What I'm reading

It's really good. It's funny, semi-original and I'm actually laughing which I love to do while reading a book. I think I heard about it on Lallybroch's reading reccomendation message board. Even though I've never been a huge fan I do check out the Lallybroch boards for great reading suggestions and general Scottish knowledge.

Curling

I was sick AGAIN this past week with a sinus infection. When will it ever end?? While I was home for a few days I watched a lot of curling on the CBC. This is one of the few times in my life that I have lived close enough to get a Canadian television station. I think it's funny how the further north you live in Michigan the less you'll get Canadian TV. It's the closer you get to the city (aka Detroit) the more Canadian stations you get. Anyways, the Tournament of Hearts sucked me in for hours. I thought the most facinating player was Colleen Jones, who not only is a world champion curler but is also a weather and sports reporter for the CBC! How accomplished is that? Kinda makes me want to go out and pick up a few more professions.

This just in....

Rumor has it that Fiestaware is coming out with a new color-Peacock. I'm sure it will be out this fall since that's when the last few colors have been released. It's said to be the same shade as Windex. Thanks to Medium Green for that info and I'm sure you all were just dying to know this.

Voiceless

In more ways than one, I have no voice. We've been having problems with the Internet at home which means no blogging from home. Which means, hardly any blogging at all. To top it off, I woke up this morning with my voice completely gone. I feel fine it's just that I can't talk. I had the flu a few weeks ago and only have a cough that is lingering on so I don't know what this is all about. My boss is making me hot tea as I type. How nice.

Anyway, no big plans for the weekend- tomorrow I'm heading to the Joann's President's Weekend Sale and later in the afternoon my niece and nephew are coming to spend the night with me. We have a funfilled evening planned with a possible visit to the Sloan Museum to see a traveling exhibit called Contraptions A to Z. Then back to my house for junk food and multiple showings of Big Top Pee Wee and Napoleon Dynamite. I got them hooked on Pee Wee and this is the only thing left to see. Plus I think they will love Napoleon Dynamite.

As soon as we get the Internet up and running I will blog like a banshee and make up for lost time. There's a lot of stuff I feel like talking about.

BTW, I learned on Good Morning America this morning that there really is such a thing as a liger. And here I thought Napoleon Dynamite just made it up.

What next?

Looky here!

Mary Kaye and Vili have set a date AND picked out a registry! Wow, who'd have thunk she'd have kept up on the latest styles from Kate Spade's Barware Collection while spending the last seven plus years in jail.

Won't you be my friend?

Anybody on Netflix? I've been doing Netflix for about two and a half years now and apparently they have started a "friends" program to see what your friends are getting and what their opinion of the movie was. Anybody want to be my friend? I figure more and more people are joining since it's taking me twice as long to get movies I want because of the increase of customers since they've been advertising the hell out of it.

I love Netflix. They've got (just about) all of the weird independant films I'm always looking for. And they save me a lot on late fees. I figured it out one time and I'm averaging about $2 a movie. That's not bad and I'm in no rush to return them.

Oh yeah, Happy V Day!

A Girl's Best Friend

I want one of these soooo bad. It is a nail file made with embossed diamonds. Since diamonds are one of the strongest rocks in the world, this makes sense to me. Unfortunately, the price range is all over the board on this one and I have yet to find a place that sells them in person so that I could actually try them out.

Errr….don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those gals who has to have long, fake, airbrushed nails and has to have a manicure or refill every week or two. On the contrary. My whole life I bit my nails until they bled. After I got out of college (i.e. no health insurance) I broke a tooth and had to have $1,000’s of dollars worth of dental work done. At that point my teeth didn’t even meet enough to bite my nails so I thought that was a perfect time to quit. Ever since then I have tried to take excellent care of my nails, I give myself all of my own manicures and I’m only seen sporting a French manicure or dark red fingernail polish. It blows my mind how quickly I go through emery boards and nail files. That’s why I want one that’s guaranteed for a lifetime.

Making Cheese

I am on a mission. I am on a mission to find super easy, super healthy, quick things I can make at home that would impress my least impressionable friends. I'm also trying to avoid all pre-packaged foods and mixes, too. For this quest of being healthy, easy and homemade, I have been picking up different types of cookbooks everytime I go to my local library. The most recent find was in a Raw Foods cookbook. (I was really looking for Carol Alt's A Beginners Guide to Raw Foods but of course I could't find that one.) After thumbing through what seemed to be 101 recipes for steak tartar I found a recipe for "yogurt cheese". I ran right out and bought a cheese cloth so I could try this experiment.

Yogurt Cheese
1 small container of plain yogurt
Empty into cheese cloth. Hang over sink faucet for 24 hours or until the yogurt is spreadable. Serve with crackers.

I tried it. Honestly? It tastes a lot like boursin. It makes enough for maybe two people and next time I try it I'm going to add some spices and maybe some chives to spice it up a little bit before I put it in the cheese cloth. I don't really care for yogurt (unless it's the custard, creamy kind)but this seems to be ok and it's got to be a little bit better for you then processed cheese, right?

I'm also on a mission to make store bought products and mixes at home. For example, my husband insists on using an envelope of chili seasoning whenever he makes chili. I honestly didn't know that such a thing exisited before I met him. (It's just seasonings, can't you make yourself??) I guess my mom always made everything from scratch so I assumed everyone else did, too. So far I have come up with recipes for a faux Hershey's syrup (not that we ever use it), a chili seasoning mix and the one I'm dying to try that I just found out you can make at home- coconut syrup. I have been craving that stuff ever since Hawaii. And to think I thought I was going to have to order a case of it because I can't find it anywhere.

Hey, look at me, I think this is the longest post I've ever written. I also never thought I'd be posting about food and recipes either. I'm actually starting to enjoy cooking more and more since getting married, I never cooked much before when it was only for one person. My husband could seriously become a chef so it's fun to hang out in the kitchen with him trying new recipes.

Cool New Product of the Week

Mmmmm.....apple. I don't like mint so this is a refreshing treat for me. It's delicious, too.

Vacation Planning 101

We need a vacation. Anyone who knows me knows that I like to travel a lot and if I go for long periods of time without going anywhere I get very irritable and cranky. I also believe that Hawaii spoiled us so now we don't feel like staying within the 48 states is nearly enough. My husband is desperately trying to convince me to go to Amsterdam. Let's just say it's been a pipe dream of his for sometime now. I've also been getting a lot of travel alerts saying tickets to Amsterdam are about $244-$300 a piece right now. That's not bad at all. So here's my dilemma, where else should we go? If we go to Europe we have to see one, maybe two other major cities because I am not about to begin to try to explain going to Europe and only seeing Amsterdam. I'm thinking London and/or Paris. Everyone tells me England is a good starting point for your first European vacation because it eases you into that European feel while still being able to communicate with people. Paris because, well, I have to see the Eiffel Tower. Hmmm....what would you do?

Oh, and by the way, don't expect any souvenirs from me due to the exchange rate of the Euro. Sorry folks.

Sick

Yeah, I know. I haven't posted in a week and here I was doing so good, too. What can I say? My husband brought home the flu 4 weeks ago, got over it and then promptly gave it to me. Thanks, honey. You're the best.

In other news, I got to try on one of these the other day at work. The Detroit Pistons are having a "Read to Achieve" event at the museum I work at. Some of the higher-ups were there finalizing plans. Some how we got to talking and the subject of one of the guys' ring came up so he took it off and passed it around. It was very heavy and very sparkly.

The ironic part? I've never watched a game nor could I identify any of the players in a police line up. I just thought it was semi-cool that I got to try on the ring.

Lost in Cyberspace

Could someone please tell me what happened to my archives?

I'm missing a ton of them. Please direct them back to me.