Elise Matthesen

When one lives with chronic illnesses of the sort that flare up and require one to rest rather than work, a day off when one feels good is a great happiness. I don't know what made things back off yesterday, but it was lovely, and I got a few things done that really needed doing (paperwork, household work) and I got a few of the new shinies actually posted to the Etsy shop.

More new pieces are lined up ready to go into the shop. I just counted them and there are more than fifty pieces, not counting the long necklace that needs its links inspected for QA purposes.

Not sure what today will bring, but yesterday had the kind of work-happiness in it that's still making me smile.

Now I'm going to go eat the lovely slow oats that Juan made for me, this time with a sprinkling of the pecan dust from Zingerman's. They gather up the sugar, spices, and bits of pecan that fall off when they make their candied spiced pecans, and put it in a bag and sell it for $5. Sweet and nutty and with a bit of heat, it's pretty good on oatmeal, or on toast with butter, or atop ice cream. Om nom.


"We start with whole pecans that we toast with butter, sugar, lots of freshly ground Telicherry black pepper, ground ginger, Jamaican allspice, cloves, ginger, cardamom and sea salt. As they toast, all those spices and butter meld with the pecans, bunching together in clumps of caramely sweet, nutty, slightly spicy deliciousness.

We don’t fill a tin with anything but those tasty clusters, but the "dust" that remains is just as delicious and really versatile. One of my favorite ways to use it is in baking. If you make cinnamon rolls at home, use this dust for the filling instead of the boring old mix of cinnamon and sugar. It’s great in cookies and banana bread as well. Wanna do something savory? Use it in stuffing or try the dust over sweet potatoes, roasted carrots or in salads."
--- Zingerman's online catalog

First day experimenting with sleeping when I am sleepy and not when I am not. Also, yesterday I ordered a thumpy alarm for deaf and hard-of-hearing people like me, because I do still need to be awake when there are outgoing packages to be picked up. We shall see. (I generally nap on the couch very near the door, and my dear mail carriers are very good at thumping the door loudly, because I can't hear regular knocking most of the time. I have a sign I put out that says PLEASE THUMP THE DOOR, and they generally do.)

The one downside to going free range with sleeping is I do not key things to the hours of the day very well, so I missed the packing window for something. I'll just have to pack it to go out Thursday. I can do this.

Also, managed to have workbench time! YES. And some VERY satisfying workbench time. Besides all the earrings that need their earwires, there was doing of a thing that needs doing which I think is going to work.

Besides all that, my back continues to improve.

OK then, that was a Day. Oh, and there was a sort of durian moon cake thingy! I never had one of those before, though I have known I like durian ever since the place with durian milkshakes was a little ways away from here. This thingy was good. Bánh pía custard hopia, is what it said if I read it correctly. Om nom.

Have you tasted something recently that you haven't tasted in a long time?