I’ve tried lots of different ways of organizing my recipes. purchased cookbook notebooks and index cards (which had to be rewritten by hand from the original sources), a 3-ring binder (printing or ripping or writing recipes onto paper), various online recipe savers/collectors (where you have to enter in all the ingredients from a database), a…
My office chair broke a few months ago. The end of one of the plastic spokes around where it met with the plastic wheel cracked. I tried to glue it, but it just broke again in a different spot. I continued to use it while I searched around for a replacement. As I continued to…
When you grow lots of tomatoes in the garden, you need to figure out what to do with them. While my garden harvest this year wasn’t as large as years past, I still feel a thrill in using stuff from my own garden to make dinner. I used about 1 lb of roma tomatoes from…
Today I’m spending time at my desktop computer, reinstalling Windows 7 to see if I can get some speed back into it. This generally takes a long time, and mostly involves a lot of thumb-twiddling between steps. So, I decided to tackle a project in the office. Today’s project is “The Spaghetti Box”. The Spaghetti…
I’ve just returned from Vacation. Nearly every year for the past 6 years I’ve gone to Pennsic, an annual event for the Society for Creative Anachronism. It’s held Northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and draws over 10,000 people from around the globe to share in an event for lovers of medieval history. For me, it’s a…
In my journey to simplify and do things for myself, I try lots of different things like making your own laundry detergent, making vanilla extract, using bar shampoo, etc. And while I share my successes and how-to’s, I think it’s important to also note when things aren’t working like I think they should, to show…
I am not a great gardener. I try, I dabble, and I fail an awful lot. Growing weeds, that I can do. My garden teems with them, and I have a very hard time keeping up. But every year I try again, telling myself I’ll do better. I’ve never had that better year, but somehow…
I will admit a great fondness for hydrogenated icing from plastic tubs, as I have mentioned previously. It’s a terrible habit I’d love to kick. However I’ve tried making real buttercream icing in several different recipes, but I really didn’t like them. Either they tasted like sugar water paste, or biting into a stick of…
I don’t live in a deposit/return state, but I remember it’s availability when I was a small child nearly 40 years ago. The idea was simple: When you purchase a product in a bottle, you pay a premium for that bottle. When you are done with a bottle you return it to the store where you purchased it, and the fee is returned to you…
Anger. Righteous indignation. Out-and-out fury. Burning rage. Simmering resentment. As humans we have all felt angry at one time or another. While you can take anger too far it can also be a healthy thing. It can show you where your passions lie. It can help you fight through a situation. The trick, however, is…