Tuesday's Tiredness

Could not make myself get out of bed and go to Pilates this morning. Was soaking my feet in Epsom Salts at midnight and finally got to sleep about 2:00 am. Have been keeping the half-hour of walking during Jeopardy every day - so there's some activity for this day. And my feet still ache.

My easy activity for the day was re-sizing a jacket pattern. Not just enlarging, but resizing the proportion. Working from a tissue paper pattern, fused to a web-fiber backing some years ago, and traced onto freezer paper, angling the neck and sleeve to fit a more mature shape took almost two hours. And I was exhausted. Tomorrow I hope to try on the paper pattern, mark some adjustments and then may need to re-trace the whole thing: neatly. Wasn't prepared for the time and attention to so many details but am feeling good about having accomplished another step in the 'want-to-make-but-can't-find-the-time' Jacket. And this isn't even the hard part. There is so-o-o much more to do.

Most of the day was spent overseeing tonight's dinner. Chinese Slow-Cooked Pork Shoulder came straight from foodtv.com, "making it easy" show from 2006. Found a package of pork shoulder, about 5+ pounds at Sam's Club on Monday; picked up the mushrooms, ginger, scallions, asparagus and green beans at Whole Foods and voila! dinner. almost. The secret ingredient is Chinese five-spice powder, rubbed over the meat; cooked in a mixture of dark soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil and minced ginger. I put all this in the crock-pot after last night's walking; let it slow cook for six hours. Cooked again this morning for four hours, until the meat was falling off the bone, then trimmed the fat; drained & strained the liquid and chilled to harden the fat. Once skimmed, the juice was used to cook cellophane noodles. The vegetables were stir-fried in a wok, the pork chunks and sauce added to re-heat. Chopped scallions topped the dish. EF loved it. AND I have at least two more servings for the freezer. See:
www.foodnetwork.com/food/cda/recipe_print/0,1946,FOOD_9936_32677_PRINT-R...

dancerCIZE is a GO! Twelve gals are ready to rumba. Ballroom is still ONE couple short. Tomorrow I head to the UNC-gym for a mini-weight workout, then to OLLI's 2:00 pm class at JRC education center for 'Aesthetics.' Don't laugh, this is about the context of meaning in visual aesthetics. The teacher is a photographer and I want to know what he knows about how to 'read' visual images.
later, bb