(Day 10) without Cleo: baking, homemaking and Glady's Taber's books

Mr Husband asked me to hang the pictures today and I am so glad

that I did get them hung up! 

The one above, as I mentioned earlier, is in the bathroom

where Cleo used her litter box and where she hung out

at various times this summer, before we realized that she was 

getting quite ill and was actually "hiding" in the way cats do

when they are feeling sick. ... :(   

Anyway, it is a beautiful picture, this rose

and not only is this blog named after my family name of Roosje

but I had roses at our wedding and I wanted this hung

in memory/honour of Cleo and also of the life I have with

Mr Husband... 

I am amazed at how much pictures like these cheer me up when

I see them!  I do hope to get more things hung in the future...

We have some ideas... including more plates... 

 My friend S. gave me this lovely cold-pressed sunflower oil last

year and I finally finished the bottle I had before and opened this one,

which is very good indeed; it actually smells like sunflower seeds! 

I used it to fry my eggs in for lunch, 

it felt like such a good nutritious meal! 

Very nourishing. 

And I had a nice pot of tea with honey added,

honey from dear friend's wedding 2 years ago, just opened today...

it is really lovely in tea, I must say... 

I was so excited to make the St Phanourios bread! 

Once again, I forgot that I needed Orange Juice and was relieved that I 

had some frozen concentrate downstairs in our freezer in our half of the garage.... 

I was pleased that my pantry had more sugar as my one red canister did not have

the full 2 cups that I needed for this recipe (that I doubled).

Elizabethd asked about my pantry ~ yes, sometimes I do "lose" things 

or rather forget that they are there.  In general I know where everything is.

A bigger problem at times is that I stack things and at times something

falls down...but I've never had anything break, so it is more of 

a nuisance than a serious problem in my book... 

We kept our AC on higher this summer (75 F mainly instead of 74 or 73) and 

surprisingly to me at least is that we have not needed our AC serviced.

So it must be using less Freon which is good as it costs more now

as we understand it is slowly being discontinued, at least around here.

I mention this because to get more Freon in our AC unit, 

we have to have the AC professional go on our roof,

which roof-top access is in the ceiling of my pantry.

My Father-in-law, a civil engineer by trade, built this pantry in such

a way that the top shelf is easily removable for a ladder

to lean up against the wall.

Usually once or even twice a summer I have to take out

a good half of my pantry to have this done...which means the 

pantry gets reorganized... 

I liked this quote (above) by Glady's Tabor ... 

am thinking about my friend who is getting married in a couple

of months... 

Bake the St Phanourios bread!

On Sunday, when it is served, I will DV dust these with
powdered sugar...
***
Granny Marigold, you mentioned the book Glady's Taber's book
Another Path about her writing about losing her friend Jill,
who she shared her home with... well, I don't remember if you
mentioned this book before but I knew of it and last night,
after reading your comment, I went and bought it... :)
I am enjoying her writing!
I looked her up today and found this blog post by a Taber fan
to be quite vivid and touching,
how Taber gave this reader a sense of family, beauty and the
fresh air of the countryside...
I enjoyed looking here as well, there are a lot of Taber fans out there,
though she is sadly not known like she was decades ago...
I found an old Taber fan website and found this, from 2001,
so 18 years ago... it seemed that the farm was in jeopardy...
I looked further and it seems that the farm was saved!
 ***
I do wonder what other authors am I missing from earlier decades,
who are wholesome, write things that give peace
and show a world that seems to be so absent today?
Feel free to let me know if you have any that come to mind...
***
So, I had not thought about this until Paula commented...
I guess Cleo really did decline fairly fast...
a month before she died (or so) the vet thought she was still OK,
though clearly not as well as before.
Then, a month later, it was clear: she is dying and now she is gone,
less than 2 weeks...
I still keep thinking I see her here at home - and my heart leaps
so quick with giddy excitement only to remember - she died.
My Cleo Cat is gone.
I found myself remembering, earlier today, the moment she died;
the moments before; the great grief I felt; oh that was painful.
I had from Wednesday-Friday with her going downhill fast
and by Saturday she threw up the first time,
Sunday morning my Husband found she had done so again,
and much more and I just knew the minute I learned this
that it was time, she was dying, she was suffering.
She still ate ice cream that day but the next,
she barely had any, just a few licks and then
we said goodbye.
I've never been without her presence, in 13 years;
even when Mr Husband and I went away, we had a cat sitter
(via a company) who would visit 2x a day and send me texts with pictures of her.
So even when away, I was checking in on Cleo and making sure she
was as OK as she could be (as in she missed us so much
whenever we left, it used to be if I took a 15 minute walk she would
complain about my leaving her!) ... she just liked having me/us nearby...
***
It's really going to take time for me to recover from losing Cleo.
I think I made it maybe one day or so without crying so far,
since that Wednesday I found out that she was dying.
***
I am often dreaming about Cleo and about her absence.
***
I do have good moments every day,
tea, a treat, reading a nice book.
And that I baked is a big thing.
I was going to make Deb Perlman's Double Chocolate Banana Bread
again the week I found out Cleo was dying and I just did not
have the heart to bake, and so I froze those bananas...
***
I am really glad for our new buffet, though it was hard on the level of
the finality of Cleo being gone, that she will never go to
that spot to eat her food ever again.
***
I am glad for the extra beauty there, and the sweet Angel with cat
and the sweet picture of Cleo and her blue eyes.
***
It's nice to have the yellow German pottery
[Villeroy & Boch, a pattern called Audun]
 out instead of hidden
away in a cupboard... it's a lovely pattern that we
have found at the VNA rummage sale...
***
Well, tomorrow is more cleaning [did a lot of laundry today]
and I may prepare the meat for Sunday
(keeping it in the fridge of course until ready to be cooked!)
***
I pray that each of you will find the help, the strength, the healing,
the grace from God, for what you stand in need of today.