“Grabbing a half hour before I get in the shower”, he typed rhymingly.

Despite my laundry list of blog topics that really should be tackled soonest, I’ve decided to grumble and rant about my latest attempts at having or making nice things.

I just made puff pastry pizza again this week. I actually bought mozzarella for it, rather than using whatever cheese I had around. I also shredded some snack sausage I had. The result – soggy and not great. My conclusions:

• Don’t buy the puff pastry for pizza, make pizza on puff pastry if you’re trying to use up puff pastry. If you want to make pizza, you’re probably better off buying an actual premade pizza crust, not that I’ve ever done that. Or, better yet, ordering a pizza from the people who spend their days making pizza and know how.
• The canned sauce and the mozzarella were pretty good, actually. Definitely worth the time to get the mozzarella.
• The shredded sausage was too much, actually, I should have used less, and shredding it wasn’t great, although with this sausage, slicing it wouldn’t have been good either, too dense. So maybe put in the effort and just buy the sliced pepperoni. Or, as I said, just order a pizza.

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I also am 99% finished with a knitting project I’ve been working on for months and months, an R2D2 pillow. Fun idea, right? But it was a giant pain in the ass – used a color technique that I easily could have done an easier way – looks terrible, and probably won’t fit the pillow form very well. (I ordered two sizes of pillow insert, I hope one of them works. I have to sew it in and then I’m done.)

Also, what is it about these patterns that are like “here’s an adorable silly project you can make. We suggest the most expensive unwashable wool, here’s what you should get.” So I actually did buy what they suggested, and don’t even want to think about how much money I spent for something that’s going to be a pain to clean. So the next project like this I’m tackling is a Death Star pillow. I went online, looked at the yarn they suggested and it was going to be over $100 for a wool Death Star. Fuck that. I went and ordered what I hope are reasonable alternatives, in the cheapest acrylic I could find. That’ll show ’em.

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Speaking of pillows, a neighbor has been giving away a lot of stuff as a storage space is cleaned out and offered two wicker-backed dining room chairs. I have/had two chairs from our old dining room set in my bedroom, that really only get used when I’m putting on socks – but they had gotten really old and saggy. Was not looking forward to spending money to replace them. So I claimed these two chairs, and they’re in fine (structural) shape, but both seats are stained. (not in a gross way, there’s just marks that shouldn’t be there) So I bought those thin cushions to put on top. But they arrived yesterday and I put them on and they look stupid. So I’ve ordered seat covers instead. Let’s see if they look stupid. This is really not a project I want to spend any time and energy on, so I’m hoping this doesn’t spiral into an “I will not rest until I’ve spent so much money that these free chairs do not annoy me any more” situation.

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Once I have a satisfactory chair situation and the R2D2 pillow is done, even though it will still look awful, I’ll post pictures. That’ll be fun.