Friday, August 15, 2008

Question time

Question 1 - I need some fluff to read. Not too fluffy, but fiction, and fun. I just read all of the Thursday Next novels and enjoyed them. I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle again right now and still debating the merits of attempting to make my own cheese. I need to read less practical stuff for a while. Suggestions?

Question 2 - Matt is gone this weekend and I am about to go all Martha on my laundry room's ass. So should I a. use up the spare can of baby blue paint and make it all crisp and clean and blue (the trim is already white) and ignore the brown and green tones in the rug, or b. suck it up and go buy a can of cream/light brown and make it nice and warm to go with the tones in the rug. It's basically free vs. matching. And I worry that using the blue will just make me want to replace the rug (which is more expensive than buying just a can of paint). Either way it will be nicer than it is now, and not take very long (it's a tiny room), but still, I can't decide! Help!

7 comments:

drwende said...

1. I'm a great fan of Louise McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series, but you have to like space opera for those to work. In that vein, Doyle & Macdonald's Mageworlds series is also a fairly light read.

2. If you go blue, you WILL rip up the rug. Buy beige.

Any suggestions on what completely time-wasting thing I should bake if I give in to the urge? My husband's also out of town for the weekend, and I almost posted asking for advice...

Anne At Large said...

I will investigate the Bujold for starters, I don't know whether I like space opera or not so I might as well find out. Is Terry Pratchett anything like space opera?

On time-wasting baking, I've got a nice granola recipe on here somewhere that I can recommend, and whenever I'm on my own I like to make myself oatmeal muffins for breakfast. Beard On Bread also contains a recipe for English Muffin bread that I have yet to try but looks absolutely gorgeous, I'll post it here for you if I get the nerve to try it tomorrow while Matt is away (altitude is still making me nervous with the yeast breads).

drwende said...

Haven't read Terry Pratchett and can't tell from his Wikipedia description... :-(

Upon reflection, I think I'm going to make either coffee cake or pie with all the stone fruits, forest fruits, and nuts that the husband doesn't eat. Whole grain should be saved for when he's around.

Anne At Large said...

Ooh, if you've got a Trader Joe's nearby, they sell a pancake mix that has a coffee cake recipe on the side of the box, and it is an awesome recipe. I just make it with their frozen blueberries and it is delicious, so I bet it'd be awesome with fresh stone fruits. And what on earth are forest fruits?

Mella DP said...

I think you could call some of Terry Pratchett space opera. Among less rivet-laden genres, I tend to class Alexander McCall Smith in the same broad class of entertainment as Fforde.

drwende said...

"Forest fruits" = blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, raspberries. Why didn't I just call them "berries"?

GOOD QUESTION. (a) I couldn't think of the word. (b) I was distracted by what the berries are collectively called in French, being just pretentious enough to remember that they're bois-de-something or something-de-bois, but not quite pretentious enough to be clear on what.

Cheryl said...

We just painted our guestroom "Lyndhurst Gallery Beige" using Valspar. I like it because sometimes it looks more brown and sometimes it looks more gray.