Life

The top three are made of mahogany, and the bottom two are cherry, with brass on the right bottom one.

 

It's been cooler this past week, as if Cambridge has realised that it's autumn. I wanted to make hot mulled cider, so I gathered my ingredients.


Orange rind, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and assorted peppercorns.


I toasted the dry ingredients for a couple of minutes in an empty saucepan until the kitchen smelled like spices.


Then I added a half gallon of cider. Oops! This pan is a little too small.


Much better. I added a little bit of brown sugar, and brought it to a boil before adding the orange rind. Then I simmered it for a while.


In order to strain out the ingredients I put a cheesecloth over this pitcher, and poured everything in. It fit exactly. Then I removed the cheesecloth and poured it back into the pot.


A couple of orange slices for a garnish (who am I trying to impress? Just myself. Besides, I had the orange after using the rind).


A glass of hot mulled cider, perfect for a cool autumn day.

Ever since I moved into this apartment my silverware has been loose in the drawer because I couldn't find any commercial inserts to organise them. I finally decided to make one myself. I've put the first coat of stain on it, and need to give it a couple of goes with the sandpaper. I tried to be careful while gluing it up, but there are some bare patches because the glue sealed the wood.



Now I wish I'd taken the time to go with real dovetails. Oh well, once it's in place it won't really have a chance to come apart.

Well I took a week break from pushups, but decided to jump back into the middle of Week 2. I did column 3 (16, 13, 11, 11) and then did a final 25 pushups at the end! I'm definitely tired.

First of all, I don't recommend starting day 1 on the same day as you do the initial test to see how many pushups you can do. Ouch! Today I completed day 2: 12, 12, 10, 10, and then 14 pushups, all with 90 seconds of rest in between.

I came across the site One Hundred Pushups and decided to give it a try. My initial test was 25 pushups - already a quarter of the way there!

My friend T-Bird spent all winter living up at Sunday River, so PreDawn and I drove up to hang out with her. PreDawn hasn't skied in a long time, and I'm just getting into snowboarding, so it was a great opportunity for the end of the season. The day was warm, and the snow was like mashed potatoes, but at least that meant that when I fell it didn't hurt at all! I'm definitely getting more comfortable with going faster - I won't win any races yet, but there were a couple of areas where you needed to bomb down a hill so you could ride through a long flat traverse, so I had to just do it. We rode and skied all day, and it was tons of fun.

I went snowboarding for the second time ever today. After warming up a little bit I was starting to get the hang of it. I'm getting much better at toe side turns, and I still need to work on heel side turns, but I was making smaller turns, and not coming to a stop before each turn. Even better is that I didn't hurt myself this time - the last time I think I fractured my tailbone after falling hard on it twice. I definitely fell this time, but I was more graceful...maybe. Anyway, I fell better, and a lot of my falls were because I was pushing myself, not because I was just doing things wrong. One fun fall had me sliding down the mountain head first on my back. A few more times out riding and I might even get good at this thing!