Category Archives: Personal Blog

Entries from my personal journal

Personal Blog

Flowers and Bees

So I like flowers now, quite a bit. I’m not quite sure when this happened. I think the realization started when I got my mom a bouquet from the Farmer’s Market for Mother’s Day (she was lucky, I almost blew all my money on an ostrich egg). At the rehearsal dinner for the Clark wedding, I went a step further in swooning over the table bouquets and getting to take one home with me. This, combined with Maria’s reference to some scientific hoo-hah about flowers making people happy, has made me a little more noticing of the bright little bundles.

It is strange, because I used to think nothing of flowers, and even looked down on the idea of them as a gift. “What a waste of money!” I would think, “they will shrivel in a week, and you can’t even eat them.”

But here I am today, trotting home from the Farmer’s Market not with tasty cooking ingredients or even another bottle of local honey, but with a little bouquet of flowers, all for myself.

I’m not sure if this was a sudden change, or if it was like a change of palate, something that happened slowly over time and I just didn’t notice because I didn’t give it a try during the process. Maybe these flowers are just a nice change from funeral roses.

Anyway, when I approached my apartment complex on the walk home, a bee discovered my flowers. I sat down on the curb for a long while watching him buzz around and gather up pollen on his hind legs. It was very cool. I do not know what kind of bee it was, but it had white stripes and a green jacket.

Ever time I thought he’d flown off, I would get up and walk a few paces, and he returned. He did this several times. I am wondering if he thought it was a new patch of flowers every time?

Flowers and bees are cool

Personal Blog

Baking

I don’t know if Favorite Cake is hereditary for anyone else, but as far as my two favorite cakes, I got spice cake with vanilla icing from my Dad and yellow cake with chocolate icing from my mom.

Thus far my adventures in the new hobby of cooking have mostly stayed within the realm of cooking. I’ve tried a bit of baking offhand–Mexican chocolate cake (DELICIOUS!), homemade lemon bars from scratch (I had a whole bag of lemons, what else was I supposed to do with them?), and brownies (store-bought brownies are better, but when you are too lazy to go to the store, and just happen to have all the ingredients already anyway, why not?)

Today I was attempting to find more recipes for my cast iron skillet, and I found that one can bake a spice cake from scratch in just such a utensil! It is in the oven right now, and smells DIVINE. I’m sure it won’t taste the same as the box brand I’m used to, but it should be delicious enough in its own right if the smell is any indication.

Also, Scott brought home a huuuuuuuuuge pot for my garden on the deck. We were trying to figure out what to plant in such a gigantor pot, and today at the Farmer’s Market I saw a lady selling blueberry bushes. Problem solved.

I love to grow things. I love to nourish people. What should I do with my life?

Personal Blog

Purging and Selling

Does anyone know anyone who enjoys collecting Disney trinkets?

I’m selling my old Mrs. Potts Tea Set as part of the great pre-move purging of stuff.

I actually have a lot of junk that I’m going through to see what’s ebay-worthy. I thought my parents were going to have a yard sale, but they seemed put out by the idea, and I have a lot of junk that is good, usable useless-junk, just stuff I don’t want anymore.

Like my dart board, or my lava lamp, or my ooze-tube. Stuff like that. However, I can’t really see anyone buying an ooze-tube off of ebay (what would they search for??), and such an item isn’t exactly something you donate to the Goodwill. BUT, I know there are young ones like I used to be who think such items are the coolest things ever, and would gladly take them off my hands.

So if anyone has an idea for how to get such items into such peoples’ hands, let me know!

Personal Blog

Avvenu

Hello Internet!

I wanted to share with you all a thing. Do you know of this?
http://avvenu.com/

It’s an online service that gives you remote access to the files on your PC via the interwebs (assuming your PC is on and connected to the internet). I wish this would have existed when I was in college, for those “Oh crap I need this file but it’s on my computer back in my rooooom!” moments, but I know I could still find it rather useful these days.

My coworker here showed it to me, and I asked him about its security. He said that many of the guys that work for the company that handles our networking here at school use it, and that they consider it quite safe. They are general the super-secure sorts themselves. I am curious about its inner workings, though.

What do you guys think?

Personal Blog

Steak

Today’s quote is…

“Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow is only a vision.
But a today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
and every tomorrow a vision of hope..”

Now that I’m mostly cooking for myself, I more easily leave things out of my diet. Red meat, I have noticed, has all but vanished. I decided to get myself a little filet for dinner tonight, since I have been known to have problems with the anemia from time to time.

(In my defense, the last time I donated platelets, the lady said that I had a very high iron count…for a girl. So there!)

Hey, do you want to hear something kind of disgusting? Wheeler said that it was also adorable, but I think it’s mostly just disgusting.

Sometimes when I have a steak that is particularly delicious, but that I know is too big for me to finish, I will cut bites of it off and chew them like gum.

When all the flavor is gone, I spit it back out onto the plate, and get another bite. I do this until the entire steak has been sufficiently gnawed (rest assured, I also never do this in public, or even when anyone else is around, even Scott).

The resulting pile of masticated meat always makes me amazed at how much a stomach can hold.

Personal Blog

Nancy

I stopped by the cemetery this evening to see Nancy, for Mother’s Day.

Slipping through the halls of the mausoleum to find her place was like walking through some invisible emotional shell flayer, and I cried for a long time when I got there. Chris and Rachel must have visited that day as well, because there were two bouquets there.

I guess that’s the sort of thing that shows you that you’re not healed yet.

I am wondering and worrying a bit if I am healing correctly, and if I should be doing something differently, or something extra, to help myself along.