Day Two Hundred and Fifty

More time outside. :) Buddy needed to be able to throw and catch a ball at ten paces to finish up the last requirement for his latest Cub Scout badge, and we played outside for quite a while after he'd accomplished that task.











And a little gratuitous cropping, just for fun ...

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Nine

I'm 17 days into another run at Item #63 - spend 15 minutes a day outside for 100 consecutive days. I've photographed this item several times, but I was quite proud of the results of yesterday's "15 minutes" (give or take an hour), and it's my blog, so I can post pictures if I want. ;)

Quite a bit of this isn't actually weeds, just the leftover greenery from the MANY grape hyacinths that bloomed last month. They're trimmed back now, but still visible above the bark dust so they can get a little more sun and rain absorbed for next year's growing. These were all here before we moved to this house - I can see a flowerbed with blue iris and blue grape hyacinth, but I probably wouldn't have put them in with pink roses, personally. I've never had the heart to pull out the irises though, so they keep sharing space.

Before and after, from the driveway:



Before and after, from the sidewalk:



Buddy helped pull weeds too, and showed surprising enthusiasm for it. I could hear him over in his little patch of garden muttering, "Bad weeds! I hate weeds! I'm bigger than you! You want a piece of me? I'll give you a piece of me!" No idea where his aggressive gardening came from, but if it gets weeds out of the flower beds, I'm all for it!

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Eight

So, dear readers, whose biography do YOU think I should read?

I haven't read all that many, come to think of it. Here are the ones I can think of that weren't required reading for college:

Jen Lancaster (her autobiography is at five memoirs and counting, all of them hilarious)

Maureen McCormick - Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice

Carrie Fisher - Wishful Drinking

a recent memoir of a badly behaved young man, which I regret having read and won't link here

Dean Karnazes' running autobiography, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

Alison Weir's marvelous biographies of members of the British royal family: The Princes in the Tower; Elizabeth the Queen and The Life of Elizabeth I (both about Elizabeth I); Children of Henry VIII; and The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

Another one which escapes me entirely, and even my sophisticated Google skills can't locate it - it's the autobiography of a female FBI agent, and quite a lot of it is blacked out, which makes it that much more interesting.

I'm about a third of the way through An Army of Angels, a novel that is so exceptionally detailed and well-researched that I hesitate to call it a novel at all. I started it before the project began though, so I won't count it as one of the five.


I am hoping to read Mark Twain's long-awaited autobiography when it comes out this year. Apparently it has been locked in a vault at UC Berkeley for 100 years, and I'll at least take a look at it ... however, if the report is true that "It really is 400 pages of bile," I may give that one a pass. I enjoy autobiographies very much, but I'm fine with well-written biographies as well. Political figures, military leaders, musicians, writers, evil villains ... pretty much anybody who was personally interesting and loved what they did. I'm open to suggestions!

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Seven

Today I worked a little more on Item #8, try 20 new recipes.

At first this just looked like a waste of perfectly good Double Milanos.




Then when they were all finished and chilled, I thought, "Well, OK, I can live with that."



They were OK. Next time, though, I'll mix in a little dark chocolate with the semi-sweet, use less butter (it was too greasy and not quite hard enough for my taste), and maybe put in some walnuts. They're called Hedgehogs, and I got the recipe off of a website for minimalist cooking - five ingredients or less, and minimal time in the kitchen. This is a scaled-down version of a basic recipe that is meant to include just about whatever you want to put in it, and I think a few more ingredients would make it worth the extra few minutes in the kitchen.

Definitely worth tweaking ... except for that darn Item #56.

Although I did go for a 2.3-mile walk today (building up to Item #47), so maybe that canceled out the piece(s) I ate? Or at least a few bites? At least one bite? Please?

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Five

Oh, for goodness sake ... have I really not done ANYTHING on this list this week? In the immortal words of Frog and Toad, "BLAH."

Day Two Hundred and Forty

(I know, the picture's blurry - this is what happens when the 11-year-old photographer and her subject get the giggles!)

Today I started sorting out a whole bunch of Buddy's old clothes (Item #36), went for a 20-minute bike ride (working toward Item #51), did not have cake at my brother-in-law's law degree graduation party (small progress toward the elusive Item #56), and finished another hat (Item #33).

I think that's enough work to merit a hot bath and a good book, don't you?

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Nine

I suppose it's technically Day 240 since I stayed up past midnight sewing (Item #79), but I'm still counting it as 239 since that's the day it was when I woke up this morning.

About a year ago, I cut out the pattern pieces for matching nightgowns for Boo and for me. I made hers, along with a couple of other summer nightgowns from the same pattern, and then got sort of busy, and then it was time to make the matching Christmas jammies for Boo and Buddy, and then the pieces for mine kind of got buried under mending, and well, there went a year.

I decided it might be nice to sew mine before she grew out of hers.

The picture above is me working on the hand-sewing that makes the inside smooth and finished. If I have something to watch while I sew, I really enjoy the quiet, calm repetition of sewing by hand. In this case, a couple of particularly hair-raising episodes of Heroes kept me from getting too bored. Maybe I'll make another one for my next 101 Things project!