About every 6 months I get fed up with Bloglines beta (which has been beta for like 3 years now) as an RSS feed reader and start experimenting with other sites.  Just on the verge of adding everything into Google reader tonight, I figured out the bloglines iPhone interface and fell for it again.  How dumb am I to have never looked whether there’s a different url to go to (there is, i.bloglines.com).  The iPhone version is actually really nice.  OK, bloglines, you get another stay of execution.

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I am swimming in grant applications at lab.  One thing that would help would be a snapshot of the whole year so I can plan appropriately.  As a template, I used a cool calendar image I downloaded from some design blog and now I can’t for the life of me find the original.  I feel kind of bad that I ripped off their design, but it was perfect for the task and now I can edit the excel file with new deadlines.  It’s my new computer desktop image too.

ETA: download the xlsx file

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It’s been a loooooong time since I’ve done much cross stitch, even though it used to be my go-to craft (archive check:  not that long ago, I guess).  I needed a special card and fortuitously came across this half-completed design in my embroidery box.  It’s a Danish kit I got on a trip lo many years ago.  I still remember the charming shop: some basement in Aarhus, crammed with Danish flower thread and other lovely supplies, and tended by a nice old lady.  I still wish I’d bought one of every color of the flower thread since I really love the matte finish and soft hand.  I think I was a thrifty grad student at the time, so I’m forgiven. :P

Finished it up in just one evening of TV.  I’d forgotten how enjoyably mindless cross stitching is.

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One of my postdocs made candied citrus peel to share with the lab, and it was so tasty I had to try a batch.  I used this recipe from Martha, except that it took a little longer than advertised for the meyer lemon peels to turn translucent.  I also kept them as “flakes” instead of slicing them into thinner strips.  We’re having them tonight with strawberry shortcakes!

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Forgot to post this present I made for my sister. She’s interviewing for internships and traveling a lot, so I made a little zip bag for makeup or whatever. It’s made out of a plastic bag I got at Ikea for 99 cents. The plastic was a little annoying to work with (you can see the crinkles from turning it), but at least it’s sturdy and spill-resistant. The pattern was made up as I went along, according to the size zipper I had and just eyeballing how much to square the bottom corners.

I still have more of the bag material left, so now I’m trying to think what to do with the rest of it.

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Yard work of the weekend: drilling holes in a garbage can for use as a compost bin. The giant bin of dead/decomposing stuff I cleaned out from our ornamental grasses will be the first material to feed to it.

btw, I’ve renamed the “home” post category to “home and garden” now that we’ve got a yard to take care of. It needs quite a bit of work, so hopefully that’ll feed the blog. My mom got me a neat garden journal/organizer for Christmas, where I’ve been keeping track of stuff, but I realized craftlog would be good for some of that too. :)

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In line with my appreciation for assemblages, here’s a new collection blog.

Makes me want to photograph some of my collections.

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My awesome calendar collection for this year (2009 collection).  I waited until January to see if any of them would go on sale, so a few of them I don’t have in hand yet.

Amy Marcella (Etsy).  I like the lined design, for keeping track of birthdays.  One of my resolutions is to mark birthdays on time this year.

This one’s going in my office: Pawling print studio (Etsy)

Perpetual Pacific Northwest gardening calendar, krank press (Etsy)

Red Prairie Press, with Dzama-esque artwork by one of my new favorites, Rachel Bone

And I’m considering getting the Sewing Day-to-Day calendar for my craft room if I can find it on sale somewhere.  Man, I love calendars.

[All pictures taken from their respective creators.]

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Too bad it’s past party season now, but I just unearthed this picture and had to post it.  These are bite-size spam musubi, 1/4 regular size.  We thought that we’d invented them, but, of course, a Google search proves otherwise.  We got the taste for these on a visit to Hawaii last summer, and now we make them at home every so often (get a mold if you can find one; it works so much better).  mmmmm, spammmmm.

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The Martha Stewart village kit back from the Martha-by-Mail days, finally all assembled, on the mantel.

One more house to paint, though.  You can also see our new Lego space needle addition this year, which was a present from Becket.

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