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 Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 1:09 pm
I am slowly being won over to cast iron cookware. It is really easy to clean because all you have to do is just wipe it out and put on almost any kind of edible oil after use. Even less if you cook bacon in it. Yes, this is what I have learned today. I made bacon this morning for breakfast using my skillet and I have a dutch oven too. Yummy stuff.
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 4:57 pm
wolfen26 I am slowly being won over to cast iron cookware. It is really easy to clean because all you have to do is just wipe it out and put on almost any kind of edible oil after use. Even less if you cook bacon in it. Yes, this is what I have learned today. I made bacon this morning for breakfast using my skillet and I have a dutch oven too. Yummy stuff. I love cast iron skillets! I grew up with them. I switched to lighter-weight skillets after mildly injuring myself one too many times trying to drain grease off a meal. Whenever I have someone to help me with the grease I still prefer to cook with them. Today I learned that someone is compiling all of the haiku off of Twitter and republishing it online. I googled my username and up came this page with my Haiku poem I wrote in May. Since May I have not been on Twitter and have forgotten my password. I decided to write I new haiku to tweet when I figure out my password and which e-mail I linked my Twitter account to. Y'all get to read it first: Forgotten Password Just outside the reach of mind Taunting me cruelly Got a lot of cleaning done today also. I have been productive. biggrin
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 6:03 pm
I love haikus! heart And oh how I know the feeling of a forgotten password sweatdrop
Today, I tried reheating my frozen pancakes for the first time. I'm on a huge food freezing kick, and last week I froze two leftover pancakes from breakfast. This morning when Lily and I got up I popped one in the toaster for her, and it came out perfect! Like, maybe even better than fresh pancakes, that's how awesome it was. 3nodding She certainly enjoyed it.
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Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 4:14 pm
Hmm. Today, today. Today was a bit of a lazy day and I didn't really do much of anything.
- I recieved a few of my Etsy packages in the mail! whee
- I made a hemp bracelet.
- I bought some Jason's Organic Vitamin E Oil (for my stretched ears).
- I bought some Dr. Bronner's Rose Soap.
- Me & my fiance brainstormed about making a Zine about our up & coming backpacking trip.
Annnnnnd now I'm on Gaia.
Did I learn anything today?
Not really. I'm on about a 2 - 3 week break from college right now. My finals were last week . . . I'm all learned out. My brain is shut off until the end of this month! rofl
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Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 7:46 pm
Mystic's back! heart *waves* biggrin
IT RAINED!!! It only rained for a little while, but it was wonderful. I was out running errands and looked at the sky. I could see rain off in the distance and thought, hmm, that looks like it's near my house. Got to my neighborhood and we had our own personal raincloud parked over us. I got out of the car and just stood in it. It was such a great moment. I wish all of you could have been here to share it. heart
I also decided to clean out one of my parent's cabinets. They never cook, yet they had this whole cabinet of spices. Had. Apparently, McCormick stopped using those little tins for spices 15 years ago. Some of the herbs had use by dates from before my birth! *Tossed* Actually, I kept the cute little tins and dumped the spices. I haven't replaced them yet, but it's unlikely my parents will notice that the cabinet is empty since they don't cook and apparently never look at what is in it anyway. rofl I will have to replace them with store-bought herbs, though, since the drought and heat this year kept me (and just about everyone else around here) from planting herb gardens.
Fall planting should start for us within the next week or two here, but since we went from voluntary to mandatory water restrictions today and it is supposed to be above 100F all week it is unlikely I will be able to have much of a fall garden this year. Just means I'll have to find new and different ways to be green this year. mrgreen
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Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:02 am
I'M SO HAPPY IT RAINED, DRAGON!!!!!!!!!!! blaugh blaugh blaugh *jumping up and down*
I know just how you feel! I stood in the first little 3-minute rain that we had, and although it was like standing in the shower, I was happy!
We have just enjoyed almost a week of sub-normal temps. The pasture greened up and grew, and we have cut, raked, dried, and stored it. Hoping we can do that again a couple of times before it all goes to sleep. We are supposed to be back up to 100 by the weekend. The grasshoppers are even eating the chilis (so much for garlic/pepper spray) and I don't know about a fall garden here----the weather may be warm enough, but the days are getting shorter by 2+ minutes per day. The wind tore up my little greenhouse this spring, so I have to decide if I want plants badly enough to fight the wind and run lights. Probably.
Not only is the mimosa tree full of hummingbirds and butterflies, the sunflowers and tallgrasses are loaded with goldfinches and indigo buntings. It's just beautiful! Cardinals fly into and through the cedars, and scissortails fill the sky in the evenings, with the swallows and bats, catching dinner at sunset. Wish you were here!
Crocheting hats, fingerless gloves, and scarves now.
School starts in Joplin tomorrow, and everything is ready! Residential rebuilding has begun in spots. Home Depot, Aldi, Walmart are pretty much closed in, and both Walgreens have been rebuilt and are doing set-up now. Chick-Fil-A is finishing up----drove by last week, and there were chairs and tables outside, although the inside is not ready yet. Academy is starting to rebuild. Smaller strip centers have been razed and some land is for sale, some will be rebuilt. It's just a beehive of activity!
Although I have lived in this area for most of my life, I have never really considered it home. Guess I'm still looking for that perfect place------so I really got a surprise driving in town the other day. Went past a business to see them resurfacing the parking lot, and just burst into tears of joy! It has been a rough road for everyone here, and although Joplin is really just a town of less than 50,000, it grows to 200,000 every day, and every person in that tally has been affected in some way. There have been so many volunteers from all over the world, and donations from all over the world, and every person, every cent has made a difference. St. John's Hospital is announcing tonight where the new hospital will be built, and many businesses will follow them, although all the "temporary" hospital and school buildings will be in use for at least 3 years. It's a long process, rebuilding. So if any of you have helped in any way, THANK YOU from the people of Joplin! And if you haven't, it's never too late, and it will be appreciated.
There have been several people who have come to volunteer, and have decided to stay. Their stories pop up on the news once in a while. They are usually from big cities---like Chicago---and they come thinking that they'll just help a while and go home, never knowing that once they get here, they won't be able to leave. It's been interesting.
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Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 3:10 pm
Hi Dragon!! heart I really missed this guild.
Your parents' spices remind me of my grandmother's medicine cabinet... We took a trip to Texas for a few weeks and stayed with my grandmother; I was looking for some toothpaste and found tons of old beauty products and the like, such as some hair dye that expired in 1972 stressed My mom hadn't even graduated high school in that year!! Crazy people...
I haven't done anything today except make breakfast, but Saturday my last textbook for this semester came in whee I'm taking Complementary and Alternative Health Therapies this semester, and I'm really excited heart Doesn't really have anything to do with my major, but it's a critical thinking credit that I needed so yay.
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Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:03 pm
@Sunset: its incredible hearing about the people coming together to rebuild the town of Joplin. I'm amazed that they've got things ready enough to have school on time this year. Incredible.
I worked today so i didn't get to do anything noteworthy...sad. But i am playing with a design to make a sort of grinding jig to make my grinds more consistent from knife to knife. I just need the free time and materials to go make it.
Well tomorrow night i have to work third shift and then i have an interview at 10am so i wont be sleeping when i get home from work hopefully it'll be worth all of sleep loss. Oh and i found out that the company i'm interviewing with has some killer insurance. But it doesn't cover podiatrists which is weird considering its a stand up only job that runs on 12 hour shifts...but whatever my feet don't give me problems really anyways so it shouldn't be a problem.
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Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 4:49 pm
I helped install sensors at the sites for my air quality analysis research project today. It required a lot of time out in the field today. I am tired now but I really enjoyed my day! ^_^
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Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:27 pm
Been really busy lately. I hate saying that word - busy. Usually people are just slack at time management (me being one) but man, the day just goes by so fast. I have no extra time to do anything. Not sleeping doesn't help either.
Going through my plants. My 9000+ plants. I got two more bags of soil today to top everyone up and spread them out and such. A co worker came over to get some dresses (yes, I do own a dress or two) and I showed her my patio of plants. The look of sheer bewilderment and confusion on her face makes me realize that I probably do have a problem.
Next on Hoarders... pirhan and her plants.
burning_eyes
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Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:13 am
@ Pirhan: rofl
Just went to Google maps for Joplin. The overhead view is from after the tornado, the street view is still from before the tornado. I've just been shaking my head for an hour.
The new St. John's Hospital will be built at I-44 and south Main. It will be a great location! There will also be a satellite hospital built somewhere to the northeast of Joplin, where other highways cross through.
The first day of school in Joplin went off without a hitch. Wow.
The kids I was most concerned about were the ones that went to the grade school on 26th Street. This was our old neighborhood, and the kids in that area would walk to school, for the most part. They are now all being bussed to a repurposed school near the downtown area, off east 2nd Street. Great to see how happy they were to see friends and teachers! Lots of them haven't seen any of their friends all summer, having lost their homes and moved to God-Knows-Where. The High School kids love having school at the mall, especially since there are no textbooks---UAE donated laptops for every student, and everything is online.
The Walgreens on Main Street reopens the 22nd, and Chick-Fil-A on Rangeline reopens in their totally new building on September 1st.
Joplin will be part of Glenn Beck's Restoring Courage broadcast on the 24th, from the park just across the street from the old St. John's. There will be several places featured, not just Joplin. Might be some good live shots from Joplin on that day, if anyone wants to see.
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Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 9:43 pm
@ Sunset: It's amazing to hear how quickly y'all have been rebuilding! And, wow! The students are going (at least partially) paperless?! That is so cool! The entire world is watching Joplin. What an incredible example to set! I had hoped Texas would be closer to eliminating paper textbooks than we are right now. I remember not having a locker through a lot of high school because of over crowding and poor management. (One year I got assigned a locker upstairs in a building I had no classes in stressed , the next year they decided not to assign any students lockers because they were something like 750 short. Big school.) I would have loved not to lug around big, heavy books. Governor Perry announced last year that he wanted digital textbooks here, but with all the budget cuts we had to do this year the textbook initiative didn't get much attention. The goal is to move toward open-source e-textbooks, which schools could use for free. The state board of education did approve the use of several digital textbooks, though. I haven't been posting any drought pics since they are a bit depressing, but Fox had an interesting video in their newscast last night. BTW, this is where Houston tap water comes from.
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Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 11:02 pm
I've been pretty busy today ^^ I sliced, breaded, and froze all of the okra we've harvested the past week or so (which was a LOT), picked stuff from the garden (and found a HUGE cucumber the length and girth of my forearm), cut several bundles of parsley and hung them up to dry, cut some grass and weeds in the garden, and played outside for like an hour and a half with my Lily heart Pretty productive day. And tomorrow I start making pickles!
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 8:15 pm
Worked and then watched movies with the family when i got home. Good to relax and blow off some stress. Going to a birthday party for a relative tomorrow and depending on when i get home its going to be another day spent in the garage. I've been thinking about installing security system lately but as i'm a renter i don't know if its worth the investment...I've just come to realize my neighborhood has gone downhill the last few years and the value of the tools in my garage might just be enough to make someone think about stealing them...i don't need one of them fancy alarms that calls the cops and everything just something that sets off a buzzer or something in my house that would alert me that my garage and or house has been entered by someone who shouldn't be there so that i could defend myself and or my property...food for thought i suppose maybe more research is needed.
Do any of you have home security systems or do you live in generally safe area's that you don't worry about it?
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:33 am
@ Teh_plague: We live at the end of the road, out in the country. I've always been concerned about someone showing up here, unknown and uninvited, and having been burglarized and held at gunpoint in my house in town, I know how you feel! My security system is #1---Almighty God! #2---Dogs! various sizes, from anklebiter to horse #3--- firearms. We also have good neighbors, but we can't really see each other's houses out here. Airhorns are helpful there, we can usually hear them. Just having good sense about what you tell people (and who you tell) and who you invite into your little kingdom is probably your best defense, generally speaking.
@ Mystic: Congratulations on the great harvest! I have missed making pickles and all the rest of it. It's hard, hot work, but worth every second, and lots of fun in its own way---good for you!
@ Dragon: I really have mixed feelings about the paperless business. We had several sets of encyclopedias with yearbooks, old books from my grandparents and parents, magazines and newspapers going back to the 1920's (not everything, of course, but coverage of newsworthy events, lots of history there) stored in town at a storage place that was blown away. My own kids were always encouraged to look things up in the old encyclopedias, too, when researching things for school, and they were usually surprised at the differences in things that were printed at the time of the events' occurence and the current listed information, as were several of their teachers! I have serious problems with using electronic forms of communication as the sole source for information of any kind---who determines what is posted as fact? It's all too easily controlled, in my opinion, and truth can be edited away so easily. I have watched our sources of fact become nothing more than centers for propaganda. My journalism teachers would be horrified at the state of the media and the manipulation of public opinion that passes for truth today. "Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How? " and "just the facts" has been replaced by a largely editorial media. Frightening, the amount of manipulation that is accepted as truth. All the print history that was lost in the tornado was probably our greatest personal loss.......along with my great-great-grandmother's tiny little shoes that closed with a buttonhook, my grandmother's dressmaker's form, and my grandfather's little velvet suit and braids. And pictures, of couse......
The drought has been terrible. We have family all throughout the South, although no one is in Houston anymore. We're praying for you. Been there. It hit us here this summer, not like Texas, but enough that there is very little food storage, and people are selling their animals before winter----there's just been no hay to store, unless it came from north of here. I've never seen so many big trucks of hay, coming from the north!
One of our senators has begun an investigation of FEMA in the Senate. It seems that although you try to take care of things without them, the tentacles spread EVERYWHERE and "help" is very often very controlling-----and difficult to escape------
(@ Pirhan: Maybe we should start "Hoarder's Anonymous" wink Although I will have to start over where some things are concerned! biggrin )
Still crocheting, bought nothing, learned that financial aid for one of the girls didn't come through, so we're scrambling for tuition on that one! Didn't do anything out of the ordinary, just did it accompanied by mosquitoes, which hasn't been the case this year. I have really enjoyed their absence this summer!
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