Rumi

The way of love is not
A subtle argument.

The door there
Is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles
Of their freedom. How do they learn that?

They fall, and falling,
They’re given wings.

—Rumi

It’s been a while

Yep.  I’ve been busy pinning on Pinterest.  It seems that’s a decent place to throw all my junk together.

Feel free to follow me on there.

Life’s been pretty crazy lately.  Actually I’ve been pretty crazy.  I’m at wits end with my job, feeling the “oh my god i’m 30 and still don’t know what i wanna be when i grow up” bullshit.  I take those aptitude tests and they say I’m good at anything I put my mind to.  Well then what?!  Where will I find satisfaction?!

It certainly isn’t at a job where I’m everybody’s low-paid bitch.  I’m so sick of being all codependent in my job.  I’d like to be able to make decisions for myself and not have to rely on a ton of people to get shit done.  I am not a “team” player, though I can when I need to be.  I really want some freedom to gain more education without feeling like I’m asking for the stars.  I’d like to be appreciated, not brushed under the rug.  I would like to feel included rather than excluded and told I don’t need to know that or that I don’t need to be trained on x,y,z.

But in this economy and with a refinanced mortgage (we went from a 30 to a 15 year loan), I feel trapped.  I’d like to gain more education in my field, but the closest college in (at a minimum) 90 miles away.  I’m married… and I can’t stand the thought of moving away for college.

I don’t know… I used to be a piano teacher and a band instrument repair tech.  I made next to nothing, but it was the best job I could ever dream of.  Then I threw it away.  Long story short, I was using, got help, thought I had to quit my job to do so (didn’t know about FMLA), and here I am 5 years later… clean and miserable, thinking about how long my recovery will last at this rate.

I need to get my poop in a group before I drive myself insane.

Back to work……………

Lifehacker

I love the Lifehacker website.  The latest one I found was the workout:

 

 

Yeah, I’ve been feeling grossly overweight lately.  Clothes aren’t fitting, I feel sluggish… yuck…

Time to get off my rear end.  🙂

Sausage Bread and Tits-Up Crab Cakes

The best breakfast I’ve had in ages!  More from the Hell’s Kitchen cookbook…

The sausage bread is a quick bread with, literally, sausage in it.  It called for ground bison chuck, but we didn’t feel like spending $12 a pound for it… so we went with the leanest ground beef we could find.  It’s like breakfast in a bread.  I had it this morning for breakfast – honestly, just one piece – and it filled me up!  It’s spicy, fruity, meaty… and slather on some peanut butter to make it even better!

Bread Baking

I was in the kitchen from about 9am-1pm making all of this.  Some of it was clean-up, dancing around to Wookiefoot, and drinking coffee.

Joel couldn’t find lump crab meat for the crab cakes, so he bought crab legs… what a mess!  We literally cracked all the crab legs and got as much as we could out of it.  He managed to make a flesh offering while trying to fry them, too… lovely…

I will post my rendition of the recipe for these tonight.  In the meanwhile, here are a few pics:

Prep Work

 

Adding the Hollandaise Sauce!

TGIF!

Seriously.  Thank the gods.  It’s snowy out… wind is supposed to pick up tonight, which usually means nasty driving conditions.  Unfortunately, I can’t just stay at home in bed all weekend.  I have a 2.5 hour drive ahead of me tomorrow.  Boo!

Anyway, found a few things today:

I wanna be someone important someday.  Not just in an egotistical sense, but to not get shit on so much at work.  Meh.  Can’t have everything, I guess.

I seriously hate the sound of people chewing.  Seriously.  Where I work, it puts me at ear level with people’s mouths.  If they’re chomping like cows on some gum, it’s like electricity.

I think I’m losing my shit today.

Humor me.

Here’s a way to Scare People on the Road… funny as hell!

Fun Stuff

The Bread

I tried baking some bread again last night.  Didn’t turn out how I expected, but it was still really good.

I tried “The Bread” from my post on November 16th.  I didn’t have a cast iron dutch oven, but had a cast iron skillet with pretty high sides and a bunch of foil.  I think the dough wasn’t quite firm enough because when I baked it, it was kind of this semi-flat, roundish blob.  It rose, don’t get me wrong… it just didn’t look like the picture from the recipe.

But the flavor… whoa!  I added 3 Tbsp of minced garlic and about 2 Tbsp of fresh, chopped rosemary.  Omg did it taste good!!!

I think we both enjoy this whole baking bread thing.  I need to remember to take pictures…

The Popovers

I made popovers on Monday night for the first time.  They rose but didn’t pop – over.  They looked kinda like chef hats.  Look:

Pop overs that didn't pop - over

Flavor was okay.  I’m not a huge fan of blandness, so I might try to spice it up or add some vanilla/cinnamon mix next time.  And fill the pans a little more.  I think that was the problem.

Pumpkin

I never made any of the pumpkin recipes I’d posted before, and I still have a can of pumpkin in the cupboard staring me down.  Out of season, yes… but oh so tasty!  To heck with red for valentines day – I’m going orange!  😀

Manic Monday

Let’s hope anyway…

Food Stuffs:

Saturday, I made Brioche Bread from the Hell’s Kitchen cookbook.  It was heavenly.  There’s nothing like bread right out of the oven, in all it’s buttery goodness!

Sunday morning, we attempted to make the Bread Pudding recipe from the same cookbook.  I think the best thing in there for you were the dried cherries (supposed to be currants).  Heavy cream, whole milk, butter, sugar, eggs… yeah… good for the heart.  🙂

I don’t have any pictures at this time, but will be sure to post the next time we make it!

Craft Stuffs:

The fabric/yarn/sewing machine repair shop in town is doing a kick-off for their annual charity drive. Mom picked up several pieces of fleece from the fabric store and sewed a seam around the edge.  My job is to crochet a border around it.  These are given to newborns at our local hospital.  Pretty sweet.

They are in need of blankets and seem to have enough hats from previous years.  They’re turning out really nicely.  The Hmong families requested bright colors instead of the regular pink and blue, so I got a really odd looking one with fall colors on it.  The yarn I found at the yarn shop was so nice that I’ve decided to make something out of the leftovers.  🙂

Shoulder still kills.  Been popping ibuprofen.  Hope that helps.

Oh seriously?

Ruling over controversial pool sign stands

Yeah, this was pretty disturbing.

Seriously.

 

Seriously might have to try this... phone mount made from office supplies!

Winter Wonderland

 

The end is near! Or not...

Well, winter has finally hit Minnesota.  I live in Marshall, which is southwestern part of the state and, for some reason, it’s taken until this week to get any snow that’s stuck for more than 8 hours.  Bizarre.  I’m sure it won’t stay, as it’s supposed to be warm again this weekend.  I went from wearing a t-shirt and sweats on Tuesday to not having enough layers Wednesday.  58 degrees to 10 degrees in a day.

On to the discussion of the pic.  My husband and I bring a twelve step meeting into our local jail every other week.  We were having these unseasonably warm days and asked the jailer, as we were leaving, if he had a chance to enjoy the nice weather, making good Minnesota small-talk.

“No, I’ve been preparing for end times,” he says.

We giggled a little then realized he was serious.

************************************************************

Anyhoo… here are my latest articles of interest…

Buffett to Republicans: If You Pay, So Will I

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy Warren Buffett?  For being one of the richest men out there, he really knows how to push the ticket.  The article says that ” he would donate $1 to paying down the national debt for every dollar donated by a Republican in Congress. The only exception is Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell – for whom Buffett said he would go $3-to-$1.”

Fan-freaking-tastic!  If only people would take him up on it…

I’ve been having weird shoulder/neck pain from crocheting lately… I think I’m going to have to give it a rest for a while.

In the meanwhile, we’ve been looking through the recipes in the Hell’s Kitchen cookbook.  They have lots of recipes within recipes within recipes.  Very weird.  It’s like footnotes inside of footnotes.  We might try the sausage bread this weekend.  Maybe the “tits up crab cakes,” too.  I’ll post pics.  🙂

Oh give me a break…

Seriously???  Cry me a freakin river!  Go ahead and quit – that’s what most people in the general public want anyway!

Smaller Bonuses!? Wall Street Bankers Mad As Hell And Not Going To Take It Anymore