News from the Great Beyond

Relevant to the Moment

Found within a novel by Madeleine L'Engle...

The earth will never be the same again.
Rock, water, tree, iron share this grief
As distant stars participate in pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
Is Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried,
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies then would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
That every life is noted and cherished,
And nothing loved is ever lost or perished.

Thinking of you, Paul and Jennifer...

Sung to the Tune of... Free at Last

Today was my first day as a "woman of leisure"... or a "stay at home not-yet-mom"... or whatever you want to call me these days.  My last week at work was a good one - my replacement is a sharp lady with 25 years of experience in the construction industry and she seemed to have picked up on things very quickly.  I got hugs from CoWorkerK, CoWorkerB, FormerBossMan, and my replacement, actually, before I left.  We bonded.  I had to promise to go back and visit now and then, otherwise the goodbyes would have been prolonged and depressing.

Meanwhile, today, I got to sleep in until 8:00-ish (I was a bit dozey when Hubby left for work but got up soon after)... Went to the gym and got in 30 minutes on the treadmill and 15 minutes on the recumbent bike... Took a relaxing bath, followed by a refreshing shower... Cleaned out the cat box, took out the trash from the kitchen and the bathroom, and started doing some general cleanup in the kitchen... Planned dinner, made a shopping list, and was home with my groceries by 2:00 PM... Read over half of a book... Poked around in the PaperBackSwap forums, including updating the players list for a game I'm hosting in the Games forum there... Made a fabulous dinner for my hubby, and had it ready by the time he got home at 5:50 PM.

I shall share the recipe with you, it turned out pretty wonderful.  Meanwhile, I have several other errands lined up for the week, and lunch planned with FormerCoWorkerS and my friend (and former coworker as well) Judy on Friday.

I've barely started here... I don't think I'm going to be bored any time soon.

Sung to the tune of... I Got You, Babe

That's right woodchuck chuckers, it's Groundhog Day!  (And if you didn't get that reference, for shame.  Go rent the Bill Murray movie already.)

So it's February already, what's going on with me?

Let's see... the socialization of BoyKitty continues, slowly but surely.  He has free roam of the house now while Hubby-head and I are home and awake but we keep him closed up in the upstairs bathroom with food, water and litter box overnight and while we are gone.  There have been a few minor spats with the other cats - the older one (Anastasia) seems to be a bit afraid of him and will hiss and growl at him when he gets too close... and if he doesn't move after that warning, she'll lunge at him.  That's happened once so far.  Twice, he's taken the initiative to pounce on the younger cat (Katie) when she's been prowling around him making little hissing and chattering noises.  All three times so far it's broken up quickly without any intervention (other than yelling "HEY!").  Bagheera does love high places - he used to walk around on the plant shelf ledge at his previous home - so he's been exploring a lot to find his new hangouts in our condo.  So far his favorite place appears to be the little cut-out window at the top of the stairs overlooking the living room (vaulted ceilings).  It's a fairly narrow ledge and if he falls, he'll land on the piano and probably hurt himself as well as breaking some doodads I've got set around there, but since cats have good balance I suppose I'll trust that he won't fall.   I'll try to get a picture of him up there one of these days. 

I've decided that 9:00 or 10:00 AM is the ideal time for me to get anything done that involves organization or housecleaning or anything.  Most days at that time I've got plenty of energy and (this is the important part) the desire and motivation to get moving, make a plan, and put things in order.  Unfortunately, Monday through Friday at that time I'm at work, and Sunday at that time I'm at church.  And since I'm forced to be up early every other day of the week, on Saturdays (unless I have something scheduled earlier) I'm as likely as not to be asleep at that time of day.  By the time I get home from work, I'm usually worn out and ready to turn into a vegetable for the evening.  Zucchini anyone?

What else?  Hmm.  We've got a busy few months ahead - later this month, we're heading to L.A. for a reunion celebration at Hubby's old church... In March, we're doing photography for a friend's wedding (B-Rad, he of the Jetta Theory... although strangely, his fiancee drives a Neon)... And another set of friends is getting married in June, with Hubby-head and I in the wedding party for this one.  Guess that whole "getting in shape" thing will be bumped up the list of priorities, since my dress is strapless and I really don't want pudgy arms showing for the photos.  Ah, Pure Fitness, how I've missed you.  Not really.

That auditor guy hasn't e-mailed me with inane questions in a couple of weeks now - since I posted about him, in fact.  I wonder if he found my blog and realized I was talking about him?  Nahhh.... Maybe someone knocked him on the head and told him to finish the part of the audit he's working on and make a list of the questions that arise in the process so he can ask them all at once instead of interrupting me twice a week so I can drop everything to figure out what he wants.  Hey, novel idea.

Speaking of novels, are you reading anything good lately?  On PaperBackSwap, a bunch of us have undertaken a challenge for the new year - to read books by 26 authors we've never read before, one for each letter of the alphabet (by last name, of course).  I'm a touch on the anal-retentive side so I must be organized about such a thing, and I'm reading mine in order.  I'm on my "F" author - Vince Flynn, reading Memorial Day.  So far it strikes me as Tom Clancy-esque, with the CIA and various government good guys trying to foil a terrorist plot, and some political intrigue thrown in.  I've found some other interesting authors for this challenge also - based on Jared's influence, I tried a Paul Auster novel for my "A" book, and my mom-in-law recommended Diane Mott Davidson's catering mysteries, which I used for my "D" author.

Enough of my rambling.  The groundhog has spoken and six more weeks of winter await... Alito has been confirmed... A new House majority leader has been selected (and not Arizona's John Shadegg - a shame)... Britney Spears is going to play a Christian conservative talk show host on an upcoming episode of Will & Grace (!)... Disney has started working on the next Narnia movie... So tell me what's on your mind today!

Sung to the tune of... Alive and Kicking

Good song, eh?

Just a note for all of you who are wondering - I am alive and well.  I decided it was time to decorate the place for Christmas, since we're not decorating around the condo (between going out of town and... well, not wanting to tempt the cats with new chew toys).  This design was from last Christmas, but I'm still digging it.

I'm spending a lot of time these days on PaperBackSwap.com, especially in the games forum.  There are some great folks in that book club - so generous with their books, their money and their concern.  One of the members lives in Kentucky and her house was destroyed by one of those tornadoes several weeks ago.  The outpouring of support for her and her family was astounding and heartwarming.  If you're a book lover, please do drop by the site and consider joining.  They've added some new features and have a large community of wonderful, caring folks with a huge selection of books.  If you join, use me as a referral (songstress7), OK?

Otherwise, I'm reading a lot of books - we visited Hubby-head's mom for Thanksgiving, and as usual she blessed me with a couple of bags of paperbacks.  Between her book selection and the stack of books I've ordered from PaperBackSwap, I have about 50 books on my "to be read" pile.  There will be more soon - I'm in 2 "white elephant" type exchange games and participating in 3 book boxes that will be mailed around.

I haven't been reading a lot of blogs lately - still in a down phase for that hobby, but I try to drop in every now and then to my favorites on the blogroll.  It doesn't help that the internet access I have at work is filtered and blocks pretty much all weblogs as part of the "message boards and personals" category.  Sigh.  Not that I'd spend all day reading blogs, but I used to be able to check in via bloglines on my lunch break.

Otherwise, more of the usual around here.  I've been watching the Apprentice but haven't been as interested as in previous seasons.  I've found some good recipes but haven't remembered to post them and enter in the Carnival of Recipes.  I'm finding politics annoying at best and more often than not infuriating so I'm trying to avoid thinking about it for the time being.  Life is speeding by and I can't believe it's already nearly halfway through December.  How did this happen?

So tell me, what's on your mind?

Everything That's On My Mind - September First Edition

September?  What the... who the... OK, how did it get to be September already?  Wasn't it just April like two minutes ago? 

I took tomorrow off work, giving myself a four-day holiday weekend.  I had 6-1/2 days of vacation left when my company anniversary rolled around in July, and I got another 15.  I was strongly encouraged to start using them up a little more frequently than I have for the last two years.  My company's policy is that you're only allowed to roll over vacation days from one year to the next if your supervisor approves it (because they don't want you to take all of them for project-related reasons)... and if you accumulate two anniversary years' worth (in my case, 30 days), they won't give you more until you take the ones you have.  I think it's their way of preventing people from saving up 6 months' worth of vacation before they quit, and having to be paid for all of it.

Hubby-head and I had been kicking around the idea of taking a trip for the long weekend - perhaps going out to LA to see mom-in-law and other friends and family members... although we'd prefer a longer stay if we're going to pack in that much visiting, and we will be there for several days for Thanksgiving.  We'd just about decided to stay home, when our friend Christi invited us to visit her in Albuquerque for the holiday.  We made our arrangements (switching lock-up days at church, rearranging the praise & worship team schedule so we'd be free that day, etc.) and were looking forward to the fun weekend, when yesterday evening the peripheral effects from Hurricane Katrina started to become obvious.

Gas prices jumped from $2.63 on Monday and Tuesday to $2.80-something and even over $3.00 at some stations.  People heard that the refineries shut down in the gulf coast could affect our prices and supply, and started topping off their tanks and "stocking up" before the prices got any higher.  Stations started running out of gasoline, which makes people panic, and which makes them more likely to fill up everything they own that uses gasoline and further deplete the supply.  People are starting to behave like they did after the Kinder-Morgan pipeline break in 2003.  The Governor's spokespeople are on the news telling people that there is plenty of gas, and not to panic and top off.  We'll see how well that works.

Anyway, with the sudden spike in gas prices, as well as the question of whether the supply is adequate, I'm not sure if hitting the road for a 450-mile drive is such a good idea right now.

In other random updates on my life, I made another of my semi-famous cakes for CoWorkerB's birthday.  I asked her what her favorite flavor of cake was, and she said "lemon" - so my first thought was to make a vanilla cake with limoncello liqueur.  That's not the easiest thing to find in the liquor section of your average grocery store, and I knew I'd seen recipes for making it yourself, so I decided to give it a shot.  Most of the recipes I'd seen use lemon peels and vodka, and involve weeks of preparation time, letting the oils from the lemon zest infuse the alcohol. I did find one that used grain alcohol (Everclear) and only required 3 days to infuse - which I had time for (just barely).  I made that one.  It burns like fire going down, but it has a really nice lemon flavor.  It worked very well in the cake (water in the cake batter replaced by half limoncello and half lemon juice, lemon curd between the layers, and lemon juice/white chocolate glaze).  It's also fantastic in a shake, with milk and vanilla ice cream.  I wouldn't drink that stuff straight if you paid me.  OK, maybe if you paid me, but only a teensy bit of it.  I will probably try making limoncello again using the vodka recipe and more patience - I've heard the vodka version is much smoother.

The cake was a hit, by the way.  I've just about decided that when we move, if my kitchen is reasonably-sized, I'm going to start taking orders and selling my cake creations.  Right now my kitchen is unreasonably-sized.  If you only knew...  I will have to take pictures and write a post about it sometime so you can understand why I just can't deal with it.

No, no update on the moving thing.  We still have some items that need to be taken care of before we can take any concrete steps in that direction.

In other cooking-related news, I found a tasty recipe for Curry Chicken which I made last week with a batch of basmati rice.  Hubby and I had made a trip to the Asian grocery recently, and I had a can of coconut milk just begging to be used in something.  I'll try to remember to post the recipe and get it into this week's Carnival.

Otherwise, life rolls on.  Still on a reading kick - right now I'm working on pre-critiquing a draft copy of Jared's new novel.  I also have a small stack of library books (including the first two of the "Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" series) to devour, and I've got 3 books on order through PaperBackSwap.com.  I've sent out 3 more as of today, and have another one to mail tomorrow, so I'll have 4 credits coming my way in a few weeks.  This is going to be fun.

There's probably more to say, but I can't think of it right now.  Enough for the moment, there are other things to be done.

Oh yeah, and before I forget, Happy Birthday to Paul Fell.  I was just thinking this morning about the blue moose, and how one of these days we'll have taught everyone we know about "puzfoomeny forbit".  Love you, bro.

For the Voracious Reading Appetites...

... via SusiePie, I have found Paperback Swap.

What it is: A paperback book exchange with thousands and thousands of titles, which you can order from other members at no cost to you.

How it works:  You sign up for an account, list at least 9 paperback books you own and are willing to part with, and you get 3 free credits.  For each credit, you can order a book from someone else.  When someone requests one of your books, you can print out a handy-dandy mailing wrapper for it, and then you pay the media rate postage (about $1.50) to send it to them.  When they confirm they've received it, you get another credit.  You can also pay $2 each to purchase credits, in case you're in the mood to order more stuff than you have credits for.

I'm suitably impressed.  I had a box of paperbacks that I was on the verge of taking to Goodwill, and have been doing the public library thing for new reading material... but there are some authors I collect, and some books I'd like to keep around for a couple of good re-reads.  I've listed 50 paperbacks that I rounded up from my donation box and my "already read" shelves, and am looking forward to swapping them for others I've been wanting to read or own.

Paperback Swap also has a good book club community going on, with forums and live chat... If you're an avid reader, do yourself a favor and check it out.  If you sign up, use me as a referral (the e-mail link on the left is the one I used to sign up).

And now, enjoy!

Everything That's On My Mind - Random Bits of Whatnot Edition

It's like an insipid movie franchise that won't die:  I Feel Like the Poop Episode III - Revenge of the Morning People.  Yet again, I was compelled to be at work early (5:00 today) to attend a subcontractor meeting.  And yet again, I did not even begin to get sleepy last night until something approaching 11:30.  I was also engrossed in a book and close to the end, so it was closer to 12:30 when I finally turned out the light and tried to turn off my brain.  Yes, I'm running on 3-1/2 hours of sleep.  Caffeine is my friend today.   

Oh, and as usual when this happens, I have hard hat hair.  At least I was going for the "curly" look today, and the humidity that destroyed my original hairstyle made my bangs sort of curly instead of flat and crimped.

What I'm reading - in case you were curious: Terry Brooks' Heritage of Shannara series.  I just finished up Book Two.  I'd read the original Shannara series, but hadn't picked up any of the more recent books.  Enjoying them.  Sometimes the public library is a beautiful thing.

Jumping from a beautiful thing to a horrifying thing, have you seen Celebrity Fit Club 2 on VH1?  Gah.  We have flipped past it a couple of times and stopped to watch it, much like a nasty car accident on the highway.  OK, I know the camera supposedly adds 10 pounds and all, but I weigh more than some of those women and I fervently hope that I don't look that fat. 

Ugh.  Let's think of something more pleasant, shall we?

What could be more pleasant than getting to meet nice people?  Hubby and I had the opportunity on Saturday night to have dinner with Sissy.  Now there's a sweetie.  We had a lovely time - a bit limited due to her short stay and plans with her family, but what can you expect with a schedule like hers?  Oy!  I'm sure we talked her ear off... I'd intended to ask more questions and listen more, but sometimes I get started telling stories and one thing leads to another, and... Yeah.  But apparently she didn't mind too much - her take on the encounter is here.  *grin*

I did get to hear a few tidbits of what it's like to meet other members of the Bad Example Family.  Someday I'm going to have to be the obnoxious neighbor (which I suppose is a little less disturbing than being the BE Family Stalker) and invite myself to a blogmeet - of course, being in Phoenix, it'll be a bit of a hassle to get there, but who knows, we could make it work.

You know, I'd be excited that I've been here for 7-1/2 hours at this point, but I have to stay until at least 3:00 today for an afternoon meeting anyway, so the day's not going to be over as early as I would have liked.

Is it naptime yet?

I called this "everything that's on my mind", but that's not quite the truth.  I have to save some of the things that are on my mind right now for tomorrow's "Tuesday's Top 10" list.

I'll give you a hint.  It involves chocolate.

Oooh, chocolate.  That sounds like it'll perk me up for a few.  I know one of the contractor-types in this office has a good-sized candy jar on the desk. 

*pondering*

I wonder how many Reese's miniatures it would take to keep me awake until 3:00?

Yay! It's finally here!

I can't wait to get started reading it...  I've been a big fan of Julie Fidler's since I first ran across her blog whilst surfing the Blogdom of God blogroll. 

I also finally received my copy of The Bible and the Future, now that the Thinklings Book Club is almost done reading it.  I've got some catchup to do!

However, before I get into either of these, I really need to start reading The Purpose and Power of Praise and Worship, which is required reading for members of our praise team at church.

How about you?  Reading any good books lately?

Everything That's On My Mind: Monday Morning Edition

Happy Monday, folks. Hope you had a good weekend... mine was too short as usual. I'm feeling chatty, so as I try to shake out the cobwebs this morning, I thought I'd share a few details of my weekend.

Friday night I cooked dinner - Mom's Chile Relleno Casserole and bacon. Mmm, bacon. I served the chile relleno stuff with Goldwater's Papago Peach salsa (tasty!) and sour cream. Good combination. After dinner, I played some games and then did the prep work for the Cinnamon French Toast Casserole recipe Mom gave me, so we could try it for Saturday morning breakfast. That was really easy to put together. I found some good cinnamon bread at Costco, but it was really thick so I ended up having to add another egg and a splash more half-and-half to the recipe.

I also stayed up wayyy too late (curse of being a night person) knowing that we had a lot to do to prepare for the singles group to come over on Saturday.