jeliza

I basically sequestered myself most of the weekend and attempted to stay off my ankle, since it hurts like whoa. I am really hoping I didn't somehow throw the fracture out of alignment, but the times/situations it hurts it don't feel muscular. (And tylenol does nothing for me, and NSAIDs are out of the question for another month. Ugh.)

There are 40 blank pieces of glass on my workbench, because I can't actually fit more than that at the moment, but I'm hoping to have 80 finished by Thursday. It's been long enough that I had to go back through pictures and remember what themes I regularly used to do other than starfield with nebula, starfield with planet, and moonsets over water, because I'm not allowed to do many one-offs or experiments until I've got enough literal stock to fill my trays. This next in-person show is a handmade show, rather than a geeky show, so pretty is sufficient and attempts at real astronomy can wait.

Tomorrow I need to ship 2 panels worth to Conglomeration in Kentucky, Friday is the first day of the 2 day "Make Sale" in Monroe where I have a massive booth, and I'll put together my stuff for Norwescon in two weeks from ... whatever is left over or that I can make really fast after that. The warranty replacement for our glowforge has arrived, been named Bob the Vulcan, and will hopefully be non-sulky, which will mean making things rather faster or with less stress than before. I've got a slew of stuff in the "vector is made, but have to test it" phase, though I don't know how much other than finally getting the wine glass charm sets done I will really push on this week. (If ever there was a show where wine charms will sell, it should be this one.)

O found a Hatsune Miku game for the PS4 and so has devoted as much of her weekend to that as possible. And we got the last bits ordered for her cosplay for Sakuracon, which is also Hatsune Miku but in something that looks like regular clothes instead of the dress that is the default.
I quite like it when they play characters where 90% of the costume can be re-worn as regular clothes, and extra like it when it doesn't call for a short skirt, because wow, putting an off-the-rack set of short skirt and top on O's proportions goes badly rather quickly, since she's so long of both leg and torso; short skirts turn into miniskirts and normal tops become midriff tops, and she's not comfortable with that.  And it isn't stuff you can just buy locally because of course my kids gravitated to the more obscure fandoms. I seriously walked around a significant chunk of the dealer room at Emerald City and spotted exactly ONE item representing their favorite fandoms. One total, not one each.  Ugh.

There were these buttered-sweet-potato chips in O's japan treat subscription box, which she hated, and which I need about a case of. It hits almost the same spot as the buttered popcorn jelly bellies did. (I loved them so much. But the CEO of Jelly Belly gives money to support anti-trans legislation, so bye.)  We took reaction shots while she tried all the different snacks in this month's box, which produced a wide variety of funny faces, but I don't have permission to share the pix.

Your moment of dog:


That purple lump in his mouth is a hippo bath toy that would change color if the water was too hot for the baby. I have no idea how it ended up outside in the yard 11 years after we stopped using it in the bath, but Iko loves it to pieces.

Apparently there is a whole body of recipes designed to "use up leftover Cream of Wheat". 

How ... how do you have leftover cream of wheat? It only takes 3 tablespoons to make a bowl. 

I understand why you would have recipes using it because cream of wheat is hella cheap, but ... "leftover"?

Boggling.

We've reached the first challenge day in gluten elimination diet land, and it has been such a mess. You do your first challenge with something like barley or rye, since they have gluten, and then if that goes okay, after three or four days you do wheat (it's very common to have a wheat allergy without a gluten intolerance, and it does widen your eating options if you can just cut out wheat and not gluten)

In a rather more dramatic result than expected, the kids threw up. Not from the gluten, but because apparently there is no way I can cook barley that their super texture sensitive mouths can deal with. (I thought it was acceptable but boring in pseudo-oatmeal form, and weird but grew on me in "risotto" form. Kind of like boba. No place around here sells rye bread that isn't actually rye + wheat, or I would have just gotten that.)

So... for them we're just gonna go ahead and have some regular old bread tomorrow and if it goes badly, stick to full gluten free and not try to see if it is just wheat.  Of course, neither of them have been feeling particularly well since we started this dang thing anyway, so ... yeah. Sean has noticed significant changes, I have seen a few minor improvements  that may or may not be from the absence of gluten and also I don't know that they would be worth giving up my bread for.

So far I have determined that the best thing about "regular" craft fairs is that they tend to end by mid-afternoon, which means I get home in time for dinner.  Yesterday's turned out to be 2 blocks from the home of the UU Fellowship I grew up attending, which reminded me that I keep wanting to start attending services again, though not enough to drag myself out of bed this morning after a week of working late.

Also the vibe of a fair where there are "direct sales" people is not one I like. The ones that have actual stock of things to sell is one thing, but if they are only there to push parties and such it's just ... I don't think there are a ton of non maker/handmade specific shows in my future, though I have a few more variations on that theme I am going to try out.

We got boxes of both the special edition cola and ginger cola "1893 original recipe" Pepsis and they are really quite good. Like, hard to go back to regular after, I think, because they are more complex that regular cola is these days. I particularly like the ginger cola. Or maybe rewatching "great british bake-off" as my background/comfort noise is affecting my palate.  Apparently one of the ingredients is "bitters" and I've always avoided cocktails with bitters, but perhaps I should widen my horizons on that front.  Sadly, watching has not made me want to bake, it just makes me want to eat.  The documentaries they made of Michael Pollan's book "Cooked", which I think caszabrewin recommended, has made me a bit more willing to take the time to cook. I also just read "The Everyday Fermentation Handbook" though I don't think the rest of the house would appreciate me starting to make sauerkraut. There does seem to be something to the idea that going back to having "live" fermented food in our diets regularly could improve health, though, so I want to take a run at something simple like lacto-fermented carrot sticks. Not until after I survive Norwescon and Spring Break, though.

1. Merc Rustad's short story The Android's Prehistoric Menagerie is quite wonderful, and gave me the feels but in a way that made the world easier to deal with after. (Thinking about Orlando is still really messing me up.) I do tend to love Rustad's work.

Mothership Zeta magazine (which has this story up for free, but I am not sure all the content goes up free) is very much worth the subscription. I particularly like that the emphasis is on stories that are NOT DEPRESSING. "fun" is in the description, and while the bounds of fun they use are somewhat loose, in this world of grimdark-n-gritty being still en vogue, it is so nice to know that the stories I read there aren't going to make me want to curl up in despair, becuase I just can't handle that right now and don't actually like it even when I am better equipped to handle it.

2. I finally started editing a few of the photos from my trip to Long Beach. Which was in February of 2014. And only because I needed to find some hi-res beach/sunset photos to use as backgrounds in a client's album.  And I haven't even scanned the film negatives yet, even though they are all nicely sleeved and ready, and I'm keeping an old computer at Windows 7 becuase my film scanner wouldn't talk to windows 10 last time I tried. (I shouldn't have bought that damn thing, I shoulda just paid some service to scan what I have, but I hadn't fully acknowledged how much my photography energy was slipping. Then again, even if I'm not shooting, I have YEARS and YEARS of negatives just sitting around, that could at least be going and doing some good for me at my stock agency even if I'm not making and showing proper prints anymore. And, you know, if you need access to a medium format film scanner, I've got one.)

3. I still can either use the monitor with color calibration or have wifi, but not both. Awesome.  Still 6 substantial towers of hanoi moves needed before I can move the whole computer setup to a place that will (hopefully) fix this.

4. The Great Pottery Throw-Down is as lovely as the Great British Bake-Off, but there is unfortunately only one season. The Sewing Bee isn't catching me quite as effectively, perhaps because I like both eating and making pottery, but am not really interested in sewing.

5. Peaceful Cuisine is my new favorite Youtube series. Even more soothing than How It's Made videos, and the recipes are followable. There is no talking, just the sounds of cooking and well-chosen background music.  The recipes are vegan, and a mix of Japanese, Western European and American cuisines. (He's based in Japan.) He's definintely a proponent of veganism as a way of improving the world, but his evangelism consists entirely of making these lovely videos and not being shame-y/combative.