Kuri's Profile

Granny Squares are incredibly easy. It was one of the first crafts I taught myself at the age of 8, from this righteous pattern in my mom's crochet stash. I'd love to see them done in more finer weight yarns, which would yield even more interesting colour breaks.

As far as I know, the US is the only country where dairy cattle are regularly given hormones. There was a lot of pressure to approve the practise in Canada (and several Health Canada scientists are still paying for their refusal to approve without the long-term studies to justify it), but isn't approved and most European countries have pass positive bans (slightly different than just not approving the treatment).

Feeding corn to meat cattle (which is worse than other grains sometimes used to fatten cattle just before slaughter) is also US-specific, mostly because corn is so over-produced due too the bizarre set of American agricultural subsidies that distort the markets. Typical practise elsewhere is grass and hay feed, with a few months on grain (usually wheat) mixed in with hay and protein supplements to put on weight just prior to slaughter.

The forth one looks like someone put a bed in the foyer of a large, downtown bank headquarters.

- Make them long enough and in design-worthy colours to glue onto a wooden picture frame.

- Starch them and make napkin rings.

- Come to think of it, if you start doing increases/decreases, and starched your creations, you could probably go crazy with structure, just as you can with knitting. Make lamp shades! Make scultures! Make vases!

Now, I'm tempted to re-start a new craft in the midst of a move, which is not wise....

Some jurisdictions are meant to be 100% rat-free (as they are an invasive species) and have a number you call to report rats when you see them.

I have a couple videos, a mat and some free weights for when it's miserable outside and I don't want to even go to the gym. But I rarely use them in the summer - much nicer to be outside. In my next home, I want to install a pole for spins and strength holds. Doesn't take up much floor space at all, but it will be a challenge to design around!

My cats win. I don't really fight the shedding. I vacuum the couch when I'm vacuuming anyway, but otherwise I don't worry about fur. When you have pets that regularly vomit, fur seems unimportant pretty damn quickly!

I'm actually hoping to make two fleece covers for my couch after I move. Fleece because it's soft, won't shrink and washes easily, can go in the drier, etc, and if I make two, one can be on the couch while the other is in the wash. Then my kittehs can shed, sneeze and puke on my couch and it should be easy to clean up.

With stones the boiling water trick is easiest. I wish I could do that but I also have stuff I don't want to kill.

I like the ideas around the Paleo diet, but the anthropology presented with it is often wrong: for example, there's plenty of evidence of humans gathering grains well before the advent of agriculture. Not refined white flour sort of grains, but boiling and eating gathered grains like millet and spelt and probably even some species of wheat. The idea that cereal grains are something "unnatural" we only started eating after the advent of agriculture is completely unsupported and probably not heathy. We can reduce our cereal intake, but it's probably not optimal to eliminate, especially for anyone getting regular intense exercise.

I tried a reel mower for awhile. They apparently work OK on new sod, but it was powerless against the quack-grass invested yard on my lot.