Snowy Saturday

I woke up at 4:00 AM on Saturday. I thought I may as well get up, since I had so much sleep yesterday. But, I rolled over instead and fell back asleep until 6:30!

I fixed a cup of coffee (I really missed that yesterday!) and filled in the Blog post. Then I turned on the news and had another cup of coffee. I checked outside and there was an inch or two of snow (enough to hide all the grass, anyway) on the ground. It was still lightly snowing.

For some reason, I was starving. So, I heated up a can of roast beef hash and topped that with two fried eggs. I love the sauce the yolk makes when you break it over the hash. Of course, I couldn’t finish all of it, but what I did eat was great. I gave the rest to the cats.

I watched the news until 10:00 AM, then I shaved and showered and got dressed for the day.

At 10:30, I headed out for Kroger’s. Now, I have most of what I wanted/needed for the coming week, except for currants (for my Irish soda bread), sauerkraut, rye bread and Russian Dressing (for making the leftovers into Rueben sandwiches).

I got everything I needed EXCEPT for currants. I tried to think “Irish” and decided that they probably had raisins (I wanted to go with dates – I love dates – but decided that there were probably NO dates in the Old Sod). But, there’s a problem: I am not that fond of raisins. So, I went with (probably) a non-traditional alternative: dried cranberries. I definitely know they had bogs! Okay, so they are peat, not cranberry bogs, but a bog is a bog, right?

I got back home and unloaded the car in the garage. I put the groceries away, treated the cats and then moved the car outside. Inside the garage, I fired up the propane heater. I set the timer for 30 minutes and then went out back to refill the bird feeder and the squirrel feeder (since I had my boots on). Back inside, I switched from my “going to town clothes” to my “working on the clock clothes.” I watched a DIY show for inspiration while I waited for the garage to heat up.

Since I would be sawing, rather than sanding, I left the heater going. I carefully cut off all the excess and finally (finally!) I had true circles around the star.

Melissa called  and I happened to be inside (using the facilities) so I answered it. They have been madly packing their things into a POD. Since Dave had put all his tools in it, she was concerned her POD was over the weight limit. The POD people (I think I saw that movie) came to get it while we were talking, so she had to go.

I went out back in the garage and ripped down all the extra boards left from the clock face, so I could get twelve clear (without knots) pieces for the wheel.

I took the clock face inside in and drilled a hole in the right place on my cheap plastic protractor. I secured it to the clock with a nail and some masking tape. Then I used a chalk line to mark the angles where the wood would join and coincidentally where the hour markers would eventually go.

I figured out the minimum length of boards I would need and went through my stack. I used the chop saw to cut out the clear lengths. Then I shut off the heater, came in and took a nap.

When I woke up, I had a voicemail from Melissa saying the POD was okay and was good to go.

I realized I had worked through lunch, so I made a frozen pizza for dinner. It was a DiGiorno Classic Thin Crust Pizza Supreme. Now there are two things about that sentence. One, Classic Thin Crust means its oblong, rather than a circle. That troubles me, but not as much as a thick crust. And, two, its not that “Supreme.” In their world, “Supreme” means sausage, pepperoni, roasted green, red and yellow peppers and onions.

I didn’t have any fresh mushroom, so there was nothing I could do about that. But, I did add banana pepper rings, sliced black olives, a healthy shake of red pepper flakes (for heat) and a lot more mozzarella before it went into the oven.

18 minutes later, I pulled it out with my pizza peel, let it rest a minute or so and then cut it into eight pieces. I put four on a plate (I was hungry!) and went in to see what was on TV.

I watched the end of a movie, “Madea Goes to Jail” (I am a Tyler Perry fan) and then what I thought would be just the beginning (it’s a long movie) of Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George in “Little Big Man.” I planned on turning it off when I got sleepy, since I saw it years ago. Instead I watched it all the way through and then went to bed long past midnight.