the last day of 2010

it's 64 degrees outside and i've spent most of the day on the couch watching movies. i did just run out to the store for some beer. maybe we'll take a walk...and then go back to the couch for more movies (and a glass of beer). great way to end the year.

home sweet home

we are finally home tonight after 14 1/2 hours of driving from new jersey. we had an extended stay at my parent's house because of the christmas blizzard. 18 inches of snow and a state of emergency, so we stayed an extra day and a half. we enjoyed the bonus time with family but my other set of parents were flying into columbia for a visit while we were still up in nj. so they were here a day without us, which was a shame.

the roads were still a bit icy up north when we left this morning, but we navigated fine. we did, however, get a flat tire when we were in delaware. they found a key (?!) and a nail in it, so a replacement was needed. but the people at the tire place were really nice. and they had free coffee and otis spunkmeyer cookies.

the snowy roads plus the hour-long tire fix made it an extra long drive. needless to say we're happy to be home, no matter how nice our visit was. (sorry, mom!) the kitties are happy to have us home too. they chose to cuddle with us instead of play outside (and that's saying much).

here's a really bad picture of me with a happy mokey purring away on my lap. (and a glass of wine:)

annual party announcement

it's that time of year again! almost time for our annual post holiday, holiday party!

when: saturday, january 8, 2011, 7:00 PM until...
where: our house
what: good friends celebrating the end of the holiday season. plenty of snacks and dessert will be provided. BYOB. feel free to bring friends.

hope to see you there!

prayers answered and a yummy winter soup

it may be odd that i'm putting these two things in the same blog post. but here goes...

after a few years (?) of fighting, chris's mom was finally awarded disability insurance today. this is huge, folks! she really is incapable of sustaining a job. and she's been living off of her ever-dwindling savings, which are not too far from drying up. we're not sure of the details or how much her new income will be, but we're just pleased that she'll finally have an income! prayers of praise! and big ups to my sister-in-law for heading down to MS to help with the hearings!

and, i made an amazing kimchi soup tonight, if i do say so myself. i love kimchi and i love kimchi soup. but i hadn't ventured to make it yet because i thought it would be hard to do. boy, was i wrong. here's what i did:

kimchi soup

heat a soup pan on medium heat and coat the bottom lightly with olive oil. add 1/2 onion sliced and saute until fragrant. add 4 chopped garlic cloves and a jar of kimchi (without it's liquid) (about 1 1/2 - 2 cups).

cook until fragrant (about 5 minutes). add whatever liquid came in the kimchi jar (about 1/2 cup), 2 cups of water, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1 TBS cooking wine (i use cooking sherry), 2 tsp chili paste (i used thai chili paste), and 2 tsp soy sauce. stir everything together and turn up heat to boil. (oh, i also added a little bit of vegetable broth because i had it in the fridge and felt like it needed a little more liquid. but the broth is not necessary.)

once boiling, add more spice as you see fit. i added a few pinches of red pepper flakes for a bit more zing. add a package of diced tofu (i like to squish out the water first by putting paper towels around it and putting something mildly heavy on it.) reduce heat to a simmer and cook about 20 minutes. once done cooking, add 2 chopped green onions and 1 TBS butter.

good served with rice.

**none of these things are exact. i adapted this recipe from here. and i pretty much used what i had in my cupboard. so if you have something different, i'm sure substitutions would work for you too.

radish salad

i just made this tonight along with potato and jerusalem artichoke soup. both were really good but i found the radish salad to be great. very fresh tasting. i'm sure it helped that i used radishes from the local farmers market. here's the recipe in case anyone's interested. (and where it said cilantro or mint, i used mint because the hubby doesn't like cilantro.)

http://www.choosy-beggars.com/index.php/2010/05/14/quick-marinated-radish-salad/

cuddle bug

i gave our cat, doozer, a bath tonight because he smelled a bit like rancid cat urine. ever since the bath he's been super snuggly. i think i should torture him like this more often if it'll increase his cuddliness. it's really cute.

we remember

3 years later


March 23, 1954-December 2, 2007

the most wonderful day of the year

BRING YOUR PET TO WORK DAY! it's the most a-mazing day ever!

you may remember that my office did this last year and i brought mokey. this year i opted for doozer and he was just about as thrilled with me as mokey was last year. oh well, i enjoyed having him around.

even if he did hide behind my desk:


and under a blanket all day.


(notice he wore his tie today. we are a professional office, after all).

most of the staff brought in their furry friends as well:







cute.cute.cute

quote of the day

"don't just a book by what they looked like in high school."

so true, so true.

a little nccc pride

happy thanksgiving

happy thanksgiving from two turkeys!

harry potter assessment

i was very pleased by the movie. i've heard people say that it was boring and didn't really get to anything of substance. but if you've read the book, the first 1/2 is basically a couple of "kids" who don't know what they're doing and are scared and hiding. i think this was the best adaptation of the book and can't wait for the second 1/2 to come out in july.

harry potter

AHHHH!!! couple hours till showtime. can't wait!

yippee!

harry potter movie tickets are in-hand! can't wait!

the frustrations continue

the hubby got a call last night around 7:45 from dss saying that they had a 2 month old baby needing placement and asking would we take the kid for the night or the weekend. he said yes but asked them to call me to work out the details because he was at a work event. a few minutes later i got a call from dss asking the same question. so i said yes, we would take the child. so the guy said that i would be getting a call from the caseworker to work out the details. i ran home and cleaned off the cat hair from the various surfaces in the kid's room, cleaned the bottles, checked the formula, laid out some clothes. and then i waited. and waited. and waited for that damned caseworker to call. after 1 1/2 hours i tried to call the guy back but his number apparently can't be return-called. long story short, we didn't get a single call back. not a word saying that they found another home. nothing.

i am just so pissed at them for the inconsideration and the lack of professionalism. i can't even express it fully here. i did try to call him back again this morning and couldn't get through. i also tried my caseworker and she wasn't available. i think i'm going to call the foster care association. if nothing else they can confirm that this is how the process goes and that everyone is treated this way. slim comfort, but at least i'd know it wasn't just me.

making preparations

i'm rereading harry potter book 7 in anticipation of part 1 the moving coming out in a few weeks. it's the only book in the series that i have not read multiple times. it occurred to me that if harry were real he would only be 2 years younger than me.

risotto recipe

i made a good risotto tonight and since i made up the recipe i thought i'd jot down how i made it for future references. i've been trying to use up the green tomatoes from our end of the season garden and this was a really good way to do that.

green tomato and pumpkin risotto

saute 1/2 onion in olive oil till soft.
add 4 chopped green tomatoes and cook on medium for a few minutes. add 1 chopped clove garlic.
add 1 cup arborio rice and mix around for a minute.
and 1 cup pumpkin puree and 1 cup white wine. mix well and cook until liquid dissolves.
add 1 cup of veg stock, stir and cook until liquid is dissolved.
continue adding 1 cup of veg stock at a time until you've added a total of 4 cups of liquid.
when almost done salt and pepper to taste. add a pinch of cayenne and clove.

so good!

as an aside, we finished insulating under the house last saturday. i'm really, really glad that we did it, even though it was laborious work. i'm home sick this afternoon and it's really nice to have a cozy, less drafty house to rest in. it's amazing what a difference it made. the floors are WAY less cold than they used to be and the house just seems overall less drafty. definitely a wise decision!

happy halloween!

crazy weather

i can't believe that it's almost november and we have had to turn the air conditioning back on for the past 2 days. this time last week if not for my stubbornness we would have had the heat on.

weekend project

this is what we spent the majority of our saturday (and will spend a majority of our sunday) doing.




insulating the crawl space.

it was hard work and it sucked royally. but i'm really proud of us for doing it. we're about 1/3 of the way through. we could've pushed on further today but we decided not to kill ourselves since there was no way we were going to finish today. so we'll pick back up tomorrow where we left off today. hrumph.