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Archive for January, 2011

Do One Thing: Sorting the library, garage and fridge

Posted in Do One Thing, Home, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 31, 2011| 1 Comment »

The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.

Day 29: Listed a couple of books and CDs for sale at Amazon. I’m always tempted to keep every book that comes into my hands, but I don’t have room, and I don’t miss them when they’re gone.

Day 30: I have been granted permission to scour the garage and make executive decisions. Best. Fling. Ever.

Day 31: Who’s the genius that came up with side-by-side refrigerators? The freezer section isn’t necessarily small, but it acts small, with two deep drawers that items just get lost in, and a couple of flimsy wire shelves, one with too much vertical space, the other with too little. The design of the refrigerator section is slightly better, but it’s not proportioned quite right either. And, because it’s shoved into a just-right-sized hole in the cabinetry, I can’t open the fridge door enough to remove the drawers. So they’re only as clean as I can get them while they’re still inside. No soaking old dirt and grime off; it’s there for life.

I’ve only chosen my own refrigerator once during my entire life, and we had to leave it behind when we moved four years ago. Therefore, I’m always stuck with somebody else’s bad decision and missing accessories.

Sigh. Today, I repacked some small bags of frozen cantaloupe, strawberries and greens into bigger bags in an effort to make one of the freezer drawers less of an abyss. The other one may hold a human head for all I know.

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As Pictured Below: Taste of home

Posted in As Pictured Below, Eats, Huntsville, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 30, 2011| 2 Comments »

You don’t realize how much you miss a good fried shrimp poboy until you only get to eat one or two a year. And, apparently, you don’t realize that fried foods provoke headaches until you eat fried foods only once or twice a year.

Anyway, I had a superb shrimp poboy and cup of gumbo at Huntsville’s Po Boy Factory with MrsDragon and company in celebration of The Dining Dragon’s 6-month anniversary. I had been meaning to eat at the Po Boy Factory for the last couple of years, but somehow never made it there except to buy a king cake.

This will not be my last meal there.

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As Pictured Below: Curiosity irritated the cat

Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , on January 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The construction guys next door were making plenty of noise this week, and Yang’s inquiring mind wanted to know what was going on. Note that in his quest to see down into the yard, he has pressed his head against the glass so hard that his ears are flattened.

I live with the reincarnation of Gladys Kravitz.

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Do One Thing: The cleansing burn of anger

Posted in Do One Thing, Home, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.

Day 28: Clean angry. Choose a room. Get rid of anything that you don’t wear, don’t use or don’t love. Get rid of anything that doesn’t make you less angry. Get rid of anything that makes you angrier. If you start to feel less angry, go have another strong cup of coffee and remember why you were angry to begin with. Choose another room. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Previously this week:

Day 25: Chunked a couple of small, miscellaneous kitchen gadgets into the thrift-story bag. I can’t tell you what they were for. Seriously. Better to toss than to research, since I’ve lived without them for this long.

Day 26: Faced my true feelings for 3/4-length sleeves. I despise them, yet always seem to have a few in my closet. I was always a little tall and long-limbed as a child, and I sometimes had problems finding shirts with sleeves that were long enough. So, 3/4-length sleeves always make me feel like I should be tugging them toward my wrists. They’re gone now.

Day 27: I organized nothing, but I did go to a King Arthur Flour baking demonstration and might stand a chance of making a proper pie now. And pie makes any home nicer.

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Entirely educational

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 27, 2011| 4 Comments »

Baking class.  Graduate seminar. Shakespeare production. All in one day.

There simply MUST be a name for my disorder.

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Aspirational oatmeal: definitely a thing

Posted in Eats, tagged , , , , , , , on January 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

A slide show over at Serious Eats: New York featuring the best oatmeal in New York City tells me that my steel-cut oats with brown sugar and dried cranberries is the stuff of amateurs. Oatmeal with vanilla and lavender syrup, anyone?

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A bittersweet milestone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 25, 2011| 2 Comments »

Having heard about the death of a friend’s father and the death of one of my mother’s friends within the past seven days, it occurred to me that perhaps I’ve reached that age when deaths become more common. Then I realized that my father died nearly 10 year ago, so I guess I’ve been reaching that age for a while.

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Do One Thing: Crafty craft storage

Posted in Do One Thing, Home, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.

Day 24: I realize that some people have an entire room dedicated to their crafting supplies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I yearn to be craftier. But I also associate crafts with stuff, and I don’t need more stuff.

So, my craft supplies consist of magnets, Mod Podge, a few rolls of post-Christmas-sale ribbon, colored pencils, a hole-punch, an X-acto knife and embroidery supplies.

Wait. Embroidery supplies? I know. Because I was TRASH at embroidery when I attempted to take it up a couple of years ago. Trust me: The embroidery supplies are just biding their time until their turn comes on the circle of thrift store donations.

Anyway, today’s Do One Thing activity was to organize all my craft supplies into two stacked storage units that I got on super clearance last year at Michael’s. Yeah, yeah — a couple of corners are kind of weathered, and one of the smaller drawers is a slightly different color, but I got them both for less than $20.

The storage units are currently serving as a nightstand in the guest bedroom; at the rate I buy new furniture, they’re likely to be serving in that capacity for a while.

Really, the embroidery supplies were the only thing that needed moving. They were hanging in a bag in my office closet, and I’m trying to take down everything that’s hanging in that closet to make it neater.

All crafting supplies in one place, and a closet that I could walk into, assuming I could actually get both bifold doors open (grrr). I’m nearing neatnik nirvana.

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Do One Thing: Closet, bathroom progress

Posted in Do One Thing, Home, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.

Day 18: Put a blazer into the thrift store box. It’s a well-made wool blazer, but its cut is simply out of style and I don’t know when it’ll come back in style. I’m no fashionista, but in addition to being outdated, it’s also a little big for me.

Day 19: Manhandled my office bifold closet door to obtain the big Rubbermaid box filled with more photographs that I need to send to ScanCafe. Spent another 10 minutes trying to figure out how to repair the bifold closet doors so they both actually open and close. I hate those closet doors.

Day 20: Shredded documents like an Enron accountant, only with less desperation.

Day 21: Really started to dig into the photo box retrieved on Day 19. Remembered why every time I start to sort through this box, I quickly put the top back on and put it back in the closet. It contains everything from old photographs of family members I don’t remember to vacation photos from the late 1990s.

Day 22: I actually made headway on the box of photos, sorting out duplicates and choosing the best copies to send off for scanning.

Day 23: Finally bought the faucet, toilet paper holder and towel ring to go in the remodeled downstairs bathroom. This is why people buy new houses.

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George Foreman Grill: A lean, mean, bacon machine

Posted in Eats, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2011| 2 Comments »

The good news: Earth Fare will sell you two pieces of sliced applewood dry rub bacon.

The bad news: You’ll feel like a tool asking for two pieces of sliced applewood dry rub bacon.

C’est la vie.

Bacon has been an “it” food for a while now. You can join a bacon of the month club, buy bacon vodka (or make your own) or enjoy a chocolate bacon bar (I, alas, did not enjoy this flavor mix).

What you can’t do with bacon, however, is cook it without making a mess. Before you all shout at once “Put it in the oven,” I’ve tried that. Baking bacon still spattered the oven interior a little, but mostly it just seems utterly ridiculous to heat the oven for the small amount of bacon that the husband and I eat at one sitting.

Thanks to Michael Scott on The Office, I knew about the George Foreman Grill’s potential as a bacon cooker. It wasn’t until Earth Fare — and its tempting meat counter — swung into town last year that I really considered getting back into the bacon-cooking business, however. (And I do realize that Fresh Market has a tempting meat counter, with butchers standing by who would sell me two slices of bacon, but thus far I’ve lived in two cities with a Fresh Market, and both stores have been located at the most dangerous intersection in town. It’s just not worth the drive.)

I’ve already outlined using the Foreman Grill as a panini press. It does a great job with bacon, too, but only if you’re cooking a very small amount.

You have to cut the bacon slices in half if you’re using the smaller grill, and then lay two halves on the grill. Close it, let the bacon cook for about 3 minutes, then open the lid and flip the two pieces over. Do this two or three more times and you’ve got bacon ready to go on the table. Or, actually, ready to sit on the plate and wait for the other two pieces of bacon to finish cooking.

If you’re crafty, you can put the two other half slices of bacon on the grill after the first two shrink down, giving you a head start on Round 2. Because cooking bacon takes forever.

If you’re lucky, all the grease from the bacon runs into the grease tray underneath the front of the Foreman. If you’re unlucky, then part of the grease runs up under the grill and drips on the countertop, onto which you sagely placed a couple layers of paper towels before you began this project. Toss those, wipe off the grill with dry paper towels, spray some cleaner underneath the grill, wipe and you’re done.

The applewood bacon? Totally worth it. Two slices cost me $1.30. The husband came downstairs for breakfast without being called (a rarity) and said, “You know how in cartoons the characters can see waves of smells, and the waves just sort of lift them up and carry them along? That’s what the smell of this bacon cooking is like.”

Cartoon imagery? There is no greater compliment.

 

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