siglinde99

What's your favorite color this week? Some variation of blue or turquoise, same as always.

What job would be very unsuitable for you? Garbage collector. I couldn’t deal with the smells in summer.

What's your favorite Olympic sport? I don’t have a single favourite. Basically, I love anything that doesn’t get a lot of love outside the Olympics. Swimming,track, equestrian, rowing, anything the women are competing in.

Have you ever found yourself stuck out in the rain? Very frequently.

What does the tooth fairy do with our teeth? Turns them into piano keys.

Here it is, Wednesday already. My boss has said that I can keep working from home forever if I want. I am liking that idea a lot. It would mean just going to the office one day a week or so.

It has been a very long day - I had to be up and at the barn for the farrier at 7 am. I was worried about catching her because she has been a brat lately, so I was awake by 5 am. She was an absolute angel and she was done and back in her field by 7:11. I missed my lunchtime yoga class because the boy child called just as it was getting going. It was nice to hear from him, but now it's 7 pm and I feel a desperate need to get up off the couch and do something. Maybe I can do a bit of yoga or the gentle movement class before bed. Or I could cut out some fabric or sew something. It all needs doing.

At least I got my blog post done for this week. It took me until almost midnight last night because I had so many things I wanted to say. All the sexism leading up to the games has made me really grumpy, and I wanted to focus on some good stuff. I still managed to rant a bit, and include an excellent YouTube video, so I'm pretty happy with it. I just pulled it up so I could share the link and I see that the video link is now blacked out as age-restricted and only available on YouTube. Hilarious! Videos of women in beach volleyball uniforms are readily available. The sexism continues. https://fitisafeministissue.com/2021/07/28/things-to-celebrate-at-the-olympics/

1. What sign marks the end of the summer for you?

The autumnal equinox and the changing colours of the leaves, and the slowing of the summer harvests. Late summer is actually the best part, as it is a little cooler and less humid, and most of the biting bugs have died off.

2. What plans, if any, do you have for the rest of the summer?

I am training for a 10k swim, so lots of swimming. Plus doing things with garden produce, of course.

3. How would you describe your summer/winter so far – too hot, too cold, too wet, too buggy or what?

Summer is almost always too hot and buggy for me. This year it has been unpleasantly humid too, without the refreshing rain most evenings.

4. Summer often means open windows and the sharing of conversations, music, games and so forth with everyone. What sort of neighbor are you? Loud or considerate?

I think I am pretty considerate, though tidy gardeners may not agree with that assessment. My garden is pretty scruffy, and I mostly like it that way.

5. Aside from spouses and pets, have you had any trouble with pests recently?

I had a groundhog under my sun room in the spring, but it went away after I put the trap outside it’s hole (no food inside, and not open for business because I never got around to that part). Passive-aggressive pest control for the win!


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1) What are you doing this spring that you weren't doing 1 year ago? Cycling more on weekends, starting to train for a marathon swim distance.

2) What pandemic precautions are you still taking? All of them. All my family and the few friends in my bubble have been vaccinated, but I still visit only outside except with one couple and my parents. I wear my mask whenever I am indoors and when I am outdoors on a relatively busy street. I work from home and minimize shopping trips. I keep a close eye on the infection rates and trends in my city, province, country and (to a lesser extent) globally. None of that will change for the foreseeable future.

3) What's a safety rule that's very important to you? Know your limits and be safe in the water. As an open water swimmer, the details are a bit more complicated than they were when I learned to swim in a pool. Depending on the circumstances: swim with a buddy; wear a swim float for visibility; stay close to shore; keep an eye on the weather and be prepared to get out if a thunderstorm approaches.

4) What plants are blooming where you live? Lilacs, lots of flowers. Most of the flowering trees are done already and some summer fruits are well advanced.

5) What was your most memorable summer job? The summer I drove vehicles for the military was fun. The most memorable part was probably the time I happened to drive by some workers just as a piece of equipment fell and cut one of them badly. I stopped the truck and performed first aid (no thanks to the soldier I was with, who could barely bring himself to get the first aid kit out of the back). The cut was deep enough that I could see the man’s femoral artery but thankfully it wasn’t damaged. I closed the wound and applied pressure until the ambulance arrived. Then I went back to work. I must have been more shocked than I thought at the time, because I remember the next stop was for lunch and I realized I still had blood on my hands. It was a different time - bare hands when blood involved, no taking of statements, no videos or photos on your phone.

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted.**

1. What are you going to do this weekend? I will swim, of course. There will probably be a bit of gardening, and I may go on a bike ride or two. Plus I think I am supposed to do some on-line classes today.

2. What’s your favorite way to spend time? I don’t have one favourite, but swimming, reading and crafting are all important to me.

3. What’s the most useless thing you own that you would never get rid of? That would probably be the 60 year old teddy bear that is so fragile he never leaves the shelf. Even so, I have to add some patches every couple of years as the threads of his fabric deteriorate constantly.

4. Have you started planning your next vacation? Not exactly. I’m working on a plan to do a 10 km swim, so my vacation plans are focused on my training plan for that.

5. Are you very active, or do you prefer to just relax in your free time or is it one and the same to you? I am fairly active.

There are lots of good questions today. I’ll try to get caught up on the daily word prompts tomorrow, and my recipe list for last month.

1) What is your favourite food? Spaghetti. Pasta in any form, really.

2) What is your favourite food preparation method? I don’t have a single favourite. I’m a serious omnivore, so I need to use many different preparation methods.

3) What is your favourite cuisine or style of cooking? Does mid-Century menu count as a cuisine or cooking style? I also enjoy recreating dishes from medieval recipe books and cuisines from Lebanon and Turkey through to Malaysia (especially Central Asian, Persian and North Indian). But there is also room in my heart for the German foods I grew up with and the Brazilian and Central American cuisines I learned to love while living there.

4) Do you have any dietary restrictions and if so what are they? Cast iron stomach and immune system. I eat street food while traveling and don’t get sick.

5) If you could introduce the whole world to one ingredient to improve their culinary experience, what would that be and why? My current love is cumin. I use a lot of it in everything from my breakfast eggs to curries, burgers, and sauces.

These questions are swiped from spacefem.

What have you done lately for improving or maintaining your mental health? What more would you like to do? I have stopped working so hard. I do what is essential, but I no longer work long hours trying to do all the things and I definitely don’t bother feeling bad about not getting all the things done. Instead, I am trying to spend more time on things for me - various classes (both for my brain and for fitness), riding my bike for fun instead of to commute, going for walks.

When did you last eat something specifically because it was good for you? Today? I have been making a conscious effort to get more fibre into my diet, so today I had a serving of casserole made with beans and veggies, and some corned beef and cabbage (so much cabbage and carrots with just a little beef), plus a whole wheat bun at breakfast.

These days, what are you learning about, and what would you like to learn about next? For the last couple of days, I have been learning to write in a German script used for handwritten correspondence from the 15th C. It’s a fairly useless skill in many ways, but combined with my German lessons, I now want to take another crack at reading the facsimile editions of some 15th and 16th C German cookbooks I own. I may need to work on the printed alphabet for that, but I’m pretty sure the books I own were hand written.

What’s positive about your physical appearance lately? I weigh less than I have in many years (probably 15 years, at best guess). As a result, my jeans fit better, and I am starting to be less uncomfortable with how I look in leggings or workout gear.

What will you do this weekend to bring joy into your life and a smile to someone else? I’m going to pick up dirt for my dad. He wants to fill in some holes in the garden. He really shouldn’t be lifting them, so if I get the dirt I can also spread it. He will be happy to have the garden repaired and my mom will be happy he didn’t injure himself doing it. My sister’s dog, who dug the holes in the first place, will be happy she has fresh dirt to dig in. I enjoy finding practical things I can do to help my parents.

The Friday Five for 13 November 2020: Gifts

1) What kinds of gifts will you give this holiday season? Aside from a camera for my parents, I am aiming to do things that I can buy from local small businesses. I’m not sure how I’ll manage that for my son.

2) What are the best types of presents to give? I like small things - ideally handmade or from a local artisan. Experience gifts (such as tickets to a show) can be nice too, but you need to know the recipient’s schedule, so they are trickier.

3) Have you ever given someone a gift as a surprise? Why did you give the gift? Occasionally. They were usually small things that I thought would amuse them.

4) Have you ever received a gift that you didn’t like? How did you respond? Many times. I just smile sweetly and say thank you.

5) Would you rather give someone a gift or receive a gift? Why? I would rather give. I don’t “need” things and actually have too much stuff. As a result, I am very fussy about what I bring into my house. Besides, I can have fun picking out things I think others will like.

These questions were written by spacefem.

1) What did you plant? Beans, okra, carrots, bok choy, kale, collards, carrots, radishes, beets, tomatoes, cucumber, herbs. Only the beans did really well.

2) What was your favorite summer food? Tomatoes. I eat them every day (sometimes several times a day) when they are in season.

3) What song will remind you of this summer? I'm not really a person who associates songs with particular times but this has come up often (It's the End of the World as We Know it, done by Great Big Sea): https://youtu.be/F-5oGnvfUEU

4) What was your favorite body of water to be in? I split my time evenly between the Pond in my neighbourhood and the Ottawa River, with friends.

5) What's been your favorite outfit? I have four pairs of linen pants with drawstring waists from Old Navy. I wore one of them almost every day.

Somehow this came up in conversation at the cooks' meeting tonight. I can't imagine what the context was now, but it is pretty darned funny.
https://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/169723347468/the-1969-easter-mass-incident

One shoe at a time! Now I just need to know what size each foot is.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/zappos-shoes-1.5652046