• CEMurphy,  Daily Life,  Thinks To Do

    weekend & thinks

    / July 29, 2013

    We had a family barbeque on Saturday, which was lovely. (BBQ for, not of, the family, for the pedantic among you.) Ted even made baked beans, which om nom nom. :)

    I failed a third time to make decent ice cream, which is really pissing me off. I pride myself on my ability to make dessert, but custards are apparently not my strong suit. I have been given a non-custard recipe that Fred and Bryant swear by, so I guess I’ll have to try that. *sigh*

    Yesterday I went to a museum and got a massage, which is not a bad way to spend an afternoon. :) Then we watched the second episode of Jericho, after which I slept poorly (probably due to 11 hours of sleep the night before) and had somewhat disturbing dreams. It’s possible children of the ’80s shouldn’t watch television shows about thermonuclear wars shortly before bedtime.

    Ted set up the new (rather large) computer desk, looked at it, and said to me, “Well, you’ll be able to sew on THAT.” And he’s right, and now I want to sew something. In my copious free time.

    Oh, I should put in my plug for voting on the Last Days project. I’m afraid that Swan River Press is now kicking my ass, and I fear for my chances of ever catching up. :)

    – post office
    – migraleve
    – unpack & set up desktop computer
    – call citybin
    – call landlord about leak
    – call airtricity
    – laundry
    – vacuum
    – empty rubbish

    There are other things, but since that’s more than I’m likely to get done today anyway, I’ll leave it at that.

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  • CEMurphy

    first place!

    / July 23, 2013

    I believe The Last Days of Ancient Sunlight may have just shot into first place in the arts category on the Guinness site, with just under 500 votes now. o.o

    In the meantime, the Swan River Press project thinks it’s going to catch up to me, but I will generously allow him a second place, er, placement. :)

    I have gotten my inbox down to under 80 emails, nearly every one of which is work-related. I’m not kidding myself: the new Gmail tabs have helped with this, as there are another 40 messages or so in the other tabs, but still, this time last week I had 1500 emails and now I have 120.

    The oldest one I answered was from January. 2012. Wince.

    On the repeated advice of a friend, I got a copy of this organizational book, GETTING THINGS DONE, which I’ve started reading. I’ve got a terrible urge to liveblog-commentary it as I read, which is probably born from the opening bits being (sensibly) about how to make good lists, a thing which I already do. (There’s a reason my to-do lists say “do laundry. fold laundry. put laundry away.”) But the real reason it was recommended for was its approach to letting go, mentally, of the things you’re *not* doing, and I could use some help in that department.

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  • CEMurphy,  Daily Life,  Kitsnacks

    ice cream, charming child & guinness

    / July 22, 2013

    So far I have made one amazingly successful batch of vanilla ice cream, a frozen chocolate mousse, and a crystalized lump of strawberry blah. This is *not* my usual kind of treat-making record, and I’m perturbed by it.

    OTOH, I made these chocolate chip meringue cookies with leftover egg whites, and *they* turned out amazingly. Meringue is supposed to be hard to make, but historically I have very little trouble with things that are hard to make (we shall not speak of the first angel food cake, particularly since I know perfectly well it went wrong because I hate folding and took the instructions as written too literally in the hopes that it would all turn out all right, though, well, no, of course it didn’t), and though I’d never made meringue cookies before they’re perfect. Unfortunately, meringue really ought to be eaten at the very least on the day it’s made and ideally within about two hours, and while I did my best, even I wasn’t able–or willing–to eat 2 dozen meringue cookies in 2 hours. (The recipe says it makes 12. I used 1 extra egg white, because that’s what I had, and had 24 very generous cookies. I cannot imagine how big they must be if you’re making only 12.) Anyway, perhaps I’ll bring the slightly soft and sticky meringue cookies to the butcher boys, since Ted forgot to bring them to work, and the only other option is to ditch them. Or eat them, but I’m trying not to do that.

    Saturday night I went out for writerly cocktails with several friends, which was fun and gossipy, and because hey, how often do I get to go out for cocktails, I went so far as to put on a dress to do so. When Young Indiana saw me, he gasped, “Mommy! You’re a *beautiful princess*! That’s your *dancing dress*!”

    Pretty sweet kid. :)

    Here is the daily link to the Last Days project. And to my friend Brian’s Swan River Press project. :)

    And here is a very pretty painting of Gambit, for those of you who like that sort of thing. Hat tip to my friend E for the link. :)

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  • CEMurphy

    Guinness for all

    / July 19, 2013

    I am told that I should actually post this here daily as well as on Twitter and FB, so I’m doing as I’m told: this is your daily reminder to vote for the #LastDays project! Click here to vote!

    And while you’re there, how about voting for my friend Swan River Press’s newly submitted project? It’s just a click and it’d do him a lot of good! Vote for Swan River Press too!

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