C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 82

ethnic food!

There’s an aisle at the local grocery store that is advertised as having Ethnic Food in it. Traditionally it was Indian and Chinese, and more recently, Mexican. But this week they have added AMERICAN Ethnic Food! Kraft mac&cheese! Canned pumpkin! Pop Tarts! CHEETOS!!

I have never been so happy (and dismayed) as to see Cheetos on the shelf. :)

We’re up to FIVE seedlings now. One is barely a speck of green curl in the dirt, but it’s there! And we only have eight planted, so more than half have sp...

tiny seedlings

Several weeks ago–early November, because I had to move the greenhouse for Thanksgiving–Young Indiana and I made a wee greenhouse of a deepish cardboard box lined with tinfoil. We filled several empty toilet paper rolls with dirt, propped the rolls in an egg carton, and tucked orange seeds into the tops. We’ve a string of Christmas lights in the box to create warmth, and a piece of saran wrap across the top to keep heat and moisture in. But our kitchen is Very Cold, and I thought that despite...

Cyber…Tuesday…late… o.o

I am doing a MID-WEEK ROUNDUP of AWESOME CYBER STUFF!

1. Judith Tarr’s HORSES OF THE MOON Kickstarter is 80% of the way to funded! I personally *dearly* want it to hit the 6500 mark and get us THREE novellas, which might be just enough to satisfy my grabby little hands! :)

2. SIX BY SIX is a fantastic looking anthology with 6 stories each by 6 authors. I admire the whole idea of it and, uh, am jealous of the people doing it, if you wanna know so much. :)

3. Cats Laughing–you know Cats Laughing;...

the changing arctic

“Daunting as the future Arctic looks to be, it may in fact be much worse. What we think we know about the future of the region may be grossly underestimated because scientists are uncomfortable talking about or putting pen to predictions that are not backed by 95 percent certainty.” — from The End & Beginning of the Arctic.

This is precisely what’s concerned me since (before, but pointedly, since) the collapse of the Canadian ice shelf mentioned in this article. I understand the politics of sc...

Joy to the World

I’ve been seeing that “It’s Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays!” thing going around again, and…

…look. I was young and totally ethnocentric once. When “Happy Holidays” started to intrude on my awareness, I thought it was silly. We celebrated Christmas. Everybody I knew celebrated Christmas. It was ridiculous to use the phrase “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Worse, it was that vertboten of verboten things: politically correct.

I was an asshole, in that regard. I have no idea whe...

oh my gosh.

The Redeemer Kickstarter closed out about an hour ago with 428 backers and €12,251 in funding, which hit the cover art stretch goal with a wee little bit to spare.

That is *well over* a third again the number of backers I’d first dreamed of. It’s nearly *half* again the number I first dreamed of. It’s only 90 backers fewer than NO DOMINION had, which, holy *crap*, that was so far beyond my hopes I didn’t even go there. And I just now at this moment noticed that there were, at the end, 300 e-bo...

WE HAVE COVER ART

One of my Loyal Readers, known in these parts as Hataroni, commissioned a short story, and then someone else put us over the top! WE HAVE COVER ART!

But Hataroni didn’t just commission a story. He’s asked me to ask YOU for story ideas that he can choose from, because he’d like to see what his fellow readers would like, too! IS HE COOL OR WHAT?!?!

So please post your story ideas here, and I’ll make sure he sees them (well, he will anyway, but I’ll make sure!)

Hataroni has also mentioned a fundrai...

20 hours & counting. O.O

Today I have made lemon curd, marshmallow creme, chocolate fudge, vanilla fudge, and coffee fudge (well, okay, I haven’t made that YET), roasted a chicken with carrots & baby potatoes, and I will shortly bake some biscuits.

Displacement activity, anyone? :)

The REDEEMER Kickstarter is just over 11K with 20 hours left. 387 backers, which is fast closing in on my revised-revised dream number of 400. Lindsey Look cover art is less than a thousand euro away. I feel faintly as though I’m living in a...

Recent Reads: The Grand Sophy

I started reading Georgette Hayer probably because of Sarah Rees Brennan and Chrysoula Tzavelas, who are both big Regency fans. I’ve read three or four of her books now and enjoyed them all, but THE GRAND SOPHY is one of Chrysoula’s favourites, and I can entirely see why.

Unlike the other Heyer books I’ve read, I actually found THE GRAND SOPHY a bit hard to get into. That all changes when Sophy herself arrives on the scene, because–

–we often hear characters described as exploding onto the page...

We are not well.

Between the beginning of September and the end of October I had three distinct colds. Since the beginning of November I have had a continuous cold, or colds in such rapid succession as to make no nevermind in the difference. So has Young Indiana. Ted had some kind of throat infection that got cleared up just in time for him to start catching colds, too, so we’ve been consistently unwell in this house for weeks to months, depending on how you wish to count it.

Today Young Indiana and I went Ch...