Simple Pleasures: Toast

I love toast. It's so simple and so delicious. I imagine it has been with us ever since someone invented bread. It's one of those things, like socks, that is just the exact right thing. I trust that toast will be with us forever.

I gave myself a gift this month of this fine new toaster. Before that I was using my toaster oven to make toast. This was part of my effort to simplify my kitchen. I use the toaster oven all the time as a little oven. Unless I decide to bake a full size cake or something similar, the little oven meets all my baking needs.

Several months ago my old little oven began to act up. For example, it had a fan, and the fan kind of broke which made it make a lot of noise. A toaster oven should not be noisy enough to drown out the radio at normal volume, but my old oven did just that. I put up with it, though, because I couldn't justify replacing it just because of the noisy fan. Then finally the control knob broke off and was unfixable. Hooray! The old oven was in the trash. I was completely toasterless, but I was free from that horrid old thing.

I went to Target.com and checked out all kinds of models of toaster ovens and toasters. I read a lot of reviews. I selected the new oven based on reviews. Two features that I like about my new little oven are that the settings are made with push buttons not a turning dial knob and that it happens to be made in America. It was moderately priced, neither cheap nor expensive. Now that I have it, I am pleased. It works just fine.

However, as you can see above I also decided to indulge myself. In addition to the little oven I bought an official toaster. I had come to decide after years of not having an official toaster that the oven was good as an oven, but not really the best thing for actual toast.

Toast (a noun) has to be made from sliced bread. You can toast (a verb) other things like bagels, English muffins, pita bread, but if it's toast you want, then bread is required.  And the official toaster machine makes toast just right.

(To my mind the best toast is made from some kind of white bread. As with bagels, you can toast rye or whole wheat bread, but a sublime piece of toast requires white bread. But this is my opinion. I won't argue about this if you disagree. And the best made toast has real butter on BOTH sides. Jam / jelly or cinnamon sugar are optional but always nice.)

I never say that a thing make me happy, but I will say that my new official toaster pleases me very much. First of all, it's colorful and well designed. Bodum, part of their new line of small kitchen appliances. Can you see how the cord happens to touch the outside? No problem with that because the green cover stays cool. The settings are simple and work well. And it has this warming rack feature that I didn't think would matter, but which has proved to be useful for warming up single rolls. I smile when I look at this corner of my kitchen now. I think that buying this new toaster was a good decision.

So now I eat toast a lot more than I used to. It's so easy to make some. I love toast.

In for the Winter

It is still autumn, but we have had one large snowfall and a couple of small ones. More and more will follow, and soon it will be winter. I'm happy about this. I like winter when I don't have to drive in bad weather. And living where I do in the city, I don't usually have to drive in bad weather.

I'm ready for winter. My car has been all oiled up and checked out. It has new windshield wipers, and the tires are inflated correctly. And now it will do a lot of sitting in the parking place because I don't need to drive it very much.

My bed is dressed with flannel sheets and the down comforter. The summer clothes have been moved to the back of the closet and the winter clothes are front and center. The snow boots have been pulled out, ready to go. The basket of hats, mittens and scarves are sitting on the landing strip.

The crock pot is back in use. So far I've made a small amount of beef stew and a week later a small batch of pulled pork.

I getting into my winter routine. I go out every morning and walk to one or another of my local coffee shops. This is Two Creek in the Avenues. It takes me a couple of weeks to make the rounds of all of them. I have my coffee and sometimes a breakfast pastry (depends on the place...you can't go to Tuile Bakery, for example, and just have coffee). I write by hand in my little journal book and then maybe read or knit for awhile. Then I walk back home and am ready to start whatever is on the agenda for the day.

I walk to the grocery stores now, and so have to go a bit more often. But I'm also more careful about shopping because I have to carry everything. So I usually shop only for a recipe or a meal. I don't keep a totally stocked larder in the winter.  I do have basics and can always fix breakfast and lunch and simple suppers like mac & cheese or spaghetti. But I get salad from the salad bar and only have a couple of onions, some garlic and carrots and maybe one potato on hand for vegetables. For everything I want fresh, I have to buy it fresh.

I'm doing a lot of knitting including sweaters. I'm working on one that is simple at first and complicated later and another that is the reverse. I always have some socks going, and now I have a little shawl too.

I'm in for the season now, and I couldn't be happier.

Smokey Rose Settles In

Ms Smokey Rose has settled in to Apartment 3C quite nicely. She even has a secret hiding place where only she goes. It's someplace in the bedroom, because that's where she emerges from when she decides to emerge, but I have no idea where, exactly, her little secret place is.

She is a real love bug. She purrs just by touching her anyplace, almost like an on-off switch. She likes to spend time lying next to me when I'm in bed. Just a little bit of petting will make her roll over for some tummy rubbing. Unlike some of the other kitties, she does not like to sit or sleep on my body in any place, but she will come up and push her nose right into my face when she feels it's time for some attention.

She likes to spend time in this bed near the window. She doesn't spend that much time looking outside. Perhaps it's a bit warmer because the window does face south.

At first she only liked to spend time on higher up places where she could keep an eye on things, like on the server here. She's very good about NOT knocking things off of tables, unlike little Poppy who loved to play tabletop hockey with whatever might be there. Smokey Rose is very trustworthy.

Right now she is chasing a ball that rattles all around in the kitchen. She loves to play with her toys, Suppertime seems to be the correct time for ball games. She has chased several balls behind furniture like the bookshelves....where they have to stay for awhile because I can't get them out and she chooses not to. She likes her catnip toys a lot too.

She likes to jump in and out of the bathtub. I tossed some ping pong balls inside, and she loves that game. She likes to skitter around inside the tub chasing after the balls. I think it might be like an amusement park ride ... a bit dangerous because it's unpredictable. She can't always get the needed purchase in the tub, so she'll go sliding into the walls. But it's basically safe, and she knows it.

Lately she has taken to spending time in hidey hole places like this basket or her carrier which has the door removed.

At Best Friends she used to go out and walk around on her leash. I put her harness and leash on her one day and tried to take her out of the apartment. The hallway really freaked her out, even though it was empty and quiet, and she would not go out the door. That's good actually because I don't worry about her being a door darter like Poppy was. I still want to try taking her out, though, so now the plan is to put her in the carrier and take her for a car ride to a nearby cemetery. I'll let her out at a quiet place in the grass and see what she thinks.

Her favorite place though is clearly the bed. She spends a lot of her time here. And doesn't she just "go" so well with the bed clothes? This is clearly her home now, and I am so blessed that she picked me out that day last month.

Red Butte Garden, End of October

I have finished with my volunteer gardening for the year at Red Butte. My gardening clothes are washed and put away. My tool bag is stashed in the back of the car. I threw away a hopeless pair of garden gloves. I won't be back doing any horticulture work until March or April next year. Much as I love doing this work, I'm ready to stop for the year. I think they will have a few extra days where volunteers can work next week, if the weather holds, but it's getting to be so cold in the mornings now, it's not that much fun anymore for me.

Over 100,000 bulbs have been planted this year. I did a few. The last few days we've just been cutting back and digging up. many of the gardens are looking rather bare now.

I am amazed at how many of the roses are still looking grand.

We have plenty of fall color now. It's probably at the height, or just a bit over.

Here's the view in the four seasons garden now. We chopped down all the grasses last week so there would be plenty of room for the spring bulbs.

Pretty leaves are everywhere.

So here are just some more pictures of fall colors.

It's hard to stop taking pictures.

I have plenty more.

But maybe I'll quit here.

Time to go see the garden before winter really sets in.

October, the best month

I think October is just the best. I love the fall colors.

I love the temperatures, cool in the mornings and evenings, cold at night for sleeping, but pretty nice during the daytime.

It doesn't rain or snow much in October. The sky is usually bright blue.

I don't have many autumn decorations for my home, but I have a few things, and I enjoy doing a little bit of fall decorating.

It's time to get out the crock pot to make soups and stews. I'll do some baking too...carrot cake for our potluck at work, birthday cake for our knitting group party, something to bring to another potluck next week.

Plenty of knitting to do.

This year I decided to make a sweater. It will take me awhile, but perhaps I can finish it by January.

And naps in October are just the right thing to do in the late afternoon.

What's not to love about October?

Welcome Smokey Rose

I have a kitty living with me again. Over Columbus Day weekend, I went down to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab Utah and found New Kitty. She was the very first kitty I met because she was a lobby cat at Cat World HQ. She just came right up to me as I was waiting and began schmoozing. She does that. She loves people but not so much other cats which is why she was a lobby cat.

I visited some others cats at HQ, but they weren't right ... 14 years old is too old for me, new kittens I'll leave for someone else. So as we were sitting in the classroom talking about where to go next, Ms Smokey comes up to get some more attention, and the staff told me her story. That did it. I was hooked.

I did go and check out several other cats in other buildings, even spent a couple of hours with Nirvana whom I had picked out on the internet. Nirvana was hard to get to know, but I would have taken her if there had been no Smokey. Nirvana tended to stay up in the rafters, playing hard to get.

I came back after lunch and declared that Smokey was the one. Then it was a big flurry of stuff to do so that Smokey could go home with me. I went away to another building and spent time with another internet cat, Bing, who was dying of cancer because Smokey had a huge parade of caregivers coming in on a holiday Sunday to say good bye. Bing reminded me far to much of little Poppy. I hope she is all right now, one way or another

I don't want to put Smokey's whole story out on the internet for all to know, but she suffered dreadful abuse by some person when she was about 3 months old. She was so lucky she was brought to Best Friends because I am sure that other shelters would have just euthanized her. She's now 7 years old and has had all kinds of surgery, medical care, rehabilitation, and just general kindness from everyone at Best Friends. She is almost normal, but her health is precarious. She needs a strict, special diet, medication twice a day every day and close assessment every day.

She's been home with me for a week now and things have gone well from the beginning. I decided I did not like the name Smokey ... every gray cat seems to be called Smokey and besides people assume it's the name of a male. But I need to keep the name because I anticipate continuing to deal with Best Friends over the years about her. I decided just to add the name Rose, so now she is Smokey Rose which sounds kind of pretty. I call her Rose or Rosie. The sound of that is similar to Smokey, and she responds to either name now.... well she responds to the same extent that any cat responds to a name which means only when she darn well feels like it.

She is her own self. She does not have any of the little habits that Poppy or Lily had. She has her own likes and dislikes. For example, she spends all her time in places that are off the ground and have a view. She likes to see what's inside cupboards and closets, but she spends no time there at all. I plan to write more about her as a "person" as time goes on.

She remains a total love bug. I can cuddle with her at any time. She does cute things like what they called at Best Friends "Eskimo kisses" in which she bumps her nose and mouth right up against my mouth. So far she hasn't licked me, but maybe that will come one day.

I realize that having Rosie live with me is as big a responsibility and change as having another person to care for. I will become much more of a homebody now. I can travel if she has a really good caregiver while I'm gone ... not just someone looking in on her and filling up the food and water. I have that in SLC in the form of Russ, the Animal Nanny, a professional animal caregiver. But I'll not be able to afford Russ for lots of days at the same time. And I have no Russ equivalent at my summer place. Plus, I don't really want to be far away from Rosie. Already I know I would miss her a heck of a lot.

I have figured out that I can travel out of Salt Lake for short lengths of time, and Rosie will be well cared for. I can take her with me and care for her myself, but I perhaps will not be able to leave her alone at the summer place. Any way I cut it, it looks like I will only the taking short trips from time to time over the next 5-10 years.

And, you know, that's ok. I'm fine about stopping thinking about that round the world trip. I feel good about just settling in and being content at home, Rosie and me snuggling together. Autumn is here, winter is soon. Time to just take a nice long rest with the best kitty in the world.

Red Butte Garden in Early October

Folks at Red Butte Garden have decided that we will set some kind of record for the number of spring blooming bulbs. To that end we are now planting 100,000 of them. That's about all we are doing, sitting on the ground planting bulbs. Sometimes we do get up and hack things to the ground (aka cutting back perennials for the winter & throwing away spent annuals). These activities do not make for good photos.

Before we started all this, I did take some photos of the lovely things that were happening in early October. We are no longer deadheading roses, but there were plenty that were at their height in early October, especially yellow ones.

Thought that many of the rose blooms were especially large.

We have some special fall flowers like colchicum.

I always love the grasses,

and many have changed color for fall.

The red garden was looking pretty good.

And the four season garden is fine in this season as usual ... notice the beautiful grass.

There were some early signs of autumn color,

although only a few trees had actually turned colors.

Here are some more grasses.

It's hard to resist taking photos of the roses.

There were just so many beautiful plants.

I could go on forever, but I won't.  Well one more....

Welcome to Red Butte Garden. Autumn is a great time to visit.