All Tuckered Out

Although we didn't do many things from the Weekend List, we accomplished quite a bit this weekend. And made more work for later (awesome!).

Things started off with working outside for a few hours Friday evening. We planted the remaining raised bed with tomatoes, peppers, basil, tomatillos, marigolds, and other flowers. Things continued early Saturday morning with planting squash and melons, clearing weeds out of the yard, and cleaning up the junky stuff on our neighbor's retaining wall. We took the afternoon and the evening off for leisure activities such as reading and watching baseball.

Oh, we also made our magical rice and chorizo dish...will have to post that recipe someday.

Here is the newest raised bed:


And here are the melon and squash, safely tucked away in toilet paper rolls. I lost one butternut squash to a cutworm yesterday, and I don't want to lose any more. I know we have a lot of melons and squash for the square footage of this bed, but I plan on growing them up. The next step for this bed is to add on to the trellis.


This morning we slept in a bit, made waffles, and then went back to work in the yard. This time we planted along the previously junky retaining wall. Lots of flower and herb seeds went in, as well as purple coneflowers.

After a lunch break, we went back out for more. And things took a turn for the worse. I was clearing some weeds out by the garage in the hopes of planting more conflowers. This turned into us clearing off dirt from the long-away forgotten brick border around the garage. Could look nice again, eh?


Unfortunately, we found this at the other end of the garage:


That's not just a shadow, it's a ginormous hole along the foundation of the garage!! Those bricks in the foreground? They have nothing supporting them underneath!

Fortunately, this answered our question of what to do with all the dirt and debris that we cleared off the brick border. Unfortunately, this thing gives me a headache. The slope and drainage is really weird in our yard, and I wish it could just fix itself.

This is how we left the abyss today:


We took out the bricks that were just hanging in midair, and we uncovered more of the hidden brick border. But, geez, we're tired.

So, is this a sinkhole or what? We're even more convinced that our house is above one of the area's many caves.

On a happier note, Keetah loves the outside so much! The whole yard is her all-you-can-eat salad bar:


Keetah was also busy this weekend doing some calculations and watching TV:


Such hard work! She has also been hanging out with Porkchop:


Buddies!

Have a good week! I am sort of glad for work tomorrow so that I don't get sucked into neverending yardwork.

The Weekend List

Y'all, I am STOKED for the weekend! The only thing that could make it better would be Porkchop and me not working today.

Here is our list of possible weekend activities:

• Plant things. This is a for-sure activity. Tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and tomatillos MUST go into the ground tomorrow. We have had a sad development in our plant raising - it appears that the biggest tomato plants and many of the pepper plants have developed bacterial leaf spot. Probably because I didn't put a fan in the bathroom to allow for proper air circulation. It sucks. BUT, the squash and melons are sprouting like gangbusters. They are big and amazing, and I can't wait to plant them!
• Bike ride! Also a for-sure activity. I want to bike somewhere for Sunday brunch, and Porkchop wants to bike downtown for a Cards-Cubs game.
• Baseball game. See above. (I am dragging my feet on this one because I was just at a sporting event last weekend! And you know how I feel about these things!)
• Earth Day festival at Forest Park.
• Herb sale in Webster Groves.
• Greater St. Louis Book Fair.
• Make waffles. Because we received maple syrup in our Fair Shares pickup, and it would be a shame to not crack it open right away.
• Eat more Salume Beddu's mostarda. This stuff is a revelation! It's described as an "Italian chutney," and it's full of dried fruit, mustard seeds, and chile flakes. It's spicy and not-too-sweet, and it's my new favorite thing. We also received this in this week's share. Fortunately, I'll be able to pick up more as needed once the Tower Grove farmers' market starts up (opening day is May 9!).

I'm sure I left off something! It will be a super-fabulous weekend! Enjoy yours as well!

A Semi-Frittered Day

I am unsure how to feel about this Saturday.

There were outdoor plant-related things I wanted to do, but it drizzled throughout the day, leading to an idle afternoon. Rarely do I spend a Saturday afternoon reading and knitting, so it was kind of a welcome break. It's just hard for me to feel okay about sitting around.

However, with the work we did yesterday afternoon and evening, I don't feel too guilty.

Porkchop and I had doctor appointments in the early afternoon, and neither of us returned to work. It was too darn nice outside! Instead of going back to my drab office, we enjoyed treats from the CWE Gelato di Riso and then went home to do yardwork. Yay yardwork!

Last summer, I noticed that the hardwood mulch in the front flowerbed was....sick, not right, and gross. We could pick up large sheets of mulch; the individual pieces were stuck together with weird white stuff. For the past 8 months, the flowerbed was a blight in my eyes. In fact, I trained myself to not look at it because I hated it so much.

Yesterday after the doctor and gelato, I decided to finally get the mulch the eff out of here. It was more work than I anticipated! There was SO MUCH weird white stuff.

The stuff resembled a mixture of latex paint and mold. And, we think that's what it was! Our hunch is that the rehab people were painting the eaves and dropped a big paint bucket. Instead of cleaning it up, they just dumped a bunch of mulch on it. My theory is that mold then grew because the stuff couldn't dry out (or something like that).

Anyway, most of it is now gone! The bits that are left shouldn't pose a problem. After removing the grossness, we spread out new, healthy soil and compost. And we planted pretty little flowers, which we hope will stay alive and thrive.

I wish we had taken a before photo for comparison, but I didn't think about it.

Here is the work in progress:


The area in question is really small, but the new soil and compost make a big difference. We have two surprisingly healthy azalea bushes, and one that is struggling. We removed a lot of paint mulch mess from around it, so hopefully it will get better.


Keetah surprised us and came out on the porch to supervise our work!


This outing showed a lot of braveness on her part; she's very cautious in exploring new things. Her heart was pounding the whole time. Especially when she was on the steps and cars were whizzing by:


So, with all of the work done yesterday, I feel sort of okay about doing nothing this afternoon. However, we did need a break this evening. Since the rain had stopped, we decided to go for a little walk around our neighborhood. We ended up at the Map Room, where we enjoyed sparkling orangeade and snack-size cheesecake.

The people at the Map Room are super-nice, and they have a great selection of drinks and desserts. We look forward to going back! Indeed, once it is cooler weather again, I know I will be there for some spiked hot chocolate.

Hope you're having a great weekend!

FB Complaining (Or, Jesus!)

Earlier this week, I finally joined Goodreads. I realized that I'm starting to forget what I've read, so I appreciate having a place to track my books.

But I know it will be only a few months until I stop updating my Goodreads account. Just like my Ravelry projects page, I imagine I will abandon it at some point.

With Goodreads, Ravelry, and Facebook, I'm starting to feel overstimulated and overexposed. And I don't even Tweet or Blip!

The main problem, I think, is Facebook. There are so many status updates, and many of them annoy me. But I can't just skip the annoying ones and move on! I read them and my blood pressure goes up...my forehead frowns and I sigh.

So now I'm taking steps to alleviate the problem. If you only post about what your kid is doing, I've blocked you. Whenever you publish a quiz result, I block that quiz application (Hey people, do you know you don't have to publish your quiz result! I take quizzes without publishing my results because although I find it humorous to learn my Crayola crayon color is cornflower, I know other people don't give a rat's ass, and I don't want to overpopulate their homepage feed.) If you post updates every 5 minutes regarding what's happening on the Apprentice, I'm blocking you.

I only wish I could block ALL updates from some people. Because I don't really care if someone with whom I haven't spoken in 12 years becomes a fan of Jesus, yet it still shows up in the sidebar highlights feed.

Which brings me to a tangential point....

Jesus and God have Facebook pages.

I would like to know who took it upon themselves to make these pages...because I don't think it was divine creation.

Isn't that a bit presumptuous? Did someone ask WWJD, only to have the answer be "create a Facebook page"?

(By the way, God has more fans than Jesus. By nearly 300,000.)

Sometimes I think I should create a new Facebook account. To start fresh with people who are REALLY my friends and with whom I've had meaningful interactions, and leave the other account for all those people I never spoke to growing up and who have now donned rose-colored spectacles with which they view the past.

I wonder if Jesus and God feel the same way. Of course, they're probably a bit more forgiving than I am, a bit more ready to excuse others' transgressions and whatnot.

Waiting, Waiting

So, I'm waiting for Porkchop to return from a trip to Columbia. She and her brothers are there visiting their dad in the burn treatment center. You see, their dad had an encounter with some propane last night, and the result is second degree burns on his head and arms, along with a smattering of third degree burns. These are bad burns, but it could have been much, much worse.

It will take some time, but it seems like he will be okay. He might even go home tomorrow! Which seems crazy after looking at the photo Porkchop sent me of his bandaged head.

Poor guy. A bypass, a kidney transplant, stents around his heart, and now this. He can't catch a break.

Other Waiting
To me, spring is all about waiting...waiting to realize the potential of carefully laid plans.

First, we were waiting to go to Chicago with Porkchop's niece. We hit the Art Institute, the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum, Mitsuwa Marketplace, and IKEA.

This was my first trip to the Field Museum, and I would like to go back. SO MUCH STUFF! My favorite section was the Plants of the World, especially after reading about how the glass and wax specimens were made. Amazing!

We saw Sue, of course:


And we saw the artists-in-residence...two brothers exploring their theory of a new optical reality. Which meant tracing things on curved paper. Like this:


Actually, it's a lot more complicated than just tracing. It's about splitting the focus of your eyes and capturing the "ghost image" on paper. It's pretty neat - there's an article and clip here.

Porkchop and I agreed the brothers strike one as being from the late 1800s/early 1900s. "We've got this new-fangled easel contraption..."

So, after Chicago, we were waiting on sprouts. And guess who peeked out of the ground late last week?

Spinach or lettuce (I can't tell at this stage).


And onions.

Then we were waiting on the Blues to clinch the playoffs. And guess what happened Friday night at the last home game? That's right! They won!

Porkchop and her younger brother were the happiest, especially after we got to shoot pucks down on the ice after the game.

Now I'm waiting to plant tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, and basil. And for our trip to Portland to see Kathy before she moves to Peru! So many things to await!

I also look forward to baking more fun cookies this weekend. Monday night, I made these chewy amaretti cookies:


Quite tasty, although the almond paste makes me feel weird, as in allergic weird.

Hope your week is going well...Keetah says hello to her friends!

Do Not Compromise

The Iowa news started me thinking about a conversation I had with a co-worker after the VP debates in October. I was complaining about how Biden was being totally unclear and weak about the gay marriage issue, and my co-worker said something like, "well, it seems like there should be some sort of compromise. I mean, if there isn't gay marriage, maybe there could be something else."

I looked at her with mouth agape as she nattered on about how you can't always have the full deal at the beginning, but maybe compromise is the way to start.

Let me be totally clear: I WILL NOT COMPROMISE.

As long as one group of people can have a certain set of rights, I will not settle for something branded under a different name with different rights specified.

HELL NO.

It's easy to suggest compromise when you're in the group that has FULL RIGHTS!

A lot of people ask if Porkchop and I have had a commitment ceremony and are often surprised to hear that we haven't. Y'all, a commitment ceremony doesn't mean a damn thing without the legal rights that accompany an officially recognized marriage. We are committed to each other already - we don't need a ceremony for it!

I'm not going to settle for a stupid-ass ceremony that won't do crap for me except maybe allow us presents like a mixer. A mixer doesn't stand up in court! A mixer won't give us legal protection over each other or tax benefits or parental rights!

I am glad for Iowa, and now I'm super-pissed at Missouri and the federal government and lots of other things. ARGH!

As Iowa Goes...

So goes the nation?

One can only hope! Yay for the Iowa Supreme Court ruling that the same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional!

I didn't enjoy living in Iowa, but perhaps we should have stayed. Stupid Missouri.

Chocolate Chip Cookies are Back!

A few weeks ago, I had the urge to make chocolate chip cookies, and I used the recipe my mom always did...the one on the back of the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip package.

Unfortunately, the end result was nothing like I remember! The cookies I made were much too buttery and flat and generally not what I wanted. I still ate them, as did others, but I was so sad and disappointed.

Luckily, I can always count on the Smitten Kitchen to post exactly what I want. I made this recipe last night, and I'm so much happier! The cookies aren't flat, and the butter doesn't overpower the cookie-ness! Next time, I just need to make them smaller and I'll be back in childhood.

Smitten Kitchen writes that this recipe is much more akin to the original Toll House recipe, so I can only surmise that someone messed with the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip package. Stupids!

Anyway, I'm glad to have the chocolate chip cookie back!

Pay Dirt

Porkchop and I skedaddled after work and put dirt in our remaining raised bed, put up more of the trellis, and planted things. Here it is at the end of the day:


The bed with the trellis has sugar snap peas, spinach, lettuce, and radishes. We will add more to the trellis as we plant beans and squash. The 3x3 bed has onions, beets, and carrots. Porkchop also put strawberry plants in pots.

Quite unexpectedly, our beds now contain around 50 earthworms. Over the weekend, we noticed that earthworms were starting to invade our basement! There were dried up bodies littering the floor, and 4 or 5 huddled around the floor drain.

So, while cleaning leaves from the area outside the basement door, Porkchop found the motherlode of worms. This is a mere fraction of them:


A bit blechy, but good for the garden!

Our Bathtub Runneth Over

Holy shizzle, Porkchop and I transplanted sprouts yesterday, keeping the strongest and composting the weakest (a moment of silence for those plants), and this is what we ended up with in our bathtub-cum-greenhouse:


Here is the transplanting action:

For the past month, the garden has been at the forefront of our minds.

We're either staring out the back window at the garden beds, or we're in the bathroom staring at the plants.

We keep Great Garden Companions handy, able to recite passages and open the volume at exactly the right page.

Porkchop decides to plant some strawberry plants, and I add spinach to my greens list.

We buy a trashcan for growing potatoes.

We are going crazy with planning things!

Tomorrow evening, we're finally going to actually plant things! Carrots, beets, onions, lettuce, spinach, and peas!

The onion sets came into our possession this afternoon from our neighborhood gardening store. Like many establishments in our neighborhood, it was initially difficult for us to ascertain the status of the store. Is it open? Is it closed? Is it closed closed? What the hell, is this how it always looks?

We finally figured out that this is how it always looks:


In some areas, this would pass for an abandoned building, no?

But, signs of life cropped up a couple of weeks ago!


Plants! Live! (As opposed to the layers of dead plants that litter the area.)

Onion sets are $1.75 a pound here, and the guy has red, yellow, and white. In addition to onion sets, you can buy parakeets.

So, by the looks of these pictures, you wouldn't guess that we had maybe an inch of snow lying about this morning! I would have planted things today, but the air was a tad chilly. Instead we purchased more seeds and a couple of strawberry plants.

Let the growing begin! (please!)

Effing Daylight Savings Times

I like it to be a little bit light out when I get up in the morning. And it was....UNTIL TODAY.

Stupid government changing the date of the time change!

This time change is always difficult for me, anyway, so I don't need it aggravated even more.

Yesterday, I felt like I had the biggest hangover ever. And the time! slipped away! so quickly!

It was 11:30 pm before I knew it, which means I'm starting this Monday with less sleep than normal!

Ah well, enough complaining.

Porkchop and I have started playing Mancala. That's one reason we were up so late. That, and we started watching Man on Wire at 9:00. A counting game and a vertigo-inducing movie...just what I need before trying to sleep.

Strangely enough, I didn't dream about either of these things. Instead, I had anxious dreams about dessert bars (as in desserts in bar form). I have no idea...

Busy as a Beaver

This is how Porkchop's younger brother characterized me tonight, as I made hummus, this pita bread, and this baked falafel and yogurt and tahini dressing.

I was worried about the pita bread because it was so sticky and I had problems rolling it out. But, nonetheless, most of the pitas puffed up. Not perfectly, but still tasty...especially with the hummus.


By the way, I used dried chickpeas for the hummus and falafel, and I'm so glad I did. They are WAY better than the canned stuff.

So, our day started out bright and early with Keetah waking us up at 6:30 (an annoying habit she has developed). It actually wasn't so bad this morning because we intended to rise early anyway for yard work. Our goal was to install garden beds, and that's what we did.

Here's Porkchop with the first bed nearly finished (notice how the beds behind it are all super unlevel):


Here I am with the project finished (beds much more level, although we realize not perfectly level, with which we're okay):


We had to clear out so much swamp grass and chunks of concrete and other debris (a glass tube, wiring, fence collars, etc.). This is just a small portion of the stuff:


Needless to say, we'll be filling in the beds with some good dirt, compost, and manure. Because our yard is crazy underneath the swamp grass.

There's a lot more to do in our yard in terms of clearing out debris. Fortunately, we love yardwork.


We celebrated getting the beds in by going out for Sonic. Woo! After that, we hit Global Foods in Kirkwood and TJ Maxx, where I scored by finding Two Leaves and a Bud tea for cheap(er) and Dr. Kracker crackers (my favorite!). We were in Kirkwood to scope out the manure at O.K. Hatchery, where we also picked up some garden gloves for Porkchop and more marigold seeds. I LOVE O.K. Hatchery! It's packed with all sorts of good stuff, and there's no pretension anywhere. Just people picking up seed potatoes, bird feed, and cow manure.

OH, but our best find from this weekend are these cookies that Porkchop picked out last night from Jay International Foods:


SO GOOD!

No, We Didn't Run Away to Disney World Forever

We've been back in St. Louis since Wednesday...Porkchop has been busy having another cold, and I'm still trying to wrap my mind around having to work.

[I can't get through a workday anymore without being tuned into Pandora. Otherwise, I feel like I'll fall asleep.]

So...to wrap up our WDW stuff...

Monday
Magic Kingdom day.

The worst day.

After riding Space Mountain and other things in Tomorrowland, there isn't much to do. The park gets crazy crowded by lunch, and it isn't designed to handle the number of people that pile in. You can't walk 3 inches without running into someone.

Save for the ice cream, the afternoon was not fun. But we stuck it out for the Spectromagic parade and the fireworks display. (Had we left the park after lunch, there was no way in hell I would have gone back).

Tuesday
A much better day.

We spent the morning at Disney Hollywood Studios, where we rode the new Toy Story Mania ride twice. It was a fun time of playing 4-D carnival-style midway games! By the end of the first ride, Porkchop was just 500 points ahead of me. Quite unexpectedly, I totally dominated the second ride and edged out Porkchop by around 30,000 points.

After doing everything on our list, we left the park around 2:00 and rested at the hotel some. We rounded out the afternoon by playing miniature golf and taking senior class photos:


Porkchop looks cool here, but I won the game. 50-54...what's happening?! Am I becoming good at skill games, or is Porkchop losing her touch?

[I won't mention how I scored over 330,000 points on the Buzz Lightyear ride...compared to P-chop's 50,000-something.]

After golf, we used the Disney bus system to get to Downtown Disney for dinner. Since the waterpark by the golf place had already closed, getting to Downtown was a bit inconvenient. The only bus running went to Epcot. At Epcot, we had to pick a resort bus, take the bus to the resort, and then catch another bus to Downtown. In the end, we lucked out by choosing the Saratoga Springs bus, as there was a walkway from Saratoga to Downtown (no waiting for a bus, yay!).

Not so lucky was that we witnessed a woman fall off her scooter as she exited the bus! It was obvious that the woman couldn't steer her scooter very well, but no one expected her to fall off. As she rode off the bus ramp, she cut her wheels sharply, which caused the scooter to deposit her face-first on the sidewalk. And then the scooter fell on her.

I felt horrible for the woman and for the bus driver, who obviously felt quite shitty.

Anyway, where was I? We did some pin trading at Downtown Disney and had a good dinner.

Wednesday
The day we'd been waiting for! And not because we were leaving that afternoon!

No, Wednesday morning was our Segway tour at Epcot!

After I traded my broken Segway for a functioning one, it was super fun! We had around 45 minutes of training and practice indoors, and then it was off to the World Showcase. Since the Showcase opens later than Epcot, it became our playground as we zig-zagged through the columns at Italy, cruised through the Morrocco bazaar, and traversed the garden bridges in Japan.

Here we are on our Segways:


And here's a little clip of Porkchop riding hers (listen closely and you can hear me exclaim at the end as Porkchop gets a little too close to me):



The Rest of the Week
Blech. We returned to work right away, which wasn't fun.

But, we also returned to sprouting tomatoes! They're a little leggy, but otherwise okay. Oh, and the peppers are quite beautiful:


Other random things...

Friday night after work, I requested a chair massage from the "Chinese Exercise" place in the Galleria. I heard from a co-worker who heard from her dance instructor that, if you don't have time for a full massage, this place is pretty good. While my experience was just fine, Porkchop will tell you otherwise. To begin with, Porkchop didn't even want a massage, the woman there pretty much forced her to sit down. Then, after the woman had worked on P-chop for a few minutes, a guy took over and started punching her calves and quads. Finally, to top it off, the woman asked if Porkchop was my child and, I swear, proceeded to make fun of us in Chinese (newsflash: it's never cool to make fun of people, especially when they can't understand you). When we left, the woman told Porkchop, "I love you, baby."

Huh? We won't be going back.

On another topic, we received radish sprouts in last week's share, and they are amazing!! I love radish sprouts!

I also love the Mexican hot chocolate at Cafe Ventana!


I declare this the best hot chocolate in St. Louis. The cayenne pepper and orange zest make for an amazing drink. The beignets are also pretty darn good. A cinnamon sugar one came with my drink, and next time I'm going to try the chocolate one. Yum!

Greetings from Walt Disney World!

Hello!

Porkchop and I are taking a little break from the day's activities to give y'all a little recap (because I guess we're so vain that we think others care about our Disney World trip). Anyway...

Friday Night
We landed in Orlando around 9:00 and made it to our hotel room shortly thereafter via the Magical Express. We're staying in the Pop Century resort again. This time in the 50's area (as indicated by the giant bowling pins flanking our building).



Although we knew we had an early morning ahead of us, we both had a difficult time sleeping (I dreamt of bugs in our bed and of being upgraded to a much more expensive resort, while Porkchop had a horrible nightmare that I traded one of my fancier Disney pins for a baby Minnie Mouse pin of much lesser value).

Saturday
Epcot was first on our agenda, and the morning went well with two Soarin' rides, Test Track, Living with the Land, and a Behind the Seeds tour. The tour was a more in depth visit to the hydroponic greenhouses than you get when riding Living with the Land. The highlight for me was seeing the trellis structures up close, as well as getting a better look at the tomato and eggplant trees.



I also enjoyed seeing vanilla and ginger trees, and sampling a cucumber grown in the greenhouse (a special Mickey head-shaped cuke).



After lunch and seeing the 3D show, Honey I Shrunk the Audience (snoozers), we hit the World Showcase and hit our tired wall. We struggled to drag ourselves around the lagoon and were annoyed by all the people who go to the World Showcase to drink overpriced beer. Also annoying were all of the people who thought that Porkchop, who was wearing a Disney themed nametag on her pin lanyard, worked for the park. This included a German man who wanted directions to the free Coke pavilion, some Asian girls who were looking for the Maelstrom ride in Norway, and a couple of kids who insisted that we trade pins with them. (WDW Pin Trading 101: Cast Members are obligated to trade you for whatever pin you want. Other guests may not be as accommodating.) We felt a little bad for the kids, who were genuinely excited by our pins, and each ended up trading them one of our nicer pins for... you guessed it, a cheap little baby Minnie Mouse pin! Porkchop is a prophet.

In addition to being exhausted, we both suffered from sore feet. Despite being a Disney expert and knowing better than to wear new shoes while traversing the parks, Porkchop donned her new Keens in the morning and regretted her decision early in the day. She likened it to walking on broken glass, moaned and groaned around the World Showcase, and nearly lost it when she found out we had to STAND through the 15 minute movie in Canada.


So, we limped away from Epcot early without seeing Illuminations. At the hotel, I snoozed while Porkchop watched a Blues hockey game. Despite our promises to go to bed earlier, the Blues game went to overtime and Porkchop nearly missed the disappointing end to the game (Final: Blues lose 1-0).

Today
This was a short day at the parks. We have an early reservation at the California Grill, so we scheduled Animal Kingdom for today. AK isn't as big as the other parks, so we can do everything we want by mid-afternoon. AK is my favorite park because of this, and because it's so shady. Seriously, shade is a must for me.

We started the morning big with Expedition Everest. Then it was on to Dinoland for a couple of rides, and then back to Expedition Everest to use our Fastpass.

Up next was a tea and snack break while we watched the Flights of Wonder show (an exciting time as one bird grazed our heads with its wings).


Afterwards, we pushed on to Rafiki's Animal Planet and then went on our two-week Kilimanjaro Safari.


Before lunch, we had our final Expedition Everest ride via another Fastpass. The final ride resulted in the best picture of Porkchop, her expression captured her authentic anxiety as we plunged down the side of the mountain (Porkchop doesn't like drops and usually puts on a fake face for the photo).

We wrapped up our day at AK with Festival of the Lion King. This time, the show included a fire handler guy who danced with a fire baton thingie.

So...now I'm just waiting for a tasty dinner at the California Grill!

Never a Prettier Sight...

...as peppers sprouting!


I sit and stare at these little guys for minutes at a time.

Also great are the little basils:


Not so great is that I've been suffering from some strong allergies. Murrrr. A doctor at the urgent care clinic suggested that it's the jet stream bring up pine tree stuff from Texas. I have no idea if this is correct at all, but I do have tree allergies.

I hate being allergic to things like trees because I love trees! My physical reaction to tree pollen does not accurately reflect the love I have for trees. Please don't judge me based on my allergies!

Last night, I sneezed and sniffled my way through Coraline. Even though my mind was hazy with allergies, I recognized the movie as awesome.

I have no segue for this:


A 12 lb pork shoulder. Currently marinating in the refrigerator for all-day cooking tomorrow.

When I ordered pork shoulder from Fair Shares, I didn't realize it would be the entire shoulder! I expected 3, maybe, 5 pounds. Although my mind reeled when I saw it, I tried to play it cool.

If the cooking goes well, we'll be rolling in pulled pork (hmm, that's kind of gross imagery...anyway, we'll have a lot for freezing and many dinners to come).

New Record!

Longest time without posting since I started this here blog!

Not exactly the sort of record I like...

What's Been Going On Since You've Been Gone
Not too far in the past, St. Louis received snow. A lot of it! So Porkchop and I invested in a snow shovel, and she graciously shoveled. Here she is hard at work in the backyard during the early morn' (please don't dwell on the jankiness of our garage - thanks):


Most recently, as in this weekend, Porkchop has been sick! And dogsitting her brother's chihuahua, so she spent most of her time like this:


Poor thing! Of course, she is refusing to go to the urgent care clinic to get real meds, so I can't feel too badly for her. The deal is that if she isn't better by the end of the week, she HAS to go because her sickness can't ruin our upcoming vacation. Yes! Porkchop wore down my resistance yet again and I have reluctantly agreed to a trip to Crazy World. I mean Disney World. Much as I dislike the place (why go to a fake place when you could go to a real place???), I am looking forward to a trip to ANYWHERE outside of the Midwest.

So, anyway, while Porkchop sniffled on the couch with the dog, I made cupcakes:

(P.S. I wasn't so feeling so hot on Saturday, either, but not as bad as Porkchop.)

They are yummy lemon cupcakes with vanilla bean frosting. Go here for the recipe.

Over the weekend, I also made a curry chicken dish with raisins and almonds; this sweet potato, corn, and jalapeno bisque; honey whole wheat bread; and this smashed chickpea salad. All of the linked recipes are pure tastiness!

On another note, a couple of weekends ago, Porkchop and I picked up a compost bin and seed starting supplies...all from Worm's Way. I'm loving the compost bin:


In addition to being a tumbler, it collects compost tea in the base!

We also picked up seed starting trays, heat mats, and a grow light. I am serious about this seed starting stuff this year! Yesterday, we started with pepper and basil seeds. It's a little bit early for starting inside by around a week. But if nothing happens with these seeds, I'll know to try again.

Pepper seeds can be hard to start because they need to be kept in soil at 80 degrees F. The heat mat seems to be doing well, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed still.

Anyway, I've also done a bit of my knitting on miscellaneous projects - my log cabin blanket and a random baby hat.

That's all!

Oh, wait, I meant to mention...

The Chocolate that has Changed My Life
I love good dark chocolate.

The 70% Madagascar Sambirano Valley chocolate bar that I received through Fair Shares makes my heart light and happy. This bar from Patric Chocolate blows everything else I've ever had out of the water. I can't wait to try everything else from this small shop in Columbia, MO!

This City Stinks

No, seriously, the city stinks!

It's been stinking since yesterday and no one knows why!

It was especially foul this morning. I didn't think it could get any worse as when we drove past the Ronnoco plant on 40, and the stink mixed in with the burnt coffee smell. But! Then I got out of the car at work and nearly fell over from the grossness.

Blech!!

Maybe the snow and ice will clear the air??

And the Day isn't Over Yet

Today I have done the following:

• Moved the closing date of our mortgage refinance.
• Scheduled the appraisal for the refinance.
• Received and approved proofs for a FAQ booklet.
• Reviewed, re-reviewed, reviewed again, and sent out press-ready files for a User Guide.
• Performed a massive mail merge.
• Supervised 4 students who are assembling a giant mailing.
• Took an hour lunch.
• Went to the library and checked out a book.
• Breathed for the first time in a few weeks.

I'm totally ready for the weekend!

Our House Today

Yay, flags!

Today, Today

I cannot focus on work.

I can't sit still.

I'm happy.

I'm nervous.

I want to cry.

I want to throw up.

I'm proud to be an American again!!