Tales from the Boiler Plate

My turn, My turn!!

2008-08-25T23:44:59Z

1. Do you like blue cheese? No. Fungus = Yuck, in my world.

2. Have you ever smoked a cigarette? Yes.

3. Do you own a gun? Used to, but not anymore.

4. What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic? I don't add a flavor to my drink, but I do love their tater tots!

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? Not usually.

6. What do you think of hot dogs? I wonder if they'll make me sick, but I usually eat one anyway and wait to suffer (or not) the consequences.

7. Favorite Christmas Song? Christmas Song by Nat King Cole.

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Caffeine-free Diet Coke or Ovaltine with skim milk

9. Can you do push ups? Yes, I can.

10. What's your favorite meal? I have a couple of favorite lunches: Mac and Cheese with a side of baby peas OR Tomato soup with grilled cheese sammy.

11. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? I love my engagement ring and anniversary band - but if I had to go outside the "norm" it's a toss up between a pair of earrings that I wear to almost every wedding or the pearl necklace I bought in Sydney.

12. Favorite hobby? Reading and cooking.

13. Do you work with people who idolize you? I don't think so. I'm too demanding.

14. Do you have A.D.D? No, not in the least.

15. What's one trait that you dislike about yourself? Sometimes, I can be very hard on people. I have high expectations and not a lot of patience.

16. Middle name? Christine

17. Name 3 thoughts at this moment.
(a) When can I go home?
(b) Am I getting a headache again?
(c) wondering how long this bout of anxiety is going to last

18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday:
(a) video card for Lenny's birthday
(b) diet 7-Up
(c) BioShock and Hellgate: London -- technically Lenny got them, but we make purchases 50:50, so it counts for me too, right?

20. Current worry right now? Getting laid off

21. Current hate right now? that I lost money in Reno this weekend

22. Favorite place to be? at home, with my animals

23. How did you bring in New Years? With some snacks, champagne and Lenny on the couch.  We never go out on New Year's Eve - I don't want to be around so many drunk people.

24. Where would you like to go? France, Spain, Prague & Greece

25. Name three people who will complete this? IDK

26. Whose answer do you want to read the most? I was going to say pokobelle, since she hasn't updated in a while, but she beat me to it.

27. What color shirt are you wearing? green

28. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? No, they are too slippery.

29. Can you whistle? Yes, pretty well.

30. Favorite color(s)? blue, orange, purple, green, black

31. Would you be a pirate? Probably - I like boats.

32. What songs do you sing in the shower? I sing KD Lang for some reason.

33. Favorite girl's name? Wallis

34. Favorite boy's name? William

35. What's in your pocket right now? $20, my cell phone and a hair clip

36. Last thing that made you laugh? A picture of a beagle looking through a porthole in a fence.

37. Best bed sheets as a child? They were my mom's sheets that say "Sweet Dreams" in roses. I still have them.

38. Worst injury you've ever had? Broken arm.

39. Do you love where you live? I have a love/hate thing going on with CA. I don't know where I'd be otherwise.  I'm not sure I can go back to AZ.

40. How many TVs do you have in your house? 2

41. Who is your loudest friend? I have a lot of them and it's hard to pick just one.

42. How many dogs do you have? 2 wonderful, cute, sweet, dirty beagles

43. Does someone have a crush on you? I think my husband does, but I'm not sure. ;)

45. What is your favorite book? Handmaid's Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind, Grapes of Wrath and any of the Harry Potter books.

46. What is your favorite candy? MM's

47. What is your favorite sports team? I like the Mets and the NY Giants.

48. What song do you want played at your funeral? I have no idea. I haven't planned that far in advance.

49. What were you doing 12 AM last night? Watching Angels in America from Netflix.

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up this morning? Maybe I could call in sick....

$100

2008-08-18T21:56:57Z

People are still amazed and asking me about my food budget. I've had two requests for my earlier blog post and an email I wrote a friend briefly outlining how I do it. I swear I'm gonna have to write book. It would only turn out to be a pamphlet; really, it's not that exciting.

Funny thing is, that I am not even doing this as well as I could be. I KNOW there are people out there that do more with less. I guess I'm just a tangible person for them to associate with.

So far, I'm going off of $95 this month, but I've got to go buy some grapes for sandwich day at work, so I'm back at $100.

Friday Five

2008-08-16T06:59:46Z

1. What is your favorite song right now? Why? I love Katy Perry right now so probably Waking Up in Vegas, Hot and Cold, Thinking of You. They are pretty light-hearted and youthfully innocent songs; not complicated in the least.

2. What genre of music makes you the happiest? Club/dance - how can you be miserable bouncing around?

3. What would you name your band and what kind of music would you play? Mr. Grithems for ridiculous reasons and I'd probably sing jazz or torch.

4. What is your favorite lyric of all time? Why?

I've got a few:

And every time I try to pick it up
Like falling sand
As fast as I pick it up
It runs away through my clutching hands"   The Cure, Letter to Elise (lots of good nuggets in that one)

*********
and just as i'm breaking free
she hangs herself in front of me
slips her dress like a flag to the floor
and hands in the sky
surrenders it all... The Cure, Edge of the Deep Green Sea

*********

So when I hear them say
There's better living
Let them go their way
To that new living
I won't ever stray
'Cause this is heaven to me
'Cause this is heaven to me    Madeleine Peroux, This is Heaven to Me

**********

I didn't know what time it was
then I met you.
Oh, what a lovely time it was,
How sublime it was too!
I didn't know what day it was
you held my hand.
Warm like the month of May it was,
and I'll say it was grand.

Grand to be alive, to be young,
to be mad, to be yours alone!
Grand to see your face, feel your touch,
hear your voice say I'm all your own.

I didn't know what year it was
life had no prize.
I wanted love and there it was
shining out of your eyes.
I'm wise,
and I know what time it is now.

Rodgers and Hart, I Didn't Know What Time It Was

My first dance with my husband. We chose a James Taylor version and dance to it every year on our anniversary.

5. What band/artist could you never live without? Why? How can you limit this to just one? Each one of mine makes me feel different things: The Cure, Patsy Cline, or Rachmaninoff.

Pa-Doink Theory of Saving Money

2008-08-13T19:05:44Z

This is my philosophy on money. I get a lot of flack from people, too. These are the same people who laugh at my food budget.

Currently, I'm also employing the Debt-Snowball method to pay off some debt that we've incurred: home improvement, car. I don't pay the highest intrest rate first. I pay the smallest balance first and then transfer the snowall to the next smallest balance.

I shouldn't say "I" but "we" rather because Lenny is on board with this idea, too. Usually we pay the bills together, but since he travels so much for work lately, I end up paying everything on my own.

Something I learned today...

2008-08-13T04:15:51Z

I was reading journal articles about liver failure caused by Tylenol poisoning. Accidental overdoses can also be called therapeutic misadventures. I thought that wording was hilarious, but on further review, that is sometimes what they are actually called. Hmph!

deltasheets @ 2008-08-12T16:29:00

2008-08-12T23:29:50Z

I made my first picks for Fantasy MMA. I've been thinking about betting on fights but I'd like to see how I do at predicting things. Fantasy seemed like a good way to check it out.

Keep looking, Spoondave

2008-08-07T16:54:35Z

You never know what you'll find...

Scrabble

2008-07-29T19:56:28Z

Last night, a group of co-workers went to a local bar. They have a pool table, dart lanes and board games that lots of people play while hanging out with friends. A few of us decided to play Scrabble; one guy in particular is incredibly competitive, to the point of being way overboard. I am typically competitive when it comes to games, but since I knew who I was playing with, I decided just to have fun.

However, during the course of our game, Mr. Ego-Maniac called another player a bitch and cunt. I came in second after him, of course, and he looked at me and snidely said, "Welcome to second place." He also harassed every turn, made fun of spectators and, in general, made the game a torturous exercise. I left immediately afterward. I'm not in the habit of letting myself be abused and I refuse to start with that ass-hole.

All I kept thinking for the rest of the night, in addition to his being a total prick, was:
For fuck's sake - it's SCRABBLE!

Ouch

2008-07-28T20:32:59Z

I just got shot in the back, completely without warning, with a nerf gun by a co-worker; the kind with the suction cup on the end. It smarted, but probably more because I wasn't expecting it. I left the cubicle area because if it happens again, I can't guarantee that I'll be able to control the profanities, name-calling and beat-downs.

Friday Five

2008-07-27T07:26:57Z

Hair!

What type of hair do you have? (Thin, Normal, Thick, Frizzy, etc.) Thick with a slight curl to it.
What color is your hair currently? Dark blond with highlights.
What colors have you dyed/highlighted your hair? Red, brown, dark brown, light blond.
If you could dye your hair any color, what would it be? Dark chocolate brown with chunky, blue pieces.
What is your hair's length? Very short these days; it's never been shorter.

Twilight

2008-07-23T05:00:08Z

I am not much of a romantic person. It just doesn't interest me too much. I prefer small gestures of love and admiration to huge productions. I don't get overly swept up in foofy emotional stuff. I am a simple girl.

Which is why I find myself shocked that I am positively SWOONING over Edward Cullen. Butterflies and everything. I swear I feel just like I'm in high school again. I'm actually giggly. This is really not like me, honestly.

Score 1 for Frugality!!!

2008-07-18T22:11:28Z

My fellow frugal, co-worker friend just shared with me that Jamba Juice has a BOGO coupon for smoothies. YUM!!

I also have a $5 gift card that work gave me for my birthday. That means Lenny and I can have 2 each for nearly free - (I think we might have to spend about a dollar for the second one, since they run about $3.)

I like Jamba a lot; I should choose them more often for a I-don't-feel-like-cooking meal. For some reason, they are just not on my radar; probably becuase usually "I don't feel like cooking" means I feel like eating junk food.

Bitchy, bitchy, bitchy

2008-07-15T18:57:37Z

Dear Service Rep,

Thank you for taking my call today. I hope you can understand my frustration with your telling me I can get a free sample and then changing the price to $125 because of it's popularity and then changing the price again to $600 because you don't actually have the reagent in stock and it needs to be found. This is especially frustrating when you indicated that th reagent was already frozen down in a bank.

I especially liked our heated banter over the difference between lupus and my "more specific" request of systemic lupus reagents. I always assumed that they were the same, but I'm willing to learn new things. However, in the future, I would recommend that you don't actually tell your laboratory client that you got your information from a Google search. Calling it a "literature search" would be substantially more reassuring; however, I found that calling your own technical services department would yield the correct information.

I look forward to our continued collaboration.

Sincerely,

TM

deltasheets @ 2008-07-12T01:16:00

2008-07-12T08:18:16Z

This poll from USAtoday.com makes me very happy...

It's a twisted little movie and I love it! Plus, it's got the oddly, wildly sexy, James Spader in it...

My Boss, the President

2008-07-10T20:12:57Z

My boss is French and like most of the French, he is very interested in politics. We've had some good arguments over the years, and I will admit, he's very insightful and thoughtful with his point of view. I just don't happen to share most of his view points, but I'm at least willing to listen and be convinced. He hasn't don't it yet, but I'll keep listening.

He decided to run for office this year to be the president for his party in the US. I don't recall which party it is; I believe he told me it's moderately conservative for French politics. I was joking that if he won we'd have to call him Mr. President. Well, he won.

I hope this doesn't go to his head. (Just kidding, I'm sure it won't.)

Crafty

2008-07-02T08:43:04Z

I joined a color challenge tonight. In order to submit my "fabulous" creation, I need to post it on a blog. Eventually, I'll start a new page for this stuff, but it's 1:40am and I'm too tired to do it right now. Until then, you can see how I spent some of my evening.

Considering this is the first time I've ever done a challenge, I'm pretty pleased with it. I hope I followed the rules well enough! I was supposed to use the colors listed in her inspiration photo below. They're all there but some of them are ink only (black).

Trouble in Tristram, again

2008-06-30T23:10:40Z

I can't wait for this! Lenny? We may need to get a second computer.

When life gives you lemons, make limoncello

2008-06-30T07:38:33Z

We got some free lemons from someone who was giving away tomato plants on the internet. (Ok, I went for the tomato plants but he had a tree full of lemons and offered us some.)

Anyway, Lenny started a batch of limoncello with the skins and then juiced them for me to make lemon curd. YUM YUM YUM! We had a bunch of egg whites left over from making the curd, which I planned on using for an angel food cake, but Lenny knocked the bowl over and we lost about half of the whites. So sad!

Another thing we (read: Lenny) made this weekend was coffee gelato. It is SO good - it makes up for the lost egg whites.

Anyone want the recipes?

Mind and Body

2008-06-27T23:22:32Z

Yesterday, a round table discussion with co-workers had an interesting topic. They wanted to know, if you could take your brain and put it into someone else's body, whose body would you choose?

Most players chose Angelina Jolie, mostly because she gets to sleep with Brad Pitt. Someone else would jump from Angelina Jolie's and Brad Pitt's back and forth.

I chose Kate Winslet. When they asked me why, I said because Lenny likes her and Jennifer Connelly, but I think she's is too skinny. They were shocked that I picked someone that Lenny likes. Protests and criticism ensued, as well as, "Why would you choose someone for Lenny?" It seemed like a perfectly natural choice to me. I love my husband and he likes her face and body but my mind. The general consensus was, I think, that if you had a body that many others desired, why would you stay with your spouse? That sort of troubled me a bit. However, the way I see it, is that no one could love me more or better than my husband. He gets me, puts up with me, makes me feel good about myself and I like the person I am when I'm with him. I actually thought it was a pretty good idea.

They also asked if I had an opportunity to go into a man's body would I do that? In an instant, I said yes because I want to see what's the big fuss about BJ's. I mean, really, what is the big fuss?

The Big Read?

2008-06-26T00:16:43Z

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I saw this on another post that said that the publishers believe that the average adult has only read 6 of the 100 books on this list. Finally, I'm above average on something!

Bold = read it
Underline = loved it
italics = intend to read

I find Daddy's occupation amusing...

2008-06-19T20:15:47Z

From SFGate today:

Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth to a baby girl Thursday morning at a south Mississippi hospital, according to a person close to the Spears family.

The 17-year-old was the star of Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101," a sitcom about prep school friends, and is the younger sister of pop star Britney Spears. The Spears family announced in December that Jamie Lynn was pregnant. The father is Casey Aldridge, a pipe-layer from Liberty, Miss. The couple is not married but announced an engagement several

Pipe-layer, indeed.

It's official

2008-06-17T21:38:51Z

My brain has left the building.

deltasheets @ 2008-06-15T21:59:00

2008-06-16T05:01:39Z

I had some visitors yesterday.

mrsgravyand family came to see me which was nice because it forced me to run around and clean up my VERY messy house. It also helped because I couldn't sit around feeling lonely and sorry for myself. I'm tending to be lonelier for this trip because Lenny and I have been together for 6 whole weeks. I haven't seen the Gravy's for quite some time. PT is growing up and is simply amazing to watch!

After that, I alternated between more cleaning /organizing and watching the 2nd season of Sex and the City. I never watched the show while it was on but I am thoroughly enjoying it now.

I had more company today. My mom, my aunt and my cousin's kid; she is still technically my cousin, but she's 10 so it feels more like she's my niece. We hung out for a few hours and I made us lunch of Pilaf with Chicken & Spinach and a Cardamom Pear Upside-Down Cake. (Recipes to follow for the Important Food Group, which is my filtered list for people who want to read my blatherings about recipes and my modifications. If you want me to add you, just leave a comment.)

Later this afternoon, I had to go return some stuff at Target and had a major book jones going on, so I hit Borders as well. This is where being on my own starts to get dicey. I bought:

The Other Boleyn Girl ( heldincontempt 's recommendation off of Facebook)
The Book Thief ( from a co-worker's recommendation)
The Omnivore's Dilemma (since it seems like everyone is talking about this and In Defense of Food)
The Sound and the Fury (because I haven't been tortured enough by Faulkner yet - give it time)
Fahrenheit 451
The Golden Notebook
-Such a Pretty Fat: Seriously, Another Memoir A narcissist's quest to discover if her life make her ass look big or why pie is not the answer ( with a title like that, how could I pass it up?)

Three "book list" books and FOUR "fun" books. This is not helping my budget but I must admit, I do feel better.

Later tonight, I'm going to prepare for some stamp classes I'll be teaching this week and watch The Jane Austin Book Club. Yes, it's estrogen central at my house this week.

While at Target, I had to pick up a few things. Among the usual household type things, my cart contained:

Cap'n Crunch Berry cereal
Baked Ruffles and onion dip
5 loaves of bread ( well, it IS on sale this week - 10 for $10; although not the healthiest of bread it does make a tasty sammich and toast

It should come as NO surprise that chick biscuits* were also in my cart. I giggled at myself on realizing the combination of stuff.

* Not to be confused with Chicken in a Biscuit, which given this week's visitor would have been an appropriate addition to my cart.

Budgetary issues

2008-06-11T23:24:07Z

I am generally a little grumpy right now, so I thought I'd post a quick little snippet to lighten my mood.

We were talking about food, cooking and budgety type stuff yesterday and my co-workers are shocked that I feed Lenny and myself for about $100 a month. This is breakfast, lunch, dinner and home snacks. It doesn't include going out to eat, but we really try to limit that. This also doesn't account for when we have friends over, but that is seldom done since we're so busy and tired after work.

I don't think that it's all that hard to believe, but apparently they do. The level of shock is pretty funny, actually.

I started to analyze how I cook and realized that there are things that I routinely do that help keep our food budget low:

1. I don't buy much pre-packaged.
2. I don't buy much processed food - with the exception of bread (due to time), crackers and cereal.
3. I definitely don't buy pre-portioned food, including yogurt. I buy Trader Joe's Vanana or vanilla and add my own fruit or 1T jam. I like it MUCH better than the Yoplait I used to buy.
4. Most stuff I cook tends to be stews or one-pot meals so that a little bit of meat goes a long way.
5. I make a lot from scratch: salsa, pasta sauce, jam, pesto, etc.
6. I have a brief plan of what I'm going to make when I shop.
7. I grow my own herbs.
8. I buy a lot of staples and use them in all kinds of different ways. My cupboard is not non-cook friendly.
9. I buy stuff on a good sale and store it for later.
10. I cook dried beans and freeze them.
11. I buy a LOT of fresh veggies and use them.
12. Bought a food saver - I SWEAR it's paid for itself in cheese. I haven't thrown away moldy cheese in a long time.

All kinds of little things, here and there, that add up over time. It originally started because I was trying to avoid partially hydrogenated oils in food and was generally trying to be healthier with more fresh food. I immediately noticed that my shopping budget was going much further. Recently, I've been doing more at home because I've been inspired by "frugal living" and have been implementing new ideas. Luckily, I enjoy this kind of cooking but I realize it's not for everyone.

Anyone else do this?? I'm not alone am I?

See... I feel better now.

Another Author Event

2008-06-05T18:08:30Z

Anyone want to meet Salman Rushdie with me? Anyone? Anyone?

piefessor?