Three days of lentil loaf makes for an amazing holiday. Lentil loaf might need to become the annual tradition.

Kitten was curious about the camera I was pointing at her.

The Instax Mini Evo is a little easier to use than the Sofort 2. I'm glad I didn't get one of the colorful basic models that print every image you take. About $1 an image. Having the choice of what to print saves some money.

How is it I am taking 10 rolls / cartridges of film with me on this trip?

One of you was wise to wait, but I was not so wise. #kodak #film #believeinfilm

Swapping the Sofort 2 for the Fuji Instax Mini Evo for this trip. It was weird deciding how much film to take.

Packing ahead of travel next week is yet another reminder of how far I haven't progressed with minimalism. Another goal for next year is to get the minimalism as close to maintenance as possible.

Next year will definitely be a pantry eat-down, though. Just a little too overstocked here.

Yesterday I bought a can of vegan no chicken noodle soup for $3.99. Better than the $5.79 they used to be around the pandemic. As I ate it, I kept thinking, it can't be hard to do better than this? Soggy celery, over cooked noodles, greasy broth. Not quite what I was looking for.

409 items went off to a faraway friend today. That brings this year's decluttering total to 1,632, exceeding the original goal by 632. Next year's goal is to keep going and hit 2,000 items. We'll see how it goes.

We hit a new milestone in the house panther-human relationship: I was shown, and got to touch, the belleh.

Deep cleaning the fridge makes me never want to buy groceries again. I found a brick of cheese that had turned to penicillin a while ago.

Gray kitten was very curious about that white plastic thing I was pointing at her.

We got some sunshine today! So I played a little more with the Sofort 2. Three, two-year-old kittens were certainly a challenge for the slow lens. The gray kitten kept wanting to check out the camera. The better light meant a lot more shots this time.

Chia seed pudding round 4: real vanilla powder and vanilla sugar for the sweetner.

One does not need a medium-format camera... right? As the megapixels between the mirrorless and other models get closer to some medium formats' standards, I wonder just how far apart they actually are.

Sunday is the first sunny day in weeks here. Thought maybe take some photos? Then I saw the high: 12 degrees.

A couple new characters introduced themselves tonight. My favorite is The Mayor, who is definitely going to be a badass.

One of my main characters starts as an opera singer but somehow now ends up a doctor. It will be a long arc to get there, but hopefully it will be a satisfying one.

A year ago, I bought a walking pad. The box weighs 200 pounds, and I'm still amazed I got it downstair without injury. Tonight, my goal is to put it together, finally. We'll see how this goes.

Played a bit with the Sofort2 this evening. Three, 2-year-old cats meant a lot of blurry photos as the camera is quite slow and bulky. Kind of fun learning which images come out best, though.

I snuck in a three-hour nap this evening in the recliner with a certain gray kitten curled up between my feet.

Stealing a few late evening moments to engage in some world-building. Suddenly, my main species has three genders to it and the supreme emperor must answer to a council of elders. Hrm.

I researched vocabulary-building apps, and wow, subscriptions have gotten insanely expensive. One wanted $30 a month ... That's $360 a year! Ouch. So I found several ebooks for $5 each instead. Much better.

I logged on to that photo site. You know the one. For every post from someone I followed, there were four or five unrelated posts "Suggested for you." And what was suggested was downright ridiculous: Maserati, shoe repair, toe clipping (ew), landscaping, football (soccer), clothes folding...

I have been seeking vegan pot pie recipes. Store-available vegan ones are hard to find and ridiculously priced -- $7-8 for one now. I found one today that uses cauliflower, onion, and broth for the sauce instead of a roux. Could be interesting?

After 2-4" forecast for two days ago, another 5-9" are in the forecast from Friday evening through the weekend.

Vegan Thanksgiving: Fake chicken nuggets, vegan stuffing, green beans, and cranberry sauce. The fake turkey cutlets were rubbery last year so went for the nuggets instead. My best friend is having tacos. I might steal that idea for next year.

I went to wipe some crumbs and such off the stove and ended up burning all the fingertips on my right hand on a just-used burner. I kept them on a package of frozen vegetables for most of the night, but the blisters forming are something else. I look forward to a non-induction stove someday!

A dusting of snow and some pretty yowly winds out there.

This week's grocery run included no chips of any kind. My goal is to stop snacking and see if I can shift to small meals instead. The bill was about $20 lower than usual, which was nice!

Lentils, rice, and quinoa. What seasoning combo would you add?

One of the new teas arrived today.

I have been considering giving up tea lately. There's nowhere good to put it, and there's no counter space for an electric kettle and accessories. Last night I found new ones to try: butterfly pea, spearmint, ginger, and sasparilla (sp). Maybe I can find some space elsewhere.

I did find a small(er) wallet to try. The phone won't fit in it. We'll see how this goes.

Here is my one and only blog now: fraoch.exposure.co/chasing-the-... . We'll see if I can build it into something or if it just remains a hobby. Either way is fine with me.

I wish BlueSky had a polling feature. Do you 1. Carry a small wallet with phone separate or 2. Carry a wallet big enough to hold your phone?

TPILW just suggested four-bean soup. Recipe seems easy enough but that canned or jarred bean mix is expensive. Using dried, I am thinking myocoba, cranberry, small pink, navy, and small red. Or should I add or substitute?

691 items went to donation today. That brings the annual total to 1,223 items. I met the goal but still have a long way to go!

Thanks to a little extra motivation and a much warmer day, I hauled four boxes and one bag in for donation. I also sent off a goody box. Among these, I have hit my 1,000-item offloading goal for the year.

Around this time each year, I seek the comfort of a familiar book or series. Last year was N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season trilogy. This year is her Dreamblood Duology. The latter offers a great lesson in worldbuilding -- you have to keep characters moving through it.

I just deleted three more social-networking sites, all related to reading. The only one I kept was StoryGraph.

No home Internet access and the phone hotspot isn't working, either. A stark lesson in doing work earlier in the week and in doing more work offline. I'll be blowing two hard deadlines today unless it comes back on soon. Oops.

That Target article going around makes me glad I stopped shopping there five years ago. I had to stop because all the directional lighting they installed gave me migraines. I can't say that I have missed it at all.

There were some snow flurries here today.

Not the most appetizing color but the butternut squash and pear soup tastes surprisingly sweet.

Butternut squash and pear soup. The spice base is onion, garlic, ginger, and yellow curry powder. A coconut cream will finish it.

The worst part in all this? Developing an icon / avatar that can go across all these sites. Cookie the kitten is cute, but she doesn't really represent what is going on in those spaces.

I'll continue to do the recipe trying, but that will be for me. I'll share here what I make and how they turn out.

This evening was focusing on revenue-generating sites. I have set up a Buy Me a Coffee, a Patreon, and a dedicated site for selling prints (if I ever take any photos that people might want to frame). Here is the Patreon post. It's such a different style of writing: www.patreon.com/posts/welcom...