Awesome neologism of the week (courtesy of TChem): "Fungitastic."

I'm going to have to use that sometime. Whether it's about a multiple-mushroom pizza or a downed log with lots of mushrooms on it, I'm not sure yet.

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Writing finals this morning. One down, two to go. The secret on final exams is that since you don't hand them back - and since you teach basically the same material each year - there is relatively little that needs to be changed. Thank goodness, because last week was a busy week and next week will be busy as well.

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In my ongoing quest to try from-scratch versions of food that most people buy already prepared, I've got a batch of baked beans in the oven. I used the recipe from my copy of the "Little House on the Prairie Cookbook." (This is a book that was written - I think in the 1960s - by someone who researched a lot of the dishes described in the series. It's nominally aimed at children but a lot of the recipes are good and the food-history is interesting).

One thing I like about the bean recipe is that it has very little sweetening (1/4 cup molasses to 3 cups dry beans). Most commercial baked beans are waaaaaaaaay too sweet for me, especially now after living in Southern Oklahoma where the fashion in preparing beans (which I greatly prefer) is to season them with onion and cumin instead of sweet stuff.

I've never made it before but if it's good, I'll post a version of it here. (I'm doing it a little differently than the book discusses, leaving out the bell pepper because bell pepper does not agree with me).

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Still working away on the various projects, all of which seem to be "long-haul" projects at this point. (sigh). I'm almost up to the heel of the second Snicket sock but I do admit it's a little bit frustrating to feel like everything's in an unphotographable, only-partly-finished state. It's easy to feel like no progress is being made and I don't like that feeling.

One of the reasons I DO craft (and I've talked about this before) is that I like the feeling of being able to look at what I've done and see it - see the tangible progress. With cleaning house, a few days after you do it, it's starting to get bad again. With gardening, you always need to weed and deadhead and take care of things. With teaching, the stuff you prepared for one day is used up for the next. With research, all the stuff you wrote one day you may decide is no good - and delete - the next. (And despite following Annie Lamott's "sh*tty first drafts" motto - where you just WRITE to get stuff down, redacting/cutting out all the "junk" you wrote on a previous day when you were in "just write it" mode is frustrating and feels like steps back.

So the nice thing about sewing or knitting or crocheting is that you can look at what you did, and it stays done - it's not just in draft form, it's not going to need to be deadheaded or re-cleaned or fixed up.

And perhaps this is WHY I don't do much designing - because designing a sweater would feel too much like writing a research journal article to me. I'd start with great excitement - what a great idea I've had! Why, people will love this! - and get started with lots of excitement. But then once I hit the "prior art" stage - where I'm looking around to see what's already been published - I kind of hit a wall. Everyone's so much better than I am. Oh, this has been done before. Oh, I have to work an allusion to Big Famous Person in here or my work will never get published.

And then there's the experimentation. Trying things out. (At least in the lab I have the benefit of often having done a similar experiment before). And sometimes, stuff doesn't work - or little things go wrong, like the timer on one of the lights stops working. Or the fire alarm goes off when you're in the middle of applying a treatment (@#&^@!) and you forget where you are.

And then there's the endless revision. And for sweaters, the figuring-out of sizing-up. And then the submission. And the waiting. And possibly getting back a "thanks, but no thanks" letter, with its concomitant blow to the ego. And then the protestation of "I'm NEVER going to try anything like that again."

And you know? I put up with enough of that in my work life. In my "play" life I'd rather just relax and make something that is "good enough" - that doesn't necessarily have to please anyone but me, something where the function may be more important to the form. And something immediate - where I can see my progress, where I'm not doing the equivalent of lots of ripping out.

I had someone tell me last Sunday at church, "You could probably make things like that [I was wearing one of my SitCom Chic sweaters] and make more money than you do as a professor."

I just kind of smiled and said, "Maybe so, but then it wouldn't be FUN any more."

(Of course, I don't think I COULD make even HALF the money I make now by making sweaters - I think the woman who said that to me thinks I can whip out a sweater in a day or two - but I didn't feel like going into that discussion just then. And what I answered her with is the truth, anyway. It WOULDN'T be fun to make stuff on commission or for juried shows or something. While I wouldn't rule out - some time in the distant future when I have more free time - making small quilts or stuffed critters and selling them, like in an Etsy shop - I definitely wouldn't want to be a "bespoke" knitter or seamstress - too many demanding people to deal with.)

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Seriously considering winding off some yarn this afternoon and either starting a new SitCom chic or maybe the Cobblestone pullover. Just to pull something out of my stash and start using it.

(I have a feeling as this economic "downturn" continues to turn down, I'm going to be very happy to have my stash. Already I'm doing a lot less shopping, partly because I'm driving as little as absolutely possible.)