LivingSmall

My trip last week was a great success — my mother and I had a very fun time together, and we found two apartment buildings that look interesting and cool and that she can afford — but it was a busy week. I put just over 1000 miles on the rental car, but the trip […]

LivingSmall will be travelling all week. I need to go back to where I grew up and give my mom a hand. Looking forward to seeing some old high school friends and my 97 year old granny. Back next weekend.

All summer I was getting up about 5:30 because that’s when the sun came up and I was really enjoying it. I had time to get a lot done before having to sign on at work — write a blog post, walk the dog, water the garden. It was lovely. And then the earth tilted […]

Just as I was reading this article in the SF Chronicle about people buying meat shares (which mentions my friend Bonnie over at Ethicurean and her meat CSA she’s starting), Matt, my butcher called to say that my pig was ready. Well, half a pig, actually. I bought it from my Milk Lady, and while […]

It’s been a weird week — starting with the outpouring of false sentiment over the 9/11 anniversary. I’ve come to dread it, that upwelling of sentiment, the appropriation of tragedy by those only tangenitally affected, the politicians and blowhards pontificating about how we are all changed forever. I’m not talking about the real grief of […]

I don’t have a photo of last night’s yummy dinner because well, I ate it instead of photographing it, but it was one of those delicious surprises that happen sometimes when you’re just making something out of what you have. I had a bunch of tomatoes that were about to go bad on me — […]

It happens every year at Labor Day — the weather gets threatening and we all swathe our tomatoes in some sort of jerry-rigged cold frame/greenhouse kind of thing. One reason I’ve always sort of liked the trellis-and-string method is because it also provides a handy structure to hold the plastic up.
With the new beds […]

Now the Farmer’s Almanac is saying it’s going to be a very cold winter, and I have to say, if my mania for getting organized and stocking up is any indication, they’re right. It wasn’t a great year for jams and preserves — I didn’t get any cucumbers so I’ll have to make do […]

The weather turned on us last weekend when I still had a load of clothes in the washer and I’ve become so accustomed to using my clothesline that I was kind of upset by the thought of running the dryer.
When I ordered the Clothesline of My Dreams last summer I also ordered this little […]

If you look closely you’ll see a bad bad stinky dog’s nose poking out from inside the bathtub. For the second time this week, Raymond found a dead thing in the dog park and rolled in it. Tuesday I took him to the new groomer who is two blocks away, but as great a […]