It's amazing

just how great pinto beans, onion, garlic, Italian herbs, and a bay leaf can smell while slow-cooking in a crock pot. I brought a friend over to my house to kill some time (he's staying at a house that's for sale, and they were doing a showing), so he made coffee, I boiled water, chopped an onion, rinsed the beans, minced garlic, and put that and the herbs into a crock pot and started that cooking. It should be ready by 7:30 pm. Since I was doing that, I went ahead and put the ingredients for my outrageously oatmeal bread recipe into the bread machine and started that. It should be ready about 6 pm. I then took him and dropped him off, came back home, and the apartment smells great. I'm figuring my beans may take the longer cooking time because while they've been kept dry in a tightly sealed container (I have several with those metal 'locks' and o-rings to seal in the freshness), the actual beans are years old. I mostly keep them because they're decorative (I have a 15-bean mix, the pinto beans, some butter beans, garbanzos, and Anasazi beans, plus brown and white rice in these large locking containers.) But I am very poor, so I'm getting into my stash. The recipe called for a pound of some sort of bean, one onion, four cloves of garlic, thyme (I substituted Italian seasoning, which has thyme in it, plus some others I thought would be good), and a bay leaf. I took the $5 I still had in cash and got the head of garlic, reasoning that it would be better than garlic powder, and some bay leaves, because while I could have 'borrowed' one from YKWIA, I have lots of beans, quite a bit of garlic, lots of seasoning, and have one more onion, and probably can get more. So I may subsist on beans for awhile. Look out world; despite not eating red meat or pork for 25 years, and only breaking down one year in that time to eat poultry before I decided that no, I can't kill a chicken myself, I never have particularly processed beans well. But they smell great, and I'm hoping they get tender and taste great, too.

I'm getting sleepy. I've done quite a bit of driving today, cleaned out my friend's litter boxes, been terrified by a beetle, and I am generally feeling lazy while sitting near a sunny window on a warm day. I also have a slight headache. I think I'll lie down until the bread machine goes off; that's in less than an hour. I've cleaned the tub and toilet today; I still need to do the bathroom sink. And I think I'll pick up some things out in the dining and living areas. I don't have to go anywhere till 11 am tomorrow, so I have some time to just hang out and work on the house some. I may do some more reading, too, and I think I'll listen to some Pandora later and maybe watch something on Netflix.

Alright. Here's hoping no bugs come and terrorrise me during my nap. I'll probably write later. :)