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Showing posts from January, 2009

'tis Friday and it is sunny!!!!!

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So I am calling the thin soup for breakfast a success, I've been able to have a cup of soup in the morning with no ill effects. So this Sunday I will thaw out some turkey stock and make up a different soup for next week. I have some zucchini and squash that I dehydrated previously and I am currently dehydrating the stocks off some of the broccoli I got for dinner last night, so I will powder all that to add some extra "umph" to the soup. Speaking of dinner, last night I fried up a couple of pork loin chops and then sauteed some sliced criminis and steamed broccoli: No big plans for the weekend, just puttering about. With luck it will be warm enough I can get out and clean up the deck a bit more.

Somewhat warmer today

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and since there is snow on the ground, a good thing. When it all comes down to it, I'll take snow over extreme cold any day. At least I can still see my flamingos in the lawn! It was a very pretty drive in this morning with the blue sky and the sun shining: Trying an experiment. I usually don't eat breakfast, makes me feel icky. My dad had the same problem, not sure about the other relatives on his side of the family. It was a running battle with my mom growing up as she kept trying to get me to eat breakfast. I just loath having anything first thing in the morning, so once I went to college, was able to skip breakfast and settle for tea or coffee. I got an idea watching a show on the travel channel that was filmed in Asia, don't remember which country, but the host had soup for breakfast, so that got me to thinking. I picked up some fermented soy bean paste at one of the Asian markets in Spokane last time up and hadn't really gotten around to using it. So last night I

Le FREAKING BRRRR!!!!!!!

Woke up this morning and it took me a few minutes to realize the dash on the thermometer for the outside temp was a minus sign. Low at our house was -10.1F this morning. It was up to about -9F when I left for work. The snow build up in the wheel wells of the car was thick and frozen solid, so the drive in was quite noisy. Once we got to the library I tried knocking what I could off with my cane (I keep it stashed in the car), but only knocked a little bit off. It is supposed to get up to 19F today. It is currently a very balmy 8F. BBRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fairly quiet weekend. Manged to get 3 new designs for my shop up (previous post) and some puttering about the house. I pulled out my one dehydrator and dried a loaf of bread that was going stale. I also tossed in some green onions that were getting to the point of tossing. The bread crumbs were done this morning and the onions should be done when I get home tonight. I didn't mind the snow this weekend, it was a VERY nice ch

New from Purple Ducky Designs

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I have two new designs and one new photo design up at Purple Ducky Designs . The first design is one that any woman can relate to: and the 2nd is for all the internet trolls : The recent big snow over the holidays cloaked the trees in white:

Thank the Ghodz it's FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been a week :P On the upside Bush is gone and Obama is now in office. I am still hoping he proves me wrong in regards to not having what it takes to be president, but there are a few early signs that he just might do it. He's got a big mess to clean up and I hope he can. On the downside it has felt like Monday all week for the most part, at least at work. Hopefully things will be better next week. The beef jerky came out perfectly. I sliced the still mostly frozen London broil and then marinated it in Alton Brown's beef jerky marinade , tho I tweaked it a bit. I made a double recipe since I had two London broils and reduced the amount of liquid smoke called for and increased the honey by a half for a little sweeter taste. I also decreased the red pepper flakes so it wouldn't be quite as hot as the original recipe would be. Since the meat was so lean, I didn't have to trim much fat off of it and I can store it out of the fridge and not worry about it going off. I

Formal dinner food porn

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So we had our formal dinner and no left hungry or dis-satisfied. Starter was chicken or smoked salmon stuffed puff pastries Then on to onion soup Catfish Drunken Game hen Then a short break and some sorbet. Standing rib roast with roasted root veggies followed by spinach salade with vinagarette dressing and candied walnuts and ending with Chocolate Raspberry Tort All I have to say is MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

A very sunny Friday

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I am so glad we aren't having the weather Spokane is having, all that fog would be too depressing for me. I love fog, but not that much. I've been looking at catfish recipes as we are having the coven formal dinner this weekend. Since it is a formal sit down dinner, deep fried catfish just wasn't going to do, so I turned to the good folk at the Good Eats fan page forum for some ideas and someone posted a link to some recipes at the Catfish Institute where I perused LOTS of yummy recipes and finally decided on Catfish Roasted With Sesame Seeds, Basil, Garlic and Spinach for the fish course. I've had the catfish thawing for the last couple of days and I will break open the package tonight to see what exactly I have and to also grab a fillet out and cook it up to give it a try. I'll have to track down some black sesame seeds, I already have regular white ones. I also need to pick up some low-sodium, wheat free soy sauce in order to accommodate some folk with salt an

Sunshine!!!!!!

And no fog, even tho the NOAA weather site was predicting it this morning. So nice. The week is puttering along and the students are trickling back into town. Classes start tomorrow and we will again play "avoid the students who dodge into the road in front of the car without looking". At least the ice is off the roads so we will actually have a chance to stop before we hit the twits. Of course, we would be at fault if they dodge out in front of us and we hit them. I really think the university should have a mandatory class in how to properly cross the road for every student at the beginning of every semester. If they then proceed to dodge out in front after completing the class, then they are automatically at fault and have to pay us for mental anguish and all that stuff. I'm working on a new avenue for advertising Purple Ducky Designs . It is a lens on Squidoo , which is a site I am still trying to figure out. So my site there is still a work in progress, but up and r

New from Purple Ducky Designs

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So I finished up the two anti-Valentine designs and decided I want to start designing specifically for the holidays , so whipped out a quick regular Valentine's design. So for those who are into Valentine's Day: Be Mine And for those who aren't: Love Hurts Good Grouping I'll be adding more as I come up with them and then I will start adding for the other holidays. In other news, since I am starting to do a lot of my own art work, I am looking into getting a graphics tablet so I can draw on the computer. Doing it using the track ball mouse is pretty tricky and I am much better if I could use a pen. I don't want to waste dead trees, so I'd rather not draw on paper and then scan it in and try and work that way. So the hubby is researching tablets for me, tho it looks like we'll probably be getting a Wacom Bamboo Fun since there is Linux support for it.

Yawn!

Very low key day today. Woke up to snow again, but it was only about an inch and it is melting off. Did a recycling run and got the Christmas tree dropped off so that is done. Planning on taco soup for dinner, so we picked up a few of the ingredients I need that we didn't have. Working on some new designs for my shop . Cafe press is running an anti-Valentine design contest and I have a couple in the works. So I hope to have them up later today. We managed to get to Lewiston yesterday, it was SOOOOOOOOO nice to get out of town, even if it was to Lewiston. Was feeling a bit cabin bound just sticking to Moscow-Pullman, esp with the weather the way it was. Well, off to work on taco soup and finish those deigns.

YAY! Friday!!!!!

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So the thaw continues, I can see most of my lawn this morning. We stopped to get pictures of the river on the way to work and discovered we have an ice jam in the making: On the west side of the bridge, the water is still rising: Sun is shining today, but it is quite cold, currently about 33F right now. At least the wind has stopped blowing or else it would be seriously miserable out there. We are hoping to make a run to Lewiston this weekend sometime. I am out of Kirkland brand of kitty crunchies and kitties are going to be very cranky if I have to feed them something else. They are very picky. I also have some other things I need to get, least of which is more goat cheese. I am out of the creamy cheese and running very low on the other. Not many plans for this weekend, outside of a recycling run and taking the tree in to the drop off. If it is nice enough I may see about getting a bit of outside work done.

Serious meltage

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It started melting Monday night and by Tuesday it was getting serious: And then this morning: The flamingos are no longer snow bound LOL! Of course all that melt has to go somewhere. South fork of the Palouse River anyone? It is getting close to overflowing its banks. It has finally stopped raining, so with luck the melt will slow down a bit and won't overflow the rivers and creeks around here.

Newest member of the Devil Ducky clan

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Camo Devil Ducky: He fits in with the rest of my Devil Duckies quite nicely. One of the grad students I work with knows I love Devil Duckies and got me this one for Christmas.

WAAHHH!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!

It is snowing again. Big fat, fluffy flakes. WAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!! And I want to know what idiot decided Palouse River Speedway had to be only a single lane wide? As we were coming in to work, the vehicle coming towards us had to turn into a drive way so we and the 3 cars behind us could get thru since there was no room at all. At least our chunk of road was plowed this morning (tho a bit messing in a couple spots). So the university is open again and getting back into the work routine is going to be hard. I liked sleeping in until 10-11am and then puttering about. Oh well, the kitties love having food in their dishes and a roof over their head, so back to work I go. Finished up the photo designs for my shop and got them uploaded and put on products. Since I have so many designs I then burned my originals onto a DVD for archiving. Now I don't have to hunt thru a ton of designs when uploading any new ones I come up with in the coming weeks or so. The pork roast I did on Sunday came o

WOO HOO!!! GO SANDY!!!!!!

Sandy at Junkfood Science has been nominate for this year's Weblog awards in the "Best Medical/Health Issues Blog" catagory. So go on over here and cast your vote. GO SANDY! GO SANDY! GO SANDY! GO SANDY! GO SANDY! GO SANDY!

Here we go again!

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Got a phone call from the library secretary a bit after 7am saying the university was closed and then a phone call from my boss a little bit later verifying we were closed. So I am at home puttering about. They finally re-opened highway 95 south to Lewiston, but are recommending people not drive on it. The wind has died down, so the snow is falling straight down instead of blowing much. I looked out the window a little bit ago and the car windshield is now covered with several inches of snow and the pink flamingos are neck deep in snow and I can't see their backs anymore. Needless to say, we aren't going anywheres today. We I currently have local radio on, the one morning DJ couldn't make it in tom Moscow from Uniontown (south of Pullman). Currently have a big pot of soup out on the porch, I stashed the crock in the stock pot. There are some advantages of cold snowy weather. I love having a big fridge out there LOL. I'll haul it in in a bit as I need to package up the s

Snowy day

Went to bed last night with it pouring down rain and a forecast of warms temps today. Woke up to a good 6 inches of snow on the car and lots more coming down. So here is a slide show from today: