Today’s List

1. I made meatloaf yesterday. I feel like meatloaf might be an old-fashioned thing to make. It had oatmeal in it, which IS old-fashioned. In today’s world, it’s all about quinoa and cous-cous, man. Now that I stop and think about it, half of my friends are vegetarians.

They missed out on this one. This was an amazing meatloaf.

2. I went to visit my friend Margot today. She showed me a fascinating collection of old receipts from the early 1860’s that her husband and she had discovered in the dusty attic of their old home in California in the 1960s. She had tucked them away behind her daughter’s old kindergarten folder. Her daughter is 46, and these things were in pristine condition, barring a little mildew. A lot of them were from Brighton, England, as in, THE Brighton; the Brighton that Lydia and Kitty want to go to because all the cute soldier boys are going there in Pride and Prejudice. ISN’T THAT COOL?!?!?

Okay, I get it. Nobody cares but me.

But I don’t care what you think! They’re fascinating! Most of them are bills from the hatter’s, the milliner’s, and the tailor’s. I imagine that Northanger Abbey‘s Catherine Morland found a bundle like that in the old cabinet of black and yellow Japan.

Okay, okay. Enough Jane Austen references for one day.

3. We had a bunch of old dry rice at my house, so I made rice pudding. I love making rice pudding. It makes me feel so economical, using up old rice that would otherwise be thrown to the chickens.

4. Speaking of chickens, I am happy because they’ve started laying again. My mother kept threatening to eat them if they didn’t start laying, and she meant business.

5. I am also happy because my church is going to have a dance! I love dancing, especially partner dancing. Actually, that’s the only kind of dancing I know: good ol’ fashioned, no-nonsense ballroom dancing. It almost seems a little scandalous, a church having a dance. But it won’t be. If I know my church, there’ll be old people watching and laughing, little kids running around underfoot, and everyone in between.

6. I found a four-leaved clover today. I stuck it in my cute little orange Gideon Bible. My poor little Bible is full of four-leaved clovers.

7. I just called the dentist for my mother. That has nothing to do with anything, but I’m writing it down here because I can.

8. I’ve been knitting a lot of socks. My latest one is coffee brown with cream toe and heel. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough coffee brown yarn leftover from my most recent sock, so its partner is going to be cream with brown toe and heel. The effect will either be pretty cute, or so nerdy and weird-looking that the recipient will refuse to wear them. We’ll see.

9. Speaking of coffee, have you ever hear of coffee cherries? They’re the fruit of the coffee plant. The “bean” (which is not a true legume at all) is the pit of this fruit.

Anyways, I was at a conservatory with my friend this weekend (yes, apparently this is what I do with my friends on the weekend; we were going to go to the graveyard, but we ran out of time), and I saw a coffee plant, full of coffee cherries. I’ve always wanted to try one. I informed my friend, who in turn assured me that if ever she went to a coffee plantation, she’d pick one up for me.

However, I had other ideas. They were right there in front of me. More importantly, I could reach them.

I now have two raw little coffee beans. I am determined to roast and boil them, and thus make my very own sip of coffee from start to finish.

There are the weird things I do with my life. I blame it on homeschooling and no TV.

The End.