Sunday, February 9, 2020

My house smells liked burned food. For supper I made parmesan crusted fish (don't be impressed, it came out of a package), reheated some left over basmati rice with a can of Italian seasonsed  tomatoes, and roasted sweet and spicy cauliflower. I love cauliflower, husband does not. So this was for me. The sauce that you toss the cauliflower pieces in was made from maple syrup, sriracha sauce, pepper and olive oil. Even though I roasted the cauliflower on parchment paper (don't you love parchment paper?), some of the sauce still caramelized and burned and leaked beyond the parchment paper onto the baking sheet. Hence the burned food smell. The cauliflower was still yummy and quite spicy. I have enough for some leftovers for myself either to take as part of my lunch tomorrow, or with whatever I make for supper tomorrow night.

When I was packing up Christmas this year, I decided to weed out a few unwanted, tired, unused items like garland that we didn't use or ornaments that had been gifts but didn't really match with our décor, etc. I boxed them up with the intention of donating them. Today the weather ended up being better than predicted (cold, but no snow falling), so I decided to go to the closest Value Village (which incidentally is 40 minutes away). I also gathered up a handful of books (paperbacks that I'll never read again), and a coat of my daughter's from when she was in elementary school.

I have a couple of co-workers that seem to find all sorts of good items at Value Village, so I thought I would have a wander around after I stopped off at the donation drop-off. I don't know how they find the things they do... I was not impressed or tempted by anything and the whole place had an aura of "old dingy musty things". So, I went to Winners and Homesense. Sometimes I have great luck at Winners, but not this time. Maybe I just wasn't into the whole shopping mode. I did find a pair of shoes (more for warm weather wear) and a pair of cushy socks. A quick stop a Walmart for hair colour, because my roots are coming in nice and grey, and I was on my way home.

I haven't been reading a lot recently, apart from the latest Louise Penny. From some blogger suggestions and a little research (e.g. if you like Caroline Graham, you'd like...) I had picked up a couple of Elly Griffith (Griffin?) books from the library but they've been sitting at the bedside for a while, in fact I had to renew them because I'd had them so long. I started one last night and was enjoying it, but was also realizing I had the book in my hand and my eyes were closed for a while, so put it down and went to sleep.

In a week's time, daughter comes home for 'reading week' from university. She and her dad have been pursuing looking for her first car. He gives his opinion, she gives hers, and round and round they go. They did look at one (used, of course, being sold by the owner), but there were problems that couldn't be overlooked. She doesn't have an unlimited budget, but we want her to have something safe and reliable, but not necessarily beautiful! Ha ha. So perhaps there will be a bit more car looking this coming week when she has more time. Son then comes home the following week for his reading week from college. Too bad they weren't on the same week.

Being Sunday night, it's another new episode of Curse of Oak Island. If I can stay awake, I'll see if they finally find that bloody money pit! I'm guessing it's already been found but everyone involved with the show has signed a confidentiality agreement to not talk about it or reveal anything, as the episodes come out later.

What about you? Do you have a good used clothing / items store in your area? Do you like cauliflower? Do you fall asleep with a book in your hand?