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I apparently created this post as a draft a couple years ago and never followed up.  Funny to release it now since I no longer have a garden (at least until I get the balcony going), but I think it might turn out useful.

Conclusion from this experiment – pretty much all of the plants I divided out survived and thrived just fine.  So I conclude that buying seedlings with more than one plant per pot can be a sneaky way to save a few bucks.  

The seedlings at the local garden store were all multiple seedlings per pot:

(Note a few separated beets around the edge; they sprout in clumps and I gently dig them up and transplant to individual spots)

The source recipe called this lentil chili but we decided his was a misnomer.

Splash olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
4 tsp chopped garlic
1 cup chopped baby carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander

1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 bag (about 2.5 cups) lentils
3 cups veggie broth (used better than bouillon vegetable)

Turned instant pot on sauté, added splash of oil. Sautéed onions, garlic, carrot, celery until softened. Added spices and stirred in for a minute or so. Added broth, deglazed bottom of pan. Added tomatoes and lentils, switched to “beans/chili” mode and pressure cooked for 14 minutes. Allowed 10 minute natural release and then vented.

Result – tasty. Beans are fully soft to the point of being creamy, and very little extra liquid. I had thought they’d need to go over rice but I think they’re fine as is.

Splash olive oil
4 boneless skinless chicken thighs, fat cut off and cut into bite size pieces
8 oz sliced baby Bella mushrooms
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 cup diced onion
1 tsp (at least – one good shake) basil
24 oz bottle spaghetti sauce – Classico tomato basil
2 c water
2 c rotini noodles
3/4 cup grated cheese – combination of Parmesan and grated Mexican blend

Turned instant pot to sauté and added a splash of olive oil.  When hot, browned chicken pieces a couple minutes, added onion and garlic for a few more minutes, then mushrooms and cooked until volume reduced about half. Then added spaghetti sauce and basil and water, stirred well, added pasta and made sure all pasta was fully submerged. Turned pot to manual high pressure mode for 10 minutes. Quick release and then stir in cheese.

Result – noodles cooked and not too much extra liquid. Taste was fine but a bit bland.  Think the cheese sort of kills the tanginess. Will have to think about how to get the thickness added by the cheese and also get more punch. But, was easy and would do again.

First try on this recipe.

2 tsp olive oil
1 cup frozen chopped onion
24 oz sliced baby Bella mushrooms
1/2 tsp dried thyme
4 1/2 cup chicken stock (used better then broth bouillon)
2 cup arborio  rice
1 cup shaved Parmesan
1 tbsp butter
9 oz Beyond Meat chicken grilled strips, chopped into pieces

Turned the pot to sauté and added oil. Cooked onion until brown, added in mushrooms and thyme, cooked until reduced to about half the original volume.  Added fake chicken bits and stirred in for a few seconds. Poured in the broth and scraped bottom of pan well.  Added rice, stored, switched pot to manual high pressure for 7 minutes. Quick released the pressure and stirred in butter and cheese.

Result is creamy and thick and yummy. Made four very large portions.

Notes – recipe called for 1/2 cup wine (red or white) and 4 cups broth. Didn’t have wine on hand
Recipe said to toast rice then add liquid. I did the liquid first because I was focused on deglazing the pot and forgot the toasting bit.
The chicken was not in the recipe. I just had it on hand so I used it.

This was a winner. Will make again.

In July of 2017, I posted my thoughts on how I want to live.

A month later, a hurricane flooded my home, forcing us to evacuate and spend the next half-year dealing with insurance, property sales and purchases and moving. 

Because I’d invested that recent time into considering my goals for day-to-day life, I quickly came to see the forced move as an opportunity to make some conscious, active choices about my new home. Those thoughts, plus many more in the following weeks and months, really helped when we were viewing possible new homes and trying to picture our lives there.

Some insights and decisions I made:

I love to garden and learn about gardening, but don’t feel the need to own the garden I work in.  And when I’m the only one tending the garden, I get overwhelmed and frustrated at never managing to do enough.  I decided to forego a large personal garden and instead joined a crew of volunteer gardeners maintaining a large public garden.  So I’m still loving the gardening, and have the opportunity to learn from master gardeners and socialize with other volunteers as well.  So far, very happy with this.

The new place is much closer to public transportation, which means I can eliminate a lot of driving time from my life.  If someone else is doing the driving, I can spend that time paying attention to something else.  Right now, I’m using a phone app to learn a bit of basic Italian, in anticipation of some upcoming travel.

The new place has a bigger kitchen area, similar dining area, and actually a bit less space given over to the social living area (living/family room).  In the past, we had a big living room, dining room, and family room, composing over half the home’s square footage.  This was great for throwing big parties, but… we didn’t actually enjoy throwing big parties.  We are far more likely to enjoy entertaining a few people at a time.  So, less public entertaining space.  Instead, we have more square footage for closets (so there’s less clutter out in the rooms), and for the activities we like to do at home – like exercising, and crafts, and office space.

We’ll see how it goes.  And in the future, I suppose I’ll be more careful when I muse aloud to the universe about wanting sweeping changes in my home and life!

I was given a little book about the Kondo approach to clutter-free living.  There’s a bit of irony there because in general, I’ve concluded that books are one of the areas where I could really improve my clutter management – so I have been getting rid of many.  But it seemed worth reading the thing first, before passing it on.

Once upon a time, cell phones seemed relatively immune to robocalls.  Maybe there were even rules against it?  Anyway, that time is long gone and I get far too many junk calls.

Googling “block robocalls iPhone” I find the following:

Rules, regulations, and interesting information about robocalls and telemarketing calls:

• Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers without prior consent. Automated dialers are standard in the industry, so most telemarketers are barred from calling consumers’ cell phones without their consent.  
• Charities, political groups, debt collectors and surveys are still allowed to call you.  Also “informational calls”.  So a lot of companies could re-define what they’re doing and still call you.
• The FTC has sponsored competitions to try to develop techniques to track down and stop robocallers.  Hasn’t had one since 2015, though.  
• Given the laws, the companies that spoof their caller ID numbers (so they won’t get caught) and call you anyway are more likely to be scams than legitimate businesses.

Notes about things to do to avoid calls (and letters and emails in some cases):

• Register on the National Do Not Call Registry – https://donotcall.gov.  (Verified I’ve been registered since 2008 for all the good that’s done me)
• There’s also a registry through the Consumer Credit Reporting Industry web page that lets you opt out of pre-screened credit offers (mail or phone).  https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t  It was recommended by the FTC web page which makes it somewhat legit.  You can do a 5-year request online; if you want it to be a permanent opt-out, you have to print and mail a form to them.  I didn’t bother to mail the form, since I figure it’s not that hard to re-register every 5 years and I’m lazy.  
• And there’s a registry from the Direct Marketing Association http://www.dmachoice.org/ that lets you opt out of direct mail solicitations for five years.  
• It works by having you register for an account, after which you can manage your preferences by removing your name from “prospect” (not already a customer) lists that are provided to companies, in four categories (Catalogs, Magazine offers, Other mail offers, Credit offers – which actually just points to the CCRI page above).  In each category you can opt out of the whole category or individual companies.
• I had to consider on this one if it might create more risk than benefit – I mean, these people make their living by giving my address to mail marketers.  What if they actually collect my info and then use it to add me to more lists?  Ultimately I decided that it’s worth the experiment because I’m probably on all the lists already, so it’s unlikely to get worse. 
• So I put in the info to set up an account.  According to several older things I saw on the web, they did not ask me to pay anything to register online.  Decided not to opt out of catalogs because I rather enjoy catalogs sometimes.  
• DMA.org also has a sign-up to opt out of email solicitations, which you can link to on their Home page.  I doubt this will do much but I went ahead and registered to see what would happen.  Looks like this will expire after 6 years.
• Then there’s https://www.catalogchoice.org which lets you decide which catalogs you want to get and which you don’t.  I’m not really bothered by catalogs at this point so not much point there.

When you receive a call:

• Don’t interact since that may verify it’s a real number.
• It probably doesn’t help much to report or block numbers because companies do “caller ID spoofing” where the phone shows you a number that isn’t real. 
• On the iPhone you can block individual numbers.  Worth doing given that most are probably spoofed caller IDs?

Apps and services to deal with Robocalls automatically:

• NoMoRobo is free for VOIP landlines but costs $2 per month for mobile phones.  
• Several reverse-lookup services exist for iPhone; all of them have fees similar to NoMoRobo.  

References:
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0108-national-do-not-call-registry
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/feature-0025-robocalls
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email
http://cyberguy.com/appearances/3-smart-ways-to-block-robocalls/

The SITUATION

Behold an innocuous coat closet.

But here’s a secret:  It’s the width of a typical coat closet but for some reason this baby is 4 feet deep!

Realistically, the space in the back of this closet is always going to be a royal pain in the tushie to access.  You have to shove past the front row to get to it, and since you can’t easily scan what’s there (without just removing everything in the front row), it’s all too easy to forget you even own whatever is back there.

The previous owners had installed a second hanging bar in the back half of the closet.  Nice idea, I suppose, if you have a lot of hanging clothes that you need to store for long periods (but can’t fold up in boxes for some reason) – like, off-season clothing.  But this is Houston.  It’s mid-January and as I write this, It’s around 70 degrees; I’m barefoot and perfectly comfortable in a short-sleeve t-shirt.  There’s just never a time when you won’t use your “summer clothes”, and unless you routinely travel someplace further north, it’s just not worth owning enough “winter clothes” to justify an entire secret closet to store them.

So.  What sorts of things does one own that need to be stored and rarely or never accessed?

• Digital media (CDs and DVDs) which have been ripped to digital format for household media streaming use.  Would only need to access if something catastrophic happened to media drive and backups.
• Old records archives – taxes, home purchase documents, etc. Would only need to access if something major happened – sale of the house, tax audit, etc.
• Memorabilia – those things that you feel compelled to keep in physical form, but don’t feel a need to pull out and look at regularly.  Frankly, we’re trying to really minimize that group – if it’s important enough to own, it’s important enough to showcase, by framing and hanging it for example.  But still, some such things always exist.
• Maybe a hurricane supplies kit?  Update it annually and then only pull it out if an actual hurricane occurs.  Would contain spare flashlights/candles, batteries, water bottles (the soft-sided collapsible ones that people use to sneak alcohol onto cruise ships?), etc.
• Things like christmas ornaments that you’ll need to access only once a year.

• clear out closet,  remove existing boards or obstructions
• mark location of studs – all the way down wall.  
• Think about stud location and figure out if back or side shelf supports should nail into studs nearest corner.  (affects length)
• Stud location will also affect needed length of side supports.  They need to be at least 20 inches but add more inches if that gives another stud to nail into near front end.
• Install supports by nailing them into studs starting from back pieces, making sure they’re perfectly level.  Should be able to level bottom one, then the rest easy to add on by using spacer board.
• Then line up side pieces, again paying close attention to the level-ness of bottom one.
• Then cut shelves to size, finish them as desired, and install in closet.
• Then load up stuff!  See how much will fit.

Result

Putting this together was super easy.  

I got many boxes of archive CDs, a couple boxes of memorabilia, a box of archival files (e.g. old taxes), a box of Christmas ornaments, and the Christmas tree in there.  

With the coats in there, it again looks like a mundane coat closet, no idea the back half is holding a bookshelf’s worth of stuff!

I had someone come cut some big limbs off my trees last week, to get everything healthy and ready for hurricane season. He and his crew seemed to think I was nuts when I told them I didn’t want the wood hauled away. I didn’t actually have a plan for it at that time, but knew I would figure something out.

Then my friend asked if I had any ideas for “rustic” candle holders for some big pillar candles. And, well, I had rustic for her!

So today, we cut slabs of juniper, sanded them smooth, and routed out a nice depression for the candles. And voila!

I used the table saw to cut the slabs – put the blade at the highest point and set the fence to the desired slab thickness, used a right angle guide in the slot to run the log through. Then rotated the log and repeated the task because it was too wide for the blade to get in one pass.

For routing the depressions we just drew an outline of the candles and freehand routed. Easier with a clear router base plate so we could see what we were doing!

Then we had an irregular chunk of log left so we thought it might be nice for skinnier candles. Basically we just sanded the ends and drilled the candle holes with a spade bit.

One of my things to research was related to music streaming options but our research veered off into video options.  The elderly tube TV we were using for our workouts (too old to pick up HD signal, but capable of hooking up to a DVD) was increasingly unsatisfactory.  Among other things, having to buy our media content on DVDs was getting on our nerves.

So here’s the quick checklist for what you need if you want to have decent video watching options but don’t want to deal with buying a cable TV package:

1.  TV features – issues seem to include:

• Resolution – expressed in terms of pixels (p) but keep in mind that this is total pixels, and so the bigger the screen, the more spread-out those pixels are going to be.  So for a TV in the size we wanted (we were looking at things in the 40-inch range given the size of wall and room we were working with), 1080 seemed like the reasonable minimum.  Below that, we could see some effects of low pixels on curved sharp lines.  There was a really fancy 4,000 pixel OLED TV that was just gorgeous, but it was in the thousands of dollars so not what we were going for.  Maybe in a few years when they come down in price or we win the lottery.
• Availability of inputs/outputs – all seem to have an input for a cable or antenna.  Other desirable stuff?  HDMI slot or slots for hooking up media streamers.  AV jacks for hooking up an older DVD player.  USB slot for hooking up storage media, showing pictures, etc.
• Consider where you’ll put it.  Want to hang on the wall, make sure it as holes in the back to allow that.  Want to set it on a stand, make sure the stand will fit on the surface you plan.