Day 182

Today the library had a class to build terrariums. Mom has been talking about buying one for a year or more so it was good to see a sign about it.

Day 181

I helped local business by buying this lemonade from a little girl on the Southside. It was a great deal at just 50c for a large glass with ice and everything.

Day 180

Cats have no respect for personal space. At least his butt isn't directly in my face anymore. :p Florescent and HDR filters. I wander why HDR gives things auras. Maybe my cat just glows.

Day 179

Today I spent the morning reading in the sun. It was a bad choice for the back of my legs. I wanted to take a picture of it, first sunburn of the season and all, but I couldn't get a good angle that showed there was a contrast rather than the color change looking like a shadow. So instead you get a clarity and HDR picture of me being grumpy after I gave up on taking the sunburn picture. Now I need to keep my legs covered until it's all better and it's going to be over 90 the next 4+ days. I guess skirts are in my future, or not going outside. I'm hoping it fixes itself after a good night's sleep.

Day 178

It was High Adventure day for Girls Camp. Only 15 girls came out of who knows how many were old enough, but it was a Tuesday morning. The ones there seemed to have a good time. The adults were discussing Girls Camp things for the couple hours before lunch so I didn't get to see most of what they did but we did watch after lunch and it looked like it was fun and probably not as easy as some of the girls were making it seem to walk along wires with a rope on which to hang.

Day 177

It was a beautiful day. I spent some of it laying in the yard until a (possibly dying) bee decided to hang out in my personal (face) space. It was a good day for staring at treetops and sky. See the pinecones way up at the top? We should've kept those tree short. Or better yet planted fruit trees. What was my mom thinking twenty years ago when she was putting trees in the yard?

Day 176

While there wasn't an obvious bear on the totem pole, there was a bench with carved bear armrests on the porch at the campground office. Since it was kind of crowded overall (not really in the primative camping area) and they charge for everything it wasn't my favorite camp, but the fact their office sold ice cream, slushies, and all sorts of things you might need while camping would be very convenient. Plus they had a pool and playground so I think it'd be nice for a family, cheaper than a hotel at least.

Day 175

While camping we made fajitas. We had more complicated meals planned but the fire pits had no grills. Luckily we were able to balance our cast iron pan on the edge and against burning wood. We didn't bother trying to boil water to make rice or heat up a can of beans.

The green pepper and onion fajitas turned out very yummy despite the extra ashes adding crunchiness. They were good in tortillas or on top of baked potatoes. I'm slightly concerned for a week of tent camping at Girls Camp in August but no reason to borrow trouble from tomorrow today. :)

Day 174

There were cacti growing near the totem pole at the camp ground. I think they're called prickly pears. I've never seen them blooming before, or actually out in the "wild" of Pennsylvania though I've heard they do well around here. I think that Susan's house in Abilene, TX had some bigger ones outside, but maybe they were something different.

Day 173

We stayed at Bear Run Campground. At the entrance they have a totem pole that surprisingly doesn't involve a bear. Unless that bottom thing is a bear. It seems like a person head but maybe it is a bear.

Day 172

Canoeing wasn't very successful for me, I capsized immediately. :) Barbara came to my rescue, pointing out helpful things like turn over the canoe, pick up your lunch bag before it gets lost, etc. :) It was a bit nerve-racking to be on the water, sure I'd flip over again, but luckily I'd left my phone in the car.

Here's Barbara standing dramatically in the water. I have been cured of any desire to have my own water vehicle.

Day 171

First baby zucchini to appear in the garden. Hopefully nothing eats it before it grows up.

Day 170

Tonight for dinner I made frito casserole. I learned the recipe from my cousin Steven during my road trip in February and March 2009. The original involved meat but I just do layers of corn chips, chili beans, onions, and cheese. It's quite yummy and very quick and easy. It's not the best looking food though.

Day 169 Happy Father's Day!

I should've taken a picture of my dad in the new Pitt t-shirt I got him, perhaps holding the candy covered sign my sister made for him and the drill/driver from my brother Andy and a walnut-filled brownie made by Matthew, but alas I didn't think of that (and the glue was really failing to hold the candy bars in place) so instead you get the garage.

Garages are Dad-like, right? Hopefully not this one though; it's been falling down slowly for the last year or three, but it's been accelerated in its decline recently. I think the sewage leaks weren't helping its foundation, but I think the neighbors probably hit it a time or two with their bulldozer. I mean there's a giant dent in our metal fence that definitely came from their bulldozer so I don't think it's unlikely they hit the garage, too. If they didn't hit it, it's quite possible their digging really knocked its balance for a loop. A 6+ foot trench within a foot of you would knock you over, too.

So it's just a matter of time before the whole thing finishes its lean and crashes to its side in the yard. My dad took a lot of stuff out of there last summer but never threw it all out or put it away. I think he has trouble letting go of things, and there's never anywhere to put things away. The chairs in there used to be part of our dining room set and if they weren't broken when they went in, they definitely were when they came out. But probably they cost hundreds of dollars each because that's the kind of reckless spending my mom liked, and who plans that within a few years of buying a giant dining room set to give up on cleaning the house or to have a bathroom leak all over your dining room or to later have a stroke that will necessitate the removal of your dining room entirely.

Sometimes I wonder how we possibly lived that way, but it didn't seem so strange at the time. The roof leaked all over the second floor, why not a bathroom leaking into a no longer used room that my mom just filled with handouts for work or church? I certainly didn't want to clean anything so why would my parents? I think sometimes I did want to clean things but felt helpless about what was okay to throw away and what might be important papers (I feel the same way now but a bit better judge of what's junk mail). So many other things seemed more important I guess.

I do really wish my parents had been better at enforcing chores when we were young. We just wouldn't do them and maybe there'd be some yelling but no real consequences. My mom decided at some point that she wasn't going to do anything with the house and we could just live in our mess and cook our own meals. Maybe it was after she fell down the basement stairs going to do laundry and no one was home but the dog and she was there for a long time waiting for help. She just twisted her ankle so I don't know why she didn't get up etc but I don't have any actual recollection of the event, just that she'd never go in the basement again so Dad had to do laundry.

It's strange what you remember late at night when you're supposed to just be writing a brief blurb about falling down garages. I don't really have a good memory. I'd say I have always had a good forgetting that has failed me more the older I got. Not that I remember better now, but that I'm less quick to forgive than I was in the past which I attributed to my forgetful nature. I wonder if not having a sense of smell is part of my memory problem, no random smells to powerfully restore memories almost forgotten.

The important thing to note is that I don't bother holding anything against my parents. Sure some things would be nice if they were different, like why wouldn't they discuss things with us or why didn't they teach such and such or have different priorities about certain things. But what's done is done and what seems obvious now (like the roof will just leak worse and worse if you don't fix it now or you should spend money on this and not that or you should make us all go on diets because we'll just get fatter and that'll be worse than your childhood trauma with your own mother calling you fat), wasn't the priority then. No one expects to have a stroke at 47 and throw their future plans out the door and prove that whatever seemed important or necessary or unavoidable before really wasn't. No one expects a garage to decide it's had enough of staying upright and slowly start falling down the hill, even if looking back there were signs and symptoms all along.

The sunnier picture is the one I sent out on twitter. It's actually from a week or so ago. The greener picture is from today. Can you see any changes? The yellow you're seeing between the walls is the neighbor's brick house.

I'd really like to take more pictures of the garage, it's probably full of fascinating bits and pieces of broken wood and strange angles, but I've been scared to step inside since I first noticed a gap between the driveway and its floor. I definitely don't want to step in there now when there's an even bigger gap and the roof supports have obviously broken and may only be held up by the tarpaper/shingles of the roof and really it looks like a good push could help it finish its descent into entropy.

Day 168

This little Roma tomato is turning red even though the plant hasn't really grown at all since I transplanted it. Other things in the garden are growing okay but in general I am concerned about the lack of growth and some yellowing.

Day 167

Some of the apples on our tree look normal. Most of them are strangely misshapen. We think it could be insects but I never see any in particular.

Day 166

Fell asleep without sending this last night. Sigh, and just when I'd gotten everything on the right day and pictures the right size.

There's a new lily blooming in our front yard. We've had a few orange ones but this is the first purple/red one.

Day 165

I unintentionally stayed up all night last night. I got caught up watching some shows I missed and then I had to resize all the pictures on this blog since horizontal ones always extend past the section and as far as I know there's no way to fix that on my phone. Such is life.

So here's a picture of the sun about to rise. There are always trees or houses in the way but you'll notice it's rising way farther north than the last sunrise picture I sent. Okay, you can't actually tell because you don't know that I'm taking this from the back alley (not the one I've taken pictures of, this is the one behind my house) versus the previous one from my porch. I'll include a picture of what can be see of sunrise from my street (not much).

Day 164

I know, I know, why am I sending another picture of bagels. They really are very yummy and all I did today was book club, get some milk, and make bagels.

I can't believe it takes less than 2 hours to make such yumminess. Even plain bread in the breadmaker takes long than that! This time I experimented with adding seeds/grains to the bagels. So these are boiling millet, flax seed, and oatmeal bagels. They turned out delicious, the best batch yet I think.

I need to try using more grains. I've been watching Chef Brad's Fusion Grain Cooking and while I don't want to make quinoa cookies I wouldn't mind using oat flour instead of wheat if it'll still make yummy baked goods. :)

Day 163

I just goofed off today, a little reading, a little computer time, nothing much to take pictures of but you gotta get something. So here is the last of the red beans and rice I made a week or so ago and some chips. I ate them while playing the Teen Wolf facebook game.

Day 162

Last night I made bagels. The dough was wetter this time so I thought it might make them a little smoother but they ended up just as funny shaped as the first batch. I used the pizza dough setting because some sites said they took them out early from the normal dough setting. They seemed a bit lighter this time but it could be from the wetter dough.

Day 161

I was feeling a bit discouraged about the growth of my garden but looking at this picture versus the one when I first planted things there's definitely been some growth some places at least. Patience, patience...

Day 160

When Barb and I came out of Giant Eagle tonight I noticed two mayflies on my car. They're a good way to tell if your water is polluted because they need clean rivers to live and so it's kind of a big deal they've come back to Pittsburgh in recent years.

Day 159

Another in the Alley Series. We'll call in 14. Here's some Queen Anne's Lace. It's kind of unexpected but the weeds are kind of dying down. Some of it must be people doing maintenance like the school obviously sprayed all over and killed the grasses (but not the prickly weeds), but maybe the weeds are really a thing of the spring and now that it's getting to be hotter and there hasn't been much rain they're not thriving as much.

Day 158

Today I decided to make bagels from scratch (I also made some cheesy biscuits a la Red Lobster but I stirred them too much and they ended up a little too dense). They maybe just taste like bread. I thought they seemed chewier than normal bread. All the dough from our breadmaker ends up tasting the same. :( Still, it was pretty easy to boil and bake them, I just didn't do a good job shaping them so they'd be nice and smooth like bagels usually look. They do have a nice shine from the egg wash, but too much egg wash pooled at the bottom and made them a little crunchy there. What can you do? Try again. :)