I’m actually sorry I missed this… During thunderstorms, I like to sit out on the back porch and watch the lightning and listen to the rain come down – the more violent the better. Not in the habit though of doing that for winter storms… too cold and snowy.

Nonetheless, this must have been pretty darn exciting when it happened. I was probably at work though. Meh.

The branch is about 3 or 4 inches across at its base, and when it broke fate was kind enough to make sure it formed something of a natural point.

The limb is perhaps 20 feet long in total, though it tapers off and branches out towards the end.

In the 8 years I’ve lived here, this is only the second time I’ve had a tree branch come down and cause damage. The first time was a couple years ago when a much larger limb came down in the summer and crushed my BBQ.

Fun times…

Le Chat Noir: Une petit-purr de dángeur.

Whether it’s the “golden rule”, the “ten commandments”, the “witches’ rede”, et cetera, there are lots of various words that people live by. 

I like to think of myself as fairly uncomplicated, and 10 rules is a lot to remember, so the commandments thing isn’t my style.  The golden rule thingy, I’m not really sure what the ‘official’ one is, the only one I know is that whoever has the gold makes the rules… and while that seems unfair if you don’t have any gold, it might work out ok if you do have gold. So I won’t discount it, but as I’m currently low on gold, I won’t subscribe to it just yet.

Interestingly, the philosophy that I learned from my dad is pretty much the same as the witches’ rede, although he has a less-poetic way of explaining it.

• The rede: An ye harm none, do as ye will.
• My dad: Everyone has the right to go to hell any way they want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

For me, ultimately the words to live by boil down to four simple rules:

1. I do Not reward bad behavior
   
2. An ye harm none, do as ye will.
   
3. How hard can it be?
   
4. What’s the worst that can happen?

The second one of course is the Rede. The other three, may require some explanation…

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But appearantly, Not Skiing is even more hazardous to your health!

Help! I wanna go home but I’m afraid to leave the resort!

You know the hard sweet candies you sometimes see in a jar where they’re all welded together into a solid mass? The kind that you have to suck on for a long time because if you crunch them, the bits adhere to your teeth, and if you try to pry them loose with your tongue you cut your tongue to shreds on the sharp edges? Yeah, that’s the stuff I am talking about.

Recently I was at Golda’s Kitchen with my sister, and I picked up a couple Hard Candy kits, some flavour oils, and some colouring.

Making hard candy at home was an interesting experience. Basically, for only about twice the cost of buying hard candy at a shop, you can enjoy all the fun and excitement of dealing with a hot stove, a pot of boiling sugar, super-hot molten candy which is incredibly similar in every way to molten glass, then the super-happy-fun cleanup afterwards, and at long last, candy hunks with razor-sharp edges from being shattered apart with heavy tools. The package makes it sound fun and easy to make the candy mix, and depicts a woman and child enjoying the finished product. Do not let this trick you into thinking that the woman and child should enjoy making the candy together. I would not want to have a kid in the same kitchen, while making hard candy. Think, sweet tasty yummy delicious, boiling molten sticky danger.

If I sound like I’m being a jerky smart-ass, that’s because I am.

In fact, I really enjoyed making hard candy! I don’t have any kids around here to worry about (my house is not kid-safe, it is in fact a very dangerous place for the younger crowd) and it turns out the clean-up works best the way I like to clean up: Leave it soaking in the sink.

And with so many flavours and colours to chose from, you can have a lot of kooky fun. I control the Flavour! I control the Colour! (I also control the vertical and the horizontal, so watch out!)

The blue ones are cherry, green ones are banana, pink ones are sassafras, and purple ones are tutti-frutti. Tee-hee.

(the white stuff is icing sugar to keep them from sticking together)