Inch by Inch: Gardening and Crafting on the Plains

Seeing Double

2009-10-18T13:17:00.005-05:00

I caught this on Food Network last week-I especially like Melanie Hutsell's butter popsicle demo that begins right after the 4:00 mark. Melanie was on Saturday Night Live back in the 90s. Once she bites into the butter, you can hear the crew starting to crack up. I appreciate Paula Deen's great sense of humor!

Husker review

2009-08-06T13:11:00.001-05:00

The first game of the season is a month away-here's a clip of the great 4th quarter highlights of last year's Colorado game to get everyone in the mood.

Our first tomatoes

2009-07-24T19:16:00.001-05:00

Corrie and I each had one tomato in our dinner salad tonight. I know we'll be up to our ears in tomatoes soon.

chocolate pie

2009-07-03T12:16:00.003-05:00

I made a dark chocolate cream pie for the inaugural UNP Pie-A-Palooza this week. While I didn't win a coveted trophy, it was still a great opportunity to practice my pie crust-making skills, which is something I need to keep working on. I was pretty pleased with my entry-I made two practice pies in the past month, along with one try at just making the filling, which we ate as a pudding.

The pie and crust recipe came from King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion All-Purpose Baking cookbook, otherwise known as my baking Bible. The single crust recipe called for both butter and crisco-I think from now on I'm going to work on all-butter crusts. The filling was an interesting combination of milk, sugar, and corn starch, which you cooked until a thickening stage, then you add egg yolks and more sugar. Once it comes to a boil, you have what looks like vanilla pudding, then you add unsweetened chocolate, vanilla, and butter. I considered swapping in a different type of chocolate, like bittersweet, but I didn't try that ahead of time on the practice pies, so I didn't want to risk it on the competition pie.

The winner of the taste category as well as best in show was a rhubarb lattice pie with cardamom and orange. The baker found the recipe on epicurious.com and decided to make it even though the online reviews were mixed. Her gamble paid off!

Kitties were happy to have the windows open

2009-06-28T10:08:00.002-05:00

The air has been on in the house for at least a week straight. Within a minute of opening the windows this morning, three of our cats had sorted themselves into small, medium, and large.

Julie & Julia

2009-06-06T19:44:00.003-05:00

I saw a preview for this movie the other night-it looks intriguing. I might have to actually go to the theater to see it.

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi77595161/

Rhubarb recipe of the week

2009-05-13T21:05:00.003-05:00

Thanks to our prolific rhubarb, I'm trying a different rhubarb recipe every week. Last week as part of my pre-half marathon dinner, I made a rhubarb crisp. This week, it was a cobbler out of the King Arthur Flour's baking companion book, which offers a standard cobbler recipe, and you add your fruit of choice. I was a little apprehensive about using rhubarb with the recipe because it also called for bourbon, and that combination just didn't sound right. I proceeded on, and I don't know if it was the strong bourbon I used (Knob Creek) or if I didn't simmer the syrup long enough, but it tasted mostly like bourbon. Not that that's a bad thing, but it didn't seem right for a rhubarb cobbler. Corrie suggested I try apples in the recipe next time.

Nice tulip photo

2009-05-03T16:36:00.003-05:00

I don't know why I've remiss on blogging-bloggy things have been happening. Here's a photo of some nice tulips in the butterfly garden.

Photo of the day

2009-03-25T19:15:00.001-05:00

Todd rolling around in the garden dirt this past weekend.

My sister has an etsy shop now

2009-03-22T12:33:00.003-05:00

My sister finally set up an etsy shop where she's selling some of her artwork. Check it out!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6905548

One of her specialties looks to be pet portraits. The example she's using is our dad's African Grey parrot, Buddy.

Her shop is much more sophisticated than the one I wanted to open for selling cat toys.

First and second flowers

2009-03-17T16:58:00.001-05:00

Here are the first and second batches of crocus this year! The second ones just flowered today.

A month late for Groundhog's day

2009-03-07T11:22:00.005-06:00

Here's godfrey the groundhog in his mound of dirt, mentioned in my Valentine's Post. I bought a pattern download through Mochimochi shop. I left the eyes off the dirt mound as per Corrie's request.

This worked up really fast. It was pretty easy, except I had a hard time getting the hat to look right on him without covering up his ears.

In Living Room Color

2009-03-03T20:41:00.005-06:00

Corrie had had enough of our "cakebatter" white walls throughout most of our first floor, so he stepped it up and picked a few colors to look at for the living room. We now have 3 walls in rattan.

When he painted just a swatch, we were afraid we'd made a big mistake, but now that there's a couple of coats on, it's looking pretty good. It looks nice with the woodwork, and I think we can find a lot of other colors to add to the room that will look nice. However, it clashes with our green curtain aka a green sheet, so now we've been talking about "window treatments". I feel like an adult! I told Corrie this color makes it look like responsible adults live here. (the white walls made it seem like an apartment.)

As he goes, Corrie is working on the window trim and patching some drywall cracks. We could eventually have a finished living room!

I've been thinking about decor, too. I bought a shadow box to use for some of the trinkets we've found around the house while remodeling. I'm bummed because I've misplaced the World War II ration stamp I wanted to include in the display.

The foil milk carton top has separated itself from its velcro, and I'm saving a spot for a c. 1910 postcard we found, too, so I need to do some rearranging. The other items are more milk carton tops, a Gold's department store tag for what I'm guessing was a pair of shoes, a Fuller Brush company whistle that I found under the porch, and a button with a lyre on it. This is just a small sampling of the stuff we've found. The rest is for another post.

Sesame Street favorites

2009-02-28T11:16:00.006-06:00

Corrie and I spent this morning watching our favorite clips from Sesame Street on hulu.com. Here are some of my favorites:

-lady bug picnic

-making crayons

-David disco skates

-Orange singing Carmen-this one kind of freaked me out but I still liked it

-and this one flat out gave me nightmares

Happy Belated Fat Tuesday!

2009-02-28T11:05:00.005-06:00

I made two king cakes this year, the first for us at home to test out Alton Brown's cinnamon roll recipe as king cake recipe and the second to take to work. The first one I made, which I didn't photograph for some reason, turned out pretty fat, and it took forever to bake. I thought it might've even been a little underdone, but at least it seemed moist. The one I made for work was a better shape, but I think I overbaked it a little-it was dry. The recipe worked well otherwise. This is the one I took to work, along with a photo of the king cake table.

Kooky Spooks!

2009-02-21T09:25:00.003-06:00

Corrie and I were trying to remember what these plastic Halloween costumes with an inflatable head on top of your own head were called. I could only remember kids wearing them for one year, possibly two, back in 1980 or 1981. Thanks to Google and Corrie somehow remembering what they were called, here they are:

I'm sure there are tons of blog posts like this one where people are recounting these outfits. There are also a few still in their packaging for sale on Ebay, of course!

Classic Sesame Street film - A LOST DOG poster for Ace

2009-02-21T09:14:00.001-06:00

I was reminded of this Sesame Street clip this week during the lost dog caper. A lot of things have changed in 30 years!

Reunited!

2009-02-20T17:36:00.005-06:00

It was a great feeling getting up this morning on a vacation day, checking my phone, and finding a message that the missing dog, Watson, aka Rhett, had been located last night! Here's dog and dad:

It sounds like the discovery went down something like this: last night, Animal Control called Terence and Sabrina and asked if they were still looking for their dog. A woman near what we had been calling ground zero (56th and South, the last place the dog was reported being seen) had called Animal Control after she thought there was a dog in her yard and she had also received an e-mail from someone alerting her to this particular missing dog. Catching the dog involved laying on the ground and coaxing him over with summer sausage. Terence reported he's much more sociable now, and he's more interested in his food and water. What a happy ending!

Lost Dog

2009-02-17T21:18:00.006-06:00

Since Sunday, I've been trying to help my friends Terence and Sabrina find their lost dog. There were sightings of him Sunday afternoon, but no reports since-it has really bummed me out, and it's not even my dog. I'm trying to keep the hope going. He has to be somewhere.

For those readers who live in Lincoln, here's a photo of the dog and the text from the flyer we've been hanging up all over town. It seemed likely that he could've stayed in the vicinity of 56th and South, however he also could've kept going.

DOGBREED: West Highland White Terrier
SEX: Male (neutered)
NAME: Rhett Butler
COLOR: White
WEIGHT: 16-17 lbs.
AGE: 3 1/2 yrs.
VACCINATIONS: All up to date

LAST SEEN around noon on Sunday (February 15, 2009) at 56th and South streets, heading south. He slipped his collar, so he has no tags. He was rescued from a puppy mill by the Little White Dog rescue up in Omaha, and they advised that it would be best to not approach him as he will be afraid and would likely run off. Instead please provide a thorough location of the sighting. If seen or found call Sabrina and Terence at 402-570-3783 (cell) Reward offered.

Varmints make good Valentine's Day gifts

2009-02-15T10:18:00.004-06:00

I knitted this snake and mouse combo from mochimochi land for Corrie as a surprise Valentine's Day gift. Weeks ago when I was perusing patterns online, Corrie saw this one and said he had to have it. I wasn't going to overlook such an easy gift idea, so I secretly worked on it out of the view of Corrie for a couple of weeks.

The idea is the mouse fits completely inside the snake, which this mouse did fit in all the way before I felted it in the washer. (A project made from wool yarn will shrink and become a totally different-looking beast once it's been washed.) I think I felted it too much, which took out the elasticity in the snake, so now the mouse will only fit in its mouth. I told Corrie I could make another smaller mouse but he said that was ok. Oh, those aren't hats on their heads, either-those are toupees.

Mochimochi land offers tons of projects I'd like to make, like this groundhog in his own mound of dirt.

I like this one too where the mouse and snake have made an appearance.

My sister is on to something

2009-02-04T16:06:00.000-06:00

My sister baked and decorated a beautiful cake for our mom's birthday. She had warned my mom that it looked bad. If this is her idea of a bad-looking cake, I'm not sure what a good-looking one would look like. I think she could go into a career of cake-decorating if she wanted to. (Her previous projects include my 2008 birthday cake.)

Super Bowl Snacks

2009-02-02T18:18:00.003-06:00

Even though we stayed home, we still made some snacks for the game last night.

I tried making these mozzarella sticks that I saw Giada De Laurentis make on the Food Network a couple of years ago. They looked ok after the egg wash and breadcrumb covering.

It all went to heck after that. The recipe said to freeze them at least 2 hours and up to 2 days after they were coated. (so that when you fry them, the cheese doesn't melt too fast.) I probably froze them the minimal 2 hours, and when I fried them, most of them bursted out of their coating, then I had cheese popping out of the skillet. They were salvageable, but I couldn't bring myself to take a photo of the finished product, they were a mess. Corrie was nice and said it was a learning experience. I don't have any experience frying anything, so I suppose he's right. Next time we plan to freeze them overnight and see if that helps.

We also made this chili-garlic roasted broccoli recipe from Rachel Ray's show. I don't look too many of her recipes up, but this one was well worth it. Corrie and I will eat a huge batch of broccoli when we make it. I didn't use as much garlic as it called for-I only used 2 cloves. The picture looks a little gross, but trust me, it's tasty.

We rounded out the meal with a frozen stromboli I had made back at Christmas time.

Duck, duck, duck . . .

2009-02-01T15:39:00.004-06:00

Corrie and I attended the Avoca annual Quack-off duck races yesterday. For those who aren't familiar with the race, this was the 29th annual running of the ducks, and every year you can bring a duck to race or rent a duck to race. The point to the race is simple-get your duck past the finish line first, and you can clap your hands, make noise, etc. etc. to encourage your duck's speediness, but you can't touch it.

Proceeds benefit the local fire department. I was glad that we decided not to participate this year but to just spectate, because it had to be a long day for the participants. Registration happened in the morning, then the heats of duck races (3-4 ducks per heat) began around 1:00. I have no idea how many first round heats there were-we left around 3:30 or so and they were on heat 60 something. The winner of each of those initial rounds goes on to participate in the next set of heats, so it must've lasted all day and into the night.

The warm weather probably drew a larger crowd this year. The other thing going on is a lot of drinking. I have no problem with that, although I'm getting to an age where people in their early 20s who aren't managing their liquor consumption very well get on my nerves. Overall it was a great time. It's not every day that you hear someone say over a loud speaker, "if you rented your duck and you did not win your heat, you need to return your duck to the trailer. Please return your ducks."

Here are some photos and video from the day:

This is the view of the start line. There were 4 lanes.

Here's the end of a heat-it looks like 2 different people think they won. I'm not sure what the official call was. It was very interesting to watch so many ducks stop short of that orange line.

Here's a winner being interviewed after their heat. Note the duck necklaces. Duck flair and costumes were everywhere.

Here's a picture of the crowd as we were leaving. A duck race draws a lot of people!

I took a few short videos. This is a typical heat-a winner sails through, then the other ducks get in a traffic jam.

I'm very glad we attended, and I bet we'll go again next year. I'm still not sure I want the pressure of racing a duck, however.

Yes We Can!

2009-01-20T18:46:00.004-06:00

Maybe it's just me, but I think Corrie's smile at the Lincoln Obama rally last February made today possible. I'm so glad we can finally move on and try a new path and not have to hear about the internets any longer.

This can't be right

2009-01-18T17:15:00.002-06:00

While I'm happy to see some green in my yard, I'm a little concerned that the tulips are already popping up! Hopefully they know something that we don't, that winter is almost over? I know I've seen the tulips in February, but I can't remember finding them in January before.

Good Eats

2009-01-18T16:56:00.004-06:00

Starting this weekend, Duggan's Pub is offering breakfast from 9 am-1 pm every Saturday and Sunday. This morning, Corrie and I took the paper, and to Corrie's dismay I took the camera, and we had ourselves some Sunday breakfast.

The breakfast menu is simple-I think there were 5 main dishes you could order, with a la carte items also available. Corrie had the chicken friend steak and gravy, which comes with eggs, hash browns and toast, and I had the "classic": 2 eggs, your choice of bacon or sausage, hash browns and toast.

I really liked the hash browns-I think you need a seasoned restaurant griddle to pull those off. It was very affordable, I thought-my breakfast was $5.50 and Corrie's was $7.95. Other menu items included biscuits and gravy and something they called the "stacker" which was several breakfast goodies piled up with an egg on top.

If you are still getting over the fact that Kuhl's restaurant is closed and you're interested in a new breakfast spot, check it out! You won't have to clean your kitchen up afterwards.

Just checking in

2009-01-15T19:26:00.003-06:00

No, I didn't vow to stop blogging in 2009. I just haven't been too bloggy lately. What's there to blog about when you're doing the same thing everyone else around here is doing-trying to cope with the cold, trying to eat just a little more moderately after the holiday indiscretions, trying to get through the 31 long days of January.

These past cold days, I've been challenging myself not to open the doors to go outside any more times than necessary. (novel idea, I know.) Itty Bittiest has made that challenge easier since she caught the cold that the rest of the cats had last week. I made the mistake of letting her back outside into her natural habitat last Saturday afternoon, thinking she'd be back in her bed on the back porch in plenty of time for me to snatch her up and bring her back in the house for the night. Itty Bittiest had other plans, evidently-it became dark and she still wasn't around. This cat has spent every night over the last 6+ months on the back porch-it's not like her to not be around. After several checks throughout the night and one trip around the block Sunday morning, there was no sign of her. After coming back in the house and feeling like something was not right, who comes up to the back porch but Itty Bittiest. Since then, she's been under house arrest, so I haven't had too many reasons to be opening and closing doors and checking on kitties.

Otherwise, I've been crocheting and knitting a few non-holiday items. I knitted a hat with nice-looking cables, but I didn't end up liking the hat very much. Not warm enough, and it felt like it was going to pop off my head. I've been throwing the idea around of starting a mini-mini craft business via etsy, too. I thought I'd start with offering a few knitted cat toys stuffed with organic catnip and see where that gets me. I definitely don't plan to pay the bills with this idea, just maybe cover some of the costs of my craft habit.

holiday craft wrap up

2008-12-30T12:29:00.005-06:00

It became quite clear this holiday season that while I love to knit and crochet, I really don't like finishing my projects. I waited until the 22nd, 23rd and 24th to finish several gift projects when I had them ready to be finished weeks before.

For example, I originally wanted to give one of these cute elf gnomes to my sister when I saw her for her birthday at the end of November, that way she could have it for December decorating. I think I had most of the parts made, but sewing it together and stuffing didn't sound like a lot of fun. Well, at least she'll have it for next Christmas.

Another Christmas gift project that actually went a bit better was these crocheted cookies. Except for the peanut blossom cookies that required a little bit of stuffing, the only finishing I had to do was to sew two sides of each cookie together. I made quite a few of these earlier in December but still needed to make a couple more Christmas Eve so I would have enough to fill a jar for my mom.

Once I got in my "finishing project" mode, I also dug out these crocheted candies I made last year (or possibly the year before-yikes!) and added cellophane wrappers and ribbons. I would like to cover my entire tree with them.

If I'm able to hold on to the finishing bug, maybe I'll starch the batch of crocheted snowflake ornaments I came across as well!

We found Christmas

2008-12-30T12:23:00.004-06:00

Christmas lives at about 40th and Adams in Lincoln. Corrie and I like to check out the new additions to this yard each year. You can't see them all here, but there are way more inflatable decorations than any one person should probably own. I'd really like to know how they get those lights up in the trees, too.

We snapped this photo on the 23rd, and I hope next year I consider doing a tour of Lincoln lights a little earlier in December and document the most interesting ones.

Next year's Christmas card

2008-12-30T12:17:00.001-06:00

I think we have our photo for next year's Christmas card. Norman likes to "help" the most while wrapping presents.

successful sugar cookies

2008-12-20T11:31:00.004-06:00

Growing up, our annual Christmas cookie baking day was always December 23. That seems like it would be cutting it pretty close to the big day, but I think the cookies were baked primarily for our neighbors and probably also to give my sister and I something to do to pass the time until Christmas. (so we'd stop asking/begging to open presents)

I still bake some of the same treats we made all those years, including my mom's special oatmeal cookies (took several years and batches of failed cookies to finally find out that she also adds a cup of wheat germ to them, which was conveniently left off of the original recipe. Once I added that, I had the same oatmeal cookie I remembered from my childhood!) the cinnamon popcorn, caramel popcorn, and classic sugar cookies. The sugar cookies were always the grand finale of baking day because they were fun to make and involved using the green and red sugars and sometimes a few redhots if we had them around. (we were frugal with our varieties of colored sugars and cookie decorations. and cookie cutters-I only remember having a santa shape, a bell, a tree, and a star.) My mom always rolled them out, which I thought was the unfun part, and my sister and I decorated them.

Once I grew up and was out of the house, I wanted to make those same buttery sugar cookies. The recipe my mom used was actually my grandma's: (I would recommend a double batch)

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tbs milk
1 tbs vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Mix butter, sugar and eggs together. Stir in milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Chill dough. Bake cut-outs at 425 degrees for 5-7 minutes.

I tried this recipe time and time again but always found it so sticky that I had to add tons more flour to have a chance at rolling it out. I've asked my mom several times if she left anything off the recipe, and she claims she didn't. She still makes them, too-I've asked if she has a hard time rolling them out, and she says she doesn't. My baking skills have improved over the years, so maybe it would be worth trying this recipe again sometime. I've since moved on to Alton Brown's no fail sugar cookie recipe, which is really good, but they don't taste like mom's. (although the recipes are so similar!!)

Alton's recipe ingredients: (a lot more flour and butter in comparison, but one batch might make a lot more cookies than my grandma's batch)

3 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tbs milk

Last weekend, I made Alton's recipe and enjoyed using the variety of colored sugars and cookie cutters I now own.

Maybe for Valentine's Day I'll try my grandma's recipe again. I think sugar cookies make a nice Valentine's treat.

Cinnamon popcorn

2008-12-09T20:50:00.005-06:00

This is one of the first recipes I remember begging my mom for after I moved into our apartment and I was so new to cooking that I needed a recipe for boiling water. (kidding) Although I think it's fair game for a college girl to ask for a cinnamon popcorn recipe that her mom used to make at Christmas.

Recipe courtesy of a 1980s copy of the Holt County (Missouri) Cookbook:

3 quarts popped corn (12 cups)
1 stick butter or margarine (I use butter!)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. salt
8 oz. red hots
1/4 tsp soda
1 tsp butter flavoring (I usually skip this or add a little extra butter instead.)

Melt butter, sugar, corn syrup, salt, and red hots in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly until melted.

Add soda and butter flavoring-mix well. (It will foam up at this point.) Pour over popcorn in a large bowl and mix well until popcorn is covered. Pour onto a baking sheet with sides or into a 13x9 pan and bake for 1 hour at 250 degrees. Stir every 15 minutes.*

*I think technically you're supposed to let it cool on paper towels, then store in an airtight container, but I usually leave it on the baking sheet for a minute or two and then dump it into whatever container I'm storing it in. Spreading it out to cool keeps it from forming big chunks of popcorn, but I'm not against the big chunks (I like them in my cream of wheat as well) and they're easily broken apart with a spoon when you're serving it. (when serving the popcorn, not cream of wheat.)

Another tip-don't try to get a taste of cinnamon tastiness by swiping the candy coating off the spoon or out of the saucepan immediately after cooking-you will burn your finger and your mouth. I know this because I made the mistake last night. I knew I would get burned, but it didn't stop me.

Here's the end result from last night's batch. Very red, and very tasty!

This Woman is My Newest Hero

2008-12-03T21:09:00.004-06:00

Before I could even start browsing for a scarf pattern on ravelry.com, I stumbled upon this jem of a craft blog: http://loomlady.blogspot.com/. This woman is my newest hero: she offers patterns for all sorts of overly cute creations that she knits using those looms you see in the craft stores. I will have to visit again.

Unless you're a Buffalo fan, you're not going to get tired of this anytime soon

2008-12-03T18:08:00.001-06:00

57 yards and I think Alex Henery's life changed forever. I'm sure glad we went to the game and didn't sell our tickets!

Anyone up for a game of spoons?

2008-11-30T11:20:00.006-06:00

I used to think that spoons was a game the Corwin family made up, but since growing up and talking to others, it sounds like this is not a unique activity to my family. (If you aren't familiar with it, the point is to collect four of a kind in your hand, after which you can grab a spoon. Then everyone else can grab a spoon. There's always one less spoon than players, so whoever doesn't get a spoon is out. You keep doing that until you have one winner.)

This year, my sister, her husband, our dad, and I made the trek down to the sticks outside of Auburn, Kansas, to my Aunt Susan's house for a great Thanksgiving dinner. I remember first playing spoons at my grandma Corwin's house back in the 80s, and we're still playing it everytime we visit.

Since I kept getting eliminated early in the game, I had some time to take photos and camera videos. Here's a good one where the little one almost blurts out what cards my cousin Andy is looking for. He'll need more training before he's ready to play.

And here's a shot of my sister after taking the last spoon and defeating our Aunt Barb. Aunt Barb had been the spoons champion, but my sister is giving her a good run for her money these days.

Happy Belated Birthday, Beth!

2008-11-13T22:55:00.005-06:00

"Sophisti-cat" is ready to go home with you! She's come a long way since a week ago when I thought I could put her together in two hours while baking and frosting a cake.

If the dress she's wearing looks different than the one in the "before" photo, it's because it is. I thought I could make the dress out of some regular worsted-weight yarn, but the thicker yarn made it too big for the cat who was crocheted out of sport weight yarn.

Maybe my letter is in the mail?

2008-11-13T17:26:00.004-06:00

Check out this news piece on the 7 year old blogger who received a letter from Barack Obama. Here's his blog, too. Since I've blogged about Barack a little bit, can I expect a letter? Probably not-Stas Gunkel's blog has a more intellectual slant than mine. For example, I don't think he mentions Obama finger puppets anywhere.

http://planetstas.blogspot.com/

What a Week

2008-11-09T15:43:00.006-06:00

It's been difficult to put my thoughts about the election together because I don't think they're any different than so many other people's feelings. Browse YouTube or Flickr and there are many more people out there with the same sorts of election week photos and videos that I have. Was it just me, or did Tuesday night just seem like it all unfolded too easily? No need to wake up at 3 am and check CNN to see if someone had surpassed 270 electoral votes, it was in the books by 10 pm. I like to think Obama was just running up the score with the rest of the electoral votes. He deserved to run up the score, too.

It was over a year ago that I started thinking about the election and who I wanted to support. I had paid attention to Senator Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, and I knew back then that I would support him should he run for president, but last year I couldn't even let myself think an entire "what if he won?" thought because I didn't want to get my hopes up (again) and be let down (again) on election night. I had prepared myself after the 2004 election to never invest my support into another national election, and I never thought I'd be fortunate enough to see a politician in my lifetime who has the same "it" factor as the Kennedy brothers. After listening to my share of Obama speeches and debates on CNN, though, I couldn't help but buy into the hope.

I've enjoyed watching our red state Nebraska show its blue colors over the past year. (and really show its blue colors on election night with Omaha's electoral vote going to Obama! Plus he won Lancaster County, although unfortunately that wasn't enough to earn a 2nd electoral vote.) I will never forget attending the Obama speech at the Civic Auditorium in Omaha last February (thank you, Senator Obama, for visiting our state!), nor the Obama rally held on O Street the following night, which was Nebraska's Caucus eve.

And then more rallies this week, plus the big announcement election night from Barry's bar and grill during the Lancaster County Democrats post-election party.

One of my favorite moments from the television coverage over the past week came at the end of the Stephen Colbert/John Stewart election night coverage on Comedy Central. At the 43:00 mark in this video, John Stewart announces that Senator Obama has won, and you can see that both of them are moved and are struggling to stay in character.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=209493

I know Obama is going to have a very difficult presidency. I wonder what it feels like to have the weight of this country and the weight of the world on your shoulders. Seems like it would be painful!

It was much better in person

2008-11-03T22:15:00.002-06:00

There was an Obama Rally tonight on Election Eve in downtown Lincoln. I don't think the video captures the excitement, but trust me, it was there! I've never seen anything like this in Lincoln before.

Yes We Carve

2008-10-30T15:03:00.001-05:00

I guess creating an Obama-inspired pumpkin this year is not going to make mine the most original jack-o-lantern on the block:

That little blue speck is Omaha!

2008-10-21T18:17:00.007-05:00

Check out the latest edition of the Washington Post's Electoral map. That tiny blue spot in Nebraska is Omaha's district-I'm going to do a little dance if it's still blue on November 4.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;strong&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href='http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/'&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;2008 Election Contest: Pick Your President&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/strong&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; - Predict the winner of the 2008 presidential election.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

For anyone who is sad that the debates are over and they'd like to host their own town hall meeting, consider crocheting these John McCain and Barack Obama finger puppets. The free patterns are courtesy of Lion Brand Yarn.

I don't see a Joe Biden pattern, but I think I found the Sarah Palin one.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Maybe Governor Palin is right, maybe I shouldn't have read so much Harry Potter.

Too many tomatoes

2008-10-07T20:52:00.005-05:00

I'd like to give a shout out to the third grade class... oh wait, wrong audience.

I can't remember picking this many tomatoes in any previous October. This is the bowlful I picked tonight. I tried to pick the ripest ones in case the colder temperatures do the rest of them in. Even though I love tomatoes, I have to say that I'm not terribly sorry they're reaching the end of their season. The plants are overgrown and need to be cleaned out.

This could've really topped off some kid's bug collection

2008-10-06T17:11:00.005-05:00

Saturday morning as Corrie is going about his regular business of getting the smoker fired up for some barbecued ribs, he came across this creature: (or this creature came upon Corrie.)

Unfortunately for you all, I don't think this picture does the spider justice. He was the largest and furriest live spider Corrie and I had ever seen. Can anyone tell what species it might be? I really hope it wasn't someone's lost pet because we're not going to be able to return it now.

House update

2008-09-28T19:22:00.005-05:00

Since I haven't done anything all week except cough and sneeze, here's a report on Corrie's productive weekend of porch column and window trim painting.

And to give you an idea of what the balcony color scheme will hopefully look like someday, here's a photo of the back of our house where we painted the gingerbread shingles a long time ago. (Ignore eyesore back porch.) Anyone willing to hang over the edge of the roof to paint the hard to reach places above the balcony? I doubt we will have takers on that one.

We have Ourselves Quite a House

2008-09-24T19:45:00.013-05:00

As I find myself uninspired to blog about anything I'm doing, it hasn't gone unnoticed that Corrie has been busy moving along on a project we started back in 2003: rebuilding our front porch. Here's how things looked back then. As far as we can tell, the concrete columns that appear here are the original columns for the porch. They were so heavy-looking and an odd fit for the house, I thought.

This wasn't a weekender project. Corrie (and I-I think I tore out some floorboards! I helped!) tore out the entire porch and columns. If I remember correctly, Corrie jacked up the house next to each column so he could easily knock them down. You didn't know which way the column would fall-we ended up taking out a section of our neighbor's fence with one column. Good thing they were nice neighbors and had a crappy fence anyway! I got a good photo of one of the columns coming down. Those blocks sort of bounce all over when they hit the ground. You wouldn't think concrete could bounce, but that's what it did.

We had little friends living under the column in the footing, including earthworms and roots from the awful vines that keep creeping over to the house.

I didn't remember this until I looked back at these photos, but Corrie must've been rebuilding each column after he knocked it out, which included pouring a new concrete footing, reusing the bottom set of blocks, adding a new concrete form on top of those blocks, then adding a wooden post on top of that. Here we have new column on the left and old column on the right.

If I didn't know that I took this photo, I'd say that Corrie is looking down at me in the hole I managed to fall into one day during this project. How come he can tell me not to fall into a hole one minute, and the next minute, what do you know, I've stepped backwards into the hole.

Once this portion of the project wrapped up, the porch stayed as it was over the following years. (Time flies!) Here's a shot the county assessor took in 2005 before they jacked up our property value.

Corrie lit a fire under himself (I don't light fires-I'm afraid of fire) late this summer and has replaced the temporary wood sections of the columns with permanent posts and has added nice finishing forms all around. We also have a nifty green and red railing now, which the porch never had before. Still some painting to do and a new ceiling to build, but things are looking up! I told Corrie the other night that we really do have ourselves quite a house. I think the front of it will be quite over the top if we ever also get the balcony redone.

ravelry.com

2008-09-14T18:32:00.005-05:00

Thank you, Jana, for recommending the craft community site, ravelry.com. Still in its beta phase, the site already has well over 100,000 members. (I thought that was the number I read when I put my name on a waiting list to register for the site. I can't seem to find that number again.)

The purpose of the site is to bring together all sorts of crafters-knitters, crocheter, designers, spinners, and dyers-into one online community that includes the ability to connect with other crafters, share patterns and advice, and keep track of your own projects and even your yarn stash with their notebook feature. You can log all of the specifics of your project, from the kind of yarn and needles you're using and where you bought your supplies to the date you started your project and how much progress you've made on it. Gone hopefully are the days when I had to bookmark a pattern or print it out and add to my overflowing pattern library-if you find a pattern on ravelry.com that you'd like to try, you can store it in your queue.

I've only added one project to my profile so far: a crocheted baby blanket in the fighting Illini colors for my friends, Kristin and Brian. (I don't think they read my blog, otherwise I suppose that ruins the surprise.) While not traditional baby blanket colors, Brian is an Illini alum, and since meeting I think Kristin has become a big fan as well. I hope they'll like it.

It's going to be pretty large, too, but I don't think a blanket can really be too large. Corrie's striped blanket is evidence of that.

Where do we keep the VP job description?

2008-09-03T17:11:00.002-05:00

I never meant for my blog to become political in nature, but I'm sorry, John McCain chose a running mate who a month ago didn't know what the vice president does? I will give her 1/2 a prop for mentioning that she wants to be productive on a daily basis. I still don't think she's qualified to take over the presidency should that need ever arise. I was once simultaneously VP of my National Jr. Honor Society and the Spanish Club-plus I'm scrappy, and a staunch character-does that make me qualified?

Fair Fun

2008-09-01T17:05:00.007-05:00

I can't believe after today the Nebraska State Fair will be done for another year. We went on opening day to see if my craft entries had garnered any prizes.

My baby blanket earned a third place ribbon in the crocheted baby blanket-multicolor category, and the pig and piglets won a 5th place ribbon in some kind of knitted-other category. I realize now I probably should've entered them in the toy category.

There were some very impressive entries across all categories, including this really cool felted tote with diamonds on it.

I keep changing my mind on what I'll enter next year, but I think I will try to do a couple of extraordinary projects. I'll take Corrie's advice and I'll make something out of wool yarn and will felt it, and I think I would also like to try one of these beaded doll dresses-do you think I needed to start on it about 5 years ago in order to finish it in time? It does look like there's some sewing involved, sewing and I don't go together.

Thanks to Seth who sent me this link, I could also make this rat, although I suspect Amy will beat me to it.

Corrie and I sampled various tasties while at the fair as well. I had my standard pork chop on a stick and fried peach on a stick. The pork chop was good, the peach coating wasn't as crispy as I remember it being last year. Corrie tried an Indian Fry bread taco this year, too.

One thing we didn't try was a beef sundae. Maybe next year.

Erica is Hung Up on Grey Gardens

2008-08-28T19:46:00.001-05:00

Actually, Madonna is hung up on Grey Gardens. Who thought of putting these two things together?

I realize now I waited way too long to see this documentary. While on the one hand, the dirtiness of their house has made me think harder about doing some housekeeping of my own, these two women, while a little odd, say some really brilliant things! I'm considering being Little Edie for Halloween-staunch character, indeed!

Tip

2008-08-22T22:07:00.005-05:00

I'm sorry to report that we lost Tip this week. She had been acting a little funny last weekend, and after a couple of trips to the vet, meds, and fetching her out of two different neighbor's gardens, she didn't make it. It breaks my heart, but I have to believe that we did everything we could to help her out. I fear as a stray cat's kitten, she probably had the cards stacked against her from the beginning. We held a small ceremony in the butterfly garden Wednesday night-the mom, Itty Bittiest, attended from afar.

This experience has brought us closer to Itty Bittiest-she has become a much friendlier cat over the past month. She's now been to the vet and had her first set of shots, so I think she'll become our 5th and final cat. She'll be spayed next week.

Tip, we won't forget our 5 weeks together and the spunkiness you brought to our backyard.

Sorry to start the weekend on such a sad note. The past week has been hard to get through, and I'm hoping things will start going a little better on all accounts in the coming weeks.

Here's what I've been up to

2008-08-14T19:59:00.005-05:00

Not alot of energy for blogging between weekly trips to Omaha for garage sales and birthday celebrations, or between watching the resident kitten for long periods of time. I have a few photos of Tip from this week-she should now be 5 weeks old.

I found Tip sleeping on top of my shoe! Corrie and I agree that's how we felt when we got home from work today.

Here she is awake, still on the shoes. And to compare size, Tip with mom:

I've been busy picking tomatoes, too, which is good. Here are a few. They're becoming salsa tonight.

More kitten photos and chicken and waffles

2008-08-02T10:52:00.007-05:00

Teensy Weensy, or Tip, (she has multiple names right now-look at the tip of her tail and you'll see where Tip came from) is approximately 3 weeks old this week and is getting around a bit.

From what I could tell a couple of days ago, TW/Tip's sight still isn't completely developed. She's also very wobbly. I haven't seen her in a couple of days because Itty Bittiest moved her underneath the porch after bringing a dead bird into the nest pictured above. I expected mom to bring dead animals around to show TW/Tip how to hunt, but I didn't expect it to happen this soon. No one is rushing to remove the dead bird-not me, not Corrie, and not Itty Bittiest. I think it will have to be dealt with today.

Ever since I went to LA but didn't have time to make it to Roscoe's, Corrie has been on a fried chicken and waffle kick. (who are we kidding, he was on that kick before the trip ever since Alton Brown talked about it on Feasting on Asphalt. He seemed heartbroken that I didn't get there, but I told him I thought that was an experience we'd need to share together someday. The fact it's 2-0 Erica in the authentic philly cheese steak category is already bad enough.) So we (by that I mean Corrie) made our own:

Corrie used boneless/skinless chicken breasts for Paula Deen's fried chicken recipe. The waffles came from his trusty Alton Brown recipe. Then you pour syrup over all of it. Syrup on chicken is tasty! Luther agreed-I shared my chicken with him.

One Fair Entry done, one to go

2008-07-27T11:08:00.006-05:00

My first Nebraska State Fair craft entry, a crocheted baby blanket, is complete! I'm a little surprised with myself that I finished it this early, but when the entry deadline is August 1 and the crafts themselves have to be delivered to the fairgrounds the week after that, I didn't have a lot of time on my hands.

Even though there's a 20 page entry booklet on the State Fair's website that listed every category of needlework project and various rules and regulations, the entry process itself wasn't too complicated. You can complete your entries online in just a couple of minutes. I didn't realize that needlework entries don't require a fee, yet you still get to purchase fair tickets at a reduced rate! Pretty cool!

It was a little tricky for me to decide which categories my projects belonged in. For my blanket, I couldn't decide if it belonged in the "one color" or "multiple color" category. As you can see from the photo, the yarn has some speckles to it. While it's not a project made of several different colors of yarn, I also didn't feel right calling it a "one color" project. So I listed it in the multi color category. For my pig and piglet project, it had to go in the "other" category of the knitting division.

This is probably one of the first times I will "block" my project. Not a fan of checking my gauge or blocking, I decided because this was for the fair and because this blanket had a lot of picots throughout the last border row, it was worth the trouble to try to do it this time. I fully expected to have a photo of the finished blocked project here, but long story short, I just started blocking it a little while ago and it's not done.

I chose this pattern because 1. I felt I was in a time crunch and wanted to make one I've made before so that I was very familiar with the pattern and wouldn't have to spend time figuring out any tricky parts, 2. it looks more complicated and time-consuming than it is, the most time-consuming part was the very last time around the border, 3. I thought it would look really nice in this yarn.

While I really loved the look of this yarn (Lion Brand baby soft candy print) before I started working with it, I feel like it would've looked better if the pattern didn't have so many spaces in it. I think that detracts from the speckled aspect of the yarn pattern. I have almost 2 skeins left over, so I plan to make something else with a tighter pattern to it so I can enjoy the speckles.

The knitted pig and piglets don't take long to knit, but they take awhile to finish (adding legs and ears and snaps). It would be nice to start and finish them within the next week.

first tomato (sort of) and first kitten photo

2008-07-27T11:01:00.007-05:00

Here's our first tomato of the season-one from the better boy variety. It has a little blossom end rot to it, I'm afraid, but I think the rest is still edible. (I call this "sort of" our first tomato because I already picked a smaller early girl that had more rot to it than tomato. I'm not going to panic because it seems like our first tomatoes each season have this, then the rest are fine. I realize I should take more steps to prevent this in the first place.)

Also, the first photo of our outdoor kitten! Mom and kitten have moved out of their hole onto the rooftop of their hole. Look closely-the kitten is batting Itty Bittiest in the face.

Beer Can chicken

2008-07-27T10:58:00.004-05:00

We enjoyed our first beer can chicken last week, thanks to Corrie's new smoker/grill combo and his willingness to cook something like that on a Monday night. Not only was the chicken very moist, tender, and had just the right amount of smoke flavor, the extra cans of budweiser didn't taste too bad, either.

The Informed Gardener

2008-07-20T12:14:00.004-05:00

I came across The Informed Gardener by Linda Chalker-Scott during the BEA conference in May. It was one of the new books the University of Washington Press, whose booth was right across from ours, was promoting front and center in their display.

The beautiful cover first caught my eye, but I first suspected the book might be geared towards gardeners in the Pacific Northwest, since that's where it was published. That wasn't the case, though-it will be a useful book to any gardener in any part of the country. This is a collection of columns that the author had written since 2000 on various horticulture myths and misconceptions. (Her most current columns can be read on her web page.)

The book is broken down into six sections, including Critical Thinking, Understanding How Plants Work, How/What/When/Where to Plant, Soil Additives, Mulches, and Miracles in a Bag/Bottle/Box. Each column is neatly broken into sections: the myth, the reality, the bottom line, and a list of references. One of the myths she dispels is that watering on a hot sunny summer day (like today!) will scorch your plants' leaves. After explaining various causes of leaf scorch (including too little/too much water, salt, and poor root health) she recommends in her "bottom line" section to water plants anytime they show signs of drought and to preferably do that watering in the morning, to avoid over-fertilizing, and to make sure the plant site is optimal for root and shoot growth.

One of the other practices she takes issue with is backfilling a plant or tree hole with soil additives. I've always thought it was a good idea to add a little organic matter when I'm transplanting tomatoes or other plants, but she argues while the roots may grow vigorously for awhile, when they reach that edge between the organic matter and the native soil they may turn back towards the organic matter rather that reaching outward, which establishes a weak root system. She also suggests that the organic matter is too porous, and water will tend to move along to the native soil. Her recommendation is to instead add the organic matter as a top dressing, which you can continue to maintain without disturbing the plant.

I enjoyed this book. It was a fast read that encourages common sense, efficient, and cost-effective gardening. I'll probably re-visit it next spring before I head into the next gardening season.

A Week of Kitten Discovery and Near Sporting Triumphs

2008-07-19T20:14:00.004-05:00

It's hard to believe I was part of two near sporting triumphs in the same week, but that's what happened. Last Sunday, I ran the annual Lincoln Mile, and even though I was the lead female in the 30-39 yr. old heat for exactly 1/4 of a mile, I couldn't sustain that pace and ended up coming in 4th in my age group with a slower than usual time. Had I just trained a little bit instead of only deciding to do the race the week before, or just ran as fast as last year, I would've easily placed. I've decided this is the last year I come in 4th, I'm winning a Lincoln Running company gift certificate next year.

Last night, our coed softball team played our second summer tournament game in the hopes of making it to the final game where a win guaranteed us a free t-shirt. (Quite the spoils!) Our game was very close, we just needed to find a way to score a couple more runs; we lost 6-5. The good news was we got to go to the bar earlier, and we also didn't have to sit around in the 90 degree heat for an hour waiting for the championship game. Ah well, the fall season will be here before we know it.

In between the sporty heartbreaks, I finally figured out where our outdoor friend, Itty Bittiest, had been the past week. After she didn't show up for breakfast a couple of days in a row, I started to worry that something had happened to her. Then on Monday, she appeared on the porch, had her meal, then scampered around the corner of the house and burrowed into a hole next to the back porch. I thought that was an odd place to go to, then I heard the tell-tale sound of a baby kitty! Itty Bittiest had had kittens!

All week, Itty Bittiest has come out for meals, water, and some petting and stretching, then heads back to her hole. From what we can tell, there's only one kitten who looks like a tortoise-shell like mom. No pictures of mom and kitten yet, but we are on kitten watch now. Tuesday night was very dicey-a strong storm rolled through around 10 o'clock, and water was pouring down the roof by the kitten hole and seemed like it would eventually flood the hole. I stood out in the rain swapping out flower pots to catch the drips (what else is a cat lady supposed to do? I would've stayed out there all night, too), then Corrie came out and crafted a little fort out of a landscape block and the old barbecue grill cover. The rain could then run off onto the patio. Sure enough, Itty Bittiest and baby stayed dry all night. I still wish they'd move to a better home, like on the back porch.

Corrie is on the YouTube

2008-07-16T21:45:00.001-05:00

From Saturday night's Zoo Bar celebration, that's Corrie's arm in the lower left-hand corner!

Your Blue isn't Patriotic Enough

2008-07-05T15:32:00.009-05:00

I was determined to enjoy a slow-paced Fourth of July at home, which I did, although looking back it seems like a lot happened in one day. I started the morning with an 8:45 bike ride with Terence and Manjit; I thought 8:45 sounded like the crack of dawn on a day off, but I was back home before 11 with 20 more miles to log on my transcontinental trip. Then I baked a sweet potato pie while Corrie smoked pork.

After a stint of practicing my clarinet for tonight's Star Spangeled Spectacular concert at Antelope Park, (struggling to play for an hour without all of the muscles in my face giving out. I have no idea how I used to play 3, 4, 5, or 6 hours a day in college) Corrie and I made our great-tasting Star Spangled drinks. When I was mixing the blue layer, Corrie told me the blue wasn't patriotic enough, so I added more blue food coloring. After careful coaching, Corrie got the order of the layers right as well.

I also finished the long-awaited crocheted cat bed. I thought by crocheting, rather than sewing, the seams together I would get a nice-looking corner to everything. It looked nice on some edges, but trying to single crochet the arms and back onto the main piece was kind of difficult. It's not perfect, but hey, it's a couch for our cats.

Norman waited out the final couch assembly with a nap on the extra foam from what I put inside the couch.

Around dinnertime, I gave my dad a call to see how he was doing and to recall past July Fourths. When we were growing up, sparklers and snakes were the only legal things in Omaha (they might still be) so well ahead of the Fourth before the state troopers were keeping an eye out, we'd make a stop at Rockport on the way back from seeing relatives in Missouri. The parking lots of those two shops were always full of cars with Nebraska plates. My parents followed a pretty conservative budget for fireworks, so we usually got a nice assortment of fountains, sparklers, tanks, parachutes, snakes, and smoke bombs. We were never too interested in most of the stuff that just made noise. At some point, my dad had to start buying festival balls, which would make up the finale of our show every year. Despite very careful and stringent rules placed by my parents, we had one or two fires growing up. My dad only remembers the one time a stray firework caught the bushes on fire, but I think there was also another time when something caught on fire on the roof.

The day ended with me shutting all of the windows and trying to make all of the cats who were hiding under the bed (Norman and Todd) feel better. They were not fans of fireworks.

Vote Early, Vote Often

2008-07-02T17:56:00.004-05:00

My friend Zip's band, Sarah Benck and the Robbers, is in the running for a spot at this year's Lollapalooza! They entered the Last Band Standing Contest and made it through round 1 (top 100 bands by casted votes move on) and through round 2 (celebrity judges chose their favorite 20 bands) on to round 3, where they need to end up in the top 5 bands with the most votes cast. Those final 5 bands get to go to Chicago to compete live for 2 positions in the Lollapalooza show.

I've seen Sarah Benck and the Robbers (Zip is one of the robbers) perform several times at Lincoln's Zoo Bar. They're a tight group with a style that's a little hard to describe-it's a fusion of blues, rock, jazz, a little funk as well. Sarah has a heck of a voice, and she's a pretty good guitar player, too! They were just included in a writeup in Spin magazine about the Omaha music scene (see pg. 119) as well.

Here's a clip from YouTube, you can also learn more and listen to other tunes on their MySpace page:

So if you like what what you hear or you just want to do me a favor, cast your vote for Sarah Benck and the Robbers here. To prove you're real, they'll send you a follow-up link to click, so don't forget to do that part. You can vote once a day per e-mail account from now until July 13. Let's help put Sarah Benck and the Robbers on the national music scene!

photo of the day

2008-06-25T20:26:00.003-05:00

Hell's Angels has a new leader. His name is Todd.

We're all enders

2008-06-24T22:00:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading The Enders Hotel by Brandon R. Schrand, winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. I had looked forward to reading it because I knew he had a good story to tell-Brandon spent most of his childhood growing up in his family-owned Enders Hotel, Café, and Bar of Soda Springs, Idaho. Brandon is just a year or two older than me, so it was easy to connect his childhood and adolescent memories to what I remember of my own childhood, a time before cell phones, home computers, Netflix, Facebook, MySpace, etc. You had to make up your own fun, whether it was while reading a good book, exploring your house and town, or being with friends. (one difference was I didn't live in any hotels. I more than once, however, fantasized about my family living in Westroads Mall in Omaha. I think I was going to eat every meal at Bishop's Cafeteria and take the elevators everywhere I went. I could sleep far far away from my sister in a place like that.)

Brandon shares the stories of many interesting characters who came to the Enders Hotel to stay for various lengths of time--ex-boxers, ex-cons, down-on-their-luck families, you name it--I was sometimes afraid to read on in case something was about to go down either involving Brandon, his family, or the guests. He also shares his own personal stories of secret clubhouses, sinking rafts, childhood friendships, and some drug and alcohol experimentation that I naively didn't see coming. (although I have to say I think Brandon is the first person in my age group I've found who also remembers his parents smoking pot. I knew I couldn't be the only one paying attention to this stuff in the 70s.) Something about his coming of age antics reminds me of Stephen King's The Body.

I won't give away the ending, but I will tell you the Enders Hotel still stands. If I ever find myself in Idaho, I'd like to check it out.

Lastly, I really liked the cover. It wasn't until after it was far along in the design process and without any earlier consultation that the author told the designer that's exactly what their keys and key chains looked like. (That's the water cooler story I heard, anyway.)

Star-Spangled treat

2008-06-22T18:44:00.003-05:00

It's not too early to start stockpiling the Bacardi pina colada and strawberry daquiri frozen mixers. If you wait until the week of the 4th to do so, you will be like me last year, who had to go to 6 different stores to get 2 cans of pina colada and 1 can of daquiri mix.

I spied this recipe last year in the Lincoln Journal Star, and while I can't find the copy I clipped, I found the same recipe at allrecipes.com, which is a pretty good site that welcomes user reviews, ratings and photos. (besides the really extreme user comments, I like getting an honest opinion on a recipe from someone, maybe a helpful tip on what they'd do differently the next time so I can do it that way the first time.) Here's the direct link, or you can view the recipe below as well:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Star-Spangled-Mixers/Detail.aspx

Our photo from last year's rendition. Corrie flipped the order of colors in the big one-every bomb pop I've ever had has the white in the middle. I think a couple of the user comments mentioned that it's hard to make a batch at home and not have it melt, but Corrie just made each batch (start with the white, then do the blue, then wash your blender, then make the red) and froze them in their own containers. Then we had bomb pop frozen drinks for the next week!

Star-Spangled Mixers

Submitted by: BACARDI® Mixers
Rated: 4 out of 5 by 4 members

Yields: 15 servings

"Show your patriotic spirit at your next party with these stunning red, white and blue layered blended ice drinks."

INGREDIENTS:

2 (10 fluid ounce) cans

BACARDI® Mixers Pina

Colada frozen mix

1 (10 fluid ounce) can

BACARDI® Mixers

Strawberry Daiquiri frozen mix

1 1/2 cups BACARDI®

Rum

Blue Curacao or blue food

coloring

15 cups ice

Strawberries, for garnish

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Blend together 2 cups or 1 can of BACARDI® Mixers Pina Colada mix, 1/2 cup of BACARDI® Rum and 5 cups of ice for 45 to 60 seconds or until uniform. Add 7-10 drops of blue food coloring or Blue Curacao to taste. Blend and fill each cocktail glass 1/3 of the way full.
2.	Repeat step 1 using BACARDI® Mixers Pina Colada. (Without food coloring.)
3.	Repeat step 2 using BACARDI® Mixers Strawberry Daiquiri.
4.	Garnish with strawberries and serve immediately or freeze and serve for a tasty treat.

Printed from Allrecipes.com 6/23/2008

Bernie crochet pattern

2008-06-17T20:36:00.004-05:00

For my Firebrand pals-

bernie refrigerator magnet crochet pattern:

supplies:

-small amount of turquoise yarn
-size F crochet hook
-2 googly eyes
-small amount of white felt
-glue gun
-magnet

1. chain 13, turn, skip 1st ch, sc in next 11 chains, 3 sc in last chain.

2. working in free loops of the chain, sc in next 7 chains, ch 3, turn.

3. skip 1st ch, sc in next 9 st, 2 sc in ea of next 3 st, sc in next 6 st, ch 3, turn.

4. skip 1st ch, sc in next 10 st, 2 sc in ea of the next 3 st, 1 sc in next 5 st, ch 3, turn.

5. skip 1 st, sc in next 10 st, sl st in next st, finish off. Weave in any loose ends.

6. cut pieces for back of eyes and mouth out of felt. glue felt, eyes, and magnet to flame. Do all of this to whichever side of the flame you like.

(photo to be replaced by finished product photo)

Tornado Tips You Can't get from Ken Siemek

2008-06-12T20:05:00.006-05:00

The Midwest has been hit hard with tornadic weather the past three weeks in a row. Here's a picture my mom sent me of last week's storm moving into Omaha:

Awhile back, I ran across a list of tornado tips my dad and I, along with my friend, Monica, came up with in 1989 during a tornado warning. They're on the first and only used page of a notebook labeled "science":

my tips:

1. Go rent a video camera.
2. Take a walk.
3. Call the tv station and complain about the programming.
4. If things look really bad, go to the farthest video store and rent all those tapes you haven't seen yet. (ha! how dated is that? Renting videos back then was a novelty to us.)
5. Whatever you do, don't listen to the weatherman.
6. Stay in your basement a half hour less than what the weatherman says.

and from my dad:

-climb on top of your roof for a better look
-If you don't hear sirens honk your car horn until the battery runs down. (comment from Monica: explodingly gnarly idea!!)
-calmly make a trip to Bakers for emergency supplies (our Bakers at 72nd and Blondo is now closed-it makes me sad)
-call Aunty Emm

and from Monica, who I think added these tips the following day at school:

-order out 4 pizza.
-Invite your friends over and sit on the front porch eating triscuits and cheese spread and when you're done, go to the disco. And then to the dentist!

and one update from my sister from this past weekend:
-continue waiting tables at M's because no one told you there was a tornado warning.

Remembering Ray

2008-06-06T21:50:00.003-05:00

I certainly didn't expect I'd be writing another tribute this month, but here I am. I found out Monday that my friend Ray Frohn had died in his sleep Saturday. I met Ray when he worked in our warehouse back around 2003. Somewhere along the way he found out I ran in the local road races, which is something Ray did back in the day.

It became an annual routine for me to look for Ray from his regular vantage point on the marathon route, Sheridan Blvd. at South Street. Anyone from Lincoln knows that heading East on South Street is a bit of a hill, plus at that time of race morning, if it isn't pouring rain, you're dealing with a lot of sun in your eyes. That has always been one of my least favorite parts of the course, but once I knew to look for Ray at the top of the hill, it wasn't so bad.

I think runners look forward to seeing people they know at particular points in the race, it's what keeps you moving forward. There were always a lot of people around that spot where Ray would be, so I'd quickly scan the crowd to find him so we wouldn't miss each other.

"Hi Ray!" I'd shout and frantically wave. (it was still early in the race, I still had the energy to be frantic.)
"Hi Sweetheart! Let me get your picture!" Ray would shout back.

It was always "Hi Sweetheart!" with Ray, and I didn't mind that. Awhile back I was walking down 11th street and heard from the coffee shop across the street from me, "Hi Sweetheart!" and I knew it was Ray. I wouldn't let a lot of people get away with calling me that, but I hope Ray wouldn't mind me saying that his fatherly qualities were always shining very brightly, so his friendly greetings made me feel good. Ray was always smiling and joking around. You couldn't have a conversation with Ray and not leave it feeling good. (although sometimes the conversations went a really long time. Ray liked to talk.)

At his service today, everyone talked about what a good friend and proud father Ray was. His quirkiness touched a lot of lives. The Havelock Run 10k is tomorrow, and I have to find a way to get through that on what has turned out to be minimal training over the last couple of months. I will be thinking of my pal Ray on the 84th Street climb for sure.

Lewis Black on His Publisher

2008-06-03T19:55:00.003-05:00

I wonder if this would work with any of my press's authors. (the part where he's begging you to buy his new book, Me of Little Faith.)

BEA Wrap-Up, part 1

2008-06-02T21:25:00.003-05:00

Even though I focused on a few priorities this past weekend at this year's BookExpo America in L.A., I think it's going to take several posts to sort it all out.

Sure, I got my picture taken with Daniel Vosovic from Project Runway, and I snuck a sneaky photo of Alec Baldwin, also saw Lewis Black's act, but the highlight was getting to meet Laurie Perry, aka Crazy Aunt Purl. I had planned for this-I brought along the cat bed crochet pattern I've been working on for an autograph, but I hid it in one of my press's book catalogs on the way over to her booth. I don't think most of the fanatics in this business have a lot of room to ask questions as to why I'm carrying around a cat bed pattern, but I didn't want to take any chances.

I was far up in Laurie's first book signing line. I noticed right away she was as cheery as I expected. She was really nice to her publisher's booth staff as well (being the first one to say hi when one of them walked by) which I have a feeling isn't the case with every author. I got my copy of her book, Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair signed to the Yia Yia's craft night group, and I told her if she's ever in Nebraska, she needs to come to craft night. Laurie then mentions that she's read about a book about a girl in Nebraska and also mentions flyover fiction, which happens to be a series my press publishes! What followed was a series of squeals.

me: "that's us! We publish flyover fiction!"
Laurie: "no way!" (sorry, Laurie, if that's not a direct quote)

I left that book catalog at her table so she could peruse our books. I got a picture, too!

I went on a gardening vacation, and all I got was rain

2008-05-26T18:03:00.004-05:00

Well, half the week we had rain. I'm wrapping up my annual vacation week that's supposed to be dedicated to all things gardening, and while the beginning of the week was great, we've had rain 3 of the last 4 days. I did get 11 hand-grown tomato plants in the ground (3 better boys, 3 early girls, 2 brandywine, 2 black brandywine, and 1 jellybean) as well as a couple of bell pepper plants, bush bean seeds, onion sets, snap peas (I think it's too late for them, but Corrie wanted some peas) and also corn. (also not my idea but I was willing to give it a shot.)

It's a little difficult to see all of the tomato plants-Corrie installed cow fencing around most of them to serve as a really gigantic tomato cage.

When I couldn't garden, I did some minimal cleaning of the house and also worked on my Burnie fridgies. We also took Luther to his annual vet appointment which is no small undertaking, and we saw DeVotchKa in concert at the Slowdown in Omaha. It was a really good show, really nice club. There aren't many seats there, it's mostly set up for standing room, but we were lucky enough to get a high table in the balcony. (if you ever go and want a seat, get there really early!) I didn't take my camera because I get too distracted by it and forget to enjoy the live show, but there's one video on youtube right now of one of the last numbers. I'm not sure why they took the video from this angle rather than from a vertical perspective. You can't see us, but we were eye level with this woman at her highest point on the fabric.

I also finished watching season 1 of Flight of the Conchords. Thank you, Amy L. for introducing me to this show! I can't stop talking about how much I love it. The humor and songs are great! I think I might dress up as Mel, their lone fan, for Halloween this year. Unfortunately, I just figured out that they're performing in L.A. this Friday while I'm in town for BookExpo America, but their show is sold out! Maybe I'll run into them somewhere. I'm going to keep my eye out!

Remembering Kirt

2008-05-18T20:46:00.007-05:00

Last Tuesday, I found out that my former boss and friend, Kirt Card, had died Monday morning. The initial shock and disbelief became sadness when I read his touching obituary in the paper Wednesday morning. Now that I've had a few days to think about this, I wanted to write a recollection so I could remember a few of the great things about Kirt.

Kirt hired me as the press receptionist ten years ago this month. I first interviewed with the assistant customer service manager, Marcy, who asked me standard questions, then I met with Kirt for a little while. He was very soft spoken and didn't have the firmest hand shake, and I don't know that he really asked me any questions. He told me all about the job and what kinds of things I'd do as part of the customer service department when I wasn't distributing mail or answering the phone. He mentioned their fulfillment program, Cat's Pajamas. I remember thinking that was a funny name for a computer program.

I learned a lot in my first few months with the press about the book publishing business. Kirt took the time to teach me all of the fundamentals, from the difference in retail discounts to how we create our entry codes in Cats. I think early on Kirt would ask me to bring a book record up on my computer screen, like Little Britches by Ralph Moody. I'd slowly think through the entry code formula: first three letters of last name, then probably the first three letters of the title, and if it's a paperback, it's two letters plus an X. By the time I'd come up with MOOLIX, Kirt would have already told me what it was. It amazed me that he could come up with those codes so quickly. I'm faster now, but not as fast as Kirt.

Early on, I remember entering gratis copy orders for our sales reps into Cats, and the first one Kirt showed me how to do was for Mary Mellow. As he was helping me find her customer account, he started singing that mellow yellow song. For a quiet and reserved guy, I thought this was pretty funny. I remember another time that first summer where he had me entering an exhibit invoice and I kept messing up part of it. Kirt never lost his patience with me; he'd come back and explain each time what I had done wrong. That was the first day I ever saw Kirt go get lunch-I was sure that my mistakes had driven him to eat.

As quiet as Kirt was, he set a huge example for his staff. His knowledge of our book list was extensive, and he also knew about any other publication that came out of the University. I bet on an almost weekly basis I'd take a call from someone who was looking for the weeds of Nebraska book, which I knew wasn't ours but I'd never remember which department published it-Kirt would always get the customer to the right place.

Kirt loved what he did-that was obvious in the enthusiasm he shared when talking about funny customer requests or complaints. He and I used to take turns coming in over Christmas break to clear the voice mail of hang ups and take notes on any legitimate calls, and we enjoyed seeing who would get the highest number of hangups on their assigned days.

I think I felt close to Kirt in part because Corrie worked with his wife, Cheryl, in university housing. She was equally kind, thoughtful, and cheerful-she'd always keep on Corrie's case to bring me to the annual residence hall holiday dinner that she was in charge of. Corrie also worked with their daughters, in particular Deb and also Deb's husband Josh, so the Card family and Corrie and me were intertwined quite a bit. Corrie and I were with Deb on her 21st birthday, and I thought it was pretty funny that I was helping get my boss's daughter drunk. We went to Deb's graduation party at the Card house, too, which was the same day as the 2000 volleyball championship game. Her party partly consisted of us watching Nebraska win that championship in a tight 5 game match. Kirt and Cheryl were huge volleyball fans, and it was fun to watch them get so worked up about it. Their house was so comfy-I felt like I was at my own family gathering.

I think I got to know Cheryl better because I went to a few Pampered Chef, tupperware, Partylite etc. parties at their house. Of course there was always excellent snacks and vodka slush if you were lucky. Corrie and I went to all of the daughter's weddings. I remember when Rachel got married, the first of the three weddings, Kirt had to take dance lessons for the father-daughter dance, and he was nervous about it. It all went well, though! I caught the bouquet at that wedding, too.

I felt bad leaving Kirt and the customer service department in 2001 for a job in the marketing department, but I wanted new challenges, and I had to take advantage of the opportunity when it became available. I still got to work with Kirt-I'd need a copy of a book for something and he'd personally deliver it to me within hours. It's just how he did things.

In 2003, Kirt left the press without any warning. My heart sunk when I came into work that day and his office was cleared out. I think it must've been September of that year because I remember shopping for fall plants at Earl May that night and out of nowhere had to keep from crying because the whole thing hit me like a ton of bricks. I focused on my asters and got the heck out of there.

I'd get updates on Kirt from his kids or other people over the following years. It must've been early in 2006 that I heard he had a serious lung problem, then I heard that he and Cheryl were going to Missouri to see if he was a candidate for a lung transplant. Then came the awful news from Corrie-they had been in an accident on the way back (after finding out that yes, Kirt was a good candidate) and Cheryl had died and Kirt was in critical condition. I kept hoping that somehow he had the story wrong-there was just no way it could be true. I remember it being particularly awful to have to share that news with my co-workers, not only because so many of them were also close to Kirt and Cheryl, but also because I think just the week before that our co-worker Richard Eckersley had died. Those were brutal weeks.

I've thought about Kirt and Cheryl and their kids a lot over the past couple of years. I constantly bugged Corrie to get updates on Kirt from Deb when he'd see her; I regret not just calling their house to see how he was doing. Even though I now know he probably spent a lot of his last time very sad about Cheryl, I'm glad to know that he was still taking classes and had all those great grandkids to play with. Kirt and Cheryl did a heck of a job raising those girls-they are so strong, and they're my heroes. Kirt's passing gave those of us still at the press who knew him another chance to give him a proper sendoff. Tish came up with the great idea to have a food day in honor of Kirt on Friday, and we brought as many of the things that Kirt used to bring to food days that we could remember. (tortilla roll-ups, fruit pizza, banana cake, and the same Knorr soup mix spinach dip that Kirt made.) It was comforting. I'm also asking anyone who worked with Kirt to add their fond memories to a book that we can later give to the girls.

Spectating is a Sport of its Own

2008-05-05T19:42:00.007-05:00

The 31st Annual Lincoln Marathon and Half Marathon took place yesterday morning at 7 am. I had decided a couple of months ago that I wasn't going to be doing the half marathon for the first time in five years but I still wanted to show up and cheer on the runners I knew and the runners I didn't know.

I needed to get up at 5:45, not pleasing on a Sunday, but it was a little later than if I had to prep myself for the race itself. I got up, had a bowl of cereal, threw on my clothes, and got my bike out the door. As soon as I stepped out on the front porch, I could hear the loud speaker from the start of the race on campus, which was enough to pump me up and to get me off the porch and on the bike and not regret getting up so early.

The weather was absolutely perfect-upper 30s or lower 40s I'd guess, sunshine, no clouds, and hardly any wind. This was another record year for marathon and half marathon entrants; they had bumped up the entrant number to 6000, and last I had heard, they had less than 100 spots left days before the race. That's a lot of people to comb through at the start to find anyone you knew, but I found Tish and Joeth fairly quickly. After wishing them good luck, I wandered around and took a few photos and videos of the starting line. The race starts outside of our campus recreation center and the runners line up on the Vine St. loop that stretches around towards the football stadium and back towards Morrill Hall. It was hard to get a photo of the entire mass of people, but I took one with a view from the back of the starting line as well as the front.

If I watch one of these marathons again, I will do a better job of jockeying for a good spot to take photos and videos. I took a 15 second video of the start of the race. You have to look around this guy in the black to see the runners, I didn't realize he stuck out so much when I was taking it. After calling the runners to their mark, about 10 seconds went by, then finally the canon was fired. I completely forgot about the canon, thus you will note how the video shakes at that moment.

Recorded inspirational music such as the Chariots of Fire song played as the runners started their race. (I continue to be annoyed that a couple of years ago, they stopped asking Nebraska's National Guard band to show up and play some nice marches, which was my favorite part of the race. I guess not everyone shared my viewpoint on that.) There appeared to be an endless number of runners-the last ones crossed the starting line after 10 minutes had already gone by.

Luckily, the Lincoln Marathon uses timing chips that runners tie into their shoe laces. Their individual time doesn't start until that chip is activated at the starting line. So it's no big deal to be starting 10 minutes late.

After seeing the last runners begin, I headed out on my bike to 20th and Calvert, which is roughly around the 9 mile mark in the race. I forgot until I got out there that this is the end of one of the few hills of a relatively flat course, so the runners sometimes look pretty rough at this point. The spectators know this and seem to be even more supportive. Here's a clip of a stream of runners coming up 20th St.

I watched for awhile, then I headed back towards campus so I could see Tish and Joeth at the halfway point. I guess I must be a really slow bike rider because somehow I missed them only 4 miles farther into the course. This made me realize that these spectators who I've seen in the past go from one location to another and then another on the route to see their family and friends run by have it down to a science. It's very easy to miss someone unless you have an almost exact idea what time they'll hit each mile marker. I took a good video nonetheless at 10th and Q St. This is a pivotal spot in the race-those who have signed up for the full marathon continue down 10th Street, or if they need/want to, they can make the turn and finish the race as a half marathoner instead. (People who sign up for the half marathon can't make the choice the other way around.) For me I always knew I was turning that corner and was always ecstatic to be so close to the finish. But for some, they have a big decision to make there. It's the point of no return.

Unfortunately, I didn't see Tish or Joeth cross the finish line, but Tish and I were able to backtrack and find a pretty pooped Joeth on the course back by the capitol with a half mile or so to go. After breezing through various other races in the last couple of years, I think Joeth has finally found a challenging distance for herself.

I headed back home before noon and felt much better than I normally do on marathon day. It didn't stop me from having a tasty DiLeon's burrito for lunch, which would be my normal post-run reward. I had put in my 13 miles, it was on my bike instead of on my shoes.

What does cashmere smell like?

2008-05-01T19:55:00.004-05:00

Whatever it smells like, I guess I will be smelling like it for 24 hours at a time, 7 days a week. Because I had a coupon, I bought Lady Speedstick 24/7 "pure cashmere". Seemed odd to me.

Leo the Lion is back!

2008-05-01T17:09:00.002-05:00

It was a slow news day in Lincoln yesterday. Here's the lead story in the Lincoln Journal Star's local section from Wednesday's edition:

http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/04/29/news/local/doc48179e28e63e8936413794.txt

There are about 10 comments following the online version talking about how great Leo the paper-eating lion is.

You can also listen to the story of the voice behind Leo here.

Weekend Warrior

2008-04-29T18:38:00.006-05:00

Well, I wasn't really a weekend warrior, I just feel like one. I played my first softball game of the season on Sunday. We won even with only 9 players, which in co-ed rules means we had to take an automatic out every time the 10th player was up to bat. (It's a very sexist rule. I don't want to get into it any more than that. You can actually play with 5 girls and 4 guys and not take the out. They seem to think you're trying to get away with something if you do it the other way.) It felt pretty good at the time, but of course yesterday various aches and pains set in, even though I went walking at lunch and biked to and from work in order to keep the lactic acid on the move. The pain has eased up today, but I still didn't bother trying to go on a run, I suspected it would've been a waste of time. I always hope my running keeps me in shape for softball, but when most of my running is done at a slow and steady pace and softball is the opposite of that, I guess I run into problems. More pre-game stretching is necessary, I've decided.

I've been reading about running lately, and it has pepped me up about the sport. This fall, UNP is publishing Personal Record:A Love Affair with Running by Rachel Toor and I just finished an advance copy.

This is a collection of 26.2 chapters (note the marathon distance reference!) that chronicles Rachel's path from couch potato to ultra-distance runner. While there are several things I don't have in common with the writer, such as my speed (no speed on my part!), distance that I'm going to run in any given day (I will never be out on a course for 24 hours straight!), I found we had a lot of things in common, admittedly, just like a lot of runners do. I have a big watch, although not as big as Rachel's, I have text messaged my friend Steve all of my mile split times from a 10 mile race, and while Rachel seems to favor peanut m&ms during and after races, I have been known to put away a 1 lb. cheeseburger after the half-marathon. Rachel also explains "speed goggles", a term she gives to her tendency to find the average-looking fast male runner very attractive. I too admit I enjoy the scenery at an out-and-back race, where I pass every single runner who is ahead of me. I think we both dislike stretching as well, thus my softball woes.

I recommend this book for runners of all ages and abilities, and I especially enjoyed the fact that it was a woman's perspective. It's a fast read, and Rachel writes with a great sense of humor.

Twitter Yourself Right out of Jail

2008-04-25T20:24:00.002-05:00

Even though I created a twitter account a few months ago, so far I hadn't had a burning desire to twitter, but maybe I need to keep it in mind. From cnn.com, man twitters himself out of jail:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Homespun Fun

2008-04-24T19:29:00.005-05:00

Corrie's matching pillow and afghan set is officially complete, unless I decide to go back and sew a little around the button holes, because I suspect that the buttons are going to slip out some.

I think I will make myself a pillow as well (as I bought an extra one that was too small for Corrie's cover, and I was too lazy to return it), perhaps in purple, however I have had my fill of working with Lion Brand's homespun yarn. I like that it's so soft, but I get tired of struggling with it fraying, and I left one mistake in the pillow because I was afraid if I backtracked, I'd lose a stitch and with the bumpiness of this yarn, I'd never find the stitch again.

I've moved on to the next project: an overdue replacement for the kitty couch. I crocheted this purple one at least ten years ago, and it has seen plenty of kitty gnawing and kitty naps.

Don't think I came up with this pattern idea myself-someone else did and hopefully made some money off of it. (Does the cat model receive royalties?)

I've done the lower two side panels so far. Luther seems to approve. I'm using Red Heart TLC Essentials-Sedona. I think I was swayed a little to use it when I saw the kitty on the label, but now that I've gotten into it, I'm afraid it's going to look like a couch from the 70s. Oh well.

v bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb v (Todd says "hello!")

Happy Earth Day!

2008-04-22T21:09:00.006-05:00

Following closely behind my love of red tulips is my love of yellow tulips. Here are the most recent blooms in my yard.

We also have some pink hyacinths blooming-I planted 5 bulbs last year, it appears only 4 made the cut.

Jana pointed out that my yarn crafts aren't coming up much in my blog. (Their time will come, probably around mid-November all the way into December when I start cranking out the Christmas decorations and gifts. My goal this year is not to be finishing my Christmas crafts in the car on the way to Omaha for Christmas. That was cutting it a little close.) So here's a nod to Jana-I was trying to finish Corrie's pillow tonight when my orange helpers got in the way.

That's ok, I still need to buy buttons for the pillow, so it wasn't going to get done tonight anyway.

My first tulips

2008-04-21T18:06:00.004-05:00

It's amazing what a couple of 70 degree days will do! These red tulips went from mostly green to full out red all on Saturday.

I think red tulips are my favorite. I love these yellow centers. When she was little, my sister used to talk about how someday she wanted a yard full of tulips so she wouldn't have any grass to mow. I don't think she understood that a tulip's bloom time is very short, or sometimes non-existent, like what happened last year when we had literally frigid weather in late April/early May. Corrie claimed I personally killed all of the tulips last year, but I beg to differ.

I planted some spinach and lettuce seeds yesterday. I hope they don't wash away like my seeds did last spring.

Grow little plants, grow!

2008-04-16T20:33:00.005-05:00

Maybe it's the warmer weather that triggered it, but I just realized that I think my seedlings should be bigger than they are at this point in their growing process-I'm a little panicky. I just transplanted most of the tomato plants to bigger containers last night, so hopefully the extra room will help. I guess there still is another month until the frost date, so I shouldn't worry so much. I won't be moving them outside anytime soon.

Congratulations go out to Td, who from what I have seen has the first tulip in Lincoln blooming in his yard.

Thrift Store Goodies

2008-04-06T18:59:00.008-05:00

While shopping for an April Fool's chicken at my local thrift store, I spied this game from the 70s that I wasn't familiar with: Constructo-straws. The package looked too complete and a very good deal at $3.99, so I bought it.

It didn't take me long to find someone who did know and love this game; my friend, Amy L. said she and her brother played it a lot when they were kids. (although is it really a game? I guess not. Just a toy.)

I thought maybe I had the very first daffodil blooming in my yard in Lincoln, but I saw a bunch on campus already in bloom, so mine isn't that special. It still looks really nice, though.

The tulips are a large mass of green now, and the crocus still look very nice. I didn't realize they closed up at night, so I made sure to get a good photo while there was plenty of daylight.

Corrie got a hankering to build a real compost bin today so he could have a place to put the stuff that had decomposed nicely in the bottom of his old truck bed, but he got as far as sifting the twigs out and then informed me that the compost bin would be part of his 2015 yard plan. (I don't think he really means that-I think/hope he means he wants to do some other re-arranging in the yard before he settles on a permanent compost location.)

We're ghetto now, at least temporarily

2008-03-31T16:53:00.004-05:00

In preparation for a new washer and dryer (the dryer finally gave out yesterday) Corrie moved the old ones out into the yard. Which is more ghetto, the photo that includes the dorm fridge (which works and is great for outdoor parties!) or the one with the old truck with a flat tire? I guess we won't be winning yard of the month anytime soon. I know Corrie will get them off to the metal recycling place very soon.

To offset the ghetto, here are some new crocus I found blooming in the yard. I should really know what kind they are, but I don't.

Naptime

2008-03-29T15:06:00.007-05:00

Almost everyone in the house is napping this afternoon, even I took a short nap, and Corrie is also still napping, but I doubt he wants his photo on my blog. Scabbers and Norman:

Todd:

Even the strays, Itty Bittiest and Oreo, are sleeping in Corrie's old truck that's still full of yard waste for a trip to the dump. Yard waste makes for nice cat beds, I guess.

In other news, Corrie is making good progress on installing the tile on the bathroom walls. We're still not sure what to do for floor tile. Almost everything we see is too similar to what we used on the walls. I'm ok with a lighter color that we found the other night, but Corrie said he doesn't like it. All I really care about is no light-colored grout. It's impossible to keep that stuff clean unless you use chemicals that will burn your hands off.

In seedling news, the only thing coming up so far are my red marigolds. I'm hoping everything else will soon follow. Here's the full seed starter contraption that Corrie built a few years ago on a snow day. I have the ability to move the fluorescent bulbs up as the plants get taller, and I can also move more plants up to the higher shelf and install my other lights. There's an ominous glow in this photo.

Weebles Wobble, but they don't fall down!

2008-03-27T20:38:00.004-05:00

I don't want to share my bedroom secrets, but it all started late last night when our chunky kitty, Scabbers, wouldn't reposition himself on the bed so there was room for me. Out of nowhere and pretty much from a dead sleep, I said to Corrie, "he's like a weeble wobble!" I probably haven't thought about weeble wobbles in a few years-probably most people haven't thought about them in 20 years, but from time to time especially when I go through an e-bay phase, I like to think about all of my favorite childhood toys. On my top 10 favorite toys of all time list would be: legos (in the #1 spot), then in no particular order: Lincoln Logs, my spirograph, our Fisher Price Sesame Street playhouse, my sister's Hotwheels collection, our toy oven that we played restaurant with, bristle blocks, tinkertoys, that train that played records, and our weeble wobble circus tent. I couldn't find the whole set on the ebay, but I did find this photo as part of Aaron's Wobbleland:

I remember trying to catapult the weebles out of the cannon and onto the swings, but that didn't always work. Oh, and ours also had a trampoline, but I don't see that here. I'm going to have to keep my eye out for the set. I guess this might be why some people have kids-so they can buy this stuff without feelings of guilt.

Don't judge me for thinking about weebles today-I had a bad day of web snafus and expensive vet bills. Everything seems to have worked out in the end.

Mission Accomplished!

2008-03-24T18:17:00.007-05:00

After I pulled into the driveway today, I wondered what piece of purple litter had gotten stuck in the flower bed next to the house. What a surprise-it was the crocus I had been searching for!

I guess I should mark this spot for next spring so I don't have to search so much.

In other news, Corrie is gearing up to work on our ongoing upstairs bathroom remodel. When I say ongoing, I mean ongoing. I went back to find some photos of when we tore out the old bathroom, and I was a little shocked to see they dated back to 2004. I'm probably the one who made this mess (back in 2004, dang, I was still in my 20s then-Courtney, you still lived here!):

Here, also in February 2004, our new tub installed. Corrie can correct me if I'm wrong, but I utilized the tub just as it appears here before we had any drywall up. I used to stare up at the 100 year old cobwebs stuck on the ceiling joists.

Slow-forward to 2008: Corrie has almost finished with tile in the shower, and he just bought more title to finish what's going on the bathroom walls. We're going to have to pick another color of tile for the floor, since it was so long ago that we decided on something that we forgot what we decided on!

Happy Easter, everyone!

2008-03-23T19:15:00.007-05:00

Evidently I was very excited to be receiving a toothbrush for Easter in 1980. Hopefully I got some chocolate to go along with that toothbrush.

The tulip report is a little boring today-things look about the same as last week. If you look closely through the fence, you can see Junior, the neighbor's dog. Hello Junior!

I started my garden seeds yesterday. I still need to rig up the my fluorescent lights, but the seeds are in the seed starter mix and are ready to go. One of the ways I get through the beginning of winter is I tell myself once January comes, I can go ahead and order some seeds from Pinetree Garden seeds. They arrived so long ago that I had forgotten what I ordered. I ended up with 5 different varieties of tomato seeds. I wanted to try a couple of new kinds this year (regular brandywines and black brandywines) as well as keep up my standards (better boy, early girl, and jellly bean grape) in case the news ones don't work out. Plus I like to have plenty of plants to share with friends. Besides the tomato seeds, I started some cosmos, marigolds, salvia (not the kind you smoke, I don't think), purple coneflowers, calendula, and black-eyed susan vines. It doesn't look too overwhelming right now, but the space the seedlings take up with expand exponentially over the coming months. These little rows will be transferred into small containers, then each plant will eventually get its own container, and by the time mid-May comes, I will be up to my ears in plants.

Don't save all your gardening for the weekend

2008-03-19T19:22:00.009-05:00

I hope no one's weekend was ruined because I didn't post anything about the weekly tulip watch. Here's Saturday's photo. Luckily, they're coming along well enough that it's getting more difficult for me to remember which ones I was monitoring.

It's great-now I'm seeing tulips popping up all over the yard. I wouldn't want to guess how many tulips I've planted in the past 9 years-there were several years where I had a ritual of buying 2 dozen tulip bulbs the day before the Buffalo Run in September. I think I did that for 4 or 5 years, so that's easily 100 tulips right there. The ones I've been following in the photos were the very first tulips I bought in a bargain bag at Menards in the fall of 2000. I doubt I paid more than $10 for 50 bulbs, and they've been dug up and moved at least once. Their current and final location is along the fence in the vegetable garden, where they get a lot of sun all winter long. It's probably why they're always the first to arrive in the spring. I can't say all of the more expensive tulips I've bought have fared as well.

I just finished reading a nice little book I received for my birthday, The Curious Gardener's Almanac: Centuries of Practical Garden Wisdom by Niall Edworthy. It's a hodgepodge of gardening tips, recipes, old sayings, fun facts, and neat little design elements. (check out the gardener's cabbage head on the front cover.)

One of the tips that should've been obvious but I really liked anyway was don't save all of your gardening for the weekend. On Monday, it might sound like a good plan to spend the entire following Saturday outside in the yard, but what if you had a really good Friday night inside with some tasty adult beverages and pulling weeds out in 100 degree heat all of a sudden doesn't sound so fun? I don't plan to spend entire weeknight evenings gardening, but I would like to do a few odds and ends here and there. Tonight I was really tired but told myself I'd go out and rake just one bag of leaves and then come back in. Once I got out there, I wasn't so tired, and the one bag turned into two. (plus I saw man with stuffed tiger car drive by.) Here's another fun fact from the book: "Each garden contains an average of one hundred species of spiders and each house contains about ten species." (That's a lot of spider walks, Jana!) I think I'll revisit this book throughout the summer, especially once I have some produce for the recipes.
Hopefully by this weekend if Corrie gets the upstairs re-situated, I'll have some flower and vegetable seeds started under my grow lights. Now the fun begins!

This is what I don't do

2008-03-12T17:28:00.004-05:00

If anyone ever wonders how I stay involved in so many hobbies, it's because I don't do this: clean. I was actually startled by the size of this cat hair dust bunny that just rolled through the dining room.

I should say this is only where it is because I opened the window and it blew out from under the table legs. If I encountered this under normal circumstances, I would take the time to dispose of it. I can promise this will probably be my only posting about cleaning, or lack thereof.

Yay! I'm in Kentucky!

2008-03-11T20:47:00.005-05:00

Actually, I'm in Lincoln, but my running and cycling miles for today put me in Kentucky for my virtual transcontinental trip. This virtual trip is part of national health research being done by Dr. Paul T. Williams at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I started tracking my mileage last August, and it took me this long to log 555 miles, which is the distance they have you travel in Virginia! I never thought I'd make it out of that state. You can log your miles for running, walking, or cycling. I was skeptical that I'd keep this up, but somehow I did. (maybe because I didn't have a lot of miles to log during winter!)

As you log your progress, they display your location both with photographs of your current whereabouts as well as where you are on a map. Here's the scenery a few miles back while still in Virginia.

And a map of me now just over the Kentucky border:

You can add partners on your trip and track your progress together, or set up various e-mail notifications for when you don't enter data for a week, you don't meet your weekly goal, or a partner passes you. I haven't messed around with any of that-I just want to get across these states! It would be nice to think I could make it through Kentucky before the summer is over.

Eagle Three-peat

2008-03-08T11:05:00.008-06:00

The final game is in the books-Central won their third straight Class A basketball championship last night. It was a tight game against Bellevue East with some questionable calls thrown in for added tension, but the final score was 59-58. I tried taking a few videos with my camera during the game, but they didn't turn out very good. Here's a clip I took just as Creighton recruit Josh Jones made a slam dunk. (the basket is made in the first second of video. Watch carefully or you'll miss it.)

I realize it may not make a lot of sense to still be so intense about Central High sports fifteen years after I graduated, but I think high school sports offer more of what I love about college sports. (and what makes me ambivalent about most professional sports) It's about school and team pride and playing for your teammates and classmates. It's not about salaries, bonuses, and endorsements. It could also be that we didn't have a ton of athletic success when I was in school, except for a soccer championship in 1992-I happened to attend I-Back High right between when Calvin Jones graduated and Ahman Green transferred to Central. There were no trips to Lincoln for State playoffs while I was there.

After the basketball excitement, I caught up with Corrie and a couple of other guys out on the O Street bar scene. I won't discuss some of the odd things that occurred in a short span of time, but we did find Hopkin green frog at Iguana's.

I didn't mis-type that-I was indeed in Iguana's. I'm 33 years old and I did some kind of shot named frog sperm. I admit I had a good time, even though this didn't fit in with my preferred bar scene, which is either hanging out for the duration of the evening at Duffy's or sipping cocktails at the Starlite Lounge. I'm getting too old and too lazy for the bar hopping the kids do these days.

The Blanket is done, now the baby can come

2008-03-08T10:42:00.008-06:00

Amy and Jeff's baby blanket (not for Jeff but for the baby, sorry Jeff! I can put you on my to do list if you'd like a full-size blanket) arrived safely in Colorado last week, so now I can talk about it without ruining the surprise.

It was a really fun pattern to do, but it turned out bigger than I expected. I think I had to make two extra trips to the yarn stores to buy additional skeins. I really wish they made yarn that repelled cat hair because I spent a good amount of time and a good amount of my lint brush removing the stuff, even though I was very careful while crocheting to keep the cats away and only expose as little yarn as possible between the bag it was in and the piece itself. (and yes, Scabbers, the cat of cat sweater fame, is in the upper part of this photo, but he was not allowed on the blanket.)

My new project is a knitted pillow to match Corrie's striped blanket. I'm only using one of the colors from the blanket (thank you, Jana, for the yarn freebies) and the pattern incorporates a striped motif. It's hard to tell it's a pillow from this photo, but it will make sense later on. I have a long ways to go-the main part of the pillow pattern is supposed to be at least 32" (you fold it in half to make the pillow shape) and I think I've only knitted about 10" of that right now.

In other news, the tulip report this week is not good, as anyone who lives here could guess. I'm sure they'll be fine-they got an extra layer of insulation, thanks to Thursday night/Friday morning's snow. I realize now looking at this photo that I didn't get the same tulips we were monitoring before, but it was too cold out to go back and find the right ones. I didn't even bother looking for the crocus.

Lost Sweatshirt

2008-03-05T18:54:00.022-06:00

In light of this week's high school boys basketball tournament and with the possibility that my alma mater, Omaha Central High, could be competing for their third straight championship and continue to simultaneously hold titles in football, basketball and track (yes, I'm annoyingly still proud of my high school. If you went there, you'd understand) I decided I'd try to once again find my comfy grey school sweatshirt that wouldn't be too obnoxious to wear to the games. (It's very simple, only lettering, no graduation years mentioned. Timeless fashion.) I realize now that I have many totes of old clothes stored in our basement, however, I didn't quickly find that sweatshirt. Of course, I found a few other things that had to be drug out of the basement, inspected by the cats and me, and photographed.

1. my Husker scrapbook from the 1987-88 season. There are no fancy football stickers purchased from Hobby Lobby's scrapbooking section, just roughly-cut stories and photos from the Sunday edition of the Omaha World Herald.

2. my 1990 Earth Day t-shirt. I was in the middle of an environmentally-conscious phase back then. I was a vegetarian for a whole week once. I even found a kindred spirit with the same shirt at that summer's music camp. The shirt is a *little* faded now.

3. my 1992 U2 Zoo Tv Tour t-shirt. Seems like just yesterday we were on the eve of electing Clinton to the White House. I had missed their show in Ames, IA that fall because of marching band duties at the high school football game, but I somehow begged and pleaded my way into getting to see them in Kansas City a month later. It was great-I think it was my first experience being around really drunk people, which was not so great. The shirt got a lot of wear-it too is faded and oddly shaped now.

4. my college band jacket. In one pocket, there were a couple of peppermints, still in tact in their wrappers, the combination to a residence hall mailbox, and an empty clarinet reed case. In the other pocket, and I don't know why this was there, was one of Corrie's socks. No clue. I tried to collect pins for the front from all the places the band took me, but along the way I believe I lost my Kansas Jayhawk pin and maybe a Cyclone pin. The collars on these jackets were dreadful-Corrie has a jacket from the year before with a normal collar.

5. Finally, there's a happy ending. I did find my senior class t-shirt! "U Can't Hold Us"-were we rebels or something? Had someone threatened to hold the whole class back? Unfortunately, I think it's too silly to wear to the game.

Does anyone recognize this kitty?

2008-03-03T17:16:00.003-06:00

This cat has been showing up for the B&B option on our back porch the past couple of weeks. He's dark grey and white and appears to be neutered. He's very friendly. I don't see any lost cat reports on Lincoln's Department of Animal Control website that match him, so I thought I'd at least give him the benefit of a blog post.

Besides, I think I've had this blog going for over a week, and I don't think I've written about cats yet!

Holmes Lake isn't the only thing in town that's still frozen

2008-03-01T15:59:00.003-06:00

The forecast for today said temperatures in the 60s (weather.com says it's 68 right now), so I knew I wanted to get my freshly-tuned bike out and go for a ride. When venturing out on the first really nice day of the year, one must consider the probable high traffic on the most popular trails and chose their own path accordingly. People seem to forget over the winter how to use our bike trails and what the phrase, "on your left" means, so I decided to head farther north than I usually go so I could get on the John Dietrich bikeway that eventually turns into the Murdock trail, which eventually would get me to Lincoln's Mahoney Park. (not to be confused with the Mahoney Park out by the Platte River. I'm not in that good of shape.) I knew before going out that portions of this trail are limestone, and I realized they'd probably be a little messy and get my freshly-cleaned bike messy, too. The fact that there's hardly anyone ever on this stretch was just too appealing to pass up.

I was right-there was hardly anyone out, however I underestimated the limestone messiness. Patches right next to Mahoney Park were still complete snow-covered, so I walked my bike maybe a quarter of a mile until I got on firmer ground. I decided I wasn't willing to do that again going back, so I ended up taking the longer way home by going on hilly 84th street south all the way to the Mo Pac trail, which is one of the busy ones I was trying to avoid. It might've been the heavy winds, but there actually weren't that many people out on the Mo Pac, so I had minimally frustrating trip the rest of the way home. All in all, a pretty good trip!

This week's tulip progress-I still can't find my crocus, but the tulips continue to grow:

Call Me Ishmael

2008-02-29T23:13:00.005-06:00

New blogging subject material! Corrie decided to take up fishing again, so we (by that I mean he) bought us new rods and supplies today at Shopko and Scheels and our fishing and park permits on the internets! I knew he wasn't going to be able to wait one day to fish, so at 4:30 today we headed out to Holmes Lake so I could go for a short run and he could fish.

I guess we forgot it was still February-the lake was mostly frozen! Corrie found a place to try out, though, so I went for a 30 minute run around the lake. I was afraid he would've become too frustrated and would've been back in his truck waiting for me by the time I looped back, but he was still at it. Then, what do you know, he actually caught a fish. I think he thinks it was a bass. He threw it back, though, just like I accidentally threw his needle nose pliers into the lake. I didn't catch anything except myself when the hook got stuck in my pants.

I don't see myself getting obsessed with fishing, but it has appealing aspects: being outside, not a lot of movement involved, perhaps doing it somewhere where you can enjoy an adult beverage simultaneously.

A Busy Thursday

2008-02-29T11:59:00.003-06:00

I think I had the busiest, most varied Thursday in a long time yesterday. After working almost a normal length workday, I hustled over the courthouse to be a witness at my friend's wedding. Luckily, courtroom weddings don't last very long, so we were in and out of there in less than an hour. (Would've been less time than that if they actually honored the appointment times they set up in advance. It appeared that the groups with the most children running around the courthouse got in first. Four normal-acting adults were going to be last, I could tell.)

Then Corrie and I were on the road to the Foo Fighters concert at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs. Even Council Bluffs does a better job of handling large events than Lincoln does-the Mid-America Center has plenty of FREE parking right by the building. The security check was light-no heavy groping like at the TOOL and Nine Inch Nails shows we usually go to. (also no lines in the women's restrooms, but I think there were lines in the men's-that's not something you witness everyday.) I was a little afraid this show would be a little fluffy compared to someone like TOOL, but it was very good. I'll make this brief and to the point-I liked the whole show. I was pleased with the opening band, Against Me-they had a little bit of an old school punk rock sound. Then there was Serj Tankian, who is an extraordinary performer, and I admit I was probably looking more forward to seeing him than seeing Foo Fighters. While I'm glad that the Foo Fighters have had the success that they've had, I really wish their songs haven't been overplayed on the radio for the last 10 years. They really do put on a good show, though, including a long acoustic set that was performed from a 2nd stage at the back of the arena, very close to our seats!

Unfortunately, the headache I felt coming on earlier in the day turned into a doozy during the show, even though I drank some water, had no beer, only inhaled second-hand smoke from various sources, and wore my ear plugs. (By the way, I highly recommend ear plugs for concerts-they make it sound so much cleaner, and you can actually still hear after the show.) I was hoping we could visit a casino after the show, since we were in Iowa and all, and they're right there, but my head was almost hurting too much to go. I kept thinking the headache would surely go away, so I convinced Corrie to stop at Ameristar. I think I was hoping I'd hit it big on the quarter slots, and THAT would make my headache go away. Alas, there was no hitting it big for me. So we left the dinging bells and smoky air and headed back to Lincoln around midnight. The headache didn't go away until many advil and a good night's sleep, and even today I feel a little weird.

In the middle of my busy Thursday, I also got my bike tuned up at the Monkey Wrench Cycles downtown. I'm really pleased with their work, check them out if you are ever in need of their services.

EZ Reader!

2008-02-27T17:34:00.002-06:00

Check out Morgan Freeman on the Electric Company! Forget "No Child Left Behind", kids need this kind of stuff in their lives!

Am I a Binge Eater?

2008-02-27T17:08:00.003-06:00

I know it was a happy day for Jana because our monthly issue of Top Health arrived at work today. (She really likes them. I think she keeps them in a 3-ring binder.) It includes an interesting quiz: "Are you a Binge Eater?" Let us consider the questions:

Q. Do you sometimes eat a large amount of food, even when you're not really hungry?
A. How large do they mean? I think I always eat a large amount of food whether or not I'm hungry, so I guess my answer has to be "yes".

Q. Do you feel the need to eat alone because you're embarrassed about how much you eat?
A. Not really, although I suppose if there's a food day at work, I might be sneakier about my third trip in for treats.

Q. During a binge, do you eat more quickly than usual?
A. I go at my standard eating pace.

Q. Do you eat until you're uncomfortably full?
A. If I think I'm going to be in a situation like that, I try to prepare first by putting on my comfy pants.

Q. Do you hide food containers from others?
A. Not so much hide as just "fail to mention" that I bought chips or tasty cereal.

Q. Do you feel your eating is out of control?
A. When eating an entire bag of popcorn, I don't think I've ever thought to myself, "my eating is out of control." Maybe I should!

Q. Have you binged at least twice a week for six months or more?
A. I have been a good eater for over 20 years.

They're kind enough not to give you a breakdown of how many yes answers are too many, but they do warn that weight loss will be difficult until you get your behavior under control and also recommend you speak to a physician. My plan is to keep exercising to offset the food.

One of the many things I love

2008-02-26T18:11:00.002-06:00

I love a lot of things, especially quirky things. One of my favorite things that I see on a regular basis in my neighborhood is an older gentleman driving a maroon sedan with the back window full of stuffed animal tigers. (As opposed to live tigers.) I think he must only live a few blocks away, so it makes sense that I see him around here, but when we're across town and we see him driving by, it makes me hoot and holler. I don't know exactly what it is, there is just something funny about someone driving around in a car like that. When I say full of stuffed animal tigers, I mean full of stuffed animal tigers.

I always wanted a clown cake

2008-02-24T20:01:00.008-06:00

Once upon a time on the way home from what must've been 1st grade, I found this cake decorating book in the middle of the street. (or maybe along the curb-I was a good kid and wouldn't have been walking down the middle of the street.)

I'm not ashamed to admit it, I took it home and dreamed of someone making the clown cake for my birthday. The cakes pictured in the guide were so intricate-I didn't think it was possible for the everyday cake baker to make one of them anyway, even if it did say, "Beginner's Guide".

That book eventually got misplaced in our house, but in recent years that image of the clown cake came back to me, and thanks to the internets and the ebay, I was able to buy a very nice used copy for just a few bucks. That was probably 2 years ago, and I hadn't even seriously considered making anything from it. I think I just wanted to have the book for posterity's sake.

Fast forward to today, the final day of my weeklong birthday celebrations, when Corrie and I went to Omaha to have lunch with my mom and sister. When it was time for the cake, I could tell something fishy was going on, but I wasn't sure what it was. My mom brought my cake out from the bedroom, which I thought was odd, but that's because she was hiding MY OWN CLOWN CAKE! (Rookie blogger mistake-I didn't take my camera with me to Omaha, so I won't have a picture of the cake in its entirety until my mom gets her digital camera "developed". I don't know why she referred to it as "developed" when she really means "uploaded" or "downloaded". I suspect I may not see that photo for quite some time.) Here's what remains, which I was able to catch with my own camera here in Lincoln:

It really left me speechless, and for everyone who knows me, that's not easy to do. My sister had "borrowed without asking" (which I think is similar to stealing, however she did give the book back to me) my cake book when she was in town in January-I had no idea. This quarter of the cake doesn't do it justice-she replicated the cake perfectly. She even went to 4 different places to try to find the swirly suckers, unfortunately they couldn't be found. The gold cake platter even matched the cover! It suspiciously seemed like something I'd do! I'll have to get her back for her birthday-I know exactly what I'll make her, but it won't be a surprise because I couldn't keep my mouth shut (I can only be left speechless for so long)-I told her I'd make one of those doll cakes with the doll body sticking out, like I made for Beth a couple of years ago.

Hopefully, she'll still think it's pretty cool. If I could get one of her old Barbie dolls and use that for the doll, I think she'd be impressed. (Or creeped out.)

Is it ok to just rake up the snow with the leaves?

2008-02-23T12:04:00.002-06:00

It's a balmy 45 degrees already today, which if you factor in the windchill last Wednesday, that's a temperature difference of 65 degrees! It feels so good, I'm ready to tear into the yard and do the chores that should've been done last October, or maybe November at the latest. The trouble in Nebraska is the trees just don't lose their leaves until December, so unless we get some nice Christmas weather, the leaves just don't get raked until springtime. I don't think this is all bad, since I hope they serve as insulation to the plants below, but they can't stay there forever. I might try to hold off until the rest of the snow melts, I guess.

I've been periodically surveying the yard (both for plants and graffiti, we had some issues last month) and found signs of the first tulips emerging. They come up every year about this time, and I know that they'll be ok even if there's some chilly March weather.

The rest of the yard looks kind of sad, but it won't be long before there will be plenty of plants to care for and weeds to pull.

The butterfly garden today:

The butterfly garden, just last fall:

I'm hoping sometime this weekend I track down the crocus I've planted! Surely they're ready to come up.