what's that in the fridge

i am so perplexed! i bought some silken tofu a few trips to the store ago; i know that i had most likely spied a recipe that called for it that wanted to try. well i stuck it in the fridge where it has sat ever since and i have no idea what i was going to use it for. and it isn't like silken tofu is something that i can just whip up any old thing with, i have no clue what to do with it. i am also currently irritated with myself because i am going to the market after work today and have, as usual, forgotten my reusable shopping bags at home. it would not be that much trouble to go home and get them, but then edgar would think i was home to stay and it's just not really worth getting his hopes up. although when i do get home i will probably have a mess to clean up as i was not able to go home at lunch and let him out. whoops. poor boy!

i got a film called private property from netflix...it is a french film. it drives home how much differently people not from the u.s. think of modesty, etc. there were a few things that put me off at first, but then i remembered that trend, so i guess that makes it okay?

i also saw dark knight over the weekend. heath ledger was really good in it and it made me very sad that he is dead. his performance in this and in brokeback mountain really drive home the fact that he was just hitting his stride and really taking on some challenging roles and doing them well...and now he's dead! sigh...

rotten eggs!

so i am fairly proud of the fact that i know my way around a kitchen...i am a really good cook and most of what i make turns out tasty. that being said...i have absolutely no ability to hard boil an egg. how is that?! i can bake bread from scratch, make delicious soups and stews, pesto, homemade noodles...but, i can't boil a freaking egg?! it is by far and away one of the most frustrating things. my mom promises a lesson the next time i am home, but i worry that it's hopeless! i am headed to my friend's lake house for the night tomorrow and the beginning of the fourth of july holiday and i was getting everything ready to make potato salad tonight...the only hitch in the process was the damn hard boiled eggs! i also whipped together a patriotic bandana for edgar to wear. i'm not really a fan of independence day, however that is no reason for edgar to not look dapper! time to go check on those eggs!

thunder!!

well my my my, we are currently in a tornado warning here in lincoln! i am not abiding by the safety recommendations on the local news channel. mostly because i live in a really really old house that has been converted into 4 apartments and the basement entrance is outside the house and is *super* creepy. i hate basements for the most part anyway, let alone creepy ones. and since the entrance is outside there is no telling if perhaps someone may forget to lock the door and then who knows who could be down there...and if the electricity went out that is the last place on earth i would want to be!! and also because it would require wrangling all of my animals and getting them to the basement which would not be fun at all, and perhaps not even possible! we would all blow away before i could get the job done!

i just heard about a boyscout camp in iowa that was hit by a tornado and there were 4 boyscouts killed and over 30 injuries...how sad.

edgar stayed at my brother and sister-in-law's house while i was in colorado for a few days. ami did a little photo shoot with edgar and bailey and surprised me with framed prints of edgar for my birthday. they are great! they are hanging in my office now and make me smile.

i am a big baby about my birthday...it is one of my favorite days of the year! this year though my parents are in alaska celebrating their 40th anniversary (which happens to be the same day as my birthday), and it seems everyone else is doing something else...i'm moping about it. which is stupid i know because i'm going camping in two weeks to celebrate my birthday and edgar's birthday. i'm very excited about that...although with all of the rain and storms we have had lately i do sincerely hope it doesn't rain!

it is always strange when my parents are out of town...nearly 13 times a day i think of something i want to tell them or ask them, but they aren't home. i don't like it!

it was a tragic beginning to my day when edgar found a baby bunny dead on the sidewalk when i took him out this morning. and then on the way back inside he discovered another bunny minus it's head...i had to pick them up and dispose of them. and there are little blood smudges on the sidewalk...it was incredibly sad.

pioneer cuisine 101

there was quite a storm last night which knocked out the power on my block...normally i would find this quite lovely and enjoy the evening in the dark, but the storm itself was short lived and i was right in the middle of trying a new recipe for vegetarian lentil loaf (like meatloaf but with lentils) as it turns out the recipe needed things like a food processor, and a microwave, and low and behold...an oven; all of which were in short supply given the power outage. while i have a gas range and oven there is apparently some sort of emergency shut off that cuts the gas in the event of a power outage...i spent a good portion of the evening squinting in the dark of my kitchen, by candle light trying to make out the recipe. i got it all put together and then waited out the power outage, chatting with my downstairs neighbor and the woman that lives next door...when the power came back on, i trucked back up to my apt to bake said lentil loaf only to find that the oven still did not work...i later came to find out there is some sort of reset button...so i stuck the lentil loaf in the fridge and baked it this morning...it was pretty tasty for all of the drama that went into preparing it if i do say so myself. i don't really envy the pioneers in their culinary attempts. a few hours with the conveniences of a modern kitchen were enough for me. when i was little i, after reading the laura ingles wilder books i decided that a pioneer life was the life for me and attempted one night to do everything by candle light and refused to let anyone in the house do anything contrary to my pioneer ideals...it lasted all of about 10 minutes before everyone in the house got tired of me!

edgar is going to be turning one in a few weeks and he seems to have mellowed into a different little dog...so much so that all day today i have worked myself into a periodic frenzy thinking that he's really sick and that is why he isn't acting crazy...can that be? or is it just that my little guy is growing up? of course...he isn't acting hyperactive so i assume the worst! it can't just be that he's turning into a well adjusted adolescent pooch!

barbecued with friends today, and it was a welcome break and a good time spent with friends...i have missed that for some time.

so...umm...as a religious journaler (one who journals religiously, not one who journals about religion) you would really think that i would have kept up with this a little better. and now it seems a bit silly to play catch up with everything that has happened since the last time i posted but i suppose i will do my best...i met my maternal birth-family in april, welcomed the birth of athena margaret myers, finished my first patchwork quilt, started my second, planted my first garden, helped dear friends move into a new house, read a lot of books, started to refinish my sofa, went for lots of walks with my stalwart little dog, planned a trip to colorado, rescheduled said trip to colorado, celebrated my godsons' 7th and 5th birthdays respectively, cooked some truly fantastic meals; one involving quinoa (try it, you'll like it!) and i am sure that there is much more in there that i am leaving out. i continue my quest for the nigh on indestructible dog toy, which is proving quite elusive. i have been learning about wine and venturing to purchase some varieties that do not come in a box or a colossal sized jug...rieslings remain my favorite, but i am developing a taste for pinot noirs as well. and i suppose that wraps it up...

moving...eww!

i spent the evening helping a friend pack. after having three good friends (and myself) move five times between all of us in this last year i have to say i am a little a burned out on moving. but it's also one of those things that you just do...rest assured that the favor will be repaid in the future, or that you owe a favor anyway; it's the the nature of friendships that you lose track of those things. but i gotta say, after this i hope no one i know moves for a long, long time!

i got fabric today for a new sewing project. after finishing my quilt i found myself pacing around my apartment, bored with nothing to do for the past week or so. and i couldn't understand why i was so restless. i concluded that i really enjoyed sewing my quilt and that i needed a new sewing project. so now i've got one! huzzah...

peace in the valley!

finally, it has happened! sammy and edgar are both sitting with me on the sofa! less that a foot from one another, no growling, no barking, no hissing, no yowling. there is in fact purring going on right at this moment! i thought that it would never happen, i thought that the cats were doomed to a lifetime in the bedroom whenever edgar is up and about. not true! hooray!

j and i went to a wedding in genoa nebraska this weekend. it was a lovely time, it started off a little questionable...the reception was at the senior center, which was...unique to say the least. on the way back we decided that the highway was uninteresting, so we drove home only on gravel roads. i guess i didn't realize that could be done, but j has an uncanny sense of direction. there were several abandoned farm buildings along the way, but most had no trespassing signs. we did stop at one small building that was really cool. it was full of stuff, old furniture, a wringer washer, tables, some kind of old halters. there was an old lard bucket from cudyhay's which is where my grandma used to work. it is so interesting that people just up and leave all that stuff.

at long last!

it's done! it's done! my quilt is finally done! it is far from perfect and did some stuff wrong of course, but i have never been focused on perfection. it's more the overall process and the finished work that i have always been interested in. so now i am in need of a new project...i have several in mind, it's just a matter of narrowing it down.

sing along!

there is some schmuck outside my apartment playing some sort of music really loud and wailing along with it. it isn't really recognizable to me or perhaps i would sing along...

it was a really productive day today. my parents came to town, which means that i did some cleaning. my mom and i went to see the international quilt study center. it was the grand opening today. we waited outside for about an hour and then another half hour inside until we could get into the gallery. it was worth it though, the quilts on display were unbelievable! i've had some conversations with people who have trouble with understanding the concept of the quilt gallery, why someone would spend money building it and why people would go to visit it...i don't really see it any differently than an art gallery. and each one tells a piece of history. oh well, i guess to each his/her own, right?

i also repotted a bunch of plants, getting several cactus spines stuck in my fingers. i couldn't get them out so i guess my body will just absorb them, or do whatever it is bodies do to things like cactus spines. my neighbor downstairs moved out and left a bunch of plants in the entryway with a note that they needed a good home, so they have one now...

my dad and i scoped out the area for the garden. the original spot i was looking at is almost entirely rock so it clearly won't work. i found out that the city of lincoln creates compost out of the yard waste that they collect and if you haul it yourself you can get it for free...it's also sold at various nurseries around town...although why you would pay for it when you can get it for free is beyond me. i just need to find a nice person with a truck that would let me throw compost in the back.

on the canine/feline front, sammy has been super adventurous today...venturing out and hanging around while edgar was near. it wasn't entirely peaceful, but a big step in the right direction. edgar needs to go out, but with the weirdos wailing i am not so inclined to take him out; ah the charms of my neighborhood!

fishies

i go through fits and starts of being really antisocial...i am experiencing one lately. i'm not sure the problem, high levels of crabbiness abound and it's my opinion that when i am like this i am not really fit for human companionship. despite my foul mood today it was a pretty good day. a friend came over and i helped pin her quilt. it's really adorable, goldfish!! my last day at the shop was last night. i will be sad to not be a barista anymore, but i am happy to not be working all the time.

there was just a trailer on tv for a movie called the strangers, just the trailer looks terrifying! i would like to see it but i know that either way i will regret that decision. if it's good i will continue to be terrified by it for the next month or so and if it's not good, well then, it's not good, and that is different type of regret.

i am looking forward to saturday...it's pierogi saturday. a family tradition of ours. every holy saturday we make pierogis for easter dinner at my mom's house. it's an all day event.

catch up

i hate starting my day realizing that i have overslept. as you may have guessed i overslept today. it was a kind of disappointing day in that i had a few plans with people that fell through for various reasons and i felt like i spent the whole day trying to catch up. with what, i couldn't say, but i felt behind the whole day. on the upside i took my sewing machine to the bernina store and had the woman there show me what i was doing wrong. she was very kind, as it turns out this whole time that people (i.e. my mom and everyone else i asked) suggested that i take the bobbin out and re-load it, it didn't occur to me to flip the bobbin around...just to re-thread it the same way i was before...low and behold i had been putting it in backwards this whole time! now i feel kind of foolish, but hey, i learned how to do it right in the long run. so i was able to get my doggie bandanas finished and worked a bit on my quilt as well. i only have 12 more squares to quilt and hopefully will finish that *soon*!

the cranes were amazing, as they always are. it seemed to me that there were more this year than the years past. i would have to go back and figure out when i was there last year...it may simply be the time of year. the weather could not have been nicer, i was only cold after the sun started to go down and even then it was bearable. i stopped at harold warp's pioneer village on the way down, which was interesting, although i couldn't help but feel that i didn't quite get my money's worth. but at least i know what all the signs along the interstate are about! i'm not sure where i will go next year...i thought of staying in a bed and breakfast, but it seemed like too short notice this year to get that together.

i keep calling my mom with sewing questions and my dad, who i think is super funny, has taken to calling her "mrs. sew-it-all". ha! get it? like mrs. know-it-all. damn...that is definitely where i get my sense of humor, that and the tendency to think that i am funny when no one else seems to. thanks dad!

spring

oh how i hate the time change. i feel like i have already wasted half of my day simply because it is an hour later than i think it should be. this morning sammy cat snuggled up with me and it was really nice. he hasn't done that since edgar came to live with us. edgar has only been with us for six months, so i suppose that is progress...i have heard that it can take up to two years for things to settle down, so i guess we are on track.

but i suppose the time change means that spring is on the way. i'm ready for it!

the thistle and shamrock is on the radio, one of my favorite npr shows...full of irish folk music. it should put me in the mood for today's project. hopefully i will not put it off like i normally do; i am planning on making some st. patty's bandanas for edgar and a few of his canine friends. i am going to see the cranes migrate tomorrow and he is going to go visit his canine buddies, viggo, grace, and isabella, so i thought it would be nice way to say thank you. the crane visit could not come at a more perfect time, i have a lot on my mind and need the re-centering. it is such a wonderful way to spend the day; by myself, along the river, listening to the cranes and seeing them come into roost.

i have a date to meet my birth mother. it was just confirmed yesterday. so i've got a bit of planning to do. i am nervous but really pleased that it is happening. this is one of the instances that my mentality of not expecting too much comes in handy. it's hard to be disappointed if you have no expectations. i have learned that lesson the hard way a few too many times, expecting things of people, close to you or otherwise, and then when they don't step up in the way you expect...well, it sucks. sometimes it feels very pessimistic to go through life that way, but honestly i have found that it actually makes for better results in the long run.

i went to the stars/lancers game in omaha last night. it was a terrible game! we didn't play well, were surrounded by lancers fans with those god-awful horns that would not stop blowing them, and there was someone in front of us with some major intestinal issues and it smelled so bad! i left with a throbbing headache. very disappointing...

monday, monday

today seems to have been a typical monday. work was hectic, things popping up at the last minute. then i went to the market after work and things just became comically disastrous when i got home...knocking over the coffee pot and dousing everything on the counter top, then dropping a container of sour cream that exploded all over the kitchen.

i have always been a believer in karma, that good people will attract good things for the most part and that the bad will get their just rewards. but sometimes it is counter-intuitive and bad people seem to attract good and kind people. perhaps it is to bring some good to the bad, in hopes that they will learn something...i don't know. i know a particularly toxic person whom i have chosen not to associate with, but there are other people in my life that do. it is sad however that they do not see through this person and accept this person as genuine and well intentioned. and one can only stand by an observe. what's a person to do?

blast from the past

i ran into an old friend from high school today at the coffee shop. she was a year behind me but i always felt this strange connection to her. she was one of those people that i always wondered about after leaving high school. as it turns out she is living right here in lincoln now and is a massage therapist at a local spa. it was such a great way to start the day.

i had to attend a food handler's permit class tonight to get my permit renewed. there was a lot of talk about feces. if you have a youngster at home like my little cousin indigo, who at the tender age of 5 declared to me that "the sphincter is where poop comes out and poop is my favorite topic...but i am not allowed to talk about it at the dinner table" you may want to consider taking him or her to your local health department for the class. they would find it quite interesting...lots of talk about poop.

lower the bar

i have come to the realization several times over that people rarely have the sensibilities i give them credit for. things that i take as either common sense or common courtesy seem to go unnoticed by the wide majority. yet the lesson never seems to stick with me and i am always and forever entering situations thinking that if i behave like a rational adult, the other parties will as well. sadly i am working on lowering my expectations of people in general. i am only glad that the people i choose to surround myself with typically share these sensibilities and value civil exchanges, take responsibility for their words and actions, and think before acting. it is disappointing at best every time i am faced with this reality all over again.

the weather has taken a turn for the better; spring is on its way. edgar unearthed a little patch of green growing things in the yard today, tucked away under some dead leaves, and looking at the tree in the front yard, it appears as if it may have buds! i am ready to pack winter away till next year. i have a friend who hates winter and he finds great personal satisfaction in knowing that even i am fed up with winter. i have been planning for my garden and i am quite excited. i know it will be a challenge to keep it reasonable and not go crazy planting every single thing that i think would be great to grow. definitely tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. basil. maybe radishes, sugar snap peas. see, already the list grows and grows. and then you have different varieties of each thing! yellow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, roma tomatoes, etc, etc. and i think it might be nice to plant a blueberry bush. this, of course, is all contingent on the idea that the faucet in the back of my building actually works and i will be able to water my garden. otherwise, i will have to eighty-six the entire operation! that would be quite disappointing as i have been planning in my head from the day i moved in.

edgar is happily chewing on a rawhide. after trotting around the apartment from corner to corner, from sofa to chair, looking for places to "bury" it, he decided to just hunker down and chew it. charlie had the good fortune of discovering one day when i accidentally left the closet door open, that there is a basket of hats and mittens that is perfect to curl up in and hide from edgar in. my poor little kittens, they hate my poor little dog. i think i am the only one that loves them all! at least within this household.

tomorrow my friend "a" is coming over to help me pin my quilt together so i can finish it. huzzah. then i am going with "j" to an oscar party. it is down at the old train station and attire is cocktail dressy...i am not sure what that means or if i have anything appropriate. but i will just have to make due with something!

lazy sundays

i spent the day reading and cooking. it was lovely and refreshing. however i just felt melancholy all afternoon. i finished a book called the dogs of babel, which i really enjoyed, but there were parts of the book that i found horribly sad and unfortunately i ended on that note. but, i spent a lot of time in the kitchen which was lovely. most notably, i threw some black beans in the crockpot this morning and made some black beans and rice. i tried them and will save them for meals for the rest of the week and freeze some, but they were delicious if i do say so myself.

i'm toying with the idea of driving up to omaha tomorrow evening. i'm not sure what for...i thought maybe my mom could help me pin my quilt. but i also want to see the oscar nominated movies before the awards are on, and i don't know when i will have time to do that.

there was a strange occurrence this evening. every time i took edgar out he kept looking intently down the block at the house on the corner. i was on the phone with my mom once and at one point commented to her that he must see something that i can't. the last time i took him out i could hear a puppy crying from down the block; from the house on the corner. not just an "i'm cold or hungry" crying, but serious there is something wrong wailing! after all, i could hear it all the way down the block. i ran upstairs with edgar to put shoes on and when we went back out i couldn't hear anything at all. so we walked down the block to the house and i couldn't see or hear anything unusual, but edgar nearly ran up the stairs onto the porch and then proceeded to intently sniff every inch of the yard that i would allow him to reach. it was positively unsettling and i can't stop thinking about it. about what happened to that puppy and why it was crying like that. why it stopped so suddenly. i wonder now if i should have called animal control or the police or something. i'm not sure what i would have told them or what they would have done, but it would have made me feel better.

i just can't fathom how people can intentionally harm animals. that was part of the book i finished that made me so sad, there were bits of animal experimentation, etc. granted it was all fictional, which i realize, but sadly there is nothing fictional about sick people that hurt animals. one can only hope that their actions will come back on them at some point.

not as planned

so all i wanted to do tonight was come home from work and read, relax, and play with my dog. it was a crazy day at work and i am exhausted. however, that was not meant to be. by some stroke of non-luck i was scheduled to work at the shop, despite the fact that it's one of the few nights i'm not available and didn't get home until nearly 10:30. now i just want to go to bed and crash! but my poor exuberant little puppy has been alone all day and i don't have the heart to send him to bed just yet.

waiting, waiting...

little lapses in the winter weather, like today's make it hard. even for winter and snow lovers like me. this evening you could smell spring in the air, edgar and i went for walk and everything just seemed fresher. i love winter more than most and even i was not happy to hear a forecast of near frigid temperatures and snow showers for tomorrow.

tomorrow is valentine's day, a day that i have actually always liked despite being perpetually single. i guess i seesaw back and forth between enjoying it and being totally cynical about it. this year i anticipate it being okay. there is a donor recognition lunch at work tomorrow where j will be recognized as advocate of the year and then the rest of the day will be filled to the brim with various tasks and then on to the coffee shop. the university cabaret is apparently performing there tomorrow night...i can't say that i am looking forward to that. and i feel quite badly about being gone literally the entire day. sammy cat and charlie can fend for themselves, but edgar i am sure will feel neglected.

my mom and dad sent me a valentine today. there was a card and a book as well. my mom is making me a quilt; the squares are a sampler of the the underground railroad quilts. during the times of slavery people on the underground railroad would hang various quilts to give messages and directions to the slaves that were traveling to the north. the book is called hidden in plain view and is about this aspect of history. the only thing i love better than getting fun mail is getting fun packages in the mail, even more so when said fun package is a book!

i finally finished atonement. i really liked it, although my friend a hated it. different strokes for different folks!

trials

my little travel companion pictured to the left was awfully naughty last night. i simply had projects that needed to be done and wasn't paying him the attention he deserved. he agreed, and decided to tell me so by antagonizing sammy cat all night long and getting into everything that is supposed to be off limits to him. he chewed my second favorite pen to smithereens. it's funny, no matter how puppy proofed i naively think my apartment is, he finds something to get into. he went to bed early with no dessert!! today i bought him a new toy as a peace offering, a lady bug with a squeaky and rope for its arms, legs, and antennae. he's a fan and we are off on a better foot this evening.

one of the aforementioned projects was cutting out the fabric and batting for the quilt i am making. it was far less scientific than i had anticipated. today i purchased an iron and small ironing board as i did not previously have one. well, i have an iron, but it is all gunky from some past project. so now i have a shiny new iron and ironing board and can complete my quilt.

to the market

off to the market today, in all the blustery cold! got the goods to make lots of yummy (and healthy) food for the rest of the week. i can't fathom why it so expensive to buy healthy food...it is so much cheaper to buy crap. i also can't fathom why it is that i typically buy and eat really healthy food and that doesn't seem to matter! my splurges are blueberries and edamame and whole wheat tortillas and i am overweight! i love healthy food more than most, not fair.

edgar had a bath today, he smells much fresher now. the cats, as usual, did not tolerate much nonsense from him today.

i had to go to b&n to return a book i bought the other day, as it turns out i already own the book; i don't really need two; even if one is hardback and the other paperback. since i was there i decided to get a new sewing book. (it doesn't take much to persuade me to purchase a new book) it's called "bend the rules sewing" by amy karol. i am very excited to try some of the patterns out, although the space in my apartment for sewing is not ideal and i left my cutting mat at my parents house in omaha, so i am not sure when i can get started on anything.

edgar and i traveled to omaha for part of the weekend. i went to a fish fry last night to celebrate s's birthday. it was really bizarre; it involved waiting in line for about two hours while drinking beer and then getting fish. not being a fish eater, i had fries and coleslaw. delish! it was a surprisingly good time and i would do it again.

mom and i sewed all day today and i finished the top to my first ever quilt! now i just have to figure out what comes next. it is painfully cold out, which makes it the perfect evening to just stay in with a blanket and a movie and two cats and a dog and a cup of something warm. i am currently watching the brave one; i got it a week ago and have been watching it in spurts...it is pretty good, probably a lot better when watched all in one go, but that's not how i like to do things!