domynoe pointed me to Ichiban Kan, an online Japanese housewares, gadgets and snack store. Looks like they have just about everything the wannabe Japanese homekeeper could need or want!

Now to check out the stationery section. . . .

An older but useful post for tea-drinkers:

Tea Party Girl warns us of The Top Seven Mistakes Tea-Drinkers Make.

Oops, I think I may be guilty of some of these, and probably all of them at some point in the past! I rather like cream or half-and-half in my tea, but maybe I should try milk again? But I like the way the cream sort of swirls at the top . . .

I just put some teas out in glass jars, exposed to light. I don’t want to put them away (they look pretty) so I’ll just see how long it takes me to drink the tea before I change that habit.

Saturday we went to the Mushroom Fair in McCloud, or as we like to call it, the Unmushroom Fair. My niece calculated that there were about three mushrooms total at the fair, and I think she may be right. It was a rained out event, perfect weather for our Mushroom Dance (in which we sit in a moist, shady spot—the street worked out okay—and stand up really slowly), but alas, it meant freezing and getting soaked while waiting for some of the vendors to set up. We hid in a booth where they were making a wonderful-smelling mushroom and lamb stew, and then ran across the street to the old fashioned candy store and soda shoppe.

While we huddled in the corridor, we ran into a vendor who had decided to take it over with her sparkly body paint and aromatherapy products. She told my niece to taste something, and after my niece did so without thinking, the vendor informed her, “You can get really high off that.” My niece giggled anxiously and then we hurried into the candy store. What the heck?! I think she meant a “spiritual high” or something. I hope. After the candy store we went to a bookstore with a lot of neat books on architecture, design, local history, field guides and the like. I picked up a mushroom field guide, All That the Rain Promises, and More . . . by David Arora, who, merely guessing by his picture, is clearly insane.

Then we went to look for food. The flyer for the fair listed mushroom dishes at various local restaurants. Lobster-stuffed mushrooms looked good, so we headed to the River Bar & Grill. Unfortunately, they weren’t serving their mushrooms until after four, and it was about noon. I gave them back my soda, and we took off, looking for mushroom-laced provisions. We went back to main street and settled in a café, White Mountain Fountain, where they were supposedly serving mushroom risotto; after all the cold and rain this sounded fantastic. . . . Unfortunately the cook had gone grocery shopping and not told the person who made the risotto what it was (!), and so no risotto.

“Okay,” I said, pointing to the Railroad Roast Beef, a roast beef sandwich with plain sauteed button mushrooms, arugula, brie and aioli. “What’s ‘aioli’?”
“It’s like a garlic and mayonnaise spread.”
“Okay. And arugula, that’s a vegetable, like lettuce, right?”
“Right, but we don’t have that. It’ll probably be some other greens, like spinach or romaine . . . And we don’t have brie. It’ll be fontina.”
“Er, okay, well I’ll get the Railroad Roast Beef then, without aioli.”
*panicked look* “But we don’t have arugula, and it’ll be fontina instead of brie!”
“Uh . . . yeah. I’ll take that, and fries with a side of ranch.”
“Ranch?” *more panic* “Okay!”

I think there were about two mushrooms on my sandwich. The waitress ignored us the rest of the meal, and we left, feeling disgruntled and not having eaten a single exotic mushroom of any kind. Finally, we went back out to the booth with the mushroom and lamb stew, the only booth that was apparently serving anything other than button mushrooms (gimme a break!) and had some porcini ravioli which were excellent! We also learned about candy cap mushrooms which apparently are sweet enough to use in desserts and make into syrup.

After that, we went to the rained-out car show in Dunsmuir, looked at ten classic British cars (I think they were all MGs and Austin Healeys), and went to get Frosties in Mount Shasta, the only real success of the day. I had a chocolate and vanilla swirl.

Unfolding Maple
Originally uploaded by aelfsciene

New leaves on a maple at the Japanese Gardens at Lithia Park in Ashland, Oregon.

From Jon Courson’s New Testament Application Commentary:

What does “hospitality” mean? It means to be a “hospital” for the hurting, lonely people who come your way.

Entertaining says, “I want to impress you with my home, my decorating, my cooking.”

Hospitality says, “This house is simply a gift from my Master. I use it however and whenever He desires.”

Entertaining needs to impress.

Hospitality aims to serve.

Entertaining puts things before people, saying, “As soon as I get the house clean, I”ll start inviting people over.”

Hospitality puts people first, saying, “No furniture? No problem. We’ll picnic on the floor.”

Entertaining subtly declares, “This house is mine—an expression of my personality, and my ingenuity.”

Hospitality whispers, “What’s mine is yours. Enjoy it anytime.”

I posted recently about Hannah’s Art of Home. The first bit of homework in the book is to create what she calls a “dream book”, a book in which you write all your thoughts about your home and your life. You collage this book with things you love or things that just make you feel happy, and then you cover it with packing tape to protect it. The collaging went well (even if I maybe overdid it just a touch), the taping, not so much. But I decided that my taping mishaps would work like a “humility square” on an Amish quilt, keeping me from the sin of pride in my craftsmanship. Or something. I think I needed a reminder that nothing is perfect, but imperfect things and people still have value.

Anyway, my Dream Book:

I can definitely see some recurring elements and colours, especially on the front. By the time I got to the back of the book I was getting a little loopy I think. The crab is clearly about to eat a bowl of shredded wheat.

I’ve just started getting into Hannah’s Art of Home: Managing your home around your personality by Hannah Keeley. I’m hoping that because this is not a one-size-fits-all housekeeping manual, but rather shows you how to tailor your routine to your personality, that it’ll help me get organized and better at staying on top of things.

In the first chapter, Hannah talks about housekeeping in general, what’s so great about home, and briefly hints at her method: it’s important to keep house in a way that complements your personality, rather than trying to force yourself to manage your home just like everyone else, be it Donna Reed or Martha Stewart.

In the second chapter, Keeley introduces you to a history of personality theories, and her own Home Personality Test. There are four basic personality types (Keeley seems to be using the four Keirsey Temperaments: Rational, Artisan, Guardian and Idealist, albeit with different names), and you take a quick Cosmo-like test to assess which one you are. I got the Starry-Eyed Dreamer (Idealist); no suprise there.

At the end of each chapter, Keeley suggests a different prescription for each of the four temperament types. But before you can get that far, she asks you to create a “dream book”, an unruled notebook with collaged covers, for writing your thoughts and ideas in. Sounds like fun, except I’ve been immersed in the project for more than a week now, cutting out pictures of birds, tea accoutrements, pottery and the like and glue-sticking them on. I could see some other personality types really having to overcome some hurdles (it sort of requires being imperfect and unrestrained) but for me it’s a question of ever stopping.

And now, a haiku about the Zojirushi Micom Water Boiler & Warmer:

Elephant machine
dispenses water for me.
I can be lazy.

Now if only I could afford one!

I’m tired of feeling out-of-control. In the past two years, I’ve moved from town to the lake, from the lake to the Bay Area, and back to the lake again. There is too much stuff crammed into my tiny lakeside apartment, and I feel like I’m buried under it. Add to that the stress of a divorce, the stress of being jobless, the stress of trying hopelessly to find work in a county with too few jobs, the stress of being financially dependent on others, and my frustration levels are about to hit the moon. I feel helpless to get my life under control.

But I have to try.

Everyone keeps telling me to take it a day at a time, and though that never seems fast enough, I really have no choice. Depending on God is the only thing I can do, as He shows me which step to take next. So I guess that’s what this weblog is about: Me, trying to find peace for myself in my surroundings, one step at a time.

On that note, let’s start with a list. Some conquerable goals:

• Clean and organize my bookcase.
• Get rid of my anime and manga collectibles.
• Prune my wardrobe.
• Purge the apartment of clutter.

I think if I manage those things, I’ll be able to keep house much more effectively on a day-to-day basis. This is crucial, because there’s nothing that halts my writing productivity more than a messy house. I wish I’d realized that a long time ago.