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After the completely inedible saffron icing incident, I have taken to googling my culinary inspirations to see if recipes (and therefore quantities and ratios of ingredients) already exist. Perhaps I'm really tame, but I must admit I'm more than a little surprised, not that my ideas already exist, but the extent to which they exist. I've volunteered to contribute some baking to my daughter's ballet school for their annual bake sale. I've been toying with a few ideas, and I had thrown a few pomegranates in our grocery basket today, so I thought, "Hmm...I love pomegranates. Maybe I can do something with pomegranates for the bake sale. Hmm...I also love cheesecake. I wonder if those two flavours would work together?" And lo and behold, they do. Apparently I've been missing out - big time."Pomegranate cheesecake recipe" resulted in 4920 results.
Nov. 30th, 2011
bed bugs in public libraries
Nov. 30th, 2011 11:53 pmBedbugs have been found in pretty much all of the lower mainland libraries. They are all taking measures to try to control the issue. There will be periodic inspections with sniffer dogs, and books coming from known problem sources will be put aside for special handling, but even still, the whole beg bug thing has me really freaked out.
We have a really busy and chaotic household. Dealing with bedbugs is a huge nightmare, and I cannot imagine adding the stress of dealing with those little vampires to my already overfull plate. Our kids are avid readers, and we're heavy, heavy, heavy library users. I can't cut the kids off from books. I can't and won't buy that many books. We've been borrowing eBooks from the library and downloading them onto the eReader, but even that's very hit and miss, and the selection isn't stellar (though the libraries are adding to their collection at an impressive rate). Still, I'm terrified. Terrified, I say, of bringing home bedbugs from the library. I know people can get them from just about anywhere, but when it becomes a known source, when I know which shelf the affected books were on, it becomes much more real, and immediate, and scary than an ambiguous "anywhere".
And all this thinking about bedbugs has me worrying about other stuff too. I recently discovered that Norwalk viruses can live on surfaces for two weeks -same thing with hepatitis. I often see the library clerks spraying the covers of books and wiping them down. If wonder if that's why. But what about the soft cover books? No one is spraying those. I have found crusted snot (I think?) in library books. I've visited friends and seen library books stacked in their bathroom. I wonder if the most recent library book that I read accompanied the previous borrower to the bathroom while they did their business?
For as long as I can remember, libraries have been a second home to me. They're packed with old friends, and new friends waiting to be cracked open. I've been hauling the kids to libraries since they were born, and now the library is a second home to them too.
I'm annoyed with myself for letting my paranoia over bedbugs - and let's face it, they're here to stay; dealing with them is quickly becoming a fact of life - ruin my/our favorite refuge.
We have a really busy and chaotic household. Dealing with bedbugs is a huge nightmare, and I cannot imagine adding the stress of dealing with those little vampires to my already overfull plate. Our kids are avid readers, and we're heavy, heavy, heavy library users. I can't cut the kids off from books. I can't and won't buy that many books. We've been borrowing eBooks from the library and downloading them onto the eReader, but even that's very hit and miss, and the selection isn't stellar (though the libraries are adding to their collection at an impressive rate). Still, I'm terrified. Terrified, I say, of bringing home bedbugs from the library. I know people can get them from just about anywhere, but when it becomes a known source, when I know which shelf the affected books were on, it becomes much more real, and immediate, and scary than an ambiguous "anywhere".
And all this thinking about bedbugs has me worrying about other stuff too. I recently discovered that Norwalk viruses can live on surfaces for two weeks -same thing with hepatitis. I often see the library clerks spraying the covers of books and wiping them down. If wonder if that's why. But what about the soft cover books? No one is spraying those. I have found crusted snot (I think?) in library books. I've visited friends and seen library books stacked in their bathroom. I wonder if the most recent library book that I read accompanied the previous borrower to the bathroom while they did their business?
For as long as I can remember, libraries have been a second home to me. They're packed with old friends, and new friends waiting to be cracked open. I've been hauling the kids to libraries since they were born, and now the library is a second home to them too.
I'm annoyed with myself for letting my paranoia over bedbugs - and let's face it, they're here to stay; dealing with them is quickly becoming a fact of life - ruin my/our favorite refuge.