NaNoWriMo 2014

In case you have been living under a rock (or another similarly rock-like object), today is November 1st! Yay! So what? you say. November 1st, big deal. you add sarcastically. Yes big deal, for November 1st marks the beginning of

NaNoWriMo

What's that? You don't know what NaNoWriMo is? Oh you poor soul, let me educate you. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November tens of thousands (possibly millions) of people around the world (yes, I know I said National, but stick with me here, okay?) gather together to write a novel in one month. For the sake of the event a novel is defined as 50,000 words of a new and original story. And no, it doesn't actually have to be a novel! You can write five 10,000 word short stories that all focus on a similar theme, or a 50,000 word memoir about your life in the Philippines or you can just go ahead and be a NaNo Rebel!

You might think that it's impossible to write 50,000 words in just 30 days, but it is possible. I've done it! Tens of thousands of others have done it too! You can do it! All you have to do is commit to writing 1,667 words a day. And really, that's not a lot. It's only about 2-3 pages, depending on your writing software and your font size. A few pages, I bet you have a few pages of a novel sitting around in your head, just waiting to be put down on screen, or paper!

So how do you do it? The first step is to sign up! Head on over to www.nanowrimo.org and sign up for an account today. It's 100% free, and I promise you won't regret it. Then you can go ahead and start writing! Today is Day 1, and there's plenty of time left to write. Grab a snack (and some caffeine, trust me on this one, you're going to want to caffeinate), and get to writing. Open up Word, or your notebook and start putting words down. And don't worry, it doesn't have to be any good. We're writing novels in 30 days folks, but no one said anything about writing good novels. Trust me, just get it all down, and you can spent December, January and February editing. Oh, that's another thing, your Inner Editor is going to want to pipe up and make changes. Before you start writing, grab some rope and tie him up, okay? You're on your own for this one!

I don't want to bore you with a lot of text, and besides, you've got some writing to do, so I'm going to let you get to it. Go sign up for an account, and add me as a friend if you'd like! Writing is easier with buddies! (I'm CarynSKA on the site too) There are all kinds of local writing events that you can track down and participate in, and if there's nothing close to you, there are WordSprints and virtual write-ins on twitter (follow @NaNoWriMo, @NaNoWordSprints and check out the hash-tag #amwriting for more goodness).

So that's it! Go write! Have fun and give in to 30 days of literary abandon! I'm going to add a word-count widget to the site for the rest of November, so you guys can check in on my progress, and hassle me if I fall too far behind. After all, what are friends for?

Happy Writing and remember: 1,667 words per day, and you'll hit 50K on November 30th!

Librarian's Corner: The Snarkout Boys and The Avocado of Death

The Snarkout Boys 

and the Avocado of Death

by: Daniel Pinkwater

First of all, I have to say that this is the strangest book that I've read in a very long time. But then again, its a Daniel Pinkwater book, what do you expect? Oh, you're not familiar with Daniel Pinkwater? Let me introduce you. Pinkwater writes absolutely ridiculous books (mostly for children) about such every day occurrences as talking lizards (Lizard Music), giant chickens (The Hoboken Chicken Emergency) and a moose who works as a waiter (the Blue Moose series). Sounds interesting, right? It is, and The Snarkout Boys are sort-of the culmination of all of this weirdness in one delicious book.

 

The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death is about well, exactly what you think its about. Walter Galt and Vincent Bongo have refined the fine art of "snarking out", or sneaking out of the house after your parents are asleep. While out one night at the all-night movie theater that the boys frequent, they run into a young lady named Rat, who brings them home to meet her crazy family. Thus begins the strangest adventure that young Walt and Vincent have ever endured, and certainly the strangest one; involving mad scientists, all-night restaurants, stump-speeches and of course, avocados. 

My love-affair with Mr. Pinkwater started while my husband and I were on our honeymoon last summer. He was appalled to discover that I had never heard of the masterpiece that is Lizard Music. He promptly downloaded it to his talking books player, and we spent a lovely weekend sitting out on the deck of the country house we were staying at, listening to Lizard Music and laughing our butts off. After that, it was on to The Hoboken Chicken Emergency and The Last Guru. I've been reading Pinkwater avidly for over a year now, and I've yet to come across a book that I didn't love.

The Snarkout Boys is just everything that I love about Daniel Pinkwater's books. It's ridiculous, and it's fun, it's silly and it makes you laugh. Yes, it's a kid's book, but it's also for adults! Don't let anyone out there tell you that as a so-called "grown-up" you are not allowed to read and enjoy literature aimed at kids. Although there is something beautiful about its childlike silliness. There's a sense of whimsy that you don't get very often in traditional "adult" books, and Pinkwater is the master of whimsy. Seriously, he wrote a book about a giant chicken, remember?

This is a short book, so I'm going to keep this short. I loved The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, and if you have a healthy appreciation of the weird, you will too. Where you can you get your paws on a copy? At your local library of course! But wait! There's more! You can actually listen to this amazing novel for free, narrated by the author himself! Head on over to www.pinkwater.com and check out all of his free audiobooks!

So that's it for this month. Are you going to run out and read/listen to The Snarkout Boys? Yes, yes you are! It's well worth the price. You know, free. Enjoy! And come back next month for another installment of Librarian's Corner. I'm hoping to do something a little special next month, so please check back for it! In the mean time, tell me what you're reading these days, I'm always looking for some new recommendations (as if my reading list isn't long enough...)! TL;DR? More next month, tell me what you're reading, and have fun!

 See you next month!

Adventures in Grape-Squishing

Hey, remember last time, when I mentioned that we'd been grape-squishing? Well, now I'm going to tell you guys all about it.

It all started a few Fridays ago, when my in-laws went to a pick-your-own-vineyard and came home with 165 lbs. of grapes. Yes, 1-6-5. That's... a lot of grapes. So what were we to do with all of those grapes? Make wine, of course.
My in-laws have been making wine longer than I've been a part of the family (which, admittedly isn't that long, but still, it's traditional at this point). Every fall they acquire grapes, squish the juice out, and let it ferment into something alcoholic and delicious.

For the last several years, this squishing has taken place in their basement. The set-up was... precarious at best. There was a car-jack involved, and a cross-beam named Roderick that butted up against the ceiling... and yeah, it wasn't good.
So last year, my husband and I built them a wine-press. A real wine-press. Based off of the design of a commercial wine-press that a friend of theirs had purchased for lots of $$.

okay... so we're still using a car-jack.

The basic design is simple. There's a wooden frame that supports a car-jack, that holds the actual press. Inside the big green bucket is another (Home Depot) bucket with lots of holes drilled into it. Grapes go in the inside bucket, pressure is applied and juice comes out the bottom. The big green bucket has a spigot installed in the side so that the juice can be moved to yet another bucket. You can't make wine without a lot of buckets, apparently.

Okay, so once you've got your press all set up, you add grapes. 165 lbs. of them if you've got!

All the classiest vintners use kitchen pots.

Then, like I said, it's time to squeeze. We made a set of inter-locking pegs that would fit between the car-jack and the grapes so that we could continue to add pressure even as the grapes got squished down. Once your pegs are in place, you squeeze.

Here you can see our peg system in action.

I wanted to cut dovetails on the pegs but... meh, you can't always get what you want. What comes next? Well, uh, more squeezing. And then? Even more squeezing. If you've got a lot of grapes (and we do), you're going to have to do a lot of squeezing. We did about 2 batches of white grapes, and another 2-3 batches of red grapes. If you've got a spigot installed into the side of your big green bucket (which I highly recommend), your grape-juice can pour right out into its permanent home. In our case, some fancy food-grade buckets which will house the grape-juice while it ferments.

Happy little grape-juice

All there is left to do is ferment your grape-juice and make it into delicious delicious wine. But that, boys and girls, is another show.

What do you do with the left-over grape mash? It composts really really well, so go ahead and dump it into your compost heap... if that is, you don't mind a massive fruit-fly infestation. If you're not a fan of fruit flies, then you're probably going to want to throw the mash out. Sorry.
And speaking of flying pests, if you're squishing grapes outside over the summer (or even in the early fall), be prepared to entertain some of these guys:

Yes, that's a yellow-jacket, and yes, there were a lot of them.

I think that about wraps things up for today. We had a lot of fun grape-squishing, and in about a year (give or take a few months) we'll have some wine! Hey, I never said this was a quick process. Alright, stay tuned next time for our October installment of Librarian's Corner. What am I going to be reading/reviewing this month? Who knows! I sure don't! So come back on the 21st and find out!

Happy Squishing!

Follow Up - What to Do About That Boring Bathroom?

Remember way back when, when I was complaining about our boring apartment? Well, more than half a year later, we're finally making some progress.

Now, we've being adding little things around the apartment to spruce things up. Like our night-stands, which added some much needed space in our bedroom. We finished our kitchen table, and can now eat breakfast like grown-ups (instead of sitting on the couch to do so). And we've been putting various art-works up around the apartment. But today, we took a big step toward de-borifying our apartment. We hung a shelf in the bathroom!

Okay, now I know that doesn't sound like much, but it made a big difference and really pulled the space together. Let's take a look at some before and after pictures, shall we?

Here's the Before picture. We've got a toilet, a trash-can, and uh, that's about it. Boring right? I mean, it's not like a bathroom needs a lot of stuff in it to be functional, but it's not exactly pretty like this. What to do? Decorate! And here's what I did:

I hate that stupid sliding door that you can see in the right of the picture. It really doesn't slide well, and we just always keep it shut. So I added some posters that I found in an old anatomy book.

Somehow, these seemed appropriate for the bathroom

These have been up for several months, and have added a lot of fun to the bathroom. We get a lot of compliments on them from guests.

A month ago, there was a lot of flooding in South-East Michigan. The sewer system in the Metro-Detroit area got overwhelmed one day when we had a lot of rain, and many many basements flooded. Why am I telling you this? Because my in-law's had a flood in their basement and ended up having to throw out a book-case that had water damaged (and mold growing on it). Why am I telling you this? Because the shelves inside the book-case were perfectly fine, and we snagged two of them!

A little warped, but they work fine

We decided to hang the shelves in the bathroom, so we went out and bought a bunch of really pretty shelf-brackets to hang them with.

We went to 2 different hardware stores to find brackets this pretty!

And then we went ahead and got to hanging our shelf! We have two of these shelves, and we were originally planning on hanging both of them in the bathroom, one on top of the other. But after we hung the first shelf, we just liked the way it looked, and decided to just go with the one.
Once it was hung, the only thing left to do was to decorate, so we did.

I've got a carefully curated collection of books, my crocheted uterus and a Rubik's Cube. Of course.We finished everything off with a gorgeous framed picture that we got last year as a wedding present.

I need to get a copy of Mary Roach's Gulp to finish out my bathroom collection.

So there you have it. We finally fixed up our boring bathroom, and you know what? It's not so boring any more. Here's the official After picture, check it out:

Scroll back to the top to compare the Before picture

So what do you think? Do you like our choice of decor? I know it's not everyone's style, but we like it. I feel like we're slowly making our apartment into a home. Our kitchen is almost done, and we're working on the bedroom. Next up is the den (still the worst area in the house), and the living room/TV area. Sigh. There's always so much more to do. Back to Pinterest!




That's it for today. Stay tuned for next time when we'll... Well, I don't actually know. But I'm sure it'll be something interesting. Like when we went grape-squishing. That was interesting wasn't it? Oh wait, I didn't write about that yet! Stay tuned next time for when we go grape-squishing!

Librarian's Corner: Like No Other

Like No Other

by: Una LaMarche 

Like No Other is a novel that had me hooked from the very first chapter.  I read an early excerpt online, and I had to track down a copy to read the whole thing. Luckily, my library was getting on in, and I was able to place my name on the list.

The story is about a Hasidic girl named Devorah who falls in love with an African-American boy named Jaxon (with an X) after the end up stuck in an elevator together during a hurricane. A pretty auspicious start to a relationship, right? And things just get more and more complicated from there. The story is a bit Romeo & Juliet-esque, in that Devorah and Jaxon are not only from two very different communities, but practically from different worlds.

I picked this book for my Librarian's Corner because I wanted to share it with as many people as possible. I read the whole thing in just a few days, and could hardly put it down. My favorite thing about the book is how accurate it is. Many people who read this book will probably think that Devorah's family is an extreme example of religious Jewish culture, but families like them are actually pretty common.

Being Jewish myself, this is a culture that I am very familiar with, and it was fun to see it portrayed so accurately in a popular novel. I'm used to seeing my culture in print only in books and novels written by and for various Jewish communities. It was so nice to get to read a wonderfully written 

(and very compelling) love story that portrays the Jewish community in a very positive light.

And the story is beautiful. Devorah and Jaxon are passionately in love the way only teenagers experiencing their first real love can be. Their love may be forbidden, but it draws them both into their own little world, where nothing matter except for being together. It might sound cheesy, but the story is anything but. There were times when I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what was going to happen to Jax and Devorah, especially during that one scene that I don't want to tell you about, because it'll give too much away, but OMG, I was on the edge of my seat! 

I would recommend this book to anyone who believes in young love. To anyone who believes that our cultural differences aren't as big as they can sometimes seem. And to anyone who loves a good story. So go, get a copy at your local library and start reading! You won't regret it!

That's all for today folks. I hope you enjoyed this month's installment of Librarian's Corner. I knew I wanted to write about this book as soon as I finished reading it, but I'm not always so decisive. How can you help? Leave a comment with a book-suggestion! If I can, I'll track down a copy and read it, and I might even write about it here on Librarian's Corner. Or, you can leave a comment telling me what you thought of this month's book, or last month's book, I'm not picky!

Stay tuned for more awesome stuff on the blog, and I'll see you again on October 21st! And who knows, maybe I'll find a nice Halloween-themed book to read and review!

We (finally) Made a Table!

So, remember waaaay back in April, when I said that we were going to be making ourselves a kitchen table? Well, we finally finished it! And yes, it's really taken us 5 months to finish it... But you don't want to hear a lot of excuses about how we're both super busy (two jobs, blah blah blah, grad-school, blah blah blah), or how we don't have our own space to do wood-working, or anything like that. You guys just want to see pictures, am I right? So, let's get to it.

We made Ana White's Sewing Table to be used as a kitchen table in our tiny apartment kitchen. We thought it would be perfect because the table has two leaves that can be folded down (if we need more floor space), or popped open to eat at (if we need more surface area). Considering we have a fairly small kitchen, I figured this would be the perfect multi-use table. And I was right.

 Here you can see the table open and shut. See how much space I have/save?

 The whole project started with one full-sheet of plywood that we had cut down at the lumber yard.

Yes, I know our plywood isn't the best quality. I'm okay with that.

We then cut it down further to make the pieces that would make up the center frame of the table. Once those pieces were cut, we assembled them.

This is half of the middle of the table...

And that's where we ran into some problems. Things didn't quite... come together the right way. I blame our crappy table-saw. We measured carefully and sanded well, but we were off a bit, and nothing was quite square when we put it all together. Grr. No worries though, we fixed it up with our super-sophisticated clamping system.

A come-along and 2 50lbs bags of flour.

Once we had everything squared away (ha, see what I did there?), it was time to paint. We had gone back and forth on the paint color a few times, but finally settled on a deep, rich, TARDIS-like blue that made us both happy.

For the painting, we were able to bring our table home and paint out-side on our balcony, so things progressed a little more quickly. Once all of the pieces were painted, we attached the leaves with cheap hinges we picked up at the local big-box hardware store.

I have to admit that it did take us about a month between assembling and painting the table until we got around to making the legs. I don't know why, because this turned out to be the simplest step in the whole process, but we took our time getting to it.
Once we finally did make the legs though, we just attached them to the leaves with more cheap hinges and we were pretty much done.

Oh, except for attaching castors to the bottom of the table so that it can easily be rolled around our kitchen (we've got linoleum).

At that point, all that was left to do was to put some of our bowls and cook-books into the storage compartments, and have breakfast!

Okay, that might have been dinner, but you know what I mean.

I love my kitchen table! It's got storage, so I can keep all of my cook-books right in the kitchen, and I can also store some of my smaller kitchen appliances that I don't use very often (like the ice-cream maker and the crock-pot), so that they don't take up much needed counter space.
I also love that it's blue, which is my favorite color.
And most of all, I love that we made it ourselves! And it was easy.

If I could start the whole project again, would I do anything differently?
    Yes, I would invest in a better quality plywood. We picked up a sheet of construction plywood for $25. With a lot of sanding and a coat of paint, it looks beautiful. But for $25 more, I would get Oak or Maple plywood next time and save myself a lot of sanding.




So that's it, our much awaited kitchen-table (at least, I've been waiting for it for a long time). What's next, you ask? That's a good question, I say. I don't know what's next. Right now we're shopping for some nice kitchen chairs, but I don't think we're going to make them.
I'm not sure what our next wood-working project will be, but I'm open to suggestions. Leave your ideas in the comments, and let me know what you think we should make!