What a wonderful Sunday it’s turning out to be. The time change allowed for an easy start to the day and now it’s only early afternoon as I’m typing this and it already feels like I’ve do so much but there’s also so much time left in the day – – and best of all, I get to spend some of that time with you! So pull up a chair and I’ll pour the drinks.
The work week went by fast thanks to several projects that took up my time, which I’d rather have things to keep me busy than otherwise, you know? And the week was short since I’d taken Friday off for a long weekend.
Monday morning was a Monday morning in that on my way out the door, in the rush to grab my tea, I sent an entire pot of water crashing to the floor, requiring three bathroom towels to get up and making me twenty minutes late for work. It also meant that when I got home Monday evening I needed to do laundry or I wouldn’t have any clean towels (don’t judge) and so I walked across the street (in the rain) to the laundry room and put in two loads of laundry.
You want to hear an unnerving story? Here we go:
Picture it: the laundromat, 7:30 PM.
There I am, moving my clothes into the dryer. My card declines. It declines at another machine. It declines at the washers I’ve just emptied. I go online to check my account because you never know what might happen- and I have plenty of funds.
In total it’s declines about six times between four machines.
I decide to use the bank’s online “AI Assistant”, which tells me there are no declined transactions in the last seven days and suggests paying a different way (I can’t since it’s a swipe-only machine) or replacing my card (which won’t help two loads of wet laundry).
I tell the chat it’s not very helpful and that I’m ending the conversation.
Just for fun, I try one more time – and it goes through. I try the second machine – and it goes through, too.
Couple this experience with my general sense yesterday of “stay inside tonight because things are weird” and I was more than slightly unsettled for the rest of the evening, but it was made better by a hot supper.
You might recall that last weekend I was making baked beans. Well, they turned out pretty good. The pictures do not do them justice, but the two of us at them all in three days, so I’d say they were another success.
We needed the warm and comforting foods since it rained from Sunday night through Wednesday morning, so on Tuesday I made some boxed mac and cheese (the box claimed it was mushroom and truffle tricolor tortellini) and put some boxed garlic bread in the air fryer and wrapped up in soft blankets with a fireplace DVD on for ambiance. It felt nice.
Then, about ten in the evening, I got a scam text saying that Amazon had declined a transaction and I needed to either click a link or call a number for more information. But the whole thing felt wrong, so I searched up the incoming number and somehow I don’t think the Archdiocese of Indianapolis is calling me to resolve a declined Amazon transaction . . .
Wednesday was D&D night – in this case we’ve put a pause on our typical Wednesday campaign to play a Magnus Archives game. There’s no wikia for this game, but last session saw us investigating a snow globe with ash instead of snow and then visiting a morgue with a disappearing doctor and a corpse that wasn’t quite dead enough that it couldn’t assist with its own autopsy. My character took notes through the ordeal, and if I had a nickel for every time I’ve played a short, female-presenting note-taker that ended up investigating dead bodies that weren’t what they seemed then I’d have two nickels – which isn’t a lot, but it is strange that it’s happened twice. My current character’s face claim is Ellie Kendrick, who you might recognize from Game of Thrones.
Thursday at work some of the health programs students came around with baked goods in a wagon doing a fundraiser, and they were even dressed in animal onesies! There was a frog and a bear and a shark and a fourth one I forget but I purchased a pumpkin spice coffee cake and it was just as good as it looked!
Thursday evening I started my Long Spooky Weekend (TM) with extra spicy chicken Pad Thai and Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost – and I suppose the holiday season started with our first Christmas package arriving from my brother and sister in law in South Carolina, the ones to whom we evacuated back in 2018 when Hurricane Florence came ashore. And in perfectly spooky season fashion, I received a nifty water bottle with neon witchy cats and cauldrons and candies and mushroom and stars all over it!
Friday morning I did my shopping and then came back to start my first attempt at making soul cakes. They didn’t look great but they tasted just fine – I couldn’t find the hazelnuts the recipe called for and it really needed them to fully come together. I also think I either needed to use more flour or shape each cake individually; the dough was super sticky and hard to cut, which in turn made it hard to transfer onto the baking sheet.
And yes, the Soul Cake Duck made an appearance!
Unfortunately we didn’t have any Halloween plans. The folks that have invited us over in recent years have been under the weather, so it’s understandable they had to cancel. But I’d be lying if I said it was easy watching other folks having fun and partying and not being invited out and not wanting to impose on others. As Krystal said
Just because you think you’re friends with someone does not mean they think they’re friends with you, and you end up living vicariously through other people who actually do get invited to do things.
Nevertheless I was determined to make the best of things and kept spooky movies playing in the background and put my Halloween Pusheen stuffies front-and-center.
I made pizza (pepperoni, mushroom, peppers, onions) and I must say the crust was the best crust I’ve ever made, and I’ve never made a bad crust since summer 2020. That’s just a fact.
Later on I made hot apple cider (bottled cider warmed in the microwave with a packet of apple cider mix stirred in) and enjoyed more soul cakes with some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
Saturday I did some reading and writing and made some lavender-infused honey and made a second batch of cookies (this time using nuts and chocolate chips instead of cranberries) and then when Krystal got home from work we went to Spirit Halloween for the 25% off sale, where Krystal got a couple things she’d had her eyes on and didn’t want to chance missing out.
Krystal didn’t have any pizza the night before since she doesn’t like mushrooms (I made fish sandwiches just for her) but she wanted pizza that night so we got a three meat pizza from Little Caesar’s on the way home (and I took a pill for acid and heartburn) and watched some episodes of Ghost Files on Tubi.
And now today has been great. I woke up naturally without an alarm and made some coffee and an omelette to finish off the peppers and mushrooms from Friday’s pizza. I did a simmer pot to get the house smelling nice and then made two pitchers of sweet tea. I even set the clock on my microwave correctly on the first attempt! And all the while I got caught up on podcasts like Wait . . . Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me, Old Gods of Appalachia, and The Magnus Protocol.
Then we were at Spirit Halloween at 11:00 am for their doors opening on their 50% off sale and got quite a few times and left feeling like we’d practically stolen our items but that’s what happens when things are 50% off! I got this raven bath mat that will go either in the kitchen or in the half-bath, a Scooby Doo shot glass that I marked on the inside using permanent marker for a full adult dose of cough medicine, a cool dagger that I liked for no other reason than that it looked neat, and an Apothecary sign for my kitchen:
Then it was across the street catty-corner to Walmart to pick up two essentials and then across the street again for some sushi for lunch. We started off with cheese dumpling appetizers and then I had vegetable fried rice with eel and avocado sushi.
And now I’m back home once again wrapped in my blankets with a nice orange flannel letting that nice lunch digest while I type this up. Later for supper there will be salmon and Brussels sprouts.
And tomorrow? Tomorrow I have off, too, because it is my Long Spooky Weekend (TM). The calendar might say it’s November, but the Spooky Season lives in my heart year-round; these are the vibes I’m bringing for the next two months:
What about you? How have you been doing? What have you been up to? Let me know in the comments so this post doesn’t get lonely!
Running In My Head 