Across state lines

Tonight I ran from Nebraska to Iowa...well, across the river at least.  The ORC put together a last minute fun run across "the Bob".  It was a short run, from Millers Landing to Harrah's Casino, but the bridge is nice, well worth the pork that went into it.  A little crowded perhaps...

aren't ya glad I didn't say "orange"

Apples.  Apples.  APPLES, APPLES, APPLES!!! I am so sick of apples.  Yes, I’m aware that it’s like officially only the 3^rd day of fall or whatever, but still.  After freezing 13 quarts of apples last week, baking my 3^rd apple crisp of the month last night, along with a  couple of dozen apple muffins, and eating apples from the CSA constantly… I’m tired of them.  I just checked our food co-op account to see what today’s delivery total would be.  First of all, the steak I ordered is out of stock (due to some little old lady throwing a church dinner or something), and now I have realized that the 1 lb of apples I ordered (before the apple-exhaustion set in) is actually 10 lbs.  Oh joy.

 

Frankly, I’m more than a little tired of being in the kitchen, period!  Sunday was the great chex mix experiment. Tuesday night I made the chard and onion quiche, cantaloupe bread, and chopped veggies for dinner (cabbage for coleslaw, and veggies to grill).  Last night was the apple crisp and muffins.  I still have several lbs of potatoes to use, plus a ton of winter squash and some celery.  I’m thinking about a crock-pot low-carb (ie sans noodle) chicken soup (that’ll take care of the celery, some onions, and maybe a carrot), some butternut squash soup (a couple of squash and several pototes), and some mashed potatoes.  All of those things freeze well, which would mean I’d have plenty of frozen lunches on hand – always a plus.  And maybe some sweet potato and black bean burritos?  I did those last year and they were good… we’ll see. 

 

All this food…it’s no wonder I’ve been packing on the pounds lately.  Must do something about that – does cooking burn calories???

duck and cover

An auspicious start to my  Wednesday.  I got to work and attempted to plug my new mini-laptop into my power strip to charge.  The plug isn’t polarized and on my first attempt I got a spark.  OK.  Weird.  The rest of my work equipment is plugged into this same strip and has never had an issue.  My cube neighbor suggested trying the power strip that our coffee pot is hooked up to.  I handed over the computer at this point, ‘cause I wasn’t trying it!  He plugged it in and everything seemed fine.  Must have been a fluke.

 

So we’re sitting there chatting, and all of a sudden there is a loud “BOOM!”.  Oh, no!  My new computer!  My cube mate starts laughing.  No, it’s not the laptop…it’s the bottle of drinkable yogurt I brought for breakfast – the cap blew off!  Talk about random. 

 

So, yeah, actual work is going to have to wait until my heartrate returns to normal.  I wish the DH would answer his phone, so I can make sure the house didn’t explode after I left.  Eek. 

 

time management

A good mantra for those of us that overbook and exhaust ourselves with tasks and activities:

 

“I can do anything that I want, but I can’t do everything.”

 

 

argh, I hate being broke

These are so cool, but I am not in a good position for random
mostly-useless-but-totally-cool impulse buys. Damn.
Anyways, check out the knitting needle jewelry - I'm in love with the
purple #10 needle necklace, and so wish the aqua necklace and bracelet
weren't already sold... Feeling generous? You can buy me one!
http://leethal.coloredlights.net/forsale/wear.html
She's got some great hats too...how about this one for Halloween?
http://leethal.coloredlights.net/hat28.jpg

Who needs sleep?

Um, yeah, so another busy weekend...but did I get anything done?  Of course not. :)  Other than picking up my library books, grabbing the CSA share and other Farmers Market goodies, running the Corporate Cup, dance practice, and doing a ton of laundry, not a whole lot got crossed off my "have-to" list.  I kept getting sidetracked with other tasks that became instantly more urgent - the bachelorette party, gift for bachelorette party, a phone call from a panicky sibling struggling with her statistics test, realizing I needed to bring treats for my Monday night JLO committee meeting...such is life.  As for the "want-to's", nothing much got done there either.  I did:

·         Made a quiche with the leftover bacon in the fridge

·         Got a start on my Husker dress for the Virginia Tech match-up; it's cut out and the initial stay-stitching and pleats for the top are done. 

·         Almost finished the fleece jacket - I still need to cover some buttons, then sew those on, plus some minor hemming.

·         The okra was bad, so that plan was scrapped.  However, I did make some sweet potato fries and mixed up a couple of huge batches of Chex Mix for a meeting tonight - one BBQ and one Cherry Malted.  Chex has some great recipes on their website, if you are so munchily-inclined.

•         Read a little - didn't finish or return any books to the library, just picked up more...

 

So, now the list for this week is even longer...

I have to:

·         Finish my network security homework

·         Call the rest of my volunteer recruitment list

·         Vacuum the house

·         Use or preserve all the veggies from the CSA/FM - cabbage, sweet potatoes, fingerlings, carrots, swiss chard, onions, tomatoes, salad mix, cantaloupe, cucumbers, spaghetti and butternut squashes, summer squash, peppers - sweet, hot, and some roasting peppers, etc.  I see another quiche in my future, plus some soup, coleslaw, and perhaps a Mexican dish with the tomatoes and hot peppers...

·         Go to meetings...JLO My Closet tonight, JLO Publications tentatively on Wed night.

·         Work a My Closet shift

·         Pick up my co-op purchase

·         Wander out to the garden and see if there is anything to harvest

·         Construct and a mail a costume to a friend

I want to:

·         Finish the fleece jacket

·         Finish the Husker dress

·         Read at least 2 of my books in their entirety

·         Choreograph my solo

·         Come up with a list of songs for future group dances

·         Work on some jewelry projects

·         Work on some costume ideas

 

Oh, and eat, sleep, and go to work.  Plus I’m sure my husband would like to see me at some point. J

Naturally, this isn’t everything, but I’d hate to take on more than I can handle…yeah, right! J

 

if I had more free time...

My to-do and want-to-do lists are about 5 pages long at the moment… Besides all the have-to’s, such as calling volunteers for the CSI Touch-A-Truck event, reading the next chapter in my network security textbook, cleaning the floor mats in my car, submitting flexible spending account claims, and picking up my library books, I have several (thousands) things on my want-to list. If I just had the time, I’d

· Make a quiche with the leftover bacon in the fridge

· Sew my Husker dress for next week’s Virginia Tech match-up

· Try my hand at making cheese – that’s been on the list for a while, but Trent at TSD talked about it again today…

· Finish the fleece jacket I started last night

· Make some more pants-into-yoga-mat-bags to try to sell

· Choreograph my Yallahween solo

· Transplant some of the lily bulbs from the front flower beds to the back yard

· Felt some of the sweaters I bought weeks ago

· Read the 18 books I already have checked out from the library before I have to re-renew them!

· Experiment with some jewelry making techniques I’ve researched

· Frog my lopsided scarf and re-learn how to knit

· Figure out how to cook the okra that is probably now rotting in my crisper

That’s not even close to all, but those are the things that have crossed my mind so far today to try to fit into my weekend… Yeah, right! After the Toast to Omaha fundraiser party tonight, picking up the final CSA share for the year tomorrow morning, heading out for a bachelorette party tomorrow night, running the Corporate Cup 10K on Sunday morning, and then hip-dropping my way through 2 rehearsals on Sunday, I’ll be lucky to have enough time to sleep!

Oh, and my headache is back. The dizziness is too, but not nearly as bad as before… TGIF, right?

A hybrid even my hubby could love

For the millionaire tired of sitting in traffic…a flying hybrid Ferrari.  Alas, the designer laments that it will probably never come to fruition, destined to “remain little more than a technical paper (.pdf), a scale model and a really bad Photoshop rendering.”

 

Yes, I’m eating lunch right now – my job doesn’t really consist of this much web surfing. 

:-)

September 19 – not only is it Talk Like a Pirate Day, today is also the anniversary of the original emoticon, the beloved smiley face J

 

 

the clouds are lifting

Finally, after 4 ½ days, I don't feel like I'm going to puke and the room has stopped spinning.  I've had a constant sense of vertigo since mid-Saturday night.  Fun, let me tell you.  It has made walking an adventure, concentration impossible, and interaction with other people a total nightmare.  But it seems to have passed.  Phew!

I meant to post an update about my fabulous birthday, but had to wait until I could form complete sentences without putting my head down on my desk. 

After getting my hair fixed, I spent a luxurious day not working, or more specifically, making myself a "5 Minute Skirt" (20 minutes in AD time), baking a leek-and-chard quiche and German pancakes, and searching West Omaha for Fruit Fresh.  No, I'm not cutting meth – I wanted to preserve some apples!  5 grocery stores later – nothing.  Grrr…  But I did stop at the bead store on West Center and made myself a pretty necklace to wear out that night. 

The DH, being the total spoiler that he is, bought me a dozen roses…and made me pick them up myself.  J  I love telling people that – it sounds so horrible.  And while it's true, it's not the whole story.  The long version is that he ordered me flowers to be delivered at work, then found out I was staying home that day, cancelled that order, ordered some from a local florist…the florist delivery truck stopped by while I was at the salon, and not wanting to leave them on our porch, took them back to the flower shop.  It was just easier for me to drive 2 miles to get them, rather than wait for the delivery guy to try again.  But telling my mother than I had to pick up my own birthday flowers was just more fun. J  Thanks for having a sense of humor, dear sweet husband.  (Who also got me a gift certificate to the spa, and sprung for a mucho-pricey sushi dinner and drinks, sat through a play about nuns set in the 60's, and took me to a gallery opening that I wanted to see). 

ML joined us for sushi and the play.  She really outdid herself this year – she MADE me a gift.  I must be rubbing off on her. J  She whipped up homemade lavendar scented body scrub, packaged in a nifty jar topped with my photo and trimmed in belly dance coins. J  And she hand-sewed a microwavable heating pack.  Awesome! 

The dog seemed to forget that it was my birthday…huh.  At least he remembered Mother's Day, I guess… J 

The rest of the weekend was taken up by a trip to the farmers market, the Husker game, the start of the spinning and nausea, Diva photo shoot, more spinning, peeling, coring, slicing, and freezing 13 QUARTS of apples, stomping and cursing (at the apples), and blessed sleep – the only thing my spinning head could tolerate. 

Today is much better – I actually got a good run in (and just in time – the Corporate Cup is just days away), and I'm going to dance tonight, barring any residual nausea.  Cross your fingers… J

what a week...

Wow, what a week.  I've basically had a headache for the past month, which sucks.  It's not caffiene or water related, as my headaches usually are, so I've been stumped.  Ibuprofen did not help.  Finally on Wednesday, I called and scheduled a massage at the Omaha School of Massage Therapy.  My neck is constantly stiff and my shoulders have been pretty tense (a massage therapist friend told me that my left shoulder was sitting higher than my right - that's tension!)  Meaning to stay for 30 minutes, I ended up going for the full hour.  Ahhh...it was great!  The girl really focused on my upper back and shoulders.  Headache?  Gone...for about an hour.  Since I had to go back to work afterwards, it came back pretty quickly.  Hmmm...think we've found the cause?

Other than that, this week held the first Jr. League of Omaha meeting of the year, a great movie (Gonzo: the life and work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson), a mad scramble to use up CSA veggies (um, not quite done with that), apples, apples, and more apples, and ended with today, my 29th birthday. 

I found myself in the kitchen Wednesday night, scrubbing, peeling, chopping and grating as fast as I could, trying to make up of my CSA stash for the week.  I made a raw beet salad, a spiced carrot salad, froze some green beans, baked two apples crisps, and then basically ran out of time. I still have Swiss chard, leeks, baby greens, cucumbers, zucchini, several winter squashes, and so on.   Oh, and eggs.  Lots of eggs.  I'm going to try to whip up a chard-leek quiche today (crustless so that the DH and I can both eat it) and maybe these "pop-up pancakes" that Angry Chicken pointed to...both will use up eggs. :)

The apples in the apple crisp were not from the CSA (there were apples in the CSA, but I've been getting through those at a decent rate); instead they came from my boss's farm.  He drug in 3 bushels of apples to work for us, and I swear I ended up with an entire bushel myself.  After pawning some off on ML and some of the other Divas, I still have half of a Rubbermaid tub to use up.  I have an apple peeler-corer-slicer on loan, so hopefully I can made quick work of them.  I'd like to freeze as many as possible and then as time permits, bake them as crisps or pies, and make some jams or butters.  I found an awesome recipe for Caramel-Apple jam - just need to find gift-sized jars (i.e. half-pints) and I'll have half of my Christmas gifts done. :)

So, like I said, today is my birthday.  My first order of business?  Taking the garbage to the curb.  Ahem, sweetie - really, should I be doing this on my BIRTHDAY?!? ;)  Oh well.  Then it's off for a much needed haircut before I start in on the food.  Who wouldn't want to spend their birthday coring apples?  I tell ya...better than being at work!

abstain!

I was browsing around on craftster and this little quote caught my eye:

"the only abstinence you should teach.. is to abstain from voting for Sarah Palin"

I typically stay out of political discussions.  Not because I don't have strong opinions about things...mainly 'cuz I work with a bunch of #$%ing Republicans, and it's easier to just put my headphones so I don't laugh out loud at the absurd things coming from that side of the room.  You can't argue with old men, so I'm not even going to try...  Unfortunately they vote.

Goodbye summer

Ah, Labor Day.  The end of the summer season.  Sure, sure, the fall equinox isn't for another few weeks, but as every schoolkid knows, summer ends long before the day and night become equal.  I tried to squeeze as much summer into this last long weekend as I could.  The DH and I started Friday night off with, well, a Jr. League meeting.  Kind of.  I had to meet with my placement advisor, and she choose a local bar, so I invited the poor hubby along for what I thought would be a quick drink and some questions.  90 minutes later, we finally paid our tab and made our escape.  I'm not sure the DH has entirely recovered - his eyes still look a little glazed from all the girly gabbing.  Such a good sport, though. :)  We then hit up the new Wine Styles at Village Pointe to sample their wares and join the "wine of the month club".  Our last fave wine store closed down earlier this year, so we were running a little low on vino. 
Saturday was a late sleep-in, of course, followed by a trip to the farmers market with the puppy, and a quick stop at the Three Dog Bakery.  Ryker-pup was in heaven.  So many treats!  We both went home happy with bags of veggies and a doggy s'more.  Yea! 
Saturday was also the first Husker game of the season, so after putting away all the produce, the DH and I joined the caravan to Lincoln.  We tailgated with my folks and some neighbors from home, then convinced my mom to come along for some last-minute drinks before climbing (and climbing and climbing) to our seats.  It was a decent game - especially since we won.  It will be interesting to see the impact our new coach has this year.
Slept in again on Sunday (and why not?), then drove up Highway 92 to visit with some friends that were camping in Venice.  It was hot, but they had a shady spot and I brought some iced tea along (not quite ready for booze just yet).  The DH had band rehearsal that evening, so ML came out and we worked on some t-shirt refashions.  Well, eventually.  First, she had to watch me finish baking pear-walnut bread, and fishing my peach jam out of the hot water bath.  I had pealed chopped a quart of peaches for the jam, plus 10 cups of pears for the bread and some spiced pear preserves.  (My in-laws had a surplus from their trees, so we were the happy beneficiaries). 
After ML left, we drove to Bellevue for the annual "van Sanderstine Labor Day Eve" party (don't ask) to share some wine with some of my work buddies and old friends. 
Today, Labor Day, I jumped out of bed bright and early (yeah, right) and headed out for the Go Girl! 5k race.  It's an all-girl race to benefit the Uta Halee girls' home, and it's always a blast.  A nice man in a tux hands you a carnation as you cross the finish line, the Pancake Man flips flapjacks for breakfast, and I actually won some raffle prices for a change - a great "Run Like a Girl" long-sleeve tee and a  "salt glow" body wrap gift certificate.  A masseuse set up her table and gave free rub-downs.  Naturally, I won both of my prizes while on the massage table, which was awkward, but the masseuse was good-natured (as was the long line of women waiting for the table).
Feeling great from the run, massage, pancakes, and prizes, I headed home and spent an entire wonderful afternoon and evening working on projects.  Ah, heaven.  I made a yoga mat bag and a lined tote from a pair of embroidered pants, a kimono-esque top from a Violent Femmes t-shirt, a fluttery wrap-top from some pink tie-died chiffon, and helped ML make two more t-shirt creations.  I had it in mind to make some flannel lounge pants from these great Laura Ashley sheets I scored, but they're still in the dryer... :)
Phew, that was quite the weekend!  The best part, aside from all the sewing (and feeling monstrously productive) was spending time with my husband, friends, family, and of course, Ryker... :)