It’s been really hot here this past week, a second summer, and while most people are rejoicing, I’m basically fretting about global warming and wishing my bedroom had a better cross-breeze…even though we have a ceiling fan, it’s often stifling by evening when the whole day has been hot. Today, it’s sunny and beautiful, and the skies are blue and there’s a ruffly breeze. All the windows are open and that helps keep things cool, even though it’s well over 80.
We are invited to an annual crayfish party tonight with friends that have been hosting it every August for year and years. Everyone brings their own crayfish to eat and something to share; often quiches or different kinds of canapés. This year, Anders decided to bake bread. He made two sourdough loaves, two Greek bread loaves and two huge flats of knäckebröd with a mix to seeds on top: sesame, flax, etc. I got to try the knäckebröd and it’d delicious: salty and crunchy and savory. Yum! I’m making a Zucchini and Chevre “tarte”…it’s a recipe that I found years ago in a Donna Hay cooking magazine, and made once for Wonders. It’s DELICIOUS. Phyllo dough, lots of butter, cream and eggs, FIVE grated zucchinis (from our own garden!) and chevre goat cheese. I have to start putting it together soon, since it takes ages to prepare and then nearly an hour to bake. I’ve already grated all the zucchini. 🙂
Today’s the last day of August…insert more boggling about how fast time goes here. Leaves are turning, the fields are full of hay bales or stubble. I haven’t seen a sugar beet on the side of the road yet but it’s inevitably soon.
We are moving at work, at the end of September, into temporary quarters, since we have to vacate our current building for incoming tenants, and our new building isn’t ready for us yet. We’ll all be in together in open landscape…over 150 people. UGH. It’s only supposed to be for a couple of months, but considering how many times our move-in date has been delayed already, I won’t be surprised if we aren’t in our new digs until after the end of the year. We’ve been doing a lot of reducing, recycling and sorting of stuff…it’s easy to accumulate things at work. Then when you have to move them you start to wonder why you saved them in the first place.
Same at home. Anders and I are finally getting around to upgrading our bedroom. I said it was time for “grown-up furniture” and he agreed. But he won’t start the project until he’s finished a couple of others…I’ve told him it has to be done before Thanksgiving! In the meantime, I’ve moved out the old furniture we are replacing (a bookcase made of boards that my mom made for my brother when he was a child, originally; a small dresser that was a hand-me-down from a college friend who was moving away, and my dresser, which I bought at a cheapy furniture place right after college) and donated it to the annual village flea market, which necessitated packing up clothing. I’m also taking down, dusting, and packing up all the paintings, and other knickknacks in our room and trying to figure out what to do with the corner art table that I don’t really use much right now.
Martin is pretty much moved out of our house, since he’s living in the US and just moved into his own first apartment, I think it’s pretty safe to use his room for some of it, though I’m sure he won’t be thrilled about it when he comes home to visit next time. I’ve also been scrolling through lots of furniture store websites looking at bureaus and night stands…GAH! The only one that I found, that I really liked, was too crazy for my husband, though I thought it was beautiful (multi-colored carved floral patterns on the fronts of the drawers) but it’s since disappeared from the website. Everything I see is too modern or too cheap-looking. I don’t want white or black laminate, or plain wood…though white will probably work best with the light gray we will most likely paint the walls. We’ll see.
It’s fun to look though, since we haven’t done any home improvement projects in quite a while. Now, I’m off to put zucchini in pans and bake it!