a holiday list...

tacky or not, the holiday wish list is making an appearance - it is by no means a complete list of my desires, and if you feel inspired to get me something not on here, feel free... and if you don't want to give me anything at all that is fine, too... but several people have asked what i want, so here it is in all of its greedy glory... fun, writer-type stuff: anything from here, cause they are fun: http://www.ninthmoon.com Scrivener Curio kitchen stuff: le creuset cookware a digital kitchen thermometer a mandolin slicer - talk to squid first, though cause she said she might =) and the ubiquitous book category: Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Restaurant Reviews, Articles, Memoir, Fiction and More by Dianne Jacob The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller More Great Good Dairy-free Desserts by Fran Costigan Rejection, Romance and Royalties: The Wacky World of a Working Writer By Laura Resnick any of the Andrew Lang Fairy Books this category could go on indefinitely, so i am stopping... that is more than enough greediness for the year... and really i don't need presents from anyone, but honestly, who doesn't like presents... my nod to the commercialism of the season has been fulfilled...

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month... read about it here... and then go write...

recipes are fun...

Tessa - 1/4 cup of ambition - 2 heaping tablespoons of kindness - a gallon of crazy Serve hot.

'What is your personality recipe?' at QuizGalaxy.com

banned book week - the closer...

so this is the end of banned books week and i thought that i couldn't let it pass without saying something, so... U.S Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read "They are noting people's race and they are writing down what people read" "The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment." really the whole article is about the censorship of travel... soon they will decide when and where you are allowed to go... the loss of personal freedom is huge, and when you start with small things like what people are reading and what they are allowed to read - it very quickly leads to bigger things... "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings."- Heinrich Heine some links in the fight against censorship... Delete Censorship The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 Banned Book T-shirts The Forbidden Library Controversial & Banned Books some more quotes on censorship...

"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education." -- Alfred Whitney Griswold, Essays on Education

"If the human body's obscene, complain to the manufacturer, not me." -- Larry Flynt

"Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance." -- Lyndon Baines Johnson, February 11, 1964

and my personal favorite...

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will watch the watchers?" -- Juvenal so, go read a banned book...

Harvest Home...

today is the autumnal equinox, the first day of fall astrologically (though if you live in wyoming you have probably noticed the chill in the air before today), second harvest festival and, in contemporary america, Mabon... it is a day of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth and the gifts in our lives... considered a time of balance, as the day and the night are equal on this holiday, it is when we stop and relax and enjoy the fruits of our personal harvests, whether they be from toiling in our gardens, working at our jobs, studying for tests, or just dealing with the craziness that is everyday life... as with all pagan holidays, it reflects the cycles of nature and personal relationship with the world around us - and on this day we contemplate the seeds we have planted in our lives and see how they are coming to fruition...