Jennifer St. Clair's Blog, page 26

Burlington, July

Burlington was yesterday; a very hot and humid Burlington, although it was more bearable in the morning. I had filled up two containers, a box with cookbooks, and brought a lampshade in a separate box. I came home with one empty container, half the box of books (which had been overflowing), and no lampshade. Since my goal is at least one empty container each time, I call it a success. 
I bought more beads, including a giant watermelon Chevron bead, and a Mirro dough mixer (this was one I...

My story dream from Monday is almost 10,000 words long. I...

My story dream from Monday is almost 10,000 words long. It also has a title--The Silence. It has been very interesting to write so far. I'm not quite sure what this means for A Glint of Silver, but I will say this: I've been writing AGoS for a very long time. Sometimes, I need a break, and I think The Silence is my break, at least for the moment. 
In other news, I had a thought the other day, one that I initially dismissed, since I had my doubts it could ever work. I've always wanted...

Wildlife

This week has been brought to you by... a wolf spider as big as a tarantula, five damned raccoons, the return of the neighborhood skunk, and a bat.
I'm so glad it's almost the weekend!

Storydream--Lady Margaret

Story dream of last night... A vampire child who chooses her companions for "life", so to speak. In exchange for your loyalty and blood, of course, she will give you anything you desire--within reason; she wouldn't choose someone who would desire an expensive car, for example, but enough money to research the topic of your dreams that no one else would ever fund? Sure.

One of her companions encouraged her to write, long ago. Another encouraged her to submit her work. To her amusement, her l...

Tomatoes, tomatoes...

Out in the garden yesterday evening and this morning, tying up tomatoes and giving the morning glory vines a severe pruning. Hopefully that will help discourage them. 
The tomatoes are loaded; if that is any indication, this year might just be a good garden year even with all this rain. Here's to hoping!
I wasn't able to finish the tomatoes this morning, as I have to get ready to leave for my sister's bridal shower, but I'm very nearly done, and that's a good thing... The tomatoes are gett...

For saying I didn't want to set up at the yard sales this...

For saying I didn't want to set up at the yard sales this weekend, I ended up making $130, and I was only actually up there until 2pm today. Not bad at all!

Proverbs

While sorting through stacks of handwritten recipes, because I tend to write them down and then just leave them in the pile until next time, I came across a printout of a post from this blog in 2004.
There's a proverb under the banner; a proverb that I might as well admit is my mantra and how I live my life:
"Trying again and again is better than stopping halfway."
Yes, I'd say it still applies.

July

It is usually around this time of year that I give up, at least for the summer. When I declare the heat an enemy and the humidity something from Hell itself, and I find myself increasingly frustrated with my lack of progress on my goals and my lack of time to accomplish anything at all around my house or garden. 
For me, July is when I give up and cloister myself in my house and declare the war will begin anew when the weather breaks and it is cooler... Which then rarely happens.
This year...

Air Conditioning

 I am of the opinion that air conditioning is not necessarily a good thing. It makes summer heat and humidity worse, because we spend our days in air conditioned environments and never get used to the weather outside. 
When you have to wear a sweater indoors on a day that tops 90F, there's a problem with that.
My goal this year was to try my best not to use my air conditioner at all. I lasted until now... 74% humidity inside is just asking for mold and mildew problems. So tonight, I t...

Kitchen, Kitchen

My goal with the kitchen was to rearrange the "island", make it smaller if that was possible, and still have enough in the way of workspace, because I do tend to cook and bake a lot. The tricky part was, of course, what I have to work with. I also didn't want to have any additional "orphan" pieces of furniture. As things stand right now, the only orphan is a large, primitive style oven dryer that I've decided to take to Burlington anyway.
Shockingly, I found a spot for the cherry gate leg tabl...