Cooking.

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

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

Flash Back.

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

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

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

-from Home Preserving Made Easy copyright 1975...

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

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

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

Baaa.

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

I probably shouldn't do this...

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

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

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

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

The last of them -

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

Quote of the Day.

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

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

Holiday time.

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

The fireplace.

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

This is -

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

And the keys are green.

Thank you, please come again.

Decisions.

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.

"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.

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.

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!

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

65 $!

Hunting.

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.

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

Giving Thanks.

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.

Today.

I voted.

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

College.

And combat veterans.