Month: February 2011

The Februaries – not too bad this year!

Well, February decided it needed to give us one more storm before giving way to March. Yesterday we had no school due to the freezing rain and snow of Thursday night/Friday morning. So yay for the day off, but boo for winter sticking its tongue out at us again.

We actually had school last Monday to make up one of our snow days so far, and were apparently the only school in the county who met on Prez Day. But thanks to yesterday’s storm, we got a 3-day weekend in February anyhoo. 🙂

Usually February is my bluest month. But this Feb wasn’t as bad as the past couple ones have been. I even managed to go somewhere for a weekend! Usually when I make weekend plans for Feb, I wind up getting sick, or having piss-poor weather to drive through, or just wind up not being in the mood to socialize. But last weekend, I headed north to visit elsaf and spend a couple of days with her and judiang.

The original plan was to stay till Monday, but the rescheduled school day put paid to that idea. So instead I drove up Friday and left on Sunday. I had hoped to stay until after lunch on Sunday, but Michigan decided it wanted a February snow storm, and I timed the departure to give me the best weather for the drive down. I left at noon and only got a bit of snow in Toledo and a small amount of sleet in Findlay (which I mostly missed by eating lunch in Findlay).

Our one full day together allowed us to have lunch at Uncle Harry’s deli (mmmm, matzo ball soup and sauerkraut sandwich! – it was a vegetarian Reuben, so basically a sauerkraut sandwich and it was very yummy!) and see The King’s Speech. We all agreed it was an excellent film. That evening, Elsa christened her kitchen proper (our main reason for the visit) by cooking us and her bro & sil some lamb shanks, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and pear halves cooked in Merlot and served with ice cream. Excellent meal and actually not too bad for Weight Watchers Points (as best as I could determine).

Anyway, March starts this week, which means that Winter still isn’t over and could dish us out other days off if it so decides. But we’re even closer to Spring (and Spring Break for that matter), which is a very good thing indeed.

A Good Time for Dicks & Other Things (wait a second…)

I know, I know, you think I’m talking about Terrance Dicks in that title. But no, that’s not what I’m talking about.

This has been my week for reacquainting myself with my favorite Detectives. Last weekend I started rereading my collection of Albert Campion novels. This week, the latest DVD set of Columbo movies came out. Then I got back into watching Monk, where I’d last left off near the end of season 6. So I finally got around to ordering seasons 7 & 8. And to top it all off, The Doctor Who TV Movie finally came out on DVD this week in the US.

So of course, on Thursday, I received two packages in the mail. I knew one was one of the two seasons of Monk, and suspected the other of being Columbo and Midnight Riot (a mystery/sci fi novel by Ben Aaronovitch) which I’d ordered together. I decided on the walk home that if it were season 7 of Monk, I’d start watching it, but if it were season 8, I’d watch Columbo first.

It turned out that Amazon combined two of my orders together (probably to save themselves the shipping costs, since I always go freebie when I can) and the package ALSO had the TVM! Well, Sylv trumps all, so I watched the TVM with Sylv & Paul commentary first. And then have been freebasing season 7 of Monk ever since. (I watched 4 eps today. Might watch another after some computer time.) It helps that the latest Columbo batch has only one story that I really love (it’s the one written by Peter Falk, of all things…) The last batch will have quite a few gems, including my favorite story of all, Columbo Undercover. (It’s the only Columbo where no one is murdered.)

Midnight Riot, BTW, was a fun read and I’ll be getting Ben’s second book, Moon Over Soho when it comes out. I wound up reading for almost 4 hours straight last night to finish the book. I love freebasing on books too, apparently. 🙂 Hope he gets some more novels out there for my enjoyment. 😉 (The Also People by Ben A has been in my top 3 Doctor Who books list since I first read it. The other two are Left-Handed Hummingbird and, hey, a book by Terrance Dicks: Timewyrm: Exodus. Maybe I was writing about Terrance Dicks in my title after all!)

In other news, I spent my birthday money from the folks and my sisters on a Kitchen Aid mixer, which arrived early this week. And today I finally used it – to make bread! Yay! I include a photo for your disbelievers!


My first loaves of bread and my new mixer!

I made honey whole wheat bread from St. Marten’s Table (Amy got me their cookbook this Christmas. Alas, the restaurant is no longer in business.) It’s pretty tasty and the smell is (as all bread) WONDERFUL. For supper I had a sandwich of the bread, Black Forest ham, Havarti cheese, lettuce, and baba ganoush. Very tasty! (It’s about 8 points, but I think it’s worth it.)

Oh yeah, points… We decided to try Weight Watchers at work and I figured “what the hell…” We started Thursday, though I actually started keeping track on Friday. Been dipping into my extra points bucket this weekend, but I’ll probably do OK. I’ll be interested to see if I lose any weight over the 12 week period.

Been having some quality parental time of late as well. Had dinner with the folks on Thursday (we went to Club 55 where I had ravioli stuffed with smoked artichoke hearts – yum!) and then yesterday was Hoity Toity Grocery Day. After a lunch at First Watch (a breakfast & lunch joint) we shopped at Trader Joe’s, and then on the way home stopped at the ginormous Kroger in Englewood that has everything from an olive bar to a sushi bar. (It’s where I got my baba ganoush.)

Today I did laundry and baked bread. Those two go well together. 🙂 Oh yeah, and watched several episodes of Monk. 3 good things that go good together!

Photos of another time…

One of the projects I’ve been doing these days when I’ve been unable to go into work (basically, we went in Monday and that was it for the week) is scanning in negatives from the Bad Old Days when I had to use film to take photographs.

A couple of years ago dad and I co-purchased a nice slide/negative scanner (plustek OpticFilm 7200) and a staticmaster brush (with polonium!) so that we could each scan in our slides & film negatives. I had it for awhile and barely did anything with it, so then I let dad use it and he pretty much scanned everything that he wanted to. So I decided to give it another go, starting with my 1998 trip to Australia & New Zealand. I’ve now got 5 of the 14 (!!!) rolls scanned, and have 120 photos thus far. Alas, I’m disappointed that the images aren’t as crisp as I’ve gotten used to with today’s goof proof digital cameras. But I’ve found a few photos that I really like so far.

My favorite so far is an odd little shot. It’s from Sydney Harbor and isn’t a typical tourist shot. But I loved the play of the colors. I fiddled about with Photoshop to see if I could exaggerate the colors some, so I’ll let you decide if I’m just odd, or if you, too, think it’s a nifty little shot.


Seagulls at Sydney Harbor.

I decided to include a shot of me sitting in front of Mrs Macquarie’s Road, just for grins. One of the few shots of me in all of the rolls, thankfully. 🙂


Me and Mrs Macquarie’s Road.

I’ve included two others as well.


A sailboat at the harbor.


Sydney at night.

Yet Another Weather Post

Ah, the joy of winter means loads of Internet posts about the weather. And this one is no different.

Well, yesterday the Ick did indeed come. We wound up with about half an inch of ice on the ground. Then last night, the winds came up strong and blew all of the ice off the trees in front of my house. Blew it all at my house. I woke up around 3am thinking the kitties were body slamming each other on the floor (yes, they do that from time to time), but no kitties were to be found. (They were both sitting quietly in the living room). Then I realized all the ruckus was being caused by ice slamming against the front of my house.

This morning, I saw lots of little ice shards on my front porch & front lawn. Heh. (And oddly enough, no ice on the tree branches.) Thankfully, power has been on continuously (despite a few flickers) and I only lost Internet late last night and it returned late this morning.

I managed to get all of my grading done that I had brought home, though I had forgotten to bring my gradebook home. Thankfully, I was able to log onto Progress Book and enter the grades directly into that. I love living in the 21st Century.

We’ve already gotten the call that we have no school again tomorrow. So yay, another day off. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get to finishing my application for Advance College Project – a program whereby I’d be teaching chemistry to juniors, and they’d be able to get college credit for it (from Indiana University). I think it sounds exciting and could be a great opportunity for our students. Here’s hoping I get the job!