SheldonTimes

Here's a website ( tastespotting.com ) that's all about food, beautiful, picture-perfect food, with links back to recipes on other food-related websites. Great for browsing if you have time to indulge the impulse to make everything you see. I'm obsessing over the green tea cookies and would be making them right now except I'm fresh out of matcha.

I like the concept of buying things in season and avoiding what's out of season, but until I came across the Eat the Seasons website, I found it difficult to put into practice. Eat the Seasons is updated weekly, and there are articles on most of the items listed for the current week. And it's not just about vegetables and fruits. The site also lists fish and seafood and meat, poultry and game.

One of Paul's staples is Swiss Farm's tea cooler, and he's kept a gallon or two in the fridge for years. We haven't kept records, so don't know how much he actually consumes, but it's at least a gallon per week, and possibly two, especially in the summer. At $2.69 a gallon, tea cooler is hardly a luxury item, but there are some other concerns. First, allthough we try to reuse, we've found no way to reuse the 50 to 100 plastic jugs that we pick up along with the tea cooler each year, so they must be recycled. Second, the quality of the product is debatable.

When we were children, clothes were hung on the line to dry, and sometimes instead on a wooden rack. Automatic dryers were introduced as conveniences, but over time they have become viewed as necessities of modern life. What a shame. Dryers are expensive to operate, increase the temperature in the house, and stress fabrics, decreasing the useful life of clothes. What's more, clothes from the line smell like sunshine, something you can't fake with a detergent or fabric softener.

Here's where Fran will add text about JustActions.com.

Today I came across a blog post "Morning Lace" in which an American expatriate in Japan reminisces about a large box of lace. Before his move to Japan he had left a corporate job to pursue other interests that included a flea market table stocked with items

It's official. After seven years at a great Center City law firm, creating and tweaking websites and online applications, I have tendered my resignation, effective February 13, 2009. Because it's a rather unconventional decision, I thought I'd take an unconventional approach -- a resignation haiku.

 

Feb. 13, '09
The Firm goes on without me.
Freedom trumps money.

 

What will I do with myself with no job? Visit this website to find out. I expect to be busier than ever.

Once again friends gathered at the Iron Hill Brewery in Media ("Everybody's Hometown") for our annual New Year's Eve celebration. Just before midnight, we walked out onto State Street and a half a block west to Brodeur's to watch the famous ball drop.

Home for the holidays, with the exception of John, we celebrated Christmas Eve with a turkey (and salmon) dinner and gift exchange.