Making stuff

Everything is all Coronavirus all the time, so you don't need to really hear any news from that here. I'll just say that everyone in my house (my roommate the fire engineering graduate student, me, and the grumpy cat) is healthy and we are probably doing better than most since we're all introverts. I just finished my second week of working from home and for the first time am enjoying having such a big house.

To distract us all with happier thoughts, here are some things I've been working on. 

Okay, so this is before we all had to stay at home.  I visited my beloved Uncle M and Aunt G in Albuquerque. We now have a routine for these visits: my uncle cooks very good food, my aunt and I do some very complicated baking, I go on a hike with my uncle, and we eat at a traditional New Mexican restaurant.

This is the complicated chocolate bombe glacee, the making of which is delightfully recounted here. It was super fun to make, but actually far too sweet to eat so I was glad we could donate it to a group of hungry Rotarians.

As a minimalist, I avoid having too much furniture, but I needed a desk now that I am working from home. I had exacting requirements about size and lack of drawers (because I usually sit cross-legged while working), so I made one. It's really pretty as long as you don't look too closely, at which point you realize that I will never get a job as a professional furniture maker.

A random aside on another blog alerted me to the existence of dandelion jelly. I had all the ingredients (sugar, pectin, canning jars) and my yard and neighborhood are brimming with dandelions right now. It was a fair bit of work to pick 10 cups of dandelions, but at the end I was surprised that the jelly really did taste like honey, as advertised.

I hope you are staying healthy and as sane as possible in these surreal times.