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Autumn
raindrops pattering cool crisp air in our faces first rain of the year That was my first attempt at a haiku. Sorry ’bout that. For those of you who live in green states, meaning states where it doesn’t turn brown and dry and brittle in the summer, where you get rain or snow all year round, you don’t know how refreshing it is to know that the green hills will be returning…it’s nice. Last night was our first rain this season…we went out for a walk in the drizzle, and listened to it pattering down on our umbrellas. We had to towel off the dog when we got home. We…
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13 Recipes You Should Try
Yesterday’s Chronicle listed the 20 best recipes from their last 20 years of having a Food Section. A couple of them were intriguing, and almost tempted me into making them. But I’m more of a cook, (“cooker”, as Maya would have said in her youth), not so much of a baker, so these were just a bit too much for me. That got me to thinking of other recipes that I really like, and that maybe some of you might enjoy as well. 🙂 So, here are a few from the Chron, and a bunch that we really enjoy. Twice-Baked Goat Cheese Souffle. I’ve had this at Zax Tavern in…
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Fashion DON’TS
You all know of my obsession with What Not To Wear. I love to see them take a person with a misguided sense of fashion, and turn them into a lemming fashion plate in one short week. Really, for all that the folks DO tend to come out looking a bit cookie-cutterish, they ALWAYS look 150X better than they did going in. Well, after a particulary entertaining episode yesterday, when the victim participant (Eddie, over there on the left) reminded me of no-one so much as Bobcat Goldthwait in Scrooged, I had to go look at the website. While there, I saw that one of the host/stylists, Clinton Kelly, had…
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Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Did anyone watch Ellen yesterday? I don’t usually watch that format of TV, no Oprah, no Ellen, etc., but for some reason yesterday, after I knocked off from work, I turned it on. Her guest was Sheryl Crow, talking about her fight with Breast Cancer. When she went for her mammogram, they told her they had concerns, and she should come back in 6 months for a follow up. Thankfully, her OB/GYN didn’t think waiting was such a good idea, and she got her treatment started right away. Coincidentally (or maybe not, since October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month), the other day I was flipping channels, and came across…
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Weekend Wrap Up
This was one of those weekends where we didn’t do a whole lot. I like those weekends. I like busy weekends, too, but they’re definitely a different experience. I spent entirely too much time working on my blog. I finally got through all 350+ posts and have them categorized the way I want them. I didn’t have a lot of luck with photos…seems like if I want them to be there, I’m going to have to upload them to flickr. Bah, what a pain in the butt.  Might not happen. Don’t hold your breath, just in case. 😉 I had some reading in mind…I bought a few magazines at the store…
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Determined by an actual conversation in my house…
Meat/Animals I will eat: Chicken Beef Buffalo Turkey Lamb Venison Fish (including oysters, clams, crab, etc.) Rattlesnake Iguana Meat/Animals I will NOT eat: Veal Brains, Liver, etc. Cat Dog Horse Mr. Spock (because he’s 1/2 human, DUH) The Blob from Outer Space (don’t know what it is….might make me sick) Cylons from Battlestar Galactica UPDATED TO ADD: I will not eat eyeballs of any kind, squirrels, or possum. For those of you wanting to know. ;)Â
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Yummy Rice Recipe
I posted a recipe last Sunday, for a vegetarian dish. Today I’m going to post a recipe for Saffron-Orange Rice, which is VERY yummy. My step-mom makes this recipe. I know it’s from a cookbook, but I don’t know which one. I’ve had it on previous trips to Portland, but I never thought to make it for Ted, because he’s not a fan of basmati rice AND he thinks dried fruit is devil food AND he’s not generally thrilled by nuts either. So I was excited when he raved about this dish, and said he would like to have it again. Right away, I emailed my step-mom for the recipe.…
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Misc. Friday Stuff
1st off, I’m really enjoying Maya’s caterpiller. Yesterday, I thought it was getting ready to go into its little cocoon, so I moved it into my ‘office’ so I could watch it. (Maya was at school all day, so she wasn’t missing it or anything.) It didn’t cocoon, though, it was just molting, but it was very cool to watch it eat eat eat all day. It’s a VERY hungry caterpiller. I tried to take a beautiful picture of it, but my camera isn’t up to the task, and they all came out blurry. If you want to see a beautiful picture of what I was going for, check here. (Used without…
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Happy Birthday, Grandma Wells!
Today is my Grandma Wells’ 90th Birthday. Happy Birthday, Grandma! I wish you were computer savvy, so you could read this, but maybe I’ll just print it up and mail it to you. I thought, since Grandma’s birthday is on a Thursday this year, I’d do 13 Things You Should Know About My Grandma. 1. She makes some tasty coleslaw. 2. She worked full time, graveyard shift, at the Gallo Bottling Plant until she was 84 years old. She was a bookkeeper for them. 3. She also makes some yummy lima beans. (The trick is to buy dried lima beans, and soak them in chicken broth instead of water, before…
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New Digs
Welcome to my new home. I still have some moving in to do…I’m going to try to bring over my HaloScan comments (maybe…that seems kind of daunting, actually), and then I have to go through my entire blog, post by post, categorize them, and clean up any broken pictures, that kind of thing. But I kind of thought, I would rather just move over, so I can get started. If you’re wondering WHY I moved, it was a combination of things. Blogger has a lot of problems, and I’m hoping to have better luck on my own domain here. Blogger beta has categories, but I haven’t tried it yet, so…
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Killer Popcorn?
Have any of you heard of the dangers of microwave popcorn? I first read of it at Pureland Mountain, though I can’t link to the post anymore. On Saturday, I heard a story on NPR about the dangers of working at popcorn plants. The danger comes from the butter flavoring that is added to some microwave popcorn, and the danger is to the employees who work there. Some people have died, and many others are suffering from serious health effects to their lungs. Some popcorn manufacturers have voluntarily imposed safer methods of making their popcorn, while others are ignoring the danger, and I suspect won’t make any changes until federal…
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Romantic? Or Realist?
Every once in awhile, I’ll be talking to someone, and they’ll mention that someone is (or isn’t) their ‘soulmate’. The idea, the way I understand it, is that there is one person out there, who is perfect for you, and assuming you want to be in a relationship, you have to find them. I find this difficult to believe. Also, somewhat depressing. What if they’re perfect for you, but they get hit by a car, and you never get to meet them? What if they’re already married? What if they’re perfect for you, but they’re in Sudan, and you’re in Stockton, and you never have a chance to meet? What…
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Sunday Cooking
OK, so I know most people don’t bother reading blogs on the weekend, since you have lives and chores and families and so on, so I save the easy ones for these days. Posts that I figure maybe 3 people will read, and I’ll get maybe one comment. I’ve learned my lesson, people, I’ve poured my heart and soul into a weekend post, and seen on my site meter that it is basically ignored. The perfect lazy post is a recipe that I can just copy and paste from a website. I mean, at that point, why do I even bother? Because I can’t help myself, I guess. Maya has…
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Elephant Appreciation
Yesterday was Elephant Appreciation Day*. I thought it was September 23rd, but I was wrong, and thus, I missed it. But really, is it ever too late to appreciate elephants? And, since elephants in the wild are pretty much in Africa and India and Southeastern Asian countries, shouldn’t I have celebrated on Thursday night? Do elephants care about such things? I’ll admit that I never had much of an opinion about elephants growing up. I mean, they’re big, and they’re kind of prehistoric looking, but what else? Dumbo? Dumbo’s cute. That’s about as far as I went. Then, when I was an International Relations major in college, we watched a…
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Calling all Gramarians
Awhile ago, I posted a list of thirteen grammar mistakes that bug me. If you like that kind of thing, you might enjoy listening to this. It’s “To The Best Of Our Knowledge”, from NPR, and it talks about IM and text messaging, but also about changes to grammar in general. My favorite part so far is an interview with the author of “Woe is I“. I’m about 2/3 through (Have it on my iPod, and I listen while I walk the dog…), and I’m enjoying it. Hope you do as well.