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Posts that make you go hmmm

7 February 2009 By Leave a Comment

Ever read a post on a forum, or a blog, or even on a news site, and you wonder what on earth made that person write that article?Yah.

I am not claiming my blog entries are all gold. Usually it’s an update on my family or day. My blog is more of a diary for me. I don’t expect a lot of people to read it or have interest in it. I also like to spread links and news stories. Sometimes I comment on them, and sometimes I don’t. I am so there are people who do read me who go “huh?” a lot. That’s ok. I read a lot of stuff that makes me go “huh?”

I just thought I’d mention this bit of “huh” before I get to the meat of my post for today.

We (I) emptied out half the breakfront today, and the half that is empty was removed. We put the piano in it’s place, and the empty piece will go out for trash on Wednesday. Maybe I’ll put it in the garage. I don’t know. I don’t really want to save it and I don’t really have a use for it. I also emptied the corner piece to the bedroom set that was in the front room and it will go out as well. It let me move the weight machine over and opened up the entire front room. Yay!

I am taking an internet hiatus for a bit. It’s about that time. I will be on, because I have work to do, but I am backing away from forums for a bit.

I had some beads I ordered come in the mail today. I ordered two glass spirals and three fabric beads. One of the spirals is too large for my dreads, which is a shame, but the other was perfect! I’ll hang onto the one that’s a bit too large in the hopes that it will fit better once they fatten out a little more.

Boro Borosilicate Bead, Fire-n-Sand LampworkBoro Borosilicate BeadFIBER BEAD

I am wearing the green coil, and I haven’t put the red beads in yet, but everything is fab. I am pleased.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Veganomicon – The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook

30 January 2009 By Leave a Comment

But Jenn, your raw! Why yes, yes I am. Most of the time. The rest of the time, I try to eat, you know, healthy.

I picked this up from B&N today. I am a cookbook whore. I am actually really pleased with this one (I also got 30% off the hardcover new book price, so yay!).

It starts with info about stocking a vegan pantry. Eight pages or so of stuff you should have, why you should have it, and what it’s good for.

Then it moves onto kitchen equipment. That is everything from knives (and they give inexpensive tips for good knives!), a cutting board, peeler, to a food processor, mandoline, crepe pan, baking sheets, and back to basics like measuring cups. It’s a good summery of a well stocked kitchen.

They have a brief intro to proper cooking & prepping terminology. Terms like braise and roux and slurry along with grate.

Info about lower-fat cooking. How to cook a vegetable. How to cook a gain. How to cook a bean. It’s packed with something like 50 pages of (what I think should be) basic kitchen info, written for the masses in easy-to-understand-ese.

Then it moves onto the recipes. Oh. My. God. The recipes. There are about 220 pages of recipes.

It starts with snacks, appetizers, little meals, dips and spreads. Spicy Tempeh Nori Rolls. Potato Latkes (um, that is what made me buy the book. Seriously. Any book that includes latkes and calls them latkes is a winner, hands down.). Curried Carrot Dip. Hummus. Guac.

Then it moves onto brunch. Brunch now includes home fries, chocolate chip brownie waffles and blueberry corn pancakes. Let’s not forget the crepes.

Moving on to salads and dressings. Ceasar, portobello, and macaroni salads. Dressings? Miso tahini, Sesame, Raspberry-Lime Vinegrette.

Sammiches. Yep, sammies. Thanks Rachel Ray. Really. Baja style grilled tempeh tacos. Black bear burgers (always a hit in my home). Snobby joes.

Mix N Match veggies, grains, beans, and tofu/tempeh/seitan. Tons of side dishes.

There are soups, casseroles (not your grandmas casseroles either) and one-pot meals (aren’t one-pot meals casseroles?). Pasta, noodles & risotto. Sauces & fillings. Breads, muffins & scones. Cookies & bars. Desserts. Who knew cookies & bars weren’t dessert?

Then, at the very end, are two pages of simple menus in case you need a theme and don’t feel like reading from cover to cover.

Loving this book. I needed to inject my meals with something, and a lot of these I already make, so it just involves changing the seasonings up.

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

I’ve been wanting to post, but I haven’t had anything to say

15 December 2008 By Leave a Comment

Last night in the car, Malachai kept telling us not this song, not this song, not this song, and at one point he changed it up and said “not this. definitely not this.” <3

We had dinner with my Aunt, Uncle, Gram, Zaide, and the eight of us. My Aunt & Uncle got the kids gifts. Mal got visibly upset because he got a smaller bag than the other two. He is quiet enough and was talking into my neck enough that we passed it off as him being tired. Poor guy. He got over it quick enough (he got a very cool card game, as did Eshiva, but hers was packaged in a bigger box, and Dor got a ball that was not inflated, but it was packaged bigger too) but we felt bad for him. I remember how I felt getting a gift that I thought sucked when everyone else got cool stuff.

We bought boxes today. I am packing up our breakfront full of crap so I can get rid of the breakfront and sub out something much smaller. All the “crap” in there were my folks wedding fits, my moms owl collection, our “Jew” stuff and some misc. tchotchkes. Dad is asking why I am keeping it. I can’t bear to tell him it’s because I’m a girl and I am emotionally attached to anything that I feel still reminds me of mom. It’s getting better, I’m not saving *everything* some of it really is crap.

I told Michael to box up the tattoo stuff and take what he can to work – I haven’t drawn in over six months, and I haven’t set up the machines in almost as long. I went as far as looking through the stencils today and I just wasn’t feeling it.

My uncle is trying to find a cheap way to send me his studio lights, and we’re going to build a backdrop stand from PVC sometime soon after they arrive. I’m pretty excited about that. I also hinted that I’d be happy to take any other old equipment he isn’t using off his hands and give it a good home (he said he’d like to see his lights get some use in a good home) so maybe I’ll get some other surprise goodies too :-)

I think I might branch out into printing some general greeting cards and stuff. Nothing in big batches, little micro batches I can list at my leisure to sell.

Cliff Bar brand put out organic twisted fruit leather things – I picked up a box on impulse today. They worked out to about fifty cents a package and the kids love them. One full fruit serving in there! Score!

I am back on my “mostly raw” raw diet. I put on a pair of size 10s this morning. I got them on, and had disgusting muffin top BUT I got them on and buttoned. I could not do that even last week. I took them off and put on a comfy pair of size 16s that fall off unless I belt them down. A few more weeks, I think, and I can dig out at least six pair of pants that I haven’t been able to wear for longer than I care to admit.

I’ve been food shopping at the WalMart food store. This should go in confess I guess, but I spent 200$ where I’d normally have spent over 300$ so I don’t care that bad. It’s not like they are putting Publix out of business or anything.

I <3 my dreads. I feel bad putting wax and crap in them, but I need them to look good and not like I am wearing a rabid mop on my head. All in all, it’s working and I am pleased with them and have not threatened to brush them out or cut them off. Yay!

I think that’s it. I am feeling restless and I want to be doing all these things and I just can’t pick one to focus on, so I am kind of doing like, 5 – 10 minutes of a lot of things. It sucks.

Filed Under: Art, Body Modification, Mishpucha, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Changes… feel free to skip

2 August 2008 By Leave a Comment

I am far from religious… or even what I would call spiritual. That said, I am going to try to make an effort to have a more wholesome household. What does that have to do with religion? I have had a lot of exposure to Orthodox Judaism, and they seem so happy, it spills over to their families. I am not saying the mothers don’t have the same stresses non-religious mothers have, but in my mind, that happiness, that… Je ne sais quoi, tends to go hand-in-hand with God. Being as I am at odds with God, god, and that guy over there right now, I am not interested in bringing religion into the picture, not in the daily sense.

I want to stop yelling. I want to stop losing control of myself, and by virtue of that, my family. I want to have my day planned out the night before. I want my home to be “company ready” all the time. I want to de-clutter. I am going to start scaling back, minimizing, zen, if you will. I want to be free of our possessions… to the extent we can be. I like having certain things, so to be able to pack into a bag is unrealistic. I want to pare down our clothing to fit in our drawers. I want to not be overwhelmed so very often. I want to pare down. In that vein, I’ve started two lists for every month. Stuff I want to buy, and stuff I bought. Stuff I want to buy will be kept for the month and re-evaluated the following month. Stuff I bought will be re-evaluated and see if it was something I needed or a useless impulse buy. I am trying to work on my spending.

This could go on and on, but it wont. I am just making a declaration for myself. I’ve done very well on my raw food diet. I have one meal that isn’t raw a day, the rest is raw goodness. Some days I don’t have a non-raw meal. I am pleased with my progress. I have to say, I notice I feel different on days I backslide and eat too much in the way of cooked foods. My stomach hurts and I just feel bad. It could be in my head, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not.

On the subject, I am also going to try very hard to stop “I can do it/start tomorrow” and turn tomorrow into today. I always put things off, thinking there is time tomorrow.

Tomorrow (because it’s 8PM and my kids are in bed… or should be) I am going to go bike riding with my kids. And we’re going to play in the pool outside (just a little wading pool) and I am going to measure for my raised planting beds. I can’t buy the lumber until next weekend, but a little planning can’t hurt, right?

Filed Under: Philosophy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

new camera

7 May 2008 By Leave a Comment

Maybe it means more pictures! I overspent on it, and I feel guilty about it. I really had set a limit for myself, especially because I wasn’t replacing my camera, but getting another one.

I have a Canon S3. I love it. It’s no Nikon but it’s a fine camera. It’s also large, and not easy to toss in my bag and whip out and not feel like I am shooting something much more important some something that caught my eye. I also like to fiddle with the settings, so it’s not always “point and shoot” ready.

I did want something small (I generally hate small cameras, I like how my current one feels in my hands and I am always afraid they will break) that wont break, takes a quick but good shot, and *is* a typical point and shoot.

I knew I did not want a Polaroid brand as they shoot fairly slowly and my kids move fairly quickly. I did not want an Elph (a fine camera, but not what I wanted), and I was mainly looking at Canon and Nikon. I had a … powershot (I think it was) a few cameras ago that I loved – it got stolen, but again, looking for something smallish. – I did see the new model of that, and it felt and looked so fragile and cheapy!

It did not need to take video or anything – my S3 does that and I barely use it. I just realized I am lacking on pictures because my cam is a pain in the ass to take about. I don’t even like taking it on vacay b/c it’s big and bulky and I hate feeling touristy wearing it around my neck. Maybe if I decked it out with cool new lenses I’d feel less… stupid… but as it’s present it just makes me feel like a picture taking poseur lol It’s more than a basic camera, but not quite a professional (even semi-professional) rig.

Anyway, to the point, I picked up a Panasonic TZ3. Did anyone else know Panasonic has Leica cameras and re-bands them? Had no clue. Played with it in the store. It’s a nice model – close to my S3 in ability, but smaller so easier to tote around.

I paid 318$ about 100$ more than I wanted to spend, but Michael made me not feel bad about it (I really had set a limit, and I was looking in my limit, and the sales guy showed me this after I mentioned I had the S3 b/c the features were comparable).

So I totally let myself get upsold, but the sample pics we took in the store were impressive, it is quick on the draw, and so far it totally rocks as much as I thought it would.

I will say, it does have settings to fiddle with, but it also seems like it should quickly adjust back to typical P&S settings (which the S3 does, but it sometimes takes a few seconds too long to register).

I can’t seem to get my blog to switch over the raw mode, so no embedded pics or links :/ Here is the product URL:

http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/shop/Cameras-Camcorders/Digital-Cameras/Lumix-Digital-Cameras/model.DMC-TZ3S.S_11002_7000000000000005702#tabsection

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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