Madness, with a side helping of 9-bean soup

[thanate]

I got up early this morning to get to the MVA early, and managed to be in and out in half an hour. Appalling amounts of money later (er, MD charges a excise tax of 6% of your blue book value to title a car in state, plus title fees, plus registration... And I only paid half that, since VA has a 3% tax on the books, so they give you credit for having paid it, despite that I bought the car in PA and have only paid local tax on it since.) I now have save the bay plates and am officially done with irritating car stuff unless they send me an emissions test notice. Anyway, I went on to explore another grocery store out near the MVA, and am highly in favor, and then rescued my sewing machine from durance vile (the sanitarium? spa treatment?) where they charged me a much more reasonable amount for both repair and the first cleaning the poor thing has had in nearly a decade.

Then I went home, sprayed more vile chemicals on the evil plants, and made bean soup mix:


I'm sure someone is now going to tell me that I've doubled up two kinds of nutrition and missed something I really ought to include. But mainly I was going for color balance (and trying not to get so many beans that I ran out of container space to put them in.) And how could I resist lentils in construction-orange? Or something called "cow peas"?


Mixed up, it makes a lot of beans...


Pretty colors!


And packed up. I was originally planning to put them into more clear jars, but it turns out only one of the 4 I thought I had was clean enough to use. Fortunately this ex-pasta-storage container was available. If I exchanged christmas presents with anyone outside of my family these days, I would definitely be making up gift jars of million-bean soup mix. Even if you don't want to eat it, it looks cool in your kitchen!

Meanwhile, we have random my-life-in-pictures photos:


There are mourning doves nesting on the neighbors' porch support pillar. Mother & two babies, not that you can ever see them all in the pictures I've managed to take.


First rose of the season. (I've been spraying the bush with something grauwulf picked up called "Organicide" which is theoretically supposed to kill off the stuff devouring the leaves without hurting any of the plants.)


Loquacious (Loki, or maybe that's Loqui, for short) is sulking atop his cat tower. Speaking of which... do any of you cat owners have litter suggestions? We're just about out of the current bag of Pinefresh, which works ok, but is frustrating to clean since you end up scooping out a lot of the unused bits while cleaning it, and I'm wondering if there's something better out there-- possibly even that's more environmentally friendly to make than tree pulp?

Comments

[cheshiretiffy.livejournal.com]

I always like Yesterday's News litter. Its super absorbant and reduces scent fairly well. A little difficult to clean as its large pellets of recycled newspaper, but its good for the cats' feet. The bits are too big to get in around their claws. Our vet recommended it when my mom had her cat declawed.

[astormorray.livejournal.com]

pretty flower! adorable cat! I've no comment on the beans.

[grauwulf.livejournal.com]

that jar of beans looks like a part of a raffle. "Guess how many beans are in the jar and get this shiny new piece of crap!"

[thanate.livejournal.com]

You're welcome to guess, but then you'll have to count them to see if you're right. ;)