Ugh, its 10:16 am and I'm so tired! Already? Still? I'm not sure.
I don't sleep well, ever, and I was up til about midnight last night. I had even walked a few miles so I thought my body would be decently tired enough to sleep well but no, of course not.
Plus the damn cats make so much noise EVERY morning around 4 am. Which means I have to get up, chase them around the house and lock them in the bathroom to shut them up. Damn cats. And every morning I consider just staying up, which I probably should do. But I don't. So I go back to sleep and I sleep REALLY deeply for about an hour. Its weird. Then I wake up late, and tired.
I signed up for a sleep study at St. Luke's hospital out in Chesterfield I think it is. It pays well, seems to address my exact problem and will provide free experimental medication. I hope they call me back.
31 March 2009
24 March 2009
Blogging is time consuming...
Ok, so I'm trying to really keep up on this blogging thing and maybe I haven't gotten into the flow of things yet but sheesh! I must've spent 6 hours yesterday updating Lock and Key Press, and then already another 2 hours this morning.
Dag. THe thing that seems to take the most time is posting pictures from flickr. Getting the right links, then making sure the page layout is good and there's ALWAYS some silly dangling code I have to go in and clean up...
I do like tha tI can see all the traffic to my weblog. Its very helpful. For instance, i saw that so many people were viewing the About section, I cleaned it up nice and pretty. Then, I added a contact section once I realized that these views might be potential customers looking for a way to get an estimate! YIKES! So, now, they can email or post me. Yay!
Other than the blogosphere, today I need to bake bread. I also need to shop for food, but that will have to wait a little bit. I think its about to rain and I don't like riding in the rain.
That's all.
Dag. THe thing that seems to take the most time is posting pictures from flickr. Getting the right links, then making sure the page layout is good and there's ALWAYS some silly dangling code I have to go in and clean up...
I do like tha tI can see all the traffic to my weblog. Its very helpful. For instance, i saw that so many people were viewing the About section, I cleaned it up nice and pretty. Then, I added a contact section once I realized that these views might be potential customers looking for a way to get an estimate! YIKES! So, now, they can email or post me. Yay!
Other than the blogosphere, today I need to bake bread. I also need to shop for food, but that will have to wait a little bit. I think its about to rain and I don't like riding in the rain.
That's all.
17 March 2009
Bad Economy = Bake Your Own Bread
The economy took a dump on our family big time. We moved a few months before all the exploding of the financial sector, and unfortunately, (as I've bitched about before) I couldn't find a job to save my life.
But being unemployed for 11 months has its upsides. For one, I've got all this time on my hands... Work sucks, man. You work all day, you get some cash sure, but then you never do anything because you have to work! So I began to do some of the things I've held in the back of my brain, telling myself I should be doing but never did because I never had the time.
I was also spurred in this direction out of necessity. No work = no money. Groceries are expensive, especially the way the USA forces us to shop. Gotta spend $6.00 on one box of food that lasts for one meal and doesn't even begin to fill Lucky's hollow leg. LAME. So I decided to take my food into my own hands, something I should have done a LONG time ago.
No more spending $5 on a loaf of natural and organic bread. No more buying in containers. I shop the produce section and get the majority of my food FRESH. THen, I cook. I cook enough for us for dinner, and leftovers for Lucky for lunch.
A big change was baking my own bread. Spending $4 on a bag of whole wheat flour makes way more sense than $5 for a loaf of bread. I've been baking a molasses wheat Brown Bread and it is DELICIOUS. I love it.
And yogurt! I made yogurt! Its so easy! Who knew? I acquired a yogurt maker from a friend and tried it out. Previously I had attempted yogurt in a thermos, but I didn't know what I was doing. So I borrowed a copy of "Country Wisdom & Know How" and looked up yogurt. Simple straight forward recipes that make everything form yogurt to raising chickens look easy! Apparently the trick is sterile tools and just enough bacteria. I've made it twice now, and its great!
Of course I made it soy yogurt, so I was a little unsure of how it would come out. I added a bit of agar agar to thicken it in case the bacterias didn't. Good call on my part. The yogurt is not thick like sour cream or store-bought yogurt, more like tzatiki or greek yogurt: thin and tangy!
Last night I made daal and onions, with chapatti bread and this yogurt was an ideal garnish! YUM!!!
Now, I've been reading through the book and we want to try our hands at cheesemaking. YES. We will make our own cheese!
But being unemployed for 11 months has its upsides. For one, I've got all this time on my hands... Work sucks, man. You work all day, you get some cash sure, but then you never do anything because you have to work! So I began to do some of the things I've held in the back of my brain, telling myself I should be doing but never did because I never had the time.
I was also spurred in this direction out of necessity. No work = no money. Groceries are expensive, especially the way the USA forces us to shop. Gotta spend $6.00 on one box of food that lasts for one meal and doesn't even begin to fill Lucky's hollow leg. LAME. So I decided to take my food into my own hands, something I should have done a LONG time ago.
No more spending $5 on a loaf of natural and organic bread. No more buying in containers. I shop the produce section and get the majority of my food FRESH. THen, I cook. I cook enough for us for dinner, and leftovers for Lucky for lunch.
A big change was baking my own bread. Spending $4 on a bag of whole wheat flour makes way more sense than $5 for a loaf of bread. I've been baking a molasses wheat Brown Bread and it is DELICIOUS. I love it.
And yogurt! I made yogurt! Its so easy! Who knew? I acquired a yogurt maker from a friend and tried it out. Previously I had attempted yogurt in a thermos, but I didn't know what I was doing. So I borrowed a copy of "Country Wisdom & Know How" and looked up yogurt. Simple straight forward recipes that make everything form yogurt to raising chickens look easy! Apparently the trick is sterile tools and just enough bacteria. I've made it twice now, and its great!
Of course I made it soy yogurt, so I was a little unsure of how it would come out. I added a bit of agar agar to thicken it in case the bacterias didn't. Good call on my part. The yogurt is not thick like sour cream or store-bought yogurt, more like tzatiki or greek yogurt: thin and tangy!
Last night I made daal and onions, with chapatti bread and this yogurt was an ideal garnish! YUM!!!
Now, I've been reading through the book and we want to try our hands at cheesemaking. YES. We will make our own cheese!
10 March 2009
I saw a Kestrel in my yard!
My apartment has a second floor sun room off the back of the house. While I'm printing, I can watch birds in the honey locust tree and the bushes at the side of the yard. I've been seeing a few birds that I hadn't seen before on such a regular basis.
There's a bunch of little red birds, with brown wings, that hangs out in the bushes with the sparrows and chickadees. I thought at first they were a young cardinal, because I see lots of them. But they are too small. So, I consulted Google, and turns out, they are a rosy house finch! They are lovely.
Then few days ago, I saw a large bird, I'd say about 10 inches tall, fly onto the wire that goes across our yard to the alley. Its back was to me, but it had a black cap, and dark wings. The space between the wings was lighter and spotted just a little. The bird was being pissy, sitting on the wire and squawking, doing that head-bob warning birds sometimes do. I looked at it for a long time, five whole minutes or so, until it flew away. I thought "Was that a kestral? that was a kestral!" But I'm not a birder by any means, so I had to look it up. Agian, I put its description into Google. Sure enough it was a kestral! This photo is exactly what it looked liked, found on the St. Louis Audobon Society. It was even in this position as I watched it. So cool! I've got a feeder out ther, but now I'm wondering if I should put some mice on a plate, or fish in a pond for the kestrals...
There's a bunch of little red birds, with brown wings, that hangs out in the bushes with the sparrows and chickadees. I thought at first they were a young cardinal, because I see lots of them. But they are too small. So, I consulted Google, and turns out, they are a rosy house finch! They are lovely.
Then few days ago, I saw a large bird, I'd say about 10 inches tall, fly onto the wire that goes across our yard to the alley. Its back was to me, but it had a black cap, and dark wings. The space between the wings was lighter and spotted just a little. The bird was being pissy, sitting on the wire and squawking, doing that head-bob warning birds sometimes do. I looked at it for a long time, five whole minutes or so, until it flew away. I thought "Was that a kestral? that was a kestral!" But I'm not a birder by any means, so I had to look it up. Agian, I put its description into Google. Sure enough it was a kestral! This photo is exactly what it looked liked, found on the St. Louis Audobon Society. It was even in this position as I watched it. So cool! I've got a feeder out ther, but now I'm wondering if I should put some mice on a plate, or fish in a pond for the kestrals...
08 March 2009
Oy vey... Its been a long week.
I worked 6 days this week. Yowza. That's a lot to me. Lately,
There's this craft sow I'm in, Green with Indie, and I need to print my butt off for that. I had my week all planned out, and then Sandy at Knitorious offered me almost a week's worth of hours building the website. I couldn't really so no. I need the money, and I really like working there.
Then, one of the gals asked if I could work Saturday as well, because there was a bit of an emergency that was calling her out of town. Of course I would! I'm kinda glad they thought of me. I like being the swing person... But then, when was I going to print?!?!
It ended up that I got to take Wednesday and Friday. Which I did spend printing, and got a lot done. But I also was hit with a bout of extreme insomnia, and didn't sleep for three nights in a row.
On Thursday, I went to Arnold, Missouri to see a guy about a press. I ended up buying it from him and all the stuff with it. I loaded all this equipment into the car myself, and then ended up having to UNLOAD it ALL by MYSELF because Lucky, my S.O., was being an S.O.B. and went to bed. Jerk. I fumed for hours and that was the first night of no sleep.
Then Saturday, after working a full day I went BACK to Press Man's place and got the rest of the stuff. S.O. was better this time and even borrowed a truck for us to haul the stuff with.
So its Sunday, and I took the day off. Did some laundry, started to refinish an old valise I got and uploaded a bunch of stuff to flickr. Went to a lame BBQ for about an hour and now I'm home, eating Hot Dogs in true Chicago Style: Steamed bun, boiled dog, tomato, pickle, mustard, relish, onion, and celery salt. YUM. St. Louis style pizza can suck it.
Monday: printing my butt off again. Two weeks until the GWI fair, and I want to have a bunch of stuff to fill the table.
There's this craft sow I'm in, Green with Indie, and I need to print my butt off for that. I had my week all planned out, and then Sandy at Knitorious offered me almost a week's worth of hours building the website. I couldn't really so no. I need the money, and I really like working there.
Then, one of the gals asked if I could work Saturday as well, because there was a bit of an emergency that was calling her out of town. Of course I would! I'm kinda glad they thought of me. I like being the swing person... But then, when was I going to print?!?!
It ended up that I got to take Wednesday and Friday. Which I did spend printing, and got a lot done. But I also was hit with a bout of extreme insomnia, and didn't sleep for three nights in a row.
On Thursday, I went to Arnold, Missouri to see a guy about a press. I ended up buying it from him and all the stuff with it. I loaded all this equipment into the car myself, and then ended up having to UNLOAD it ALL by MYSELF because Lucky, my S.O., was being an S.O.B. and went to bed. Jerk. I fumed for hours and that was the first night of no sleep.
Then Saturday, after working a full day I went BACK to Press Man's place and got the rest of the stuff. S.O. was better this time and even borrowed a truck for us to haul the stuff with.
So its Sunday, and I took the day off. Did some laundry, started to refinish an old valise I got and uploaded a bunch of stuff to flickr. Went to a lame BBQ for about an hour and now I'm home, eating Hot Dogs in true Chicago Style: Steamed bun, boiled dog, tomato, pickle, mustard, relish, onion, and celery salt. YUM. St. Louis style pizza can suck it.
Monday: printing my butt off again. Two weeks until the GWI fair, and I want to have a bunch of stuff to fill the table.
02 March 2009
North American Handmade Bike SHow
Spent the weekend in Indianapolis with chi-town crew, bike polo kids from all over and LOTS of amazing, breathtaking, awe-inspiring bicycles at the 5th Annual North American handmade Bike Show.
I coveted many a chrome lugged frame, flirted shamelessly with cute bike builder boys (my other half doesn't mind, cuz I always go home with him...), and even documented an illegal indoor polo game.
The weekend was almost beyond words. You should see for yourself. Go to my flickr and browse, comment and come back here and tell me how jealous you are that I'm friends with the Schwinn family.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
