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Showing posts from December, 2006

Almost the New Year!

A couple more days and it will be 2007. Been puttering around the house. Almost got it cleaned up. The front hall closet is now a pantry, so all the stuff that was in there is stashed elsewhere or will be heading to the women's shelter. Tossed the turkey carcasses in the stockpot with a couple chicken carcasses and made stock yesterday. The pot is out on the deck right now since I don't have room in the fridge. Luckily it is below freezing for the next couple days. The sun is out today. Came out yesterday also, hadn't seen it in several days. As mentioned, it's quite chilly out, so I haven't been too anxious to go outside. We will be heading down to Lewiston later today to get gas and do a bit of shopping. With luck I can get some vid of the lights down there if they are still up and we are still down there when it gets dark. Hanging out on Stickam is pretty fun, tho I've been staying up WAY too late at night LOL. Nicky is a zoom kitty today. He's managed t

Merry Christmas everyone

Have been having a nice quiet week. Slept in and it is soooooo nice (of course that means I stay up a lot longer in the evening hehehehehehe). Been puttering a bit. Cleaned out the deep freeze Sat night and stashed everything out on the deck. I did toss some things that had either been in there too long or I wasn't sure of. Turned it off and let things melt. We put down towels to catch most of the water and in the morning I got the last of it with the wet dry vac. Took a damp rag to the insides to clean up the berry juice from when things thawed when the door got stuck open from a cord that got into it. I then dried it with a dry cloth adn then turned it back on. Once it got cold enough I pulled everything in and back into the freezer it went, tossing a few more things. I kept the 12 lb turkey out to thaw. I am made a brine with kosher salt, black peppercorns, dried rosemary and orange juice concentrate. Popped the turkey into that in a tall kitchen garbage bag and into the stock p

Happy Friday everyone!!!

Finally Friday and a whole week off to look forward to. FINALLY got all the presents wrapped and shipped, they should get there Wednesday. I already called mom to let her know they are coming as I needed to make sure they would get there before my aunt left. My old guitar is now in a new home under a Christmas tree. There was a plea on the local Freecycle list from a mom whose son wanted one for Christmas and I was finally ready to let it go to be with someone who will be as happy with it as I was when I was younger. I thought I would cry when hubby called to say he'd dropped it off with her and I did, but not sad tears, they were happy ones. Snowing a bit and now the fog is rolling in. Makes me really want to curl up at home with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book. Speaking of books, I grabbed a bunch of Mercedes Lackey Valdemar books to read over the next couple of weeks. I also checked out a couple "A little Fry and Laurie" DVDs and the whole Blackadder series. So we a

Happy Wednesday everyone

The week is ticking along nicely, tho I dearly would love a lot more sleep. Luckily I have all of next week off so I can sleep in to my hearts content. Christmas day will be a quiet one for us, we may be having dinner at a friends, or we may be staying home. I will be doing my traditional Christmas morning breakfast of eggs, bacon and blueberry muffins. If we don't go out, I'll be cooking a brined turkey. If we do go out, I'll do the bird another day. Got my tree and it is up and decorated. Drove up to Potlatch last Sat and got it from the boy scouts. They had gotten hammered by the winds on Thursday night, but didn't have two much damage. Got a very nice tree: So far the cats have been pretty good about leaving it alone. I did put tinsil on, but mostly towards the top and not much where the kitties can get to it. Still no breakable ornaments on it just in case. I need to finish putting up the boughs I cut off the tree and a few of the glass ornaments around the living

Holiday eating tips

HOLIDAY EATING TIPS 1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls. 2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. it's rare. You can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas! 3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat. 4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission

A Tuesday funny

I've gotten this before via email, but today I was finally able to read thru the whole thing without stopping breathing (much). WARNING put down anything drimkable or edible before reading: Jasper and the Uncooked Yeast Rolls We have a fox terrier by the name of Jasper. He came to us in the summer of 2001 from the fox terrier rescue program. For those of you, who are unfamiliar with this type of adoption, imagine taking in a 10 year old child whom you know nothing about and committing to doing your best to be a good parent. Like a child, the dog came with his own idiosyncrasies. He will only sleep on the bed, on top of the covers, nuzzled as close to my face as he can get without actually performing a French kiss on me. Lest you think this is a bad case of 'no discipline', I should tell you that Charlie and I tried every means to break him of this habit including locking him in a separate bedroom for several nights. The new door cost over $200. But I digress. Five weeks ago

Kitty cat Monday

Scrapper and Rum Tum:

Nothing says I love you like a new rifle

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I LOVE my hubby. I had downloaded our digicam as he had taken some photos that he needed to check. I was going thru (I had some I'd done earlier) and zipped thru the ones of the cat and came to one of a rifle I'd never seen before laying on mybed. Needless to say I went "HUH!?!?!?!?!?!". Hubby then handed me a clip with 8 rounds of 30-06 and said I would need it. I raced for the bedroom (it wasn't there) and he went in the office and came out with my new baby: 1943 (our gun guy thought) M1 Garand. Now we've GOTTA renew our membership in the range cuz I want to go shooting (and I don't care if it is 35F with a windchill of minus 20 :D ). Now hubby can have his Enfield back and we can go hunting together :)

A breezy Friday

Survived the wind storm fairly unscathed. The cap on the chimney did blow off, so once the wind dies down we'll get someone to go up on the roof to measure the chimeny and we'll see about getting a solid cap for it. What was up there was the spark arrester thingy and it won't stay on without a lot of duct tape. Here's what it was like out this morning: Looks like the west side of Washington got hammered last night, glad we don't live over there. The staff Christmas party was nice, lots of good food and my apple butter pumpkin pie was scarfed. Someone brought a roast turkey, another person brought a baked ham, we had several salads, a number of hot dishes in crockpots, veggies and dip and lots of desserts. Needless to say, I wasn't hungry for dinner, so we hit Winco and got a couple sub sandwiches which hubby noshed on for dinner. I hacked of a chunk of the roast beef sub for my lunch today. By the time I got home I was so achy I was almost screaming, so I crawle

Semester is almost done

Fairly quiet today, not too many people in the library. Tomorrow there will be even fewer people. Today is the staff Christmas party. Pulled out an apple butter pumpkin pie from the freezer last night and popped it in the oven. Hubby had already started dinner before I got home, so the oven was ready for the pie. Poor hubby, he got such a disappointed look on his face when I pulled it out and he said he thought he'd smelled pumpkin pie and I told him it was for the party. He perked up after I told him I still had two in the freezer, so I think I'll have to bake one soon just for us. Survived the winds yesterday, tho today they are predicting even more wind. NOA is showing "High Wind Warning in effect 7 pm PST Thursday to 10 am PST Friday". Fun. Got the Scrapper kitty in for a while again last night. He's beginning to settle in, tho he kept trying to jump up on the counter to get to what I was cooking and then we had to deter him from trying to steal food off our p

WHEEEEE HAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!

Finally got both papers done and sent to my instructor. I am officially done with my class. HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY!!!!!!!!!

Monday, again

and with luck it will be Monday only one day this week. Weekend went entirely too fast. Rained a lot on Saturday, so most of the snow is gone. Got a bit done this weekend housewise. Hubby built a new gun rack for the bedroom, so I was dodging lumber, sawdust and power tools in the living room until late yesterday. I really wish we had a garage or an outbuilding we could use as a workshop. Oh well, we've got a decent vacuum to clean up sawdust. Mostly caught up on the dishes and finally caught up on the laundry, tho I need to do some serious mending as all my good pants were in the wash this morning and I discovered what I had clean was ripping out in the seams. So next big project is to haul out the sewing machine and get to work. Big news locally is the football coach they brought back, Dennis Erickson, bailed on us after not being here for even a year to go to Arizona. First anyone heard of anything was mid-week last week and by Sunday he was flying to Arizona to start his new jo

Saturday

Change in plans, our friends had family show up, so no trip to Lewsiton for coffee. So it will be a putter around the house day. I really do need to get stuff done. I've got two weeks of laundry to fold and put away hehehehehe, plus what needs to be done. I'm almost out of laundry soap, so will need get more fels naptha and laundry soda to make some. Giving serious consideration to baking some bread. I do need to get my sour dough starter re-started. As cool as it is in the kitchen I won't have to store it in the fridge until sommer, so with luck we won't having anymore "out of sight, out of mind" problems and letting it die. Well, got Sirius Radio Margaritaville on the telly, so time to toddle off and get SOMETHING done today hehehehehe.

MMMMMMMM, Friday!

Got a busy weekend tho, coffee with friends down in Lewiston tomorrow and then Yule planning on Sunday. Sometime in there I need to finally get my papers finished. Saw on CNN that someone had cut the lock on the gate that had blocked the road the Kims had gotten on where they got stuck. I hope they find the sorry son of a bitch and beat their ass into the ground. If that gate had been secure like it was supposed to be, there would not have been this tragedy. HEY PEOPLE!! THERE IS A REASON THOSE GATES ARE THERE!!!!!! Jackass probably thought the gate was there simply to inconvenience them. The really sad thing is the idiot probably has already polluted the gene pool by breeding. (yes, things like this piss me off) Hubby wants burgers for dinner, so we'll hit Winco to pick up some burger and buns. My tummy is feeling a bit iffy (too much garlic in the garlic lemon chicken I made for dinner last night and had for lunch). Personally I think a bag of nacho cheese doritos and some cream

Moscow Id's Christmas Parade

Here are some highlights from the Christmas Parade they had on Wednesday night:

'tis Thursday

Almost Friday. Had a fun time downtown last night for the Light Up the Night parade. Got lots of vid and a bunch of pics, I hope the pics turned out. I need to start taking a tripod for the camera for the pics I take without the flash. Hubby is processing the parade vid for me, I ran out of time on the Small Wonder, so finished filming with the digicam. BIG difference in quality, not too mention the digicam takes .movs and the Small Wonder does .avi, so he had to convert the .mov to something else. Then he'll trim it up a bit (lots of long segments with not much going on) and then I can go in and put in the title and the ending credits. I also have 3 chunks of wandering downtown, but those are all .avi, so will be easier to deal with. Checked out the new bagel/deli downtown. YUM!!!!!!!! Had the Arthur Fonzerelli, roast beef with cream cheese, provalone and black olives. Had it on a sesame bagel. They are also open until 3am most days, so now we know a place to go when we get the la

AH CRAP!!!!!!

I was hoping for a happy ending: Lost dad found dead in wilderness My heart goes out to his wife and kids and the rest of their families. This is why hubby insists on having an emergency kit in the car at all times and why I usually kept blankets and such in my cars in the winter time. You should always have a blanket, water, some means to make fire and definately food. Granola bars, nuts and such that you can buy at any grocery store in small packets. A small folding shovel, knife and such are also good things to have. Do a google on making up a car emergency kit if you don't already have one. The simple basics could save your life and the lives of your family.

Halfway there

Week is almost half over. There is a lighting ceremony downtown tonight, we're going to stop by after work and see the festivities. We don't get out and do stuff as often as we'd like (well, mostly becasue we find out about stuff AFTER the fact). I'll take my cameras and get pics and vid. Got Scrapper cat into the house for a while last night. I now have one set of destroyed blinds on the one kitchen window. Oh well, they are cheap and I've had to replace a number of them over the years when Mister Kitty would get nuts about going outside and would break them. Scrapper got lots of cuddles and some chicken as a treat. He is such a lovely dovey. Tried to talk some friends into taking him, but they've recently gotten a kitten, so aren't looking for another kitty. Had someone suggest using Felliway spray to help with getting everyone to get along, so will probably look at that for when I try and get him in for the weekends. With the exception of a little hissing

Survived Monday, survived my class

well, almost survived my class, I still have two papers to finish and turn in. They are half written and I need to translate what I have from gibberish into readable english LOL Never try and write when your brain has melted into a puddle, doesn't work too well. Weather has warmed up a bit, which means we'll be getting melt then freeze and melt again. Will make driving a whole LOT of fun....NOT! My poor little Cydny car is no more. We'd loaned her to some friends who needed a car and I eventually gave in and we sold it to them (tho they still owe on her). Last week during the icky weather our one friend was more or less run off the road by another driver who caused him to swerve, hit some snow and Cydny went end over end and finally rolled. It is not a good thing to open the local paper to see what is left of your car on the front page on it's side. Luckily my friend only suffered a broken thumb, but Cydny is off to the great wreaking yard in the sky. WAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Sparklies

Had a request to see my decorations, so I'm going to post the vid I did of them that I uploaded to my YouTube account

Okay, hubby is relieved

He knows how much I like the holidays and gets worried if I don't start decorating. One year I was so bummed and he had been cranky I'd decided I wasn't going to decorate, until he finally told me I needed to. He does like the tree and lights and the sparklies aspect, even if he doesn't like the holidays. So I did and everyone was happy. So far I have one set of lights up on the one shelf, I'll be putting the lights around the mirror soon and garland up here and there. I'll get pics and/or vid up once I get it all done. The Crone is looking quite festive with her multi-colored boa and the gold garland around her hat. If I can find the right sized santas hat she'll be getting to wear that to. I still need to find the santas hat that Ms Ella will be sporting for the holidays. Finally got Scrapper cat in the house today. Only a few squables. he's currently hiding out down in the bedroom. Rum Tum is outside, so he's only having to worry about Nick and Ki