Second harvest of the day

Some potatoes, a little more broccoli and another cabbage.

He grew all this stuff from seeds people! Well, the potatoes are grown from other potatoes, but how incredibly cool is it that he took seeds and turned them into food. Are we going to live on what we can grow? Not any time soon, but it's a nice supplement to all the money we spend at the farmer's market, and if next year we can grow more, and the year after that a little more, so much the better. This soup is going to be pretty darn good.

And while I chop mountains of vegetables (carrots, leeks, jerusalem artichokes and collards done, onions, potatoes, broccoli and now cabbage to go), The Professor is outside building a pathway to our side door, taking advantage of the warm (albeit wet) weather while we can. I better get back to it, but I am just so excited about food being produced this late in the year that I couldn't contain my excitement for even a moment.

Book: Not Buying It, My Year Without Shopping

By: Judith Levine

Well, this title appealed to me for obvious reasons. I finished it a couple months ago but haven't logged it here because, well, it just wasn't that great. Nothing to get too excited about and hence my delay in reporting on it. In fact, the only person to whom I'd recommend it is my friend Adi, and only because the writer and her partner split their time between Brooklyn and Vermont. The writing was decent, but the book really sagged in the middle (I wound up setting it down for a couple weeks and reading something else), and on top of that, the author conducted her experiment during 2004, so the reader gets the depressing opportunity to relive that year's presidential election, which is not a plus in my opinion. My main beef with this book is that the personal account, which constitutes all the good bits, is too frequently peppered with social and political commentary on the state of the world and instead of being an insightful look at one person's experience it too often turns into a boring rant about consumerism's many evils. Blah blah blah. Like I said, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone but Adi, and even to Adi I say, have a good back-up plan to revive yourself from potential boredom.

Compact: We Might Be Bagging It

Today's excitement was me driving all over hell's half-acre looking for an overcast foot for my sewing machine to use on these *&$#(@% pants. I went to the always disappointing and useless Pins and Needles first, because they are the closest and I was trying to conserve miles, but when they not only didn't have what I needed (after I called ahead to see if they did and was told yes) but started ignoring me mid-assistance for another customer, I left. I decided to just drive straight to the always helpful and well-stocked and -staffed Barnes Sewing Center, even though it's considerably further away. Well, straight is a bit of a stretch. I stopped and bought a map, too, and not just for fun but because I had only a vague idea how to get where I was going from where I was. I was driving The Professor's beloved Prius, Lyra, and my handy little pocket folder full of directions, which included Barnes, was in my car, so I finally bought the map book for the area just south of where we live. It will come in handy again soon, no doubt. So that's two new things I bought today, completely flouting the Compact, feeling no guilt whatsoever.

And last week, while I'm confessing, for lack of a better word, I bought Anti-Flag's new CD, The Bright Lights of America. I haven't listened to it yet, because I've been engrossed in a book (Ken Follet's World Without End, which I finished this morning, thank heavens), but we had to buy it to earn Anne's undying gratitude and do our part to help with first week sales figures, although I think we missed helping by a day (at least our hearts were in the right place).

In positive Compact-ish news, I took a glass food storage container with me to the bakery yesterday and got them to put the sandwich I bought in that instead of a plastic clam shell that they usually use (I've asked for my sandwich in a paper bag in the past, but it hasn't gone well).

Now I can overcast the raw edges on the seam allowances of the pants that will not be trimmed. It's not a necessity, but Cynthia Guffey does it, and by Jove, if Cynthia does it, so will I. The last two of her videos that I bought at the Expo came in the mail today. Sweet.

But yeah, it's looking like the Compact experiment might be coming to a close. I'm not willing to forego a necessary supply like a sewing machine foot when I need one, or a friend's band's CD when it comes out, or to resist buying yarn when I'm on vacation in Scotland. I don't think we'll entirely stop considering how we can avoid purchasing things, but I don't think I'm going to keep promising myself I definitely won't purchase anything, because it's just not working out. We might have cut our consumption as far as we're willing to go already. No final decision reached yet, but that's the update for now.

Now, to sew!

I love E4S

Last night I went to the monthly meeting of Entrepreneurs for Sustainability. I love this group. I always learn something new, meet someone interesting, and get inspired about all the great things going on in our region. Last night's highlight was talking to a gentleman who recycles flourescent lightbulbs. For a quarter, he took my used headlight bulb that the Honda dealership had generously offered to put in the garbage for me, and instead of going into landfill, it will be recycled (the harvested materials are worth less than cost to dismantle them, hence the small fee). In general, he works with businesses to help them meet EPA guidelines that all lightbulbs must be recycled, so that's why it cost me a quarter. Well worth it, I say!

I also met some women who are working to get the planned green roof for the CSU recreation center finally installed. I'm hoping The Professor will jump on the bandwagon and do what he can to help their cause. He hadn't even known about the initial plans for a green roof, so I'm guessing many others at CSU don't as well. What a great image-booster for CSU if they could be one of the first in the city to implement a large-scale green roof project. Fingers crossed.

Scotland recap still to come. Stay tuned.

Scotland!

If you were wondering why things were so quiet over here, it's because The Professor and I were vacationing in Orkney. Photos and details to follow soon. Now, off to get the headlight on my car fixed to make sure the warning our house-sitter got while driving my car doesn't become a full-fledged ticket. Alas, this time crunch to get it done means I am skipping the whole shop around at salvage yards experience and going straight to the dealership for a new one. No time to mess around. Bummer, I'm really going to be sad to miss out on that experience. [insert sarcasm here]

Falling off the wagon

Today I made my first purchase this year of a new item that wasn't food or hygiene related. I bought yarn. I took a pledge (to myself and to a friend) not to buy any new yarn in 2008 even before we officially decided to do the Compact, so it feels doubly lousy. The circumstances are extenuating. I have three pairs of socks on the needles for which I am going to run out of each color before I finish the second sock, and in all three cases, the first sock is completely done, with ends woven in and everything, making creative color mixing to stretch the yarn I have an unappealing option. The socks were all started in September. I knew I needed the yarn since October, just never got around to buying it.

But I went a little further and got some other colors of yarn to use as accents for some fair isle sweaters I have planned. I have the base yarn for four different fair isle sweaters, but not enough accent yarn for even one of them as it stands now. I could just make solid sweaters, but I wanted them to be fair isle when I bought the base yarn, I just didn't buy the accent yarn at the time because I didn't have the color card. I tried to buy accent yarn at last year's Stitches Midwest, and I did get some, but they didn't have all of the colors I wanted.

I am usually so excited when buying yarn, but the (completely self-induced) guilt is ruining my usual high. I think the only cure is to go start one of the sweaters for which the accent yarn will soon be winging its way to me, but I want to finish at least one of the BSJs this weekend. Both of them have been sitting there for weeks now with their ends dangling, their shoulder seams unsewn and the buttons languishing in a coaster on the end table. I did finish my shrug finally, and it looks great. Photos to come post-blocking.

I am hoping this will be my only departure from my non-yarn-buying path this year. And I'm saying this with a trip to Scotland planned in the coming months. Home of many sheep and much delicious yarn. If I feel this cruddy getting stuff I need to finish using stuff that's already in my stash, how am I going to feel if I just haul off and buy completely new stuff? I can't even think about it.

I cooked!

My most exciting news for the weekend is that I cooked. I have been really bad about cooking for a long time, leaving The Professor to fend for us most of the time for longer than I care to admit. Oh, the shame of it all. But Friday, spurred on by who knows what inspiration, I made some sweet potato soup in the crock pot (recipe from this cookbook) and boiled a big pot of brown rice. I couldn't risk interrupting my momentum to stop and snap photos, but it really didn't look like much anyhow. An enormous yam, an equally enormous onion, cut and plopped unceremoniously into the crockpot, along with some garlic (2 cloves), some spices, and 4 cups of turkey broth made from Old Tom, the turkey The Professor cooked a few weeks back. The broth was treated with the appropriate amount of reverence, especially as it was nicely measured out and clearly labeled in the freezer. After 6 hours in the crock pot, I processed it in the Cuisinart with a little bit of peanut butter and lime juice. Yum. The rice we ladled it over gave it a nice stick-to-your-ribs quality, and I was so glad to have it ready to go when The Professor got home from work.

Yesterday, I made both a casserole and rice pudding. The rice pudding was in the crock pot again, using this recipe, except I left out the apricots and used brown rice and some cream that we needed to use up subbed in for some of the milk. The pudding cooked overnight and made a delicious breakfast this morning-- we both had seconds. The casserole was the leftover rice from Friday plus a can (jar) of beef that we got from The Professor's mom and dad for Xmas (they gave us 10, and they put it up themselves, which made it an extra special gift), some frozen green beans, grated cheese (grated by himself) and some cream of ... soups (celery and mushroom) as well as some eggs and milk. I ought to have put in some spices as it was a bit bland, but it was clearly adequate because while it was cooking, The Professor came downstairs and said, "The whole house smells like dinner," in a happy and satisfied way. Why don't I cook for him more often? He certainly does appreciate it. Oh, and once I added some Worcestershire sauce to it, it was divine. Didn't discover that until eating it as leftovers for lunch today, but there's still half of it left to go. Mmmmmm, Worcestershire sauce. I practically licked the dish.

On the knitting front, BSJ #3 is nearing completion. I forgot to do my increases on the buttonhole row and so had to rip back, so here's a photo I snapped while the needles were out and it actually looked like something:

I will have *just* enough yarn, I think, if that. No I-cord edging this time around, though. I'll have to try it on my next one, because of course there will be more. I continue to be thrilled with the way the color changes worked themselves into nice healthy stripes and the way the two colors of yarn (the variegated hot pink/green/white/orange and the salmon pink) work together.

You can also see evidence in this photo (upper left corner) of me finally managing to read and knit at the same time-- the cookbook holder that has been languishing in one of our icky old cupboards for so long it's acquired a funky smell (and it's lucite, so that's got to be hard to do) comes out of retirement to hold my book on the table in front of me, hands free. I'm reading an excellent book called Made from Scratch (partly responsible for the cooking blitz?), and I'm about half way done. My reading progress is likely to skyrocket now that I can read while I knit. Goodbye, television! Hello, books!

The Professor is working on some rewiring today (upstairs hall light and bathroom outlet), and he opted for the wiring scenario that did not require a trip to the hardware store and the purchase of new materials, so that was good.
Oh, and speaking of not purchasing things, today I glued up my awesome homemade pill box that I made last weekend. From a nondescript gift box to a happy little pill container. I did a much better job this past week of taking my supplements since they were in this handy little box and didn't require me to dole them out of all the different bottles each time. Anything to get them down the hatch.

Time to finish the baby sweater, and ferret out some buttons from my insane button stash. Final photos to come tomorrow-ish. Hope everyone else is having as lovely a weekend as we are.

What, no knitting?

The astute observers among you may have noticed that there has been very little knitting content on this blog as yet. Well, I'm not styling myself as a knitting blogger, I tell myself, so what does it matter? But showing off and sharing my knitting was one of the things that moved me to get going on this blog, and I do want it to be part of the mix. I mean, even I will get bored of me sounding off about all the crap I'm not buying. And I've got a hell of a lot of yarn to use up. So what gives? Why no knitting posts? I will tell you why. I am stuck.

I did honestly cut my right thumb on Day 3 of the new year, and that sidelined me for a bit, but it's been thoroughly healed for a few days now, so that's no excuse. And I've got a bunch of projects on the needles, so it's not like I don't have any subject matter. But when I say stuck, I mean stuck. All my projects are currently at the point where I need to sit down and sort them out. They all require thought and concentration. I can't just pick up something and mindlessly knit away. So, what does the lazy knitter (me) do in this situation? Start a new project, of course! So I am happy to tell you about my newest knitting project, a baby sweater for my cousin's impending shower. Here's what I've got so far:

I swatched and cast on at last night's Greening Your Home class, and then I just knit away, right past the increase row for the fullness above the cuff, so when we got home, I reknit that part. I'm planning to work more on it today. Oh, and before class I asked our teacher, Jim LaRue, about the frost-protected shallow foundation, and he said that it can be integrated with existing construction and that it is cheaper than the kind of foundation we have in the house now (full basement and crawl space), so that's great news. There was at least one guy there last night who does green re-hab, so next time I need to get some business cards and start talking to people about our addition. In case you were wondering, yes, the irony that we're doing the Compact and talking about adding on to our house is not lost on me.

Oh, and I have to apologize. I told a whopper yesterday. We bought a new refrigerator in 2007. Yipes. It is staggering to me how unconsciously the purchasing of new things has occurred in my life thus far. Staggering.

To buy new tires?

In which The Professor joins us for a guest post as his penance for breaking our Compact agreement on Day 2.


The Compact: an agreement that we will do everything possible to avoid contributing to rampant consumerism in the year 2008. We will buy nothing new except essentials (like food), we will do everything possible to buy used or local, to make it ourselves, or to do without.

Day two of the Compact (January 2nd): I bought tires for my car. The tires are brand, spanking new, and almost certainly not locally-made. Oops. This makes for a good discussion point, though. At first the answer to the question “should I buy new tires for my car?” seems obvious. The car already had used tires, they were no longer safe to drive on, yes, buy the new ones. But I put no research or discussion to the question. Could I have had them resurfaced? Could I have purchased a set of slightly used tires, and then reduced my use of the car by taking public transportation or biking? It would have been more inconvenient, but I most likely would have saved quite a bit of money, and the hypothetical used tires would have gotten a year or two of additional use before being recycled. Or perhaps I would have concluded that brand new tires were my only option, so suck it up and buy them.

Anyway, the new tires are now slightly used, with about a hundred miles on them. I’ll have to do a better job keeping in mind The Compact philosophy. It’s impressive how ingrained I am in the “buy new and don’t worry about it” philosophy.

Embracing the moral dilemma

My dear friend Anne posted a comment yesterday that gave me some wonderful food for thought (thanks, babe). Anne wrote:

there's some good stuff in "the compact" but imho it's both way too vague and way too extreme all at once. anything that makes buying a notebook a moral dilemma is way too much work for me!!!! :) i'll just do my normal routine of not buying much stuff, period.

First off, I did get to chat with The Professor about journals after I wrote that post about them, and we are both in agreement. Journals are a necessary exception to the nothing new rule. We both feel very attached to our choices of journal, and while we happily economize on paper in every other way possible in our household, journals are one item on which we are unwilling to compromise.

Just to give you an idea, I'll tell you a little about our household paper habits. I should give credit here and mention that it was the poet Chrystos, reading at Giovanni's Room (oh, Rachel, don't look, it's a terrible web site) in Philadelphia, who first inspired me to use every bit of each piece of paper, out of respect for the gift that paper represents. Since 1993 or so when I heard her speak, I (and now we) print on both sides of all pieces of 8 1/2" x 11" paper, both at home and at work. After printing both sides, if a paper has even one bit with one side blank, it gets cut up to use as scrap paper for making notes (if we don't write it down, we forget it), which I've got little boxes of in nearly every room in the house. No sticky notes or cute notepads from Target for us. Junk mail gets evaluated for scrap usage on the back, as do all the little library tickets we bring home. The scrap paper thing we do at our workplaces, as well, and I've even gotten other people doing both of these things at a few places I've worked in the past. I am doing my part to reduce paper consumption on the planet, by golly. I'm splashing out with a new journal. It feels like a reasonable indulgence.

The joy we get from our journals is also worth the consumption of new resources to us. That half hour I spend every day filling my beloved college-ruled lines with black ink are my therapy, and I know The Professor delights in drawing possum limbs on the creamy paper in his journal. These aren't things that are going to wind up in landfill while we're alive, either. I've kept journals since high school and before, and the only way they're leaving this house is if disaster strikes and they go up in flames. The Professor's will some day wind up in a library, I'm sure, testament to his future Legendary Contribution to Science. In an effort to make my journal consumption less of a burden on the world's resources, I am going to at least find an alternative with some more recycled content and no plastic cover. I have got some contenders so far and will keep looking. I've got a couple months left on the one I'm using now. I'm also planning to buy in bulk so that the amount of carbon spent getting them to me is reduced, because a supply to last me a good few years will come all in one go.

But in response to Anne's comment (sorry, that was a heck of a digression), I don't agree that the Compact is vague. It might seem vague, but what I think the Compact is, is personal. I've been doing it all of two weeks, so I'm no expert, but this idea isn't some credo handed out by someone to which we've agreed. This experiment is about becoming conscious of our choices, not cruising along on auto-pilot like we have done. I like that we have to think of these things ourselves, talk about our choices, make up our minds, be actively engaged with the challenge of reducing our consumption. I mean, we've only got to have the journal sit-down once, and then we're done. It took about 3 minutes to hash out. Because we're new and coming up the curve, the number of conversations we'll need to have is higher these days, but it will level out, and then we'll just cruise along on a new improved auto-pilot, and that's part of why I want to do the Compact. I want the moral dilemma. It's there whether I want it or not, so to me, bringing it to the forefront and wrestling with it now is an investment in my future peace of mind.

And to put it in perspective, let's have a little run-down of what I purchased in 2007, before taking the pledge. New clothes: zero. New shoes: one pair construction boots, required for Home Design/Build class (and I needed them, more than once I would have lost a toe if I had just been wearing tennies). New electronics: zero. New music CDs: zero (although Andy got me one for my bday). About the only new thing I did buy last year was fabric and yarn, and I think we got some Stargate SG-1 DVDs. So I'm not some shop-a-holic swerving hard left into this new way of life. I was already pretty light on the consumption scale. But I want to go as far as I can. I want the extreme, too, but I guess that's not news to any of y'all who know me.

So, thanks, Annie-kins, for helping me to clarify why I am doing this experiment. Love ya, babe!

Whoops, another new fun blogging error, published this before it was done. I like making these newbie mistakes and getting them out of the way :)

The Compact: Eating Out

Well, this morning I just couldn't decide what to have for breakfast. We were out of bread, and I'm currently sick of my favorite apple/yogurt/walnuts concoction. The kitchen's a bit of a mess, so cooking an egg didn't feel like the best option. My ideal scenario would have been to find a friend who wasn't busy and go to the nearby bakery/cafe for a pastry and some chat (we are going to skip right over the fact that 9 times out of 10, pastry = sugar = what the heck I thought I was giving up sugar), but alas no one I tried was answering their phone this morning, and the one person who did had just eaten. I then proceeded to spend a good hour or so wrestling with myself about whether or not eating out fits in with our Compact-ing journey or not. The Professor and I have discussed it some, but we didn't reach a resolution, so I couldn't just go with a clear conscience and be done with it.

Given that the wrestling was occurring on an empty stomach, it's no surprise that I finally gave up, bundled up, grabbed some videos to return to the library, and stalked off to the bakery for a frickin' cheese danish, no-sugar pledge be damned. On the way, I stopped into the hardware store to see about a light bulb we need for the office, and who should I run into but The Professor himself. Hooray! Alas, he was rushing late to an appointment to do lab/science things, so we didn't get to hash out our self-imposed rules on eating out, but we will, I hope, continue the conversation at the first available opportunity. He did give me his blessing on the danish, and a loaf of bread he'd picked up at a different, slightly less convenient but decidedly yummier bakery that he'd gotten since leaving the house this morning. So, I could have skipped the danish and eaten toast, but I got the danish anyhow. And a muffin. And a croissant. You have to spend $5 to use a debit card at this bakery, so I couldn't just get the one item, alas. And at that point, my mind was made up.

The whole eating out issue brings up so many questions. I am not even going to start going into it now, but I am sure it will be the source of more than one future post. I wonder how other people have answered this question. I'm going to go hunt around other Compact blogs and the Yahoo list and see what I can find out.

We also started a little bit of interesting conversation in the hardware store. On hearing a little bit of our Compact conversation, our favorite salesperson there asked, "Well, if everyone stops buying things, wouldn't the economy just grind to a halt?" I wanted to say, but didn't, is the American population so moronic that if everyone did stop buying unnecessary things all at once (in that insanely unlikely scenario, I know many people who have no intention whatsoever of changing their consumption patterns even one iota), that we would all just sit here with our thumbs up our asses and not figure out any other ways to make a living? I mean, people are going to need stuff (nice clean new spiral-bound journals for one thing), but having less of it isn't going to stop the world spinning. If the bulk of American jobs were manufacturing jobs, I might buy it, and I need to do my research before I can say for sure, but my guess is that most of the stuff people are buying isn't even made in the US, so whose economy are we worried about? This whole experiment is definitely going to be a thought-provoking one, I can tell.

Some more Compact thoughts: Journals

I read an interesting message on the Yahoo Compact message board yesterday. The question was posed whether school supplies were the sort of thing people could buy new as an exception, and I replied that I was trying to figure out what to do about this matter myself, as I've started journaling regularly again, and I'm going to be running out of pages in my current journal way before the end of the year. I might have an extra in the drawer, but I can't recall, and if I am on my last journal, then what?

I'm pretty picky about my journals. Since the early 90s it's been the 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" 5-subject spiral-bound college-ruled notebook from CVS, and no other will do. One of the Compact-ers replied that he had loads of old school notebooks he'd only partially filled and would be happy to clean out of them what he wanted to keep and send them on to someone in need of notebooks. I think he meant the teacher, not me, which is fine, but it got me thinking. I thought, well, that's really thoughtful and nice of him. And, I thought, it makes me incredibly sad.

Writing in someone else's half-used, who-knows-what-sized, been-heaven-knows-where notebook for my journal? Good gravy. It's just too depressing to even consider. I want to live more responsibly, do my part to put the brakes on consumption in our country, but getting all the thoughts out of my head every morning is part of what makes it possible, and I don't know if I can really think into just any old notebook. I'm pretty attached to the size and shape and heft of the ones I use. We're talking over a decade of one kind of journal, a huge box of them up in the attic, all the same size and shape. I did use up all my school notebooks when I first finished college so as not to let them go to waste, but I don't know if I can compromise on this front. I might need to sneak them in under the banner of art supplies, but really, who's sneaking? This agreement is between me and me. Well, me and The Professor. I'll have to talk to him about what he thinks.

One sad thing is that CVS stopped making them with plain paper covers a while ago and the last few have had a plastic cover, which for my purposes is completely unnecessary. These babies aren't getting lots of wear as they rarely leave the house. Perhaps it's time to find a new journal supplier at least. My dream: recycled paper and then all the other things listed above, with the 5-subject separators optional.

The Professor will be posting some more Compact thoughts later today, I hope.

Movie: The Terminal

Last night when The Professor went dancing, I stayed home and watched the Tom Hanks film The Terminal. Or should I say the product placement film? So much product placement, so little time seems to have been the theme of this movie.

I should confess, I was predisposed to dislike this movie. I had made up my mind before I ever even picked it up at the library. So, I didn't really go into watching it with an open mind. In my defense, though, all my suspicions about the commercial nature of the movie were confirmed almost immediately, when the (I don't even care about ruining this one it was so bad, so get ready for some small spoilers) line was delivered 10 minutes into the film, "There's only one thing you can do here: shop," which was a bit too eerily reminiscent for my taste of the snippet from W right after 9/11 urging us all to get out our credit cards to fight the mean terrorists with a big dose of spending. Ugh. You know a movie is a waste when the most clever thing about it is the end credits. I won't ruin those, because it really was the best part of the film. Tom Hanks pretty much lost me at Cast Away (remember that giant commercial for FedEx?), if not before then. You've Got Mail? Are you kidding me? Just what the world needs, a cinematic ode to AOL. Barf. The word sellout is too good for Tom Hanks.

Catherine Zeta-Jones rocked in Chicago, but her character in The Terminal was so one-dimensional as to be impossible to believe and the little eyelid-flutter quirk was just too precious. The only good parts of this movie were thanks to the supporting cast. A juggling show by Kumar Pallana and Trekkie love between Diego Luna and Zoe Saldana stand out.

In unrelated news: we have a metal pot lid in our cupboard that fits the crock pot perfectly. Not ideal in terms of heat containment, but it means I don't have to haul my butt out to the thrift store to hunt down a glass one, so yay. I also made myself a homemade pill box for my vitamins out of a cardboard box we had in the attic, a sort of little gift box that a gift card probably came in. I need to add some glue to fortify it, but I'll take a picture soon to share. I'm quite proud of it! The pill box was one of the first things I thought about wanting to buy and then not buying this year. It's nice to know that 20 minutes with an Exacto knife can keep one chunk of plastic, one purchase out of my life.

A post a day keeps the guilt away?

Well, we didn't go see The Golden Compass after all. I had a bit of a headache, The Professor's tummy hurt a little (he's napping now), and we just got part way there, turned around and came home. A trusted source, my dear friend Rachel, told me I didn't miss much so I feel okay about it. We might try again, we might wait for the DVD. It's funny, because I love to see movies on the big screen, but I don't really care for the volume at most movie theaters, so I'm more and more willing to settle for the DVD experience. Esp. now that I can view them widescreen at home. Small, but I prefer the original aspect ratio. My film aficionado geekiness comes out.

In Compact news, last night while tidying up the kitchen, the crock pot took a dive off the top of the frig. How much does that suck? The pot part and the crock part survived, the lid part shattered. Like a good little blogger-in-training, I took a picture. Pretty exciting, eh? Hey, I'm new to this blogging, cut me some slack. So now I need to find a crockpot lid replacement. That should be a fun adventure. Part of me wonders if I can't find one whether I'll convert that appliance to a dye pot for yarn. I'm still in the dreaming stages on yarn dyeing, but I take any opportunity I can. There's also the option of just using some other pot lid on the crock pot. Doesn't have to be glass, right? That might be the way we go. Thrift stores are like the lottery: you have to play to win, and hunting for a spare crock pot lid just does not sound like how I want to spend my time.

Also on the living more sustainably front, last night The Professor and I attended the first in a series of lectures on Greening Your Home at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, our local wildlife center. Eighty people were there. That was a lot of folks. It was cool to see such an enthusiastic turnout. The parking lot was overflowing. Next week we're hoping to carpool with some other folks. I had hoped the teacher, Jim LaRue, would cover the frost-protected shallow foundation information mentioned in the class blurb, but alas, he did not, and I didn't pipe up with my questions.

Completely unrelated, let me throw in here that I am not very patiently waiting for my friend Dave (Dave, I know you are reading this) to start his blog. We talked about starting blogs together in solidarity, and here I've taken the leap and he's still standing on the side of the pool in his Speedo. I kid! But seriously, Dave, let's go. I am calling you out, my friend.

Okay, I think that's enough randomness for one day. I will say that I tried to formulate a knitting-related post today and could not for the life of me get a decent shot of the fair isle wrap I am making using my web cam. See? I tried, and this shot was my best. Ick. No my living room is not that garish green, and the wrap looks way better than that in person.

I need to rip out and reknit (it's way too snug at the top), and I'm balking, because it involves taking measurements which are tricky to do myself, or figuring out whether I can sort the problem via blocking, which I doubt. The Professor will help me with measuring at least, but it's not his forte, so I haven't even asked for help yet. Oh, how I wish I had a nearby friend who was crafty and helpful. The people I know who could help me are all far far away. Sigh. I'm also still nursing my thumb, which I gashed open last week cleaning the toaster oven tray. I don't know how those knitting bloggers do it. Writing about and photographing knitting is a daunting task. I have newly increased (and it was considerable already) respect for you all.

Oh, and I will close by saying I just had my first almost-lost post-- the power went off on our street for a few seconds. But I only lost like one small edit because of autosaving. Felt like a rite of passage, though. Cool.

Some more substantial updates

Frankly, I think I've got a bit of stage fright. I've told a few people I started this, and y'all might actually be reading it. Gasp. What to tell you about?

The other hitch is that there has been so much going on lately that I don't know where to start. The Professor (my sweetie) was out of town for a few days and I went gangbusters getting stuff done around the house, cleaning out the last of the paper that began accumulating 6 years ago when I moved to Atlanta to be with my mom when she was sick, catching up on laundry, some small doses of sociability, which included some knitting time (working on the charity blanket that I just can't seem to finish) and also watching my cool former cooking teacher, Christina Pirello, on TV thanks to Mary Ann Tivo-ing her appearance for me. It was pretty wacky to watch her using tomatoes and chocolate, which are pretty wide for macrobiotics, but of course it makes sense if she's trying to appeal to a national TV audience and come up with a menu for less than $40.

I'm reading a fantastic book called Write It Down, Make It Happen, by Henriette Anne Klauser, which is completely rocking my world. I've had a few experiences in the past of writing a wish list and magically everything on it coming true, so I know it works. I'm using the technique again now and already having fabulous results. I'm hoping to convince The Professor to use it to get his current NSF grant.

As for our progress on The Compact, I have bought only groceries and some take-out food (trying to wean myself) and one used book (a copy of the Klauser book as the one I'm reading now is the library's). The Professor broke the rules big time on Day 2, but I'll let him tell you about that. He's agreed to write a guest post as penance. There have been a few times already when I've thought, darn, I need a ... fill in the blank, but so far, every problem has been solved with a homemade solution.

I think that's all the updates I've got in me for today. Hope everything is well in your world.