and then stepping forward

Setting a recreational internet time daily limit of ten minutes didn't last long--maybe a day or two--but it was enough to push me in the right direction.  I now have a limit set to 30 minutes a day, which I rarely hit, partially because there's just a lot going on right now.

On the productivity vein, I've started reading GTD and using the free trial of OmniFocus, which is working really well for me.  I like the concept of putting information somewhere that's not in your brain so you can focus on the current context.  I tend to waste a lot of time flitting between contexts, so this is very useful.  My productivity is already ramping up, or at least it feels that way.  I'm not a GTD cult follower yet, but I might get there.

google recipes and as close as it gets to a makeover

N was describing tortilla espanola to me, which was a little silly because I've had it before, but so it goes.  Anyway, he googled "tortilla espanola" to find that there are recipe selection options in google now.  For this search, it suggests chives, potatoes, etc., and give cook time options, calorie count options, and suggestions for related foods.  I don't know how well it works yet, but it seems promising.

In other news, I cut off about 13-15 inches of hair, which was a tough choice, but much needed.  The long hair was getting to be more trouble than it was worth, and this is the first new hairstyle I've had since I decided to grow out my bangs in the second grade.  Heavens, some change comes slow.  Now all I need to do is replace the glasses I've had since the fifth grade, and that'll be as close as it gets to giving myself a makeover.  Back to the hair, I'd like it a couple inches longer eventually, but in the short term, this style is forcing me to not pull it back constantly, which may have been damaging it.  I also have zero split ends, which is a novelty.

Here are some low-quality bathroom before and after shots.  Don't be fooled by the mild curls in the left one; they aren't natural.

Otherwise life has been busy, per usual.  There was the wedding in DC, with all sorts of romping about. Then my family took us to see Spiderman on broadway, which was spectacular, though in some ways it was more like a loud, showy concert than a musical.  And then the family will be in town a bit longer, so more good times to come.

hello, sad day.

S&P 500 -6.66%

gunna be a great week

My cousin is getting married in DC this week, and I'm excited to see her and that whole side of the family.  In preparation for this event, my mom was trying to get the address of the hotel that my grandma was staying at.  The following conversation occurred.

My mom to my grandma: "So mom, where are you staying?"
Grandma: "Oh, at priceline.com" *proceeds to give corporate address of priceline*

Yup, s'gunna be great. :)

just you wait

The rabbits have now decimated my swiss chard and my beets; there is no hope of any of it surviving or even sprouting a single new leaf.  I've been patching holes constantly and even did another pass of coating the lower fence with a cayenne pepper/oil mix, but they still get through.  I'm steaming mad.  Therefore:

Just you wait, little rabbits, just you wait!
You'll be sorry, but your tears'll be to late!
You'll be starving outside my fence;
Will I help you? Don't be dense!
Just you wait, little rabbits, just you wait! 

I thought I was being overly prepared by burring my current fence six inches deep all around.  Next year: taller fence and actual chicken-wire instead of this chew-through-able nonsense.  Anybody know a cheaper source than homedepot/lowe's?  I guess I could peruse craigslist for used stuff when the time gets closer.

stepping back

A while ago, N and I tried limited our recreational internet time.  We set the limit at an hour a day and I tried a bunch of different timers like iChrono, StayFocused, and Thyme.  It worked for a while but we eventually lapsed back into our old habits.

I get distracted easily, which is no news, but recently I've been less satisfied with my online distractions which mostly consist of news, comics, blogs.  I feel like there have been some excellent things that I'm glad I've read, but that I'm starting to be apathetic about most content.  Part of me just wants to buckle down and write a smarter RSS aggregator, but part of me wants to just take a break.

I'm reminded of my new year's themes, particularly the first one: physical over virtual, though others apply as well.  Given that, I think I'm going to take a week off from reading online content that's not related to either 1) work/research/school or 2) Russian History.  I want to break the habit of "I'm bored.  I'll check Google Reader."

I have a quilt to complete, a pile of papers (and then some) left over from the move that need to be sorted through, plenty of academic work to do, a string of guests arriving over the next month, several half-finished books, and a million other odds and ends to manage.

Anyway, I'm reinstating the StayFocused extension for Chrome with a time limit of ten minutes a day; the goal is to keep it enabled for a full week.  We'll see how long it takes me to get twitchy from withdrawal.

speckled peach smoothies

N and I love to have yogurt-based treats for dessert: we'll mix nuts, chocolate, vanilla extract and a stevia-based sweetener in plain yogurt--that's the most common variant.

Recently, I bought a bunch of peaches and they started to go mushy the day after purchase, which was odd as they were relatively firm when I bought them.  So I froze them a la Jeff's peachcicles.

Frozen peaches are yummy all by themselves, but I also tried making them into a smoothie, which was similarly delicious. Simply blend milk, vanilla yogurt (or plain/greek yogurt, vanilla extract, and truvia), and peachcicles together.  Proportion-wise, it's totally subjective.  I did about equal parts peach and yogurt and then added milk to taste to thin it out.  If you leave the skins on when making the peachcicles, you get a lovely speckled smoothie!

garden update, etc.

The rabbits have still been getting in regularly, taking a bite out of the occasional tomato and demolishing my previously flourishing swiss chard.  I've been patching the holes they make with weeds; I'll pull up a sucker that's several feet tall that's growing outside my fence and then fold its centimeter thick stem in half, maybe twice and then stick it in the hole.  I'll do that a couple of times with most of the leaves and dirty roots sticking out, and eventually the opening is pretty bunny-proof; it's harder to eat through weeds than plastic fence.  I've started weaving some of the weeds where there are no holes as prevention, but I might need to go back to the cayenne pepper/oil mix I tried a bit ago (it's washed off since).

The rabbits seem to steer clear of the yellow pear tomatoes, so they've been the crowning achievement thus far.  I discovered the one-an-only cucumber growing up in an odd place, so we'll see if that survives to maturity.  Beets, carrots, and swiss chard are all developing well enough.  The lettuce has gone to seed, and there's enough of it to establish a strong strain of my own if I can save the seeds for next year; we'll see how that goes.  The tomatillos, which almost came out of nowhere, are exploding with young fruit.  N wants to grow sunflowers and corn next year and he's insisting we call it "our garden" (as opposed to "my garden"), so I'm excited that he's excited about it.  I'm going to ask the folks in charge if I can build a cold frame for starting the tomatoes, etc. next year.

Speaking of building things, I think I want to learn better carpentry skills.  For example, we bought a tall wooden shelf to act as a pantry, but it was surprisingly poor quality for the price, and I think it'd be nice to be able to build things like that without buying a box set.  Unfortunately, unless I need something it's wasteful to just make things for the heck of it and people don't like to commission something from somebody with no experience, so practicing is difficult.