#174 - Kitchen Stuff and Notebooks

Oh, the joys of sleeping in, they are too many to count.

What a nice way to roll in to the weekend. A movie with friends about a book I loved and then home to finish reading another loveable book only to sleep in and wake refreshed.

Robyn made us a quick breakfast of toast with jam and peanut butter followed up with a couple of egg bites and mug of warm tea.

We watched some Bill Maher and then I was out of bed to get an Amazon delivery. I’d ordered an adapter for our oven’s gas line, but alas it didn’t fit. I went back upstairs and conceded defeat. Robyn called the store and we set up an appointment to have them install the oven. Just not worth all the hassle and research I would need to do to get the right parts. What seemed like a straightforward thing quickly turned into a pain.

I have some silicon stove protectors arriving tomorrow as well to make clean up on the stovetop easier.

We also were looking to get a stainless-steel backsplash and found one that fit the look of our kitchen. Initially we were going to get a full sized thirty by thirty-inch sheet and we saw on that only rises about four and a half inches and would look better in our space. It also was more than half the price of the other solution.

So, we ordered it from Rona and will have to wait up to a week to receive it which is no big deal. The installer might be a week’s wait so in the meantime I brought a single induction stove up from the basement as well as a butane stove, I had for cooking and emergencies.

I tested the induction stove and made some fried eggs and a grilled cheese for our lunch. The induction heated up surprisingly fast. I was very impressed with the speed, but it seemed to me that the center of the pan received more heat than the outer edges. Still, it was perfectly usable, but it made me miss my gas stove.

I use these faux leather mini notebooks to keep myself organized with all the things I track as streaks and for things I need to keep on my to do list. I was down to my last one and I haven’t been able to find them for awhile now. I’d purchased them at the local Indigo store, so I jumoed onto their website and sure enough they had some more in stock. I didn’t feel like trying to locate them in the store and decided to order them online with an instore pickup.

About an hour later they emailed me to say the order was ready and waiting for me, so I dragged Robyn out to the mall for a mini excursion. They have a Laura Secord Chocolate store there and Robyn loves their French mint bars. I didn’t have to convince her to come along.

After picking up the notebooks, we walked around the mall mostly to get some steps in and with no real idea of purchasing anything other than the French mint bars, of course!

Robyn’s blood sugar was dropping, and we had a choice of eating the chocolate or heading over to the food court. We chose both.

Mr. Greek was what we both ordered and it was very tasty. I hadn’t eaten there in a while.

Back to the house and I fired up the induction stove and put an old frying pan on it. I had this branding mark of my logo and my name made up awhile ago and thought I would see if I could brand the new notebooks with it. I put the brass brand onto the fry pan and after some failed attempts, either not enough heat or too much, I dialed it into about three hundred and fifty-five on the stove made for a good imprint.

I branded all six of the new notebooks and a few more that I already owned. Overall, it worked out well and even the imperfect ones are still just fine for my personal usage. It’s not like I am selling these to the public.

I pulled out a new book to read, one that I ordered a month or two ago called, “Mythago Wood,” by Robert Holdstock. I kept meaning to get to this one, but other books always seemed to take priority over it. It’s a book that is always referenced by well known authors when asked what their favourite or most influential books were.

Robyn is planning on taking a walk with the kiddo in a few hours and I’ll use that quiet time to get some writing done. I want to get a good chunk of my short story assignment done this weekend. I took it easy yesterday in order to recover some energy, but now I have to get back into it as I am starting to fall too far behind in the word challenge as well as the amount of time I’ll need to finish this new story for my mentor.

And of course, I didn’t write while she was away. I fired up the bubble spa and luxuriated in warm waters. I came out feeling refreshed. The new plan is to have a late-night writing session, like I used to do.

Robyn has put me on to a new Taylor Sheridan show called, “The Madison.” So far it seems good. It stars Michelle Pfiefer, Kurt Russel and Mathew Fox from Lost.

Patrick J. Adams from “Suits,” is even in it. It features beautiful vistas of Idaho, which is a Taylor Sheridan thing, using the land as a character. He usually writes a good drama, so I’ll give it a chance.

And that chance ended up being the first three episodes before we got too tired to keep watching.

I’m really soaking in the relaxation today. I am as motivated as a corpse.

Having said that….

Today is my 174^th blog post, 80^th day of the 2026 Words Challenge and the 68^th day of playing chess.

You don’t have to knock it out of the park everyday to see change or success. You just have to show up and keep trying.

Having said that, tomorrow has to be a writing day and I think I am finally rested enough to put in a long day.

See you there tomorrow.