I’ve wanted a camera for years. I am a lousy shot, but I really enjoy taking pictures. Specifically, I like taking pictures of pets, flowers, and bugs. Sometimes landscapes. So I watched a class on artistic, painting-like photography, and I really liked it. The instructor was using something called Lensbaby, which is a type of
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Need Design Book Recommendations
For some reasons California Closets sent me their magazine/catalogue and in it, they profiled 4 current popular design trends: Modern Farmhouse, Industrial Rustic, Traditional, and Transitional Modern. I really enjoyed reading it, so I went looking for a book that would have more styles, and hit a roadblock. It seems most design books are either
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Cake Recipe
Me: Lalala… Email box: Cake recipe? Cake recipe? Me: O_o Chocolate cake Okay so the cake itself I got from here. Two notes. First, I didn’t have buttermilk so I added 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar to regular milk and allowed it to clot for about 10 minutes. Second, this is a lot of cake.
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So Much Stuff
If you need to be thanked in the acknowledgments for Emerald Blaze, please email me. I’ve got the Chinese and Hong Kong readers, the Italian reader, the legal reader, and I can’t remember who I am missing. If you beta read this book, please email me, because I can’t be trusted. We are trying to
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No Churn Ice Cream
I don’t have an ice cream making machine or one of those churning thingies, but I wanted some ice cream the other day, and I found this recipe that only takes 3 ingredients. It makes delicious ice cream and you don’t have to churn anything. The gist of it: heavy whipping cream, a can of
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Knitting Dilemmas
First, admin stuff. A small note on comment moderation on fiction posts: all the comments are read, so if the comment has been left up, that means we are cool with it. I keep starting and dropping various creative projects. I was going to paint in photoshop, so I made a planet to put in
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Hello From the Inside
Hunkering Down: Editing and Cooking
The deadline for the first pass edits of Emerald Blaze is Monday. I still have a lot to go. We edit separately, because while we write together, editing at the same time is too fiddly. The matter is a little bit complicated by the fact that I am exhausted. I lock my private Facebook, otherwise
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Edge Hamburgers
Hey I was rereading the Edge books and your burger recipe with rice? Since many of us might be stretching our meat as well, can you post that recipe? Laura Okay, so this is a regional Russian recipe that happened when Southern Russians decided to merge the traditional Russian cutlet with Lula Kebab from Caucasus.
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Easy Dishes for Being Stuck at Home
Both UT and ACC have reported students who are infected with coronavirus. Neither cancelled classes. Kid 1 goes to UT. Kid 2 goes to ACC. I get to doomsday prep. For two years I have resisted purchasing a second freezer. For two years I have only bought enough frozen groceries for a week at a
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Acrylic Pour
We have a nice dinner on Saturday night with Grace and Patrick Draven, and during it Grace mentioned the advice someone gave her. When your creative pursuit becomes a job and a primary source of income, you have to choose a new hobby without any pressure of making money attached to it. I knit. I’ve
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Flame’s Daughter
This is a Chinese Fantasy/Martial Arts drama, available on viki. Romance, martial arts, magic, and happily ever after. Which doesn’t typically happen in Chinese historical or pseudo-historical drama because only Communist path can guarantee happy future. Verdict: Liked it a lot. It’s a nebulous historical time in China. The country is ruled by an Emperor
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