I signed up for the free ebooks from Tor, and that’s nice and all, but it would be even better to have summaries of the books themselves in the emails, since I have no clue who Robert Charles Wilson is except he was the 2006 Hugo winner.

*sigh*

Or the first one; I’ve never heard of that author, either.

Yes, I could just jump over to Amazon and read a synopsis of the book, I’m sure there is one. But you’d think they would just add one to the emails inviting you to download the ebooks!

Heh. I just realized that by posting HD on a blog, I could–potentially–have every single post ready to go with the photos and everything, and save them all as drafts until the time comes to publish them.

Essentially, no hard work at all, except for the initial bit.

I think I like this idea!

Last year, we got eight inches of snow in one big lump and it stuck around for weeks. This year, we’re getting an inch here, an inch there, and it’s still sticking around a bit, but it will be gone tomorrow. A pity–I would have liked to get some pictures in the woods with snow.

My seeds came today, and I’m trying to figure out if they forgot to charge me for one pack or if I got a free pack for some reason. I’m not complaining, honest, but since Seeds of Change always sends a free pack of seeds with orders, maybe Seed Savers Exchange does the same thing? I don’t know.

But I did splurge a bit and buy a bag of Christmas Lima beans to eat–It was only $4.50, I think, so it wasn’t much of a splurge. I would have them for supper tonight, but you have to soak them for an hour and cook them for 45 minutes more, and that’s just about bedtime. So maybe tomorrow night.

I have decided to create a blog for Heart’s Desire–there’s nothing there yet, but I’m planning on weekly updates of the story. There will be a livejournal feed, too. And if I work things right, I will finish it on my birthday.

We were only supposed to get “less than a half inch” of snow last night. Mmm. Right. I mean, I didn’t wake up to 12 inches, but it’s a bit more than “less than a half inch.”

According to my calculations, I should be planting potatoes in 19 days. *Looks outside* Hmm.

This week’s soup is Black Bean and Rice Soup, and this week’s bread is Peasant Bread. I did have to buy carrots and black beans (dried) for the soup, because we had none. But now I have more for other types of soup with black beans.

I am really liking this soup thing. One pot a week usually lasts the whole week for lunches.

I made Peasant bread last week too, and I really like this recipe. Quite yummy.

Yesterday, I also made Rice Pudding again, with less sugar (less than 1/4 cup) and it was perfect. Yum, yum, yum.

Edit: Okay, I had a small bowl of the soup for supper. Wow! I really, really like the flavor. Not too spicy at all. I could even add more cumin. (I tend not to taste that as much, and with black beans and rice, it’s a must-have.)

I forgot to mention that my mugs came in the mail today, in what has to be the quickest priority mail shipment from Colorado I’ve ever encountered. (They were shipped on Saturday, I believe.) And oh are they beautiful. I’m going to have to make an LJ icon, I can see it already. Here they are.

Check out the Dewey Donation System! This is definitely something good to donate to!

Did I neglect to mention that Ladybug, Ladybug was released? I am so terrible about these things. It’s also now available at Fictionwise, of course, but directly from the publisher nets me more royalties. But it’s your choice!

Ladybug, Ladybug is the one that Josiah is in; I kept getting them confused, before.

I haven’t started story #4 yet, but I have a few ideas.

Casting silver bullets. Ha! I’ll be interested to find out if they ever get them finished.

Actually, the Mercy Thompson books sound interesting. Has anyone here read them? I’ve kind of avoided the whole genre since LKH.

Way back in January of last year, I switched the cats from Purina–18 lbs. of regular and 18 lbs. of indoor formula once a month–to Natura Healthwise, which was 16.5 lbs. I got it shipped to my house from Pet Food Direct, but the cost kept going up and up until I was spending $30+ on indoor cat food every month.

The 16.5 lbs. lasted almost a month; I really had to stretch it there at the end of each month, and sometimes they had to subsist on Purina again until the next shipment arrived. (The outside cats eat Purina. Since I’m feeding the grackles/starlings/whatever strays happen by as well as my two, they can eat cheap.) But then, after looking at my budget and wondering what I could get locally now that the Feed Store in Bethel started carrying various brands of cat food, I asked them if they could possibly get Wellness, and they did.

A 12 lb. bag of Wellness lasted about 3 1/2 weeks. With six cats, that’s pretty close to phenomenal. I free feed, so they can eat as much as they want, but I’m just impressed that I’ve been able to cut it down from a total of 36 lbs. of food a month to 12 lbs. of food per month.

And they love it, too, which obviously helps. If the bowl is almost empty, they get very anxious and have to come find me to fill it back up again. It’s funny.

So as long as the Feed Store can get Wellness, I’ll stay with that brand. I’m impressed.

I made Slow Cooker Oatmeal again overnight, changing the recipe a bit (I put in 2 cups of milk and 2 cups of water instead of 3 cups of water and 1 of milk, a small amount of brown sugar, a small amount of honey, and a bit of vanilla this morning.) I also cooked it on warm and not low. It only stuck a tiny bit, but it worked perfectly otherwise (and my slow cooker bowls are a snap to clean.) So the recipe is definitely changeable! And it was very tasty with some thawed out raspberries and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.

Mmmmm. There should be enough for breakfast tomorrow, too, I think.