Random Assortment of Updates

I just thought I'd update you on what I've been doing.

On the cheese front:

I am still cheesing away.  My latest is Gruyere.  We'll see how that one turns out.  I know Gruyere is expensive, but my recipe didn't seem that complicated.  Maybe it's just because it has to age for a while.

(That one is not mine, but just what it ends up like)

My cheese cave is almost full, so I will soon begin creative stacking.

(The one in the tupperware is my Gruyere.  It's still brining)

Retro Chicken Doorstop

We used to have these chicken doorstops when I was a kid.  We've been needing one for our bedroom.  One time, we left the house with the dogs at home and accidentally left Spec in our bedroom alone with the door shut.  He likes to hide under the bed, so we didn't know.  We came home to this:

Poor Spec :(.  He was so distraught.  Since then, we keep a piece of pipe insulation on the door to keep it open.

It just slides right on and off.  It's not attached in case we actually need to shut the door.  But we have a window unit air conditioner in the bedroom which we run at night (in San Antonio, TX) so that we don't have to cool the whole house.  We got the window unit when our central air broke down once.  (Get a home warranty.  We have American Home Shield.  It has paid for itself numerous times.)

Anyway, big galute of a Fuji likes to open the door wide when he goes in and out.  Yes, finally coming around to the chicken doorstop.  It keeps the door closed enough and the pipe insulation keeps it open enough.  I was going to have a whole blog post on the doorstop, but the one I found free online was impossible.  The pattern proportions were not right, and the directions were no bueno.  I don't fault the lady though.  She said it was her first attempt at a tutorial

After a day and a half of fighting with it, thinking I would be brave and valiant and tackle the chicken, the elusive chicken won the fight :(.  The problem was that I wanted the exact same style chicken from when I was a kid.  They have easy triangle ones, but stubborn me wants the real deal.  I found the pattern on etsy for $3.50.  Since I'd probably spent that much on paper and printer ink with the last pattern, I decided to give it a shot.

Retro Chicken Doorstop

The pattern pieces were accurate once I re-read the instructions she emailed.  The original instructions were a little hard to follow.  I decided to leave out the called for bias tape for decoration and just did regular seams.  I used sand as the base.  I think that really make a difference.  A lot of people use rocks or bricks, but the sand makes the doorstop into a weeble wobble.  It don't fall down!

It works great.  If you'd like to make the doorstop and can't figure it out, just let me know and I'll try to help.

Other stuff

I've been working on all kinds of other stuff.  I really need to take some pictures.  I will post more later.  My neck has had enough.  Speaking of my neck, I saw an orthopedist.  She said I was an enigma, oh great.  But she did put me on this muscle relaxer which has helped a lot!  Speaking of which, I need to go take it right now.