Slowing it down on Sunday

I woke up at 6:30 AM on Sunday in the midst of a lovely dream. I only say that because I often report bad dreams, but rarely have good ones (at least that I remember). I fixed a cup of coffee and fixed the Blog entry. Then I refilled my pill box, even with the suspect generic Lipitor.

New Delhi, India, for God’s sake? I don’t mind dying from tampered pills, but I would prefer them to be /American/ tampered pills!

Anyway, it had snowed during the night and, as I predicted, it was cold enough that the snow dusting stayed on the gardens, the cement slabs and the driveway. According to the weather report on the news (that I had turned on by then) there’s another round of snow coming a little later today.

Sure enough by 8:00 AM, it was snowing again. I had eaten my normal breakfast with my pills and finally got around to shaving and showering.

Then I gathered up my return stuff and headed out to Home Depot. The roads were just wet, but I should have listened to the people on the news about bridges and overpasses (there were a LOT of accidents this morning). Because I went Inkster to Schoolcraft (the I-96 service drive) then over to the first light before Middle Belt (the back way and easiest way for me to get to Meijer’s, Home Depot, PetSmart, Costco, etc.). But when I turned onto the bridge over I-96, I slid uncontrollably on the ice and ended up sideways, thankfully before the light. After I could breathe again, I chuckled at the fact we all here in Michigan have to relearn how to drive in snow each winter.

I straightened the car out and got to Home Depot without further incident.

I took the stuff back I didn’t need. It wasn’t much, but it came to $21.42, and money is money!

From there. I went to PetSmart (I need kitty litter) but they were didn’t open until !0:00 AM and it was 9:45. So, I drove over to Costco, but I have only gone there on weekdays and didn’t know they didn’t open until 10:00 AM on Sunday, either.

Well, I wasn’t about to drive two miles home and two miles back, so I just sat in the car, listening to Sunday Morning, Over Easy. When it was ten o’clock, I went it and, compared to weekday lunchtime, it was freakin’ deserted!

I got the kitty litter (and cheaper than at PetSmart, I think, but I have to check), but (as long as I was there anyway) I also stocked up on coffee, peanuts for the squirrels and beef jerky (a healthful, flavorful snack – check it out: it’s mostly protein with very little fat).

So, I spent my refund several times over…

I drove home safely, treated the cats and unloaded the car. Then, since I had my coat on anyway, I took a bag of the peanuts outside and refilled the squirrel feeder. I stole a handful for myself.

Back inside, I dealt with mundane weekend chores: I wound the clock, watered the bay leaf tree, emptied the Thanksgiving dishwasher and stripped the bed. The bedding went into the washer and I went back to the leaking drain mystery.

I had thought about it all night, of course, and my assumption was right. The metal drain tube was not securely screwed into the drain itself. So, I loosened the plastic drain that attached to it, tightened the metal tube and reattached everything. Bingo!!!

The last few steps was to line the shelf with the leftover kitchen shelf liner, put back in all the stuff, but saving room for a low flat dish lined with a paper towel placed under the drain (it is my favorite method for discovering and containing drips).

Then I caulked the sink where it went against the tile. Unfortunately, after I read the directions, I realized it, too, took 24 hours to cure! So, I can’t use the sink until tomorrow afternoon. But, it works and looks great and I do not begrudge waiting one more day after all the days it took to get it installed.

So, I used blue masking tape to make a big “X” on the sink so I would remember not to turn the water on (I am not always “wide-awake” when I use the bathroom during the night).

Then I started the laborious task of taking all the various tools out to the garage from the bedroom, office, bathroom, kitchen and downstairs. I just set them all on the work bench as I want to put up the hangers on the new pegboard and decide where things should now go before I put things away.

I made myself another turkey sandwich for a late lunch and then was planning on taking a nap. Instead, I looked at the TV Guide and ended up watching “the Wizard of Oz” for the millionth time (“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”), figuring if I did fall asleep, it wouldn’t be a problem (I know how it ends, LOL!)
Weird, because its been like 50+ years since I first saw it (in black and white) and those damn flying monkeys still scare the sh*t out of me!

Lesson learned from the movie: “There’s no place like home!”

At 6:00 PM, I turned the oven on to preheat to 400 degrees F. I decided I need a real Sunday supper. So, I was making spaghetti and meatballs.

I had thawed out some marinara sauce I had made and froze in September with a Fabio (Chow Ciao) recipe. Since I was using his recipe for the sauce, I thought I’d go with his lazy meatball recipe.

Simply put, you take sweet Italian sausage out of its casing (I thawed out some I had) and roll it into meatballs.

Now, his recipe calls for putting them in the marinara sauce and cooking it for 8-10 minutes on the stove. But, I put them into my casserole dish, topped them with the marinara sauce and covered it. Why? Because, I also wanted to bake some winter squash for later this week.

So, I cut up the two acorn squash Matt at work gave me and one of the last few butternut squash my neighbor, Tammy gave me. I seeded them, put a pat of butter in each cavity and seasoned them all with salt and pepper. Then I went outside and harvested a lot of thyme stems. I put the casserole dish and the squash on a half-sheet pan, spreading the thyme over the squash and put it in the oven, setting the timer for 40 minutes.

When the squash was nearly done, I filled up my pasta pan with water and got out a box of thick spaghetti. The water came to a boil, so I put in the pasta and stirred it. When the pasta was al dente, I drained it and added in the meatballs and marinara sauce.

I let that get happy and then plated it. I topped it with fresh grated Parm and it was excellent. In fact, I took seconds!

About 9:00 PM, I started watching something on TV, but almost immediately fell asleep. Which sounds better than it was as I woke up at 1:00 AM and spent a lot of time trying to fall back asleep after that. I was largely unsuccessful.