This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

Today Kevin’s game, Starcom: Nexus, releases in Early Access on Steam. It’s a thing of beauty, and also a lot of fun. If you like games that take you into outer space where you get to explore mysterious worlds, build a powerful ship, and explode bad guys, you should buy it, and play it, and let your gamer friends know about it. Yes, I’m biased, but reviewers and streamers  - who are not his spouse  - also love it :o). (FYI those last two links go to youtube streaming vids.)



***

Conversation at the dinner table:

Kevin: How was your day?

Me: Okay, I guess. I still can’t figure out how to get this girl to accidentally set her house on fire, then cause an explosion and get stuck in a window grille.

Kevin: I believe in you.

Me: Thank you. How was your day?

Kevin: Okay. When my enemy ships get within a certain distance of each other, they spontaneously explode.

Me: Oh!

Kevin: It’s not supposed to happen. It’s a bug.

Me: Oh.

Kevin: I can’t figure it out.

Me: I believe in you!

***


There are …

Do you know the art of Arizona-based painter Carolyn Schmitz, whose paintings include a series of animals wearing gorgeous natural hats? Go check her out. It's hard to choose, but I might love the bear with the bluejay on its head best of all.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may have caught on that I like wearing cool stuff on my head. In that spirit, I want to share the Etsy shop ElsewhenMillinery, whose proprietor, Wendy, recently made me a beautiful green hat.

I have an upcoming social event that requires a hat. (If there are good pictures, I promise to share them, because, weather depending, it's going to be a photo-worthy event!) I decided to treat myself to exactly the hat I wanted, which meant finding a skilled artist who could make it for me. Look how it turned out.


I love it. Here's a photo that shows the pretty shape and fine details...

 I chose a green linen fabric because I wanted a hat I can wear anytime that will always match my ring. …

Over 40 years ago, Kevin's dad built this cabin.

Guess what we did? 

 Here's how. 
First, we mixed and chilled the dough. (We used this recipe at Food52, except using muscle power and eventually hands instead of a mixer. It worked fine.) 

The next day, we rolled it flat...

and, using a blueprint Kevin made out of cardboard, cut it into walls and deck...
used a sharp knife to draw the windows and boarded sides (I'm using that box as a straightedge)...

and baked all the pieces. Actually, we slightly overbaked them, on purpose. Gingerbread walls stand up better if they're overbaked.

We gave them a couple days to get good and dry...
and then the silly part began. 
We used the hacksaw...

 to cut cinnamon sticks into little logs...

for the log pile. We interspersed the cinnamon sticks with salmiac candies to give our log pile more character.

We needed some candy cane joists to hold up the deck. Kevin, doing experiments with heat, discovered that a hot knife slices throug…

Japanese artist Chooo-San does the most incredible stuff with face- and body-paint, some of it creepy and scary, some of it just plain beautiful. Here's a representative collection of her stuff at My Modern Met.

Reminds me that I need to sort out the makeup for my (much less spectacular) Halloween costume, which I promise I'll post pictures of here, provided it all comes together :o). Here's a hint.

It's October.... so we did Boda Borg! Without a doubt, one of my favorite monthly new things so far. Oh my gourd, it was fun.

What's Boda Borg? I'll explain best I can, but first, for those readers who know what it is and are worried that this post will contain clues or cheats, I promise it doesn't. It does contain some photos from inside the Boda Borg rooms, but I'm confident the photos are vague enough that they don't give much away that isn't already obvious.

BTW, Swedish Graceling cover -----> Because Boda Borg comes from Sweden! Follow that link for locations and other good stuff. Here in Boston, we're lucky to have the only stateside Boda Borg facility.

So, first I'm going to share the official definition of Boda Borg, then I'll describe what it's actually like. Officially: Boda Borg is a real-world gaming environment. Teams of 3-5 people move through a series of "Quests," tackling a variety of mental and physical challeng…