Doing some housekeeping.

I am going through stuff I have posted on Triond to pull the material relating to The Red Chair. This is in preparation for getting the manuscript ready to send off to the editor. The project has been languishing for almost a year because I hit a block. Now that the block is cleared, I think I can have it completed in a few weeks.

I'm actually taking a break from working on it right now to eat lunch. A cup of tea and some ramen noodles makes up my lunch today. Tonight was supposed to be pizza night but I have discovered that we're missing some of the ingredients that I usually use for making the pizza. So, we're going to be having tacos, which was originally on the menu for yesterday but it got skipped in favor of taking the kids out for ice cream. Yes, I spoiled my boys and on the day that it was 75 in April, we had ice cream for dinner. And you know what, it was glorious!

I would have preferred to do home made salsa for dinner tonight but I don't have what I need for that either. So, it is a good thing that I bought jarred salsa when I got the taco fixings last week. I am pretty sure that Beloved won't miss the lettuce that I usually put in it. I completely forgot to get it when I was buying groceries. Some how I remembered the sour cream but forgot the lettuce.

I have started another batch of sauerkraut. This time it is using red cabbage. I know that the last batch was delicious. I'm hopeful that this one will be equally awesome. As I have been looking at recipes for different kinds of fermented pickles, I am finding myself strongly tempted to make ginger carrots. I accidentally discovered that I really enjoy pickled carrots. Since I like my homemade pickles, I am going to give making the carrots a try next week.

Beloved has quite firmly stated that he doesn't want me to take up brewing. To be honest, he has nothing but good reasons for his objections. With the possibility of the bottles exploding and making a disaster of the apartment, I can't exactly argue against his logic. I am seriously contemplating asking my friends who do brewing to make up a bottle of something special for me in return for some pickles and jam. I think it would only be fair to trade home made goodness for home made goodness.

I am not entirely pleased how things turned out with my second attempt at sourdough. That, however, was because of mistakes I made in how I was handling the starter. I got one good loaf of bread out of it. And then I forgot about the starter and it went bad on me. I think I need a better way to contain the starter then just a bowl. I am going to look into my options, but the prospect of using one of the wide mouth canning jars that I have kicking around is looking better by the minute.

I am planning to get an iced tea jug with a spout when those things go on clearance. I'm probably going to hunt down one of the plastic ones. I drink a lot of iced tea during the warmer seasons. Rather then dealing with a milk jug, I'm thinking that if I have one of those gallon jugs with a spigot that it will be easier to fill and tend and such. I have been looking at various flavored water recipes floating around on the internet. (See what I did there? LOL) While I am intrigued by them, I can't exactly justify buying a whole watermelon for that (for example). I am thinking that if I do a little planning, I can possibly get stuff that would do double duty.

But that's what's rambling around through my mind right now. Now I must gather up the pieces that I will be submitting for the art show and make myself another cup of tea. Then it's back to writing I go!