Martha as in the crazy lady on tv.
I've been quite crafty and culinary recently. I've surprised even myself. I have my hat about ready for Dragon*Con I am going as the main character from Terry Pratchett's youth lit book The Wee Free Men and will even have some NacMacFeegle on top of my hat. I may post a pic in Nudge Nudge whenever I get it completely completed.
I've started on this year's Christmas card design!
I've also been trying new recipes recently. I have a goal of adding at least 4 new quick, easy, few ingredients needed and also quite tasty recipes to my everyday collection before the end of the year. So far out of all I've tried only two have met all of those criteria - Yum Getti and Teriaki Chicken Packets.
Day before yesterday, I made use of the bananas that hadn't been eaten as quickly as we had anticipated by making Banana Nut muffins.. and (and this is the kicker with me) I even tried substituting ingredients! They are made with Splenda rather than sugar and have almonds instead of walnuts! This may not seem like a big deal to some of you out there. But I'm a by the book kinda girl when it comes to cooking because frankly I'm not very good at it and going "off book" can have disastrous results. But this time it turned out well. The substitution of nuts is due to my rather odd development of an allergy to walnuts and pecans over the past couple of years. Which is just terribly unfortunate to me as I absolutely love both walnuts and pecans.
And tonight, would you believe it, I have continued in Martha mode to the benefit of my dog. I've always been fond of taking Sasha to the Natural Pet Supply store to buy her an ice cream, after a hot walk. But unfortunately for Sasha, the NPS is in JC and since we have discovered a closer and nicer walking trail in KPT we no longer are anywhere near the NPS. Plus $1.79 is just a bit much to buy your dog a treat. But worry no more about the Sasha Dog's lack of cooling treat after a hot walk, because I have found a cost effective alternative. Thanks to a wonderful website that I can no longer find, I found a recipe for Puppy Ice Cream.. and even better it is Peanut Butter flavored! Her favorite! So tonight I bought the $2 container of plain yogurt and brought it home, combined it with a cup full of melted peanut butter* and then poured that concoction into icecube trays and a couple of little plastic containers and froze it. You have never seen a happier pooch. And we are set with PupCream for weeks. If you have a hot dog on your hands during this squeltering summer, I suggest trying it.
* I did not know that you could melt peanut butter until tonight! This is dangerous information to come into my hands because not only am I lover of batters and doughs but I am also a lover of PB. I may be melting it and pouring it over various things now that I have this knowledge. Imagine it! Hershey bars with PB poured over the top. Decorated cracker cakes! Bananas laced in facinating patterns with melted PB! Muhahahahaha!
I don't know what has gotten into me. Is it my goal oriented nature pushing me toward finding those 4 new criteria fitting recipes that has me trying new and different things? Is it the books I've been reading? The blogs? (it very well could be Inkling she's been very Martha recently herself.) Whatever it is, I hope I get in Martha cleaning mode next because we could really use it.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Pondering of the Day: It's all about the dough
"Will work for dough"
That should be my sign.
I love dough. Yeah that green stuff that you can spend is nice, but I'm talking about the baked (or rather not-baked) stuff. My mother and husband fuss at me all the time & I realize it is not a healthy habit to eat stuff that is yet to be cooked. But oh I love it so. Cookie dough, biscuit dough, yeast dough.. you name it and if it is a dough, I probably like it.
Perhaps I was the Pop N' Fresh in a past life.
But it doesn't stop at doughs. I like batters too. I can take or leave the finished products but offer me dough or batter and I just can't resist. What is it about these confections that I like so well? Does the mischievousness that comes with sneaking bites of it play a role in how well it tastes? Or is it fond memories of licking beaters and cleaning bowls that give it an addictive quality?
Why don't I like things cooked? I like most vegetables better uncooked than cooked too, with the exception of squash. But carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus (yes I've eaten it straight out of the garden), even lima beans - I like better raw than cooked. Green beans I like better cooked but lima beans are just plane tasty raw. I like corn and potatoes better cooked too but I don't count them because they are starches. Fruits are no different - with the exception of blackberries - I don't like fruits cooked as well as I like them raw either. Give me a fresh apple and I'll chow down. Bake it and I'll still eat it, but not as readily. Give me a fresh tomato and I'll eat it with pleasure, but stew or cook it in any way and I'll turn up my nose. Could this persuasion toward raw food come from the walks with my grandfather in his garden, where we'd walk through the rows around time for harvest and he'd pick various produce and slice off a piece with his pocket knife and let me have a taste of the food fresh from the ground/vine/tree/or stalk? Does this inclination hail back to primitive man?
And why is it that I like so much that is raw but can't find a single kind of Sushi that I like?
What causes such an unusual taste? Is it my subconscious? A chemical imbalance? Or is it just one of the quirky things that make me - me? I'm sticking with the latter as my answer. I know a girl who eats Mustard on tuna...both of which I find disgusting. To me that is odd. What odd things do you eat?
And if you hadn't already guessed... I made cookies tonight. What else would bring about a whole blog entry on the wonders of dough
That should be my sign.
I love dough. Yeah that green stuff that you can spend is nice, but I'm talking about the baked (or rather not-baked) stuff. My mother and husband fuss at me all the time & I realize it is not a healthy habit to eat stuff that is yet to be cooked. But oh I love it so. Cookie dough, biscuit dough, yeast dough.. you name it and if it is a dough, I probably like it.
Perhaps I was the Pop N' Fresh in a past life.
But it doesn't stop at doughs. I like batters too. I can take or leave the finished products but offer me dough or batter and I just can't resist. What is it about these confections that I like so well? Does the mischievousness that comes with sneaking bites of it play a role in how well it tastes? Or is it fond memories of licking beaters and cleaning bowls that give it an addictive quality?
Why don't I like things cooked? I like most vegetables better uncooked than cooked too, with the exception of squash. But carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus (yes I've eaten it straight out of the garden), even lima beans - I like better raw than cooked. Green beans I like better cooked but lima beans are just plane tasty raw. I like corn and potatoes better cooked too but I don't count them because they are starches. Fruits are no different - with the exception of blackberries - I don't like fruits cooked as well as I like them raw either. Give me a fresh apple and I'll chow down. Bake it and I'll still eat it, but not as readily. Give me a fresh tomato and I'll eat it with pleasure, but stew or cook it in any way and I'll turn up my nose. Could this persuasion toward raw food come from the walks with my grandfather in his garden, where we'd walk through the rows around time for harvest and he'd pick various produce and slice off a piece with his pocket knife and let me have a taste of the food fresh from the ground/vine/tree/or stalk? Does this inclination hail back to primitive man?
And why is it that I like so much that is raw but can't find a single kind of Sushi that I like?
What causes such an unusual taste? Is it my subconscious? A chemical imbalance? Or is it just one of the quirky things that make me - me? I'm sticking with the latter as my answer. I know a girl who eats Mustard on tuna...both of which I find disgusting. To me that is odd. What odd things do you eat?
And if you hadn't already guessed... I made cookies tonight. What else would bring about a whole blog entry on the wonders of dough
Friday, July 21, 2006
Summer Lessons
I appologize for not posting. I'm sure I am due for a good fussing at. But it has been busy.
And hot. We cannot forget to mention the heat.
But yet I have still spent a bit of time outside. I actually managed to grow vegetables which amazes me. Granted they were hybrid veggies because no one informed me until after the fact that one should not plant cucumbers right next to squash or they will cross polenate, creating the oddly shaped "squashcumbers" and "cucumquash". They still tasted good though, they were merely oddly shaped, and did not produce long.
We have been greatly blessed with summer beauty and lessons from the land this year. Some have been more welcome than others. The more welcome ones have been blackberries spontaneously growing along our fence row. I say spontaneously because I did not plant them. Aren't they pretty against the background of the green fields?
They are wild blackberries, you have to get pricked by them a bit to pick them, and you have to watch for snakes and ward off chiggers while you pick them, but once they've been in the oven they make a very sweet dessert. There is a lesson there somewhere, but I can't seem to verbalize it. All I know is that it gives me hope for my wild friends.
Another blessing has been the fireflies. Oh how I love sitting on the deck and watching them. They put on their own little fireworks show in the grove of trees down by our house. It's quiet an cooler at night and as long as you have citronella burning nearby you can ward off the squarms of mosquitos. Watch the lightening bugs blink morse code while kamakazi beetles throw themselves agains the patio door.
Then of course there are the not so wonderful things of summer, like ants.
I hate sugar ants and we have been fighting a long hard battle with them this year. We spray - they go away, but then they come back and each time they seem to be in greater quantities. We just keep finding places and plugging places where they could be coming in. I have confidence that at some point we will get them licked.
We also have bore witness to the evolutionary concept of "survival of the fittest". Unfortunately not all the offspring of our bird friends have been fittest against the maurading cats of the neighborhood. I wouldn't mind the cats exploring their natural side, if only they would eat the whole thing. Rather than eating the innards and leaving the carcus to become perfume for our dog. Why dogs find fowl (pardon the pun I couldn't resist) decaying birds particularly inticing to roll in I will never understand. But thanks to the number of nests we've spotted in our trees & bushes we've taken to doing sweeps of the yard when we take the dog out to make sure nothing is decaying nearby for her to roll in. It is not a pleasant job, but it is more pleasant than washing the dog after she has "perfumed" herself.
We've also encountered an object lesson in our yard. One that makes the Bible's lesson hit home. We have a grapevine in our tree. We did not grow it. It is the overgrown creation of our neighbors. To our knowledge the grapevine has never been pruned. From what we can tell it started on the arbor next door, overtook a tree, and is now growing in the tree's branches. Dropping sour grapes on our head as we walk through. I wouldn't mind them growing onto our property so much if they were grapes we could pick and enjoy. But just as the Bible warns us that we have to be puned to produce good fruit, so does a grapevine. It is no wonder it is used as an illustration. It does produce fruit. Big bunches of grapes hang from the limbs and bop us on the head every time we mow. But they never ripen. They never become good fruit, because they were never puned. They just turn brown and then make a mess. We've sinced trimmed them back so that they do not drop into our yard. But I thought I'd share the visual with you as well as a reminder. We should rejoice in being pruned, and not be sour. Because no one wants to fall off the vine and be squished by lawn mowers or dog feet. It's much better to be made into something sweet and tastey, even when you are in a jam.
the grapes up close but blurry
More later and hopefully sooner than last time.
Z
And hot. We cannot forget to mention the heat.
But yet I have still spent a bit of time outside. I actually managed to grow vegetables which amazes me. Granted they were hybrid veggies because no one informed me until after the fact that one should not plant cucumbers right next to squash or they will cross polenate, creating the oddly shaped "squashcumbers" and "cucumquash". They still tasted good though, they were merely oddly shaped, and did not produce long.
We have been greatly blessed with summer beauty and lessons from the land this year. Some have been more welcome than others. The more welcome ones have been blackberries spontaneously growing along our fence row. I say spontaneously because I did not plant them. Aren't they pretty against the background of the green fields?
They are wild blackberries, you have to get pricked by them a bit to pick them, and you have to watch for snakes and ward off chiggers while you pick them, but once they've been in the oven they make a very sweet dessert. There is a lesson there somewhere, but I can't seem to verbalize it. All I know is that it gives me hope for my wild friends.
Another blessing has been the fireflies. Oh how I love sitting on the deck and watching them. They put on their own little fireworks show in the grove of trees down by our house. It's quiet an cooler at night and as long as you have citronella burning nearby you can ward off the squarms of mosquitos. Watch the lightening bugs blink morse code while kamakazi beetles throw themselves agains the patio door.
Then of course there are the not so wonderful things of summer, like ants.
I hate sugar ants and we have been fighting a long hard battle with them this year. We spray - they go away, but then they come back and each time they seem to be in greater quantities. We just keep finding places and plugging places where they could be coming in. I have confidence that at some point we will get them licked.
We also have bore witness to the evolutionary concept of "survival of the fittest". Unfortunately not all the offspring of our bird friends have been fittest against the maurading cats of the neighborhood. I wouldn't mind the cats exploring their natural side, if only they would eat the whole thing. Rather than eating the innards and leaving the carcus to become perfume for our dog. Why dogs find fowl (pardon the pun I couldn't resist) decaying birds particularly inticing to roll in I will never understand. But thanks to the number of nests we've spotted in our trees & bushes we've taken to doing sweeps of the yard when we take the dog out to make sure nothing is decaying nearby for her to roll in. It is not a pleasant job, but it is more pleasant than washing the dog after she has "perfumed" herself.
We've also encountered an object lesson in our yard. One that makes the Bible's lesson hit home. We have a grapevine in our tree. We did not grow it. It is the overgrown creation of our neighbors. To our knowledge the grapevine has never been pruned. From what we can tell it started on the arbor next door, overtook a tree, and is now growing in the tree's branches. Dropping sour grapes on our head as we walk through. I wouldn't mind them growing onto our property so much if they were grapes we could pick and enjoy. But just as the Bible warns us that we have to be puned to produce good fruit, so does a grapevine. It is no wonder it is used as an illustration. It does produce fruit. Big bunches of grapes hang from the limbs and bop us on the head every time we mow. But they never ripen. They never become good fruit, because they were never puned. They just turn brown and then make a mess. We've sinced trimmed them back so that they do not drop into our yard. But I thought I'd share the visual with you as well as a reminder. We should rejoice in being pruned, and not be sour. Because no one wants to fall off the vine and be squished by lawn mowers or dog feet. It's much better to be made into something sweet and tastey, even when you are in a jam.
the grapes up close but blurry
More later and hopefully sooner than last time.
Z
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Picture Pages, Picture Pages..
Picture Pages, Picture Pages
Time to get you Picture Pages
Time to get your crayons
And your Pencils!
Picture Pages, Picture Pages
Open up your Picture Pages
Time to let Bill Cosby do a Picture Page with you!
yeah... that's been going through my head for most of today. You see I have discovered that I have a problem. I am in love with pictures. That part isn't terribly surprising. I'm fairly sure none of you are sitting there in shock at that statement. I think it is fairly obvious that I'm a fairly visually oriented person. It is my secondary learning style. If I'm not learning kinetically (through doing) I'm learning visually by watching. I'm not the girl who reads instructions.. I'm the girl who looks at the diagrams and tries to figure it out on my own (which bless his heart, drives poor DH crazy). So it is not surprising that pictures have a powerful impact on me.
But oh what an impact they have.
Normally, I'm a fairly organized person. I don't typically keep clutter. I enjoy sorting and reorganizing. Clearing away the old to make way for the new. Clean Sweep has nothing on me, I've been doing that for years. I try not to build a bond between myself and things. Things can be replaced it is people that matter. But there are two areas in which I am a horrible pack rat. The first area is with letters - hand written, sincere forms of communication that I can't bear to part with because it is like I can hear the conversation over and over again word for word. I'm not terribly bad about letters. I only keep the ones that say something I want to remember. But my worst area of pack ratism (I may be developing my own word there, I do that some times if the ones that already exist don't suit me) is pictures, otherwise known as photographs.
I've worked in them all day, because once again my collection outside of the albums had grown to almost unmanageable size. I'm also usually good about putting them into albums as soon as I receive them... but a discovery of several deteriorating lost albums from my youth made my collection of unsorted, unlabeled photos grow by leaps and bounds. My albums are huge now. I have 5, you see. One filled with pictures of family - mine and DH's,One filled with our childhood pictures - through the time we got together, engaged and married, another with pictures of friends old and new and our get togethers with them, one of our life over the past 4 year post marriage, and of course the usual wedding/honeymoon album. I'm about to start a new album just of pictures of my best friend and her family.
I've worked all day and part of yesterday on it and I've still got a long way to go. I am slightly overwhelmed by pictures. And that is when I realized I have a problem. Why am I keeping all of these? I pondered. Who will care about these but me? I ask.
I don't look at my grandmother's old albums... but that's because I don't know who the people in the pictures are or how they related to her. But I do love looking at friends albums with them, and seeing pictures that other people post, because they are able to tell me what the pictures are of and what their significance is. I like knowing the stories behind pictures. And that answers it all right there. I keep the pictures because I care about the stories. All the people in my albums have stories. And I tell them through pictures and words. I've decided that if anyone picks up my albums they will know who the people are. Beside each set of pictures I write who they are, how I know them, what we've done together, what they've meant in my life and where (if I know) they are now. I don't know if anyone will care later on. But for now I care. I discovered in finding the old disintegrating albums that I have pictures of people I don't remember anymore. I don't want to forget the people that I have in my albums now. I don't want to forget their stories and why I chose to capture that moment in time.
If fascinates me how many of the stories intertwine. Say it is because I'm from a smallish town.. say it's because it's a small world but no matter what you say it is still fascinating. I have photos of friends who ran in the same circles in elementary school but no longer keep in touch with each other but keep in touch with me and are doing practically the same thing for a living. I have pictures of friends who didn't know each other when the photos were taken but who are now close friends. I have pictures taken when a friend was just a friend and now that friend is my sister's niece's step-father. I have pictures of Me and pictures of DH at the same Civil War reenactment more than 10 years before we met or lived anywhere near each other. I pictures of a group of friends who were all dating other people at the time the photo was taken but now two are married to each other and another two are in a serious relationship. It's really very interesting. Who knows if one day my nieces or perhaps even my future child will bring home a person with a familiar last name and I'll be able to say "I was friends with your ______ way back when" and have the photos to prove it.
I love being able show my godchild pictures of her mom and I when we were her age. To show her that we were just as silly, tried to be just as cool, and tried all sorts of crazy things too. I love giggling at what we were wearing and how our hair was. I love comparing people when they were small with pictures of their children. I love looking at pictures of me and my friends when we were young and doing some activity while knowing what they do for a living now. How prophetic pictures seem sometimes.
I use to have a photography professor who would get onto us for pointing at our people in our photos during critique and referring to them by name. He would say "That is not 'dad' or 'my sister' - that is silver on paper. You've got to look at it that way or else you will never be able to let go of your bad work and move on to make better works of art!" I remember those words of wisdom, but perhaps that is why I was never very good at photography. To me photography isn't art work.. it can be.. but for the most part for me photography is still magic more than medium. It is little moments frozen in time. I love freezing time. I don't live in the past but I like to glance back at it. I love the memories photographs trigger and how I can relive moments without altering the course of history by accident. To me photography is the best time machine! I love seeing objects long since gotten rid of and forgotten. I love seeing rooms in the background that are completely different than they use to be. I love having family members kept alive just as I remember them in a photograph... I may never see them again, but when I look at that photo all the memories of how they looked, smelled and sounded come right back. I treasure my pictures.
How could I ever through that stuff away. I did throw away the pictures of people I didn't remember, and the pictures I had duplicates of. And I try not to be too attached to my albums. I know deep down they are only silver on paper. But one day I may have a room full of shelves of photo albums. And if I do I hope that someone will enjoy them, but if they don't I hope they know what enjoyment they bring me.
Time to get you Picture Pages
Time to get your crayons
And your Pencils!
Picture Pages, Picture Pages
Open up your Picture Pages
Time to let Bill Cosby do a Picture Page with you!
yeah... that's been going through my head for most of today. You see I have discovered that I have a problem. I am in love with pictures. That part isn't terribly surprising. I'm fairly sure none of you are sitting there in shock at that statement. I think it is fairly obvious that I'm a fairly visually oriented person. It is my secondary learning style. If I'm not learning kinetically (through doing) I'm learning visually by watching. I'm not the girl who reads instructions.. I'm the girl who looks at the diagrams and tries to figure it out on my own (which bless his heart, drives poor DH crazy). So it is not surprising that pictures have a powerful impact on me.
But oh what an impact they have.
Normally, I'm a fairly organized person. I don't typically keep clutter. I enjoy sorting and reorganizing. Clearing away the old to make way for the new. Clean Sweep has nothing on me, I've been doing that for years. I try not to build a bond between myself and things. Things can be replaced it is people that matter. But there are two areas in which I am a horrible pack rat. The first area is with letters - hand written, sincere forms of communication that I can't bear to part with because it is like I can hear the conversation over and over again word for word. I'm not terribly bad about letters. I only keep the ones that say something I want to remember. But my worst area of pack ratism (I may be developing my own word there, I do that some times if the ones that already exist don't suit me) is pictures, otherwise known as photographs.
I've worked in them all day, because once again my collection outside of the albums had grown to almost unmanageable size. I'm also usually good about putting them into albums as soon as I receive them... but a discovery of several deteriorating lost albums from my youth made my collection of unsorted, unlabeled photos grow by leaps and bounds. My albums are huge now. I have 5, you see. One filled with pictures of family - mine and DH's,One filled with our childhood pictures - through the time we got together, engaged and married, another with pictures of friends old and new and our get togethers with them, one of our life over the past 4 year post marriage, and of course the usual wedding/honeymoon album. I'm about to start a new album just of pictures of my best friend and her family.
I've worked all day and part of yesterday on it and I've still got a long way to go. I am slightly overwhelmed by pictures. And that is when I realized I have a problem. Why am I keeping all of these? I pondered. Who will care about these but me? I ask.
I don't look at my grandmother's old albums... but that's because I don't know who the people in the pictures are or how they related to her. But I do love looking at friends albums with them, and seeing pictures that other people post, because they are able to tell me what the pictures are of and what their significance is. I like knowing the stories behind pictures. And that answers it all right there. I keep the pictures because I care about the stories. All the people in my albums have stories. And I tell them through pictures and words. I've decided that if anyone picks up my albums they will know who the people are. Beside each set of pictures I write who they are, how I know them, what we've done together, what they've meant in my life and where (if I know) they are now. I don't know if anyone will care later on. But for now I care. I discovered in finding the old disintegrating albums that I have pictures of people I don't remember anymore. I don't want to forget the people that I have in my albums now. I don't want to forget their stories and why I chose to capture that moment in time.
If fascinates me how many of the stories intertwine. Say it is because I'm from a smallish town.. say it's because it's a small world but no matter what you say it is still fascinating. I have photos of friends who ran in the same circles in elementary school but no longer keep in touch with each other but keep in touch with me and are doing practically the same thing for a living. I have pictures of friends who didn't know each other when the photos were taken but who are now close friends. I have pictures taken when a friend was just a friend and now that friend is my sister's niece's step-father. I have pictures of Me and pictures of DH at the same Civil War reenactment more than 10 years before we met or lived anywhere near each other. I pictures of a group of friends who were all dating other people at the time the photo was taken but now two are married to each other and another two are in a serious relationship. It's really very interesting. Who knows if one day my nieces or perhaps even my future child will bring home a person with a familiar last name and I'll be able to say "I was friends with your ______ way back when" and have the photos to prove it.
I love being able show my godchild pictures of her mom and I when we were her age. To show her that we were just as silly, tried to be just as cool, and tried all sorts of crazy things too. I love giggling at what we were wearing and how our hair was. I love comparing people when they were small with pictures of their children. I love looking at pictures of me and my friends when we were young and doing some activity while knowing what they do for a living now. How prophetic pictures seem sometimes.
I use to have a photography professor who would get onto us for pointing at our people in our photos during critique and referring to them by name. He would say "That is not 'dad' or 'my sister' - that is silver on paper. You've got to look at it that way or else you will never be able to let go of your bad work and move on to make better works of art!" I remember those words of wisdom, but perhaps that is why I was never very good at photography. To me photography isn't art work.. it can be.. but for the most part for me photography is still magic more than medium. It is little moments frozen in time. I love freezing time. I don't live in the past but I like to glance back at it. I love the memories photographs trigger and how I can relive moments without altering the course of history by accident. To me photography is the best time machine! I love seeing objects long since gotten rid of and forgotten. I love seeing rooms in the background that are completely different than they use to be. I love having family members kept alive just as I remember them in a photograph... I may never see them again, but when I look at that photo all the memories of how they looked, smelled and sounded come right back. I treasure my pictures.
How could I ever through that stuff away. I did throw away the pictures of people I didn't remember, and the pictures I had duplicates of. And I try not to be too attached to my albums. I know deep down they are only silver on paper. But one day I may have a room full of shelves of photo albums. And if I do I hope that someone will enjoy them, but if they don't I hope they know what enjoyment they bring me.
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