Today

(Now yesterday...) I woke up around 10 or 10:30 to the sound of pounding rain on the window, reminding me that today was the neighbourhood yard sale. So I got up and called mom to ask her how she was enjoying the weather. It turns out that she and B had been able to get everything into the garage (they had had some stuff in the driveway) by the time the worst of it started.

After the rain stopped (and an impressive rainfall it was), I went over to check out the junk at mom's. It turns out they had already sold S's old-lady-cart, which was the only thing I was mildly interested in. (I wasn't interested enough to snatch it before the sale started.) Then I went to check out everyone else's junk. At one place, they had bough a tarp in case of rain, and then forgot about it. So it was nice and dry in it's package under the patio umbrella, and everything else (including the things giving the price per sex... they really should be more cautious as to how they write their t's) was drenched. I ended up getting a nice little haul for under $5 at one place:

I bought a broiler pan (in addition to only having one oven rack, my oven is missing it's broiler pan), a backpack for the student I tutored last term (the zipper is gone on his, I thought I'd buy him a present, given how much he paid me last term), two CDs, and a tin with a mountie on it. Nice!

Then I went back home and did laundry. And washed dishes. (I still have some left for tomorrow... not enough space in the rack for everything in one load, and I'm too lazy to dry them.) I also made The Pioneer Woman's roasted garlic mashed potatoes of love:

I made a few modifications to the recipe, none of which I recommend:

1. I bought the ingredients back in... February? March? Um... and then didn't have the time or energy to try the recipe.

2. I eventually got semi-motivated a week or two ago, at which point I finally roasted the garlic. (How long can roasted garlic sit in the fridge?)

3. The one potato in the bag that had gone thoroughly rotten and smelly prompted me to finally do something with the potatoes today. I tossed the liquidy-stinky one, and then cut off the bad spots off the rest. They were mostly quite soft, but otherwise not too bad.

4. I forgot to take the half-and-half and butter out of the freezer early enough (partially in case I didn't get around to cooking again today), and so they got added in a mostly-thawed state.

5. The cream cheese was well past it's "best before" date, but it looked fine, and so got added anyway.

6. I left the skins (mostly) on, since they're good for you, and I kind of like them in mashed potatoes... in restaurant potatoes, skins mean they're not from a box. (I think... is it possible to have mashed potatoes from a box that still have skins?) These were yukon gold potatoes, which aren't thick skinned. I would likely peel russets, or others with thick skins.

7. I finished the mashed potatoes when I wasn't hungry, so I stuck them in the fridge for later.

8. When I was hungry later, I didn't feel like having mashed potatoes.

At least the smelly potato isn't in my cupboard any more. (It went straight outside.)

Let's see... what else did I do? I wove in a few more ends on Klaralund (very nearly done... a few more ends left), I read a bit, hand washed my bras, flipped my mattress, read some blog posts, and updated my LaTeX installation. (I'm trying to figure out why I can't compile my assignment solutions, one question of which is from H, and uses packages I haven't used before.) I even managed all three meals today (cereal for breakfast, fish for lunch, and frozen pizza for dinner.)

I tried to have a nap, but couldn't fall asleep. (That was odd... I was certainly tired enough.)

Well, MacTeX is done downloading and installing, so I guess I should get to bed. (Dang... I just tested the compilation, and it's still not working! Grrr...) Now installing the upgrade to pdftex... it's taking a while... okay, I'm going to bed. Good night!