swampus I am third generation removed from the South on both sides of the family. I am not acquainted with any of my Southern cousins, but my Auntie has been doing research on Mom’s side of the family, and I have been trying to get information to do the same on my Father’s side. I do know from family stories that my Great-Great Grandfather was a plantation owner in (I believe) South Carolina, and I remember my Great Grandfather rather vaguely from my childhood. His name was Charles Monroe Johnston, I’m not certain what my Great-Great Grandfather’s name was, but he came over from Scotland one jump ahead of the law, and when he got here he cunningly changed his surname to avoid the law. The big change was to drop the “e” from Johnstone. (My ancestors were not rocket scientists!) In doing research there were a lot of Scots, with the last names of both Johnston and Johnstone in the South around that time, so…who knows? I find the entire puzzle fascinating, and I surely do love me some down home cooking!
Oh, and I tease my friend about her Everquest addiction, been calling it Evercrack for a couple of years. I suppose that Jigcrack or the Crackzone might be appropriate!
bobbio I wish the local paper would archive photos, there is a guy a few blocks away who, with the help of his extended family, made three ginormous snowmen in his yard last week! Easily as large as the one from Anchorage. Here is an article focusing mostly on the plight of the deer right now, but it also tells about our temperatures and snowfall so far. No registration needed: kodiakdailymirror.com | Local news for Alaska's Emerald Isle
Thanks for the wishes BooFae, I am up because the skiffman is tossing around in the bed like a halibut which has just been yanked from the water, and my back just cannot take it. I will nap as soon as he begins to stir for the day. He has to go down to the boat and get the halibut and octopus anyway, and if I have to wrangle a large octopus he had best get it home early in the day! I have some deer stew meat thawed out, but I think I will make a crock pot stew Monday and we’ll have halibut and octopus for dinner today…yum!
I think I am gonna pop a movie in and see if I can relax, I’ll catch y’all in a few hours. Happy Sunday!
After a night of weird dreaming - too weird to attempt to chronicle here - I’m up. The critters have been tended to and **FCD ** is snoring away still.
I echo the earlier question of who starts tomorrow? Did someone volunteer in the past that we forgot, or is it at last dogbutt’s chance to post his twice-precluded OP?? The tension is unbearable - I must know!!!
Speaking of MMP starters, just for giggles, I did a search - **Rue ** hasn’t popped in since early October. I think he doesn’t love us any more. I, for one, am weeping copiously at his absence. No really - copiously! You should see it - it’s a copious pity!
Plans for the day, you ask?? Well, our cell phone contract is nearly expired, so we’re going to pop in to the Cingular place and take care of that. Then I want to run down to the Shoppers Food Warehouse and see if they have anything I want/need. I also have some laundry that need laundering, and some ceramics that need some attention. Plus my houseplants would probably appreciate some water. I think I can find ways to fill my time.
So don’t fret about me - I’ll be fully occupied, not getting into trouble.
**Bobbio ** - dang and yay - hope the insurance company doesn’t give you a lot of grief. Your fridge looked familiar - I must have encountered a similar one somewhere along the line… The memories are struggling to erupt.
IIRC LemmeOut was volunteered for this week’s MMP, but then Mama Tigs reminded everyone that it was her turn, so Lemme was volunteered for tomorrow. So, doggio may once more have competition…
I’m grateful I don’t have an icemaker. One less thing to start a fire. That sounds scary, Bobbio.
I dreamt about puzzles too. I forget about JigZone from time to time because of its very addictiveness. I’m below average too, doggio.
JigZone apparently does not like my older version of Safari or Firefox. It sort of likes IE, but on VirtualPC, IE is slower than a tortoise moving backwards thru January molasses. So I will have to waint until I upgrade to play with JigZone.
My friend just called. She said she feels much better about everything because this oncologist treated her like a human being (the previous one treatd her like a lab specimen) and even tho she still has to go thru the second procedure, 6 weeks of radiation, then 5 years of a particular chemo drug, she is not nearly as freaked out as she had been.
I’m feeling awfully lazy today. I put on 7 pounds over the Christmas binge eating season which I’ve vowed to start reducing ASAP, but I have just enough of a nagging head cold that going to the gym right now would be an exercise in mucous, which I’m sure the folks on the adjacent elliptical machine would not appreciate…
So, perhaps just a nice power walk all by meeself later.
There’s football on later, and the Wife has decreed that I need to produce a dinner with high leftover-potential. I predict I will soon get my butt off the couch to the grocery store to find a suitable hunk of dead animal and root veggies to stuff the crock pot with.
Right now, she’s got an energy surge and is cleaning up my kitchen, washing down the stove top, emptying old [del]science projects[/del] food out of the fridge and such. It would be rude for me to alert the local media to this sensation, but I am marvelling in the domesticity which has engulfed her this morning. I think I’ll just sit and observe for a bit.
doggio and gt I don’t even compare my time against the average time for fear it would tell me I took longer than ten trained poo flinging bonobos to do the puzzle.
Back from church and brunch and Parish meeting. Today was elections to the Vestry day. I’m officially off the church Vestry since my three year term is up as of today’s election. The last official act of the off-going Vestry members is to hand out, collect and count ballots and announce the newly elected members.
Heh! I said “members”. Heh!
ACBG is working today, poor thing. I am feeling sleepified after eating a biiiiiiiiiiig brunch. I brought a sweet potato casserole which got all et up, so I’m proud.
Good morning everyone. I stayed in bed til late today, but I didn’t get much sleep. I went to bed at 1:30 a.m., but I think I really only got a couple hours of sleep overall. My back is killing me so I had to get up. Between the hubby, the dog, and the fact that the mattress is just not for me, I got out of bed like some 120 year old woman.
Bobbio, I’m sorry to hear you’re still dealing with the freezer mess. I’m glad things weren’t more serious and there wasn’t more damage.
It is rainy and icky out again. Another storm blew in last night and it times it was raining so hard that it woke me up.
Nothing exciting going on in the household today. Plans include laundry, cleaning, and finally de-Christmasing. Yes, I should have had the decorations down already, but I just didn’t feel like dealing with them. We also need to take the lights down from outside the house, but due to today’s weather, I don’t think it’s going to happen.
I need to make CAWFEE. Good gried, I need some go-juice in the very worst way.
Back from errand-running. First load of laundry in the machine. Lunch has been et and I’m going to spend the balance of the day cooking - prepping stuff for lunches at work this week. We’re trying to eat better, so that means a bit more work on my part.
One of our errands was to Cingular. **FCD ** has a new RAZR which he’s playing with now. I didn’t want to get a new phone - there’s nothing wrong with mine, I hardly use it, and I know how to do what I need with it, so why bother getting new bells-n-whisltes?
Anyway, off to the kitchen with me. I’m so domestical!
Did I post here that I wasn’t going to buy any yarn this year, and that I would be knitting from my stash? Yeah, that worked. Hey, I made it a whole week! What’s worse is that for all the money I spent, I have a very small bag to show for it. Silk’s expensive! I bought some “yarn” made out of pineapple fiber. It’s a bit strange, but I bought it for a knitting pal who wanted to try some unusual plant fiber yarns. Did you know that stainless steel yarn is surprisingly soft? It’s very elegant, too, in shades ranging from off-white to black. The black is rather sparkly. It would make a great scribble scarf or shawl. (Scribble is very fine yarn, knit on very large needles, with a row every now and then of a very thick yarn.)
Then I went to Safeway, because I needed sweet pickles. I love dill pickles, but for a proper cheese sandwich, sweet pickles, not bread and butter, not sweet gherkins, sweet pickles are required. That, and mustard. Yum! I love grocery shopping in a college store. They buy the oddest things (says the woman buying a jar of sweet pickles.) The gentleman ahead of me was purchasing a 30 pack of soft taco tortillas, a package of chorizo, a dozen eggs, some tomatoes and a can of sliced potatoes. Brunch for the hungover! But - canned potatoes? I suppose they’re not any different from frozen, but for some reason, the thought of canned potatoes sets off my ick-o-meter. Or maybe it was the tabloid pictures of various actress’s cellulite. (Confidential to the tabloids: many women have cellulite, it’s genetic, it has nothing to do with weight, there’s nothing they can do about it, get over it.) It’s distinctly creepy to me that someone would follow you around, and take close ups of your flaws for publication, while you’re on vacation and presumably enjoying yourself. Especially when next week, they’ll probably be screaming about how OMG THIN you are. Either that or Baby Bump?!?! :rolleyes: I’m beginning to think there might be something in the thought that taking a picture steals a piece of your soul.
Canned potatoes are icky. They smell off, somehow.
I’ve been to the grocery store, and bought vittles for the week. I slept late, so we skipped breakfast and had leftover hot dogs for lunch. (I slept late because the afore-mentioned crack kept me up until after 2:00 am!)
Tonight we are going to have soft chicken tacos, refried beans from the pot of beans I made last week, and Spanish rice. I spent a bundle of money though! Everything was on sale, it seemed. I bought chicken legs, pot roast, baby back ribs, salmon - all kinds of stuff. My (extra) freezer is getting full…
Can I just mention that I knew about Jigzone, but didn’t want to be accused of being a pusher so I didn’t mention it with the other crossword reference???
I’m back from my nap and [del]crack[/del] JigZone. Lemmie you still doin’ tomorrow’s MMP? We gotta have one you know. If not, then I believe doggydude has one in reserve. We’re not sure if he or Lucretia wrote it but one of these days we wanna see it.
swampy, I think Lemmie ceded MMP-start-up rights to Owned by Maggie and Lucretia since his MMP has been in reserve for quite some time…
However, I feel it is my duty to point out that being a newbie is no excuse for bowing out of starting the MMP. A complete and total stranger (who hasn’t been seen again, I don’t believe) hijacked the MMP sometime in the last year (froggerworldchamp or something like that was the name; I’m too lazy to verify) and our own bbs2K started an MMP shortly after becoming a regular. So, don’t think we’ll be letting you off due to newness.
All that yarn sounds very cool, Jahdra. I’d have a hard time not buying it as well, if I actually knitted.
Also, canned potatoes are just generally wrong. I can’t even tell you why I’ve ever eaten them (maybe at aomeone’s house?), but I remember that the texture was all wrong.
Exciting day so far: church, brunch (yum!), library, bookstore (looking for decent resume-writing books so that my resume looks fresh and appealing; I haven’t written an actual resume of my own in about 15 years), grocery stores.
Now I’m thinking about making some soup for the week and actually working on my resume.
Probably I’ll also be held captive by JigZone longer than planned.
Ack! An icemaker fire? One more reason for me to be glad we chose the fridge we did. Neither of us use much ice, and we’d have to plumb a water line across the room. I shopped and shopped and shopped, and finally decided to get a ‘fridge only’ unit for in the kitchen. Really wanted the matching set, but didn’t have the room. So, if you want ice at my house, you gotta walk 15 more feet to the back room, and get ice from a container in the chest freezer. Which apparently is too much trouble for some folks.
My freezer needs cleaned out, too. How is it that they get full of junk all by themselves? I threw out some sticky popsicles for the squirrels and birds yesterday, and they didn’t even appreciate them.
Supper. Need to play freezer roulette. Maybe I’ll make myself finish cleaning it out while I’m in there. Brrrr.
