stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

finished the bag o' beans shelling this evening. that was much more fun and interesting even if most of the beans were Purple Dove. they come out of the shell so easy it is not much trouble at all to shell them, they were in better condition and a lot more than the previous bag so i was happy. i'm not sure how much more shelling i might get done tomorrow but we'll see how it goes.

 

[flowerbug]

started next bag this morning. ooh, this is nice! so much faster! snap, crackle, plops...

 

[flowerbug]

i just finished another bag - it was a less full bag. one more to go. i will start the last bag tonight and hope i can finish it tomorrow. it will not be as easy because it is a bag of Yellow Eye beans that are harder to shell out. Purple Dove are by far the easiest bean i have to shell.

a much worse than Yellow Eye bean to shell out are a variety called Venda, which is a great edible bean, but the seeds are long and skinny and they do not fall out of the pod, you have to do a fair amount of work to get each one out.

i found a few pods of those recently in a bag of beans i was shelling and put them aside with the rest of the Venda beans so when i get back to that box of beans i will finish those up. they will probably be the last beans i shell out, but there are a few more beans outside still hanging on the fence that i may sample to see if they are worth trying to shell out or not. there might be a few in those pods that are worth it...

 

[flowerbug]

all done shelling beans at last.

 

[flowerbug]

another interesting thing happened today. i may have finally gotten Mom to understand why i kept asking her to leave things on the counter instead of piling them all in the sink (and filling them with water, dish soap and/or bleach water).

it saves me a ton of time to not have to do the dishes that way, it saves soap/bleach, it saves energy and it saves me being aggravated (i enjoy doing dishes, i do not enjoy cleaning up messes that became bigger messes because someone would not listen to me ). i was so happy i told her thanks a bunch of times. i also told her that i appreciated her listening and that it made me feel great to be heard - like i actually mattered... (of course i have to make it more dramatic than that for extra laughs )...

we'll see if this sticks, but it will be a nice change if we can even keep it partially going.

one part of the putting all the stuff in the sink thing is that if you take something that is almost completely clean (where it needs very little scrubbing at all or just a quick wipe) in with the grungy and greasy (or meat related) stuff (that in some cases i may do a post wash soak with a little bleach water to deoderize it) then it adds time to cleaning that item that didn't need to be expended otherwise (along with the soap/bleach). so pretty much it cuts half or more of the time it takes me to wash the dishes if i can just do them in the order i'd do them if it were just me cleaning up the mess. also note though that it isn't just the time but also not having to use more resources than needed and if i can do things my way i'm often very efficient at using hot water and soap and we have a nice sink sprayer that works great for what i need it to do.

ok, well, i've been here almost 20 years... i guess i should not expect things to change... i don't really. nice though if there's even an illusion of a chance...

 

[flowerbug]

it was a busy day today. the main event was getting the lawn mower taken over to the guy who said he'd look at it. seems to be a nice person so we'll see how this works out.

he said he'd probably have it back to me next week, but i said there was no rush as we don't need it until spring. then he replied that he needs to keep things moving and he has time so that is that.

i was a bit worried going to take it because it didn't quite fit in the trunk and i was in a hurry and did not want to put it in the back seat via another method. so i rapidly grabbed a piece of fabric from the rag box and tied the lawn mower to the trunk lid and hoped that nothing bad happened along the way. i did take it easy and avoided some of the bigger bumps, but i still didn't like the sound of the trunk lid niddling (there's a made up word for ya @digitS' - ah, humbug, someone already made it up and it means something completely different) around, ok, what about nidgling? ah! yes, that one does not exist already, the meaning of the word is: both the sound and action of something bumping against something else, especially when it is caused by doing something silly like tying something down with an old bit of rag because you're in a hurry to get it delivered..., ok people, your mission is to now try to use this enough that it gets picked up by the dictionary.

on the way home the car was making noises i didn't like (i hit a bump rather hard - bad me) so i looked under and around to make sure it wasn't something dangling, but didn't see anything. after getting home and having a bite for brunch i took the car to the mechanic and had him look at it. said it was probably the other muffler pipe that was needing some repair. after 14 years it's not a surprise to have things need fixing. so we're now scheduled for that and i told Mom that she may blow that pipe out at any time but as long as things aren't dragging she should be ok.

i did fix the visor that was coming down because the mechanic said he probably couldn't do it for cheap and that velcro would work. so i went to the parts store and got some velcro and that's now done. $5 i've now probably saved her (and indirectly me too) at least $500 in avoided mechanic fees and parts by doing simple things by using heat shrink tube, epoxy glue and now velcro...

 

[fuzzi]

another interesting thing happened today. i may have finally gotten Mom to understand why i kept asking her to leave things on the counter instead of piling them all in the sink (and filling them with water, dish soap and/or bleach water).

it saves me a ton of time to not have to do the dishes that way, it saves soap/bleach, it saves energy and it saves me being aggravated (i enjoy doing dishes, i do not enjoy cleaning up messes that became bigger messes because someone would not listen to me ). i was so happy i told her thanks a bunch of times. i also told her that i appreciated her listening and that it made me feel great to be heard - like i actually mattered... (of course i have to make it more dramatic than that for extra laughs )...

we'll see if this sticks, but it will be a nice change if we can even keep it partially going.

one part of the putting all the stuff in the sink thing is that if you take something that is almost completely clean (where it needs very little scrubbing at all or just a quick wipe) in with the grungy and greasy (or meat related) stuff (that in some cases i may do a post wash soak with a little bleach water to deoderize it) then it adds time to cleaning that item that didn't need to be expended otherwise (along with the soap/bleach). so pretty much it cuts half or more of the time it takes me to wash the dishes if i can just do them in the order i'd do them if it were just me cleaning up the mess. also note though that it isn't just the time but also not having to use more resources than needed and if i can do things my way i'm often very efficient at using hot water and soap and we have a nice sink sprayer that works great for what i need it to do.

ok, well, i've been here almost 20 years... i guess i should not expect things to change... i don't really. nice though if there's even an illusion of a chance...

Your method of washing dishes sounds much like my own.

 

[flowerbug]

Your method of washing dishes sounds much like my own.

i'm very task oriented and like doing things in a particular order, but there is reason behind it all. at least that is what i keep telling myself...

 

[Branching Out]

Your method of washing dishes sounds much like my own.

My strategy mirrors this as well. And I always try to wash, dry, and put away the dishes when I can.

 

[Marie2020]

i'm very task oriented and like doing things in a particular order, but there is reason behind it all. at least that is what i keep telling myself...

I like you flowerbug much more because you live in a different home and country from me.

I'm so pleased we don't share a kitchen
I'd much rather sharing with your mother.

Making my way out of the door quickly