03
Jan, 2007

sweet salty sour

tonight for dinner i had one of my family’s favorite food combinations: smoked sausage, sauerkraut and sweet rice (rice with cinnamon and sugar and milk). i also added green beans for a bit of vegetable (although i suppose sauerkraut could be considered a vegetable…). does anyone else think this sounds delicious? because it is.

my two cents on green beans–
i like my green beans overcooked and soft. i liked green beans ok when i was a kid, but as an adult i’ve found them too squeaky and crunchy and … green. it wasn’t until our trip to paris and a meal at a restaurant where i ordered haricots verts and loved them that i realized the problem. for some reason, americans tend to like their green beans still crunchy. it sounds so much more sophisticated for me to say that i like my beans “french style” rather than “overcooked and soft” but it’s true either way. maybe i just need to buy my green beans canned. i tend not to have the patience to cook them long enough otherwise. tonight’s beans (from frozen) where still a bit too crisp. anyone else prefer their green beans less crunchy?

Posted in trip down memory lane, yum | Comments Off on sweet salty sour
02
Jan, 2007

google reader will destroy my free time

do you read several different blogs? are any of them (like, ahem, sometimes this one) unreliable in their posting frequency making it difficult to remember to check them and frustrating when they always have the same top post and so then you forget to check for like a week and then suddenly there’s so much to catch up on that you’re sucked in for about an hour or so? then you, my friend, could really use google reader (or any other free rss feed service). since i already have a g-mail account, i signed up for a google reader account and then subscribed to my favorite blogs. then, i can go to one site (instead of 4 or 5 or 15) and see who has published new info recently. this evening, i was browsing around and discovered new and lovely blogs of strangers. the most beautiful and simple is 3191. wow. what a great concept and what serene photos. (in case the site doesn’t explain the concept very well–i read about it somewhere else–it’s two friends who live 3191 miles apart (according to google maps) and they will each take a photo in the morning and post it. the photos tend to compliment each other well so far.) maybe if i pay attention to their photo blog, i’ll get more photography tips through observation. they just make me feel peaceful just looking at them.

another great stranger blog is hellomynameisheather. i’d actually stumbled across this one before (maybe i’ve even linked to her blog here before? in conjunction with the bitty booties?) but i read an interview with her on craft magazine’s blog and realized that she’s someone who (like me) enjoys multitudes of crafts, loves beautiful things and likes to take pretty pictures. only she does everything so much better than i do. she is an inspiration. her photography will also bear studying for style and technique. or maybe she just has an even better camera than mine? must learn more about lighting…

p.s. hooray! the house is clean! three days off of work and no classes can do wonders.
p.p.s. i finally got out of the house for a run this morning. day 1 of this year was completely couch potatoey for me and i was so grumpy and headachy by the end of the day and i feel much better today after getting out for a good run in the morning. try it! you’ll feel so much better! i know it’s cold, but just wear your balaclava and you’ll be fine.

Posted in crafty stuff, stuff that makes me smile, Uncategorized, winter | 2 Comments
31
Dec, 2006

house concert

tonight, a friend of ours hosted a house concert for his brother. they had a little “stage” area set up and it looked really cool. not all of our friends are back from their holiday traveling, but it was good to be back amidst the group again. we ate yummy snacks and enjoyed some really great music and couldn’t help but laugh when the cat got spooked by the applause at the end of a song and ran out of the room. i’m looking forward to enjoying his cd’s.

Posted in la la la!, winter | Comments Off on house concert
29
Dec, 2006

back to life, back to reality

there is something lovely about being away from work and routine for so long that when you return it feels strange. like you’ve abandoned your rut for a little while and coming back to it, find it to be (slightly) new all over again. it’s also nice to know that you can achieve that feeling in as little as a week and a half.

we had a great time visiting family and friends for christmas. it was the tour du bebe. every home we visited and/or stayed in had a child or a pregnant woman or both. i took the opportunity to play with our new camera. here are some of the pictures i got:

i still haven’t quite gotten the hang of proper light settings for indoor photography, but i sure did have some fun! we also got some wonderful gifts and ate way too much yummy food (mmmm….. pupusa… *) and played many hours of card games. i finally won a game of hand and foot! and by a lot of points! whee! plus, we saw some good movies. but most of all, i loved seeing all those folks that i love that live so far away.

*more information on pupusa can be found here and here. i first learned to love them when i visited el salvador with my mom in 1988. there were so tasty that i ate 4 or 5 at my first sitting and later learned how much they grow inside your stomach after consumption. oh man. they taste sooooo good. and i don’t know of anyone who makes them anywhere near where i live. sigh.

Posted in fun stuff, winter | 3 Comments
20
Dec, 2006

peaceful night

last night, we had dinner at a friend’s house. as we were preparing the meal together, we thought of a few other food items that would round the meal out nicely and i offered to run to the store and get them. when my friend gave me directions to the nearest store, i realized it was only a few blocks away and since the weather has been so mild, i decided to walk. it was such a nice night out! gorgeous weather, twinkly lights… one of the neighbors had lined their entire front yard with empty milk cartons and added multi-colored lights to them. normally, this would have seemed rather schmaltzy to me, but somehow it looked nice. plus, the sun was down, but the sky wasn’t totally black yet and there was this amazing, deep, dark teal color right on the horizon that i just wanted to cut a slice from and save forever. and it was so quiet.

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18
Dec, 2006

hasty tasty

so the other night, mr. happy stuff and i were out and about, running around and shopping for our christmas present to ourselves and it was dinner time. next door to the shop we stopped at was a little restaurant with a faded sign (or maybe it was just pastels and supposed to look like that?) that said, “nifty 50’s” or something like that. mr. h-s noted that the hamburger smell issuing from the place smelled pretty good, and i asked if he wanted to try it out. i love trying new restaurants–especially small, locally owned places–because while most of the time you might get some pretty mediocre food, at least you’re supporting local people and, hey! you might find a hidden treasure! so, after browsing their menu in the window and discovering that even if we gambled and lost (i.e. if the food was bad) we wouldn’t be losing that much money, we decided to give it a try. their featured sandwich was one they called a “hasty tasty” (apparently, the 50’s were all about rhyming?). you could also get a pizza tasty or a ranch tasty. i figured it was just some cutesy way of naming their burgers. i asked the guy at the register what came on a hasty tasty and he said it came with pickles, onions, ketchup and mustard and that the pizza tasty came with pizza sauce and crumbled hamburger and the ranch tasty came with ranch dressing and crumbled hamburger. “crumbled hamburger as a topping for… a hamburger? how interesting.” i thought. but i decided to the try the basic regular ol’ hasty tasty. mr. h-s splurged and got the “cheese tasty” and some fries. the fries turned out to be waffle fries and were relatively… tasty. but i was surprised to see that the burgers came with a spoon. when i unwrapped my sandwich, i realized that this was no ordinary burger. it was more like a sloppy joe without the joe. or maybe without the sloppy–i’m not really sure, but either way, the hamburger was crumbled, not in a patty. mr. h-s wasn’t so impressed with his sandwich, but i thought it was the most unique “hamburger” i’d ever had! (not the best, mind you, but the most unique!) why had no one else ever served a hamburger crumbled up instead of in a patty? it was so simple and yet a new idea for me. again, not necessarily something i’d want to buy again, but that was probably due more to the fact that it didn’t have a lot of flavor. maybe i should have gotten the ranch tasty.

Posted in reviews, yum | 5 Comments
12
Dec, 2006

angel by the bus stop

yesterday my car died at a busy stoplight. while waiting for the light to turn green, it just started coughing and then shuddered and died. i turned my hazard lights on right away and then sat in my car trying to figure out what to do. i called mr. happy stuff since i wasn’t too far away from his place of employment and he said he’d come over to help, but i didn’t want to sit in the middle of the road until he showed up. i was blocking traffic! i had slammed the car into “park” to try to rev the engine (to no avail) and now the car was stuck in that gear. a guy who had been standing at a nearby bus stop walked over to see if i wanted some help. he tried to get it out of “park” but had no better luck than i had. i fought with it for a few more minutes and finally got it into neutral and he helped to push the car around the corner and into a much less busy bus lane. is it even possible to push and steer a car all by yourself? at one point, we were stuck going over the edge of a curb and i got out to help push and held onto the steering wheel at the same time, but i’m not sure i could have pushed it that far alone. a cop pulled up behind me and stayed there with flashing lights so i wouldn’t get rear-ended and then mr. h-s showed up and since it was apparent that i had plenty of help, i thanked the man who’d helped me push and he went on his way. how nice to have the help of a stranger.

other “happy” things: i got to experience the inside of a tow truck cab (woo hoo!) and also the joy of having three vehicles at home (since we still haven’t sold the truck) and not having to worry about how i would get to work. all told, it was as smooth an experience as one might expect after your car dies in traffic. and now i know what to do! (sorta.)

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09
Dec, 2006

enthusiastic assistants

today i had a “gingerbread” cookie decorating party at work. three of my regulars showed up and (as frequently happens) let me know that they were on the waiting list, but could they come anyway? was there room? the cookie party is one of those oddly high-demand programs that fills up within an hour of registration opening and has people calling all over town to find out which branch has openings. but… day of the party arrives and a few people don’t show up and i’m pretty flexible about letting people in if they show up. so, i said they could come in and decorate a cookie. (turns out we had a few extra cookies anyway and i ended up inviting in a few random library patrons with kids)

what i love about this particular family of regulars is that they always stay afterwards and beg to help clean up. and i mean clean. not just stay a few minutes later than everyone else and then help put the markers in their container, but they help to pick up the chairs, move the tables back against the wall and then they all fight over who gets to “hoover” the carpet. i love it! as we reached the end of the cleaning process, the daughter asked if there was anything else she could do and i said, ‘well, the spoons need to be washed..’ and she said, “cool! i love to wash dishes!” their mom was there but she wasn’t even having to push them to offer to help. wow! then, the mom said, “oh, she’ll be thrilled to wash the dishes. she always wants to do it at home and i won’t let her because i’m afraid she’ll break something.” which foiled my theory that maybe mom just always had them help out at home and so they were used to it. how do you get kids to turn out like that? or is it the “it’s-more-fun-to-clean-when-it’s-not-your-house” phenomenon at work here? all i know is that i was very grateful for their assistance and the room was spotless and the supplies all packed up much more quickly than they would have been had i had to it all by myself. hooray for helpers!

Posted in library stuff | Comments Off on enthusiastic assistants
08
Dec, 2006

reading a book in one sitting

ah, luxury of not having any pressing deadlines! this morning, i picked up the newest gerald morris book (see librarian’s log 12/06 for a review) and started reading. this is my favorite way to start the day. about halfway through the book, i thought about putting it down and getting on with my day…. but i didn’t. i finished the whole thing and didn’t get out of bed until after 11. and it was worth it. what a great read. aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh……

Posted in stuff that sparks a glow in my soul, winter | 4 Comments
06
Dec, 2006

i’m done, i’m done! {happy dance}

nothing feels much better to me than a goal reached or a project completed. today’s happy dance is a result of the completion of my final paper and presentation for the class i’m taking this semester. yes, i’ll be taking another class next semester (and probably for the next eight years) but for now and for the next few weeks i’m done! i’m done! woo hoo!

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment