A bit of dance, a bit of things in jars.

Had my final belly dance class of the session this morning. Wonderful Husband got up at work-o'clock-a.m. on a weekend to come watch! He thinks I'm good. I think he's biased. In any case, I plan to continue with the beginner-level class again come January. I'm not comfortable enough yet to consider moving up to intermediate.

Tidied up cabinets, creating enough room that all the home-canned goods on the counter could be put away. Delivered sourdough bread and a newish hummingbird feeder to my mother; estate sale'd and generally gallivanted with her. Returned home with a quart and a pint of salsa in exchange for the bread, and British tea and sweets for Wonderful Husband purchased at the fish'n'chips shop where Mom and I had lunch.

Canned shredded summer squash, bell peppers, jalepenos, and onions into Hot Zucchini Relish. Unfortunately what I had on hand were green squash and peppers, so it cooked to that particular shade I shall refer to as "boiled vegetable" rather than the lovely red-and-gold of the picture. Still, the proof is in the pudding, as they say... I shall wait and see how it tastes. Sadly, it just filled six pint jars so I had none left over for sampling. Culinary discovery: using the Cuisinart to shred onions still makes me tear up.

Think I shall use the rest of the squash (and onions, and peppers) in spicy garden pickles, which mellow into a dead ringer taste-wise for Branston Pickle. I also need to ponder on what to do with more apples, as I have failed to find the liquid pectin I would need to make Honey Lemon Apple Jam....

Recipe Search Fail

I cannot find the recipe for my garden pickles. Google has also failed me.

I don't suppose I ever gave it to anyone, or someone here gave it to me? I know from the ingredients list on the jar that the salient ingredients (other than the veg) are sugar, distilled white vinegar, cider vinegar, mustard seeds, and celery seeds. While I have googled for "garden" "squash" and "zucchini" pickles with a list of those ingredients, most recipes come up with one kind of vinegar or the other but not both, and tend to include turmeric, which this recipe did not.

If it helps, the recipe would have been posted or given to me before October of 2008.

NaNo. Erm?

Wonderful Husband has built me a new computer. Possibly largely because he was tired of me muttering about not being able to access things like YouTube, the Pit of Voles, and our bank's website on mine. Also possibly because he was tired of me stealing his computer to play Minecraft.

Today he has been transferring things over. Including Queen's Choice.

When I opened it, I nearly panicked.

143 pages --> 119 pages is not a good thing.

The margins are the same. The font is the same. The font size is the same. I've somehow gained 2217 words (he theorizes it's now counting hyphenated words) even though the character count is (thankfully) the same as on the old computer. Everything I've written seems to be there.

It's just totally freaky. How the heck has the page count changed when the margins, font, and font size stayed constant?!

NaNo, Day 6

Start point: 89104
End point: 89330
Words written today: 226
Total thus far: 6619

Didn't write very much today; mainly went back over what I'd written yesterday, taking out a few words and putting a few more back. I admit, the whole 143-->119 (unknown why)-->124 (new font) thing pretty much derailed writing for me today.

I think I must remember to drag out and back in the virtues each of Marin's ear piercings has. It seems appropriate for this section.

Shower now, then unconsciousness.