or, this is what we get for being spontaneous.

strangevisitor7 was flying in to L.A. on business, and since it was only a 6 hour drive, we decided to head down after work on Friday. And ninjababe was just two days out from her birthday, so we decoded to go to Disneyland on Saturday. We were pooped, but still, we were having a grand time. And it had rained throughout the ( Read more... )

The apricots (of which we have five trees) boom! were ripe and falling off the trees in the high winds we've been having. So for the last two weekends, and not a few weeknights, I've been canning. Have 20+ jars of preserves (apricot orange, apricot blackberry, apricot, and apricot cherry), plus jars of plain apricot puree. I think I have a few ( Read more... )

Nin and I need to look into buying an old Jeep. Too many places around here we want to explore and need a high clearance of 4WD vehicle. We started down to here today, but it wasn't doable in a car. And it's not the first time we've been thwarted in our explorations! Our ultiame goal is to be able to do the Toroweap road which leads to this:

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I ended up writing the sequel to Transformative Variations - 3000 words in so far. To keep with the title theme of the prequels, this one is titled Equivocal Coalescence. I watched the Hotel de Paris scene from IM II over and over and over, trying to get bits of the dialogue right that I needed for the story. I think this is the first tome I've ( Read more... )

but a White Boxing Day. It snowed through the day here, though it didn't stick. Nin and I had already planned on going up to Springdale to see the Hobbit in 3D Faux IMAX, so the snow was an added bonus!

Here's the main street:

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Just cleaned out the chicken coop. And I managed to do it without my brother catching me till I was almost done. He gets all ruffled when I try and do the stuff outside he thinks of as his responsibility. But he has the whole acre to take care of, I figure the least I can do is clean out the chickens. Hot and sweaty now, but the girls are ( Read more... )

We've been in the low to mid 90s for the last ten days, and next week, it will be in the 80s. The days are getting shorter, and it's time to think about any trees or such I want planted before winter. I'm thinking a silk tree this year. Last year was another aspen. Looks like the only peppers to do well this year were the pablanos - looks to be a ( Read more... )

Monsoon season has started. Yesterday, it was in the 100s, as it had been for weeks, and today, we've dropped under the 80 mark and it's pouring rain. Yes, the lightening yesterday evening started a ton of fires, and we're under flash flood warning till Sunday midnight, but it's raining!! We actually have the AC off and the windows open. I intend ( Read more... )

They like me. No idea why. I seem to be the most favourite grownup on the block. I think it may be in part because I'm an exotic novelty: not LDS, not in their Ward, as most of the neighbours are. S, from across the street, and a friend, just about knocked me over on the way in the door, begging me for odd jobs to do so they could earn money. S ( Read more... )

The fire is 50% contained, and they lifted the evacuations. Two outbuildings, but no homes were destroyed. Cause was man made - there's a surprise - due to burning cheatgrass. Moron. The wind's died down a lot, so that's helping the get a handle on the fire ( Read more... )