Refreshed, renewed and relaxed, that's my motto. As well it might be with months and months off.
A girl can't have a blog-cation forever, though, so I'm percolating some new projects. There's tons I want to do and there's no point waiting for a perfect moment.
I'll be back. Just as soon as I finish this last bonbon.
Showing posts with label administrative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label administrative. Show all posts
Ludite No More - See Hot Water Bath on Facebook
Progress is a beautiful thing, no? A girl can struggle to keep up, what with all the horseless carriages around, and those fancy typing machines. Life moves so fast these days!
In keeping with this amazing time of ours, I decided to check out this Facebook thingamadoodle all the kids are raving about. I even made a Hot Water Bath group to record all our collective home food preservation fun.
Seriously, through. Susie J suggested nearly seven years ago that I start a canning-related message board, a recommendation that thrilled and terrified me in equal measures. Now that these crazy youths are willing to do nearly all the work for me at a time when home canning seems to be undergoing a modest renaissance (could it ever be as cool as knitting? Sewing? ), well, the time seems to be right.
I'll still be here, with canning, cooking, cocktails and documentation of my fascinating life's minutia. While I'm doing that, I hope you wander over there. See you?
In keeping with this amazing time of ours, I decided to check out this Facebook thingamadoodle all the kids are raving about. I even made a Hot Water Bath group to record all our collective home food preservation fun.
Seriously, through. Susie J suggested nearly seven years ago that I start a canning-related message board, a recommendation that thrilled and terrified me in equal measures. Now that these crazy youths are willing to do nearly all the work for me at a time when home canning seems to be undergoing a modest renaissance (could it ever be as cool as knitting? Sewing? ), well, the time seems to be right.
I'll still be here, with canning, cooking, cocktails and documentation of my fascinating life's minutia. While I'm doing that, I hope you wander over there. See you?
The Old Gray Mare
I suppose by now you've come to the same conclusion as I. It's true, I'm the worst blogger ever. I make bloggy promises and walk away, drop philosophical anvils and scoot, post idly about plans for fun little themed series and pfft. I am, not to put too fine a point on it, not to be relied upon, blog-wise.
It wasn't always thus. Hot Water Bath has been around now for nearly seven years (that's, like, 49 in blog years) and my words here have been much of a journal as I've ever kept. It occurred to me recently, though, that part of the challenge to my ability to keep posting as I used to is precisely that the longevity is working against me. My life isn't the same as it was when I started but I keep trying to post about the same sorts of things as always. Clearly that idea is a non-starter.
So where does leave us? I don't know. Let's take a leaf from my workaday life and do a bit of an analytical exercise, shall we?
See what I mean? I could go on: For a long time I believed that I could save the world by shopping at a farm market. Now it's more like, "eh, buy your kale and move along, lady, there's a line forming". I used to bake a lot more, but now I rely on a few standby items that I can make with my eyes closed, thereby freeing up time for polishing my nails (oh, how I love this new OPI color I scored on my birthday) or sitting on the back porch with Brainiac and sharing a cigar. My life has changed so it's only fitting that my blog should, too.
I need to consider things a little more before I go off and make tons of changes but I think I can safely say that things might be a wee bit different soon. I understand now that I, myself, am a whole lot different and I'm going to be dragging the blog alongside. Tally ho!
It wasn't always thus. Hot Water Bath has been around now for nearly seven years (that's, like, 49 in blog years) and my words here have been much of a journal as I've ever kept. It occurred to me recently, though, that part of the challenge to my ability to keep posting as I used to is precisely that the longevity is working against me. My life isn't the same as it was when I started but I keep trying to post about the same sorts of things as always. Clearly that idea is a non-starter.
So where does leave us? I don't know. Let's take a leaf from my workaday life and do a bit of an analytical exercise, shall we?
| Year: 2002 | Year: 2005 | Year: 2009 | Advantage |
| loves house | hates house | loves house | 2009 |
| town o.k. | town tiresome | town awesome | 2009 |
| no time to read | serious reading | vamps in lurve! | 2009 |
| canning = hobby | canning = duty | canning = diversionary | 2009 |
See what I mean? I could go on: For a long time I believed that I could save the world by shopping at a farm market. Now it's more like, "eh, buy your kale and move along, lady, there's a line forming". I used to bake a lot more, but now I rely on a few standby items that I can make with my eyes closed, thereby freeing up time for polishing my nails (oh, how I love this new OPI color I scored on my birthday) or sitting on the back porch with Brainiac and sharing a cigar. My life has changed so it's only fitting that my blog should, too.
I need to consider things a little more before I go off and make tons of changes but I think I can safely say that things might be a wee bit different soon. I understand now that I, myself, am a whole lot different and I'm going to be dragging the blog alongside. Tally ho!
I bet you're all just aflutter wondering who won the copy of The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I'm right, yes? I can see you afluttering from here.
But! This is the moment for which you've been waiting, ducks. The lucky winner is Rachel (of blackberry jam fame). Rachel, if you would e-mail me your snail mail address at hotwaterbath AT gmail DOT com I'll get the tome out to you right away. Congratulations and happy canning!
I hope all who hoped to win will stick around through the summer and experience a little canning company. We'll pickle, we'll jam, we'll dice and slice...fun for all, but especially those who want to make something.
A bit of clean-up before tackling our next adventures:
1) It occurs to me that my current blog layout looks horrible. I liked it for a while then we got a new computer with one of those big ole' screens and it didn't work so I tweaked and now it doesn't look nice on any screen. I'll work on that.
2) Melissa asked if I'd been reading Stephanie Meyer's paranormal romance. No, but thanks for the tip. I've been cuddling up with Kresley Cole, J.R. Ward, Charlaine Harris and Michelle Rowen and will now happily add Ms. Meyer to the list. Between these and my alarmingly large Regency habit, I may never get to real cult-chah again. Oh, don't look at me like that. I've also been reading a lot about Abigail Adams and white holes, so it's not like I've totally chucked serious reading. Just mostly.
3) I have a little tradition of assigning myself summer projects. One year I read nothing but E.M. Forster (those days are apparently over; see also point number two, above), another year I needle pointed wildflowers on cocktail napkins. Then there was the summer that I drank only G&Ts, each made with a different brand of gin (not all my projects are of a self-improvement nature). This year I've decided to put my Netflix subscription to good use and watch as many movie and/or television adaptations of the works of Jane Austen as I can find. Brainiac is afeared for his movie watching life, groaning every time one of the red envelopes arrives in the mail (although I believe that he secretly enjoys the spectacle, entreating this or that character by yelling at the screen the way he might in reaction to an ill-conceived football play. Gives me a giggle, actually) but I think that movies are an excellent project for the Now in which I find myself. It's possible to knit, pit cherries, snap beans, needlepoint, play Battleship, write letters, coo over block towers and, yes, blog all while comparing and contrasting the various approaches in Austenolatry.
So, busy as a bee. You?
But! This is the moment for which you've been waiting, ducks. The lucky winner is Rachel (of blackberry jam fame). Rachel, if you would e-mail me your snail mail address at hotwaterbath AT gmail DOT com I'll get the tome out to you right away. Congratulations and happy canning!
I hope all who hoped to win will stick around through the summer and experience a little canning company. We'll pickle, we'll jam, we'll dice and slice...fun for all, but especially those who want to make something.
A bit of clean-up before tackling our next adventures:
1) It occurs to me that my current blog layout looks horrible. I liked it for a while then we got a new computer with one of those big ole' screens and it didn't work so I tweaked and now it doesn't look nice on any screen. I'll work on that.
2) Melissa asked if I'd been reading Stephanie Meyer's paranormal romance. No, but thanks for the tip. I've been cuddling up with Kresley Cole, J.R. Ward, Charlaine Harris and Michelle Rowen and will now happily add Ms. Meyer to the list. Between these and my alarmingly large Regency habit, I may never get to real cult-chah again. Oh, don't look at me like that. I've also been reading a lot about Abigail Adams and white holes, so it's not like I've totally chucked serious reading. Just mostly.
3) I have a little tradition of assigning myself summer projects. One year I read nothing but E.M. Forster (those days are apparently over; see also point number two, above), another year I needle pointed wildflowers on cocktail napkins. Then there was the summer that I drank only G&Ts, each made with a different brand of gin (not all my projects are of a self-improvement nature). This year I've decided to put my Netflix subscription to good use and watch as many movie and/or television adaptations of the works of Jane Austen as I can find. Brainiac is afeared for his movie watching life, groaning every time one of the red envelopes arrives in the mail (although I believe that he secretly enjoys the spectacle, entreating this or that character by yelling at the screen the way he might in reaction to an ill-conceived football play. Gives me a giggle, actually) but I think that movies are an excellent project for the Now in which I find myself. It's possible to knit, pit cherries, snap beans, needlepoint, play Battleship, write letters, coo over block towers and, yes, blog all while comparing and contrasting the various approaches in Austenolatry.
So, busy as a bee. You?
Granting oneself a bit of time off now and again is a wonderful thing. I highly recommend it.
You may (or not) be wondering what I've been doing these months. Me, too. Thinking hard about life since March I come up with...not much. A bit of canning (strawberry jam), a bit of sewing (a skirt of pink linen and little embroidered orange dots), a teensy bit of learning to knit (a few rows of variable stitch numbers, alas),*and a spot of gardening (I'm late with the beans!).
Mixed in with these little bits of domesticana, I gave Brainiac a 40th birthday party, read a ton of books the nature of which I'm only a teensy bit embarrassed to share (ahem, cough, paranormal romance), visited with my parents, chatted with friends, pined for a painting from my neighbors' art show, rediscovered the wonder of the rum gimlet, and finally used the guest soap I believed for years to be too pretty to clean my own tired hands. It's a small life, perhaps, but it's mine and I come by it honestly.
Now that my vacation is over, I have much to which I must attend. I've had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Devine from Fresh Preserving and will be posting the results of our delightful conversation later this week. I'm looking to try a few new canning recipes, too, and am hoping to push the boundaries of sane zucchini growing (how many does one garden need?). Then there are the small matters of resolving the window mis-treatments I've got about the premises and expanding my reading beyond amorous vampires. I do hope you'll come back to hear about it all and more.
*I am the living embodiment of the term "late adopter". Now that I have gotten around to learning to knit properly, it's only fair to warn all and sundry that knitting as a trend is likely over. Sorry, Jane Brocket. Truly.
You may (or not) be wondering what I've been doing these months. Me, too. Thinking hard about life since March I come up with...not much. A bit of canning (strawberry jam), a bit of sewing (a skirt of pink linen and little embroidered orange dots), a teensy bit of learning to knit (a few rows of variable stitch numbers, alas),*and a spot of gardening (I'm late with the beans!).
Mixed in with these little bits of domesticana, I gave Brainiac a 40th birthday party, read a ton of books the nature of which I'm only a teensy bit embarrassed to share (ahem, cough, paranormal romance), visited with my parents, chatted with friends, pined for a painting from my neighbors' art show, rediscovered the wonder of the rum gimlet, and finally used the guest soap I believed for years to be too pretty to clean my own tired hands. It's a small life, perhaps, but it's mine and I come by it honestly.
Now that my vacation is over, I have much to which I must attend. I've had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Devine from Fresh Preserving and will be posting the results of our delightful conversation later this week. I'm looking to try a few new canning recipes, too, and am hoping to push the boundaries of sane zucchini growing (how many does one garden need?). Then there are the small matters of resolving the window mis-treatments I've got about the premises and expanding my reading beyond amorous vampires. I do hope you'll come back to hear about it all and more.
*I am the living embodiment of the term "late adopter". Now that I have gotten around to learning to knit properly, it's only fair to warn all and sundry that knitting as a trend is likely over. Sorry, Jane Brocket. Truly.
I'm here, just a bit overtaken by events. Should be back this weekend, probably Sunday after the Girl's birthday party and the resolution of a small amount of familial drama.
And then? I want to talk about All Recipes a bit, gelatin desserts, my favorite canning books and why I want 2008 to be the Year of the Dinner Party.
And then? I want to talk about All Recipes a bit, gelatin desserts, my favorite canning books and why I want 2008 to be the Year of the Dinner Party.
I started to put a little list of ongoing and outstanding projects on the sidebar. Perhaps it'll motivate me, I thought, to have a bit of public accountability for my window treatment making, cross stitching, chocolate saucing, candle pouring, wizard cape making self. As the list became longer and longer and longer (this is for projects for which I already have the materials, not the "stuff I wish I could learn to do" list) I didn't feel motivated or accountable so much as depressed. Even so, I don't feel like I have too much to do, just that I haven't organized things (by this I mean "my life") properly (I have to get things out and then put them away and then get them out and...resulting in a whole bunch of stuff that's partially completed. It occured to me last night that I can avoid the problem of having to clean up and then reaccess unfinished projects by actually finishing them. Stress will be further avoided by finishing things in the order in which they need to be delivered - things sent to Buffalo need to be done and wrapped by Thanksgiving, items for local recipients can be worked on through December, food processing trumps all of this. (You are probably as shocked as I that, for these brainstorms if nothing else, the Nobel Committe didn't award me a little something. Where are the awards for achievement in domestic arts and organization?)
Tonight's goal is to complete the gift I'm planning on sending my oldest sister for Christmas. Given its current state, I shouldn't need more than an hour. After that...pickling the last of the green cherry tomatoes. That, too, will be quick, maybe 45 minutes total and not all of that hands-on. If I can stay awake long enough tonight, both of these projects should be well within hand.
Here are some other brainstorms I've recently enjoyed:
1) No matter how beautiful, sweet and delicious, homemade raspberry-infused vodka is, it is still vodka and should be treated as such.
2) I am no longer young and fit enough to ignore #1, above, at anything other than extreme bodily peril.
3) Numbers 1 and 2, above, very likely also apply to the ginger, pepper and mint infusions still bubbling away in the kitchen.
4) If one doesn't, at the close of Christmas celebrations, pack the advent wreath candle holder in the box marked "Advent Wreath" one will not be able to find it for a preschool fundraising committee meeting the following October just by opening said box. Instead, profanity-filled excursions into the third floor storage area will be required and the candle holder will remain unlocated.
5) When a colleague remarks that one lives one's life as if in "an English village in the '50s" it is probably not meant as a compliment. However, it may be the less career-limiting move to treat it as such.
So ends the collected wisdom of Hot Water Bath for today.
Tonight's goal is to complete the gift I'm planning on sending my oldest sister for Christmas. Given its current state, I shouldn't need more than an hour. After that...pickling the last of the green cherry tomatoes. That, too, will be quick, maybe 45 minutes total and not all of that hands-on. If I can stay awake long enough tonight, both of these projects should be well within hand.
Here are some other brainstorms I've recently enjoyed:
1) No matter how beautiful, sweet and delicious, homemade raspberry-infused vodka is, it is still vodka and should be treated as such.
2) I am no longer young and fit enough to ignore #1, above, at anything other than extreme bodily peril.
3) Numbers 1 and 2, above, very likely also apply to the ginger, pepper and mint infusions still bubbling away in the kitchen.
4) If one doesn't, at the close of Christmas celebrations, pack the advent wreath candle holder in the box marked "Advent Wreath" one will not be able to find it for a preschool fundraising committee meeting the following October just by opening said box. Instead, profanity-filled excursions into the third floor storage area will be required and the candle holder will remain unlocated.
5) When a colleague remarks that one lives one's life as if in "an English village in the '50s" it is probably not meant as a compliment. However, it may be the less career-limiting move to treat it as such.
So ends the collected wisdom of Hot Water Bath for today.
I have finally wrested the computer from Brainiac on the strength of my conviction that one cannot control the remote, the laptop and the satellite radio simultaneously. He loves nothing more than to surf the latest gearhead and/or medical instrumentation news while watching one of those wretched military history shows that feature re-enactments AND computer-generated "footage" of aerial dogfights. No more, I say, one must choose one's media input. We'll see how far I get with this.
Now that I have control of the laptop (which I am using while watching with him a documentary of the Six Day War which, although wrenching in many ways, at least does not offer much in the way in the way of computerized fighter jets - small mercies and all that) I must figure out something about which to write. I am on the record as having hated February and being somewhat non-plussed about March; April and May were merely trying. I am still waiting for June to bring results for my efforts to solve long-standing challenges and so feel a bit at loose ends lately.
So. Here we are. I'd love to share with you my latest project but I cannot because my younger sis reads here and it's all supposed to remain a surprise for now. Or I could show you the dining room chairs I trash picked and am prepping for recovering but that would mean putting the laptop down and leaving the room to get the camera and I cannot risk that the machine would be waiting here for me on my return (Brainiac's corollary to my "one media input" at a time rule is "if you put it down, it's mine" so you can understand my motivation to stay here until he plies me with so much wine that I have no choice but to leave the room). I could tell the story of how I taught the young Ukrainian woman living with us how to make tomatilla salsa - to her sincere and acute alarm, but now that I've come up with all these things I should do but will not I am now exceedingly tired and quite hopped up on Syrah and must attend to other needs. You understand, right?
This weekend we are taking the kids fishing (!) and I am confident that any number of amusing tales will result, and I am also planning to lay in a batch of both chocolate sauce and marinated mushrooms. With luck and the ability to avoid military documentaries, not to mention June taking the turn for which I am hoping, I should have lots to share. Stay with me, will you?
Now that I have control of the laptop (which I am using while watching with him a documentary of the Six Day War which, although wrenching in many ways, at least does not offer much in the way in the way of computerized fighter jets - small mercies and all that) I must figure out something about which to write. I am on the record as having hated February and being somewhat non-plussed about March; April and May were merely trying. I am still waiting for June to bring results for my efforts to solve long-standing challenges and so feel a bit at loose ends lately.
So. Here we are. I'd love to share with you my latest project but I cannot because my younger sis reads here and it's all supposed to remain a surprise for now. Or I could show you the dining room chairs I trash picked and am prepping for recovering but that would mean putting the laptop down and leaving the room to get the camera and I cannot risk that the machine would be waiting here for me on my return (Brainiac's corollary to my "one media input" at a time rule is "if you put it down, it's mine" so you can understand my motivation to stay here until he plies me with so much wine that I have no choice but to leave the room). I could tell the story of how I taught the young Ukrainian woman living with us how to make tomatilla salsa - to her sincere and acute alarm, but now that I've come up with all these things I should do but will not I am now exceedingly tired and quite hopped up on Syrah and must attend to other needs. You understand, right?
This weekend we are taking the kids fishing (!) and I am confident that any number of amusing tales will result, and I am also planning to lay in a batch of both chocolate sauce and marinated mushrooms. With luck and the ability to avoid military documentaries, not to mention June taking the turn for which I am hoping, I should have lots to share. Stay with me, will you?
It occured to me some weeks ago that my expectations for exciting activities in March were fairly high. I simply had nothing interesting to write about and I puzzled over this until I realized that March '06 had us settling into a new house and March '05 saw us preparing to put our former house on the market. In March '04 I had a new baby and in March '03 we had just moved into the house we sold in '06. So you can see where a normal March with no new infants and no real estate news may seem a bit blah. So if I'm not post-partum and we're not fixing to move (or recover from moving), you might wonder what I've been up to.
In no particular order, I have been:
1) Falling for Google's April Fool's joke.
2) Sending psychic apologies to Daniel Craig. I have finally seen Casino Royale and I am deeply shamed over my initial, uh, disinclination toward him as Bond. I have been open here about my enthusiasm for the Bond Emeritus but, wow, beach scene, anyone?
3) Sorting out my professional life, with no appreciable result.
4) Bemoaning man's (woman's) inhumanity to man (woman). (Aside: I had no idea that expression is a Robert Burns thing. And they say that blogging isn't educational! O.K. I don't know if anyone actually says that, but you know they think it.)
5) Failing at the execution of a cute Easter project.
6) Waiting for my butter to soften so I can make the Cheddar Olives for tomorrow's egg hunt. Also on the menu: a very traditional spice cake with cream cheese frosting, deviled eggs my way, sundried tomato and garlic mini-tarts, Fromage Fort and some chocolate oaty cookie things I learned from Susie J's indespensible site of baking fabulousness. All of this is great, of course, but seriously, those olives? Try them.
Oh, and I've also watch my son ride his bike without training wheels and swim without some kind of floaty thing or belt and looked on as my daughter wrote her name all by herself for the first time.
I guess it's been a big month after all.
In no particular order, I have been:
1) Falling for Google's April Fool's joke.
2) Sending psychic apologies to Daniel Craig. I have finally seen Casino Royale and I am deeply shamed over my initial, uh, disinclination toward him as Bond. I have been open here about my enthusiasm for the Bond Emeritus but, wow, beach scene, anyone?
3) Sorting out my professional life, with no appreciable result.
4) Bemoaning man's (woman's) inhumanity to man (woman). (Aside: I had no idea that expression is a Robert Burns thing. And they say that blogging isn't educational! O.K. I don't know if anyone actually says that, but you know they think it.)
5) Failing at the execution of a cute Easter project.
6) Waiting for my butter to soften so I can make the Cheddar Olives for tomorrow's egg hunt. Also on the menu: a very traditional spice cake with cream cheese frosting, deviled eggs my way, sundried tomato and garlic mini-tarts, Fromage Fort and some chocolate oaty cookie things I learned from Susie J's indespensible site of baking fabulousness. All of this is great, of course, but seriously, those olives? Try them.
Oh, and I've also watch my son ride his bike without training wheels and swim without some kind of floaty thing or belt and looked on as my daughter wrote her name all by herself for the first time.
I guess it's been a big month after all.
More Fragments
I have an entry in this week's Carnival of Homeschooling - it's the Nutcracker post from a few days ago. I entered the Carnival with this post specifically because 1) we continue to think through this education business and 2) I liked the lesson I learned from the whole episode, sometimes the kids will take an interest in something I would never have imagined. This is something I need to remember as we think about our next steps.
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You may have noticed the ticker on the right-hand margin counting the numbers of pre-approved credit offers we've received since the end of November. Seriously, there were maybe three or four arriving every day and it was all so ridiculous that I felt the numbers needed to be documented somehow. Of course, within days of posting the arriving offers slowed markedly and I almost took the counter down. I needn't have worried, for their once again filling our mailbox to astonishing levels. Yesterday brought another three. At least we received more Christmas cards than that, or I might have been depressed.
************
Thank you for the help and advice regarding our bus driver's gift. I am going with the gift card and note, as originally planned. I do not know why this caused so much angst for me, other than I guess I need to have at least one gift-related freak-out every year or it just isn't Christmas.
Usually the freak-outs are related to my mother, my father or Brainiac. My sisters are fairly easy to buy for (and I'm not just saying that because one of them reads here) - they have a wide variety of interests and don't fuss about bigness or smallness or whatever. I have given my sisters all kind of things, from silly to sentimental, from thrifted to spendy and by and large I think I've done o.k.
Shopping for my mom is hard because she's an world-class shopper of the highest, black-belt order and usually buys herself what see wants almost immediately upon seeing it ("If I wait for a sale, it'll be gone!" is her frequent refrain). Selecting gifts for my dad can be hard because most of the things he'd really enjoy I can't afford (like really old Scotch, vintage golf clubs, greens fees at some fancy-pants club). And Brainiac wants only one thing badly - a pilot's license - but I just can't seem to come up with the many hundreds of dollars monthly that such an endeavor requires. Besides, a pilot's license is kind of like a naked Barbie - pointless and no fun without the further investment of capital in things like actually flying planes/clothes and Dreamhouse.
But this year everyone except the bus drive was covered nicely so I guess my freak-out needed reassignment. And now there's no freak-out at all.
Having completely bunged up the last time I was tagged (wrote a reminder on a sticky, found said sticky on the floor behind my desk when we moved two years later) I feel called upon to respond with haste to the tag suggested by Anyresemblance. No stickies on my watch! At least, not any more stickies.
a) Four job I have had in my life:
- Video store clerk
- Fundraiser
- Commercial voiceover person
- Knowledge Manager (prompting my father to exclaim, "That's not a real job!")
a) Four job I have had in my life:
- Video store clerk
- Fundraiser
- Commercial voiceover person
- Knowledge Manager (prompting my father to exclaim, "That's not a real job!")
b) Four movies I would watch over and over:
- A Room with a View
- Little Women (the 90s adaptation)
- Little Women (the one with Katherine Hepburn)
- Shirley Valentine
c) Four places I have lived:
- Buffalo, NY
- Canandiagua, NY
- Philadelphia, PA
- Charlottesville, VA
d) Four TV shows I love to watch:
- Alton Brown
- that one on HGTV where the people look at three houses and decide which one to buy
- Scrubs
- Uh..that's it. I don't think I have four, unless I can name the old Max Headroom series which is regretably not available on DVD
e) Four places I have visited:
- Berlin
- Vienna
- San Francisco
- Osh Kosh, Wisconsin
f) Four websites I visit daily:
- BBC
- CNN
- Weather.com
- Gawker.com
g) Four of my favorite foods:
- Melted cheese on toast
- Nutella on challah
- Banana yogurt
- Homemade mac-and-cheese
h) Four places I would like to be right now:
- A hot bath (in a bathroom not having to be cleaned by me)
- The kitchen
- On a trail in the middle of a yellow-leaved fall forest
- A fabric store, with a gift card
i) Four bloggers I'd like to tag:
- My sister, because I want to see what she says, to see if I already know.
- La Femme Follette, although she doesn't strike me as a taggy sort of girl - maybe if we all ask nice?
- Meg, because I think she'd be cool to know and her recipes always work.
- VoirDire SubCulture, because she and I lead lives of geographic proximity and I think she'd have interesting answers,
Tonight's entry will serve as a way to avoid the pumpkin that is currently sitting on my kitchen table awaiting not carving, but processing. It's pumpkin butter time and as much as I really, really want the output that actually doing the work will bring I am having trouble getting to it. It's been that kind of week.
Tonight Brainiac - who is having motivation problems of his own - and I attempted to reboot by heading out to dinner without the kids. We needed some thinking time and space to evaluate some of the crossroads (not enough to have a single crossroad - no, we seem to collect them) at which we find ourselves. In the words of Ferris Bueller, life moves pretty fast and we were having trouble finding time to sit down and hash stuff out. Nothing bad or icky but important nonetheless. I feel better for having sat across a quiet table and shared our thoughts on the subject. Of course, the duck potstickers and chevre gnocchi didn't hurt.
This week I finally opened a jar of this summer's dilly beans. Quite nice, as always. That dilly recipe is so dependable that it's kind of reassuring. How many things in life always come out pretty much as we expect, just about every time? Not at all a bad thing when staring down one or two of the aforementioned crossroads.
Tonight Brainiac - who is having motivation problems of his own - and I attempted to reboot by heading out to dinner without the kids. We needed some thinking time and space to evaluate some of the crossroads (not enough to have a single crossroad - no, we seem to collect them) at which we find ourselves. In the words of Ferris Bueller, life moves pretty fast and we were having trouble finding time to sit down and hash stuff out. Nothing bad or icky but important nonetheless. I feel better for having sat across a quiet table and shared our thoughts on the subject. Of course, the duck potstickers and chevre gnocchi didn't hurt.
This week I finally opened a jar of this summer's dilly beans. Quite nice, as always. That dilly recipe is so dependable that it's kind of reassuring. How many things in life always come out pretty much as we expect, just about every time? Not at all a bad thing when staring down one or two of the aforementioned crossroads.
It appears that comments have gone haywire again. I'll add it to my list of things to worry about and see what can't be done. In the meantime, I've got a new e-mail address. At least I can say I got something done today!
ETA: Wow, look at me go. Comments fixed and even the archives are back. I'd love to take credit but apparently choosing a new template will do this for a person. Now off for more work avoidance to fix my links. Rock on little blogger!
ETA: Wow, look at me go. Comments fixed and even the archives are back. I'd love to take credit but apparently choosing a new template will do this for a person. Now off for more work avoidance to fix my links. Rock on little blogger!
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