Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY (Click picture to enlarge)
"Light at the end of the tunnel? We don't even have a tunnel; we don't even know where the tunnel is."Well, it is July 1st and I will have 18 hours to get the rest of my list done.....
~ Lyndon B. Johnson
- Clean fan blades and reverse fan direction in den, living room and master bedroom. (This requires dragging the gargantuan ladder in from the garage.)
- Vacuum garage... for the tenth time. (Have I ever mentioned my obsessive compulsive thing about garages?)
- Clean up the patio...picking up the thousands of safflower seeds that the stupid black birds threw on the ground to be spiteful and then the yard guy came along and blew them all into the flowerbeds where they will germinate and I will be plucking tiny safflower plants until the end of time.
- Add compost and mulch to the shade garden... and clean off the gutter where the rain overflowed because the pine needles are stuck and won't let the water go into the gutter so it pours onto my beautiful large fern and breaks 80% of its fronds so that I have to cut it back to a stupid looking round mound of, well green stuff. (This may require said ladder again or hanging from an upstairs window with the grab it device Mom uses to get stuff off the floor.... hmm... hauling ladder down stairs vs. hanging out the window. I may opt for hanging out the window, easier on the knees.)
- Clean off the deck. Hmm. It rained last night and this morning... crossing fingers that that will take care of the deck.
- Clean the steps and porch of the sunroom. Yes, I put the hanging basket for the strawberries whose seeds never germinated out there and the rain ran off the copper roof into the potting soil and splattered it up on the door that I just cleaned last Saturday.
- Fix the hinge on the back gate... no, I have no idea how it got broken... it just fell apart and that is the story I am sticking to. I have to fix it so that I don't have to tell Stephen it broke but he will read this and know it anyway. Oh, well.
- Put plastic plant carriers in the car... I DON"T KNOW WHY... just to get them out of the garage, OK?! (See #2)
- Pick up poop in yard. I have Daisy. Daisy is a dog. Self-explanatory.
- Plant plants.... why did I buy more plants today. My Euphorbia kicked the bucket so I got some more to replace it. But, I probably shouldn't plant it in the same place because I have no idea as to why it kicked the bucket when all around things are growing fine. I have a big planter in the back of my van to drag to the back deck and plant a tomato plant, a bell pepper, some sage and (if I can find just one) a marigold. Marigolds are supposed to be great companion plants and ward off evil bugs. I would rather plant borage or lovage, but no one has them here and I really don't know exactly what they are anyway. This will entail dragging pebbles and potting soil to the back deck and will likely negate the cleaning the rain did last night... so I will have to keep the cleaning of the back deck on the list.
- Keep an eye on the black swallowtail chrysalis... any day now it should open... but please not until Friday.....
- Iron. I am always behind on ironing. I don't like to iron. It makes me hot and with the hot weather and trying to keep the air conditioning at a higher level... well, as Jane Austen said... "the heat keeps me in such a state off inelegance."
- Smoke a Boston butt roast. I've never done this before. Apparently, there are as many ways to do it as stars in the sky. I have already massaged it with yellow mustard and put on a rub that was supposed to follow a recipe but ended up being whatever I found in the spice rack along with some already mixed up steak rub. It sits in the refrigerator overnight or in this case until 3 am when I will drag myself up and set it out for an hour while I try to get some coals going in the smoker and throw in cherry or hickory or whatever I have in the garage... I forgot to look. When the smoker gets to 225℉, hopefully before 4 AM, I will insert the remote temperature probe into the roast and put it on the grate and let it start smoking; that is, of course if I can figure out how to set the time and timer on this gadget. Then after two hours, or however long it takes to get to 140℉, I will start spritzing it with apple juice... or apple cider in this case... I couldn't find any apple juice in the pantry. Then we put it in aluminum foil tightly with more apple cider and put it back in the smoker to cook until the temperature reaches 205℉. We wrap it in a towel and put it in a cooler for an hour or so... hmm.. do I have a cooler in the garage? I forgot to look for that too. What was I thinking? I hope it gets done before I have to go to the airport to pick up my brother at 6PM..... What WAS I thinking.... I could have stopped by the barbecue place and picked it up already done..... AARG!!!! I just hope it doesn't turn out like my Christmas turkey..... it was a real turkey.. in more ways than one.
(end of post)
Thursday Thirteen posts here.
10 comments:
No food could taste good enough to justify me doing all that work and losing sleep. You must have amazing energy! And maybe you are a bit of a perfectionist? But it's great that you want to make a special meal for your brother, I know he'll appreciate the home cooking. It sounds like pioneer women had it easier than you right at this time. I do love that Jane Austin quote. At times you make this pretty funny, this post reminds me a bit of an Erma bombesck column. Remember her? I know we have to make these lists in oprder to remember the stuff we need to do and have a plan. But just looking at it can be overwhelming and make one get a case of the vapours! Do be ever so careful with the window hanging and the ladders!
Well, I'm trying to get rid of my shadow face here, but instead, it just posted an extra picture of me. And I'm still shadowed. They say "the shadow knows", but I don't!! I'll get it right yet! I'm off to Madsnapper, who helps me with these things.
Be careful you don't over do it, and then where will that leave you? I'm sure it will all turn out lovely. Enjoy your time with your brother. Happy T13!
Wonderful photo! Smoke a Boston butt roast really jumps out at me. Your list sounds a lot like mine and I never get a quarter of it donw. http://looseleafnotes.com
My mother always spread purchased birdseed on a cookie sheet and oven toasted it as soon as she brought it home from the store. That solved two problems -- no more sprouting and no moths arising from cocoons mixed in with the seed.
I share many of those myself.
Have a great day!
http://harrietandfriends.com/2010/06/are-you-ready-for-the-fourth-of-july/
I have never cooked one of those and as involved as it sounds - I don't want to either! Hope brother has arrived on US soil and all is well.
Please don't ever look at my garage!!
No way I'd get all that done. I just wait until the dust bunnies on the fan blades get so thick they jump off by them selves.
Love the title of this post. So, since I'm late with T13 I get to ask how did you do with your to-do list? Beautiful photo btw.
Yes, those are Resurrection Eggs!! You have a sharp eye. So far, no one else has mentioned it. Have you bought them? You are giving me an idea now to do a whole post on those eggs. Well, something to think about, maybe I will! We got the book that goes along with them, too. We've had them maybe two years. But the girls want to take the numbers off and scatter the contents to play with them, it's hard to keep them all together. I hope you have a GREAT Fourth!
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