December Project

I’ve been a terrible blogger of late for no particular good reason (just a lot of pathetic ones.) I feel especially bad for disappearing off the face of the Internets for the majority of my favorite season, which should’ve been filled with lots of crafty things, but wasn’t. While I can’t redeem much of that, the least I can do is fulfill a tradition I’ve mostly kept to over the years of reposting my favorite drabble. Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, everyone — and remember to keep a sense of humor.

Nicholas was…

older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves’ invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.

Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors

Lace is a bitch. There’s a reason I like cables and hate lace — in cables, 99% of the time you have the same number of stitches and it’s relatively easy to see in what direction the pattern is going, and relatively easy to pick up dropped stitches or frog a few rows. With lace, it’s not. I’m constantly missing YOs, or adding extras, and not figuring out that I’ve done it for a few rows. Since I started developing hand problems, it’s even more frustrating because my knitting time is limited already and I hate spending the time undoing what I’ve just done.

Which is why it took me three tries to get this project started, but eventually I did. This is Ingrid Happy with it so far, even though it’s only about 4″ long at this point, I didn’t want to overwork myself since I haven’t knit in about 3 weeks. I’m using US9s instead of US7s, trying to get a larger gauge, but even so the scarf is only going to be about 5″ across, which is narrower than I’d like, but I do like the pattern. And since it is so narrow, I should have plenty of yarn leftover (hopefully enough to make a pair of fingerless gloves?)

(I know — you can’t see any stitch definition in pics taken on a camera phone. But this is NaBloPoMo and I’m too impatient to find my camera cord!)

Not sure when this turned into a food blog, but that seems to be what I’m working on lately. And since the fabulous Juliana is requesting pumpkin recipes (and since I didn’t get around to making my chili today after all), that’s what you’ll get…

A friend passed this along to me a few years ago, so I’m not sure of the source. I also tend not to measure much, and I can say that the only time I’ve ever screwed this one up is when I added too much pumpkin and didn’t balance it out with extra spices. So really, everything is approximate and spice to taste. Also, I’m writing this from memory so forgive the lack of exact step-by-step directions.

Pumpkin Soup

4+ cups broth
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
1 15oz can pumpkin
1 tsp sage
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 chopped cooked potato (optional, to thicken)

Directions

1. Saute onion and celery for about 5 minutes in a bit of olive oil.
2. Add half the broth and spices (and potato, if you want). Simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Take off heat and puree in blender or food processor.
4. Return to heat, add the rest of the broth and stir in pumpkin.
5. Simmer for another 10-15 minutes.

I usually end up adding extra vegetables and with about 6 cups of broth by the end. It’s pretty hard to screw this one up, as long as you don’t burn the onions.

While destashing of yarn is on the back burner, and destashing of my books is in progress, so begins a new destashing project: the kitchen cupboards.

Just before NaBloPoMo started I had seen a blog post made by someone somewhere wherein the author was making an inventory of her canned goods as an on-going project. While I’m not quite that organized, I got the idea that I should at least do some re-arranging since we tend to have a lot of canned goods stored in various places. I also happened to be raised by parents who are very frugal when it comes to food, saving all leftovers and… well, taking expiration dates more as suggestions (hey, it hasn’t killed any of us yet! Usually it’s perfectly fine, at worst it’s a bit mushier than usual.)

So last night I sorted through everything and put the newer cans in the pantry and kept the older stuff up front, which included some canned spinach. Eggs were also on sale this week, so when I went food shopping this morning I picked up some frozen pie crusts as well (I’ve tried making it myself before, and it’s always been inedible.)

And thus, when I got home, I made my first-ever quiche:

Shockingly (to me, at least), it is, indeed, edible. It actually came out pretty good, even if the spinach was the icky canned kind and not fresh (or frozen, as the recipe called for), and the fact that I substituted plain yogurt instead of mayonnaise (the idea of baking with mayonnaise is pretty damn icky to me, I just couldn’t do it.)

Next up… pumpkin chili. Hopefully it’ll turn out better than last time (stupid me followed the recipe exactly, even though it involved adding half of the contents of the spice cabinet.)

This be the pile of books that came into my possession today (both via the public library and by a Barnes & Noble order):

And this is in addition to the current stack (of library books and what I’m in the middle of reading, or is up next on the list):

Note that I’m not foolish enough to actually photograph my real bookshelf, which would make even my own head explode.

As a kid, I was always a good reader. I think being the sibling that wound up with the built-in bookshelf covering an entire wall in my room definitely helped there. Of course, then came college, the Internet, digital cable and Netflix, and the amount of time I spent reading dropped off of a sharp precipice. Of course, then after a few years working in the field of my college major (and realizing there was not much going on there), I made a wacky decision to go and become a librarian. Once I got a job in a public library, it became clear that my lack of pleasure reading over the past few years was going to be slightly problematic.

So for the past few months, I’ve been trying to catch up. Hence the piles of dead trees I have sitting on my coffee table and around my bed. My primary genres are historical fiction and sci-fi fantasy, though I’m a fan of non-fiction as well (especially books on natural foods, and technology). I even pre-ordered a B&N nook (though I’ve been waffling on this decision ever since, since it is very much an unnecessary purchase, and I just wanted to be an early adopter for once.) I’ve been keeping track of my progress on Goodreads, and sought out a few online book clubs on Ning (though I’m mostly using them for future recommendations, since my plate is obviously full at the moment.)

I do admit, the hardest part is just setting aside the time to actually read. I used to be a very fast reader, and that’s diminished over the years, but if I can get a good run in I can make it pretty far (thought I blasted through the Sookie Stackhouse series in just a couple hours each). Of course, now when I do try to get a few hours in before going to sleep at night, usually I look up from the page only to discover it’s 3am. Whoops.

At least I’m getting back in the habit.