Hi, friends!
What are we doing this weekend?
I have an exciting schedule of house cleaning and yard work.
For everyone waiting with bated breath, my planties survived last night and are all snuggled up in their frost blankets again tonight. 10 day forecast has nothing close to freezing, so hopefully we’ll be done soon.
In other news, I would fucking love the allergies on top of the contact dermatitis that has been making me have super itchy eyes go away. Like it has been taking considerable willpower to not rub and scratch all week. The air filter helps, but fuck me the hydrocortisone cream only takes the edge off for a few hours. And yes, I know hydrocortisone cream shouldn’t be used near eyes because it thins the skin, but I’m following the protocol from the dermatologist. Anyhoo, tonight I’m breaking out the Benadryl to see if that helps (if nothing else, I should sleep well). I made the stupid decision to take a walk earlier today and yeaaahhhh I love trees but not their pollen.
Some friends coaxed me into meeting at a brewery for a few beers in the middle of the work day so I get to catch up tomorrow at 730 am. I’m leaving to go see my mom for first time in a year plus next weekend & have tons to do before we go. Allergies are hitting me too bu cherry blossoms seem late, they usually start my allergy season.
@ Loveshaq I know how much you’ve been looking forward to visiting your mom, you must be very excited to finally get to go!
Super excited! Plus my nephew’s wife had a baby last night so will be some family celebrating. Almost all of the have been vaccinated already too so we can almost feel normal!
Got my vaccine appointment for Tuesday.
That’s AWESOME!!! Congratulations Shaq, I hope everyone stays safe, and that the visiting is great!!😁😃🤗
Were the beers good at least?
I feel like my allergies are starting a little too soon this year, but what the fuck do I know.
Beers were excellent & didn’t feel like working anyway. Might mess up wife’s honey do list for weekend if I work elsewhere all weekend.
A little bit of everything: making tortillas for next week, trying out a new recipe for steak tips (yes, possible FYCE post if it works. If it doesn’t work, then I will spare you the horror.), cutting the downed blueberry bush into smaller pieces for bagging, along with clearing last year’s asparagus ferns (part of a Dirty Business post at some point, along with soil testing and some organic soil treatments). The first day of spring will actually be nice and sunny.
We always simmered steak tips low and slow with a lot of (cheap) red wine and beef stock in the pan. And then made a gravy and mashed potatoes to go with them.
I can vouch for this one going REALLY well with sirloin tips, too!😉
https://gratinee.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/julia-childs-saute-de-boeuf-beef-saute-with-cream-mushroom-sauce/
Ugh I always feel so bad for you with the itchy eyes stuff. I have a hard enough time with itchy hands. Did the derm not want to give you a prescription strength cream? Or maybe it’s better to stick with OTC strength if it’s going to be near your eyes.
I’ll tell you a funny hydrocortisone story. When my hand eczema first started and it was pretty bad, I got some hydrocortisone from the store. I used it for several days, and the eczema wasn’t getting any better. At some point I decided it was actually getting worse – I seriously wanted to rip my skin off. So I stole some of my husband’s prescription steroid cream (eczema all around in this house), and it was nearly instant relief. Then I was suspicious, and put a little hydrocortisone on a patch on my arm, which later turned red… so I had probably been adding an allergic reaction on top of my eczema. (It wasn’t straight hydrocortisone, it had moisturizers and such, so I still don’t know what I was reacting to.)
Oh it’s prescription strength. It was so close to being healed up and then this flare up would be done and OHHHH NOOOOO of course it had to be like hahaha bitch I’m still here.
Yard work here too. I guess it’s that time of year. And my regular Saturday cleaning and laundry. It’s been sort of a rough couple of weeks. I thin there will also be drinking.
Yeah I have to figure out how to trim and bag up a fuck ton of honeysuckle branches I hacked down a few weeks ago so I can put them out for yard waste pickup.
Me too. My yard has six inches of leaves covering every open space. However, I do not rake. I’ve got a battery-powered electric mower with a leaf bag. So I vacuum up that shit with the mower.
We finally put our dog down yesterday. It sucked that I had to go alone due to the pandemic. My triple layer mask was literally leaking snot and tears by the time I left the vet’s clinic. While I didn’t sleep much last night, the relief is starting to outweigh the grief today.
Oh, I am so sorry for your loss. It’s a heart-breaking situation.
I’m sorry to hear that. We had to do that a year ago at the beginning of pandemic. It is so hard but when they are suffering at least you know that is over. I still miss having someone that was always happy to see me but can tell you it gets better & you will always have those smiles they brought you.
I’m sorry, that’s a heartbreaker.
Oh HZ, I am so very sorry.
@HammetZeitgeist, deepest sympathy. We’ve had 10 dogs over 25 years, four are still with us but the two old girls are in their middle teens and showing their age. It never gets any easier to lose a beloved pet. I am so very sorry for your loss, sending you peace.
I’m sorry. Probably doesn’t help much, but I’ve heard others say it’s the last good thing you can do for them.
Oh, I’m so sorry. I do know exactly what you mean about the mix of grief and relief. I also juggled guilt about the relief on top of that (which is ridiculous and I don’t recommend it).
I’m sorry, HZ, even when there’s relief on it, losing a pup still sucks rocks💔💖💞
Thinking lots of good thoughts your way, and hoping that the sharp, jagged edges of that puppy-shaped hole in your hearts smooth down quickly, from good memories💗
…kind of late getting to this thread but just wanted to add to the chorus of condolences
Sorry for your loss. Losing a four-legged friend is such a struggle.
I’m walking to the farmer’s market where I’ll be gnashing my teeth at the lack of any real produce.
It’s probably 3-4 weeks before the farmers markets here have actual home grown stuff.
And most of what they grow, I’m trying to grow this year. So I don’t know what my farmers market schedule is going to be like this spring.
Is there anything specific you’ll be looking for at the market?
What I want is freshly picked summer tomatoes.
What I’ll probably get is greenhouse radishes.
I had decent luck with my tomatoes last summer, and then the neighbor down the street was happy to trade some of their tomatoes for some of my sweet peppers.
But I’m probably still 4 months out from fresh tomatoes.
It will be a normal weekend, which sounds about as wild as some of yours…cooking ahead for the week, cleaning, yardwork observation, and for something different, cleaning out closets, because I know how to party. Saturday’s highlight will be hearing from you on BrainDrain at 10 am to learn what you have been watching, reading, or listening to, and then seeing you back at 1 pm Eastern for Dirty Business gardening tips.
Not much here, catch up on some sleep, didn’t get enough this week, mostly for stupid reasons (arguing with weebs on reddit, etc.). So, hopefully I can be really exciting and go to bed earlyish, and maybe sleep in a little bit.
will probably watch the last movie in the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy – just started that this week, and never read the books.
If I’m feeling really ambitious, I may try to reduce one of my clutter piles to a smaller clutter pile. maybe.
Homework, work, some cooking & laundry, and tomorrow ’round noonish, I get my second covid shot.
Gotta run up to Mom’s place, to drop off a bunch of stuff for her, and then, *hopefully,* in a few weeks, I can fiiiiiiiinally go visit her😉😁🤗
hoping you don’t get much in the way of side effects and such with the second shot.
Took a 1/2 day yesterday and made progress on my sweater but starting to worry about running out of a couple of colors. If I do run out I’ll have to order more and use a different dye lot for the colorwork on the sleeves and just hope it’s not too noticeable. Now I’m on a roll so I think I’ll be knitting this weekend.
Last week the battery on my truck died, I don’t have AAA, but I think paying for a road call from my longtime trusted and beloved mechanic every once in awhile isn’t much different from paying AAA membership, plus supporting a local business. The fun part is the battery was $1.80 more than the stimulus check I got a couple of months ago, funny how that worked out.
And at some point I have to brush the cat, I brushed him just to mess with him the other day and now he thinks it is part of the routine, whines until I brush him, bites the brush when he’s had enough.