Since I’m a dark chocolate fan, this article was a wonderful birthday present.
31 August 2004
24 August 2004
Polistes Genocide Update
We (or more accurately, my boyfriend) ended up having to pull out the bigger guns, figuratively speaking, but the paper wasp colonies have been greatly reduced. I’m still expecting the Wasps For Life to show up on my doorstep to protest the deaths of numerous wasp eggs and larvae, but meanwhile, I can now walk to the car with greatly reduced risk of being stung.
(There’s still some nests left around the house, in locations I don’t go to so often, and that’s fine. I have no objection to sharing my property with wasps; they do eat lots of unpleasant buggies, after all. I just have an objection to them building their nests such that I can’t walk out my door or sit on my porch without risk of being stung.)
Comments Off
20 August 2004
Veggie Processing
After 2.5 seasons of the veggie boxes, I’m getting better at actually using the stuff. Yes, a fair amount still ends up in the compost heap, but not nearly as much as used to.
It helps, of course, that I have someone who I can call up and say, “You’re coming over to dinner tonight to eat this stuff.” But it also helps that I’ve learned some new recipes.
That weird peanut/pineapple/greens dish, for example — I was actually sorry when the greens ended for the summer.
Tomato and okra stew. Surprisingly good — onions, green peppers, okra, and tomatoes, plus some salt and pepper.
A new one for me: the recipe calls it Eggplant Parmigiana, but it’s not like any eggplant parmigiana that I’ve ever seen. Turned out pretty good, though.
Potato/corn chowder is still a good comfort soup, and plain old nuked potato with cheese is a good quickie meal.
And those sweet peppers — some of the red ones were so good I could see using them for ice cream!
I’m very glad I get the veggie boxes; I eat a lot more vegetables now than I would otherwise, and I’ve tried recipes that I wouldn’t have had the impetus to test out before.
But I still hate beets.
Comments Off
19 August 2004
The Wasps Shall Die.
I’m generally pretty tolerant of the insects that want to share my home and property. I kill the actively destructive ones (silverfish, roaches, etc.), but if their prime purpose in life is to eat other bugs, then I’ll practice peaceful coexistence.
Until this morning, the toleration extended to the paper wasps that have lived on my front porch and in my carport for the past three years.
One guess what happened this morning.
I’m actually not going to go full-bore kill-every-wasp-anywhere-on-the-property; I don’t mind them on the eaves far away from the house entrances. But the carport wasps and the ones near the front door? They’re toast.
Comments Off
Lots o’ Books
Lots of Recent Reading:
- Elizabeth Goudge, Linnets and Valerians. Story about four siblings who run away from their too-strict grandmother and end up living with their strict-but-cool Uncle Ambrose and having magical adventures. Quite fun, Nth reread.
- Susan S. Izard and Susan S. Jorgensen, Knitting into the Mystery. The authors created a ministry of knitting shawls for people who were sick or lonely; they write about the ministry as well as the spiritual aspects of knitting. I basically liked it, though I’ll have to reread to decide whether I really like it or just sorta like it.
- Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn. The failings of modern architecture, and what kinds of buildings are able to endure through numerous users. Fascinating. I look at houses with a different eye now that I’ve read this.
- Madeleine L’Engle and Luci Shaw, Friends for the Journey. Two Christian writers reflect on friendship, theirs and others. I like most of L’Engle’s nonfiction, so I found the relationship interesting, although I’m not sure it’ll stay on my reread-over-and-over shelf.
- Lois McMaster Bujold, second half of Civil Campaign. For some reason, I rarely reread a Miles book front-to-back; the books are so under my skin that I don’t need to. But I picked this up and started skimming in the middle and ended up rereading the entire second half.
- Robin McKinley, Deerskin, The Door in the Hedge, and Spindle’s End. Fairy tale retellings galore. McKinley has this knack for weird magic whose workings you can’t quite figure out but can still accept — it’s very fairy-tale magic rather than scientific magic. First reread for Spindle, Nth for the other two.
- Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, Heaven to Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy Was a Junior, Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World and Betsy’s Wedding, plus Emily of Deep Valley for good measure. The Betsy-Tacy books have been favorites of mine since I was in elementary school, but it’s been a really long time since I’ve reread these. Betsy Ray and her friends grow and mature. They’re still fun reads; the characters are all people, and the society’s quite interesting. It’s another society that ends up shadowed by WWI, though; I can’t help wondering whether Joe and others actually did make it back from the war whole.
- Jo Walton, Tooth and Claw. Victorian novel tropes with dragons. I enjoyed it very much and especially appreciated the worldbuilding (and I wonder, does “Yarge” intentionally resemble “George”?)
- Neil Gaiman, A Study in Emerald, available online. A Holmes pastiche in a Lovecraftian universe; I haven’t read Lovecraft, so I’m probably missing some of the nuances there, but as far as the Holmes side goes, it’s wonderful.
Comments Off
18 August 2004
zzzzzzzzz
6:35 is just way too early for a school bus to come. Especially when kid has been sleeping until 8:00 all summer (and Mommy’s been sleeping till 7:30).
On the bright side, I get to actually be at work for a full 8-hour day! and get things done!
Comments Off
10 August 2004
Offsite Decluttering
While visiting my folks, I went through some boxes in my old closet and relegated almost all of it to the yard sale pile. Two kits for crocheted vegetable potholders (inherited from my grandmother; I’m never going to make them, and I’ve got other items of hers that mean more to me), my early attempt at a macrame bag (the shape would make it more successful as a macrame winesack), fabric scraps that I’m never going to do anything with, an angora sweater that’s gorgeous but that I can’t stand wearing because it itches too much, dated craft magazines that I’ll never make anything from, a whole box of latch hook yarn scraps….
At this point, they could probably toss anything I’ve left. I’ve been out of the house for fifteen years now, and owned my own house for six. It’s a pretty safe bet that if an item’s that important to me, I’ve moved it already.
But it’s nice of them to hang onto the boxes until I have a chance to look at them.
Comments Off
9 August 2004
Totally Unillustrated Craft Update
I did better than usual on this round of travel crafts; I only brought four projects, and I’ve worked on three. I’ve made several all-but-the-borders squares for the sampler afghan, I progressed on several rows of the Just Nan sampler, and I made a few stitches on the Blue Jay. (And I don’t leave till tomorrow, so I might even do a few stitches on Mucha Ruby just to say I’ve worked on everything.)
The sampler afghan is proving to be a good travel project, except for the minor matter of not being able to bring scissors on the plane with which to cut the yarn. And even so, I’ve got seven or eight remnant skeins, so I can do several different segments before I’m stuck — and since I’m travelling with my son, I’m interrupted often enough that I won’t finish them all before we’re safely home.
Comments Off
6 August 2004
Genealogy Update
I’m distressingly dependent on my laptop for doing genealogy research, particularly for doing the all-FrederickMD-all-the-time census crawls. Thus, I haven’t done diddly for genealogy in the past several months.
But now my laptop has been resurrected, so I’m hoping to get back into it again.
To start with, I’m planning a lot of personal amusement with the Hardin County, Kentucky, county clerk’s records page. It’s wonderful — not only have they indexed their old records, they’ve actually scanned many of the the originals! Very nifty.
Comments Off
2 August 2004
Bad Backformation! Bad! Bad!
So I’m wrapping up my work for the day and thinking of what to do for supper before I go to folk dance class, and I say to myself, “Hey, why don’t I go get one of the sushi specials from the Chinese restaurant down the street? Too bad my boyfriend won’t be able to make it down in time, but maybe I can save him a sushum.”
And then I catch myself.
Sushum????
This isn’t even from the right language family….
Comments Off