Baby, it's cold outside

Nevada, Iowa's Lincoln Highway Days has nothing to do with the Lincoln Highway except that the highway goes through the town of Nevada. It's a bit like their county fair only it isn't their county fair. It's pronounced Ne-vay-da. Not like the state. It was chilly outside, as you can sort of see from the steam coming off my coffee. Those scrambled eggs were made by the Jaycees on a grill and they were very good. The ham was local. The coffee was very good. It was all incredibly expensive. They'll be taking a few installment payments straight out of the bank account for this breakfast. I guess it's a fundraising sort of thing.


OK, really. We all paid cash. What you see there cost me five bucks, American.

Seriously.

I like cookbooks and there was a man set up with tables of stuff and junk for later in the day when the normal people arrived. He had many cookbooks and I looked at them all. There was a cookbook I really wanted for two soup recipes. One soup was a creamy peanut butter soup and the other used a can of peas, pureed, for a base. Did I mention I went through every cookbook? Some of them had been damp at some point in their long lives and so they made my nose tickle. My fingers felt, well, they felt a little moldy and I had to wash them.

I picked three old Better Homes & Garden cookbooks with their little drawings and sometimes strange recipes (lots of Jell-O molds and salads!) and happily paid a little too much for them.

There they are: the cheese one is interesting. The barbecues and picnics one is good. It's fun reading them. I got home and later in the day, I sat outside and flipped through them looking for the soup recipes.

Duh.

I didn't buy it. Anyone have a creamy peanut butter soup recipe? A recipe using pureed, canned peas as a basis for the broth? Shoot. Even the google machine hasn't been really helpful. I've found a few, but both these recipes in the unpurchased cookbook were super simple with less than five ingredients. You'd think I would remember them, but I don't.

As you can see, I am wearing a sweatshirt. I wore it all day, even into the afternoon. When I got home I walked the worst 3 miles I've walked in a long time. But I got it done. And today I walked 5.25 miles. Today I signed up and paid for six adult swimming lessons as I hope to feel a little less spastic and unathletic in the swimming pool. As of now, I get the job done, but I feel a bit like I'm flailing around confusing the lifeguards. Oh and, um, swimming on my back all the time. (Shut up)

I have recently left comments on other blogs trying to help out owners of curly hair.

As you see, I'm not just a customer, I'm the president.