Oven Cleaning the Green Way

I cleaned my oven yesterday. It is a totally Big Deal as it is not a "self cleaning" oven. Oh, if it only were! This is the same stove that was in the double wide trailer house that we lived in on our property while we built our current home. It's an old LP propane Kenmore that works just fine - but, you have to clean the oven the old fashioned way. It hasn't been really cleaned for 11 years. Now before you go all weird on me and accuse me of being a slob I have to tell you the the damn oven sort of self cleans itself whenever you bake in it. You know, stuff turns to ashes so it's really not seething with maggots or anything like that. Yesterday I cleaned it with some sort of spray that is pure lye based. It's nasty stuff. I tried using the vinegar in a boiling pan of water left in the oven overnight "green clean" idea but 11 years of gunk does not render itself to "green clean". It's spanking new looking now. But, I'll bet you anything I won't clean it again for another 11 years.

Modern Medicine

It snowed a little last night. A surprise in the night kind of snow. There is that comforted feeling that comes about from the realization of how buffeted from the elements one can be, all snuggled in a warm bed. Entwined with that one person who is as familiar with your life as you are.

There hasn't been a lot of that entwining business going on here for the last week until last night because of the Illness. I thought I'd go to work yesterday because I was feeling like the Illness might be leaving me. I was wrong. Started the "Zpack" antibiotic and some kick ass steroids yesterday and I just about feel human again. Does anyone else ever think about how many times they might died in their lifetimes without the miracle of modern medicine?

It looks like it will stay cloudy today. I will hang out some sheets later if it doesn't snow/rain and knit on my sweater and be grateful for kick ass modern medicine.

Scrub Oaks and Restoration

Sick. I've been sick since Sunday with a cold. Bleh. Cough, cough, cough. Makes me regret the day I threw away that old bottle of codeine cough syrup that had been hiding out in the back of the medicine chest. I think it would have helped even as old as it was. I've tried to knit a couple of times but just don't have the concentration for it and ended up unraveling as much as I knitted.

This morning instead of futile knitting the dogs and I took a little early March hike about. The bare scrub oaks are kind of lacey against the blue sky.

I'll go to work tomorrow. And feel restored. How fortunate I am!