Gothic Home Maker

It seems somewhat odd that I would be talking about a hippie craft book for children on a gothic website, but I was wandering through my library the other day and it caught my eye. Making Things by Ann Wiseman was a very special book to me when I was young.

My mother and grandmother are both very crafting centric. As a child I was taught sewing, beading, crocheting, knitting, needle craft and many more esoteric crafting skills and loved them. But in all that learning, I never really made them my own. I feared venturing from the pattern or the specific rules of every craft, a fact that limited my creativity.

The Museum of the History of Science in Oxford is hosting an exhibit of steampunk art through February 21st. It's free to get in.

For those of us who are unable to attend, they have released a video talking about some of the major pieces of the exhibit and the history of steampunk art.

During a prolonged bout of illness this fall, I started watching the BBC program How Clean is Your House. While watching it (as well as watching my house fall asunder of a horrible mess with no energy for cleaning) I've discovered many truths about keeping a clean house-- particularly how to do it and why it's important.

Truth 1: Most people who have horrible houses on the show used to have a clean house. While there are bachelors who never got into the cleaning habit, most of the time its families with many responsibilities who used to have a clean house, but it just sort of got away from them. I've seen this one true in life. The problem is when these things start adding up you end up overwhelmed. (For transparency's sake, I must add that I teeter on this point quite a bit.) If you keep up with the little things, then while you may not win the war you probably won't end up completely conquered either.

Truth 2: A dirty house can kill you. The most horrible thing about watching this show, as well as the most inspiring, is seeing all the people with health problems because their house is so messy. Dust mite, e-coli, and so many other nasties can hang out in your mess and give you asthma, allergies, and other illnesses. (Perhaps this is why I kept getting sick this fall, I couldn't resist thinking.)

Truth 3: You can't clean through clutter. You have to get rid of it to have a lovely house. There's no way around it, and in most cases it's not a case of disorganized stuff, but too much stuff.

I've always had a fondness for the Gothic Martha Stewart website. On it, the proprietor talks about planning, assembling items and some caveats about how to care for your stuff, even when pets are involved. A great read.

I've now set it up that everyone with a username and password can post new entries to the forums. Enjoy!

Having trouble getting the ambition to clean? Want a great way to track how you and your roommates are separating the tasks? Ever wanted to gain experience for your mundane duties?

Chore Wars! is a website where you create a character and gain experience by participating in great adventures such as trekking to the grocery store and taming the refrigerator monsters. This is a great site for getting the co-operation of teenagers and the rest of us who refuse to grow up.

I was at the Japanese grocery yesterday and found some House Foods Tofu Shirataki Noodles. I've been reading about these noodles on the Hungry Girl newsletter for some time and decided to give them a try. Hungry Girl has described these with adjectives like "life changing" and "a must have." With a whopping 20 calories per generous serving, it's well worth taking a chance on, especially for a noodle lover like me.

This evening I made a lovely stir fry with a chopped up fried tofu cutlet and half a bag of frozen stir fry veggies. After they were good and cooked, I threw in the Shirataki noodles and just a dab of store bought General Tsao's sauce and had a yummy, filling dinner in under 20 minutes.

I love Halloween, but I really can't stand carving pumpkins. It's smelly and squishy and makes your pumpkins rot so much faster. Then putting a candle in one? That's a little big of nausea for someone who can't stand the smell anyway. So in recent years I've bought a pumpkin and put it on my porch au naturale with a few candles around it.

For this year, I'd like to do something with my pumpkin beyond sitting it unadorned outside, and luckily I've found some lovely ideas that will work great.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that local amusement park King's Island dropped its Halloween homage to recently deceased celebrities. Included in the display were a skeleton dressed like Michael Jackson (surrounded by empty pill bottles) and one dressed like Sonny Bono (tied to a tree wearing skis.)

Is this distasteful? Sure. Might it offend people? Obviously since they pulled the display because of the controversy. But King's Island turns its park into a huge haunted house style attraction during the Halloween season, and that display was not only in the Halloween spirit, but it has been done hundreds of times before with so many other celebrities. I'd be surprised to not see the like in a haunted house.

We're going through major remodeling expected to be finished by September 25th. Please be patient and enjoy what has been added so far.