In The Wheel

Taking a break

2011-05-30T23:15:00.000-05:00

Taking a break from blogging.....
I'll still be hanging around the blogosphere to read & comment.
I appreciate all your blogging endeavors to enlighten, entertain, and just plain make my day.....
Cheers!

Red

Don't Forget to Remember

2011-05-28T21:39:00.000-05:00

Every Memorial Day the veterans of Tama American Legion Post 73 arise before dawn to plant American flags along the narrow roadways of Oak Hill Cemetery in Tama, Iowa.

Nothing is so proud as the red, white, and blue against the sky.

There is a flag for every veteran in the cemetery. There is a flag for Meester's father, who served in WWII.

So many flags! So many veterans!

As we enjoy the long weekend with drinks and something on the grill...please remember the veterans who no longer know the pleasures of a long weekend...who no longer relax in the sunshine on this earth. Please remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice of their lives so that you and I are free to do whatever we please this weekend. Please give thanks for those men and women who are serving now.

Thank you to all those who have ever served, prayers for safe return home for those serving now, and God Bless America.

High in the Sky on the Eye

2011-05-23T12:59:00.001-05:00

I've always thought the London Eye(the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe) was rather a blemish on the classic London landscape.

But after a twirl on the London Eye -- I have to say it's a darn fun ride!

We spent the last couple days of our England tour in London. The last evening was a surprise; our tour group was driven to the London Eye, where it was announced that we'd all get a champagne! twirl and a birds-eye view of London on the famous London Eye. (Meester and several other ~~chickens~~ heights-challenged members of the tour group headed for the cafe to wait it out on solid ground.)

The London Eye does look intimidating from the ground up!

I wasn't so sure about the Eye myself, but champagne was involved. I hopped on -- grabbed the first glass of champagne -- and was amazed at how much I enjoyed pressing my nose and camera to the sides of the clear viewing capsules.

The wheel design was used as a metaphor for the end of the 20th century, and time turning into the new millennium.
An experience on the EDF Energy London Eye will last about 30 minutes taking you to a height of 135 metres.
You can see for around 40KM (25 miles) from the top.
The total weight of the wheel and capsules is 2,100 tonnes - or as much as 1,272 London black cabs!
Each rotation takes about 30 minutes, meaning a capsule travels at a stately 26cm per second, or 0.9km (0.6 miles) per hour - twice as fast as a tortoise sprinting; allowing passengers to step on and off without the wheel having to stop.

I always get by with a little help from champagne!

P.S. Wish you had all been with me for this one!

A Gem in the Cotswolds

2011-05-17T15:27:00.000-05:00

Have you ever found a place of such charming grace that you wished to never leave?

That's how we felt about our stay in Salisbury. Salisbury is a delightful little town...easily walkable...with plenty of historical places to keep one busy -- and tea rooms to keep one refreshed.

For our two nights in Salisbury, we stayed at the Legacy Rose & Crown Hotel. An absolute gem on the River Avon! The oldest part of this hotel was originally a 13th century coaching inn. Much of the original inn has been preserved. You can see some of the original timbers and little carved doors from when everyone was shorter. The manager hinted that the ghost of a young woman haunted this oldest part of the hotel.

We stayed in the newer wing of the Rose & Crown. Talk about having everything one could want -- ghosts in the old wing of the hotel and big American bathrooms and powerful hot showers in the new wing!
Look -- We had a view of sheep, chickens, and swans from our room, too.

So romantic and charming! I could have stayed all summer.

It's a pleasant walk from the Rose & Crown to town and the Salisbury Cathedral.
We passed this classic Cotswolds climbing rose.

About 17 years ago I was on a tour that made a brief stop at Salisbury Cathedral; I fell in love with it then. Thankfully, this tour gave me plenty of time to discover even more to love about the Cathedral. I was standing outside the west entrance to the Cathedral, looking up at all the carved figures lining each level. As my eye traveled to the top of the cathedral -- I discovered Jesus reaching down to me in benediction.
It took my breath away -- surely that was the intention of the designers of the cathedral!

And of course, we had afternoon tea in the garden of Mompesson House. Mompesson House was featured in Sense and Sensibility!

Yes, the flowers really grow that big in England!

Please check out the links for photographs that are much better than mine. If you start dreaming of a trip to England, you will have to visit Salisbury.....and bring me along.

England was absolutely loverly.....

2011-05-09T20:31:00.001-05:00

Best.trip.ever.

Still catching up on laundry and the weeds took over the garden while I was gone, so I haven't had much time to get back into the blogging mood.

We were blessed with uncharacteristically fabulous English weather. Sunshine almost every day - it didn't even dare rain on the day of the Royal Wedding, although rain was predicted. Wills, Kate, the Queen, and I were very pleased with the weather for wedding week.

Our tour group was staying in Stratford-Upon-Avon the day of the wedding; a tour of Shakespeare's birthplace and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre was scheduled for the morning of the wedding. In typical recalcitrant Red Hamster fashion, I "went rogue" and told the tour group goodbye and snuck back to our hotel room to watch the Royal Wedding live on the telly. I just had to see that wedding dress and the first kiss on the balcony the exact same time as the rest of the world saw it.

I rejoined the tour group for an afternoon tour of Hidcote Gardens. I was still so smitten by the wedding, and then smitten by the beauty of the gardens, that I forgot to take pictures of all the garden flowers! Go to the website link above and you will see exactly what I saw at Hidcote. ...sometimes it's nicer to live in the beauty of the moment rather than fumbling with the camera....

I did get a picture of a wee lamb in a nearby field.
(Yes, the lamb has a number spray-painted on him; I think for id.)

After the gardens, our coach driver tried to take us on a drive through the classic Cotswold town of Chipping Camden, but was stopped by streets blocked off for wedding celebrations. Our group took a quick stroll through the High Street. I was hoping to join some wedding celebrants and get a glass of champagne, but we didn't have much time and I thought
I'd already been enough trouble.

Oh yes, we ran into Wills and Kate, and they are just a lovely couple.

...more when I have time...

This might be the most fun trip ever.....

2011-04-24T22:04:00.000-05:00

We are off to the Royal Wedding!

Well...sort of.....
Last fall Meester and I booked a group trip to England through our local bank's travel club. We'll be visiting Bath, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Stratford-Upon-Avon, and London. This was before the Royal Engagement was announced. Turns out we will be in Stratford-Upon-Avon on the day of the Royal Wedding!!! And S-U-A will be rockin' with celebration of this royal holiday.

We.are.very.pleased.

And you know an international trip puts Red into a frenzy of obsessive-compulsive shopping, laundry, and packing. Let's see:

A three-county search for the perfect cotton skirt in smoky charcoal...which I never found. Feh!
Ordered a new pair of sunglasses from the pricey local optical shop -- which I've been informed will not be delivered in time for the trip. Double Feh!
Bought a new carry-on bag -- with wheels. I'm getting too old to haul a carry-on bag on my shoulder through miles of airport concourses. *Sigh*

Bought a new point-and-shoot camera...and have spent hours figuring out how to use it. (Our old camera broke and I'm camera-challenged.)
Bought a new travel purse -- of course!
Got my hair cut -- of course!
Bought a gazillion little travel-size toiletries and cosmetics.

I do not like strangers touching my body parts -- so I did my own facial waxing -- ouch!
And I did my own nails -- and toenails.
Dusted, cleaned all the bathrooms, and washed the sheets -- in case a robber breaks into our house -- I wouldn't want him to think I'm a bad housekeeper.
Went outside and pulled weeds when I should have been packing -- in case that robber looks at the garden while he's breaking into our house.
Watered the plants and put those glass watering ball thingies in the pots.
Washed every piece of clothing that I own, so that whatever I decide to pack is clean.

I hope I'm ready.

Cheerio!

I don't celebrate the lawn rites of Spring

2011-04-15T15:00:00.000-05:00

'Tis finally Spring in Iowa. The grass is beginning to turn green. Though the grass is yet barely an inch tall, the site of growing grass provokes an annual Spring phenomenon. Testosterone-fueled herds of homo sapiens suburbanis charge through the neighborhood displaying the size and strength of their masculine tool -- the lawnmower.

The size of his lawn-mowing tool is usually in proportion to the size of the man.
The larger the waist-girth of the man -- the larger his riding lawnmower.
This ensures that the species preserves the size of his girth, as he avoids any true exercise by utilizing his riding ability rather than walking.

The first chirps of the birds celebrating Spring are drowned out by the roar of gas-powered engines. The Spring breeze is tainted with the wafting scent of gasoline.
My least favorite part of Spring.

Lament for lotions I have loved and lost

2011-04-11T11:48:00.001-05:00

My name is Red...and I am a body lotion addict.....
I love slathering myself in body lotion after a hot shower...letting all the fragrant silky goodness soak into my pores. I have probably gone through a tanker truck of lotion in my lifetime.

I'm also extremely finicky about the scents of my body lotions. No smelling like a fruit salad, or heaven forbid - a cucumber. I usually favor a good vanilla scent; vanilla layers nicely under my perfumes. (Do I sound like a lotion gourmet or a dotty old lady?)

Curel's honey and vanilla was my body lotion addiction for several years. It was so warm and comforting during those long, skin-drying, life-sucking, Iowa winters. Of course, the marketing morons at Curel decided to discontinue it. Feh!

They replaced it with this! Seriously, Curel idiots, do you think any woman wants to be seen holding this product in the checkout line? I refused to buy this - I do not want to see the word "menopause" staring at me from the bathroom counter first thing in the morning.

I haunted the aisles of my local CVS pharmacy until I found this lotion below. More vanilla - with pretty vanilla blossoms on the bottle - yay! I wallowed in this delicious lotion all winter. The bottle was like a little spot of sunshine on my bathroom counter. Then Aveeno stopped making this one. Aack - kill me!

Just when I was desperate for a vanilla high.....what could be better than vanilla?

Chocolate!!!

This lotion smells like a fine chocolate liqueur! I love smelling like a chocolate truffle in the morning. Hmmm...I hope I don't go to work in the morning smelling like I've had cocktail hour before 8:00 AM.

the Rabbits of Spring

2011-04-04T10:12:00.000-05:00

Spring is the time for rabbits...
...the Easter bunny, of course.


image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

...and the darling little bunny rabbits that ravage my garden.

...and one of my favorite rabbits...the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are two of my favorite books. When I was a child, I loved the idea of accidentally ending up in a magical place filled with wondrous magical creatures; I still do. You know how I love a good tea party.....

I was browsing the web and stumbled into the the magical artistry of Tartx.
I was enchanted.
I bought a necklace for myself and one as a gift. The necklaces came beautifully presented. O frabjous day!

I luff my "rabbit" necklace a lot.

Why I love Spring -- nesting bald eagles

2011-03-25T12:00:00.001-05:00

I have to give props to Iowa and the Raptor Resource Project for this live streaming web cam of nesting bald eagles. Babies due to hatch April 1, 2011! No, that's not an April Fool's joke; that's naturalists' estimation of incubation time for bald eagles. Be amazed!

Live Videos by Ustream

(You will have to suffer through some commercials before the video loads.)

It must be Spring because...

2011-03-20T22:11:00.000-05:00

...it's been raining... Ok, ok, at least it's not snow, but still...I need me some sunshine.

...my tulips and daffodils poked their green shoots out of the ground and grew an inch overnight.

Saturday

Sunday

...almost every woman in my office got a new Spring haircut - including me. You probably can't tell much, since I'm using my iPhone for pictures because our camera broke 6 months ago and we haven't gotten around to buying a new one. Now I'm wearing short curly layers in my hair, instead of long straight layers. You know it's Spring when women change their hairstyles en masse.

Hooray, it's officially Spring -- my favorite season!!!

Do you still twinkle, little stars?

2011-03-14T13:42:00.001-05:00

Do you remember the stars?

image from Wikimedia Commons

When was the last time you saw the Milky Way in the night sky? Can you see all the constellations in the sky above your house anymore?

I love seeing the night sky and all the stars and planets. I'm not into astronomy; it's the sheer magnificence and mystery of the night sky that beguiles me.

When I was a dreamy romantically-infused teenager, I used to slip out of our house on summer nights...no, not meet a boyfriend or run off to hang with a gang of other teenagers...to sit atop our picnic table in the back yard and gaze up at the stars. I would pull my long brown hair up off my sticky shoulders and use my hand full of hair to support the back of my head. I was wrapped by a blanket of warm, humid summer air and lulled by the melody of crickets singing in the damp night grass.

I was mesmerized by the stars in the dark sky above…their cool bright twinkling…their sheer numbers. The Milky Way seemed like a tapestry woven of bright diamonds hung across the sky. Yes, I saw a few manmade satellites winking across the sky, but they were from the earth; they didn't hold the same mystique as the stars. The stars were beyond my reach…the universe was beyond my comprehension. As a dreamy teenager, the stars were like my future – out of reach, but bright with possibility. (I was a big fan of the TV series “Star Trek”.)

Fast forward...ummm…quite a few years…to the light pollution which plagues the world now. I can still see stars from the deck of our current house, but I can’t see the Milky Way. Even though we live at the edge of our city limits, the glowing light from the city fills the sky, and the light from the streetlight in front of our house stretches blindingly through the yard to the deck at the back of our house. On warm nights in early August, I still go outside and sit on our deck and scan the sky for meteors from the Perseids meteor shower. I know I am missing all but the brightest meteors because the light from that streetlight is in my face and the sky is awash with light from the city. I am sad; I miss the ethereal beauty of the stars that I remember from night skies past.

An article from CNN’s blog coverage of the action at SXSW in Austin, TX, really hit home with me.
This article was about Ian Cheney the director of the documentary film, "The City Dark," a film shot mostly in the dark of night.

Cheney's documentary poses a simple question: "What do we lose when we lose the night?"

Cheney.....said he grew up in Maine, beneath millions of visible stars. Now that he lives in New York, he can sometimes count the number of stars he sees on two hands.

So what's the problem? The film lays out a few physical concerns, like possible links to cancer and the increasing challenges astronomers have to see "the killer asteroid." The audience cheered when a wayward sea turtle, attracted to the city lights, turned itself around and made it to the ocean. Cheney's film explores humans' spiritual and emotional attachment to darkness, and the natural light from the sky. He argues that darkness is like wilderness, something to be protected, and there are ways to build those protections into cities.

I wish I'd been in Austin to see the film.
I wish I could see the Milky Way again.......

Facebook Status Update

2011-03-10T22:57:00.000-06:00

Nah, not really. I don't even have a Facebook page. Partly because I can barely keep up regular blog posting - obviously. How could I add the job of Facebook updating? And don't get me started on watching my co-workers spend all day at work frolicking in the absurd circus that FB can be. "Farmville"? I don't need to play "Farmville" -- I live in Iowa, with goats and geese on one side of our housing division, corn and bean fields on the other. Not to mention I don't need my employer to know that I have a blog where I complain about my job.

I don't have much that I care about posting on a Facebook page, if i had one. But I stumbled on this article about a Facebook status update that has gone viral for posting as one's FB status.

It started with a Facebook status update. Upset at the media's coverage of Charlie Sheen, someone took up for American soldiers dying in Afghanistan.

"Charlie Sheen is all over the news because he's a celebrity drug addict," it said, "while Andrew Wilfahrt 31, Brian Tabada 21, Rudolph Hizon 22, Chauncy Mays 25, are soldiers who gave their lives this week with no media mention. Please honor them by posting this as your status for a little while."

I hadn't found time for a blog post this week, even though the rest of the blogosphere is engaging in a "Charlie Sheen blog carnival". Charlie Sheen will burn out before I ever have time to write about him, not that he's even worthy of mentioning. This suggestion was worthy of my making time for a quick post before I go to bed. Consider this my "Facebook status update". Hope this suggestion is worthy of a status update on your Facebook page, too, if you have one.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/index.html

Shopping for a new car just got more complicated

2011-03-03T21:20:00.000-06:00

We have enough to worry about already when we buy a new car - crash test ratings, mileage, reliability, resale value - now we have to worry about whether the car is attractive to spiders?

The latest automobile news story: Spiders Lead to Mazda Recall

Mazda is recalling about 52,000 Mazda6 sedans in the U.S., because yellow sac spiders like to build their nests in part of the fuel system.

"A certain type of spider may weave a web in the evaporative canister vent line and this may cause a restriction of the line," Mazda said in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

There have been 20 reported cases of spider infestation in the Mazda6 -- all have been in cars with 4-cylinder engines, none with V6's..... It's unclear why this particular spider -- the yellow sac spider -- seems to prefer the model year 2009 and 2010 Mazda6, company spokesman Jeremy Barnes said. "Maybe they just like cars that go 'Zoom-Zoom'," he said.

I can only laugh because I don't own a Mazda6. Seriously - eewww. I.do.not.like.spiders. Our favorite local car salesman, Kirk, will be rolling his eyeballs, and so will Meester...the next time we look at cars because I will be asking "Never mind the gas mileage - what is the spider attraction rating?"

cruising dreaming on a winter's day

2011-02-26T09:08:00.005-06:00

AAUGH! Last week was totally miserable...harassed with everyone's computer problems at work all week...it was cloudy, snowy, or drizzly mostly all week...today it's snowing...and tomorrow - we're supposed to have thundershowers!
Ok, enough whining, let's dream of something more pleasant.

I love being close to the water...I adore a warm sandy beach on the ocean...but I don't like actually being far out on deep water. I'm terrified of an ocean cruise. Maybe because of the movie "Titanic"? Maybe because I can't swim?! And sadly I do get terribly seasick. Anyway, I don't see an ocean cruise in my future.

However, I saw this while web cruising, and it looks intriguing.

image from River Cities web site

River Cities floating condominiums! According to the web site, you "Cruise America's 6,600 miles of inland waterways on a slow boat to everywhere." I have to give the developer props for coming up with a clever idea for baby boomers with wanderlust and no interest in spending retirement in an RV(me). I have no affiliation whatsoever with River Cities and they haven't even offered me a cruise. I just think this is an incredibly unique concept. Meester and I have discussed having both a summer home and a winter home when we retire, but decided "No, we don't want the hassle of moving an entire household as the seasons change"(me). This way you stay in your condo and the condo moves from season to season. Oops, is that just like an RV? (I once took a vacation trip with a boyfriend in an RV, and let's just say it was NOT good.)

I've always thought it would be fascinating to take a canal boat cruise in the UK.
Doesn't this look idyllic?

image from Wikimedia Commons

And the canal boat is RED!
Oh it wouldn't it be loverly to be on that canal boat...in Spring in the UK?
*SIGH*

I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed

2011-02-20T16:22:00.000-06:00

The inimitable Suldog has inflicted me with what he terms "web-based gonorrhea". We haven't even been acquainted that long! Jim "Suldog" Sullivan is one fast guy...or maybe I was too easily smitten at first site of his blogging prowess. This is what can happen to a lady carelessly cruising the internet.

Actually, it's a blogging award, but Suldog isn't much for awards other than making fun of them...and making fun of the person who bestowed the award on him...and making fun of his readers as he passes said award on to them. General all around fun guy, he is.

Suldog's blog has exposed me to perversions I never dreamed of. An associate of his is Eddie Bluelights, apparently a known "duck fondler". Another comrade is Buck, currently in Exile in Portales; heaven knows why he had to go into exile.

I should have been more careful with a blogger who claims to be "emotionally bifurcated". Hmmm... bi?...referring to his predilection for inflicting himself on bloggers of both genders?

Go HERE to learn more about Suldog - if you dare - he's addictive.
Don't say I didn't warn you.....

Random glimpses into my world thru the lens of my cell phone

2011-02-08T12:51:00.001-06:00

Still not feeling particularly blogging inspired...so thank goodness for ~~stealing ideas~~ being inspired by other bloggers. I've seen the "What pictures are on your cell phone?" idea on other blogs (like Dawn in Austin), so here goes mine.

Let's start with the worst: last week's view of snow from my front door.

Something else nasty: Ongoing dirty, noisy construction in my office building.

Something nice:Yummy veggies roasted in olive oil, sprinkled with parmesan cheese. I make a big roasting pan full for winter suppers. I think I posted this recipe with pictures last year, but this picture is new.

Random snack discovered in my desk drawer. This why I fill my cell phone with random pictures, so I can make a random, driveling post with them.

My Dad's 91st birthday party. Notice the balloons on the wall from last year's party. The Green Bay Packers won the 2011 Super Bowl in honor of my Dad being a "Packer Backer" for about 90 years.

I love my scarves. I could never figure out how to do a whole post on why I use my overstuffed bedroom chair as a scarf holder.

I liked my Jane Iredale lip liner pencil in Spice shade so much, I used up every millimeter of it.

Stay tuned, cause I have enough pictures of my body lotions to put together another lame post!

Most woeful of winter

2011-02-02T09:33:00.000-06:00

Our neighbor, "Mr. J", passed away last week; about a week after I did a post on him. We finally learned that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. We are shocked that it took him in less than 5 years. It took Parkinson's about 20 years to take both my mother and my aunt. Neither way is better or fair. Rest in Peace, Mr J.

We are in the grip of a record Midwestern ~~snowstorm~~ freaking blizzard. We considered ourselves lucky to survive the drive home from work Tuesday. Meester got out his snowblower and I shoveled. We finished the driveway and the sidewalks and a minute later you couldn't tell we had shoveled at all. We live on the edge of the city limits, so we are one of the last streets for the city snowplows to reach. We will spend all day Wednesday shoveling our property, but will probably not be able to drive off our property. The last time we had a big snow, which wasn't as bad as this one, I got tired of waiting for the snow plow and shoveled the street myself.

It all makes me feel bereft and disconsolate, despondent and melancholy, and cold. I feel as if the ice weasels have come and eaten my soul.
But I'm still alive...and life goes on...and in its time...Spring will come again.
I will live to whine and blog another day.
How does winter make you feel?

Wednesday whine of winter woe

2011-01-26T09:27:00.003-06:00

January is the longest month of the year--in the Midwest--as far as I'm concerned. It's the coldest month, and the days fade away in a bleak gray haze. Yes, the days are growing imperceptibly longer, but without any sun in the sunset, it's hard to tell. I huddle in front of the fireplace wallowing in self-pity and remorse and salty snacks. When I look outside at the backyard I feel guilty to see my birdfeeders swinging empty on their poles.

When we first moved into this house, I fed the birds religiously, even throughout the most bitter days of winter. We keep our birdfeeders hanging from a pole in the scrap of woods behind our house, because that's where the birds nest and shelter all year. Why have I ceased to keep the birdfeeders filled during the winter months? I believe it's because of the Hillside of Death.

I don't think my cell phone camera captured the depth or steepness of the hill that our house is built into.

Does it help to see the basement wall of our house on the left?

Anyway, it's a damn steep slope, especially when covered in snow or ice. The first couple years we lived here, it was kind of an amusing Winter Olympic challenge to plow through the snow to get down to the backyard to fill the birdfeeders. I could never discern the depths of the snow drifts, so I never knew when I would plunge up to my knees--or higher--in snow. Getting my legs stuck in the snow and pitching face first into the drifts wasn't pleasant. Getting my legs stuck in the snow and twisting my ankles or knees was less pleasant.

One rather icy winter Meester was heading down the hill with a shovel in his hand. He slipped and rammed the handle of the shovel into his chest. With the wind knocked out of him and in fear of freezing to death, Meester staggered back up the hill and collapsed inside the back door. All he could do was grunt "Ugh, Ugh, Ugh" and weakly tap his chest. I was screaming "Are you having a heart attack?! Should I call 911?!" over and over.

Had he been attacked by Ice Weasels? I checked for signs of blood. Eventually we both figured out he was going to live.

Another icy winter--for some dumb reason--I went down the hill, got the birdfeeders, and brought them back up the hill into the garage to fill them. Usually I just carried a bucket of seed with me when I went down to the feeders. On my trip back down the hill, I slipped and fell--on the birdfeeders. OUCH!

Why don't I move the pole and birdfeeders up to the top of the yard for the winter? Because ~~I am lazy~~ the pole is anchored firmly into the ground down there. Why don't I buy another pole for the top of the yard? Because I never think of it until the first snow has fallen ~~and I am lazy~~. Bad me. Poor birdies.

A sobering moment

2011-01-23T22:04:00.003-06:00


image courtesy of FromOldBooks.org

In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray.....
~Dante's Inferno - Canto I

We had a sobering moment last week. I really wish this post was just about not indulging in too many adult beverages, but it isn't.

We have a retired neighbor couple "Mr. J" and "Mrs. J". We've lived near them for about 11 years. Like most middle-aged and retired couples, we and the "Js" like to spend a lot of time puttering in our yards and gardens...pausing to wander over to each others yards to chat about weeds and flowers and garden pests. For the first 5 years we lived here, we were on the neighborhood Landscape committee, of which Mr. J was the chairman. He always hosted the committee meetings at his house, and Mrs. J provided refreshments and thoughtful landscaping suggestions. For several years, Mr. J promoted a "Neighborhood Cleanup and Landscape Planting" weekend event.....which consisted mostly of Mr. J, Mrs. J, Meester, me, and a few other couples picking up litter and planting flowers around our subdivision.

Over the last several years, Mr. J has declined in health and cognitive abilities. In the beginning, Mrs. J told us the doctors seemed unable to pinpoint exactly what was causing Mr. J's decline, and we haven't wanted to press for medical details. We could see for ourselves that Mr. J was barely able to walk in the yard this past fall and had difficulty engaging in conversation.

We didn't realize how grim Mr. J's situation had become until one afternoon last week. Mrs. J had gone down to their basement to do some housekeeping tasks, leaving Mr. J asleep in his wheelchair. (We did not know Mr. J now uses a wheelchair.)

When Mrs. J came upstairs to check on Mr. J, she felt a cold draft of air and realized in horror that the front door was open. Mr. J had woken from his nap and somehow managed to get up from his wheelchair and make his way to the front door. None of us can believe he found the strength and ability to pull open the front door and the screen door and make his way outside. He had crossed the narrow front porch and pitched headlong into a snow bank beside the house. For once, I can be grateful for snow and the cushion it made for Mr. J's fall.

The temperature combined with the wind chill outside was almost -10 degrees Fahrenheit! Thankfully it wasn't long before Mrs. J found Mr. J, but she was unable to lift him to bring him inside. She called our house because Meester usually works at home and was the nearest man likely to be home. Fortunately, Meester was there to rush over and help carry Mr. J back into the house.

It is sobering to see that life has been unfair to such a nice couple. Mr. J always had a twinkle in his eyes and a droll sense of humor. One summer our neighborhood was overrun with moles tunneling everywhere. Several of us were out in our backyards futilely stomping down mole tunnels and wondering why our lawns had been invaded. Mr. J said "I've read that male moles will tunnel for miles during mating season to find females. Horny little bastards!" It was a pretty funny comment coming from a retired gentleman like Mr. J.

Now age?, illness?, what?, has taken Mr. J from the simple pleasures of a stroll in the garden and witty chatter with neighbors. It's too simple and trite to make this a morality lesson to "live each day as if it were your last". I just feel sad.

What I've been doing, or not.....

2011-01-18T20:01:00.001-06:00

My office was closed Monday in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which gave me 3 days off from work. It was an odd three days. You know how weird you feel when you have things all planned, and then nothing goes as planned, and you just end up wondering what happened to the time, like were you in some time warp or something?

Saturday I didn't know what I wanted for lunch, so I filled a bowl with Erin Baker's Double Chocolate Chunk granola and milk, then microwaved it till hot and threw some dried banana chips on top. Yummy hot chocolate that's good for you!

It was especially good after those apple cider donuts for breakfast. Nothing like a power breakfast and power lunch!

Sunday we attended a funeral visitation for a friend's father who had been a Mennonite farmer. Along the highway we passed several buggies with their horses at a fine trot heading to the funeral home. I felt weak and pathetic riding in my car with heated seats.

Monday it snowed.

And there was freezing rain, too.

And more snow.

Yes, that's Meester in the background with the shovel - putting the finishing touches on his snow blowing job. Yes, I helped shovel, too...although I mostly wandered around taking pictures with my iPhone camera.

Then I went inside and made cocoa and I don't know why, but I decided to use some pretty holiday tissue paper to line the drawers where I keep my underwear. Can you see the pretty vanilla-colored swirl design?

Oh, and I changed my Blogger template too. I'm still working on it. I can't get all the colors right...maybe because this wasn't on my list of things I had planned.....

A fine fruity mess I got myself into

2011-01-10T12:49:00.004-06:00

Should I be filled with joy or despair that there are so many things in my life that I have not yet experienced?

For example, I have enjoyed pomegranate juice, but I had never opened a pomegranate to get out the lovely little ruby arils (the seeds, I think?) I finally bought a pomegranate, and just left it sitting on my kitchen counter for a long time, just so I could admire its opulent red color and sensuous curves.

image from Google, not my kitchen

I finally decide that it was time to ravage this beautiful fruit to get out the little arils, which are supposed to be loaded with vitamins & antioxidants.

What is beige and red all over?
My kitchen, after opening that *@#! pomegranate!

I guess the most worthy prize is the one that is most difficult to obtain. Those little arils tasted like a red rainbow of sunshine. It was like eating precious ruby jewels.

Why does there always have to be a little agony thrown in with the ecstasy?

P.S. I should add that a little instruction brochure came with my pomegranate. I followed instructions and it was still messy. That would explain the latest pomegranate product, which I will be buying next time.

Who's broken their New Year's resolutions already?

2011-01-01T16:15:00.001-06:00

Me!!!
My resolution for 2011 was to not be so obsessive-compulsive about house cleaning. Being slightly "punch-drunk" from being up so late on New Year's Eve (sadly, midnight is not my finest hour anymore), I reeled around the house on New Year's Day looking for little OC projects to do so I wouldn't fall asleep. I decided to clear the Christmas cards off the kitchen counter, and then I decided that I simply must dust and rearrange my bowl of wooden fruit.

Well, the fruit only gets dusted once a year, and it was so furry with dust that it looked like moldy real fruit. Years (decades really) ago, my mother and my two sisters got seriously into collecting wooden fruit. For several years, we gifted pieces of wooden fruit at Christmas time. The wooden fruit may not be exactly my decorating style, but looking at that wooden fruit brings memories of being with my mom and sisters and trips together to gift shops to discover some new pieces of wooden fruit to buy.

And look how clean my counter is now!

Why, yes, that is a Christmas tablecloth in the background, and I am on my way to put it in the washing machine right now.....

Very Merry and Happy Wishes to You from Me!

2010-12-24T16:09:00.002-06:00

Sounds and Sights of the Season

2010-12-20T15:29:00.002-06:00

Me still sneezing and coughing - since October 9th, people!
Now I'm on new meds. I got a prescription for these sparkly little yellow cough pills, which bear a suspicious resemblance to the substance of the Life Savers Gummies® that I've been eating for my cough.
Other sick co-workers discussing the merits of their Neti pots...eww...
I didn't feel up to dealing with our big artificial tree this year, so we moved our little artificial tree from the tv room to the living room. Love.it.
These sweet little ceramic bird light covers were given to us by Meester's mom just before she passed away; lighting the tree brings a tear to Meester's eye. (I found a couple more birds on on eBay to surprise Meester with for Christmas!)
A mercury glass ornament from Meester's family that is about a hundred years old.
One of my precious Margaret Furlong ornaments, given to me by my two daughters.

Peace and Grace,

Red

...and a vanilla bean in a pear tree

2010-12-15T20:30:00.000-06:00

Sing to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas".
In the last week before Christmas, I've bought 12 dollars of stamps...11 feet of packaging tape...10 pounds of flour...9 bags of Christmas candy...8 pounds of sugar...7 bags of nuts...6 colored sugars...5 golden pounds of butter...4 bags chocolate chips...3 dozen eggs...2 baking cocoas.....and a vanilla bean from Nielsen-Massey.

Just to ship a few dozen homemade cookies to our kids. I'm too busy at work to have enough energy when I get home for making fancy decorated sugar cookies, but for pure buttery vanilla flavor, these simple cookies are just fine. These are the sugar cookies for which I get requests. I have no idea where I found this recipe, but if I'm not giving someone proper credit, I apologize.

Vanilla Sugar Gems

For the vanilla sugar:
2 Cups white granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean

Pour the sugar into a re-sealable container. Split one vanilla bean from top to bottom, and with the thin blade of the knife, carefully scrape all the tiny seeds inside into the sugar. Rub the seeds into the sugar with your fingers until thoroughly mixed. Add the bean to the sugar and seal the container. Wait a couple days before using the sugar.

For the cookies:
1 Cup powdered sugar
1 Cup white sugar (use regular granulated sugar; not the vanilla sugar)
1 Cup butter, at room temperature
1 Cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract
4 Cups plus 4 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Mix the powdered and white sugars together with the butter, vegetable oil, and eggs. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Chill the dough for at least 2 hours to make it easier to work with.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put 1/2 cup of vanilla sugar into a small bowl. For holiday color, you can mix some fine colored sugar with the vanilla sugar. Scoop a teaspoon of dough and roll it into a ball. Roll the ball in the vanilla sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart(these cookies spread). Use a spatula to slightly flatten the dough balls. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Pop a few warm gems in your mouth and try to save the rest for friends and family.

Meester taped this package of cookies as though we were shipping real gems.

Dear Hallmark,

2010-12-08T13:45:00.000-06:00

I know I’ve mentioned this before, actually every time I enter a Hallmark store, but you apparently haven’t heard…so I’m bringing it up again.

I have major issues with your overuse of glitter. I Do.Not.Like.Glitter.

Help, I am having a glitter nightmare!

glitter-graphics.com

I can’t walk into your stores without getting glitter all over me. If I shop for greeting cards on my lunch hour...no matter how careful I am to avoid touching greeting cards with glitter...I end up returning to my office with glitter clinging to my eyelashes or sparkling on the end of my nose. I look like I spent my lunch hour partying...especially when my nose is also red because it’s cold outside...then I look like I spent my lunch hour partying and drinking. (Believe me, I could use a drink at lunch, but I don’t need my boss to think so.)

I know it’s possible to simulate the glitter effect on a card without using actual glitter; I’ve seen it somewhere. If I could remember where I’d seen those simulated glitter cards…I’d go there to shop. Just cover the damn glitter with a layer of decoupage glue or something, or separate your stores into glitter and non-glitter sections. I’m pretty sure that glitter segregation is not against the law – yet.

Yes, I could shop for greeting cards elsewhere, but I really love your crabby old lady Maxine character(no surprise there), and those insane hoops & yoyo characters(I'm giving myself away here). And you have a lock on all the themed characters that the grandkids want, like Disney, Scooby-Doo, etc.

So I’ll keep dragging myself to Hallmark stores when I have to, and your poor employees are going to have to keep listening to me rant about glitter. I may just start making my own homemade greeting cards.....if they will let me have scissors here.......

Sincerely,
Red (the Grinch) Hamster
Who's with me?

want something soothing for the holidays?

2010-12-05T21:40:00.001-06:00

Now that the weather is nasty and I can no longer go outdoors or have my windows open to birdsong (The birds are smart; they have flown the heck out of Iowa!), I'm playing my CDs more. The CDs I'm playing the most are from the together 10 CD Collection.

A while ago, Meester discovered the together website featuring pianist Carl Doy from Auckland, New Zealand. Seriously, this is the most beautiful piano music I have ever heard. The piano sound is so pure it's heavenly. The Christmas CD played on a cold winter night will make you weep. Maybe this music has so much soul because, as the website says, "every note you hear on this Collection is played by a living, breathing musician."

Not just CDs in a plastic case, the together collection comes in an elegant book format featuring photographs from the M.I.L.K. collection.

At least one CD from the together Collection is always in our CD player. There's a CD for every mood, from Bacharach to the Beatles, from Sinatra to Streisand. If you're looking for a unique gift for a music aficionado, you can't go wrong with this music collection.
I receive nothing for promoting this music; just doing a public service for weary shoppers.

Is my rack high enough?

2010-12-01T12:51:00.002-06:00

No, not the rack mentioned in the last picture of my previous post. I know that one is lower than it used to be......

Being "under the weather" for a couple weeks has slowed me down enough to ponder some kitchen mysteries. Just little wonderings, not the eternal kitchen mysteries for which there will never be an answer, nor a solution. Like, after I just scrubbed the kitchen counters to sparkling, WHY does my spouse choose to make himself a meaty, cheesy sandwich and grease up the counters again?

I cleaned my oven just before I got sick, and now I'm looking at the placement of the oven racks, and wondering if they are at the optimal height for baking? (note the lovely sparkle and be envious)

What do you think?

Oh, and feel free to comment on whether covering the bottom of the oven with foil is good or bad? And if foil is acceptable - then should the foil be placed shiny side down, or up? In 300 words or less, discuss and debate whether anyone should care about this.

I kick off my holiday shopping by.....

2010-11-26T00:05:00.000-06:00

...buying something for myself!

I love my new "Cuddl Duds" flannel lounge pants. So soft and fleecy.

Look at the cute birdies!

I like this picture, cause it makes my boobs look big - which they ARE NOT! *Sigh*

They have nifty pockets, too! Unfortunately, the matching tops were dorky and bulky, so I'm sticking with the top that makes me look "booby". Ummm...that didn't come out right.....

What have I been doing this week?

2010-11-20T10:09:00.002-06:00

Still battling a nasty virus that won't go away...sniffling, snuffling, sneezing...ALL SNOT - ALL THE TIME.
For those of you who are still reading after that..... I'm overwhelmed with office drama. Every day this week has been like a soap opera in my office, with divorce proceedings, spicy affairs, racy sexting pictures!, and health problems. No, none of it involves me.....and dammit.....my ears are so stuffed up that I can't overhear every juicy detail!
Desperately hungry for homemade baked goods. The supermarket bakery doesn't satisy, and I won't eat a cupcake that has 30 ingredients on the label. Don't think I should be baking myself, since a fresh, moist baked good should not be the product of a big sneeze.
Received a small promotion. Rather anti-climactic, as this had been promised to me for the past couple years. We also have friends and family that have been laid-off from jobs, and I feel a bit guilty. And now I feel a bit constrained from bashing my place of employment...for a little while.....
Been playing "Rear Window" with my neighbors. Our neighbor's son is unemployed and getting a divorce and has come back home to live in their basement. Every night of the past week, I have stood at my kitchen window in the dark...battling the demon virus in my body that keeps me sneezing and blowing my nose for half the night. I've watched this man walk constantly out onto his parents' patio...and stand in the frigid cold and dark...slowly smoking a cigarette...and I've wondered what demons he is battling this night.

Not my window; image from Flickr

My SAD farewell to Fall

2010-11-15T12:48:00.001-06:00

Spring, Summer, and Fall fill us with hope; Winter alone reminds us of the human condition.
~Mignon McLaughlin

Walking in the yard, I bid goodbye till spring to my few remaining flowers, and try to capture the last golden rays of the autumn sun in my eyes..... *SIGH*

How do you hide technology in all its lack of charm?

2010-11-11T16:51:00.001-06:00

I think I've mentioned before that we have only one television set in Casa de la Wheel. I know - hard to believe, isn't it?!

We have quite the quaint and charming living room...what with the faded chintz print sofa and the green wire birdcage with the silk flowers and the watercolor of an old house from Meester's family over the mantel. Notice my precious red Samsung laptop that Meester bought me ~~because I wanted to sit and blog comfortably on the sofa instead of at a desk~~ because my laptop has Blu-ray and HD and his does not. We won't discuss how often I want to use MY laptop and Meester is using it to watch something or other that I don't want to watch.

Downstairs in the ~~basement~~ lower level family room is where we hide the TV...in the charming cream-colored faux antique cabinet. Next to the charming faux "wood-burning" gas stove...in front of which Red parks her shivering carcass while watching TV in winter...

And these are the charming laptop cables that snake all over our charming tv-less living room. I'm thinking of covering them in a chintz wrapper, like those covers for chandelier cords.

or maybe just covering them with neon orange duct tape so I don't trip over them so much.....

Sweetly seduced again by squash

2010-11-05T12:36:00.000-05:00

Aackkk, too busy at work and too tired to blog, or read blogs. Also too busy to cook...waayyy too many frozen pizzas for dinner lately. I did some baking for family, but here's a recipe for Roasted Squash and Apples that I've managed to make several times between pizzas. The ingredients are just a suggestion; I vary the amounts and ingredients depending on what I have available. The best of Fall -- Squash, Apples, and Maple Syrup.

Roasted Winter Squash & Apples
2 C. butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes
2 C. kabocha squash, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes
2 C. any variety of tart baking apple, cubed and peeled or not peeled
6 Tbs. butter
1/2 C. pure maple syrup
1 garlic clove, minced, or 1/2 C. chopped yellow onion
1 Tbs. chopped fresh rosemary (I used about 1 1/2 tsp. of dried rosemary from my garden)
1 tsp. salt
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3/4 C. chopped pecans, or walnuts, or almonds - whatever you have on hand; toasted if you have time

Butter a 2 qt. baking dish. Combine squash and fruit in a large bowl. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in next 5 ingredients. Pour over squash mixture and stir to coat, then transfer all to baking dish. Cover with lid or foil.

Bake covered at 375 degrees F. for about 40 minutes. Uncover and bake for about 20 minutes more. Remove from oven and sprinkle with nuts before serving.

Before cooking: (Blogger refused to rotate this picture...grrr...)

After cooking: so hungry we started eating before I thought to get a picture.

I'll be drinking dinner at a Holiday Wine & Spirits Show tonight.
Hooray!

Creative baking in my office

2010-10-23T13:34:00.000-05:00

But not by me, heh.
I hate it when I'm too busy at work to read my favorite blogs, or do a blog post.....and come home too tired and cranky to even think about blogging. In other words, spending all day at the office (including my lunch hour) staring at my computer screen -- for work purposes only -- is NO FUN!

A couple of co-workers have found the time to be creative with baking, though, so that's been fun to see. Someone made a "hamburger cake", or maybe a "black bean cake", since the baker is a vegetarian. Anyway, the filling is made of crushed Oreo cookies. I was waiting till lunch time to have a piece, but by noon, the ravenous piggies in our office had already eaten it all. (We blame our appetites on stress eating.)

Someone spent a lot of time on these cupcake spiders. I couldn't bring myself to put something in my mouth that looked like a spider. How do the rest of you bakers feel about Halloween baking? I love the creativity, but the eating of spiders and skeletons and eyeballs is just too eww for me.

I found the energy to make Monet's Pumpkin Coffee Cake.

I have had four pieces already. I believe I should go steam some veggies or eat an autumn apple now.....

Who misses the good old days of television?

2010-10-16T08:44:00.000-05:00

Oh, this has been a bad month for technology in Casa de la Wheel. On October 1st, our satellite TV provider, Dish Network, dropped some channels, including one of our favorites, FX.

Meester has been calling every cable and satellite TV provider in the free world...trying to find something to replace Dish Network. Good grief, there are a million options of bundling TV with internet access, or cell phone service, or whatever. Meester can do calculus in his head, but even he had to grab a pen to write down every convoluted detail of each offer. I am staying out of it...that leaves me the option to bitch that it's Meester's fault if we don't like the services that we end up with.....

Meester is in charge of home technology, and it was his idea to switch our TV reception from cable to satellite a few years ago. Holy Hamsters, that was a nightmare of programming multiple remote controls! I bitched and whined about how I just wanted to watch TV, not launch the space shuttle, until Meester came up with a single remote that would work for the TV, VCR, etc.

So the worst part of this mess is that -- if we change TV providers -- WE WILL HAVE TO PROGRAM NEW REMOTE CONTROLS! All I want to do is watch a little TV now and then...I'm not a big TV watcher...so why does it have to be so hard? I'm old enough to remember when TV sets only had two controls - a knob that you pushed or pulled for ON or OFF, and a dial that you rotated to get 3 channels. I think there was an adjustment for color, but when I was a kid only grownups were allowed to adjust the colors on the tv set. Children were ~~forced~~ allowed to get up and change the channels only.


image courtesy of flickr

So please, just let me go back to the old days of TV...with the simple controls. I could use the exercise getting up to change channels...and I miss Sunday nights with a bowl of popcorn and the whole family watching Bonanza.....

It's been 30 years since I did this?

2010-10-11T13:14:00.000-05:00

I love baking my own cookies and quick breads...and do that fairly often. I remember how much I enjoyed my mother and grandmother's home baking. I still think homemade baked goods are the best.

But I just hadn't given a thought to taking the time for a good old-fashioned yeast bread. I mean the kind where you have to knead the dough and wait for it to rise and it takes all afternoon and who has the time? The last time I kneaded bread dough was when I was a young stay-at-home mom and did things the "homemade way" because we had no money.

I just didn't realize how much time had gone by since those "homemade" days...although maybe my graying hair should have been a clue. Recently I discovered Monet Moutrie's blog anecdotes and apple cores. (Thanks to namely Marly for introducing her.)

Monet has a charming blog that blends creative writing with recipes and delightful pictures. I just find Monet inspirational. Maybe because she looks somewhat like two of our daughters who live in Texas and whom we don't get to see often enough and maybe they could call us more often. Heh.

I know Monet has the kind of recipes I prefer; nothing that requires expensive or exotic ingredients, or a specialty food store that we don't have around here anyway. I love the easy elegance that she adds to a finished baked good with a simple swirl of piped icing...a touch that even I can accomplish. Every recipe of Monet's that I've tried has turned out perfectly, and has been a "keeper" that I will make again. I rarely say that about any of the recipes I have tried from all the professional food icons and stars out there.

Meester was skeptical about Monet's "Ginger Pumpkin Bread". But he was all smiles after eating a warm fragrant chunk of bread fresh out of the oven...and he went right back for more. Few of us really desire to be the "Next Food Network Star". We just want the satisfaction of seeing happy, contented smiles on the faces of friends and family when they taste foods made by us with love...and this is where Monet is a star.

Sweet seduction by squash

2010-10-07T22:00:00.003-05:00

I love the squashes of Autumn - their bold colors, their voluptuous curves, their rich flavors. A squash baked with a bit of butter and sweetener is heavenly.

I stumbled on a recipe for Butternut Squash and Vanilla Risotto and I had to try it. I adjusted the recipe a little - don't we all? The recipe calls for a vanilla bean and its seeds. I had saved a left-over vanilla bean after I scraped out the seeds to make vanilla sugar, so I just cooked the vanilla bean in the broth and added a little Madagascar vanilla extract. Instead of cooking the butternut squash in broth, I cut my squash in half, wrapped the halves in foil, and put them in the oven to bake before I started the risotto. The risotto was absolutely creamy deliciousness and I GOT TO EAT IT ALL MYSELF while watching tv shows on my laptop because Meester was out of town. It doesn't get any better than that.

Don't really have a recipe for this, but a few days later I made a sauce of about 4 Tbs. butter, about 1/4 C. maple syrup, about 1/4 tsp. dried rosemary from my garden, a dash salt & pepper. I poured the sauce over 2-3? Cups of cubed butternut squash and chopped tart apple and put it all in a covered casserole dish. I baked it covered for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees, then uncovered it and baked about 20 minutes more. I don't have a picture either, but it was a lovely fragrant dish and this time Meester got to enjoy it. :)

Wish we were all here

2010-10-01T10:30:00.000-05:00

A perfect fall day in Iowa is rare. The day we went to the orchard was one perfect day.

Remember the Holodeck concept from the Star Trek television series? The Holodeck was a room with computer programming that could simulate various "realities" of your choosing...sights, sounds, smells...just as if you were there. I'd like to program this fall day so that I could step into the Holodeck and enjoy sunlight on a running stream - ALL WINTER. Wouldn't you rather have a Holodeck in your house than a media room where you just watch reruns and faux reality shows on tv?

little green frog hiding in the mud

It Could Always be Worse

2010-09-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

Oh, I've had the most annoying last couple of weeks. It began when I noticed an odd yellow bumpy "thing" on my right eyelid. At first I thought it was a stye - ick! - because I've had those before. But then I decided "the bump" wasn't behaving like any previous stye that I've had, so I called my doctor's office(where I have been a patient for years, I might add). That's when the annoying part began.

Whomever answered the phone at my doctor's office immediately determined that I wasn't dying, so I got the brush-off. "We are totally booked up; why don't you go to our "Quick Care" facility?" Where "quick care" means sitting for hours waiting to be seen by a physician's assistant instead of by my doctor, for whom I was willing to wait for hours to be seen by in the first place.

I work during the day...so eventually...after a few days...I make my way to the "Quick Care"(ha,ha) facility...where I'm seen by a physician's assistant who thinks "the bump" looks like a stye and suggests applying a warm, wet compress to my eye several times a day...which I have already been doing. And I work in an office all day, so there's that problem.

Back to phoning the doctor's office for some serious whining that it's not a stye(see first paragraph) and maybe I need a specialist to see me. I figure I'm giving an opening for me to be passed off to a regional teaching hospital with a certified Ophthalmology department. They take the bait!, and I'm referred to a physician's assistant in Family Practice. At least this woman agrees with me, so I get another referral to the Ophthalmology department.

Finally - today- I make it to the genuine Ophthalmology department...where the doctor tells me that I have a "chalazia" and it's too close to a tear duct...so...I NEED TO SEE ANOTHER SPECIALIST!!!

AND THAT'S NOT THE WORST PART! They may decide to make an incision in my eyelid to remove the chalazia, so afterwards I WON'T BE ABLE TO WEAR EYE MAKEUP TILL IT HEALS. FEH.

The good news is that my problem could be worse.
I could be the guy with the worm in his eye.

How high can my weeds go?

2010-09-19T18:45:00.003-05:00

For all the complaining about how I'm killing myself with working in the garden....apparently I overlooked a weed at the edge of our property. There's a place where my garden sort of blends into my neighbor's garden and has become a sort of no-man's land. We're both too polite to pull up something that might belong to the other one...especially if we're not sure if it's a flower or a weed. I'm pretty sure this is a weed...

I'm a smidge over 5' 1", so this weed must be 8 feet tall. And it was surrounded by more weeds, so after digging out the weed, I spent half an hour picking burrs off myself.

The wonderful thing about a garden is that there is always something beautiful to make it worth all the work.

...and these pictures are from last weekend, because this weekend has been all rain...feh

I'm not a foodie, just a wacky...

2010-09-13T20:55:00.001-05:00

I stopped by Chef Dennis's blog More Than A Mount Full, and saw a guest post by Brian of A Thought For Food. Now I am not a "foodie", but I appreciate food bloggers that post uncomplicated recipes that don't require exotic ingredients and produce simply delicious food. I got really excited over this recipe from Brian, and, honestly, how many of you are really excited at the thought of brownies made with chickpeas?
...I didn't think so.....

But after a hard day at work last week, I needed some comfort food...which for me means something with chocolate. Now I'm not one of those fearless guys on tv that will eat anything. But I will try just about any fruit or vegetable if it's surrounded by butter, sugar, flour, and baked. So I made these Decadent Chocolate Chickpea Brownies. (unfortunately, I didn't have any dried cranberries on hand)

I love them! They are delicously fudgy! And high in fiber!
....AND HERE COMES THE WACKY PART.....

I topped a brownie with fig-infused, locally-made, soft goat cheese. It tasted just like a brownie with ice cream! Hubby Meester shook his head and said "you're not too normal, are you?", and walked away.

Swimming is more appealing than slithering

2010-09-09T20:56:00.000-05:00

We went to a wedding in the Chicago suburbs last weekend. We had time for a little shopping and then had dinner at an Islamorada restaurant. We ate grilled grouper fish for the first time - 1400 miles from the ocean! A HUGE saltwater fish tank spans the length of the restaurant. We could have watched those graceful tropical fish for hours.

Shopped for shoes but couldn't find the right pair...not that I can wear heels this high anymore. So many shoes with snakeskin design - why?

image from RaeBerlin on Flickr

How many of us really like snakes? Do you really want to look down and think you just stepped on a snake? I don't - I won't wear anything that looks like snakeskin. I think the latest fad of putting pom-pom bows on shoes is getting a little overdone, but I'd rather look like a cheerleader than look like a snake is eating my feet.

Crisp, juicy apple pictures for your Monday

2010-08-30T09:01:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was just what I needed...and you know how rarely a weekend is good enough to make up for a bad week. Saturday was gloriously sunny, breezy, and warm. Meester and I decided to leave the yardwork and housework behind and head out to an apple orchard that we hadn't visited for a couple years. The past couple years of Iowa weather have been bad for orchards, but this year there's a plentiful crop of apples.

I love picking my own apples, and look how ~~scrawny~~ toned my legs look from hiking a couple miles to do it.

Of course, the best apples are always out of reach.

Just-picked-fresh apples, blemishes and all.

You should smell the inside of this bag of apple cider donuts!

Sunday I made Apple Dapple Cupcakes, enough to share with some friends. Thanks for the recipe, Monet!

Bad day makes a bad girl

2010-08-27T21:29:00.000-05:00

Gah,this was the worst week at the office. I was so fried by the end of the day on Friday that I just went bad and threw this empty glass tea bottle in the trash.

I am usually diligent about recycling but I didn't have an ounce of energy in me to walk to the bathroom to rinse out the bottle, peel off the label, and walk to the office recycling bin. Now I will probably feel guilty all weekend, and come into the office on Monday and dig through the trash for that bottle. Or someone else will spy that bottle in the trash...and when I come in on Monday there will be a snarky note posted over the trash can about "What bad co-worker didn't recycle this glass bottle?"

Oh, sometimes it's the littlest things that exhaust us the most.

Random Ramblings

2010-08-22T20:46:00.000-05:00

It's so hot out, and the humidity today was about a gazillion percent. I went outside for a walk, but my brain melted, so I took a few random pictures with my iPhone and that's about it.

One last little daylily hiding behind a big clump of ornamental grasses.

We don't have a vegetable garden, but we have a wonderful friend who shares the bounty from his garden. He gave us cherry tomatoes, and I have been eating them like candy.

Not sure what these lovely striped flowers are, but I know they escaped from my neighbor's garden. Yay - free flowers!

It cannot be apple time - it can't be Fall already! I was going to walk to where I had seen an apple tree loaded with apples, but gave up (remember, the humidity was a gazillion percent) and took a picture of a nearby tree with a few gnarly apples.

School starts tomorrow, which guarantees it will be the hottest day of the year, not to mention the most annoying and insane traffic of the year.

Why can it be so hard for women to relax?

2010-08-17T20:17:00.001-05:00

Some of the comments on my last post reminded me of how so many of us women bloggers identify with the idea of relaxing, but can't seem to actually do it. We post or comment about sitting down with a cold drink, or enjoying a nice long bubble bath, or maybe we'll sit on a garden bench in our next life...but we're busy hammering out those thoughts on our keyboards...and then it's off to the next task.

Maybe it's a peculiarity of women bloggers. I read somewhere that producing a good blog requires a minimum of 15 - 20 hours a week. Between my full-time job and my obsessive-compulsive housekeeping...I'm lucky to put in 5 hours a week on my blog(anyway, that's a good excuse for the mediocrity of my blog). But blogging does take time and an active mind, and isn't that the opposite of relaxing?

The last time I dozed off in the middle of the day - I think I was 5 years old and it was "nap-time" in kindergarten. Now if I sit down during the day, my mind remains active and I soon realize that there is something, somewhere, that remains undone - and off I go to do it.

Maybe this is a gender issue that goes back to the dawn of mankind, when survival of the next generation was the primary responsibility of "cavemommy"...no surrogate mothers back then. No baby bottles and formula... little cavebabies couldn't survive without constant attention and breastfeeding from their cavemommies. I'm pretty sure if ESPN had existed back then...cavemen wouldn't have realized a cavebaby was crying until "Half-time". Women had to be on constant alert to ensure the survival of their families - and then they died when they were about 30...no relaxing years of retirement back then either.

Meester has no problem relaxing. He'll inquire why I'm fussing with laundry while complaining about being exhausted from my job, and suggest that the laundry will wait till tomorrow. I'll reply "Have you noticed that you have no clean underwear?" Nope, he hadn't even noticed. I'm constantly declaring that if it wasn't for women...men would still be living in caves...wearing dirty underwear. We can't relax and allow that.

I'm hitting "Publish Post" and heading to the laundry room.....

Doesn't my garden bench look idyllic?

2010-08-11T19:21:00.000-05:00

I had dreams of lazy summer afternoons and gentle summer evenings spent with a book and an iced beverage...sitting on this bench enjoying the hum of bees, birdsong, and the sighing of wind in the trees.....maybe watching the last rays of sunlight filter through the trees to brighten a flower or hosta leaf with gold.

I was so wrong! The 100% percent humidity outside is exceeded only by the millions of mosquitoes, gnats, and "no-see-ums" swarming around the yard. If the heat doesn't drive me in the house, then the relentless insect bites do. An easy, idyllic summer afternoon apparently exists only in my imagination...at least in Iowa anyway. Iowa summers can be brutal.

And honestly...I can't sit still on a bench for that long...without noticing weeds that need pulling, flowers that need deadheading, shrubs that need pruning, etc., etc. Think the problem is me? Maybe while I'm pulling weeds and swatting mosquitoes, I'll just daydream about sitting on that bench.....

An old love from summers past

2010-08-04T18:09:00.000-05:00

I can't forget the love of my childhood summers - an old black oscillating fan. Since we didn't have central A/C, there were desktop fans around the house, and a big box fan in the stairway window.

This picture is far classier than the actual fan of my childhood - a plain black bullet-back fan with big black blades that I was sure could cut fingers off if they got too close. My sisters and I were always careful to stick only hot dogs, and carrots, and sheets of paper, into the blades to see if we could make flying slices of anything - just like the cartoons. Didn't work.

We didn't dare try sticking anything into the big box fan in the window. We knew our parents would kill us if we messed with what passed for central A/C in our house. But the black fan resided in the children's bedroom, and so it was treated like any other plaything. (Yes, back then siblings usually shared one bedroom, but it was a big old room.)

Our beds were lined up against one wall, and the fan sat atop our dresser and was pointed in our direction. Our mother was sure that a fan blowing right on us would cause pneumonia, so every night she tilted the face of that heavy black fan upward, then turned out the lights. I would bounce right out of bed and point the fan downward straight at my spot on the double bed that I shared with a sister. There was no more delightful feeling at nighttime than the swish of lukewarm air back and forth across my sticky little body, encased in my favorite pink baby-doll pajamas. The soft whir of fan blades was the lullaby music of a whole generation of Baby Boomers.

In the deep August heat of my summers now...lying in the stale, sterile air of central A/C, as the big central A/C compressor chugs away outside...I often miss the gentle whir of those old fan blades.....

Summer doldrums

2010-08-01T11:42:00.000-05:00

August already?!?! Summer flies by too fast. And when did August become such a busy month, with the start of every extra-curricular school activity, and the month-long back-to-school buying sprees, and why does school actually begin in August now? What happened to the traditional 3 months of summer break?

I don't even have children in school anymore, and yet I'm nostalgic for the old slow Midwestern summers that I remember from when I was a child. Which was so long ago - yikes! - that central air-conditioning was rare...and we didn't have it.

When I was a kid, August seemed like the longest, slowest month of the year. The August air was languid with heat and humidity, and filled with the background music of cicadas singing.

I'd sit on a blanket outside, with my best girlfriend "L", under the shade of huge maple and elm trees. (how I miss those magnificent elms) We'd pick dandelions and white clover to make necklaces and bridal bouquets for our Barbie dolls. We'd taste the sweet clover and make faces tasting sourgrass. (A pleasant and safe summer activity, since no one treated their lawns with chemicals to kill everything back then.)

If "L" couldn't play, I'd hang out in the house...lying on the floor where the air was cooler. (no air-conditioning, remember?) My paternal widowed grandfather lived with us; he spent every summer tending the green beans and tomato plants in our backyard garden and listening to broadcasts of the Chicago White Sox baseball games on the radio in our living room. (not much programming on tv back then, either) I had no idea what "bottom of the 3rd with two men left on base" meant, but the mellow voice of the announcer droning each play would put me in a pleasant drowsy haze.

And our family always took our summer vacation, to some small lakeside resort in Wisconsin or Minnesota, the last week or two of August. The end of our vacation always signaled the end of summer.

"Summertime and the living is easy" was true back then, but maybe it was because I was just a kid and had no lawn to mow, no meals to cook, nor bills to pay. Or has the wonder of air-conditioning, and 24-hour tv programming, and computer video games...just speeded up life somehow? Or am I just sounding like a nostalgic old lady?! How do you remember the Augusts of summer?

Addendum to my last post

2010-07-29T20:42:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I run around too much.

What's wrong with this picture of chocolate zucchini bread that I baked from scratch?

Does it look a little...ummm...flat? ...because I forgot to add the vegetable oil to the batter...
Because:

Poor Red works her brains out all day and doesn't have enough brains left for when she gets home?
Red runs at super-sonic speed and she just sort of flew by the oil bottle?
This isn't the first time Red has screwed up a recipe!
Red was trying to be all gourmet and "fussy up" the recipe, and you know what happens when you try that...

Actually, the recipe called for a box of instant chocolate pudding, and I'm not a fan of instant mixes of any kind. So instead of using instant pudding for the chocolate flavor...I melted 2 oz. of unsweetened Baker's chocolate. Then I didn't have any chocolate chips, so I chopped up 3 squares of Baker's semi-sweet chocolate - by hand. So with all the extra melting and chopping... I somehow overlooked adding oil to the batter until the loaves of zucchini bread were already in the oven. I invented chocolate zucchini biscotti!

The bread wasn't really that bad, and good if you heat a slice in the microwave and then slather it with butter.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread
3 eggs
1 1/2 C. sugar
1 T. vanilla
1 C. vegetable oil
2 C. shredded zucchini
3 C. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 T. cinnamon
1 3 oz. box instant chocolate pudding
1/2 C. chopped nuts
1/2 C. chocolate chips

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, salt, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and dry pudding mix. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs. Add sugar, vanilla, and oil. Beat well. Fold in zucchini. Stir in flour mixture until combined. Fold in nuts and chocolate chips. Divide batter between 2 greased and floured 9x5-inch loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until bread tests done. Cool breads on a rack for 10 to 15 minutes before removing from pan.

Now I know why I'm not an alcoholic

2010-07-27T14:09:00.000-05:00

courtesy of Striatic's Photostream

This study explains a lot. "In this study, we found that the more the hamsters ran, the less they consumed alcohol."..... "Hamsters that did not run as much had a greater craving for alcohol....."

Now I enjoy an alcoholic drink probably as much as anybody...but I have never felt a need for an alcoholic drink. Yea, I know sometimes I post or Tweet about how I need a drink, but that's usually more of a stress-releasing whine than an actual pouring of an adult beverage.

When Meester is done working, he pours himself a gin and tonic. After a hard day at my office...and that's pretty much every day now...I come home and get busy making dinner, or doing laundry, or tidying up the house, or some general busy work. And I whine vociferously the entire time about how much work I have to do.

I often don't sit down to catch up on tv shows or personal email until an hour before bedtime. (which explains the lack of consistent blog posting) Occasionally I will drink a glass of wine - while standing. You have to drag me out to a bar or restaurant to get me to sit and be social.

So I guess being a general pain-in-the-ass and an obsessive-compulsive housekeeper keeps me from being an alcoholic. .....and that's just how I run around here "In The Wheel".....

A no-longer-appropriately-named recipe for blueberry cake

2010-07-17T10:51:00.000-05:00

It's blueberry time in the Midwest, and our stores are filled with lovely blueberries from Michigan. I made this recipe last year, but never got around to posting about it. So, this week I got ready to post my recipe...but first took a minute to peruse the local news stories online. My local news provider featured an article on tracking online child pornography. Which made me think that perhaps it would not be a good idea to use the charmingly old-fashioned title of the recipe "Blueberry Boy Bait" as the title of this blog post.

I inherited this cookbook from my mother - who inherited it from her mother.

It was published in 1967, but somehow the recipe title seems even quainter than the '60s.

BLUEBERRY BOY BAIT
2 Cups flour
1 1/2 Cups granulated sugar
2/3 Cup butter
2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs, separated
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Cup whole or 2% milk
1 Cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease & flour an 11x7 baking pan.

Sift together flour and sugar in large mixing bowl. Cut in butter
till mixture resembles fine crumbs. Remove 1/4th of mixture; reserve.

Add baking powder, egg yolks, salt, and milk to mixture in bowl. Beat
until smooth.

In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry; fold into batter.
Spread in pan. Sprinkle with the blueberries and top with the reserved crumbs.

Bake in preheated oven for 40 - 50 minutes. Serve warm or cold with whipped cream or ice cream.

A fantastic HalfAsstic contest

2010-07-14T20:04:00.000-05:00

My good Texas friend Krissa is having a contest.....long story. She had problems with her blog and ended up with a new masthead.....which Krissa thinks is dopey and I think is charming. (see her blog for a better picture of her masthead) Anyhoo, Krissa's contest involves writing a story to explain the masthead picture. I don't see myself as a writer, so here is a dopey story to explain a charming picture.....and to explain HalfAsstic Krissa to you, too.

A dark and lonely man senses a strange new stirring within him. He feels a mysterious pull from far away. He knows not from where this enticement originates, but he is drawn to leave his familiar green fields to travel down the winding country lanes leading to…...

…..deep in eastern Texas, along the backwaters of the muddy Dickinson Bayou. There dwells the source of this powerful vibration luring lonely men to Texas. There dwells the fantastic HalfAsstic Krissa, the dark-haired high priestess of the mysterious religion of HalfAssticism.

One of Krissa's prized devices is her magic foot massage machine; the siren whir of this machine draws men night and day, from near and far. Only one other person knows of Krissa’s secret powers – the ancient H who hides herself in a back bedroom of Krissa’s lair. The ancient H claims to have seen Krissa perform much magic and cast many spells on the multitudes of men who flock to Krissa’s abode.
By day Krissa cloaks her HalfAsstic powers under the guise of mountains of laundry. By night Krissa electrifies the sultry Bayou air as she performs her magic hot flash dance.

And so the poor lonely man begins his journey down the innocent country lane…to the crazy kingdom of HalfAsstic….and who knows what will happen next in HalfAssticdom?

Random pictures for a rainy week

2010-07-09T20:13:00.000-05:00

Not much sun around here since last Saturday, and you know how I hate not seeing the sun. I've managed to accumulate a few random pictures with my iPhone, as I've scurried outside between the rains, waving my arms wildly to fend off mosquitoes, and staggering around trying to keep my feet from sinking in the muddy, squishy lawn. (Hopefully my neighbors are not in their windows with their own iPhones, taking videos of me to send to whomever is in charge of collecting the crazy people).

I garden with a reckless abandon, and always manage to beat myself up pretty good. In addition to everyone's pretty garden pictures, I'd like to see pictures of how damaged everyone else gets in their gardens.
Bruised right arm:

Bruised left arm:

I have a big mosquito bite on the inside of my right thigh, but you don't want to see a picture of that.

The wind and rain blew a pretty golden leaf against the dining room window.

Pretty flowers kissed with rain...and how the hell they bloom without sun I don't know...

The weatherman is promising SUN for Saturday. Squee!

Another week, another whine

2010-07-06T14:39:00.000-05:00

Ugh, my 4th of July was kind of a bust. Worked my ass off in the yard on Saturday, which was the only decent day of the holiday weekend, weather-wise.

Sunday was off-and-on rainy, and Meester wasn't feeling well...so we didn't go to any of the local fireworks displays...and I love fireworks. Feh.

Damn DSL internet connection was down again most of Monday. I had the day off from work for the holiday, so of course the weather stunk with rain and 300% humidity. Feh.

So I baked a huge batch of "Monster Cookies" to take to work Tuesday.

Easy to whip up, but Good Gah, it makes a zillion cookies and you'll be on your feet all day baking them.

Here's the recipe I used, but really, there's a million variations of this...
Monster Cookies
4 eggs
1 1/2 C. brown sugar
1 1/2 C. white sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 tsp. light corn syrup
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
2/3 C. butter
2 C. peanut butter
6 C. old-fashioned oatmeal
chocolate chips and M&M candies as desired

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients in a big dishpan in order given. Drop by large tablespoonfuls or use ice cream scoop and flatten slightly. (I made mine smaller for easier snacking at work.) These cookies spread out while baking. Bake 12 minutes or till lightly browned. Do not overbake.

Does anyone else go to so much trouble separating the paper, & the cardboard, & the plastic from each other for recycling?

Along came a spider

2010-07-02T21:01:00.000-05:00

photo courtesy of WikiGallery

I was sitting in my office cubicle the other day when I noticed a spider crawling up the partition. I DO NOT like spiders, so I found a paper towel and snatched it up and yes...excuse me if you are an arachnid lover...squished it. I work in an ancient building that's full of creepy-crawlies, so I'm just keeping the spider population under control. Believe me, there are still plenty of bugs left in here; I shudder to think what's crawling around after dark when the lights are off.

Years and years ago...I couldn't even go near a spider. Seeing one made for ear-splitting shrieks on my part and a mad dash to another room. My late, brave mother could squish a spider in her bare fingers. I will NEVER be able to do that. I still emit small squeaks when I have to catch a spider in our house. Meester says he can hear when I catch a spider in another room.

One of my greatest epiphanies was delivered to me by way of a spider. My first husband had walked out, and I was "alone" for the first time in more than a decade, and solely responsible for my two little children(yes, they were his kids too, but he decided he didn't want the responsibility anymore).

I was sitting on the floor playing with the kids, and looked over to see a fairly fat spider making its way across the carpet in our direction. I screamed and jumped up on the sofa, followed by the oldest child. Then we both realized that the baby was still on the floor, and we snatched her up, and then we all stood on the sofa shrieking. *It suddenly dawned on me that there was no one else to take care of that spider but ME*

Now I had already thought about how a divorce would mean that I would have to mow the lawn myself, and shovel the snow, and take the car for an oil change, and strip the wallpaper in the bedroom and repaint the room all by myself, but I hadn't realized that divorce would also mean being in charge of SPIDER EXTERMINATION. So I gritted my teeth, hopped off the sofa, got a paper towel, grabbed the spider, and dashed into the garage to squish it(so the kids wouldn't hear me still shrieking under my breath).

After the spider incident, I knew I could handle whatever came my way after the divorce.....maybe not handle it well, or willingly.....but I could do what I thought I couldn't do.

.....Here's hoping that all your revelations come in a prettier form than a spider.....

Isn't just the littlest things that set us off?

2010-06-26T17:31:00.000-05:00

Have you ever gotten annoyed by some little thing...and trying to resolve it only provokes you more...and then you can't let go...so you spend too much time on it...and then it doesn't end the way you want anyway?

A couple months ago, I bought some more of my usual Almay "intense i-color" mascara at my local drugstore. You know how cosmetic companies are always changing their products, but I didn't notice anything different because I looked. I'm picky about my mascara wands; I like the straight ones, not the curved wands. So I looked closely at the picture of the mascara wand on the package, and the picture was the same as always.

But when I opened the mascara at home, the wand was totally different than the wand that was included with my previous "intense i-color" mascaras. It was a skinny little wand, with little brushes that felt like sharp metal teeth. So I completed the "Contact Us" email form on Almay's web site, questioning the discrepancy in the picture of the mascara wand and why did it feel so sharp. And honestly, I wasn't comfortable using the wand so I threw out the mascara, and gosh darn it, it cost 5+ dollars and now I'm getting annoyed.....

After a week without a response, I sent another email to Almay. And got a response from Revlon saying "We sent you a response and a coupon." Almay is part of Revlon? How would I know that? Since my Gmail Inbox is clogged with advertising emails...if I was expecting an email from Almay...I probably deleted anything from Revlon.

So, of course, I had to send that little rant back to the Revlon email team...and wait with smug satisfaction for another email with a replacement coupon.

This time I got an email saying "We are sending you a coupon by postal mail." (I'm pretty sure that "you beyotch" was somewhere in the fine print, heh.) So now I had to keep an eye on my "junk" postal mail every day to be sure I didn't toss my paper coupon.

I finally got my coupon - for $5 of REVLON products - not Almay! (and no one ever answered my question about why that mascara wand was so sharp, which was all I wanted to know to begin with)

Again with a baking post? But it's chocolate...

2010-06-21T19:31:00.000-05:00

What with all the posts about cookies and all - you'd think I baked all the time. I don't bake half as much as I'd like, considering how much we love homemade baked goods at Casa de la Wheel. It's just so easy to do a post where I just copy a recipe and then post a picture of the finished baked good...when I"m feeling ~~lazy brain-dead~~ exhausted from work.

I made "Joe's Chocolate Fudge Pie" a couple weeks ago. I have no idea where the recipe originated; it's been languishing in my recipe box for a long time. Meester's father was named Joe, but this recipe was printed on a sheet of paper, so I doubt that it's from his mom. Don't you miss the old family recipes hand-written on a decorative recipe card, and then stained from years of use? ...the ones with the little notes written by a beloved family member or friend in the margin?... They are the best.

Joe's Chocolate Fudge Pie
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
4 large eggs
3 tsp. light corn syrup
1 1/2 Cups granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 Cup milk
1 9-inch baked pie shell

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In the top of a small double boiler over warm water on moderate heat, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring occasionally, until melted and smooth. Set aside. In a bowl, beat the eggs to mix. Add the corn syrup, sugar, salt, nutmeg, vanilla extract, and milk. Beat to mix thoroughly. Then add the chocolate mixture (which may still be warm) and beat well.

Pour into the prepared crust. Bake for 33 minutes until a sharp knife inserted near the edge comes out almost clean. Cool to room temperature. Serve at room temperature or chilled, with whipped cream or ice cream.

This pie is fat fudge heaven.

Time-honored kitchen traditions

2010-06-18T20:55:00.000-05:00

Ah, Friday, thank Gah. I can either whine about the non-stop rain storms this week or whine about how much my job sucked this week.

How about if I lighten up and post about time-honored kitchen traditions among womenfolk? Time-honored and traditional via the internet, that is.

Anyhoo...in the timeless tradition of recipe sharing amongst women...I was visiting "Namely Marly". Marly introduced me to Monet Moutrie. Monet shared with me her recipe for "Chocolate Pretzel Cookies". Of course, I ran right to the store to buy chocolate chips and pretzels. I don't usually have chocolate chips in my cupboard because in the time-honored secret tradition of women...I can't resist nibbling chocolate chips out of the bag until I don't have enough left for baking anything.....

Sooo...I was tired and crabby from work, and multi-tasking to get everything done when I got home. Laundry, make supper, check e-mail, throw stuff in a bowl to get the cookies started. Now I do know how to make chocolate chip cookies...I actually make a pretty good basic chocolate chip cookie...but my eyes read "in a bowl, whisk together dry ingredients"...and I just threw everything dry in a bowl...flour, baking soda, salt, SUGARS. Wait - turn brain back on! Sugar always goes with butter and eggs, not flour. Duh!

Now my grandmothers and my mother went through World Wars and the Great Depression; I've heard the stories. I've been through the poverty of divorce - in the 1980's - divorce was the new Depression. So in the time-honored tradition of women in kitchens everywhere, I had to "make do" and "carry on".

I just whipped up the melted butter with the egg and egg yolk and vanilla. Then I added my erroneous dry mixture about 1/2 cup at a time and beat really well until I only had about 3/4 cup of dry mixture left, which I stirred in by hand. Then added my chocolate chips and pretzels as usual.

And those cookies turned out damn good! 'Cause we all know how to rescue a kitchen disaster when it involves butter, sugar, and chocolate.....

Love these, and I'm not getting paid to say it!

My three-day English Garden - part deux

2010-06-15T21:25:00.001-05:00

And what else grew like Jack's beanstalk in my English Garden that only lasted three days?
My favorite campanula rotundifolia - bluebells of Scotland.

This is an old picture, but I just thought it was cool that once I was taking pictures of my bluebells of Scotland, and surprised a bunny hiding among the bells.

And campanula persicifolia - peach-leaved bellflower.

I am not bending my knees, honest - the bellflowers were up to my neck!

Too short and too sweet.....the flowers, that is.....I'm just short.

For one brief shining moment.....I had an English garden

2010-06-13T22:07:00.001-05:00

Oh people...I finally had the English garden that I have been working on for years. It lasted about 3 days!

In 2000, Meester and I took a trip to the Cotswolds - the absolutely charmingest part of England. I fell in love with all the gardens frothing with lavender and roses and lady's mantle. I came home and for the next 2 years planted every flower that I saw in the Cotswolds, trying to create my own little English garden in the extreme climate of nothing-at-all-like-England Iowa.

The lavender thrived, and so did the lady's mantle, but the roses didn't make it and the foxgloves didn't even try. For years and years, the foxgloves produced a clump of leaves but no flowers. I know foxgloves are biennial, but that means they bloom every other year, doesn't it? And it's been 10 damn years of waiting for those foxgloves!

Finally...after a brutal winter with 2 feet of snow on the ground for 4 solid months...those foxgloves bloomed.

Could it be that all that snow was actually good for something?!
(Then the Iowa wind and rain knocked the foxgloves over. So Iowa weather is only good for corn, not English gardens.)

Someone reminds me of an old boyfriend

2010-06-08T17:21:00.000-05:00

Tonight is the season finale of my current fave tv show "Justified". Timothy Olyphant is hot as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. Who doesn't love a guy with a great cowboy hat and a gun?

All the "Justified" actors have developed great characters roles in this show. In fact, some of them kind of remind me of someone.....

Ummm...yea...think of your old boyfriends...can you relate? *Sigh*

Life shouldn't be an expensive bowl of cherries

2010-06-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

Do you know how much I paid for this bowl of cherries?

I paid $10! Whereas hotfessional paid $5 for a whole box of a dozen mangoes! Hotfessional lives in an urban Chicago neighborhood, and I live in a small city in Iowa. Isn't living supposed to be cheaper in a rural area?! I'm denying myself the pleasure of fresh summer fruit because I go into shock at the prices. It might be cheaper to buy a tank of gas and drive to Chicago to buy a load of fruit for the summer!

Or I could just get my summer fruit this way:

Coconut-infused vodka and red wine. Coconut is a fruit, right? And wine is made from grapes.

We went to a liquor tasting a while ago and bought these two bottles. I have a problem with allergic reactions to red wine; I pretty much have to sample the wine before I buy to be sure that I won't get a reaction. I've even had reactions from guaranteed no-sulfites organic wine, that's how weird I am. So I like this Tamas Estates Double Decker red wine and the cute picture on the label, too.

I'm not a big Pina Colada fan, because the rum and cream of coconut combo was always a little too heavy for me. This is where this post gets really good...thanks for hanging in thru the whine... UV Coconut Vodka is perfect for summer pina coladas! ...and anything else requiring coconut flavor for summer. It's so light and refreshing...those coconut drinks go down way too easy. This is really delicious - UV Coconut Vodka over Ben & Jerry's "Creme Brulee" ice cream, with toasted almonds on top. I should know - I've been making vodka sundaes every day this week!

"One" means All of Us

2010-06-03T16:26:00.001-05:00

I know we're all watching the ongoing BP.oil.spill.disaster with horror. No one has a definite answer as to how the BP oil well exploded. No one has yet come up with a plan that stops the oil leaking from the well.

Today CNN.com has an article about one woman, Kindra Arnesen, the wife of a Louisiana shrimp fisherman. Kindra is speaking out about the the problems that coastal families are experiencing because of the BP oil spill. Kindra's statement is one that we can embrace: "Anything that ever starts, starts with one. And if I have to be the one then I have to be the one."

We may feel helpless to stop the leaking oil...helpless to stop the damage to the Gulf waters and coastlines...but there's something that each one of us can do. Be more mindful of the oil and petroleum products that we consume. Would we need as many oil wells if each one of us made one less car trip to the mall each week? What if the whole family got in one car and did errands together on Saturday, instead of everyone driving around in separate vehicles? Yes, I know it's not that simple, but it's a start that each one of us can make.

Week in review - the good, the bad, and pretty pictures.

2010-05-28T16:33:00.002-05:00

How was your week? All I can say is I'm soooo glad it's going to be a 3-day weekend...

Monday: Two co-workers got into a dispute in a very public part of the office. One pounded a fist on a desk and yelled "I'm going to tell the boss." Apparently I am now working in kindergarten.
Tuesday: My office re-organization has intensified the usual office power wars, and we are all feeling rather like collateral damage. Went home and watched my current fave tv show "Justified". Wondered if I should be concerned about my current fondness for watching people get shot?
Wednesday: Worked hard to meet deadlines that won't matter anyway. You all know how that goes... Noticed that the cuticle on the middle finger of my right hand looked ragged.

Caused by picking at my cuticles from stress? or from giving co-workers the finger from behind my cubicle wall? Rummaged around in my bags of soap from the Oregon Soap Shoppe and found cuticle balm with lemon and myrhh. mmmmm...nice and soothing...
Thursday: Spent all day on my feet running around helping co-workers fix their computer problems. Came home and picked bouquets of peonies. Spent a half hour on my feet catching all the bugs that poured out of the peonies onto the dining table.
Friday: I know we're all saying "Thank Gah It's Friday"!

Wheelworthy Wednesday Shoppe

2010-05-25T23:08:00.000-05:00

Oh, I know I've posted about this before, but I just enjoy my soaps from the Oregon Soap Shoppe so much and isn't it more fun to blog about things you love?

Last month we made a trip to Oregon, IL, to stock up on our favorite - actually one & only - bar soaps. Sure we could order online, but it's so much fun to visit with proprietors Lynnel and Michael, and it smells so *heavenly* inside the shop. I took some pictures, but Lynnel has a new web site up and a video that gives you a much better picture of her charming shop.

Lynnel loves creating new soaps. Her web site can hardly keep up with her busy hands, so check with her if you are interested in a certain scent. I already see some new soaps on her web site that weren't there when we visited. I love the soaps and lip balms with honey...and the chocolate soaps are yummy. Meester picked out a Wisteria scented soap that smelled so beautiful when it warmed under our hot shower. These are a few of the soaps that I picked up on this trip.

No, I didn't actually buy a whole crate of lavender soaps. This was in the shop and just beckoned me to take a picture...wish you could smell this lavender instead of looking. Just breathing the fresh, clean, calming scent of the shop is so relaxing.....

Good times lottery game

2010-05-21T19:25:00.001-05:00

image courtesy of ialottery.com

Here’s a rollicking, riotous game to fill a long afternoon when you and your significant other are trapped inside because the weather is (insert sucky Midwest weather description) outside. The Meester and I play this game whenever the Powerball lottery jackpot has reached sufficient proportions to induce us to buy a few tickets. The goal of the game is ostensibly to share *a romantic dream* that you could achieve as a couple if only you had sufficient funds.

To start the game…one significant other looks up from tv or computer screen and nonchalantly remarks “What would you do if *we* won the lottery tonight? What would *we* do with all that money?”

The other significant other is required to respond “I’d give a bunch (quantifying the amount of money is optional) to (insert name of most problematic family member)."

Discuss said family member between players. Opposing significant other brings up as many past issues with family member as possible. Bonus points if you can name the exact date of a specific incident proving unworthiness of receiving money.

Significant other originating the game now gets a turn discussing what family members to give lottery money.

Merriment ensues as game progresses and significant others shout out popular game catch-phrases like “Let’s talk about your kids…” or “Your sister is crazier than my sister!” or “Are you insane?!”

Lightning round – each significant other takes a turn naming a family member, friend, or co-worker who should get a share of lottery money – opposing significant other rapidly fires a response listing one good reason why said person does not ever deserve any lottery money and what disaster will ensue if said person is given a share of lottery money.

Game ends when both players lose their voices, are exhausted, or stop speaking to each other and leave room in a huff. Game can be played endlessly since you never actually win the lottery.....good times.....

Breaking up is hard to do

2010-05-14T21:01:00.000-05:00

"Wherever you are, it's your friends who make your world." ~ William James.

If you've ever worked in a office...or anywhere...you know how a special work BFF can help you make it through each day. Someone with the same sense of humor...someone who snickers or rolls eyeballs at exactly the same time as you when a co-worker does something dumb. Someone who's listening to the same music at work as you. Someone who watches the same TV shows as you; so you can fritter away office time by discussing the latest episodes together. Someone who recognizes the similarities to "Dilbert" and "The Office" and "Office Space" in your workplace the same as you. Someone who send you an instant message at exactly the same time you are sending one to him/her...with exactly the same thoughts...

For several years, I've been lucky to have a work best friend sitting in the cubicle right in front of me. We've helped each other make it through some boring, bad, crazy, and even good days. And we've probably shared a million instant messages with each other...thank Gah for the invention of computers and instant messaging applications...it makes it so much easier to say wicked things about your co-workers without them hearing.

So our office has gone through a reorganization...and my BFF - H - was moved to the other side of our building. To add insult to injury, it was my job to move all his computer equipment to his new area. I think the two of us went through every stage of grief this week.

H was the first person I saw every morning in the office...I'll miss that.....

Is this Heaven?

2010-05-09T21:43:00.001-05:00

No, but the Texas Hill Country when the bluebonnets and spring wildflowers are in bloom is probably as close to Heaven as you'll come. We had dreamed of seeing the famous Hill Country bluebonnets in the spring. It was cloudy with a hint of rain the day we set out to hunt for bluebonnets, but as we approached the Willow City Loop the clouds broke up and the sun appeared - a heavenly miracle!

My pictures don't capture the full beauty of the Willow City Loop. There was not only the profusion of wildflowers, but an absence of speeding traffic and city noise, and a purity of the air at the peak of the Loop. Don't we all need a peaceful beauty break like this more often?

Next stop was Austin

2010-05-05T22:10:00.001-05:00

Austin is for hipsters. You know there's gotta be a unique vibe to a city whose unofficial slogan is "Keep Austin Weird". Austin is home to big music (SXSW and ACL), big tech AMD, Dell, Freescale, etc), and big Orange.

Daughter Mona Lisa and her husband da Vinci totally lurv living there...as much for the big attractions as for the small, charming, down-home attractions. We had a delightful long lunch at Walton's Fancy and Staple, owned by Sandra Bullock. Didn't see Sandra...I think she's kinda busy with other stuff right now...

Went to dinner at the real original Salt Lick Bar-B-Que in Driftwood. We bought their barbeque sauce to take home, but you can't match the taste that comes from cooking on their open barbeque pit.

Did you know that there are oil-producing olive groves in Texas? We visited an original Texas olive farm, Bella Vista Ranch, in Wimberley. It was pouring rain - again, so we didn't get to tour the olive groves, but we found the most kick-ass olive oil and Fig & Vanilla balsamic vinegar.

Their balsamic vinegars are imported from Italy, and they are thick enough to hold up to juicy tomatoes and cling to soft wedges of brie. Seriously the best balsamic vinegars I've ever bought.

And we walked in the sun - finally - to Whole Earth Provision Company (love that store), where I bought a cloche hat to shade my eyes from the sun.

I finally do my Dallas post

2010-05-02T23:24:00.000-05:00

I so meant to blog and Twitter all the time we were traveling in Texas, just like Bossy on her (No) Book Tour. I was actually traveling just a couple days behind Bossy as she went through Dallas and Austin, and I wish I had been able to meet up with her and be part of her posse of thousands. My blog posse in Texas consists mostly of Krissa, and we sadly were not able to work out a get-together, although we did talk on the phone, which we hadn't done before, so Yay! for that. And I'm still haven't figured out what app to use to post Twitter pics, so if anyone has advice on that, I could sure use it...cause I am feeling really lame and anticlimactic even bothering to mention my trip now.

But I will anyway, since I finally finished washing the ton of dirty laundry from the trip, and I can't think of anything else to ~~whine~~ blog about at the moment.

Dallas was a weather FAIL. It rained a lot, but Sugar Mommy, Sugar Daddy, and granddog Sugar showed us a good time anyway. We helped Sugar Mommy and Daddy buy these pots at the biggest garden center I've ever seen. (and there were about a million pots so it took forever to decide)

We ate the best cheese fries we've ever had at Snuffer's.

I bought lots of different Mariage Frères French teas at The Cultured Cup. I am drinking a cup of "Mètis, Thè Rouge" right now: black currant, lavender, rose hips, & hibiscus, with South African rooibos. Also loving "Provence Vert": red & black berries, lavender, and rose petals, with green tea. Of course, I bought a big bag of the loose black tea - with Bourbon vanilla! - "Vanille des Iles". Yes, I am fancy like that...

We went to the most charming little garden shop Downing Hill. I bought a lavender fig candle; it smells so divine I wish I had bought a dozen. ...and I wish I had a million dollars so I could buy a dozen of all the cool stuff I saw in Dallas.....

Two for the Road

2010-04-28T22:20:00.001-05:00

How well do you travel with your significant other?

We're back from our trip to Texas. No car troubles and we didn't kill each other, probably because we aren't real Texans yet, and don't own any firearms, heh.

Meester actually likes to travel in the car with me, because I am strapped down by the seat belt and can't scamper off to work on some project or whatever. ~~Being trapped~~ Traveling in the car together gives us a chance to just argue about whether we just took the wrong exit or not, how long before we can stop and take a break, where to stop and take a break because I am fussy about where I pee chat.

Remember the movie "Two for the Road", with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney?

I loved it and its metaphor for every couple's road trips...you start out on the road all fresh and optimistic and wearing cute clothes...and end up exhausted and sniping at each other and almost out of clean underwear. Which reminds me that I have to go wash all the dirty clothes from this trip.....

Happy Trails to me

2010-04-14T22:57:00.001-05:00

Whew! Week is only half over and I'm exhausted...and maybe hallucinating? About 10:05 PM here in Iowa, and I just happened to glance out our northern window and see a huge meteor??? streaking low across the sky from north to east. Ok, is that a good or a bad omen?

.....since we are leaving tomorrow morning for a trip to Texas. Seeing daughter Sugar Mommy and husband Sugar Daddy and granddog Sugar in Dallas. Then visiting daughter(famous for her smile) Mona Lisa and husband(inexhaustible energy and creativity) da Vinci in Austin. Yes, I have nicknames for everyone to protect their privacy. They have no idea that I have a blog and would die if they knew...and then thank me for not blogging under my real name either, heh.

Then to Georgetown, Texas that is, for the annual Red Poppy Festival. We bought a small acreage in Georgetown a while ago with dreams of an early retirement...which looks too far off now with the downturn in the economy and our retirement annuities, feh. So we just visit our property every so often and *SIGH*

Texas - land of HalfAsstic Krissa, Badger, Dawn in Austin, Fragrant Liar, and so many great bloggers. I'll wave to y'all, and hope someday to meet up with some of you.

Love this song

I almost missed it...

2010-04-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

...the magic of Spring, that is. This weekend was the essence of Spring...warm breezes from the south...clear sky with soft wispy clouds...brilliant emerald-green grass...

I was doing my usual hamster-style of yard work. Running up and down our hilly backyard, hauling bags of mulch and gravel, pulling weeds like crazy, digging out the tendrils of lawn grass that had crept into my flower beds. Head down...muttering to myself about "remember to dig out that dandelion...remember to get the clippers and cut back that branch, etc, etc, etc..."

I was checking the path in our little bit of woods behind our house to see how much mulching I needed to do, got down on my knees to pull a weed, and saw Spring.

Bluebells! (mertensia virginica-the North American bluebell)
The most magical Spring flower of my childhood.
My mother came from a family of morel mushroom hunters. My maternal grandfather loved to hunt morels; he could spot a morel mushroom from a mile away. Every spring my family would pile into the car along with my maternal grandparents and followed by various aunts, uncles, and cousins who happened to be around. We'd drive to various woodlands in the area and spend hours poking through the underbrush looking for morels. I was always enchanted by the ephemeral beauty of all the little wildflowers that I discovered in the woods. Like little fairies...their radiance deep in the woods unseen...passing through so fleetingly in Spring. With charming names like "shooting star", "bloody noses", and "jack-in-the-pulpit".

But my favorite Spring woodland flower was - still is - the bluebell. Dainty pink buds that open to a delicate flower the soft blue of the Spring sky. How could that not be magic? And how could I have gotten so grown-up and busy that I almost missed the magic this Spring?

In which I just borrow stuff from other blogs

2010-04-08T21:50:00.000-05:00

Feh, I've been too exhausted and cranky from work to feel clever enough to blog. Thank goodness the rest of you can do it for me, heh.

Found this game on Spartacus wore a skirt!. Thanks, Predo! Swing the bouncing ball around and you'll see how I feel after weeks of putting out fires, cleaning up messes, transitioning to a new boss, and skipping lunch. (I tend to go psycho if I get too hungry.) I started my blog because I had time on my hands at work - this will teach me to wish for something to keep me busy during the day.

Thanks Krissa, for the Tweet link to JennyMac's CHOCOLATE giveaway at Let's have a cocktail. You know how much I lurv, lurv, lurv chocolate!!! JennyMac has evidence that eating chocolate is good for the planet! Praise the Lord and pass the chocolate! And check out the chocolate company, Chocomize. It's a small American business, and you know how strongly I feel about supporting small local businesses.....and eating chocolate.....

Remember the pictures of my favorite Spring pastel-colored M&M's on my last post? I took a bag to work to share - and decided that I needed those pretty chocolate candies more than my co-workers. Because I've just been feeling like that kind of bitch lately!

I'll be leaving on a pleasure trip to visit family in a week...more on that later...way behind on getting ready...

it's Friday and Spring is good

2010-04-02T09:37:00.000-05:00

Do you know why Spring is my favorite season?
The flowers bloom again, and Spring flowers are my favorites.

Finally real flowers from my garden - in my house.

And Spring is the season for M&M candies in my favorite colors - spring pastels!

Don't y'all love the Spring pastel colors of M&Ms? Who likes the nasty black ones for Halloween? And I won't even eat the dark blue ones; only the pastel blue ones. What colors of M&Ms won't you touch? I should probably just custom order all my M&Ms, because I am just fussy like that. (and I'm not getting paid by Mars to promote their candy, either, but they're welcome to send me M&Ms anytime...just not the dark blue ones, heh.)

Week of walks

2010-03-27T09:47:00.002-05:00

Finally warm enough for walking in the yard and around the neighborhood. I've started carrying my iPhone to take pictures. I could have a fancy, expensive camera and not do any better. I'm a terrible photographer, and I always blame the camera. However, after going through four cameras...I have to admit it's moi.
I love my spring scilla.

The daffodils will bloom any minute now.

Love to see a sundog in the sky!

A mallard couple has taken up residence along the runoff from a drainage culvert. I swear to Gah...I have worked on this picture for an hour...and can't get it to load right-side-up!!! That is just the kind of week I have been having...to heck with it....just lean your head sideways to view, please.

Really Wheel-worthy Wednesday

2010-03-24T12:33:00.000-05:00

I didn't attend SXSW in Austin, TX, last week, and of course, I'm a week late catching up. SXSW totally rocks, btw, if you don't mind 20,000 people and are able to stay up for 24 hours at a time.

I love checking out the winners of the annual SXSW Web Awards. You'll discover some web sites that I promise will amaze, impress, and delight you, even if you are not a "geek". That's what our computers are for, right? And, ummm...yea...sometimes we actually are supposed to be doing our jobs at a computer too, but...ummm...that's boring.

One of my favorites - Waterlife . Enter the site and then hover your mouse over the words "Water Is" in the upper left corner. Click on "Poison". Read all the info. Pretty horrifying, isn't it? We are beluga lovers here in la Casa de Wheel and we had no idea that water pollution is causing cancer in beluga whales. Obviously, what.are.we.doing.to.ourselves?! Personally, I think web sites like this should be required "browsing" in school. Web sites are the new books, and what an inventive way to get a message out to young people who are on the internet all day anyway.

Now I need to get busy and check out the rest of the Web Awards winners.

Carpe Diem

2010-03-19T13:08:00.000-05:00

My left eye is much better today, thank you. I did not go to work on Thursday because my eye was still all red and watery and just icky scary looking, and no one wants to see that in the office.

"Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero." "Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next." Wise old Roman Horace. I decided to follow his advice on Thursday. Seeing as how the Dr. had advised that "if your eye looks worse by Friday, call immediately and I'll send you to an ophthalmologist right away...and if you have any stabbing eye pain or see stars or your vision goes blurry - go to the emergency room." Which seemed to indicate that I might be in imminent danger of going blind or dying.

The Dr. also said "stay away from any allergens or pollen." But what the heck, Thursday was a rare Iowa March day - sunny and in the 60's. So I spent the afternoon outside in the sun, happily cleaning up all the moldy leaves and stirring up fresh pollen, and searching for signs of spring flowers. And I survived. And it was worth it - because the weather forecast for tonight is SNOW!

How I celebrated this St. Patrick's Day

2010-03-17T15:22:00.000-05:00

Woke up - left eye felt funny. No, actually itchy, and irritated, and sticky.....ewww. WTF?
Rubbed eye. Looked in mirror. Oh My Gah!
Took shower, thinking maybe the eye just needing a scrubbing with soap and hot water.
Looked in mirror - still ewww.
Called Dr's office - luckily, they could work me in right away.
Nurse asked if it would be all right if an intern from the local medical center could do a preliminary check-up before the Dr. saw me. Ok, what the heck, give little Doogie Howser a break.
In walks - Oh My Gah! - DR. McDREAMY!
Definitely movie star quality doctor...the color of his blue-green eyes brought out by his (St. Patrick's Day appropriate) crisply pressed, celery green shirt.
And I am looking like Popeye; Popeye with an oozing, infectious, disgusting (not St. Patrick's day appropriate) red left eye. And no make-up.
Tried to act cute anyway...who am I kidding...Dr. McDreamy was young enough to be my son. *Sigh*
The official Dr. came in and put a bunch of icky stuff in my eye and said he wasn't sure if it was pinkeye or just seasonal allergies. Was that why I was paying for an office visit?
Got a prescription for eye drops to put in my eye, which I end up squirting all over my face.
Couldn't go to work because I look icky scary. And I still don't know if I'm contagious.
At least the sun came out at noon and I got to sit in the sun on my front stoop for awhile this afternoon. *Sigh*

the usual weekly blogger requisite food post

2010-03-16T08:54:00.000-05:00

*Sigh* Finished the last of these delicious sun-ripened Texas Rio Star grapefruits and oranges from California. Every winter about the first of February, there is a man who comes around the neighborhood selling citrus fruit. He says he drives straight to Texas and gets fresh tree-ripened fruit and drives straight back. (notice that in Iowa in the winter - you can use your garage like a refrigerator) It's like getting sunshine in the middle of winter.

Made this dip, but instead of using 2 cups of sour cream, I creamed 1 cup of organic low-fat cottage cheese in the food processor and added 1 cup of plain organic low-fat yogurt, then stirred in the dip mix. It's great with red and green pepper strips, baby carrots, celery sticks, any veggies, really. Meester loves dip; he can go crazy with this one and not feel guilty.

My good friend Krissa mentioned a recipe for Savory St. Patrick's Day Potato Muffins from JennyMac. I made them and they are delicious; a meal in themselves. I wonder if they could be made in a mini-muffin pan and be served as hors d'oeuvres?

You call this a weekend?

2010-03-13T21:10:00.000-06:00

Oy, it is 9:00 pm on Saturday...and I have just now sat down for the first time today. Having a hamster-type metabolism, I do tend to run in circles...but today was ridiculous.

Got up and it was windy and pouring rain - no enjoying the outdoors today. So I cleaned the master bathroom. The bathroom cleaning ritual by the female of the species always provokes an immediate response by the male of the species to engage in a messy personal grooming activity, like mustache trimming or toenail clipping...spreading the detritus of said activity throughout the clean bathroom.

Meester immediately decided to clean his electric razor(in the clean sink). Somehow, along with all the little beard stubble...a small part from the razor went down the drain. Meester thought it was a little part that the razor could do without...so I cleaned up the beard stubble. Meester decided to take another look at his razor to be sure it would work without that part. Somehow?...more parts from the razor get jammed in the sink drain stopper?? Meester got out some dirty tools from the basement(and my good tweezers!) and spread them on the clean! countertop. Somehow!...said razor parts end up going all the way down the drain, WTF?!! So now everything under the sink had to be taken out so that Meester could get out the extra-dirty, heavy-duty pipe wrench and take apart the drain pipe...and you know what comes out of bathroom drain pipes! .....I cleaned up under the sink afterwards.....

Went to Target to get more parts for the razor. While we were there, I ~~nagged~~ persuaded Meester to buy a new showerhead for the master shower, because ours was clogged with mineral deposits and spraying in funny directions. What was I thinking?! Now I've added shower cleaning after the shower plumbing project!!

Why did I choose a cream-colored bathroom counter top? Next time I'm choosing a countertop in greasy-granite black color.

To every thing there is a season...

2010-03-07T16:46:00.007-06:00

It poured rain here in Iowa last night, believe it or not, instead of snow. And the temperature was actually above freezing all night. A lot of the snow cover is finally gone.

This signals the end of the "Oh my Gah, there's going to be another blizzard...and we are going to be trapped in our houses...and we will have to eat each other...it's.the.end.of.the.world" season here in the Midwest. Now the weather and news announcers can start a new "Oh my Gah, there's going to be flooding...it's.the.end.of.the.world" season. Good, because I was getting so tired of reruns of death by snow and it's time for a plot twist.

Yesterday I trudged through the glacial remnants of ice in my backyard to see how my garden looked. Miracle of miracles,
I discovered GREEN.

Daylily shoots!

The green and purple sort-of-heart-shaped leaves will be golden moneywort when they get enough sun.

My "Plum Pudding" heuchera is plum purple!

And my rock cress is green already. *sigh*

What is a Hamster's best friend?

2010-03-04T09:08:00.002-06:00

A dog, of course.

A couple of years ago I discovered this deliciously toasty stuffed dachshund neck wrap from Warm Whiskers. They have an assortment of heatable(I'm all about the heatable) and freezable aromatherapy pillows in the shape of cuddly pets. There are neck wraps, body wraps, slippers, even therapy wraps for your own pet dog.

I wear my dachshund constantly during the winter...well, at home anyway...I'd wear it at work but it's goofy enough there already without me wearing a dog around my neck. You should see me walking around the house all evening with a stuffed dachshund around my neck! When I had the chills, he was draped across my body while I slept; when I had stomach cramps he was wrapped around my waist. My trusty, toasty little companion.

Yea, I know I sound so weird...but at least I'm warm.....

How I survived this winter

2010-03-01T10:32:00.001-06:00

Now that it's March, the outside temperatures in Iowa may start to rise above ass-freezing, and Meester and me may be able to start sleeping like a "normal" couple again.

For some reason that we have not been able to fathom, our master bedroom is absolutely freezing in the winter. Maybe it's the three bedroom windows, (that are so charming and sunny in the summer), or the fact that an open stairway is just outside our bedroom door, but whatever, the temperature in our master bedroom is way colder than the rest of the house.

And I loves me a warm bedroom. Yes, we have an expensive down comforter. Yes, Meester is perfectly comfortable with the cold bedroom temperature. Actually, Meester puts off quite the body heat under the covers. But is it enough? No, being the ~~eternally dissatisfied bitch~~ sensitive woman that I am...I require total warmth in the bedroom. Being warm under the covers is not enough...if even the tip of my nose pokes out from under the comforter, that nose tip needs to be breathing warm air!

So in January, when I got a virus and cold that I just couldn't get over, and I had the chills, and our bedroom was at its coldest...I decided to move to the sofa in the living room for a few nights.

I could leave the fireplace on all night...and mother mercy...was it warm!

I was so comfy in that ~~broiling inferno~~ nicely toasty living room - that I decided to stay for a few more nights. And eventually...the living room became my winter bedroom. And Meester rolled himself up in the whole down comforter and took over our whole bed. And we both lived happily ever after.

Sounds like a blue spring coming in Texas

2010-02-24T13:13:00.001-06:00

This video made me smile. All the snow in Texas might make for a fantastic display of bluebonnets this spring. I've seen a few bluebonnets on our trips to Texas, but we've never hit the major spring wildflower displays for which the Hill Country of Texas is famous. Some day I'm spending all of March and April in the Hill Country, and watching the procession of blooming Texas wildflowers, from bluebonnets to Indian paintbrush to red poppies. *Sigh*

Have I been doing anything?

2010-02-23T14:11:00.000-06:00

Not blogging, obviously. Mostly working my ass off during the day and vegging out in front of the tv at night. The constant snow and cold are getting to my co-workers too. Been working around various areas of the office...and everywhere I go...I get an earful of various rants and complaints from co-workers. Maybe we all need some sunshine and fresh air?

I'm getting exhausted from watching the Olympics...what with all the falling, and crashing, and sliding across the snow on your face, or landing on your backside on the ice...and the blood...ewwww...

Enjoying watching all the freaking out over snow in Austin today. Sorry, but you people don't know snow. Come up to Iowa and we'll show you snow. But y'all are cute the way you're all a Twitter over it. And I love the pictures of your teeny snowmen, and your dogs enjoying romping in the snow. Enjoy it, cause the snow won't last, like the way it does in Iowa.

BTW, Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T19:41:00.001-06:00

I made a ~~Leaning Tower of Pisa~~ Boston Cream Pie for Meester for Valentine's Day. One of his favorite desserts...and I haven't felt up to entering the Valentine's card fray at the Hallmark store in the mall, so I had to make up for the lack of a card. I think getting to lick the cooked pudding spoon and the chocolate glaze spoon probably does it for Meester.

(and yes, I will be removing the ~~Christmas tablecloth~~ Valentine's Day tablecloth, now that ~~Christmas~~ Valentine's Day is almost over.)

Like most old married couples, we will be spending this Valentine's evening slouched on the couch...in front of the tv...eating popcorn and thick, gooey slabs of Boston Cream Pie...watching the Olympics...and the toned, slender, attractive young athletes just like we ~~once~~, ~~maybe~~, never were.

Is anyone else enjoying endless winter as much as me?

2010-02-09T12:40:00.002-06:00

This pump soap dispenser looks like my nose.

Notice I have been washing my hands a lot, and drinking a lot of tea.

Meester actually went to the store and picked out this tea for me on his own. I'm usually too OCD to let Meester shop on his own, but he did a good job on this one. It's Tulsi tea from India, with "Holy Basil" in it. What with all the swearing I do when I'm sick, (I don't suffer sickness well) it's probably a good thing this tea has holy herbs in it.

And it is still #@*! snowing. It's a good thing I am full of holy herbal essence, because I am on the edge of going snow-insane.

Friday essay assignment

2010-02-05T12:59:00.002-06:00

Today, kids, we will compose a brief essay to compare and contrast our Friday. Each paragraph is limited to two concise sentences to elucidate our reader on the futility of our existence.

Today is Friday, and I am not at work. Sound good? But I am not at work because I spent all last night throwing up.

I am missing lots of time-critical work at the office today. Which means I will have lots more work to do on Monday...so I can spend all weekend looking forward to that.

Today I get to lie on the couch in the living room, in front of the fireplace, while Meester works on his laptop. Meester has a terrible cold today and every 5 minutes lets out an explosive wet sneeze that makes me jump and cringe.

For Christmas, someone gave us a generous gift certificate to a local gourmet bistro, which we just found out is closing next week. We won't be using that gift certificate this Friday! (See first paragraph above.)

I have a stack of Sarah Susanka's "Not So Big House" books on the coffee table, so I can browse and dream of building our little cozy retirement house - somewhere warm - in a few years. Today - Friday - I am still in cold snowy Iowa.

Hypothesis for extra credit: Does pizza for dinner Thursday night only taste good going one way?
Conclusion: Yes.

Wheel-worthy Wednesday - Cleaning for a Reason

2010-02-03T08:15:00.000-06:00

A note from my amazing friend Krissa at HalfAsstic:

Cleaning for a Reason

If you know any woman currently undergoing Chemo, please pass the word to her that there is a cleaning service that provides FREE
housecleaning - 1 time per month for 4 months while she is in treatment.

All she has to do is sign up and have her doctor fax a note confirming the treatment. Cleaning for a Reason will have a participating maid service in her zip code area arrange for the service. Cleaning for a Reason

Please pass this information on to bless a woman going through Breast Cancer treatment. This organization serves the entire USA and currently has 547 partners to help these women. It's our job to pass the word and let them know that there are people out there that care. Be a blessing to someone and pass this information along.

Can Spring be far behind?

2010-01-31T10:28:00.002-06:00

Gah, I am so tired of being COLD! And there's no where to escape to, because the weather has been freaky and sucky pretty much all over the country. But there may be a sign of hope.

The squirrels have finally discovered the bird feeder on our deck. I didn't bring the feeder from the woods up to the deck until the weather got bitterly cold in the middle of December, and I decided I didn't want to walk that far to the feeder and the cardinals could fly to the deck easier than I could flounder through the snow in our backyard. I don't like the squirrels draining all the seeds from the feeders, but they are cute -- except when I see them humping each other on the deck while I'm trying to eat breakfast! If the squirrels are making babies, can Spring be far behind?

Last year's picture, but you get the idea.

When I rap on the window, the squirrel just says "Who, me?" and then jumps back on the feeder.

What I did at work yesterday

2010-01-28T08:51:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was another long, crazy day at work. I think the extreme winter weather is getting to everyone. These are just the highlights of the day.

Overslept. Woke up with a headache. Late for work.
A scary thing happened at work. For confidential reasons I can't mention it. There were actually some blog-worthy conversations taking place, but even so, I had my finger hovering near the "911" button on my phone for a while.
Stood at the office window with a co-worker buddy watching the snow swirling outside. Another co-worker walked up and said "Isn't it pretty? It's like living in a snow globe." When she walked away, we said to each other "She obviously doesn't have to shovel snow, does she?"
Watched co-workers repeatedly violate every electronic communication security "best practice" that I've suggested to them. No one listens to me.....which is why I had to work through lunch fixing problems they created.
Worked at my desk through lunch. Dropped a chunk of left-over reheated pizza on my keyboard...and a greasy keyboard is one of my pet peeves.
Another one of my pet ~~hates~~ peeves is whistling. And one of my co-workers is a whistler - Gah!
Found a new work "boyfriend". Cute tech guy with a long silvery gold ponytail (and amazingly without the corresponding receding hairline!) paid a service call and I got to ~~giggle in the elevator~~ work with him. We had to ~~flirt~~ work late, so I will be hearing about this from co-workers. So maybe the day didn't end so bad......

Blippy lets you share more of what we want to know

2010-01-24T16:49:00.000-06:00

I just discovered Blippy. It's in real time, like Twitter, but instead you get to see what people are purchasing with their credit cards. You enter your credit card info in Blippy, and whenever you use the card, your purchase shows up for all the world to see.

This is way too much nosy fun for me. Since I live in Iowa, with limited local shopping, to say the least, I'm loving watching all the unique store names pop up on the screen, like "Yank Sing" hmmm...I'm sure it's a nice respectable coffee shop or something...because the same guy gave $3,000 to the American Red Cross. Someone else used their credit card at "Mother Egan's Irish Austin.....something". Sometimes there isn't enough text field to see the whole name of the establishment where a credit card was used, so it's fun pondering what type of establishment it might be or where it's located. Oh, now I see someone made a purchase at "Koo Koo Roo"; maybe in Australia?

Read Time.com's interesting take on Blippy. I guess if we're putting ourselves out there on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube - why not share every personal detail of our spending? Ummm, I'm not quite ready for that myself yet...you'd just be bored anyway.

I am so obviously without a life and so easily entertained.....
(I think I just wrote a new country music song)

Does this make me look dumb?

2010-01-21T10:17:00.000-06:00

I love the Kohl's store, really I do. I buy stuff there, but sometimes I think one of us makes a fashion mistake. It might just be me for buying clothing there and then letting my imagination look it over later. I love the color of this sweater from Kohl's, and it's comfy...

But that little fake white "camisole" is starting to remind me of Randy Quaid in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation...with that ridiculous "dickey" under his sweater.....

Just wondering.....

And how do you feel about Your job?

2010-01-17T22:38:00.001-06:00

Saw the movie "Up in the Air", starring America's boyfriend George Clooney. Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man who fires corporate employees for a living. Part of Bingham's spiel is that firing is an opportunity to expand one's horizons and achieve a more fulfilling life.

I liked this movie; I think it had a lot more depth and levels to it than first viewing. Anyway, it made me think about all the complaining I've done lately about my own job(and btw, I ended up spending my Sunday afternoon in the office). And my apologies for discussing my job to those who are currently unemployed; my own extended family has experienced unemployment and it hurts.

Referring back to my dead possum post, yea, I once had a job that was an insane asylum of angry, hateful, sadistic employees. I stayed because the boss didn't object when I needed to take time off for my kids, and oddly, the job itself was fulfilling because I actually helped people. I feel like I accomplished more good for clients in that job than the one I have now. But my co-workers were some of the most disturbed people I've ever met, and the misery they inflicted on everyone trickled down through me onto my relationship with my family. I should have left that job a lot sooner; getting fired would have been an opportunity to regain sanity.

My current job can piss me off sometimes; my co-workers can annoy the hell out of me sometimes. Like Friday...after I had spent way too much time assisting a certain group with adjusting the colors and fonts to their viewing satisfaction in a new application. But at the end of the afternoon...these co-workers said "Let's call it a day" and pulled out a bag of Lindor dark chocolate truffles to pass around...and wished everybody a good weekend. These are good people; I can't stay mad after a dark chocolate truffle.

So my point is...work can suck...but it shouldn't suck the life and soul out of you. If your job is doing that...you deserve better.

Do you like seeing birds in the snow?

2010-01-13T06:25:00.006-06:00

Good, cause I'm too tired to post much. Action at my bird feeder a few days ago when all the trees were frosted with snow.

Have you ever felt like this?

2010-01-08T12:26:00.002-06:00

A friend sent me this picture a long time ago when I worked in a H*ll-hole of an office. I had it posted on the wall of my cubicle until I took another job elsewhere. I feel like it's time to post this picture again. Generally, my current job is tolerable, but the past three weeks at work have left me feeling like this poor possum...run over and flattened with insult added to injury. Can anyone else identify with the feeling?

Wheel-worthy Wednesday

2010-01-06T09:31:00.000-06:00

Loving the Jane Iredale's chocoholicks lip glosses that I brought home from my trip to Dallas. Sugar Mommy and I had fun trying on Jane Iredale makeup at a beauty store in Dallas, and we split this fantastic four-pack of lip glosses. I took the chocolate Truffle and the Strawberry Cream glosses. Sugar Mommy took the pots of Chocolate Orange and Caramel gloss, because they have a little youthful shimmer to them. (ummm... *sigh*... I'm beyond the youthful shimmer stage)

These glosses are just as creamy as a truffle, smell just as delicious as they look, and really last on my lips. They make these bitter cold mornings a little more bearable.

As usual, I'm not getting paid to say this. Anybody who loves chocolate will love these lip glosses, so I'm just sharing a chocolate find. But I'll be happy to test chocolate products for anybody - and you can pay me in chocolate!