omg I hate ipad

Mostly I love google and it doesn't seem that compatible with my iPad. I just tried to insert a picture in a blog post and it refused. Perhaps I'm missing something it's quite possible.

Sigh.

This is my post for the day. . .

Sarah

Hair of the Dog

My boy showed me the following picture of a dog awhile ago and I LOVED it. I'm not sure why exactly, it's not as if I'm over the top in love with making animals look human nor with comb-overs, but there's something just awesome about this picture:

Sorry, I don't know the source, I copied it from my husband's face book and couldn't follow the link, I'm happy to put the source on there if someon comments with it.

Also, I mentioned that I'm on pinterest now and my dad commented on how he didn't know the point of pinterest but he saw some pictures of cute animals. Maybe that's the point.

According to a Japanes study I've clearly not read looking at cute animals can actually improve work productivity. This could prove very helpful at this point since I've worked overtime every day this week and I'm still not caught up. . . .

Anyway, I'm testing the blogger ap on my ipad, if it works well, I plan on telling you about my new obsession!

I'm so Behind!

Um, I just wrote a post and everything but the title disappeared! I'm not saying it was great, but still I put in the effort!

Anyway, I was talking about how I'd missed  Candy Corn Oreo-Gate I just put gate on the end to make you go look ;).

I also missed a book written by a blogger I read. I just saw it in Hudson News at the airport and it's in paperback form and has "New York Times Best-Seller" plastered across the front, so when I say I missed that she wrote a book, I REALLY missed it. Also, you're going to click that link and be all, "um, how stupid is she?! There's a picture of the book in the sidebar!?!?" But I read it in google reader and It doesn't show that. I honestly missed whatever post mentioned the book.

I'm sure there's other things I'm missing, I just discovered the bloggess this summer and can't imagine how I lived without her before.

Anything else going on I should know about? And by anything else, you know I mean any other total frivolity?!

whew, done with day 5 of this blogging thing. We'll see how I do this weekend. I'm off to AZ for fall break with some college friends.

I made a cute itinerary and everything, I should have pdfed it so I could just post it here tomorrow :).

A Day Late and a Finger Short!

The Kitchn posted an article recently entitled: "How to Keep all your Fingers Intact During Root Vegetable Season." Sadly, it was too late for me. I sliced my thumb cutting an acorn squash on Sunday. It wasn't a bad slice (as in I didn't need stiches) but it did bleed through my first band aid. 

My boy, former boyscout that he is, pulled out the gauze and first aid tape. He started to bandage my thumb but he wasn't making it tight enough. 

Submissive, lovely woman that I am I started complaining: "It's not tight enough!! It's going to fall off!" My boy continued to work on the bandage (by which I mean my thumb was no longer in it and he was still trying to tape the bandage). I became more shrill, "Didn't you get a badge in first aid?!?! I think your badge should be REVOKED!!"

My boy calmly tried again as I still insisted it was not tight enough. "I don't understand how you got the badge! What did you practice on a dummy?!?!"

My boy calmle responded: "I am right now."

No, Really, Who finds this helpful?!?!?

Yes, I'm counting this as my third day of posting in a row even if it's really only several hours after my last post (it's 12:30 where I am, even if the blog post lies).

Whenever I would have trouble falling asleep my dad would say that I should just relax, that looking at the clock and worrying about how late it was getting wasn't helping anything. Usually I'm pretty good about the relaxing thing (especially since Murder She Wrote is on netflix watch instantly now -- can we take a moment for another aside here so I can say how much I LOVE Murder She Wrote?!?!? My boy insists that is not a compliment that it takes me on average three times to get through one episode because it puts me to sleep so quickly, but clearly he's wrong!).

Anywho, recently I discovered this website: http://sleeptiming.com/ and while it purports to help you get refreshing sleep (and I'm sure it does for someone who uses it properly) it just makes me stress even more about how I'm not asleep and how I'm not going to ever get to sleep and most dishearteningly I AM NOT GOING TO GET REFRESHING SLEEP BECAUSE I"M NOT GETTING UP AT ANY OF THE RIGHT TIMES!!!!

Hope this post finds you refreshed in the morning, I'll be stumbling through making some coffee!

All's Fair in Love and Popcorn

Source

Last weekend we went to the Big E. If you've been around this blog for any length of time you know how much we love the state fair here!

It felt a little crowded this year (apparently the peril of going on the middle weekend instead of the last weekend). While there were some disappointments and some scares (we did lose one of our party for awhile, luckily it was someone in their 30s and not one of the toddlers in our crew) overall it was another good year at the fair.

My favorite fair food is deep fried cheese curds. I walk the length of the fairgrounds as many times as I possibly can to get them --it's healthier for me that there's only one stand which sells them! I was lucky this year and got to score some cotton candy off the four year old we went with. That left only kettle corn on the list of must have fair foods. Every year our friend C buys the largest bags of kettle corn at one of the state houses. It's warm and lovely and no one can resist its charms (ok, my boy can, but he's really weird!!).

While nothing can beat the warm out of an actual kettle kettle corn at the fair. Joy the Baker has taught me how easy it is to make your own kettle corn. I'm sad because it looks like her original link is gone, but I think the one above should provide you with the recipe. It's a cheap treat (contrary to what you might think based on the prices at carnivals etc). So, if you're looking for a snack sure to impress, I recommend you make Joy the Baker's kettle corn! I sometimes like to add a little cayenne so there's a kick at the end!

31 Days

A number of the bloggers I read are committing to writing every day in October on a specific topic. There are a lot of people joining this pledge. Most of the ones I read are writing on some aspect of home design but some of the bloggers (who aren't on my google feed) are writing about activities to do with children, books, excuses to get out of cleaning, jokes and more.

Since I've clearly been a terrible blogger lately (frankly, I don't know if any of you actually even read me anymore), I decided I'd just try to write for 31 days. Anything. Perhaps just one line. Just write.

As you may or may not know, this year has been a struggle for me, mostly the last three months, but overall, not a great year. Still, the year has managed to fly by. I can't believe it's October already!

My boy and I made the decision in January to talk about our life plans in December. As in are we staying here where we are, are we moving across the country to start some crazy new life, are we meeting somewhere in the middle between those two plans? So with that date fast approaching I'm getting nervous/excited. Perhaps I'll write more about that this month.

Or, perhaps I'll write more on elements of design. We bought a new rug for our bedroom, I'm angling for some new shelving and I've just joined pinterest. Not to mention, I've been obsessed with chesterfield sofas lately (not in the bedroom).

I'm also semi-obsessed with Cornwall ever since watching Doc Martin (who used to have a chesterfield sofa himself until the most recent season). My boy and I are tentatively planning a trip there in the spring to coincide with his 40th  birthday (CAN YOU BELIEVE I'M MARRIED TO A 40 YEAR OLD?!?!??!). Since he and my sister are a decade apart we might switch the destination to one she enjoys as well, we'll see.

Speaking of British obsessions, have you watched the new British show Sherlock?! So good. Also, all six episodes are currently on netflix watch it now. To continue my British/design stream of consciousness  you can go here to look at apartment therapy's take on the style of Sherlock: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/get-this-look-bbcs-sherlock-177619

Okay, I think that's a good intro to the quality (or lack thereof) of posts you can expect from me for the next 30 or so days. Now don't you wish I'd taken my friend's suggestion and just started journaling at 750 words?

Talk to you tomorrow!

Strawberries

Someone commented to me recently that all I ever posted about on my blog was how I have to clean my house. I assumed she was probably right since I feel like that's what's constantly on the schedule for the weekends despite the fact that our house never seems clean. Ever. I've had other friends comment on my constant need to clean the house. The comment made me feel slightly guilty, because as much as I struggle to keep our house tidy, I don't want people to think that it's my highest priority -- I mean, clearly if it were, it wouldn't always be left to do, right?

I went through an Erma Bombeck phase when I was a young adult (after high school, in college? I can't remember). I vaguely remember that she talked about how cleaning shouldn't be more important than people. I thought it might have been in her If I Had My Life to Live Over, but I don't think it was. Regardless, I've tried to always make people a priority regardless of the status of my house. If that's not clear on this blog, then clearly I'm doing something wrong.

When I skimmed  the last few posts (which I realize span almost a year), I didn't see a mention of cleaning, mostly just lists of food, so I thought I'd add to that list and tell you some other things I'm currently enjoying.

Picture taken from Yummy-Books East of Eden Strawberry Lattice Pie Post -- if you like food and literature, you need to be reading her blog, NOW!

We went to Allendale Farms this weekend and got two very expensive (and very worth it) quarts of Quebec strawberries. I discovered maplebrook farm's ricotta cheese this summer and I am currently savoring (as in my fingers are dyed red) dipping these gorgeous strawberries into a generous scoop of ricotta cheese drizzled with local honey! If you have access to some good non-commercial strawberries, I HIGHLY recommend finding a nice whole fat ricotta and some good honey STAT!

Eating these yummy strawberries remind me of the small batch jam I made earlier this summer. It was a strawberry jam made with honey and highlighted by thyme. I loved it and think maybe I should make it again and have my boy can it. My Aunt-in-law makes strawberry jam each Christmas eve for all the women in the family. I'm convinced this is why my boy got married since I've yet to get a chance to eat any of the jam I've been gifted, it's always gone before I know it's even open. We're going to be in Alaska this year for the holidays, perhaps I can carry on her tradition there (you know if I can pause at all in my current consumption of the strawberries).

I'm scared of canning, but my boy and I did some tag team canning last week with the jalapenos we got in our CSA. We tried this recipe and while we haven't opened a jar yet, the leftover sauce was quite lovely sweet and spicy in the best possible way (and, having just tried a ghost pepper chocolate ice cream that burned terribly, I can tell you there is a worst possible way to combine sweet and spicy!).

This weekend was also the tomato festival at Allendale Farms. We skipped the festivities but managed to score four pints of cherry tomatoes and some truly lovely full sized tomatoes in various hues, including some "peach tomatoes" that could easily be mistaken for the fuzzy fruit! When we got home from our trip to the farm, hanging on our door knob was a bag of tomatoes apparently gifted to us from one of our neighbors -- trouble is there's no note, so we don't know who we should be thanking. . . .

My boy and I usually consume cherry tomatoes in a balsamic salad (we add mozzarella  and herbs if we have it, but more often than not it's just the tomatoes with salt, pepper balsamic and oil). I'm afraid that with the haul we brought home yesterday and the additional tomatoes that were waiting for us (and even more when we get home tonight, I'm sure --our csa arrives on Mondays) that we might need some more recipes! I don't like cooked tomatoes though, so what would you suggest?

Sigh

Clearly I've felt completely uninspired to post. There is a lot of turmoil at work, one of the soup kitchen's my boy and I were very involved in has decided to close their doors for good as of June 30 and it feels like every project my boy and I attempt to tackle ends worse than it started. We went to help my in-laws with some work at their house last week. I feel like the following story really explains how EVERYTHING we touched worked out: My boy was taping a mirror that had been moved out of the room we were working on. His father had attempted to use glass cutters to cut it up small enough to fit into a garbage bag but had given up. Thus, my boy was taping the shards still attached to the frame so they didn't cause any harm. In the process he leaned it against a fence his parent's have. It is a split rail fence (I think) where the horizontal slats balance on little notches in the vertical slats. While he was leaning the mirror up against the fence and moving it for the taping process, the top horizontal slat fell of the ledge on which it was balanced. He grabbed for the slat and in the process the second slat fell and the mirror was in the process of falling glass forward onto the stone path. I started screaming about the mirror I could picture shattering into a million pieces on the stone path as I rushed forward to catch it. My boy, meanwhile, was trying to grab a slat rolling onto the country highway (so not a lot of cars, but cars that move fast if/when they do come)and realizing that the reason all of this was happening was because the second vertical slat had rotted out and toppled from the movement of the mirror activity (meaning now no horizontal slats could balance for that half of the fence). My boy's father was standing on the porch shouting the whole time, watch the "rain gauge!! Not the rain gauge!!" To which my mother-in-law was shouting at him "GET A GRIP!!" The rain gauge did indeed come off the fence, it's plastic, it was attached via a paint stirrer to the fence and it is NOT a family heirloom. . . That rain gauge though, still hangs over our head, not only did the mirror not end up getting picked up by the trash guy the next day and the fence remains in a pile of pieces, but the rain gauge was cracked in the process of working on something else on the house and now, I believe, my boy might be out of the will. It's ok though, a few more visits like our last one and the house won't be worth much. . . .