This list comes from MoveOn.org: 10 things you should know about Obama’s budget plan (but probably don’t) The plan: Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American. Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won’t go up one dime. Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced. Brings our troops home from Iraq on a …
Another “game” from Facebook: The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Books I’ve read are marked, sometimes with additional comments. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien – read, twice, before the movies Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling – read them To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee – read The Bible – read Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte – read Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell His Dark Materials – Philip …
Food ambitions for this year: get a second crop and harvest of peas – one in the spring, one in the fall prepare and freeze more pesto make a hard cheese – cheddar or gouda make blackberry jam make apricot jam put up a roasted red pepper spread and a tomato preserve come up with a scheme that will allow me to purchase pastured chicken from the farmers’ market and store it so that I can use it in small portions without cooking the whole thing and then freezing the bulk of it (which makes for yucky chicken) put up …
I had planned to add rain barrels to some of our downspouts this spring, but I think it’s going to at least wait a couple more years. In doing the research, I’ve run into too many concerns that mushroomed the project into more than I can handle right now. The biggest concern is how exactly I could use the water I collected this way. Due to the presence of bird crap on roofs, most resources were pretty clear that rain barrel water isn’t potable. I didn’t look into what filtering would be required to make it ok for humans to …
I read a lot. Not as much as I used to, nor as much as I’d like, and certainly not as much as some other people, but I’m pretty sure I read more than average. Some books I just read once and then move on. Some move into my head and set up housekeeping; they become a part of me and I revisit them often, sometimes cover to cover, sometimes just random sections while I’m waiting for the pasta water to boil. Some I go back to because I love the characters (Patricia Brigg‘s Mercy Thompson series, Diana Gabaldon‘s Outlander …
I meant to write this weeks ago, but couldn’t seem to find the time (colds, work, school, the death of our tv, garden prep… you know, life). There were a lot of particularly good bits in President Obama’s inauguration speech. But this is the part that popped out for me: … Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of …