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Procrastination?
I can’t really call it procrastination when the end result is scones. Productive avoidance? Recipe: Cream Scones from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. My all-time favorite recipe–so easy and versatile. This batch has 1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger inside, and I always brush the tops with butter and sprinkle on some turbinado…
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Week 6: Rain, Rain
A persistent rain kept me from a walk this morning, but I wouldn’t trade it for all the sun of summer. It made hunkering down with a cup of coffee, the dog, and some Death Cab (perfect rain music) all the cozier. And knitting–can’t forget the knitting. I retrieved the Lace Leaf Pullover from my…
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Week 5: Just like Spring!
As promised, here is a photo of the mountain turning green. The bottommost layer is a fine fuzz of green grasses and wildflowers. Above that, the brush–bursage, brittle bush, and creosote–are all coming out with their leaves, filling in the space around the perennial spots of green, the cacti. Unfortunately, all this green is being…
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Week 4: Fresh Start
I’d hoped to go for a hike this morning and bring you guys back pictures of the mountain turning green, chubby little quail puttering among shoots of grass and wildflowers that have sprouted from all our rains. The only thing is that it was supposed to rain today. Not a problem as far as keeping…
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Week 3: It Never Fails
Well, it’s Monday again, and guess what? I haven’t gotten anything done. Clarification: I got in a hike (picture of the telegraph lines above the trail), and completed my correspondence–which would have gone better if it involved me in an Empire-waisted dress with and a writing desk, not me in a Skellington hoodie with Gmail…
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Week 2: Organized
Every semester, during the first few weeks, I reacquaint myself with my Method of Organization. I don’t know how well they fit with the dictionary definition of organization, but for all its quirkiness, my method gets me through each semester more or less together. Rule 1: write down due dates the moment you get them.…
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Just Like Winter!
After nine years, I’ve grown accustomed to the short periods when the weather, as in not sunny and hot, asserts itself in the desert. In the summer, it’s monsoons, windstorms followed by thunderstorms, both of which are breathtaking displays of nature’s brute force. There are monsoons in the winter, too, but these usually entail a…
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Spinning!
This weekend, I had a spinning adventure with my new/old spinning wheel. What spinning wheel? The Ashford Traditional I found at an upscale thrift shop in the middle of last semester. As I was checking out, the guy at the counter asked me, “Are you going to use it?” Yes, my good sir, I just…
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Abandon/Control
As a student, my year follows a slightly different cycle from the average person’s. My “year” officially ends with the end of the fall semester, and while I certainly mark the new calendar year January 1, my “year” doesn’t actually start until the start of the spring semester. In between is a short, blissful period…
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Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas (or winter holiday of choice) everyone! I did, in fact, survive the madness of finals. Las hermanitas y yo even had time to help with Christmas baking, too. The gingerbread chalet is the most photogenic of our efforts: Monita decorated the front, and I decorated the sides. Hermanita forbade both of us from…
Anti-Quotidian 