5 Things That You Can Find on my Nightstand

I found this on one of the blogs I read--and thought it would be fun.

1) My Flower Essences from Green Hope Farm--they help me both to continue my spiritual journey and to stay sane while I'm on it.

2) My journal--yes, I write every night. It helps me unwinde.

3) Pen--for said journal

4) Clock--for meditation and for checking in the middle of the night

5) Flashlight--for checking time in the dark.

Biking

I'm finally living in a place where I can use my bike as my main mode of transportation. And what's nice is that the more I bike, the more I want to bike. Now, when I need to run an errand, I think of my bike first, my car second. I'm getting a lot more excersice and fresh air, and that helps my overall mood. Plus I feel good about using less gas and contributing less to global warming.

Serendipity

I went on-line today to find out who to make the check out to for my passport renewal--a chore I've been avoiding--and discovered that the fees are going up tomorrow. So I called and found out that if I can get it postmarked today (which I was able to do) I can still pay the "current" fees. That is a significant savings. And it was just the impetus I needed to finally send in my application. Now all I have to do is wait 2 months . . . I'm sure I'll manage to keep busy avoiding something else . . . ;-)

Sour

So they told me, and I didn't believe them. It is true. Sour dough bread is sour. Really sour. So sour I don't want to eat much of it. I've been trying to finish a loaf for over a week. It  doesn't usually take me this long!

So much for wild yeast. I'm going back to the dried, store-bought kind.

Fighting Mildew

The fight against shower mildew is continuous and always a loosing battle. The pesky stuff refuses to be completely eliminated, and if you leave even a speck, it grows back faster! But I've never been quite so annoyed by it as now.

Some smart individual decided that tile looks nice in showers. And somebody else thought that idea was great. Eventually the trend made it to the apartment I'm living in. For some reason, the implications didn't occur to me until after we had rented the unit. Tile is surrounded by grout. Grout in showers grows mildew. Tile surrounds in showers have a lot more grout than plastic surrounds. So what you get? A nice, beautiful, white-tiled surround, with pretty pink and black mildew stained grout.

And it takes hours and hours of old-toothbrush-scrubbing to get it looking even semi-clean. Everywhere else, tile is nice. It's great for floors, for example. It's even okay for kitchen counters. But when it comes to showers, I'll vote for non-renewable, petroleum-based, easy-to-clean plastic surrounds every time.

My New Bike

Well, it's not really new, but it feels new. I got a tune up and added a kick-stand, a rear rack, and a pannier. We also got a nice stand-up pump for both bike and car tires. I am super excited. We now live close enough to down-town to make biking really feasible, and almost all the places I frequent are within 2 miles of my home. With the oil spill in the Gulf continuing, I really want to do my part to reduce my use of fossil fuels.

Onward!

Going Wild

I've been contemplating learning to bake sourdough bread for some time now, and last night, I put together a diy starter from scratch. Just four, water, stirr, outside air to catch the wild yeasties, and cap it. We shall see how it evolves. It smells good so far! Apparently, the area I live in has some really great wild yeast in the air, so wish me luck!