Less Hustle More Coffee

While taking Roger out yesterday, I noticed how pretty the lavender had become. I love it. It has been a great thing to plant in the flower bed and it comes back every year. I think that might be thyme behind it. I depend on George to remind me of which herbs are which.

He has worked very hard in the yard. And the house looks good amidst the tree limbs there. That tree was not very big back in 2008 when we moved in. It provides a lot of shade now. I can remember in the hot part of August trying to stand in the small shady spot and now it overtakes the yard and in mid- day instead of late afternoon. It’s really nice.

The day went by so fast. This whole weekend has. My main task for yesterday, besides getting the lasagna made, was to catch up on the ironing. I did that. I ironed I don’t know how many pants – maybe 8? I washed several loads of laundry also as we had our swim suits and towels that we added to the mix and a load of whites to do.

So I had on my list a while back, to make lasagna. It was on my new year’s list. We had such good lasagna at Aunt Gwen’s and then also at Judy’s. And so I decided that I wanted to make it myself. As a girl who has always loved pasta, I can’t believe I never have. It was always something as a teen, that we gals would get excited when someone was making it. It was always “this big thing”. Even today, people will tell you how much trouble it is. So all my life, loving spaghetti as I do, and those long strands of goodness, I just always stuck to that.

George has been mentioning it recently, and I watched a You Tuber make it. And the trick to it not taking so long is to make it in 2 sections. It seemed much easier than a lot of other dishes I’ve attempted to make. But I have to say it’s the best lasagna I’ve ever made. I’ve never made one before, ha!

Pretty much the meat sauce was easy and as normal – kinda like a spaghetti sauce. I followed their instructions though and they used a few different spices than I normally do – like fennel seed and parsley.

Any Italian sauce is recommended to have two meats. I learned that from Restaurant Impossible. So we had ground beef (from the cow we bought) and we had a country sausage (from the pig we bought.)

George had me add a rub to the sausage that made it “Italian sausage”. I couldn’t tell you what was in it. I’d have to ask him. He’s not in the room, lol.

The meat and seasonings had to cook for an hour and half. And then I went ahead and made the cream sauce, which was an egg, Ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese. With fresh parsley added in. I think that was it. I’m trying to recall from memory.

Here is the link:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/23600/worlds-best-lasagna/

Then I boiled the noodles up for 8 minutes and ran cold water over them so they would stop cooking.

So we had our Happy Hour Zoom call with friends – in which we kept losing our connection (one time it was their laptop that died though) and we had to switch to Face Time. I can never seem to stay connected on Zoom though. Grr. We did not have a problem with Face Time I noted.

After the call I went and layered up the lasagna while the stove preheated. It was fun! I loved making this. I loved layering it in. You layer in your sliced mozarella. I loved that we bought the kind already sliced. I still pinched apart some though to spread it out across the layers more evenly. It baked 25 min with the foil on and 25 with the foil off.

George said it was really good and if “the house chef” says it’s good, that is a good thing.

George made a wedge salad with fresh made ranch dressing. I love that stuff.

He also made green beans.

I began videoing a few things yesterday for the “next” video. This is just crazy.

I also worked hard on the audio for the video this weekend, a chunk of it done yesterday and I’m almost finished. Gosh I lose time when I am working on these videos. I enjoy this process so much.

Some of my “missing files” in iMovie came back. My sound effects. I wish my music would come back. Once this last video is done, I’ll try to see if I can delete and download. I think I read it was $15? But if it recognizes me it will know I have an account and maybe let me have it. I could contact Apple I guess. I think somehow I deleted the files that came with iMovie when I deleted my own media files from the last project. Geez. I selected “All” and I only meant for it to select the files from my project. I didn’t know it was selecting all files from iMovie. Such a learning curve.

I’m realizing very quickly how hard this is going to be to do it the right way to grow the channel. But after my post yesterday. I’m not going to push myself. That takes the fun out of it. I’m going to create the channel. I will work on it and publish to it. I will learn and dabble and play. And at some point it will become a natural process and I’ll be in a better position to commit to a schedule. If I were to commit to one now it would be 1 video per month. lol. Plus I’m doing fairly complicated videos b/c I’m trying to piece chunks of time together to tell a story and much of it all just non related. I mean going from COVID to new toilet to family visiting, to dinner. There was a lot to cram in and “piece together”. I should have it finished today. If not sometime this week. I need to begin logging my hours on it.

But the process I use of creating an iMovie is something like this:

• Pulling in the photos and videos to a file on iMac from my photos (shared b/w phone and imac)
• Pulling in that said file into iMovie
• Adding the photos and videos into the timeline in the order that I think I will use it.
• Going through each video clip and clipping out what I don’t want in there.
• Going through each photo and selecting how I want it to be. Either selecting it to fill the screen or using Ken Burns which makes the photo move. I adjust the “Beginning and End” to the movement so it floats over the right spots.
• Add in overlays such as titles, text, logos, pictures, pictures within a picture, or a picture that comes in while the video is playing.
• There are options for using graphics with a transparent background so it shows over the pic also. Have to go outside of iMovie for that.
• Picking out the music. I seem to use 3 or for songs in mine. I’m not sure if that is normal, but I don’t use the whole songs – just clips of it – usually the beginning.
• Adding in the music to the timeline.
• The whole time I’m working with the audio to make sure the clips sound constant at the same levels so those who are watching do not have to turn up and down the volume while they watch. I’m splitting audio clips in order to make some of the music go down lower while we are talking. Sometimes I’m finding these are hard to do.
• Then I do a final run through and still make tons of changes.
• Then I do the upload to my iMac and cross fingers.
• Then I replay it after the upload b/c sometimes files get damaged or the sound ends up being different and I have to go back in and adjust.
• Then I upload it to YouTube
• Then I upload it to the blog
• Then I upload it to the Facebook Group for Less Hustle More Coffee

So…it is quite the process. But I’ve fallen in love with it. I want to do the Next one in Movavi! I DID look at creating Thumbnails. Of course if you don’t create one they will do it for you. (YouTube will). But when you post all the time it’s recommending that you do your own and have consistent font and such. That’s for another day. For the future. I don’t want to get any more overwhelmed. But when I post on a schedule, that will be a good idea. Right now, I just have to have fun with it. Not pushing myself!

I thought about things yesterday and I do have some topics that I can focus on to grow the channel when I’m ready to do so. As I go about the house I can see some things that I would love to talk about. Mainly related to:

Decorating on a budget, setting up a home office space, how to get organized, time management tips, ways to chill out when you are stressed, new apps I like. These are all the things I blog about just not in bullet form. So I will figure this thing out and it’ll be fun. The whole thing is to be fun, but…to have some goals with it. I like to reach goals. I think that is why I have a to do list. It makes me feel I’m worthwhile. 😉 I had been stuck on the niche thing because I’m all over the place on this blog. I will call it a reality lifestyle blog and then mention in the description that I share (the above things I mention). I’ll put those as key words in the description and tags of the YouTube set up. You do this in your settings when describing your channel.

Anyway, once I get the video finished I will start working on setting up the new channel.

Ahhh these weekends go by too fast. Dang it. I can’t believe it’s Monday already. But alas, it’s only a 4 day weeker – a busy one too as I prep for the Holiday payroll the following week and it’s a month end pay date coming up which means that beginning Wednesday I will start paying off the taxes for those that are monthly paid. So a very busy week.

And I’ll end here so I can get a few things done in the house and get this iMovie done. And if it all works out this week I can finally begin to knock some things off my list. I’ve been avoiding the to do list while working on the iMovies. Also feel like I’m shirking my responsibilities because I love the editing process so much, that I often even forget to eat. I do eventually go find crackers to munch on. But I could lose weight doing it, lol.

Ya’ll have a wonderful Memorial Day. And I am thinking of those that fought to protect us today and served. Thank the Lord for such a beautiful weekend. Now I’ve got to check and see how Katy’s ranch cat “Ford” is doing.

Now that Memorial Day is here, for us in the South. Summer has officially arrived. And the heat will begin with it.

And I kinda have an itch to get out and do some things. Do you? What you gonna do this summer?