Peach pie and heating quotes

Here's the peach pie I made yesterday and along side it, the cinnamon roll ups I made from the leftover dough. This is always what my grandmother made with the leftover pie  dough - just roll it out thin, spread a thin layer of flour on it, a nice generous amount of sugar, then sprinkled with cinnamon.  Mix it on the rolled out dough with your fingers to combine, and spread it evenly. Then add lots of small pieces of butter. Roll it up the thickness you see and cut in little sections and bake till done. They're great with a cup of tea or coffee - crunchy, buttery, and cinnamon sweetness all rolled up in one little bite sized piece of heaven.

Another busy day with workmen in and out, starting at 7:30 am. The dog and cat pee saturated carpet was removed from the hall and the floor painted with a special paint to kill the odors and seal before the tile goes down. For a few hours the smell of that special paint was horrible, even with the door open. For a while there I was thinking the pee smell might have been better!

Then the handyman arrived to re-hang a repaired shade, and shortly after that the rep from the heating/cooling company came and after checking out the space and explaining the benefits of the heating/cooling system he was suggesting for the studio/garage, I asked what that would cost. I'm sure he wasn't happy with my lack of enthusiasm for his $3,500 quote! So I took a deep breath and asked if he could come up with a more reasonable alternative; and maybe let's just think about heat and forget the air conditioning. He promised to email me more information and quotes tomorrow. I need heat in there in the winter, but I'll just deal with the summer heat by adjusting my work hours and maybe get a good exhaust fan set in front of an open door. At some point the pool man came because he had to fix something he forgot to do yesterday. We are so ready to have all this work done so we can enjoy a normal day at our own pace.

By the time they all left, Jim announced that he was really hungry, so I pushed dinner time up and got to work in the kitchen. So there goes another day with no studio time. These days, once dinner is done, I'm done for the day other than computer and paper work.

I'm looking forward to the Olympic events starting at 8pm; and I will be watching from bed!

Peach pie

Here's the peach pie I made yesterday. I hadn't made a pie in quite a while and forgot just how labor intensive it is. How did my grandmother make all those pies, keep a garden, can, do laundry without our modern washing machines or dryers, no permanent press clothing, no frozen foods, cook on a wood stove, clean house, etc! With all my gadgets I still feel like I have less free time than she had!

I think these computers, for as wonderful as they are, really do eat up a lot of our time that we would be spending on doing all those other more creative and more productive things.

Yesterday, I got in the garden long enough to pull a few weeds, harvest more summer squash (what am I goin to do with it all!). The freezers are pretty maxed out but I'm hoping I can get some of it in small baggies and find some little spaces to squeeze them in. I sauteed some of the thickly julienned zucchini in olive oil and garlic with some fresh chopped basil and parsley last night, which is one of the few ways Jim actually enjoys summer squash.

Tonight is pizza night, so I'll get started on my dough after breakfast. I've got some real Buffalo mozzarella that I got at the Italian deli in Cornelius last week, that I'm eager to try. Jim likes pepperoni on his half and I found some at Earth Fare that doesn't have all those preservatives.

By the time dinner was over, I was too tired to start on my light box project; and I was fast asleep halfway through the Anthony Bourdain show. For the past week I've been super tired and really having to force myself to do anything. The leftover flu bug from months ago comes back every time I tired myself with too much hard, physical work. Maybe it's just old age telling me to slow down a bit.

Pie making time and C10R test tiles

Here's another group of Cone 10 Reduction test tiles. You can find recipes and names at my web page:

http://www.shambhalapottery.com/c10glazegroup2.html

After seeing the weather report this morning, I decided this was the day for making a peach pie and maybe figure out what to do with the rest of these now, ripened peaches.

Yesterday was a tiring shopping day - driving to Johnson City and hitting 3 large stores for various hardware, office and other supplies, followed by a nice dinner at Red Lobster. I had hoped to go to the Southern Highland Craft show but we were both tired in the morning and by afternoon we decided it was better to get all those chores done. It was a great day to shop. There was hardly anyone in any of the stores on the Sunday afternoon. Jim cat napped while I did all my shopping. I got the foam core board at Michaels for making a light box. That will be tonight's project - measuring and cutting those pieces.

I have to get on line later and buy one more lamp and daylight fluorescent bulb for the light box. No local stores carry the higher intensity version of these bulbs.

Well, time to start peeling those peaches which I originally intended to start right after breakfast.