Friday, March 22, 2019
Hey America!
Your food is getting soggy.
This is my home state of Nebraska. No, sadly, it is not Photoshopped. This is less than an hour's drive from my house.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Snow Day Pillow
I did this back in February, but I want my readers to know that I do still craft....
This is entirely from recycled materials.
We had a blue pillow that didn't match our living room decor. Now it's been nicely hidden by the homemade pillow cover made from old T-shirts.
This is entirely from recycled materials.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Hope = Gardening
I hope for spring!
This is outside:
This is inside:
Yes, we started our seeds today for our smaller-than-usual-but-still-nice garden. These are all tomatoes.... Amish Paste, Livingston's Paragon, some cherries tomatoes from my husband's late father that he harvests the seeds from every year, and some seeds from these odd, orange-colored cherry tomatoes from the store (thanks, Mom!).
(The grow lights are only on for the photo. You don't need to turn the lights on until after the seeds germinate.)
Looking forward to playing in the dirt in a few months!
This is outside:
This is inside:
Yes, we started our seeds today for our smaller-than-usual-but-still-nice garden. These are all tomatoes.... Amish Paste, Livingston's Paragon, some cherries tomatoes from my husband's late father that he harvests the seeds from every year, and some seeds from these odd, orange-colored cherry tomatoes from the store (thanks, Mom!).
(The grow lights are only on for the photo. You don't need to turn the lights on until after the seeds germinate.)
Looking forward to playing in the dirt in a few months!
Thursday, March 7, 2019
Snow Day Fun - Game design
My husband had a cool idea for a game a few years ago.
He didn't do anything with it.
I started playing with the idea. I made some cards with index cards (bad idea -- too big) and I've been happily playtesting. (It helps that the game is designed for solo play, although it can also be multi-player.)
Today I went to www.thegamecrafter.com to do what my husband advised me to do weeks ago: check out prices and file formats for graphics.
The file formats for graphics isn't a problem. I have a little sticker shock, though -- my initial design would be a $30 game, possibly more.
I'm trying to decide what I think about that. (My initial thought is: make an initial deck of 108 cards instead of 300 and then do an expansion pack if the game is popular). If it is just for me and just for fun, that's not a big deal. But sharing the game with all of my nearest and dearest could get expensive, fast.
I'm also trying to decide about graphics. One of my husband's suggestions was to use The Game Crafter site to prototype the game, then see if I could get a manufacturer interested. In that case, I just need placeholder graphics. Nice ones would help, but really, let's face it, they would use their own graphic designers so stick figures would probably be quite adequate. On the flip side, being able to draw would be good for my other art, and if this is a three-year project anyway.....
He didn't do anything with it.
I started playing with the idea. I made some cards with index cards (bad idea -- too big) and I've been happily playtesting. (It helps that the game is designed for solo play, although it can also be multi-player.)
Today I went to www.thegamecrafter.com to do what my husband advised me to do weeks ago: check out prices and file formats for graphics.
The file formats for graphics isn't a problem. I have a little sticker shock, though -- my initial design would be a $30 game, possibly more.
I'm trying to decide what I think about that. (My initial thought is: make an initial deck of 108 cards instead of 300 and then do an expansion pack if the game is popular). If it is just for me and just for fun, that's not a big deal. But sharing the game with all of my nearest and dearest could get expensive, fast.
I'm also trying to decide about graphics. One of my husband's suggestions was to use The Game Crafter site to prototype the game, then see if I could get a manufacturer interested. In that case, I just need placeholder graphics. Nice ones would help, but really, let's face it, they would use their own graphic designers so stick figures would probably be quite adequate. On the flip side, being able to draw would be good for my other art, and if this is a three-year project anyway.....
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Gardening to Save Money?
We skipped gardening last year.
Partly this was because my perfectonistic self couldn't do as much in the garden as usual, now that I have a full-time job, so the 2017 garden was stressful. And part of the decision was because we really need a freezer before we do a big garden again.
I also wanted to compare grocery budgets for a garden year and a non-garden year. I did that today. I totted up the totals for July, August, Sept, October and November for 2017 and 2018, and compared them. We spent $135.51 more on groceries in the year that we didn't garden.
That's not much.
But that's not the whole story, either. First, we currently don't separate out food from other stuff we buy at the grocery store like contact solution, dish soap, toilet paper, etc. Someday we will make those things a separate line item, and someday will we buy them someplace other than the grocery store wherein they will probably be cheaper.
The other factor is my head and my husband's vacation. Gluten Boy adds a LOT of $ to the grocery bill, and he was in Germany Sept 1-21. I got a nasty concussion on September 12. For the next few weeks while waiting for the love of my life to return home, I was in survival mode. I could barely keep myself fed and clothed. I cooked up some potatoes and ate those for days. The grocery bill was not exactly normal in September. In fact, is was dramatically lower than normal because for half of September, I spent every available moment in the dark. After the concussion, I went to the grocery store exactly once, and that was for absolutely necessities. (Specifically: Food that can be easily prepared and probably isn't very healthy!)
This year we are planning to do a moderate garden. Just tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and maybe some basil. My husband wants to try corn, which we don't usually bother with, but now we will have plenty of room. It probably won't make much of a dent in the garden, but homegrown tomatoes taste amazing, and we do eat at least a tiny bit healthier when we say, "We went to all the trouble to plant, harvest, and clean these -- might as well eat them!"
Partly this was because my perfectonistic self couldn't do as much in the garden as usual, now that I have a full-time job, so the 2017 garden was stressful. And part of the decision was because we really need a freezer before we do a big garden again.
I also wanted to compare grocery budgets for a garden year and a non-garden year. I did that today. I totted up the totals for July, August, Sept, October and November for 2017 and 2018, and compared them. We spent $135.51 more on groceries in the year that we didn't garden.
That's not much.
But that's not the whole story, either. First, we currently don't separate out food from other stuff we buy at the grocery store like contact solution, dish soap, toilet paper, etc. Someday we will make those things a separate line item, and someday will we buy them someplace other than the grocery store wherein they will probably be cheaper.
The other factor is my head and my husband's vacation. Gluten Boy adds a LOT of $ to the grocery bill, and he was in Germany Sept 1-21. I got a nasty concussion on September 12. For the next few weeks while waiting for the love of my life to return home, I was in survival mode. I could barely keep myself fed and clothed. I cooked up some potatoes and ate those for days. The grocery bill was not exactly normal in September. In fact, is was dramatically lower than normal because for half of September, I spent every available moment in the dark. After the concussion, I went to the grocery store exactly once, and that was for absolutely necessities. (Specifically: Food that can be easily prepared and probably isn't very healthy!)
This year we are planning to do a moderate garden. Just tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and maybe some basil. My husband wants to try corn, which we don't usually bother with, but now we will have plenty of room. It probably won't make much of a dent in the garden, but homegrown tomatoes taste amazing, and we do eat at least a tiny bit healthier when we say, "We went to all the trouble to plant, harvest, and clean these -- might as well eat them!"
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