Good morning everyone. Up and trying to get caffienated. I’s TAH’red.
Today’s plans call for going out to breakfast, but to be honest, I don’t feel like it. I’d like to just stay home today.
There’s nothing much going on. The weather is rainy, typical February weather for here.
I think I’ll cruise the Dope for awhile.
I’s feeling fine, thank you! Heavy drinking the night before was definitely a contributing, Doggio but at least I was home early and in bed early. That’s the benefit of going to the pub at 4pm. Daytime drinking, got to love it.
It must be good for me because today I have done two loads of laundry plus folding and sorting what was already dry, cleaned the sink, cleaned the toilet and cleaned the bath upstairs, cleaned the kitchen sink and drainer, cleaned the cooker top, taken the duvet to the launderette after Shadow’s latest indiscretion, taken 'im indoors to a computer market, been shopping for new pillows and housekeeper cases, bought a new duvet storage thing after I broke the zip on the other one, put new pillows on the bed and disposed of the old ones, been grocery shopping, got our outfits down from the suitcase on top of the wardrobe ready for the Dead Rat Ball, taken up the hem on a pair of trousers, fed and fussed the moglings, made copious cups of tea and am now in the process of baking a pie. Oh, and did I mention that I did all the vacuuming on Friday too? And changed the bedding?
And what has ‘im indoors done all day? Gone to a computer market (driven there and back by me) and play World of Soddin’ Warcraft.
Equality in our relationship? Somehow I don’t think so. Am off to sulk in the kitchen now.
mmmm…pie. I like pie.
World of Sodding Warcraft. I’m going to start calling it that.
I’ve tidied and made a big pot of peanut-garlic-ginger bok choy with tofu and noodles which I’m going to try freezing. I’ve washed half the dishes, and I’m trying to decide what to do with my remaining two and a half hours until work.
It’s not tidy according to QD’s standards, but it’ll do.
I am happy to do all the MMP snow fort building. I am an excellent snow fort engineer.
Do tell…
BooFae, I totally agree! On Friday we started drinking at 4pm and by the time it was midnight we thought it was 3 in the morning. Had just as much fun with just as much sleep. 
Well, I’m back from the road trip, which was a total disaster. The Snakes had their winning streak stopped at 9 by Knoxville Friday night, and last night they played an absolutely awful game of hockey. It was really disappointing to see them lost to a team they have beat every prior meeting this season. They just didn’t play worth a shit. Then the loooooong ride back - I didn’t get home until 4am. I’m trying to get caffinated so I can go make myself beautiful for the "drop the puck’ before the game at 4. I just want to go back to sleep.
Afternoon, everybody. It actually got above freezing here for a few minutes. There’s hope for spring yet.
I’ve been doing nothing much exciting or even interesting. Rigs, I’d knit you a Lady Eleanor scarf for less than $360 (although not with that yarn, which would cost nearly that much by itself!), but first I have to knit myself one and make sure it’s good enough for you. Uh, yeah, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Jah, I’m using Silk Garden Lite in three different shades – I can’t remember what they are right now, but they compliment each other beatifully – because the Yarn Garden didn’t have enough of one shade for the project, and it was on a nice enough sale I didn’t want to wait and spend that much more money on it. So I’m not sure if I’ll use larger needles to get exact gauge or not worry about gauge – with a project like this, unlike a sweater or something fitted, gauge isn’t all that important, IMO, and I’ll probably be close enough for government work. Although I hit gauge perfectly with the Garter Stitch Wrap on my first try, even using a double strand of Misti Alpaca Lace instead of the recommended insanely expensive yarn, which was a pleasant surprise. I’m nearly half done with it; once I get two sections completed and sewn together, I’ll probably start photographing it for the Amazon book page. It’s really not difficult, just very time-consuming. And I’ve got to finish that scarf for Papa Tigs, too; I was making great progress on it earlier this week, and then I got sick for a couple days and starting making stupid mistakes, so I set it aside in favor of straight garter stitch, which doesn’t require as much attention. I think I’m mentally alert enough to go back to it; you’d think counting to four rows before each cable row wouldn’t be that hard, but it’s surprising how quickly I can become befuddled when I don’t feel well.
Other than knitting and more work (the story of my life), I’ve got nuthin’ else today. So everybody behave themselves and
I HOPE YOU ALL RECOVER FROM YOUR HANGOVERS QUICKLY!
Third load in the washer, second in the dryer, first waiting to be folded. Mostly a lazy day. Works for me.
That is so far beyond cool! How in the world do you come by such an event? Did the Shedd have some sort of lottery?
Just the mention of the Shedd, Adler et al, brings back memories of field trips and bumping along down the Kennedy in (what else?) a yellow school bus to go to whichever museum. I can’t remember which was longer, the lines at the Museum of Science and Industry’s Coal Mine, or their cafe. I do remember once the line at the Adler’s cafe was so slow we actually bailed and ate elsewhere.
Funny that they call them field trips, even if you don’t actually go to a field. Well, not counting the annual trip to the Field Museum.
One of these days, I need to take a week and go back to Chicago. It would have to be a week, MSI alone could consume an entire week if I wanted to see everything.
Buy tickets in advance? That’s UNAMERICAN! How elitist is that? [sub]no, we didn’t buy in advance…it’s our God given right to just be able to walk up to a museum and enter it![/sub]
Plus, the ticket thing would involve planning. Ha!
Am in Flexeril world today. That means I am slightly woozy, groggy and want a nap. My neck is no better, so perhaps I should get it looked at…
Need to read 2 chapters in my grad school text. That is sure to put me to sleep. Need to do housework, too…yeah, I’ll get right on that.
tigs, do post some pictures here, too, so we can admire your work. I wasn’t too concerned with gauge, except that I wanted to make sure I ended up with a stole instead of a cravat. It tickled me that I got stitch and row gauge, on the first try no less.
MBG, the most exciting overnight we had in school was on the C.A. Thayer. No grog, though. Overnight in an aquarium, especially the Shedd, sounds incredible.
Here’s a little tip. Bloody Marys and peanut butter sammiches do not go together. See, this morning at the reception after the baptism, we had Bloody Marys. What? We ain’t called Whiskypalians for nuttin’. There was regular ol’ church punch too. It ain’t like we likker up the kids. Anywho, there was this tray of little peanut butter finger sammiches (kids remember?) so I took one, took a bite and a swig of BM to wash it down. ICK! Never do that. Trust me. There were also little chicken salad and pimento cheese finger sammiches and other stuff plus my famous cheese crisps. ‘Twas a nice reception. Nice service too. Baptisms are always nice. Lil’ Hardy put up a bit of a howl whilst havin’ water poured over his head. It’s always so cute when that happens. Plus who could blame him? I mean, there you are and all of a sudden a complete and total stranger starts pourin’ water on your head and mommy and daddy and the grandparents are just standin’ there lettin’ it happen!!!
Spats stews, soups and chilis are easy. Do a little googlin’ and you’ll be a gourmet maker of all things stew, soup and chili before you know it. Oh and just cause you asked…
Cheese Crisps
1 eight ounce package of extra sharp cheddar cheese (sharp is also jake)
2 sticks butter (yes, real butter)
2 cups all purpose flower
1 tsp. salt (can use less or leave out)
Cayenne pepper to taste (you need some, so don’t just leave it out)
2 cups of crispy rice cereal (Notice I didn’t use any brand names)
Allow butter and cheese to soften
Cream butter, cheese, salt and cayenne pepper together. Add flour one cup at a time. Add cereal.
Pinch off little bits of dough and form into balls. Flatten with a fork.
Bake at 350 for ten to twelve minutes, until golden but not brown.
Usually makes anywhere from eight to ten dozen dependin’ on how small you roll the little balls of dough.
Not exactly cheese straws, but really I like 'em better than cheese straws. They are also a wunnerful snack food with your favorite beerverage. I sometimes make up a batch just to munch on cause they’ll keep for a few days in an air tight container and stay crisp.
Hey Spats - I finally found a recipe for stew that tastes like my momma’s used to:
1-1/2 lbs beef chuck, cubed
1 onion, coarsely chopped
2 tsp garlic, minced
1 tbs tomato paste (buy it in a tube!)
1/3 c flour
3 or 4 c chicken broth (enough to cover meat)
4 medium potatoes, cubed
4 medium carrots, sliced
2 ribs celery, chunked (I leave this out, 'cuz I don’t like it)
1-2 tbs vegetable oil for browning meat
1/2 tsp thyme or marjoram
1 or 2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp parsley (or 1 tbs fresh chopped)
Preheat the oven to 325°F. (Or skip it if using a crock pot.)
Heat a large Dutch oven over med-high heat. Add oil, and 1/2 the meat. Brown for about 4-5 minutes, remove with slotted spoon, then brown the other half of meat. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly brown. Add garlic and cook about one minute more. Add the tomato paste and stir around for a minute or so, then put the meat back in the pan. Add the flour and stir around for a minute or two. Add the broth, and bring up to a boil. Add the thyme, bay leaves and parsley. Add 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper (or to taste.) Put in the oven for around 1-1/2 hours, or in a crock pot on low for 8 hours, high for 4 hours. (I haven’t actually made this in a crock pot, FYI.) Put pot on stovetop and add potatoes and carrots and celery (yuk! ;)). Simmer for an hour more. If using crockpot, crank the heat to high and cook until carrots are fork tender - or you can try adding the veggies in the morning. They might get mushy, I don’t know. Right before serving, I add a handful of frozen peas, and let them cook about 5 minutes.
But tonight is Lasagna! Which I need to go make… Bye!
I think it was (maybe still is, you’d have to check and by “you” I don’t mean me, because I’m too lazy)m some kind of regular educational program they offer. We were there with her class (she informs me it was 4th grade, not 5th), another from her school and a class from some other school we didn’t know.
gp - if it’s been a long time since you’ve been to the MSI - plan lots and lots of time, they’ve changed things a lot. I think the last time I was there was about 5-6 years ago, and I know they’ve made more changes since - it’s a whole different place from way back when.
Ok - back from da mawl, getting some grunt work done for work, watching the Rangers handle the blackhawks on NBC - a good thing for me, as I’m the guy from Chicago that’s a Rangers fan. Go Blue!
I found some good hiking/winter boots, my old ones are at least 15-18 years old, it was time for them to retire.
Dinner will be in an hour or two, burgers of the grill. Also, it looks like I have some laundry to do.
It’s Sunday, right? Day of Rest and all that?
Mmmm, cheese crisps sound good. Thanks for the recipe. Stew sounds yumm too, Rebo.
I’ve only been to the Shedd Aquarium once, maybe 10 years ago. It was really cool. (We went during the week, so long lines weren’t a problem, as I recall.)
Still hanging out getting rid of the sniffles. It seems to be working.
I’m feeling like I might be OK for laundry in the near future… So, I’m once again watching Remington Steele eps (I’ve made it through the whole series and am re-watching now…). Seems to be what the doctor ordered today.
Back later…
GT
Why, yes, it is Sunday, mbg…so how come it’s the day when I do all my major house cleaning and laundry???
We had temps dipping down nearly to freezing over night Friday/Saturday. That made it way too nippy for moi yesterday. And of course, Mr. Anachi and I picked yesterday morning to inspect refrigerators at Appliance Direct which is a big ole unheated warehouse! And we did beacoup inspecting. See our current fridge is a 14-year-old Kenmore side-by-side with ice and water in the door. It’s becoming more and more decrepit so we are inspecting new ones. We’d like to go with a GE Profile and have actually found one that has french doors on top for Fridge and a pull out freezer on the bottom. No ice in the door but there is filtered water inside the fridge. I hated the ice in the door thing cause it just takes up way too much freezer room. Anyhoo, the problem is that when we put in the travertine floor, we kinda cut off about an inch of space for the height of any replacement and that really, really narrows the field of what will fit short of removing the cabinet over the fridge. So anyhoo, froze my hiney in the warehouse and then froze it some more in the supermarket.
I’ve pretty much stayed inside all day today because it is still cold and we are getting another cold front possible freeze tonight. There will be no grilling. Instead I’m gonna stir fry some beef surloin with broccoli, green peppers, sweet onions, and mushrooms. I have a new stir fry pan to try out.
To all you hung over folks…
LIGHT WEIGHT WEINIES!!!
swampy, you ate peanut butter sammiches made by Og knows who when the factory of the poison peanut butter is mere minutes away??? :eek: Those would be some major cajones you be sportin’ man! 
I went to the Boston Aquarium once. It was good. I also went to Sea World which is also good but in a different way.
I need to get on the the slicing and dicing for the stir fry. Looking forward to tomorrow’s MMP, fcm.
Have a good day off tomorrow alla y’all what has it off.
Tupug
The National Aquarium in Baltimore is really neato. If I lived closer, I’d have a membership. I love going there.
But not today. I just wanna get warm and cozy. I’ve already got the electric blanket pre-heating the bed - toasty!
Pizza for supper - yay! No cooking, no dishes. Life is good!!
There is an indentation on my desk.
It’s from my banging my head on it.
I’m still playing House with my PC. (Doctor, you sickos. I mean, Doctor House, Doctor Greg House. Jeez! You people have filthy minds.)
Yesterday’s fun: iTunes lost my iPod playlists and song data. Again. So I spent three hours and did it the proper way: I created smart playlists in my library to automatically sort the whole freakin’ lot automatically so I never have to deal with dragging crap into a specific playlist again. This has its drawbacks – like I can’t create a smart playlists that adds this, that and * the other* genre of music but restrict it only to songs of those genres that fit within a specific year range, because you can’t have mutually exclusive sort criterion like “any of this list of genres” along with “AND within this year range.” Each smart playlist can only pick “any” of the following criteria, or “all” of the following criteria, not “and of these AND that,” and you can’t make it “all” of the following criteria if any of the criterion are mutually exclusive. Well, whatever, fine. I had to go through all of my songs (4,000+ of them) and add genre and year information to the ones that didn’t have it, which is what took the most time. But eventually I got it sorted, then reformatted my iPod and copied all the smart playlists over. Voila! All music restored and automatically sorted into their playlists. Now if this crap happens again it won’t be nearly as much of a headache. Sweet!
But then, in trying to fix the problem with my fonts, I somehow ended up making some of the dialog boxes on my system LOOK ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE. Seriously, they could be seen from space. Take a look at this Photoshop “save as” dialog, this login window to my mail client and this properties window for ObjectDock. No, I didn’t enlarge them. Photobucket shrunk them from my 1680x1050 desktop resolution. That’s what they looked like. I spent hours trying to figure it out before finally saying “sod it all to hell” and doing a WinXP repair install. I was up 'til 6am doing this crap.
Today’s fun: Hard disk problems. Boot problems. Reboots trying to enter safe mode. Two of my three hard drives couldn’t be seen. My PocketPC wouldn’t connect. More hours spent troubleshooting, examing every angle, before finally digging out my motherboard CD and reinstalling the nForce SATA and IDE drivers as well as the network drivers. That, finally, solved it.
There may still be more problems to come but so far, I think I’ve got the majority of it sorted to my satisfaction – at least to the point where the system is running.
Now I need to go spackle the crater in my desk.
Yeah, those look a little bit larger than normal, Mork.
Sounds like you’re buying from a similar place as I did, Puggy. I had really limited choices too because the fridge has to live in a really small place, but I’m happy with what I bought.
Gonna go have some lentil soup for dinner.
Back later…
GT
