Wrong Tree
I think I have been asking the wrong questions regarding my hobbies. This whole time I have been concerned with which ones I enjoy most, and trying to carve out time for those from the rest of my schedule. That question really has no answer. I think I need to start asking what I want to accomplish with them, not individually but as a whole. What do I want to do with myself? My hobbies are all things that make me less dependent on others, except fencing. Knitting, sewing, baking, and gardening are all activities that produce (or can produce) necessary objects: clothing and food. Writing is a bit trickier, but it does provide me with entertainment. Fencing dose give me focus when it comes to fitness, which I cannot manage on my own. Exercise for the sake of exercise is not really my thing. Looking at my hobbies in that light, I am not doing too badly. This last month has demanded a lot of work in the "garden", so I have had less time to spend on writing, knitting, and sewing. Things in the garden are about to slow down now that most everything is planted, so I will have more time to focus on writing for the rest of the month. All we have is time, and as long as I am using mine in at least one way that I enjoy, I will try not to feel too frustrated (why no, my script is not going very well!). This is also going to have to change how I look at sewing plans, come to think of it. Last week, I actually had to purchase a pair of pants because I put off making them for too long and had a pair die on me. I needed a pair for work more quickly than I would be able to make them, so off to the mall I went. In the future, I need to look at sewing the way I do baking: plan ahead and make time, and make sure the ingredients are on-hand early. Er, materials. Whatever. Meaning, I need to go buy some black pant fabric sooner rather than later, so i can replace my black pin-stripe pants before they fall apart. Working this out has made me feel better about the whole situation. Hurray for early-morning epiphanies before tea! Also, garden pictures!  Chives and potential carrots  Giant Italian Parsley  Spinach This is what is out so far. I have my pepper plant still inside for at least another two weeks, depending on weather, and the basil is too tiny to think about going outside yet.
With my head cut off
Posted by Elizabeth on 04-03-2010 at 10:28 am When did I become such a busy person? Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons (when I'm not working) are fencing practice, Wednesdays are write-ins, and there is usually a movie night sometime during the week. Last night was the Script Frenzy kick-off, and we have another write-in for that on Saturday afternoon/evening now. In about half an hour, we're going to get haircuts, then it is off to the mall or grocery store, haven't decided which yet. This Sunday I'm apparently attending a bar-b-que hosted by one of Husband's friends/coworkers, and next Saturday is given over entirely to our once-monthly D&D game. In between all that, I have been trying to write, bake, garden, knit, sew, and spin.
I hate to say it, but I think I am going to have to start giving up on hobbies. Spinning is the one I am least infatuated with (I like it, don't get me wrong, but it won't ever be an all-consuming passion), so I think after I finish the fiber I am spinning now, that one is done. Sewing is on hold for a bit. I need clothing a bit more quickly than I am able to make it, so I am actually going to buy some this weekend. Just a pair of pants, but I had a pair die this week and it is leaving a gaping hole in my wardrobe. My closet is not particularly full, so when something dies it needs to be replaced.
Baking at the moment is largely limited to quick breads and muffins, anyway. Experiments will wait until after April (and the Script). I think do I need to defrost that pumpkin puree this week for breakfast muffins and something to take to the gaming group.
I am only knitting on one thing right now. Shocking, I know, but I only have two things on the needles at all, and one is the Sock Yarn Blanket, a v-e-r-y long-term project. The other is a pair of socks for the Husband, which might as well be called a long-term project. I am about halfway through the foot on the second sock (toe-up, so I have the heel and cuff yet to go). After that, I think I will start on my mother's birthday/Christmas present (depends on when it gets done, her birthday is early November). I have to find the right kind of lace weight for it, though.
That is what is going on, and that is probably enough of a ramble for a Saturday morning. The script is going relatively well; I have not really done anything yet today but I am caught up for yesterday. Today will be mostly outlines and character notes, which will actually end up in the final game. I think that means I can count it for my page count.
Tutorial: How to use a scale
I have recently been doing a lot of baking and trying to improve my techniques. One of the biggest issues that I was running into was that all the good baking books (good here meaning technique books, and not books full of good recipes) give their recipes primarily in weight and not volume. My birthday was last month, and my husband bought me a kitchen scale (mine is the red one). We had done a bit of research beforehand to figure out what I needed, and this was one that fit the bill fairly well. With most scales, there are two numbers you need to look at. The first is capacity, or how much the scale can hold. The second is readability, or how accurate the scale is. These numbers are usually expressed as (capacity)x(readability). In the case of my scale, the capacity is 11 pounds, and the readability is 0.05 ounces or one gram, so 11 lbs x 0.05 oz. Now, the readability does not mean that the scale can accurately measure down to 0.05 oz, or whatever the figure happens to be. It means is that whatever value is displayed on the scale can vary by as much as the readability value from the actual weight of the thing on the scale. It is kind of like a margin of error, in that the readability is how far off the display might be. For example, if I weighed out what I thought was six pounds of flour, it would be within 0.05oz of six pounds. This is plenty accurate when dealing with quantities of this size. The trouble is when you get into smaller quantities. According to the baking book I have been working out of ( How Baking Works), an acceptable range is usually ten percent. To figure out the lightest thing you can weigh with relative accuracy on the scale, then, you would multiply the readability by ten. So, in my case, the readability is 0.05 oz (or 1g). I can accurately weigh 0.5 oz (or 10g) and be sure that I am not off by more than ten percent of the total weight. I have seen a lot of people weighing smaller amounts of, say, yarn for a sock yarn blanket swap. Several of these are around 5g. These amounts can be weighed on a scale like this, but you have to realize that when the scale displays an amount, it can vary the amount of the readability from the number displayed. In my case, this means when my scale says "5g", the yarn could actually weigh anywhere between 4g and 6g (1g away from 5g). So, to have at least 5g, you would have to keep adding yarn until the scale reads 6g. It will actually weigh anywhere between 5g and 7g, but the minimum weight would be the required amount, and you wouldn't be shorting any of the swappers. If any of this is not explained clearly, please comment or e-mail and I will happily try to clarify. Similarly, if I have gotten something completely wrong, please let me know and I will correct it.
Cookies of the Devil!
Posted by Elizabeth on 02-17-2010 at 12:25 pm A couple of weeks ago, I was working on an assignment from How Baking Works that involved making sugar cookies with different kinds of flour. I won't go into the details on why that makes a difference, but I thought it was interesting. Unfortunately, all of the recipes in the exercises in the book are given in weight, not volume. This is really a good thing, I suppose, since weight is a more accurate measurement of flour, among other things, than volume, but I do not have a kitchen scale, and converting from volume to weight (or number) leads to problems with things like eggs. In other words, I needed a regular sugar cookie recipe. None of the ones I had made me particularly happy, so I went cruising for recipes on the internet. Food Network was one of the first stops, and they let their viewers review the recipes that they have tried. The Classic Sugar Cookies Recipe came fairly highly-rated at 4 stars, but I wanted to read the reviews anyway. Imagine my surprise upon learning that they are in fact the Cookies of the Devil. I can't link to the review directly, so let me re-post it for you here: WORST COOKIE DOUGHHH I HAVE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF EXPERIENCING
If you wanted a cookie made by the devil this would be it. This dough was terrible and dry and gross. I have made 10000s of cookies. I lvoe making them for my neighbors during the holidays. I tried to use fancy william sonoma cookie cutters on this dough. IT SUCKED. It was bad dough and it tasted like what a cookie santa pooped out would taste like. I tell you this was the nastiest thing i have ever tasted. Don't let the title classice sugar coookied decieve you; these are satan cookies. Satan himself would not eat them. If you have the misfortune of making these cookies add some chocolate, coconut, and walnuts, and butter and then more chocolate to them and eat them at 2:30 am. OKay they are bad dont makeI am too lazy to put a (sic) after all those spelling mistakes, and I am not sure if they are supposed to be Santa-poop cookies or Satan-poop cookies. I doubt it matters much. At this point, I felt morally obligated to make this recipe in particular. They look fine to me. I even made some butter-cream frosting! Most of them went to the D&D game I was playing that day, which is just as well. I certainly do not need to eat that many frosted cookies by myself. In the course of all of this, I also discovered that plain butter-cream frosting is what my Grandma used to put on angle-food cakes for picnics when I was little. I didn't know I could remember tastes that clearly. Anyway, I suspect the issue that the above reviewer had was that s/he used salted butter. That might explain some of it. Also, I doubt that using fancy cookie-cutters by default makes the dough any better, but what do I know?
2008 re-cap
Posted by Elizabeth on 01-01-2009 at 11:56 pm Happy New Year! Another year is gone. Most of what has gone on this year has been knitting, despite my hands falling apart in July. The 2008 Project Inventory is mostly up-to-date, if anyone wants to see what has been done this year. The last of this year's projects are the finished(!) Ravenclaw Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban scarf, which was my husband's Christmas present: I knit a washcloth for my mother, to go with the bath set that was the rest of her Christmas present but did not get a picture before I left it with her in Texas. The last item was a knitted doll, mostly made from this pattern, but scaled down by half, except for the legs, which prove that I should not do math at 11:00 at night, since they are too big. I would post a picture, but she has no clothing yet and that might be a bit indecent. Also, according to some more 11:00 pm math, I have figured out that I knit around 4,000 yards of yarn in 2008 that ended up in finished projects. Just so you know. For trivia's sake. I have learned that I need to take better care of myself next year. I have learned that nicer yarns really are worth the expense, for the most part (I know, duh, but I have not ever had much of a yarn budget to work with). I also learned that I can have too much yarn if I am not careful. I learned that I like not having eight million projects going at one time. I also learned that what is an amusing and useful hobby is not always the best choice for a job. I finally have started to write again, after a several-year-long hiatus. My novel from this year's NaNoWriMo is not good, but it is finished, and there is definitely something to be said for that. I am making attempts to keep up with writing now that I have started again, as well. Tomorrow I will be posting about what I have planned for 2009, and posting an update on the projects that have spilled over into another year.
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