Ack! Comments are messed up! June 29, 2010
For some reason, I’m not getting email notification when y’all are leaving me comments . . . so for now, I’m leaving my replies in the comment section!
EEP!
Book review June 27, 2010
So, I was at the library yesterday picking up a book I had on hold, and decided to browse a bit . . . I’m in a bit of a mood lately to reorganize/revamp/renew either my house or my self or my something, so I ended up in what seems to be the “general improvement” section, and a book caught my eye. Or rather, the title caught my eye: “The Grown-Up Girl’s Guide to Style”. (I’m not going to link to it).
The cover photo is of a “girl” of a certain age (older than me but youngish) with a smart haircut and a crisp classic outfit on. And after checking out the inside flap, I discover that it’s targeted toward women over 40, which I am (gulp). Okay, I’ll bite. Especially as my “style” could probably use some tweaking.
After skimming it over the course of an hour or so (Oh, who am I kidding? I read it cover to cover), and mulling it over for a while, I can’t say that I recommend it. At all.
The author is a “fashion expert”, and though she does have some good tips in the book for the grown-up girl (I love that term) with respect to not making fools of ourselves in the clothing department (“Don’t dress like you’re 20″, and “Buy a bra that fits”, “Don’t dress frumpy, it ages you”, etc), most of it is, in my opinion, a load of shite that actually would make most women just feel bad about themselves.
I’m going to paraphrase a bit, but the author maintains for example that women over 40 should under no circumstances wear a shirt that shows their upper arms, nor wear any skirt or pant type thing that shows their knees. What?? Yes, she does. She basically tells us that no matter how hot it is where we live, we should wear long sleeves year round, because our upper arms don’t look good unless we are Madonna or Sheryl Crow (two examples she actually cites as “okay to show their upper arms”), and nobody wants to see them. My gut reaction to this is, of course, “Who the HELL do you think you are telling me not to show my elbows or knees!? And what year is this?!”.
After that, I should not have been surprised to find that the author is a proponent of plastic surgery and botox for the over-40 set. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but she maintains that we all need a little cosmetic dermatology/plastic surgery after a certain age.
The author does cite many examples of women-over-40 who have great senses of personal style, and she does make some good points about not trying too hard to hang onto one’s youth because it ends up making one look stupid, but the underlying message seems to be one that is ultimately demeaning of women-of-a-certain age.
There are also sections about beauty and such, but it’s mainly common sense and frankly, I was so horrified by the “fashion” section that I kind of zoned out.
I think I expected a book that would be “empowering” (oh how I hate that term) to Grown-Up Girls, rather than beat us down and make us feel ugly and unattractive. One that would give some tips for developing a personal style consistent with our personalities rather than try and fit us all into a non-arm-and-leg-showing, botoxed mold. One that would celebrate the grown-up girl. Color me disappointed.
I’m just glad I borrowed this thing from the library instead of actually paying money for it.
blech. May 31, 2010
I hate summer.
Those of you who are thinking, “but it’s still Spring” obviously don’t live where I do — summer has apparently already arrived in North Texas, as evidenced by the sign outside the bank blinking “98F”.
It’s too hot to do much of anything; the short walk from the car to the grocery store is enough to zap all my energy and make me want to take seven showers a day.
And it’s not even June.
Like Iris May 25, 2010
I wish all the plants in my garden were like Iris. You know, easy to grow, impossible to kill, yadda yadda. My mom gave me a bunch of Iris from her yard (I won’t call it a “garden” since she does not tend it), and told me to just “chuck the roots onto the ground and call it a day”. And it worked! Every spring I get gorgeous Iris, with no work whatsoever.
This year they even bloomed mostly at the same time.
I also love the history and geneology behind these . . . most of them came from my great-grandmother’s garden, possibly even further back than that. Growing them in my yard makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and connected to the past and stuff.
And again . . . May 22, 2010
Yep, I did it again: renewed my blog hosting for another half-year.
Now maybe I will shock the pants off all three of you and will post more than three times in six months.
Heh.
finally, some blog fodder! (or, let the gardening begin!) April 11, 2010
Yep, it’s begun in earnest: Garden 2010!
We started seeds in the laundry room back in January, but yet again had a Big Fat Fail — as soon as it started to get warm, the seedlings got put outside, and then it snowed. Twice. And we forgot to bring them in.
So today I ventured out early and went to the nursery and bought some veggie starts for our raised beds (which we moved to what will hopefully be a better spot), and got them in the ground.
This is the “cucumber bed”; I bought one “regular” cucumber and three bush pickling cucumbers; the trellis is a trash-monkeyed baby gate thing that will hopefully be strong enough. There’s also lobelia and marigold in there.
Next up is Small Bed, which contains a yellow squash and a tomato (which was labeled as a determinate variety, thus the lack of cage around it. We’ll see.)
Third is another 3×3 bed; this one has a tomato plant in the middle, and around it are two zucchini plants, a jalapeno, and eggplant. I know what you’re probably thinking: “TWO zucchini plants? For two people?? That’s too much!! You’ll have zucchini coming out your ears!” But hey, we’ve not had good luck with the zukes the past couple years, so I’m hedging my bets.
Last but not least is the Ghetto Bed. When we moved the raised beds and filled them, I put chicken wire over top of two of them to keep out the neighborhood feral cat population . . . then I ran out of chicken wire, so I covered this one with newspapers. Then when we planted, I decided to leave the newspaper there as mulch because I’m lazy like that. It looks like hell, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the best producer. Tomato, basil, and another jalapeno (yeah, we like hot peppers around here).
So now I’m wondering what else I should plant in the bare spots!! B nixed okra — we know it will grow great here, but we end up not eating it. Maybe bell peppers? Lettuce? I’ll have to give it some thought . . .
Way behind in the room-a-month project! February 5, 2010
As is usual for me, I’ve procrastinated myself into a corner yet again! I acutally am only a week behind on this, but completely neglected to post the “before” pictures for my January room!
For January, I chose to work on our entryway . . . it’s kind of a cop-out choice because it’s the easiest one, but I did it that way sort of on purpose. It’s not going to take any money, which is good since I’m broke; also it will just invove some cleaning and reorganizing and/or relocating a thing or two.
Here are my before shots: (I’m a dumbass and took photos from the “in the house” perspective rather than the “coming in the front door” perspective, duh)
front door, obviously.
this is part of what will change -- the unused scratching post and some random ikea footstools
the "middle view" between the first two pictures, looking into my studio room
and finally, my favorite part of the entryway. My antique singer treadle sewing machine (it works!) and a cross-stitch sampler my great-grandma (or maybe my great-great-gran) made.
So, at some point this busy weekend, I plan to relocate the footstools and some of the cat toys, as well as deep-clean this area (including the baseboards). I was going to include the entry coat closet in this month’s project, but I just organized it at some point over the holidays, so it’s disgustingly tidy for now.
(also, those pictures up there are supposed to be centered . . . but they aren’t when I hit “preview”. Not sure why WordPress will not bend to my will . . . if they don’t look centered to you, just squint and pretend.)
2010 Project: a room a month January 6, 2010
So, I read about this on Julie’s blog . . . she came up with a clever idea to work on house projects one room at a time, one per month. There are a bunch of things I want to tackle at home, but when I look at the entire list at once, my head wants to asplode and leak brainy stuff out my ears. Also, we are working with limited funds Chez Skittermagoo (thank you, Economic Downturn or whatever you want to call it).
Because I’m usually late to things like this, I don’t have pictures yet, but I do have my list and an idea of where to start. So that’s something!
I don’t really have twelve separate rooms (we have a very open floor plan), so some areas I’ve broken up into smaller bits, which is actually good — I’m sure there are some months that I will be less motivated than others. Or maybe busy knitting or something.
So, here it is; my list of “rooms”, in no particular order:
- Dining room
- Kitchen
- Laundry “nook”
- Downstairs bathroom
- Living room
- Entryway
- Upstairs landing
- Master bedroom
- Master bath
- Garage
- Deck/breezeway
- Hobby room/fiber studio
I’m thinking for January I may tackle the entryway, mainly because it really doesn’t need much and will be an easy thing to start with! Stay tuned!
2009 in review (or, a halfhearted attempt to make up for not blogging very much) December 31, 2009
So, 2009 is about to end, and I can’t say I’m sad to see it go . . . it was a challenging year in many ways, and I hope 2010 is going to be a better one!
Since I love lists so much, here’s a list of some stuff that happened or didn’t happen this year around these parts:
1. B lost his job not once, but twice, which is Very Bad, but also made us hunker down and conserve, which is a Good Thing.
2. I joined a kickass local Fiber CSA, and as a result have made some very good friends (some of whom say “baa” and “cluck”).
3. Planted a bigger garden, and though it was not at all successful, I’m going to do it again in 2010.
4. Missed waaay too many knitnights. Not a good thing.
5. Talked for months about getting chickens for my backyard, only to realize how unfeasible it really is, leading to #6.
6. Helped spearhead the formation of a Chicken Sponsorship program with my kickass local CSA (above, see #2), which will allow me to sponsor a chicken, get fresh eggs, and not piss off my neighbors or feed fresh chicken to our neighborhood feral cat population.
7. Worked on small ways to make our home a “homestead” (I’m still not sure what exactly that word means, but I did stuff like make bread from scratch, grew plants, made my own laundry detergent, etc).
8. Learned how to brew beer at home, and found out that it is really good!
9. Made handmade gifts for xmas, most of which were received positively.
10. Maybe have sort of learned how to crochet, kind of.
11. Really truly stopped being a vegetarian, and no, I really don’t want to talk about the particulars.
12. Used my crockpot a few times.
13. Learned to weave!
14. Made soap!
15. Finally hung up pictures in the house (we’ve only been here almost 5 years!)
16. Painted the downstairs bathroom (had only been primer-white for 3 years!)
17. Hm, not sure what else to say — fingers cold and tired.
Looking back at the list, maybe it wasn’t all that bad of a year (except for items 1 and 4), though there are definitely things I’d like to improve on this coming year. I think I’m also glossing over some stuff in the attempt to not be a Grumpy Face.
