Category Archives: doing it wrong

Back in 2006, the first time I posted every day in November, I posted the Hot Cocoa Ceremony.

I still do this, more or less. Hot chocolate and homemade apple pie are my 2 favorite foods. If it’s cool and gloomy even in August I will make this.

I no longer use a standing blender, I use a stick blender but I mix it in a container. I tried one time to blend it in the cup and it did not go well. Don’t bother trying yourself.

I never add cayenne or vanilla.

During the Covid I came perilously close to running out of cocoa so next time I saw it at the grocery store I grabbed two kinds. My recollection was that the Dutch process was better.

With the two above choices the Hershey’s is miles better.

How did the pioneers keep their squash from getting bloopy? I followed all the steps for keeping squash and I keep finding mold spots. I already processed some of the smaller ones. Now this guy.

The big red kuri is looking a little spotty, too.

I’m roasting them and putting them in the freezer so it’s not the end of the world but it wasn’t a project I had on my list for this weekend.

I don’t love Halloween and I’m glad families are keeping safe but I was a little heartbroken. For the first time in 20 years we didn’t have one single trick-or-treater. The candy is hidden in a secret spot.

I gave myself an easy goal — I’m going to try for 25K on a new project. Here we are after day one:

1050 / 25000 words. 4% done!

Before the freeze.

Yesterday I inadvertently answered a spam call on my cellphone. In the last 24 hours I have gotten 15 more spam calls — all spoofed with different numbers. I’m using an old phone so I don’t have access to all the latest spam blockers but I installed something yesterday. I also kept my phone in airplane mode for long parts of the day.

What an aggravating pain.

After the freeze.

In 2006 I joined the first National Blog Posting Month “NaBlo” and almost every year since then I have posted every day in November. Sometimes it’s just photos or a quick quip. I also usually do a modified version of National Novel Writing Month. I would love to do something but I’m still in a slump and I don’t want to stress myself out making myself write something when I’m feeling so unraveled.

I’ll think about it and maybe make a simple goal.

The air quality is actually worse today but can’t really tell from comparing this to yesterday’s photo.

I only went outside long enough to check the wildlife cam — nothing. The only photo is me checking the motion detector. I set everything back up and we’ll try again tonight. I’m not sure if the animals swap up their habits or the terrible air is doing something to the motion detector.

Another day spent inside with the shades drawn.