The Complete Sale of Selma Lee

Quote of the Day.

2012-01-04T16:46:00.001-07:00

D walks in the door and declares -

I want a fancy salad and a glass of wine for dinner.

Seriously, I don't know how many times we've gone out to eat and the Food Runner tries to give me the salad and D the steak. Thank goodness my husband has non-heteronormitive eating habits.

Quote of the Day.

2011-11-27T19:43:00.001-07:00

After an inter-room chat, briefly discussing the deliciousness of various dinner options:

D - Okay now no talking, I'm sewing a curve.

Water.

2011-11-03T16:04:00.000-07:00

Meltwater below Sperry Glacier, early Sept

So - the short version of the moment is that summer was beautiful and busy...

Tarn at Logan Pass, late August

and then fall hit and everything decreased. Work. Drivable miles of road in Glacier. Temperature. Sunlight. Wildflowers in bloom. Desire to be colder than necessary (aka going outside).

Tarn at Logan Pass, late August.

I'm struggling with trying to figure out how to motivate for the winter.

Mountain goat enjoying the view at the Hidden Lake Overlook, mid-July.

And then Glacier National Park's facebook page (which I love) does a photo contest. The "prize" is having your photo used as their profile picture for a month. They did this back in May and it turned into a bit of a free-for-all.

Tarn at Logan Pass, mid-July

The theme was "Spring". Some particularly excitable fans submitted over a dozen photos and I'd say 60% of the photos were clearly from high-summer, and another 15% from fall. Whatever - spring means different things to different people (and we'll disregard that what makes Glacier such a wonderful and special place is exemplified by the differences between Spring in Glacier, and Spring anywhere else, but again, whatever), but considering Glacier probably gets 90% of it's unique visitors during a 75 day window in late June, July, August and early September, that's about what you'd expect.

Paintbrush, Mary Baker Lake, and Sperry Glacier, early Sept

This time the theme was "Water: non-frozen" which I think is excellent. Also - one photo limit per Facebook profile. As you'd suppose, most photos are of Lakes McDonald or St. Mary.

Along Running Eagle Creek, late July

I decided I'd find my most favoritest photo of Water in Glacier and submit it.

Two Medicine, late July

Harder said than done.

Two Medicine, late August

To start with, until late July D and I were using the same camera. Sometimes we would pass it back and forth on a trip, depending on who was in the mood to photo. Now we have two cameras, but they're the exact same camera, and we both download the photos to D's computer, so when viewing photos in the typical iPhoto format (chronologically) our photos from the same trip intergrade.

Lake McDonald, late August

And while some photos are clearly mine, or clearly D's (we do have different sensibilities) some are up for grabs.

Gooseberry blossoms along McDonald Creek, June.

So I looked through the "Last 12 Months" section of iPhoto and pulled to the desktop my favorite water pictures. One of them I'm 80% certain that D took (but I was there...), but the rest I'm sure are mine.

Hidden Lake, early Sept. The reason I'm pretty sure D took this picture is because below is a picture of me taking of picture of D taking the above picture. I think.

When I got done sorting through iPhoto I had 14 of my favoritest photos of Water in Glacier from this year. I've added one more (the contest forbid photos in which a person could be recognized) and that is this blog post. The first photo is the one I posted to their wall. You can go to their Facebook page to see all the submissions.

Along McDonald Creek, early June.

Looking through a year's worth of Glacier adventures is a pretty good way to psych myself up for getting out there this winter. For some reason, looking at all the things I've done makes me think of all the things I have yet to do.

D near the Apgar Fire Lookout, viewing Lake McDonald, ~May. The Mt. Brown Fire Lookout was on my list last winter/spring but never happened; it sits across the lake.

Phrase of the Day.

2011-09-16T22:13:00.002-06:00

I indulged D in watching Jurassic Park after dinner, and he repaid me by jokingly referring to VelociBears.

I will now, Never Hike Again*.

*(in bear country)

Quote of the Day.

2011-07-04T12:22:00.004-06:00

M - Did you know Beargrass is closely related to Trillium?
D - Plants are inscrutable like that.

(D's botanical interest only goes so far...)

The Bears.

2011-06-07T16:22:00.008-06:00

The first bear of the year was a Black Bear.

In early May we were walking along what appears to be (in season) a horse trail, along the Middle Fork of the Flathead in Glacier, from the parking lot at the beginning of the road to the Apgar Lookout Trailhead toward the east... and in a bit of a ditch, or a trench or something, we almost walked by it, and then I turned my head and saw it looking at us.
At which point I chasticed D... he was in the lead, he was supposed to be on Dangerous Wildlife Patrol. Yet I was the first to see it.

The second and third bears of the year were Black bears at the National Bison Range near Moiese, MT. We were in the car, one was far off, one is below. We watched him scratch around and nibble something for a few minutes.

The Forth Bear of the Year was The First Grizzly of the Year.

Last Sunday D and I had parked the car at the Avalanche Campground (the most easterly point you can currently reach from the West on Going to the Sun Road) then got on our bikes. We had seperate destinations, so D quickly outpaced me. He parked at The Loop and took the trail toward Granite Park Chalet, then summited Swiftcurrent mountain and skied as long as he could back down. I saw his bike when I rounded The Loop and kept going up Sun Road.

Snow Cave with a view! This opening is only about six inches wide.

I road to the point where the plowing stopped.

I then strapped on my snow shoes and kept going. Not long after the snow quality led me to remove my snow shoes and just walk, though it was still difficult it was easier in regular footwear. There were no recent tracts through the huge avalanche snow drifts across the road, which I'd been hoping for. Just very faint and melted out ski tracks. I turned around far shy of my plan and took a few pictures on the way back to my bike.

Looking down McDonald Creek, the road where I started is just visible on the left side of the river.

My mission for the day had been to see what I could find growing in the seeps along Sun Road. I also walked a bit out the Granite Park trail to a large stream that crosses the trail to see what might be out there.

Things up there are still just starting to peek out, it was hard to find fully open flowers, but lots of little buds trying to make a go of it.

This little guy had about four inches on either side before a snow bank started again. I wish I could take a GPS coordinate and then go back once a week for a month to watch it grow and bloom... too bad it's a two-three hour bike ride to reach it, and once the road opens to cars will be in a spot you wouldn't easily be able to stop at.

I took my time on the return. I find out and back hikes are great for flower foraging, as you can search seperate sides of the road on the way out/up and back/down and find flowers you never noticed the first time.

D quickly caught back up with me as we both rode back to Josey at Avalanche. While recounting our days as we rode along beside each other (one of the joys of having an entire road free of cars) we rounded a corner and I quickly alerted D to the friend who wanted to meet us.

It just kept walking down the road toward us, and we started backing up and softly but firmly calling out to it. Forgive the pictures, as my priority at the time wasn't on adjusting camera settings...
after it crossed the road it continued walking toward us...

but finally turned off down the embankment to the river. At which point several cyclist going both up and down the road, caught up to us and we related our story, and then we all rode down the road a hundred yards to a break in the trees where we could better watch it swim the river and completely and totally disappear into the dense brush on the far side.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. It was a good day. And I have another 6 or 8 (still sorting through) species for my Glacier Flora Photo Project. And a nice sense for how the flowers are slowly making their way into the higher elevations. One week can make such a huge difference for one species, and no difference at all for another. Watching the timeline unfold may end up being the most interesting aspect of this whole thing.

I should not forget the forest for the trees... (or the larger geographical-biological trends for the close up shots of flower petals...)

now to sort through more photos.

Thou Shall Go to Glacier.

2011-05-08T17:20:00.008-06:00

The Flathead Valley is a Special place. I don't know many people who would deny that... in one form or another.

There are 33 miles between our front door and the enterence to Glacier National Park. The following pictures were taken along the first 25 miles of the route we drive to get there. It is not the signed route, it is a back way.

The following are photos of signs that contain The Ten Commandments.

1) Along a Golf Course.

2) Private Yard #1.

3) Chapel.

4) Private Garage.

5) Church Yard #1.

6) Private Yard #2

7) Church Building

8) Church Sign (almost doesn't count because it also has service times, etc, on it

9) Church Yard #2

Also on the Golf Course - there are two of these along the way, "Quotations" from "God", and there's another board with a quote from Ezekiel :) But they don't exactly count...

So, that's, like, one Ten Commandments per every three miles.

I guess my only issue is that none of the signs are large enough, or close enough to the road for a person to actually read the commandments. Everyone obviously knows what they are... they're a bit distinctive, with the traditional, Moses, two big tombstone-esque slabs, I'm not sure why anyone bothers with the words.

Quote of the Day.

2011-03-18T19:20:00.002-07:00

Enjoying a quiet evening at home. D on the computer, me cooking...

D - Can I read you something... cycling related, but also cosmotology related???

M - Oh, Please!

(but then I was disappointed)

see Here.

Quote of the Day.

2011-01-01T19:13:00.002-07:00

(D shows me a trip report on BackpackingLite.com of a 9 day trip in the Wind River Range)

M - There's an exhaustive gear list but no milage figures!!!
D - The people on this site care more about gear than miles.
M - What's wrong with them???
D - They're old and slow.

The Kitchen.

2010-11-10T17:39:00.004-07:00

Last weekend I awoke at 6am, Saturday. I drove D to Two Medicine (East side, Glacier) and drove home.

I'd been trying to figure out what to do with the kitchen. The evil, dark, gloomy, cave-like, dungeon of a kitchen. I don't have any photos of the kitchen as it was, as D had the only camera in the house I can currently get to work, but it sort of looked like the kitchen to the right. The other problem - we have so much kitchen stuff, fun, happy kitchen stuff, that we had to have a lot of stuff sitting out. On the counter, on top of the cupboards, everywhere. And because the horrible dark, dungeon cupboards were this horrible medium to dark streaked wood laminate, it created a very busy looking kitchen. We had to put a warning sign up as epileptics were likely to have seizures upon entry.

We had bought a couple gallons of paint from, essentially, a Home Improvement thrift store (amazing) for really cheap to cover up the creepy 70's childrens wallpaper in the room we were going to use as our bedroom. And the owner of our new house had a couple of gallons of paint in the basement. When I returned from driving D I started in on the sink full of dirty dishes, giving me time to dwell on everything that was wrong with our kitchen... dishes are good for stewing. And it occured to me that what I needed to do in the next 28 hours before I had to go fetch D - was repaint the entire kitchen.

The walls. The cabinets. Heck I considered painting the countertops (only for .2 seconds, but still).

So I hopped downstairs and pulled out all the paint in the house and started looking around. Well, actually, I pulled everything out of, down from, and off of, the cabinets first. The Bike Box (the downstairs bedroom that serves as bike storage) became the kitchen overflow room (told you we have a lot of kitchen stuff). Then I removed all the cabinet fronts and drawers, pulled off the hardware, and sat down on the floor of the now empty kitchen to figure out step two.

There was an almost full gallon of the most ridiculous green paint I'd ever seen, presumably because our landlord had considered painting something that color. As a favor to her, and anyone else who ever occupies our house, and really, to the world at large, I dumped a bunch of off-white paint of a slightly pinkish/peachish persuasion into the green. It made a previously fluorescent and acidic green, into a very acceptable vibrant moss color. And that's what ended up on the walls.

I then pulled over another can of paint already in residence in the house, pleased that the streaks down the side of the can looked like a promising off-white in the yellow realm, which would work well with the counter tops. Popped the top to find an inch of light blue liquid on top, grabbed a stirring stick and hit a very hard, sticky layer of paint. There was no stirring. Absolutely nothing was moving in the bottom of that paint can. The Off-white color that I'd mixed with the green was much too peachish, and looked atrocious against the yellow counters. So I grabbed my purse and headed for Josey. With $12 worth of paint and some more painter's tape in my hand I was back at the house painting cabinets.

Sunday involved second coats for most things and a third coat for some of the larger cabinet doors where I had lost my patience and not done the most even and effecient job the first time :)

I didn't quite manage to get all the painting done by the time I picked D up, and that was even with the extra hour from Daylight Savings Time :( This is what he saw when he got home... note the refrigerator pulled away from the wall and covering most of the entry way into the kitchen.

But the painting was done on Monday, and I moved the last few things back into the kitchen today.

I was a little worried about the hardware, but in the end, I wasn't going to pay for new stuff myself, and D says he actually likes it... hmm.

Three notes -

- No I don't approve of painting wood. This was horrible wood laminate over pressed wood product, so I felt no qualms.

- No I didn't get permission from our landlord. The property management company gave me a pretty unconcerned answer when I asked about painting walls, so I decided to run with it.

I believe they said "as long as it looks better than it did before". Check.

- The older I get the less I cherish my perfectionistic tendencies. I worry this is the truist sign of cynicism I have yet shown. Though D may argue.

Quote of the Day.

2010-06-11T23:01:00.002-06:00

D - That wasn't funny.
M - Oh, no. In my head it was.
D - It wasn't funny primarily because the metaphor was nonsensical.

Quote of the Day.

2010-04-06T22:45:00.002-06:00

(D accidently put the sauce on the pizza crust before baking it, I scraped it off, he put it in the oven and then went to pull it out, top it, and put it back in, he got back into the living room)

M - How is the pizza crust??? Did it pre-bake alright???
D - Yay, it's fine, it just has a tan...
M - A tan???
D - A weird coloration... a little orange tint... a John Bahner tan.

Quote of the Day.

2010-04-02T18:32:00.001-07:00

D - Don't even think about getting sprinkles on my keyboard.

Quote of the Day.

2010-03-17T22:36:00.003-07:00

M - I'm worried.
D - Worried about what, that god will bring back the dinosaurs and you won't be able to run fast enough to get away from them???

Per This...

Quote of the Day.

2010-03-06T21:35:00.003-07:00

D - "K taught me how to use commas yesterday at lunch."
M - "What do you mean, what did she say about how to use commas???"
D - "Wait... commas... or apostrophes... which ones are up high???"
M - "Apostrophes??? You didn't know how to use Apostrophes???"
D - "I just sort of put them where they seemed right. But now I know the rule."

(D says we can't have children till I eat at least three different vegetables that are green... I say we can't have children till we can afford to send them to private schools... where they'll learn the difference between commas and apostrophes before they're 30).

Quote of the Day.

2010-03-04T21:48:00.002-07:00

D- "Yeah - well that's because while they were listening to Gilbert and Sullivan they couldn't think beyond whether to stab out their left eye, or their right eye."

In reference to a study referenced in This.

Quote of the Day.

2010-02-20T22:18:00.002-07:00

D - You're really someone to cast aspersions on others for sounding obnoxious.

Half a minute later -

D - They do really sound like Marmots or something...

(while watching the Russian Ladies' Curling Team)

Quote of the Day. Midnight Special.

2010-02-20T00:40:00.001-07:00

D - Stop asking questions that make me think you're a bad person.

Quote of the Day. K 2.0

2010-02-19T22:34:00.001-07:00

From tonight.

K - Don't ruin my life, M. Don't ruin my life.

Quote of the Day.

2010-02-18T23:30:00.002-07:00

D - You smell funny, were you drinking???
M- I had a beer at work... actually, it's probably Beer, potato salad and ice cream...
Snad - That is Disgusting!!!

Quote of the Yesterday.

2010-02-13T19:08:00.002-07:00

K was over for dinner last night with D and I. D pulled out the camera - the products of which will never surface. Anyway... after K realized that D wasn't just taking photos, but had actually taken a video she innocently pleaded -

Don't embarrass me on the internet D, don't embarrass me on the internet.

Chunky Chewies.

2010-01-30T14:22:00.009-07:00

I'm torn... torn between calling these little darlings (and little is not a descriptor of their caloric presence) Chunky Chewies... which has a certain sickening sound to it, an onomatopoetic harbinger of how your stomach will feel after eating them, or BacoMallow Blast! which gives a slight indication of how oddly giddy I felt making them...

point being, there's this website. It's called This is why you're fat. And it has had a great impact on my life recently. The following is a recipe fpr the first of two creations (the second will come to life for an event, presumably next weekend) I'll be submitting to this awe-inspiring web site. I hope you enjoy.

Take a bit less than 1 pound of thick sliced, peppered bacon. Quarter the slices and bake at 350 degrees F on a cooling rack placed over an aluminum foil lined baking sheet (I don't normally employ aluminum foil solely to ease clean up, but I made an exception here, and I think you should too... just wait). As you flip the bacon, make sure to add extra pepper... pepper all over...

Cook them till they're about 70% of the way to crispy, crispy goodness...

meanwhile, get a small bowl and mix 1/4 cup Maple Syrup, 1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar and 1/2 cup brown sugar... stir vigorously.

Now. Coat those babies with Maple/Balsamic goodness. Brush some on one side, put back in oven for 5 minutes, pull out, flip over, coat other side, repeat till out of syrup!

Right about now the kitchen smells like God really does love Man.

You'll need to let them cool just a tidge, while you melt about a cup of chocolate in a double boiler. Once the syrup on the bacon has cooled enough to be stickily solid and not so liquid that it slides around, you dip each piece of bacon in the melted chocolate.

While the chocolate dries - you make Marshmallows!!! Instead of adding vanilla extract, I used a bit more maple syrup to flavor the marshmallows :)

I also may have left it mixing in the Kitchen-Aid too long... I think you're suppose to be able to pour it out at this stage...
P.S. Homemade marshmallow creme is excessively sticky. Coat the entire kitchen in scalding hot water before trying to work with it.

P.P.S. When trying to scrape the last bits of marshmallow out... don't drop your mixing bowl upside down on the floor.

P.P.P.S. If you do drop your mixing bowl upside down on the floor don't mention it to your husband who will mock you and photograph the result.

Now chop up all the chocolate covered, candied bacon, into little pieces...

and sprinkle it over one half of the marshmallow, which you've flattened out onto a well powdered-sugared baking sheet. (I originally planned on using sugar crystals instead of powdered, for that Peep look... but somewhere around trying to wrangle the marshmallow out of the mixing bowl I forgot about that great intention and just started throwing powdered sugar at everything in sight.)

Then layer the second half of the marshmallow on top.

Cover the top layer of marshmallow with sugar to prevent sticking, then wrap it up and let sit for about 12 hours. Then... cut.

I re-coated my knife in powdered sugar between each row.

Look at the cute little, bitty, bacon, peeking out of the marshmallow... who's a cute bacon??? Who's a cute little, bitty, bacon??? Yes you are!!!

Whoops...

as you cut the squares, you typically dust the edges in powdered sugar to keep them from sticking to everything, as well as themselves. I chose to dust one side of each marshmallow with cocoa powder... I could say I did it because it tempers the sweetness of the marshmallow... but really it's because I can't leave anything well enough alone.

You grab one of this kiddos and tear the thing apart...

and find chocolate covered, candied, peppered bacon inside. It warms my heart.

P.P.P.P.S. Photo and patience credits to D, who graciously cut off whatever the heck he was doing and ran over with his Macro-Happy new camera every time I yelled - "Photo... photo, I need a photo... now, photo!!!" That's Love.

Quote of the Day.

2010-01-29T20:46:00.002-07:00

M - I hate it when you do that.

D - I hate it when You do that.

M - Do what???

D - Anything.

It just started snowing...

2009-12-12T15:56:00.005-07:00

and I finally got around to starting some holiday yum-yums.
First up - pretzels.
Lots of pretzels.

I sort of didn't realize how many pretzels would be covered with a reasonably small amount of chocolate...
good thing I love these and D doesn't :)
Now the fun part.
Adding the tiniest amount of peppermint extract.
And food coloring...
patent-pending pastry bag in a glass, filling technique.
Gone to town.
Muahahahaha.
And a sneak preview of the top of our non-denominational, Victorian-inspired, there-aren't-enough-hours-of-sunlight-in-the-day-and-therefore-I-hate-the-world-and-everyone-in-it, seasonal, holiday tree.

Quote of the Day.

2009-12-09T14:38:00.002-07:00

D - "Come out of there for a minute so I can throw something at you."

Quote of the Day.

2009-11-04T19:56:00.003-07:00

From my LSAT study book -

"Before we start this game, remember our old friend the contrapositive."

(Yes, I'm retaking the LSAT in one month. Though technically my four year old score is still valid for like, eight months or so, I've decided I will be in the small percentage of test takers who do noticeably better upon repetition, and therefore I'm going for it... oh, I also thought I'd do some substantial studying this time... seemed like a good idea).

Umm... wow.

2009-10-20T23:41:00.003-06:00

Quote of the Day. Grand Canyon Rescue style.

When asked what they would have done without the SPOT device, the leader stated, “We would have never attempted this hike.”

Classic Morning Report.

P.S. D did this hike.

Hello... anyone there???

2009-10-19T17:05:00.002-06:00

Some Peppers from the garden that is now dead.
The top of Mount Timanogos in Utah, from some time ago.
Getting to the top.
Mount from the trail below.
My view of D and K starting their trek where I dropped them off just over a week ago.

So said the Presbyterian.

2009-09-21T15:41:00.003-06:00

Quote of the Day. (From the NYTimes).

On Evangelicals -
“They aren’t burdened with liturgy or a tradition that demands intellectual engagement,” he
said.'
(Photo of the day is Felipe in Theodore Roosevelt National Park).

Light and color.

2009-09-10T13:20:00.001-06:00

Dave and I combined our photos from the hike, and he even let me edit the Ken Burns effect!!!

The last few weeks.

2009-09-05T21:55:00.004-06:00

(In photos).
Start with homemade Pad Thai. Safeway doesn't have Thai rice noodles, only Chinese rice noodles... they're thinner and cook faster without getting sticky, so I guess I'm taking inauthentic shortcuts, but oh well.
Add an exceedingly large Dahlia...
and purple potatoes from the farmer's market. (There will be soup.)
Russian teacakes or Mexican wedding cookies??? Who knows, but if you're only rolling them in powdered sugar once, you're doing it wrong. Two rolls, baby.
I made scale drawings. D made the bookshelf.
(Side note: continued thanks to my eldest sissy for framing a poster from the first professional dance performance I was in as a gift way back in the day.)

And the second of the three really exciting bits of wall hanging we brought back from our most recent foray to the Midwest - Charley Harper's Canyon Country poster done for the National Park Service.
Item number three is my great grandmother's 8th grade diploma from the Algona school district in 1908. I'll post a photo of it as well as a better close up of the Charley Harper later.

Suffice to say our little house keeps getting to be more and more home. Now we start the 10 month countdown to departure... again.

Utah.

2009-07-17T09:35:00.002-06:00

The lastest Harry Potter (number 6) is really quite good. Quite enjoyable... the best one yet, as a film. D and I have been discussing whether that's because it's just a good book so it's naturally a better film, or if it was just constructed and executed better.

Anyway - yesterday we hiked up Mount Timpanogos. No one told me the elevation change is almost that of the Grand Canyon... until we were already three miles into the hike.

Did see around 30 mountain goats. The hopped around on ledges and then went running down snow fields and otherwise were really interesting to watch when they weren't knocking rocks down, directly above us.

I'm sore.

Plans to canyoneer is Zion today have been put on hold. We'll definitely spend Monday in Zion, but today we'll do who knows what and come back to A's house to help her with a BBQ tonight. Girls on crutches should probably think twice before offering to host BBQs :)

Utah is still nice. But hot.

Denial.

2009-07-05T15:16:00.008-06:00

I have a thing with bears. Really, I have a thing with thinking. I think about things... all sorts of things... constantly. I think about possibilities and eventualities, and when I'm in bear country my mind just naturally wanders to all the possibilities and eventualities that might happen if I were to run smack into a bear and it started to eat me.

So if I'm in bear country for say... three nights, two in campgrounds, one in the backcountry, including 40 miles worth of hiking, where there is nothing for my mind to focus on outside of what's all around me... including bears... I find that after awhile of not paying attention, my stomach is tense, I've not been eating or drinking as much as I should (because you never eat or drink as much as your should when your stomach is tense from nervousness) and then I start feeling sort of out of it, because I haven't been eating or drinking as much as I should...

it's bad. And it's all inadvertent... it's not like I'm walking around totally sure that a bear is going to pop out of the undergrowth and eat me at that very second, I just hike along, thinking about all the plants around me, and all the animals around me, and what a pretty day it is, and the next thing I know my mind is running through where on the surrounding hillsides a helicopter could land for the ensuing rescue operations... just running through possibilities...

anyway - we drove down Tuesday after we got new tires for Josey. Camped in a campground north of West Yellowstone that night. Got breakfast at Old Faithful Inn, then drove around the park trying to find a campground and tring to get a backcountry camping permit for Thursday night, till we said the heck with traffic, hiked up Mount Washburn, and camped at this totally awesome campside just north of Gardiner. Thursday we hiked 17 miles along Hellroaring Creek and then The Yellowstone River. Camped right next to some small rapids in the river. Friday, woke up, hiked out the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone to Gardiner, ate breakfast, hiked back into the park and to our car by 2pm (14 miles). Drove home. Stopped by the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site on our way down, and Anaconda on our way home. Both were really pretty and of general historic interest. D doesn't usually let us make stops, so it was fun to not drive straight through, even if it is a relatively short drive by out standards at 5 hours each way.

Now - photos.

We saw lots of Bison on Wednesday, driving around the park. Also saw a fat and happy coyote, a fox, elk, deer, an invisible bear (which was very exciting, especially the traffic jam it caused) and lots of smaller wildlife during our trip.

Storms rolled in each night, as well as Thursday morning, and Friday around noon. It meant there were always crazy big clouds moving around the sky, concentrating then dissapating... good times.
Yay! Clouds!
Streaks of sunlight between clouds!
Marmot on the Mount Washburn trail...

Nibble, nibble...
yummy - grass!
Views from Mount Washburn trail are nice.
Storm clouds always add to the ambiance.
Someone had built a snowman.
It was gown when we came back down so we build our own.
At the beginning of our two-day backpack. Yellowstone River below.
I like going down hill. I also like the wide open views. No accidently running into a bear here!
D coming down the hillside behind me.
Bridge over the Yellowstone. Taking us from the road on the south side to the trail that follows the north side.
Wild mountain lilies... there were all over the place, but D's picture didn't turn out well.
Montana's state flower - The Bitterroot.
I'd never seen them in the wild before... there were a good number of them.
It's fun to wonder how many decades ago someone slid an antler into the slot where the two tree branches divided... now the tree is all grown up and has surrounded the antler.
The wild rose garden next to our backcountry campsite.
There is a black bear in the photo below. (The photo has already been zoomed and cropped for ease of spotting :)
There is a blond colored black bear in the photo below.
The end.

P.S. This trip, instead of letting my mind wander around to bear attacks, I just spent the entire time, hiking, eating, trying to go to sleep, re-telling myself stories, from novels, from movies, from whatever, I trained my mind to wander onto things intentionally, and it sort of worked... still didn't get much sleep the night we camped out... but ya know... denial works sometimes.

The secret to homemade ice cream without an ice cream maker.

2009-06-06T10:23:00.002-06:00

So -

I whip the cream first.

Usually you make a custard base, add the flavorings, stir in the whipping cream, cool in the freezer for just a bit and then put into the ice cream maker. An ice cream maker has two parts, the part that works to freeze the ice cream, and the part that stirs it. The stirring serves two functions, by continually moving the ice cream mixture it allow it to chill evenly, not freezing the edges solid while the middle is still liquid... and it adds air, whipping the cream... both functions make the ice cream smoother and creamier. My method uses a regular metal mixing bowl, which doesn't retain cold well, which means every moment it's out of the freezer is a moment it's getting warmer. I have to limit the amount of time it's out of the freezer, which means (since I don't fit inside my freezer) I have to limit the amount of time it's getting stirred. It doesn't take a huge amount of stirring to effect the first function of redistributing the ice cream in the bowl so that it freezes evenly, it does take a lot of stirring to whip the cream. So I whip the cream before I add it to the custard mixture and start the freezing process.

Here's my recipe and specific method.

For basic ice cream (ice cream flavored with powdered spices, or liquid extract).
1 part milk
1 part cream
1/2 part sugar
1 egg for each 1/4 cup of milk

Put as many teaspoons of flavoring as you did cups of sugar.

Example.
1-1/2 cups milk
1-1/2 cups cream
3/4 cup sugar
6 eggs
3/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, or cinnemon

First, I put the cream in my stand-mixer bowl and let it go to work. You could also whip the cream with a hand mixer, either way, when it forms stiff peaks, and I mean very stiff peaks, throw the mixing bowl full of whipped cream into the freezer.

For the custard - Warm milk in sauce pan to 165-185 degrees. In a medium sized bowl, mix eggs, sugar and flavoring. When milk is warm, slowly add the milk to the egg mixture while stirring. Once all combined, pour this back into the sauce pan, and heat on stove back up to 165 F, stirring CONSTANTLY, to ensure little flecks of cooked egg don't form on the bottom of the pan. I then cool the mixture in a water bath... usually a slightly larger sauce pan filled with the coldest water my tap will run, but you could also just fill the sink with cold water and ice cubes. I re-run cold water two or three times, then put the custard mixture in the freezer.

I put them both in the freezer seperately at first, because the two smaller masses cool quicker than if they were mixed together. Leave them both for half hour to fourty five minutes. I then put the whipped cream filled mixing bowl back into the mixer with the paddle attachment and turn it on low, as I pour the custard mixture into it. I let them blend thoroughly, then pull it off the mixture, pulling the paddle attachment off as well, and I just leave the attachment in the mixing bowl when it all goes back into the freezer. It's easier to not clean it off every time you mix. I wipe a spatula around the sides of the bowl, because otherwise the thin film of ice cream mixture will freeze quickly and get icy.

The first time I put the completed mixture into the freezer it gets left alone for 1-1/2 to 2 hours. If you've made a smaller quantity with less than 1 cup of milk, I'd check on it after 1 hour. Usually the sides are just starting to get colder, so I use a spatula to turn the ice cream on the sides into the middle, run it along the bottom of the bowl to do the same there, and put it back in the freezer for another hour.

The next time it comes out of the freezer it gets put back on the mixer and stirred at medium speed for 3-5 minutes, the harder it seems the longer it should be mixed... rinse and repeat this step every 30-45 minutes as it hardens. Probably 3 or 4 rounds. Once the ice cream seems to strongly resist the mixer, you can stop and transfer it to an airtight container and leave in the freezer overnight. The custard will set up and it will freeze hard.

Now - if you're the sort that likes particularly light and airy ice cream, you might want to pull it out of the freezer more often, stirring it for longer. This technique yeild just slightly denser, but very creamy ice cream... not gelato by any means, but not quite as light as some store bought brands... but I consider this to be a good thing.

Using the above recipe I made cardemom ice cream. When I made D's banana I used two pureed bananas for 1 cup of milk and the texture wasn't as good... so I'll have to create an altered recipe for when using a flavoring of more quantity than above... I'll work on that...

my next missions include Peanut Butter Banana, Coffee and Lemoncello.

Getting Nerdy.

2009-05-27T14:33:00.002-06:00

Out of a lack of anywhere else to store this information, which I've decided will be very important at some time in the future -

I've decided it would be a perfect idea to have an Independence Day Ice Cream Social (not this year, some year in the future, which is why I need this somewhere that can be looked up in the future).

And to make it that much more Martha Stewart-esque, there would need to be homemade ice cream in 13 different flavors to represent the 13 original colonies... (this was decided because 50 different flavors for the states is getting a bit out there, and there were 56 individual signers, so that's also too many).

This whole project was conceived last week, when I learned that the Library of Congress, in their American Treasures collection, has a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe hand written by Thomas Jefferson (which made Virginia's flavor really easy to pick).

My list follows -

Vanilla
Chocolate Fudge
Maple
Toffee Pecan
Nutmeg
Gingerbread
Strawberry
Blueberry
Apple
Peach
Coffee
Tea
Beer

By state - with alternatives (and explanations).
Virginia - Vanilla (Thomas Jefferson)

Massachusetts - Tea (Boston Tea Party) or Cranberry (state fruit) or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (state cookie)

New Hampshire - Maple (2nd largest syrup producer) or Pumpkin (state veggie)

Maryland - Chocolate Fudge (after the icing from Smith Island Cake, the state dessert)

Connecticut - Nutmeg (state nickname)

Rhode Island - Coffee (after the local favorite "Coffee Cabinets", a coffee & ice cream mixed dessert)

Delaware - Beer (Dogfish Head Brewery's 90 minute IPA ranked Best Beer in America - they have, seriously, no other foods of note, unless you consider Chicken an ice cream flavor. A last resort could be stealing Peach from Georgia, as Peach Blossom is the state flower.)

North Carolina - Strawberry (state fruit)

South Carolina - Toffee Pecan (technically native to the Mississippi valley, Alabama's state fruit and Texas' state tree, with Georgia the largest producer and South Carolina not even in the top 5, however their state fruit is peach... and Georgia has 1st claim, and Delaware 2nd so since it's South Carolina's second largest crop we're giving them Pecans.)

New Jersey - Blueberry (Highbush blueberry state fruit)

New York - Apple (State fruit and muffin) or Cheesecake (state dessert)

Pennsylvania - Gingerbread (Pennsylvania "Dutch" heritage)

Georgia - Peach (state fruit, largest US producer) or Sweet Vidalia Onion (state veggie - if you want to hand over Peach to South Carolina or Delaware, Vidalia Onions should be able to make a semi-sweet & savory ice cream)

Yea!

P.S. I made banana bread ice cream yesterday that D says is good, strong banana flavor, creamy enough (better than a lot of store bought ice cream, but not better than all :), it's been doing it's final freeze in the last 20 hours, so we'll see how it ranks tonight. Meanwhile I've started a Cardamom flavor today.

If all turns out well I'll write my recipe for making ice cream without an ice cream maker... hint: it takes a lot longer :)

Quote of the Day.

2009-05-24T00:42:00.001-06:00

"You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose."

-Leo McGarry The West Wing

Recipe. For Referrence.

2009-05-21T12:30:00.004-06:00

I don't have any photos, maybe I'll take some later, as there's a lot left over...

but in the middle of the day, yesterday, it struck me that I wanted to go out with D for Thai food that night (if being his first day at his new job), and then decided instead of going out, why didn't I just make Pad Thai, as that's what I wanted. Then I talked to D (who was between training and meetings) and he told me he'd had it arranged for a week that he was having dinner with a classmate, but that dinner could certainly be my homemade Pad Thai - so I had three. Then, at D's urging, I called two other classmates, and one brought her boy (who we never seem to see, and had yet to be over to our place) so then I had six! (I'm pretty sure Emily Post and Irma Rombauer always said to never serve company a dish you've never made before, but what do they know???) And I scurried off to the Good Food Store to find Tamarind!

I read a couple different sites' recipes for Pad Thai and then made a totally huge quantity and we have heaping gobs left over, but I'm going to try to approximate a recipe for two (generous portions), so I'll have it for future reference.

First the sauce -

1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup Thai Palm Sugar (I used Zulka unrefined cane sugar, as I guessed it the most similar, easy to find replacement, I would think the lighter brown sugar would work too)
2 tablespoons Fish Sauce
1-1/4 teaspoons Tamarind Concentrate
1-1/4 teaspoons dried chili powder (I made two kinds, one with Chipotle powder, one with mild chili powder, use whatever chili powder you like best)

Dissolve the sugar into an equal part water in a saucepan, then add the other ingredients... taste... expect it to be on the saltier side, but add more chili powder if you like it spicier.

Now you can set it aside. You can make it ahead and stick it in the fridge, or do all the other prep first and then make the sauce, either way, warm up the sauce slightly right before you use it, so it goes in the wok warm and not cold.

The Rest -

1/2 package Thai rice noodles (approx 7-8oz), soaked in slightly-warm water for 10-15 minutes (save the rest, dry, for another day)
1/2 cup dry roasted peanuts, finely chopped
1 cup or more of bean sprouts
1/2 bulb garlic, minced
1 bunch green onions, bottoms sliced thin, green tops cut in 1-2" lengths
1/2 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped
1 lime (only 1/3-1/2 will be used - I recommend the rest for garnishing cocktails)
2 eggs
2 servings of "meat" (I used pre-cooked shrimp, but seared tofu or cooked chicken or any combination thereof would work)
Peanut Oil

So you've got your sauce ready and warmed, your noodles soaked, and your ingredients prepped and within arm's reach of the stove. We'll be dividing all the ingredients in half and cooking in two separate portions. The smaller quantity of noodles in the wok allow them to cook all the way, quickly, without getting sticky, clumpy or mushy.

Pour approx. 2 tablespoons oil in the wok and allow to warm. Add half the garlic and white parts of the green onion. Now sprinkle in half the noodles, holding the clump of noodles above the pan and shaking it, so they fall in loosely and not sticking to each other. Run your cooking utensil along the side of the wok, down underneath the noodles and flip so they all get to be in the oil.

Drizzle about 1/3 of the sauce over the noodles and take your time stirring the noodles until the sauce is well distributed.

In the middle of the wok, add half the bean sprouts and green onion stalks, 2 tablespoons of peanuts, and 1 serving of shrimp (and/or tofu/chicken), then drizzle the rest of the first half of the sauce directly onto these items and fold in (you can separate the sauce into two equal quantities before you start cooking, to more easily keep track of how much you're using in the first batch).

Then push the noodles to one side of the wok and crack an egg onto the bottom. Quickly scrap the egg off the bottom of the pan to mix it up a little bit (alternatively, you could crack and scramble the egg in a separate container then pour in). Let it cook a few seconds, then I slide the cooking utensil under the pile of noodles lifting it up and allowing the egg to spread across the bottom of the pan, then I set the noodle mass back down on top of the cooking egg, which breaks it up. Give it a minute to cook most of the way, then stir everything around so the egg is well distributed.

Now pull out a noodle and eat. It will be chewier than Italian pasta noodles, but shouldn't be hard-chewy, if it's hard-chewy keep stirring and cooking till it's soft-chewy :)

When ready, plate it with a generous sprinkle of cilantro on top, and repeat with the second half of ingredients. When you're done cooking, take a spare plate or serving dish and make little piles with the rest of the peanuts and cilantro, along with several lime wedges and serve this along side. If you like things spicy, consider also putting a small amount of chili powder out or, if you're D, just grab the bottle of Sriracha and go to town...

the bad news, is this dish has over 1300 calories per serving, though as I said, these are generous servings, so you may end up saving some for later (if you're me), or just eating it all (if you're D). Good news is that each serving (half the recipe) has 52 grams of protein per 55 grams of fat... so it's freakin' chock full of protein (shrimp and peanuts leading here, with egg and noodles helping). For a healthier dish, leave out the peanuts (reducing the fat almost by half and the protein by 1/5th, for a 1,000 calorie dish with 41 grams of protein per 34 grams fat).

Anyway - this was calculated using The Daily Plate, where I created a custom dish using the exact ingredients and quantity in my recipe, but I can't seem to link directly to the dish's nutritional breakdown, so I'll just give you the rundown...

Calories - 1312
Fat - 55 grams
Cholesterol -463mg
Sodium - 1843 mg
Carbs - 156 grams
Sugar - 46 grams
Fiber - 10 grams
Protein - 52 grams

And everyone seemed pleased with it, though, granted, a lot of alcohol was consumed by some, so their critique might not be creditable...

Quote of the Day.

2009-05-11T15:37:00.001-06:00

D gets home from being off at the Uni most of the day, and declares -

"I thought of two great ways we could ruin our marriage...

we could both go to the same law school at the same time,

or we could ride TransIowa together, on a tandem."

The last nine days.

2009-04-19T16:58:00.003-06:00

I swear, I may not be employed, for other people, for money, but I do manage to stay busy.

Like yesterday. I made yogurt. (It's like, stunningly easy).

Heat milk to 185 degress F. Cool it to 120 degrees F. Add some yogurt (straight out of the store bought container). Let sit for four hours.
The hardest part is the Letting It Sit, as it needs to maintain a temp around 115F. When I start heating the milk, I turn my oven to pre-heat on it's lowest temp, which is 170. I let it warm up for a few minutes, then turn it off. By the time I've got the milk ready it's just warm enough to help the pot maintain it's temp in the closed oven. Other people do things like put it in a small cooler partly filled with warm water, etc.
It's more liquidy than you'd expect - but it solidifies a bit once it chills in the fridge.
I can't tell you how super-delicious it is, cause I don't eat yogurt... D had most of a jar for breakfast this morning, before he left, well before I woke up... so it can't be That bad. I'll let you know the verdict when he gets home!

P.S. I'm also making self-watering planters out of Rubbermaid bins, I've got over 2 dozen peppers sprouted with tomatoes and eggplant on the way, our backyard neighbors and I are going to be constructing raised beds, the compost pile is starting to really look good, I planted strawberries and rhubarb this last week, and I've got some asperagus that needs some dirt in the next few days... AND the two artichoke plants seem to be really happy... not to mention the watermelon... photos soon.

Quote of the Day.

2009-04-10T21:19:00.000-06:00

M - Hey Kelly, do you like wine???

K - I like whinning...

Avocado, like whoa!

2009-04-02T19:10:00.002-07:00

I can't decide what I like more, the potential avocado trees, or how they look all lined up before they start growing!

Zoom zoom...

2009-03-23T19:06:00.001-07:00

Wait, wait...

2009-03-23T14:03:00.002-07:00

If I'm bashing the financial services company involved, I also ought to bash D...

cause three weeks ago I went through and researched and found the company I wanted this money to go to, and then I researched some more to figure out exactly what two funds at said company I wanted this money to go to...

and I considered our other investments and analyzed risk and pondered asset allocation, blah, blah, blah...

and I told D - these are the two funds, at the one company, that I think we should put this money into, and he was all like - "That doesn't sound very good to me, e-mail me all the info and I'll let you know what I think we should invest in."

And besides the obvious that the boy should just listen to what I say, I figured, whatever, we wants to feel involved, he's actually interested in a monetary decision I should run with this! Except it wasn't until TODAY that he finally decided to read what I had sent over, check the links, and make his Pronouncement!

Which was that he thought we should do exactly what I said in the first place.

Note - between last week and this week (including the lovely jump today)... between the time we could have invested the money if he had read the info when I originally sent it and now... the S&P 500 has gone up over 9%.

Be this a lesson to all of you, whether you're one of my financial services companys' reps, or my husband -

DO WHAT I SAY. I AM RIGHT. ALWAYS.

Stupid.

2009-03-23T13:36:00.002-07:00

So, I'm all for feminism, or internet-age privacy concerns, or whatever it is at work here... but I'm pretty sure, way back in the day, if a wife called up the phone company and wanted to talk specifics about her phone service, except the account was in her husband's name, nobody would have thought twice about helping her.

So, we needed to get D's Retirement Account from his last job, rolled over, or should I say, Rolled Out Of, where it was - so I called up a financial services company, talked on the phone with this nice woman, she connected through to my computer, in some cool and kinda weird way, and we went through the set-up process together, where I could enter info, but she could also enter info on the same screen... it was good times. When I called I was a little unsure if they'd work with me or not, since I made it quite clear that it was my husband's account, in my husband's name.

No problem. We got everything established.

So, I got my computer back the other day and tried to log onto his account, and since it was a new computer they wanted me to answer some of the security questions before they let me through... I really hate security questions. For most of our financial stuff, we have both our names on our accounts, but I'm the one who's usually logging onto them... but some of them are just in D's name, and I want him to be able to log onto them too, so I never know, when the security question is "What was the name of your first pet?" - if I answered the question with D's first pet or My first pet or the first pet that jumped into my head (and there's a good half dozen between the two of us)... we won't even get started on This particular financial services company, who's security question was "What was the name of your first boy/girlfriend?" Freakin' brilliant!

So, I answered it, and it told me I was wrong, and gave me a new question, which was the date of our wedding. I answered that correctly (I'm pretty sure), and it kept telling me I was answering it wrong. So, then I figured I must have typo-ed when I set it up, so I made D give me back his computer, so I could log on with the computer I used to use. It let me log in, I re-answered the security questions to make sure I they were what I thought, and I went back to my computer, but it still wouldn't let me through. So I gave up for the day.

Today - three days later, I try again. Still won't let me through, when I KNOW I'm answering the questions correctly. So I called the company, to see if they'd unfreeze the account, and the snotty ass brat on the phone says he can tell me what the security measures are, and why I can't log in, but he can't fix the problem for me, since I'm not my husband.

So I can set up an account for my husband, but I can't access it once it's set up???

This happened a long time ago with our mobile phone company, and I just about yelled at the guy that since I was the one who paid the bill I damn well better be able to talk to a customer service rep about it, but I refrained (instead, I called them back three minutes later and said my name was D and I wanted to change my account :). This time I was really tempted to ask to speak with his supervisor... but whatever.

Anyway - I'm just missing the days when people didn't get divorced, and companies weren't afraid to give access to a person's spouse for fear that they were up to something malevolent...

details.

And dave makes fun of me for reading a scottish crofter's blog...

2009-03-20T16:48:00.001-07:00

Quote of the Day -

2009-03-17T18:10:00.001-07:00

D's looking for graham crackers in the cupboard.

M - Left. Left... left.

D - Which way is left???

Quote of the Day -

2009-03-15T19:25:00.002-07:00

D - Just because your intellect has the subtlety of a monster truck derby...

(5 minutes later)
D- You're either going to have to delete it, deal with putting it there without context, or look in the mirror.

Plant Markers.

2009-03-14T15:48:00.004-07:00

I wanted plant markers the other day... as I was officially starting Seed Set #2. Not that at this point I'm very likely to mistake my eight peat pots of Artichoke seeds, with my three peat pots of Habanero Pepper seeds, but eventually (starting next weekend) I'll be ramping up the seed starting, two or three varieties each week, 4-8 pots of each variety, it's gonna be gettin' confusing.

The process started with my trusty typewriter (as most good processss do). I typed out plant names, spaced about an inch apart, in two long columns down several sheets of card stock. Repeating each name for the number of total plants I hope to end with (four times for each pepper variety, six times for each tomato, and so on).

I then cut up the paper and spread them out on the plastic sheets to laminate them.

(We won't get into why, exactly, I own a laminator, except to say that, like my typewriter, every time I find a reason to use it, I have more fun than is probably, strictly speaking, appropriate).

I then cut them out, again, yes the cutting got a little tiring. Especially considering the cutting standards I hold myself to.

Most of them got rubberbanded and stored for future use, but I deployed three right away!

Yay Artichokes!!!

Quote of the Day -

2009-03-13T20:03:00.001-07:00

"Oh bacon, why do you torment me so?"

-Kelly

Composting.

2009-03-08T15:46:00.007-07:00

You start with a desire to Compost. And an old compost heap that "hasn't been doing much" according to our backyard neighbors. Note the plastic bucket, whole pumpkin and large openings. All, obviously, make for excellent composting.
Add some pallets, procured at no cost, via a woman on CraigsList! Nail three together.

Attach cardboard along sides to block openings.
P.S. The boxes that Curiak ships wheels in, are just the right measurements to be flattened along one side of a pallet.
P.P.S. They're also great for boxing up large framed pictures when moving...
Disregard that one pallet is crooked. This is not a sign of sub-par workmanship.
Add nitrogen-rich kitchen waste to the new heap, along with bits of the old heap which is all carbon-rich garden waste (with the exception of the two whole pumpkins...) in a ratio of 1:2 respectively. Eventually the new heap will be well filled and left for several months to finish the composting process, while new additions will then go in the "old" heap, with it's greatly diminished supply of garden waste, and a lower potential for stagnating from a lack of nitrogen.
Create the front door by attaching more cardboard to a fourth, ideally shorter, pallet. Be nice to the neighbors cat while you're at it.
And you'll have a happy compost heap.
"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Unemployment.

2009-03-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

Spectacularly.

Grandmothers on YouTube!

2009-03-05T18:19:00.004-07:00

A friend of ours has a cookbook full of "Depression" recipes.

Then again, you could just go directly to the Great-Grandmothers on YouTube. The woman is 93! And she talks about cops taking hatchets to barrels of whiskey after her neighbors rented out their garage to bootleggers.

Good times.

The obvious.

2009-03-04T18:44:00.002-07:00

"Right now, having a $500 dinner for two feels like the post-crash version of owning a Hummer. Except not if your family is being supported by the guy serving the entrees."

-Gail Collins (vs. David Brooks in Let Them Eat a Little Bit of Cake)

I get annoyed when people do things like Bash banks for spending lots of money sponsoring events and otherwise vacationing clients and employees.

Does nobody understand that these events are planned upwards of a year in advance, were majorily paid for long before things started crashing down, and supply jobs for the people at the locations. This is what we need people with money to do. As I see the problem, too many people who didn't have money spent it, and banks let them do it... but that doesn't mean that people who do have money, shouldn't spend it, that just makes things worse.

Law makers seem to be doing a lot of un-thoughtful bitching and pandering... I'm not worried about the state of the banks, or the falling stock market, or the underlining housing crisis, or unemployment numbers (cause I'm one of them), I'm worried about all the stupid people in this country acting particularly stupid in the next couple years.

Sorry.

I kid you not.

2009-03-04T12:22:00.003-07:00

Muggle Lane.

Kiki Court.

Snaffle Bit Way.

Real streets in my town... developers should be required to pass an IQ test... a city and urban planning version of the bar exam... for everybody with any authority over sub-divisions, not just the professionals who actually lay out the streets.

P.S. Oral Zumwalt Way

I make things good.

2009-03-01T14:17:00.003-07:00

Friday: Cake.
Yummy.

I haven't made cake (straight out of the box, thank you) in a long time.
Cake is yummy.
Compost Bin.
Saturday: Mojitos.
Mint plucked from my kitchen-window spearmint plant and immediately muddled.
I prefer Dark Rum.

More on the compost bin, later.

Yesterday.

2009-02-27T12:56:00.002-07:00

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 -

2009-02-26T19:36:00.003-07:00

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.

2009-02-24T18:25:00.002-07:00

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...

2009-02-23T22:05:00.003-07:00

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.

2009-02-20T16:53:00.004-07:00

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.

2009-02-18T18:38:00.003-07:00

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???

2009-02-16T18:50:00.003-07:00

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

2009-02-11T21:53:00.002-07:00

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.

2009-02-09T11:20:00.005-07:00

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.

2009-02-09T10:51:00.007-07:00

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.

2009-02-07T16:08:00.002-07:00

"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.

2009-02-04T18:51:00.002-07:00

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...

2009-02-03T17:09:00.003-07:00

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 -

2009-02-02T23:26:00.002-07:00

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.

2009-02-02T16:24:00.002-07:00

"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.

2009-02-01T11:37:00.002-07:00

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 -

2009-02-01T11:32:00.003-07:00

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.

Decisions.

2009-01-31T09:33:00.005-07:00

I'm unemployed, sort of. And I'm trying to think long term, think stratergerically, ya know?

And law school is a potentially appealing prospect, but I run into several problems, not the least of which is that law schools want recommendations. I don't have recommendations. Like, I really don't.

I have one professor from the Community College I went to, that I know would write me a good rec... I don't have a single professor from the college I graduated from whom I'm confident wouldn't put in a few things I'd rather not be said.

I had a love/hate relationship with both my bosses in Arizona, my couple bosses before that knew me for less than a year, my boss before that no longer works at the restaurant we were mutually employed by, and I have no way of getting a hold of her. The one boss who knew me the longest and would write a great rec, if, ya know, law schools actually wanted to hear about how well I wait tables, I haven't seen since I was 18...

the local University wants three recommendations. Three. One general and at least two academic (or if you've been out of school for awhile, they can be professional). They also make you wait two years before you can apply, if you're already done one year of law school somewhere else, which I think is kind of Bitchy... I mean really, what is that. They are So not worth waiting two years for! They also don't have a part-time program, I sort of think the law school takes themselves a little too seriously...

I checked - Harvard lets you transfer immediately, AND they only require two recommendations, what's up with that??? I wouldn't even Really want to go to The Local University, they're just the school that's within a 10 minute biking distance, so I can't really ignore them... except their application process is more restrictive than HARVARD'S!!! Excuse me???

Really, I was looking at The Local Law School because I was thinking, I should get into whatever school I can, and then after a year, use Recs from those profs and good grades to get into the school I'd really want to go to (D would be done with his social work thing by then too)... cause I surely couldn't get into any highly desirable school now, the only thing I have going for me is my LSAT, I don't have a good GPA and I have maybe one recommendation, so what's a girl to do???

I'm looking at secretarial stuff, oh, excuse me, "Administrative Assistant", there are possiblities at law firms, an accounting firm and an engineering firm... I turn 25 this summer and I should have been getting jobs like these three years ago, then again, we were living out of our car three years ago, but then I'd have some professional recs...

details.

P.S. D's going to say "I told you so" and I'm going to hate him for it.

Quote of the Day.

2009-01-25T17:54:00.001-07:00

"And some of it was even ridable."

-Chris (referring to an alleged 30 minute hike-a-bike that didn't quite take 30 minutes)

Edit-

"I'd do Mister Rogers."

-Dan (context irrelevant)

Inaugural.

2009-01-21T17:05:00.007-07:00

First you mix up some blue icing. Blue food coloring + a tiny bit of water + a whole, whopping gob of powdered sugar.
Wrap the plastic bag over a pint glass (cause you don't have a pastry bag). And spoon the icing into the bag.

It should be nice and neat and look like below!
Get your 52 sugar cookies from the night before (note three cones of icing in red, white and blue).
Cut the tiniest bit of corner off the bags - remember, you can always make the hole bigger, but not so much with the smaller. Ice with pure Hope.
Careful to get the nuance of the slightly arched red and white lines. Otherwise you'll lose the Hope.
Rinse and repeat with a friend to help and keep your hand from cramping.

My fortunes.

2009-01-17T11:59:00.002-07:00

Yesterday I pulled one of my favorite tricks, D called to say when he'd get back into town (from a short course on state policy making at the legislative session in Helena), so I called in an order from a Thai restaurant for him to pick up on his way...

they're Thai, but they do a Chinese menu too, which means when you get ToGo food they include fortune cookies :)

My fortune read :

You will be traveling and come into a great fortune.

I will be traveling, we were suppose to leave this morning, but we're both feeling under the weather, so we're taking it easy, departure in T minus 38 minutes and counting.

As for the fortune part, I got fired on Thursday afternoon, so as D said, "Obviously that's not a monetary fortune you're in for".

Good times. The job search commences in T minus nine days, 8 hours and counting...

Wabbits!

2009-01-14T13:02:00.004-07:00

I hereby challenge the Sprinkled Unicorns of Evergreen to a duel...

with an angry herd of Iced Bunnies... yes, you heard me right, ferocious icing topped bunnies!!!
With their fearless leader, The Pink Bunny... made with the juice from some boysenberry jam, after I realized we didn't have any food coloring...
details.

A little R&R... and R...

2009-01-07T14:15:00.008-07:00

We got a new place, and we plan on being here for at least the next year and a half, till D finishes his degree, so I wanted to make the place into a happy home... I haven't gotten to do a lot of "Nesting" in our previous residences, so I obviously wanted to buy a lot of large furniture on Craig's List... I mean really, that's how a girl like me "Nests"... except D decided that we only needed as much furniture as would actually fit in our, somewhat small, new home...

details.Anyway - after not getting this very large (very cheap) entertainment center... six pieces, three cupboard bases and three shelving tops, that I wanted to use partly in the bedroom for clothes and partly in the family room for D's desk area, I went back to this thrift store I'd been at last week, and bought myself a little R&R... Remington and Rand, that is.
And then some Royal...
With the old style, glass-topped keys!!!
And an extra long carriage!!!
I already apologized to D, profusely... but seriously, they're soooooo much fun... I have to keep from coming home from work (late at night) and typing on them and waking D up :)

Winter Tree.

2009-01-07T13:17:00.004-07:00

This is my winter tree. We cut it down in the forest.We don't have a winter tree holder, so we had to improvise.

The first night, the tree fell over around 1am. In the morning I had to take all the ornaments off, have D fashion a new holder, and put them all back on. It was traumatic.
Now it looks pretty though.

So wrong.

2009-01-07T12:52:00.004-07:00

This is D doing a load of dishes in our new sink, USING BODY WASH... cause apparently he couldn't be bothered to find and unpack the dish soap...

I'm so proud of my boy!!!

Next up, a photo of me from our recent ski trip, with both feet still on the ground :)

Umm... Dork.

2009-01-05T21:20:00.004-07:00

A couple days ago we started, and tonight we're about to finish, watching the Christmas episode from each season of The West Wing.

Yeah - that's right, it's episode #10 in most of the seasons, #9 in season 5...

everything sort of breaks down for seasons 6 through 7... too much campaign stuff, really ruins the calender...

Snow.

2008-12-22T09:59:00.004-07:00

And my flight was delayed due to lots and lots of snow... they're sending me out tomorrow morning, so here's hoping...

p.s. Who knew about This website?! It started snowing again and I was freakin' out, wondering if it was too much or not, but now I can refresh every half an hour and watch flights land and take off, and attempt to make estimations about the likelihood of my flight taking off... I realize that doesn't sound terribly helpful, but it's comforting to me to feel informed...

p.p.s. The irony here, is that all the other flights from Missoula to Minneapolis and vis versa, have been on time, in the last 36 hours. The only ones that have been cancelled were the first two flights yesterday, and the first flight today... my flight... again. I could have picked the later flight when I booked, but I wanted to leave as early as possible. Had I picked the flight that left four hours later yesterday, I would have been in Des Moines for about twelve hours now...

and despite the fact that flights are now leaving the Missoula airport again, I can't get on any of them... instead, I'll be driving 2-1/2 hours to Kalispell for a 2pm flight to Salt Lake, then Minneapolis, then Des Moines... hopefully, if everything goes to plan, I'll arrive about 36 hours after originally scheduled...

however, the really nice lady at the reservation desk did reschedule both my and D's flights from the 25th into Missoula, to the 26th into Kalispell, so I'll get to make up some of the time I was going to lose in Iowa, and D and I still get to return home together. Which, is really pretty great... it's still just frustrating to know that had I chosen a different flight this all wouldn't have been necessary... blah.

The holiday.

2008-12-21T13:07:00.002-07:00

I've been having a difficult time at work lately. I just haven't managed to hit the right interpersonal grove with my coworkers...

some people would say that's putting it mildly. Anyway - months ago when D and I were trying to plan our holiday, he expressed an interest in Not traveling, cause he hates to fly. And I thought we'd do something together, and then after Christmas I might go Iowa to visit my family for a few days, while my sissy was in from NYC. However, my boss told me the closest to Christmas that I could get time off would be January 2nd... so D ended up going to his folks and I was staying here to work.

Now back to the interpersonal stuff. I went to work on Friday and the schedule was up for this coming week. I had Monday through Friday off, only working Saturday and Sunday. I believe this might have been done for punitive purposes (typically in restaurants, the schedule is the way to reward and penalize people) because my boss certainly knows that I want a full work week whenever possible.

However - instead of being annoyed, I went home and bought plane tickets. I get to go to Iowa for Christmas after all. My time in town will only over lap with my sissy's for about 24 hours... and my other sister recently moved to North Carolina with her family, so Iowa isn't going to be quite the same this year... but I did manage to get the same connecting flight home that D will be on. So I'll meet him in the Minneapolis airport in the early evening, Christmas day, and we'll get to fly back Home together.

Everything seems to have worked out beautifully...

except, I guess, at work. Where my coworkers are all jealous that I'm getting most of Christmas week off, even though I didn't ask for it, when they'd all like to be able to go home too :)

Couches

2008-12-16T15:21:00.005-07:00

Our downstairs neighbor has, for some time, thought it a good idea to leave two old, scraggly couches, stacked on top of each other, behind the garage, in the alley way. There's a wire fence with wood poles and a two door gate across the back of the property. You can see one side of the gate, broken off it's hinges in this photo taken out our door... apparently the snow plows do the alleys???

That gate is normally the way we come and go on our bikes, but I guess not so much today...

New boots

2008-12-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

65 $!

Hunting.

2008-12-04T17:31:00.006-07:00

Here's a hint if you ever list something on Craig's List -

Tell us where you are.

Up here in The Great North, we just have a state wide Craig's List, and I can't tell you how many people list apartments for rent without mentioning, anywhere in the listing, what city they're in. Details.

I'm also sick of people saying things like "Close to Downtown" or "Right next to the U" when most towns in Idaho are closer to my Downtown than these stupid people's apartments. I'm going to realize you're lying when I Google Map the address, why waste my time trying to make me think it's somewhere it's not.

I don't get why everyone seems to get a little overly optimistic when writing up descriptions of real estate. It's the one situation were the buyer will most definitely be inspecting the object of sale before purchase, is anyone really going to be like "Why you're right, this three bedroom, two hundred square foot apartment isn't small, it's just cozy, I'll take it!" or "The map says it's four miles away from the nearest paved road, but if you say it's only a five minute walk to downtown, than where do I sign!"

Idiots.

To brighten things up - here's a photo essay from our Thanksgiving trip to Yellowstone!

The boy sees something in the distance, and he's off!!!

Wait - what's that???

Wait - maybe it will be even more fun on ice!!!

And he's off again!!!

Finally - King of the Wild, at last.

(Please disregard any semblance of sarcasm.)

Big.

2008-11-29T15:38:00.004-07:00

Mammoth town to the right, hot springs to the left.

Giving Thanks.

2008-11-26T13:41:00.003-07:00

I work tonight, but I have tomorrow and Friday off, so we're going down to ski in Yellowstone, which required cooking food today to take with us, for a Thanksgiving picnic lunch on skis tomorrow.

D made a duck - but I took the video so I get to post it :) I'm waiting for the video to upload, so it will be added eventually.

Cough, cough, sneeze.

2008-11-18T18:55:00.000-07:00

Today.

2008-11-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

I voted.

(My actual ballot - does that make it invalid??? Outside our local polling place, with my "I Voted" sticker :)

College.

2008-11-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

And combat veterans.

Reading.

2008-10-30T10:49:00.000-07:00

“Part of our capacity to lead is linked to our capacity to show restraint.”

Yummy, fat.

2008-10-29T13:05:00.000-07:00

Homemade tortilla chips. 3/4" of Canola Oil warmed in a skillet on the stove plus cut up tortillas - they cook quick, and as I'd never done this before, I managed to burn the first few attempts, but overall, yummy.

On a limb.

2008-10-27T20:27:00.002-07:00

Using the New York Times' fun little interactive map - This is how I'm calling the Election.

Thank you, please come again.

Two things.

2008-10-12T01:24:00.001-06:00

Two things happened at work tonight that amused me. Many, many things happened that didn't amuse me. But we won't go there.

First - all my coworkers thought I was fired, earlier today. The schedule for next week was posted and I wasn't on it.

You wouldn't think that that, by itself, would indicate someone was fired... but that's sort of how people get fired at my work, they're just no longer on the schedule... (don't get me started on just how incredibly wrong that is...)

So I got to joke with our manager, who came in to listen to the band tonight, about how the morning bartender had called him at 11am, asking why I got fired... only to be told that I was going on vacation, and had made getting this next week off a condition of my being hired. And that I was, in no way, fired.

However, every other coworker who looked at the schedule had to be reassured, individually, that I was not fired.

One even gave me a hug. I thought it was ridiculously funny.

(Particularly because another girl got "written up" for something really stupid the other day, burst into tears in the middle of her shift, and has been going back and forth about whether she wants to quit or not... and I got written up for being a few minutes late yesterday, and all my coworkers thought I should be indignant, or distressed, or something, and I thought it was hilarious - cause like, I was three minutes late... like... really, ya gonna write me up for that? - and they don't really understand my attitude. Which is, that our manager is pretty ineffectual, and if he wants to have a power trip by writting me up he can go right ahead of do so, it doesn't effect me, because it's not about me, it's about him).

Second. On said schedule, there was a note, "Servers who work Friday Nights should start thinking of a Halloween Costume".

I always close Friday Nights.

I love costuming. Dressing up is totally my thing.

But not at work. You're kidding me right???

But no. So I was giving the kitchen a hard time about how they should have to dress up too, when one of the cooks suggested I go as a Librarian... we'll disregard that Librarian is a really non-descript and uninspiring character, and focus on the fact that my mind immediately went to Sarah Palin.

I think I'm going to work as Sarah Palin for Halloween.

(With a big, fat Obama button on the lapel of my Skirt-suit.)

Thank goodness -

2008-10-08T13:18:00.003-06:00

Thomas Friedman starts to touch on what really strikes me as disgusting about Sarah Palin's rhetoric.

When I was previously working for the wife of a career military man, I could never understand her passionate hatred for any and all taxes... she didn't seem to realize that her entire adult life, from the age of 19 when she married him, her children's life, everything she had, was paid for my the American Taxpayer who paid her husband's salary.

She hated the whole tax structure, federal and state, income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and then employment taxes and business taxes when she tried to start her own business... she thought the federal government was the enemy and the state government not really worth thinking about... and again - I wondered if she ever realized how pathetic it was to hold such hatred from the overarching structure that supported her.

How can you have so much patriotic support for the military, to believe so strongly in the military's mission, it's absolute right to be out there, messing with the whole world, without believing in the absolute right of that same government that sends that military??? It's one thing to dislike policies, or practices, but to inherently distrust the government's right to exist at home, but believe in it's right to exist and exert it's influence overseas, is just hard to wrap my mind around.

However - Sarah Palin seems to be able to stride across that huge gulf of understanding and make it disappear - because, as she said, We need government to get out of the way of American success, while at the same time insisting that it exerts all possible oversight.

Goodluck.

Baby's first Challah.

2008-09-30T01:01:00.007-06:00

As congress killed the economic package, and then dismissed for Rosh Hashana, it seemed only appropriate to make my first attempt at Challah Bread... bread baking being a good skill to have when the American economy collapses and we all return to a primitive bartering system as the Dollar becomes more useful as kindle than currancy.

I took the bread making class at the Yuppy Food Store last week. Primarily because of the four breads being discussed, two were Challah and Cinnamon Rolls... and yeah... can't pass that up.

However - the recipe we did for Challah doesn't make it the way I like it best... so I'll need to play with the recipe as I make more. Tonight however, was just to prove to myself that I could, in fact, make Challah bread in our house.

Adding all the liquids to the starter, with the flour on the left...

I intended to essentially* double the recipe, except then I accidently added to much water - so then, I quadruppled the recipe... four loaves. Lots of flour.

*I say essentially, because you don't just double everything and go to town, not everything gets doubled... when you're baking.

Time for the big bowl...

D took some action shots of me kneeding the dough, prior to it's first Rise.

Oh my gosh - so much dough - so much stiff dough that is hard to kneed.

After the first Rising. Which took longer than it should have, due to a less than ideal temperature in the kitchen. It was find after I put it in a puddle of sunlight by the door for an extra hour.

Time to shape.

Cut and rolled into equal lengths.

Got to squash the top ends together to get started.

Braiding.

And you finish off by pushing the three ends together, then tucking the top and bottom underneath the braid.

Three good lookin' loaves - starting their 2nd Rise.

4th Loaf in a pie plate.

2 hours later.

Having risen again, the third loaf had to be moved to it's own pan. And so it was the first to go into the over.

Above it goes in, below it comes out!

Within not even two minutes, D had already stolen a chunk.

D trying to catch the Steam coming off the chunks... not sure how he thought he'd do that.

The Pie One - alright, but not perfection.

Last two. Perfectly golden - not too dark.
All done.
The prettiest two.

Pretty.

2008-09-29T02:53:00.000-06:00

More of the flowers from the Farmer's Market a couple weeks ago. They're all dead now.

Next to the door.

I pulled some seeds from a butternut squash I bought from the store and turned into soup. The seeds grew well, starting in Arizona during the monsoon rains. They really like high temps and TONS of water. Which is a challenge here... they've been flowering though.

Another flower - the squash are next to a street-side window - so you see the potted plants, plus the walkway outside, one story before...

Yay - flowers.

Quote of the Day.

2008-09-28T14:47:00.002-06:00

Me to D - "You'd just have to supervise the goats so you could make cheese from their milk."

(after a month of thinking about working in restaurants, my age, farms, why I'm learning to bake bread, and super-gluing back together a one inch long rubber bison we got at a children's toy store for 50 cents, several weeks ago, that D had zip-tied to his handle bars as a talisman).

It's in there somewhere.

2008-09-25T16:22:00.001-06:00

Where I put together my townie...

Outside.

Inside.

The bunker (handle bars and brakes, primarily, inside)

The work space -

Waiting to be cabled...

She's a Schwinn Mesa Runner (with a little beige coyote emblem next to the name on the top tube). And was originally purchased from Mill Valley Cyclery in California (according to a little sticker near the bottom bracket :). Maybe I'll have a photo of her all finished up, later.

D had to "adjust" the dropout spacing to fit the wheels we managed to find.

The Frame, fork, bottom bracket, crank and arms were all together, the rest we found, assembled and adjusted. Wait till you see the fenders I jury-rigged... it involved a hack saw and some very irritating noises...