tangential trios

right now my brain and an unruly, unfocused essay-to-be are chewing on each other in a rather marvelous grappling match. something cool will come out of it, I'm hoping.

there is also Pinterest research and usability research and places to live in Indiana research. none of that is quite fit to blog about (yet), so... here are a few projects and other less weighty things that are not school related at all.

first and very importantly-- food:

I made an interesting millet porridge using a vague version of this recipe here. I only sort-of-measured everything. no cinnamon, no honey, no syrup. yes raisins.

and yes a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream, a la Sheri Stevens Knutsen, who used to put ice cream in her oatmeal when we were roommates way back in 2005.

you'll notice the snow outside in the photo up there. it snowed for quite a chunk of Wednesday morning. the snow was not the reason I woke up having decided to make porridge, but having porridge for breakfast while it was snowing outside did, at the time, seem serendipitously comforting.

non-school-related thing two-- crafts:

friend Allison (have I told you yet that she has a blog?) last week bequeathed to me a few skirts she wasn't going to wear anymore. one of them was delightful and pocketed and a neat, plain brown.

pocketed skirts are almost always worth keeping, even if they seem plain. I'm adding little embroidered flowers of white and beige and copper and chocolate and caramel, all randomly clustered over the bottom lefthand hem and side seam. the picture doesn't do it justice, really. I'll try taking a better one someday, when it's finished.

other upcoming non-school related plans will most likely involve more food and perhaps more crafting. there is also this place, now that the weather has calmed down. and, lest I forget, friend Ephraim put up a hammock in our backyard the other day. I'm sure I can find some books to read or notes to take or thoughts to think while lounging around out there.

this last bit isn't a project, and it's going to feel like a strange postscript here at the bottom of my weekly post. it is, I suppose, one of a dozen incidental moments and happenings. but not just that, of course. not just anything.

lastly (for today)-- flowers:

these flowers were sent to my house yesterday. their arrival surprised and touched me and in an almost bewildering and unexpected way sent all the messages that any neatly arranged vase of flowers is supposed to send to a person. "you are worth something, you know." "someone is actually and really thinking about you." "cheer up if you can manage it, and be happy."

"love."

and how that happens--how the composition of varying bits of foliage in an ordinary glass vase, with a tiny card tucked in, can mean so much all at once, and how for as long that arrangement sits there on your otherwise bare kitchen table it will symbolize all of that meaningful stuff--is pretty magical.