Petunia rambles on and on….

The weather forecast was calling for bitter cold weather and 2 days of light snow. I wasn’t too crazy about either one, but it’s less of a worry now that I don’t have to be at work at 6 am, don’t have to scrape ice/snow off the car in the dark, don’t have to go to work AT ALL! Still, my hyper-sense of over-planning everything went into gear, and I thought, What am I going to do if we get snowed in?

As I’ve got enough craft stuff to last me longer than I expect to live, I figured that all I needed to do was to make a quick grocery run, and that’s when I thought about making bread. Nothing better than the smell of bread baking, so I made a quick run out to Byler’s for supplies. And, of course they had everything I needed, and then some. And I bought all kinds of goodies. Bread flour, rye flour, pumpernickel flour, yeast, orange peel, caraway seeds, corn meal, molasses, spices, cupcake papers. Oh, I love that store.

By the next day, the temperature outside started to drop, and it started to snow that evening. I got up the next morning, peeked out the window, thought of all the breads I’d make, and could almost smell them already.

Got breakfast done and cleaned up, and started filling the container that fits into the breadmaker, measuring ingredients that were all readily accessible – I had left most of the purchases out on the counter, knowing it would all be used in the next day or so. I could almost taste warm bread.

AND THEN……

I pushed the Start button, and didn’t hear anything going on inside the container. Uh, not good. When I looked inside, the flour wasn’t moving as it should. It wasn’t moving at all. There’s a little “paddle” in the bottom of the container that mixes and kneads the dough IF IT ROTATES. If it doesn’t move, you just have a container of wet flour. I won’t repeat the language I used. I hadn’t used that machine in quite a while, and apparently, it had “passed on.” No warning, no note to tell me it was leaving, or ill, or anything.

And to make matters worse, while I was fuming over all this, my husband went and dumped the can of ingredients down into the garbage disposal!!! Uh, I could have transferred that into the bowl of my mixer and mixed/kneaded it there, as I did for years. Ugh!

I put bread-making out of my head for a day or two, but all the while, I was thinking about that enormous amount of supplies I had purchased. So I started looking online at breadmakers.

On Monday, I will be delivered of a new breadmaker.

I’ve worked for so long, for so many years. This is going to be a big change. Being home with husband all day? Having someone ask, “Where are you going?” is something I haven’t dealt with since I moved out of Mom’s house many decades ago. Why does a rude answer come to my mind first? (Should stay home for quite a while, though, and get the house in better order – and that isn’t my first thought!) Have enough craft projects to finish (or start more) to keep me busy longer than I can reasonably expect to live. I desperately need to de-clutter, and I can hear him saying, “Don’t throw that out; I might need it!”

I’ve never been to Canada. I haven’t been down south to my daughter’s house in way too long. (That sounds more pleasant, with the worst of winter ahead of us!) I want to learn how to relax. I really don’t know all that I want to do!

As usual, we spent a great deal of time walking around, looking at scenery, mountains, waterfalls, each other.

This is at Raymondskill Falls, just south of Milford, PA.

Wish we could have stayed much longer!!