From Scratch and Seuss

After almost five hours spent outside Saturday morning conducting a yard sale, I was pretty much ready to throw everything to the curb. Me and my dad had been urging the family to have a yard sale after there was something shoved into a corner of every room that no one needed (nor really wanted), but we finally made it happen. It was odd to spend 30 minutes setting up and clearing out the house only to discover maybe we really didn't have that much to get rid of. Our lawn looked sparse.

Also, our junk was at one time fairly expensive and so we struggled all morning not to undersell all the while battling the notion of having to bring it back inside. More discouraging was when my mom relieved us for half-time and made only a little less than we'd made in about thirty minutes total. Still, after forcing myself to somewhat interact with strangers and deal with nature (okay, okay, just freshly mowed grass and sidewalk) we were able to come away with about $130 and a heck of a lot more room. Then that money went to rent and I wondered where my Saturday went.

I got a bit of writing done late last night. To update, I'm done taking inspiration from my short story, so from here on out I'm a little bit more unsure and I'm afraid it'll take me much longer to get a consistent word count (nanowrimo is saying I need to hit somewhere around 1,600 to hit my goal for the month). But then I lost today too by baking.

For almost a year now, I've refused to bake something unless it was "from scratch". (I didn't even buy those holiday sugar cookies with the cute images that everybody loves.) Of course, not having a "real" job, I've gotten more bored and started making more baked goods for other people. That meant that this year when my mom wanted pumpkin (bread, pie, whatever) I was not allowing her to buy the canned pumpkin puree.

Instead, I bought a pumpkin and spent two hours making it myself. I had freshly cooked pumpkin and it was pretty good. I don't like pumpkin baked goods, but I discovered just the vegetable is actually really good. I also roasted the pumpkin seeds (apparently you have to) and after that waste of time discovered no, I still don't like pumpkin seeds. And no, nobody I know does either. Someone out there please tell me the appeal -- it was like chewing peanut shells.

Anyways, today I used the last of the pumpkin puree to make a pumpkin pie. It's a commonly known fact if you've met me that I hate pie. This piece of information somehow comes up a lot because it is unfathomable to everyone else in the world that there is not a single kind I like. So, back to the baking. It was a bit hard to make all of mom's pumpkin foods for the past month because I didn't really want to taste how things were going along the way. Also, I need to mention how much one small-medium pumpkin made; I guess most recipes don't need that much actual pumpkin because they mostly rely on cinnamon/nutmeg combos to take care of the flavor. (The list of goods: pumpkin bread, pumpkin oatmeal cookies, pumpkin espresso muffins, and now pumpkin pie.)

It turned out well, minus the very top edge of crust because I didn't make quite enough dough, so the filling got on it a the thin layer left behind meant it burnt in the oven. So, while I failed on presentation, the taste is apparently awesome. More awesome (at least for me) was the smell that occurred. It officially felt like Thanksgiving time.

Besides that, I also made cornbread (which is too good and is that because I'm more "southern" than I think?) and tomato basil soup (which is also too good and that is because I only have it to compare to a terrible can of Campbell's I tried and failed to cook once). While the oven was working, I spent too much time watching stand up comedian specials on Netflix.

To make up for the disappointing results of my weekend word count, I went to the library because there is certain "research" I'm doing for my book. It was odd to need a book from each of the three floors mainly because I still haven't found the stairs (this has been the library I've "lived" at for more than half my life) and the attendant on floor 3 (non-fiction) is surprised at someone else's existence and the attendant on floor 2 is surprised when you head toward the books and not the computers (which are almost entirely at full capacity).

Also, there was something I needed to look into from one of my favorite books as a kid (I mean thirteen) and it was extremely weird to go into the "teen" area now because it felt like a Roswell cafe. The lights were "funky" and things were hanging low and too many things were painted crudely silver. Checking out the kids area across the room was like a weird Seussical dreamscape, with odd Dali clocks and too many colors. Is this the kind of decor required nowadays to attract the audience away from their electronics? It made me kinda sick, even before getting dizzy by the pattern on the carpet.

Still, with this daylight savings present and research material, I might get some writing in tonight.