Friday Blues

Our office was closed today, due to Remembrance day, which is tomorrow. During this week I have walked by some old men, sitting patiently at shopping malls, holding boxes of poppy pins in their wrinkled, sometimes shaking, old hands.

I am wearing a poppy pin, and am thankful for the men and women who were fighting for our freedom. Thank You!

I went to the office, to do some "work"! Office work, that is, yeah. I had to mail a parcel to a friend, and I had the box, paper, and heavy duty packing tape at work.
I also paid some bills, and sent a claim to insurance company for my prescriptions. I was very satisfied of my "work" day. I spent an hour in the office. It was nice and quiet, no phones, no irritating interruptions from other staff members, no sounds from any annoying radio stations. Mind you, I can turn my radio sound down, but when I walk by a desk of someone else, I can hear the music. Not that I hate music, I just don't like loud music when I try to work. Actually I love music, and specially a variety of it. Almost anything goes. I could list the ones I don't like, easily, but I really am not in the mood for that.

OK, then I went to the post office, mailed my parcel, went to a magazine store to look for the latest knitting magazine from England, which was not in yet. I must wait another week or two, or what ever, to get it. Why does it take a month to get a magazine from England to come to a store here, when I could get it within a week if I subscribed to it?

I know, I know, airmail thingy, and the boat thingy, big difference. I didn't think that anything comes by boat any more. Or is it a cargo ship-something. I suppose they still bring important items, like knitting and crocheting books and magazines from overseas. Yup. That reminds me of a good friend of mine, from high school, he was a really nice guy. I heard that he is a captain of a large ship, somewhere. I hope he will bring my magazine soon, if he is steering that ship. That was a silly thought.

Came home; started preparing meal for the night. I made stew. It was not bad, but not the best stew I have made in my many stewing experiments. I don't think I am a good cook, normally, but sometimes I will surprise myself, and hubby! Today I surprised myself for not having a stew that was out of this world, it was just stew from my kitchen. Leftovers are for lunch next week. Had it been an extraordinarily delicious stew, there would have not been any leftovers.

I have done zero stitches today, although I had planned to finish the jeans jacket, that has been my WIP since last week. I have completed the back, fronts and one sleeve. Left to do things are: the other sleeve, button band, collar and pocket flap, plus finish some yarn ends. It' looks quite cute, if I may say so. I might get the other sleeve done half way tonight, but that may be just a "might".

Are there such things as empty thoughts? I think I have a remarkable collection of them.

STEW

Hamburger meat

leftover tomato sauce, with herbs and seasonings

carrots

onion

onion soup mix (optional)

garlic

green pepper

celery

pieces of cabbage (optional)

potato (peeled)

water

salt, pepper (if onion soup mix not used)

Put everything else, but potato in a pot, and cook about 45 minutes. stir the hamburger meat, so that it blends well with other ingredients. We don't want a big blob of hamburger meat in the stew? Of course stewing beef could be used, too; help yourself to choose your meat, or no meat.

Half an hour or so, before you are ready to eat, add potato into the stew, make sure you have enough liquid to cover the potato. Leave the pot open, otherwise your stew becomes a soup. We need some of the water to evaporate, don't we.

I did not include amounts of ingredients, because I don't usually measure things, I just add, look and taste. It's the same when I make scrumbles for free form stuff. Sometimes they are good and sometimes they just are.