Saturday, January 06, 2007
I finished typing in all my Hawaii blog entries!! (Not including the lists/ratings.) Now I have to add illustrations, though.
Posted at 2:11:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I've been sort of off my oats since we got back from Hawaii, but yesterday and today I had a new variation that I liked. Here's the recipe:
1) dump oats in bowl (OLD FASHIONED kind of oats!) (I think I put in around 1/2 cup)
2) sprinkle on some cinnamon-and-sugar from shiny metal cinnamon-and-sugar shaker
3) get some frozen blueberries and frozen cranberries (both originally bought fresh, then put in freezer by me) out of the freezer, rinse them off, and throw them on top of the oats (they should cover the surface of the oats, but with spaces in between the berries)
4) add a tiny amount of milk (you shouldn't be able to see it)
5) stick bowl in microwave and cook for 2 minutes at 60% power
6) EAT, trying not to burn mouth
WEIRD. Thunder in the winter!
Posted at 2:11:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
(The forecast for tomorrow is 67°. Sixty-seven! It's 57 now, at 2 AM.)
Friday, January 05, 2007
I am officially the Zipper Queen! That's over 120 zippers. My mother-in-law gave them to me. She got them for free from the American Thread Company in Willimantic when they were closing their consumer products division around 1980, and had them stashed in the bottom drawer of a cabinet all this time. So awesome. I never say "awesome," but this is awesome.
Posted at 1:02:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I tried one out on my first project tonight, but it's sort of a secret for now.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Here are two more: Hartford closeup (from the same photo), and Hartford in context. I love how the Connecticut River snakes away.
Posted at 9:03:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Wow--I forgot Dean took some photos of Hartford on New Year's Eve on the way to Nancy's. It was such a clear day. This one is really good! (Hartford sure is zzzz compared to New York, huh?)
Posted at 6:49:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
1) Almost forgot: they had the new Valentine's Day SBUX cards on display today at Rocky, and they are beautiful.
Posted at 5:47:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
2) Also: I love my new coat (I got it for Christmas as a present from Dean) (which means I bought it, natch). I usually never wear a coat unless it's really cold (i.e., I wore a coat about once so far this winter, until my new one), because I hate how heavy and bulky they are. But my new one isn't, at all. It's streamlined and futuristic looking (weighs nothing), and I love absolutely everything about it (including the color: "thunder"), except the fact that it's a little hard to start off the zipper. But the reason it's hard is that it's one of those zippers that can also unzip from the bottom (so you have to get both pully things lined up perfectly)--which, since the coat is long and close-fitting, is great when you're sitting down, so it's very worth it. Anyway, when I wear my coat, I'm not cold! It's so amazing.
I was loving it so much, I tried to take a Zi photo of it this afternoon, but, as usual, it turned out semi-horrible. It's kind of hard to photograph your whole coat while you're wearing it, especially if it's long. Maybe I need to be a Cecil Beaton and rig up the tripod and timed mode, or something. And have actual proper lighting. Okay, that'll never happen, but it's a good idea in theory.
3) I finally found the link on the USPS website for the 2007 stamps. The "Polar Lights" set looks really cool.
4) I bought a bottle of this stuff at Oats today. How could I resist? Mangosteen! Now it's on the top shelf of my refrigerator next to my canned mangosteen from A Dong. Now that I've had real mangosteen, maybe I should actually eat it some time.
5) [Edit, 11:20:] Wow. I also love my new rolly cutter! (My mom gave it to me for Christmas.) Now I want to do a million rolly cutter sewing projects!
Wild Oats is still a great grocery store (unequaled selection of special stuff I can't find anywhere else), but it's no longer very fun to shop there. 1) Tear-your-hair-out parking, 2) Really narrow aisles with an insane number of free-standing displays set up in them, so every aisle is like a combination obstacle course/traffic jam. There's barely enough room for two carts to pass when the aisle is clear. If someone is stopped picking out their food (a perfectly natural thing to do in a grocery store, obviously), and there's a free-standing display or another person coming the other direction, you're trapped. 3) Driving around the Wild Oats/West Hartford Center part of West Hartford these days is like a car accident waiting to happen. It's just like Wild Oats: tons of cars + extremely narrow roads = akkk! It's weird how I used to love going to West Hartford, and now I avoid it.
Posted at 5:24:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I also used to love the Albany Avenue (aka Oats) branch of Starbucks, but today I stepped one foot in the door and turned around and left (the line was nearly out the door, and I knew my drink would be awful). Then I drove all the way to Rocky Hill and got a fabulous cappuccino made by Marshmallow Guy. I'm so glad I did it. There was a breathtaking sunset, the sky flaming orange, and Marsh and Lauren, then Caitlyn, were there, with almost no customers. M.G. asked me about my Xmas card plants (if I still had any left, etc.) and I told him I planted them all before Christmas and that I ran out of time with the last one because I had to leave early for Christmas, so I gave it to Patrick to hide, and he and Lauren both said, "Awesome!" He told me he stayed home and watched movies for New Year's, and I said I usually do the same exact thing. It was so great to see three of my favourite baristas, because lately there have been a lot of new people, which is very disconcerting. Yesterday the barista handed me my for-here cup with about 2 inches of empty space at the top. It's as if she thought "dry" meant "not much milk, but no foam to fill up the rest of the room, either." I took it back and politely asked her for more foam. (Got to whip these new people into shape!) Anyway, the Marshmallow Guy's foam was thick and heavenly, and I kept smiling and smiling as I sat in the quiet peaceful store and ate it.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Online things I want to do this month: a) finish typing in all my Hawaii blog entries, proofread them, and post them, with photos, b) get caught up on my Flighty Flyer reviews/reports (I did finally write my Lilliana's review this weekend, which was a scrolling by as a task item on Zi for months, torturing me, and I also wrote my Lil' Red Baron update, and made filler posts and destination archive entries for the other ones I need to write, some of which are partially done), c) update my Weird Foods list so it reflects my mangosteen consumption, as well as any other new weird foods.
Posted at 2:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
But I needed some slacking time yesterday, so I filled out this alphabetical questionnaire thingy (from Rachel's blog). My favorite question is Z, because there is no question, just a big "?", so I guess you're supposed to make up something Z-ful.
A - Available/Single? No.
B - Best Friend? Dean.
C - Cake or Pie? Cake, definitely.
D - Drink Of Choice? Dehydration.
E - Essential Item You Use Everyday? Zi (my Palm Zire), I guess.
F - Favorite Color? Orange.
G - Gummy Bears Or Worms? Bears, but I like Li Hing Mui Sour Kids a lot better.
H - Hometown? I don't know what to consider my "hometown"! I guess New Carrollton, Maryland, but I only lived there until I was five. The town I lived in the longest was Mansfield Center, Connecticut (11-23), but I don't really feel connected to any town, especially not that one. Let's just say the one place I've felt most connected to all my life was the lake in Eastford. My hometown right now is East Berlin, Connecticut, of course.
I - Indulgence? Tall dry cappuccinos. And my weird night owl schedule.
J - January Or February? January, even though my birthday's in it. February's kind of a useless month, and we go to St. John in January.
K - Kids & Their Names? I don't have any kids, with names or otherwise, although I was extremely fascinated by names when I was younger and I own a collection of name books that I've used to make up all kinds of people with names. If I did have kids, which I wouldn't, I really don't know what I'd name them.
L - Life Is Incomplete Without? Music.
M - Marriage date? August 5th, 1995.
N - Number Of Siblings? 3 (two brothers and one sister, all 10+ years older than I am).
O - Oranges Or Apples? Oranges.
P - Phobias/Fears? Snakes, feeling trapped/enclosed spaces, heights (like the glass floor on the CN tower, those super-high see-through stairs in Luxembourg City, and edges of roofs--not airplanes).
Q - Favorite Quote? I have no idea. I guess I've always been kind of fond of, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." (Anais Nin)
R - Reason to Smile? Because I'm happy.
S - Season? Summer, because it's warm and the days are long. I love spring, too. And winter, until it starts to drag.
T - Tag 3 or 4 people? Nope.
U - Unknown Fact About Me? Um... even though I'm a pretty good speller, I don't know how to spell "definitely," and have to look it up every time I use it. Which is a lot.
V - Vegetable you don't like? Lima beans and okra! I also don't like sweet potatoes (except for ION's sweet potato fries) or cooked cauliflower. Raw cauliflower is good, though.
W - Worst Habit? I don't know... being a slack?
X - X-rays You've Had? None, other than those bitey ones at the dentist.
Y - Your Favorite Food? Lobster roll from Kimball Farm in Jaffrey, New Hampshire! (I don't know--how can I possibly choose??)
Z - ? Bug zappers are cool. Also, I once intentionally touched an electric fence to see what getting zapped would feel like.
Monday, January 01, 2007
All right, here it is: the final statistics you've been waiting for! For this year's special New Year's Day treat, I hereby present our Christmas Card Competition 2006 results.
Posted at 9:56:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
First of all, we have the final count on the Number of Cards tally. We officially tied this year on the Number of Cards front, although I would have won by two cards, but I'm not allowed to count my Leopold Strauße card (because Dean figured out Leopold isn't a real dude) or my card from my sister Diane (because it was postmarked after Christmas) (NOT FAIR!!!). Those two cards are shown on the stacked graph but aren't colored in because they don't count. We got ZERO joint cards this year, because we didn't get any cards from neighbors, and both of our joint friends (Vic and Jeff Jones) slacked. (I expected a slack out of Jeff, but what happened to Vic??)
Speaking of slacking: as usual, I did pretty poorly on the Slack Front. This is the count that charts cards received from the people I sent them out to. Only 1 of Dean's dudes that we sent cards to failed to send us one, whereas 7 (yes, seven) of my people were slackers. Note that my people's slack rate really rose this year (from 25% to 37%), after showing steady improvement from 2003 to 2005. I attribute the extra-high number to two factors: illness in Uncle Donald's family (a good reason for slacking) and the fact that I sent Uncle Randy a card, which I usually don't (because I know he never sends cards) (so I knowingly shot myself in the foot with that one, but that's okay). My close family was also pretty slacky (they accounted for three of the slacks), but they gave me presents, which are a lot nicer than cards, of course. Still--can't count 'em.
Since I was bummed about my people's high Slack Rate, I pointed out that the people who did send me cards made much more of an effort than Dean's people. First of all, my people were loyal enough to go out of their way to send me cards--e.g., "Leopold Strauße," Michelle, Hunter, and Jan (and probably several others), who don't normally send people cards, and Rachel, who doesn't normally send me a card. Secondly, my people also put much more effort into writing the cards--a huge number of them took the time to write personalized messages or actual letters, whereas most of Dean's people basically just signed their names (or sent out cards with pre-printed names!). At my insistence, we have a new graph for this year: the Message Rate.
As you can see, an impressive 77% of my cards had a personalized message (it would have been even higher if I could count Leopold's and my sister's cards, because they both wrote messages, and Diane's was really nice, too), whereas a great majority of Dean's did not. I got some of the nicest messages this year--so, thanks everyone! Even though my family is full of slacks, I still think I got a much better return on my cards than Dean did.
Metromint peppermint water is good. Highly recommended! (By both me and Dean, believe it or not.)
Posted at 7:04:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I had eel for New Year's. Eel is an ideal New Year's meal, don't you think? It gets you started off right for the whole year, kind of like chowing down on eel for Doyo no Ushi no Hi, the Midsummer Day of the Ox.
I need extra eel fortification, since I'm still recovering from hanging around near a dog for a couple of hours yesterday. Actually, I'm better now. But I was still kind of sneezy, itchy-eye-y and can't-breathe-y this morning. Last night after we left, my lungs were mildly messed up and I kept coughing and was bordering-on-wheezy. I used my inhaler, which I haven't touched in years. Very weird, how powerful animal dander is. I was only sitting in the same room as the dog for about ten minutes before I started to feel it. I rarely visit the houses of people with animals (since I rarely visit houses of people, period), so I forget.
We went to Rocky this afternoon, and Hipster Guy had both our drinks memorized. He's shaved off his muttonchops (or "lamb chops," as Dean thought they were called).
We need to do a final Christms Card Competition count and post graphs. I like pie graphs, especially rhubarb pie graphs.
