random stuff for today
i am beat. i’ve been packing and moving crap all day, and now i’m going to take a bath and read a book. moving blows. so i apologize for my stupid post for today.
back on schedule
a week or so ago, i had a dream that i only remember because of how awful it made me feel.
i slept through christmas eve.
ugh! it was only a dream, but it made me feel really bad for sleeping through such an important time as christmas eve! one interpretation is this:
2. Missing an important event because you are late {or in my case, asleep}.
This can indicate regret over a missed opportunity, inability to make a connection, or desire to pull oneself together. In Dream Power: How to Use Your Night Dreams to Change Your Life, Cynthia Richmond suggests asking questions of dreams in order to understand what this common symbol means to you. For example: What are you missing? Who is disappointed by the missed event? Is it only you or are there others involved?
Via http://www.divinecaroline.com/22201/53010-seven-common-dreams-mean#ixzz2BmuEhPC9
well, i certainly have a desire to pull myself together; i’m in three places these days and it’s starting to wear on me. needless to say, i took it as a sign that i needed to start christmas shopping.
i am normally done shopping by the end of october – well, mostly done anyway. i at least normally have an amazon shopping cart full and a list of what else to get. this year, i had no idea what i was getting anyone until today. today was my mom’s and my annual christmas shopping trip [and maybe last one? 🙁 ], and i bought presents for my grandma, aunt rae, and something for liz and jane. i came home and finished up on amazon. tomorrow i’ll go to another place and pick up some stocking stuff for my mom, and i’ve got 3 more things (2 of which are big things), and i’m DONE.
you don’t know what a relief that is.
(in other news, all three kitties, nate, and i are all in st. joe! nate’s done working at walmart in st cloud, and we MOVE next weekend. this is happening way too fast…)
a lesson in obviousness
the claim:
you too can have buttery soft skin! source
the test:
mix equal parts olive oil, brown sugar and raw oatmeal, then scrub your skin in circular motions. rinse off and your skin will feel like butter! ok. i used some scottish oatmeal i had – i figured they didn’t mean quaker quickoats.
the site says to mix a cup of each, but that’s a lot! so i did half a cup each, and it was pretty good.
bad picture. ugh. so. off the tub i go. scrub scrub scrub. make a mess.
and time to wash off! now, the promise is BUTTERY SKIN. to which i say, of COURSE it’s going to be buttery; you just swabbed yourself down with a half cup of olive oil! the directions say nothing about washing off with soap, but since i have a predilection toward oily skin to begin with, i scrubbed down with soap, and i’m still feeling the oil.
if a person had really dry skin, this would be an awesome once-a-week regime, although a spendy one. but, once you think about it, scrubs in the store aren’t cheap either.
the verdict:
4 out of 5 stars. does what it says. it could get spendy.
word cloud!
i think word clouds are awesome. so i went to wordle and put in my blog URL. guess what i talk about the most?
cheese.
nothing wrong with that.
*drool*
the claim:
stuffed cheese buns: beautiful, delicious evil. source
the test:
well, this recipe had me making buns from scratch, and since a lot of my stuff is packed, and i like to keep things as simple as possible at the moment, i bought some frozen bread rolls found next to the frozen bread dough in your local supermarket. they don’t take long to thaw. i put them on a greased plate, covered with plastic wrap and threw them in the fridge overnight. they even raised a little bit.
recipe says you can use any old cheese in the middle. i bought some chunk mozzarella just because of the ooze factor. 
cut cheese into 3/4″ chunks, which i think i did ok with. in fact, this exercise resulted in no overfilling consequences! woohoo!
you squish up the buns as best you can and place seam-down on your baking sheet.
it said to just put cheese on top, but i spread a little olive oil on first to get it to stick better. you can put parmasen cheese on, herbs, whatever. goes into the oven at 375 for about 15 mins. once out, put some melted butter on the tops and eat.
omg. i made 8 of these. i ate 4, then told nate he had to eat the rest before i ate them all. CRACK.
the verdict:
5 out of 5 stars. as nate said after he ate them, “omg, nom nom nom. those are evil. never make them again.”
smells good in here
the claim:
simmer water, rosemary sprigs, lemon slice and a tsp. of vanilla to make your home smell like a williams sonoma! source
the test:
i have no idea what a williams sonoma smells like. suffice it to say, this is a pretty lousy way to test something, but i liked the idea of those smells together, so i thought i’d give this a try.
easy peasy ingredients! i only had to buy the lemon. (i grow rosemary year-round.)
i turned it on low and it started smelling after about 15 minutes. this smells pretty darn good. it might smell like a williams sonoma – i have no idea. but to me it smells like the holidays this time of year. yum!
the verdict:
4 out of 5 stars, only because it might not smell like a WS at all.
Fail #1?
the claim:
paint your nails! spray with pam! wipe off and polish will be dry!
the test:
ok, so it was walmart brand pam, which is the same concept. should still work, right? i painted my nails.
i didn’t wait anytime, just sprayed them immediately after painting. yuck.
and wiped off! DID NOT WORK:
that sooo did not work. so i thought maybe the pam needed to be on a little bit longer, and this time i washed my hands instead of wiping it off.
a little better? but not much. i’m not planning on leaving pam on there for as long as it would take my nails to dry without it, so i see no reason to use it right away…BUT…
after it was washed off, the paint was DRY. no tackiness, no nothing. i would say that if you waited for your nails to dry normally and then sprayed with pam, it would help with the tackiness you sometimes get with the “maybe they’re dry – but should i be digging in this pile of rocks yet?” stage.
the rating:
i’ll give it 1.5 starts out of 5. not as advertised, but could be useful.
chicken popper thingies
the claim:
bacon wrapped jalapeño cream cheese bites will FLY OFF THE TABLE! source
the test:
the only addition i made to the recipe was to add some blue cheese in with my cream cheese an jalapeno. and instead of putting some cream cheese on the chicken, then adding the other stuff, i mixed it all together first so it was a spread.
assembly time! this was not as fidgety as the tacitos.
as you can see, you need to flatten out the chicken. i usually flatten mine with the mortar part of a mortar and pestel i have (it’s stone). but, that was packed away, so i flattened with the bottom of a bowl. not as effecient.
spread some filling on the chicken, roll up, and wrap with bacon, insert a toothpick to keep it all together. as you can see, i obviously have a problem with overfilling. off to the grill!
i thought these would take longer to cook, but it only took about 5 mins per side. and since i overfilled, a lot of filling seeped out and is now sitting on the bottom of my grill 🙁
yummy! the only complaint i have about them is the chicken itself is a little bland since there was no seasoning directly on the chicken. i wonder if marinating it in something beforehand would help? maybe a brine? anyway, the bacon and filling helped.
the verdict:
4 out of 5 stars. i think if the chicken were brined and had a little flavor, this would be a 5 star delight!
tacito time!
the claim:
make some healthy, awesome tacitos. source
the test:
ok, let’s just say that i took some liberties with the recipe. instead of cooking chicken thighs and seasoning them, i used a rotisserie chicken from walmart. why go through so much more trouble when you can get an already-cooked chicken for pretty much the same price? plus, rotisserie chickens are yummy.
the recipe calls for chicken, spinach, tortillas, jalapeño and cheese, then baked so it’s healthier. as you can see, i got low-carb tortillas so they were even healthier. ok, i can do this.
first, i warmed up my pan with some olive oil, chopped the jalapeño and threw the spinach and jalapeño in the pan.
i threw in twice as much spinach as is shown. the stuff really cooks down.
while that cooked down, i shredded the chicken. lots of chicken!
by the time i was done with this, the oven was preheated (to 450 degrees) and the spinach was done.
ok. assembly time. tortillas get cut in half, and then it’s time to put in the stuffing. now, i don’t know if my tortillas were too small, or if i put in too much filling, or if i just have clumsy man hands, but my tacitos were a little overflowing. who wants a tacito with a single shred of chicken, two little shreds of cheese and one spinach leaf? not me.
after i had used the called-for 10 tortilla halves, i had some filling leftover, so i made big burrito tacitos. onto a baking sheet and spread with olive oil. 10 minutes in the oven.
as you can see, a couple of them opened up during baking and got their guts spilled all over. not cool, tacitos. not cool.
BUT they were yummy! i’m not a huge fan of the tortilla in general, but when it’s fried or baked, i can handle them. the filling was yummy, the crispy edges of the tortilla were yummy, and it was an overall yummy experience. and low-carb, to boot!
the verdict:
3 out of 5 stars.
in the long run, they were kind of like making cake balls. a whole lot of work for a yummy outcome, but does the work outweigh the result? i’m not sure. plus, the end result was iffy with the tortillas busting open. cosmetically, they weren’t the best. but they are a yummy, healthy snack.
commence
hello and welcome to kablpomo 2012. henceforth, i’m hoping to have many pictures, lots of food, and tons of anti-hfcs/monsanto rage.
but first, a story. a tale of wonder and delight, snow and ice, electricity outage, and halloween treats.
yes, it’s been 21 years since the great halloween blizzard of 1991. what makes this worse than it actually being 21 years ago is the fact that i think 1991 was 10 years ago. ack, my youth.
but to get back to the matter at hand.
halloween was not the most anticipated holiday at the wallace farmstead, if only because our mother doesn’t like it. but we would dress up and terrorize the neighborhood for candy. granted, i was getting a bit old for halloween at 12 years old (ONLY in the traditional trick or treating sense; if it weren’t frowned upon, i would STILL trick or treat), but i was still in the age range where it was acceptable.
it was deliciously cold that year – there is a picture of us trick or treating at our aunt and uncle’s house with winter jackets over our costumes. after the regular halloween festivities of placing carved pumpkins on the fenceposts at the end of our long driveway, scouring the neighborhood, and then coming back home to sort through our candy and listen to our dad read the classic donald duck comic book about witch hazel, we went to bed.
i don’t remember much about the lead-up to the storm. it must have been predicted – we must have had some knowledge of a storm coming – my parents must have stocked up on milk and bread like every person does before a big storm. but i don’t remember it. i do remember looking outside in the middle of the night during the storm and seeing one of our cedar trees, which was in the shape of a cone, split into four separate parts, almost parallel to the ground where they were once perpendicular.
and unlike the majority of the state, which got bucketloads of snow, we got 3 inches of ice. when we woke up the next morning, the ground was a giant skating rink, the power was out, and our mom was in the kitchen with the gas oven open to heat the room.
when the power went out at our house, the kitchen was the place to be. in fact, the kitchen was the place to be when the power wasn’t out. the house was old, drafty, and must have lacked quite a bit in the insulation department. during the winters, we would race downstairs with our school clothes and get dressed over the heat registers.
so, thanks to the gas stove, we were able cook food and keep warm. thanks to the cold outdoors, we were able to keep our food cold. thanks to my aunt and uncle a mile and a half up the road, we had running water (they must’ve been on a different power grid because their power almost always came back before ours).
but this didn’t deter my dad from deciding we needed to take a trip into town. (this was also the case of the great state school closing of 1994 when gov. carlson deemed it too cold for school. we bundled up and drove into willmar to go grocery shopping.) my dad and i got in his orange and white pickup and drove into austin on the icy roads. downed trees and powerlines littered the streets, and it was eerily silent. we soon headed back.
after two days of gorging on halloween candy and huddling in the kitchen (and watching the mice scurry across the living room ), the power came back late in the day. we were saved! the roads cleared, the downed trees and powerlines cleaned up, it seemed like a storm had never happened. and the poor tree made its recovery soon enough.