Happy birthday to me!

I didn't plan anything in particular for my birthday, but had a pleasant day of doing what I wanted (shoe horned in around work, of course).

I started off the day with breakfast at IHOP, or International House of Pancakes, as I like to call it.  I had a coupon for a free stack of pancakes, but invited David to come along and he treated me to the hot chocolate, even offering me to order the Lumberjack Special and forget the birthday pancakes.  The pancakes were great and the hot chocolate was nicely piled with whipped cream and the waiter brought me a second one as a birthday bonus.

 

 

I had three books to return to the library, so that was next.  Yes, I'm a geek; I like to read Consumer Reports, so I always read it in the library.  I read the whole September issue, then checked out a couple of books for Conor.

 

 

The library is in the same complex as a Goodwill thrift store, so I stopped in for a quick look in my favorite departments (housewares, linens, children's clothing) and spent a grand total of $1.79 for a new canning jar and a pair of shorts for my grandson.

300 pounds lighter

Dh's and my task for the day was to go through some of the (many) boxes in the garage to see if we could get rid of any. Our potential new house has only a carport and we are firmly dedicated to using half our garage for storage. That's really a problem for us!

A big target was books. A few years ago we inherited a large quantity of hardback books from around the turn of the 20th century. They were interesting to look at and we saved a few we'll read, but in reality, they were just sitting around so we sent those to the thrift store. We went through boxes of children's books and got rid of some of those. (No Mom, I didn't get rid of any of your Oz books. I'd never do that.) I got rid of some of my teaching resource books. If I ever go back to teaching I can probably get what I need off the Internet. We got rid of a humidifier. We ditched a cut glass punch bowl and cups. We got rid of the last of S's baby clothes. Two of the three bikes we've been hauling around for years are history.

It felt good. We no longer have to be responsible for those items and as the FLYlady says, they've been released to bless someone else.

And . . . we realized the carport has a "pool house" behind it that instead of being used as a fifth bedroom and bathroom could be used as a storage area with a pool shower and bathroom. :-)

Milling wheat and thrift store shopping

I didn't plan to go out this morning, other than taking the big girls to school, then walking S to preschool. However, when I was getting S's lunch ready I realized I was also looking at C's lunch left on the counter as we hurried out the door this morning. Oh well. That's the first time this school year so I decided to drive S to preschool, then take C's lunch to her.

Once I was out I decided to go pick up a prescription I dropped off a few days ago. For the very first time, I had a really pleasant, personable tech at the window. The service is so surly at that pharmacy I don't think I'm going back again. Why should I? But this gal was a pleasant send-off for me.

In the same shopping area is a Goodwill store and I always like to browse. I didn't find any of the several kinds of housewares I'm always on the lookout for, nor did I find any Sue Barton books for my mom, but I did find this shirt for my dd. At first I thought it was a Spiderman shirt which would make E very happy. Then I realized it was a Speedo swim shirt with boy colors, but Hawaiian flowers, making it a girl shirt in my book. Since we are moving to a warmer climate soon with lots more opportunities for swimming, at $1.59 I snapped it up. We have one other Speedo swim shirt and the girls like it. I like that it protects them a little from sunburn and they don't seem to mind that it has a bit on the arms.

One project yesterday was to mill some whole wheat flour since I was out. I needed some bread and that pushed me to get it done. Here is the mill I use. I've had it for about two years and I like it a lot. It is REALLY loud which is why I always mill in the garage, but it makes really nice, fine flour.


Here is the 25 pound bag of wheat I'm working out of at the moment. I have two more bags like this in my garage that are not packaged for long-term storage, so I need to keep using them up.



The wheat goes in the top . . . .



And if I knew how to rearrange photos on blogspot this would have been the last picture. The lid comes off and there is a big bowl of fresh, warm, whole wheat flour.



This is the second-to-last picture and it shows how the bowl comes out of the mill.


I made two large loaves of bread and trust me, they were delicious.