Why I will never spend money for a cat bed:

My goal for this Wednesday is to have a nice, calm day where I accomplish stuff.

On that note, today’s word is: delusional

Last month I had fresh peaches to use up, and one of the things I made were peach scones. I froze them before baking, so I could bake them when I wanted them. Sunday we baked two.

As usual, I only kinda followed the recipe I had, but I made some major variations here, making a two layer scone with the peaches in the middle.

Peach Scones
3 cups flour, all-purpose
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup buttermilk, dried
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
salt
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk, 2% lowfat
8 tablespoons butter, unsalted
1 large peach, sliced
Sugar
Fresh grated nutmeg
Lemon juice

Slice the peaches. Sprinkle with sugar and fresh nutmeg. Mix in a teaspoon or so of lemon juice.

Whisk together flour, sugar, buttermilk powder, salt, and baking powder. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, and milk.

Cut the butter into the flour mixture.

Fold in the milk mixture until just combined. Divide the dough in half. On a very well floured surface, press or roll out half the dough into a disk.

Place the peaches on the disk, leaving an edge free.

Press/roll out the other half of the dough into a similar sized disk, and place atop the peaches.

Neaten things up.

Cut into eight scones.

Before baking, preheat the oven to 450 F.

Bake for 7 minutes then turn off the oven without opening the door. Leave in the oven for 8 to 10 min longer.

YUM!

We went to Ohiopyle again, this time with my brother et al.

Brian decided we needed to go bike riding, so we left at 8AM Saturday morning.

It was really lovely, and my legs may one day forgive me.

Since I hadn’t been on a bike in … a really really long time … I didn’t take ay pictures while biking, but did get some pictures walking around town.

These were taken at the end of July, but with everything that happened, I forgot about them.

Please enjoy them now. :)

We’ll have had our Corolla for 9 years come October. It’s been incredibly reliable and hassle free and gets fabulous gas mileage (35 to 41 on the interstate).

However.

Since we only have the one car, we’re thinking it’s time for a new car. (We have no interest in having two cars.)

Our top two are the Corolla and the Jetta: Standard transmission (5 or 6 speed)

We’re considering doing a lot of traveling in the future, so comfort and reliability are extremely important.

One major disadvantage of the Jetta is that the closest dealer is almost an hour away, which makes those free maintenance checks a PITA, especially since we’ll have only the one car.

Disadvantage of the Corolla–it’s getting harder and harder to find manual transmission engines on Toyotas.

Any comments or suggestions?

(Don’t even suggest a Ford or Chevy–we want something that will be reliable AND worth something for trade in later–our 9 year old Corolla is still worth $3 to 6k according to the blue book.)

As previously noted, I’ve been feeling sad and melancholy recently. So, this week’s word association is going to be a one-time thing.

This week, I want you to name someone, and then say one kind thing about them. Doesn’t matter who that person is, and you can come back multiple times if you want. If the person is online and I should know ’em, then link to them.

I just need some kindness in my life, and I’m counting on y’all to come up with some.

Here’s the first, to get your started:

Michael = patient

I’ll try to get back to our regularly scheduled fun and games next week. For now, I’m just feeling melancholy.

And broke.

I feel so all alone
no one’s gonna fix me when I’m broke

Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland

This is a repost from last year.

Michelle: What’s on that bottom shelf, behind all the bags of kitty litter?
Michael: (pause) Plates.
Michelle: Plates? Oh. The Star Trek plates. Behind the kitty litter is a good place for them.
Michael: When I get my man cave those plates are going up!
Michelle: Thank God we can’t afford to move.