Tag: general discussion

What I’ve been up to: collecting rewards and making bread.

I feel like I haven’t been taking very many pictures of late.  Although I’ve written over 475 posts for this blog alone this year, so perhaps a short break is in order.  But here’s what I’ve been up to, aside from reading, writing, watching movies and blogging.

I didn’t realize I had backer rewards coming, but here they are.
 

I made some bread.  It’s from Laurel’s Kitchen Break Book, which is the best book to pick up if you are thinking of taking up whole-grain bread baking in the new year.  This is the milk bread recipe and made two very nice loves.  The book itself teachers you step-by-step what to do to create excellent all-whole-wheat flour bread.  Most “whole wheat” recipes use a bit of whole wheat and a goodly amount of All-Purpose Flour.

Bread making is a good skill to have if you want to save money and control your ingredients.  It’s also kind of magical.  This started as two cups of milk, a quarter cup of honey, some yeast, flour and salt.  A bit of mixing (with a mixer) and a few hours of rising and deflating and shaping and there is delicious bread waiting for me to eat.

Two tips should you embark on the bread journey:
1) Buy some vital wheat gluten (Bob’s Red Mill carries this product) and add 1 tablespoon per cup of flour.  It makes all the difference.
2) If you don’t have a warm place for rising (our house is mostly pretty cold) turn the oven to 170 and when it comes to temperature, set the timer for 10 minutes.  Then shut off the oven.  The heating turns the oven from a cold cave to a warm environment and if you turn on the light to the oven the temperature will be maintained.

Confusing messages in packaging

I had a total impulse buying moment at Powell’s today.  And all stuff for me.  It’s the worst.

But anyway. I was seduced by this Tangle Art kit, inspired by Zentangle, which I learned about through Postcrossing.
 

On the front there is talk of a 40-page book!
 
On the back, it has become a 33 page book.  Plus 7 blank sketchbook pages.
 

Special Edition

When the Oregonian was preparing all of us paper subscribers for the crappy conversion, they had a question-and-answer section about the Brave New World.  My favorite question was something like, “I always enjoy the Thanksgiving Sale Edition.  If you aren’t going to publish on Thursday, how will I know about the sales?”  The answer was something to the effect of, “Not to worry!  We’ll publish a SPECIAL Thanksgiving Edition with all of the ads!”

And so it has come to pass.
 

And so it is chock full of ads.  On the left:  the paper.  On the right:  the ads.

And that isn’t really even correct, because if you crack open that front page you will find it is 90% full-page ads.  The pile on the right:  straight to the recycle bin.  The pile on the left:  I read it.  But I skipped all the ads.

The secret to comfortable summer skirt wearing.


Perhaps your thighs rub against each other while wearing skirts?  Prehaps this makes you not want to wear skirts, even though you love them?  Do I have a solution for you!  Get yourself to a running store.  You know the place:  expensive shoes; fancy shorts that cost more than you spend on a winter coat; thin, laid-back employees, still mellow from there 15 mile morning run. Once you find your running store, ask for some Body Glide.  It’s made for runners, but runners aren’t the only ones with chafing issues. You are now all set.  The next time you put on a skirt, slap some of this on your thighs and they will glide smoothly past each other.  So. Wonderful.

I’ve maintained for years that the Body Glide people are missing out on a huge marketing opportunity as I’m guessing the population of women with thigh chafing while wearing skirts is much larger than the population of runners who run far enough to have chafing issues.

I knew this day was coming and I’m still sad.


Thanks to the Willamette Week tipping me off to the fact the Oregonian would cease seven-day publishing, I’ve had since January to adjust to the fact I will not be whipping through my newspaper every morning.  I’ll still be reading, most likely on my phone, but it just won’t be the same.

Two headlines from today’s paper

Reading this, I audibly gasped, mostly because I’ve been waiting for years for male athletes to start coming out of the closet.  Also: same last name!
 
Oh Grant Butler.  A few years ago you decided to experiment with being vegan for a few months and I thought, “I hope you can make it that long without cheese” because cheese is the number one reason I don’t want to be a vegan.  The number two reason is that I don’t think it’s actually a healthy way of eating.  But you, Grant Butler, took to it like a duck to water and now your write columns that amuse me such as this:

Now I don’t mind a good veggie burger now and then, but really, the bun?  The bun is the best part, in fact,  the main reason for eating the veggie burger.  When you get right down to it, I would eat the bun with a bit of butter rather than the veggie burger wrapped in lettuce or what have you.