cleave to gentle things

Our Norwegian guests packed up and left Saturday morning, leaving Carm and I feeling a little deflated and antsy. Luckily they’ll stay with us again for a few days at the end of the week.

The restless energy got us out of the house to the grocery store on a quest to find a large glass jar with a tight fitting lid - limoncello was on my mind and I had a recipe picked out. Once home, I washed two lemons and suspended them in cheesecloth over some vodka. It will sit like this for at least 40 days, at which point I’ll add the zest from two more lemons and some simple syrup to soak for 15 minutes, then it will be strained, bottled, and put in the freezer. I can hardly wait although I don’t hold out much hope that it will be as good as what we brought back from Italy.

Back at the store: we found the jar quickly which left us still at loose ends. Carm convinced me that Liquidation would be a good destination. I protested saying that I’d be sure to buy something (I always do)... sure enough, a cute pair of faded skinny jeans for $12, plus some pretty ‘lounge’ pants for $5 found their way into my cart.

Sunday I finished going through the Europe photos to select out 48 to include in the little album that I have. Well - that was an impossible task. Narrowing down to 48 would mean I’d have to exclude some of my Sagrada Familia photos, amoung others. I ended up starting over with 96 as my goal. Once I had a good subset I sent them on their way to Costco for their $0.10 print special.

I took a break at one point to make a snack - using the actifry of course. The ‘Deep fried’ dill pickles were easy to make and super yummy.

You might wonder with all this actifrying going on if we are ballooning into even greater dimensions. Actually, we are both losing weight :-)

I used it again last night to make a stir fry of red pepper and asparagus with asian sauce. YUM. It is so easy to use and I love how it cooks things - it didn’t steam the asparagus into soggy green things, but roasted them to perfection. Tonight I’m making mushroom gnocchi and am debating if I’ll try making it in my new, favorite toy.

It has been a beautiful day today and I’ve spent the last hour or two out on the swing. It is cool and would easily pass for September - socks have been on my mind. Not long ago, a ‘Great Crested Flycatcher’ landed near me - I’ve never seen one before and had to run for my book.

“Be mild, and cleave to gentle things,
thy glory and thy happiness be there.”
~William Wordsworth