grizzarkhov

November 29, 2007

nursemaid

I've been sick all week and working from home. Poor Melba. She gets so concerned. Whenever I'm sick she is always close at hand. I think she's feeling nostalgic for my maternity leave, when I was home all day. Except this is better, because there's no pesky baby to share my affections with.

November 26, 2007

just because

I know this picture is already on baby in a carseat but I had to post it again. How beautiful is that little girl!? I mean really!

garage art

Dima is hard at work mudding the drywall in the garage. I don't know if it's the long hours or the fumes but something enduced an inspired state during the process and he started seeing figures in the small spackle patches over the screws. (I guess not unlike Joni Mitchell's "Clouds.") He started sketching and these odd little characters were the result.

November 24, 2007

How It All Ends...

or, Applying Risk Management Theory to Global Climate Change.

November 23, 2007

Act your age, not your shoe size.

Well, this is embarrassing.

Is this a comment on my vocabulary or my sense of humor? I have to wonder what's bringing my score down. For the record, I actually have a masters degree. And I can usually be counted on to use commas correctly. Though I don't guarantee 100 percent accuracy. That's what I rely on Write. Baker. Music Maker. for. Hmph. Maybe I should start using more of those vocab words that I got right on the FreeRice.com Web site in my posts... Am I sounding defensive?

Whatever! I'm going to embrace this. With my rating and those of my blogging friends, we're showing a nice cross section. They shouldn't mind me putting their reading levels out there for the world to see. After all, they're kicking my butt.

Writer. Baker. Music Maker comes in at College: Postgrad. (Please note, another unnamed Web site by the same blogger rated Elementary School level. Ha!)
Expat with Elephants a respectable College: Undergrad.
Popcorn and Scotch another College: Postgrad.
Dinosaur Mom, whom I don't actually know IRL (In Real Life) stomped us all. She's writing at a Genius level. *Sigh*

Finally, in order to thoroughly confuse you, I leave you with the reading level from baby in a carseat, which consists of nothing but photos of our beautiful daughter in, yes, her carseat: Genius. Well, no wonder.

November 22, 2007

Happy Pumpkin Ice Cream Day

Forget the turkey. (Well, I can't really say that this year because Dima's sister made a succulent brined bird for our Thanksgiving feast. Delish!) But in order to focus in on the point of this post I say, "Forget the turkey! Eat pumpkin ice cream instead."

Here's the recipe. It's yet another modification on the strawberry ice cream recipe that came with my ice cream maker. I have yet to actually make strawberry ice cream.

Makes about 1 quart

1 1/2 cups of pumpkin pie filling
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
a dash of salt

Throw everything in the blender and process until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until ready to freeze. Blend a few more seconds before pouring into the ice cream maker just to make sure everything is evenly distributed. Follow your ice cream maker's instructions for freezing.

I did make this today but we didn't get to freeze it as I forgot to put the ice cream maker bowl in the freezer in time. Actually, I thought it was already in there and found out it wasn't too late.

Not to let it go to waste though we ate it as a sauce on Dima's homemade apple pie. Quite nice. I think I could have eaten it as a cold dessert soup. I can't wait to try it as an ice cream eventually. I think next time I'll make with real ginger in it. (FYI, you can use fresh ginger in recipes that call for dried, but use about half the amount called for.)

November 16, 2007

I've got a load

This is sort of a metro.texture™, which would normally be an image over on my other blog by the same name, but this a story with no image so it can't, by definition, go there. Although it relates to this image that I took on the Metro this morning. (Sardines). Anyway, I digress...

While I was in the maternity time warp I somehow forgot all about my favorite Metro train operator. Well, I had the pleasure of riding into work with her today. I have no idea what her name is but if you ride the Red Line, you know exactly who I'm talking about. If you board one of her trains in the morning you can look forward to a zany running commentary all the way into the city. You'll know you're on one of her trains when you hear a deep and soft female voice that sounds like it should be jockeying jazz on the radio say, "Please enter quickly and safely, quickly and safely, people."

Really what she's got is a special talent. A superpower if you will. With that voice and her strange storytelling ways, she can make the most hectic, crowded, backed-up of commutes (1) fly by, and (2) seem painless. On a chaotic commuting day, everyone within earshot will fall under her spell and forget how they normally conduct themselves on the Metro, which under stressful circumstances would be with hostility and attitude and might even involve pushing and shoving. Hypnotized by the lilt of this woman's voice people actually DO step away from Metro doors that are bursting at the seams when she asks them to. On any other train, with any other driver, you'd find those same people trying shove themselves into the smallest of remaining spaces. Spaces that are not meant to be occupied by human forms. At least not full-sized adult human forms. But when she asks, people listen. It's fascinating.

This morning the Red Line was especially backed up, slow and crowded. And instead of cross words and attitude the only utterances to be heard from this woman's passengers (and in some cases people on the platform AND on other trains) were giggles and chuckles at her peculiar chatter. The man sitting next to me had clearly never ridden with her, because he resisted cracking a smile until we were all the way to Metro Center. But even he could not withstand her powers. I finally saw him smile after I had laughed out loud for about the 10th time.

One quote from this morning as the full train was rolling into the already packed station: "Good morning, good morning, good morning. As you can see, I've got a load." She then proceeded to tell the people on the platform how to be courteous to the passengers that would exit and how they should "quickly and safely" enter the train. But best of all was "if you feel touching or wigglin' don't despair. We've got a load. It's tight in here." That, I think, may have been what finally broke my seatmate's composure.

I think I must tell her I missed her next time I ride with her. It's really a nice way to start your day. Laughing. It sets a standard for the rest of the day to come.

how many grains of rice in a cup?

[This post was followed up on with a correction. There are not 1,000 grains of rice in a cup, folks. The site I referred to below corrected itself and so did I. Check it out.]

Quick answer: approximately 1,000.

Why do I now know this, or want to know this?

I was turned on to a new site by a co-worker: FreeRice.com. Do you want to feed the hungry but you've only got a few free minutes? Or are you just bored? Well, here's a solution to both problems.

Essentially, FreeRice.com is a way to feed hungry people in the guise of a nifty online vocabulary quiz. For every word you get (or guess) right, 10 grains of rice (paid for by advertisers on the site) are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. When I checked the totals today there had been 1,897,053,670 grains of rice donated. That's about 1,897,053 cups of rice. Not bad.

Check it out. You'll look up and wonder where the last 10 minutes have gone but in the meantime (depending on how good your vocabulary is) you've fed one person (or more) a meal of rice and maybe improved your vocabulary in the process.

November 15, 2007

Work

It's really interfering with my bloggin'.

Well, work and all the house projects, and the fact that we were ALL sick earlier this week.

... really crampin' my bloggin' style.

*Sigh*

November 12, 2007

ergh!

I curse thee, parking lot shark.

For the amount of time it took you to wait for me to unlock my car, offload my purchases, return the shopping cart to the corral and then return to my car and pull out of the space, you could have found another spot AND walked into the store. But instead you waited for me to do all of this. In the meantime you got a little fatter and released unnecessary greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Park further away. Walk a little. It's good for you and the planet.

November 10, 2007

How to Green Your Baby

I've been trolling around treehugger.com. They've got these great 10 quick tips on "How to Green..." your work, your wardrobe, your meals, etc. And I just found this one: How to Green Your Baby. Interesting.

I had a smug little moment when I saw that we've already made a commitment to some of them: gDiapers (Lydia Violet's butt is finally big enough), second-hand clothing (Just say yes to Value Village and the Unique Thrift Store. Thirty bucks outfitted Lydia Violet for the cooler weather.), wooden toys (You gotta love HABA toys.), second-hand furniture (We got a great crib and changing table thanks to Christina and Mike and Hilary and Nick.) and low-VOC paints.

But I was only slightly smug and it lasted about a millisecond because know there is so much more we could be doing. I guess it's really about knowing what your options are and making decisions that are right for your family AND the planet. I'm going to check out some of these other lists and see what they say. But in the meantime you can check out the "How to Green Your Baby" list at treehugger.com by clicking on "read more" below.

read more | digg story

home depot run

Don't ask me why Dima, who is a foot taller than me, insisted on riding in the back with the wood.

November 9, 2007

the finally wall

It's up.

November 7, 2007

another wall goes up

One more to go. Adam the electrician comes tomorrow to pull three new circuits out to the garage. Two 120s and a 240 for my (eventual) glass kiln. Exciting!! Now I must retrieve the kid from Dima's parent's house.

November 6, 2007

Too Tired to Blob

I do mean to say "I'm too tired to blog" but I feel like a blob and it seemed appropriate. I'll get caught up here soon. In the meantime, I started posting to metro.texture again if you're interested. I got some cool shots on the Metro this morning with my new camera, I mean phone. It's a AT&T Tilt and SUPER cool. Can you say 3.0 megapixels? You can see a significant difference in the quality of photo. You can actually print the pictures I'm taking as 5x7s. Crazy!

Okay, so I guess I just technically blogged. But I was still tired while I did it. More later about the phone. More later in general.

Baby in a Carseat

I started a new blog. One year of Lydia Violet in her carseat in pictures. Check it out at babyinacarseat.blogspot.com.

November 5, 2007

attic done and storin' stuff

Dima made major progress in the attic area tonight. He put down flooring and we were able to move some of the stuff back in from the backyard just as it was starting to rain. Whew! Nice job!

one wall of insullation done

Dima and Natalia show off our handiwork.

at it again

I just dropped Lydia off at Dima's parent's and we're going to try to make some more headway tonight. Natalia is on her way.

November 4, 2007

callin' it quits for the night

We've studded one full wall and started insulating. It's been a long day! There's a lot more to go but we feel good about what we've done. A big shout out to the Krug, especially Robin. We couldn't have done it without you!

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