Last Week of Winter

It is March first, and I have decided that in my world, this is the last week of winter. The weather people bear me out on this, but they have been known to be wrong. Winter will be over next week no matter what the weather brings, at least it will be at my house. Beginning next week I plan on sitting out on the back porch for at least a half an hour every single day. I plan on opening a window for at least 10 minutes a day, during the warmest part of the day. I plan on looking forward to the first official day of spring, knowing that within a few short weeks it will arrive. I plan on ignoring any snow, or freezing weather, as a mere temporary annoyance. Because no matter what the weather does, for me this is the last week of winter.

Tonight the temperature will drop to -17C.

Income tax time approaches. Most of the needed documents have to be downloaded, then printed. This means a working printer is required. This is quite an expense on a tight budget. There is an old printer here, but the cartridge has been dried up or empty for quite some time. A few hours were spent attempting to revive the cartridge, to no avail. There was nothing for it but to order another via amazon, as it was the cheapest delivered option available to us. The cartridge arrived yesterday, it was installed this morning. It all seems to be working properly. Now comes the part where we figure out what documents have to be downloaded, and where to find them. Then they will be downloaded, and finally printed. I don’t like printers, and I don’t like doing the taxes.

This year I am going all out to be as calm and pleasant as humanly possible during the whole procedure. I am determined! Usually I “lose it” at least once per taxation year. I really don’t understand my problem with income tax, heaven knows my years in the academy were laden with forms and seemingly endless paper work, and I loved it. But at tax time, watch out!

There is only enough flour left to bake one loaf of bread. So milling flour is on this week’s agenda, as well as baking another batch of muffins for Attila’s lunches. Preparing tax forms and mailing them is also on the week’s agenda. A grocery order is in progress, to be picked up later in the week. Grocery days are a lot of work to sanitize everything that comes into the house. This being the last week of winter, the air in the house is still dry, so towels need to be soaked, wrung out, and hung all over the house to keep the relative humidity up to 30%. Hanging wet towels usually needs to be done four times day. Dinner needs to be prepared every night of the week. For tonight’s Attila has requested Mongolian Turkey, a turkey and rice combination that is a favourite here. It uses leftover diced turkey.

On our present budget it is very important that money is spent only on shelter, heat, medical necessities, and food. Under such circumstances it is best to avoid online shopping sites. All this time alone in isolation leads me towards the temptation to try “something new”. Spending money we don’t have is so very tempting. Spending money online is so easy; paying for it later is so painful.

Since February 27th was my one year anniversary date for living in isolation here at Mist Cottage due to the pandemic. I felt some sort of celebration was in order. We thought about renting a movie, but spending money is unwise at this juncture. A sweet treat was decided upon. So a sugar-reduced version of Chocolate Sundae Cake was baked to mark the occasion. It called for 1 3/4 cups of sugar, we used 3/4 cup of sugar, plus a bit of erythritol to keep it sweet. It ended up tasting very sweet, so next time less sugar will be used. Sweets are not part of the regular diet around here, so it was truly an indulgence. It was so delicious that we ate the whole thing! We both feel better for having done it too! On occasion it is good to be bad.

To compensate for the “unwise food choice” of a sweet treat last night, it was important that today’s choices be healthy ones. My breakfast consisted of a piece of organic whole wheat bread, with unsalted margarine, topped with a half a cup of unsweetened home canned applesauce from 2019, and drizzled with one tablespoon of local maple syrup. It was so good! Lunch will consist of a helping of Cabbage Roll Casserole, which was made with lots of our garden cabbage, carrots, onions, and home canned garden tomatoes. Cabbage Roll Casserole, as made here, uses 1/3 pound or just over 5 ounces of ground beef, and one cup of raw rice. These ingredients I consider the unhealthiest elements of the dish. There were five servings.

The wind is roaring in the trees. I love it, as the temperature is above freezing for now. The warm wind is busy escorting the snow to its next destination, water.

There is a snow squall warning for late this afternoon, and this evening. Ha! Go head sky, get it out of your system now, winter is over next week!

Update: Five minutes after I posted this, two robins flew into the tree outside my window. They remain perched, clinging to the branches in the stiff wind. What a welcome sight they are!

Worldly

Weather

Updated on Mon, Mar 1, 1:55 PM
1°C
FEELS LIKE -5
Mostly cloudy
Wind 28 NW km/h
Humidity 51 %
Visibility 25 km
Sunrise 6:45 AM
Wind gust 42 km/h
Pressure 100.6 kPa
Ceiling 9100 m
Sunset5:55 PM

Quote

“Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.”
William Blake
1757 – 1827

It would be difficult to tell these days if anyone were avoiding you!