Menu - July 27 - August 2, 2008

Do you have any sort of clue how difficult it is to blog or post recipes without power? Even with my laptop, it's hard because, well, the wireless modem doesn't work and, yeah, I could compose the entry offline but my battery drains quickly and I don't have a spare. That's not to say that we've had no power for the past two weeks, just that it's been going out far more frequently than it should.

Update on the past few weeks. Um. Really not much to tell. Spent time playing games, writing (a little), reading, watching movies, sleeping, doing all those summer-fun-but-stuck-inside things we normally do. It rains almost daily, but it's Florida and summer and hurricane season, so it's expected.

There's only three more weeks left until school starts and we're more or less ready for it. Ready in the sense that we've shopped for and bought new (and better fitting) jeans, shirts, shoes, socks, and panties. We've purchased school supplies with the exception of notebook paper (waiting to find it under $0.75 a pack) and whatever specifics might be on the supply lists that we won't get until school actually starts (you know, when all the stores have been picked over and all that can be found are empty shelves where the school supplies USED to be).

We're initiating a "leave mom alone" night to be held on Mondays with the purpose of giving me some time to write or research or read or just hide in the back of my closet and talk to the spiders if I chose. With any luck at all, we're going to be attempting a "let mom out of the house by herself" night to be held on every other Thursday night so that I can actually attend one of the writing groups I found nearby. This means the menus for Mondays and every other Thursday have to be simple so they can feed themselves, or I have to cook in advance so they're just foraging on leftovers. Either way, they've got kitchen clean up duties on those nights and I'm half-expecting to have to do all the dishes that have been used when I get up the following mornings. I have hopes that it won't be that way, but only time will tell.

I'd continue babbling but I hear thunder in the distance and want to get the menu up before our world turns very dark and wet again.

As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.

Sunday
breakfast: french toast, bacon
lunch: foraging
dinner: foraging

Monday
breakfast: (oops, sort of slept through it)
lunch: tuna, fruit
dinner: pasta, salad

Tuesday
breakfast: cereal, OJ
lunch: leftover pasta, fruit
dinner: meatball stroganoff, green peas, salad

Wednesday
breakfast: waffles
lunch: leftovers / sandwiches, fruit
dinner: fish, french fries, lima beans, salad

Thursday - PAY DAY - grocery shopping
breakfast: eggs, grits, hashbrowns, bacon
lunch: ??? (whether we stop for food or not will depend on how long the shopping is taking us)
dinner: chicken fillets, mac & cheese, broccoli, salad

Friday
breakfast: cereal, OJ
lunch: hot dogs / hamburgers
dinner: steak, baked potatoes, broccoli, salad

Saturday
breakfast: pancakes
lunch: ???
dinner: riblets, baked beans, salad

Blue skies, world.

A... mole?

So, apparently I'm a mole. I think it might be off a bit, but then again, maybe not. Not the way I've been recently.


http://www.animalinyou.com/survey.asp

Mole
Genera and species: Castor canadensis
Collective Term: A business of beavers

Description
It's easy to recognize the mole personality. For one thing, they have a pasty complexion and are usually seen in late night coffee shop, jazz bars, or underground clubs. To avoid drawing attention to themselves, they favor dark clothing and sunglasses and are the first people to volunteer for the graveyard shift.

The mole is a smallish individual with far more power than its flaccid body suggests, although its strength is more mental than physical. With its ability to focus on the job at hand, there is no situation from which a mole cannot extricate itself.

There's something compelling about the mole personality, and in the early sixties it was quite fashionable to be a mole in the form of a creative and philosophical beatnik -- expressing angst through music and poetry. Bob Dylan and John Lennon carried the mole standard into the seventies, but the fashion largely died and moles were forced back underground.

Moles are restless and although constantly engaged in activity, they never seem to get anything done and despite their drab appearance, they have extremely sharp minds and are excellent problem solvers. As reflected in their determined burrowing through difficult terrain, moles prefer solutions with straight lines rather than having to go around problems. When confronted with difficult issues, they never give up -- hacking away with dogged determination until the answer is found. This attribute makes them perfect for jobs in engineering, accounting or diagnostic work.

Sex is not the most important thing in the mole's life but if there is one animal personality that can push all the right buttons; it would be its soul mate, the bat. (like Yoko Ono) The bat and the mole share a love for dark intimacy and when these two get together, black magic is bound to happen.


Careers and Hobbies
Engineering
Songwriting
Grave digger
Researching
Music
Poetry
Coffeshops
Designing

Famous Moles
Bob Dylan, John Lennon.



So, um, just how does one pick up grave digging as a hobby?

Sweet dreams, I'm off to be before I get into any more trouble.

Menu - July 13 - 19, 2008

Yeah, yeah, I've been a serious slacker for several weeks. Sometimes life just demands that I be away from my computer(s) and be, basically, absent from most people's field of vision. That's just the way it works and I'm old enough to have learned not to struggle against it.

Not much has happened that I care to have posted for all the world to see, but there has been quite a flurry of activity of late. So! Random pros and cons from among the stuff I'm willing to share with the world. Mainly because I'm too tired to do anything but make lists. In no particular order, just as they fall out of my head.

Pro - my cousin hatched a beautiful baby boy over the weekend. Holding him in my arms before he was even 24 hours old very nearly eradicated more than a week's worth of stress and exhaustion, though I will be the first to admit that I was nowhere near as exhausted as she was. Or on the wonderful drugs the hospital gave her. Of course, that didn't stop me from sleeping for close to twelve hours last night.

Con - the secondary hard drive on the computer on the desk is fried. This has been a hugely devastating blow to me because it's where I have... had... all of my graphics, my family history files, almost four years worth of writing research files, and a host of other stuff that was exclusively mine. None of it was backed up. It was a slave drive. It shouldn't have fried. I know better now.

Pro - I know better now, and am now the proud new owner of a 360GB external hard drive that is compatible with both my laptop and the computer on the desk. And it's all mine.

Pro - other than the research files (which I'll never be able to duplicate), none of my writing files were lost. I do have all my writing backed up on flash drives, and after last week, those backups are even current.

Pro - I have a dear friend that is such a wonderful computer geek. I'm shipping him my fried slave drive to see if he can salvage anything. I know better than to have any hope because when I kill computer parts I do a mighty fine job of it, but if anyone can coax that drive to cough anything up, it'd be him.

Pro - I've been toying with the idea of a new story and am quite eager to work on it.

Con - Getting any research done to further develop that new story idea is proving to be quite impossible for a wide variety of reasons, and that's driving me just a wee bit batty.

Con - Despite some fantastic ideas, I've gotten absolutely no writing done in the past month or so and I do believe my head is going to explode soon.

Pro - I've been holding off that skull explosion with massive amounts of book reading. You know, whenever I'm not having stress-induced meltdowns.

Pro - I got a new bra. I think I love it. I think I might have to order another in the same style but in a different color.

Con - My weight has been fluctuating wildly. My weight loss endeavors have not been going all that well, but what can I honestly expect when my eating and sleeping habits have been so wildly erratic?

I do think that's all I'm willing to share, so on with the menu.

As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.

Sunday
breakfast: waffles
lunch: sandwiches, chips
dinner: dinner out (Outback)

Monday
breakfast: cereal, OJ
lunch: leftovers / sandwiches, fruit
dinner: chicken fillets, mac & cheese, broccoli, lima beans, salad

Tuesday
breakfast: scrambled eggs, grits, hash browns, OJ
lunch: sandwiches, fruit
dinner: flat bread melts (*note to self: post this recipe*), french fries (home-made), salad

Wednesday
breakfast: cereal, OJ
lunch: ??? (grocery shopping)
dinner: tacos, salad

Thursday
breakfast: eggs, grits, hash browns, OJ
lunch: sandwiches, fruit
dinner: mystery meat (I think it's boneless pork chops), rice, broccoli, salad

Friday
breakfast: cereal, OJ
lunch: sandwiches, fruit
dinner: beans (*note to self: post this recipe*), rice, corn bread (*ditto*), salad

Saturday
breakfast: pancakes
lunch: ???
dinner: shepherd's pie

Sweet dreams, world.