Random Things

The Compadre thinks that I don’t give him enough credit for the bread baking that happens in this house. We disagree on who’s made the most bread. He likes to make dinner rolls for holiday dinners and he makes bread for the two of us often. It’s just that he likes his bread, shall we say, less baked than I do. Last time he made bread and he had me decide when to take it out of the oven and it still came out underdone to my taste. He loves it. Hmmm, can this 32 year marriage last.

I don’t get it…. Gas prices are over $3 and traffic still hasn’t slowed down. We were on the freeways in DC going to the airport and the speed limit was 65. My sister was going about 72 and we were the slowest thing on the road. Don’t people know that if they slow down they will use less gas and spend less money and less of the our money will go to the dictators and terrorists that control the world’s oil supply. The government website http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.shtml says that for every 5 miles you drive over 60 mph you pay an extra 20¢ per gallon or as the Compadre says, an extra 7%. Ouch! So if you’re going 15 miles faster, just think, you’re effectively paying 60¢ per gallon more than you should! That’s based on $3 per gallon so the more the price goes up the worse it gets. And it seems the bigger the vehicle the faster they go.

I went to the small city where my Aunt Ann lives this weekend and drove a little slower. The posted speed limit on the 4 lane highway I drove on, was 65 and I drove 60 (in the right hand lane). Most people passed me but a few were going my speed and I did catch up to a few. But when I got to the city freeways I felt unsafe going slower than the 70 miles per hour posted because of the level of traffic and the speed that most were going. Why is it that out in the “country” more people understand that driving slower is better economics. It did take me longer to get where I was going but slowing the pace of life is a good thing! OK, end of rant.

You know, I really did like my job. I had a moment of grieving for it while we were in Maryland. The kids there were in school and we were discussing something about school lunch and I really missed being in the thick of it. I’ve been retired now for 3 months and it still hits me sometimes. But these old knees are still not any better and I know that I made the right decision. Still…

I love receiving comments on my blog. Because I use Blogger I can’t respond back to comments directly – I don’t know your e-mail address. Sometimes I can find you because I can link to your website and if you have your e-mail addresses on your website then I’ll try to send a personal response back. I really appreciate your comments. It lets me know that people really are reading what I write and it’s fun too. So if you don’t hear back from me, know that I really am glad you commented and I thank you.

I just talked to my son John. We were talking about getting old (he’s 30 years young!) and he said that he noticed a sign that he’s getting old. He’s all excited about getting a cool new recycling bin from his garbage hauler. I understood completely! It’s the little things in life.

I came back from my visit to Aunt Ann with a shoebox full of her recipes. We went through about half of the recipes that she has written on index cards and selected the best. I’m working on entering them into my computer and I’m going to make a recipe book out of them. A lot of memories were shared and I got most of them on a voice recording. What a fun weekend! I feel very responsible for these recipes – I need to get them copied ASAP and back to her. She said if she needs one she’ll call me and I can dictate it back to her. At 80 some years old she doesn’t have internet or even a computer so I can’t share my work back to her electronically.

I’m working on knitting swatches for the two classes that I’m taking at Yarnover this Saturday. I’m teaching a knitting class at Double Ewe tonight. I was at DE last night for knitting night and I’ll be there on Friday also. I need to make the sample for the class that I’m teaching next Wednesday at DE. Miss T and I were talking and she asked what happened to the lying around reading books part of retirement! The funny thing is – I have several books that I requested from the library that are due or overdue and I haven’t gotten around to reading them! I can’t renew them because someone else has requested them so I put my name on the list to request them again. Maybe next time around I’ll have time to read them!