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Dec. 5th, 2013 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynWorking on knitting some mittens for my niece and nephew. The niece gets Minions from Despicable Me; the nephew gets Creepers, from Minecraft. Using the pattern for warm mittens from Afghans for Afghans, and the pattern designer requests that we make a pair for our favorite charity if we use her pattern, so I'll probably be working on the charity mittens while I'm at my parents' for Christmas.
Going to get an artificial Christmas tree for my apartment in Massachusetts. The only tree I had in Hoboken was maybe three and a half feet tall; I put it on my dining table, as there was no real room anywhere else for even a tree that small, let alone a proper one. Natural trees are lovely but I suspect the cats will chew the branches (moderately toxic to cats), drink the water (same deal), or go on a fit of rampaging kitty crazies and pull the tree down by mistake (not toxic but oh God the amount of water and needles I'll have to get out of the carpet). I've found a company that builds its artificial trees from American components (and wire from Mexico) in a factory in upstate New York; it's more expensive than the trees at Target or Home Depot or Sears, but I'm willing to deal with that for a good-looking tree made here and shipped a relatively short distance.
(Ideally, I'd get a tree with a root ball and plant it outside when the season was over, but then we're back to the needle issue. My cats like to climb. And jump. If they're going to knock a tree over I'd rather just have to pick up the tree and the ornaments than have to get out the vacuum and all the rest.)
On an unrelated note, the Science and Cooking online course I'm taking continues apace. I think we're on week five or six of the lectures. This coming week's lab involves our choice of making sous vide eggs in a temperature controlled waterbath OR tracking the progress of melting/heat absorption/etc. in hot tea with ice cubes added OR making ricotta cheese from milk and acid. I will be making the cheese. If it works out well I may wind up making homemade dessert ravioli with it. We shall see.
Going to get an artificial Christmas tree for my apartment in Massachusetts. The only tree I had in Hoboken was maybe three and a half feet tall; I put it on my dining table, as there was no real room anywhere else for even a tree that small, let alone a proper one. Natural trees are lovely but I suspect the cats will chew the branches (moderately toxic to cats), drink the water (same deal), or go on a fit of rampaging kitty crazies and pull the tree down by mistake (not toxic but oh God the amount of water and needles I'll have to get out of the carpet). I've found a company that builds its artificial trees from American components (and wire from Mexico) in a factory in upstate New York; it's more expensive than the trees at Target or Home Depot or Sears, but I'm willing to deal with that for a good-looking tree made here and shipped a relatively short distance.
(Ideally, I'd get a tree with a root ball and plant it outside when the season was over, but then we're back to the needle issue. My cats like to climb. And jump. If they're going to knock a tree over I'd rather just have to pick up the tree and the ornaments than have to get out the vacuum and all the rest.)
On an unrelated note, the Science and Cooking online course I'm taking continues apace. I think we're on week five or six of the lectures. This coming week's lab involves our choice of making sous vide eggs in a temperature controlled waterbath OR tracking the progress of melting/heat absorption/etc. in hot tea with ice cubes added OR making ricotta cheese from milk and acid. I will be making the cheese. If it works out well I may wind up making homemade dessert ravioli with it. We shall see.
