In case you were wondering what I've been up to...

What do you get when you cross a DIY-obsessed homeowner with a state-mandated stay-at-home order? A long list of home-improvement stories, broken down by difficulty level!

Stuff that was easy

When I first received my stay-at-home orders, I was initially a human whirlwind of activity. Spending 18 hours a day staring at the dirty surfaces in your house is enough to get even the most unmotivated among us to start wiping things down.

I swept floors, mopped floors, and polished floors. I scrubbed walls and baseboards, I scrubbed greasy light switches and door handles, I scrubbed bathroom tiles until they were almost white again! 

Even after a good scrubbing, I realized that the walls in the guest room were never going to lose all their stains, so I painted them instead!

One wall painted, 3 to go!

This was a fun project because I mixed the paint from a collection of cans I've been accumulating for years, collected from Freecycle and the side of the road. I ended up doing blue on three sides with a darker blue accent wall! I've never painted a room before, and I surprisingly enjoyed it. Who knew that cutting in edges (the part that initially gave me the heebie-jeebies!) could be so gratifying?

The handrail brackets on the basement staircase snapped in half sometime in the spring, so I took a trip to Community Forklift and found delightfully cheap replacements. This time, the handrail didn't require a handyman—I was able to fix it myself in only a few minutes.

I ordered a clothesline online and set it up in the backyard. The only hard part was drilling holes higher than my head for what seemed an eternity, but it was worth it! I'm so excited about it that I'm probably going to devote a whole blog post to it!

The threshold for my front door has been cracked for some time, so I made a new one out of some wood I had lying around, varnished it, and nailed it in. Another successful task with a minimum of effort!

Unfortunately, that was the last of the minimum effort. Some of the other things I attempted did not go nearly so well.

Stuff that was hard

If you recall from the last time I fixed my kitchen sink, the faucet would only turn off if you angled the very wobbly handle just a little left of six o'clock, and that meant it was usually dripping. I was nervous about this fix, because my kitchen sink was only held onto the countertop by a slapdash contraption attached to the bottom of the faucet, so a replacement faucet was probably going to require a replacement contraption. But I went ahead with it, because the sink was getting more annoying to use with every twist of the handle, and being home alone with it 24 hours a day was not improving our relationship. The faucet removal was a challenge, but the installation was surprisingly easy (although the manufacturer forgot to include an important rubber washer, it was fortunately the same size as the one from my old faucet). But the foretold new contraption that holds the sink to the countertop is even more slapdash than the last one. It involves levers made of wood blocks that put pressure on the cracked countertop and rotting cabinet. So I fully expect this fix to only last another year before something falls apart. I have learned one lesson from all my frustrating repairs, though: keep the manual! The faucet manual is wrapped in plastic and taped to the underside of the sink so I'll never lose it!

My house gets no shade, so every summer, I cover the skylights with a solar screen to block some of the heat. For years, I've been wanting to do the same to my bay window, but I couldn't come up with a practical way to do it. I wanted to go all fancy with a roll-up screen...but finally this year, I decided any jury-rigged screen was better than none at all, so I hung the screen on suction cups! It looks silly, but maybe, just maybe, it helps a little with the heat.

Professional window screening at its finest

Another thing you tend to notice when your office is right next to your bathroom, is just how noisy your toilet is. And when you start paying attention to that, you start to notice how low the water in the bowl is. And then you do some investigating and learn that both issues are symptoms of a faulty fill valve. Rather than buy a new fill valve (which is astonishingly cheap at seven dollars, but very bulky and plasticky and wasteful), you think maybe you can just replace the rubber washer inside the fill valve. But unfortunately, the only washer available does not fit, so you're out a couple bucks and still have a noisy toilet. Finally, you concede and buy the seven dollar hunk of plastic. You have difficulties with the locknut, but eventually you prevail. After only a few weeks of prep work, you have fixed your toilet, and you have the Instagram post to prove it! Doesn't that happen to you all the time? It happened to me!

View this post on Instagram

There's an actual hashtag for this! #FixedMyToilet #Fluidmaster

A post shared by Mostly just dogs (@valerie_n_stuff) on Jul 22, 2020 at 3:41pm PDT

Still more stuff

When I started writing this post, I was going to say that I hadn't accomplished much over the 4 months I've been quarantining, but after writing it all out, I realize it actually was quite a lot. I'm sorry for making you read all that. In fact, I'm so sorry, that I cut out the part about the three projects I still haven't completed, just to make it shorter!

Since the pandemic continues unabated, I'm sure I'll keep on plugging away at those, and have plenty more projects to keep me busy over the next few months. Until I write again, stay safe, stay home, and home improve!

Adventures in Cooking: Lazy Vegan Protein Bowl

I never realized how much restaurant dining was part of my life until it stopped being part of my life.

A year ago, I thought I was dining out less often, but just look at me now! In my geographic region, all restaurants have been closed since the middle of March, so I haven't had table service since at least that long ago. It's still possible to order carry-out, but, as I quickly came to realize, about half the fun of dining out was the company, and half was the ambience. Without either of those things, the remaining draw of the restaurant – the food – doesn't really seem worth the price any more. So I mostly stopped buying it.

As it turns out, once you your continuous influx of restaurant leftovers dries up, you have to be a lot more proactive in providing yourself with nourishment. For me, that meant actually cooking, something I've never been good at. Since I was embarking on a learning experience, I thought it would be beneficial for me to document my progress, so I kept a list of every recipe I prepared from March 16 to April 10. In that three-week period, I tried 16 new recipes, most of which I disliked (for the record, my favorite so far has been Old Fashioned Potato Salad, which I modified heavily with my usual adventurous flair!). I continued the cooking spree after that, but I stopped keeping track, because, well, no one cares.

With so many Adventures in Cooking! occurring at an unprecedented rate, they had lost their novelty factor. I decided not to blog about each and every (or even) one of them, but the one type of cooking adventure I decided was still worth recording is the type in which I invent the recipe myself!

So here is a new one for your perusal! It's an ingenious 2-minute meal that might even rival my world-famous Nearly Nachos. Sans spiciness, devoid of dairy, and absent of alliums, yet somehow still enjoyable to eat, it's a picky vegetarian's protein-packed dream dinner (at least, if said vegetarian has low standards)! It's...

The Lazy Vegan Protein Bowl!

Ingredients

• Frozen shelled edamame beans (only a masochist buys edamame beans still in the pod)
• Dijon mustard
• Quinoa

Steps

1. Measure out about as many edamame beans as you think will make a satisfying meal for you (I used about 1/3 cup. It was not quite enough!)
2. Microwave the beans until they are hot (66 seconds worked for me!)
3. Add a spoonful of dijon mustard and stir.
4. Sprinkle with a topping of uncooked quinoa* (I used approximately 1Tbsp)

Eat and enjoy!

*At last! I've discovered the secret to making quinoa somewhat palatable! Rather than cooking it into a gritty porridge of bland homogeneity, simply sprinkle it on top of other foods while still raw. The same nondescript grain that's unbearably boring when cooked becomes the very texture to complete the meal when used uncooked. Quinoa—the spice of life! Will wonders never cease?

What's Good

Since I made the decision to start social distancing just a few days before it became compulsory, I haven't blogged about anything. You'd think I'd have a lot to talk about, since, if the news and social media are any indicators, the world has gone topsy turvy. But, to be honest, up until last week, the coronavirus hadn't impacted my own life in any significant way. I'm extremely fortunate to be able to say that, but still, when I was finally ready to address the topic, my angle was all set to be my sole, very minor, very first-world problem—I'm not allowed within 6 feet of my boyfriend* any more!

But then I got hold of myself and realized that would be unproductive. If a moratorium on cuddling is the worst thing that's happened to me since this pandemic struck, then I'm doing all right. A more positive attitude is in order.

There are many things in my life and the world that are pleasant, enjoyable, even - dare I say? - great right now. There are many ways in which I've learned, grown, or felt uplifted over the past few weeks. Every cloud has a silver lining, and a multitude of clouds have a multitude of silver linings! Here are mine. What are yours?

The ability to work from home is something I've been awaiting patiently for years, and I'm overjoyed that I've finally got it! Some people have apparently struggled with this transition (mostly people who are forced to share their workspace with hordes of family members, and those who are easily distracted), but I was a remote worker for 6 years before taking my current office job, so to me, it feels like, literally, coming home!

I've been watching a lot of webinars that are designed to help us cope with our new situations and new technology needs. In more normal times, I typically watch about one webinar a week, but I've never before been able to sew while watching! My multitasking possibilities have gone through the roof—again, thanks to working from home.

Something that's probably not related to coronavirus, but still something that has been part of my world lately, is a newfound sense of inner peace. I've always been a high-stress kind of person, and sometimes I would find myself getting spontaneously sad for reasons that I usually couldn't pin down. But more recently, just the opposite has been occurring—surprise bouts of good spirits that seem to come from nowhere. I can't explain them, but I'm happy they're here!

I realized something interesting since I've been in quarantine. I always liked to go to restaurants and have a good sit-down meal with friends. But since that hasn't been possible, I haven't had any interest in restaurant food. I have probably been saving lots of money on dining, and as an additional bonus, like most everyone who's been cooped up in quarantine, I've been doing a lot more home cooking. As you know, cooking is usually an Adventure for me, but since I've gotten so used to it, I might even continue doing it even when restaurant meals are once again on the table (see what I did there?). Being able to customize the ingredient list to my heart's content has been a huge boon to this picky eater. One new trick I learned to satisfy my sensitive tongue? When a recipe calls for anything spicy (chile powder, sriracha, you name it!), just replace it with paprika! It's the pepper without the pain!

 

Since I've been spending so much time at home, I've been spending lots of time appreciating my yard. There is a veritable wilderness out there. I have a back-to-nature approach to lawn maintenance, which I'm sure does not impress my neighbors, but it brings me joy. 

 

My so-called lawn

Look at all the biodiversity! I even have a never-ending supply of green onions when I need them. Best of all, there's a groundhog that lives in my backyard. Since I have a great view of his den (my shed) from my desk, I always get to watch his antics, which never fail to brighten my day. Today, I saw him scaling the fence in a feat of acrobatics that I never knew was possible for such a chubby creature.

 

Hey, neighbor!

Since I no longer have to show my face in public, I've been taking this opportunity to cease washing my hair. They say that shampoo is harsh on your hair, and the more you wash it, the more oil your head produces to try to make up for it, so the more you need to wash it. The theory goes, if you wash your hair less often, it will eventually reach an equilibrium that means healthier hair and fewer shampoo expenses! I've been wanting to try this for years, but I could never see it through the inevitable greasy mess that it would become after 3 days. I'm now on Day 10. I'll let you know if the experiment was a success when I've hit 2 weeks.

I guess that's enough good stuff for me. If there's anything you're feeling chipper about today, why not leave a comment and keep the positive vibes going? Cheerio!

*Most readers who are familiar with my life will be aware that I have a different boyfriend now than the one I last spoke of in this blog. But since I've never actually mentioned him here, let me state for the record that I have been with my current boyfriend since June of 2019.

Introversion reversion

I've been having a tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle lately. While my kind of planet isn't quite getting blown up, it is definitely going through some changes. I daresay I'm living through the weirdest experience of my 36 years of existence. I speak of none but the coronavirus.

But we'll come back to that (and dispense with the gratuitous use of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references). Surprisingly, the actual difficulty I've been having with my lifestyle is not the global disaster unfolding around me, but rather something much more mundane. It's that I've been having an identity crisis, about one very specific personality trait of mine: Am I really an introvert after all?

For most of my adult life, I was fairly confident in my extreme introversion. From the Myers-Briggs test I took in 10th grade, on which I scored 99% introverted; to the "Party Like an Introvert" kit I designed in grad school; to the book (The Introvert Advantage) I purchased in 2012—you don't know what a statement that is, from a person who never ever pays for reading material!—I solidly identified as an introvert.

But around the same time I purchased that book, something happened. I started drinking alcohol. What a miracle drug that substance is! All of a sudden, parties went from anxiety-inducing horror shows to something I could actually describe as fun! I was fortunate enough to start dating a certified extrovert shortly thereafter, which made meeting new people a regular, and totally tolerable, occurrence in my life.

After a few years of nonstop fun, my boyfriend lost interest in the social circuit, and the friends that I'd developed in that time started to disappear into their own private lives. Everyone I knew was getting tired out and ready to quit, while I felt like I was just getting warmed up! When my relationship ended last March, I threw myself wholeheartedly into building a new social network, seeking out activities and gatherings with abandon and partying like it was my job.

It was around this time that I began to question whether I really qualified as an introvert any more. While being extroverted seems like it would be an asset, the thought of it actually made me very uncomfortable. My whole identity was built on being introverted. If I was acting more like an extrovert than everyone I knew who actually claimed to be an extrovert, what did that make me? Well, I can now say with the wisdom that comes from a year of ruminating, it was "desperate."

After an early adulthood living like a shut-in old woman, I had finally discovered the joys of being young. After a lifetime of being mostly isolated, I had found a sense of belonging. All humans want to belong—even introverts—and so, I embraced every opportunity to have a social life, and when my tenuous connections began to unravel, I doubled down! On the surface, my actions seemed to be textbook extroversion (even to myself!), but I now believe it was actually me compensating for the handicaps of being a true introvert – and, oddly enough, the thing that made me realize it was the coronavirus.

I hesitate to make light of such a serious situation, but apparently every pandemic has a silver lining...and for me, it was once again feeling secure about my antisocial side. I spent much of the last year desperately seeking human contact. I started trying to organize get-togethers among my friends; I joined Bumble BFF; I considered each person I met a potential pal; I said yes to every invitation. To be honest, though, it was all getting exhausting.

All the anxiety about reaching out, the inevitable rejections, the struggle to keep connections current, the frequent hangovers (yes, what a miracle drug and a mistake that alcohol is!)—my efforts to maintain a social life were more cost than benefit. But I had to keep doing it—I had to! Or else I'd find myself depressed and lonely, just like I was all those years ago.

Then COVID-19 arrived. When I started reading about how our best bet to keep the spread of the virus under control was to practice "extreme social distancing," I was all in. If I could finally give up the frantic cultivation of a network and just coast along for a while, how wonderful would that be? If my being alone could be, not something forced upon me by my failure to form connections, but a personal choice that actually serves a public good, why should I not embrace solitude? On Wednesday, I vowed to do my part and cut all my in-person interactions to a bare minimum, until such a time as I feel the crisis is over. And I felt relieved by my decision.

That was when I knew I was still a member of the introvert club. While I wasn't exactly looking forward to weeks of self-imposed isolation, neither did I feel particularly bad about all the activities I knew I was about to miss. I have lots of things to keep me busy alone, and I knew I could handle it. For some reason, being alone by choice is not nearly as depressing as being alone by accident of fate.

Ironically, no sooner had I made that decision, than I was contacted out of the blue by 2 separate friends I hadn't heard from in an age, wanting to know if we could meet up sometime. What is it about a virulent illness that makes people want to come together? I don't know, but I declined one invitation and had the other one conveniently negated by the cancellation of all public gatherings. I got into a somewhat contentious exchange with the organizer of one of the Meetup groups I belong to, who insisted that I should come out to small group Meetups because they were not gatherings of 500 or more people, but I held my ground (or rather, I just stopped responding to her texts, as any true blue recluse would!).

I'm so glad I got back in touch with my introverted side, because it's not only making me feel like I have a better handle on my identity, but it's also making me feel like I have some control in a scary world that's getting crazier by the minute.

We, the citizens of the earth, are in an unprecedented situation right now, yet we have the power to do something about it. Introverts, unite! (Or rather, disband immediately!) Solitude will make us stronger.

Adventures in Cooking: Chocolate Covered Ginger

Most of my Adventures in Cooking! are born out of necessity—the necessity to get rid of a specific pesky ingredient in my possession. But more often lately, I've been experiencing necessity of a different sort—the necessity of having a food I can't buy ready-made.

While I can supply most of my basic needs at the local supermarkets, it recently came to my attention that certain dietary staple had become scarce everywhere: chocolate-covered ginger.

Now you might be thinking, "I never knew chocolate-covered ginger was a basic need," and you'd be mostly right. But when your will to live is contingent on satisfying your very selective sweet tooth, then chocolate-covered ginger becomes a bona fide requirement. And when my supply of it ran out this summer, I found myself in the throes of a chocolate-covered-ginger emergency!

Chocolate-covered-ginger – we'll call it CCG for short because that makes it sound like a drug, and this the story of my addiction – was the food I never knew I needed until I ran out of it. I discovered its existence when I first started working at the organic market 15 years ago, and I was surprised to discover I enjoyed the tingly feeling of ginger and the crunchy feeling of sugar granules and the euphoric snap of dark chocolate all combined in one. But I didn't eat it that often, so it took me probably two years to consume my last quarter-pound tub of the stuff.

Once it was gone, I kinda-sorta started missing it, so I put it on my grocery list to buy again when I had the chance. For months, I never had the chance. At Mom's Organic Market, my former source of it, the CCG shelf remained puzzlingly empty for weeks on end. I took a trip to the Amish market, where bulk snacks and candies of all sorts can be found, and eventually discovered a shelf labeled "chocolate covered ginger," but what was on that shelf were some mysterious chocolate spheres the size of marbles—not the oversized sheets of ginger and chocolate that I knew and loved. Surely those balls were something else, taking up the place of a product that was temporarily out of stock, just as the CCG had been at MOM's.

But then, weeks later, I noticed the CCG shelf at MOM's had been refilled...with the same tiny chocolate spheres I'd seen at the Amish market. This was not a good sign. It meant that chocolate-covered ginger slices had been discontinued and replaced with balls...and chocolate-covered ginger balls were not at all what I wanted!

Now you might be thinking, "So what? Your ginger comes in ball form instead of sheet form. I think you'll survive," and you'd be right. But my very selective sweet tooth only enjoys foods that it can nibble on, and tiny candies that must be eaten whole do not meet that qualification. I don't waste my time (or my limited carbs-quota) on sweets that aren't truly a treat in every way, so (as soon as I had confirmed that the sliced variety was not available online either), CCG was effectively off the table.

You might be thinking that would be good for my aforementioned carbs-quota, since I wouldn't be squandering any of it on chocolate-covered ginger, but alas, that was not the case. Scarcity drives demand, and I could not get the visions of CCG to stop dancing in my head.

However, it's not actually that hard to cover anything in chocolate, I reasoned. So I decided to make my own! The results of this Adventure in Craving Cooking are this very simple recipe:

Chocolate Covered Something-or-other

Ingredients:

• Candied/crystallized ginger slices (or whatever else you feel like coating with chocolate)
• Chocolate chips (however much you estimate will cover the amount of something-or-other you're using)

Steps:

1. Prepare a surface where the chocolate-covered something can cool and harden. I used a very shabby old silicone baking mat.
2. Melt chocolate chips. I hope I don't have to explain how to melt chocolate? There are tons of tutorials out there.
3. Using a spoon, spread melted chocolate over the entirety of each something-or-other (except the part where you're holding it between your fingers—it's fine to just leave that uncovered)
4. Place chocolate-covered somethings on your work surface, making sure not to let them touch.
5. Allow to harden in the refrigerator.
6. When they are fully cooled, peel them away from the surface and enjoy!

Chef's tip: If you end up with leftover chocolate, you can spread it onto a flexible object such as a plastic lid or the same silicone baking sheet. Then when it's hard, you can break it into chunks and use it in brownies, or just save it for the next time you're jonesing for chocolate-covered anything, cause now you have a foolproof recipe for making it!

Adventures in Cooking: Celery Surprise

Every great Adventure in Cooking! begins with a single ingredient—usually one that's been sitting around way past its expiration date and desperately needs to get cooked. Today the honor goes to a large collection of low-carb gluten-free sandwich buns, some of the last few relics of my ex-boyfriend's tenure as my roommate. I don't eat sandwiches very often – and when I do, I only use half a bun – and half of that time, it's the other half-bun from my last restaurant sandwich – so these singly-wrapped buns that he bought in bulk shortly before moving out have been cluttering up my freezer for almost a year.

But what do you do with buns when you don't eat a lot of sandwiches? Eating more sandwiches sounds like a sensible answer, but this adventurous chef has a better idea—top a casserole with them!

I have a soft spot for casseroles. They almost always involve cheese and carbs, cooking them often requires little more than stuffing them in an oven and forgetting about them for a half-hour, and they can be made from almost anything.

For this casserole, the "anything" was going to have to be celery, as I had a large bag of celery sticks in the fridge and I might as well make use of them!

Armed with my two key ingredients (celery and breadcrumbs), I scoured the internet for casserole recipes that included them both. The winner was "Creamy celery casserole" from Allrecipes. Of course, this particular recipe also featured a few other ingredients I don't have and don't even like, so I was going to have to employ my creativity. And my math skills. Since the original recipe serves 8, and that's a lot of meals for a singleton who might not even enjoy the finished product, my first step was to divide the recipe in half.

Mental challenges! That's what Adventures in Cooking! are all about!

The ingredients

• 4 pats of restaurant butter (hopefully this is approximately equal to 2 Tbsp)
• 1 heaping cup thinly sliced celery (because somehow in your mind, 4 divided by 2 equals 1, but 1 isn't quite enough when you look at it)
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (rounding up since 1 1/2 Tbsp requires too many spoons)
• 1/2 heaping teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• Some water, just a little
• 1 huge white mushroom and 3 smaller ones (because that sounds approximately equal to a half a can of them, right?)
• 2 tablespoons chopped green bell peppers
  
• 1 (2 ounce) jar chopped pimento peppers
• Forget the peppers and just use 2 carrots instead
• 1/2 really heaping cup shredded Cheddar cheese (no such thing as too much cheese!)
• 1/2 cup soft bread crumbs
• 1 Tablespoon butter, melted
• More bread crumbs (because, darn it, a cup of shredded bread comprises a surprisingly small amount of hamburger bun)
• More butter (because more buns)

The Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. You don't have a can of mushrooms like the original recipe called for, but no surprises there—you came prepared! Slice your fresh mushrooms and microwave for about 99 seconds. Pour off water.
3. Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat, and cook celery until tender, about 5 minutes. Move celery aside, and mix in flour and salt. Pour in milk, and mix all ingredients, stirring constantly, until thickened. (Seriously, original recipe? That's like at least 4 steps...but I'm about to turn it into more!)
4. Cook celery until tender, about 5 minutes.
5. Surprise! Since you improvisationally added carrots to this recipe, you need to pre-cook them as well! In between stirs of celery, chop carrots into bite-sized pieces. Add to celery and butter and continue stirring.
6. Move celery aside, but to where, original recipe? This saucepan's all full of surprise carrots! Dump flour and salt all over tiny cleared area in bottom of saucepan as well as all over the celery and carrots. Stir quickly, lest the flour get singed.
7. Surprise! Since you don't have milk, you have to make milk from powder. As a general rule, you use 1/3 the amount of milk powder as the total amount of milk you want, so roughly fill 1/3 of the 1/2-cup measure you're using with powdered milk, then fill the rest with water.
8. Mix milk powder and water with other ingredients, stirring constantly, until thickened.
9. If you've been improvising correctly, it should thicken almost immediately, so sprinkle in some extra water to reassure yourself that you've used enough liquid.
   
10. Stir mushrooms and...nothing else, because you don't like peppers...into mixture.
11. Mix in cheese, and stir until melted.
12. In a small bowl, blend bread crumbs and melted butter.
13. Transfer the celery mixture to a medium baking dish, and sprinkle with the bread crumb mixture.
14. Surprise! Not only does 1/2 cup of crumbled bread only use up 1/6 of the three hamburger buns you thawed, but it also doesn't even begin to cover the top of this wide, shallow casserole. Crumble up the remainder of Bun #1 and mix with another tbsp. of butter. Sprinkle on top of the casserole.
15. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned.

Congratulations! You have converted a simple 4-step recipe into a 15-step magnum opus, and hopefully, in the process, produced an edible casserole. 

Surprise! Due to the magic of fuzzy math, you'll probably only be able to wheedle three servings out of this ostensibly 4-serving half-a-casserole. But that's fine, because you've still got a lot of hamburger buns to get rid of. It'll be no time at all before you're ready to go back to Plan A: Eating more sandwiches.

It's Shower Curtains

The shower is a great place for thinking...which might explain why I think so much about shower curtains. Would you believe I have so many thoughts about shower curtains that I've dedicated a whole blog post to them? Well, believe it, because I have.

Buying my first shower curtain was a great "adulting" moment for me (this – right now – also marks the first time I've ever used the word "adulting," and I don't feel great about it....Do I sense a post coming about that particular controversial term?). It was when I moved into my rental house in 2010, and for the first time in my life, became the person in charge of all interior decorating. I did what I rarely do any more, and purchased some of the necessary objects brand new, from Target. One of those objects was a brown cotton shower curtain with multicolored polka dots. I remember thinking it was cute and fun, but not overly feminine should I get a male housemate, which I very shortly did.

My first shower curtain,
now a secret hideaway for office dogs!

That curtain lasted for a few years, but because I never used it with a liner, it eventually developed holes from the mold. I removed it from the bathroom but loved it so much that I kept the undamaged parts of it for future use. Eventually it got a second life as a draft-blocker for the bottom of my desk at work.

Since that early foray into buying home goods like a real consumer, I have evolved into the extreme thrifter that I am today and so far have avoided purchasing any more new shower curtains (but I did recently buy an antimicrobial liner that can be washed and reused, so you might say potato potahto). The last actual shower curtain I bought was an aqua one from the thrift store, which survived two moves and was still in regular use this past summer.

...Until...I got a new shower curtain from Freecycle! This one is translucent white and covered with images of bright tropical fish. I love it! It is just the kind of cheery, nature-inspired kitsch that I used to decorate my bedroom with when I was a teenager. Now that I am a mature 30-something in charge of my own household, I get to extend my tacky decor into the bathroom!

But a new shower curtain doesn't mean I have to dispose of my 7-year-old one, oh no! I'm just keeping that one in storage until the spirit moves me to change up the theme. Since I also recently acquired a hand-me-down curtain from friends, I could easily see shower curtains being one of the many items I accumulate and switch out seasonally—fish in the winter, florals in the spring... translucent curtains during the dark and cold months, opaque ones during the summer when every bit of light blocking can help to keep the bathroom cool... there are all kinds of shower-curtain related experimentation to be done!

But one thing I won't be experimenting with is the hangers that hold the curtain up. No, over the years, I've tried all sorts and I've come up with a favorite and no one is going to change my mind!

In my early days of home-making, I was drawn to ornamental metal shower curtain hooks. The set I got to suspend my brown Target curtain had, if I recall correctly, blue wooden balls at the end of the hooks. I was shooting for a plastic-free lifestyle, but as I learned, metal shower hooks are a pain! They were constantly slipping off the rail. When I tried to bend the hooks into a tighter loop so that they weren't so easily removed, I ended up breaking several of them.

Well, that necessitated the purchase of replacements from the thrift store—naively, I thought that maybe these cool crystalline plastic ones would work because they opening was smaller (they couldn't fall off the rail), but they were even worse than the metal ones—their hook-within-a-hook design meant the curtain would just fall off of them instead

So I set out to buy my third set of shower curtain hangers. This time, I went for the kind I'd grown up with: plastic rings that can be snapped shut. They worked OK for quite a while, but over time, some of the closures stopped working, allowing the curtain to slip off its mooring.

No and no.

It got annoying enough that eventually, I made my fourth and final shower curtain purchase. This time, I went as cheapo as possible—pink plastic C-rings that I think cost 99 cents, 50% off.

And whaddaya know? They're my favorite shower curtain rings yet!

The flexible plastic means they're easy to pop on and off the pole, but the opening is too small to allow them to fall off by accident. The best thing is they can easily be flipped 180° while in position, so the opening can face either side of the shower rail.

 
This enables you to remove the curtain without removing the liner, and vice versa! Wow! Score another win for cheap plastic over more environmentally friendly materials. I can only just hope that my plastic C-rings last a lifetime.

I think that covers everything I had to say about shower curtains, so I guess I'll close the curtain on this post!

Super (and not-super) Market Shopping

Can you believe it's been almost a year since I last posted a list of things I like or dislike? This usual staple in my blog has been sorely neglected, and I have no excuse...but I shall be silent no longer! Today I'll present a veritable grocery list of my personal preferences. In fact, since so many of them are grocery-related, I might as well make a theme of it, and conduct you on a virtual tour of the best and worst of the grocery universe.

Walking into the store, let's head directly to my one of my favorite aisles: the condiments. While I've sung the praises of mayonnaise before, I've never given due credit to my absolute favorite condiment: dill pickles. You could probably tell I was heading in this direction, since I've rhapsodized about dill by itself and about the joy of receiving a pickle with my sandwich. But sandwiches with pickles wouldn't be possible without pickles in the first place, so let it be known: Pickles are great!

Some things that are not so great, though, are a wide swathe of other things found at the grocery store:

For starters, food that sticks to your teeth. You know how some people like to go to the beach and come back with saltwater taffy for their friends and associates? Those people better not be my friends or associates! I can't stand the texture of taffy. Also Starburst. Also, of all things, macaroni and cheese in certain circumstances. Though I'm a retired macaroni-reviewer and can be expected to have strong opinions about the stuff, I never thought macaroni and cheese could be downright bad, until I had some a few weeks ago that I literally could not finish. The reason? The cheese was so gooey, it stayed on my teeth even after I had chewed and swallowed. That's when I knew: Super-sticky foods are the worst!

Other bad foods: anything spicy. Truly, this preference is a serious handicap to me, as it prevents my enjoyment of a lot of meals when I go out, and even bars me from entire cuisines. Sometimes it has a detrimental effect on my social life. Everything would be a lot easier if I weren't so bothered by spicy food, but I can't help it; I'm sensitive! (I know this is true, because when I'm eating with others, sometimes I'll ask someone, "Is it spicy?" And they'll say, "Not at all." And I'll proceed to burn off my taste buds and drink half a glass of water to relieve the pain, because the heat I perceive as unbearable is undetectable to others!) I have the mouth of a kid who never grew up....

But if you take me over to the kid's food aisle, I'll probably run away screaming, because kids' foods are notoriously full of...artificial fruit flavors! Yuck! Most artificial flavors are disappointingly...well...artificial-tasting, but the top three on the gross list are as follows: apple in third, then grape, then banana with the grand prize. I can barely stomach real bananas; fake banana flavor is enough to induce vomiting (some of this sentiment may be due to the fact that the last thing I ate before getting a whopping case of the stomach flu when I was about nine, was banana-flavored Now & Laters. But most of the sentiment is, I'm pretty sure, just because banana flavoring is intrinsically nasty).

So we've scanned the shelves and identified all the foods that we don't want to buy, Now, the question is how to decide on what we do want to buy! Fortunately, in recent years, many grocery stores have made that easy by providing per-unit costs on their price labels. What a wonderful advancement in shopping technology! Now I don't have to do math in my head; I can easily discern which of several brands gives me the most bang for my buck, just by reading the tag on the shelf.

One last innovation in shopping, and the last thing that I really like on this list, is the single-line checkout. Many grocery stores have implemented this system in the past few years, and it takes most of the stress out of waiting in the checkout line. Remember when queuing up at the grocery was a crapshoot? You'd choose what looked like the shortest line only to find that the person in front of you had 60 coupons and was waiting for a manager to do a price check? Now (at least in the best-designed stores) that's impossible. Everyone just gets in one line, and when it's your turn, the first available checkout is yours, all yours! See, there is hope for the universe.

Balder is Better

As a certified mammal, I find myself drawn to other creatures with lots of hair. The cuter and puffier, the better! Or so I thought, until I found myself the beleaguered mother of an extremely furry cocker-spaniel-hybrid (I don't know his pedigree, but while he has the general shape and temperament of a cocker spaniel, his hair is much wilder and more profuse than is generally shown in most portrayals of the breed).

When I became his sole caretaker last March, I was brushing him at least once a week (and trying to do it every day), cutting huge mats out of his fur every time. It's a wonder he had any fur left with all the mat removal I was doing, but somehow he did. Vast quantities of fur! Floppy, hairy ears that came dripping out of his water bowl every time he took a drink! Huge hairy feet that soaked up all the mud every time he went outside! And let's not forget how bad it got when he tried to play in the snow!

Bilbo was an outdoorsy dog in an indoorsy dog's body.

If the fur on his body and legs was a challenge, the fur on his head was a veritable disaster! His breed is susceptible to cherry eye, which is when the third eyelid becomes swollen and pops out, resulting in oozing and weeping. Bilbo's eyes oozed and wept continually onto his face, where the mess would congeal and adhere to all the long hairs in the vicinity. Another thing about his breed is long floppy ears. Supposedly they were bred that way so that when digging in the ground after burrowing game for their humans, the ears would keep dirt out of the dog's face. But combined with the ridiculously long hair, what the ears do instead is provide a sheltered breeding ground for earwax and bacteria. So gross. Cocker spaniels are also blessed with a "soft mouth," which in hunting terms means they have loose floppy lips that are less likely to damage the prey they catch. But in real-life terms, what it means is that they allow water and spit and food particles to leak out the sides of the dog's mouth...and thence, onto the aforementioned long hair.

Whoever invented cocker spaniels was surely a sadist. Messed-up eyes, ears, and mouth aside, what sort of hunting dog needs wooly legs that collect every twig, leaf, and bramble for miles around? Yet that's exactly what they gave them. Combine that genetic cesspit with the coat of a poodle (which is what some have surmised comprises the rest of Bilbo's ancestry), and you get even more hair that's even more curly! His forehead hair was so long that it covered his eyes, which surely contributed to his frequent collisions with vertical surfaces. Total breeding fail. 

I experimented with headbands to keep his hair out of  his eyes.
Not effective.

I made some token efforts to keep his coat under control. I bought an electric set of clippers (which he hated and which couldn't manage to cut through his fur without getting jammed) and finally settled for trimming his legs and face in clumpy patches with a pair of scissors whenever I could get him to sit still for 5 minutes. It was better than nothing, but truly not much good at all.

This entire hairy situation came to a head when Bilbo got fleas in August. Three flea baths, diligent grooming with a flea comb, and two treatments with Frontline did nothing to rid him of the suckers, and I was just about to tear out my own hair!

In late October, I finally called in the big guns: a professional groomer. I found her on Rover, she came to my house, and I let her do her magic. She shaved Bilbo down to the skin and gave him yet another flea bath, and when he came out the other side, he looked...surprisingly cute!

I admit I kind of miss his gargantuan hobbit feet, but his clean-shaven mien left a lot fewer places for boogers to attach to. And he's much more endearing now that you can actually see his facial expressions!

I instantly became a dog-grooming convert...but a cheap one. Professional grooming comes in at around $100 a pop. I won't even spend that much money to get my own hair cut; I'm definitely not going to spend it on a dog! So I took note of what brand of clippers the groomer used (Andis) and promptly bought my own. They paid for themselves after 2 DIY grooming sessions. Admittedly, my technique will never rival that of a professional groomer, but I'll settle for somewhat tidy-looking hair with no detritus in it.

After his most recent haircut by his mom

Everyone who sees Bilbo nowadays marvels at how much cuter he is with short fur. He's even more likable now that he's a bit more hygienic. All this time, I'd been thinking long-haired dogs were the best dogs, but Bilbo was really much improved by the loss of his locks. It's a good thing I didn't name him Samson!

Green Washing

If my plastic-related guilt complex were a book, and its phases were chapters, they would look something like this:

1. Whether to pleather
2. Down on Downcycling
3. Bye, Bye, Bottles
4. Oh, Fork
5. Doing Water I Can

Chapter 6 (today's blog post) is really just Chapter 1 all over again—but this time, instead of just fake leather, I'm expanding my guilt to encompass all types of synthetic fabric.

Fabric is a topic very close to my heart, as you might expect of someone who relishes in having a constant stream of new clothes cycling in and out of her wardrobe.

The problem is, as I have been increasingly made aware, every time you wash your clothes, microscopic bits of those clothes get separated from the fabric and washed out into the sewer system, and thence into the waterways. If the clothes are made of synthetic materials, as most are these days, then the bits that come out are actually tiny fibers of plastic that don't decompose. Once in the waterways, those microplastics float around and get swallowed by animals, which is detrimental, to say the least, to their health.

So back to my conundrum, which is really everyone's conundrum: as a person who likes to wear clean clothes, how can I avoid polluting the world's water supply with the plastic effluent of my laundry habit?

Well, one solution is to eschew all synthetic fabrics. This is not easy. Since falling in love with online thrift shops, I have almost stopped buying any new (as in, not pre-owned) clothing whatsoever, but on those occasions that I'm tempted to purchase something firsthand, I do try to avoid anything that's not a natural fiber. If all consumers were to do the same, eventually, we might have an impact on the supply chain.

But in the meantime, most of the used clothes that are available are still made of plastic-based fabrics, and I'm not ready to stop wearing or washing my clothes entirely.

So what's the solution for the problem of clothing-related plastics? One word: filtration.

I can no longer remember how I learned that it's possible to filter your washing water to capture most of the plastic fibers, but I did! And once I did, there was no going back. I simply had to start filtering my laundry.

While they do sell little (plastic!) balls that are designed to be tossed into your washing machine to capture the microfibers there, I decided that wasn't enough. The best a little plastic ball can do is grab the fibers that happen to touch it, but with all that water spinning around in your machine, there is surely a much larger percentage of loose fibers that never come in contact with it.

So onward to the big guns: drain-hose filtration devices. With a filter that sits between my washing machine and the sewer system, I could be assured that every drop of water in my laundry load would eventually go through the filter, resulting in a much higher capture rate for microplastics.

According to my research, there are really only about 2 options for post-wash filtration devices, and I went with the Wexco Environmental Filtrol 160. I thought it would be a simple addition to my laundry room: Unplug some hoses, stick the filter in between, reattach, and run my washer with abandon!

Well, as with all of my home improvement projects, it was naturally a lot more complicated. There were some wall-mounting woes (not easy in a basement with cinder block walls), some hose-incompatibility issues, and some requisite laziness, all of which caused the installation process to take me about 4 months (2 if you don't count the time it sat in the box while I felt too daunted to start the project).

Finally installed!

Fortunately, once it was set up, it was smooth sailing. I planned to blog about the filter as soon as I finished, but due to the magic of procrastination, it has been 2 months since I installed it. In that time, it hasn't leaked so much as a drip, and it's filled probably about 1/5 of the way. At this rate, I can last almost a whole year on one filter bag (and then I'll probably empty and reuse it, because that's the eco-cheapo way!).

The bottom line for my faithful readers: If you had any qualms about the environmental impact of your clothes-washing routine, installing a filter is a good solution! It's relatively inexpensive, as far as home improvement projects go, and easy enough that any bumbling DIYer can tackle it in 2 months!

Dog Mom Level: 1000

You want to know something ironic about pet ownership? "Cat people" are typecast as antisocial loners who are perfectly content to stay at home all weekend life with a book, while "dog people" are characterized as active, energetic, friendly sorts who are always looking for a good time with good friends. Yet cat owners, with their low-maintenance pets who only require a feed-dispenser and weekly litterbox cleaning, are much better equipped to actually go out and be active and energetic with their good friends; while dog owners, who are (often literally) tethered to their pets and their rigid feeding and pottying schedules, can barely leave the house!

It is really hard to be spontaneous and social when you always have to worry about whether your dog is too lonely at home without you, or about to relieve his bladder all over your bed. These problems are mitigated when you can bring your dog with you everywhere you go, but that is a lot easier said than done.

Even assuming you are lucky enough to know of a gathering place or two where dogs are welcome (it's usually a bar with a patio, and they sometimes even host genuine "yappy hours!"), there's still the matter of transporting your pooch.

Sure, you can drive your pup everywhere in style (or in my case, in a worn-out old utility vehicle), but just try parking a pickup truck in Washington, DC. Just try parking anything in Washington, DC. Really, I dare you! Also, try driving your pickup truck out of DC after you've had a yappy hour drink or three (rhetorically only; I don't dare you on this one!).

There has to be a better way, and that way is public transportation. I'm a huge fan of public transportation (my love for the Metro was one of the things that kept me from ever returning to Ohio), but it has one problem: No pets allowed.

At least, that's what I thought, until I decided to actually check what the pet policy on Metro is. As it turns out, you can bring your pet... as long as it is  "carried aboard in a secure container from which it cannot escape." Well, now, that's a dog of a different color!

Upon learning that tidbit, I spent many hours trying to concoct ways to bring my dog on Metro so I could take him to places in DC without my car. I have been informed that people routinely bring their dogs on the New York Subway in bags from which their heads poke out, but I've never seen such a sight on the DC Metro, so I decided a full enclosure was a safer bet.

Now, my Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit of a dog, but he is by no means a featherweight, so I wanted a carrier that I could wheel around, rather than have to lug in my hand. I contemplated trying to attach a dog crate to a wheeled walker; I considered modifying a large wheeled suitcase to accommodate a canine; but ultimately, I decided what Bilbo needed for both his and my comfort was a stroller. They're already designed for transporting a living being; it should be a cinch to convert one for a dog instead of a baby!

I bided my time, waiting for a stroller at a good price. I actually ordered a ready-made dog stroller on eBay for 14 dollars, but it was too good to be true. It never arrived, the seller closed their account, and I received a refund. But before too much time had passed, a neighbor put a perfectly good Graco out on the curb, and I was in business!

I won't bore you with the details of how I actually made the stroller dog-ready, but it was a process that spanned a few months. In short, I affixed the canopy with a mesh screen that attaches under the seat and to the sides with Velcro. I extended the seat back so it reclines to a full horizontal, to make more room for a dog to lie down comfortably. I also removed the footrest, though I can no longer remember why I felt that was necessary.

After it was done, several more weeks passed, during which I trained Bilbo to hop into it, sit in it patiently without trying to escape, and eventually travel around in it while it was moving. I'm pretty proud of the effort I put into this part; it was so successful that now he jumps into his stroller whenever he gets the opportunity, just because he seems to enjoy being in there!

Our first real-world trial of the stroller happened last Friday. I wasn't really prepared (I had wanted to do a few more test runs around the block and experience some encounters with real people), but one of my Meetup groups was holding a dog happy hour, and it suddenly occurred to me that this is probably the last month of the year that I'll be able to tolerate a happy hour outdoors!

So I rushed home after work, and set out for Metro with my dog and stroller firmly in hand. I let him walk to the station to burn off as much steam as possible, but then I bundled him into his stroller and boarded the train.

The trip passed entirely without incident! Bilbo wasn't as enthusiastic about the arrangement as I was, but I plied him with lots of treats and was able to pet him through the loosely attached mesh, so he didn't try any heroic escapes. I had been girding myself for a confrontation with Metro staff, but I guess women with strollers aren't that odd of a sight on transit. No one said anything, except for one floor cleaner, who, after a second take, told me, "Oh, I thought that was a baby." And then he amended himself: "I guess it is your baby."

So if that's not evidence that I've ascended to a new height of dog-mom-hood, I don't know what is!

Because that is silly

It's been quite a long time since I wrote a blog post about music. OK, it's been quite a long time since I wrote a blog post, period! I make no excuses. But jeez, you guys—writing is hard!

You know what else is hard? Life.

Yeah, life is hard, and one thing that makes it easier is a healthy dose of harmless escapism, in the form of pointless music that refuses to take itself seriously. So today, in an attempt to hop back on the blogging wagon  as well as to impart cheer and levity to a depressing world, here is a list of thoroughly ridiculous tunes that I enjoy. 

I hope they serve to make you laugh. Or at least crack a grin? Awkwardly bare your teeth at me? I'll take anything! I've also compiled them all into a YouTube playlist, which I hear tell is an excellent way to help readers become listeners! Here you go: enjoy all the yuks in rapid succession. Or read about them below:

Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio (John Denver)

Back in the previous decade, when I was last on the online dating scene and meeting lots of strangers unfamiliar with the great state of Ohio, I found that most people only knew one of two things about my hometown, Toledo: a) It's where Corporal Klinger came from, or b) nothing. To introduce them to my fair former city, I took to sending them this unflattering little ditty sung by John Denver. For whatever odd reason, I never felt prouder of Toledo than when I could claim that a famous musician had singled it out to rhapsodize on how boring it is. Not every boring city gets a whole song written about it!

Dead Puppies (Ogden Edsl)

Of all the Dr. Demento songs that I am privileged to know, "Dead Puppies" stands out as a clear winner. It's a stirring adaptation of Pachelbel's Canon in D, complete with dramatic organ harmonics and lyrics about...yes, dead puppies. Most people who I coerce into listening to this song find it morbid and can't understand why I like it, but if you've been hearing it regularly since you were an impressionable youth, it's perfectly normal. And it makes great fodder for derivative works, with which you can serenade your own dogs! Come on everybody out there, sing along, OK?

Short Attention Span (Fizzy Bangers)

If you can only listen to one song on this list, listen to this one—it will only take you 9 seconds. And that's the punchline. I was introduced to this song through the CD "Short Music for Short People," which my mother gifted my brother as a humorous nod to his attention deficit disorder. (Yeah, as a family that routinely makes fun of each other's psychiatric diagnoses, it's not so surprising we're also amused by tunes about dead puppies!) This song kicked off the album and stuck in my head (perhaps ironically?) for pretty much ever after.

Dugong (Mr Weebl)

If you haven't noticed yet, the songs on this list are arranged in chronological order, and we have finally reached the YouTube era, when all manner of ridiculous music began making it onto the Internet in video form. One of my early favorites is the tune "Dugong," which is not only a cute little cartoon with a tune, but also a veritable lesson in marine biology! Listen and learn!

Brodyquest (Neil Cicierega)

Introducing the category, "Songs that are also internet memes," now comes my pick for the silliest song on this list—as long as the video counts as part of it. It's a goofy upbeat electronic composition, which stands alone as something fun to listen to if you like beeps and boops and the lyrics "Adrien Brody," but it really comes into its own when enjoyed with the accompanying animation. Who doesn't want to watch a bouncing starfish follow a handsome Hollywood actor as he wobbles his cheerful way around the planet and beyond? I know you do!

The Fox (Ylvis)

The first time I heard this song, I thought it was stupid (It gets off to a slow start, and the childish lyrics don't even rhyme!). But by the third time I heard this song, I knew it was going to be one of my favorites! Its catchy dance beat is enough to put it on any list of fun songs, but when you stop to think about its central premise (all the completely implausible sounds that a fox might hypothetically make), it becomes fun and hilarious. That is, if you're easily amused by nonsense words.

So there you have it: six silly songs that make me smile! I'm sure there's more out there! Readers, what did I miss? Share with me your comedy music masterpieces below!

The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

Did you know that there actually is a song out there called "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins?" There is, and it is sung by none other than Star Trek's Mr. Spock, so if you're a sci-fi/fantasy geek, please rejoice and enjoy!

However, if you're not into song and dance, then you may prefer to just hear a less musical tale, the one about the Bilbo Baggins I call my own.

It's quite a saga in itself, beginning sometime early last spring, when my boyfriend's friend decided to get divorced. Naturally, when you're going through an acrimonious divorce, the first thing you want to do is get the kids on your side, so the wife in this story took the only sensible course of action: she went to Korea and bought them a 5-month-old cocker spaniel puppy.

She discovered quite quickly that caring for a puppy was beyond her skillset, so the work was outsourced to the husband (as were most of the responsibilities in this marriage—you begin to see why it was ending!). But of course, the husband was overwhelmed with other tasks — tasks like getting divorced — so he began searching for a new home for his puppy.

The first (and let's face it, probably only) person he asked was Mr. Dog Person himself: my boyfriend. At this time (late July), he and I were knee deep in raising a puppy of our own (Kodiak was only 5 months old himself), and I was not enjoying it. However, the worst (peeing every 30 minutes!) seemed to be over, and I was actually starting to feel pretty confident in my puppy-rearing abilities. So I told my boyfriend, who relayed to his friend, that if he absolutely could not find anyone else to take the puppy, we would do it.

And so we did it. 

 

Here's one of my first and favorite pictures of him.

For some unfathomable reason, the wife had chosen to name this beigish-whitish creature "Cocoa" (or maybe Coco or Koko, which were equally terrible names since he was a male), so the first thing we did upon acquiring our new charge was to saddle him with a new name.

There is no particular reason we chose "Bilbo Baggins"—Al simply threw out a couple of suggestions that I didn't like, and this happened to be one that I did. But over time, he grew to suit his name. As his hair grew out, his paws became shaggy and enormous-looking—just like hobbit feet are supposed to. 

The first few weeks of owning him were rough. Although he was supposed to be 5 months old according to his papers, he acted much younger than his brother Kodiak. We suspect that his vital stats had been fudged in order to clear him for export to the United States. He was a hyperactive whippersnapper with too much pep in his step for my taste, and he wasn't even remotely house-trained. I was all in favor of passing him on to yet another family, but my boyfriend would only give him away if it were to a person he already knew and trusted. That left us precious few options, and everyone who claimed to want him got cold feet soon after. As the months passed, it seemed unfair to uproot him for the third time in his short life, so I accepted him as a permanent part of mine.

Although I still wasn't terribly fond of the little fellow, when my boyfriend and I went through our own divorce of sorts, I offered to take full custody of Bilbo. At the minimum, I think I disliked him less out of the two of us.

But he grew on me slowly. Having a dog around was something of a consolation prize when I suddenly had to face up to being single after almost 7 years of near-continuous couple-hood. And although I'm still not keen on Bilbo's insatiable desire for constant activity, I do enjoy being the recipient of his also nearly insatiable desire for companionship.

 

What's sitting still?

Although he's a lot of work, he's also my buddy, and I'm sure we'll have many stories to come!