Thursday, June 29, 2006

Foodie Porn

A few of my favorite things
(Homemade Wild Blackberry Jam)

Does anyone else find this disturbing?


Guess what, honey?! Yeah, I signed us up to get our wills done today, isn't that great?! Yeah, we're going to die sooner or later, right?

Hey, I know! Let's go out to eat to celebrate!

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

JAM ON! Wild blackberry jam, anyway.

So Saturday was partially spent picking wild blackberries along McGinness Ferry road. We got a pretty good haul; about 5 cups worth or so. Monday night was spent making it into low-sugar wild blackberry jam... 1 cup of sugar with 3 cups of Splenda, instead of 4 cups [!] of sugar.

All day at work and (between making dinner, making jam and prepping the week's lunches) all night standing in the kitchen, but it was worth it... boy is the jam GOOD!

I realized when I was about halfway through mashing up all the berries into a nice jammish pulp that I should have taken a picture of them first for posterity... Oh well.

As for what the finished jam looks like - maybe tonight I will have to make toast with jam as an appetizer and do some Glamour Shots so ya'll can see the finished product.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Big Brother Sucks

A couple of friends have had problems with employers finding and reading their blogs.

I realize this is a very real possibility, hence what you see here is the very bland white bread daily mediocrity level of my existance and not anything I really wouldn't want my bosses to know... Well at least most of it... I think...

But, I don't get it, why some people give a shit if you take 5 minutes to pop a post to your online journal when you're at work.

Personally, I've worked late and through countless lunches, always get my job done, am always ASKING for more work any time things are slow... I feel like my friends have probably done the same.

I guess some people have to work for bosses that are just miserable, nosy, vindictive, and petty.

Sad, really.

And if any of those people find and read this, I would like to take this opportunity to say:

Get a life (and stop judging and vicariously living everyone else's),
you pathetic monkey.

Friday, June 23, 2006

Sometimes I make myself laugh scare myself make myself laugh

This morning I stopped at Publix and picked up a salad for lunch and some pomegranate juice ("POM").

So I am completely distracted, walking to the breakroom to grab the bag out of the fridge so that I can eat, and a thought crosses my mind, "oh yeah, good, I've got that delicious pomeranian juice in there that I can have with my lunch..." I finally catch up to my own thoughts and am laughing out loud at myself as I stroll the rest of the way down the hall... Yeah, pomeranian juice. Yum.

And I just know the folks that I passed in the hall thought I was nuts, walking over there with this crazy smile on my face half laughing to myself.

Ha!!!!

Thursday, June 22, 2006

FIE-nally

Hawaii pics ad nauseum can be viewed here. No time for helpful tags or anything useful like that.

Count the number of different views of Diamond Head...

Berry pickin' time
((as opposed to nose pickin' time*))

I've been watching the wild blackberries along McGinness Ferry since they flowered (months ago), waiting for the berries to form and ripen. Right now, most of the berries look like they are still too red (not ripe; lush, lustrous black), but I saw one bush that looked like it was covered in ((yum!!)) plump, ripe black berries.

I've been dying to check it out, but the usual 2"+ heel, business attire, and rush hour traffic aren't conducive to scampering across the busy 2 lane road and bushwhacking through the roadside flora to the fruit.

This weekend, I investigate.



*OK. So, every time I looked at my original post title ("Berry pickin' time"), the current (revised) title would vibrate in my head.

Sometimes, the voices in my head just insist on being heard. Even if they are juvenile.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs...

So... Is it a sign of my age (child of the 70's) that I remember the Girl Scout Brownie uniform being brown and orange?

And, yes, it is random.

I'm wearing orange and brown today and I felt like I looked like a Brownie when I left the house.

But then I found out that they're out there learning to square dance in brown and light blue these days.

OR.... maybe they're doing the macarena. Either way...

Whatever. I'm a dork.

Why call it a pocketbook?

It neither fits in your pocket, nor is it shaped in any way like a book. I don't get it.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Animal rights lover says
"The little fucker deserves to die"!

I thought I could take it. I thought the day had come when we could all just get along, and we could all live as one. Imagine.

First, he ate my radishes. Mischevious mystery digging everywhere; I wasn't sure who was the culprit.

Then, he ate my strawberries, as they ripened. One. By. One. In spite of the bird netting carefully placed and secured (or so I thought). Caught red handed (probably even literally [!], stained from delicious finally ripe strawberry), the little fucker ran off the deck, dropping the half eaten berry on the rail before making his escape.

But now, he's gone too far. I arrived home and, following my normal routine, anxiously went on the deck to check the status of my Tom Thumb lettuce seedlings and to see if my other lettuces had sprouted.

What did I find, but murder! Mayhem! Half the Tom Thumb pot excavated and my seedlings, the precious innocent (not even yet delicious) baby seedlings, flung far and wide and laying dead or dying.

Horrible... Oh the humanity! Tiny bits of green everywhere. So tragic!

Little fucker. I've got plans for him.

Bueller....? Bueller....?

Thursday. Bow bow... chicka chicka

Get back, or get bitten.

Oooh wow. I am 15 minutes into my work day and OBOY am I ~~~pIsSy~~~ ! Gotta love that whole hormonal imbalance roller coaster. If it weren't for hormones I'd be really boring.

Normally, I'm a nice, normal person.



Ok, well nice at least.







No, really !!!!! At least, as long as you don't annoy me.


And, well... OK. Except this week.


Grrr. Fair warning.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Monday, June 05, 2006

Fashion plate

Wow, weird childhood flashback to these Barbie "Fashion Plates" I had as a girl - you could mix and match the top, middle, and bottom parts of Barbie, then you put a paper over the pieces and made a rubbing of your design. If only fashion were that simple and everything went together with everything else.



I'm actually just here to say "the top is done!" Nothing spectacular, just a simple top. JB is flummoxed, he is just so amazed I can actually make something wearable. Yesterday, he said "it looks just like a top!" Tonight he said "it looks like something you'd buy in the store" "I mean, it looks like something that would be very expensive at a store!" . . . Hee hee hee. :)

Of course, since I made it I keep looking at it and critiquing every little fault. BUT! Be that as it may. It will be debuted tomorrow. And, as long as I don't have any wardrobe malfunctions, I'll be happy!!!!

Bored with myself

Not posting much other than links to stuff = "I'm bored with myself."

Started sewing again yesterday. It's been about...ummm... let's see - the last things I made were baby clothes for my first nephew, who is now... wow... TWELVE! OK, so it's been a minute.

I keep thinking about designs I want to do; like 6 months ago, back around the time Memoir of a Geisha came out, I was thinking how I wanted to do some long tops with an obi-like wide belt. Of course, now it is in every magazine. And I saw a girl with a loose baggy shirt on (poof sleeves, little delicate ties at the neckline) and I thought out of the corner of my eye that it was a soft white asian cherry blossom pattern fabric, which I thought was awesome, but when I looked it was just a white bread white shirt... Another vision...

So anyway... I went shopping over the weekend for some things to make and went hog wild on fabrics. I have enough stuff now to make clothes for a small army. Or, well, for me to suit my clothes horse need for at least 6 months. Now to just keep the patience needed for all the cutting and pinning and crap to get the end product.

So, I'm almost done with my first shirt. It's awesome.

Garden is incredible, had a few cucumbers, lots of sugar snap peas, and some broccoli. The broccoli would have been extraordinarily delicious. *IF*. It hadn't been tainted by my discovery of a couple of cute little not-so-delicious steamed caterpillars on it in the middle of dinner. Aside: what's the old story?... Oh yeah... At least I didn't find HALF caterpillars. Um yeah. Blech.

And that's the story of how I learned about cabbage worms, and bacillus thuringiensis.

Tomatos are everywhere! But still green.

Lettuce planted, heirloom varieties... It's a little late and hotter than lettuce likes it, from what I hear, but we'll see.

The 4400

SEASON THREE

The 4400 returns Sunday, June 11 at 9/8C with a two-hour premiere.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Read this for

the latest in the gripping saga that is...



The Vegemobile Diaries!


Last time I got 1075 miles - regular diesel tank last noted as filled 03/16/06 (must have missed one in there somehow... I can usually go about 6 weeks between fill ups).

This time - 1224.3 miles (thanks to warmer weather; quicker engine warm-up).

Filled up diesel, 11.519 gallons, $2.799/ gallon = $32.24.