The Finger

 I haven't given more specifics about my finger because I don't know what happened. Here's what I THINK! Either Monday or Tuesday of last week, I would in the back yard. I do try to wear gloves in the garden but sometimes, I stop and make a quick "adjustment" and don't have gloves on. That day I was walking by and saw a weed. I reached down and pulled the weed out but it kinda disrupted one of my small plants so I was poking dirt around it with my finger and I hit something sharp. It was very minor - almost like pricking my finger with a needle. It bled a bit, mostly because I was squeezing it. I went inside, washed it with warm soapy water, dabbed it with alcohol, put some antibiotic ointment on it and put a band-aid on it. Later that same day, I was playing fetch with Cooper. He brought the little boomerang back to me and I reached to get it, he saw the band-aid and apparently both of them think band-aids are scary and should be ripped off. He grabbed for the band-aid before I realized what was happening and he snagged my finger. I couldn't tell if it was bleeding from the initial wound or from his tooth scraping my finger. Back inside - same cleaning routine but it really didn't need a band-aid and, obviously band-aids are dangerous to wear in this house.

Then on Tuesday night I was in the kitchen and I don't even remember what happened but I said "Ouch! That hurt!" I usually don't even say anything when I get hurt so I know it must have hurt a lot. Vince said "What happened?" and I said "I hurt my finger." He asked if it was the finger Cooper had grabbed and I said yes. I finished whatever I was doing but, my ear was hurting and I've been having several ear infections a year so earlier I had called the doctor to see if he could look at it Wednesday. Yes, at 8 a.m.

When I got up Wednesday morning, my finger was swollen, very red and I couldn't bend it so when I got to the doctor, the nurse was going to do the oxygen check gizmo and I said "No, not that finger!" She kinda jumped back and wanted to know what happened.  There was no visible injury. You had to search to see where Cooper had scratched it. Couldn't see at all where I injured it in the garden. I wasn't even thinking about whatever happened in the kitchen Tuesday night - I thought the injury in the garden or my medical assistant's removing the band-aid had caused it to be infected. The doctor also thought the finger was infected, gave me antibiotics and ear drops. Thursday it was more red and swollen. Same Friday so I sent a picture to the doctor and got this back from him:

That's when we went to the ER. The doctor there didn't think it needed to be x-rayed. He again drained it - nothing really to drain, and gave me another antibiotic to take along with the first one.

Then Saturday morning, some of the red and swelling had gone down and it was very purple. I told Vince . . I'm kinda feeling like my finger may be broken. He looked at it and said "Why didn't you tell the doctor you hurt it?" I wasn't thinking about that - I was thinking it was infected from dirt in the garden. Vince said he thought when I hurt it in the kitchen that I had slammed it in the drawer. Maybe. It was late, I was hurrying to finish the kitchen and go to bed.

Today (Monday) I can somewhat bend it. I can touch it on top and bottom but if I push on it from the front (like pushing towards the back) or push in the code on a door lock, or if I use it to scratch something off the counter . . that hurts.

Here's what it looks like today - which is so, so much better than how it looked late last week.

If you see the two little dots at and near the base of my nail, that's from the needle where they drained it.

I guess I'm going to just finish the antibiotics (one Wednesday and one on Friday) and hope for the best.

A New Week - A New WIP

 This past week, I worked on Prairie Life Sampler and got quite a bit done. Here's what it looked like when I started it this past Monday:

Prairie Life Sampler

Here's where I left off:

I got all the words in, stitched a little on the cabin, started another tree over to the right and got almost all the flowers at the top outlined.

The WIP I'll work on this week is Autumn Moon by Plum Street.

I'm using NPI Silks on this one and I love those so I'm looking forward to getting back to it.

A Home Cooked Meal

 Today was the first day I had cooked since Tuesday! I don't even remember what we ate but I know that two days we had pizza that Vince picked up and brought home. The day we went to the doctor - Wednesday, we ate at Panda Express. Friday we went to the ER and got breakfast out. The rest of the time I think Vince ate leftover pizza. I ate toast and jam one night, turkey and pepperoni and cheese one night. I've tried to eat enough yogurt since I'm taking two antibiotics. 

Yesterday, I guess Vince was getting tired of fast food, and he asked if I could find a jar of canned beans and sausage. Oh, yes, I could find that. He said he would help me cook but I knew I could do it if he would help with clean up.

I made a pot of rice.

I ground wheat and cornmeal to make cornbread.

Here it is with the grains ground.

Then I made coleslaw!

The jar of beans and sausage was opened, heated up and dinner was served!

I feel like I'm almost back to normal . . just being very protective of a sore finger. My plan for tomorrow is to can more beans, make whole wheat tortillas, fix chicken tacos with corn relish, open a jar of black beans - a very quick meal with minimal mess to clean up.

When I'm not cooking much, I do miss it but I'm very thankful Vince was ok with me not cooking for a few days.

Things I've Learned This Week

 What is it about May? This is the time of year when I need to spend so much time working in the garden and I have managed to have a hand injury again. Remember two years ago when I had stitches in my hand in May? This year there are no stitches but there's been a trip to the ER and another trip to the doctor and the right hand is definitely out of commission for a while. Thankfully I've figured out how to cross stitch using my thumb and middle finger to hold the needle, though it's slow going.

But here are two things I think everyone should do because you never know or . . maybe it's just me who keeps having these unfortunate events.

First . . learn to use your non-dominant hand for everything! The first time I brushed my teeth with my left hand, I thought I might poke out my eye! How can my left hand be so uncooperative??  My hair is curly and frizzy without using a curling iron or straight iron. After trying almost an entire week, my left hand still cannot handle that. I feel like I need a high chair with a tray to catch the mess when trying to use a fork with my left hand.

Second . . have some pants that you can easily pull on - without any struggle, no buttoning or snapping! I'm a blue jean girl and when I was going to PT, I had to get some pants that I could pull up over my knee. Not only do I not wear shorts in public but I was going to PT during the winter and shorts and snow . . no! I found these pants at Walmart and I'm not usually an advocate for buying clothes at Walmart but I LOVE these pants. The pictures on the page are not very flattering but, at least for me, they're a great fit. I bought one pair during therapy to be sure I liked them and ended up buying three more pairs. Oscar and Cooper have bear claws for nails and I was afraid they would snag the pants. They do not. They wash and dry beautifully. I've washed them dozens of times. I thought they may be hot during the summer but they are no warmer than jeans. They're $12.98 per pair and I'm comfortable wearing them with a T-shirt or with a nice top or even with a little jacket to dress them up a bit. I will wear these anywhere - even places I wouldn't wear jeans. 

I know . . not everyone will like them but I surely do.

Progress on Prairie Life Sampler

I am happy that I got the words stitched.

I didn't chart out the words - just counted spaces and made really weird and not very legible notes. Somehow on the second row, I totally miscounted and it was way off (not centered) and there was a big space on the right side of that row so I just stuck the word "kind" in there at the end of that row and it fit perfectly and makes sense. Yay!

I'm still going to put two more rows of grass under the trees at the top.

This is the whole design - the original design.

I didn't want to stitch the people or the kinda weird horses so I started a few rows lower, changed the spacing on the words and made them 5 rows instead of 4 rows and my words end almost exactly where the words end on the original. 

Next challenge. I don't like all those motifs and flowers. A reader commented and now I see it  . . it's almost like two different charts - the top is very "prairie like" and the bottom is flowers and clutter. (my words not hers).

I still have Saturday and Sunday to work on this project so I'm going to spend that time stitching flowers and leaves in the border and thinking about what I may want to stitch in that bottom portion. I wouldn't mind having a garden with veggies and a few flowers, maybe a chicken pen with some chickens - something more like what would have been found on a homestead back during the days of heading west. Thoughts? Suggestions?? Thanks!

My Favorites to have in Jars

A friend has commented that her mom has recently started canning more than just garden veggies, jams and jellies. I was going to send her an email about my favorite things to have in jars but decided to make a post, which my friend will see, and maybe someone else will find helpful.

Before I get into the recipes, and I know I've said this before, but I try to can enough for two years on many things. That way if I don't grown enough of something one year, I have enough to get me through to the next year AND it's easier to make a large batch of something than it is to make two smaller batches. I do not mind at all keeping food in jars for 2 years.

 My very favorite for the past 10 years or so is Eggplant Salsa. It is super easy to make. Last year I ended up with so much eggplant in the garden and canned over 50 pints of it. I think I planted 6 or 7 eggplants. This year I planted three, knowing I don't need another 50 jars of salsa but I probably will can at least 25 jars. That way I can finish off last year's jars this year and have next year's eggplant salsa ready. When I'm ready to serve this, I use one large chicken breast, slice it into fairly thin slices, sometimes coat it in cornstarch (sometimes I just season it) and brown it. Dump in a jar of the salsa and heat it all up. We serve it over rice or pasta and it is so delicious. In fact, I may cook that today and use a jar of canned chicken since it's already after noon and I don't have anything out for lunch.

This website has so, so many recipes for canning meals. Some are her recipes and some are links to other sites.

Another thing I always have is red beans and sausage, which is from the website mentioned above.  All I have to do is make a pot of rice, make coleslaw, open a jar and heat it up! So good! 

Today I was canning beans and knew I wasn't going to have enough energy to cook dinner AND do all that canning so I went downstairs and grabbed a jar. I'm sure it won't surprise anyone but probably half the jars in my basement aren't labeled. Either I think I'll remember (and never do) or I plan to wait til they cool and then label them and then I get in a hurry and pack them before I ever notice they weren't labeled. It doesn't matter . . it's all good.

I grabbed a quart jar of meat and a pint jar of potatoes. As I was walking upstairs with them, Vince said "What's for lunch?" I said "meat and potatoes!" He wanted to know what kind of meat and I told him I didn't have a clue - pork or beef.

Once I started cooking it, I thought . . black beans would be good in this so I went back down and got a pint of black beans.

We had some leftover corn on the cob so I cut it off the cob and put it in there.

Vince doesn't like jalapeno peppers so I cut one up and sauteed it for my bowl.

I cooked a pot of rice because most everything we eat goes on top of rice. Vince said "Are you supposed to eat potatoes AND rice together?" If you're from southwest Louisiana - yes!! 

When I came upstairs with the jars, I started the rice cooking. Start to finish, it took about 20 minutes.

We all think differently but I'm so thankful to have food in jars, ready to heat and eat . . for so many reasons. As I was heating all this up, the electricity went off . . thankfully for only about 2 minutes but that made me very thankful for a gas stove. Speaking of gas, I checked our tank yesterday. We got it filled in September, 2024. That was 1-1/2 years ago. The only thing we use gas for are the stoves. I can in the basement and that's all I use that stove for but it all comes out of the same tank. Both stoves have gas ovens but the wall oven is electric and that's the oven I use 99% of the time except during the summer when it's so hot and it's nice to keep that extra heat trapped in the basement garage. Anyway . . I'm saying that to say that the propane company will only fill the tank to 85% and the level now is 70%. That means it will probably be at least four more years before the propane company will re-fill the tank. They have a minimum and they want the tank to be at 15% or less before they come out. That all changes if we ever have to run the propane heater - hope that never happens!

Baking, Canning & Freezing.

 The canning (beans) was on my agenda for today. Baking and freezing were not! 

Vince went to pick strawberries. I know he's picked over 50 pounds of then. I've made a triple batch of strawberry syrup, a double batch TWICE of strawberry/rhubarb jam and a double batch of strawberry jalapeno jam. When he left, I said "Please only pick enough for us to eat over the next few days." Nope, he picked 12 pounds. He is 100% sure he never heard me say "don't pick more than we can eat over the next few days!"

The freezers are full; I only have enough jars to can the beans I had planned to get canned this week. I ended up taking a big ham out of the freezer and making room for some strawberries. Vince did the hulling while I was canning beans. Then I chopped the strawberries, kept out 1-1/2 cups for strawberry bread, and put 1-1/2 cups of chopped berries in 15 zipper freezer bags and stuck those in the freezer. I can make strawberry bread, strawberry-rhubarb bread, strawberry ricotta cake - there's all kinds of things I can do with frozen strawberries.

Strawberry Cake before Glaze

Strawberries for the Freezer

For the beans, supposedly 5 pounds of beans will produce 14 pints or 7 quarts of canned beans. Every now and then it works out for me but more often than not, it does not and today . . it did not. When we open a pint of beans, we always leave some - maybe 1/2 cup or 3/4 cup that we don't eat so I thought . . I will use 4 pounds and instead of filling the jar to 1" from the top with soaked and boiled beans, I'll fill the jar 1-1/2" from the top and and extra water. I had 14 pint jars washed and ready. Filled those up and still had beans. There were 2 extra pint jars in the dishwasher (clean) so I filled those. Still had beans so I grabbed a wide mouth pint, filled it; filled another wide mouth pint, and then another! Good grief. I ended up with 19 pints of beans and because three of them were wide mouth, it took two canners to get them all canned. 

Aren't those beautiful canned beans? That's my first batch and it's Anasazi beans. Tomorrow I will can pinto beans and I will use 3.5 pounds and see how that works - hopefully I will end up with 14 pints.

The best news is that strawberry season is winding down. Several of the local farms have already closed so I don't think Vince will be picking more berries. We can hope!