The Get Up and Go...Went

 This morning I encountered one of the hazards of shelter-in-place. I though I'd slip out early to hit the supermarket before "going to the office" only to discover that my car battery had faded to a cough and sputter. No problem! This is exactly why I own a battery-in-a-box as part of my car emergency gear. Except that the battery box has gradually been diminishing in how long it will store a charge. Originally I would top it off every two months, as recommended. Lately I've been doing it every month, since it's been lower than comfortable when recharged. But either I missed the last reminder (likely) or it's going shorter than that now, because it only added a little more juice and I had to put off the store run. Not a big deal. The battery box is fully charged again. And as I started typing this, I remembered that I have a plug-in battery charger too. (A relic of a time when I was having regular issues with a previous car.) So it's now juicing up the Element for later. But it's one of those aspects of "hunker down and don't go anywhere" that you don't necessarily think of. I checked back and the last time I took the car out was less than a week ago, so that seems a bit precipitous for losing battery power.

I've started watching the relatively-new PBS drama series on Queen VIctoria. I'm always behind the curve on these things. It looks rather nice so far. That was during dinner. Then I switched back to my Jane Austen marathon and worked some more on getting my financial records caught up. Even though the tax deadlines have been extended, there's no reason to keep putting off getting them done.

I've concluded my coffee mug "survivor" show on facebook and posted the results this morning. I'm down to 6 mugs to keep (which stack nicely into a single row in the cabinet rather than taking up the entire shelf). Because it's been fun and interactive, I'm tempted to do a "next season" of the show and tackle kitchen gadgets next. Even if I override people's opinions on what to keep and what to discard, the act of posting them, discussing them, and thinking about the comments helps me make my own decisions.

I almost finished clipping the rosemary and lavender in the parking strip yesterday. I could have pushed through and finished the last six feet or so, but I've been listening to my body more on when to stop so I can come back the next day. There's still enough room in the green can to finish this week, so maybe today. I pulled out a couple of the lavender bushes that had gotten really woody and scraggly. They have a finite lifespan, after all. But I'm only tidying up some of the more vigorous bushes because they're in the middle of blooming at the moment.

Did a sort of beef stroganoff thing last night by accident. I'd pulled out a round steak that had been in the freezer for quite some time, which wouldn't have been a problem except that the sealed plastic had gotten sliced at some point so there was a chunk of freezer burn. I decided not to risk treating it like a steak and instead chopped it up, browned it with onions, added a bit of powder fort (medieval peppery spice mix), poured in the remains of a bottle of red wine and a cup of Tomato Sauce Of My Estates (from a really good year--don't often have that kind of leftovers) and let it simmer all afternoon. Poured off most of the liquid then stirred in some plain yogurt and served it over noodles. Very nice. I saved off the liquid for soup base.

This afternoon I plan to turn the remaining poppy seed filling into a cake, using a pound cake base recipe. In this morning's department meeting we noted that my oldest investigation turned one year old today (or rather, tomorrow because of leap day), so we're counting this as a birthday cake. The tradition is that I have to share with the rest of the department, but alas that's out of the question. They can have pictures.