Kara & Michael’s Blog

Yesterday, I went to Costco and picked up this set (for about half the price). I love Gingerbread kits, even though the gingerbread is usually hard and stale and the candy is weak and you have to get out your hand mixer to make the icing, all while adding water. I liked this kit better [...]

If you’re like me, and you’re chock full of Simpsons knowledge and trivia, you find yourself attached to Simpsons’ Valentines ideas. Whether you favor Bart’s painted conversation hearts (bite me, etc) or Lisa’s punny valentines to Ralph Wiggum, there is something to treasure about the way the Simpsons do Valentine’s day.
Last year, WoDM found a [...]

When I was in an honors program at community college, we had a special discussion of the Japanese tea ceremony, including the presentation of the ceremony. One of the things that our zen master talked about was the fact that most people who host the ceremony master making some article used in the ceremony. [...]

Well, after hardening very nicely (enough that I could cut it, in fact), my first batch of soap has gone incredibly wrong this morning. It’s done something that looks a bit like the “dreaded orange spots” that are sometimes discussed by cold process soapmakers, but this looks even nastier. I’ll post a picture when I [...]

Saturday, I enlisted WoDM’s in making dough ornaments. He scented the dough with some sort of xmas-y scent and cinnamon and kneaded it for a while. I rolled it out and cut the ornaments into various shapes. Anyway, the baking of the first batch went horribly, so the rest have been air [...]

So I decided to try my hand at making soap yesterday. It’s something I’ve wanted to try for a long time but have just never gotten around to. I’ve made liquid laundry detergent from bar soap (Fels-Naptha), sodium carbonate, and borax, which we’ve been using to wash our clothes for the past few months. That [...]

I promise, I’ll update this entry when I get home with photos of WoDM’s handcrafted stocking and my origami pterodactyl ornament. That’s right, it’s not a crane.
I’m not good at origami. I think of origami the way I think of calligraphy. A fold in origami is the same as a stroke of the pen in [...]

I had off for veteran’s day yesterday. Kurt Vonnegut has a line somewhere in Slaughterhouse Five about how Veteran’s Day is an empty holiday, but Armistice Day meant something. I’m inclined to agree, and I’ve never had an Armistice Day in my life. There is something untoward about stripping holidays of their [...]

WoDM’s sister L passed along a link to him, saying that I might like it. While I love the cute little plush objects and the prints and cards and embroidered things, I found myself really digging the blog, for a variety of reasons.
1. She talks a lot about the food she makes. I [...]