Yesterday.

Yesterday was a noteworthy day. Indeed.
It started snowing - for the first time in weeks. It eventually accumulated enough that we still have snow on the ground today. That hasn't happened in longer than two weeks.

To mark the first snow in a long time (and/or because they arrived, finally), I started my artichoke seeds.
They're in the glass there. I have special artichoke seeds, seeds that make plants that make actual artichokes their first year. However they still require 90 days to reach maturity after transplanting. While our great valley has slightly less severe weather than the surrounding plains, we still only have about 110 frost free days, I'm playing it safe with the artichokes and starting them early. I'll see how the first 8 seeds do, and go from there.
They're sitting in a glass of water for a day to help them along. Later, I'll plant each happy little seed in a peat pot, and if all goes well, in a month or so, they're get planted up into small planters, till they can go outside.

Despite my best efforts I could not get a hold of any "Northern Star" seeds, which are the only known cultivar capable of weathering cold winters, so my lovely artichoke plants-to-be are going to be annuals, which is sad, cause normal artichoke plants can live 5-10 years in zones 7 and warmer...

In situ -

Bedroom -Usually, they're pulled to the right, and fall along the side of the bookcase.

Living Room. Royal Blue 100% Organic Hemp Canvas.
I made them with extra deep seams allowances, when summer comes we can assess how much sun blocking we'd like, and I can attach appropriately thick, or thin, linings.
There are two large trees between the sidewalk and street, which might provide sufficient shade. Then again - we might want the equivalent of black-out shades... we have options.
The entry way.
The couch, with grey fabric, in which it will be recovered.
The look through.
My typewriter station. And household paperwork processing center.
We do have a small problem with this large blank of wall. Something will be there.
Fin.

Gosh.

It's always satisfying to finish our tax returns.

I don't know what it is, but I like doing them myself. I like getting just a slight pressure in the front of my head, and smiling at how easy it is to find the numbers I need, due to my fastidious filing the rest of the year... and tax code! Gosh I love looking up tax code explanations on the IRS website!

Oh - and I'd like to thank D for going to a school that costs over $10,000 a semester, we can pay off 20% of that debt with the reduction in taxes the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit provides.


I think I'm going to find the names of the congresspeople who sponsored the bill that created that tax credit and send them all a Thank You note!

(My last year of school, when we were first married, we didn't make enough money to have to pay taxes, once everything else was considered, so I never really appreciated the full fun of that one before :)


P.S. IRS, please don't audit me! I have an unnatural fear of auditing, it's up at the top of my list, just after BEARS!!!

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about...

Two weeks ago, I came down with a craving for Iced Animal Crackers, and couldn't find them anywhere, not at Safeway, not at the local grocery store, and not at Wal-Mart...

I always remember buying them from the local/rural grocery stores in Iowa... not the chain ones, not the ones in the big cities, the bare bones stores, that for some reason always cared these!

And I found Frosted Animal Crackers, but anyone who's ever had both knows the difference - they are not the same!

Anyway - I couldn't remember the brand name, I just remembered the pink bag, but I found them online tonight, and it turns out the company, Stauffer's, actually sells them directly on their website!!!

They're $1.69, how ridiculous is that...

yummy.

Going blind.

Can someone explain to me why anyone would use a normal hem when they could do a blind hem???

Oh. My. God!

Really, like the greatest thing Eveh! Let me show you...

Wow - that's a sexy hem right there, that's what that is.

Then I tried to show my freakin' PERFECT blind hemmed bedroom curtain to D...
He did not seem to appreciate its magnificence... hmm... maybe it's cause he woke up at 1am last night, started batting at the computer (which, yes, I was using in bed) mumbling about how it was too bright, and never managed to get back to sleep... the above photos were taken at 4:30pm today, Friday afternoon nap anyone???

So if you can't tell, I've gotten one of my two sewing machines back from their Annual Visit to the "Sew 'n' Vac" repair man, they left right after our move, so I haven't been able to make curtains or anything for the new place... till today... I have living room curtains I'll take photos of at some point, and then on to the "Whale Couch" reupholstery project. Good times.

Official Announcement.

Excuse me, ahem, ahem -

I'm officially announcing my choice of tomato varieties for what will go down in history (hopefully a long and successful history) as my first serious year of tomato growing!

You may all remember I amused myself by planting some tomato seeds in, like, June of last year, in Arizona... then attempted to move them all up Here in August and then knowingly watched them wilt, right when they were starting to flower, as it was, like, October, and freezing...

I'm starting things off properly this year, which means ordering seeds early (considering our last frost is in mid-May, I don't really need to start seedlings till the end of March) - and I've ordered them, and they're arrived, and they are as follows!

The Beaverlodge Slicer! - a smaller, red, early tomato bred in Canada

Black Cherry Tomatoes! - Tiny little multi-colored numbers

The Bloody Butcher! - Another small, red, early tomato, noted as good for canning, and producing well all the way to the first frost

Bigger, bader and from Siberia, we have The Black Prince! One of my longer to ripen varieties at 70 days (still considered earlier for those that have more than 110 frost free days... losers)

With the oddest name, there's Belii Naliv! Another early one, praised for being Sweet and Tangy (what does that even mean???)

Cosmonaut Volkov! From the Ukraine, the longest to ripen at 72 days, but up to 2 pounds a piece

The last one I ordered is Zhefen Short! From Zhengjiang, good for patios, always important

But that's not actually the last, they also sent me a packet of seeds on the house - may I present

Super Snow White! Just like Ping Pong balls, I think that's a good thing...

now I just have to wait a month and find a sunny place for them all in our wee yard once they sprout :) I think I'm going to try for five plants of each variety, I'll keep you updated.


P.S. Yes Kelly, all you are is People to me, many many people, think about that!
P.P.S. Maybe if you're nice I'll name a tomato plant after you.

Cook much???

This is called D ruining my plating!
This is called Polenta French Fries with Homemade Ketchup

I cut and fried a tube of store bought polenta (polenta is really moist and doesn't need a whole lot of oil, but does need a whole lot of time in the skillet to get crispy, there's rumors that this can be done in the oven, and I might try that next time). Then used half a can of diced tomatoes with garlic that D had left sitting on the table, plus a little corn left in the fridge, pureed, then added to a pot of 2 tablespoons corn starch dissolved in equal water, plus some sweet basil and left it on moderate heat, stirring frequently, till peaks could stand on their own.

I'm going to pretend it was at least marginally healthier than the usual iteration.

Saucy

I've made enchiladas twice now, in the last two weeks. Once for D, once for some of our friends, before us ladies went to the Blue Mountain Clinic's annual fashion show/fund raiser - Off The Rack!

The first time I used a can of diced tomatoes and a couple scoops of salsa D had in the fridge, since I didn't have some of D's flavorful Salsa to steal the second time, I used a can of Diced Tomatoes (w/green chilies already in them), half a can of garbanzo beans and half a can of corn, plus some Sriracha, as much as you need there... probably more than I use...
pulverize it in the food processor (below is the bendy bowl D's sister sent for his birthday, most recently you'll have seen it being used as a hat on D's blog... let's not talk about it)...
then I add it to a pan on the stove where I've dissolved a few tablespoons of corn starch into some water, mix it all together and wait for it to warm up, then dunk lightly toasted tortillas in it, both sides, before added the filling and rolling them up in a pan, and yes, rolling up tortillas that are covered in sauce is really messy, it helps if you have one person to dunk and another to roll (or don't mind if every utensil in the kitchen ends up sticky).
the sauce is a little chunky but that's alright. After all the tortillas are rolled (and I make six with this quantity of sauce), you add whatever extra shredded cheese you have to the top of the rolled enchiladas, and pore the rest of the sauce over them, before baking them for 23 and one half minutes.

No photos of them out of the oven, as I got distracted by the people who were over :) I'd recommend serving them with fresh cilantro and some Spanish Rice (but you'll have to ask D for that recipe).

A full go round.

You already saw the stove.
from a seat at the table...
window...
the far right...
a nice place to work in the mornings...
Macro.
A reasonable improvement from the previous place. (By the way, D said I shouldn't put the table in the middle of the room, that there was already enough counter space, that it would ruin the flow of the kitchen... don't ever let D get near blueprints...)

Cooking.

Cooking in our nice happy kitchen in our new place is fun.

First, you can saute some onions on the nice shinny stove!
(By the way, D says you can caramelize onions without a dusting of brown sugar, but I say that's no fun.)
Then you saute some spinach, grate some cheese, get a nice big pan.
Par-boil some pasta. (Is par-boil the right word? You sort of cook the pasta, not all the way.)
Then you layer!
And eat!

Flash Back.

"Not so many years ago, it suddenly became chic to be a good cook. Even baking your own bread became glamorous. In our present times of crises, the practical art of preserving is growing ever more popular."

"A few years ago a return to the earth and to life on a more natural level was considered a somewhat eccentric poetic dream pursued by a rising tide of young people and a small minority of disenchanted middle-age. Now the very real circumstances that involve all of us are making it an imperative necessity."

"All of us are becoming increasingly suspicious of the questionable additives in the commercially prepared, pre-packaged, plasticized food. These dyes and chemicals are far more beneficial to the wholesaler shipper and warehouse keeper than to the human anatomy."

-from Home Preserving Made Easy copyright 1975...

just as easily could have been from the transcript of some "expert" on a morning show, yesterday. It's interesting, how long it takes ideals to get from the fringe to mainstream... I'd say global warming pretty much made that leap during the 8 years Bush was in office. Think about what you thought about Al Gore and global warming back when he was running against Bush in 2000, and then think about how these days, just about everyone says it exists, the nay-sayers these days just argue over whether it's human caused or not.

How did that happen? Besides the easy answer of An Inconvenient Truth, what's the process an idea goes through to get from only a few people actually having an opinion, to it being taken for granted...

my most recent reading material just happened to bring that info focus... clearly the idea the authors' had when they wrote their forward hasn't yet come into it's own, why did global warming make it in just over eight years and this hasn't made it in thirty... I know large parts of that answer, but not all of it.

Baaa.

From our trip to Yellowstone for Thanksgiving. Also - I saw several Mountain Goats, like, the shaggy white kind, outside of Jackson Hole on our way down to Utah last week, so I've got Rocky Mountain Big Horn, Desert Big Horn, and Goat all off my tick list... anybody know where I can spot a Dall Sheep???
As you can see, he thought the road was better without cars, as everyone was pulled over to the side watching the males fight it out. There are actually three sheep in the photo below, one is being squashed into the corner by the male sheep on the left.
Good times.

I probably shouldn't do this...

but I just got an e-mail from someone I sent a resume to, and they responded asking me what type of file my resume was saved as, and if I had experience with Word.

Umm... it was saved in Rich Text Format... that's what the RTF after the period means... and if you didn't know that you could have tried to just open the document anyway, cause it would have opened fine, and if that was too much, you could have taken 4.6 seconds on Google to search RTF and figured it all out, and if that was too much, go ahead and take three minutes to write an e-mail to me, asking me, and then wait for me to respond to all the other questions in the e-mail, that you would already know the answers to if you had just opened the resume and read it yourself.

And you want to know if I know how to use Word.

Yes, yes I do. Which is apparently pretty important as you don't seem to know how to use it yourself!

The last of them -

Cookies.
More cookies!
Pie - the one on the left is like, THE best apple pie I've ever made!
Christmas dinner with Gwyneth :)
More Gwyneth!
Rarrr!!!

Quote of the Day.

"It's going to look like we have a dead whale in the house."

-D (about one of the options for the sofa I'm recovering in a 100% organic, half cotton half hemp, fabric that happens to be grey :)

Holiday time.

Our pagan holiday tree is still up here and it reminded me to go through iPhoto and find the rest of the photos I took back in Iowa :)

The fireplace.

Close up! Such a nice profile, that snout is to die for!
Don't want to be outdone though!
Don't worry, they'll stay friends through the jealously, it's that, or start associating with the Antelope just right of frame, and they wouldn't descent that low!

This is -

the one with Green keys. It's also the easiest one to type on, as it's the least old and the key action doesn't require as much force.

And the keys are green.

Thank you, please come again.