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sorry

sorry

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yesterday i pulled my car out of my garage so i could move my treadmill indoors, which miraculously fixed my treadmill. apparently it  didn’t work well in 40º garage air. now it’s sitting in my guest room instead of the garage.
so my car sat out all day, and i decided i needed to finally pull it back in the garage, and…
it wouldn’t start. arg!!!! it cranked and cranked but wouldn’t fire up. so i was annoyed and irritated and obsessed with how much it was going to cost to fix it last night.
and i forgot to blog. sorry 🙁
which meant this morning i was in late to work so i could get my insurance squared away and my car sent off to the auto place down the road. did you know roadside assistance also includes in-your-driveway assistance? yes it does! so my insurance paid for my tow. woo! 
*****
all the snow is gone 🙁 it rained for the past few days and got above 40º, and here we’re sitting with some gross november wet weather. almost december! where did the month go. anyway, eventually it’s got to get cold and the snow has got to fall. 
i still don’t know what i’m going to do for christmas. i’m debating going to my parents without nate or just staying home and being here for christmas. it wouldn’t be horrible, i guess. another option is to go somewhere else, but i don’t have the cash to go somewhere else. we’ll see what happens. 
*****
my coworker’s last day is wednesday, which means i am by my lonesome in the marketing department for a while. there are two giant projects that are looming, and i’m hoping that they actually get done :/ ugh!
*****
it’s almost december, which means it’s almost christmas movie watching time!!!
i already watched die hard, so that’s out of the way. gotta go through the rest of my DVDs and see what i have so i can get started. 
*****
it’s only monday -_-

c-dogg

c-dogg

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got some pics of craig yesterday! unfortunately, the christmas photo didn’t happen, so jane and i took craig and i got some 1-yr-old photos of him. talk about sir moves-a-lot! didn’t get many of him where he wasn’t a blur because he was moving around so much.
img_3107-001 img_3114 img_3116 img_3120 img_3121-001 img_3124 img_3128

first for a reason

first for a reason

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our forefathers were pretty smart. they put the first amendment first for a reason: your right to free speech and to assemble, freedom of religion, press – it’s all first because they’re some of the most important tenants of this country. more important, i would say, than the right to bear arms.
but here’s the thing: you can’t pick and choose which cause is more important when you defend someone’s first amendment rights. 
the same amendment that gives anti-trumpsters the right to protest gives you the same rights to protest DAPL. and stand in front of abortion clinics with signs. and protest the war. and and support the war. and wave signs saying gays are going to hell. you don’t get to pick and choose who should be able to protest and who shouldn’t.
but make sure you’re protesting legally and peacefully and within the law. the moment things start to veer toward the illegal is the start of why people get fed up with protesters.
and if you’re fed up with protesters? well,  that same amendment? it gives you the right to look away from those protesters. it gives you the right to say they’re wrong and their cause is wrong. but don’t tell them they can’t or shouldn’t utilize their firet amedment right and do anything you can to dissuade or prevent the from doing so. once the government start suppressing others’ rights in the first amendment, yours are soon to follow. 

thanksgiving!

thanksgiving!

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today is foodblog. sorry for the lack of words!

  1. bacon made that galette SO MUCH BETTER. any future squash spinach galettes will include bacon. 

bacon  galette jane
so i spatchcocked the bird again, which reduces cooking time significantly i’ve never been able to capture the seasoning process of the turkey before, but liz was able to get some pics of jane scooping in the seasoning while i shoved it under the skin. spatched squash
bird
mmm look at that bird! i think i forgot a step that would have flattened the breast out a little more, but that’s quite all right. it was pretty delicious as is! 

so it begins…

so it begins…

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tonight i made real cranberry sauce from scratch! 
we never had cranberry from a can growing up; my uncle squire attended to the cranberry orange relish that was a staple on the thanksgiving table. and that relish* STAYED a staple for my entire 37 years…EXCEPT THIS YEAR. i’m changing it up.
sorry uncle squie 🙁
i went searching for a reasonable recipe to make cranberry sauce, and it turns out they’re all pretty reasonable. cranberries, juice, sugar. alton brown’s and the pioneer woman’s recipes were pretty similar, and they eschewed the refined sugar and went the natural route: honey and maple syrup, respectfully. 
i went with the pioneer woman’s recipe as i like the taste of maple syrup over honey, and i doubled it. 
it’s so simple, i can still remember it:

  • bag of cranberries
  • 1 cup cranberry juice
  • 1 cup syrup
  • orange zest
  • 3 tblsp orange juice (i put a little more than that)

(i also threw in a pinch of salt.)
so what we’re doing here, effectively, is making a cranberry JAM. bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. i then poured it into jam jars, and now they’re all sitting in my garage waiting for thursday, when it will be served cold. 
i’m hoping the stuff holds their jar shapes so we can make them jiggle.
(also, i might add, my new kitchen is MUCH more conducive to good food photography.)
cranberries
cransjars
(except when i can’t focus, apparently.)
*relish: throw cranberries and a whole orange into a food processor. blend. throw in a bowl and mix with a boatload of sugar. taste. probably add more sugar. serve cold. 

RELIEF

RELIEF

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was at work today, and wanted to check my blog to make sure my posts timed correctly yesterday, so on my break (…) i checked it out and there on the front page was a post form OCTOBER 14.
WHAT
WHT
WT
i nearly keeled over in my chair. checked with liz; she saw it too. all my california posts…gone….
i racked my brain; there was nothing i did that would’ve caused a complete breakdown of my blog. i hadn’t done any updates, i hadn’t changed any settings, i hadn’t even touched a plugin or theme setting anywhere. just two posts. WHAT WAS GOING ON.
so i calmed down a bit and contacted my host when i got home. 
apparently they had moved servers and expected their clients to update their nameservers for their domains. (i feel like that should just be an automatic update.)
so the tech help dude told me how to change it, then i had to wait a few hours, and NOW, thankfully, i have all my posts back. 
whew!
this kablpomo has turned into a real mess of things, hasn’t it. 

ATK's squash galette

ATK's squash galette

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so i made this squash galette today from america’s test kitchen via lynne rosetto kasper (on twitter).

Copyright 2016 America's Test Kitchen (Daniel J. van Ackere)
Copyright 2016 America’s Test Kitchen (Daniel J. van Ackere)

and it was really time consuming. cubing squash is not my most favorite thing to do on the planet, that’s for sure.
but it was really yummy. and FILLING. omg. i don’t think it could ever replace just squash at a thanksgiving meal. it could be a nice appetizer, but the whole wheat crust really fills you up, and you’d have no room for dressing during t-day.
also, if you weren’t going vegetarian (this was vegetarian option for thanksgiving guests), this could definitely benefit from some pork product – sausage, bacon, something. 
i definitely would make this again, and i’m thinking about making just the filling for thanksgiving. throw some bacon in it, and it would be delish. or if there were a less filling way for it to get from table to mouth – a cracker, perhaps? i might make it for an appetizer. we’ll see what happens!

a tour back

a tour back

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today i went to spicer to help out liz’s in-laws clean out their house (personal details not to follow – just know that the time has come to clear out a house). 
i drove down a county road from avon to richmond that i’d never been on before that was lovely, except for the snowy roads bumps that made me slow down from time to time. in richmond, i hooked up on good ol’ highway 23. 
oh, 23. for 15 years i traveled you back and forth from the st. cloud area to new london. good times. it’s changed, especially the section that no longer goes through paynesville, but that’s really another story for another time. 
what surprised me this time was rounding that dratted corner right before new london and seeing the water tower come into view. my gut wrenched up. what on earth – it’s been 23 years since i first got puke-worthy nervous over seeing that water tower show up around the bend. 
after my mom took her job in willmar, we lived in st. cloud with my grandparents for a bit, and every morning we drove from st cloud to new london to drop me off at high school and then my mom to willmar for work. those first couple months just wreaked havoc on my nerves as i had to navigate a new high school after 9 years of being with the same people in school. so, with good reason that the water tower brought on a bout of nervous butterflies.
but it waned, as it had to, since i drove into new london quite a bit from the east. this time, however, it was a surprised nervous flutter that quelled almost as soon as it started. but it was there. 
i’m not sure how many more times i’ll be heading that way, but i hope the nervous nellies take a hike.

thanksgiving foods

thanksgiving foods

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thanksgiving is coming up so quickly! of course there’s going to be a nice, organic, free-range turkey in the oven, and i’m going to make pies, pumpkin and raspberry rhubarb i believe.
so this weekend i have to go shopping for such foods, and it’ll be interesting if i get out of the driveway. my drive home took me almost twice as long as it normally does due to the snow today. OMG. i can’t believe they didn’t close the campus. the roads were icy and snow was blowing over them from the 50-mph winds howling out of the north. 
the worst part of the drive, and i was expecting it, was my road – parkwood circle. i hadn’t expected them to plow it already, but there was so much snow on the ground that it was right at the bottom of my car body as i was driving through the ruts in the road. then there was the hill. i was worried i was going to have to have nate come attach a rope to my car and pull me up the hill, but after 5mph and crossing my fingers, i made it up. my driveway was the easy part! i just glided right down and into the garage. 
i’m supposed to go to spicer tomorrow, but we’ll see if we’ll get the driveway cleared out in time. i’m also supposed to hang my xmas lights this weekend, but not sure if that’ll happen (should’ve done it last month).
that totally diverged from thanksgiving foods. here’s what i think i’m making:

  • turkey
  • stuffing
  • cranberry stuff (hot or cold – not sure yet
  • squash galette
  • sweet potato stuff
  • potatoes/gravy
  • beans or mushrooms or something. glazed carrots??
  • pie, pie, and pie
  • eggnog! 

i feel like i’m missing something…