Yesterday’s Calm to today’s Chaos

Lately, I have been donating or listing for sale, items that are not used by us, but occupy space in the house. Yesterday, two different listings went online and immediately received response. Now, both listings show that the items are located in or near the village of our zip code. Arrangements were made for me to meet a buyer at 9 a.m. this morning for one item. I arrived 10 minutes early as I needed fuel for the car only to discover that the computer system that allows the use of credit cards was down, thus I couldn’t get fuel. I then sat for almost 20 minutes past the meeting time and no one showed. Frustration 1 of the day, though I had several other people interested in the item and they were contacted. Person #2 did show up at the designated time and place. The other item has had two people interested, but they want me to drive about 20 miles to meet them halfway and send them reminder notices. This is a $25 item, not a big item. I amended the ad to reiterate the location and where I am willing to meet.

Yesterday, I finished doing the yard trimming with the line trimmer so today I was going to mow. The riding mower had a low tire again so I pulled out the pump that runs on the car auxillary power plug and pumped it back up, got about 4 rounds of the front lawn area done and the mower deck belt broke for the second time this season. That meant a trip back to town and I picked up the belt that the store’s book said was the correct one as a replacement, based on the part number I had with me. I have a very kind neighbor that helps me put the belt on and it was so tight the engine wouldn’t turn over. Tomorrow, the belt will have to be returned and I have ordered one from a parts store, like the last replacement that I can pick up and the neighbor is going to put it on for me.

All of this shot a huge hole in the day and my plan to process the basket full of tomatoes drained away.

These are the ones picked this morning and the ones from the window sill. The basil is still thriving and that basket full was stripped from the stems and set out to dry to add to the jar that has already dried. I will try to get to the tomatoes tomorrow and try to get the belt returned, the new one picked up, and the lawn mowed.

While out in the yard, I noticed that something has eaten all of the leaves off of one end of the grape vines. At least it is the end of the season and the grapes have been harvested and made into jelly.

And this afternoon, I realized that we actually got a few ears of corn from the 3 plantings. These 5 ears are the only ones of about a dozen that developed decent kernels, so bed prep, three plantings, and only 5 ears of corn, not a good return.

Several days ago, I sowed spinach, radishes, and salad mix in a tray. I will transplant some of the spinach and salad mix to a bed, but am surprised that there are already seedlings under the grow light.

For the past few days, I have worked off and on knitting a pair of mittens from some of the yarn I spun last month. I started off knitting two at a time and once the cuffs were done, decided that the yarn was too thin to make decent mittens, so I ripped the stitches out and started again, holding two strands together. While that one was being knit, I spun more yarn that when plied would be heavy enough to use without two strands. Mitten 1 is done, mitten two cuff was done and I realized a dropped a stitch on about the 3rd row in ribbing, not worth trying to repair, so I ripped out the stitches again and started over. I am finally back up to the thumb gusset on that mitten, it should be finished tonight (I hope). Plain, simple, vanilla mittens, I should be able to knit half asleep.

Off to finish laundry, my least favorite household chore.

I would love to hear your comments on this post.