Tracy Durnell

ICYMI, the NY Times tech guild is on strike and asking people to not visit NYT Games or Cooking websites or apps ✊

📚 Today’s library run:

• CCCP Underground by Frank Herfort - this caught my eye from a staff display
• A Shining Beacon by James Albon
• Dear Sophie, Love Sophie by Sophie Lucido Johnson
• Ways of Seeing by John Berger - oh dear, this is set in bold type 😒

Requested too many books from the library again 📚😅

I was telling my buddy he needs to read Maus but commented I read it too young and would understand it better now, and he suggested I reread it. I read it in 1994, so a 30 year revisit 😄 Wish it weren’t on my mind though.

My printer ran out of toner so I had to make a run to the library sooner than usual, but at least some holds came in!

• Entropy
  
• The Strategic Designer
• The Bauhaus Ideal: Then and Now
• Floral Fantasy
• Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen

Alas, the pruning book I really wanted wasn’t there yet.

📚 Library grab bag because I forgot to re-pause some holds 😄

• Sohla’s cookbook! Start Here
• The Lantern and the Night Moths, a poetry collection recommended by my fav author Courtney Milan re: her latest
• Shikake: the Japanese art of shaping behavior through design
• Navigational Entanglements

Baked sourdough buttermilk cobbler. Doubled the topping and used a 9x13” pan. For the filling I did 7 nectarines and ~9oz of blueberries, 2T maple syrup, 1 tsp sugar, 2T cornstarch, 1t cinnamon, 1/4t ginger, zest & 1t lemon juice. Could maybe use more sweetener but I thought it was fine.

📚 Library haul!

• Advocate
• Washington’s Gay General
• Aquicorn Cove
• The Garden Against Time
• Adventures in Space
• The Way of the House Husband 2
• Carmilla: The First Vampire

A couple of the Chinese Hugo shortlisted stories are in this collection so I want to check them out.

I ordered the frame for this Frank Gonzales print in December, but finally put it together today! 😅🦾 I got it online from “Frame It Easy” and appreciated their included instructions – it was easy but still took me 45 minutes to round up the tools and do 🤷‍♀️

Baked cream scones using sourdough today and they turned out lovely! The vanilla is quite potent, I might even tone it down to 3/4tsp. Took 20 minutes to bake from refrigerated. I did two sets of rolling out and folding into thirds both ways.

Best wakeup call ever! My husband woke me to show me the fat raccoon eating our figs, and in the time he was away from the window, a bobcat appeared! It jumped on the fence but got stymied by the apple trees and left.

Then when I looked at my photos later, we realized there were TWO bobcats!!! 🦝🙀

I baked with sourdough starter for the first time and it came out terrible 😿 I made a double batch of banana nut bread. My food processor is too small for a double batch so I used my blender instead. I’m not sure if the texture is rubbery from that, the sourdough, or something else 🤷‍♀️

More graphic novels in this week’s library haul! 📚 I’ve been enjoying them as light summer reading 👍

• West End Earl
• Natural Palettes
• Women and Power
• Be Prepared
• The Pale Queen
• The Midwinter Witch
• Paying the Land

I got overexcited buying fruit so I had a pound of plums to eat – so I made this plum crumb cake. I doubled the streusel 😉 Used vanilla paste and added lemon zest, nutmeg and cinnamon to the batter, I’d skip the nutmeg and stick with vanilla extract. Baked ~65 minutes to fully set the topping.

📚 Heavy on the comics and art books this library run!

• Decolonizing Design
• How to Be Ace
• The Story Cure
• Dear Sophie, Love Sophie
• The Hidden Witch
• The Infinity Particle
• Sagmeister & Walsh: Beauty
• Machine Embroidered Woodlands
• Cucina Povera
• A Life in Pattern

Tried a new cornmeal cobbler recipe – not sold on the texture. Should have used a pie pan to fit more, smaller biscuits. Used 2c blueberries and 6 nectarines. Subbed brown sugar in the filling which I think was a bad call – something’s a smidge off on the flavor. Baked for 32 minutes at 425.

Today’s library haul 📚🌈

• Emergent Properties - grabbed off the quick reads
• Road to Ruin
• Earls Trip - ditto
• Welcome to St. Hell
• Neom
• The Do-Over - I follow their blog and didn’t know they had a book 😅
• Seven of Infinities
• The Witch Boy
• SFSX
• Bark

My goatsbeard is getting so big! 😍 The bees are all about it 🐝

A second goatsbeard I planted in an inadvisable spot* has resurrected itself and will need to be moved… this fall, maybe?

*I would like A Word with Past Tracy over her “it’s fine just shove it in the ground” approach 😒

First bobcat sighting in my wildlife garden!!! 😃🐆🏡 We watched it sit in the backyard for five minutes, then it meandered into the front yard and tried pouncing on something in the bushes. Funnily enough I drew a bobcat today for work 😄

Soaking up the sun on a chill Sunday 🥰

Some micro.bloggers might be interested in this conversation tomorrow Saturday May 18!

Social Norms in the IndieWeb

I’ve written some about how unclear social norms can deter inter-blog conversation. I bet folks here would have interesting thoughts compared with self-hosted sites.

Tried a new strawberry shortcake recipe. Tasted good but didn’t rise much. A few theories why:

• I used too much buttermilk
• I didn’t have a 3” cutter and sized up instead of down
• I got a new baking sheet which is a different material
• recipe should use more baking soda
• should bake at 425 not 400

I stumbled across my old iPod in a box yesterday and charged her on up. Discovered my Bluetooth speakers have an aux in and we’re off to the races! 🎶 Wonder when the last time I synced this thing was 😂 2016? Hoping I can add music to it without iTunes 🤞

Had fun browsing for books with friends at the library today! 📚 Went in to pick up Doppelganger, which I had on hold, then we poked through the fiction section and ridiculed their poor labeling system. I was the only one who found stuff – I’m willing to try random stuff as long as it’s short 🤷‍♀️

A couple neat bonsai I saw yesterday. The second one’s a wisteria, probably days from the flowers opening – will be spectacular then but I liked the cool shadow it cast now.