Virtual birthday party

 Hey, it's my birthday tomorrow (possibly today when you're reading this), May 12. Usually I'm off celebrating my birthday at the Kalamazoo medieval congress. This year, for reasons that have been made entirely moot on several levels, I would have been at home anyway for my birthday, but due to having lined up two back-to-back conventions to attend (now also largely moot) I'd made my usual plan to have a displaced party in June. This year's theme was going to be "sharing the produce of our estates" with guests encouraged to bring something home-made for a gift exchange. You know: jams and jellies, charcuterie, personalized spice blends, whatever your signature thing is. The original idea was for preserved items that people could take away with them, rather than a potluck sort of thing.

Just because I can't have you all over to enjoy my garden and share physical gifts doesn't mean we can't have a Produce Of Our Estates party. Here's the deal:

Either on my blog here, or on facebook if you prefer (assuming we're mutuals there), or on twitter (if the character limit doesn't get in the way), post a recipe of something you'd enjoy sharing with your fellow guests. Bonus points if you usually make it using something you grow yourself. Bonus points for photos (although that may be easier on fb or twitter than here).

Not a crafty foodie sort? There's a alternate theme: post me pictures of A) women in riding habits; or B) women with swords; or C) with in riding habits with swords. Again, post in whichever venue works for you.

Let's have a virtual party of the senses to celebrate my 62nd year!

This is the regular boring post as opposed to the birthday party post

 Saturday was a "flattened and exhausted" day, which I guess I was building up to with my Friday night post (q.v.). I got a little work on the blog done in the morning then wanted to nap all day, which I assisted by binging I, Claudius. Though I did also start a tracked production cycle of my pet sourdough, Sara. I'd been wanting to chart out what a sustainable growth-and-use cycle would look like for my usual bread consumption rate. In the end, it was easier to just take notes on the steps as I do it than to try to work it out in advance. I figure one loaf every two weeks is about right, plus assorted other bread-like-substances from the culture discard. I'm currently aiming to keep the ongoing culture to an approximately 1/4 cup volume so that the discard doesn't get out of hand with a daily feeding. I worry a little that if I simply put the culture to bed in the refrigerator I'll forget about it.

Sunday I did a bunch of blog work, plus yard stuff (though all my yardwork sessions are shorter now that I do one almost every day). I must have done some other things but I honestly don't recall. That's the hardest part of the days all being alike: I know I did things but they all run into each other. That's why I've been trying to remember to blog at least every other day.

Today started off with my regular chat with Liz, then I spent the whole workday doing the initial intake work on a new investigation. Hopefully it can run on momentum for the rest of the week because I've committed to moving my oldest investigation forward this week as my top priority. (Top priority along with everything else, of course.) I still need to get the LHMP blog up today, which is what I was working on all weekend. (It's a long one and will need to be split over multiple days, but my schedule says I always post the LHMP blog on Monday. So that's what I'll do after posting this.