Oops!

I was just trying to be clean last weekend when I threw my place mats in the wash. Oops. Now they won't lay flat. Not even Grandmommy in her infinite domestic wisdom could flatten them. I guess I'll just to have sew me some new ones.

Speaking of sewing, my awesome apron and first sewing project ever is complete! Hopefully I will post pictures later this week. I started on some curtains yesterday. I hope to finish one of them tonight so I can see if it will turn out as screwed up as I think it might. My poor counting skills and my novice sewing skills appear to be conspiring against me.

Time

Now that I've picked that as a title I can't get that Hootie and the Blowfish song out of my head. Anyways...

I've been thinking lately about time and how I spend it. I've noticed that there are a couple things in my life that I spend much more time doing than I want to or need to, ultimately leaving me without time to do the things I really love. So I have some sans-New Years resolutions.

I think it's time Google Reader and I take a break. I don't actually have to read every headline and see every picture that Apartment Therapy posts (although they are exquisite!), yet when I see that there are currently 72 unread items, I feel like I need to clear that out by spending an hour skimming, when really I can just "Mark All As Read" and move on with my life. Just because about once a week the NYTimes will have a feature article I'll really love doesn't necessarily mean I need to spend several hours a day looking and waiting for it.

Also, I am going to adjust my means of procrastination. When I come home from work I tell myself that once I complete [insert evening's chores] I will [watch movie/catch up on DVR/read/call friend/craft something]. But what happens is I procrastinate on the chores by watching TV that I'm indifferent about, playing Solitaire, Facebook stalking or other random crap. I would much rather be reading or movie-watching, but since I have to do the chores before I can do those, I just wind up totally wasting the evening. So from now, I will procrastinate with things I actually want to do. I did this other night when Jane Austen defeated my laundry. It was a great evening.

Answered Prayers

Look! God does answer prayers!

Or at least someone's working on it!

Analysts believe pressure is mounting on AT&T, Apple's only U.S. carrier partner, to offer a tiered data plan because they believe the current high price is driving away potential iPhone customers. AT&T's basic voice and data plan runs about $80 a month.

There should be multiple data packages, including a "light" data plan — "maybe $5 a month, $10 a month," Wolf said. "I could easily get by on a $5-a-month plan because I don't consume much data."

Potlucks and New Projects

I love potlucks. In my Lexington life I had an amazing job with amazing monthly potlucks (There were themes each month, which generally amounted to food coloring mashed potatoes, but it was still awesome.) Once I moved to Louisville I started crashing Lee's work potlucks because I love a potluck. A couple months ago I found another amazing job but they were lacking potlucks so today we had our first potluck! The theme was Cheeseballs and Garlic, since today is National Cheeseball Day and tomorrow is National Garlic Day. Duh. I brought a tasty recipe I found for easy, cheap crockpot lasagna and it was pretty good!

Despite the fact that I have yet to finish my apron or curtains, I have found my next sewing project that I am eager to start...once I finish all the other ones...

Lee on the Somali Pirate Situation

Those pirates would get a lot more sympathy if they had parrots and peg legs.

And eye patches.

I Almost Choked on my Yogurt

Happy Easter!!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Good Friday

At mass on Sunday they read the Passion, as is the Palm Sunday tradition, and I was thinking as I heard the very familiar story, how weird the Last Supper must have been. Or was it weird? Maybe it was just par for the course? Throughout Jesus' ministry He's said odd things, foreboding things. Destroying the temple and rebuilding it in three days. I am the Way, the Truth, the Life. Who do you say I am? Lazarus get up and walk. The parables, the hints, the whole time the disciples come off confused and clueless. So at the Last Supper, as Jesus hints about His death again and says that someone in that room will betray Him and Peter will deny Him three times, did they sense that this time, something was really up? Danger was imminent? Jesus clearly seemed to be troubled in the Garden of Gethsemane, so was He nervous at dinner? Did He pick at his food? Could they tell? They were His best friends, you know when your best friend is deeply troubled.

Surely, there must have been a nervous tension, but would they have really worried? I mean, they were probably used to the odd things Jesus said and His weird "predictions." But these are His friends, they must have known He was really troubled. If they realized this, were they worried? I grew up being told that when I'm scared I can pray and God will take care of me. As much as I still believe that, God isn't really tangible in the way that policemen and airbags and those other things that protect us are tangible. The disciples had God right there with them. They must have felt invincible. People had tried to harm Jesus before but He always snuck away. Sure, Judas could betray Him, but what harm could that really do. Jesus is God. No one can touch Him. Maybe the disciples weren't scared.

Those must have been the worst 72 hours of their lives. It must have been the worst 72 hours in the history of the world.

I'm Just Mad About Saffron

Last night I made my creamiest risotto yet. However, it could have tasted better. It didn't taste bad, but I made a few cost-saving changes to the recipe for Chicken and Prosciutto Risotto (found in random cookbook I got for wedding gift that is perhaps my most favorite cookbook yet) and 2 out of 3 worked.

Good: I always use bacon instead of prosciutto and it has always worked well.

Good: Instead of 1/2 cup of white wine I used white grape juice which worked well but perhaps it was only because it was a small amount of wine. This might not work well on recipes that call for lots of wine.

Bad: Did you know that saffron threads are $14.99 at Walmart?! Yeah, I wasn't about to pay that. During some taste tests toward the end of the cooking process I realized that the risotto tasted like chicken broth, not hard to imagine since the recipe called for 7.5 cups of it. I tossed in some oregano because at that moment I liked the way it smelled over the other spices handy. In the end, it still needed some extra flavor boost.

But by golly was it creamy!

I Can't Count

Despite getting a 4 on the Calculus AP exam my senior year of high school, (An achievement that I will tout until my dying die. I was also high school valedictorian. And that's it.) I've never been good at basic math. I'm particularly bad at sewing math. I knew I should have sat down in a calm environment and calculated exactly how much fabric I needed for my curtains before I went to Joann, but instead I waited until I was next in line to have my fabric cut and had to rely on my last minute math "skillz."

And I was wrong.

But I have a plan!

I'm just doing plain rectangular sheets to hang on a tension rod over the windows, not too hard. The front was going to be a nice green swirly pattern with a tan back. Now I think I'm going to have a 6" tan border at the top so I don't have to buy another 2 yards of the more costly green pattern and I just need another 2 yards of the cheaper tan fabric.

So last night I pulled out my mom's sewing machine which she has given me as I start my new crafting adventure and figured out how to use it. I hope to actually start stitching on the curtains tonight but I'm going to actually cook tonight so it might have to wait until Friday.

Expect some culinary disaster or success story tomorrow!

My Furries

I took some cute pictures of the kids recently.
Reagan enjoys hanging out in the bathtub. Zoey prefers the bed.

Domestic Achievements

I've been pretty hardcore in the domestic department lately. Here are some samples.

My first sewing project is nearing completion! This week I learned how to gather! Check out that skirt on that apron! (If you can since it's a low quality cell phone photo.)

I made some cute magnets and thumbtacks for a birthday gift.


I even made a cute envelope to put them in.


Tonight I baked some Banana Banana Bread for Lee's potluck. The batter tasted yummy so hopefully it'll be just as delightful when baked.


My goals for this weekend include making some kind of wall art and/or curtains. *fingers crossed!*

Makeover Complete?!

The combination of my indecisiveness and perfectionist tendencies can be crippling. I've been changing the look of my blog around a bit lately because I can never make up mind and I think I'm finally happy with it. We'll see. I'm still all tore up about my profile picture. I feel that it should showcase my most recent hairstyle (bob with side-sweepy bangs) (I think I just made up the word side-sweepy.) yet I don't have any great pictures of me with that hairstyle. I mean, I like the hair, but I chronically make dumb faces in photos and I'm being particularly perfectionist on this matter.

The highlight of the new blog look (Other than the fact that I made the header by myself in InDesign which makes me feel super talented.) is the tag cloud. I had a two-week stint on WordPress and have missed the tag cloud ever since. You too can add a tag cloud by following these directions.

Returning to the Real World

Me, like the rest of the state, has been consumed by the Great UK Coaching Drama of '09. Fortunately, this has ended happily. Despite some concerns about Calipari's past alleged misdeeds, I'm hoping for the best and pledging Coach Cal my love and support. If you want to read more about the recent happenings in Lexington, I recommend Kentucky Sports Radio. I think this might be my favorite.