Congrats to Yvette, who won Tempting the Stars (Red Dragon #3) by Becky Black!

Congrats to Alder, who won Axel’s Pup (Werewolves & Dragons #1) by Kim Dare!

Photos from My Neighborhood

• Calhoun Square, I have questions about your bathroom design choices.
• The umbrellas are ok, though – you can keep those.

Contest(s)

• Piper Vaughn’s giving away signed (or not, winner’s choice) paperbacks of Moonlight Becomes You (Lucky Moon #1) and The Luckiest (Lucky Moon #2) by Piper Vaughn and MJ O’Shea. Closes 11 pm CDT, March 20. (As in today. As in hurry!)

Bookity

• New releases: Fiction Vixen (UF/romance)
• Book and publishing news from Dear Author.
• Some daily bookity linkity from Book Riot.
• Writerly linkity from Becky Black.
• “A culture of reading, or a culture of buying?“
• If you’re looking for gift ideas for geeky book lovers…
• Disturbing dolls from literature. (via mental_floss)
• Old book perfume.

Make, Do, Think, Learn

• Why the International Space Station is shaped the way it is.
• The science of icicles. (via Gizmodo)
• “What happens to enforcers when hockey uses them up?“
• “A history of Twin Cities urbanism, as told by high school hockey“. (via Puck Daddy)
• Ruth Bader Ginsberg quotes.
• Tips to make cleaning faster.

Cookity

• Sweet potato hash with sausage and eggs.
• Stir-fried noodles with chicken and veggies.
• Ginger chicken stir fry.
• Cashew chicken salad wraps.
• Minnesota wild rice and mushroom soup.
• Vegetarian and vegan shepherd’s pie potato skins. (via The Kitchn)
• Lentil bolognese.
• Tusken Raider cookies.
• Deep-dish chocolate chip cookies.
• Matcha snickerdoodles.
• Lemon cheesecake cookies.
• Cinnamon roll cheesecake. (via gilajames)
• Cookie dough krispie treats. (via pipervaughn)
• Berries and chocolate cake. (via maderr)
• 17 pudding recipes.

Gluten Free

• Spaetzle.
• Hamburgers with cauliflower “buns”. (via habbity)
• Irish soda bread.
• Sally Lunn batter bread.

Crafty

• Now there’s a website for The Principles of Knitting. (via knittyBlog)
• Knit some tube socks for your kitty. (via pipervaughn)
• Knitting linkity from kmkat.

Cool

• LEGO ball maze cube.
• LEGO stop motion version of Jurassic Park.
• Doctor Who stitch markers. (Thanks, Cheryl!)
• Rocket ship murphy bed.
• Paper model of the Millenium Falcon. (via Gizmodo)
• The Color of Evil short animated film.
• The first and last shots from 55 films.
• Linkity from kmkat.

Cool or Wha…?

• USS Enterprise sushi set.
• Firefly edition of Monopoly. (via The Mary Sue)
• Smartphone case with a hand crank for emergency charging.
• More March Madness tournaments. And even more.
• Google Feud.
• Salted caramel Skippy peanut butter. (via neighborhoodr-minneapolis)

Wha…?

• “Florida suspends employee for saying ‘climate change’, order psych evaluation before he can return“. (via brandonpirris)
• Tiny cat paw-shaped food brands. (via maderr)
• Taco donuts. (via wilwheaton)
• Bacon-flavored cotton candy and chicken-fried corn on the cob.
• Taxidermied squirrels battling with lightsabers. (via salvamisandwich)
• LEGO offering beauty tips to little girls.
• Erotic fiction about Clippy. (Yes, THAT Clippy.)

LOL

• This might break your brain for a brief moment.
• A product warning that doesn’t mess around.
• Cake Wrecks, The Far Side style.
• Oh oh, might be too late…

Teh Cute

• Baby sand cat! Black kitty! Tiger and baby! Very very small horse! Baby ring-tailed cats! Kitty nose! Black kitty! Kitten!

Reading Update
Precinct 13 by Tate Hallaway. Ok paranormal romance about a woman who moves to Pierre, South Dakota, to get away from an “unhealthy influence” who’d encouraged her “delusions” that magic was real. After she gets elected as coroner, she discovers maybe she isn’t quite as delusional as she thought… This book seemed to be trying to cram in an awful lot of plot and subsequently felt like it was all over the place.
Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Very good, very thoughtful book about becoming more aware of our place in nature, starting with the tiny bits of nature available in the cities in which so many of us live. Haupt uses the example of crows throughout the book to illustrate both that our environmental balance is dangerously out of whack (allowing a few dominant species such as crows to thrive as more sensitive species decline) and that nature, even if it’s “just” crows, persists wherever we are.
Chasing the Light: The Cloud Cult Story by Mark Allister. I really have no idea what to say about the book, just because I love this band so much. And I knew that their music and shows have affected me deeply, but until I read this book, I had no idea how profoundly they’ve affected others. The transformative, healing power of music? This is it. You can actually listen to the entirety of my favorite album of theirs, Light Chasers on YouTube. If 16 songs is too much, please at least try “There’s So Much Energy in Us” and “Room Full of People in My Head”.
A Life in Hand: Creating the Illuminated Journal by Hannah Hinchman. I picked this up at a used bookstore over the weekend and am well pleased that I did. It’s a delightful read about both using words and sketches in one’s journal, as tools to provide insight and aid observation. I jotted down a number of quotes from it and can see myself revisiting its exercises when I need journaling inspiration. If you read this book, make sure you do so in a format that allows you to see all the author’s drawings integrated with the text throughout.

*intent pose of intentness* -Mayhem