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Weekend Blog with Patreon, Holidays, and more!

Dec6

A two-day weekend feels rather short after a five-day “weekend”, but, on the other paw, I didn’t have to go anywhere all that far away, we didn’t have any major cooking (Barely any cooking at all!), and it turned out to be quite relaxing.

I got a new wobble stool for Black Friday (among other purchases), so this weekend, I tested it out, and found it fun, if a little surprising for my back and thighs for the first couple hours. Mobile computing! Or, at least, computing and being mobile at the same time! It’s actually a lot of fun.

We saw Fantastic Creatures this weekend, too, and that was fun, too; it’s not the most deep of movies, but it was visually beautiful, fun to watch, and has already got me spawning worlds of fic in my mind. I’ll call that worth the matinee ticket price.

Other than that — I wrote, we picked apples, we cleaned up the house a bit, hauled some firewood, and went out to lunch at our local Italian bar food restaurant (fish fry and enough Stromboli for three meals). We made cookies and the last of the turkey broth and… well, pretty much chilled. It was a peaceful weekend, and I’ll take it.

In other news, my Patreon has reached the $40 milestone again! I’m excited to get Nimbus out of the tree and see what adventures she gets up to next! (what, I’m supposed to know? I barely know how she’s getting out of the tree! <.<)

I’m contemplating doing a live-writing something sometime during my ~week plus~ work holiday at the end of December (a whole week! And then a Monday!) Details to follow, if there’s interest.

And if you haven’t checked out Selena Page yet, both the Hallowe’en and Christmas stories are available on Smashwords for free: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/SelenaPage

Speaking of the holidays, Christmas is coming, I’ve finished my re/watch of the Librarians, and I’ve started watching Elementary, which might prove to be good knitting-tv (I hope so; I have a few projects to knit on relatively short deadlines!)

And Baking! I think I’m going to try making “fancy” cookies for my foodie aunt & uncle who are in ailing health. I can’t give them wine anymore… (not kindly) so cookies it is! Anyone have a favorite “Fancy” cookie recipe, holiday or otherwise?

I hope you, too, had a peaceful weekend, and that the week is fun and productive for you.

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Weekend Blog and Thanks Giving

Nov28

Oh my, let me tell you… five day weekend. Five. Days.

The last time I had that much time off in a row, we were driving to/from Raleigh for my cousin’s wedding. It’s, uh… It’s been a while.

And I took full advantage of it in as hermitty a way as I could manage & barely left the house.

🙂

Oh, we went out a few times. we both needed a haircut. We took a last-minute Black Friday trip to BJ’s for a new tablet (mine still works, but with a cracked screen (Dropped it on the pavement at a bus stop, sigggh), I don’t know how long it’ll last, so go go Black Friday sales.

(As a note… I really like the Black Friday complex. It helps that mostly we buy online, and that we live in a very small town that doesn’t get nearly the news-worthy crowds — I mean, we don’t get crowds at all — but man, for $100+ off small electronics, totally worth it.)

And we went to the nearby (hour away) outlet mall with my Mom for Christmas shopping on Saturday, because family tradition, because deals, and because Mom. It appears I want all the sweater-dresses… 1989 me wants her wardrobe back <.<

Other than that? We hauled firewood and made turkey and dressing and gravy, we made pumpkin pudding and apple crisp and ate far more food than we needed, we watched Victorian Bakers and made bread.

In the spirit of the season: I am grateful for the times like this, when I can catch my breath. I’m thankful for all of you, for all my friends and all my readers (and all your enthusiasm and all your questions). I am thankful I live in a modern era, in a modern world, with stand mixers, oil furnaces, and, of course, the internet.

And kale. Strangely enough, I’m thankful for kale.

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Weekend, with Car Repairs, weighty conversations, and deer

Nov15

It’s, in theory, Autumn, although the weather has been very up and down lately. We’re getting 10-degree shifts for a day at a time, 3 days at a time, and then dropping back a little bit lower and lower every time it drops.

This weekend, on a pleasant day, I drove up to Rochester (about 2 hour drive, half Thruway and half 2-lane roads) to visit my parents, and to have my dad help me fix (replace) my rear wheel bearing.

This, it turns out, is not exactly more complicated than fixing/replacing brakes, but it does involve a lot more swearing, a tool called a slide hammer that looks like a ShakeWeight’s more obscene older cousin, and a lot of Thrust (or some other lubricant, but hey, there’s a theme here).

It also involved puppy kisses from my two “kid brothers” the lab-mix doggies, a vegan “Reuben” sandwich (with homemade bread! also homemade vegan “cheese” and homemade sauerkraut!) from my mom, and a couple uncomfortable conversations.

All I’m going to say about the political discussion is: we managed not to have a fight. I’ll take it.

The other conversations were harder — talking to my dad about things I’d been holding on to, talking to both parents about end-of-life plans. I don’t want to know, I didn’t want to confront Dad…

…but I’d rather do it in the garage where I can hug them both and move on than do it later, in a hospital, or be shouting at a gravestone some day.

On the way home, feeling thoughtful and pensive and a little bit pleased, a little weight-lifted, I saw about a dozen deer in the Seneca Army Depot (but no white ones! Sad)… and then, in my front yard, two deer snacking on our apple tree.

They don’t symbolize anything, the deer, but they’re there, because it’s November and they’re always there, and it’s not like we needed all the apples, anyway.

Oh, and there was a supermoon. Which was just about gorgeous hanging over the Finger Lakes.

Little disjointed today, but that was my weekend. Hugs to you all.

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Weekend Blog of sorts: My kitties

Oct25

Today I want to talk about my kitties. It’s not exactly a weekend blog, and yet…

Four-plus years ago, our elderly diabetic kitty, Drake, passed away at the vet’s, leaving a hole in our lives. It took us about a month to fill that hole with two baby fluffballs from Craigslist who, after a little bit of consideration, we named Oligarchy and Theocracy (Oli and Theo).

A year later, my husband, T., found three kittens in the hedgerow: an all black one who was terrified of humans, a grey-and-white one with a bowtie on her head, and a black-and-white one. The bowtie kitty was very friendly, to the point of letting me pick her up, and, for a few weeks, the three of them were hunting the hedgerow and fields near our house.

The cow farm to one side had a black-and-white barn cat; a block and a half away lived a big black tomcat who liked to range far and wide. It wasn’t hard to figure out their antecedents.

I tell myself stories about there the other two kittens ended up. I tell myself someone took them in, or picked them up and took them to our local no-kill shelter. They were handable, nearly tame. It’s possible.

The little black one, though, she hung around. She would yell at T. from the hedgerow — nervous about his presence but ready to talk to him. She’d eat out of our compost bin, especially meat scraps*. I started putting kibble out for her; I started cooking the poultry scraps and leaving them in a bowl for her**.

T. did the hard work. He talked to her, he waited patiently nearby while she ate; he moved closer slowly, a day at a time, until she’d let him pet her.

The weather got colder; she got more friendly. “I could come inside,” she seemed to be saying. “It looks nice there.”

We called the vet; they had policies in place for ‘we need to make an appointment but we’re not sure we can get her in a cage.” After all that, it turned out to be easy; we scooped her up, put her in the carrier, and left her at the vets for three days.

She was clean, she was healthy, she had none of the awful things barn cats can get except one tick, and we had her spayed. We brought her home, brought her inside, and introduced her to the boys.

We’d been calling her Sullivan, because my dad has an all-white barn cat named Gilbert. But she was, well, she, and being inside, she needed a family name: Meritocracy. She kept the Sullivan as a surname, O’Sullivan, so I have more to use to scold them. (The boys are McNamerras. I don’t really know why.)

But this was supposed to be about now, present-time. Our little feral cat, our scared-to-talk-to-humans kitten, who would stand in the hedgerow and yell at us: “Put down the food and back away slowly!”, our spooked kitty who wasn’t sure she wasn’t still feral…

“Nap time, Merit,” I tell her, and she hurries over to lay down next to me and sleep, waiting until I’ve petted her behind the ears for a minute.

“Hey, human, I think I’m hungry.” She crawls onto my lap — laptop or no — and headbutts me until I pet her. Once she’s napped for a few minutes, she’ll repeat the process, until I get up and feed her.

And when I found a different place to chill with the laptop last night than the chair I normally share with her, she came over to join me, looking quite put out and, at the same time, quite determined to be with her human.

I love my little feral cat. I just wanted to say that.

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Weekends in the Finger Lakes

Oct17

This weekend… we drank beer.
(note: I started this last week. I’m a little behind on weekend blogs. So… The weekend before this past one… We drank beer)

I’m serious, that was almost the entirety of Saturday.

Rewind… So, probably a couple years ago (we don’t drive this road very often), a place that had been selling Amish furniture and barns (“Thee Amish Market,” sigh) went out of business, only to be replaced with… a beergarden?

On the Finger Lakes Wine trail, this has been happening more and more over the last couple years – wineries go under, but breweries are going up everywhere – so a place to taste all that beer seems not all that unreasonable. But T. and I had only stopped by once, and kind of forgotten it.

Until he send me an e-mail: “Brewfest.”

Brewfest.

We haven’t hit a wine festival this year. We’ve hit a lot of wineries… but only one or two breweries, and no festivals.

Well, the year is almost over… time for beer!

So, we showed up at 12:30, got our little ½-pint (technically 3/4 -cup) glass &12 tasting tickets each, and stared at the 20 tables of eager local breweries, just waiting to get us tipsy.

*cough*

Or maybe a little drunk?

Local breweries have, pleasantly, gotten past their “all hops all the time” thing, which is nice, because I am not actually a fan of hops. At all. I had some nice pumpkin ale, some very nice hefeweizen, some stout, a really good rum ale…

…after that it gets a bit blurry. We also had tacos, kielbasa, and maple sugar candy, walked around the place about 20,000 times, and tasted at least one hard cider.

It was pretty awesome. And it was also pretty much all of Saturday. We hit the grocery store, we got home, we napped for an hour… and it was dark.

Then we had some dinner, etc, and all was good with the world. All in all, a pretty awesome way to spend a Saturday.

And clearly, it left me beer-hazed for a week, and I totally forgot to write a conclusion and post this.

So… This weekend. Well, this weekend, we made like homeowners. We went to Lowe’s. We cleaned up the house. We organized the garage. (We ate at China Buffet). And I burned brush. So much brush. I can almost see my squash patch again.

And now that I’ve found my squash patch (almost), I’m planning on covering it with coffee grounds, eggshells, ashes, and cardboard. Oh, and peat moss.

Maybe next year we’ll actually grow squash again. 🙂

And maybe next weekend, I’ll remember to post a blog post in a reasonable amount of time….

Well, let’s not get crazy.

So: that was my October weekends so far. How about you guys?

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Autumn is Here, and a weekend of weekend-ness

Sep26

Autumn is here, in fact as well as in name.

I can tell not only because my apples are coming ripe and the grapes in my hedgerow are sweet and full, not only because every store is selling pumpkins and my dash is full of Hallowe’en, but because between Thursday and Friday the temperatures dropped precipitously.

Both highs and lows are 10-20 degrees F lower than they were at the beginning of last week – from low 80s and low 50s (28°C/12°C or so) to low 70s-> mid 60’s down to mid-40s at night(18°C-4°C or so). It came on literally overnight, and here I am, hoping the chimney sweep and the furnace check-up guy get here soon. Brrr!

In the meantime, we’ve been chopping brush to burn, hauling firewood into the house, moving firewood around the garage… cleaning the garage so we have room for the firewood (that’s mostly T)…and pulling the gutters down on the short front of the house.

(Our house has two sections: a one-story section that houses the kitchen & utility room (and dreaded foyer) and a two-story section with the rest of the house.)

The gutter was… interesting. When we pulled down the rotted board BEHIND the gutter, we found about a jillion dead wasps nests, some dead wasps… and a skeleton mouse. Yay nature~

Autumn is here, ‘though the leaves haven’t started to change yet. Home repairs are going into overdrive in anticipation of the cold that’s coming, and the cats are growing an extra coat of fur for the winter. “Winter is coming,” Oli insists, as he devours an extra helping of food.

“Winter is coming,” I agree, and stack some more firewood.

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Weekend, with E.mc and Big E.

Sep19

Weekend Holiday!

This weekend, we drove up to Troy (Albany) to see our friends E. Mc & Kris. It’s about a 4-hour drive, so not one we make all that often (maybe 2-3 times a year).

On the way, we finally hit Black Bear Winery, a “grape-free winery” so far out in the middle of nowhere and so very far off any of the NYC wine trails that I’m not sure how they survive… and only a 15-minute detour off our normal route to Troy.

We eventually, slightly tipsier and with three bottles of wine-like product in the trunk (tasty stuff!), ended up in Troy, where we found out we were going to see a comedian at the Troy Music Hall! We saw Jim Breuer, who… well, he wasn’t my style, but his opening act was awesome.

The next day was the planned main event – the Big E, as mentioned last week.

Oh mannnn. We were there for seven hours. We ate so much fair food (fried dough! my favorite~. Lobster rolls! (That was new). Maple Milkshake… Nom!). We bought Flannel! From Vermont! (of course). We saw cows and goats and sheep and … no chickens, though. There was a tiny historical village! There were ~~So Many People~~. There was ~so much music~. It was a bit of sensory overload…

…and I’m not really sure what happened after that. Well, the road ate Kris’ car, keeping with the current curse-of-the-visiting, there was a very good brunch the next day, and we went to a genuine mall, something I don’t do much in Ithaca, since we don’t really have one of those.

Also, we bought booze. This seems to be a theme.

I’m back, it’s Monday, and I have Trip Hangover. Can’t wait to do it again!

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Weekend! With Cap and Morn, Sledgehammers and firewood

Sep14

I have to say, I get a kick out of walking in to a hardware store in my girliest outfits and buying, say, a sledgehammer…

It’s been a lot of yardwork and then some more yardwork lately. Moving firewood around, re-organizing the barn to better fit more firewood in there – and to be able to cut large piece of plywood and 2x10x10s, so as to make a bedframe…

And also, I got to smash a toilet to bits. That was fun. 😀

Somewhere in there, though, I drove to Rochester to see [twitter.com profile] capriox_b and [twitter.com profile] psygeek at Capriox’s house! (Also, there were cows, dogs, kitties, and a cow-milking robot!)

It was awesome to see old friends (Cap) and new friends (Psygeek) and to actually meet up with interwebs people. Also, in a nice coincidence, Cap lives just a couple blocks from my parents and my aunt & uncle, so I squeezed in a little extra visitation while I was in town. It made for a very very nice weekend.

Also, I discussed the definition of “necessary shoes” and “ridiculous boots” (https://www.instagram.com/p/BKMBtO3BFqT/), thought about winter wardrobes, and fixed my clothes steamer whilst researching water softeners. Anyone have one they really like?

This weekend, we’re going to The Big E. No idea what to expect, but I hear it’s fun!

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Weekend, with firewood and Fairy Doors

Sep7

Of everything I am enjoying about my new job, long holiday weekends with no guilt may be at the top of the list.

For all that it was a holiday, I had a very productive weekend! Saturday saw a trip to the outlet mall – yay super-cheap sales – with T. and my Mom. (My mother lives 2 hours away; the outlet mall is halfway for both of us. Super-convenient!)

On the way home, we followed a big plywood sign: “Giant Yard Sale This Way!”

And it was pretty giant, I have to admit. Three tents, six non-tented tables, a display case – it was more like an antique store in someone’s yard.

We got a 1″ drill bit, a hatchet, and a bunch of Tupperware. 🙂

Then we found … an antique store in someone’s barn. And there I got… dun dun dunn… An Eastman (Kodak) photo cutter, cast iron, heavy as sin and still sharp. It’s LOVELY.

(also, 2 corner clamps for frame making for a whopping $2, win).

The rest of the weekend was pretty tame compared to that. We stacked wood, threw wood, stacked wood. We froze some tomatoes and baked some bread. We put up a fairy door and pickled some roasted red peppers. And then we stacked some wood.

I left the weekend happily achy and feeling virtuously productive. I’d call that a win.

My new paper cutter on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BJ_Pt5PBvjJ/

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In Which I’ve Discovered Bullet Journals

Sep1

If you look at my twitter feed lately, you may have noticed that I’ve developed a bit of obsession.

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsBullet Journals!

(my Pinterest board will tell a similar story, but we’ve already discussed how many of you don’t like Pinterest…)

I’m not all that good at remembering to do things; I’m not all that good at maintaining habits once I start them. That whole, “do a thing for xx days and then you’ll keep doing it? Doesn’t happen for me; I stop on the xx+1 day and just… stay stopped.

It’s a little too soon to tell for sure, and there’s always, of course, the question of how much I’m going to get wrapped up in the pretty bits – banners! Color coding! Icons!

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsBut at the moment, it seems to be helping me hold to things I want to remember to do everyday, so I’ll count it as at least a short-term win. Dishes every night! Walkies every night! Edally is almost back on schedule!

Bonus? I made a “weight loss” page in my bullet journal (It’s up there in the September Set-up, with the bubbles) … and then I started doing Weight Watchers again. Maybe this’ll be the thing that actually makes me stick to it this time!

Current mood: optimistic, with pretty banners. 🙂

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