Confirming my fear of phones

Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people.”

(no subject)

Today was a day of productivity.

In the morning, I took care of the dishes and laundry.

Then ben and I paid a visit to our local library to pick up my new library card. I was horrified, to say the least. The library was ONE ROOM. There were hardly any books! I wanted to cry!

Looks like it's fairly easy to order books from the other branches and have them delivered to the local one though. My library is only a mile away, so I thought I could get a bike and ride there. That will only work if I order the books I want.

After that disappointment, ben took me for lunch. We got burgers. Then we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things we ran out of during the week.

When we got home, I attempted to trim one of the hedges in front of the house. The previous owners must have never trimmed them. Ever. There is no other way the bushes could be that overgrown. So when I tried to fix that...it did not go well.



At first I tried to just cut back to the edge of the garden so that it wasn't sticking out onto the sidewalk. That's where the giant bald spot on the bottom came from. It quickly became evident that if I wanted the bush to have any leaves on it, I was going to need to be a little bit less aggressive. But there was nothing I could do about the top of the hedge, which was reaching up far too high and really needed to just be cut down to size. Honestly, I would have trimmed it shorter, but I was trying not to be too aggressive.

The bush to the right should be a bit easier. It has more leaves on it, so I should be able to cut it back as far as I need to. I'll attempt that tomorrow. I have a blister today, despite my gloves. And maybe next weekend I'll tackle the bushes on the side of the house that are so big they are falling over.

(no subject)

The trick to cutting a rutabaga seems to be:

1. Get knife firmly stuck in rutabaga
2. Smash rutabaga/knife against table until pieces fly off.
3. Pick pieces off floor and wash them.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 until pieces are small enough for recipe.

(no subject)

The celery root is the scariest vegetable I have ever seen.

(no subject)

Tonight's dinner was an adventure. I made oven roasted root vegetables. It had foods that I had never tried before like celery root (scariest veggie ever) and rutabaga.

It too far too long to make though. 2 hours instead of the suggested 1.5ish. Most of that time was fighting with the rutabaga. My knife kept getting stuck. So I had to smash the veggie on the counter until it cracked and pieces went flying off. Over and over again.

The resulting dish is interesting. Not bad. But very different from what I am used to. I am not very familiar with root veggies, so I didn't realize they had so many different flavors.

I will probably never make it again. It just took too long. And I cut open my hand while fighting with that rutabaga. It may taste good, but it's on my banned list for causing me pain.