Food

#WeekendCoffeeShare 2018-08-25: the tea is wetting

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld
electric water kettle, tea pot, cup
Tea for Two, Me and You

Welcome to Weekend Coffee Share! While this is a good time to catch up with everyone’s news from last week, plans for the next, and current preoccupations (see our host Allison’s Coffee Share page for this week at her blog, Weekend Coffee Share), I must confess to being quite tired and feeling out of sorts. Accumulations of activities and commitments and expectations.

I finally got another electric water kettle, one with automatic shut-off and thermostat/temperature regulator, so that I can quit worrying about whether I turned off the burner, heating tea water in my larger sauce pan. This afternoon, I’m steeping an English Breakfast tea blend, ordered from Stash.

A Scamper (cocker spaniel) trying to be tall enough to see the stove top
What’s burning?

I also replaced my two broken tea infusers and did some bulk buying of everyday teas (Irish and English breakfast tea), as well as smaller quantities of a good green tea and a variety of oolong teas in 50g and 100g packs. It’s been that long since I’ve indulged in tea. I mean, really indulged! I had been having Toddy coffee using milk instead of water for breakfast as well as a snack before going to sleep at night. Decided that I don’t want to spend so much of my carbohydrates allowance on dairy products.

I have been spending less time exercising, since the deterioration in Air Quality. My exercise bike is in the gazebo, but the building is not insulated, since we do not use it often in winter. We used decking for the floor, allowing air to come in from beneath and flow out through the open eaves, which usually keeps the structure cool enough to sit in. There are windows with screens all the way around that are usually open. Oops! Irrelevant!

I still am working on the “sort and toss” project to clean out my sitting room/former office. There are too many papers. I despair! 😀 I am getting outside with the dogs, each morning, and taking along my camera. The smoky haze does nice things for color saturation, and so I will have many, many photo files to sort through, this winter. I look forward to that.

Some of my favorites for this week are insects, whose photographs I will include here:

I have caught up on some correspondence, this week; that pleased me. I sent in reservations for a couple of homecoming activities, this week. Finally! Next on the agenda is to make a grocery shopping list, since I have put off buying food, most of this week. Mostly, because I don’t know what I might want to eat. But I’m running out of eggs, and I’ve eaten the rest of the ham.

There should be “go to” foods when one must eat, but cannot find enthusiasm for anything besides a cup of good tea.

Thanks for stopping by! The Scampers, having no trouble with their appetites, have decided that they need something to eat now…close enough.

Best wishes for your weekend and the coming week! I look forward to reading your Weekend Coffee Share posts, this weekend.

Lizl

Sleepy Sunday, 2018-08-05 | #WeekendCoffeeShare

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld
Under the Cotoneaster branches

Welcome to the weekend that has almost vanished! I have drunk all of the Toddy coffee, but I do have water for tea (oolong of several varieties and a lovely green tea) and Al’s brewed Folgers. Cold, filtered water in the refrigerator. Snacks are hard to come by, since I have not been feeling well and hence have no carbohydrates to offer.

At least two days in a row —perhaps three—I have awakened at five thirty or so in the morning, pain in back of my eyes and high blood sugar. I have a cough, and my oxygen level is lower than it should be. Part of that may be that I turned off my air cleaner, middle of the week, instead of having Al clean out the dust, so that I could put a new filter in. Al has been sleeping late, this week. He is planning his vacation (a long weekend with the ham radio guys) and assembling his electronics.

I had forgotten that yesterday was Saturday, and got up thinking “beginning of the weekend”. We did take care of the grocery shopping, yesterday. We decided to not go out for dinner, but to try to accomplish at least some items on our lists.

I am looking forward to clearing the grass and dead plants from the wildflower garden, hoping that some of the later blooming seeds will grow, given more clear space. I’ve lots of seed pods from the first growth of wild flax and hope to see a second season from them before we get a hard frost.

This has been an uncomfortable week generally for looking back/looking forward. My mother left me a lot of cloth, thread, embroidery machine, and other quilting supplies. When we talked together, I was quite enthusiastic about getting back into thread work, having done a lot of embroidery and cross-stitch when I was in my thirties and forties. Just waiting for retirement to start up with it again. I find that it no longer holds my interest.

While “I am not really doing anything with it”, I enjoy the wildflowers and insects, reading, and writing. Sitting in the back yard, the Scampers napping close by, watching the clouds and listening to the murder of crows that have been camped out in the nearest cottonwood tree, this past week. I think. I wonder at things. I look around me. Something in me, when I find myself feeling that I should be accomplishing something, says, “Wait. It’s not the time.” Which I listen to, because I don’t have a clue about options, possibilities, or even inclinations. I am fallow ground. Not recovered or yet renewed. Maybe I’ll simply continue to produce haiku and wildflower photographs. Or maybe not. Waiting to learn what comes next.

I hope that you are enjoying your weekend! The weather here is cool and quite lovely.

No. 24142

My thanks to Allison for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share! You can learn more about it at her blog: EclecticAli, where you will also find a Links button with connection to other participants in Weekend Coffee Share for the current week.

Best wishes, and take care!
Lizl

July 13: Ups and Downs | Weekend Coffee Share

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

large and small, brown teapots

Welcome to my Weekend Coffee Share! There is Toddy coffee, if you like, but also a pot of Oolong tea, which I have been enjoying, today. The week has been…awkward. My husband was coming down with something, I don’t know what, and became quite ill, Wednesday evening. Much better, today, and so he was up and around, finally going out to his workshop to build tables for the ham radio room. Things come to a grinding halt in the house when one of us is ill. Fortunately, that is not often.

During the week, to get out of the house (out of the way), the puppies and I spent a lot of time in the back yard, where I pulled weeds and took a lot of photographs. I also put in much more time on the exercise bike in the gazebo, most days, and spent more time there.

Taking Flight

Almost every day, I post some favorite photographs from the morning shoot (flowers, wildflowers, miscellanea) in the back yard at the JPG Mag web site. This week and last, I got some really good pictures, and I was nominated for “Member of the Week”. Pleased to say that I was selected, today (selections are made on Fridays), and there is an announcement post HERE with a few of my photographs, a snapshot of me, and a link to my photo gallery.

This was a more active week than usual, although I did not get out of the house after Monday evening, when we attended a visitation at a funeral home in the next town.  The brother of one of our good friends died; my husband knew his mother, who lived in the same town when they were young. There was a great gathering of relatives and friends.

I did not write a lot of poetry, this week. (See photographs.) But I did manage to do one for the Ronovan Writes Haiku weekly challenge. It was odd. Based on a stray train of thought that seemed improbable until I got into it.

These past few weeks seemed unwelcoming, and so I tried to concentrate on activities close at hand. Things within reach that I could actually do something with/about. While I was on the exercise bike, this week, I read three novels in a favorite fantasy series by Sharon Shinn. I have read through a number of her series, this year. Her series and L. E. Modesitt’s novels are the most rereadable, right now. I am not in the mood for Pern (McCaffrey) or military SF. I did find a new book in Sheila Connolly’s Relatively Dead series. That was wonderful. And I pre-ordered Murder at the Mansion, which is next on my to-be-read list and was just released.

My blood pressure is still low enough that I’m not to worry about it, and I had to use my nebulizer, last week, but I suspect my blood sugar is doing better because of the increased exercise and decreased stress.

I don’t know what I can blame the disjointedness of my thoughts. Probably thinking about too many things at the same time. Thanks for the company, this evening.

Best wishes for your week!
Lizl

Note: Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Eclectic Alli. Her post for this week is HERE, and the InLinkz link also can be found on that page where you’ll find other participants in this week’s Weekend Coffee Share.

Supper is in the oven: Baked Chicken Breasts

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

Our butcher posted his weekly specials, this week, on his web page. We had been forgetting to stop at that store, somehow, without specials posted, even though we did not always take advantage of them. I had been wanting to bake chicken breasts, and that was one of the three specials, so we stopped by the shop before Al went off to his volunteer work, this afternoon.

With two pounds of meat, I washed and dried the chicken breasts, rubbed them lightly with olive oil, added seasoning to top and bottom (crushed peppercorns, sea salt, and cumin), and put the baking dish into the oven for forty minutes at 350°F. Twenty minutes to go!

The strong winds, combined with heavy rain, this morning, pretty much beat down and soaked the plants in the backyard wildflower garden. The ornamental clover is still doing well, and there are some Black-eyed Susan and Siberian Wallflower plants that still have blooms, but that’s about it. The blue wild flax … may dry out. If not, I will be taking photographs of fallen leaves until the snow flies.

Wallflowers
Clover and Raindrops
Black Eyed Susans
Leaves, Not Drifting

In this morning’s rain, I saw two Northern Flickers hunting out bugs in the front yard. I’m glad that they are still around. I don’t imagine that the raptors do much hunting in the midst of thunderstorms or torrential downpours. (See Hunting Circles for background.)

#WeekendCoffeeShare | Saturday, 17 June | Rain in the Forecast

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

Good Day!

If we were having coffee together, this morning, I would make a cup of Toddy coffee for you from my home-made coffee concentrate and water, milk, or cream.  I’ve also got ice water and hot water for tea (Tetley teabags) or instant cocoa. The back yard is sunny, and there’s a light breeze. The eastmost cotoneaster bush makes a nice shade for sitting and visiting, camping chairs on the paving stones in front of my garden shed with a step stool taking the place of a coffee table.

If you haven’t had breakfast, I could put something together for you. My own breakfast took place about three hours ago. On Thursday, we went shopping, so that I could cook meat for meals for the next three or four days. I got burger patties, but then my husband decided that he wanted pizza, and so I had hamburger two days in a row. I also roasted chicken breasts and pan-fried a tuna steak. Since I am supposed to be controlling calorie intake as well as carbohydrates, I limit the meat portions to 2 ounces, which has turned out to be quite enough. Tuna is good cold, or, as with this morning’s breakfast, hot, with poached egg on toast.

poached egg with pan-fried tuna steak and a slice of millet-and-chia seed g-f bread
Breakfast: Poached Egg, Toast, Tuna Steak (2 oz.)

I have been waking early, this week, but taking naps during the day, and that’s worked out well. It gives me “thinking time” before dogs or husband wake up. And centering/praying/meditating (not sure how to label it), followed by checking my blood oxygen level (SpO2=94%) and pulse rate (56 bpm). Then I check my blood glucose level (115 mg/dL), the weather report (80% chance of rain, thunderstorms), and the morning news briefing (oy vey!). My blood pressure is almost always low, and so I only check that periodically.

The work on the woodworking shop has gone slowly, this past week. Al and my brother-in-law picked up a door and locks for the workshop, and we are to be installing that today. Al is pretty sure that the two of us can handle the lifting and holding in place. There are several other tasks that can be taken care of during the rain days that are forecast for the week. I should have taken a photo of the glass window in the door. (Hope I remember to take a picture to show for next weekend. It’ll look its best with the light showing through it. Not stained glass or anything fancy, but not plain, either.)

We have the Tyvek building wrap still in place after the storms went through. The neighbor’s willow tree, however, dropped a large branch on top of my new wildflower garden. The garden, which is 12.5 ft. long and 4 ft. wide, has a lot of different sorts of clover in it as well as Oxalis (wood sorrel); since my annual and perennial wild flax is growing up amidst it, I hesitate to pull anything in bulk. Blooming so far are the California poppies, Wallflowers, Sweet Clover (ate a lot of that as a child), Oxalis, and (I believe) Baby’s Breath. I had no idea that the last mentioned is a member of the carnation family!

Willow Tree Branch in the Wildflower Garden

 

If we were having coffee, this morning, we could just sit together in the quiet for a while, relaxing to better enjoy the time away from everything but the now. And, perhaps, flowers.

As with previous weeks, this one involves appointments. Last week, Al had a dental appointment, with another scheduled for the last week in June. This week, I have a blood panel and another couple lab tests coming up, followed within a few days by an appointment with the diabetes educator. Sort of a six-month check-up, I guess. I believe that things are going quite nicely in that regard, and so am looking forward to visiting with her again, and also to the meeting’s being quite short. I have no questions. I am enjoying the ADA online community; I am not a participant, really, but I get a lot from reading the posts, the questions and answers.

Best wishes for your weekend and the week before us!

Lizl

 

WeekendCoffeeShare, originating with Diana at Part Time Monster, is hosted by Emily at NerdintheBrain.com, where you will find her current post and the InLinkz icon, leading to links to other #WeekendCoffeeShare participants’ posts.

 

In the new garden plot

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld
Sweet Clover
California Poppy – Close-up
First Flower in the New Garden Plot
California Poppy

At last wildflowers are opening in the new garden plot. Most of what’s emerged, actually, is clover. Several different kinds. When I was a small child, I used to eat the sweet clover flowers. They really do taste sweet. California poppies are among my favorites, although they’re not great to photograph.

Last Friday, the Scampers finally got their summer haircuts. They’re looking really cool. Here are “before” and “after” photographs. And Thadd having a wonderful time rolling in the grass when we brought them home and let them out in the back yard.

Due for a Haircut
Charlie in the White Campions
After Their Haircuts
Relaxing

I think that I’ve finally gotten my eating patterns squared away as I want them. I do forget to eat, more than I’m comfortable with. Trying to do better while not raising my blood sugar levels. Weight loss has slowed. Isn’t it such nice timing, our having to replace the bathroom scale when we did? The new scale shows the tenths of a pound! We can be really obsessive, now!

For tonight, assuming the rain holds off, I am planning to mix the latest batch of spent coffee grounds into the sandy dirt that contains little to no organic material (other than the seeds that I sowed, which did not germinate) along the south side of the garage. Then I am going to plant clumps of wild flax seeds with bricks on the downward slope to keep all of the water from running off and taking the seeds with it.

One of my husband’s ham radio buddies has come back into the area for a short visit with relatives, and they’re getting together for an evening out, whoever can make it. That will give me time for the planting procedures, assuming nothing comes along to interfere. Must check the radar before I get everything readied for gardening.

Later in the week, some of my husband’s family are coming over to help wrap the workshop building in with whatever it is that blocks the wind, once the inner and outer walls are up. Windows are ordered and a couple more things. Not getting ahead of what’s being used almost immediately. I keep thinking that June is the “rain” month around here and worrying that everything is going to either drown or blow away.

Wednesday Afternoon’s Flowers

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld
Red Tulip, Afternoon
Wild Violet in Grass
Late Afternoon Tulip
Translucent Petals

This has been an altogether wonderful day. It’s a bit chilly, outside. After all that was necessary, the Scampers decided to rest a while, midmorning, and then fell asleep. Didn’t wake up again until Noon. So, trapped in my chair, my puppy being on my lap, I reread Intrigues by Mercedes Lackey, which was on my telephone Nook-Book reader.

In the afternoon, I made out my food diary for the day to that point. We went shopping for odds and ends and came back with a tuna steak, two or three tubes of caulking, peppercorns and cayenne pepper. (I must empty the cupboard of the very old herbs and spices. Neither Al nor I can find what we want, anymore.) Cooked the peppercorns in olive oil and butter, and then put the tuna into the frying pan on top of that with the kosher salt and the cayenne pepper.

Charlie’s Morning Nap
My Puppy Is Sleeping on my Lap

Al’s enjoying his summer project, building his woodworking shop in the back yard. I am reading some chapters in a book on bereavement theory loaned to me by my grief counselor. It’s a nice break from poetry and routines. We have decided to meet at least one more time. That will be at the beginning of June.

I am looking forward to flowers growing in my wildflower garden, this year, having pulled up the White Campions that rode in with the loads of dirt banked around the house, the same summer that the egress window was installed. The rabbits ate a lot of the tulip leaves before the flowers opened; I am glad that we got lush grass, which they prefer, before we lost any of the plants.

Best wishes!

Some mental health days

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld
lunch - beef sandwich with mustard, havarti cheese, mixed salad greens with French dressing
Late Lunch

Yesterday, I had my second meeting with the grief counselor from hospice, and today it has finally sunk in that I no longer need to be wedded to my telephone. I need not expect a call from hospital, retirement center or nursing home, demanding decisions from me. Unless by or about a sibling or my husband, which is quite different from decision-making on behalf of a parent. I can leave my telephone in the house, on its charger in the other room…even when I go shopping.

I discover that I have been sitting in this chair, subconsciously feeling that it has been an uncomfortable amount of time since the phone has rung, summoning me, and I’ve been waiting for the ball to drop…the sky to fall on me…the river to flood or a tornado to head in my direction.

I think that I should do things out of the routine for a few days: exercising, going for a walk, playing the piano. I could find something else to do with the chicken breasts that Al bought at the butcher shop.

This afternoon I have tallied the sequence of the most unsettling events and losses in my life, as well as unwelcome discoveries, and decided that I really do need to take some mental health days. (One can do that, even when one is no longer an employee, I assume. And much more easily!) My tally of “life changes” points just needs some time to time out.

I did also get out into the back yard to help Al raise the last section of the final wall of the workshop. I expect that it won’t be long before the windows are delivered and the walls will sport door, windows, plywood (inside) and pressboard (outside).

I have no commitments, now, until next month’s haircut, aside from any holiday doings over the weekend. For which I do not have to cook. I think that I will pull up the latest edition of Stress Management and find out what changes, if any, have been made to the stress-relieving exercises and imageries.

A bright note to the day. The keepsake that I had ordered from Café Press arrived with this afternoon’s mail delivery. I decided on a keepsake notions box, because if at some point, I have to move out of the house, it will be readily portable. SFF Net closed down at the end of last month, and it was pretty much my Internet home for nearly twenty years. I’m missing it a lot.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Happy Domesticity

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

Enjoyed cooking, this morning, and then taking a nap with the Scampers.

Omelet-Waffle Sandwich
Snack Time
Leftovers for Breakfast

This photo, however, was taken a couple of nights ago, when the Scampers fell asleep next to Al. That brown board to the right is the edge of his computer lapdesk.

cocker spaniels napping on couch
Puppies

Still low key around here, adjusting to my parents’ deaths and the activity and people exposure involved with funerals and two “meetings of the clan” within such a short period of time. Avoiding activity in general except as amusement. I’ve started doing some exercising again, and I haven’t quite gotten back on my diet, but it’s pulling together. I’ll know that’s working when I actually start writing down the foods with their calorie and carbohydrate counts.

In the meanwhile I am continuing to think about what I want to do with the resurrection of two of my discontinued domains. I had thought to construct a writing/photo collection to complement the blogs where I put up anything and everything. I’m still too much in slow motion to make that practical. It will go faster when I dig out my old website backups and use some of the pages as templates.