Just Life

There has been nothing earth shattering going on here in my little Home Sweet Apartment lately.  Just the usual Suzy Homemaker stuff.  I seriously doubt anyone cares to hear about my dish washing, floor scrubbing, toilet cleaning efforts.  I don't even care to hear about them.

The lady who takes my grocery order called yesterday.  Boneless chuck roast is on sale so I ordered 15 lbs.  I will cut this into pieces to fit into pint jars and can them.  Then whenever I want a roast beef dinner, I just dump the beef into a pan, add a jar of canned potato and carrot chunks, some onion and seasonings and bake it until it is heated through.

Strawberries at the Farmer's Market are done, but the store has them on sale so I ordered 12 lbs.  I haven't decided whether to freeze or can them, but am leaning more toward freezing.  I am down to maybe 3 packages of frozen strawberries in the freezer now, so that's probably where these will wind up.  I really like having frozen berries on hand, especially over the winter.  They seem to taste better somehow when summer is a long way off.

Granddaughter Boston called me last evening.  She knows that I worked at a dog grooming shop and that I have had a love of animals my whole life, so she wanted to ask me about a particular breed of dog.  Their family dog, Charlie the Beagle, died of old age earlier this year and the family is ready for a new dog in their lives.  Boston wanted to know about Golden Doodles, which are a cross breed of Golden Retriever and Standard Poodle.  The ones I worked with at the grooming shop were nice dogs with good personalities, especially the large ones.  There are some that have been bred down for a smaller size, and I can't say I was much impressed by those.  I found that downsizing the breed also seemed to downsize their intelligence.  That may have been just the individual dogs I saw, but the large Doodles seemed to be a much more well rounded dog and were more mellow.  I kind of hope they get one for I liked those I worked with.

Thinking about Boston's questions reminded me of another dog that was in my neighborhood.  Henry was a Labradoodle (Lab and Standard Poodle).  He was huge and looked like an Irish Wolfhound.  Henry was one of the best behaved dogs I have seen.  His owner walked Henry every day past my building.  Henry wore a leash because of the city ordinance requiring dogs to be leashed, but Henry carried the end of the leash in his mouth.  He walked himself.  Henry stayed next to his owner and always stopped and looked both ways before crossing a street.  But if he saw me a half a block away, he would look up at his owner who would give him permission, and then he would run toward me, full tilt.  To his credit, he always stopped short of knocking me down.  Henry loved to have his ears scratched and his head petted.  He would sit on the sidewalk next to me, reveling in the attention, until his owner caught up with him.  I think Henry must have moved away for I haven't seen him in a while.  I think I will call Boston and tell her about Labradoodles.

Yesterday afternoon I napped in my recliner.  Earlier I had checked the weather radar and there was no rain in sight.  I woke an hour or so later to the sounds of wind and rain and hail.  Looking out the window I found the rain coming down so hard that I could barely see across the street.  Sounded like someone was throwing pebbles against the front of my building.  Aparently a small storm cell developed right overhead.  I didn't know something that small could produce so much fury.  It was over as quikly as it appeared and left without doing any obvious damage.

And that is quite enough rambling for one morning.  After another cup of coffee, I believe today will be one of those dedicated to just puttering about.  Maybe a little sewing.  Maybe a little reading.  I have a recipe for soft ginger cookies I have been wanting to try and today seems like a good day for it.  The temperature is somewhat cooler than it has been so I don't mind having the oven on.  I like puttering days.  :)