just the way things go

I've been pretty busy on this end with reading and writing and other random things. As usual, this means that I develop weird urges to obsess over things other than reading or writing. Some recent obsessions have included:

1. How to make a bonsai out of wisteria. I picked up a seed pod on my way home from campus one day. Wisteria pods are sort of soft and velvety on the outside (except for American wisteria) and I've always liked velvet. When I was in junior high, I cut up an old velvet dress and covered my binder in velvet. My mom was not amused. The pod was half-open, which I thought was promising. When I got home, I put it on top of my computer monitor and forgot about it until a couple days later, when the pod suddenly snapped open and launched itself into the air and behind my desk. I was reading through some gardening forums and found out that wisteria can be used for bonsai (though the poster was pretty adamantly anti-bonsai). Since I don't exactly have a trellis or any place to put a trellis, this bonsai thing seemed like a good idea. However, whether I need new, obsessive hobbies that involve training plants with various tools, is highly debatable.

2. Beans. My mom gave me a jar filled with four different layers of beans and I had no idea what to do with them, but I wanted to use the jar, so that meant using the beans! I forget the exact scope of the bean obsession, but here are some of the recipes I used.

-Black Bean Soup - This one came out a little bland, but that probably wasn't helped by the fact that I forgot to put in the vinegar and the sugar. I think next time I'll go with a recipe that includes cilantro or chipotle or something to give it a little more interest.

-Sprouted Bean Rice Pot - This was very tasty and I actually made it twice. The gomashio, sesame seeds ground with salt, was really good, and also made me decide that I needed to finally get a mortar and pestle. Hahaha! A mortar and pestle. I guess I've wanted one for awhile and now I can finally grind up these cardamom pods that I've had. I think this particular project was related to the bean obsession, but also to the microgreens obsession, what with the sprouting and all. I had mung beans in the cabinet just because. Anyway, gomashio, thumbs up.

3. Microgreens. My friend mentioned that he was growing microgreens (sprouts with about four leaves). I had no idea what they were, so I did some research, at which point I started to get a little excited because I have a huge amount of mizuna and daikon seeds. I'm not sure how much mizuna and daikon one person can eat, so sprouts or microgreens seemed like a good way to put the seeds to use. After all that, I haven't actually made any microgreens. Haha!

4. Socks. I tried making them before, but a sock obsession never really got off the ground. After a new addition to the family prompted some scrambling on my end to come up with a small baby gift and I remembered the baby sock pattern from Interweave, I joined Socktoberfest. Once you get a hang of them, socks are supposedly pretty straightforward with less fitting issues than something like a sweater, and you have to wear socks everyday (at least during non-flip flop weather). Let's hope the yarn turns into socks at some point.

Whew.