The Mad Soaper Rides Again!

I'm going to make soap this week. It's been too long, and I miss the smell of saponifying oils and the fun of playing with dangerous chemicals in my kitchen.

Tonight, I'm going to try melting some dragon's blood resin in a carrier oil, and see if the scent holds true. If it does, tomorrow I'm making dragon's blood soap. If not, well, at least I'll know!

Jesus fucking christ, HOUSEFIRE!

Today, I tried to make soup. Chicken and dumplings, to be exact, which I have made multiple times and always turns out delicious.

Today, it turned out ON FIRE.

I had the pot on the stove, as per usual, waiting for it to come to a boil. I was right next to it, making the dumplings. I noticed that the burner was smoking a little, but that happens sometimes so I didn’t worry about it (MISTAKE #1).

I figured I’d turn the fan on high, and walked over to the front door to open it, since it seemed like there was maybe a bit too much smoke (MISTAKE #2). By the time I’d opened the door and looked back, flames were coming up from the bottom of the pot.

I ran back over and turned off the burner. I remembered that I don’t own a fire extinguisher (MISTAKE #3), but since I wasn’t sure if this counted as an electrical fire figured I’d be better off not throwing water on it regardless.

MISTAKE #4 was forgetting that grease fires exist at all, luckily I still somehow did the right thing:

Baking soda to the rescue!

I always keep a big box in the kitchen for cleaning purposes, so I ripped open the top and started tossing it at the base of the fire (i.e. my stove). When the flames were small enough, I grabbed my potholders and moved the soup to the sink, so I could throw more handfuls of baking soda at the fire. It went out pretty quickly at that point, and things started to disperse, THEN the smoke alarm started going off (Yeah, thanks for the heads-up, smoke alarm, you did a bang-up job there).

Then, I decided to sit down quietly for a while, and order a pizza.

New Spinning Wheel!

These pictures are, of course, of the new wheel that I got this past weekend. It cost me $50 (I can never turn up a wheel for less than $100, I just can't), and all of the things I needed to spiff it up I already had, leftover from when I refinished Balthazar.


For this renovation, I decided to just go with a good coat of paste finishing wax. I had a whole jar of it, it doesn't require a tarp and a driveway, and this wheel didn't look like it was varnished anyway.


I thought about oiling it up first, but then decided against it. The only thing I had in the house was olive oil, and for something as nice as a new wheel I knew that was a bad damn idea.

From what I can tell, this is a handmade wheel, probably from some kind of a small manufacturer. There's a roman numeral 13 carved into the underside of the body of the wheel, so I'm going to go ahead and assume she's the 13th one made.

I'm thinking of calling her Hestia, as the 13th Olympian, or Ganymede, because he's just so pretty.

Crafting Insomnia

Well, it's currently 2:37 in the morning, and I am wide awake. So far, since midnight, I have:

- Cleaned the litter box
- Tried on various rennie clothes, trying to figure out my costume for this weekend
- Decided that none of my current choices are any good
- Looked up free patterns for how to make new rennie clothes
- Raided the fabric stash
- Found a pattern for an easy choli, and wondered if I can get away with burgundy and copper one, with lime green undershirt.

I may be going crazy.

Tired, Tireder, Tiredest

Today, a friend and I went and got the last of the everything from Mr. Ex's place. Total stuff hauled: just over 2 truckloads, but the first truckload was two bookshelves and the cat tree, so it hardly counts.

Holy crap, I have a lot of stuff! Like, a shit-ton of stuff. A metric assload of stuff. More stuff than I can shake a stick at, and I even brought my shakin' stick!

So tonight when I got home, after I rested and recovered, I sat down and started working on organizing the house again. I've got something like a reading nook in one corner of my living room now, where all 3 of my bookshelves converge with the papasan in what I like to call a triad of excellence, and I think I figured out a way to set my TV up on a small stand I've got, which hopefully won't even fall over.

All in all, I got through about half the boxes, but they were admittedly the easy ones. I mean, when you've got 8 boxes of paperbacks and an empty bookshelf, that's not exactly rocket science right there. Tomorrow, I get to go through all the little trinkets and gee-gaws and shinies and this-might-come-in-handy-somedays, and figure out which ones I'm going to actually keep, and which ones are being donated to Goodwill. The Master Plan is to have only so much stuff that I can have everything in the house put away at the same time.

Yeah, I don't think it's likely either.

Savory Poptarts?

There is a thing I have been wondering all day, and that is is it possible to make your own poptarts?

The Internet assures me that it is.

So then my question becomes, what else, aside from jam, can you use as a filling? Could you do savory poptarts, with spinach and feta? Like a little spanikopita in your toaster? What about cheddar and onion? Mmmmmm!

I'm not sure, but I want to find out. I have enough homemade jams and jellies (thanks, ChileRox! Jamology Jams are the best!) to create dozens upon dozens, and I'd love to have a poptart-making afternoon where all I did was bake and freeze stacks upon stacks of these... and now that I have a working camera again (finally replaced that damn cord - only took me a few years!), I could even take pictures!

So, yeah, that might be happening some time soon. I'll try and keep you posted.

Year 27 Starts Now!

Happy birthday to me!

Tonight, a bunch of friends and I are going to meet up, watch Black Sheep, and have a good meal (pizza, cheesecake, and margaritas). I am happy, and I have been for a while now. I feel good about my life, and I like where I am. I have good friends, a loving family (dad called pretending he didn't know how old he was, and TwinSis and I have been texting back and forth all day), and my health. (Well, aside from a pesky wisdom tooth that needs to come out, but it hasn't even been bothering me as much today so it doesn't count)

Life? Is pretty awesome. And I'm glad to be here. I hope you are too.

It Has Begun

Today, I got a ride from a friend to the county clerk's office, and filed my Petition to Divorce. Later on, Mr. Ex came by and picked up his copy of the petition, as well as the Waiver of Service form (which means that he trusts me to handle the final Divorce Decree and doesn't want to have to go to court for it). Sixty-one days from today, I will be legally divorced.

It's... an odd feeling. I'm sad, remembering all the good times me and Mr. Ex had over the years (and there have been a lot of good times), but at the same time I'm really happy to be finally getting this done and over with. In a few weeks, I'm going to be getting the last of my things from his house, which will make the final paperwork incredibly simple - all of the things at my house are mine, all of the things at his house are his - and then we can go back to just being regular friends again.

In other news, I've been taking iron supplements for a week now, and WOW. I'm sleeping better, waking up easier, and I'm not nearly as tired during the day. Turns out that whole being anemic thing really does take it out of you; it's amazing what you feel up to when your cells are getting enough oxygen.

Year 27

In 14 days, I am turning 27. 27 has always been my lucky number (3x3x3), so I have decided that this is going to be the Year of PPN Improving Her Life. Basically, I've decided to take my life by the reigns and give it a swift kick in the ass. So, I've compiled the following list:

- Daily affirmations of my awesomeness. I hear this really works?
- Drop 40 lbs. Goal weight: 160!
- Pay off my credit card ($3500).
- Study for, take, and PASS my GRE.
- Apply for a promotion at work.
- Drink at least 1 cup of water every day.
- Exercise for 10 minutes, at least 3 times a day (aside from any other walking).
- Stay on the iron pills and brain drugs.
- Get rid of the clutter in my house.
- Learn to give myself orgasms.
- Complete NaNoWriMo.
- Do one nice thing for someone every day, even if it's small.
- Learn how to dress professionally, even if I can't afford to do it much.

I can do this. I WILL do this. I have to do this.

Projects Old & New

Well, I finished something this past week. A scarf, more specifically, that I hadn't thought was even serious enough to list on the sidebar. A few stitches here, a few rows there. Next thing you know, it's done!



And since I now had those needles free, I may have cast on for a sweater.



I also started adding in rows of the darker yarn into PSS Prime, and so far so good. It's hard to tell which rows are which when I'm staring right at it, so I figure it'll work just fine once I'm actually done with it. Hooray for nearly-the-same colorways!