Catie George

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.

Funny that this post popped up again today.

Had a good reminder that I also need to get better at labelling. Especially baking ingredients.

After 2 batches of muffins failed to rise, i realized my baking powder expired in 2022! Thankfully had a new one in the cupboard. The muffins are edible (for my freezer), but not "bring to an event to share" quality.  I normally use recipes that are risen with yeast, eggs, or baking soda, i guess.

I got frustrated and grabbed a boxed cake mix from the collection from my mom to save time. Read the instructions, whipped up eggs and oil, preheated the oven... opened the mix, inhaled, expecting the sweet scent of vanilla and could immediately smell... Ew!!! Rancid! I didn't check through the baking ingredients while i was labelling - that boxed mix was also best before 2022.

With the wonders of the internet, I was able to find a cake recipe using the same oil and egg amounts and salvage them.  At least the rancid cake didn't make it into the oven and to the event i'm making dessert for, and a from-scratch cake is probably tastier anyways.

More motivation to keep labelling my pantry goods, i guess.

Calling before you drop by - even 30 min notice is appreciated! A day or two is even better.

I know my grandma was sad people didn't drop in unannounced anymore, but I personally love having a bit of notice so I don't feel like my house and my body need to be in guest-ready condition at all times.

I can see how the avialability and cheapness of the modern cell phone has changed this one.