Junior doesn’t care much for rain. He tends to hang about the house looking bored. Even after it stops he’ll check the patio a few times, waiting for it to dry out. Lucky for him, the sun came out this afternoon. He’s been out and about and looks much happier.

Obviously I’m reading a lot more online these days, so books come via email or download. Ebooks have quite a wide range of quality. Because it’s easier to publish an ebook, I’d say that often the selection is not as well-edited as print. But I’d also say that the quality has improved over the last five years. Just as with print, I’ll be highlighting ones that I enjoy that are every bit as well-done as a commercial book.

I recently downloaded the following Kindle book:

Recollections: A Baby Boomer’s Memories of the Fabulous Fifties. Since I don’t have a Kindle, I actually downloaded it from Smashwords: Recollections. I picked the .mobi format and then loaded it into mobipocket reader.

At 1.95 it’s a bargain. And it’s well-edited. I always read the sample before downloading the whole book to make sure that the grammar is…English. This one is an excellent one, very nicely laid-out and edited. I’m not much of a memoir person, but Recollections is more a history–quick snapshots on sports, literature, the war and general thoughts of the time. My kind of book. I like the little life details. I don’t want to hear about some famous person or drawn out political aspects. Recollections is written in a very conversational tone, and I liked it enough to grab the rest of the book.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

The acorns are falling from the oaks. Clunk, smack, bam. They hit the roof, the side of the house and the cat castle. The cat castle makes the most noise; wood hitting on wood. It’s a delightful fall noise really. Of course, when you’re sitting peacefully reading and a large one smacks into the castle, it sounds like a baseball pitcher threw it 90 miles an hour. Might make you jump, wondering what all the racket is as it bounces to the ground.

So those onions I bought. I thought they were a bargain, marked at only two dollars a bundle. Usually I pay near three or just over. Ahem. Should have paid more attention. The bundles are usually 30 or 60 depending on the kind. These were about 15 (maybe twenty if you count the tiny ones that usually don’t make it.) Had I known, I’d have bought a nice small bundle of the purple onions. No, I don’t need any more than 15; that isn’t the point. I don’t need a lot of purple onions so I don’t usually buy them. I can’t handle 30 of those and 60 granex. That’s simply too many for my tiny plot. But…yeah, I know. I didn’t need them.

The part of the garden that I had tilled was pretty good. Only two grubs remained (that I saw). Then there was the part that I decided to till for snap peas. Oh my Lord, have mercy! Dozens. I could barely hoe because I had to keep stooping over to shovel the devils out. I had a literal pile of them at one point. I will not go into detail but it was *the* most disgusting thing. Just…don’t go there. But if I ever decide to write horror, I can tell you that those grubs will be in there, squirming and…just gross.

I hope I got enough out of the snap pea row so that they little peas can grow. I didn’t get more than two batches last year and that was a huge disappointment. I bought frozen ones, but those are almost a different species. Just not the same. So here I go. Into the winter garden. It is supposed to hit 90 today so they’ll have a nice warm start.

It’s that time of year where the garden is really winding down. And I try to keep things looking lively by deciding which plants to plant so that they can freeze right before producing…

I put a cucumber plant out there. I’ll be lucky to get one single cuc. But I’m ever hopeful.

I was in Walmart today and just happened across a bundle of fall onions. Yes, I should have resisted. No, I didn’t resist. I hope to have time to get them in the ground tomorrow. Even if they only stay green onion size, it will be nice to have something out there that doesn’t freeze. I’ll end up putting in a snap pea plant or two and probably some parsley. But first I’ll have to do that tilling I told you about and kill a lot of gross grubs. I really hate that part.

Today, I also have to give a big shout-out to Fed-Ex. We were on our morning walk when Fed-Ex tried to deliver a package that required signature. Groan. It’s Friday, which means we’d have to wait until Monday for redelivery attempt. We only missed the truck by 15 minutes…I called…asked if the driver might still be in the area…The nice lady driving the truck came back a couple hours later with my package! Now that friends, is service. I was very, very pleased.

Well, well, well. Scamper must have been truly bored this morning. It’s raining again, which is good news for us, but the cats aren’t so thrilled. She came inside to eat during a break in the weather. After playing chase and couch with Junior, he decided to go outside. That left her wandering around aimlessly. I picked up the wire/cardboard toy (this is a version of playing “Grab the string” with a cat.) She wasn’t too certain about playing with a “toy” that was attached to a human hand at one end. Like when Junior first learned to play, she tried to keep an eye on my moving hand and on the cardboard that she was trying to “catch.”

Boy, she is fast. Much faster than Junior. We played for about 10 minutes. She rolled on her back, batted at the cardboard, and watched it when it was too close to me for her comfort. Then she nabbed it a little too hard and it flew out of my hand.

Pretty typical cat behavior. It was nice to interact with her for a change. I think she’s warming up to us. Well, at least on rainy days.

If I sold my organic veggies, I’d charge a fortune.

The tomato plants have not been making their usual comeback. I suspected any number of varmits, creatures, bugs, diseases…but no, tomato horn worms was the winner. Now that the bugs are down in numbers due to cooler nights (and seasonality) the horn worms apparently decided to move in for the final kill.

If you’ve never had the dubious pleasure of dealing with a tomato horn worm, let me take this opportunity to bring you into the fold. Tomato horn worms can strip a plant of leaves and blossoms in under a week–a full grown plant. They run from starter size–about 1/2 long and 1/4 inch around–to the size of a pro basketball player’s shoe. Okay, maybe slightly smaller. But I swear I picked one off this morning that was the size of *my* shoe, and I do not have small feet. Is there *anything* grosser than having to stomp on a worm full of digested plant juice? Seriously, we are talking grosser than gross. You have to smash carefully because you do *not* want the thing to squirt all over you. So you sort of roll it under your shoe, mushing it down to a…well, a rather giant green smear about the size of your shoe.

And that’s after you pry these fat, disgusting suckers off with either a crowbar (my weapon of choice) or pliers. Pliers work, but if the worm is big, it might touch you. And if it touches you, it will grab onto your hand with the suction and claws of a leech on steroids. It is *most* unpleasant.

Yes, there is an organic worm killer (BT worm killer. Kills only leaf eating worms.) Of course, I’ll be spraying that tomorrow morning when it is cool out. The problem is that the worm has to eat a few of the leaves before the worm feels ‘full’ and stops eating–forever. Meanwhile, my poor remaining tomato plant will suffer some additional damage.

Darn worms.

Check it out–the new cover for John Levitt’s Unleashed is finally showing up on Amazon. Waaaay cool. Unleashed is the third book in my favorite Urban Fantasy series. The first in the series is Dog Days (Ace Fantasy Book) and the second is New Tricks. If you haven’t read the first two, get them now–You have plenty of time to read them and be all caught up. Unleashedis available towards the end of November, but of course you can pre-order.

The dog, by the way, is real. Whether the dog in real life is an Ifrit…well, I can only assume.

ARGH. I hate organic gardening.

I went out yesterday to plant some parsley and cilantro. I figured I’d only have to till up a small section and get those going. They are great winter plants here. Okay, the truth is, I also grabbed the snap pea seeds, the onion seeds and the leek seeds. I do not have the time to have a winter garden this year. No time to plant peas and keep up with them. Onions…well, they will generally take care of themselves if they germinate.

I just took my little hand shovel. You know, the ones you find in gardening store, generally referred to as trowels. I read an article once that said if you have more than one grub per foot of soil, you have a problem. What about if that number is about 10 to 12 per foot of soil?????

I dig out grubs by trowel/hoe. They have to be squished. Yes, sorry. I hope you weren’t eating breakfast or lunch. It’s beyond disgusting. I won’t describe the ooze, the smell and I certainly won’t tell you what forty smashed grubs looks like. Why can’t cats eat grubs? As a part of a healthy cat diet, I mean??? (Junior might very well try to eat a grub that I dig up if he got his paws on it. He would certainly try to play with it.)

Birds. Where are the birds when you need them??? I would, oh so gladly, churn up the grubs and let them eat away!!!!

Sigh. I did a much smaller patch than I wanted. It needs to be tilled at least twice more before I can plant anything. Otherwise I’ll just be feeding tender roots to disgusting black-headed grubs.

I did throw down a cilantro seed or two. I don’t think grubs eat cilantro. Do you?

Obviously, what with two three books out on Kindle and other formats, I’ve been spending a lot of time learning about the availability, pros/cons of the different readers and so on. I’ve been pretty surprised at how many formats there are and also how many places are selling ebooks. I knew it was a growing industry, but didn’t realize there was a kind of undercover cult following.

At any rate, there are actually some pretty good reader applications for the PC (or laptop in my case.) I didn’t think downloading a reader application was really necessary or helpful for reading online, until I downloaded them and tried them. All three of these readers are free downloads. My favorite is mobipocket.

Mobipocket also sells ebooks. To get the reader, click on the software tab and then download whichever application you need. In my case, I downloaded the PC application. It’s a spiffy little app, with nice buttons, easy to use interface–and the best part–when it loads a book, it has a nice DARK font. (So far as I know, you can change font sizes with all the apps, but with the defaults on mobipocket I didn’t need to.) The format is a nice, book-shaped one. I’ve read a couple of books using the mobipocket software and found it easy to use (just using the page down or page up; you can jump ahead or back using the scroll at the bottom.) I like that the scroll bar tells you how far you are along in the book (page numbers are meaningless because you can change the fonts to a larger or smaller one.)

Another neat feature that sold me on e-readers–it keeps my “place” in a book when I’m reading. Even if I close the application, when I go back in and open that book–bam, takes me right to where I left off. This is an excellent feature.

Next up, I tried the Stanza reader. This is the one known for use with the iPhone and iPod, but they have a desktop version as well (tabs along the top of the link.) This reader presents a narrower “book,” probably because it is optimized for small devices. The default font isn’t as dark. The formatting (which is often due to the conversion software) isn’t always as “neat.” But the Stanza was easy to use. It loads fast and presents an easy to use “book.” No issues, but not quite as “pretty” as mobipocket. Instead of a “library” of books you’ve loaded, you just open a file like you would with a normal application.

Adobe Digital Editions, like most Adobe products, seemed more complicated than it needed to be. This is the one application that had trouble with my converted files. It locked up opening the EPUB files–I have no idea why. I had to strip out formatting, reload the files and keep my fingers crossed. Obviously something in the original file (probably old HTML code) was causing some sort of problem. There was no way to troubleshoot the issue. Once I stripped formatting, and reconverted, the file loaded.

It was nicely readable. The interface was confusing to me, but I eventually figured out how to create my “library” and open the books to read. The Digital Edition automatically downloaded the covers (mobipocket and stanza did not.) This was perhaps the standout feature for Digital Editions because the cover, more often than just a title, reminds you of what the book is about, or at least gives you a clue as to why you downloaded the book.

For now, I’ll probably use the mobipocket reader. Most of the readers read multiple formats. This is helpful since not all ebooks come in the same format. Of course, if there is DRM on the book, it’s possible that none of the apps will work. Some books with DRM end up tied to a specific reader. At the moment, I’ve solved that by only buying non-DRM books. This limits my reading selection somewhat, but it isn’t as though I’ve run out of books to read.

Edit: Barnes and Noble also has a free reader for the PC (and Kindle is going to provide one in November or December!) The Barnes and Noble product was not very intuitive–took me a while to figure out how to load a book! But it isn’t bad once you get going. Probably the easiest way to get the B&N reader is to click on an ebook and download a sample. You have to login, but it then gives you the option of downloading the reader. When I downloaded my copy, B&N offered me 5 free classics! I don’t know how long that offer is good.

Edit #2: Kindle now has a reader for the PC. I took a look at it and can’t complain. I want this reader mainly so that I can test my own books–how they look and formatted, etc. BUT so far, Amazon has some awfully good freebies that publishers give away as promotions. In the past, you had to have a Kindle to access the books. Now, I can download them and read them on my PC. Some of these deals are free, some are a low price. Either way, I win!

It’s been drizzling/raining since at least 3 a.m. Scamper showed up for breakfast. I think she was delighted to discover that breakfast was, in fact, dry. She was also pleased that the living room and dining area were perfectly dry. She seemed a bit surprised, but after eating, she sat herself down and took a bath to straighten her fur. It was quite wet underneath–all that long grass she had to walk through to get here. She wasn’t too wet on top, but it was still raining, so that had to be re-arranged as well.

After eating and bathing, she looked outside, but it was still raining. Much to our surprise, she decided that staying inside wasn’t the worst idea in the world. It’s been about an hour. She and Junior are running back and forth, playing some sort of chase. Of course when one catches the other, there’s a bit of hissing and paw waving. Junior always squeaks when this happens. It’s a funny little noise, sort of a “nanny, nanny, urk!!!!” Then they are off to the races again.

Scamper keeps one eye on me while all this is going on, but she is starting to believe we aren’t about to skin her for dinner. It’s only been a year, cat. You’d think you’d have figured it out sooner.

WOOOT!!! Finally got a nice, decent, fill-those-rain barrels-full rain!!!! It’s been MONTHS since we had a soaking rain. Yesterday we got a decent rain, but it was less than half a barrel–and remember, we have a gutter system that draws the water to the barrels. I was still pleased. Turned off the auto-water system for the garden and the lawn.

Then last night we got a very decent rain off and on for several hours. Barrels almost full…it’s been raining again for the last couple of hours! There are actually PUDDLES in the yard!!!

Time to plant some lettuce and green onions! Well, I’ll wait until the rain stops.

Junior hasn’t experienced this much rain before. He did very well. Didn’t take him long to figure out which side of the door was dry! When it rained particularly hard this morning, he decided the safest place for him was under the bed. I expect he’ll stay there until dinner time. Scamp came in and got food this morning, but now she is tucked wherever she finds safety. I expect we’ll see her later if the rain stops. There will be muddy little paw prints on the tile for a day or so…

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to sit down and read. Then too, I’ve started a few books and just not been able to concentrate. Maybe it was the storyline, or maybe it was me. Good news, though! I picked up the first book in Anne George’s Southern Sisters series, and boy was it good. Murder on a Girls’ Night Out: A Southern Sisters Mystery is a cozy mystery. It’s fun, funny and well-plotted. The characters are not only charming, but real–family squabbles, an endearing husband (who sometimes make the heroine so mad she sleeps on the couch!) and good, old fashioned caper activities.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the series, even though it takes a special series to keep my attention. I think this series will be a keeper. It’s a very nice comfort read, yet it is fast-paced and funny enough to have that special magic that keeps me wanting more. I haven’t read a lot this year, but this book is very likely to make my top reads for the year 2009.

Just in case you wondered what a 24 pound block of soap looks like. Pretty tough to shower with this bar…

There’s a new issue out of The Town Drunk (my favorite humor spec online zine). I’ve read the first offering, Squeak by Amanda Davis. I liked this one a lot. Very cuuuute. It’s short, but good. Perfect size for my morning cup of chocolate.

The second is called, “I Think I Broke My Human,” by Craig Watson. Makes me wonder if it is about a cat…

Off to do some weekend reading!

Yes, it is that time again! Another batch of mineral make-up. This time, I decided to really back off to the very basic ingredients. Color and titanium dioxide–the oil dispersible version of titanium. I had some titanium that is supposedly water dispersible, but it was shinier–just glints here and there that would be great for eye makeup, but was a sparkle I wanted to avoid. I prefer a matte makeup. I’m not sure if the sparkle was something added to the titanium or a result of water dispersible titanium being a smaller, finer micron. I may try another water dispersible in the future to compare because supposedly the water dispersible is a “lighter” feel and lighter coating than the oil dispersible one.

Anyway, I left out all the micas and extenders and coated titanium and rice. They were just confusing the formulas and after finishing my experiment today, I’d say they added nothing to the formula.

You may remember from before that I learned to start my color base with yellow rather than red or red/blue and so on. I think of my skin as beige-like with red undertones. Well, it turns out that I’m mostly yellow with a pinch of red/blue. The red/blue is made up of red and black from what I understand. And I really do only need a pinch. For a 1/16th tsp of yellow, it’s not even half that of red/blue. Just a dusting really. Then it’s about 3 to 4 additions of 1/8th tsp of titanium dioxide (so about 1/2 tsp total) to get it light enough/beige enough for my skin.

I made two batches, one lighter than the other. As I’ve noticed before, if you get the color/tone right, you can actually wear a pretty wide range of dark to lighter batches. The key is to make sure you have the underlying color correct. Otherwise you end up looking like a purple blob or an escaped garden tomato.

The mix of colors and titanium dioxide is a sticky powder–which is really what is needed. The old recipes where I added rice were much easier to mix, but as I used them, I noticed an awful lot of powder was getting all over the sink. The rice and starches don’t stick. They make application “lighter” and easier. They make mixing easier. But they really add nothing useful other than a dust that doesn’t stick to the skin and wears off quickly.

The end result from today is a nice color that sticks to my skin a lot better than other formulas. It goes on smooth and has the look and feel of a liquid makeup. This powder could easily be a “pressed” foundation, it’s that moist. I added a touch of boron nitride and it didn’t change the formula or feel much. It does create a bit of a “finish” without changing the color or feel.

The only thing I don’t like about this new formula is that it might prove to be a bit heavy. See, there’s a fine line with makeup. I don’t want to wear any. I don’t want to feel it, but I want my skin tones evened out. That’s why I’d like to find a “lighter feeling” titanium dioxide, one that doesn’t sit so heavy–but still doesn’t have any glitter. I know that glitter and reflectors are supposed to hide wrinkles, but I think all they do is call attention to the fact that you have makeup on.

This is a very wearable batch, but if I come across water dispersible titanium dioxide with no glittery look, I’ll give it a try. Meanwhile if anyone really knows the difference between oil and water dispersible (Are either of them coated with anything? Or is it just the micron size that is different?) drop me an email or share this knowledge in the comments!!!

I don’t think I’ll be needing the micas. I honestly don’t know what they add. Mica has a high sheen, which is something I try to avoid. It does not make the makeup lighter in feel and it can change the color (raw mica has an almost grey color). It’s in a lot of mineral makeup, but I think I’ll be skipping it.

I’m sure there will be more experiments!!!

It is time for some decadence! These are half cookie, half pie. Easier than pie, harder to make than a normal cookie,

3/4 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup margarine or butter
1 1/2 cups flour

Cream sugar and margarine. Add flour and mix well. Spread in a 9 by 9 inch greased pan (think pie crust). Bake at 350 until just golden brown about 12 minutes.

Mix:

2 eggs
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup (or more) chopped pecans
1 cup of 60% (semi-sweet) chocolate chips

After mixing, spread on top of the crust and bake about 20 minutes at 350.

If you *really* need these to be more decadent, make an orange-lemon frosting and drizzle on top:

3/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon melted margarine, 1 and a half tablespoons orange juice and 1/2 tsp of lemon.

But really, they are pretty good without the icing on top!!!

I love Fall, and it’s almost here. Yesterday we saw a Baltimore Oriole — I’ve never seen one in Texas and it’s pretty far from its normal range from what I read. I expect that it’s migrating. I know the picture isn’t that great, but I took it from inside and we don’t have a fancy camera. Birds like that one make me want to have one. It was such a bright, beautiful orange. I wish we had had something out for it to eat, but we didn’t have any oranges or suet anywhere in the house.

The hummers are migrating also and so we get a lot of different kinds coming through. They were all sampling the feeders until…the honey bees swarmed! This happened to us last year. We’ve no idea how to keep them off the feeder. We tried moving it, but it looks like we’ll have to bring it inside for a couple of days and hope the bees move on. I’ve had them in the garden all summer–they’re nice little bees. Very well-behaved. They love the thyme flowers and so long as they are there, they happily pollinate my watermelon, cantaloupe and cucumbers. Things are winding down in the garden a bit–I’ve pulled the sprite melon plant, but I’ll be planting a new cucumber plant in about a week. By then the bees may well have moved on…but I hope a few stop by the garden to keep pollinating!

Came across this interesting site for Kindle users: Books on the Knob is a blog that appears to blog about free or bargain Kindle books. So for all you online readers, if you’re looking for cheap or free books for your expensive devices–check it out.

And I am not talking green peppers. I am talking the famous Hatch Green Chile. Green chile peppers are not easy to grow in the Austin area because the nights are so warm in the summer. This tends to produce thin-walled chiles with very little heat. Not that I need a roof-burner, mind you, but I grew up in New Mexico, home of the chile pepper. I was delighted to find that the local grocery here does a chile roast, just like at home–and they get the chiles from back home too!

We bought an entire bushel of the roasted green chiles. I had to peel them (this gets the blistered skin off and leaves a wonderfully peeled, robust chile behind.) I saved off the longest, thickest of the chiles. Then, yesterday and today, I stuffed them with cheese, battered them with a pancake-type batter, and lightly pan fried them in grapeseed oil. Yum. A Mexican grilled cheese sandwich with a twist!!!

What did I do with the rest of the bushel? I froze them. I’ll use the chiles in casseroles, enchiladas, and this, my favorite dish: Green Chile Chicken with Cheese.

I love a good meal. Feels like home.