oh man

When I blow it I blow it big. Last weekend we went to the farm to do more work. Not only did I not bring my camera but there was DRAMA! and I missed capturing it! Maggie and Bo (dogs owned by the owners of the house) left for a while and came back with a rooster from parts unknown. They played "let me rip that out of your mouth and run" for a while, then we managed to get it away from them. Upon closer examination, the dude was still alive and more impressively, unscathed but he was partially frozen from apparently being out all night.

So all work stopped and there was a big rooster revival party that went like this:
Marla, cuddling the rooster cooing to him- if you know Marla this become hilarious.
Marla's kid, blowdrying the rooster, per HN's order
HN, massaging the rooster- lifting feather to get maximum airflow for drying, also cooing to rooster.
and of course, the obligatory me in the background making "Nice cock" jokes. Hey, all the other roles were taken!

I believe today HN and I are going up there, because all of my work remote machines are down and out so I can't get crap done. For reals this time, pictures.

Loves his special girl

How does it never get old?

How do you spell relief?

Well I can tell you it isn't r-o-o-t c-a-n-a-l. I went back for Part Deux this Monday and it was basically a shit show. He still couldn't get through the 4th canal, which was what caused the issue last week. Right now I am in a wait and see mode: it will either have worked anyway, or I need oral surgery. Die nerve die! The whole experience was pretty crap, as whatever he did this time angered the gods in my mouth and my face was swollen like WOW until Weds. Some dude on the plane Tuesday told me I had heart traveling like that. Uh, thanks ?

Mr Dentist Man also hit a nerve or something with the novacaine, because my eye and nose went numb for hours on Monday. It was truly a lovely experience over all.

Exhibit A:

notice the extreme relaxed state of my left nostril

The pain was not bad, I was living on Advil because Tylenol 3 is a fucking joke, and then on Tuesday we had our work xmas party, so I was able to drink through the pain. I also won some cash playing trivia. Combining both activities, we get Exhibit B:


Then, let's see. In the scope of things I have failed to take pictures of, there is the farm. Work progresses, last weekend we tore down a pesky wall noone liked. We are still planning a Feb 1 move. We'll be back this weekend, and I will very probably take some pictures because there's nothing left fun to do, it's all a bit tedious at this point and so I will do my best to squeeze out unnoticed and wander around camera in hand.

Xmas is just about a goner for me- on time I say! This is a first. Both work xmas parties down, none to go and presents pretty much a wrap. I'm pretty sure I've outdone myself this time (with some help from tech support). I bought toys for the nephews based on toys I saw some other kid receive at her party this year, my mother wanted a gold cross, and in addition to some sweet books on birds and chickens and one on goats, I made HN an Alaska book at Blurb.com and it shipped last night. Today is all about obsessively hitting the refresh button on the FedEx page to see where it is right now. (NJ at the time of posting)

I'll be heading up to Boston to wash floors, kiss babies and gladhand again, for a very limited engagement. HN has surgery on Dec 31, so we will ring in the NY with painkillers for him, and a well priced bottle of wine for myself. I'm worth it!

I think that's about it, hopefully farm pics after this weekend.

Belated Giving of Thanks

Here's what I'm happy about today:

1) advil. Root canal went badly, Part Deux takes place next Monday.

2) the internet. Nevermind the fact that it enables me to make a living from the comfort of my own home, this week I love the web because I have just finished uploading HN's final xmas present, to be shipped and arrive here by next week ish. Not only am I done with him, I'm happy with what I did. PSYCHE! Take that Mr Handmade and Thoughtful, eat my dust!

3) chickens. Because they make chicken soup, which I am currently eating on this crap, crap, crappy day when the worlds of a head cold, a bad root canal and aunt flo collide.

4) people who put big cheerful bows on their car, ostensibly to celebrate this season of love and togetherness (GOBAMA!!) and then proceed to drive like total assholes, cutting everyone off and making copious use of the horn. That shit cracks me up every time.

5) My friends. For everything, but in particular this week for some much needed politically incorrect laughter and for the great ideas about what to make HN for The Best Christmas Ever! (and for making the parts to it!)


and with that I'm off to go be thankful for wine, a hot shower and some Top Chef.

-ks will not pack her knives and go.

Just say NOvocaine!

mmm HMMMM :o)

That's my big fake smile for all the idea people in my life these days.

To play a brief game of catch up for those of you out of the loop, here's what's doing these days.

1) another visit to the farm, another +5 family experience. Farm is a go, target move date is Feb 1
2) work is work. Going well, moving along, but nothing worth blogging about.
3) Star and Kitty have moved to full contact, no blanket buffer needed spooning. I have to hand it to the cat, he really stuck it out. It's only taken 4 years to wear her down. This could be due to the fact that there is no heat right now, but I can't say for sure.

4) HN is still debilitated. We get the final word on surgery today, including which body part (and from whom) will replace the errant tendon, and when this will happen.
5) I have to get a root canal Monday. So sad. Mostly because this means my face hurts until then, and I hate spending money on silly things I can't wear. I will drink through the pain this weekend with the help of my "lady" friends.

Thanksgiving rocked, I'm looking for chickens (for no good reason really since we won't be chicken ready until spring) and doing my xmas shopping between conference calls.

peace hos!

It's not that I don't care...oh who am I kidding , yes it is.

Ha!

So we went to the farm again this weekend, for a second walk through post eviction of the evil lady and also post some cleanup having been done. This was mostly for the benefit of HN, since I have already mentally moved in pretty much. This time though, the tour had a twist. We brought the whole damn family. Ok, not the *whole* family, but his mother and his very sensible, post modern styl-y sister. You can probably imagine that she was not much impressed with the ramshackle farm of my dreams. Which was fine, I didn't really expect her to be. Her house is different than a house I would want to live in, and I am happy to accept our differences and recognize that in matters of decor I probably don't want her input. Hence my never asking her.

HN however, being still a little unsure that the dismal pit he was looking at would in fact be transformed into the gilded palace in my mind, brought along Mom and Sister, for moral support I guess. I think he thinks my perspective is not realistic (if he only knew!) and wanted someone to give an opinion similar to his, to wit: report on what is there not what it will be when I'm done with it. Which is whatever: I haven't typically lived a life where I stop and ask everyone what they think about what I'm about to do. I go by myself, listen to my inner voice and pack the truck/write a check/head for the hills. It's jsut how I do. It's not how he does though, so I was trying to be sensitive. Plus, his mother informed my that that's how Latin American families do it. Everyone into the truck, someone is thinking of making a decision!

At the very least I thought it would be fun to watch. And it was, I guess. Ok, no it really wasn't. I am not a good compromiser, nor am I good at pretending to listen when people offer opinions I didn't ask for. So it went like this:

HN (to ME) What do you think? would this be a bedroom?
me: (opening mouth as to speak since I was directly addressed)
HN Sister: That doesn't make any sense! Why would you do that! This is the best room over here, but you must take down this silly fake brick (ed. note: now the brick stays! and I will show it to her weekly!)
HN Mother: Oh, HN, you should ask them if you can do this and this and this to the house. And ask also if they will take it off of rent! (ed note: she is Chilean. they can't not bargain. She tried to bargain the fabric lady at JoAnn's last week = HILARIOUS!)
me: (opening mouth as to speak)
HN Sister: And why are there 3 bathrooms! You should knock this all off, the whole back of the house, it's ridiculous!!!
me: (exit, stage left. Go hang out with Marla, house owner, F bomb dropper extraordinaire. A woman after my own heart)

This went on in some fashion for about 10 minutes. Then I just dissociated myself from the pack of them and went on my own tour. I still love it. I hung out with Marla, looking so very fetching in her carharrt coveralls with a sledgehammer and a crowbar. I want to be Marla when I grow up. I visited with Joyce, Marla's wife/ whatever lame legal term etc, who is super duper nice and was doing the non violent bits of stuff like pulling nails and spackling. I kicked it with their dog BoBo, toured the grounds, planned my room/new life on the farm and in general floated about smiling and leaving the room whenever a member of the HN clan opined. I have it all figured out.

After the tour, we departed (everyone back in the truck! Enclosed spaces are great for forcing opinions on people who keep leaving the room when you talk!), then I kicked them all out of my car, lock stock and smoking neighbor and went on an errand/shopping/alone time run and made many decisions without so much as a lick of input. So therapeutic. When I returned, HN and I were able to have a discussion about the day's adventure and what we had seen/were thinking, I was able to communicate that I love and plan to move to the farm and that next time he brings his whole family along I stay home. (i kid, i kid. Ok, I dont kid)

Bottom line= green acres is the place to be, and we're going for it! Sadly, I won't get Christmas on the farm just like I've always dreamed of, but gladly it's because more renovations are being done and it's just not feasible. There's also a surgery factor (his not mine) and a few other things to consider, but the wheels are in motion.

I can live with that.

you need to know this...

Oh man, we made the giant squash last night. My faculties were a bit impaired by the time it got to the table, I wish I had taken a pic. (crap, theres a theme here. I need to learn to think like a blogger)

HN's sister is in town from Portland, as is his mother from Chile. Local sister is having a kids birthday party today, so to give everyone a little break from the week, we had decided to have them over to his place for dinner. He's laid up with a bum knee, but Dr Sister and I went to town, and the masses were appropriately impressed. I'll tell you, a giant squash that has a trap door carved in it and is not only filled with food but edible itself is in fact an impressive centerpiece. Very.

It was also nice because we got to use all of the dishes he has that I like at the same time. His mom being from Chile, and him getting there or her coming up at least once a year (and a Chilean person never traveling without at least an extra suitcase worth of presents for those they are going to be visiting*) means that he has an amazing and extensive collection of dishes, handcrafted by his mother's husband's ex-wife the potter, who does incredible work. I do most of the cooking, and I do it at my house, so we don't get to use his cool shit nearly enough. So last night not only did we have dinner at his place, but we made enough food to feed a damn army and I got to break out all of my favorite dishes. Since I packed all the leftovers up in said cool dishes, I might sneak back over there and take some pictures before he dismantles it all. It won't look the same as it did last night, but it might do. Gotta be better than nothing, and you should all really see this. It was like early vegetarian thanksgiving. I did my famous roasted veggies, because HN always likes those, and I made forbidden rice (gasp!) and Dr Sister aka Dr J took over the stuffing and killed it. She used: apples, kale, almond, onion, some squash, raisins, wine, spices, mushrooms and more. Then we took the giant squash seeds, roasted them and put those and some pomegranate pods over a bed of lettuce and tossed with a balsamic for a very simple salad. Out of the park!

* = I am now in the present loop. Yay! Now I own some cool Chile dishes too! HN and everyone in his family all have these badass mugs from Lise (potter) and I'm always ogling them. HN's mother brought me 4 as one of my presents. Yay! Here are my 2 faves I think:
Lise does 3 glaze colors (that I've seen) and many styles. HN has tons with creatures on them, fishes, dinosaurs, etc so I asked for a creature one and she brought birds. The mug is circled with them and each is different but V cool. Coffee has never been so delicious. I also got another pura alpaca scarf. HN had brought me back a huge and beautiful pashmina when he went, because that's the kind of guy he is and this time his mother brought me a smaller scarf and in this crazy pink/red combo color. It's not a color I would necessarily pick out myself but she has impeccable tastes and it does work for me. Plus, it's so soft and it smells like Chile. mmmmmm

I will eventually get around to pictures of all of this. I'm going armed with my camera today, Dr J and I are heading to the farmer's market and then to the Charm City Craft Mafia's show to get our shop on. Add to that the fact that the first shipment of seahorses has come in, and it's shaping up to be a pretty ok weekend.

Unique and secret method in the history of preparing a treat for those who love spicy dishes.

Spaghetti squash, Blue Hubbard, Golden nugget and Acorn. Mm. I love my 35 lbs of squash.

I might be ready to admit I have a problem.

When you talk about squash so much that you bore the squash man at the farmer's market, you know you've gone too far. When he sees you coming and looks busy and sends his second man over to deal with you, you *really* know you've gone too far. This might make the feint of heart rethink their Vitamin A filled, fibrous wonder food obsession. However I -undaunted and unwilling to take a hint- waited his ass out, making sure to make eye contact and wave to let him know I was on to him and that I would hold, as it was sat morning and I had nothing else to do besides obsess over heirloom veggies. I won't settle for man # 2, because he doesn't know the names or the relative sweetnesses of the squashes, and these things matter to me. Plus, once you get the squash man going, he always steers you right. Luckily, I was able to pass the time quickly because I have a squash soul mate. Who knew! She presented herself at the booth, pulling the thoughts right out of my head when she announced "I need one of these because it would be fun to eat something so pretty!" so she and I spent a few minutes exchanging squashy stories and debating recipe ideas and fondling the fruit. The squash man came by eventually, and I do believe we made him consider going into the tomato business with our incessant questioning. Mostly it was just him looking completely dumbfounded as she and I nattered back and forth about how pretty it was, and what kind of meal you could design around eating out of your centerpiece. We tried to get him involved by asking what he thought of our plans, and in retrospect, I believe this is where it started to get painful for him. End results are thusly:

1)I am now the proud owner of a 15lb Blue Hubbard squash (I don't know what I'm going to do with it ok, but I couldn't just LEAVE it there!)
2)I am also now the proud owner of a Golden Nugget Pumpkin and an Acorn squash.
3)I already had 3 squashes at home.
4)I may no longer have the option of going to the squash table without HN, as he is beginning to realize I have no self control once I begin obsessing with something. He's still in the stage where it's amusing, which is good for him since I'm feeling like I'm just getting warmed up.

I was going through my squashes yesterday and realized I had 6. Taking a step back, I deemed 6 to be too many, and too much pressure, so I cooked 2 of them (pumpkin and delicata), pureed the flesh and tagged it and bagged it and stuck it in the freezer. Someday soon the pumpkin will become the glue that binds a delicious risotto and I believe the delicata is headed for some cookies or muffins but I have other, more pressing fruits to deal with right now. I don't honestly know what I'll do with Big Blue. It's bigger than most newborns, and undoubtedly way more delicious. One man told me to smash it on the ground, then roast the pieces but duh! If having it huge and whole wasn't the point, would I have bought it in the first place? Probably not old dude, but thanks. What I can't wait for is the seeds. HN and I are cucurbita seed connoisseurs at this point. So far, Jarrahdale is my fave. He's stuck on plain old pumpkin.

The other option is to cook and serve dinner in it for HN's family. The only downside to this is that in order to do right by the squash, I would probably have to go back to my nemesis, chestnut stuffing. And alot of it. And then there's pressure, because HN's family is chock full of good cooks. Effortless good cooks, which is a very high bar. I'm always picking up their tricks, but they've got nothing in the hole for something like this. I would be totally off the reservation.

And then there's the radish issue. I bought a Daikon because they were a buck, and it was huge, and I'm sure you see the trend here. I love giant produce, there I said it! The fucking thing won't die, and I'm *trying* to stop wasting food so I feel obligated to eat it. I shredded half of that with the rest of the watermelon beets,some carrots and some rice vinegar. I had some Sat, some Sun and some today. And I still have about a pound of that shit left. AND it was only half the Daikon! And you know what smells real bad? A cut Daikon! In truth, that little gem might account for my throwing the rest of it away free of guilt.

Not wasting food is pressur-ous. Although I suppose it's the buying too much to begin with that sets it off now isn't it. Yesterday I came home with my new produce, and took all the last week's stuff that hadn't made the grade (we had dinner out twice last week, totally messed with my food budget man) and made "kitchen sink soup" which is basically all the stuff that's nearing the end of it's crisp days thrown in a pot with a can of tomatoes, some rosemary and some BTB. I had that for lunch and dinner, and made HN have some too. I couldn't face it for lunch so I had MORE radish salad and some sweet potato fries. And some leftover mac and cheese because I needed something starchy and not veggie to eat.

Sigh.

peeking into the living room. Baltimore office is now FULL of sun!

yay!

That's all I have to say. I watched the election with HN and a cohort of cohorts at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser here in B'more. Righteous to be out on this night watching it happen.

Now if I could just hear about prop 8.

I always feel like, somebody's watching me...

Mail today at work:

------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug, or are watching someone who is



You can WATCH people?! I must find out how to do this.

My Fancy Weekend by Kerry Smith

Dear both of my bloggy friends,

This weekend I was very fancy. HN and I were very fancy to be more precise. Friday night we had tickets to the symphony (a birthday gift way back when from HN). We decided since we were going to be dressed up anyway, we should have a fancy dinner first. We did, and it was quite delicious. We went to the Brewer's Art, which I was unaware had actual food, their reputation being centered mostly around Resurrection "THE BEST BEER EVER IN BALTIMORE"!!! (not my quote, though I concede it is not bad) But their other food was recommended to me by a friend who knows about such things, so on her suggestion we went. And it was delicious, as previously stated. We started with the pumpkin risotto with sage brown butter (and some wine), then I moved onto steak (ahem, and some wine), which was solidly flavored although I would not order that particular cut of meat again, and HN onto Butternut squash ravioli, with pear and chestnuts and something else that made him swoon. Dessert was some ridiculous chocolate/beer concoction that I want to marry when I grow up.

Properly full to the gills, we headed for the symphony, where as a bonus they did the Mickey Mouse thing from Fantasia. Yay! The other stuff was fun too, but the Sorcerer's Apprentice was def my favorite part. There was a very impressive foreign man as a guest first violin, but being as I am fancy and he is not my broker or my lawyer, I do not recall his name.

Saturday I went to the Waverly market (see the fancy thing going on ?) and procured a Jarrahdale heirloom squash, for which I had very fancy plans. The dude from whom I bought this thing and I had a quick pow-wow on things to try and I gathered the rest of my produce needs and headed home. Being as this was my fancy weekend, I decided to stop and catch sunspots in the grass at the sculpture garden near the BMA. Always a good time.

I went home and put some primer on the living room walls in preparation for their covering with a color we'll just call "I had a temper tantrum and decided it needs to be brighter in the living room" (it worked. Alot, like WOW) and then HN came and rescued me from the boredom and workiness of it all by insisting I join him on a motorcycle ride in the northern direction, possibly to places we'd never been before. It was 75 and the sugar maples are turning, how could I resist?? HN's eagle eyes happened to catch a "Winery" sign, and together with his quick brain that knows how I like the juice, he decided we should stop in for a wine tasting. (Handsome AND smart!) So we did. We came away with 4 bottles, all very delicious. We also came away heading in the wrong direction and proceeded to chart previously uncharted parts of Northern MD for the next 2 hours. I was shocked, as I was *sure* we were heading South. Which should have been his first clue that we were not.

Yesterday I painted a coat on the living room, read/got to know a beer while I admired/cringed at my handiwork and then cooked a very fancy dinner, which recipe I will share below. It was delicious, but chestnut stuffing is a pain in the not fancy area. This might be relegated to "special occasions" or "bored and have time to kill" type dinners.

I used:
1 Jarrahdale squash (picked because it's big enough to stuff and pretty enough to put on the table and serve out of). You could do a couple of smaller ones (acorn), or also a turban squash or a fancy french squash for pretty's sake.

1 package of sun dried tomato sausage from Whole Foods
Forbidden rice (also from whole foods)
Onion
Garlic
Thyme
Chestnuts


Put the chestnuts flat side down on the counter and cut an X in the top. If you don't do this they will explode. (cool but not necessarily desirable)
Put the Chestnuts and the whole squash (seriously don't even try to fuck with this thing raw. It's fortified, just ask the bloody stump of my thumb from when it spat the knife back at me) in the oven at 350. The squash should be on a pan of some sort for easy handling.

After 15 minutes -or when the skins are peeling back from the Xs- take the chestnuts out.

Leave the squash in there.

Start cooking the rice.

Saute the Onion in some Olive oil until translucent on medium heat or so. Add the garlic, and after 1 minute, add the sausage meat, removed from it's casing and increase the heat. Stir occasionally, and poke to break up the meat. Commence peeling and cutting up the chestnuts.

Once the sausage is browned, add the chopped chestnuts to the dish and cover so they can continue to cook and absorb the sausage grease which is delicious and good for you.

Take the squash out of the oven, and be careful its HOT<- fact. Put some gloves on, cut off the top- be generous, you want a big opening. I just hacked the whole top off so it was flat, and then pull out the seedy bits (put them aside to cook later like pumpkin seeds if you want)

I also scraped out some of the interior flesh to make room, putting aside what I get into a bowl. (if it's not soft, toss it in the microwave for 2 minutes while you do this next part)

Mix some rice with the sausage stuffing until you get your desired ratio. I like a little rice, just for looks.

Spoon the sausage/chestnut/onion/garlic/rice into the squash. Now mash the removed squash innards, mix with a little cayenne and some butter and put on top of the stuffing. Put it all back in the oven to cook until the top is browned. 20 min or so. During this time, your squash will also ooze squash juice into your stuffing and vice versa, so it gets extra tasty. Don't be impatient.

Monday, monday

The whole house has "dont wannt get outta bed-itis"

Countdown to Farm-dom

So we should find out this week/next weekend whether or not the farm is a go. Or should I say that we will find out THAT the farm is a go. By way of preparation for farm living, I've been trying to decide what I want to grow when I'm a farmer. Desired characteristics for produce include 1)delicious-ness (no brainer) 2) preservability (can I can it, freeze it, or put it by in a root cellar WHICH WE WILL HAVE) 3) interestingness. Having been working A LOT from home these days, I have been able to start paying more attention to making dinner, and what it's going to look like when done. I have discovered the lost art of presentation at the table. Expect to see more pictures of this soon- Like tomorrow.

So by way of preparation for my preparation of trying to decide what I will want to grow, I've been experimenting with all the cool stuff coming through the farmers market. I've been making a point to buy things I have never tried before. I just this very year started eating squash and the possibilities on that front alone are astounding. Taste/texture wise, the variety bowls me over, and the possibilities of fun fooding with them would make Martha Stewart hot.

So here (because I know what the people want) are this week's "As yet untasted foods" from the Sunday market (the one downtown, under the highway where homeless people live 6 days a week, but on Sunday it's the market space)

Left to Right: Daikon radish, hubbard squash, rutabaga, Romanesque cauliflower, watermelon radishes.

Now the cauliflower is so cool it deserves it's own closeup:

It's a fractal! And that's just cool. I am also transfixed by it because it is angly and pyramid having, and veggies are usually roundish. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but it's going to be awesome. And you can't tell me this won't look cool. It might look so cool it deserves new serving plates. It's much prettier than it represents in my pictures, I may go steal one of someone else's pictures later for show. And I'm pretty sure I'm growing some next year. Oh yeah, it's on the list.

Daikon and watermelon radishes will be shredded on salad, and since the Daikon is huge I may also try roasting some of it, and I have also heard that there is some soup that can be done with it, though I remain skeptical.

Rutabaga is basically a Scottish turnip, so I'll roast as always, because I am obsessed and in love with the visual and tasty beauty that is purple onion/brussel sprouts/carrots/turnip/sweet potato/red potato tossed with olive oil and roasted. I can eat pretty much my body weight in that combo, and completely without guilt, which is just about my favorite damn thing in the world to be able to say about a food.

And here, just for context and because I went a little nuts at the market, is my complete haul:

Carrots, ginger, red potatoes, sweet potatoes, salad mix, daikon, squash, cauliflower, rutabaga, radishes, brussel sprouts. And I intend that it all be eaten this week.

HN and I are on a "we should eat more (local) veggies" kick, so when he told me this morning that he wasn't coming to the market and that I should just take his money and go, I did my best to keep this in mind. And I took his money, and I went. Next time I go unsupervised I will need to bring 2 bags and a porter because although it doesn't seem to look like much, it was heavy. In fact the only reason that I only came home with one squash was because it was all too heavy. The cauliflower weighs 5 POUNDS. It's huge! and that's awesome! Because I am the only one who eats it, and I mean to experiment my way through it all in preparation for the awesome thing I am making and bringing to Thanksgiving. Next week will involve a large squash purchase, that is the purchase of a large squash, not large as in quantity of varietals. I know this, because I have an idea that I want to bring to life and see if it tastes as good as it looks in my head.

And now I am off to forget about the rest and mess with the best. Tonights cauliflower experiment shall be: Roasting! Because I'm throwing together a rather large quantity of the others this way, I thought I should give the tried and true favorite a whirl. And also, this would be my preference for working out because it seems it would do most to retain the cool lookingness of the veg, and that is paramount.

And here just because is Star getting pwned by kitty. He's not content to just put himself in her bed anymore. Now he's the Big Spoon.

And so it begins...

The weekend blissfully brings nothing to report. I cooked, I cleaned, I ate, I slept. I quilted.

I finally found "the idea" I was waiting for to begin my next quilt, which is for my nephew. It started like 4 months ago, when I found some sweeeet rocket fabric in happy colors. I immediately bought a fat quarter bundle, thinking this would get me going. It did not. I've been surfing, drawing and seeking inspiration in other ways (cough, cough) but have been unable to find any design I liked enough to motivate me. Well I finally hit on it the other day, and here is the artist's representation of what it should look like (give or take)


The left side will be the sweeeeet rocket fabric, to wit:
(minus the tacky bits that make it obvious that I stole this pic from someone else's website)

To that end, I cut roughly 1 trillion little things up this weekend and on Sunday when I was able to tear myself away from the sunspots in which I was lounging, I managed to get 5 blocks done:

This is my favorite block.


This is my favorite block if I decide to outline it in red (thanks Photoshop!!)

Here's what it could look like if I did blocks around them all (not all red though, I don't want little dude trippin')
In retrospect, white and 5 years old do not necessarily make good friends but it's so flipping cute I don't think I care.

p.s. for those of you who love this about me. This morning dog bit off a big chunk of her gnaw bone. I took it away from her, and dropped it off to the side in a coke can so she wouldn't chew it. At some point I got another coke. At some later point I picked up the wrong can to drink out of. Gnaw bone marinated in soda is a little bit delicious, and a lot surprising.

p.p.s.s I made this last night. It's that good.

12!

Who else remembers?

My life after Idaho.

For a while there I wasn't even sure there was life after Idaho. I believe when I left off that I was trying to decide what sort of deliciousness to bring to the table after finding that there was no Mac and Cheese to be found. In the end I just stayed in and didn't eat. I couldn't seem to find anything I felt worth getting up for, so I just skipped it all. I do that sometimes when I travel. I woke up extra hungry, extra early the next day and found the bomb coffee/bagelry though so I was able to go out on a good note.

Portland was a good but long day, as I flew in in the morning, went right to the office and did my work there. Computer install, camera calibration, and site visits to the 5 hospitals for this customer. All while in the backseat of the car, and accompanied by 2 very chatty people. So basically I was carsick and wanting to put my ears out all day, as I had gotten little to no sleep in Idaho.

When I packed it in for the day in Portland I was ready for some air, so I decided that instead of bussing back to my hotel, I would walk along the bus route and jump on at some point. I got totally lost, and just under 2 hours later (about 1 hour after it started raining, praise be to my new raincoat) I managed to find the Max streetcar to take me to my hotel. I got lost a little after that, but ended up not only finding my hotel but stumbling at it from a new direction, past a little Pho shack. Being unable to think of anything better for a sad wet Portland night than a bowl of delicious soup, I went in and ordered some to go.

It went sort of like this:
Her: "Hello! Welcome. Have some tea!"
Me: "I'm just going to order some soup to go"
Her: "yes. Have some tea!"
Me: "Do I look that pathetic?"
Her: "Have some tea!" at which point she pretty much forced a mega mug of tea on me while I looked at the menu and ordered. (when I got back to the hotel my suspicions were confirmed. I looked like who did it and ran, the rainy version)

When she handed me 2 grocery bags of food, I began to wonder if I had slaughtered the pronunciation so bad that I had ordered a feast, but since it had still only come to 12 bucks I was not concerned enough to question. It turns out it was just Pho done right. I wish I had had the foresight to take a picture of the setup, because it was f*cking deluxe, but I forgot. I was too hungry, too cold and it all smelled too delicious, which in fact it was. But she packed everything. Fish sauce, pickled peppers, jalapeños, royal basil, sprouts, veggies, tofu, something that I didn't even know about...everything except a bowl for which I really can not blame her. Even though I looked homeless she was totally within her rights to assume I probably did have a home, and dishes. It was cool though, I was able to over come and enjoy several delicious pots of soup:

coffee-ness is next to godliness

I went to bed fat, happy and warm in the middle in that way that only soup can help you do, and left the next morning for home. Flights were uneventful, except for the 2 yentas I got stuck sitting next to on the first flight. One german, one just plain crazy. The crazy one had a purse full of clippings about all the recent stories on frozen embryo property rights, and apparently either had an embryo she wanted to see made into a baby or was trying to create one - that's maybe not so crazy, the crazy part was that 1) somehow her father was involved ("I just can't bear to see his genes not live on, we're such good people!") and 2) She didn't actually want to raise the kid. ("I think my brother would probably do it, or we could find someone who would and who would let us visit") Umm. yeah. So I spent most of that flight with my headphones on, studiously avoiding eye contact and trying not to choke when she said shit like that.

I got home at about 10pm, unpacked and passed out. By 7am the next day HN and I were on the road to Jersey, leading a caravan of high school kids for a weekend of canoing. We went to the Mullica River, which was nice. The foliage was gorgeous, and you'd never have guessed we were even in Jersey which was sweet since I make a point to try to never go there. It was a decent time, but I struggled a bit with travel lag and my general disdain for teenagers. These ones were pretty tolerable as far as things go, and there were s'mores to make up for it all. HN was wise enough to get everyone their own bar of chocolate which worked out well, since there was no way I was giving up rights to mine once I opened it.

mmmm, fire.

me and my trusty steed, looking out for what lies ahead

beached for snacktime

Sunday evening involved sweatpants, a book and some french fries and yesterday was a sickeningly work-y day. No word on the farm yet, but I feel lucky. Christmas on the farm sounds so good I can't even believe it won't happen.

Macaroni and cheesing it.

So I ended up with an extra day in Boise IDAPIMP because my coworker can't do the math and must have been holding some of the wacky in his hand while counting on his fingers (3 day ground is not the same as 4 day ground, bro and I WILL tase you). The camera that was supposed to arrive yesterday, allowing me to assemble it last night and train users on it this morning and fly to Portland this afternoon instead arrived 11am today, so I put it together and trained all day today, thereby missing my Portland flight and extending my ID experience by 14 hours. When I yelled at him about this (ok, one of the times I yelled at him about this) yesterday, he told me it would work out and we would "Ham and Egg it" I didn't know then and I don't know now what the fuck that means. I told him I hate stupid ham (this is truth!) and hung up before he hurt my head by explaining further. (update: you must be kidding. This is a real expression?!)

Here's what I'm doing with my time:

-NOT going to the Basque museum. Because it is closed, but I think it's neat that there are other people here. ( I don't get out enough?) I watched some Boise public access last night, and although the Basque people do not speak English, I was still compelled and unable to look away.

-DID go to The Bardenay. Trivia: Sailors used to call cocktails Bardenays, and now, so do I. Plus my boss told me to upgrade my dinner plans last night, and my airport driver dude had mentioned the bloody Mary's there so I was inclined to try. I give it a 5 because I can't dance to it. Also, I disliked their tomato juice. But their hummus gets an 8.

-Today I saw a stoned looking gal cruising down the street. We went through 2 intersections together by happenstance, then I couldn't help but notice her conspicuous nervous glances back at me, like she thought I was following her (in my fantasy she was afeared that I was a narc. Because also in my fantasy I look Narc-y and G-Mannish in my fancy pants). So I did what any bored traveler with too much time on their hands does, and actually started following her for a bit. Good times, I'm pretty sure she hid under a car because I lost her in a parking lot. I draw the line at actually LOOKING for her, besides I had started to wonder if she was crazy not stoned (she def looked stoned though) and if it might be a bad idea to incite her further. It was fun while it lasted.

-I'm going to take a page out of HareBrained Coworkers book: make meal expressions into verbs, and then begin committing those actions. Tonight I will Mac and Cheese it. Fact: I love Mac and Cheese and I know we were meant to be together. Another Fact: I continually seek out delicious new experiences containing said ambrosia. I have been having The Craving for a couple of weeks now, and finally caved the other night when I took myself out to One World Cafe because I had googled "delicious mac and cheese baltimore" and their name came up and I love them anyway. (The MnC was a solid 7, but I thought the tomatoes were extraneous) I have also experienced Mac and Cheese wonder in Portland (The Doug Fir, and I give it a 9), and several times in Boston. So now I will add Boise to the list, as I have asked the google "where shall I go?" and I believe the google has answered. There's a fat dude downstairs at the desk, and I want to run my thoughts by him just to be sure. If he doesn't dig it, I won't waste my time. (Update: you must be kidding me again. They closed LAST WEEK) Perhaps I will Burger and Fries it. Or Samosa and Vindaloo it. I don't know, this really gums up the works. All I do know anymore is that I will be enjoying a luscious bardenay of sort.

Here's to you Idaho!

The power of positive thinking

Doesn't always work.

However, sometimes it does. And so, with that I proclaim that I refuse to believe I won't be living on a farm by Christmas. I think it would be a smashing good time, and anyone with any sense couldn't think there would be better tenants/neighbors/help than myself and HN.

So, going back a bit to the rest of the weekend:

Remember the yellowjacket's nest Star and I found in August? Well HN and I had gone looking for it at one point, but were not able to locate it. Now when I run that path with Star, she refuses to step off the path to the left, so I had pretty much stopped worrying about it, as if she wasn't going to step in it, it seemed unlikely to be our problem again. Enter Orion. Star forgot to tell Orion about the yellowjacket's nest, I forgot to care about it, and we all went for a run on that path again this weekend. Stop me if you've heard this one before.... Actually, it didn't end up as bad as the first time, because although he did find it, it was in the middle of a burst of spastic gnashing through the woods so he didn't linger and wasn't stung. I, however, was lollygagging about in just the right place at the wrong time so I did get stung. Only once, which is some consolation, but right in the neck which fucking blew- it was really quite painful! I didn't have any sort of bad reaction it, but I did have some swelling. I still have a very sexy lump/giant red area at the base of my throat, but I think it adds to my air of mystery.

I also finished - 2 out of 3 times- the quilt formerly known as the quilt for Stella Jr. I say 2 out of 3 times, because it STILL has a mistake in it, so I'm going to have to rip off the binding and do over AGAIN (have I mentioned how much I hate doing over? no? Oh, well I do. It's right up there with "practicing" on the list of things I hate to do. I want to google something, decide to do it, have it work and be done with it- this is a genetic condition inherited from the paternal side as evidenced by the belly laughs of my dad when I explain this to him)

I say the quilt formerly known as the quilt for Stella Jr because I have decided I'm keeping it. Yeah, I know: worst gift giver ever. But for something that is totally not my style, I sure have grown attached to it. I even named the puppy and used it as a lap quilt when reading this weekend. This, coupled with the fact that it needs to be done over, which will probably not happen anytime in the next month or so, justs illustrates to me that I need to decide it's mine and quit worrying about it. Stella would prefer a nice gift card to Babies R Us anyway I think.

Here's a picture, mistake carefully tucked out of sight:

Here is an up close so maybe you can see that with the help of stitch selection 39, i have sewn some very fancy straight lines:

And here's one for the "lessons learned register" (I am learning to speak PRINCE2)
It turns out, there is a concept of "straight" that also applies to the backing of the quilt. If you look at the left side, you can see I have very loosely indeed grasped this concept. Next time though, I'm all over this alleged straight business.

And now I guess I have to get to work, which makes me very sad because I am lazy and not motivated and also a little bit entitled this morning I think. Tomorrow, I conquer IDAHO!

What do...

35 acres of farmland including a pond, an old farmhouse, and 20 kind of creepy because they're empty but full of potential horse barns have in common?

Well it might be me! Hopefully. If we can work out the financials, then HN and I will be relocating to a farmhouse on a now defunct horse farm in the county. Friends of his (ours now I guess) just bought it. It is the plot that adjoins their land, and when it went on sale they couldn't risk developers buying it so they did. Now they need someone to live in the house, help with the small farm they're hoping to start up and take care of the pond. I think Star and I (and HN) are the ones for the job!

The house is more house than we need (2500SF), and would be about impossible to furnish but it has the most interesting assortment of rooms and spaces. It was constructed largely on the whims of the people living there, so there are rooms that were blatantly added onto the main structure just because someone felt like having a bathroom where there's a tub that sits on a corner of the house surrounded by windows, and that overlooks the field where the sun sets (I personally am 100% on board with this room, but it doesn't stop there)

The woman who lives there now is the most toxic person I have ever met, so it was hard to give the house a fair shake when it's filled with her obvious seething hatred and her creepy knife throwing child, not to mention their frightened illegal help, but I am a firm believer in the power of Merry Maids, white paint and eviction of said toxic party. As is our potential landlord, hence the whole situation coming about in the first place. Like I said, I won't know for sure until we talk turkey with her next week, but I'm scoping out overalls and straw hats just in case it goes well.

Houseguest

So we have a new houseguest here. He's high maintenance and pukey, but oh so friendly.

He shield star from Kitty's MUST TOUCH YOU NOW

look familiar?

He digs late night mud puddle diving and flashlight tag...

But not so much late night bathing.

Noone but Jim Lehrer should be allowed to moderate

How the HELL do you just allow someone to say "I know you asked this question about health care, but I think I want to talk about taxes instead"

The debate was so aggravating I turned it off. Palin had her list of things she wanted to talk about, for her it was a speech not a debate.

Ifill is WEAK.

What's for dinner Wednesday

Roasted Garlic potato soup
(but with way more carrots)

Rosemary Focaccia
Exercising the garlic/parmesan on top option

Oven Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Because it is fall, and I am deluxe

Saints preserve us

Or at least put us by for the winter...

Yes, it's that time of year again. It's time to get ready for whatever lame excuse for winter Baltimore has to offer me, time to preserve what the summer has brought.

I did a bit of this and that last year, mostly freezing pesto because it's easy and convenient to drop a gob into sauces, soups, etc and so on. Today I did a crapload more, I really took it to the next level kind of just to see what happens and kind of because I really am interested in putting food by.

Yesterday HN and I harvested carrots from both of our gardens. His had an obnoxious amount, because he is an obnoxious person. Ok, it had tons because he has the patience to let them alone while they grow. My style is more pull one a week while asking them if they are done yet. In the majority of the cases the answer was "No, and now you just wasted me" because if there's one thing I have learned it's that you can't unpick a carrot. Even though it seems perfectly reasonable to me to think so. They just never get over it.

Anyhooo, I did manage to get some carrots to grow to adulthood, by cleverly tricking myself. I took a bunch of carrot seeds at the beginning of the year and hid them in my herb garden, where they were most likely to grow unnoticed by me, and on the times when I did notice them it was because I was in the herb garden, already picking something so I was able to curb the urge. Gaze upon and be in awe of my harvest:

several of them would totally pass for store bought!

Added to HN's 35 large carrots and I had some sh*t to put up. For those of you who wonder, I have done it thusly:
-shredded a bunch and put them into ice cube trays for freezing. Most popular in rice pilaf, sometimes soup.
-chopped a bunch and froze in bags. V popular in soups, stir fry and the occasional casserole (shepherds pie, chicken pot pie, etc)
-cut up a bunch, cooked them in veggie broth and pureed them. This is carrot soup, just add spices etc. I kept some out and froze some in individual portions. I have a fantasy that I make bread to accompany this with dinner tonight.

Other preserveds include:
Parsley, magic bulleted with water and put into ice cube trays. Good for adding to soup. Thawed and drained can be tossed with veggies (onions and carrots) before baking.
Oregano, parsley, rosemary and basil. Magic bulleted with olive oil, also frozen in ice cube trays. For the making of delicious oven roasted potatoes. Microwave cube until thawed, toss with raw chopped potatoes, bake.
The italian gravy mix: basil and oregano magic bulleted with Olive oil. Drop one or more into sauce when cooking meatballs.
Lemon verbena and mint: Magic bulleted with water and frozen in tray. Add some to water and boil, then strain for tea and add honey. This is the shit for a hangover.
cherry tomatoes (seemingly ridiculous yes, but I grew them and I'm keeping them so fuck off) Magic bulleted and frozen in cups. Good for making delicious indian food, I do not prefer this for sauce.

The ice cube tray thing is the bomb for freezing stuff. It makes it all very manageable and allows one to decide how many to use based on what one is cooking.
I also have been known to employ this tactic for saving leftover wine (on the rare occasions when there is any) to put in soups, sauces, etc and so on. Once everything is frozen I pop it out and either put it in ziploc baggies separated by what the hell it is, or if it looks different enough that I can tell I have a monster bin in the freezer for stuff that goes ok together. I'll root around in there, grab a few of everything and drop all in the pan.

thus spake Kerry

/lesson

You are what you eat

Which should make me a delicious Alfredo's artichoke pasta today, but alas no luck there. I'm still a person and still have a job. Boo Hoo. Kitty however enjoyed his tiny scrap of Huntsman's cheddar and is right now at this very moment wrestling his second sock of the day to it's death. The first one was summarily killed and dropped at my feet. This second one is his prize though, and he apparently intends to make it suffer. I feel a bit like the dude in the Geico commercial, will try to post pics soon. Because I know what you like.

Screw you Gwyneth Paltrow!

So I'm having my coffee this am and I see some thing about how Gwyneth Paltrow is going to have a life makeover website and one of the things she says is "clean your space" Looking around, I realize I have some dishes built up, so I start to do them and then cut ANOTHER chunk of my thumb off with the veggie peeler of doom. What a crap idea!

MORE economic stimulus

I don't know what our shady governor's up to these days, but I like it. I logged in to pay my gas bill and saw this bulletin:

All residential electric customers with active accounts on 8/29/08 will receive a one-time credit of $170 on their September bill. There is no need to speak with a representative to obtain the credit. It will automatically appear on your bill. For more details, read the information below.

I don't know what's going on, but ok! That's like 3 mos of bills for me, and you know I hate paying bills.

The weekend was pretty fun, very laid back which I needed in the middle of the birth/wedding/birthday extravaganza that has been my fall.

Sat morning HN and took his niece and headed west to put her to work in the fields. She's 4, has way lots of energy and is too smart for her own good. All of these things combined make her an absolute riot on a good day, and Sat was a good day. We taught her about popping a squat if you have to pee and are in the middle of the woods. She had an interesting take on the potential for splatter, and pretty much thought completely disrobing was the way to go. We managed to keep her dress on, but shoes and scooters were neatly folded and laid out of range before she could relax and pee. Re-robing was just as interesting, as her balance is not that great so she sits down and makes a big production, all the while announcing at very high volume everything she is doing. Sorry other fruit pickers about all that information you didn't want!
Our eventual haul was 2.5 lbs of raspberries (a gorgeous mix of red and white which are really champagne colored) and 25 lbs of peaches. It sounds excessive- ok it is excessive- but we gathered that many peaches in about 10 minutes. The trees were just *throwing* peaches at you, and they were all huge and beautiful so we had issues resisting. Both HN and I use them in our smoothies though, so we just cut them up and froze them. We also sent a bunch home with the kid, as her parents are big fruity people. (ha!)

Then while walking around the neighborhood trying to discover the source of music we could hear, we found a pretty bad ass block party. There didn't seem to be any cover or invite list, so we went home, grabbed a bunch of Natty Bohs as a cover and ambled on it. It turned out to be a really good time, and there were some great bands! The Mishaps were awesome (rock keyboardist!) as were The Desert Boys. I'm not really sure how to describe them, but we were psyched we crashed and stayed. In the end, we found out that the block party was hosted by the new Pie Man. I've been wondering about the new pie store in my hood, but have not gone in yet. HN and I have tried a couple of times but keep missing their hours. After Sat, I have every intention of going to chat up the pie man. He was very cool, pretty f*cking funny, and there was a keg inside where if you knew the pie man you could go get more beer. I WILL know the pie man by the time of the next party, which hopefully will be soon. Either that or dude was just drunk talking, but he seemed ok so I think there might really be another one.

Yesterday I cooked and quilted. Just call me Martha Stewart. Sweaty Martha Stewart. It was just one of those days where you wake up and know you're going to sweat. You either spend some time in distress or just own it. I owned it, and I was not afraid. I braided my hair and let it happen. This inner peace makes spending time at the stove much easier, because it is f*cking hot over the stove and if you've already given in to the sweat, you just cook. And that's what I did. Raspberry muffins, meatballs and sauce, pasta, roasted garlic. It was deluxe.

And with that I'm off to work.

I am in SQL report nirvana

I got taught quite a neat trick today by my senior dev man about writing reports that need to display multiple columns of values comprised of cherrypicked bits of information stored in the same column in a table. Yahoo! His query is about 1/3 the length that mine was shaping up to be, and MUCH easier to manage. He may be not so thrilled he helped me though as I picked it apart, asked him 20 questions about every line and made him make me understand his logic. I think he thought writing the report was going to be the quick and painless way to get me and my item off his plate. Haha, so sorry! You've given me more fodder and I will make you live to regret it methinks. I've never met a smart person I didn't pester, but I like to think it's flattering that I recognize one's expertise at a subject, no?

I do however think I've finally wrapped my head about the concept of a join, hallelujah. I always knew how to employ them to a degree, but I never understood the left/right/theta/outer/natural bits. Now I pretty much know I never have and likely never will ever use a kind other than the natural or outer joins, but should I want to I will know how to refer to it when looking up syntax for execution. This knowledge was gained during my daily hour of knowledge increasing. Did I tell you about that? Since my mentor dude got chucked, and seemingly my approval to go for my MS cert bits went with him, I decided I have all the resources to learn this shit myself and that I would spend one hour a day just messing with stuff and learning. However, when I sat down to begin this learning I realized it had been months since I logged into my test system and I have no idea what iteration of my standard password I was using when I set it up. So the actual "setting up of the SQL Server" has to wait until I have a day to rebuild the entire machine. Instead I've gone back to the basics and have been reading a SQL book, thinking I should solidify my hacky pattern matching based foundation so that when the time comes and I do have this server up and going, I'm not wasting time trying to understand the SQL part of the instruct and can concentrate instead on the "server" and "management" parts. Bored yet?

I'm all work and no play this week, so I have nothing fun to report. Except ooooh! Did I show you this ? Check it out! New toy!

That is a picture of my eye. The dinosaur skin looking bits are the endothelial cells of my cornea, and the little charts below are automatic analyses of the counts of my cells. AWESOME. The old way they did this was to take a picture, print it, lay a graph over it, take counts from 10 areas of the graph and average it out. The new way? "Stick your head in this tube thing and push a button" Out comes the above image and Bob's your uncle! Oh the humanity!

Also in work related news, in 2 weeks the dudes from NSI are going to be going into the OR to do a tableside FA, which I find pretty exciting. We walked through some of the setup yesterday, and we're going to have a dry run next week so I can make sure everyone knows what their part will be and how many f*cking wires are going to be involved. Other than that, it's going to be awesome. If I wasn't such a pansy/fainter with all the blood I think I could score myself an invite but as it is I don't want to steal the show by passing out and landing on the patient. How embarrassing!

and with that, I'm back to my normal operations. "WFH" today, so the potential for nattering updates/time wasters is prime. Expect great things!

I'll leave you with another picture from another new toy we got at NSI. This little dude is a bit jacked up on the inside, but has normal vision and an incredible disposition. This picture is from the Canon wide angle camera, which is just the most beautiful thing I've seen in weeks. I love this camera! (note: I may have already uploaded this, but I didn't see it at a quick scan. If I did, deal)
You have to see this picture at full size to appreciate it. Dear lord, that's a nice picture.

tgif

delicious empanadas del horno

So last night HN and I were deciding what to do. He wanted to "leave the house" and I "refused".

We settled on "active quality time" and whipped out his family cookbook and made some serious work of one of his mother's traditional Chilean recipes, empanadas del horno. This is pretty much the same recipe we used, including meat, chicken, olives, eggs and raisins. It's a better combo than it sounds like (well to me anywayit sounds pretty rank), and there are a million left over. I had one for breakfast, am eating one right now, and will probably kill another one in the name of dinner. There is nothing about a hand carried pocket full of meat that I don't like. and now not only do I have another skill to add to my domestic goddess resume (now stretching into multiple pages) but we have a ton of meat and olives leftover for another one of my chilean favorite dishes, pastel de choclo. (I just realized while surfing for a good recipe that it's basically shepherd's pie from another region. Makes a lot of sense why I love it)

I could eat that stuff all day long and die happy at the end. Neither of these recipes is "right on" but both are pretty close. The ones HN has call for special Chilean spices that his mother brings up every time she comes to visit, although I think the main one is basically a mix of Oregano, Cumin, Paprika, and 2 kinds of Pepper. I should have blogged the empanadas but I didn't. I WILL take pics of the pastel though, because we're going to make it in Chilean dishes and it will be gorgeous.

respect the pants

Love

My new pants. I will take a pic of them soon



I'm not sure I would go so far as to dress them up and take them out like that brave girl, but they are f*cking comfy.

Becky, do this!

Master of "things you can do while seated" strikes again

Which is my clever way of saying I am lazy. friday was a stupid day. stupid stupid stupid. I hated it and I was glad it ended. Even gladder when I found out we had a long weekend. What a nice surprise that was, long live situational oblivion!

Friday night consisted of HN and I going out for a rather absurdly large rack of ribs at CVP, followed by me retreating to the safety and world blocking-ness of the basement. Yesterday I left the house rather briefly but was still feeling the hateful after effects of stupid friday and so I decided I was not dealing with anyone, and having the extra day in the weekend I could also refuse to take care of any chores or other responsibilities. So I spent the day at the sewing machine, simultaneously trying to work on a quilt for Nate's wife/new baby and reducing the mile high pile of fabric I have collected over the years. I had already done about a 12x45" section of the quilt and I hated it (sensing a theme here?) so yesterday I fucked around a bit and hit on something that was far more pleasing to me. I kicked the old piece to the curb and went hog wild with the other idea. Here is the work to date, which is essentially what will be the quilt's top.

Still not necessarily my bag, but she'll like it. The colors are also badly represented here.

I'm currently cooking some seriously curry lentils up, and while I wait for that I'm trying to decide if I should sew more random projects to plow through my fabric buildup (I am apparently having some issue with this these days. I am compelled to use it up), try to get together enough crap to get a quilt bottom together (I know I have it in my stash, but I'm so lazy I'm almost tempted to go buy something, but then the conscience keeps yapping about the spending embargo and "how are you going to use all your fabric up if you keep buying more"? so it's pretty much a toss up as to what I'll do).

Somehow I suspect lying on the couch moaning about being bored will win.

good lord listen to me. I should sprinkle some prozac in my lentils.

/rant

the quid pro quo is that kerry must study on her own time

someone-ME!- just got recommended by the CTO to start taking company funded courses towards getting my MS cert in SQL server management

huzzah!

more crappy cameraphone pics

Still can't find the cord and the Radio Shack near me wants 20 bucks for a card reader. F that. So here is done quilt with matching pillowcases. Because I dont know if I've mentioned it lately, but I RULE!



Edited to add a pic from a real camera. Does it even look that different ?

p.s.

I want to make this next. In these colors.

You can't make friends with salad.

Condition: Too much time on hands/lack of motivation
Symptoms: Daily blogging, mostly about nothing.

Example: see below.

So first, a bit of excitement I forgot to mention in yesterday's post. I got some QT with the CTO of my company last week, and one of the things we talked about is getting me some more DBA training, and perhaps an MS certification or 2. Our company needs a certain percentage of MS certified people to maintain our platinum hug status, and I need some more formal training with the DB stuff as my role seems to be expanding. He said I should go through the program and who am I to argue? So that should start soon, although he also gave me a couple of other books and I've been trying to have some sort of structured learning bits with that. I'm trying to do an hour a day of SQL Server school, but it's hard to motivate. I need a proper work area, which means I would have to clean my desk and get an actual chair and well, you can see the difficulty there.

The rest of my Sunday was pretty tame. Pandora continued to make sweet love to my auditory channels, and I quilted. In the afternoon HN and I went to the state fair, apparently because I am a masochist. I always think those things sound so fun until I get there and remember I hate people. The agro parts were fun, and were I to go again I would just stick with that stuff. We spent a fair bit of time at a cow beauty pageant, where the announcer was a man trained in judging livestock and impressively thorough in his assessments. Every heifer, he would tell us what he would change about a cow if he could change just one thing. i.e. "This heifer is gorgeous, she's got a relaxed gait, she's calm, her haunches are just exciting but if I could change one thing about her, I'd bring her shoulders up a bit and just square her off" There was even cow drama!

I think some of the cows it was their first time being shown, and so they were a little surly and not that well behaved, and they were all being shown by kids under 14. There was one little girl who took a head between the shoulder blades- her cow was just mean man, woah! She got a little scared (can't blame her really, that cow was totally out to get her) and some old dude stepped in to deal with her cow. Then right after her, there was another little tiny blonde girl who was walking her cow when it also flipped out, only this little miss was a no joke cowgirl in the making. She was maybe 60lbs soaking wet, a complete willow of a thing and when her cow flipped out, she just very calmly took the fucker on. It was no doubt the highlight of the day to see this little girl start to get pulled all around by this cow, then with the calmest Marlboro man cowboy face I've ever seen just dig her fucking heels right into the ground and yank right back on the cow. She wasn't mad, she wasn't scared and she was most certainly not losing control of the cow. She gave it a solid yank and had the cow bowing to her, and even though it was off in a corner happening everyone was watching her and the place went absolutely wild. Even the old stack of actual cowboys in the corner were grinning and clapping, and when one of them finally went over to grab the mad cow he gave her a solid handshake and a big pat on the back. It is TRAGIC that I didn't have my camera. But that was my fave moment of the day. Yes, I went wild in the stands at a cow show. and immediately I wonder if that's more appropriate for my inner monologue, but it's too late.

The rest of the very brief fair visit was spent wandering around the rest of the grounds, basically dodging old ladies waving corn dogs and nattering to each other while looking anywhere but forward, and weaving in an out of the gauntlet of 30 ft wide baby carriage SUVs and screaming mothers/children. Was. Too. Crowded. HN wanted to go on a ride, and since his taste runs to the upside down, spin around rides that make me vomit I got to pick, and I chose the ferris wheel. Wouldn't you know it, this is the one ride he can't deal with and he spent the entire time being very uncomfortable with the whole thing and talking about all the things that could go wrong/made him nervous about ferris wheels. Once I confirmed that he was in fact scared on the lamest of rides, but would have happily gone on the casino showdown spin/flip/motorcoach from hell I did what any good girlfriend would do and proceeded to rock the cart while taunting him. You think you know a person...

After that I started having issues with the crowds. It was just not ok, you couldn't even walk more than 5 steps without someone smashing you,stepping on you, or just stepping out in front of you and coming to a stop. I hightailed it back to the swine area, where at least the occupants have an excuse for the way they look and smell and after a little more livestock surfing we packed it in. I can say I've done that now thank you very much.

I think that's about all I have spewing around in here today. Work should be reasonably light, so I'm hoping to get out and get a card reader. This is just ridiculous, plus I want to show what I made! and I also want some of the AK pics. Part of my present from HN was he printed a bunch out and made a thing for me, and I'm tantalized so I might be motivated enough to want ot see the rest.


Cheerio motherf*ckers!