HighFiber: January 2022

Monday, January 31, 2022

Staying Safe and Trying To Have Fun

I still can't show you my progress on the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL, but it's coming along. I can only give you this peek. It has been a busy week, but I've made some progress and am well into Clue #4.

My new iPad hasn't shipped yet, but it should be soon. I'm making do with my old one and my laptop. I've figured out which apps will work and which ones won't. However, I wanted to print another copy of Veronika's Birthday, the little book I printed before I ever started writing the story blog for children.

The copies I had Apple print through the Photo App were just for family and friends. I ended up giving away my last copy, so this week I decided I needed to have another one printed. Since Apple no longer provides this service, I downloaded the Mimeo App and used it to send my PDF to them to be printed. I should have it soon, and we'll see if it looks as good as the original ones.

Last week I said that the Recipe Box app was no longer available for iPad, but I found out I was mistaken. I was trying to find it in the Apple App Store from my computer. When one of the developers told me it was still available, I looked for it using my iPad, and there it was.

They also have a The Recipe Box To Go for the phone, which I added to my phone. Now I have to figure out how to open my recipes in the phone app. I use the app all the time. During the week I made the No-Boil Lasagne and my favorite Easy Corn Salad, which you may remember from a previous post.

I often make this recipe to have with enchiladas, tamales or burritos:

Easy Rice-cooker Spanish Rice

Servings: 5 cups cooked rice

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, diced

• 1 T olive oil

• 2 cups brown rice (3 rice-cooker cups)
• 1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice
• 1 4-ounce can chopped green chilis
• 4½ cups water
• 2 boullion cubes or 3 tsp. Better than Boullion
• 2 T. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cumin or smoked cumin
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. cilantro
• Cilantro for garnish

Directions
Sauté onion in the oil.
Place the rice in the bottom of the rice cooker and then add the diced tomatoes, chopped chilis and water. Add the onions and remaining ingredients and stir to dissolve the spices in the water. Cook according to manufacturer's instructions.

It takes about an hour once I start the cooker.

Adapted from Bless This Mess

I sometimes like to make Dutch Oven Bread, but our Dutch oven is family size, so we ordered a smaller one. I think this will work for half the recipe, one that takes 1 1/2 cups of flour. I'm going to try it out today. (The spoon is for scale.)

We had sort of an adventure with our taxes this week, but not last year's. We received a letter saying that IRS did not have our 2020 tax return, and to please submit it to the address on the letter. They also had a phone number. We both immediately were certain it was a scam, but what if it wasn't? Charlie had the copy of the cancelled check IRS had cashed. He didn't want to call the number on the letter, in case it was a scam, and when he researched the address, he found the entity listed as occupying the location was an office of the IRS. He tried to reach the IRS through their main number, but couldn't get through to a person to talk to, and none of the automated options provided a category that was related to the issue. After some time waiting on the line and giving up, he did some digging. He found this article and this. Apparently, because of staffing shortages during the pandemic (which are continuing), the IRS developed a backlog of 2020 returns that had not been looked at. This triggered the automatic dispatch of letters to the taxpayers whose returns had not yet been looked at, as if they had never been received. Not a scam, but also not a legitimate demand for our return from 2020. In the article, the recommendation from IRS was: "...taxpayers who received a notice now regarding a 2020 return would not have to send a copy of the return if they already filed a 2020 return and know that their payment went through." They have stopped the letters, but not before a lot of consternation on the part of taxpayers. So there was that.

We have had some cold weather, but have managed to walk a few times. Saturday was really nice, so we decided to walk to the dog park, so Dusty could socialize a bit. It was no problem to take the stroller, so Rocky could ride until we got there. He walked around in the park, and Dusty played with other dogs or chased the ball. Then, when we were walking home, Rocky decided he wanted to walk, so we let him out of the stroller, and he walked most of the way home. (The .73 miles was one-way. We stopped the Walk for a Dog app when we got to the park.

The choir isn't meeting in person, as we've had a lot of Omicron cases in our area. I think they're tapering off. We feel fairly safe, in spite of the fact that many people ignore the mask mandate in stores. First of all, our case numbers seem to be dropping, and secondly, we found this report on vaccinated vs. unvaccinated patients ending up in the hospital.

Of course, we passed 64 some time ago. The choir is meeting via Zoom again for now, but we're hoping to get back to in-person practice and performing soon. People who are vaccinated and masked are still allowed to attend services. Singing together is more risky than sitting in church.

We had a nice Zoom call on Sunday with family.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: The Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL shawl.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: The T-shirt rugs.

What's in my hoop: Still the whole-cloth quilt. No progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In A Bigger Footprint? Part Two, Mandy explains to Jolena what she is already doing and what we all can do to reduce our carbon footprint.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Unthinkable by Jamie Raskin on the Audible app. Fascinating. I wish I had the time to just listen and knit!

What's in my wine glass: Clausthaler Original non-alcoholic beer.

What's my tip of the week: If you have a chance to get a basil plant and you like basil, do. It will be happy for some time on a sunny windowsill if you keep it in a dish of water that keeps the roots wet and protect it from the cold.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Monday, January 24, 2022

Cookin' the Books!

It's tax-preparation time, and while DH is working on the taxes, I've been cooking food. I made our favorite enchilada casserole, which we had with beans and Spanish Rice. My rice recipe makes a lot, so I planned to make TV dinners out of the leftovers. I just got out an extra can of refried beans to fill in the third compartment in the tray when the first one was gone.

For all my TV dinners I cook in the oven at 300ºF for about 50 minutes.

Also going into the freezer was another batch of bran muffins.

We often have French-style lentil soup, and it seemed like a good time, so after using all the leftover enchiladas to make TV dinners, I cooked some lentils and vegetables in the pressure cooker.

I received a gift of an immersion blender for Christmas. (Maybe it was for my birthday. Having a birthday the day after Christmas and a childhood of presents that said, "Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday" may have had their impact.) I would have put this soup into the blender, but instead, I just blended it with my immersion blender, and voilà! It's certainly easier, and with less cleanup.

When the kids were here, we bought a big bag of potatoes and still have most of them left. Then DH came home from Trader Joe's with another bag of potatoes. I made a Tuna Potato Bake by modifying a recipe I found at The Spruce Eats. It turned out great! I basically just reorganized the order of the ingredients and substituted olive oil for the butter. I used soy milk and soy creamer left over from Christmas visitors.

Tuna Potato Bake

Ingredients

• 5 medium yellow potatoes, cooked and sliced (I cooked potatoes in water to cover and saved the water to use when making bread.)
• 1 can tuna, drained
• 1 C chopped onion
• 3 T olive oil
• 1 1/2 T prepared mustard
• 1/4 C flour
• 1 t salt
• 1/8 t pepper
• 2 C milk

Directions
Heat oil in saucepan. Add mustard and dry ingredients. Gradually whisk in milk. Cook over low heat until thickened.
Arrange potatoes, tuna and onion in casserole. Spread milk/flour mixture over all and bake at 350° F for 1 hr. (We're at 3500', medium-high elevation, in Bend, so yours may cook faster if you're at sea level or more slowly if you're living in the clouds.)

I cooked some green beans to have with it, cut up some home-baked bread and made a salad. (I think I could easily have added a layer of vegetables to the casserole. Might try that next time.

I wish I could show you the progress on my Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL project, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for people working on it. I'm a little behind. Clue #3 came out on Wednesday, and I didn't get to it until Friday. Here's a hint, though.

My favorite doll company, Götz, has come out with a Little Kidz boy, "Paul." He looks a lot like Pippa. These are "official photos."

Here's a photo someone took of their doll, posted on Facebook. I'm hoping to order him in February. I have plans for him. Stay tuned.

Saturday, we had a memorial service for Liz, a lady who used to sing with the choir. She had not sung with us for a while even before the pandemic and finally passed away on Christmas Day, surrounded by family members. She was 88. Eight members of the choir sang at the service, and after that, a couple of bagpipers from Bend Fire Pipes and Drums played Amazing Grace out in the courtyard. Liz owned a set of bagpipes that had belonged to her grandfather, which she donated to this group. After their performance with modern bagpipes, they demonstrated with Liz's grandfather's pipes. They spent some time with tuning, because it was cold, and the antique bagpipes were not built to perform in the cold the way the modern ones are. They couldn't play indoors, because they would have needed special equipment to mask the instruments.

My second iPad is nearly nine years old and can no longer be updated, so some of the apps are starting to malfunction. Safari has been running slowly, too, and often malfunctions. After some research, I came to the conclusion that it needs to be replaced. That will give me an opportunity to get a better camera, although it remains to be seen how difficult it will be to take photos with the iPad rather than my phone. This is the one I've decided on, the 11" iPad Pro 128g.

Everyone locally is temporarily sold out of this model, but I was able to order one from Apple and still get it in about 10 days. I could have picked it up at Best Buy in a little over a week. It's a fairly long drive, and then I would have had to go into the store with lots of people ignoring the mask mandate. No delivery is available from them. I could have ordered it from Amazon, but it would be March before I could get it. That's too long, as I've become very dependent on it. I could have bought a different model, but that would have cost more. They would only give me $55 for my old iPad as a trade-in, so I'm keeping it for use by the dolls for a fireplace and TV. It fits into the frame that hangs on the wall, and I'm not sure the new one will. I can still use it for my Recipe App, too. I'm afraid the app is no longer available for the iPad, although they have it for the iPhone.

That's what I've been up to. DH is still in his study, cooking the books.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: The Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL shawl.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs. No progress this week.

What's on my sewing machine: Still waiting for the T-shirt quilt. The iPad issue took up a lot of time this week, while I decided what to do.

What's in my hoop: No progress this week on the whole-cloth quilt.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In "A Bigger Footprint?" Jolena worries that she might have to quit the ski team because carpooling to practice and flying to competitions might be adding to her carbon footprint. An explanation of greenhouse gases for children.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Unthinkable by Jamie Raskin on the Audible app.

What's in my wine glass: Crystal Range Barbera 2019, one of our favorites.

What's my tip of the week: I discovered that my air fryer really doesn't need cooking spray to come clean after using.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

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Monday, January 17, 2022

Problem Solving

The Mystery KAL is coming along. Here's all I can show you, because I don't want to spoil the surprise for anyone.

I'm about halfway through Clue #2. The new clue comes out on Wednesday.

I had to go and get more yarn to finish Dolly's turtleneck. The yarn I used didn't have enough in 50g. I'll find something to do with the leftover yarn, though.

The skirt was a challenge. I had a hard time getting all the pleats to be identical and still have it come out right to fit the yoke. It's very easy normally. The instructions are here. I cut the skirt width-of-fabric and the yoke at 13" for Dolly, otherwise the same as for the Happy Kidz. I ended up trimming the WOF a bit to get the pleats to turn out right. She's ready to join Gabi and the Glitter Girls Serinia at the LYS. I plan to take her on Tuesday.

I've done some cooking this week, but this was the only thing I got a photo of: my banana-oatmeal waffles, made with my GE waffle maker from 1965.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
• 2 medium bananas
• 2 eggs
• 1 t vanilla
• 1/4 C milk
• 1 T Oil
• 1 C rolled oats
• 1/4 C oat bran
• 1 T all-purpose flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt

Directions
Blend all ingredients in blender until smooth. Bake in waffle iron.

With Omicron in our area now, there has been a huge uptick in new Covid-19 cases, so the choir isn't singing in person. I miss it, but our new cases are running 700-900 a day, more than six times what our running average has been. I'm staying out of stores as much as possible, because most people aren't wearing their masks. It's the law, but businesses aren't enforcing it.

Friday night I made about 10 Mexican TV dinners to use up the big batch of Spanish rice I made up.

Tuesday we went for a long walk. Rocky walked about half of it. He rode in the stroller the rest of the time.

Dusty had his teeth cleaned on Wednesday.

Thursday I gave myself a haircut. It was very successful, because I had less hair when I got done. That's my measure of quality now.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: The Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knit Along, Clue #2.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: The cover was off all day on Saturday while I made the skirt for Dolly (above). I hope to get working on the T-shirt quilt this week.

What's in my hoop: Still the whole-cloth quilt.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In "Earning a Living," Gabi goes off to promote our books in the local yarn shop.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Listening to Unthinkable by Jamie Raskin on the Audible app.

What's in my wine glass: Luìs Vieira IG Lisboa Montaria Aragonez Alicante Bouschet 2018. A change of pace, and nice.

What's my tip of the week: I tend to lose track when I'm counting stitches, so I leave a marker every 20 stitches. Then if I lose track, I only have to count up to 20. (You do have to be able to count by 20s, though, to find out how many stitches you end up with, or at least multiply 20 by how many markers you had to use and then add how many are left after the last marker.)

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

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Monday, January 10, 2022

Adventures in Living

My Covid-testing turned out to be quite an experience! (I tested negative.)

I had an appointment to get a 2-hour test at the local college. I received an email Monday morning stating that the clinic wouldn't open until 11:00 due to the blizzard. Everyone who had an appointment before then should just come at 11:00, and they would be worked in. When I found the place, there was a long line already, even though I was about 20 minutes early. I stood in line for more than half an hour (in a blizzard, with other masked people who were there because they thought they could have Covid) when the word came down the line that the organization's website said that all testing was cancelled for the day. I had been told on Thursday that Monday would be the optimum time to be tested to avoid a false negative, so I needed a new place to get tested. My phone was dead by then, so I went home. The County Covid Hotline told me that the local hospital had drive-through testing. They were closed for lunch, and Dusty had a grooming appointment at 1:00, so I dropped him off early and drove to the hospital. Two hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic later, and I had my test. This is a look at the line about 1/2 hour in.

The story does have a happy ending, though. My test came back negative. Wednesday I got the first clue in the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL. I finished the first clue on Friday. I won't show it yet, because some people (maybe even someone reading this) may not want to know what the first clue looks like completed.

I had already started the Everyday Play Dress for Gabi to model at our local LYS, Fancywork. After I finished the first clue, I went back to it and finished it.

With that done, I made another trip to Fancywork to drop Gabi off, with the tag for the yarn pinned to the dress. I had received a call from the owner/manager earlier in the week, saying that a customer had bought a copy of Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook.

The doll I ordered to model the 14" size of the turtleneck sweater (Pippa's Wonderland Turtle) arrived. First thing I did was try on the finished turtleneck from Pippa's wardrobe. I was happy with the it and proceeded to CO the sweater for her using the yarn from Fancywork.

I wasn't thrilled with the doll's hair, which appeared to be greasy, even though it wasn't.

I gave it a good shampoo, and I think it's better. Yesterday I finished the turtleneck.

She's ready to go to the LYS next time I go.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: The mystery KAL.

What's on my loom: Can you guess?

What's on my sewing machine: Its cover.

What's in my hoop: Still the whole-cloth quilt. a few stitches done.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: "The Visitors." Daphne's story became a springboard for this week's story.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to All About Me by Mel Brooks on the Audible app. Really enjoying it. It's looooooong. (Brooks has had a long life, and he's still at it.) I've seen most of his movies, some of them several times, so I can visualize what he's talking about when he relates scenes from them. He's very funny.

What's in my wine glass: Evandria Selección Garnacha 2017. A new one for us. Pretty good.

What's my tip of the week: Making "French fries" in the air fryer is easy, but it's good to soak the cut-up potatoes for an hour or two, then dry them before mixing them with your seasonings and putting them in the preheated fryer.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

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