Fine. I concede.

It's winter. We have about four inches of snow, a layer of ice, and another couple inches of snow that's still falling.

I just watched someone ski past my house.

Awesome.

Classic Hits by Microsoft Songsmith:

Well, that was quick. Microsoft only recently came out with their new "creative" program, Songsmith, and already people are using it to its full potential.

Songsmith is an absolutely fantastic tool for musicians who are tired of writing all those troublesome songs themselves. Are you bored with songs that have "soul" or "matching chords and vocals?" No more!! Songsmith smoothly and magically transforms any song into a glorious, steaming pile of sterile and soulless elevator muzak!

All you have to do is sing or provide the vocals, and Songsmith will take care of the rest. Wow!

Sigh of (semi) relief

Update:

After a barrage of complaints, federal regulators shifted gears Thursday and said they would no longer require that used children's clothing, toys and other items sold at secondhand stores be tested for lead.

While this is good news for resale stores and such, people who make handmade children's items are still under the strain of having to comply with testing laws.

Little Quail

Here's a sweet little thing... It's a tiny zither. From the info I've been able to find on them, they're often made of birch or ash (this one seems to be birch?), and they have several names throughout the world--board zither, kantele, lap harp, etc. This one is a simple little instrument with 15 strings (7 wrapped around to double up, and one single) and tuned to either G or C major. It hails from Belarus via Перепелочка (or Perepelochka), whose logos I've discovered I love. Perepelochka means "Little bird" or "little quail" in Russian, and is also the name of a traditional Russian folk song. (Sadly, the zither is not represented in the recording I linked, though it is a fun song.)

It'll be interesting to see what sorts of sounds I can get out of this little fella.

Christmas Crafts

This Christmas, we were low key and made gifts for most everyone. One of the things I gave was jars of home made bath bombs (or in this case, bath bonbons), which fizz luxuriously when you drop them into the tub. I used this recipe. However, for citric acid, which really should have been simple to find near canning supplies in any of the FIVE places we had to go to find it... I used Sour Salt from the kosher section. Same thing. Much easier to find. Rather than using an essential oil to scent it, I used rose water, which was a bit touchy to stir in without everything bubbling up, but seemed to work fine. I wanted the smell to be a bit subtle.

I also baked some rose petals on a baking tray until they dried out (surprisingly quickly) and crushed them to add to the mixture. Who doesn't like rose petals in their bath? They added nicely to the scent as well.

I pressed them into candy molds, using a pestle to put enough pressure on them to make them firm. I had to try some, of course, and I was pretty pleased with the result. I dropped in three bonbons, and they fizzed away in short order. It was a pleasant smell--not overwhelming or chemical--and there was just enough oil in them to leave my skin feeling nice and soft, but not enough to leave a mark on the tub. Whew. These would also make a good foot soak, I think.

One other thing, if anyone's planning on making these--humidity can do really wack things to them. They need to dry for a while before being packaged, but leaving them out for too long makes them puff up. After opening a jar of bonbons I'd closed tightly and having it hiss like a bottle of soda, I decided I needed a dessicant in there. I got a little box of it from the craft store--the kind used to dry flowers--and made a little sachet for each bottle. After that, voila! No more pressure and hissing, though I was too late on a few of the bottles, and the bonbons looked more like macaroons than sleek candies.

Buy them while you can...

Go shopping for children's clothes and toys before February 10!

A new law that calls for every child's toy and article of clothing to be tested for lead and phthalates is about to make it virtually impossible to buy handmade or used children's toys or clothes from places like Etsy, resale stores, or small businesses. Sellers are going to be required to pay for testing on each item they create or sell--sometimes hundreds of dollars per piece. And who's going to shell that out, when the sale price of the item likely brings in a fraction of that?

Long story short: It's good to have safe toys for children. But the majority of the problem was found in imported toys (specifically from China). This is taking it too far. Hundreds of small businesses will have to close. Resale shops for children will not exist. Goodbye, mom-to-mom sales, and the children's departments of Goodwill. Children's toys and clothing are about to become a LOT more expensive. Maybe most gallingly, items that haven't been tested will be automatically considered unsafe and must be thrown out, so landfills will be overflowing with perfectly good items that people couldn't afford to test.

Many small businesses and resale shops are unaware of the law as of yet, which means they'll be slammed with fines when they're noticed.

Way to go, government!