Shopping

I don't like to shop.

Now... don't get me wrong. I like to buy. I really like to buy. It doesn't have to be for myself either. But shopping? Meh... not so much.

So this time of year my plastic and I visit several Internet shopping sites. This year I have been using eBates and will be looking for a healthy rebate check in the near future. I still got to shop at all my favorite "e-tailers", and they get to track my spending. As far as I am concerned it's not that much different from swiping my Fred Meyer or Albertson's loyalty cards, right? And if I'm on the Internet I am pretty sure that Google knows everything I am doing anyways. At least this way I am getting paid to let them snoop.

Also... happy last day of NaBloPoMoFo. I managed to post... something... every day this month, so even if I don't win anything, I am a winner... right?!

Meds

After a decade (and change) on hiatus... back on meds. Scott just about fell over laughing when he saw my big can of Questran. 33 is the new 82... woot?!

But... not too many suggested dietary tweaks. She did recommend cutting back on the cheese but not eliminating it all together. Maybe she reads my blog?! :)

Desktop

So far I have been pretty happy with my MBP. Yes, the fan is loud and sometimes it sounds like we are going to warp speed but other than that I have no major beefs.

And so far I have been very happy with my MBP, post-Leopard upgrade. A few things are different, yes. But nothing earth-shattering.

But one thing has been getting on my nerves. It's little. It's piddly. But it's really annoying. Other than the "Macintosh HD" no other discs were appearing on my desktop. Network drives. Removeable drives. CD's. Nope, nada, zilch. Yes, they appear in the Finder sidebar, but that's a pain.

Cheese

Cheese
1. the curd of milk separated from the whey and prepared in many ways as a food.
2. a definite mass of this substance, often in the shape of a wheel or cylinder.

Doesn't quite grab you does it? What is it about cheese... creamy, hard, string, or crumbly... that makes everything better? Vegetables, crackers, pizza, sandwiches, salads, pasta, and plain for snacking. Cheese is good.

The Artisan Cheese plate at Zydeco is one of my favorite restaurant appetizers.

While the rest of the meal was forgettable, the cheesy "poof" served atop my beet salad at Ariana was delicate and tasty.

A wedge of brie or other soft cheese served with crackers or bread makes such a nice snack when visitors stop by.

My new favorite variety? I dug a wedge of "Holland Parrano" out of the deli case at Fred Meyer for Thanksgiving this year. We had never tried it before, and it was a hit. It was soooo yummy. Dry but with a nice full flavor.

Hmmm, describing cheese is like describing wine. Coincidence that they go together so well?

Sadly, I must put my love affair with cheese on hold. Right before Thanksgiving I went in for my annual checkup. This year that included going in and getting my blood drawn to test for fun things like thyroid & metabolic problems, as well as...

Cholesterol

Everything else seems to be fine. But I had to schedule another appointment when the cholesterol levels were found to be extremely high. We are talking total cholesterol in the 300's folks. If my LDL's were a bowling score I would be good to go.

I know one of the recommendations will be to cut down on the cheese. There will be other things to keep an eye on, but I will miss cheese the most.

Holland Parrano, I hardly knew you...

Cold

Shannon, I am with you about not being quite ready to go back to work. And apparently the house isn't ready either... cuz the furnace conked out some time last night.

So, now I am working from home. Waiting for Mr Furnace Repair Man to come wave his magic wand over my house and make it warm. I am sitting by the fireplace (thank goodness that still works), wrapped in blankets. The dog is laying on my feet. My MBP is generating a little warmth, too. ;) A nice hot mug of tea is sounding good right about now, but I just don't think I can move that far away from the fire yet.

Brrrrr....

Updated at 2:15pm... It's fixed! I turned off the fireplace and the house is starting to warm up. And I am starting to thaw. Shiver! I am glad I don't have to go without heat very often.

Today

Ahhh... relaaaaxin' before heading back to the daily grind. I love long weekends.

Retail

As per usual, I didn't leave the house on Black Friday. Which was absolutely fine with me. The kids were pretty tired from Thanksgiving so I got plenty of "work work" done, and a little around the house, too.

Today we ventured out into the big bad world again. We got a couple of Christmas gifts purchased, including Scott's and my "together gift" to each other. It wasn't too crowded, which was nice.

The turkey carcass is stewing into a nice homemade stock, so the house still smells like Thanksgiving. Mmmm...

Tonight, we are heading out to a nice dinner with friends at my favorite restaurant... Zydeco! It will be nice to have a break from cooking and leftovers.

Squash

I like squash. Butternut, Gold Nugget, Spaghetti... it's all good. Some times the kids go for it, and some times they don't. I always make it clear when I make squash - I know it's not for everyone, and no one is required to try it unless they want to. So for part of our Thanksgiving feast I made a squash dish... which no one else ate.

Good! More leftovers for me!

And as far as I was concerned, it was an excellent squash dish. Stinky tried some today and liked it, so now I have to share the rest. I found it on the Food Network website a couple of weeks ago, as I was browsing for recipes. It is delicious... if you like squash!

Gobble

We did, did you?

Happy Turkey Day!

Berried

We did some "getting ready" cooking today. Lucky for me, the kids are willing and ready to help out with the cooking and baking this year. It's amazing how much they can do, and I am trying to step back and let them do a little more this year. Stinky helped me with a pumpkin pie, so hopefully it tastes OK.

And Boo made the cranberry sauce. This is one of my favorite parts of a holiday meal. I like fresh, whole berry sauce. Scott likes the jelly.

Cranberries crackle as they heat up.

Starting to break down, getting that pink foam on the top.

Done! We'll cool it off and put it in a pretty bowl for tomorrow!

Leopard

Can you guess what I'm doing today?

Costco

The holiday season has officially started. How do I know? I couldn't find a parking spot anywhere at Costco today. The "sample ladies" were out in force, on a weekday. And finally... I had to wait in line, to get in line for the checkstand.

Stinky showed me the drum set he thinks we should get for Q.P. for Christmas. (HA!!) And the guitar that he wants. Does anyone out there actually recommend buying a guitar from Costco? For some reason that doesn't seem like a good idea. At any rate... both were in the middle, so I couldn't possibly buy them because my only rule about shopping at Costco is to stay out of the middle lest your somewhat reasonable tab suddenly balloon by $250. Stay out of the middle at all costs!

But I got a turkey (18 lbs) and most of the other goodies we need for Thanksgiving. I even treated myself to a bunch of protea & eucalyptus, to brighten up the living room. Oooh, and a nifty remote roasting thermometer and timer gizmo (it wasn't in the middle, I promise). I love new kitchen gadgets!

Drawers

ALL of the kitchen drawers are now done. Built, installed, and loaded with my kitchen crap. The pantry is still cluttered, but not as crowded. And, now no one can find anything but me. Bwahahahaaaaa...

For all of you out there that are keeping track... that's twelve drawers down, nineteen to go. Most of those are for the bathrooms, with a few for the bonus room and kids' built-in units. So, we are definitely getting closer to being done with this part of the house. Woot!

Punkin

Ohhh... it's pumpkin season. It's one of my favorite times of year. The smell. The flavor. The color.

It all begins with Halloween. The kids find pumpkins that they can barely carry. We always look at the white ones and green ones, and then settle back to traditional orange ones. What is it about a plump, imperfectly rounded, orange pumpkin? They always make me smile.

And then as we take those first cuts through the rind, the sweet smell of pumpkin fills the house for the first time. Little fingers dig out gooey strands, setting aside some seeds. Orange stickiness gets stuck in fingernails. Slowly and carefully the inside is scraped clean, and their own unique creations take shape. Soon they adorn our front porch with candle light glowing from goofy, scary, or just plain absurd designs.

Inside the house, seeds roast until they turn that perfect golden brown. Salty and crunchy - it's our first taste of pumpkin season. Too soon they are gone, and we will wait another year for this fall treat.

As pumpkin season continues there are still more goodies to come. Pumpkin waffles. Pumpkin scones. Pumpkin spice lattes. Pumpkin cheesecake. Pumpkin pie. I can't think of a holiday gathering or party this time of year, without thinking that something with pumpkin would make it a little better.

And something new (for me) this year... pumpkin martinis (via Chuggnutt). They are, quite simply put... delicious. It's like pumpkin pie in a glass. But with booze, which tends to make things sooo much better!

I wish pumpkin season lasted a little longer. But some time just after Christmas it isn't pumpkin season anymore. As the days grow longer and we look towards spring, the orangey glow of the pumpkin fades and I look forward to lighter flavors.

But for now... it's still pumpkin season. And I am enjoying it to the fullest!

Eyeballs

For Halloween this year, the cool treat was the gummy eyeballs. The kids got a bunch of 'em... and finally polished off the last of them a few days back. We had dinner with some friends tonight and they brought over a bunch more. The kids are ecstatic!! Especially since we were almost out of Halloween candy. All the chocolate's gone anyways, and that is all that matters right?

Their favorite trick? Sticking it in between their teeth with the eyeball gazing out at you, covering one eye with their hand, and jumping up and down shrieking. It was really funny...

But only the first twenty times I saw it.

Eyeball, anyone?

Abstain

In Stinky's writing class they are learning how to conduct interviews. Right now all the kids are interviewing each other. Stinky thinks this is great, because now he is finding out which kids already have "Halo 3" or which ones know how to play chess.

As a motivational tool, the teacher turned part of this into a contest. I am not exactly sure how it works, but they can earn raffle entries as they complete the interviews. But Stinky told me he isn't entering.

Why?

Because the prizes are gift cards for Wal-Mart.

That's my boy!

Beer

I think I am overdue for some relaxation. We have been in crazy-kid-schedule-holidays-coming-up-omigod panic mode for way to long.

Tonight was a good start. Beers with some of the girls, at McMenamins. Lots of chatting, laughing, and very laid back. My kinda night!

We started with a great bartender - then her shift ended. Really friendly gal, with a GREAT frog shirt and perky braids making her look waaaay to young to serve alcohol. She was a little distracted and completely missed one of the girls when she came in, so she wasn't as happy with her and wrote to me this morning:

I came in and made a big "hi girls", hugs all around, very loud entrance and STILL sat their for 5 minutes before I got her attention for my first beer. Then she said "oh, I didn't even see you." ya kidding?! I think the only people that didn't hear us were the folks sitting in court across the street at City Hall!

I think she tried to make up for it by bringing several tasters. And selfish me, I already had a beer so I didn't notice!

After she left we got the world's snarkiest bartender. If there are four women at the bar, and three of them have empty "first round" beer glasses then what would you do? Hmmm... if you said "ignore them" then you must have been our bartender. He wasn't all that busy, either. We waited patiently for a while, but how long can you patiently for another beer when the bartender is right there?! Finally, one of the girls hollered, "Hey bartender we need more beer." Barely any reaction. And just in case you haven't seen the bar at the McMenamins main restaurant? It's tiny. Really hard to ignore your customers. But he managed to do so... which earned him taunts and disdain from our barstools.

The final insult? When we asked for the final bill he grunted that it was already there, in the glass in front of us. But guess what? It wasn't the final bill, so the second round of drinks wasn't on it. So when the bill was paid... he then brought the final bill, with the credit card slip.

Jerk.

Other than that... the beer, the company, and of course the Cajun tots were all great!!!!

Warning

Here's another reason why you shouldn't surf for free on your neighbor's Internet connection:



But wait! There's more... check out part two!

Bus-iness

Good news today!

In a previous post I lamented the apparent closure of the former "Bachelor bus" park and ride lot, off Simpson and Colorado.

According to an article in today's Bulletin the new owners of the lot have agreed to let Bachelor use the lot for one more season. Obviously this is good news... especially for all the folks who had already purchased season bus passes. And it was the right thing for the new property owner to do, IMHO.

Happy skiing and snowboarding, all!

Check

Accomplished a lot today, after mostly sitting around yesterday! We got a bit of a slow start but finished strong. :)

Scott's daughter that lives in Eugene came by to get another box of hers that we found when we cleaned the garage. So we unloaded a bunch of other unneeded miscellaneous too, including a coffee table, some framed pictures, an old grill, and some tire chains. She was happy to get all that stuff, and we were really happy to see it go away.

AND Scott cut all the materials needed for drawers. That's right - we've been living here for more than a year and WITHOUT drawers. None. Not in the bathroom, kitchen, another bathroom, bonus room, or the other bathroom. ZIP. If you have never tried this... let's just say I don't recommend it. Our goal is to have all the kitchen drawers done by Thanksgiving. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Not ready for another week to begin... but since the kids don't have school tomorrow I guess I will live vicariously through them.

Rollin...

Before tonight, I had never been to roller derby. Same went for Stinky. Scott, being old (old guys rule!), remembers watching it on TV. So he, and a couple of other friendly spectators kept us in the loop so we (sort of) knew what was going on.

Stinky's impression: It's loud. It's real loud.

That kid is going to be in trouble the first time he sets foot in a nightclub. Good thing that's more than a few years away.

My impression: It's fun to watch, but complicated. I am hooked on the silly in between stuff they have during baseball games and other sporting events. Yeup, give me a good chicken dance and I will be happy! There is none of that in roller derby - they are way to serious for any chicken dancing nonsense. Which is saying a LOT for girls wearing black-and-pink corsets. So it was a little mentally exhausting for me. But darn, those roller girls work hard. Especially the ref skating around the outer boundary. She was FAST!

Will we go again? Possibly. We'll see....

Sick

I am sick, and don't feel like posting. Either lunch (at Sumi's) or dinner at last night's staff meeting didn't agree with me last night. Luckily tomorrow is Saturday and I will get to sleep in!

Another reason to be happy... Super Burrito will be back soon, so when I can eat again, I can get me some tasty cheap food downtown.

Soup

Fall is turning to winter. It's getting dark early. Evenings are cold and mornings are colder. It's... soup weather! I thawed some stew meat yesterday, but didn't have time to cook stew. So I tried this instead. It was inspired by this recipe but I changed it to match what was in my pantry.

It was just me and the boys last night; everyone loved it. I will probably add more stew meat next time. The broth is soooo delicious and slightly rich. If you are serving more than four hungry people or want leftovers you will definitely want to double the recipe below.

Breakfast

I love breakfast. I don't always eat it in the morning like I should, but I do adore it so... bagels, bacon, benedict, biscuits & gravy... all "B" words. How silly is that?

Boo and I have a little arrangement. If she is up and at 'em and ready to head out the door when it's time for the big kids to go to school on Wednesdays, then we go out to breakfast together. She is about as much of a morning person as I am, which is to say she isn't. So one day a week is about as much as we can muster.

Since she has to be at school in Redmond by 9am we have been trying out places up there. And I think now we have tried them all. Yes, that would be all three of them. Apparently Redmond is not a breakfast kind of town.

We tried Starbucks - completely unsatisfactory due to the complete lack of hot food items. The Country Nook is good for food and service but the coffee... eh, not so good. And the Mustard Seed was good but a little disappointing. Their sign says they have the best breakfast in Redmond and they are probably right due to complete lack of competition. I was hopeful that some of the other places in Redmond offered breakfast. We checked out all the new places at the Fred Meyer shopping center but none of them were open. We tried Local Grounds and Cross Creek - same deal.

So... I ask my Redmond readers "what gives"? Where do you go for breakfast in Redmond? And please don't leave me stranded by saying "Shari's" or "McDonald's". That might just break my heart.

Honestly

I’ve been tagged by Keeneye to post 7 honest things about myself. Mine probably aren't as deep and meaningful as her revelations, though. Here's the dirt on me...

1. Doh! I used to live in Madras. It was only for a couple of months, and I still regret it.
2. Surprise! I was pregnant with my first kid (Stinky) while on one of those semester study abroad programs. No one knew until after the term ended, everyone went on their Eurail trips, and we met up "one last time" before heading back to the US. That's when my belly grew enough not to be able to hide it anymore. This just about gave my classmates heart attacks.
3. Shhh... I hate keeping secrets and am really bad at it. #2 is an example of the maybe five times I have kept something a secret about something for any length of time.
4. Celebrate! I love birthdays, including mine. I still don't mind getting older. I love me some birthday fussin'.
5. Thumb-sucker! I sucked my thumb until I was 12 years old. No kidding. Then I got braces and it hurt too much, so I stopped.
6. Math geek? I have taken Calculus three times. I still haven't passed. I could differentiate but I couldn't integrate, or something like that. What ever.
7. Crap! I totally forgot to vote today. Arrrrrgh...

I’m tagging Deby at Bryson's of Bend, Occidental Girl, Julie at Chubby Mommy Running Club, Simzgirl, Wendy at There Once Was a Girl, Jen at Under the Ponderosas, and Just a Cuppa Lovers.

The guidelines are:

1 Link the person who has tagged you
2 Tell seven true things about yourself
3 Tag seven new people
4 Leave a message with the person you have tagged so they know about it

Good Luck!

News

This post is part of the Monday Missions, hosted by Painted Maypole. All are welcome to write their own posts. This week's Mission is to write a post in the style of a news article.

NaNoWriMo Disappoints
Despite the best intentions, Jen announced that she has withdrawn from NaNoWriMo. Early reviews of the manuscript-in-progress pointed towards a bestseller, rivaling the popularity of the "Harry Potter" series. When asked about her status as a dropout the budding author stated, "who has time for this sort of thing in November of all months?" She is planning to restart the project at a future date. Fans were disappointed, and flocked to the compound where she was holed up for the month offering flowers, chocolate, and cheese.

Railroad

What is the deal with the railroad crossing on Reed Market Rd? I know all the recent fuss has surrounded the Hwy 97 & Cooley intersection.

But from someone who drives through BOTH of these "problem areas" on close to a daily basis, the railroad crossing bothers me more.

Hwy 97 & Cooley is fairly consistently bad. I can count on the delay to be the same every day, every time. And it's not that much of a delay - not more than 2-3 minutes per trip.

On the other hand, you just never know when the railroad crossing is going to slow you down. It could be a train. It could be a really slow train. It could even be a train that stops on the road. Or it could be the worst of all - a crossing malfunction.

And you just never know how long one of these delays will last. There are ways around the crossing, but how does one know if that will actually save time? It could be a short train. It could be a minor, less than a minute malfunction. Or it could be 20 minutes.

Today I got to experience my least favorite of these delays - the dreaded crossing malfunction. Twice. Heading to the store to pick up two items, I turned the corner and then down went the gates. So I waited. Then the gates went up briefly - just long enough for me and maybe two other cars to get across. When I came back from my quick shopping trip there was a backup, but the gates were up. Sure enough as I crept towards the crossing (traffic was also backed up due to the light at 15th and Reed Market) the gates went back down. Overall I probably waited almost half an hour between my two delays.

Unpredictability - not my favorite thing. Unpredictable traffic delays - even lower on the list.

Clean

I like my house to be tidy. Not sterile, just... somewhat clean. This particular character flaw flies in direct conflict with another.

I don't put things away when I am done with them.

And unfortunately no one else in the house does, either. So here I am on a Saturday morning, looking around in despair. Where did all this junk come from? Why is there not a SINGLE cordless phone on a hook. For that matter where are the cordless phones? Remotes for TV, DVD, Wii, and who knows what else are spread across the living room. Miscellaneous shoes and bike helmets are everywhere else. Halloween candy wrappers are underfoot, under chairs, and under... where?

So today we are going to clean. I am going to reinforce the rule that "kid stuff goes in kids' rooms." I will remind everyone that trash (like the Halloween candy wrappers) belongs in the garbage can, and your dishes get rinsed out and go in the sink (but only if it doesn't fit in the dishwasher).

And then I will remind myself of the same things.

Words

Stinky and I attended The Nature of Words Author Reading event last night. If you have never been to one of these events I highly recommend going. I wish I could go to the one tomorrow night too, but unfortunately we already have plans for the evening.

Personally, my favorite part was hearing Kathleen Dean Moore read from her collections of essays. I like the way she relates nature and natural events to her life experiences. As she described each scene I could close my eyes and see the coastline, and smell the salt air. It was wonderful.

Stinky really enjoyed listening to the excerpts that Craig Johnson read from his "Western mystery" novel. We laughed as he described the experience of writing his first novel, and then chuckled at the story.

We both enjoyed the other writers; poet Pattiann Rogers (who is also very expressive and a born storyteller) and Timothy Egan (whose introduction was very intriguing, but we missed his reading because Stinky was fading fast - it was after 9pm).

Only one possible criticism comes to mind. I found it interesting that Stinky was one of only two kids in the audience. (Anyone under 21 had to sit in the balcony, because alcohol was allowed in the floor seating area, so I am reasonably sure that I would have spotted other kids.) There was another middle school girl seated near us. And here's the deal: tickets for students are free. Are there really so few kids interested in writing and authors? Other than tiring out because of the late hour, it was a really great experience for both of us. I know the organization sponsors a writing contest for high school and college students, so they do have youth in mind. It's too bad that since they have taken the trouble to bring in these authors from all over that they can't also sponsor a student event in the afternoon, or even get the word out to middle and high school students and their families.

Overall - all of the authors were interesting, and it made me want to pick up a copy of at least one of their books. And I will definitely watch for the event next year and try to attend one night (if not both) of the Author readings.

We realize too late that we never taught our students what ducks know without knowing, that "we must love life before loving its meaning," as Dostoyevsky told us. We must love life, and some meaning may grow from that love. But "if love of life disappears, no meaning can console us."
~Kathleen Dean Moore, The Testimony of the Marsh

Tricks

After a busy Halloween-eve, the kids still managed to find the energy to have some Halloween fun. This year Q.P.'s friend M joined in on the fun!

We started off with our traditional trip to the Expressway market to see "Otis" and guess how many seeds would be inside. This is always one of the favorite stops since they also happen to give away full-size candy bars.

Next, we headed over to the office for the "Fall Festival" trick-or-treating event. After having their picture taken with "Frank" they were off through the hallways, collecting candy at every turn. I think they made it through the entire building in about 20 minutes flat - a new record! We took a quick break to have some cookies and cider, and then headed out.

We visited and trick-or-treated at a few friends' houses. Then it was time for Boo to go trick-or-treating with her Dad. I took Stinky, Q.P., and M to McDonald's and picked up a pizza for me and Scott. We dropped by Q.P.'s mom's house so that she could show off her costume. Finally we hit the road back to the house.

Scott had been busy handing out candy to many neighborhood goblins. This was a pretty busy year at our door, I don't know if they bussed the kids in from somewhere else? The girls did a loop around the neighborhood and collected even more loot.

By the time we finally settled down and the doorbell stopped ringing (I turned the light off at 9pm) we were bushed. It seemed odd that the kids were out trick-or-treating in the light since we are still in Daylight Savings mode, but it didn't seem to bother them.