The chicken went better today. I used the broiler pan (but wasn't broiling). James liked it much better but the piece of chicken was thicker so one end was done before the other. I may cut the next one in half.
I biked down to campus for morning meetings and then ran exams until 10pm so a long day!
My laundry managed to dry outside despite the overcast conditions.
This morning I went to Loblaws before the rain came and I ate some stick bread while the rain poured down. It was raining but not pouring when I walked to Rustle. We had a lot of children today so I helped downstairs. There was quite a bit of chaos but everyone on the most part had a good time.
When I walked home it wasn't really raining, just a little bit of spitting but it seems to have been raining for many hours now.
When I got home I made a naan bread with cooked yellow pepper and leftover ground beef from James' tacos last night.
For James' dinner he had a recipe he brought home from N.B. which was boneless skinless chicken breast with montreal chicken seasoning. It was a bit of an experiment for me to cook it as I didn't know what I was replicating. So I put a bit of olive oil on and sprinkled a good amount of seasoning. I cooked it in the oven on a plain baking tray with some baking paper. It was ok but James said there was too much "water"- like when I took it off the tray there was still some liquid at the bottom so next time I'm going to try to cook it on the grill tray so that and liquid drops down to the tray below and see how that goes.
Today was a very productive day. I am impressed how many things I got checked off my list. I was up at 5am. It was overcast at times but I got the laundry dried and the back lawn mowed. I cleaned up the front hall, washed the floor in the kitchen hall and both bathrooms. I completed the ironing and dishes.
James had always only liked chicken from the slow cooker but he came back from New Brunswick liking a different kind of chicken. He brought Montreal chicken spice. So will need to change my habits.
I made the old kind of chicken and Pork spring roll bowls for dinner.
Yesterday evening I rolled out the mower to mow the lawn and saw there were 2 bunnies on the next door neighbours lawn. Since I didn't want to scare them with the mower noise I went around and picked up downed sticks from my lawn which was a quieter activity and helped with the mowing anyway. One of the bunnies ambled away while I was doing this but the other did not. I figured he would skedaddle when I turned the mower on. But no. He remained watching me carefully while I did all the mowing!
When I went to head into work this morning, my street was blocked off for construction. When I biked home I found that they had paved the cross street near me. So I started out taking an alternate route. Then when I reached the regular construction on Johnson for which I normally take a right turn before it, I took the right turn and surprise University was also closed. So I hopped off my bike and walked around that construction. A bit of a minefield of contstruction!
It rained a lot last night and was overcast all day today. But the laundry still dried thanks to the wind.
I cleaned the freezer today, which was much less work than the fridge!
The Oriental Peonies look worse for wear thanks to the rain and wind buffeting.
I should be able to bike tomorrow and try out my new lock.
There have been many baby grackles out and about seeking food from parents but I haven't seen any baby robins. Today, there was a teenage robin on my driveway. It quietly slipped away to avoid me. It looked like the parent was on my front lawn.
Kim is fostering 2 baby turkeys after a predator attack on the parents.
I deep cleaned the fridge today- took me a lot longer than I thought. I took all the shelves out and washed everything. Except for the door. By the time I had finished the main body, the door had been open a long time so I packed it in.
Oriental peony update- blowing in the wind
I had a vacation day today. I went to Food Basics to pick up some buns and some other things. The buns were the Food Basics brand and were really good and fresh. I also got some Kawartha tiger tail icecream, also super good.
Today I worked on cleaning and washing most windows. Nothing looks better but you can see outside clearly.
Yesterday I rode my bike to work and locked it up as usual. Nothing seemed different than any other day. My day had a complication though- I had to ride the bike home in the middle of the day and then walk back as I had an evening meeting and I didn't want to ride home after that as it is too dark. So my plan was to ride home, take the laundry in, have a bite of dinner and then head back into work.
However, when I arrived at my bike to head home and turned the lock, it felt like nothing happened. So I thought maybe it got stuck so I pushed the lock in and pulled it but nothing changed with what the key was doing. It seemed fully stuck. So I went to find someone with bolt cutters in my building and he tried the key- the key turns but nothing happens. So he took the bolt cutters and within 5 seconds my bike was free. Clearly if a serious thief wanted to steal my bike it wouldn't have taken them long despite what looked like a hefty lock. However, my bike is very old so hopefully not a good target. The lock seemed to have internally combusted and the innards just were no good anymore. The lock was about 25 years old so not unexpected I guess. Just the bike outlasted the lock!
