...a cow moos unceasingly in the neighbor's pasture.

I didn't realize they could be so blasted loud.

:-P

Cake Wrecks is going to be the death of me.

I can just see the epitaph now: "Died laufing. You will be miffed."

Or something. :-P

I am thankful for:

- sweet smelling roses
- a growing garden
- new noises from Little K
- necklaces and bracelets
- visiting family who makes cookies and cleans my kitchen and brings ice cream
- God-given patience
- yummy chicken
- my crochet hooks
- renewed perspective
- back rubs and foot rubs
- long walks
- Chopin (this is new...he's never really been on my like-a-lot list)
- laughter
- the past
- the goats are gone
- clean laundry
- warm nights
- NO HOBO SPIDERS (at least none yet this year)
- emails from California and Indiana
- change (no, not the kind from Obama)
- Cheerios and Cheez-its
- no socks
- my wedding ring

About a week ago I went to buy a plant online that ended up being sold out by the time I placed my order. My mom kindly searched around for more, and she located an eBay auction for 15 seeds. I promptly set up to watch it and totally forgot to tell her I planned to bid on it. Yesterday the auction ended, and as per usual I waited until near the end to place my bid, but even then someone whooshed in at the last minute and outbid me.

Wah.

So this morning I called my mom to talk about some business related things, but we almost always end up talking about plants when we talk and this morning was no exception. I mentioned somewhat mournfully at being outbid on the seeds, and after a moment of silence she started laughing and confessed that she'd been the winning buyer!

We both decided we'd better improve our communication when it comes to eBay transactions. :-P

In my excitement I typed out "regrigerator". Twice. Go me.

When we moved into our house, there was a fridge included. Two, in fact, but one was the equivalent of the spare in the garage used only for sodas and stuff. Actually, let me say that again. The one in the kitchen struck me as the old backup in which you store sodas (and stuff). The backup, located in a small building opposite our porch, didn't even look like it should still be running. Important looking parts (to me, at least) seemed to be sort of missing.

But, we were newly married, which means we didn't exactly have the means to go out and buy new appliances, so we stocked the 12+ year old fridge and hoped and prayed that it would keep running. And it ran without problems for the first year, I'd say. Things started getting dicey after that, and twice that I remember we woke up to a constantly running fridge with lukewarm contents. Not good. Some random playing with the temperature knobs later, we landed on a setting that seemed to cool things down a bit. Since then things have been steadily on the decline, and I have spent more time over that contraption than any other in my house.

Excepting, perhaps, the psychotic dishwasher which will EAT YOU ALIVE if you let it, but that's for another post.

To get to the point of THIS entry, we're now the happy owners of a 5-year old Maytag that totally blows the doors of the old fridge. For one thing, it's Quiet. For another, it has sliding glass shelves. Lastly, it has a crushed ice maker, and with the amount of smoothies I make in the summertime, this will make my life So Much Easier! :-D

*does happy Irish jig*

The phone just rang, and the message left went like this:

"Hello, my name is [name], and my number is ***-***-****. Thank you very much."


Um, you're welcome? Please call back and tell us what we did to deserve your thanks! A clue as to who you are might help too.

* Costco is currently carrying the complete Victor Borge DVD set. I got one. I heart it muchly. Sometimes after watching him, I get the urge to write in inflationary language, but then I think of my poor readers and wonder how many of you would apprecinine it. I mean, it's two things to explain it and chuckle; it's something else to sit down and write out a few senelevences fivecing people to partake, whether they want to or not. On the other side, no two have to read, right?

* So I have this cute little cement pond out front that has been somewhat in disrepair since we moved in. I decided to clean it up this year, but the first day I went out to clear out the twigs and leaves and the 2" of standing water, I discovered a newt swimming around in it. A big newt. I watched him crawl up onto a larger branch and immediately named him Finknottle. So now I'm torn. Do I still want to clean it out and make it a working pond and hope Finknottle approves of the remodel, or should I leave him alone?

* What is it with chickens and onions? Live chickens, I should clarify. I try to let my ladies out when I can so they can run around and de-bug the place (especially since we're coming up to hobo spider season...I hope this year to annihilate All of Them), but without fail they seem to gravitate towards my row of onions. They don't eat them, but they scratch all around them. Maybe onion flavored bugs are better? Seasonings and whatsit.


Anyway, hi.

*giggles*

Yes, I am an introvert.

Bwaha.

Query shout out, as it were:

My BIL came home saying he'd heard from a co-worker that Obama spent more in his first 100 days in office than Bush did during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. When I asked where he'd heard that or what the source was, my BIL didn't know.

I don't like to quote stuff like that without having it confirmed in facts and figures, so does anyone have any proof of this? Or against it, for that matter? I've done some googling and I see the statement in public responses to various articles, but so far nothing from a source I consider trustworthy.

After more than a year.
After dozens of "not quite right attempts".
After lots and lots of flat and/or hard results.

I FINALLY HAVE WHAT LOOKS LIKE TWO PERFECT LOAVES OF SOURDOUGH BREAD IN THE OVEN.

The catch?

I wasn't even going to try it because I accidentally left the dough out for 6 hours on the third rise (which normally should only be for ~30 minutes). The dough was deflated and tough, and I thought it didn't have another rise in it. BUT IT DID!

And I can't waste dough. Even if it looks and feels like an Olympic discus, It Must Be Baked And Eaten. Most the time it still tastes good. So, we'll find out tomorrow if these just look good or if they also have the proper texture. Ooooh, the folks in Idaho have no idea how much Self Control I will be exercising to not Cut Open And See.

Whoo-hoo!

Although I haven't read this one, so now the question becomes should I watch the movie and then read the book so I won't know how they've altered it, or should I read the book first in order to accurately criticize the movie?

Hmmm.....

Edit: I have to admit I laughed outrageously when I read the keywords.

Guild | Sigh | Author Cameo | Arrow | Long Haired Male

What's better: metal or bamboo needles? Why?

I'm determined to get better because there is a sweater I want to make, and I'm not convinced I can convert it to crochet more easily than just learning the stitches in knitting. You can cable with crochet...rather, you can give the illusion of cable in crochet, but it will be different than the real thing.

So! I'm looking to invest in a couple knitting needle sizes I will need and don't currently have.

Thanks in advance.

...it might as well be something pretty, right? Hail, the ladybugs.

They show up every year about this time. I'm not sure how they get in the house, but you wake up and they're scattered across the kitchen floor, dancing on the light fixtures, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

At least they vacuum up easily enough. :-P

...to maintain motivation to clean (because company is coming tomorrow) and harmonize with the music of random downpours of rain?

Answer: The Big mug of hot chocolate.

Have I ever shared my personal hot chocolate recipe? Unfortunately I never measure in conventional terms...it's pretty much all done to taste anyway.

1 heaping spoonful of unsweetened cocoa powder (I like dark cocoa powder, but you can use whatever)
1 shake of cinnamon powder (out of a rather large container, so I'd guess about 1/4 teaspoon?)
4 shakes of salt (from a regular shaker, so maybe two pinches? yes, that is a conventional term)
1 splash vanilla extract (no more than 1/4 teaspoon for me...I like my vanilla subtle if it's there at all)

Stir together with a little milk to form a watery paste. Fill mug the rest of the way with milk. Microwave on high for 1 minute 20 seconds.

Add:

2 teaspoons honey

Microwave on high another minute or until desired hotness is reached. Stir. Drink.

If you prefer sugar, add 2 teaspoons with the rest of the ingredients and once you've added milk, heat in the microwave for 2 minutes or until it's hot enough for you.

Watch it after about a minute...sometimes they like to boil over.

Oh, and occasionally I'll add a pinch of cayenne pepper for a kick. You wouldn't think it would work, but it does!

This started as a response to ladyrita's post, and I realized it was getting too long so I thought I'd better just post it here.

Something you touched on in your last paragraph--it's a flexible thing, and not just in the learning part. I never did "show up" to school in my pjs, but that's simply because my mother wouldn't hear of it. :-P

I went to a public school K-2nd grade, and I remember a lot of the experience. I think the biggest difference for me is that being homeschooled allowed my parents to shape and encourage good character and instill a very solid moral base that otherwise might have developed much more slowly or maybe even not at all. Partly this was due to the local school...I know a lot of people who went through the public school system in other places and did fine, but I can't think of a certain person who I knew in 2nd grade, who then graduated from the system, and who didn't have some major moral failure by the time they were 20.

That was a run on sentence. (See? I remember things I learned in school! :-P)

Homeschooling offers the freedom to teach what you want, how you want it. One person I talked to wasn't keen on homeschooling because it can be expensive in time and resources to buy the books, join a group, do the activities with your kids, etc. She asked if the government helped with any of it, and I blinked in surprise that she'd missed the point. Homeschooling gives you, the parent, control of your child's education, and leaves the government as much out of it as possible. I have not researched the expense of sending a child to public school, but it doesn't really matter (to me, at least). I would be happy in the end to pay more if it meant I knew exactly what my kids were learning.

The socialization question always gets me. Ha! At least twice during the course of homeschooling (I was perhaps 14) people approached my mother and asked what it was like for me to not have any friends. Er, pardon? Obviously they hadn't heard that I'd had TWENTY ONE girls over for a sleepover that birthday party (Lord bless my parents...I still don't know to this day why they let me do that one...).

The fact is that proper homeschooling gives you at least as much socialization as a public school but also a much broader range. When I was 16, I was just as able to talk to an 8 or 80 year old as I was to people my own age, and often my public-schooled peers didn't know how to communicate with anyone but each other (again, this is something I observed in my local community).

There will be people who take advantage of the idea of homeschooling. I've known people who were turned off of it because they knew a family who "homeschooled" and didn't do anything. The kids were lazy, unproductive, and unmotivated.

The thing is, you get out of homeschooling what you put into it. If you don't give the effort, you won't reap the rewards! It is not the easy choice by far, and I don't believe everyone is cut out to homeschool (not to say they couldn't, but homeschooling requires a certain attitude and not everyone possesses it...however, our attitude is one of the few things we really have control over, so hey!).

There's a lot more I could say on the subject, of course, but since this was designed with ladyrita in mind (and she has just as much experience with this stuff as I do if not more), I don't feel the need to go on an even longer ramble!

I acquired one of these from my grandmother and aunt upon their last visit, and I have since done everything I can to keep it alive and healthy. My track record with indoor plants is rather terrible, I'm afraid.

But I was feeling good about this one and it's SO CUTE and I was thinking maybe my record was about to change...when the poor plant started to not look so good. I reread the directions, checked the lighting, checked the soil, checked the moisture, checked EVERYTHING, and couldn't figure it out.

"Maybe it's rootbound," the Dearliest suggested. Yes, I had noticed the bottom was pretty packed with roots...

So yesterday I broke up the roots a bit and put my Baby Toes into a new, somewhat larger pot.

Today it looks like a New Plant, and I am so happy! It still has some recovering to do, but the overnight change is enough to rest my worries. :-)

Baby Toes

- - - - -

After about a month of saying I was going to make bread (I haven't done it since Little K was born) and about a week of playful teasing from the Dearliest on the subject, I made bread yesterday. I also decided to try a second sourdough starter. I like muchly the one I've been using, but my grandmother gave me a really old recipe that sounds absolutely wonderful. It's what she used to make, and she obviously has very fond memories of it. It's milk/yogurt based, rather than water based, which apparently makes it even more sour.

Anyway, I've got that going, and hopefully in the next couple days I'll be able to make a loaf. Whoever comes from Idaho will get some! (No, I'm not bribing. I would never bribe. :-P)

- - - - -

So those of you who checked out my Etsy shop know that I've been experimenting with crocheting coarse flax fiber, and it's really kinda interesting. It handles very much like cotton yarn, although it requires perhaps a little more tension. As far as twines go, it's super easy to work with, and it doesn't cut up my hands, which is an extra bonus. It does chaff a bit, so it's not perfect, but it's pretty painless overall. I really like the look it presents, but after two weeks of playing with it I need a break.

Thusly, I have returned to acrylic yarn in the hopes of using up my stash, because I need the room and there's not much I can do with acrylic for personal use anyway (I can't wear it because it irritates my skin). I tell you. That yarn is slippery, especially after the weeks of using flax, and before that several MONTHS of using cotton. I have to use such a tiny hook! Guess it's a good thing I didn't go from flax to crochet thread... :-P

- - - - -

I am reading The Neverending Story for the first time. equuschick is very pleased with me, seeing as she gave me the book With Orders two Christmases ago! I'm almost done with it, and I'm a little sad to see it ending. Wonderful story.

And now I must go Be Productive in some venue, because the day is slipping away and I can't spend all of it in a Daydream. ;-)

Now that I am able to partake in the Elixir Known As Coffee without it affecting the Little Guy, I am faced with a quandary. Coffee still affects me the way coffee has always affected me, and I've had one cup today. This morning. I want another one. Now.

It's no longer a matter of can but a question of should.

I dislike this kind of moral examination...

:-P

I am making a List of Tools/ Supplies I need to get.

Things re-discovered in the sewing box from my Great-Grandmother:
- 2 metal gauges
- magnetic seam guide
- tape measures
- a handful of thimbles
- 5 thin plate thingies the size of a dime with a diamond-shaped loop of wire coming off...what are these? Does anyone know? I can take pictures if my description is less than helpful. :-P
- some very old looking iron-on alphabet letters from McCalls (this would be, I assume, to decorate quilts and such?)
- a lampshade needle...what is this used for?
- 3 sets of scissors (2 pinking shears, 3 straight edges of different sizes)
- large assortment of hand and machine needles
- box of bobbins
- small assortment of ball/ glass head pins/ pin cushion
- a seam ripper
- random assortment of thread and buttons
- thread snips

Things I think/ know I should get but don't know what sort and want opinions:
- tracing paper (I don't want to cut up my patterns)
- something to trace with
- measuring mat?
- rotary cutter?
- more pins

Am I missing anything essential?