May 2010
12 posts
Yay Car Stuff! →
To go along with my post yesterday about “nesting” (or whatever you want to call it), I just had to go pick up my car from the mechanic I’ve found. And let me tell you, nothing makes you feel like…
Nesting →
Almost entirely because I’m getting married and thinking about what I’d like my life to be like once I am, I think I’m nesting. I know that may be an odd term to use, since it’s primarily used for…
Civil Rights, Racism, and Rand Paul →
By now, I’m sure most everyone has heard that Dr. Rand Paul, son of Texas’ own Congressman Ron Paul, has won the Republican nomination for Kentucky’s senate election this fall. Apparently, he won…
What is it you want, anyway? →
Sometimes, there’s this thing I do where I’m upset or unhappy about something, only I’m pretty sure there’s nothing I can really do about it that I’m not already doing, but I’m still upset and…
Flatware! →
So, the weekend before my birthday, I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond with the intention of buying a set of flatware. There were a few I saw that I liked, and I wanted to try to decide between them,…
A Very Crafty Outlook →
Lord help me, I want to learn a new craft.
This is seriously the story of my life, or it feels like it sometimes. Up to this point, I have taught myself how to knit and how to crochet. My mom…
Odds and Ends from the Weekend →
For the second weekend in a row, I ended up doing kind of a lot for this one. Fortunately, a lot of what I did this weekend was the sort of thing that doesn’t leave me exhausted, so hopefully it…
Road Trip! →
Kinda, anyway. We live a couple of hours from Portland, so sometimes we’ll drive up and make a day of it. It’s close enough for a day trip, but far enough away that we always want to pack as much…
Wedding Dreams →
I had my first wedding dream the other night.
I’ve had dreams before about getting married, but this was the first time I actually dreamed about the wedding that I am actually planning and will…
Stupid Technology →
Okay, I was getting a post all written up talking about our trip to the zoo in Portland, and I’ve only just realized that if I don’t want to store gigantic images on WordPress, the only way to not…
What’s in a name? →
We like to name things, the fiancé and I. Somehow, it’s more fun to go to bed in “the Sleepery” instead of the bedroom. Partly because that also kind of sounds like “slippery,” and we are five.
We…
Vermont Bound! →
So, just last night I bought tickets to go and visit my brother and sister-in-law in Vermont. This was a decision fraught with…indecision. As, honestly, most of my major decisions are.
The problem…
April 2010
30 posts
Is Tanning Really Bad For You? →
Tanning beds are highly engineered pieces of equipment, some costing as much as a nice sports car. Tanning beds are not cancer machines; they are tanning machines — scientifically built to provide…
On Wedding Veils →
Since I’ve got my wedding dress on my mind, I feel like now is as good a time as any to talk wedding veils. I’m going to make my own, because I don’t want to spend $150 for some cheap bridal…
The Dress is Here! →
I just got an email from David’s Bridal saying that my dress has arrived, and I should pick it up within a week.
On the one hand, I’m quite excited, because…wedding dress! Yay!
On the other hand,…
A Very Romance Novel Weekend →
I didn’t really do all that much over this past weekend. There were a few errands I had to run – the fiancé needed some books from the library, so we went over there in my car. I had to pick up the…
The Dentist – ow! →
So I went to the dentist for the first time in three years this morning. Yes, I know, I’m a bad, bad person, etc., and I should have been going regularly all along (because it’s not like I didn’t…
Taxes, the Government, and Patriotism →
I don’t know how many people remember this, but right before the election in 2008, Joe Biden got slammed by various sources for saying that paying taxes was patriotic.
At the time, I kind of…
Women in the Workplace →
Census says women equal to men in advanced degrees, yet they still lag behind men in pay
I just saw this article from the Associated Press (as published in the Oregonian) about census data from…
Marriage and Your Health →
Is Marriage Good for your Health?
–from the New York Times Sunday Magazine
I read this article today (although I’m pretty sure it was actually published a couple days ago), and it was really…
More Vampire Books! →
Of course, in this case, they’re “vampyres,” not “vampires.” A minor quibble.
I picked up the first four books in the House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast last summer, and whipped…
Weekend Whine →
I really hate it when I feel like I’ve wasted a weekend. That’s really what I felt like for this past one.
It started out okay, even though all I’d really slated for the weekend was cleaning the…
Medical Marijuana in Oregon →
In a move that I must admit I do not completely understand, the Oregon Supreme Court recently declared that a company that fired a man for disclosing his use of medical marijuana was legally…
Happy Belated Tax Day! →
Yeah, I’m being ironic.
Every year, I tell myself I’m going to get my taxes done in February, so that I can get my refund/pay what I owe and stop worrying about it.
So far, since I moved to…
Unions →
I haven’t been paying hugely close attention to the news just lately (in part because whoever is delivering my paper delivers it late!), but I have seen snippets of things about the horrible mining…
Thoughts on Twilight, et. al. →
So I’m reading Twilight (and the other assorted books) again.
It feels extra silly, because I didn’t really like them all that much the first time around. It’s even sillier because, this time…
More Park Pictures →
As promised, here’s a few more pictures of the park that we visited on Saturday:
This is the park entrance - very picturesque, yes?
Seriously - can you believe this is in the…
Surprise! →
There’s a forest in the middle of your city!
Seriously, y’all. It’s almost walking distance from where I work, too (if I was up for a reeeaaally long walk, anyway). At the very least, it’s a pretty…
Guest Lists →
I seriously didn’t think, when I started to think about my actual wedding, that I would have all that many people to invite. I actually really thought it might be close to 50 (which is what I would…
Who are you? →
I just got a completely and totally random friend request on Facebook.
Seriously – why do people do that? It’s not like this person could have seen what a fascinating person I am, or figured out my…
I lose a little bit at feeds - I just deleted one that I didn’t mean to. *sigh*
I’ve decided that using Tumblr like a regular blog is probably not really such a wonderful thing - it’s better if my posts aren’t all really long. So I’ve moved over to Wordpress for the long ones, and I’ll keep using Tumblr for the short and sweet stuff.
Out of Texas over on...
Tumblr is fun →
…but I think it’s time to go back to a real blog.
Thinking about Marriage
Not, I should note, to be confused with thinking about weddings. I’ve been doing a lot of both just recently, but marriage doesn’t involve squeeing over the pretty jewelry I’ve found on Etsy, or debating where I should buy bridal illusion to make my own veil.
Marriage, in this case, means what my life will look like once the party’s over, the dress is put away, the...
Tired today
So my big plan last night was to go to bed obnoxiously early, because I’ve been tired all week. Staying up just a little too late for several nights in a row starts to snowball after awhile.
But of course, circumstances kept me up until almost 10:00. I wanted to go to bed at 8:30. Heck, I’d have gone to sleep at 7:30 if Amiel hadn’t convinced me that would be a bad idea (he...
1 tag
MLiP: Making Bread, p. 2
And we’re back!
The next morning, you replenish your starter (i.e. pull out a cup to a cup and half of the sponge and put it in a glass jar in the fridge), and then you add oil, salt, and the rest of the flour.
I usually end up having to mix in most of the flour with my hands, and I just keep kneading until I’ve worked it all in:
You end up with a really weird, dry-yet-sticky...
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MLiP: Making Bread, p. 1
Lots of people are really intimidated by making bread from scratch. I can kind of understand it, because if you don’t know what you’re doing, the recipes sound hard and the process looks harder. I also really think it’s one of those things that is best shown to you once or twice before you go to town - so much about making bread involves knowing what things are supposed to look...
Taxes:
…are done!
It took me several weeks to figure out how the heck I was supposed to determine my federal tax liability for my state income taxes (and if that doesn’t make any sense to you…count yourself lucky that it doesn’t need to). The “Making Work Pay” credit that us po’ wage-earners got last tax year made things a little complicated.
And of course,...
1 tag
My Life in Pictures: Part the Fourth
Just another rainy day in Oregon:
…with a very picturesque flowering tree of some variety:
It sort of vaguely reminds me of a cherry blossom tree, but I don’t think it is.
There are some nice coniferous trees, too:
It’s a good thing, too, because none of the deciduous trees really have their leaves back yet. Spring can be a sort of dreary time here.
And just to...
1 tag
My Life in PIctures: Part the Third
Here are my wonky-looking brownies:
It seriously looks like there’s some sort of crater in the middle. Stupid air bubbles!
Here are my other wonky-looking brownies (because apparently, the brownies were rather gasseous this evening):
At least here, it only looks like I poked them several times.
The saving grace is that, fortunately, we’re looking at the bottom of each of...
Brownies
I’m making brownies tonight. I have a really and truly kick-ass recipe for them, compliments of my dad’s mother. The family theory is that she probably found it in a magazine or off the back of a package, because other people have remarkably similar recipes. :)
Every time I make these, I end up thinking about the different kinds of brownies that exist in the world. Some of them...
March 2010
23 posts
I sure know how to pick 'em
So Project: Go To The Damn Gym has been ongoing for a little while, with often indifferent success. Particularly in the past three weeks, it’s been pretty much impossible. I had two crazy weeks at work, so getting up at 5:00 was really not happening. Then I was sick — even after I felt better, breathing was tricky.
But this week, this week I have no excuses. So to the gym I go...
Defeated by the bed!
So I bought some of those “fits under the bed” tubs at Target today. Two of them, to store off-season clothes (bulky coats that won’t easily fit in the closet or on the coat rack) and some of my not-used-right-now craft supplies. I figure all that space under the bed is just not being used at all, so I may as well put it to work with stuff that I only need to get to...
So the cold is better. I’m still a little bit congested, but it’s not so bad. I stopped feeling truly sick on Thursday, but I still ended up leaving work an hour early because I was just absolutely wiped by 4:00 pm.
I really love how quick my boss is to tell me that I should go home and take care of myself when I’m sick. She never orders me home, but instead makes it...
Ugh.
I’m sick. :( Amiel got a cold over the weekend, and apparently he gave it to me.
It’s not anything too bad, but I’m feeling whiny anyway. Being persistently congested and having a sore throat is no fun at all (and it kept me from sleeping well last night, too).
So because I sort of need to be at work on Thursday and Friday, and because I didn’t sleep well last night,...
1 tag
My Life in Pictures: Part the Second
So on Sunday, we went to church (for the first time in a little while). We were done by about 10:30, and decided to go to Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
Amiel really didn’t want to go, but he’s a sweetheart and he loves me, so he said we could as long as I promised to be fast. :)
The reason I wanted to go is that I wanted to buy a shelf to go over my sink, like this one:
Sadly,...
2 tags
I’m a little ashamed of my home state today. It’s frustrating to me when Texas gets into the news because of the utterly stupid and bone-headed things that some of its politicians get up to. It makes me wish there was I way I could counter, “We’re not all like that! We’re not all crazy! We didn’t all vote for that guy!”
It’s depressing, utterly...
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