Life in the Cheese Drawer

oh hello, and welcome to kablpomo (kablamo!), where i attempt to blog every day. i’m not sure i’ll be ambitious this year, but i’ll give it a go.

that said, if you have anything you’d like me to blog about, let me know. things you want to know more about but don’t have the time to look it up, etymology lessons, info on running or yoga, etc. drop a comment.

today on my drive home from work, it’s sneeted/snowed for about 5 minutes, very lightly, but enough so that i saw a flake on my windshield. ugh; so it begins.

i wouldn’t mind being a snowbird, that’s for sure.

so then of course, liz took it upon herself to let me know it was time for winter decor, and just, no.

it’s still fall.

it’s still meteorological fall.

it’s still 4 weeks til thanksgiving?

there’s still color in the leaves on the trees (extended fall this year!)

halloween was yesterday!!

keep winter at bay as long as possible!

speaking of winter, i’m in the middle of transitioning to treadmill running, and ho boy is that a slog. it uses different muscles and is more work for me than outdoor running. plus ambition to run while staring at a wall while i wallow in my sweat with a mediocre fan is no fun.

i’ve been recommended to use zwift, which is sort of an immersive app that you use to run through landscapes. i think peloton uses the same concept?? anyway, i’d need to buy a $48 thing to clip on my shoe to track the running, which kind of sucks. but if it’s going to keep the boringness of a treadmill run at bay, maybe it’s worth it?

 

really, does 2020 have anything to be thankful for? i mean, i guess i’m thankful that the orange psycho wasn’t reelected, but of all the detritus that 202 has thrown at us, and for how awful the OP is, that’s a pretty low bar.

to be fair, i did miss that jane wasn’t joining me for tday. this year was the 10-year anniversary of our super awesome black friday shopping (i got a $500 fridge, we used two expired coupons, and won a scratch-off lottery ticket). and while we did watch die hard at the same time, it just wasn’t the same. sigh. next year.

but, i did make food. in fact, i am still eating food. specifically, pie. my pumpkin pie was ginormous! and there are leftovers galore. i’m gonna have to freeze some turkey.

i always have good intentions with taking pics with my good camera, but it’s sadly just easier in the moment to grab the phone camera. anyway, here are some food pics.

i’ve been using this brine since before the pioneer woman sold out to food network. it makes an organic, additive-free turkey delicious.

spatchcocked bird! i roasts in about an hour and a half/hour 45. it’s so much quicker. maybe some year i will try putting it on the grill.

i found a butterscotch tart in a martha stewart magazine last fall and had to try it out. it’s so good.  

obligatory pecan pie because nate requested it and hates pumpkin pie.

then there’s my pumpkin beauty. it’s pretty zingy this year because i made the filling while i was drunko and kept adding stuff. it’s also a little sweeter than i’d prefer, but you know what? pumpkin pies are easy peasy to make (like seriously, the filling is three ingredients and then spices), and i have a metric ton of pumpkin yet, so i may just make another one.

i picked up some dinner rolls from a bakery in st joe (the dinner rolls megan and i had at krewe restaurant – omg they are to die for) and i got some flowers while i was there. you can see my just-in-time-completed puzzle on the table.

not a bad spread. i love squash.

time for die hard! and some stan on the lap! (the halloween cat house has since been retired for the season.)

omg it’s a yeti sighting! nate’s bday is today. he’s 43 yikes.

a few mini reviews:

1. the new shoes i just got are pretty awesome so far. i tried the past few runs without my dumb orthotic and lo – no pain! it’s got a mid-ish heel drop (8mm – not zero but not 13mm like asics), and it’s made for flat footed peeps like myself. i’ve only been on the treadmill so far, and it actually seems to help with the weird hip/knee pain i’d been having, too, after transitioning to indoors. i’ hoping to get out for a couple outdoor runs this week, and we’ll see how they do on the asphalt!
2. my new phone didn’t come with headphones, which i use for phone calls mostly, so i went to amazon to get a pair of apple brand ‘phones. in the past i’ve had pretty good luck with amazon warehouse items – returned items that have been repackaged or just no packaging for a lot cheaper. so i bought a pair thru that. and they are NOT apple. when i plugged them in, they wanted to connect via bluetooth, which was the opposite of what i wanted with these. so, i returned them and tomorrow i’m heading to target to an actual pair of apple headphones. thanks amazon.
3. blind-baking pie crusts for pumpkin pie soooooo makes sense, but the last couple time i tried blind baking a pie, it shrunk up. so, after watching some videos and looking a an expert baker’s instagram today, i think i’m ready to try another blind baked crust tomorrow when i make some pies. is this a mini review? maybe it will turn into one tomorrow when i try it out.
4. MAYBE tomorrow i will debut “drunk baking with kate” on my youtube channel. wouldn’t that be interesting.
5. and here’s a final review on super long weekend. i love thanksgiving weekend because you get all the hard stuff front loaded and then the rest of the weekend is for relaxing. i took wednesday off, so i have a nice, long, 5-day-drinking weekend HAHA.

now i’m off to do some yoga. i’m not sure if i should take a short break from fightmaster yoga or if doing yoga with her while i’m still sad about her death would be good. i’ll try tonight and see how it goes. what a loss to the world.

oh, you know that i was watching the little UPS truck* track along the roads of avon all day today, bringing my phone to me sometime between 2-6 p.m. right around 5 p.m., it showed up at my door!

so now i’m getting used to the swipe-y-ness that is the new(ish) iphone interface.

before i packed away the iphone SE2 to send to lori, i took some comparison pics between the iphone SE1, SE2, and the iphone mini.

the mini falls almost directly in between them. it’s almost as wide as the SE2 but not nearly as close in height as to the SE1.

and while the 4S will always be the perfect pocket phone, if i have to have a phone that goes in the pocket with a decent camera, then the mini will have to do! and, with the mini, apple brought back the square corners, which feel so much more substantial than the rounded corners. i really like that design, and i’m happy that they went back to it.

i had the SE2 for only 5 months, but i’m glad that i went to the mini. it’s more compact and i’m excited to take some pics with the camera and test it out! more in the daylight.

*i really wish fedex and UPS would combine their features. if i login to fedex, it automatically populates my deliveries without tracking numbers. but i can watch my package on a map on UPS. #firstworldproblems

 

last weekend, nate’s coworker came to work with a 102º temperature. then on monday, she decided to get tested for covid. her husband was also getting test for covid (before the deciding to come to work thing).

nate has shown no symptoms, but i do know that he contracts sickness like my white pants contract cat hair. so if he WAS exposed, he will probably get covid. and he said his work idiot is one of those people who pulls down their mask to sneeze.

excellent.

so, while nate has no symptoms and is waiting to hear, he is not getting tested yet. i told my coworker and my boss what was happening in the chance that he will need to get tested. and today, they decided to implement stricter stay at home rules, which means i have to stay home from my job where i mainly sit in the corner and do my work, even tho nate’s the one who was exposed and is waiting for a result.

meanwhile, nate is still going to work at his workplace where he interacts with a lot of people on a daily basis. in what world does this make sense?

my luck, her test will come back negative and i’ll have to just pack up my work computer and other junk and take it back tomorrow. (i work with a lot of large files on a work server, which is frustratingly slow when connecting via VPN or remote desktop, so i prefer to work at work.)

and while all this is happening, my coworker’s kid was exposed and needs to stay home from daycare for 14 days, and he needs to be watched! so now my coworker is basically out sick for two weeks. this was the very scenario that he was working from home to prevent 😂

what a time to be alive.

friday was such a flurry amid election news, that when i got to work that morning and a reminder on my phone went off to “order iphone mini,” it was complete (and pleasant) surprise!

in june i got the iphone SE2 – after about 2 years of using an SE 1 and 3 years prior to that of the iphone 5 (and prior to that? iphone 4S – RIP).

so the SE2 was a huge jump in size and was heavy compared to the SE1, not to mention took up more real estate and was cumbersome to reach the upper left one handed.

when they announced the iphone 12 mini, i was like, sign me up! even though i’d just purchased a new phone. anything to bring down the size in my pocket.

last friday was pre-order day, and after some back and forth between apple and tmobile, i ended up going with tmobile’s purchase. got my new iphone mini in the sea green color coming to me this friday!

cousin lori is going to purchase my SE2 from me – and so i erased it and cleaned it for her on sunday, then pulled out my sim to put in my SE1 to use til my mini showed up.

the keyboard is TINY!! i had enlarged the keyboard on the SE2, and going back to minikeyboard was kind of funny. i’m not complaining, because that phone sure fits nice in a pocket, but it was kind of funny going backward on size.  here’s hoping the mini will be all i’m hoping for!