Friday Happy Things

1. About a week and a half ago, DH and I went out to eat.  It had been my idea, and a planned thing (typically going out to eat in 2025 was a result of a project taking way later in the day than planned and me not being available to cook at the right time, or the power was out and what I'd planned to cook wasn't an option any more due to not being able to use the oven).  

Why had I picked that day, more than a week before?  Because on that date, waaaaayyyyy back in 1991, DH and I met.  It's a significant date, as it altered my life (and his too, obviously!)  We're still trying to figure out if it was a for the better alteration or a for the worse; current consensus, despite recent frustrations, is still leaning for the better.

Anyway, we went out to eat at a (chain) steakhouse we had been to decades before in a different location at the invitation of a friend of his, and now there is a location about 15 miles from us.  I had (as I always do) looked at the menu ahead of time to see what I could eat (with all my food sensitivities), and we ended up splitting a 16 oz ribeye that was piled with grilled onions and gorgonzola cheese, came with an enormous baked sweet potato and equally large side salad as well as garlic bread.  I guess we're slowly becoming that old couple who goes out to eat and shares a meal, LOL. The food was delicious and more than enough for both of to be full for less than $40 including his beer (I always drink water with meals so I have more carbs to use for food).

2. While cold, we've had about the same number of sunny days lately as cloudy ones.  What a difference that sunshine makes!  And blue sky contrasts very nicely with white snow-covered ground.

3. This month, I've been adding yoga back into my week.  Also have managed to fit in a short (10-15 minute) strength training type of workout weekly.  I'm glad to find that, while I've lost some flexibility, I still have quite a bit of the balance I had back when I was doing yoga 3x/week last winter and spring.

4. Mid-month, I went to a used tack sale.  This one is held annually in the next town over, and I always try to go to it.  While I was dumbfounded at the prices of some things, mostly show-related, I was able to find some great deals on basics.  Details to come in a future post.

5. Making a concentrated effort to include fruit into my daily winter diet.  After a few months of not much in that department, it's a nice treat to the taste buds to add some fruit, usually to my breakfast, every day.

6. I finished knitting the sweater for Lucky's first birthday present with plenty of time to spare!  

Things That Make Me Go "Hmmmm". . .

 Microplastics in the water supply.  It's a topic of more than one news article/news report in recent months.

And yet, advertisements for laundry detergent pods and dishwasher detergent pods abound.  Everybody seems to love them.  So convenient and easy to use.

Hello?  If we are alarmed by the scientific findings of microplastics in our water (and in our own body tissues), why are we using these handy pre-measured plastic-wrapped (a coating that 'dissolves' in water) things rather than scooping/measuring/pouring out powdered or liquid detergents ourselves?  Do we not wonder just where this 'dissolved' plastic from these pods goes to?

Things that do down the drain, be it the sink drain, toilet drain, shower drain, drain on the washing machine, don't just magically disappear.  They still exist.  

Maybe their existence is not something people on municipal water and sewer systems thing about?  At least, not as much as the people with private wells and septic systems they have to keep maintained think? 

Then again, I'm amazed at how many people who do have septic systems at their homes but don't have the foggiest idea what is 'good' to put down the drain and what is harmful to the septic system.  Can bacteria eat it, get nutrients from it, and easily break it down to a liquid?  That's generally 'good'.  Is it hard to dissolve/not organic and doesn't get eaten by bacteria?  That's gonna be a septic issue sooner or later that you'd rather not have to deal with.

And plastic?  It may dissolve, somewhat, in order for the contents of those little pods to be accessible for your washing machine and your dishwasher to clean your clothes or your dishes with.  But it's still in the water going down the drain.  And it's not nutritious for bacteria, even if they do try to ingest it.  While there, purportedly, are bacteria that do eat and 'break down' plastics into even smaller plastic particles, not all bacteria do.  And what eats, digests, or otherwise totally gets rid of those even smaller plastic particles that are the waste product of the plastic eating bacteria?

Hmmmm.  My brain hurts.  For decades, if not even a full century at this point, people got along just fine having to measure out their detergents.  It's really not that difficult.  So why can't we all just go back to doing that?  Probably, at this point in the big plastic-in-the-environment picture, it won't make a huge difference, but it would stop continuing addition of plastics into the water supply from that source.  Little things count.

Dressing and Undressing, Dressing and Undressing

 

That's the theme for me when the weather is as frigid as it is right now.  I need way more layers to stay warm outside than I do inside, so it goes something like this:

In the morning, put on a base layer of leggings, long sleeved shirt of either the long sleeve t-shirt type or waffle-knit Henley type, and crew socks.  This will be my 'in the house' wardrobe for the day.

Downstairs, before heading into the mudroom I will add a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

In the mudroom goes on my Carhartt insulated bibs, a scarf around my face and neck, my Carhartt insulated coat, a knit hat pulled down to my eyebrows in front and my neck in back, a thick pair of insulated work gloves, and my insulated waterproof boots.

Now I'm ready to go out and feed horses.  Which takes all of about fifteen minutes.

Back in the house, I now need to remove:

My insulated boots, my hat, my gloves, my coat, my scarf, my bibs all in the mudroom.

Moving into the dining room, I remove my sweatshirt and jeans before I start overheating.  My body thermostat is wonky, and I have less than five minutes from the time I walk in the door to get all those extra layers off, or I will get nauseous with heat even though the temperature in my house is typically between 66-68 degrees.

Now I'm back in my single layer of leggings, socks and long sleeved shirt.  Comfy, for the most part, although I may get a little chilly here and there (especially if it's a windy day) so I like to have a zip up type of sweatshirt handy for easy on and off as needed throughout the day.  And if I do a yoga or strength training workout (which I like to do to keep muscle tone and flexibility during the deep winter when there's hardly any riding going on), I need to change my long sleeved shirt for a short sleeved athletic type one, and yank off my socks.  Of course, once the workout is done, the socks and long sleeve shirt need to come back on so I'm not cold. *sigh*

Two hours after horses get breakfast is when I usually turn them out for the day and clean stalls, restock hay in the feed room, etc.  Which means adding back on the jeans, sweatshirt, bibs, scarf, coat, hat, gloves, boots.

And when I'm done with barn chores and return to the house for lunch, undress again: boots, hat, gloves, scarf, coat, bibs,

sweatshirt, and jeans.

Later in the day, when it's time to bring horses in and feed them dinner, the process repeats.  Dress.  Go work outside.  Come in.  Undress.

Phew!

A Cooking Experiment

 I'm not sure if anyone remembers, but a couple of years ago I got four little round glass baking dishes at Goodwill for a whopping total of $1.99.  My intent with them was to try to cut down recipes into individual servings sizes and/or take a normal recipe, divide it into four dishes, cook it then freeze the extra portions for future lunches, solo dinners, etc.

Honestly, I haven't done much with them since then, other than doing some baked spaghetti one time, which worked well.  For those little spaghettis I lined the dishes with pieces of foil, baked, then when cool lifted out by the foil, folded the (extra big) pieces of foil over the top of the spaghetti and froze.  Worked like a charm.

Ever since I made a cherry clafouti for the first time this summer, I've wondered if there was a way to downsize the recipe (since I don't think it would freeze and reheat well) to make an individual clafouti.  Especially since DH didn't care for it, and I certainly can't/shouldn't eat an entire pie pan of clafouti by myself before it spoils.

Fast forward to this weekend.  DH has gone out of town on a snowmobiling trip with friends.  I've willingly stayed home (not so fond of the whole group weekend experience).  In the fridge are some strawberries that aren't quite the most palatable; they are the less ripe orangish-pinkish ones in the container I bought from the store and ate all the really ripe ones first.  I'd like to make use of these firmer less juicy strawberries other than feeding them to the chickens.

Hmm.  Could I make strawberry clafouti?  Could I make it small enough to utilize one or two of those little glass casserole dishes?

The answer is yes, yes I can!

I adapted a cherry clafouti for two recipe, used my little glass dishes, and it worked great!  Tasted great too.  I ate both of them for lunch instead of using them as a dessert like the recipe intended (I had cut out some of the 'make it sweet' ingredients).

Here's how I made it, if you'd like to try with your own little baking dishes.  I imagine it would work with large ramekins, but possibly not the normal sized ones (I'd be worried about it overflowing as it cooked).

Strawberry Clafouti

About 8 large strawberries, cut in half.

1 large egg (or two smallish ones; I used pullet eggs that aren't quite up to normal size yet)

2 Tbsp sugar

1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

3 Tbsp flour

1 Tbsp melted butter

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease two small baking dishes.  Divide cut strawberries equally between the two dishes.

2. In a small bowl, beat egg(s) and sugar together with a whisk until foamy.  Add the milk, vanilla and salt, whisk well.  Add the flour and whisk until smooth.  Add melted butter and whisk lightly.

3. Pour mixture into baking dishes.  Set dishes on a small cookie sheet and put into oven.  Bake about 25 minutes (mine came out a little rubbery, which I didn't mind but if you like it more custardy I'd check after about 23 min and adjust as needed).

4. Remove from oven.  Put dishes on wire rack and cool about 5 minutes before serving.

Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #6 A Sports Sled

 A few years ago, DH bought me (at my repeatedly dropped hints) a sports sled for Christmas.  The long, wide, flat bottomed type with sidewalls on it that is loved by ice fishers and hunters for carrying gear, game, and what-have-you over ice, snow or also bare ground.

I wanted one for helping with homesteading chores.  At the time, that meant toting the chicken waterer from the coop to the basement at night to thaw, and then back from the basement to the coop the next morning so the chickens would have water to drink all day.  Much easier to sled it than try to carry it by hand over icy ground, through knee deep snowdrifts and whatever else the winter weather threw at me.

But I was also looking ahead to the future, when I would finally have horses at home.  Because one of those big heavy duty sleds is perfect for taking a bale of hay from the barn, out to the pastures for horse lunch time.

That is what I'm loving it for currently: carrying hay into the pastures so I don't have to tote flakes by hand and deal with wind, gate latches, and questionable footing while trying not to drop my stack of hay flakes or get chaff in my eyes.  Just toss the appropriate amount of hay into the sled, sled it through the pasture gates, and disperse the applicable number of flakes into each pasture.  So easy.

It also comes in handy for toting water buckets to and from the pastures daily when the weather is too cold to maintain liquid water in the troughs, and is what I used last winter to take frozen water buckets from the barn to the basement for thawing.  Thankfully I now have a heated tack room to stow those icy buckets in as needed.

As an added bonus, if DH and I get a wild hair and want to do some high speed sledding, either of us can fit comfortably in the sled while the other pulls it around with the 4-wheeler.  Although it doesn't take corners well at high speed.  Ask me how I know. 😂

A Bowl Cozy For Me

 Several years ago (2018, apparently, post here), I made microwavable potholders, or bowl cozies as they are more commonly called these days, for all my kids and their spouses/significant others.  At the time, I intended to someday make one for myself as well, but wasn't in a huge hurry.

Fast forward more than seven years.  Sometimes that's how it feels, like seven years rushed by in the blink of an eye.  I finally sat down and made that bowl cozy for me.  

While looking through my fabric stash for other things in December, including fabric to make a reading pillow for Sixlet with, I ran across a piece of fabric with horses on it.  Which reminded me that a) I still hadn't made myself a bowl cozy, and b) I still wanted one and here was the perfect fabric for it.

A little over a week ago, I decided I needed to sew up my long-awaited bowl cozy. I'd like to say I sat down and whipped one out right then. They are really quick to make, less than an hour start to finish if you know how to sew a little and how to read directions.

 But I didn't.  I actually spent about 10 minutes each day over about 5 days working on it here and there when I felt I had a minute free to do so.  

One day was picking the second fabric, that I used for the inside, as well as hunting down my piece of Wrap N Zap that had been stored since 2018.  Another day was ironing the fabrics, then cutting the four pieces--one of each fabric and two of Wrap N Zap-- needed.  A third day was marking the sewing lines and pinning the Wrap N Zap to the fabrics.  Half of the actual sewing got done on a fourth day, and on a fifth day I finished the sewing.

Ta-Da!  

I now have a bowl cozy to call my own.  Now I can quit burning my fingertips when trying to carefully remove a hot glass dish of leftovers from the microwave onto a hot pad so I can carry it to the table and eat my lunch,

Horses on the outside

Complimenting gray fabric,

 with brownish and cranberry colored vine-y motif, on the inside.

A bowl cozy for me. Life is good!

A Couple of Fave Christmas Gifts

 This is just a quick post to talk about two of my favorite Christmas gifts I received.  I didn't get a whole lot of gifts, and while I do appreciate candy (especially chocolate covered cherries and Ghirardelli caramel chocolate squares), these two presents touched my heart the most.  Not to mention they will be useful for a long time.

Gift #1, from DD2, is a refillable soap dispenser for the sink in my tack room.  I had told her in November that now that I had an operable sink in the barn, I was in need of a plastic (ie, won't shatter into a million sharp shards if it hits the concrete floor) soap dispenser so I could wash my hands with soap when needed.  

This one, I believe, she purchased off of Etsy, and the saying on it is perfect given all the 'icky' things you touch when working in a barn.

You know what you touched.

WASH YOUR HANDS

Gift #2 from Faline, Buck and Sixlet (which means, really from DD1);  a set of loop ear plugs.  Because I  cannot seem to wear normal ear plugs, or ear buds.  They don't fit my ears and are either extremely uncomfortable or just plain fall out and won't stay in my ears if I move in the slightest (including breathing). And DH snores frequently.  So DD1, who had tried a pair of these for herself, bought me a set with different sizes to see if they would work for me.

Mine are the mint color, and when I tried them on, I found, as I suspected, I wear a small.  Which I'm under the impression is typically a size for a child, not an adult.  (And probably why in the past decade and a half I hadn't found ear plugs that fit me). They are comfortable, squishy yet retain their shape when not in my ears, and fit well.  I can sleep in them no problem.

Do they block out DH's snores?  The quieter ones, yes.  The medium ones (he has a wide range of snores at varying rhythms and decibels), they muffle enough I can get back to sleep.  The really loud ones, no, I still have to change rooms and beds.  But not having to change bedrooms in the wee hours the majority of the nights of the week is a huge win and cuts way down on my sleep loss.

Nightgowns and Sweaters

 Remember back in June when I took a trip to Shipshewana with DD2, DD1, K3 and Faline?  When I posted about that, I mentioned that Faline had requested a new flannel nightgown because she had outgrown the one I made her a couple years ago, so while on that trip I had Faline and K3 pick out fabric from Lolly's for new nightgowns.

My intention had been to sew them over the summer, or early fall, and have them ready for the girls to wear when the weather turned cold.  Intention did not equal reality, and I did many other things this summer and fall while the fabric sat, washed and waiting for me to work with it.  I would forget about it for weeks, then see it sitting in the sewing area and feelings of guilt for not doing anything with it would nag at me for a few more weeks.  More things would come up and the cycle would repeat.

Finally, in December, I decided I was going to sew those nightgowns, and they would be Christmas presents.  I figured the granddaughters had forgotten about the fabric (and my good intentions) by now, and would be surprised to unwrap a custom made nightgown in their chosen fabric. Plus, DH and I had absolutely zero Christmas presents made/purchased.  So this would kill two birds with one stone (or, on my mental list, turn two failures into achievements.)

Really, once I blocked out time to make the nightgowns, they didn't take long at all.  Why had I let so many other things delay working on them this summer?  I sorta know, but that's a topic for another post in the future, maybe (as in, maybe I'll share, maybe I won't; still thinking on that as I don't have answers to the issues).

Anyway, here is the nightgown made with Faline's fabric, in a child size 8 (according to her measurements and the sizing on a 20+ year old pattern from when my own kids were little).  She's stocky and tall for her age (5), but not as tall as an 8 year old yet, so I whacked about 2" off the bottom of the nightgown to make it ankle length but left the sleeve length the same.  The sleeves are a tad long for her now but we all know she'll grow a bunch and I'm wanting her to get two winters out of this nightgown,

And this is K3's, made in an adult small from another 20+ year old pattern for unisex nightshirts.

In late November, when I finished knitting my 2025 socks (so named because they were the only pair of socks I knit last year), I decided to cast on a new Sunday Sweater for Faline.  I had made her one for her birthday the year before (can see photo of it in progress in this post), but she'd pretty much grown out of it all ready.  Which meant that by this coming Spring she would be asking me for a new, bigger one, because she loves that her Amma makes her stuff (even if she doesn't yet understand how time consuming those handmades are).  So, why not knit a new one and use it as a Christmas gift?

This time I used a pale pink yarn, (Brava worsted in Blush from KnitPicks).  That sweater knit up pretty quickly in the evenings, and it was off the needles on December 14th.   Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture before wrapping and gifting it. 

Being that our family Christmas with kids and grandkids was scheduled for the 27th, and I was feeling my knitting mojo running high on the 14th, after casting off Faline's sweater I immediately grabbed yarn (Brava sport in Cotton Candy) and cast on a size 6-12 month Viola sweater for Octavia. I figured I could get such a small baby-sized sweater knit in 12 days and would use that as a Christmas gift also.

And then, of course, lots of things came up to keep me from having as much knitting time as I had thought I would have.  Which made me stress out and worry that maybe I was going to have to run to the store last minute and buy another gift for Octavia (DH wanted each grandkid to open 3 gifts from us.  3 X 10 grandkids. . .  I think the man is delusional. . . )

I did it! I was able to get Octavia's sweater finished, but just barely. This photo was taken early on the morning of the 27th, when I unpinned it from being blocked and then quickly boxed and wrapped it for our family gift giving later that day.

Phew!

You'd think after stressing about that little sweater--and spending hours knitting on Christmas Day (which was just DH and I) to get most of it finished--that I would be burned out on knitting for a while.

I'm not.  Winter means long hours of being in the house in the dark of the evening.  Hours where DH sits in front of the TV and we don't work on projects together.  I find it impossible to sit for long if I'm not either reading (which is increasingly difficult to concentrate on with the volume DH has the TV at) or doing something--such as knitting--with my hands.  So I have been working on a new sweater, a Little Hipster Cardigan in size 18 months, for Lucky. I am using Brava worsted in Fig.  It will be a present for his first birthday at the end of this month.

Here I Am, in 2026

 Hello Dear Readers.  I hadn't intended to take such a long break in blogging over the holidays, but it was rather more busy (and mentally difficult--I don't do well with lots of group events or schedule changes/demands that I be extremely flexible with my plans) than I had anticipated.  Since I don't blog via my phone, and I really had very limited access to the computer the last week or two of December, I found myself in radio silence until now.

Fear not!  All is well.  Maybe not totally relaxed and joyful into the brand new year (the brain/nervous system is still trying to reset), but here and hopefully blogging again regularly.  There's been lots and lots of family/grandkid time recently, so here's a few gratis pictures of DH pulling Faline, Buck and Sixlet on a sled behind the 4-wheeler to accompany this really non-themed post.

Our weather was cold and snowy in early December, prompting many people (who apparently don't pay attention to weather patterns year after year) to declare "We're definitely going to have a white Christmas this year!"

The weather warmed up the third week, even getting into the fifties for two days.  All the snow melted. As it typically does if we've had accumulated snow early in the month. On the 20th, it looked like this outside:

Those white spots were the remnants of the deepest drifted spots/shaded spots from earlier in the month.  Otherwise, things were bare and even a little green.

Christmas Day was green, not white.  On the 26th, the weather cooled off again, enough to have freezing rain and a fairly thick coating of ice.  So that day was grey.

But then it warmed back up, the grass got greener and we had all day rain the 28th.  Water was running everywhere, including through the new culvert we'd put in under the driveway and ramp area between the house and the barnyard back in 2024.

We ended up with a several acre 'pond' in the field for a couple of days until the winds picked up and helped evaporate off what hadn't yet soaked in.  On the 31st, the cold air returned, along with lots of high wind and blowing snow (and a 7-8 hour power outage). 

On the first, it was again white outside, as you saw in the pictures at the beginning of this post. Not a white Christmas, but a white New Year.  Today we're having off and on light snow showers.  

If you've made it through my whole fairly boring post here, Happy New Year!  Thanks for joining me at this little place here.  I'm hoping to have some meatier and possibly thought-provoking posts soon.