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Our local brewery sells giant pretzels that you can buy frozen and take home. You spritz them with water, sprinkle on the salt and then pop them in the microwave for three minutes. Boom. Hot pretzel, and they even sell dips to use.

They are a bit pricey, and of course, Cheap Lauren wanted to try making them on her own. The recipe is really easy, and surprisingly it doesn’t take a whole day. Here it is, if you want to scroll through the big story and see it at the bottom.

I made some mistakes, but that’s ok. I’ll know more for next time. Mostly, I am incredibly proud of me for following the recipe to the letter. I know!

My big mistake was not rolling them out longer and thinner. I knew it as I was doing it but didn’t stop myself. I was mostly worried about them fitting in my giant fry pan of boiling baking soda water, but now I know to make three of them instead of two. Also, Lauren, don’t flour the rolling surface when you shape them.

The pan has 9 cups of water and 1/2 a cup of baking soda. It gave me a reason to repackage my old box of baking soda and say, “That’s a lot of b.s.”

Behold the aftermath of splashing boiling baking soda water all over.

Here’s the final product. As I said, mistakes were made. They are good with a dipping sauce, but they needed a bit more time in the oven, and since they were so globby, they browned unevenly. I worried the dark parts would be burnt before the rest browned.

I’ll do better next time.

I have had a crazy craving for Cap’n Crunch cereal lately. I’ve done a pretty good job putting it off because 1) food is rather expensive now and it seemed like a waste of money, 2) my waist is rather expansive now and it seemed like ….. eh, you get the joke. I don’t need to eat sugary junk like that.

Or do I?

We were running errands in Lincoln on Saturday and stopped at Aldi for lime juice and looking at their junk aisle. I looked at their knock-off Crunchberries and dismissed them. “I don’t need those.”

When we were in line, Lloyd said, “It’s past noon and you haven’t eaten lunch. I don’t want to ride in the car with you when you transform into a monster. Should we get something here?” I I hesitated…… and he went to get the cereal.

I ate it with sticky hands in the car and with a spoon this morning. No regrets!

When Brad was here last week, I was telling him how hard it was to post because I go so long between them, I feel like I need to do a big ‘catch up’ post. He said just post about little dumb things, so that’s what I’m doing. (However, for the memory archive: my left wrist hurts. It’s probably tendonitis.)

1. Lloyd has a group of staff at school that started a book club last year. They get together once a week and talk about the book they’re reading. They are called the Lincoln Lutheran Speculative Fiction Society, because they can pick any type of speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy or historical fiction, but they’re mostly doing science fiction.

2) Everyone and their dog at my work is using Canva to make posters and such. It kind of wears on my soul because we’re going through SO much paper and toner and it smacks of ‘coloring pages and crafts’ to me, but remember – I am a grumpy soul.

3) Whilst on the sofa one night, I decided to make a logo for Lloyd’s group….. using Canva. Here was my first attempt:

I was particularly proud of the eyebrows, because you can’t have real eyebrows unless you pay for a Canva account, and I wasn’t going to do that. Lloyd didn’t like it because “It looks like we only read Harry Potter books.”

Ok, ok, I see it now. Here you go:

(I like that it looks like an alien reading, but also kind of like a spider alien.)

Hey, Brady and Deborah, here’s the update:

Lloyd and I don’t have it bad at all. What has been a mild inconvenience for us has been a nightmare for the people living at the intersection north of us. Several are either elderly or have health issues and this has affected them greatly. Lloyd and I are gone by 6:30 in the morning so we are never around for the actual machines doin’ their thang.

They have legitimate concerns – someone had trouble with an oxygen concentrator that couldn’t be delivered from Lincoln because the delivery person couldn’t get to their house; they worry that with all the vehicles around, no emergency vehicle could get to their house; they deal with people speeding down the street and then screeching to a halt when they realize the road is closed; and a lady who hasn’t been able to park close to her house in months has had several surgeries and has felt like nobody cares about her situation.

I’m glad the meeting happened. People from the city, construction companies and the chief of police were there and I feel that the people were heard.

That’s about it for now. We’ll keep you updated later! 😀

I feel like I need to write this down because someday all the roads in Seward will be fixed and I will have forgotten about it completely. 

Sometime long, long ago, they began a BUNCH of road construction in Seward. For Lloyd and I it began a block north of our house when they tore up a road that needed to have some new storm sewer lines put in. This was something that needed to be done before they could start The Big Work on Highway 15, which runs north and south through town. I needed to take a different route to work.

Behold these incredibly accurate diagrams:

My new route to the CDC: south to Lincoln Street, then north to Hillcrest (that top street).

Sometime in the spring, they began the process of actually fixing Highway 15 (6th Street) and they worked on a short, two block section of Highway 15, but it was the section that led out to Walmart and I-80. The detours for that were a couple of miles in either direction, one on gravel road, and one on paved road. The town was all up in arms. If you’re bored later, you can read all about that HERE.

Once that section was done, they began to tear up one lane of Highway 15 through downtown. Around that time, they also started to work on the new water tower (a couple of blocks south of us). Lloyd and I got to see that when it was still on the ground. It was pretty cool .

Once the water tower was actually up, they closed off seventh Street a couple blocks south of us, so – one more direction that we were cut off.

Next, the Highway 15 project left one street for us to cross over on the way to work: Lincoln Street. Also, traffic on Highway 15 is Southbound Only, so I had to cross over to 5th Street.

Things were looking up, though. After several weeks, I had a workaround to get home:drive west on Hillcrest, cross Highway 15/6th St, south on the newly-opened 8th St. to Lincoln St., east to 7th, and then north to my house! Woo-hoo!

Two weeks ago …… they blocked Hillcrest so they could install some water mains .

I am beginning to feel personally attacked. 

On Friday I came home to a flyer stuck in the door. The city is hosting a meeting Monday night, and we are definitely going. I joke about what an inconvenience this is for us, but the people at the corner of 7th and Park Avenue have not been able to access their driveways for months – they are parking a block away and walking. I hope the city will have some compensation for them.

On the upside? My street is very, very quiet now. Cats sleep on the road. (That will have to change…)

(blows dust off keyboard) Does this thing still work?

The main thing I’ve come to appreciate about the website is that it gave me a record of stuff that has happened. Unfortunately, too much has happened and there will be no flowery explanations right now – just a list of things. Good enough.

• Sam’s knee is ok. I’m writing this many, many weeks later and am glad to say that he is doing great.
• Sam took a call to be principal at St. Paul, Utica – a little town about 15 miles west of Seward.
• We have some tree issues. We had some guys cut down some branches (from the storm) and a tree out front. As it turns out, the buckeye tree in the back is also dead and will have to go.
• Upcoming house needs: new water heater, new a/c, possibly new dishwasher. None of this is urgent.
• I plonked one tomato plant in the weedy side yard and it is growing like gangbusters. It pleasantly supplies me with a daily dose of tomatoes.
• Work is work.

I think that’s it for now. Talk to you in ….. another month or two?