03
May, 2008

please excuse our dust….

this morning, i picked two pink tulips from my garden.  this one still had the morning dew (or maybe it was rain, i’m not sure).  later in the afternoon, i found it in the kitchen looking like this:

ta-dah!  i love how the middle glows a dark blue when the sun’s behind it.

the next few days may be a time of brokenness for this blog.  mr. happy stuff with all of his computer-wisdom tells me that i desperately need to upgrade my platform and that doing so (because i’m so far behind) may cause some technical difficulties for a few days around here.  he assures me that when it’s all done, it will all work fine and that i won’t lose any archives, so cross your fingers, folks!  so i’m taking a wee blog break to freshen up the place and i’ll be back very soon (hopefully!).  in the meantime, get outside and enjoy the spring weather!  that’s where i’ll be!

Posted in spring, Uncategorized | 3 Comments
29
Apr, 2008

sneak peek and a new toy

the craftiness has been a bit quiet on the blog lately because i am in the midst of a project that has turned out to be a bit bigger than i’d originally estimated. it’s a gift for someone who might be reading this blog, so i can’t give you many details, but there’s a sneak peek in this picture.

the “new toy” is a new camera lens i bought today at a thrift store! it’s an old, manual 50mm lens, but it fits on my camera (thanks, pentax!) and i like the tone of the pictures it takes. much more experimenting needs to be done, but for $5.50, i think it was a good purchase.

oh, here’s a little bit of craftiness.  i made a flannel story for work.  yes, most of them still need eyes, but i just couldn’t wait to show them to you!

Posted in crafty stuff, library stuff, photography | 2 Comments
28
Apr, 2008

comfort food for a sick day

i woke up this morning with a sore throat that i caught from mr. happy stuff.  he was sick last week and i was silly enough to kiss him (how could i resist?) and now i’m paying the price.  cough, cough, sneeze, wheeze, sniffle.  today was my day off, so no temptation to work through it, but i did have to go to class this evening.  i needed sustenance before class, so i decided to cook up three hard-boiled eggs.  first, i took these three eggs (look at the array of colors!  thanks, farmer jacob!) and put them on to boil.

this is my egg-boiling pan.  “hmmm…” you say, “that doesn’t look like a pan, that looks like a measuring cup!”

and you’d be right.  a 2-cup measure, in fact.  but this is a special measuring cup.  it used to belong to my great aunt bess and she always used it to boil eggs (and make us jell-o ‘tea’, but that’s another post….) so it lives in my drawer now and comes out on the rare occasions that i hard-boil eggs and reminds me of her each time i do it.

while i’m waiting for the water to boil (‘watched-pot’ and all) i go outside to check the mail and get another shot of my pretty little white flower:

look at that raindrop!  (or is it melted snow?  yep. we had snow today.  another good reason to stay home!)  let’s check the eggs:

getting warm and bubbly!

now it’s boiling so hard it’s blurry!

and now i’m running late for class (sigh) so i skip the crucial step to sick-day hard-boiled egg goodness–the face.  see, when i was a kid, we called them “humpty dumpty eggs” and always drew a face on the egg and then recited the nursery rhyme with the egg sitting on the edge of the table, and (at the correct moment) “falling” off the edge and onto the floor where the shell-cracking began.  so, i crack the faceless eggs one at a time:

(apparently no time to correctly focus the camera either!), peel them and add them to my bowl:

then, add a pat of butter (or olive oil spread, in my case) and a sprinkling of salt:

(why does that look like ice cream to me?)  mash it all together:

and gobble it up!

(no time for toast!)  yum.

Posted in yum | 2 Comments
28
Apr, 2008

cleaning my virtual house

here’s another restful photo from my garden to illustrate the zen feeling of a freshly cleaned “virtual” house. i have moved most of my “librarian’s log” archives over to goodreads. i will keep only the current year listed in my sidebar here. i still need to update my blogroll, but i think i’ll wait on that until i’ve upgraded to the most recent version of wordpress.
are any of you members of goodreads?  if so, tell me and let’s be “friends”!  i used that site because several friends of mine were on it already and had invited me to join.  i didn’t realize that i had 188 titles to add!  of course, after i did all the work of finding the titles and copy/pasting my reviews in, i thought about checking out librarything and… now i’m torn.  with a bookshelf already this full, i would probably need to pay for a membership ($10/yr or $25/life), but it’s got some nice features.  okay readers–let’s hear from you.  anyone on librarything?  goodreads?  both?  others?  is it worth $25 to switch over to librarything?
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments
26
Apr, 2008

look what popped up!

found this in my yard today.  i love it when things bloom that i forgot planting.  although, i’m pretty sure my sister planted these.  thanks, sis!

Posted in photography, spring | Comments Off on look what popped up!
26
Apr, 2008

pinwheels, wheeeee!

earlier this week, i was driving to work along the highway when some flashy stuff caught my eye. i glanced over, and there, in an open field, were hundreds (thousands?) of pinwheels, stuck into the ground in the shape of a giant pinwheel.  very eye-catching.  i wasn’t sure if it was some sort of art installation or a prank, or what (driving by at 65 mph doesn’t leave a lot of room for studying the scene) but it was certainly cheerful looking!  yesterday, i took the time to drive over there and see what was going on.  apparently, it’s some sort of display to prevent child abuse (maybe people had to “buy” the pinwheels?  maybe just to raise awareness by being eye-catching?).  i tried to straighten their banner so that others could read it more easily and then took a few pictures.  do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a good picture of a spinning pinwheel in bright sunlight?  the shot above turned out pretty good.  here’s a wider shot to give you an idea of the scale:

they’ve already survived one huge thunderstorm.  we’ll see how long they last.

Posted in photography, spring, stuff that makes me smile | 6 Comments
23
Apr, 2008

poof! spring is here!

and it’s bustin’ out all over!  i was late to work this morning because i just had to take a minute to snap some shots of these cute little purply-blue weedflowers that have taken over our side yard (and they are welcome to it!) while they still had morning dew.  almost (but not quite) as good as a field full of texas bluebonnets!

this shot was taken at work with the point-and-shoot camera.  i’ve been taking that one with me instead of hauling around “big black” on a daily basis, but i realllllly miss the manual focusing capabilities on shots like this one!  i just love the festive little fireworks of buds on this branch.

the weather outside was so nice today that i just had to get outside at lunchtime.  but i didn’t have a blanket to sit on (and fresh grass + khaki pants seemed like a bad idea), so i just went to my car, rolled the windows down, cracked the moonroof open and laid the seats down for a nice nap.  it was surprisingly relaxing and comfortable.  maybe it helps that my parking space was facing a big green hill that blocks all views of traffic?  maybe i just really needed to be outside.  here’s a shot of my happy, glowing toes.

the other thing today that thrilled me to a surprising degree was a re-organization of the staff area at work.  there are just two computers in our workroom, shared by all the staff.  i normally sit at the one on the left when i’m back there and today (for the first time in the 2+ years i’ve been working there) while chatting about the arrangement of the desks with a colleague, we had a lightning bolt of inspiration.  see, most of the stuff on the shelves above the left desk were things i never used and people had to reach over me (or wait until i moved) to get to them.  similarly, there were things on the right desk that only i used (how could i never have noticed this before?!) that i had to hassle people to get to.  there were also issues with some of the computer peripherals and their main users and as soon as we realized this, i couldn’t stand it any longer and went right to work flipping the stuff that i used more frequently to the desk i use more frequently and vice versa.  wow!  what a difference!  plus, the phone (on the right desk) has always been a bother because it doesn’t really reach to the left desk very well, so i’ve always had to either breathe over the shoulder of the person working at the right desk, or have a phone cord reaching tautly through their workspace.  inspiration?  ding!  longer phone cord!  between those things and the trashcan upgrade in the staff kitchen that i initiated last week*, i am quickly becoming the queen of small but significant improvements at work!

okay, one last photo of spring.  this one is currently sitting as my desktop wallpaper and looks purty.  maybe i’ll make it one of the freebies in the sidebar.  anyone interested?

*in case you care, we’d been using a large, round outdoor style garbage can for years.  it took up lots of room right in front of the bathroom door, plus you had to lift the lid with your fingers everytime you wanted to throw any little thing away and then sometimes the lid would fall off and….. ugh!  there is now a slim, indoor trashcan with a swinging-door lid and several people have commented on how nice it is not to have to touch that trashcan lid!  (we’re easy to please, we just don’t always notice how bad it is until it gets better.)

Posted in photography, spring | 4 Comments
21
Apr, 2008

before and after (her due date) photos

remember this baby? last friday i took a few more pictures of her. she’s gotten a little bigger. here are some comparison shots:


and here are a few of my other favorites from our photo shoot. i love the lighting we had!

and a silly one just for fun:

Posted in photography | 4 Comments
20
Apr, 2008

highlights from a busy, fun weekend

tuesday marks the eighth anniversary of mr. happy stuff and i getting married, so this weekend, we celebrated.  after our grand friday night fajita fete, we slept in a little bit on saturday morning, then went to the first outdoor farmer’s market of the year!  woo hoo! it’s back!  although the vendors were a bit sparse (not surprising) and with good weather and a late visiting time, the crowds were large, so we ended up only buying honey and maple syrup (yes, we like the sweet, sticky stuff).

a few hours later, we headed out to milwaukee.  we had tickets to go see body worlds which was both more interesting and more disturbing than i had anticipated.  (for more information on what this exhibit is, follow the link).  there was no photography allowed in the exhibit, but i think there are you can see some examples on the website.  let’s just say that they are much more… visceral in person.  i was fine until i started thinking too much about the fact that they were real bodies.  it was things like hair and belly buttons and tattoos that bothered me most–like if you peel off a person’s skin, you can sort of distance yourself from the fact that they were once someone you might have had a conversation with and they just look like a medical school display of some kind.  but some of the displays still had hair and belly buttons and tattoos (and other pieces of skin) and they were there to remind us of our mortality.  they gave me a bit of the heebie-jeebies.  but it was fascinating to see examples of healthy vs. diseased organs and to view cross-section slices of bodies and see metal parts that had been added in different surgeries (knee replacements, etc.).  i was somewhat relieved when we’d seen the whole exhibit, but i also sort of wanted to go back through again.  but not that bad.

the museum also has a butterfly room which i loved and which i found much more relaxing than the bodyworlds exhibit.

we made our way over to the third ward for our dinner reservations, but we were a bit early, so decided to wander around the shops there.  but of course, almost everything was already closed.  luckily, the one store that we found open was one that was equally interesting to both of us.  it’s an asian antiques store crammed full of very dusty, old, very interesting stuff.  and also some new things.  there were these awesome wooden bathtubs and fantastic gongs and drums and some beautiful new bamboo furniture that we both drooled over.  i didn’t get a picture of the bathtubs (too bad!) but i did get a shot of the freaky puppets they had in the back.  i liked this guy’s sidelong glance:

then, dinner at the coquette cafe.  oh, yum.  we started off with the onion soup (mr. h-s) that came highly recommended by his boss who’d eaten it once, a few years ago and still remembered and raved (it was very good, very rich, and the flavor lasted in his mouth much longer than the rest of the meal!) and a dijon vinaigrette green salad (me–tasty).  then, mr. h-s had a lovely steak and fries combo (with a garlic aioli dipping sauce) and i chose (oddly) the salmon with fingerling potatoes and asparagus.  (odd, because normally i don’t really eat much seafood.)  it was delicious!  who knew i would like lemon brown butter sauce quite so much?  we finished the meal off by splitting a serving of creme brulee (the waiter assured us it was the best in the city).  i think it might have been the best creme brulee i’ve ever eaten.  the top was light and crunchy and didn’t stick your teeth together, while the custard was warm near the top and still cool on the bottom (i loved that dual-temperature sensation) and was perfectly flavored with vanilla bean.  mmmmmm……  a perfect end to a decadent meal.

today, the weather was g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s and we couldn’t resist a bike ride (despite the fact that i have a paper due tomorrow that i haven’t worked on yet).  we did our favorite 15 mile ride and i realized i haven’t done this ride for at least 6 months.  how sad is that?  by the end of the ride, i remembered what it feels like to be tired in a good, exercis-y kind of way.  i’m looking forward to getting into shape where a 15 mile ride won’t make me feel tired.  as long as i can avoid injury it shouldn’t take tooooooo long.

then, i hurried over to see a play featuring the acting skills of some of my young friends as well as the playwriting and directing and lighting skills of some of my adult friends.  there were two different plays and i have to say that, although i may be biased, i enjoyed the play written by my friend better than the first one.  they were both fun, but the second one was more fun.  it featured lots of his characteristic humor (off-hand jokes like “what did the zero say to the eight?”  “nice belt!”) and other silly moments.  the actors did a fine job and looked like they were enjoying themselves lots.


i was able to go to part of church this evening, but had to sneak out early in order to make it to see a concert/fundraiser that i’d read about.  it was a fundraiser for a local agency that serves the homeless and the concert was an acapella men’s group called cantus.  now, those of you who know me, or who read this blog, know that i loves me some good singin.’  and this was good.  real good.  i missed the first 2.5 songs (went to the wrong venue, then had to park far, far away.) but i didn’t miss them singing bobby mcferrin’s “23rd psalm” or franz biebl’s “ave maria” (which i must have sung in some choir before because i found myself following parts that weren’t the melody and knowing how they went).  after the intermission, they sang some livelier tunes (i was particularly fond of their rendition of “let your voice be heard” by abraham adzenyah which they had fun choreographed hand-claps with) then ended the concert with an encore performance of billy joel’s lullaby “goodnight my angel” arranged for an acapella group to sing.  this is one of my favorite songs and is on a mixed cd collection i listened to a lot in college, and their rendition brought tears to my eyes.  it’s worth the 99 cent download from their website (at least, it was to me).  what a great way to end three busy days.  now, i think i’ll go to bed with their lullaby in my ears.

Posted in la la la!, sporty stuff, spring, stuff that sparks a glow in my soul, yum | Comments Off on highlights from a busy, fun weekend
19
Apr, 2008

wii-jitas!

so last night we threw our “unpredictably annual” fajita party and had a great time.  we saw friends that we haven’t seen for a long time (it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter…) and ate super yummy food.  the fajita party is unpredictably annual because it’s not focused on any particular time of year (as long as it’s warm enough to grill) and because, since the meat comes directly from our infrequent trips to san antonio (or trips of generous friends and family) we can never guarantee that there will ever be another fajita party.  the thing is, this meat comes pre-marinated from a particular grocery store in san antonio and is usually packaged in 5 lb. portions–waaaaay too much meat for two people to prep for a meal together.  plus, you sort of have to make a big batch of borracho beans (because of the size of the crockpot and the fact that they take all day to make and it’s just not worth it if you’re only making a little bit) so….. you might as well have a party.

every year, we run out of something.  it’s never the same thing two years in a row (except we almost always run out of guacamole), but it’s always something.  sometimes it’s the meat, sometimes the beans….. this year, we had plenty of meat (note to self–ten pounds of meat is generally plenty for twenty or so people.  no need to cook 15 pounds.  or thaw all twenty.) but rather quickly ran out of almost everything else.  for one thing, i tried something new on the tortilla front–homemade.  i usually buy them from a local restaurant, but i decided to try to make them myself.  the ones i made were quite delicious…. but there were only about enough for maybe one per person.  oops!  and the dough takes an hour to sit (i’d made a double batch!  there were 8 cups of flour and two sticks of butter involved!), so i couldn’t really “whip up more” so… mr. h-s and another friend kindly made an emergency tortilla run.  then, apparently, the party has outgrown the single pound of dried beans and the rice cooker, even when filled to capacity, doesn’t make quite enough rice.  not that anyone went hungry!   i’m pretty sure that most people were quite satisfied (as evidenced by the leftover brownies).

oh, by the way, the reason it was called a “wii-jita” party this year was because we had games for the wii downstairs for people to play.  just to add a little more chaos to our full house.  it was soooooo nice to have a houseful of friends again.  hooray for spring!

*note–the party last night was too busy for me to remember to take any pictures (boo!) but i did have this photos of the “good mother stallard” beans from rancho gordo that i cooked last week.  i didn’t use these beans for my borracho beans (so much extra flavoring goes into the borracho beans that it seemed like a waste to use fancy beans noted for their distinctive flavor), but aren’t they pretty?  they cooked up huge!  like big fat jelly beans!  and they were tasty too!

Posted in stuff that makes me smile, yum | 1 Comment