Jennifer St. Clair's Blog, page 17

By Any Other Name/The Uncrowned Queen

The sequel to By Any Other Name, which is currently titled The Uncrowned Queen, is finished! 
82,700 words. 105 days, which means I didn't clear 1,000 words per day on average. But even so, finished!

Handwritten

Nearly 4,000 words today on the sequel to By Any Other Name; a total of 5,000 words for the weekend. Not too shabby at all! I almost used up an entire fountain pen (refillable) cartridge worth of ink, too!

Snow Day

6.75 inches in my front yard. 

Chloe Bella was not impressed. 

The other night, I had nowhere to put my feet...

And my lemon tree's blooms are smelling up the entire upstairs of my house!

Chloe Bella

Chloe Bella contemplates the snow. 

Snow.

I am tired of winter this year. I think it's because we are actually having a WINTER, instead of an extended mud season. It's not so bad when I'm at home, but I'm beginning to detest driving in it, and we're not done yet. And we're going to be hit with yet another below zero string of days. This seems to be a pattern this winter. :(
The other annoying part is that the weather forecasts can't seem to allow any sort of planning-in-advance at all. Snow days are great and all, and I'm getting a lo...

Oliver

I guess I won't be weaving tonight, Oliver...

Cleaning/Decluttering

I feel like I've emerged from the darkness with this whole cleaning/decluttering/simplify effort. Things are falling into place. There's still a lot to be done and a lot to work out, but it seems there's light at the end of the tunnel. Forward motion. I can't stop now. 


Also, I hopefully will have lemon pickles in about three weeks:

Cast Iron

I am a big proponent of cast iron cookware. Some of the skillets I use nearly every day are upwards of a century old and still going strong. Cast iron cookware doesn't need a whole lot of special care to keep it nice--you do need to dry it right after washing, and until you've built up the seasoning, a bit of oil after use is not a bad idea--and even if you screw up and it gets rusty, fixing that is a simple soak in vinegar and water overnight, and then reseasoning. Not a big deal at all.

For...

Lemon Ginger Marmalade!

Lemon Ginger Marmalade. Now I need to make biscuits...

No-Spend Weekends

So I could have gone to the store this weekend; I'm down to my last dozen eggs, I am out of chocolate chips (horrors!) and I have a short list of things I could have picked up. But Friday evening, I decided that a No-Spend Weekend was a better idea. I have plenty of food here, after all, and chocolate chips aren't, truthfully, a necessity.
Instead, I worked in the Junk Room. And you know what? Once I take the bags of garbage downstairs and carry the yard sale stuff downstairs, I'm FINISHED. Wh...