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One lovely side-effect of my new weekly routine is the amount of time it gives me to cook. This week alone I’ve made pizzas from scratch, meatloaf with mashed potatoes and fresh green beans, and beef stroganoff with steamed rice and green peas.

Last night we got home from band practice at a quarter to eleven with one of the guitarists in tow. My husband wanted something to eat, so I fixed a short-order breakfast of eggs, toast and bacon for the men. While they ate and chatted, I proceeded to bake a batch of cookies that I’ll need for tonight.

I’ve had cookies from a grocery store bakery that contained white chocolate chips and dried cherries, so I thought I’d do a version of those using a fairly standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. I’d bought Nestle white chocolate chips and dried tart cherries, and I soaked the cherries in warm water before chopping them. I started out using the recipe on the bag of chips but discovered that it was leading to the inclusion of cocoa, so I switched to the Better Homes and Gardens recipe midstream. The sugar proportions were a little off and I think that made the baking time longer, but otherwise the cookies were delicious.

I’ve always loved to bake, but I’m confined to “bake and take” situations so as not to tempt my diabetic husband. I enjoy cooking, too, but not quite as much as creating delicately-browned cookies, pies, cakes and breads. Now that it’s getting colder outside, I’ll probably foist more and more baked goods on my co-workers and friends. And let’s not forget Christmas baking and candy making…

The weird thing is that I’m not much of a nurturer/homemaker type otherwise. Baking is one of those things I absorbed from my elder family members, like embroidery and speech peppered with noticeably rounded “o” sounds that make people think I’m from Minnesota even though I’ve never been there. It provides a welcome connection to a past that’s otherwise quickly slipping away.

There are few things in life that I enjoy less than going to a store to shop for myself. It hits my dislike scale somewhere in the neighborhood of dental visits and thorough cat box cleanings. However, sometimes I find I have no garments suitable for an upcoming change of seasons, so it becomes necessary for me to venture forth and face the world of retail.

Last night I had a free evening and a burning need for some shirts, so I headed to a discount clothing store to try my luck. I’d already decided that some casual, lightly-tailored blouses would be a good, versatile look for fall. I gathered a stack of them in my size and tried them on one by one. No, no, no, no, no and no. (Hey clothing manufacturers: try some darts in the BACK of your shirts! There’s nothing attractive about a tailored front and a loose, flappy back on a blouse.) It only takes one unsuccessful trip to the dressing room to discourage me. Although I tried to glance around for more items to try on, I couldn’t commit to the idea so I left.

The next store in line was an Old Navy. I go back and forth on whether or not I like Old Navy. Some seasons, their clothing line seems to give off an aura of: “This is not for you, ya old hag.” At other times, they carry attractive, business casual wear that’s appropriate for anyone. Fortunately for me, this year is one of the latter occasions.

I actually bought some stuff – in size Medium, which I suspect reflects a general enlargement of product in relation to its marked size.

So, that was one task out of the way. Now I just need to come up with a Halloween costume for this weekend…

See what’s written here? It’ll disappear around 7 p.m. tonight and be replaced by something far more thoughtful and interesting, I promise. I’ll resume my regular schedule in the morning.

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Update: Sorry about that. I ended up cooking dinner and going shopping instead. Sometimes real life intrudes…

I’m really pressed for time today, so instead of presenting you with another few paragraphs of whining, here’s something that’s actually entertaining!

For your reading and viewing pleasure, I refer you to James Lileks’ Hell on Ice.

Back in April I complained about our office being freezing cold because the building management turned on the air conditioning system too soon. Now the problem has come full circle as the air conditioning remains on too long into the fall.

I’m sitting at my desk wrapped in a fleece blanket, which I wear through the office as if it were a really ratty-looking pashmina. Now and then I have to stop typing and sit on my hands for a while to warm up my frozen fingers. Right now I’m viewing coffee more as a hand-warmer than a consumable.

There’s something singularly grim about looking out a 14th-story window into an indistinct panorama of fog while simultaneously being chilled to the bone. No wonder I keep longing to go home and take a nap after lunch every day.

As I’ve mentioned, I can’t seem to get a break when it comes to cars lately. Over the past few years I’ve experienced the following catastrophic car issues:

• Totalled SUV, thanks to a careless teenaged driver
• Severe transmission damage caused initially, I believe, by a huge hole in the pavement of a parking area
• One car waterlogged to death in a flash flood

That doesn’t count minor (but expensive) car incidents such as the dent my husband put in my last car by hitting it with his Jeep, or the big piece of trim I knocked off the bottom of my convertible before we got our driveway redone.

So obviously there’s a pattern.

Yesterday I was driving to work through an area that’s being subjected to all manner of heavy construction. A bulldozer was loading big pieces of asphalt into the bin of a large truck and I remember jumping at the loud noise as the chunks of asphalt hit the bottom of the nearly empty bin. Then I jumped because a piece of asphalt somehow missed the bin, bounced out and hit my car. Yes, that’s my new car. The car I’d just licensed the day before.

The construction crew were very apologetic and rushed to give me contact information for their office. I spoke with the owner and got the whole insurance thing rolling with them, so I’m sure it’ll all work out. But still, it’s my NEW CAR.

This morning I’ll have to squeeze in some time to start collecting estimates. My driver’s side door has some pretty heavy-duty dents and scratches, and I’m pretty sure there are bits of asphalt stuck in the metal. Considering that the body panels are made of aluminum, it wouldn’t surprise me if they just decide to replace the whole door. Sigh.

So how’s your week going?

Lately it seems that at least half of the other drivers on the road are complete idiots (and I’m not referring to their choice of political bumper stickers). Even allowing for my own seasonal crankiness as the weather deteriorates, things out there are bad.

On the highway, the other drivers are usually more or less under control, except for the occasional egotist who thinks it’s a great idea to avoid a traffic jam by speeding down the shoulder. On residential and city streets, however, it’s a whole different story.

First of all, why is it so difficult for people to understand how a four-way stop works? I’ll tell you in the least number of words possible: Approach the intersection, observing the three or fewer cars at the other compass points. When everyone who reached the intersection before you has gone through, it’s your turn. The End.

My new favorite rash act on the road involves double left-turn lanes. It seems that some drivers feel it is acceptable to barrel into the other turn lane during the turn if they’ve incorrectly anticipated which lane they’ll need once they’re through the intersection. Hey! Think ahead!

As you might guess, my audible rush-hour monologue sounds a lot like the above, only louder and spiced with a few more choice words. Maybe I need to start drinking coffee before I leave the house…

The focal point of last weekend was an enormous, nine-family garage sale in which I participated. As a people-watching exercise it was second to none. As an efficient way of making money and/or disposing of unwanted possessions it was two days of hard labor for approximately $4 per hour, so it’s best to focus on the other.

I knew that my stepmother had a basement full of things she’d like to get rid of, so I offered to take her items and sell them, too. She had no idea how to price her stuff (my answer: as cheaply as possible), so I agreed to do her pricing for her. I left work early on Friday and ran some errands and when I returned home, she and my dad had dropped off about 10 big boxes of miscellaneous possessions. There were a lot of dishes, ceramic knicknacks and kitchen things that had clearly been stored for a long time, so I decided to run them through the dishwasher before I tagged them.

As for my household, we mainly had samples from my husband’s last sales job and miscellaneous unwanted decor items that I’d deemed too nice to throw in the dumpster when we had our massive cleanout. I can say with no small amount of pride that our bathroom is now completely free of potpourri-filled decorative jars. Hooray!

I washed and tagged and washed and tagged from about 7 p.m. Friday until I loaded the Jeep at midnight. With the boxes of merchandise and a 6-foot long display table, the Jeep was groaningly full. I abandoned my idea to bring a bag of castoff clothing and a clothes rack.

By then I was really, really tired, but I’d promised to bring potato soup the next day, so I was forced to stay awake long enough to peel potatoes and carrots, chop celery and onions and make a large pot of soup. As soon as the soup was acceptably thickened, I put the lid on, shoved it into the refrigerator and went to bed…

…for five hours. I woke up at 6 a.m. and stopped by a convenience store for some really bad coffee on my way to my friend’s house. I unloaded the Jeep in the dark, set up the table and arranged my merchandise before anyone else arrived. Then I made a Starbucks run for a big Caffe Americano so I wouldn’t fall asleep in my chair. By the time I got back, the signs were up around the neighborhood, several other people had set up their tables of goods, and the customers had found us.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. I worked the cash table with my friend L. and we struggled to keep track of nine different people’s sales. It was very cold outside, despite the space heater we had on the porch by our table. When we finally wrapped things up at 4:30 p.m., my stepmother had only two boxes of items left (mainly baskets and one of the two espresso makers she’d brought) and I had maybe five or six small items. We’d made…well, a little. As I said, that has to be considered beside the point to stave off the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The next day I was so tired that I woke up at 10 a.m., drank two cups of coffee and ate some toast, then passed out again until 3 p.m. It’s probably a good thing I did, too. I could feel my immune system tanking from the long day in the cold with no sleep.

At the end of the sale, everyone kept saying, “We should do this again next year!” If I’m lucky, I won’t have enough saleable stuff for at least a few more years. Still, I’d go and hang out with my friends all day if they want to have a sale. That’s the really fun part anyway.

Sorry, folks. It’s just been one of those weeks. I have so much work to do that I can’t wrap my brain around anything interesting to blog about.

However, here’s the funniest thing I’ve read this week from someone else’s blog: The Gremlins Diet from Words For My Enjoyment.

Believe me, I’m trying to figure out what it’ll take to free up cranial space to make room for amusing observations of my own. I won’t have to tell you when I’m successful – you’ll know it by the sharp rise in blog quality. As for this week: again, sorry.