Sea Buckthorn

I tried sea buckthorn for the first time yesterday. People use the berries in jams, pies, drinks and other foods, as well as in medicines and cosmetics. It's very sour but not impossibly sour. (At least, not for those of us who love sour things.) Not sure if I would like it as a drink, but I do think I would like it as a jam. They were a little overripe; often I would try to pick a berry, and it would squish between my fingers and splatter the juice on my hands. They're not as good as other sour berries I have had, but I liked them.

Here is my extremely amateur attempt to paint them.

Making bad art is good for you.

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About Time

About Time

We watched a movie last weekend called "About Time" with Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy (who is the very definition of a bon vivant, is he not?). It only gets 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, which feels criminally low to me. It's a sweet

Learning Curve

Learning Curve

I've been experimenting with Ghost now for the past week, and I have some gripes. 1. If, like me, you want to pay as little as possible for Ghost to host your site ($15 a month), you have to use their free "Source" theme. You cannot

Data + Embroidery

Data + Embroidery

Jordan Cunliffe meticulously stitches stories from data she has collected into her artisan embroidery pieces. Sometimes she uses data that she records about her own life, like every time she fed her daughter for the first year of her daughter's life, and sometimes she finds something interesting as

Forget Your Troubles

Forget Your Troubles

A list of some things that make me happy: * Snail mail * A ripe nectarine * Silly discussion in my group chats * The Netherlands * Finishing a good book * Petting dogs * My birthday * Flowers * Baking * Ferry rides * Art museums * Small gourmet grocery stores * Bookmobiles * Washi tape * The smell of pine trees * Pizza * Taking