I read it somewhere on the Internet...
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| The Medieval Bestseller I read it somewhere on the Internet... |
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Friday, November 20, 2009
Last night I had this great idea for a blog post. As you can probably guess, I have no idea about what it was this morning. Instead of a brilliant post, I will let you know that I am excited about Thanksgiving. I'm excited to see my family and Gavin's family, yes, but I'm also very excited about the sides. In general with eating, I'm not so excited about the main course and totally into the sides. I love sides: mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, sweet potatoes, etc. The nice thing about being in a relationship is that now I get two Thanksgiving with two completely different sets of sides! Exciting! The sad thing is that we have a whole week to go through before I get to those sides. I'm trying to decide whether to go to my last volleyball game this Saturday or not. I think I'm leaning toward not at 75%. The thing is that every time I go to volleyball, I am struck with how not nice my team is. People don't say hi to me, invite me to warm up with them, etc. Then, during the game it's major stress. I'm sorry, but I have better ways to spend my Saturday morning than not to be treated nicely and to incur stress over a recreational game. The reason why I am considering maybe going is because a.) my friend Colander will be there, and he's almost always nice to me, and b.) a lot of people aren't going this Saturday, so they need people to come, especially girls. If the couple that's the worst at being not nice weren't going to be there, I'd go. But that couple, I feel, treated me pretty poorly last week. And they'll be there this week. So...that sways me not to go. I did not paint yesterday. Bad girl. So today I will concentrate on painting and hopefully be done and over with this project. Then I'm thinking of making this for dinner. Maybe. If I can find a ripe mango. This week has been full of trying recipes that I'm not sure how they'll turn out. First I tried the Enchilada Casserole, which I had before but this time I added veggies and used some sort of Mexican cheese that apparently does not melt. It did not turn out well. Then we tried this Fuyu Persimmon Soup. Gavin loves persimmons, so I thought this would be a fun recipe to try. The result is that it tastes a lot like a squash soup (but I guess I'd rather just have a squash soup, know what I mean?). Then last night I tried to make this recipe because we had everything but the cheese (and obviously we needed cheese because we had to use that Mexican cheese that does not melt!) and I thought they were very so-so. Gavin loved them (a grown up Cheezit, I think he said). So, this Carrot & Mango recipe may also be a bust, since I don't feel that my record was very strong this week. Anyway, so that's my plan for today. This weekend is still forming. I know that Kendra comes in on Saturday night, then her new boyfriend Dustin is coming in on Sunday morning. So there is a span of hours where we will be entertaining them. I may do volleyball or not. We may help friends move or not. I have a Family Promise meeting. I probably will not go to softball. Decisions have been hard for me lately. - Jenny, 11/20/2009 08:46:00 AM Thursday, November 19, 2009 My super-über busyness is now gone. Now I am just at my regular state of busyness, which is pretty busy with some times of rest in between. So it seems like right now there's a huge trend in cooking blogs to photograph each and every step of the process. (see here and here.) It's interesting to me and very beautiful, but I've just got to wonder--how does what they're cooking turn out to be ok? They must have a photography assistant or whatever because if they're like anything like me when I cook, it's often one ingredient goes in, then another, then another. No time to wait to set up a good photo. Am I the only one? Anyway, so the other day I was given some guavas by my friend Vicky from her tree. (She also gave me some delicious pomelos!) It was very handy because just the day before I had been looking at some recipes and saw a recipe for Shortbread Almond Cookies with Guava. I passed up the recipe because I thought to myself, "Who has guava?" But now that I had some guava, I found the recipe again and was sad to see that it doesn't call for actual guava, but guava paste. I disregarded the recipe again until I started eating the guavas and discovered that I wasn't the hugest fan of eating them raw. So then I began wondering if whether I could actually make this guava paste with the guavas I had. I googled the recipe and it looked complicated, so I decided not to do it. But then, because it is clear that I keep on going back and forth on this subject, I decided to make it afterall. (And it wasn't that bad.) Fast-forward to the next day, I made the cookies, put them in the oven, took them out and let them cool. Then I bit into one and apparently did not realize that the guava paste centers would be still hot from the oven - I ended up burning my lip. It's been tender for a few days now and now has a little bit of a scab. I still have some guava paste left, so I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. Today I have planned to begin the final draft of the Easter painting for the Catholic missionary organization. They really, really liked my first draft (a miracle--it was hard for me to get to that point!), so now I just have to alter things slightly, scan it, and send it in. Speaking of scanning, I am in the market for an 11x17" scanner (or, even a 12x18"). These large format scanners are mega-bucks - into the thousands of dollars. I found one on Amazon for only $180 or so and I ended up buying it, but became disappointed with the dullness of the scan. It didn't quite capture the colors represented in my watercolors. Sure, I could have adjusted it a little in Photoshop, but I'd rather just start with a clean scan. So I returned it and am back wondering what to do. Should I spend the $1,000 for an Epson one, or should I try out the Brother 3-in-1 print/scan/copy that does 11x17". That one is only $300, and may work just fine. No one on the comments on Amazon has said about how the scanner works. Most of them are upset with how it prints (my assumption is that they're all using it for photo printing). I wouldn't be interested in photo printing at all, so maybe it'd be ok for me. Not sure, still mulling it over in my brain. Anyway, there are things to be doing right now, so I'll have to catch you on the flip side. - Jenny, 11/19/2009 10:17:00 AM Tuesday, November 10, 2009 So I have about a bazillion things to do this week, from design to writing grants to conference calls to dinners and meetings, etc. I don't know if there'll be much time for blogging at all. Hopefully I'll be able to surface from the madness sometime soon and live to tell the tale! - Jenny, 11/10/2009 10:00:00 AM Sunday, November 08, 2009 Well, blogging on Thursday, Friday or Saturday just wasn't possible. Or, I guess it may have been possible, but just didn't work out. Thursday I was getting stuff together for the monthly Family Promise (my homeless charity) meeting. And I guess I just didn't feel like blogging. Friday was busier than busy - I worked at the hospital, then raced home for a Skype conference call that started late and actually ended up getting rescheduled, then I hopped into the car to pick Gavin up from the airport. Saturday I woke up early and Gavin and I headed up to spend the weekend with his family in Ojai. Somehow this didn't get conveyed to them, so we headed back home Saturday afternoon and I made us some pumpkin & pear soup for dinner while we watched a movie from Netflix: Confetti. Gavin really liked the soup, I thought it was a little too sweet for my taste and I found that I think I prefer butternut squash in taste and texture to pumpkin. Anyway, on Wednesday of this week I have to produce a first sample or other ideas for this painting I have to do for the Catholic Missionary organization for their Easter card. It's supposed to be of the women approaching the empty tomb. Boy is this hard. I think it's partly hard because I don't have a firm idea of what I want to draw. It's mostly hard beyond that because drawing the human figure is really hard for me to do, unless I'm doing it regularly. So it's hard for me to envision how the body turns and what shapes it makes, and stuff. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. :( I think I may take a break from the drawing and instead go and get some tacos for lunch. I'm also debating about whether to get my car washed and to get my nails manicured, since I have a pretty bad hangnail that needs to be removed (I don't think I have that tool). I have basically been thinking about doing those things for the last two weeks, so me thinking about them today could either mean that I just go and get them over with, or put them off for the next two weeks. - Jenny, 11/08/2009 12:16:00 PM Wednesday, November 04, 2009 I'm reading a gazillion things right now, but at the pace of a snail. I think this is because I'm only mildly interested in the things that I'm reading. I'd love to read an easy book that I just can't put down. Suggestions? The other day I started reading a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury because it happened to be close to my bed and I didn't want to get out of bed and look for something different. So far, I am supremely disappointed. In high school I read a few of Ray Bradbury's books (Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes) and really liked them. I haven't read anything since, but I have this book because there is a short story in there that I am interested in reading. I picked it up and have read probably about 60 pages so far (I have not gotten to my story yet) and I guess I find that Ray Bradbury's writing style, at least in these stories, feels old and sorta childish. A week or so ago I decided to have some of my paintings made into note cards. I had been thinking about it for awhile, but a stranger sent me an email, asking if she could buy some Christmas cards from me. So, I picked some paintings, made some cards, and then sent them off to the printer. Yesterday I got the cards back from the printer and they look great! Now I just have to figure out a way to get ride of them. I have a couple more orders for cards, so that will get rid of some. I'd like to see if there are small shops that will sell them, but I'm just so bad at self-promotion. At any rate, if it's anything like when I ordered cards before, they will all get used, somehow. My major project today is to begin drawing the Easter card for the Catholic missionary organization. I'm a little nervous about it (ie, whether or not I can actually draw/paint what they're asking for), but hope that it'll all fall into place. I'm going over to Jenn's to start work on it (she has her own project to work on), and she's a very good drawer, so maybe if I get stuck she can help me out. - Jenny, 11/04/2009 08:28:00 AM |
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