house of the rising

 I should have taken a screenshot to prove to myself that I wasn't seeing things or perhaps delusional… yes, a few days ago the weather forecast showed sun for 5 days in a row! Hope blossomed optimistically in my brain! Alas, we are on day 3 of 5 with nary a sunbeam in sight :-(

So what have I done over those dreadful, dreary days? A few things and yet not much at all! Thursday Christina came over so we could discuss her pet sitting! I hope I didn't overwhelm her with info as I do tend to babble on 🤪 We are meeting up again tomorrow - fingers crossed that Lupa behaves and wins Christina over like she has so many other people.

Friday was Costco day, so Carm dropped me off at Mom & Dad's while he did the shopping and oh, so many other errands (including chickpea flour which is being tested in my bread recipe as we speak). We didn't linger for more than a few minutes after Carm came to pick me up - we had dinner plans at 3 at Marie's. 

Our stomachs got the better of us on the way home so we made an unusual decision to pop into Tim Horton's for a breakfast sandwich where we ran into Diane from writing group! It was lovely to catch up - I was reminded of what a wonderful group of people they were. I always felt welcome and included, even though I started well after friend groups had semi-formed. Carm noted how happy I seemed and that I should rejoin 😀 I'm going to give it some thought.

The dogs got to practice standing at the window and howling for the second time in the day… they had a terrible time, but not us! We were celebrating Trudie's birthday with a feast of schnitzel and sides courtesy of Marie. Jirina and David were also there, as well as Liston, Marie's friend. Convivial would be a term to describe the evening.

And yeah, it was cloudy both days. My hopes for sunshine hadn't flagged, Saturday was still to come. Ha! Cloud… ugh. I mooched around all day, weighted down by the low sky, but finally managed to get some leftovers together to feed Pat supper. It wasn't my best effort! But we were all full at the end so I guess that's okay. 

What is it like today you ask? Cloudy. There is still hope!!! Sunshine is in the forecast for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We shall see! 

Update: the changes I made to the bread recipe worked. I subbed chickpea flour for the cornmeal, and added half a cup of chopped walnuts to the half cup of sunflower seeds. I tried to use a bit less flour, then I baked for a few minutes less (32 min). The crumb is not as dry, in fact while it was warm it was moist. We'll see what it's like tomorrow! (I couldn't get the colour in the photos right, it's not nearly as red as it shows).

Awesome!

“smell of baking bread”

“just the right amount of bran left - emergency trip to the grocery store averted!”

“leftover beef stew - a bit too salty but still edible”

“still light at 5:30!”

“amazing pink sunset”