The Guardian sell things on their website (I’ve no idea why; they’re a newspaper). One of them I spotted while reading an article was a gadget for keeping razor blades sharp:
I’m keen on this idea, because I really hate those Gillette contraptions with the big plastic model airplanes around the half-dozen blades that cost £10 a box and may be tested on animals. For a number of years I’ve been using a safety razor, a brush, and shaving soap (versus a tin can filled with a cup of liquid and a bunch of propellant). The blades are simply metal that decomposes, but I still wanted to see if I could make them last longer.
My first attempt was by using an antique glass “razor hone”. You put a little soap on it and rub the blade back and forth (which is somewhat scary, given that your finger is slipping around on top of one of those blades, which are most commonly associated with self-harm in movies). The idea is that it shapes the blade back into sharpness.
Unfortunately, antique gizmos, like modern ones, are divided 50/50 between “clever things that work” and “snake oil”. I fear this accessory, whilst attractive enough in the bathroom, falls into the latter category.
Searching around for information on the modern sharpener, I learned that it’s just a pad of silicone in a plastic shell. Apparently razor blades don’t get dull as quickly as we think, they just get gummed up with skin and stubble. The roughness and resilience of the silicone is meant to rub all that off so you’re just working with blade again.
I had a silicone watch strap I wasn’t using, so I trimmed that and tried it out. (You wipe the razor in the opposite direction in which you shave, just in case you want to try this out yourself.)
Magic! I’ve been using the same blade for about three weeks and it still feels brand new; usually they last about a week and a half.
~
In my search for tasty-yet-healthy things to cook, one of the best sites I’ve discovered is Elena’s Pantry. Yesterday she posted recipes for healthier Hallowe’en candy.
Of course, this is 2011, and all neighbours like me should be considered poisoners, so I had no intention whatsoever of giving these out. These were for us!
I tried two of the recipes: Fudge Babies, which are little fudge-balls made with only cocoa, walnuts, vanilla, and dates; and Peppermint Patties.
The Fudge Babies turned out like dog crap, but when the fella got home from an evening meeting, I tried them out on him, and he really liked them. (I did, too: mildly sweet, but with some food-y complexity to them.)
The Peppermint Patties”¦ not so much. I shall call them Abominable Snowflakes instead. The innards only half-set, as the coconut oil and agave syrup separated, so I couldn’t dip them in the (85%) chocolate, I could only pour it over-top.
In other words, a mess:

And now it’s time to work!
P.S. Three other things occupying my mind:
1) I can’t find the right drawing paper. Either it takes a line well but the watercolours pool on top of it, or it pulls in the paint well but the ink bleeds. Aargh! So far, regular typing paper is working out best, except that it warps when wet.
2) Scanned watercolours look nothing like their real-world counterparts. I’m really loving the look of watercolours, though, so I’m not sure how to work this if I plan to post things online.
3) My internal critic is working overtime lately and just isn’t happy with anything I do. Right now, it looks kind of like this:
It’s trashing everything because I’m not working on a novel, but I’m actually producing a lot of other stuff at the moment, like these two books I finished for the showcase at Caithness Horizons:
Of course, impossible standards can’t be placated because they’re, by definition, impossible — ever shifting. Thankfully, I’ve been listening to a lecture by Pema Chodron, which is reinforcing thoughts from books I’ve read by Cheri Huber, both of which are wonderful, gentle reminders that the voice isn’t true, or reasonable, or something to engage with.
As Chodron says, it’s always an urge to escape the present moment, to not stay. But just recognising that goes a long way to helping me ‘disindentify’ from what it’s saying, so I can simply go, “Oh, yes, that,” and get on with whatever’s in front of me, rather than running for the hills of oblivion until I wake up again, wonder where the time went, and have to walk back to where I was.