Fall's weekend appearance

Couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather. It rained Friday night into Saturday then the sun peeked out in the afternoon. Sunday the air was clear and crisp thanks to the previous day's rain and the cool breeze.

Saw Nights in Rodanthe with my MIL and SIL. It was good. Not great, but better than just ok. At the very least, entertaining and a workout on tear ducts. If you're susceptible to that. Did you see Diane Lane and Richard Gere in Unfaithful? So different from this one.

I've been learning how to make a basic potholder.I got the instructions here. I didn't know how to do a blind stitch but I easily learned after watching a tutorial on youtube. I love the internet.

Since the weather is cooler, I felt like making comfort food. Have you had heard of Mulligatawny soup? The first time we had it was at the Spaghetti Factory. It's served every Thursday at lunch. I needed to find a recipe and the one I finally ended up with is a combination from one I found on allrecipes.com, one I found in Cooking Light magazine and making substitutions that suit our tastes.
If you like chicken & rice soup and curry doesn't turn your stomach, I recommend it. At the very least, try it the next time you see it on the menu at a restaurant. It's fun to try something different. Here's how I make it:

Chicken Mulligatawny

1 onion
4 stalks celery
2 carrots
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoon curry powder
8 cups chicken broth
1 apple, cored and chopped

3/4 cup white or brown rice
2 skinless, boneless chicken breast half - cut into cubes
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup milk - nf is fine and what I usually use but use whatever you want including 1/2 and 1/2 if it suits you.

Directions

-Puree all vegetables
-heat oil in large stock pot and add veggie puree, cook for a few minutes.
-add curry powder and chicken stock. Mix well and bring to a boil. Simmer about 1/2 an hour.
-Add rice, chicken, salt, pepper and thyme. Simmer another 1/2 hr or until rice is done. -or- Simmer 2 hours for rice to thicken and become more 'hearty'.
-Add milk and apples, simmer 5 minutes. Serve.

Notes:
If you'd prefer your veggies chopped instead of pureed, then sauté veggies in oil for 5-10 minutes. Add 3 T flour and the curry powder to the veggies and sauté 5 minutes. Then add the chicken stock and continue on with step 2 above. You'll need the flour to thicken the soup. This makes a lot. You can 1/2 the recipe, but we like the leftovers.

And I leave you with snippets of the famous Seinfeld soup nazi episode:

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Hee Haw

I totally stole this from Ragged's blog, so it could be a re-run for a few of you.


It just proves that I was influenced by Hee Haw when I wrote about this outfit last month.


Thanks Ragged for the flashback to a mighty fine variety show of the past!
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getting my craft on

I'm taking my first sewing class tonight. Looking forward to it, but also wondering...do I need another hobby?

This is what's been keeping me occupied while I've been enjoying the new fall TV schedule.
I just made this whimsical layout using last year's photo. We're missing a brother and his wife, a niece and a nephew. Big family, right?

I made this a little while ago but this is where we're all going for Thanksgiving this year.

I've been on a card making frenzy lately.
I made these during one of my craft nights at a friend's house. 4 or 5 of us get together on the 3rd Tuesday of every month and work on our own projects. I'm getting ready for next year's birthdays.

Some of you might see one of these in your mailbox in the next few weeks. Email me your address if I don't already have it! :)

When you watch tv, do you usually do something else too or watch intently? For me, it depends on the storyline. I can't do anything else when I'm watching anything action or intense like Heroes, Fringe or Law and Order. But if it's a home improvement or reality show, I get a ton of crafting done.
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Reality not my reality

I've been addicted to Jon and Kate plus 8 . I can't even tell you how much I've watched lately. I'm usually not the reality tv type of person, but this summer, I became the reality tv junkie. I think my fascination with their family is how they do it with 8 kids. So impossible for me to put myself in their shoes. Firstly, no kids. Secondly, I was an only child. If you're not familiar with the show, it's a family of 10: the mom and dad, plus a set of twins and a set of sextuplets. The twins are 7 and the sextuplets are 4.

This is me when I was 7:
What's up with that hoe-down outfit? I donno, but I loved it. I remember watching the tv variety show "Hee Haw" all the time. Maybe that's why I loved this outfit so much.

I can't wait for the regular fall tv schedule to start. Maybe I'll stop watching all this reality tv. What shows are you looking forward to? I heard about "Fringe" and I recorded it, but haven't watched yet. Aside from that, just looking forward to my old standbys: Grey's, Heroes, Lost, Pushing Daisies, Ghost Whisperer, etc. Since I fast forward through commercials, I don't even know what new shows are coming out. I need any recommendations you'd like to share.
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Watching What Not To Wear wondering what to wear.

Next weekend we'll be in Anchorage.
This is not Anchorage. This is Glacier Bay circa 2004.

We're going to my brother-in-law's wedding on July 7th. Yep, that 7/07/07. And can you guess what time the ceremony is?
7:07pm, naturally.
Living in the lower 48, one might think: 7:07pm? Oh my. That's so late.
But in Anchorage, the sun does not set till 2am. So that'd be like having a wedding at 2pm.
BTW, the sun rises around 4am. Whoo hoo. a whole 2 hours of nighttime. Have I told you I like me my sleep?

Ok, there are a lot of other thoughts filtering thru my head right now, but I'm still thinking about what I'm going to wear. It's a very casual wedding. My soon to be sister in law says 'come as you are' and 'jeans are perfectly acceptable'. Quite a difference from the wedding I went to in March where the bride doesn't even wear pants on a daily basis. Get your mind outta the gutter...what I mean is she only wears dresses or skirts! LOL!

So, I'm thinking jeans and a pretty top. Or black pants and a sweater. What would you wear if you were going to a casual outdoor wedding in Alaska?

Recreating a commercial, and a meme

Have you seen that paper towel commercial where the son is in the kitchen and he opens quart of orange soda and it sprays all over his mom and she yells at him and says "BILLY! What are you thinking?" then proceeds to have a water/soda fight with her son?

Well, this was my attempt to recreate that scenario: except my story isn't as fun as a water/soda fight with a family member. My story is just plain stupidity. Let's just say that I don't recommend mixing club soda with Crystal Light then shaking it in a cup with an insufficient lid.

Since I'm on the topic of what a Dumass I am (another commercial reference. You wouldn't think I had TiVo, would you?), I thought that now would be a good time to catch up on a meme I owe to Jodi who tagged me last week. I figure that whatever else you learn about me that you don't already know, along with the pink Crystal Light all over my kitchen, won't really be that surprising since I continue to prove time and again that I am a Dumass. Or at least prone to a good dosage of dumass-ness quite frequently.

Ok, so here goes. This time, I'm gonna follow the rules, which are:

Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write their own blog with their 7 things as well as these rules. You need to tag 7 others and list their names on your blog. Remember to leave a comment for them letting them know they have been tagged and to read your blog.

1. I'm guilty of using exclamation points in excess. I can't help it. I like to do it in 3's!!! But will often think, oh, that's going to annoy someone, and will tone it back to just 1 or 2!! Also, I think about using air quotes a lot, but try to resist since I know it annoys people.

2. I'm extremely near sighted. My eye doctor says that she only has one other patient who has worse eyesight than me.

3. I rarely get motion sick.

4. Names of pets I've had: Mork, Pixie (of Pixie and Dixie cartoon), Getty, Lucy, Joanie and Chachi, Bill and Ted.

5. I got sucked into the Beanie Baby craze in the late 90s. I gave most of them away when we moved 4 years ago.

6. When going down stairs, I almost always have to lead with my right foot.

7. My currently overused words are "Freakin", "Curses" and "HI-larious". But I try to say them without the air quotes. ;)

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Now if Phin, Ragged, Lilli, Rook's Nest, Cate, Zann and Susan D would like to play, that'd be cool. If meme's aren't your game, then that's cool too. :)

now watching

Craft in America on PBS.

Freaking amazingly talented people.

Currently drooling over:
George Nakashima
Jan Yager
Tom Joyce

I love having a laptop so I can watch tv, look something up then blog about it at the same time.

photo taken at the Celebration of Craftswomen last November.

Yikes.

My tv won't turn on.
I.don't.know.what.I'm.going.to.do.
My IT guy is gone till 11:30 Sunday night, and that tv is so complicated, i can't diagnose what's wrong with it.
And believe it or not, we're a one tv household. No crawling into bed and watching re-runs in there.
And did TiVo record Grey's Anatomy last night?

This is really gonna screw up my weekend plans of doing absolutely nothing except watch dvd's.

Well, hopefully Jimmy can talk me thru fixing it. And I'm not gonna be home till midnight tonight so really, it's only 2 days that I might have to go with tv. Two.Long.Days.

Pathetic, isn't it?

I'm chillin'

I'm also illin'. It's raining and I'm sick, but I'm resting at our hideaway, which is a good place to re-coop. There are few distractions to pull me away from taking it easy and resting and not infecting a bunch of other people, aside from my husband (hopefully he's drinking enough oj and staying clear enough so he won't get sick either).

I was surprised at the lack of pukey cute romantic comedies on TBS/TNT etc. this weekend before Valentine's Day. I would have figured I'd have a plethora of Meg Ryan movies to watch. So I settled on watching a few home improvement shows and What Not To Wear's. and napping a lot.

We've had a severe lack of snow this winter though. It's been raining all weekend, but that's not enough to fill all the reservoirs that count on the snowfall. Hopefully we'll get more precipitation and can avoid a drought this year.

Hiding from reality

I'm back! I've been back for 4 days but having a hard time adjusting back to reality. So I've been escaping to TiVo and the zillion season premiers I recorded while we were gone.

Men in Trees: A near copy of Northern Exposure including the bar. Could retain my interest for a while if it proves to be as quirky as NE.

Six Degrees: I'll give it 2 more episodes to grab me. Otherwise, it gets the ax. I can't watch this much tv.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: lovin' this one. Good, fresh change from Aaron Sorkin's West Wing, although I was very sad to see that one go. But boy, do they talk fast!

Ugly Betty: Oh, I had hopes for this one. But so far, really stupid. Should be a 1/2 hour sit, not an hour, if that could even save it.

The Class: kind of reminds me of Friends. I'm a Friends junkie, so we'll see if it actually holds up to the comparison.

Jerico, Heroes and The Nine: haven't made the time to watch these yet but TiVo's diligently recording.

Watched the season premiers of The Simpsons, Grey's Anatomy, Law and Order and South Park. Still need to watch Lost.

It's kind of (!) gross the amount of tv I've been watching.

I guess in my attempt to not get back to reality, I've been distracted by this evil source of mindless escapism.

Kauai, here we come!

In less than 36 hours, Jimmy, his sister and I will be on a plane to Hawaii! We're meeting our niece there who is flying in from San Diego, arriving 5 minutes before we do. I'm totally excited and love travelling with them. In 2004, I went on a 12 day cruise to Alaska with my SIL, and in 2001, Jimmy and I went on a motorhome trip with our niece to Vancouver with the parentals. It's gonna be a blast. Our niece loves to take photos as much as I do so I'm sure we'll get a lot of goofy shots of us being...goofy.

I've been concentrating so much on my race that I really haven't taken the time to think about this trip. I'm a last minute packer, too, so I'm counting on Jimmy to remember everything. I have stamp club tomorrow night and won't get home till almost 10pm. I know myself well enough that I won't start packing till after I get home. I'll be too excited to sleep anyhoo! Besides, I have a 5 hour flight to sleep, right?

I think part of the reason I haven't been able to accept autumn yet is because of this trip. Hawaii is such the summer environment that my mindset is still in summer. Plus our temperatures are still in the high 70s and 80s. The Bay Area is known for its Indian summers and it often doesn’t feel like fall till the end of October - just in time for Halloween! Fall is one of my favorite seasons, it’s definitely in the top 4. Ha! I can’t say what my favorite season is because I love a lot of elements of all the seasons. But Halloween and Thanksgiving are probably my favorite holidays. Weather wise, fall and spring far exceed summer and winter. I enjoy the rain and snow, but I’d rather be boating on the lake.

Another fall tradition I love is the fall lineup. I’ve programmed TiVo to record the interesting series premiers that I’ll miss while we’re in Hawaii. The ones on my radar are Heroes, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Class, Twenty Good Years, Jericho, Ugly Betty, The Nine, Brothers & Sisters, Men in Trees, Notes from the Underbelly and Six Degrees. And then there’s the returning shows: Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Ghost Whisperer, Law and Order and Gilmore Girls to add to that list. TiVo will be working very hard!

We’ll be gone for 9 days. Lots of time for relaxing as well as playing. The condo we’re staying at has wifi so of course, laptops will be brought. At least 2. Along with 4 iPods, a PSP, GPS (geocaching!), 3 digital cameras, 4 cell phones and I’m sure a lot more electronic gadgets. Obviously we are not roughing it. We’re also bringing books, magazines, Sudoku puzzles, hiking shoes, bathing suits and possibly purchasing snorkel gear when we get there.

...ah...well...for those times that I had little to say, I think this post has made up for it! I was a little (!) long winded and rambled on without direction. A sign that I cannot concentrate on anything in particular because too much is flittering around in my head. I guess I succeeded in wanting to spill open more! :)

Photo taken at the Kalalau Lookout of the Na Pali Coast, July 2005.

My only explanation is that

Aliens must have taken over my body.

I just watched the season premier of Ellen and I love the new...
(I can't believe I'm actually writing this publicly)

Justin Timberlake song: SexyBack.

Before you judge me, just go here and give it a listen first.

I'll wait...

Did you listen all the way through?
Do you need lyrics to read along with it?
We're you able to sit still?
Did your ears bleed?

Ok, now that you've listened, you're free to judge me.
I suppose I left myself open for it. Justin Timberlake. Really? Before I heard this song, I would have said that I'd wear Crocs before I'd like a Justin Timberlake song.