Weekend Wrap-Up on Monday

Another busy weekend gone, but it was great because I got many things accomplished. The bag of beets and the big bucket of green beans from Neighbor Scott are all cut up and in the freezer. I made French cut the beans with my handy-dandy green bean frencher. Ever seen one of these?There are sharp blades inside on a wheel that runs up against another wheel. You put a few beans in the top, turn the crank, and out come French cut green beans. Kind of tedious, but for small quantities of beans, it works pretty good.

Here's what I ended up with for the freezer.

While I had my bean bowl on the chair the cushion got tossed on the floor, where Penny took advantage of a new place to take a nap. She really fills up a chair cushion, doesn't she? She's gotten almost too big to be a lap cat anymore.

I got the baby blanket for my niece finished and delivered it to her house today. Her truck was in the driveway, but no one answered the door, so I just left it on the doorknob (I'm also second from the top on her s#*t list right now, so maybe that's why no one answered the door!) The baby's not due for a few weeks yet, but every once in a while I actually finish a gift ahead of time.

I noticed a crow in my yard yesterday that has only 1 leg. It looks like a juvenile to me (its head and back feathers are not the shiny black of an adult, but still kind of a drab dark brown).I looked through the binoculars and noticed what appears to be a foot hanging down a little ways, so I don't know if its left leg has been injured or if it's deformed in some way. The reason I noticed it was because instead of walking around like the other crows, this one has to hop! Fortunately, the injury doesn't appear to have affected its appetite in any way.

I ran some errands after work today. First to check out a new quilting shop that just opened in the little town just south of us. The owner used to have a shop in Rochester that closed about 5 years ago. Now she's reopened again and it's so much closer for me. Wow, all the beautiful fabrics were quite inspiring and she hopes to offer some classes soon. I bought a new book and template to make a quilt for the bed with some fabric I have in my "stash."

I learned from a co-worker (Mary) this morning that the "event center" just up the road from my house is always looking for "wait staff" to help with wedding receptions, class reunions, parties and other events. Mary said she works there part-time on weekends. She would put in a good word for me if I wanted to fill out an application, so I made that my last errand stop on the way home.

The Spousal Unit has some reservations, but I told him most of the events would be a few hours in the evening. Since there's some uncertainty in my job right now, I decided it wouldn't be the worst idea to at least have a back-up plan (and the extra dollars would give me more money to spend on birdseed!) Mary indicated that they really have a hard time staffing daytime events, so if my current job does go away, at least I won't have to stand in the unemployment line.