Catie George

Jay Angler wrote:

Phil Swindler wrote:A lot of kitchens have a lazy susan in the corner.  
The back side of that space in our house is a hallway.  I went to the hall and cut an opening.  I added a door made to match the hall.  Now we keep stuff we rarely use in a space we couldn't reach anyway.  If you are my age, think fondue pot and punch bowl.

A lazy susan wouldn't have fit in my friend's awkward spot like that. Her reno was two large drawers in the hallway which she stores her recycling and "needs to go elsewhere" things in, before recycle day or elsewhere delivery day, keeping her kitchen much tidier.

This sort of space is the bane of "U" shaped kitchens and looking for alternatives is worth the time and effort!

I have a tiny U shaped kitchen with very little bottom cupboard space: under the sink, 2 corner cupboards with lazy susans, a 12" cupboard, and an 18" cupboard (each with a single drawer). I really dislike lazy susans!  It has good quality cupboards, but this is honestly the least functional kitchen i've ever used, including tiny apartment kitchens.

I spilled sesame oil in the bottom of one of the lazy susans, and it somehow melted the plastic bearings in the lazy susan in that cupboard. It toppled one day with a mighty crash.

I replaced it with a wooden shelf along 1 side, plus a couple of dishpans for organizing things.  Suddenly i have a functional cabinet for my kitchen equipment! I can store far more, and it's way less annoying to remove things, too.

The other lazy susan has my pots and pans. I keep thinking about "accidentallly" spilling sesame oil on it, too.

I also have two 5" gap filler sections beside the sink i may one day turn into small jar storage, and one day, i'll get around to installing wall shelves + magnetic knife racks to regain a few more spare feet of counter space.

All of the above, plus the "i hate the hassle of dealimg with people" issue.

I am trying to hire someone to do a $2000+ job (for them), that would likely cost me ~$1000 to DIY including tool rentals, BUT is heavy work - installing posts and hanging a farm gate, and a passage gate. And i already have a lot of physical work i need to do before winter.

I called  3 companies -
1- this number is out of service
2- sure, i'll come out and give you a quote! (And... nothing)
3- came out and gave me a preliminary estimate, said they'd ask their supplier if they had the gate in stock. And now... silence.

I find this happens almost every time i want to hire someone to do something, especially a small job - most companies never get back to me. Following up,  and calling, and, then rescheduling because they can't actually make it, and then they're late, or early, or.... is often more hassle and stress than learning how to do the job myself.

My current "gate" ( a piece of 2" chicken wire stretched between two T posts) is secured with a "latch" made by stuffing the top of the tpost into the top of the chicken wire, then bending the bottom bits inwards.

I also have a a few wire "gates" that are  secured to fences with carabiners.

I look forward to better options!

I generally have more success by writing down a "story" about what is happening.

Bullet points with headers. These are the symptoms, these are some potentially unrelated symptoms I'm including in case it's relevant, here are my prior diagnoses, this is a list of things i have tried without success, this is a thing that maybe helped a bit,  these are the tests i have already had...

I often recall details while writing that my doctors miss asking me about/i forget when answering their very specific questions. My docs seem to like it because it saves them time on note taking,  and they get info from me faster than by asking me questions! They often want to keep my notes.

After a quick scan of my 1 page notes, they ask more useful questions and i find i get better help.

I'm a big believer in Type 2 (and sometimes 3) Fun

I don't think of it as a death resume - it's thoroughly a part of living, to me. Interesting people do interesting things, and become far better people through it.

I just finished a stupidly long, far more difficult than I expected home repair project. Yes, i'm proud of myself, but I've also learned a bunch of new skills and "what not to do"s that will inevitably be useful later.  (Edit - and yes, some of the project involved being up precariously high on a ladder in too high wind, and running in and out between thunderstorms).

I do think people care- i want to talk to people who have done interesting, difficult things.

People who always chose the easy route aren't anywhere as interesting to talk to, and give really bad advice.

Here's a question-  do even professional photos look like a real sky to you?

I think of photography as it's own artform- but even the most beautiful sky photos don't look like a real sky to me.

I often find paintings, especially with "odd" colours, better capture the feeling of a sky than any photograph.  I see purples and reds and greens and yellow in the sky that a camera never does.

I have a habit of taking 2-4 photos with differnet camera settings if I think I might later want to paint something I see, which helps, but still isnt enough.

And.... Catie may have just officially given up on watercolours. At least for now.

There was very cheap good quality gouache on sale... i said to myself- maybe you can try something new?

I am completely out of practice with opaque paint, but just knocked out 2 little gouaches in a sketchbook and enjoyed them. Very much a learning curve (i am so used to leaving room for things that i had to make my dog fatter to hide missed spots in the background, and i improvised a bunch of clouds to cover up my automatically watered down, streaky sky),  but seems to share my favourite properties of both water colour and acrylics.  It's opaque (but you can water them down with water!) It's rewettable! It dries to an even matte shine! It's not plastic and doesn't need to be peeled off surfaces when dry! It doesn't need painfully expensive paper to behave!

Still putting in too many details but oh well. A good start.

Kw Velasco wrote:Catie- do you have a photo of the pants your mom sees for you? In my mind they look like the parachute pants I loved so much.

Sure!

They look weird on a hanger, i admit. But super comfortable since they're only fitted at the waist with an abundance of room at the seat. More of a wide leg pant than a parachute pant.

(No one tell my mom i shared pics of her sewing projects on the internet without first ironing!)

Carla Burke wrote:I've also heard of folks 'scratching' a bar of soap, before doing dirty work, to coat the underneath part, and I've tried it, but I can't stand the feeling of anything under my nails, so it didn't work for me, because I scrubbed it right back out, lol!

I have always done the opposite - if i want to clean under my nails, i scratch a bar of soap to catch and remove the dirt. It feels mildy uncomfortable but tolerable since i wash it out immediately. Cant imagine walking aroind all day like that.

Growing up my grandma always had a bar of soap in the bathroom and the kitchen for that purpose, and now I do too. Grandma also had a white pencil  to use before going to town, but I admit "clean" is as far as I go.

Edit - just went and did it to figure out my technique. Helps to scratch sideways along the nail (you slide the dirt out), and you need a hard bar of soap, not a partially softened one. I did have to do it twice on two particularly dirty nails but i'm now town-ready in time to go... just in time to go work outside in an hour or so.

I can't seem to directly link, but here's a pdf on reducing sugar in canned foods:

Source: UC Agriculture and Natural Resources https://share.google/wej419euTIAcbqcmo

Basically - sugar keeps colour/texture long term, as does salt, but it doesn't really matter to the long term safety of the food.

Also helpful:

https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/extension/publications/play-it-safe-safe-changes-and-substitutions-tested-canning-recipes

I adjust my canning recipes to suit ME in terms of salt/sugar/spices. Omitting garlic isnt going to make a recipe unsafe, nor is adding peppercorns or whatever spices I like. I find most canning recipes either bland, or unpleasant as written. I am more careful about size of pieces/types of veggies as the density matters. I keep quantity of veggies, water, and vinegar consistant.

For pickles - i tend to grow dual use slicing/pickling cukes. I have also seen reliable sources saying zucchini can be subsituted for cucumbers in sliced pickle recipes, so I do that, too.

This is my favourite recipe site for tested recipes - they seem to agglomerate recipes from many sources.

https://www.healthycanning.com/

I do find canning limiting. (And time consuming!). I freeze a lot, but also experiment with storage crops that dont need preservation - what's the earliest green i can grow? What's the latest? Wow, if i leave my fall grown carrots in the ground over the winter, they are still tasty and crunchy in the spring! Yay, my winter squash lasted all winter in my basement. Darn, no, leeks do NOT survive the winter in my climate.  Etc. And i supplement in the winter with hydroponic greens. I do adjust my diet to what is easy to grow and preserve.

I also have experimented with other ways to dry things than my dehydrator - chilis and beans strung on strings, slowly air dried quince paste, etc. At this point in my life, i can applesauce (no sugar needed!), jams (i love low sugar pectin!), relish, and a few pickles.