White is White!

Last weekend I went through a terrible trauma. After reaquainting myself with my village in Animal Crossing, my GameCube broke. Something is wrong with the lens, and cleaning it only did it good for a few minutes, and then it stopped working again. I was pissed. After all, I was starting to remember all the things I love about Nintendo - their games are the top of my list. Zelda, Mario, Animal Crossing, I love them all! And of course, the console broke on my first day of vacation.

Bruce decided that my meltdown was unpleasant and asked if there were any computer games he could download for me. I picked one out, and it took all weekend of downloading for it to come through. When it finally did (we were back from Milwaukee for two days, and I was officially back to work when it was finished, the bastard), my video card wasn't good enough for it to run on my computer. I gave up and bought an older version of the game, one I'd played on this computer before. It worked just fine all week, but I'm not going to be entertained by Zoo Tycoon for too long.

Today, Bruce convinced me that I should get the new Sims game, The Sims Life Stories. When I installed it and tried to start it up, it informed me that my video card wasn't capable of supporting it. Gaaaaahhhh! I feel like such an old lady saying this, but my card is perfectly good! It works fine! There's nothing wrong with it, and when did this video card thing change, anyway? It didn't even mention anything about the video card requirements on the package! When did this miraculous across-the-board upgrade happen, when did it become the standard? WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME?!

Long story short, I now have a new video card, and my computer is no longer using the 800x600 resolution, and most importantly of all... drumroll please... white is no longer pink! Life is good.

I cleaned out the fridge today - everything but the freezer, now that I think about it. It looks so shiny and nice, just like the day we got it. I rearranged a few of the shelves too, so everything fits where I want it to now. Like my perpetual box of wine is on the top shelf now, so that I don't have to drag it back and forth across the bottom every time I want a pour. And I got rid of that chunk of melded-on cardboard that has been on the glass shelf since before we moved - it was removable, who knew?

Tomorrow, I'm making a stratta. A sweet stratta. Here's the recipe and I'll let you know how it goes. Tomorrow is also the day of the first baby shower I'm attending for one of my friends. It starts.

Prelude to a Dream

I forgot to tell you guys, and I'm so wreaking havoc with my little brother for it, but we (Bruce and I) went to Milwaukee last weekend and stayed with him, and we had a BLAST. It was like a blast, only with capitol letters. A BLAST. With an exclamation point.

On Thursday, we made the three hour drive down, and commented a lot on the scenery. When we got there, it was only a short amount of time before we got sick and tired of waiting for Robby to shower, and then we were in the mood to eat! Eating is great! Especially if you're in a city where you have more variety than Chinese, Taco Bell, and Luigi's. I love all of those places, but I have to say I'll go for Abu's Jerusalem of the Gold any day. Well, most days.

I ate one of the vegetarian dinners, and Bruce opted for one of the meat dinners. I'm not saying that the meat in other parts of the world isn't as good as the meat we get here, but damn. Bruce was sick for all-night-longly. I had to go out with Robby and his friends all by myself.

We went to a friend's house and talked about the virtues of Amsterdam and the pitfalls as well (when crossing the street, it's best not to be too high to recognise a car). His friend's roommate brought up
Survivorman, and we discussed how awesome and helpful he is. Maybe if you've never lived in a colder climate you don't realize, but one of my main fantasies was getting lost in the wild, only I'd accumulated All The Best Equipment and outwitted nature. Survivorman helps with that fantasy, giving real-life tips. I went out with Robby and his friends that night. It was fun.

Right now I'm not in a position to give you details, because I'm working off a long week. The way I'm working off this week is with a box of white. Wine.

Hippie Stuff

Homemade detergent, via Not Martha.

I'm itching to have less of an impact on my surroundings. I'm going to be posting ideas I have and find under the category of Simple is Good. If we all do a few things, we can do a lot.

I Never Thought

that I would start a post by saying, "So, Bruce and I were listening to "13 going on 30" and end it with, "and we both started singing along to this song off the soundtrack," but there you have it. This is what getting old does to you, people. Take notes. Or don't, because things get ugly, and you might want to forget about them until you get there. Old, that is.

Anyway, I was in search of that song, and found this video. Please, if you need a bright spot in your day, watch.



How cute was that? And go figure, it's a Liz Phair song. We love our Liz over here.

In other news, today when I was admonished for not doing something correctly, I offered to do it correctly and was told, "No, you go home, but tomorrow, you'll do it right." I'm very seriously considering leaving the place where I'm told things like that fairly regularly.

1 Year Old

Huckleberry had his birthday on March 11th.

Tomorrow, Lasagna

I made the sauce tonight while Bruce was at work, using some mild Italian sausage and ground turkey and will be fixing the rest of it and layering it tomorrow. I was going to repay my mom for the ravioli lasagna she sent over a few weeks ago, but now I'm thinking it'll be fun to do a real lasagna. You know, with ricotta and stuff.

I say that as though I hadn't bought the ricotta earlier in the week. It's been on the list of plans for a while. Let's leave it at that.

As I said, I made the sauce while Bruce was at work tonight at the radio station, and now it's going to simmer all night on low in the crock pot. I'm really hoping this isn't an awful idea.

Here's a picture of that ravioli lasagna, which was actually pretty good. I think my mom got the recipe from Rachel Ray. Wow, they're really marketing her pep, aren't they? That show is like her other shows revved up a few notches - and I was surprised she went any higher than her other shows. Goes to show.

Conversation:

B: [on phone] Well, I was sort of thinking a tattoo or something, but yeah, I guess we could get our cocks peirced when I'm in town.

Me: You can hold hands!

New Book

What Do You Do All Day?

I know a book is going to be good when it starts off with a quote. Let me clarify: when it starts out with a quote I immediately love. Like this one:

"Samantha looked around the playground in amazement. Her mother had been right. She really was the smartest and prettiest" - Sloane Tanen

What's for Dinner?

My first boyfriend would write me notes in high school asking me only that question. He was odd in a lot of ways.

Tonight, we're having McAldi chicken nuggets (thanks to Lisa planting the seed in my brain yesterday) and McAldi Berry Pie. Mmm.

Ex-EEEEE-ma

The other night I had a dream (I promise to make this short) wherein my "friend" was secretly pregnant with Donatello's baby. By the time anyone figured out that she was pregnant, (SURPRISE!) she'd already had the baby and it was approximately five years old. Then he (SURPRISE!) held up a string, attached to which were dozens and dozens of babies of his own. Not surprising, because turtles develop way quicker than people.

Cool, huh?

Lisa and I went to a gardening seminar. It was pretty boring. We were debating not going in once we laid eyes on the other participants (they were old), but then a geezer caught sight of us and informed us that we were "too young" to be into gardening, and I saw Lisa shoot those flames from her eyes that she shoots when she wants to prove someone wrong at any cost and we had to go in. Half of my customers were there, and all of Lisa's customers, and that was awkward. We sat in the back (they were the only empty seats!) and we were locked in a room where it wasn't going to be inconspicuous for us to get up and creep out halfway through. So we sat in the back and snickered at the speaker who kept using words like "ERECT" and "WHACK OFF", and because we're twelve. At one point we were actively getting dirty looks from the old lady across the aisle. Also, how long do you have to live in an area where most of the population has German or polish names to become familiar with the general rules of pronunciation? I swear, the lady reading off the names from the raffle was being corrected by the people in the audience who didn't have the names in front of them. It was irritating. The speaker kept putting the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LAB-le. One time he identified a plant as ESS-inacea. The helper lady corrected him, "ECH-innacea." I couldn't make this stuff up. There were other things he said wrong, but the notebook I was writing it all down in is out in the car. Midway through the evening, he actually suggested that there was an argument happening re: Global Warming. (He made allusions to people thinking it might be good. Who are these people? I need to teach them some things.) We didn't win any prizes, but Lisa bought me dinner at Perkins. Score!

We might be going to Chicago over Spring Break. Not that we get one out of habit, but we might take one just for kicks. If you know of anything slightly off-center that we definitely can't miss in that area, let us know. (Ikea is already on the list.)

I'm trying to do more things right by the environment. We're growing a garden and I'm using that plant-based dish soap, and I'm also starting a compost heap.

Changes

I'm sure some of you (or maybe even all three of you) have noticed the little changes I've made recently to the look of my blog, and also to the content.

Lately, I've been craving a simpler life. That's all it boils down to. So all that extra stuff, like the counter on the side that told me just how many people come here? (Three.) To be honest, I never ever looked at it. Ever. I know, I know, this "blog thing" is supposed to be about me being extra-snoopy and looking for every single person who comes to this site, where they came from and what their IP addresses are but really? In the past (woah, almost three years) I've looked at the stats about six times. And it was depressing.

You know what it is? The more stuff I have on this site to remind me that other people are involved, the less fun it gets for me. I mostly like to pretend that it's only me here. Don't get me wrong, I go completely nuts with happy if someone leaves me a comment here or there telling me that they like my idea for this, or they thought a few minutes about t'other thing they wouldn't have given a second thought to before I mentioned it, but for the most part the comment remaining empty is another thing that makes me forget that I'm mostly doing this for my own benefit - it's just another in a longish line of reasons why blogging isn't as useful as it could be for me. So from here on out, at least for a little while, I'm going to stop the comments. If anyone has anything cool to say, feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you.

I took down the entire sidebar because I noticed that everything over there was either something I could be talking about over here (and wasn't, because it was over there) or something that doesn't matter a whole heckuva lot. To me or to anybody else. This stuff here, in the middle, is where it counts. If I've got something to say, it'll be here from now on.

I'm also taking down the link to the list of blogs that I read. Really, I read the same blogs as everybody else. You know the ones. If I find any more that really float my boat, I'll tell you about them here and assume that if you like it, you'll bookmark it for yourself.

So that's my blog-version of cleaning for Spring. I'm so ready for Spring.

My Part (And Hopefully Yours, Too)

Last week my cousin Michelle took me to a special store here in our small town, one that specializes in natural products and also in GOD. I'm not so big on the GOD aspect, so I'd been waiting to go in until I had company. Turns out that was all in vain. They're not in business to tell you about GOD, but to sell you natural, less-harmful products. And in the case of their spices, sell you things in bulk which cost tons less than at Pick'N Save.

Here's one thing I'm proud to have bought:

Here's what the back of the bottle of dishwashing detergent says:

You are making a difference. If every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 25oz. petroleum based dishwashing liquid wiht our 25oz. vegetable based product, we could save 81,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,600 U.S. homes for a year!

Our natural dish liquid gets your dishes sparkling clean yet is gentle on your hands and the earth. We use only ingredients that do not pose any chronic health risks and are safe for the enfironment.

The frog sponge-holder was bought at a completely different time, for completely different reasons. (IE: Total cuteness.)