Grrrr....

I think my cell phone is dying.  This is unfortunate, since it's like my do-everything-thingy.  I use it to keep track of bills, budget, grocery lists, take pictures, blog, facebook, email... you get the idea.

So, this means that pictures won't really be forthcoming except when I can get the darned thing to cooperate.

I finished the curtains in the living room!  Yay!  (finally :-P)

I think they turned out pretty good for about $16 worth of stuff found at the Goodwill.   My "old lady corner" is coming together.  The little bookshelf between the windows has all my cookbooks.  Not terribly convenient to the kitchen, but really there's nowhere in the kitchen for them, unless I take up some space in the pantry.  The hutch on top of the super awesome desk B built holds my crafting books and supplies (mostly), and the little corner bookcase has sort of morphed into a place to stuff fabric.

I think I might be ready to hang pictures on the wall soon!  Which will be awesome, since right now they're all in boxes in the floor by the couch.  I think if I can get those boxes cleared out, I'll be pretty content.  The guest bedroom is still full of boxes, but they're nearly all books and crafting oddments (fabric, yarn, quilt pieces, etc.)

I think it would make B very happy if I pared down the books, but... but... but...  I know I have a lot of books, a lot more than most people for sure.  But, I love my books!!  You can pick up any book off my shelves, and there's a 99% chance I've read it, and about a 60% chance I've read it more than once.  Some of my paperbacks have been read so many times they're falling to shreds (which is one of the reason I have a tendency to buy my favorite favorites in hardback.


Other than the books, I really don't have a lot of general stuff.  All my clothes fit in a couple of storage bins under the bed.  I have a lot of kitchen stuff, but I use everything I have regularly enough to tempt me to buy a few spares because I find that sometimes I need two of something I only have one of.

Speaking of making things.  Last night we had pot roast, and I was going to make dinner rolls to go with it.  But the Pup mentioned how much he loves those big soft pretzels you can get at the fair or the mall.  Guess what recipe was right before the dinner rolls in my favorite cook book?  Yep!  Soft pretzels.  They required fewer ingredients than dinner rolls, and I'm out of butter.  I figured a chewy-ish soft bread was a chewy-ish soft bread, and pretzels would be just as good with a pot roast and dinner rolls.

They were something of a pain in the butt during the boiling part, because draining them on paper towels was recommended.  However; wet, sticky, rapidly cooling dough on paper = damn.  I went through a lot of paper towels.  I really need to sew those t-shirt scraps into napkins, bar rags, and towels.  That would've been a lot less messy and wasteful.  But, the pretzels turned out really good.  They tasted awesome, and I would love to show you pictures.  But my phone is fubar, and they're all gone.  I'll post the recipe and pictures in a future post.

Tonight is going to be beef and noodle stew from the leftover pot roast.