Shark Puppy | Guppy Puppy

This little guy is the one that I wrote about here.  You know the saying:  No good deed goes unpunished.

His new location--our home--has been reported to the authorities.  Hard to know if he was purposely or accidentally separated from his family.  He appears to me that he was well cared for. But his separation anxiety, his bloodied feet from running on pavement and his current fixation of running after a vehicle (first a golf cart, then a pickup truck) moving away from him (v. just casually observing a car passing by) suggest to me that he might have been tossed to the universe for care.

His abraded paws are healing quickly. He was not too amenable to my ministrations. Nevertheless, hHis feet were cleaned well, and the raw parts are now not raw looking, nor are they infected.  Cleaning and rest seemed to have done the trick.  But he needs some more healing before we begin more vigorous play.  He is in need of vigorous play (and separation from his ykw's).

He is having episodes of high excitability where he is impossible for me to control.  He's too quick and too strong--and he has not learned proper manners.  He is sinewy and can twist like a snake.  This is shark puppy mode, and the name is apt.  For this reason, he has a lead permanently attached to him so that I can step on it or grab it, and tie him securely into puppy time out.  No dramatics, just a lead to and tie out in a place where he has reasonable mobility and cannot get into trouble.

The stair banister works wondrously (so does the buffet in my office).  He is in full view of everyone and with water.  He just cannot attack anything--except the stair as I found out yesterday. I had one lone rawhide chew (which I had to spend a good bit of time locating) which he consumed over the course of the day.  (We have old girls, and they are not interested in chewing anything but treats and dinner).

I came home with some chew toys from PetSmart, and ordered some from Amazon which should arrive tomorrow.

When the shark puppy goes into guppy mode, then he gets praise and a treat, and he earns the opportunity to walk with his lead rather than being permanently attached (so long as the cats are cordoned off).  He is laying quietly beside my desk chair now.  Angelic! This rewarding of his quiet behavior is working very well (v. scolding his bad behavior).

He is smart, good-natured and once his exuberance is channeled (and his ykw's) gone, I'm confident that he will be easier to handle.  We just took a walk and I found one of Macy's old balls.  I tossed a tennis ball for him.  He went after it hard, and then raised his back foot.  Probably need to let him heal at bit.  He's not going to do anything half way. He has it now inside, and he is very happy.

Dogs Gone | Dogs Found

W must be in some strange canine vortex this weekend.  Over this past week, my daughter was on vacation.  We took care of her English Setter/Hound Mix.  She came back on Friday, and whisked Blaze away.  We love him, but he is the wildest boy.  I have bruises from his sharp bony body careening into me.  Plus, he sleeps in the bed with them.  He's not amenable to NOT sleeping in the bed with us.  We let him, only to ease his anxiety.  We didn't get a decent night's sleep Sun - Th. 

Today, husbando is going to Home Depot.  He is going the back way.  Cars are flashing lights, and there is this young pit bull running up, desperately to every car.  No collar.  Husbando calls and says that he is coming back.  "Bring him on," I say as I go to my dog rescue stash looking for a collar to fit and a sturdy lead.  Who is to know his temperament?

Husbando arrives home, and we get a collar secured and a lead.  He is a young, intact male. We bring him in.  Introduce him to the girls...who are glad to be done with the last interloper.  He's all tail wags and kisses, except Daisy is not too interested in kisses.  Ella skulks about.  Angel is intensely interested.

He needs water, and we give it to him.  Every step is a splotchy blood mark on the white ceramic kitchen floor.  (Trust me that any white flooring in the kitchen is a large, regrettable mistake).  His pads are bleeding.  It appears that he has been running on the road.  Three of his four feet have damaged pads. "Let's give him a bath," I say. We take him upstairs to the bathroom with a spray shower.  It's the easiest way to get him clean-body and feet.

He is a willing and sweet bathing victim.  He really enjoys (like most dogs) the vigorous dry off.  We tie him the the banister so that if a cat comes by s/he is not an unwitting snack.  I go about processing the hot pepper relish.  Yesterday I picked, ground and salted the peppers.  They were in a pot of vinegar and sugar simmering when I get a phone call.  I don't recognized the name on the caller ID.  Is it possible that already somebody is calling me about this found dog?

"This is G. V.  I have your dog Greta."   Geez....my dog Greta is actually Daisy with Greta's stainless tag.  "I couldn't get the other one, she wouldn't come to me."  In the course of an hour, Daisy and Ella had traveled through the woods (I'm unclear in search of what), and wandered as the crow flies into this man's yard. 

I went to pick them up.  He was a lovely man.  He recently lost his Golden Retriever to cancer.  I thanked him for his kindness.  Thank goodness Daisy had a tag (even if her name is not Greta!).  Ella's tag was missing--the fastener was there but not her tag.  I've got that remedied.

This little, wayward, pitty boy, he's unbelievably sweet.  It is the nature of that breed.  He has no aggression toward other dogs.  I've not seen a cat yet--not sure how the cat thing is going to go.  Minnah made her way down the steps.  His level of interest was high, and the cat skidaddled (a quiet and dignified retreat).  I had him firmly in hand, and he did not give chase.  He is still going to guilty until proven innocent.

He appears to have had a leather collar--at least underneath his neck has brown stain, which could be leather. I'm hoping that his pads are not injured due to his being dumped and his sprinting after the car that sped away.  I'm hoping that he just got a whiff of a dog in heat and made an escape.  Mark was in the right place at the right time.  Another one of those time-space intersects that changes the course of events of lives.

Yogurt

On Friday,  I had a wild hair and decided that it was important to make some homemade yogurt.  We don't keep milk around the house large because all the cereal gremlins are grown.  I only eat oatmeal (out of the big cardboard tube, not instant).  I have instant milk when needed for recipes, or I buy milk for a recipe where I need the full fat.

To try my hand at yogurt making,  I bought a gallon of whole milk (whole milk is recommended for newcomers).  As is my nature, I like to read lots of different things to get a broad view--best to know the pitfalls prior to beginning.  There is much on the web as to the directions for making yogurt.  Accordingly, I'll not bother with it here OTHER THAN to give you a good starting point.  Here are two great sources:
  1.  The Greatist blog entry which you can find here, and
  2.  a troubleshooting guide that you can find here at The Nourished Kitchen. 

Even with my reading and my 'planning', I had to do one complete restart (but at the milk heating stage) and a semi-redo at the incubation start. Nevertheless, the end result turned out uber fantastic. Here's some of the things that I wanted to share with you from my learning process and reading regarding why people do this. 
  • Saving money.   Let's do math (sales tax ignored)!  See image to the left.  In general you are saving almost 19% by making your own yogurt or just under $1.00. However, there is some time and effort involved, so in general it is not likely a real good return on your time.  One saves quite a bit more money by simply preparing a nutritious meal at home v. eating out.  Accordingly, I don't see saving money as a primary motivator.
  • Reducing intake of processed foods. The plain Greek Chobani yogurt that I used does not appear to have anything objectionable listed:
    •  Cultured Pasteurized Nonfat Milk,
    •  Live and Active Cultures 
      • S. Thermophilus
      • L.  Bulgaricus
      • L. Acidophilus
      • Bifidus
      • L. Casei  
           It doesn't appear that making anything at home is helping me avoid anything objectionable for this brand.
  • Taste:  In a blind taste test, my husbando preferred the homemade yogurt.  To be clear, 
    • I used whole milk, so it had a creamier texture. 
    • The sample size of one cannot be relied upon statistically!
    • Incubation time was just 5 hours making the taste less sour.
    • (I put it in my oatmeal and it was very, very good with the addition of maple syrup).  
  • Availability of a whole fat, unctuous experience v. no-fat experience (or any calibration in between).  There are few is any product offerings in the full fat category.
Conclusions?  If you want to be able to manage taste through both incubation time (lower time = lower acidity) and the fat level, then homemade is a clear winner.  If your reasoning is to save money....well, it is true if you value your time at sweat shop prices.  But if you are like me and want to understand (and control) the process behind your food, then have a go.

I think that the most important suggestions (in the reference material above) are these:
  1. Sterilize all components. As the process is to encourage bacterial growth, best to ensure that you are tending to the propagation of the right bacteria!
  2. Watch your temperatures:  Just as with bread making, when working with yeast or bacteria, too high a temperature will kill them--too low and they go into hibernation.  When I poured my liquid (at the right temp) into a very hot mason jar it spiked the temp of my liquid to 131.  I decided to start over rather than chance it. Also, if the heat is too high on the milk, it can cause the proteins to get all googly and yield not-so-nice texture in the end product.
    • As I used my oven as an incubator, I used my digital probe inserted into the liquid, and snaked it through the closed oven door.  I had only to look at the digital dial to know exactly what the internal temp of my incubated mixture was.  You don't drive without a speedometer.  Why would you cook without a thermometer?
I hope that you'll give yogurt making a try.  Mine was so flavorful and so thick (I strained it in flour sack, and I swear it is almost cream cheese-like), I actually awoke this a.m. looking forward to enjoying it again on my oatmeal.

Now, what to do with that whey?  I'm going to make a footsoak. It is summer after all!

























































A New take on an old favorite

Few things are as much anticipated in our household as the FIRST BLT of the season.  Now a good slicing tomato doesn't need many accoutrements.  That being said, here is my favorite way of making a BLT:

  • Good bread (I never toast my bread, but many do)
  • Good mayonnaise
  • Hot Pepper Relish (made from our garden)
  • Cheese (I use American)
  • Freshly sliced tomato from the garden
  • Crisp Lettuce
  • Crisp Bacon 
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper to suit
We have been a week now into enjoying tomatoes from the garden.  The bacon did not last.  However, I did have a package of Serrano Ham (a Spanish dry-cured, thinly sliced ham).  Our local BJ's has some wonderful selections of Italian and Spanish delicacies to include Prosciutto slices which would also work well.

Consider changing up your BLT with some lovely dry-cured meats.  Both my son and I are a fan. My husband is a rabid bacon-nite, and I'm not sure he would approve.  But the ham needed to be eaten. and this was the perfect vehicle.


Tomato Hornworm


Tomato Hornworm (wasp larvae lunch menu item)

This poor unfortunate fellow is a tomato hornworm.  You can see his horn on the left.  Unfortunately for him (I will dispatch him to the netherworld), he has become food for the wasp larvae that look like Q-tips attached to his body.

If you are unfamiliar with a tomato hornworm, it is likely  because you have never grown tomatoes.  These voracious eaters can strip a plant down to nothing overnight.  That they become food for for wasp larvae is one of Nature's cruelest cumuppances.


The Transference of the Utility of Things (a/k/a 'Yard Sale')

I hadn't thought to much until Saturday, the day that my cousins had the seemingly unenviable chore of presenting to the public the fruits of their  long preparation of assembling and marking all of the contents of their father's home for sale to the general public via a yard sale.  I helped as I could on Friday and for a good part of the day on Saturday.  I was pooped, and they had worked far longer hours.  The title of this post was inspired by that event.

After some things were tagged, I purchased them from them.  They were reluctant to take my money, but I would not have felt right absconding with the 'stuff'. 
I purchased a used 22 Mirro Pressure canner/cooker and some pocket knives.

But I also 'made off' with their insistence a enamel waterbath canner and The Modern Dog Encyclopedia.  It was in the book closet where all books were a dollar.  This book jumped out at me, and upon opening it, I was greeted with the pages devoted to my beloved English Setters. I also have a book on dog breeding, not that I'll ever do that.  But these were well-used books by my uncle, and though I was not close to him, I am glad to have this book.  It is a second edition, and not so modern in its 1949 date!  Nevertheless, it is nearly 600 pages of insightful (at the time) commentary on dog breeds, history, training, etc.  I will enjoy reading this.

One of his observations had to do with the rise of the Pointers in field trial events over English Setters--a once dominant breed in those trials.  I've never been to a field trial, and I will likely never go to one.  Davis' verdict as to why the Setters have been eclipsed by the Pointers is not so much that the Setters had declined (due to favorable pedigree selection over performance) but that the Pointers had improved so much.

Who's to know?  I think that we get attached to dog breeds due to the our experience with individual dogs.  English Setters, though we are non-gaming in every sense of the word but can give needful dogs (of which we have two rescues) that experience through free roam of our land to 'hunt'.  Daisy is the hunter.  Ella is merely a biscuit hunting dog.

Further, the American Bulldog is near and dear to us due to our having a mix (Macy), and now a purebred, Angel Marie, and I suspect it will be a lifelong attachment to assist needful members of that breed who need to be re-homed.

We've had other dogs in other breeds, but at this stage in our lives, I think that we are committed to these two breeds.

I digress.

I believe the sale was successful.  Many items were sold to buyers who received a good deal and loaded up and took away stuff that needed to go.  There was one obnoxious couple who wanted to buy the 'flag pole'.  Well, the flag pole was essentially a light pole with a flag convention.  It was wired to a pole base and would require a crane to take it down.  It took 6 men and a pulley contraption to set it.  I'm unclear how these folks considered that they were equipped in any way to do so.

I met quite a few nice people, and my cousins had a chance to visit with many folks that they either knew or were related to.  And the balance of the unknown faces were pleasant and respectful.   What seemed, then, as an unenviable task for my cousins (and to be sure it was a task) was a chance for all of us to connect to not only each other but to the people, both known and unknown, who began their day camped 45 minutes before the event and all of those who found there way to the sale. 

I suppose if one were to measure the return of money taken in to the effort involved in hosting such a sale the measure of that return would be pitiful.  However, to consider the value of
  1. reminiscing over pieces of this and that (1),
  2. watching people finding needful things at good to incredible bargains (or simply engaging in a national past-time),and
  3. and talking with people who had a genuine interest in the life that was lived here (my uncle was a sporting dog enthusiast)
the effort was priceless.

Such is the process of Transference of the Utility of Things from one person to another.




(1) My husband and I are still laughing (and will remember until I die or my memory does) at my cousin D's saying the following
I can see Daddy looking down and saying, "Did you see that! They are selling that for a dollar--a *ucking dollar!




Garden Bounty

With garden bounty aplenty, it is time to switch to canning and preserving gear.  First, I must confess that I have let far too much rot in my garden, or if it made it out of my garden, then into my refrigerator.  My SIL is a champ, and she does so much with her bounty.

Your tax dollars work far harder than you might imagine.  You'd be surprised how much GREAT information is out there.  Today, I want to share with you the USDA's National Center for Home Food Preservation.  AT this website you will find wondrous, free ( though you did technically pay for it) information on canning and preserving.  I actually ordered the book many, many years ago.  Alas, there it is free on the internet available to all with a computer and a PDF reader.

I tried to freeze tomatoes once.  That was a bust.  Currently I'm sticking with hot pepper relish.  I know how to do it; and it turns out great.  No fuss, no muss.  Well...there is some fuss and muss, and the canning guide will tell you all of that. Some vindication.  Maybe I'll can some tomatoes--or at the very least make some salsa.  We'll see.

Having said that, I also wanted to share with you a great recipe that I found at Epicurious.com (one of my most favorite cooking sites. ) It requires no more prep than picking a couple of cucumbers, dicing a fresh tomato, crumbling some feta cheese and whisking a bit of oil, vinegar and sugar together.

I had all of the ingredients on hand.  It is simply dressed allowing all of the fresh flavors to come through.  I would NOT make this salad with anything but fresh stuff from the garden.  Several reviewers added onions, olives and other things....sometimes you just need the essence of just a few flavors.  We grow "sweet slice cucumbers" which are the sweetest, delicious cucumber you could ask for.  Our second tomato of the season (it will be exponential, I'll have 30 in a couple of days) was used in this dish.  I doubled this, and I used my cut up garden tomato.  This accompanied succulent roasted chicken (butterflied then grilled) and garden potatoes that I truly steamed.  Set them up over the water (used my pasta pot and insert), covered, and steamed.  Perfectly done.

Anyway, give this a try--and if you need more drama in the salad, by all means put in some onions, green peppers and olives!


fork user rating3½ fork user rating
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Yield: Serves 2

ingredients

  • 1 teaspoon red-wine vinegar
  • 1/4 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 1/2 cups quartered cherry tomatoes
  • 1 small cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch slices (about 1 1/2 cups)
  • 1/2 cup crumbled Feta
  • 1/4 cup shredded fresh basil leaves

preparation

In a bowl whisk together the vinegar, the sugar, the oil, and salt and pepper to taste, add the tomatoes, the cucumber, the Feta, and the basil, and toss the salad well.

Peppers!

Few things grow so well in our garden as peppers.  Though the tomatoes are looking quite fabulous.  We have one tomato on the window sill to ripen off vine.  (Husbando thought some harm would befall it).  Last year our garden (and most in our area) did nothing.  Even robust peppers said "Eh, I'm not producing for you this year."  It wasn't the peppers but the weather....lack of sun for the first time in a long time.



Well, this year's peppers (and cukes and squash) have been enjoying fabulous weather.  Last, year's alpaca'as soil amenities (poop from this sweet girl and others) are really letting the garden produce.

It is impossible to eat or even give away all of the peppers that are produced.  One thing I enjoy doing with the bounty of the peppers is to make a hot pepper relish.  It is easy and delicious. It's terrific on anything you enjoy relish with (hot dogs, sandwiches, hamburgers, salad dressings and more).

Mixing sweet peppers with hot peppers keeps the heat down and the flavor up.  We are not 'hot-stuff' junkies.  It's heat + flavor, and the higher the heat, the less flavor comes through (in my opinion). 

Did you know?  There is a Scoville Chile Heat chart?  Here it is on the right.  I have some Big Jim (mild) , Pablano, Cayenne, Jalepeno and Serrano pepperr. 

In the past, I had the dumb idea that having beautiful pepper rings in a lovely sweet pickling mix would be my ideal end product.  Let me tell you that it was divine.  Make no mistake about that.  But in a home kitchen, hand slicing was the only way to achieve that.  (I thought that perhaps a food processor might work, but with so many different sized peppers, arranging them would take more time than hand slicing them.)

I started with 16lbs of untrimmed peppers. I'm embarrassed to say how long it took me to process these. At the end of that time I had
  1. the most beautiful pepper rings of all sorts of sizes.  
  2. an aching back
  3. aching feet
  4. a semi-paralized hand.

PFFFFFT!  to ever doing THAT again. I that kitchen chore for a few days.  Now, I'm content with Cuisinart-chopped peppers.I don't add onions or anything else.  Just peppers, sugar, vinegar and salt.

Gloves are a must.  Capsaician will burn your skin--you don't need any lingering reminders of your canning efforts except for your product. 

These are the only thing I bother to put in jars.  I can't buy this relish as good as I can make it.  We eat all of our squash and cucumbers.  Tomatoes....we eat a great deal of them; and we give many away.  I don't find canned tomatoes objectionable in the least, and I have no desire to can them v. using Hunts' offering.

Off to visit my SIL and her mother, who is visiting from Alexandria (VA).  I have pork spareribs in the oven.  I hope that your holiday was restful and fun.  I sure enjoyed my weekend.







Get Your Geek On!

Over the last month and a half, I have been immersed in technical learning.  I won't bore you with the details, but it involves databases and Crystal Reports.  I wrote a longish post that is still relegated to the "draft" graveyard.  It would likely bore most to tears.

It is too easy for any of us to say, "I can't learn 'that'"--with "that" being any number of things that seem too complicated for us to master.  The truth of the matter is that to learn something means carving out precious time from other activities, and fully engaging one's grey matter (or mush as mine sometimes feels like) in the task at hand.

I'm motivated by frustration.  I like to do my work quickly and accurately.  Because I work with large amounts of data, it is important that I understand how to acquire and manipulate it. Excel is my go-to, but it is limited in terms of accumulating information. When I worked for larger companies, I had an IT department that shielded me from this knowledge. Data was given to me on a silver platter.

As I do mostly small business consulting, amplifying my ability to work with the front end of the data and having working knowledge of wider methods in working with such data, allows me to better serve clients.  Because I generally have the broadest knowledge of where all information is coming from and where it ultimately ends up (such is the nature of being a CFO), having a better understanding of the granular aspects helps me discover new opportunities to use data.

Okay...enough of that.  I want to share with you what I used to help me acquire this information in the privacy of my own office.  Please take a look at the Get Your Geek On! menu for some cost effective resources that will help you gain understanding (and in some cases mastery) of all of those technical things that you've managed to dodge in your professional life. If you have a blog, learn how to manipulate elements using CSS. If you regularly work with databases at work in glancing blows, but want to have a more confident approach to your work, consider taking relational database courses and understand SQL.

For my own part, I was amazed at the amount of high quality, low-cost learning that was available to me. I used Teach U Comp, Lynda.com and Infinite Skills to learn Crystal reports. I let go of my Teach U Comp subscription, because they had limited offerings, but the Crystal Reports was quite good.   I also used Lynda.com and Infinite Skills to understand better databases as well as using their Crystal Reports tutorials--all very excellent.  My only dismay is that I had not tackled these sooner.  I even reviewed some Excel stuff--my bread and butter--and learned a tip or two.  I'm now interested in learning VBA...but I may be getting ahead of myself.

These videos are the equivalent of a cooking show.  If you learn by watching and then by doing,  then these are a great resources. Consider using these tutorials to gain better working knowledge of any of the Microsoft series of products (Outlook, Work Excel, Access, etc).  Being able to effectively leverage the technical tools that are available to you will enable you to get your work done more effectively (no matter what your level) as well as improve work process at an individual, group or company level.

The cost?  Well, each of the resources that I noted costs $25 per month.  So for $75, I learned Crystal Reports to be able to build upon my skills.  Already I have used that skill to save time AND to improve informational reporting.  I dropped Teach U  Comp, but I have kept Lynda.com and Infinite Skills.  It is in an investment in my professional (and personal) development.  The subscriptions allow you to stop at anytime.  Check out the websites (see my "Get your Geek On!" links), and see if you have some time to increase your learning.  I promise that you'll be glad you did.

Blackberries!

The first of July marks the top of blackberry season.  We have blackberry bushes scattered throughout our property, thanks to the birds.  I have many memories of blackberry picking! When I was 8 years old, I had found the first purple jewels in the blackberry bushes across the street from my childhood home.  What a marvelous bramble of berries!

With my right hand full of these jewels, I was peddling feverishly home (no more than a city block), barefoot, excited and then....injured.  My foot slipped off the pedal, and I crashed my bike.  The berries crushed in my hand which made for a horrible presentation along with my broken arm and dislocated elbow.   It was a very long day.

Other childhood memories involved being in the canopy picking the most succulent berries that ripen out of the sun's harsh rays so that the are divinely plump.  It is a quiet place of great bounty until you realize that you are not alone and there is a serpent in the bush with you--either in the bush or at your feet.

The reason for the excitement (and bravery!) was that my mother would always make a wonderful blackberry cobbler for us.  Who can resist fresh blackberry cobbler served with a splash of cream, whipped cream or still warm and topped with vanilla ice cream.  

And then there are adult memories of my beloved dog Dieter and Heidi, who would accompany me in my current blackberry hunting grounds--making enough noise to scare away any serpents, and eating the ripe berries--plenty for me and my body guards.

Yesterday Mark and I picked some.  I'll go out and get some more, and make a blackberry pie or cobbler.  That will be a nice treat for this holiday.  I don't have 4 cups worth, but I have some other berries to combine.

I will use this pie crust recipe from Simply Recipes.  I have also included this website in my Food and Cooking links in the menu above.  (As separated from Health and Nutrition!).  I will build my links over time, and I hope that you'll check them out.  Also check out the weights and measures from King Arthur Flour.  Every good cook needs an accurate scale.  I always use weights v. measures for flour.  Check out the link and make your baking more fool proof!

One of the problems with all butter crusts is that it softens quickly making the dough sticky and hard to work with.  One solution?  Use a gel cool mat.  Put a Silipat mat over a gel mat while rolling out the crust--from time to time.  (I always lightly flour the Silipat.).  By alternating a rest on top of the mat (mat, silipat, dough), then you keep the dough cold and can work with it more easily.  Yeah, I know that 'vodka' is a solution.  I'd rather work with rich butter in temperature controlled circumstances.




Facebook Adios

For the span of maybe two weeks, I did try Facebook.  As of yesterday, I decided that it was not for me...and for all of the reasons I thought in the beginning that it would be not be for me.  The most important reason:  I felt barraged by 'stuff'.  Too much for this brain to process.

If I want to see how someone is doing, I'm going to email them or call them. 

Interestingly, to delete an account is counter-intuitive.  Thank goodness for Google.  Now, in order to delete your account, you have to not log onto it for 14 days.  I'll not have any trouble with that.  But it is a reminder that we have less control of our stuff on the internet than we would otherwise suppose.

Much of my dismay  dissatisfaction with Facebook is that it is a cluttered amalgamation of stuff. I did not find it visually pleasing, and there was sidebar content that I didn't have any interest in receiving much less reading. Upon logging in. . . 
  • I saw more stuff that I didn't care to see
  • resented Facebook's suggestions cajoling  about people that I might know or popping up suggestions of people if I were typing a name in a post.
  • found it cluttered and claustrophobic in its rendering of content
  • wondered WTF (start with who) would care if I changed my avatar photo, my status or my page photo?  And...if any of those items were not enough. . . 
  • Facebook engaged in a surreptitious campaign to manipulate news feeds to members to measure the effect of such manipulation (preponderance of good v. the obverse).
I guess that I'm used to what I'm used to. This Blogger venue is a much easier way to express thoughts and share interests--and it is a venue in which I have control. To be sure, it takes more work to visit a blog than it does to be barraged by information on Facebook.  In that arena, Facebook is champs.  Nevertheless, I'll stick with my quiet corner of the blogosphere!


Blog Style Retooling

I converted to this Sorbet Blogger template a few months ago.  I was ready for a new look, and found this template which I was instantly in love with.  It was clean, colorful and interesting.  Despite my love at first site, there was a splinter of frustration:  I no longer had any bullets. This splinter worked its way deeper and deeper into my skin to the point where it was festering and feverish.  Each time I wanted a well-considered list, I had NOTHING.  As I consider bullets are essential elements for a pleasant viewing experience, losing bullets was like losing part of the alphabet--it impaired my writing.  Time to get that splinter out, and clean up the festering.  (Sorry for such a nasty metaphor, but it is how I felt).

With the July 4th  holiday, I had a bit of time to chew on why I have no bullets (a grave loss) or other formatting on my much-beloved lists, I hunkered down today to revisit how I might modify my new blog style to include the bullets.  We are laying low this holiday.  A graduation party we were to attend was missing an essential element--a graduate--due to a work schedule.  That opened up our holiday to have some free time.  I had a long week, so here I am working on my blog design to eliminate this frustration.They show on the Blogger "compose", but not on the preview.

I don't know CSS very well-- enough to hack away.  The admonition with any such hacking is to back up your template.  I did.  And I was glad for it!

I found this nifty list style at http://codeitdown.com/ordered-list-css-styles/   Yes, I made a few modifications to the weight and line height, etc. But I did it for harmonization (at least to my eye).

I elected to to use the simple list for my ordered list.  It has been a while since I have worked with CSS.  I can hardly understand all of the 2500 lines of code on my template. Much of this is for cross platform browsing. However, I knew enough to look for the ol tag.  I did several experiments, the last of which totally crashed my site.  Thank goodness for the back up template.
  1. never 'tinker' without having a back up
  2. if it can crash it will
    1. test
  3. as you can see, I'm simply doing a list demo with some practical advice 
  4. I need to fix some ordering/number, but not for today.
  • For now
    • I'm happy to get 
      • bullets back
      • and interesting numbering schema
I've now removed the big objection that I had with this template. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the way this works.

Next housekeeping item is to fix my menu and link to stuff that I find interesting.  Reminder: creating your own blog is a great way to organize your on-line life.  You can keep it private, and have it solely for your personal use, or that for other invitees.  I've been blogging now since 10/2006.  I frequently go to my blog to figure out what happened when.  As well as to find recipes, links, quotes, etc.

I completed my housekeeping for now. I realized that there was no date posting--just the time of the post.  Geez...with all of the lines of code, I had to hunt and peck through it to figure out how to get a date up.  Further,  I updated my links in my menu.  See the glyph?  Click on that for my super-nifty drop down menu.  As you can see from my "menu". 

I have an interest in a great many things.  I hope that you find these resources informative.