okay, Blogspot won't post from a Kindle. bugger.

I can write posts in the "edit html" mode on my Kindle, but not the "compose" mode. And life is waaaaay too short to write html code on a twitchy touchscreen. I hag to go through two keyboard screens to get to the < and > keys. So much for that idea.

My A-List is getting shorter

I've got a short list of authors who I love, and whose books I will buy essentially sight-unseen, in hardback, at (close to) full price. That list is getting shorter, though - Anne McCaffrey died last November, and I just saw Dorothy Gilman's obituary in the N.Y. Times (she died on Thursday; complications of Alzheimers, which explains the lack of books). She hadn't published a book since 2000, but I was still hoping for one last adventure with Mrs. Pollifax.

Not sure where that leaves my A-list - Mercedes Lackey is taking a break from Valdemar, Todd McCaffrey's Pern novels are plague-ridden (literally) and not (in my opinion) as good as his mother's, and Rita Mae Brown's Sneaky Pie series has gotten too forced-preachy for my tastes. I think that leaves Susan Wittig Albert and Alexander McCall Smith (what is it with authors and triple names?), although I should probably add Tamora Pierce to the hardback-worthy list. Probably a few others I can't recall off-hand, but the list is getting shorter.

What a difference

One year ago today, we had 18inches of snow.

This week, temps are in the 60s. We've had two snows this winter, neither enough to even cover the grass. Very different.

Back in business

So, the blog has been neglected. I'll try to do better this year. If I can post from the Kindle, there may be more life here (and more swearing at the Kindle's non-keyboard).

P.S. - Jan, are you still reading here? Tried to check in on your blog(s) and I guess they're invite-only now?

Halloween season

Or, making this year's costume.

El Burrito has decided, after lots of discussion, to be Word Girl this year (yes, a "girl" - although she's also an alien. This led to discussion at the grandparents' house. He's already been a monster (Cookie) and an elephant(Horton), why shouldn't he be a girl/alien/superhero??). Next year he wants to be Super Why.

Official Word Girl costumes are about $35 and only available online, and if they're anything like the official Horton costume we saw, they're cheaply made. So it's DIY again. Luckily, I bought a sewing machine for a whopping $6 at a yard sale this summer. Even more luckily, it actually appears to work. :) And Jo-Ann's was having a sale on cotton fabric last weekend, so cape supplies came to under $5 (a bit more if you count the machine needles).

I went to Target today looking for the rest of the costume. Red seems to be "in" for kids this year, so I found a plain red shirt and leggings at Target, plus gloves and tights/legwarmers that will turn into boot covers. Much happiness on the way home.

Now I just have to actually make the cape, figure out how to do a hood, and muddle together a felt costume so our stuffed monkey can be Captain Huggy Face, Word Girl's trusty sidekick. DH and I have been told that we're going to be Mr. Botsford (Word Girl's adoptive father - her alter ego is Becky Botsford) and Becky's best friend Violet. I wanted to be Granny May and DH could be The Butcher, but we were told that we could only dress as Good Guys, not Villains. :)

I suck at summer

Yes, it's been a while. The PC got a virus and I was offline for a while. Still don't have things totally cleared up, which sucks.

Also, I suck at summer planning. Just realized El B has 2.5 weeks of summer vacation left, part of which is already blocked off for a sleepover at Grandma's, and we haven't really done anything this summer. We've left the county twice, for pete's sake, both times for trips to my parents'. (Not what you'd call a "vacation" at all.)

That list of fun local stuff to do? Didn't do any of it. I planned to go on campus to the college's art & archaeology museum, but I realized tonight that classes start next week and parking will be a crazy mess.

The box of craft kits and list of fun little projects? Totally forgotten. We did one, and it's still unfinished. Our main accomplishment has been 3 sets of caterpillars from his Live Butterfly Garden. Wow. Oh, and he saw two movies - Cars 2 and the new Winnie the Pooh movie.

He spent most of his summer watching TV, and it makes me feel like s**t because it's my fault.

We didn't go to the farmers' market, the park, the museum, the zoo (okay, 3 hour drive, but still), nothing. I didn't even manage to call his best pal from preschool for a playdate yet.


I suck.

Garden Update (6/2/11)

The broccoli is growing, and the spinach is looking scruffy. I may need to rig a shade for it.

Today: DH dug two flowerbeds along the fence. One has 25 mixed Unwin Dahlia tubers (some of which I don't expect to sprout), the other has about 10 assorted daylilies that I got either last summer or the summer before. HyVee was clearing out their greenhouse, and gallon daylilies were $1 each. I bought a trunk full, and they've been in the biggest flowerpots I could find since then. One is starting to bloom, so they must have been fairly content.

The star jasmine I bought last month is in one of the daylily pots, and hopefully I haven't killed the poor thing. The spearmint, on the other hand, is also unplanted and looking pretty dead. Other than the mint, the only things left on the deck are two petunias, two Easter lilies, a small dahlia, and a Cardinal climber. And, the only seeds left that I really want to plant are the sunflowers - 3 kinds in seed packets, and I may toss in a handful of the black-oil seed that the birds have been eating.


We also did some planting on Memorial weekend. The lilac is finally planted. The large bed has 11 peppers, 4 cauliflower, 2 broccoli, and a cantaloupe. The Westlake's perennials - 2 echinacea (a variety called Magnus - I watch Sanctuary and couldn't pass up the connection), 2 coreopsis, an evening primrose, and a Gaillardia variety called Bijou - were all planted the day I bought them. Except for Bijou, those all went next to the driveway, along with a bunch of annuals. While we were digging that bed, we found the Biggest Worm Ever, worthy of his own SciFi Original Movie:


Seriously. I have Never seen a worm that big. He must have been close to a foot long when he was stretching out.

Oh, and I also have 25 freesia bulbs and 10 (I think) iron cross Oxalis bulbs to plant. It's Westlake's fault - I couldn't pass up the half-price bagged roots (even though the astilbe and echinacea I bought from the same grower were DOA). And 5 Cardinal climber seedlings in the dining room - possibly the only things I started from seed that might do any good. Well, I'll admit, the scarlet runner beans aren't doing bad. Everything else I started, though, was an absolute failure.

Can't wait for the cicadas to quiet down a bit. They're deafening during the day right now - drown out the TV even with the windows closed.