Pardon me, if I could just remind you that there is only one week left to be in on the secret that everyone except Jess Loolu may know about? The secret would benefit from more participants, and there is no reason the participants must personally know Jess in order to participate, so don’t be shy! It’s the FREE kind of secret—no one’s going to be asking you to chip in for a time-share or anything. Unless you’re Jess Loolu, click here to read more, or just email me (swistle at gmail dot com) to find out more. I can hardly believe it, but NONE of my family or real-life peeps have emailed. Not one! Not that I’m noticing who emails or not, or giving out secret mental points or anything.
I haven’t been around as much lately, and I’m embarrassed to even tell you why. It’s a bunch of little hobbies, all of which I seem to have made into minor (let’s just say minor) obsessions.
1) Postcrossing, which I already mentioned and am still panting for. You can only have five postcards traveling at a time, and so every day I’m checking email every 5 minutes to see if any of my postcards have arrived yet so I can send another one.
2) This one is the most embarrassing, so I’m going to get it out of the way fast rather than leaving it for last. I’ve been, um. Fluffracing. On Facebook. I have the Fluff Friends application, and you can, um, race them against each other. And I’ve been doing that. A lot. So that the application informs me that my Fluff Friend is tired and needs to rest before he can race again. It’s a FLUFFGAMBLING problem!
3) The secret mentioned in the first paragraph, which has been really fun to work on and continues to be fun to work on.
4) Etsy, which has been blowing my mind recently. I found it overwhelming for awhile, and I still do (I don’t like that if I type in “lunch box” I get a bunch of hits that have nothing to do with lunch boxes or lunches or boxes), but it works so much better when I’m looking for something for a post and can get caught up in all the great stuff. I keep adding stuff to my cart—there are like 50 items in there right now.
5) Twitter, which is more fun than I’d expected. If you’re like, “But I don’t GET it. What’s it FOR?”—trust me, you are not alone. The good news is that “lack of understanding” is a treatable problem: the treatment is to sign up and see if it makes sense. Or at least, that’s what I finally did: I figured that if I didn’t like it, there was no reason I couldn’t UNsign up.
6) Making fudge. I can’t understand it, but batch after batch is coming out screwy. I even threw out my candy thermometer and got a brand new one, and still the fudge is coming out wrong. Well, maybe “wrong” is the wrong word. I like fudge to have a grain to it, a melty dissolvey grain. I don’t like fudge to be smooth and creamy. But it keeps coming out smooth and creamy, no matter what I do. The only thing I can think of is that I’ve been using a new bottle of corn syrup, but that’s only 1 teaspoon per batch, and also, what could be wrong with corn syrup? Anyway, I’m getting a little compulsive about this, making batch! after! batch! because it HAS to come out right, what is WRONG with it???
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Pay-it-forward updates:
Astarte is showing the giftie she got and starting a new contest (it involves cheezy early-’90s music, although how anyone can deny that Mmmm-Bop is anything less than MUSICAL GENIUS is beyond my ken).
Living in Maryland is showing the giftie she got and starting a new contest.
This post is cruel. CRUEL. But as to number 5, can I just say I TOLD YOU SO? There, I said it. Now I feel better.
Jess Loolu- I know! You were totally right! I officially declare it: Jess Loolu told me Twitter was good, and she was right. Signed: Swistle.
1. The Postcrossing sounds like great fun. I’m sure I’d get entirely too addicted. I better stay away. I love hearing you tell about it though.
5. Twitter ROCKS! I love it, but it is keeping me from posting a bit I think.
6. Are you at least eating or freezing the perfectly good batches of un-grainy fudge? I hope so! I think more sugar could add some graininess.
I am working on starting another PIF contests today. I’ll e-mail you.
um, the smooth and creamy fudge is wrong? How can this be?
ALso, I resisted twitter for a long time, but now? LOVE IT!
Is it the weather causing your fudge problems? I find that my fudge only turns out right in winter time around here. Same thing with meringue. I can’t make that when it’s too humid.
So Im with you on the etsy (totally addicted and yes I too have at least 50 items in my cart!), and with the post crossing (I’ve sent three and Im forcing myself to take my time with the others) but tell me again why creamy and smooth fudge is a bad thing? If you’re having trouble getting rid of it, you could always PIF it though…just a thought :P
I’m sorry the fudge is turning out too smooth and creamy. If it happens again, you could always send it to me . . . I kinda like my fudge smooth and creamy.
BTW — all I need is ANOTHER Facebook addiction. Thanks. Alot. :P
Mommy Daisy- Luckily, Paul likes fudge smooth and creamy. But he’s still had to take a couple batches to work: the poor man can only do so much as his wife generates batch after batch.
Donna- OH!!! I’ll bet that’s it! I hadn’t even thought of the weather! And usually I don’t make fudge in the summer, just because it’s not something I tend to want in summer! I’ll bet the weather is the answer!
Devan & Cherish- I know, I know, Paul says the same thing: “Huh, smooth and creamy. I can see why you’d be so upset,” he says, making the crazy symbol near his ear. But I like it GRAINY.
seriously can I just tell you addicted I am to facebooks parking wars. IT IS OUT OF CONTROL. I’m getting no work done, I’m a terrible parent all I worry about is my stupid fucking cars.
Don’t even get me started on facebooks text twirl
I have no clue what fluffracing is, but if I look into ONE MORE INTERNETTY THING like Facebook, I will go STARK RAVING MAD and never have time to do anything but click from one internet playground to another to feed my addictions. So I will stay ignorant as to whatever the hell fluffracing is and how it got that name, even though now I am DYING to know.
Ack! The Jess thing. I’m on it, really I am. Just one week left? Shit!
I was going to suggest the weather too. Humidity is bad for fudge, makes it too moist to set up properly.
1. I went through a wee (embarrassing) fluff race phase, which I thankfully replaced with scramble! You should somehow find me on facebook so I can challenge you to scramble and we can obsess over it together OMG!
2. Just added you on Twitter (I’m grace134/Miss Grace)
And then there is me, who has a Pokey on facebook and neglects to feed her for weeks on end. I suppose at least the real dogs are being fed. But I admit I am intrigued by “FluffRacing”.
I know nothing about the making of fudge, but I assume it involves sugar. How about trying some of that sugar in the raw? I substituted it for white sugar in a whole wheat chocolate chip cookie recipe, and it gave them a nice, grainy-ish texture.
Hmmm…I think just about any variation of fudge sounds divine. Mind sending some of the non-Swistle approved stuff down here?
I want to hear more about your fudge, PLEASE!!! What do you put in it?
I know you already figured it out, but I wanted to tell you the fudge problems are because of the humidity.
I think fudge is supposed to be creamy so it sounds like it’s coming out fine to me :) maybe switch to caramel?
Meredith- It’s the recipe in the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, for Old Time Fudge. You butter a saucepan and put in 3/4 c. whole milk, 2 c. sugar, 2 squares (ounces) unsweetened baking chocolate, a dash of salt, and a t. of corn syrup. Bring it to a boil, stirring; then reduce heat and put in the candy thermometer and cook it to 238 degrees F, not stirring. Remove from heat, plop in 2 T. butter, and let it cool to 110 degrees F. Add 1 t. vanilla, and stir it until it starts to get less glossy. Pour it out onto waxed paper and eat it all up.
well I can give my address if you need somewhere to send batch after batch of smooth and creamy messed up fudge….
I emailed you today…I’ll leave it at that :)
OMG! I am totally obsessed with Postcrossing since you wrote about it. I do the same thing…check and check my email. It’s so exciting when someone receives your card, isn’t it? I’m actually doing this with my fifth grade class when school starts up. I already have a wall map on my bulletin board and multi-colored map pins to color code the places we send postcards to and the places we receive them from. I’m so excited.
And…feel like such a dork.
Oh, THANK YOU! I will be making fudge next week, for sure.
Pass your awful ‘smooth’ fudge this way, lady! I will totally take it off your hands! :) MMMmmmm. just what I need when I’m taking steroids! I want to eat my ENTIRE.KITCHEN.