Lazy Morning/Productive Afternoon

During these years of retirement [or what has passed as such] we've not kept much of a schedule for sleeping, rising, eating meals.

As the weeks of the long heat wave have continued we've become even more erratic. 

One hot meal per day, usually eaten sometime before noon, seems to suffice with a sandwich or snack of cheese and crackers to fill the gaps.

Summer or winter, I tend to read until midnight or after and Jim has taken to watching whatever interests him at the moment on youtube.

That being stated, we are usually up and about the house between 7 and 8 in the morning.

This morning after waking around 6, I turned over toward the west window and rather promptly fell into a deep sleep. I was astonished when I woke again to find that it was 10 o'clock!

My little grey cat, Thimble, usually insists that I get out of bed to greet the day with her, which means checking the hummingbirds' morning arrival at their feeders, or noticing the pair of wild turkeys on their early patrol of the lower meadow.

Today Thimble was still curled in a tidy slumbering ball beside me. 

I can't state that I leaped from bed--my old body does not leap!

Jim was already at his desk, surfing marketplace,  a cup of coffee at his elbow and his cat, Elmo hovering at his ankles.

 I washed and dressed hastily, scurried into the kitchen where I had left a bowl of starter for mock sourdough bread to 'work' overnight on the counter. 

I flung myself into multi-tasking: mix the dough for the bread; boil a kettle for my tea; start a meal with leftover boiled potatoes frying in butter, breaded okra; refill the hummingbird feeders.

Jim wandered into the kitchen and took over the frying pans, sliced a Carolina Gold tomato, while I dealt with the bread.

After our impromptu meal [ brunch? lunch?] he went out to run the weed whacker around in the garden, while I committed to the kitchen.

 

The bread is not burnt--I was trying for an angle that didn't take in the clutter of bowls and measuring cups on the counter!

Since the oven would need to be on for the bread, I decided a pie was in order. The filling is a mix of frozen raspberries and blueberries.

I rolled a pie shell for a spinach quiche later in the week, stashed it in the freezer, and baked a smaller shell that may come in handy for a quick dessert. 

While the bread was baking I mixed banana bread, embellished with chocolate chips and chopped dates. [If I don't mention the dates Jim may unwittingly eat the banana bread!]

By 5 everything was out of the oven and cooling on racks, mixing bowls and measuring utensils washed and put away.

The results of the baking spree have been sampled and pronounced good.