Kristin’s Playground

Definitely getting closer…

16 July 2008:

Whenever the weather gets a little iffy, you can find Anya-bear in the bathroom, hiding. She’s fond of the mat in front of the tub, and I think the lack of windows comforts her.

17 July 2008:

Look! I cooked something! Roasted potatoes with spicy carmelized onions. Logan had a couple of friends over for dinner, and I was in charge of the potato dish. It turned out quite tastily, I think… Here’s the recipe if you have a subscription to cooksillustrated.com.

18 July 2008:

Camping! Complete with a campfire for marshmallows. My camera was having a hard time with the automatic white balance; there are some amusing purple fires that it took, but this white balance is a little more realistic.

19 July 2008:

The camping gear in the kitchen. This needs to get aired/dryed out.

20 July 2008:

Eee! There’s yellow hiding in there! That means it’ll fully open soon, right? I’m quite excited about my sunflower.

I admit - I tried to hurry up and finish my 101 things list on Thursday; we had plans to go camping on Friday, and I wanted to get off on a good start.

Early Friday afternoon we headed out to go to the Indiana Dunes Campground. The campsite is very near Michigan City, IN, and it was a little bizarre to me to be camping so near civilization. Within a couple of miles, you could see a giant cooling tower for a power plant, and just a couple more miles you can go to Meijer, just in case you forgot anything. On Flickr, jcburns shares this photo of the cooling tower. It’s looks like it’s right out of the Simpsons.

When we arrived at the campground mid-afternoon, Logan’s friends were still at the beach, so we took our time settling in. Eventually, everyone made it back to the campsite, Anya met the other three dogs staying there (not terribly well, unfortunately, though they learned to mostly ignore each other later), and we started to think about dinner. The boys took to starting the coals and grilling some burgers - both beef and black bean. Quite tasty. As the sun started going down, we all continued to sit around and talk by the fire, roasted some marshmallows and made little dessert sandwiches with a sandwich iron. I swear, sandwich irons are brilliant. You can take two slices of bread, coat the outside with some butter and fill the inside with whatever you like - cheese, or pie filling, or nutella and marshmallows. Yum. I took a couple of pictures of the campfire. The auto white balance made some look bizarrely purple, but this one was a bit more realistic:

We went to bed late, and unfortunately, I woke up a couple of times during the night to the sound of rain. We stayed in our sleeping bags, hoping it would let up and we’d be able to have a good day, but it didn’t look likely. So, we tried to quickly pack up all our rain-soaked gear, got ridiculously soaked ourselves, and our camping trip was cut unfortunately short. I didn’t even have time to go see the beach. At least I can see it on Flickr, thanks to people like lapstrake:

We did manage to get one good night of camping, even if we didn’t get to do the hiking or photography I normally like to do on camping trips. Now, if only it will stop raining here long enough for us to set up, dry out and clean our tent!

And before I go, I can’t help but include destabee’s photo of this squirrel found there in the winter. Too amusing!

La la la - getting caught up! Unfortunately, I missed a day in this section, so no July 11th picture for you. That morning I sliced my thumb and my pinky open while washing a sharp knife, and we also were driving to Wisconsin, so it was a somewhat hectic day. Ah well.

12 July 2008:

To celebrate Logan and his brothers birthdays, we had homemade pizza. The boys made dough, and we could top our own however we wanted it. This was mine, complete with pineapple, green pepper, red onion, and some breakfast sausage. It was really tasty.

13 July 2008:

This is my sliced hand, all band-aided up. Thankfully the knife was sharp so the cuts were clean and I didn’t need any stitches. The slices are still noticeable today, but they’re slowly healing.

14 July 2008:

The sunflower grows! I think we’ll have an open flower soon!

15 July 2008:

Delta responded to my letter. Note to whom it’s addressed: “Mr. Kristin ___”

“It’s about destroying the status quo, because the status is… not… quo.”

This past week the internet got to see Joss Whedon’s new project: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. A musical, or a musical parody, featuring Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible. He is an aspiring super-villian trying to get into the Evil League of Evil. Unfortunately for him, Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion) is always on hand to foil his plans. Throw into the mix Felicia Day as the innocent love interest, add songs that I can’t stop singing, and I’m addicted. It’s hilarious, and now that the free preview is over, I had to go buy them on iTunes; it’s only $4 for the three-act set. Definitely worth it.

Enjoy the trailer:

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

6 July 2008:

Logan makes a tasty appletini.

7 July 2008:

I got new shoes! Needed some every-day type sandals.

8 July 2008:

We replaced our non-stick skillets. After 5 years, the coating had gotten some scratches and was wearing down a little bit. This is one of the replacements!

9 July 2008:

Dominick’s, a local bar/restaurant, has this amusing little sign up inside claiming to be the first condemned building in North America. Apparently, there’s one just like it in Plymouth, MA.

10 July 2008:

The tomatoes are still growing.

Still working on the catching up. July!

1 July 2008:

The initial pair of “jalapeños” have grown into bell peppers. Still not ready to eat yet, but they’re getting bigger!

2 July 2008:

I have this expanding ball toy that my niece was very amused by when she visited.

3 July 2008:

The tomatoes are growing too. There are a lot of them now, none of them are turning colors yet though.

4 July 2008:

I slept through the parade, but one of the floats supporting the local skate park ended up in the neighborhood. Happy 4th of July!

5 July 2008:

I biked to Saline on the 5th, and stopped at the Saline Depot Museum. They had some currency from a time capsule from 1872. It was fascinating to see 25 cent and 50 cent bills, bills from the Bank of Saline and the confederacy.

Edited: Since constantly updating this would keep refreshing it for people’s RSS feeds, click the 101 Things tab above to see my progress, or check the 101 Things category for any post where I get to cross-off a task!

So. I’ve been pondering this for awhile now. I’ve seen the 101 Things in 1001 Days going around, and I decided that it might be a good thing for me to do. The following gives a description of the project straight from the source, and my list follows. I had a hard time coming up with 101 reasonable, yet challenging goals. Some on the list are easier than others, but if I work, they could all be done. We’ll see! I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments, and I’ll try to keep you updated on my progress.

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as New Year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

Some common goal setting tips:
1. Be decisive. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it.

2. Stay Focussed. Any goal requires sustained focus from beginning to end. Constantly evaluate your progress.

3. Welcome Failure. Frequently, very little is learned from a venture that did not experience failure in some form. Failure presents the opportunity to learn and makes the success more worthy.

4. Write down your goals. It clarifies your thinking and reinforces your commitment.

5. Keep your goals in sight. Review them frequently, and ensure that they are always at the forefront of your thinking.

Start Date: 18 July 2008
End Date: 15 April 2011

Here goes nothing - in pseudo-categorized form:
Read more »

26 June 2008:

I fell in love with Fanta when I went to Spain in 2001. A soda with real orange juice? It was wonderful. (Of course, any semblance of juice had to be removed when it was marketed for the US later…) Since then, I’ve obtained quite the collection of Fanta from the world over. I brought back this can from my recent trip to Italy.

27 June 2008:

Anya sheds. A lot. Can you spin dog hair into something useful? I could’ve had a sweater by now, although it would itch.

28 June 2008:

I like my kitchen table - particularly when it’s clean. And that’s my photo from the Festifools exhibition.

29 June 2008:

The creamer didn’t mix so well with my coffee at first.

30 June 2008:

Logan’s aunt has a pond with a waterfall. It’s quite nice.

Woohoo! The next update will be at least be the right month. Slowly but surely catching up.

You know how I have a jalapeño plant in my back yard? It’s decidedly not a jalapeño. When it first started producing fruit, I thought that the peppers were a little short and fat, but they were so small, I thought they might elongate and start to look like jalapeños once they got bigger. However, since the first two have grown substantially, they definitely appear to be some sort of bell pepper. With this suspicion, I went to try and find some confirmation of the early fruits produced by these plants. My baby fruit looks like this:

However, Lisa Joyce on Flickr, has budding jalapeños that look like this:

Yeah… Pretty sure someone switched the labels on my seedling. Somewhere someone is probably surprised to find jalapeños in their bell pepper plant. Now, I wonder if they’re going to stay green or if they’ll turn a pretty color once they’ve fully ripened.

21 June 2008:

The flower girl and ring bearer walk down the aisle at Nese’s wedding.

22 June 2008:

This weed popped up in my herb garden and my jalapeño plant. Anyone know what it is? Pennsylvania smartweed? That appears to be my best guess. ::shrug::

23 June 2008:

More flower identification. These guys seem to survive an awfully long time in a vase. Anyone know what they are? Dahlias have been suggested, but I know nothing about flowers.

24 June 2008:

A friend of mine (from Romania) had her birthday, so the cake was the colors of the flag. It was tasty.

25 June 2008:

Another flower. These grow on campus near my bus stop. Surprise, I don’t know what these are either. Pretty though.