This week's example: I don't know what a Texas sheetcake is. I also don't know how it's different from a sheetcake when I'm talking to a customer at work who wants to make a special order of salads and cake for a party. My locally-raised co-worker insists that all sheetcakes are Texas sheetcakes, but I know that the sheetcakes on our price list are ( Read more... )

So, I've been here in Bloomington-Normal for two years now as of last week. It doesn't really seem like a long time has passed, and I've managed to pack a lot into it: working in new jobs, buying a new (to us) house, meeting new friends, exploring new neighborhoods, attending new local festivals, settling into a new SCA group, doing new jobs within ( Read more... )

Last night our plans to invite Josh to come over for a picnic at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival and to see a show before he commuted back to his place in Springfield had to be slightly altered. Sprinkly rain meant we ate the picnic indoors at the table in the dining room. But, since the Shakespeare Festival is just across the street at the Ewing ( Read more... )

The weekend of our wedding anniversary, Andrew and I had dinner at Station 220 in downtown Bloomington, which becomes a more interesting place the more we learn about it.

First, the building itself is interesting in that it is the former central fire station for the city, built right after a fire that destroyed most of downtown in 1900. The latest ( Read more... )

Excited about good teamwork in our SCA shire this month.

1) Every person who is at all active in our shire made a contribution to staffing, prep work, crafting items, cooking, etc. or more than one of these for our local event on the last day of April. Even those who were not available to attend the event (or not in its entirety) were giving of ( Read more... )

Last night Andrew and I hosted a farewell party for the first couple to move away among those Wesleyan professors who have been part of the circle of friends from our first year in Bloomington-Normal. Josh and Carolyn and their little Liam will be missed by those of us left behind as they go back to their hometown in Nebraska, where Josh found a ( Read more... )

We've had a couple weeks of mostly chilly weather with plenty of rain, multiple days each week. The combination makes it miserable to be a human doing things outdoors unless it's a rare day like today, which was cool but not too windy and humid but not actively raining. Sadly, not a day I was free to plant things and do weeding. But I had a ( Read more... )

The springtime perking up of my mood and activity level has been short-circuited by rain with cold and strong winds, which dashed my hopes for the weekend of mulching and building a garden box out in the yard. Not feeling in a party or socializing mood, I skipped out on visiting outing with Andrew in favor of taking a nap yesterday. Plus my right ( Read more... )

Good news! I have the opportunity to take on two more days of work per week! My joy at this is lessened by the fact that this opportunity is coming about because one of my favorite co-workers is leaving the Garlic Press for a new job. The place just won't be the same without her.

At our hokey little neighborhood supper club last night, I decided to really get into the scene with a highball and a taste of a central Illinois sandwich favorite called the Horseshoe. For a little history of the sandwich and a nice photo of it (didn't have my camera on me), see http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Sandwiches/HorseshoeSandwich. ( Read more... )