genevieveturner In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit I don’t actually have a writing cave. I have a desk, piled high with Very Important Papers that need to be filed, books for research, books on writing, and a snake’s nest of charging cables for our iThingys. It faces a window that looks out … Read more
I’m drowning in tomatoes here. This spring, when I had my dozens and dozens of baby tomato plants sitting out, my husband said, “You’ve started too many tomatoes.” And I retorted, “I did not. We will use all the tomatoes we get.” I said it very grandly, very confidently, the way a person who hasn’t … Read more
The common conception of cells is that they are blebby sorts of things, amoeba-like, floating in a nutrient soup with everything they need to survive safely contained within their membrane. Maybe an illustration from a biology textbook is coming to mind even now. Neurons aren’t like that at all. Yes, they have a round, blebby … Read more
This is a Cherokee Moon and Stars watermelon that I picked from the garden just this morning. Isn’t it lovely? You might not be familiar with it, since you can’t find it in the store. It’s not “commercially viable”. It has…seeds. Imagine that, a fruit with seeds. Like most heirloom varieties, it almost went extinct, … Read more
I have a confession to make: the main reason why I can be as lazy as I am around here is my husband. He loves to spend his weekends digging in the dirt, doing home improvement projects–basically anything that keeps him outside and moving. One of his favorite things to do is to care for … Read more
Quail have always been some of my favorite birds. In high school, a friend raised them, and it was always nice to see them bobbing about on the floor of aviary. My husband and I once came across a covey in the arboretum of Golden Gate Park, which remains one of my favorite memories of … Read more
A while back, when I was flipping through some homesteading magazine, I thought to myself, “I’ll never be a real homesteader, I’m too lazy.” And when I was thinking of things to write about for this blog, I decided to write about my misadventures in homesteading, and call the series “The Lazy Homesteader.” I didn’t … Read more
When I was growing up, yogurt was a rather mysterious food. My dad liked to eat the ones with the fruit on the bottom, but we kids were never fed it regularly, and I didn’t know a single person that bought the plain kind. After all who could willingly consume such stuff? (Ah, the ignorance … Read more
Recently, I’ve been revising my first novella and I’ve been very…irritated with it. At times, I’ve considered just renaming it Nice People Being Boring: A Novella and letting it rot for eternity on my hard drive. But thanks to some kind words from my critique partner and a complete rewrite of the ending, I’m beginning to … Read more
I’m not at my best in the mornings. I need two cups of coffee and an hour or so before I’m really ready to tackle the world, at least the full-on, shoulder-into-the-waist, NFL-style tackling. This is important to keep in mind for the rest of this post. Like the Dowager Duchess of Grantham, my kids … Read more