Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Elizabeth

The blog is on holiday today, finishing up the last of the preparations for tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving to the Americans among you, and if you’re traveling, best wishes for a smooth trip. Also, make sure the turkey’s fully cooked. For you non-Americans, have a great Thursday tomorrow.

Random things I’m thankful for this year:

1) My garden – It’s fun to play with, and it makes food.
2) Tennis, running, and every other sport I do – Something has to keep me humble. I’d hate to be good at everything.
3) Penguins – Because they’re cute, and such graceful swimmers while seeming so ridiculous on land.

Posted in Life | Leave a comment

Fennel

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Elizabeth

I should have been checking the weather last week, because I almost lost some things in a frost. Luckily I decided to check the garden one morning, so I was able to dig the last few radishes. And harvest the fennel. I thought the arugula got killed, but it seems to have recovered, so we’ll be having fresh salad for Thanksgiving. I’m sure the kids will love arugula.

I’m quite happy with how the fennel turned out this year. It seemed to have a weird growth cycle. First it grew tall stalks with some leaves, and then bloomed. I’ve harvested a bunch of seeds and have been using the leaves in salads, but I was disappointed that like last year, there were no bulbs. Fennel bulbs are the best part of the fennel (or maybe tied with the seeds). I love them raw or roasted.

A couple weeks ago I got the last of the seeds and cut off the stalks. Then I noticed that the plants had started to put up shorter stalks from…bulbs!

So when I noticed everything was frozen on Thursday morning, I cut down almost all the fennel. The leaves are in a paper bag, hopefully drying–the icier leaves went into the compost–and the bulbs are either in the freezer or the fridge, depending on whether they felt frozen or not.

So maybe that’s what fennel usually does, first one tall stalk, then several shorter ones from a bulb. And a freaking long taproot. I guess I’ll find out what happens next year; I suspect it’s dropped a ton of seeds into the garden, since a bunch of seedlings came up this year already.

Anyone have a favorite fennel recipe you want to share?

Posted in Garden | Leave a comment

This is a test

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Elizabeth

Hello, Facebook. I hope.

I’m trying yet another method of sending blog posts to Facebook. Let’s see if it works.

I’ve been playing with If this, then that. It’s a nifty service that does what its name says–you set up the this’s and that’s.

For example, If a new post appears on my blog’s rss feed, Then tweet a link to it. Or If a new blog post appears, Then post a link on Facebook…

It will connect to a bunch of different services, and will even send you email or text messages. For the most part it does a bunch of things that I don’t need.

But. One useful thing I’m doing with this is to turn my Instapaper account into an automatically updating sf magazine. I’ve put a few rss feeds from online magazines into IFFT, and told it to send them to Instapaper. Now I can open Instapaper and magically find new stories (or articles from a few select blogs) to read. Nice.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Sticking with a genre

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Elizabeth

So I wrote this book. It’s an urban fantasy. Most of what I like to write and read is secondary-world fantasy (I’m not going to split hairs between epic, heroic, and sword and sorcery). I had fun writing it–got to use a lot of stuff from my time at the newspaper–but.

I keep thinking that if I sold it, the publisher would want more urban fantasy. And it’s not what I want to be writing, though I do have several other ideas to explore in that genre.

So I think I might chalk it up as a fun first draft and not bother revising it.

(Of course, this decision might be influenced by the fact that I’ve been revising a novel for a while and have a new novel that I really really really want to start writing because it will be awesome. It even has a title! Usually my stuff doesn’t have a title until I submit it.)

Posted in Writing | Leave a comment

Tennis league

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Elizabeth

A few months ago, I said we were taking tennis classes. Well, the Champaign Park District offers classes year-round at its indoor tennis center, so we’re still taking classes. At the same level that we’ve been in since June, with a bunch of the same people. Which is pretty nice since we’re all improving together.

I’d rather be outside, but inside there’s no wind and more importantly, no sun in my eyes or rain, so I’m happy to have this option. And they’ve got nets to block off your court from the adjacent ones–no chasing your ball across three courts! I love that so very much.

Anyway. J and I have joined a tennis league. He joined in the previous session, so this is the second time for him this fall. There are four leagues and we’re in the lowest one, of course. If you end up winning, you get an invite to the next-level-up league. I’m in last place out of four right now. In first place is a woman who would be in the next-level-up league, except it doesn’t fit her schedule. J is in third and I’m annoyed that he’s beating me by so much. I was better than him when we started playing.

My goal for the league is a) not get kicked out for losing too badly, b) win one game off the person on 1st place, and c) tie J when I play him. (He beat me soundly last week, but I’d run a 5k that morning).

Posted in Fitness | Leave a comment

Being interesting

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Elizabeth

Jim Hines recently gave the secret to writing a good blog: Be interesting.

But what is interesting? This is a topic I keep thinking about, thanks to my growing up as a shy, quiet kid who just wanted people to care that she existed, plus some jerks who told me specifically to my face that I was boring (in high school, they said this because my hair and eyes are brown; in college, it was because my parents had given my brother and me ordinary names instead of less common ones (I suspect that guy and his siblings had been teased about their names)). And while I no longer think that I’m boring, my greatest fear as a writer us that even if I become a master of the craft, there’s something inherent in me that means no one will ever want to read my stuff (I don’t need to be reassured about that, I do know it’s irrational and untrue–and I like worrying about irrational things, because I don’t really have to worry about them!).

So, what is interesting? Some months ago, I ran across a couple of posts by Justine Musk that led me to Cal Newport’s blog. Newport is specifically writing to high school students making plans for applying to college. His advice? Be interesting.

Newport’s instruction for how to do that is roughly to focus. Don’t do a ton of extracurriculars; instead, explore things and then delve deep into the ones you like best.

Which is where I start relating all this to blogging. Some bloggers have a niche.

If this blog has a niche, it’s “What Elizabeth has been doing lately.” Which I write partly so I have a record of it, and partly so family and friends know what I’ve been up to. I hope that it’s interesting. But if my goal were to build an audience, I’d focus. This would be a gardening blog, a cooking blog, or a fitness blog. Maybe even a writing blog. But since it’s an Elizabeth blog, it cycles through all of those topics and then some. Because my life would be pretty dull if I only did one thing.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Books read, dark and determined edition

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Elizabeth

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins – I finally read this–staying up until 2 am to finish it one night. It was exactly what I expected from everything I’ve heard about it. I haven’t actually decided whether to read the other two in the series, though. I’m sure they’re good, and quick reads, so maybe I should. Are they as gripping as the first one?

Prince of Thorns, Mark Lawrence – Another determined young protagonist, this one bent on revenge rather than survival. His voice reminded me of A Clockwork Orange, but Jorg has possibly good reasons, or at least an explanation, for (some of) what he does.

Despite appearances, this is not a pseudomedieval fantasy, Jorg’s attack on Castle Red being the prime example there. And happily, there’s more going on politically than there seems at first (which helps explain why a gang of violent bandits is following a 13-year-old).

Posted in Books | Leave a comment

Nanowrimo

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Elizabeth

Good luck to those of you writing madly this year.

Once again I won’t be joining you. Although I had fun the two years I did it, and would enjoy doing it again, there’s a reason I’ve never done anything with the two books I wrote. It was too fast for me to write a first draft when I didn’t have a plan, because my brain had to spend all its time coming up with words instead of thinking ideas through.

The experience did help me decide that I really should learn to plan books in advance, which is working out beautifully–but I don’t have one ready to go right now. Maybe next year, if I get a couple drafts of a new book and some old books done first. Meanwhile, I’ll be continuing work on this handful of short stories.

Posted in Writing | Leave a comment

New York

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Elizabeth

Congrats to Anne and John! It was a lovely wedding, and a great time with family.

Random notes

* Dylan’s Candy Bar is big, but most of the candy is stuff you could find elsewhere. Still, fun to look at it all and imagine being seven and let loose in there.

* The Brooklyn Bridge is long.

* If you want to visit Ellis Island, get tickets online in advance.

* Occupy Wall Street is a lot smaller than it looks on tv (but obviously much bigger than this photo).

* The Central Park Zoo is nicely done, but I felt bad for the polar bear doing endless laps.

* This sign is in the zoo, which is in the park, which has trees. But still…

* Brooklyn seems to have more trees than Manhattan. Manhattan sticks them all in little islands (or big islands, in the case of Central Park). It’s quite possible that there are parts of Manhattan for which this isn’t true, but it’s something that’s struck me every time I’ve been there. (And I gather the mayor has a plan to add more trees, which there is some dissent about because it’s possibly not the most well-thought-out plan.)

Posted in Life | Leave a comment

Garden status

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Elizabeth

It’s fall.

Last weekend, I picked all the beet greens out of the back, pulled the weeds, and spread compost over the beds. All that’s left in the back is rhubarb, though I’m tempted to put some garlic in.

I also picked the remaining green tomatoes and pulled the plants. One is starting to turn yellow, so I imagine we’ll get a few more. The basil got dug up and potted along with two volunteer dill (or possibly fennel) seedlings. I haven’t tried that before so I’m not sure how long it’ll last, but it seemed worth a shot to have fresh basil for a while longer. I haven’t pulled the last of the fennel plants; I’m waiting for them to finish producing seeds.

The radishes seem happy, but like the beets don’t seem to be making roots. Unlike the beets, their leaves don’t taste good. Some lettuce/mesclun has come up, and if the weather keeps cooperating, we’ll have salad for a little bit longer. Definitely have to remember to try a fall crop again next year.

Still waiting for my bell peppers to change color. If the plant hadn’t been eaten twice, I’m sure we’d have had a few peppers by now.

The mint is already spreading like crazy; I’m very proud of it. At this rate and assuming it survives the winter, weeds are going to be much less of a problem in the front planter. I also transplanted one of the chive plants over there, and left the other one in its pot, for transplanting next spring if it’s alive.

And one of our neighbors is apparently digging up everything in his yard that isn’t native and selling them this weekend. On one hand, I admire that and would like to do the same thing. On the other hand, I’m hoping he has some hostas to get rid of. Maybe if I put them in the planter, rabbits won’t hop up there and eat them.

Posted in Garden | Leave a comment