OMG This exactly. And I don’t wish I liked it better ‘cause it’s insipid and not worth liking better. Otherwise, there is not a vegetable or fruit that I’ve encountered that I haven’t enjoyed eventually. (Durian wasn’t love at first bite…)

However many ounces are in a little espresso cup. On rare occasions I’ll have two.

Are they testing regularly?

That’s soon! Congratulations!

Well, the obvious choice is Ankle then. You won’t even be spellchecked. 😜

No, no - all me. Definitely not the first time I discovered I’ve been mispronouncing a word. I’m glad I saw your post so I can correct myself in the future. You know, when lyres come up in conversation. 😉

What?! I thought the instrument *was* pronounced like Lear. Awkward!

They’re requiring vax (or recovery from Covid) now?! That’s great news!

I had no idea. See, I should’ve just let you sell it yourself. 😉

Oh, @Spy Car, should I do it for you? 😂 Get yourself a NEAT steam cleaner. It’ll take care of everything but the wood floors. eta no chemicals necessary- the steam cleans and disinfects. For a quick polish on stainless steel when you don’t want to drag out the steam cleaner, Twinkle is good. And congratulations on your new home!

Nope. But that’s me.

That’s what makes them invasive! They’re non-native. How about planting milkweed instead? Common milkweed and swamp milkweed smell wonderful, and butterfly milkweed is a beautiful color. All of them support native bees and monarchs. You could plant native elderberries (they get huge, smell wonderful, and you can use both their flowers and their berries), yarrow, penstemon, coneflowers, Joe Pye Weed, rudbeckia… All these plants are just about completely carefree and will make the birds and the bees happy. Here’s a native plant database for Michigan: http://nativeplant.com/plants/search/input

@***** Thanks for that link! It makes my heart swell to see all that goodness.

You know the bumblebees let you pet their big fuzzy fat bumblebee butts, right? 😀 (I do ask first! 😜)

Yes, this. Native plants will grow on your native soil, and will be good for the environment. Keep a patch of lawn if you want, but ripping up the rest is one small thing every lawn owner can do. And read Doug Tallamy! 😀 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/meet-ecologist-who-wants-unleash-wild-backyard-180974372/ This bit really drives it home for me: “a monoculture of lawn, a landscape that for ecological purposes might as well be a parking lot.” Gulp. ☹️

Have paella. Everyone loves paella!

What kind of peach trees do you have? 😃

Do a search for tzatziki or cacik. Very simple, very delicious and refreshing. I eat this with every meal in the summer.

Oh, I completely agree on the tasty not equaling healthy! I thought you meant that the food wasn’t usually of high quality and wanted to reassure you that it usually is, at least at decent restaurants. 🙂 I have friends who (in the Before times) ate out most nights, and I could never figure out how they survived all that fat and salt! Maybe they were just really good at ordering the reasonably healthy choices.

I’m so confused about this one. I’d always heard they need to be cooked before consumption, but I read conflicting reports. Do you cook yours first or use raw?

The reason that food in restaurants tastes better than food most people cook at home is because there is liberal use of fat and salt. That doesn’t mean it’s garbage, it just means it’s probably not optimally healthful. 😉

There are some excellent hot sauce recipes from the islands that use a lot a lot of scallions. Maybe search Trinidadian hot sauce or green hot sauce?

Apparently there is a native tansy, but way up north. https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/tanacetum/bipinnatum/ Tansy doesn’t spread aggressively by rhizome, so it should be fine in the ground as long as you keep an eye on it. If you make sure it doesn’t go to seed it should be okay. Apparently the pilgrims brought (the non-native) tansy over with them. A native plant that blooms at the same time and in the same color is solidago. There are about a zillion varieties. You could also show the monarchs some love and plant asclepias tuberosa aka butterfly weed. It blooms earlier than tansy, but is still in bloom when tansy flowers. It’s orange rather than yellow. Heres a link to some other native plants: https://wildseedproject.net/2016/03/monarchs-and-milkweed/

The first Christmas after my family experienced a very sad and unexpected death, we pretty much canceled Christmas altogether. We were traumatized and it was simply too painful to spend the holiday as we normally would have. I think the advice Tanaqui and regentrude have given you above is perfect.

I would not spend time mingling right now, even if it is outside. Too much risk. I see a few options: 1) You could ask neighbors ahead of time if they’d be interested in adding your stuff to their sales, telling them to keep any proceeds, because something has come up and you can no longer participate. 2) You could price things and put out a box where people can put in money. (Sometimes “pay what you want” makes people have to think too hard and they’d rather see a price. Or you could have a suggested price that would at least give them an idea.) 3) Usually at the end of the day or the next day lots of stuff that hasn’t sold is put out for free, so you could put your stuff out then. Of course you risk being stuck with a lot of stuff.