Welcome 2026

After last weekend’s main drain backup it turned out the plumbing wasn’t finished with us yet. Thursday afternoon the shower in the basement bathroom we’ve been using for the past month while our main bathroom remodel takes its sweet time, decided to leak. And it wasn’t one of those slow drip, drip leaks. But we can fix leaky faucets!

It turned out the plumbing was original to our 1952-built house and there are no longer tools and parts to fix it. So we had to call a plumber. He had to replace the shower/tub fixtures, but in order to do that, he had to cut a door-sized hole in the wall of the adjacent bedroom to access the pipes. He then had to replace the steel pipes with copper ones. And now we have new basic shower/tub fixtures and a large hole in the wall. But no more leak!

James and I do not have the tools or know-how to do drywall, so eventually we will need to hire a handyperson to come and do it for us. Since this is a guest bedroom and it is winter and people do not come visit Minnesota in the winter, especially our southern California and New Mexico family members, we can wait until spring or summer to have the wall repaired.

Meanwhile, my main bathroom remodel is not yet done. It is getting close though and I expect it will be completed this week. The tile is done and looks oh so pretty. The grab bars and folding shower chair are mounted. Now we just need a shower door, shower fixtures, a toilet and sink. And of course, with all the new and shiny, I’m looking at the medicine cabinet and wrinkling my nose because it is showing its 25-year-old age. And of course, new paint on the walls is going to need to happen too. When we contracted for the project we both naively thought the rest of the bathroom would not need changing. At least these things we really can do ourselves.

We had vegan black-eyed peas and pumpkin quesadillas on New Year’s Day. They can also be made with sweet potato or another winter squash. Last year we used butternut. Such a tasty meal! I got the recipe a couple years ago from the Washington Post and sadly it is trapped behind a paywall. However, if it is a recipe you are interested in, let me know and I can email it to you, I just can’t post it online.

Eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is supposed to bring good luck. It’s a tradition from the southern part of the United States. My mom is from Oklahoma and grew up having to eat them on New Year’s, but scoffed at the tradition, along with a lot of other southern cultural things, as an adult. Her mom, my Granny, always had to have them, however. Due to a stroke that left her paralyzed on the left side of her body, she lived the last ten years of her life in a nursing home. My mom always had to go to the grocery store and buy a can of black-eyed peas to take to her otherwise she would never hear the end of it. Since Granny couldn’t cook, I assume my mom opened the can and Granny just ate them. I was generally still in my pajamas after sleeping in on New Year’s Day, and was never present for the eating of the black-eyed peas. I just remember my mom grumbling about silly superstitions.

Because of this, I never ate any until I started growing them in the garden several years ago. We tried them out in hoppin’ John and a few other dishes, but not until I came across the quesadilla recipe did we settle on our own “traditional” way to eat them on New Year’s Day. Do I believe that they bring me good luck? No, especially since after we ate them the basement bathroom leak happened. Is it a fun way to honor traditions and ancestors and have a tasty meal in the process? Absolutely!

We ended up with some extra cooked black-eyed peas and James was trying to figure out what meal he might add them to. He’s going to be making split pea soup and thought he could add them to the soup. What did I think about that? I shrugged, seemed like it would be fine.

He continued kitchening in silence, and then suddenly asked, “Do you think it will kill the green peaness?”

“What?!” I exclaimed, and scowled a little.

If you are wondering about my response, say “kill the green peaness” out loud.

James looked at me a bit confused. Then I re-ran what he said in my head and saw the jar of green split peas on the counter. Then I started laughing. Then he realized what I thought he said and started laughing too. I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my face. We are still laughing about it. And now, of course, kill the green peaness has become a thing.

There’s snow on the ground and will be for several months yet, but I ordered my garden seeds! I posted my list last week, and now you can all roll your eyes or giggle because yes, it changed. But I have a good reason!

I was planning on ordering from four different places and remembered Sand Hill Preservation Center in Iowa. They are an heirloom seed place I bought sweet potato slips from a few years ago. I did not get a good sweet potato harvest but that is no fault of theirs. Their product was good, my growing was not because I refused to put down black plastic around the plants to keep the soil at the really warm temperature they like. Surely a sunny spot and some straw will be just fine? Well, since the sweet potatoes weren’t much larger than ping pong balls, the answer was no.

But I recalled that they have lots of really interesting garden seeds I had never seen anywhere else. So I browsed their website to see if I might be able to consolidate my seed order. Why yes, yes I could.

I still had to order from three places, but Sand Hill prices are so good, I was able to shift around some of what I was ordering from the other two places and overall spend much less on seeds and shipping. Of course I had to throw in two additional seeds packets! I added caraway to the order so I will have a supply for sourdough pumpernickel bread making. And I added an interesting herb I had never heard of before called beetberry.

Beetberry, Bitum capitatum, is a member of the amaranth family. The leaves can be eaten raw as a salad green or cooked, and are highly nutritious. The tiny red berries that follow the interesting looking flowers are high in anti-oxidants and can be used to make jams or desserts. The plant also has anti-inflammatory medicinal properties. Even better, it is an annual native to most of North America.

Only two additions, but good ones you have to agree! One of the delightful things about Sand Hill other than their variety and great prices, is that they have no online ordering. I had to download an order form, fill it out, print it off, and send it through the mail with a check. This is likely one of the reasons why their prices are so good. I don’t mind at all that the whole process takes a bit longer because none of the seeds I am getting from them will need to be started indoors until March.

Seeds all done. Next I need to write out my planting calendar.

My two week’s vacation is drawing to a close and it is back to wage work tomorrow. In spite of the topsy-turvy bathroom remodel and plumbing problems, it has been a wonderful and relaxing break. I managed to read 84 books in 2025, more than I ever have before. If you are interested in poking around, check out my LibraryThing list. It says 90 but that’s because it also includes several books I chose to not finish. And there are charts and graphs too if that sort of thing floats your boat, though I’m not certain of their accuracy.

I had some fun on my vacation sorting books on my bookshelves. And I made progress on my attic project too. All the carpet is up. Now I’m filling in the seams on the plywood floor which will then get sanded and painted with primer and then painted with floor paint. Little by little!

I hope your 2026 is off to a good start. Please send good thoughts that I will not have any additional plumbing issues for a very, very long time!

#atticCarpetProject #bathroomRemodel #beetberry #blackEyedPeas #Granny #holeInTheWall #NewYear #plumbing #SandHillPreservationCenter #seedCatalogs #splitPeaSoup

Winter Solstice 2025

Oh Friends, it has been a busy couple of weeks, but now I am happily on vacation for the next two weeks. Aaaaahhhhhh.

The busy was from many things. At work it was wrapping up the semester and trying to make sure the professors I support had all the research materials they needed while the library is closed for two weeks. This while also supporting students studying and taking final exams.

Then home to more busy. James and I helped plan our sangha’s annual tea ceremony. We did not go last year due to bad weather, so we had zero context for what we were helping with. The person doing the bulk of the planning was first out of town and then otherwise engaged, and there was much to do in a week and a half. So many Signal messages and emails and time spend on Zoom working out the details. And of course, the day of the tea ceremony the weather was terrible—first rain, then ice, then light snow and howling wind blowing the snow around. It took me extra time to bike home from work. Then James and I ate a very fast dinner before bundling up and biking very carefully with our portion of supplies to the ceremony. I am grateful we don’t have to bike far.

James and I helped set up, which was already in progress since we were late. Our role in the ceremony itself was to serve the tea and treats to sangha attendees, which involved lots of formal bowing while carrying big trays of tea-filled cups, followed by big trays filled with plates of cookies, fruit, and nuts, which also required lots of formal bowing. In addition I ended up filling the role of tea offerer—placing a cup of tea and a cookie on the altar—because the person who was going to do it lives in the burbs and didn’t come due to the icy roads The altar as on the floor instead of the usual table, and surrounded by candles and flowers. I had to bow and kneel with the offering in my hands, then set it down on the altar. I am proud to say I didn’t spill anything on the altar or on any sangha members, though I did manage to kick two of the many tea light candles on the floor later in the ceremony, making a waxy mess on the floor and on my pants leg.

Still it all came together beautifully and all the attendees gave us gracious praise. Some even stayed late afterwards to help us clean up.

We were out again Friday night, biking in the dark and on sometimes icy roads, to a Beloved Community Circle gathering across the river in St. Paul. The gathering was wonderful, as they always are. Part of our evening was spent formally watering each other’s (metaphorical) flowers. It is so easy to speak from the heart to other people about how wonderful they are and what I admire about them, it is a challenge to accept the beautiful words they say to me. But giving and receiving is part of the practice, and spending the evening with increasingly dear friends was exactly what my heart needed even though we didn’t get home until after 10 and my body was very tired.

Because James had to work at the bookstore on Sunday, the actual day of Solstice, we celebrated on Saturday. Part of the menu was crusty sourdough dinner rolls, which I had enough foresight to make the weekend before and keep them in the freezer. One less thing to do! So after a busy two weeks at work, a week and a half of tea ceremony planning and performing, and a late (for me) night with friends, I spent almost the whole day Saturday cooking.

As you know, James is the cook in the house and he does all the cooking all year except for Winter Solstice. This tradition began over 30 years ago because James with his retail career, was never able to get the Solstice off—too close to Christmas. So I make a sometimes rather elaborate menu, and do all the cooking and have dinner ready when James gets home from work. All these years later, his schedule is much different, but we keep the tradition of me planning and cooking a special meal.

This year’s menu was holiday roast stuffed with roasted golden beet, carrot, and parsnip; wild rice “un-stuffing,” aloo bonda also know as mashed potato fritters (from Vegan Richa cookbook), spicy cranberry chutney, and crusty sourdough rolls. For dessert we had salted date caramel chocolate pie with whipped coconut cream on top. The pie did not set up like it was supposed to and didn’t hold form when removed from the pie plate, but it was delicious all the same. The whole meal was delicious. All the flavors went together beautifully.

Sunday we ate leftovers, and I was able to fully enjoy the meal since I wasn’t tired out from all the things. Tonight is leftovers again. Then the roast will be gone and everything else will get incorporated into other meals.

And now, rest. Though we are in the midst of having our bathroom remodeled. We are converting from a tub with shower to a shower stall that has grab bars. Some days James’s MS leaves him feeling unbalanced and nervous about stepping over the high side of a bathtub. We are also having the old, worn out vinyl floor tiled to match the shower, getting a new toilet that fits our tiny space, and a new sink that also fits the space better.

It was supposed to be done by now, but the city took a long time to issue permits, delaying the start of the work, and then after the new plumbing was done, it took the city inspector a week to come out and give the ok. At the end of last week they did the prep work for tiling. I think that bit is done, but I’m not completely certain since I don’t know what done looks like in this case. All I know is that half my living room is taped off with boxes of tile and other supplies piled up, and I have to walk downstairs every time I need to use the bathroom. The novelty and adventure of this whole project has quickly disappeared, and with Christmas this week, I’m not certain what the work schedule is going to be.

So what do I do for an hour and half this morning? Start back to work on my attic remodel project! I’m still ripping out the old, gross carpet, pulling carpet tape off the under-floor, and cleaning up and moving things around as I go. You may recall I am turning this into a fiber arts room for sewing, weaving, spinning, and knitting. However, it has years of accumulated junk and chaos, some of which I have already disposed of, some of which—like the bins that currently hold my fabric and yarn stash—are getting shuffled around as I work. I would pile them in my living room except I can’t because of all the bathroom remodel stuff.

But now, after this is posted, I plan on some tea and garden dreaming. It’s time to start figuring out what I’m going to grow next year. To get my garden inspiration going, as if I really needed it, I listened to the first Plant Circle Gathering while working in the attic. The Plant Circle is part of a new project by Robin Wall Kimmerer called Plant Baby Plant. It is intended to be the antithesis of drill baby drill. I love their tagline: Raise a garden and raise a ruckus. Yesterday was the first plant circle and when their website officially launched. Be sure to check it out and get inspired!

Something else to inspire you, a photo essay of the anti-ICE march that took place Saturday in Minneapolis. I wanted to go, but just couldn’t fit it in and cook too. Thankfully, thousands of other people were able to turn out.

Happy Solstice!

#atticCarpetProject #bathroomRemodel #BelovedCommunityCircle #ICE #PlantBabyPlant #sangha #teaCeremony #WinterSolstice

New Year, Sort Of

Here we are, several days into 2025. I hope everyone is doing well. There are so many new year opportunities that the calendar new year is kind of anti-climactic for me. When I was a kid it was great. My family would stay up until midnight to watch the ball drop on TV. We’d get pizza and make nachos, and all sorts of other snacks to get us through the night and the marathon game of Monopoly that my dad won every single year. When James and I were still ballroom dancing, we’d go to the party at our dance studio but always left around 11 because we were tired and we wanted to drive home before all the drunk drivers got out on the roads. These days, we’re in bed by 9. 

James did stop at our favorite plant based cafe on the way home from work New Year’s Eve and brought us some burgers. That was a delicious treat. And I did make sure we had black-eyed peas on January 1st, mainly to remember my Granny and honor her and my southern ancestors (my mom’s family is from Oklahoma). Granny always had to have black-eyed peas on New Year’s day for good luck. She was superstitious about many things, and while she would cringe and let some things go—we had a black cat when I was a kid and this sometimes made for fraught visits at my house—black-eyed peas are something she never budged on. 

She had a major stroke on my 13th birthday, and after that she lived in a nursing home, partially paralyzed and unable to walk, for ten years. Even then, she made sure my mom brought her a can of black-eyed peas. This was an annual source of frustration for my mom, who thought her mother’s superstitions ridiculous, but nonetheless, always got a can of black-eyed peas at the grocery store sometime between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and would take it to Granny, usually on the afternoon of the 1st since we all slept in at my house due to that Monopoly game and junk food binge.

But I feel like the new year already started with the Winter Solstice. I also think of my birthday in April as a kind of personal New Year. And then the beginning of February is also a kind of New Year with indoor seed starting getting underway for the garden. Then there is Rosh Hashanah that usually happens in September. We don’t celebrate it, but James always needs to remember to call his parents to wish them Shanah Tovah.

You will not be surprised to hear I don’t make resolutions of any sort. However, if you do, I wish you success in your endeavors!

An arctic cold has slowly crept in and looks like it will be hanging around for a little while. Just in time for me to go back to work after my glorious two weeks of vacation. The chill arrived Wednesday, and I knew it was cold because the chickens didn’t come out of the run and into the garden the entire day. After that we have just been leaving the run door closed to help them stay warm and we’ve been turning on the heat in the coop for them at night. 

I always feel bad for the chickens when the temperature drops like this. I worry about them being cold and bored. But whenever I visit them to either bring them a treat or make sure they are doing okay, they rarely fail to give me the impression that I have interrupted some grand scheming. It’s like when you catch a child doing something they know they shouldn’t be and they quickly try and hide whatever that is and look at you innocent and nonchalant. Or perhaps it’s more like a Jedi mind trick.

Ethel never fails to look lost and discombobulated. Sia goes frenetic—oh hey hi it’s you watch my white bouffant bobbing around do you have a treat? Watch my head oh hey hi I have no idea what is going on. And Mrs. Dashwood turns a beady eye and looks at me: what? Times like this I miss Elinor who would add a dash of danger and thuggery to it all since she would usually be in the coop and I always had a slight fear that when I bent over to look in the door she’d be right there and peck my face. She never did, but I suspect she was aware of the threat she projected, no doubt taking pleasure in it, and remained satisfied with the vicious pecks to the back of my knees just above the top of my wellies that served as a constant intimidation tactic.

I finished up my 500 km Rapha Challenge with an easy Zwift group ride on Tuesday morning. I only had 16 kms to go and it took about 20 minutes. I kept going anyway for some icing on the cake. It was fun. If I have the time next year, I will definitely do it again. 

One of my vacation projects has been to begin ripping out the old, gross carpet from the attic. Like many midwest houses, we have a half attic space that’s finished  in a room that goes the length of the house at the peak. The ceiling isn’t high enough for it to be called a bedroom, nor is it high enough for it to be useful for much since the ceiling slants down on either side and if you are tall, you probably won’t be able to stand upright. As a person of the shorter variety, I have plenty of headspace until I get next to the wall. 

The attic with its manky carpet used to be my sewing room. Then James decided he wanted a man cave and my sewing table moved down to my book/study room where it has taken up a large part of the room ever since. James had his man cave for a few years and then abandoned it, leaving it disorganized. And then it just became the place things went that we didn’t know what to do with.

We have talked about ripping out the carpet and re-doing the attic for years. Years! But it’s never been a priority and if you own a house you know all about those sorts of projects. However, since I took a weaving class a year ago and bought a loom and realized there is no space in my little book room for my desk, books, a sewing table, a loom, and my off-season bike storage, I decided it was time for the attic project to happen. I began sorting through the piles and bins and making sense of what was up there a few months ago. And I started thinking about what I wanted instead of the gross carpet.

The floor needs to be a hard surface so I can find dropped pins and spread out projects for cutting or assembling. I thought about ceramic tile but decided no, slippery and kind of boring. Then I thought it might be fun to have a kind of collage floor of bits and pieces gleaned through my Buy Nothing group. Eventually I decided that while it would be kind of cool, trying to fit together various types of material into a unified and useable floor was more work than I wanted to do. Eventually I decided the floor will be painted.

Under the carpet is plywood, good plywood, at least from what I have uncovered so far. I’ve picked out and ordered the primer and the floor paint and the paint for the walls, a nontoxic, no VOC paint that should be arriving soon. I’ve spent the last three days ripping the carpet off the stairs up to the attic. It was taped and stapled down and not easy to get up. The attic floor will be much easier since the little I have done of that so far has not had any staples. Along with the carpet there is still some decluttering to do, but I feel good about finally making progress on this project. I am taking photos as I go, something I always forget to do, and will eventually share it once I have some before and afters and we can all say oooh and aaah.

While I have been ripping carpet I’ve been listening to book podcasts. The most dangerous one was the Meal of Thorns (science fiction and fantasy) year-end wrap up that added a bunch of books to my TBR list. But it is always fun to be excited about new and old books.

I had a very good year of reading. I left Good Reads at the end of 2023 and have been keeping track of all my reading on LibraryThing. It turns out they have annual “stats” of a sort. You can see mine if you feel so inclined. They aren’t perfect but make for an interesting snapshot. I don’t know how they determine genre. Poetry seems to be lumped into something instead of being on its own. And I wish clicking on the genre in the pie chart listed out the books, but it sadly does not.

The books added information is not accurate because it appears to include my wishlist. Also, until this year, I haven’t updated LibraryThing in, well I can’t remember it’s been so long. In the summer I began working on going through our bookshelves. There are lots of books to add and plenty of books to remove as well. It’s slow going, but pawing through books is always fun. In addition, since I am keeping track of books I read but don’t own, these also appear in the books added stats. These books I categorize as “read but not owned” to keep them separate from the ones I do, but they still appear as books added. The system has a few flaws, but this one is working well enough for me, and it is not owned by Amazon, nor does it constantly pester me to create a number goal for the year.

Tomorrow morning it’s back to wage work. These two weeks have been relaxing and I am lucky to be able to take the time. I’m going to miss having a cup of chai tea and reading in the afternoon. At least the long Martin Luther King holiday weekend isn’t that far away.

Reading

• Essay: Voices from the Dead Letter Office by Cynthia Ozick. An essay that begins with Ozick declaring letter writing to be dead, fountains pens to be art objects, and typewriters as extinct as longhand writing. And then she goes on to detail all the various purposes letters have served from letter as play, plot, and confession to letter as love, loss, and history. She herself leads an epistolary life, though it sounds like some of it has turned into long email letters, which are still letters. But even as she pursues letter writing, she declares it dead–there must be a word for when people do this sort of thing, but it escapes me. Hyperbole maybe? Of course I disagree with her. I have several email and longhand through the post correspondents. However, while letters aren’t dead, I know they are uncommon because my mail carrier once told me that he loves delivering mail to my house. The letters come as postcards or in envelopes made from paper that was not originally an envelope, or decorated with stamps and stickers. I was surprised when he told me this, but then when I thought about it, I understood that most of what he delivers is junk mail, flyers, bills, and sometimes greeting cards. I suppose that does get rather boring. I wonder whether he reads the postcards he delivers to my house and what he thinks about them? If you would like to contribute to the happiness of my mail carrier and get some happiness in your own mailbox, let me know!
• Poetry: The Ocean in the Next Room by Sarah V. Schweig. It took me half the collection before I finally was able to find my way into her poems. The long poem about the COVID pandemic in New York where she lives had me saying “oh, oh, oh” repeatedly. And when I got to the end of the book, I went back to some of the poems I struggled with at the beginning and reread them and found them much to my liking.
• Essays: The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’m on a slow read of all of Le Guin’s work. I’ve been mainly reading her novels and short stories up until now. This was her first collection of essays published originally in 1979. Then published in the UK in 1989 with a preface and some footnote comments by Le Guin. My copy, with a new introduction by Ken Liu, was published in May of 2024. I’ve read some of the essays and several of the book introductions before (while reading the actual book they are introducing), but having it all collected and talking with each other is fantastic. Le Guin thinks deeply about science fiction and art, her work and the work of others, and the world in general. She’s funny, has an opinion, and is not afraid to say she was wrong about something. This collection is a real treasure.

Quote

“When art shows only how and what, it is trivial entertainment, whether optimistic or despairing. When it asks why, it rises from mere emotional response to real statement, and to intelligent ethical choice. It becomes, not a passive reflection, but an act.

And that is when all the censors, of governments and of the marketplace, become afraid of it.

But our censors are not just the publishers and editors and distributors and publicists and book clubs and syndicated reviewers. They are the writers, and the readers. They are you and me. We censor ourselves. We writers fail to write seriously because we’re afraid—for good cause—that is won’t sell. And as readers we fail to discriminate; we accept passively what is for sale in the marketplace; we buy it, read it, and forget it. We are mere ‘viewers’ and ‘consumers,’ not readers at all.”

~Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Stalin in the Soul” in The Language of the Night

Listening

• Podcast: Between the Covers: Rodrigo Fresán: Melvill. Melvill was already on my TBR list, and after listening to this podcast I want to read it even more. Not only because it sounds like it is doing something really interesting, but because Fresán himself was so funny and such a pleasure to listen to.
• Podcast: Planet Critical: Language and Violence: Sunil Amrith. Amrith is a historian at Yale University and this conversation is about language and violence—how language obfuscates, distracts, and denies violence. Violence is systemic and present at every level of society. It might seem like this would be depressing, but it was really interesting and makes me think about all the ways I use violent language and accept hearing violent language from others.
• Podcast: Big Books & Bold Ideas: Why some college students aren’t reading books. Keri Miller is a local Minnesota Public Radio reporter who is MPR’s book person and does a regular in-person program for MPR called Talking Volumes, among other things. I just discovered this podcast and this is the first episode I listened to. You may recall the November 2024 Atlantic cover story about how a significant number of elite college students can’t read books. In the podcast Miller talks with Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor and author of the book On Reading Well, as well as Taiyon Coleman, the dean of liberal arts at a local community college who used to be an English professor. They were an interesting pairing, but sadly interviewed separately, because it would have been really interesting to hear them talking to each other. Prior, a white woman, was pretty much in complete agreement with the Atlantic article and insisted on the importance of learning to read critically, especially great books like Jane Eyre. Coleman, a woman of color, added all sorts of complications and questions into the mix, including what sorts of books we think students should read (if English is not your first language and you come from some place like Somalia, Jane Eyre is not likely to be attractive to you), and whether we actually value reading and critical thinking as much as we say we do. If our educational system is not teaching students to read and think, what sort of person do they become and who benefits from that? A most excellent point, because a society that doesn’t know how to read or think critically is a great benefit for authoritarians and fascists.

Watching

Nothing this week.

James’s Kitchen Wizardry

The black-eyed peas (grown in the garden) we had on New Year’s Day happened in the from a black-eyed pea and sweet potato vegan quesadilla recipe at the Washington Post. We chose to use pumpkin (also grown in the garden) instead of sweet potato. It was soooo good! It is likely to become our regular New Year’s recipe.

#atticCarpetProject #blackEyedPeas #Chickens #Granny #jediMindTrick #LibraryThing #Rapha500 #reading #ReverieCafe #superstitions #UrsulaLeGuin #Zwift