I'm all out of questions to answer, but it's Wednesday, so that means it's time for What's Hot and What's Not. I've missed a week or two, so I'm sure you're all desperate to find out what's been hot in my life lately and what has not.

What's Hot

-- Ezekiel products. I've been eating the English muffins (I like the seven-grain kind) for a few months now, and today I tried their sesame bread for the first time. It's got the same knobbly texture as the muffins, and I really like it.

-- Entering races. I had a fantastic run on Monday, so I signed myself up for three races in the next three months. The 100% Irish for a Day 5k in March (like, in two and a half weeks!), the Get in Gear 10k in April, and the Northside 5k in May (Northside!). The 5k races should be no big deal, but I've set up a training schedule for the 10k. I've done the math, and that's, like, twice as much running as a 5k.

-- Green veggies. Well, that's sort of a tautology for me. I'm not sure if I consider any non-green 'vegetables' to be real vegetables. Broccoli, asparagus, kale, chard, spinach, other 'greens', Brussels sprouts, green beans... maybe peas. Those are vegetables. Tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, cauliflower, carrots, radishes, other root vegetables... those are vegetable-like. Potatoes might as well be bread. In case you were wondering how I categorize these things. Anyway, my point is that I've been eating heaped piles of green veggies lately, and I like it.

-- E-mailing friends throughout the day. I don't think there's anything simpler and more pleasing than taking a break from work to read a witty e-missive from a pal. If I've just had a good run, a cup of coffee, and a funny e-mail exchange, I'm pretty much as happy as an extremely happy clam.

What's Not

-- I feel like I've been a little bit hoodwinked by my last jar of . I love all their flavors, but the 'Oh! Berries' Pacific Blackberry was always my number one, and today I opened a jar of 'Oh! Berries' Marionberry -- they changed the blackberry on me! And I did not like it as much. It's the saddest thing to happen to me ever (in the jam category of my life).

I didn't mean to neglect the old blog for two days, there, but I'm back now with this week's What's Hot and What's Not.

What's Hot

-- House Plants. I can't imagine not having green things in my home, but I suppose that's not really surprising, given my love of gardening during the summer. I don't keep any very exotic house plants, but I really enjoy taking care of the ones I've got. There's a pothos that I bought back in college, and it was only a tiny thing, then, but now it's in two pots and is pretty sprawling (I clip the vines, root them in water, and then add them to the plant pot, rather than let them get long and gangly). And that spider plant above was a stolen baby (shh!) from a B&B a couple of years ago.

-- Spot Stealers. Sometimes the cats are really persistent in trying to steal my seat on the sofa for no good reason, but this time it was just because of the afternoon sun. I hadn't been gone more than a minute, and they were already curled up and sleeping as if they'd been there all day. I should be annoyed, but they're just too cute.

-- Awesome neighbors. I don't know mine very well, though my publishing 'wisdom' is called upon from time to time. But one of the people on our block has a snowblower and often clears off the entire sidewalk in front. And after our latest batch of snow, somebody (next door, I think) even shoveled my front path. That's heart-warming, although it makes me feel a little bit guilty.

What's Not

-- Nagging Cats. I started giving the cats tinned food every evening, in an attempt to bulk up Booty (he actually gets kitten food). They quickly caught on to the pattern of getting the special food when I'd finished doing the dishes after dinner, but it's spiraled out of control. Now, any time I wash dishes (or stand at the sink) during the day, I suddenly find cats staring at me. And, even worse, I more recently started giving Booty tinned food in the mornings, as well (Beany doesn't need it), so now he starts nagging me as soon as I'm awake.

-- Building up endurance. I won't say that getting back to running after a month off is exactly like starting from scratch, but it's definitely disappointing/annoying (though not surprising) to not just pick up from where I left off. I did two slow miles yesterday, so I reckon it won't take me too long to make up for lost time, but still. January Anna was a jerk for not keeping up with cardio of some sort, even with the lame foot.

-- Stalled plans. Progress with the Great House Overhaul has ground to a halt recently. There's no real excuse (I even finished the quilt, so that's not it); I just can't muster the enthusiasm to finish the bedroom. Maybe I'll get to it tomorrow. I think it might be my subconscious trying to delay getting to the kitchen. There's a lot of junk stowed away in all those cupboards.

It's time for What's Hot and What's Not: Cats + Cabin Edition!

What's Hot

-- Adaptable cats. While they didn't particularly enjoy the ride up to the cabin, the cats were happy enough once we got there. I didn't put Booty in the cat carrier on the way up, so he stayed busy watching the scenery speed by in the car. I'd rather have both cats in carriers, of course, but I only have one (carrier), and the arrangement this time was much less stressful for everybody than when I've put them together. Just because they like each other doesn't mean they want to be trapped together for an hour and a half! By the time we got to the cabin, Booty had tuckered himself out with all that being alert, so he went straight to sleep.

-- Amusingly clingy cats. Beany, on the other had, made sure to sniff everything in the cabin, and then she decided she needed affection. She followed me around and told me all about what was going on. She's usually only vocal when she's reacting to something (cat laughing) or asking for food; if Booty is trapped in a room, he'll cry until you let him out, but Beany will stay trapped, never making a peep. But today, not content with being cuddled in the living room, she would run to the bedroom and then cry until I came to find her and cuddle her in that room instead.

-- Multiple Heating Systems. The cabin was pretty cold when I got there, but there's both a forced air furnace and under-floor heating. I cranked both up, and it took only about an hour to warm up. Once the house is at the proper temperature, by the way, the furnace gets set low, and the floor heating is enough to keep it warm.

-- Projects. I've got several things to do while I'm at the cabin, and I'm looking forward to having a stretch of time (without constant internet access) to work on them. Of course, one of those projects is lying on the sofa and reading interesting books, so 'work' might not be the appropriate word.

What's Not

-- Annoyingly Clingy Cats. After about the first half hour of clingy-ness, I got bored with it. I eventually showed Beany how to make a cave in the blanket I'd put on the ground, and I came back into the room five minutes later to find her curled up in there. Thank goodness for distractions.

-- Too Much Caffeine. I'm at the supermarket, which has a little area with booths -- and wifi. I feel obligated to at least buy a cup of coffee while I use their internet, though, and it's gas station coffee. I would usually order a decaf if I were at a normal coffee shop, but decaf filter coffee that's been sitting in a pot for hours is almost guaranteed to be deadly. So I went with half-caf, but now my eyes are shaking a little bit.

-- Cold Feet. Literal cold feet, that is. Once my feet get chilly, it takes aaaages for them to warm up again. I'll have to rig up a foot warming system when I get back to the cabin. The classroom I was in last night for French was pretty cold, and it stuck with me right up until I went to bed (the heated mattress pad and flannel sheets can battle any kind of chill).

Uh oh, Wednesday snuck up on me. Usually I spend some time thinking about what's hot and what's not in advance, but I'm really going to have to wing it this week.

What's Hot

-- Finally (almost) finishing an on-going project. I started buying vintage pillowcases a while back, and I eventually decided I wanted to make a quilt with them. A year or two later, I started the patchwork, and now, about six months after that, I'm nearly done with all the quilting and everything. In addition to the pillowcases, I also used some handkerchiefs I got at an estate sale; that's where the little embroidery above came from.

-- Clever ideas. Instead of paying $6 for a little jar of Mod Podge (and having to truck back to Michaels to do so), I got a bottle of all-purpose white glue for about $1.30 and watered it down. So I was able to make my map canvas last night, and it was ready to hang this morning. The sheen of the dried glue is just perfect; I'm really happy with how it turned out.

-- Unconditionally loving cats. Forget dogs; Beany has got this down. She was a bit too full of beans this afternoon and kept messing up my carefully-laid-out quilt, so I locked her in the basement and proceeded to forget I'd done so. When I opened the door again, about an hour later, she was all, 'Hey! You let me out! You're the best!' She really only gets cross with me when I'm getting ready for bed or on my way out the door; she melodramatically runs to the opposite end of the house, because she just can't bear it. At least that's how I choose to interpret her behavior.

-- Community education. I'm super psyched about my French class, and acting starts next week (will I be any good at it? We'll find out!). I love that I can learn stuff for not very much money. I was thinking earlier today that free education is wasted on the young, but then I realized that's not really true at all... except in the sense that I appreciate being taught things more now than I did during those years of my life that were dedicated to getting an education.

What's Not

-- Hand tying a quilt without a thimble. I've never tried using a thimble, because it strikes me as fiddly and awkward, but I almost wished I could be bothered to go into the other room and get one today. There was a certain point where I decided to finish the job, even though my fingers were quite sore, because they were also a bit numb, and I knew they'd only hurt more if I stopped and started again later.

-- Envy. I hate that feeling of seeing what somebody else has or is doing and thinking, 'Why not meeeee?' It's sort of the same way that I despise competition. I'm happily doing my own thing over here, enjoying life; I don't need that feeling of wanting what somebody else has. Be gone, undesirable emotion!

What? Wednesday again? Time for me to tell you what's hot and what's not.

What's Hot

-- Tofu. I would eat it more often, except I have to decide that it's what I want a couple of hours ahead of time, and I usually forget to do that. I think I could happily eat an entire block of tofu, cut into pieces, marinated, and sauteed. This is sort of a perfect meal -- just a few things I like, even thought they didn't have much to do with each other.

-- Finding things you'd thought you'd lost and/or forgotten about. I don't want to reveal exactly how many layers of cast-aside junk there was in my bedroom closet, but I've gone through it all now. And there were quite a few, 'Oh, that's where that's been!' moments.

-- The library. When is the library ever NOT hot, right? I don't use it as often as I should (mostly because I spend my working hours reading books), but there were a few things I wanted to read the other day, and I remember I could do so for free. Neat.

-- People who use their smarts and years of education to explain things in a comprehensible and interesting way. Most of the books I read in my free time would fall, I guess, into the pop-science (?) category. Right now, I'm reading Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth, and I suddenly understood how carbon dating works -- no big deal. I'm currently waiting for Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia to arrive at my library for me; the brain + music is fascinating (check out Daniel J. Levitin's This Is Your Brain on Music).

What's Not

-- Dirty floors. I don't know exactly what happened over the past couple of weeks. Maybe I didn't dilute my old cleaner enough, or maybe a larger-than-normal amount of sidewalk salt got tracked into the house. But my floors were disgusting. It felt gross to walk through the house with socks on (I wouldn't want to imagine doing so barefoot). Not to worry, though -- I bought new (Method) floor cleaner, and they're far less horrifying now.

-- Using your powers for evil. I had an amazing English teacher in high school, and as a result, I scored really well on that whole... language-y portion of the SATs, thoroughly enjoyed getting my English degree, and am now a happy and successful person. But, as I was ruminating on nineteenth-century poets this evening, I remembered the way Walt Whitman had been introduced to me, when I was an impressionable sixteen year old. Said amazing English teacher apparently didn't rate old Walt, so his unit on Leaves of Grass (required) was rather skewed. Towards eye rolling. I later came to appreciate Whitman in college, but I still think back to high school and have decided it's a bit naughty to try to pass on your distaste for a poet like that.

I missed a week (or more?) of What's Hot, What's Not, but I'm back on track now. Time for the first WH, WN of 2010!

What's Hot

-- (Scroll down and read my first 'What's Not', and then...) Discovering that one's photo is a top return in a simple Google image search. I wondered how somebody might have come across my peony photo if they didn't read my blog, so I tried searching for 'peonies' on Google Images. And what do you know -- my photo is number three!

-- American Elf. It's the comic I most look forward to seeing each day. I love how honest he is about being a dad, and I love how much he adores his wife.

-- My new steamer pot. I got it for Christmas and used it today to finally make seitan sausages -- I've been wanting to try that forever! I used this recipe, and it's very good. They're not as dense as store-bought veggie sausages, which is the one drawback. Flavour-wise, though, they're just right. I sliced one sausage up and sauteed it with some veggies for lunch. I think I'll have another with potatoes tomorrow, and they'd be good in a tomato-y vegetable soup, too.

-- I also made bread with a package of the Mehrkornbrot mix I brought back from Germany. I bought two packs in '08 and was sad once I'd used them up, so I stashed away several more this past year. Making bread from scratch is hardly any more work, but it's nice to have all the seeds already in the mix, you know? It said to bake for 45-60 Minuten, but I took it out after 40 Minuten, because it seemed done (it was), and I was hungry for my Abendessen. Bread for dinner!

What's Not

-- Finding one's photos floating around the internet, uncredited. I was over at Apartment Therapy, looking at some of the recent posts, and I when I saw this one, I had to click to read it in full, because that photo of peonies looked awfully familiar. AT linked to this blog post in way of a credit, which happened to not bother with crediting at all. I started to think I was going a bit loony, because I couldn't find the photo on my flickr, yet I KNEW those had been my pink peonies, my turquoise Ball jar, my table, and a glimpse of my aqua kitchen walls. I finally found the original post on twelve22, here. So... exciting to spot my photo on Apartment Therapy, but I don't understand why people use images without so much as a credit.

-- Bread for dinner. Okay, it was good while I was eating it, but I sort of regretted my decision half an hour later, when I was already hungry again. I guess bread (even with cream cheese and jam) isn't a square meal.

-- My kitchen floor. I swept and mopped it not so long ago, and it's already disgusting again. Between the mess that shoes track in (even, somehow, when I take them off at the door) and the general messiness of using a kitchen, the floor is hopeless.

-- The state of my house. I think I usually keep things fairly tidy around here, but the holidays + a sore ankle + trying to weed out the stuff I don't need = a chaotic house. Well, chaotic for me. I've been engaging in some 'relocation' of junk to the guest bedroom, which was already in a dire state, but I'd rather move everything there for now and tackle THAT project when I'm in the mood to do so. Later.

You know the drill: Time for What's Hot and What's Not, thanks to Claire.

What's Hot

-- Applesauce. Yes, I'm still feeling pleased with myself for how it turned out. It's not like I haven't made it before, but it seems like some apples lend themselves to better-tasting sauce than others, and this was a good (and cheap) batch. I tried some with my breakfast, and then I had a bit more in the afternoon. (I didn't eat that baby banana, though, which was one of the biggest of the bunch, and the only one I didn't freeze.)

-- Frequent updating. Okay, it's not always every day, but I've been doing a good job, right? I'm proud of my dedication!

-- My birthday is next Tuesday. I'm feeling much more relaxed about this birthday than usual; I tend to get over-excited and then crash on the day. I guess I'm just feeling more laid back about life at the moment. If you want to send me something, I would like 1) a hacked iPhone I can use with my T-Mobile account; 2) a two-week vacation in Florida (or somewhere else warm and beachy); 3) a winning lotto ticket; 4) Beatles Rockband. Thanks!

-- Big bowls of soup. I had pretty much the same thing for dinner last night, except not as soup (ie, sauteed tofu and veg on top of noodles), but the noodles were too sticky, and I realized they'd be better in broth. So that's what I did.

-- Baggy sweatshirts. Technically, they're the opposite of 'hot', as in 'attractive', but I'm sort of loving it for around the house. I wanted something big and warm the other day, so I dug out the London hoodie I got in high school and wore all through college. It's been in a box since then (it would have been redundant while I actually living in London, after all), but no longer!

What's Not

-- Proofer's Hand. That might be my official made-up name for what happens when I try to edit several books in a row. My right hand gets all achy and crippled from staying poised over the track pad (and then inserting commas, etc) for so long.

-- I've noticed that, lately, the forecast has found it necessary to tell me it's going to be cold. 'Partly cloudy, chance of snow showers in the afternoon. Cold.' If you're predicting a high of 9F for the day, I can infer for myself that it's going to be cold, thanks.

-- Bad cop drivers. Seriously, what's up with them? Worst driver's ever. The other day, I was driving behind a slow-moving line of cars in the right lane. A police car was in the (mostly empty) left lane, yet he was driving as slowly as we were (well below the speed limit) and hanging just in front of my car. I approached the right turn lane, which I was queued up for, and at the LAST minute, the cop car turned his flashing lights on and pulled right in front of me, so he could turn. He wasn't pulling anybody over; he wasn't rushing off to the scene of a crime -- was his turn signal just too far away to bother with? I know it worked, because I saw him use it later. Bad cop driver.

Time for What's Hot and What's Not, thanks to Claire.

What's Hot

-- Being married for thirty-one years, which is what my parents have achieved today! Happy anniversary to my parents!

-- Other anniversaries: Sunday was my nine-year blogging anniversary! (I forgot, obviously; I'm not a good blog spouse.) Next year is a biggie -- a decade of pointless rambling on the internets.

-- Powdery snow. I mean, if it's going to snow inches and inches, I'd rather it be the kind of snow that's easy to shovel away. And The Radio said it's made the roads less dangerous than they would otherwise be.

-- My friend Gwyn and the Groucho Club Choir have made a Christmas song. You can get a little preview here and then go to iTunes and buy it. I particularly like the 'yummy yummy yum-yum' and 'oom-pah' sections. Gwyn always tells everybody he introduces me to that I have a fantastic blog, so it's the least I can do in return to try to persuade you to download the song. It'll make you smile. Do iiiiit.

-- Hulu has started uploading episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Most of my best memories of college took place while episodes of MST3K seemed to loop endlessly in the background. Keep it on the road, Ted Nelson.

What's Not

-- That I still can't get an iPhone and use it with T-Mobile. I realized that an iPhone would be perfect if I could keep my current calling plan (ie, no extra internet service); it would just do everything my iPod Touch does and also make calls + take photos.

-- Being a klutz. I'm getting tired of wiping up glasses of water that I've spilled. Or running into doorways. (You'd think that I'd never been in my house before. And that I walk with my eyes closed.) I don't think I'm particularly hasty in my movements or absent-minded; things just get in my way. That's what's not hot; get out of my way, stuff!

-- Forgetting where you are in the world. One of the few downsides to having spent a lot of time abroad is that I often think, 'Ooh, I'd really like to get lunch at ____,' or 'Hey, it'd be fun to go see ____,' and then I realize that the place in the blank is four-thousand miles away. For example, I wouldn't mind having a cream tea at that nice place in Leigh on Sea, but it hardly seems worth the expense. And I'll have eaten something else by the time I get there, anyway.

I thought I would join in on Claire's weekly 'What's Hot, What's Not' list! Here goes:

What's Hot

-- Avocado on a toasted Ezekiel English muffin, sprinkled with sea salt. I had the same lunch (more or less) both yesterday and today, because it was so good. After the first bite I had of the avocado + English muffin, my brain pinged back, saying, 'I know what this is!' I thought about it for a while, and it tastes just like pistachios. Not as soon as you bite into it, but somewhere between mid-chew and aftertaste. It's uncanny.

-- Fancy soaps and shampoos to take to the gym. I realized last night that I shower more times per week in the gym's locker room than at home. Luckily, the showers there are really nice, but I persist in leaving my 'nice' toiletries at home while toting the crappier stuff back and forth. But I refuse to do so any longer (or at least not for much longer).

-- Tiny paper houses. Big surprise, right? But I'm working on three new buildings to scan in, and it's a lot of fun making them. There's usually a point, though, like when I'm penning in the thousandth weensy brick or slowly drawing my way through a stone wall, where I get upset that I 'have' to do it. And then I remember that I don't, and I buck up.

-- Talking cats. Not just these guys (although that's Beany and Booty's favourite YouTube video), but just cat-talk in general. I think it's true that cats only 'meow' to communicate with humans; they use noises more similar to those in that video with each other. Sometimes Booty will be sleeping on the back of the sofa when I'm using my laptop, and he'll suddenly wake up and say something in inter-cat speak. So I'll reply with a similar noise, and then he'll say something shorter and go back to sleep. I have no idea what we've just said to each other, but I think it's nice that I'm making an effort to speak his language.

-- Family togetherness. I've been going over to my folks' to watch most of the Vikings games this season, which is nice. But I've been trying to convince them that buying the Beatles Rock Band game would really promote togetherness. I don't think I've been entirely persuasive, though.

What's Not

-- Soy milk boiling over. Which makes the burner act funny, which leads you to turn off the gas behind the oven, which means you have to pull the oven away from the wall, which wrenches your shoulder. I think it's okay now, but I did a CO test, just to make sure, and then I accidentally threw the monitor down the stairs to the basement. All before breakfast.

-- Websites that use that Snap preview 'feature'. Oh my god, it drives me nuts. It has never once provided me with content or information I found useful, but it does manage to make it near impossible to click the actual link. And it throws me into a blind rage.

-- Drivers who don't signal their turns and lane changes. It's not optional! Take note, cops. You're not above the blinker, sirs (and madams). They're seriously the worst when driving in normal traffic (ie, not an emergency).