Keeping myself in a state of cat-like readiness...'s Journal
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Keeping myself in a state of cat-like readiness...'s LiveJournal:
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| Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 | | 9:16 pm |
pooped
I haven't posted in ages, mostly due to a number of rotating causes: being too tired, not being home, being too busy, being generally unmotivated for one reason or another. Life has overall been good though. Am considering re-posting my New Year's Resolutions again with comments on how I've done so far... Might be too depressing. We'll see. :) Also am on Twitter now as "Anna_Schmidt" so maybe I'll be more participatory when it's just one sentence at a time. More later...eventually! Current Mood:  tired | | Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 | | 5:17 pm |
Starbucks
I feel I must share my feelings about 2 popular Starbucks theories I've encountered in various news media recently. 1) "McDonald's new coffee menu is a threat to Starbucks because it's cheaper." Bollocks, I say. I tried to get a coffee at McDonald's once. Their fancy Starbucks-esque drinks might be a good substitute if you just order the regular menu item, but come on, the joke about the 7-word order came into being because people really order that way. Starbucks is popular because it's so customizable. McDonald's has no decaf options (unless you want just plain coffee, but again, that's not the appeal of Starbucks now is it?), no sugar free options, no soy options, no tea offerings. Every single person I know who likes Starbucks wants at least one of those choices. 2) "Starbucks is trying to improve their profit margins by revamping their food offerings, but since food represents such a small part of their revenue, and since people go there for coffee, not food, they should just save money by eliminating food items." Again, total bollocks in my experience. I never bought the old food items because they were all desserty and terrible for you. Since they now offer trail mix, a fruit and cheese plate, and a protein plate (with which I'm completely in love), I often take advantage of their healthy snack items. In fact, my primary use of Starbucks today is to stop there on my way to work when I have meeting at ungodly early hours for both a coffee and breakfast (the beautiful aforementioned protein plate). I can live without the coffee - it's more of a special treat for having to get up so early than anything else - but the real convenience of stopping there on those mornings is the breakfast. Not having to spend time at home eating or putting something together to eat in the car is nice on early, rushed mornings. I never thought I'd feel so strongly about Starbucks issues, but apparently it's crept into my life in such a way that it actually matters to me. Oh, and yesterday they gave me 2 big free bags of used coffee grounds for my garden. I'm sure McDonald's will start that program any day now... Current Mood:  thoughtful | | Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 | | 10:10 pm |
...and while we're at it...
We saw this live, and it was one of the best concert moments I've ever witnessed. The recording sucks of course... | | 10:02 pm |
| | Saturday, April 11th, 2009 | | 10:10 am |
| | 9:25 am |
| | Monday, April 6th, 2009 | | 6:37 pm |
gardening today, some ups and downs
I spent a few minutes watering the in the yard today, and discovered a couple of things. The Good: My eggplants have flowers and seem quite healthy! Also, I have 4 fat monarch caterpillars on my milkweed. Strangely enough, I only noticed this because I was pulling a weed next to my giant begonia of doom, and saw a caterpillar on it. How he got there I do not know, because it's about 7 feet from the milkweed. When I put him back on the milkweed I noticed several more caterpillars there. There's plenty of food for them, so I don't know why he wandered off. The Bad: My zucchini look terrible, and some of them have already died. I think they're not getting enough sun. I'm not horribly depressed about it because I knew they might not work in the bed on the side of the house. If they don't live, I'll just try something else there. At least I feel like I gave them a good shot - started them inside, planted several different varieties that are supposed to do well here, and put them outside when they were healthy and the weather was not too cold. If they die, it just wasn't meant to be. I hope everything does okay in the cold spurt we're getting tomorrow. Should be in the mid-30s when I leave for work tomorrow morning. Current Mood:  good | | Saturday, March 28th, 2009 | | 2:45 pm |
random stuff from today
I guess I'll be posting a lot today. The exercise class I've been going to on Saturdays (core fitness on the ball) is usually exhausting, but the teacher was on a roll today. For no apparent reason, she decided that an hour wasn't enough, and kept us going an extra 20 minutes. I think I'm going to be wobbly the rest of the day. Also, the English couple who make amazing pies (meat, veggie, fruit) and scones and other baked goods were back at the farmer's market today, which is good news for my mouth, but bad news for my hips. I guess I needed that extra 20 minutes... And while we were doing some errands today, Peter said something about movies that he will probably never post about, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention. We watched Reservoir Dogs last night, which prompted him to compare that movie to Watchmen. Quentin Tarantino had almost certainly read Watchmen when he wrote the movie, there are the same number of guys, there are flashbacks telling you more about each character. And yet, while RD is great, Peter felt that Watchmen lacked forward momentum and dragged, and the comparison led him to figure out why. (Or maybe he knew before, but it was news to me.) The reason is that each flashback in RD not only tells you the background of that character, but it also gives you a clue to the overall mystery, namely, who ratted out the robbers to the cops, so that the larger story is still moving forward. Watchmen doesn't really do that. The flashbacks are interesting in that they tell you more about each character, but they're not integral to solving the overall puzzle of the movie, i.e., who's killing the other Watchmen and why, so they feel more like pauses in the story than the story moving forward. I'm looking forward to dinner tonight. We're taking the in-laws to Galveston for dinner and to poke around and see what's left from the hurricane. I haven't been down there since Ike, so the trip should be both yummy and interesting. Then tomorrow night we get to go to a wine bar for another birthday, so hurray for birthday eating! Current Mood:  drained | | Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 | | 7:20 pm |
movies
We went to see Watchman today. I wasn't that interested in it, but Peter really wanted to see it in the theater, partly because he had read the graphic novel. I ended up liking it quite a bit. He liked some things about it, but had reservations about others...he might be posting about that at some point. I'm not much of a comic book/movie person, so I found the first half to be great, in that it was an unusual way to approach a superhero story. Near the end when more typical superhero/comic stuff started happening, I was less interested. The beginning montage was fantastic though, and the soundtrack overall was great. Also, I was highly amused by the Transformers 2 trailer. By including a bunch of action sequences and absolutely no plot, I think it unintentionally represented exactly what the movie will be. Oh Michael Bay, how can you be so popular and yet so awful? All in all, a very fun movie day. Is tomorrow Monday already? Blarg. I am so not ready for another week! Current Mood: drained | | Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 | | 10:28 pm |
myspace
You know, the Nazis had status updates they made the Jews wear... Current Mood: pessimistic | | Sunday, March 8th, 2009 | | 3:13 pm |
giving blood
I learned today that getting a tattoo DOESN'T actually mean that you can't donate blood for a full a year afterwards. It used to. But now, as long as you got your tattoo in a shop that's certified by the state, you only have to wait a week. On the negative side, this means that I could have been donating blood for the last 6 months, and I wasn't. On the positive side, this means that I can start giving blood again now (and I did today), instead of waiting another 6 months. Also, my anecdotal evidence suggests that if you've given up meat for Lent, it might take you an extra hour or two to bounce back completely from donating. Current Mood: pleasantly surprisedCurrent Music: U2 - No Line on the Horizon | | Saturday, March 7th, 2009 | | 1:58 pm |
documenting upheaval
There's a huge road construction project, the bane of the existence of most people in this area, going on a few blocks from our house. Oddly enough, we're in a great position to avoid the awful traffic because we're close enough to where the road is blocked that no one drives in our area if they can absolutely help it, so traffic in our area isn't bad at all. We're also far enough away from the construction that the detours are still a couple of blocks away, so we're generally not affected by that either (so far). As long as we can avoid trying to cross the affected area, which we generally can without a lot of trouble, we're okay. My work commute takes me in the opposite direction of the awfulness, and coming back, the alternate routes peel off of my street, so that I'm left without much more traffic that before. Possibly even less. The project is to swap a highway/major road intersection so that instead of the road crossing above the interstate, the interstate crosses over the road. About 2 solid years of various other construction projects in the area have ultimately led to this. Today we road our bikes down to "ground zero" and took some pictures. Peter also took video, so he might be posting links to YouTube later. For those who live around here and would like to see what's going on without getting caught in the chaos...here you go. ( lots of pictures ) Current Mood: interested | | Friday, February 27th, 2009 | | 4:35 pm |
movie meme
How could I not do this one? How many of these best-picture Oscar nominated movies have you seen? Bold the ones you've seen, regardless of whether you saw them in the cinema, on TV/video, or on a plane years after they came out. Underscore the ones you liked. Italicize the ones you want to see but haven't yet. (1980-2008) ( Read more... )
Yikes. That's all for the past 10 years, and most for the past 20. 109 total. I was fairly stingy with my underlines. Current Mood: tired | | Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 | | 3:27 pm |
| | Saturday, February 21st, 2009 | | 2:01 pm |
so far today.... / Oscar Party / Lent / etc.
Went to the Farmer's Market and the grocery store this morning. I've been on an acorn squash binge lately, so I needed to restock. Also, we've decided we're giving up meat for Lent, so we needed to pick up some additional veggies and grains and stuff. As usual with things like this, there are caveats: we can still eat eggs (these are usually yard eggs from the farmer's market), and if we're eating at some else's house or someone else is cooking for us, we'll eat whatever, because we're not going to be a pain about it. We just can't purchase or prepare or order meat for ourselves. Also, next Sunday's dinner gets to be an exception because that night is Iron Chef Bacon, which was supposed to happen tomorrow, but which got postponed due to our Oscar party. Even with the exceptions, I doubt we'll end up eating meat more than just the once on bacon night. And speaking of the Oscar party, as soon as the dishwasher finishes running, I'll be assembling the venison vindaloo for tomorrow night. We're bringing themed food this year for all the Best Picture nominees. The vindaloo is for Slumdog Millionaire. I'm also making maple walnut ice cream, just 'cause I promised Lisa I'd make some for her soon. Ordered business cards for TubaPeter.com this morning, and accomplished other assorted dishes and laundry type chores. As I type this The Wonderful Husband is assembling the carpet steamer to remove the evidence of last night's spectacular cat vomit explosion. Seriously, I don't know how that much food fit inside him...maybe that was the problem... Anyway, since he befouled 4, yes FOUR, rooms of the house so much that our standard "Spot Shot" treament wasn't cutting it, we've had to bring out the big guns. I plan to now relax and read until we go out tonight. A neighbor is having a Mardi Gras party, and then we have a birthday party after that. I'm going to try valiantly to not eat horribly tonight and stuff myself with cake. Current Mood:  busy | | Thursday, February 12th, 2009 | | 4:55 pm |
| | Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 | | 5:36 pm |
Avocado and Coconut Ice Cream
This past weekend was avocado week for our "Iron Chef" group. This was my entry. It turned out very well, and won for originality (overall was a 3-way tie among mine, David's avocado lasagna, and Anh's soup). It's also extremely easy, and not terribly sweet (for ice cream anyway). The recipe is a hybrid of Alton Brown's and several others I read online. 3 large avocados (18 oz avocado meat) 5 Tbsp. lime juice pinch of salt 1/4 tsp. vanilla 3/4 cup sugar 2 1/4 cups coconut milk (I used mostly light) 1/4 cup sour cream Blend everything in the blender. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to your usual method. The mixture will be very thick and probably won't need the full freezing time. Current Mood: hungry | | Saturday, January 31st, 2009 | | 11:51 am |
Isn't it a bit early for hummingbirds?
I thought I saw one this morning, so I rushed out and cleaned the feeder, mixed up some sugar and water, and put the feeder back up. Am I crazy? Did I just waste my time? Anyone know the hummingbird calendar around here? ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) laurel_tx , I'm looking at you. ;) Current Mood:  curious | | Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 | | 7:19 pm |
things to do with beets
This past week our Iron Chef group chose root vegetables as the main ingredient, and I chose beets because I wanted to make an Elizabethan recipe I had come across while researching my thesis - sweet beets in puff pastry with creme fraiche and crystallized ginger. In doubling the recipe, and then altering from regular sized puff pastries to the mini size, I somehow ended up with lots of additional beets. Plus, I had TONS of greens I didn't want to waste. So here are the things I have done or will be trying to use up beets! 1) Pickled Beet Salad...or something...consisting of raw grated beets (which the original recipe called for), a little olive oil, some good sherry vinegar, and s&p. Really quite good. Crunchy, since the beets are raw, but it works just fine - like coleslaw with different dressing. 2) Sauteed Beet Green pizza - just like having sauteed spinach on pizza. Pretty darn good. 3) Tonight's experiment (also using up other random leftovers) is a one-dish thing with sauteed beet greens, brocooli, and onions stirred into herbed brown rice (rice, turkey stock, herbs, white wine). This might get some white cheddar on top since we have a giant block of it sitting around. 4) And if I STILL have more beet greens (and I probably will), there will be veggie stock made with onion, carrot, and beet greens. The original recipe turned out quite well, if unusual, so I'll post that if anyone's interested. :) Current Mood: tired | | Saturday, January 24th, 2009 | | 9:34 am |
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