“No thank you, honey, I don’t want your bacon, that’s very sweet, though. No, please, don’t feed momma your bacon. Try feeding it to daddy. Look, daddy wants your bacon. No. Ugh! Please stop rubbing you bacon all over mommy!”
(on the plus side, since Chris made bacon this morning, I was able to cook my veggie sausages in bacon grease. Mmm, even vegetarian food is better with bacon grease.)
I checked the weather page to see what it’s like outside before heading to lunch (no, I’m not near any windows, it’s faster to just look at the weather page). Here’s what they tell me
from weather.gov at 11:48 AM
it’s never a good sign when even the freakin’ National Weather Service can’t identify what it is that’s falling from the sky.
Edited to add: After coming back from lunch through this “unknown precip”, I’m wondering if the issue isn’t that they’re not allowed to use the words that come to mind to describe this crap. Really, it’s nasty outside.
(I figured people might like a diversion from watching results come in)
The other night, Zoe finished dinner before Chris or I and asked to sit at the piano. We asked her to sing us a song, and here is what she performed for us. We can’t quite recognize the song - maybe Old MacDonald? - but she seems to know exactly what she’s singing. I particularly love her “whee!” at the end.
from the always wonderful Cake Wrecks blog - click the photo to get to the blog
Hey! Did you guys know there’s an election today? I know, who knew? It’s like I never heard anything about it. But seriously, if you can, and you haven’t already yet, you better get your butt out and vote today. (Umm, no I haven’t voted yet, but I’m heading to the polls immediately after work.)
While the presidential part of the election gets the most attention by far, I want to encourage everyone to take the down ballot races seriously, too. If you’re in MN, check out the Star Tribune’s My Vote page, that will give you all the races on your ballot, with links to profiles of all the candidates, including links to their own pages. If you’re elsewhere, you can use the Google votes page to look up polling information. It should include a link to your State’s election web site, which usually has information on all the races you’ll see on the ballot. Happy voting!
If you’re not in the US, or not a US citizen, I apologize. You’re probably so freakin’ sick and tired of hearing about this election here (I know I am). It will be over soon. Thank goodness.
Chris and I have a very simple set of criteria for whether a cooking experiment (whether or not it was meant to be an experiment) is a success.
our - er, my - experiment this evening
I meant to make pizza this evening. Something I’ve done plenty of times before. But the dough was stickier than normal, and when I tried to do my patented wrist flick to get the pizza off the peel and onto the stone. Nothing. Well, nothing except a big pile of uncooked pizzaness. Chris recommended that I fold it in half and make a calzone instead, which sounded better than cleaning green pepper-onion-cheese melt from the pizza stone. And, it wasn’t a failure, per se. We didn’t make anything else for dinner. But no one went for seconds, and we didn’t save any of the left over calzone for leftovers. But, I did learn that I should be more careful when the dough feels wet. And that a folded in half pizza does not a good calzone make.
So I got the skirt that I coveted (you have to scroll down to see the skirt). It arrived on Friday, and I wore it to work today. I’ve never gotten so many compliments on anything I’ve worn to work.
Posing learned from watching America's Next Geek Model
Of course, then I had to explain what the writing along the bottom was, and most people just kind of looked at me blankly as I told them about regular expressions. Not that I use regular expressions at work very often - in fact I think I’ve only used them once, but still. I love the skirt.
close up of the bottom
view of the text as it is meant to be seen as you're working on the computer - regular expressions cheat skirt!
(note, this was written yesterday morning, I didn’t have time to post it until today. I only say that because of question 13 on where you were last night, and last night was Halloween, and I wasn’t on the Internet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Also, Chris is not currently at work.)
Yay! I was tagged by Andie at Surprise of Unfolding - waves hi to Andie!
Since I’m stuck at the car dealership getting my car serviced (just the normal stuff), and I’m suffering from a bit of writer’s block (writer’s block or writers’ block?), this is perfect! Of course, the wireless at this place is wierd, so I can’t actually get to Tragic Optimist to post it, but I’ll post once I’m home again.
The idea is to give one word answers to the questions, which is cool when you’re stuck on writing, because all of a sudden you want to write more. Perfect!
1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Where is your significant other? work (his last day)
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? strong. kind. generous.
5. Your father? smart. principled. funny. (crap this one word thing is too hard)
6. Your favorite thing? sleep. or chocolate. or hugs.
7. Your dream last night? fun (I was in a group of people with superpowers. One person could phase through walls, one could turn invisible, one could talk to other people from far away. We didn’t have a place to live so we were squatting in some guy’s apartment while he was on vacation.)
8. Your dream/goal? Antarctica
9.The room you’re in? dealership service waiting room
10. Your hobby? reading. cooking. pretending to garden. blogging.
11. Your fear? losing family
12. Where do you want to be in six years? here (well, not right here in the dealership, but still here in Mpls)
13. Where were you last night? Interwebs
14. What you’re not? extroverted
15. One of your wish list items? closet space
16. Where you grew up? heartland (South Dakota, Colorado, Indiana)
17. The last thing you did? dropped off car
18. What are you wearing? black
19. Your T.V.? off
20. Your pet? cats
21. Your computer? laptop
22. Your mood? tired
23. Missing someone? Zoe
24. Your car? boxy (Scion xB)
25. Something you’re not wearing? lederhosen
26. Favorite store? not sure I have one
27. Your Summer? fun with the brief panic of Zoe’s surgery (which in the end was not worth panicking about)
28. Love someone? Yes (many ones, in fact)
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. Last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? yesterday
And now I tag anyone who’s having trouble coming up with something to write!
So that guest post that I was talking about being stuck on, oh, way back in August? Done! It seems a little silly in retrospect to have taken so long, but I really did agonize over writing this. Not that I spent all of my time over the last 2 months writing this, but it is just a little ridiculous to write so slowly. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, though. I was trying to go for relatively easy to read, a dash of humor, and not too much whining, while still acknowledging that visual development is an important thing.
And then, just as I was finishing it, I ended up getting myself all stuck again in how to write the silly two-line bio at the end. Never mind the question of just how much of my identity I wanted to reveal, I just couldn’t figure out how to describe myself in a quick easy sentence. Do I write that “Ann is a librarian?” “Ann is a mother?” “Ann is a wife and mother?” “When not at work as a librarian, Ann is home with her husband and daughter?” “Ann likes quiet walks in the park, and evenings spent in front of a roaring fire and her laptop (as long as it’s not the laptop that’s on fire)?” I finally decided to just leave all that out entirely and settled on: “Ann runs the blog Little Four Eyes for parents of young kids in glasses, and keeps her own blog at Tragic Optimist.”
This is something that I run into especially with all these social networks and online discussion forums where you’re supposed to make a profile that sums up who you are succinctly, and preferably with a dash of humility and wit. Bah! Bah, I tell you! “Ann is a person who is unable to come up with succinct and witty descriptions of herself. But she freakin’ kicks ass at being humble!”
Ok, I take a vanpool to work each day - the van fits seven of us (kind of snugly) for the 40 minute drive each way. I actually quite like it - not having to drive, especially in the mornings - plus having a group to talk with on the way home. Days when I drive myself, I find that I end up nearly exploding with my ramblings on to Chris once I’m home because I didn’t have anyone to talk with. Ah, vanpool, how did I ever get through commutes without you? But that’s not what this is about. We got vanpool home work today. Each member is supposed to bring his or her themesong next week so we can get a vanpool mix going.
I’m considering Tremendous Brunettes by Mike Doughty - hopefully the reasoning is obvious. Chris recommended The Final Countdown by Europe, which I have to admit holds a certain appeal - and I know it would crack me up every morning, but I’m not sure it’s me. Plus, could I deal with Final Countdown stuck in my head every day that the vanpool mix was played. Annie Waits by Ben Folds has lyrics that are kind of funny when reading it for vanpool. I do love Another Perfect Catastrophe Though the vanpool is almost never late, since I’m one of the first stops. Anyone else have their own theme song, or a great idea for a themesong for me?
Also, I have no idea why the comments were turned off on my post about the health fair. I love comments, I think comments are one of the best parts of a blog, and while can understand why occasionally someone might have comments off on specific posts, certainly that post wouldn’t warrant it.
