Archive for January, 2007

And the week moves on…

Published January 31, 2007 wedding , work Leave a Comment

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I started feeling a bit sick this morning at work. It started with a stuffy nose, then turned into incessant runniness. Nothing too concerning, just annoying. As the day progressed, my solitary symptom turned into the definite signs of a nasty head cold. I started feeling a little feverish, stuffy & just generally icky. Tomorrow will be the real test for my supposed illness. Occasionally I get a one day thing – potentially allergies? Anyway, I’m now sipping Theraflu, taking it easy and planning on hitting the sack early tonight.

I’ve been experiencing the other side of an audit the past few weeks – we have auditors out for one of our projects, and suddenly, I’m the “client”. It’s a bit nostalgic for me, although it quickly reminds me of why I got out of auditing. I’ve been busy putting together schedules, investigating differences, and figuring out everything we did incorrectly over the past year. All in all, I’d say we did fairly well. I’d have been pretty happy if I’d had me for a client when I was auditing.

Ben & I have been slacking on putting away all of our kitchen wedding presents into their final resting places. Actually, it’s more that we haven’t figured out their final resting places yet, and are already stocked up in all of our cabinets. We’ll have to build more cabinets or start giving things away. Considering we aleady went through our duplicate collections of kitchen goods, and gave away everything we could stand to part with, more cabinets it is! It’s actually very exciting – I actually have matching plates and platters for entertaining!

In response to Morgan’s latest search for new chai, I’d like to recommend Anna Bannanas – a local Portland coffee shop with quite tasty chai. They offer a choice of either green or black chai – the green being smoother, the black, spicier. I know it’s a long trip up to Portland, but hey, if you’re ever in the area, give it a shot!

Dave & Kristi’s Bdays

Published January 29, 2007 birthdays Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, Dave & Kristi celebrated their birthdays with a joint party. It was fun, although I think the average age of the group was actually more like 15 (we were hanging out with the babies). I posted some pictures from the party… if you look closely, you’ll see that “30″ was spelt out on their joint pizza.

Visiting the falls

Published January 28, 2007 Oregon Leave a Comment

IMG_3623_thumb10 A few weeks ago, Ben and I traveled up to his parents house in Oregon for a rather sad occasion – Ben’s grandmother’s memorial service. It was a beautiful service – Ben’s brother, Dave, put together a video slide show of their grandmother’s life – from baby pictures all the way through Thanksgiving. It was very touching.

This trip was one of my few times driving in snowy conditions. While the roads were dry, the agents at Hertz warned us of black ice on the roads. It made me a little worried, since I was the only driver on the rental, and adding Ben would have cost us an extra $10 a day. But I figured if I was cautious, we’d be fine.

While I played it safe driving, walking was a different story. Ben, his sister, nieces, brother and I ventured out to Silver Creek Falls on Saturday afternoon. I hadn’t packed for a snow excursion – the sneakers I brought along had little tread and canvas tops, making my adventure slippery, wet and cold. The first stop was great. We played in the snow, had a few snowball fights, and ran around like kids. I started feeling a little more confident – maybe the shoes weren’t as bad as I thought. We continued on to ourIMG_3602_thumb13 next vista stop, grabbing a cup of hot cocoa to warm up, and absorbing the breathtaking scenery. Then, everything gets a little fuzzy. Or, more appropriately, they got a little slippery. As Ben & I strolled down path, we encountered a patch of ice. Ben slipped a bit, caught his balance, and warned me that it was slippery. A half second later, I hit the same patch and was down. Of course, my hands were safely stowed away in the pockets of my jacket, leaving the brunt of the blow to my poor little tail bone. It was definitely not a fun experience. I spent a few minutes on the ground – varying between pain and laughter – embarrassed for taking such a dramatic tumble, but in too much pain to get up.

The next week contained shuffling around, sleeping on my stomach and lots of advil. Two weeks later, I’m happy to say that I feel that I’m nearing full recovery.

The return of Gil!

Published January 28, 2007 random stuff Leave a Comment

921791881_m_thumb2 So it looks like all of the efforts to save Gil “The Crab” paid off – he has a superbowl spot! Check out his most recent posts at his myspace page. I love this crab.

In other news, I spent a few hours Saturday morning cleaning and organizing my closet. Or, more accurately, hanging up the numerous piles of clothing that had been “organized” on my floor for the past few months. Yes, I had a system, however, I think it was driving Ben near low levels of insanity. One of the problems with our closet is the fact that it’s a “modular” closet, and nothing fits quite right in it. The bars are too high for me to reach, or just low enough that I can’t hang longer dresses or pants from them. The closet spans the length of the wall, and the sliding doors are slightly askew, so that when you try to slide a set of doors to one side or the other, the come together just enough on the track to bump into each other, when they should, in fact, be running parallel to one another. Coupled with this, is the exponential accumulation of clothes over the past few years. I’m not a big shopper – in fact, I try to avoid it as long as I can. So I have a hard time parting with the items I’ve searched so long and hard to find. My half of the closet is slowly overtaking Ben’s. I really need to go through my closet and give some things away, but I figure just getting everything put away is a big step.

That’s it for me. My brain is fried from work, and I’m struggling to put together coherent sentences. See ya!

Perfect Popcorn

Published January 24, 2007 cooking & food Leave a Comment

Popcorn02_thumb6I attempted to make homemade popcorn last night, using a recipe that was aired on Good Eats the other day. It involves a stainless steel bowl, a pair of tongs, tinfoil, popcorn, oil and salt. You put everything in the bowl, cover the top with tinfoil (poke a few holes in it), use the tongs has a handle, and cook the popcorn on the stove, much like the method used for Jiffy Pop. The genius behind this method, as explained in detail on Alton’s show, is the structure of the bowl. The kernels fall to the small surface at the bottom of the bowl, while the light fluffy popped corn rises to the top, keeping it safe from becoming overcooked and turning into charred pieces of nastiness.

The plan started out well enough – the kernels were popping, creating those little indentations on the inside of the foil that only an exploding kernel can create – steam was properly escaping from the steam vents I’d poked in the tinfoil – and the “pop” sounds were happening with reasonable frequency. All in all, it should have taken approximately 3 minutes to pop my 1/2 cup of kernels. However, about 90 seconds into it, the popping stopped. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Was I not shaking it enough? I began shaking more vigorously. Not enough oil? I’d used two tablespoons, so that should be ok. Then the smoke started to form. At first it looked like the aforementioned steam, but the wispiness of form and distinctive smell of burnt popcorn gave it away. I quickly took my popcorn contraption off the stove, turned off the heat and whipped on the overhead fan. Then, I debated on whether or not to open the foil. As the smoke pillowed out, I thought there might have been some salvageable pieces in there – but if I didn’t act quickly, the smoke would saturate and ruin those as well. I went for it. I slowly peeled off the foil, to see a pristine bowl of fresh white popcorn at the top, accompanied by the foul smell of burnt popcorn coming from below. I grabbed another bowl and began the transfer; only then truly unveiling the damage I’d down to those poor bottom bunk kernels. Most were half popped, and charred beyond recognition. They crumbled to dust when I tried to pick them out.

Managing to salvage about half of the kernels, I placed the bowl and charred remains in the sink to soak. Then, I consulted the internet to determine what I’d done wrong. It was a quick find to Alton Brown’s Perfect Popcorn recipe – the name of the recipe was taunted me as I picked through the remains of my not so perfect popcorn and searched for my mistake. Then I saw it – “medium heat”. Of course! I’d put my stove on high. I’m not sure if I did it because I thought that was correct, or if I just wanted a quicker return on my kernels, but either way, it ended up a smelly, charred mess. At least I know my error, and can try again with the correct directions. But it doesn’t help any with my mistake last night – my house still smelled of burnt popcorn this morning.

Hungry-Girl.com

Published January 23, 2007 cooking & food Leave a Comment

In my quest to find low-calorie alternatives and healthier food, I’ve found a new favorite website – http://www.hungry-girl.com/ – yes, it’s a slightly cheesy name, but there are some great links and recipes in here…

Wedding Pictures are up!

Published January 23, 2007 pictures , wedding 1 Comment

We finally have some wedding pictures posted! They’re at http://photos.yahoo.com/szq969 (update – everything has been migrated over to Flickr… go here instead)

There are a bunch, so I’ve tried to separate them by creating various albums (e.g., “Getting Ready”, “Ceremony”) to help organize them a bit.

Enjoy!

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