Privacy Policy

 Well--they tell me I need to have a privacy policy. See here you go!

I think.

Pinky Brick: inspiration for a possible house facelift

Photo by Acme Brick Company - Discover exterior home design ideas

Images from Houzz that I want to pin on Pinterest (without creating a Houzz account). Thanks for letting me embed this into my blog, Houzz!

Photo by Earth Developments, Inc. - Discover landscaping design ideas

So chuffed!

Okay okay, so I caught the Pinterest bug. And this is what happened.

And I have to admit-- I'm insanely proud. It's cute! It's fun! And it's functional! And it was darned fun to make. Here's what I did:

I bought a 3-lb. soy wax kit on Ebay-- complete with soy wax and wicks (and stickums). Bought a wine glass at a thrift store. Bought an aluminum mug from Walmart. Picked out 5 crayons with colors I liked.

   

Step 1: Make sure your wine glass is clean and dry-- you don't want to preserve greasy fingerprints in your candle.

Step 2: Affix a stickum to the bottom of your wick (a wick that is already attached to a metal tab at the end). Stick the wick into the center-bottom of your wine glass.

Step 3: Use a couple of skewers, or straws, or chopsticks to hold your wick straight and centered. I used tape to hold my two chopsticks together, and they rested on the rim of my wine glass (with my wick straight and tall in the center).

Step 4: Fill a regular pot with 1-2 inches of water, and let your aluminum mug float in it. Place it on your stove and turn the heat to medium or high (it doesn't need to get very hot at all to melt the soy wax).

Step 5: Chop up crayon #1--not too much, because you don't need that much color to get a vibrant pastel. I used about a half-inch or so for each color, maybe more. The darker the crayon color, the less you need.

Step 6: Add two brimming single handfuls of soy wax into the aluminum mug. Add your crayon flecks.

Step 7: Swirl it around as you watch it melt before your eyes.

Step 8: When it's all clearly melted, give it a couple extra swirls and let it melt for another 20 seconds or so. Then take the aluminum mug and pour it carefully into your wine glass.

Step 9: Let it cool! At least 30-45 minutes! While it's cooling, clean out your aluminum mug with warm water, soap, and a scrub brush (or the rough side of your sponge) to get all the wax off. Set the mug to dry.

Step 10: Repeat steps 4 through 9 using different crayon colors until you have the rainbow candle you love.

Exams loom...

Well, it's that time again. Exam time.

And while I should be effectively structuring the 563.5 hours that are left until our first exam... well, I'm just not. Time is slipping by me like grains of sand in a tightly-grasped fist. For example, this weekend I ran away to the mountains. I let myself go only on the promise that I would work diligently while there. And what did I do on Day 1? A 5-mile hike on the Tennessee side of the Great Smokies, an hour's drive from the cabin. Worth it? Absolutely. Have I made up for it by working efficiently and diligently since then? Not at all.

The only thing standing between my sanity and a complete panic attack/meltdown is the fact that... well... it'll all work out. I will lock it down and "get 'er done."

Just... not tonight.

Inauguration: the Kat's Miao

Greetings out to the ether:

I'm proud to inaugurate my latest attempt at putting something out into the world worthy of being read.

"The Kat's Miao." The title deserves a brief explanation. The cat's MEOW, you say? Well, almost. As most people who would deign to read this blog would know, I spent last year in China. In Guizhou Province, home to many of China's ethnic minorities. It so happens that I lived in the city of Kaili (凯里), population 400,000: the seat of the autonomous region of the Miao and Dong people. I briefly considered naming the blog "Kat's Dong," but thought that would give a quite different, and rather mistaken, impression. So I'd like to welcome you to The Kat's Miao: a play on phonetics that is also a personal reference for this author.

(Myself with my host sisters just outside of Kaili)