Meet my babies

I think it is time to introduce my sand jars. This is pretty much the one thing that I collect, after a brief pencil-collecting stint in the early 90s. My coolest pencil came from the Smithsonian museum and had a clear body with tiny rocks inside.


I got the idea for the sand collection in a Martha Stewart Living magazine. They featured a photographer's home and in one room they had a huge collection of spice jars filled with sand from every beach their family had been to. Of course, their family had been to places like Greece and Russia and Croatia. Which I have not done so much.

This, to me, seemed like a great idea. It's a free souvenir, and I love going to beaches. Once I started the collection, it was amazing to see the differences between the sands. People who have traveled with me have been very patient with me and my burning need to get sand for my jars. Others have been so kind as to offer to bring back sand for me when they travel. One coworker even brought me back Irish sand from the Dingle Peninsula. I have decided after much thought, though, that I can't keep doing that. The jars have to represent beaches I've actually stood on myself.


So far I have sand from beaches in Alaska, California, Lake Michigan, Florida, Oahu, Kauai, Idaho, Utah, England, Gran Canaria, and British Columbia in about 40 jars. I would like to add sand from Greece, Croatia, New England, and the Bahamas to the mix. So if anyone wants to send me there I promise I'll take a picture of the resulting sand jars and send them to you.


So. What about you? Any other cool collections out there?

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Yeah, it's probably porn

Yesterday I snuck The Higher Power of Lucky home from the library. It's the recent Newbery winner and I wanted to get my chance to read it before it goes on the shelves. Also I just like to get drunk on librarian power like that.

In the first paragraph a character uses the word of "scrotum." He says that his dog was attacked by a rattlesnake (the dog was defending his owner) and that's where he was bitten. I was so appalled by the use of that word that I immediately had a heart attack, died, came back to life, burned the book, and then called all my friends to complain. I'm pretty sure the author only put that in there to make 10-year-olds start having sex with each other. Because that's what happens when you start using correct terminology. Especially if you're talking about animals.

Oh, wait. Actually, I didn't do any of those things, on account of how I'm not completely psychotic. It's too bad that there are so many librarians and parents out there who are, though. One lady from American Fork, UT wrote a review on the Amazon page and said she's so disturbed by the sexual content in the book, and she said her local children's librarian is afraid to put the book on the shelf for fear the children might pick it up and read that word. Daltongirl, I want you to go smack both those women. Will you do that for me?

I haven't finished the book but so far I'm liking it just fine. And for all the idiot parents and pieces of wussy crap librarians out there who are cowering under their beds, two words:

GROW.

UP.

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One who bakes

I baked over the weekend. I've decided that this is something I need to do more of until I stop being so intimidated by it. I'm fine with doing things like brownies from a box, but the actual process of bread-baking seems like this mysterious form of alchemy to me. I'm used to just being able to dump the ingredients together and end up with what I want. This whole process of yeast and rising and starters and sweating and whatever else is just this whole new scary world in which I might accidentally burn down my house.

To get the ball rolling I started with banana bread. It doesn't have to rise or anything, but it does require a loaf pan so that's a step in the right direction. It was good that I did this at my sister's because:

1) She could keep an eye on me
2) She for sure had all the ingredients
3) If the whole thing tanked then I knew there would still be other good foods to eat


To my happy surprise the whole thing did not tank and I ended up with a very pretty & very tasty loaf of banana bread. Even Baby "Hunger Strike" Ethan went for it. This is an encouraging beginning, I feel. I shall be quoting Mrs Elton before too long ("I do not profess to be a gourmet, I only know that my friends think so.")

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