Simple Living ⁽⁷⁾

I had a go at figuring out the sewing machine this afternoon, and made some re-usable gift bags out of scrap material. They're incredibly simple, just basic seams along the sides and bottom, and a bit folded over at the top for the yarn cinch. We used bags made by my grandmother every Christmas when I was a kid. I'm not sure where they ended up. Probably a casualty of my parents' house cleanout. I wish I had them now,…

I spent some quality time with the Craftsman table saw today, making these wood blocks for Susan. They'll eventually be sanded and painted as stands for jewelry and small art pieces in her studio. Because I have no tools to deal with 4" wood directly, I made rough cuts with a circular saw to get them to the right general size, then used the table saw to make straighter and more properly aligned cuts. The faces aren't perfectly straight, but…

I picked this up at the thrift shop this summer. I was eyeing it for a while, but what pushed me over the edge was my daughter's observation. "You should get it." It's such a delight. The intentionality involved in using it, the mechanical-ness, the maintainability, fact that it still works as well as it did in 1971. I just love it. There's more information on this model here. Fortunately, there's a small but robust community of typewriter enthusiasts like…

On a recent family zoom call, my sister in law shared how she's been on a "news diet" for about a week (shielding herself from any reports of the concurrent national and global crises), inspired by a Buddhist friend. She said her mood and outlook have been MUCH better, as a result. She has been more productive, and generally more focused on her immediate life. Sounds pretty good, right? Inspired by this, I decided to take similar steps. For me,…

There was a lot of interest in my Croissants in the Solar Oven post so here is some information about the oven itself. Some photos are at the end of this post. Model: GoSun Sport As of July 2023 the plain Sport model appears to be sold out, but you can still find them on eBay. I paid about $US 150 with shipping in 2023. At the time of writing GoSun still has the newer Sport-E in stock which is…

Here's my first shot at cooking bread in my GoSun Sport solar oven. A can of store-bought crescent rolls. 8 to a can, I could comfortably fit 4 in the cooking tray, so I stashed the rest in the fridge for another day. I greased the tray with a bit of butter to make removal and cleanup easier. Cook time was about 50 minutes. This was too long; they were overcooked. Fresh bread requiring no fuel or electricity though! Miraculous!…

Maiden voyage (for me) of our old Grumman 17' aluminum canoe. What a nice way to spend time on the water. Also I'm told the day's wordle was "canoe" so that's fitting. This is the Rocky River near Cleveland Ohio, just upstream of the Emerald Necklace marina. It's a really nice area and very accessible from our home. Miles and miles of connected river valley and multipurpose trail right through the city. It's surrounded by inner-ring suburb neighborhoods but it's…