for-two packages of critter, etc) - would take over where our current, not very functional fridge-top freezer currently works, thus allowing us to indulge in (a) ice cream, and (b) getting 1/4 of a pig, or something, from a Reputable Local Farmer (suggestions welcome). The freezer would be placed on a roll-out platform while, above it (on a very sturdy, non-roll-out platform) we would have a bar fridge (that would allow us to hold 2L jugs of milk, wine, and/or juice upright in the door, while having space for all our other food in the fridge propper).
If there was room next to the bar fridge on the platform (there might not be, I don't know), it might be nice to have an extra "pantry" shelf put in or something... We'll figure it out.
This would be a big change.
The last time I used a bar-fridge for All My Refigeration Needs, I (a) was eating most of my meals in the University Cafeteria, and (b) was only shopping for ONE when it came to snackish things.
This would be very, very different.
Right now, a lot of our fridge space is taken up with (in no particularl order)
1) leftovers
2) Condiments (frequently multiple open bottles of the same kind of condiment, no less)
3) Things that don't need refrigeration - like fruit - in order to avoid atracting/encouraging fruitflies and/or other bugs
4) Milk, eggs, and cheese
5) Juice, wine, cider (alcoholic or otherwise)
6) Maple syrup
7) Cream-based desserts (not currently, but that's where they end up), left-over frosting, and other sweet things that are somewhat perishible but VERY attractive to bugs that thrive on sugar
8) Yoghurt
9) Root vegetables, mushrooms, (currently) cocktail tomatoes, and some kind of (typically) crucifer/brasica or other fairly sturdy green vegetable.
A bar fridge would be no more than half the volume of our apartment-sized fridge.
This would mean making a fair few changes how to how store food.
For example, I would want to make sure we only had one kind of jam open (and thus in the fridge) at a time. Similarly, restocked condiments (ketchup, mustards) would have to live in the cupboard until they we needed.
Multiple kinds of potatoes or beets (for example) would be Right Out, replaced by one type of each vegetable at a time. Similarly, large vegetables would have to be bought in easy-to-use-up portions (to a point, I already do this - I get white turnips instead of rutabagas, and the smallest butternut squash, red cabbage, and celeriac I can find; while aiming for delecata and sugar loaf squashes when they're available, rather than larger buttercups, if I'm going for something stuffable). Fresh greens[2] - asparagus, chard, spinach, rappini, broccoli, etc - would need to be done in a cut-and-come-again way from the garden (assuming the chard acutally germinates and produces enough greens for more than one meal, I mean), or else used up Very Quickly[1].
I would have to learn how to successfully make no-left-overs meals.
I'm getting better at this already, but it still needs work.
I would also need to get used to (1) using everything in the fridge up before going to the grocery store for re-stocking, and (2) making sure anything big (like, say, a slow-cooked picnic shoulder roast) got processed on its First Night Out - that is, to continue with the roast example, make sure all the fat was removed and that the meat was carved up into two-person-meal sized portions and then put into as small a recepticle as possible.
I think if I were to do a "compost/toss/otherwis-remove everything we don't actually USE" clean of the refrigerator, we'd (a) get rid of a lot of sauces and marinades, and (b) find out exactly how much empty space we've got in there, once that stuff is gone.
Anyway. That's kind of where my head is at right now.
TTFN,
Amazon. :-)
[1] Again, I already do this to a point. I buy baby spinach in "enough for 1-2 meals" portions, in bulk.
[2] Frozen greens are a different story, and I look forward to being able to have multiple kinds - spinach, broccoli, edamame, and maybe a mix or two - on hand in the Frozen Veggies Bag in the chest freezer.
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