Bread, Books and Enchildads

We were about to run out of bread so I decided I had better bake some. I had already started when Gary woke up and asked if I would like to go out for breakfast.  Sorry, I said, I'd already eaten, besides I had that bread to contend with.  "Go ahead," I told him and off he went to Kary's Restaurant out on Highway 54.   

I finished the bread off and went to work on another writing project.  I have so much to do before the end of the year if I want to meet my 2012 goals. 

This afternoon we held our local writers' book signing at Sissy's.  We enjoyed our customers and each other, ate desserts and had tea and coffee.  In the photo, two customers talk to Colette Bezio, Wade Peterson and Susan Manzke.  Janice Kaat had to work late so wasn't in the photo. She came in later.

In the end we all sold some books and went home with money in our pockets. In addition, another customer came in and asked us if we would like to do another book signing in August. It will be held here in Seymour, so we agreed.  By then I expect to have two other books to sell.

Chris, Tisha and Evan came to the signing, too.  I had already given Tisha her book but she wanted Wade and I to sign it.  While she was at it, she bought Colette's book for Evan.

Afterwards, Gary joined us for a second round of eating at Kary's Restaurant.  Kary's family are Mexican-Americans so even though the menu includes American cuisine, I always order from the Mexican page and am well pleased.

It was a day of literature and food.  What could be better?

Of Cats and Christmas

Gary is home for a few days but is concerned about his Aunt Shirley's cats, Mommy and Lily.  They are farm  cats who live in the chicken coop, but in the short while he has been staying on that Illinois farm he has become fond of them.  Lily is not all that friendly but Mommy warmed to Gary right away.

So, to come here for a few days, Gary talked his sister and his niece into taking his place.  They will visit Aunt Shirley in the nursing home, continue to clear some of the years of "collecting" from the house, and give the two cats some attention.  On Monday, Gary will go back and resume his duties.

How do these cats train us?  Rascal is certainly in charge in this house.  He decides what time I have to get up since the whole point of my rising from bed is to give him his breakfast. This is followed by his hairball medicine which he expects daily. He also has to have a treat for lunch and at night he has to have a share of whatever I am having for dinner.  Tonight it was fish.

Around nine in the evening he begins to tell me that it is time for me to go to bed because he wants to go upstairs with me to snuggle.

This morning he was being particularly bossy, meowing a plaintive half-Siamese yowl over and over while I was trying to write a short story for Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com There soon was a cat in the story, a half-Siamese cat who made a nuisance of himself on Christmas morning.

As Rascal kept bothering me, I became more and more irritated.  Writing is difficult enough without that constant MEEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWW.  Finally, I locked him out of the office but I could still hear a distant meeeeoooowwwww through the door.

When I get angry with someone I often put them into one of my stories....and kill them off.  It's all fiction, but it can be so satisfying.  I was now angry with Rascal so it was inevitable that the cat in the story came to a bad end.

If you want to find out what I did to that cat, read "A Perfect Christmas" at Black Coffee Fiction.  It's one of a series of depressing Christmas stories for people who hate the holidays.  By next winter I'll have enough for a book.

Keep in mind that I actually love Christmas...and Rascal is still alive.  

Use By Soup

As the year winds down, I take inventory of my goals, my projects, my life, but also of my kitchen cupboards. I check the expiration dates.  In a very few cases, there are things that must be thrown out, but there are also some things that need to be used up very soon.

Today, I made what I call "Use By Soup". In the cupboard were the following:
one can of chili
two cans of cream of mushroom soup (bought to make a sauce, I think)
one can of tomato soup
one can of diced tomatoes
one can of sliced potatoes (canned potatoes comes in handy on camping trips)
one can of mustard greens (why those were there I have no idea)
one can of green beans
one can of creamed corn (I figured its sweetness would balance the bitterness of the mustard greens)

What they all had in common was that the expiration dates had just passed or were about to.

Into the big soup pan they went.  I added onions and okra from my garden, the very last bit of cabbage from the farmers market, some carrots and celery close to going bad, some garlic cloves, and one potato I found at the bottom of the bin. I threw in some herbs, including farmers market basil that I had dried.

The soup simmered all day and tonight I had it for supper and deemed it incredibly good. I doubt that I will ever replicate it.  Twelve individual containers are now in the freezer, good nourishing food made from things that I could have thrown away.

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Tonight there is supposed to be a meteor shower, so I went for a walk, but with all of Seymour's lights I couldn't see any shooting stars.  Instead, I wandered around town looking at the holiday displays until I got to the Seymour museum and the memorial trees.  Families donate and decorate trees in memory of those who have gone before.  Most are for parents but sadly one or two are for the children who died too young.  It is a forest of trees, much nicer than a cemetery, I thought. Every year there are more. All of Depot Street is awash in Christmas lights. I take visitors over to see them during the holiday season.

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Wade e-mailed the good news that we have earned our first royalties from our Black Coffee Fiction e-book. My share isn't much, no more than three ice cream cones at Sissy's, but it is only the first. Next month's royalties will include the print version as well.  These small monthly checks will be welcome.

We will be signing books on Saturday at Sissy's on North Main Street in Seymour from 3-5 pm but anyone can order the book from Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Coffee-Fiction-Stories-Volume/dp/1480131571
  

Winter Birds

This morning, my cat Rascal was on my lap sleeping.  My feet were up on the desk and there was no way to work on the computer.  The Toni Morrison book I've been reading was upstairs beside my bed.  The sudoku puzzle was out of reach.  I was listening to Christmas music on the stereo. 

Rascal does not take kindly to being disturbed when he has a good napping spot. There was nothing to do but sit still and look out the window to watch the birds at the feeders.  

The robins, hummingbirds, house wrens and starlings are no longer hanging out in our backyard.  The mourning doves and house sparrows are always here, but now the winter birds have returned. In the course of the morning, I saw both downy and hairy woodpeckers, red-breasted and white breasted nuthatches, cardinals, goldfinches, chickadees, house finches, blue jays, and dark eyed juncos. 

My old friend, the red-bellied woodpecker is back after two years away.  Dan, the city's all around handyman, claims that the bird has been in his yard and that the only reason he returned here is that Dan has been too busy to keep his feeders filled. 

Winter and cold weather brings the birds to us, that and the many seed-laden plants in my back yard. Most of the neighbors carefully clear their yards, but I like the look of the colorful birds with the backdrop of the snow covered shrubs.  

It is good of Rascal to slow me down enough to enjoy what goes on right outside the window.  Lovely. 

Candlelight

After a warmer than average fall, the temperatures are dropping here in Wisconsin. Winter is on us. 

The trick is to trick myself into thinking the house is warmer than it is and that calls for candles. Over the summer I visit rummage and garage sales looking for them. I don't care if they are so old the scent is gone.  It is the flickering flames I need in the winter. 

This summer I came up with two 50 count bags of tea lights and a dozen large jar candles at rummage sales.  I found a dozen smaller jar candles on clearance at a retail store for 25 cents each. That's enough candles to keep me going into February at least.   

We set the temperature very low at night. I am the first up.  Until the furnace kicks into high gear, I wear a sweatsuit over long underwear topped with a jacket. The first thing I do is to walk around the house lighting candles that will burn until the sun comes up. A good cup of tea to warm my hands and I can work on this computer. 

Around the time the sun is shining, the furnace kicks in and soon after, I blow out the candles.  

In the evening I do the same, using the tea lights that burn for a little over two hours.  I put them in ceramic holders that hold the warmth.  When the candles burn out, it's time for bed. By then I've had an electric blanket heating up the bed.  I crawl in, turn the blanket off and I'll be warm until the next morning.  

With a little bit of planning, the heat bills are low.  I'll survive until spring. 

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I am on Twitter now.  You can find me by going to Colleen Sutherland@MathomGardens.  I am new at this and I'm not sure that anyone really wants to read more than this daily blog.  I'm on Facebook as well.  

Shoveling

I woke up early this morning to go out and shovel snow.  That's something Gary usually does but I guess I can use the exercise.

I wanted to get the sidewalks done early because once the school children go by they trample on the newly fallen snow. Not only does that make it more difficult to shovel it leads to icy pavement.  By seven, I had the the path shoveled and salted.  Then I had breakfast but was out working again soon after.

Around eight I had the driveway cleared and went back inside to do some computer work but by 10 I had to have the deck and steps done so that my mail would be delivered.   I have an ergonomic shovel to make the job easier on my back, but I don't like to push too hard.  If I throw out my back, shoveling would become impossible. So I do incremental shoveling.

About the time I finished my neighbor Scott came home from his factory shift.  He got out his snowblower and did his property.  That seemed a little excessive to me, since we only had 2 or 3 inches of snow.  I've observed that guys just love those first two or three snow falls because they can get out their machines and make a lot of noise. One of the problems with those infernal noisemakers is that they leave a film of snow behind that turns to ice.  Sure enough, later that day, I walked downtown and couldn't use the sidewalks. Instead I used the roads, watching carefully for traffic.  I had a choice of slipping on an icy sidewalk and breaking some part of my body or being hit by a speeding car.  I opted for listening for traffic.

I managed to walk three miles today and most of the time I was on the streets. There's a long winter ahead and more snowstorms, but I don't intend to let it stop me.

Snow and Soup

With snow coming in fast from Minnesota, I had no plans to leave Mathom House this morning.  It was soup day.

I still had squash from Seymour's farmers market.  Squash is a wonderful vegetable that stores beautifully, but it is December, time to cook it.  I had delicious squash soup at Sissy's and thought that would be the best thing to make. Sandy told me a little about the recipe but I have a terrible memory so all I remembered was that it contained chicken broth and I had plenty of that in the cupboard.

No problem, I could Google a recipe. However, when I began to search through the many recipes I found that all required butternut squash and chicken broth, that was certain, but all the recipes required items I didn't have on hand.  As usual, I would be making up my own version, using this and that.

I was supposed to core, peel and cube the squash and boil it, but I like baking it because it is so much easier to peel plus the oven warms up the house.  After about 90 minutes the squash was done.  I put it in a pan with two cans of chicken broth and a chopped up onion. I remembered that some of the recipes called for garlic.  I didn't have that but I had some garlic and pepper powder that Gary puts on almost everything. I added a liberal dose.  Marjoram would add something, I thought  That went in, too.

I let that simmer for a couple of hours then remembered something about cream cheese.  Eight ounces went into the pot for another hour of simmering.

Finally, I was supposed to put it all through a blender but mine broke a few years ago.  I tried a hand mixer but the soup was still lumpy.  I found a battery operated hand held blender in the back of a drawer and used that instead (miracle of miracles, the batteries were still good) until the soup was smooth.

The soup was wonderful, smooth and so rich it was like eggnog.  I divided it into smaller portions to freeze.

Then I went out to shovel snow.

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Old cat Rascal has been sleeping under the Christmas tree.  When he wakes up refreshed and feeling like a kitten, he bats ornaments off the trees.  But I know his tricks by now, so all the decorations he can reach are unbreakable. Re-decorating is my first job of the morning.