NaBloPoMo Yeah, Yeah, I Know.

Starting up the old blog at this point is akin to rolling a jalopy out of the garage, charging up the battery, and wondering if it turns over.  I kinda sorta promised Auntie Jean I'd blog this month, so here I am, turning the key and wondering if it will go. Hi.

Stella is growing like a weed - no, like bamboo; if I could get her to stand still long enough I am convinced I would see her put on a few millimeters an hour. She runs, and jumps, and laughs, and talks all day long. Her favorite phrase is, "I don't want to." She loves Elmo, the biiig slide at the park, the ABC song, and playing Find Daddy, which always ends with chasing and giggles. Here. Enjoy.

Christmas Card 2011 Edition

Stationery card

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NaBloPoMo Post #30 - Zapped Again

Stella and I are awash in cold virus nastiness, and Rick ate something that made his mouth and tongue angry. A plumber is coming in tomorrow to fix both shower knobs - one is broken and hardly lets any hot water through to fill the tub, which doesn't fill because the plug is leaking, and the other won't quite stop dripping. There are lots of things to be annoyed about but, at the end of this month of blogging and daily posts of thanksgiving on Facebook, I know that am still so very blessed. My problems are primarily first world in nature. I have family and friends who love me. I have the promise of eternal life because of the love of a Father who will never give up on me. In the end it's all going to be OK.

Good night, my dear Internets.

Sent from my iPhone

NaBloPoMo Post #29 - Brushes with Greatness

Weird Al shook my hand after a concert and thought he recognized me from somewhere. Considering the guy is brilliant and has an incredible memory (really), I'm thinking I must have an identical twin somewhere. He also left me a polite voice mail, with his regrets that he would be on tour and unable to be a judge for Songfest.

When I was but in single digits, my uncle by marriage was the mayor of Fresno, and had a bit part in the Fresno miniseries. I missed meeting Carol Burnett, who played a main character, by all of five minutes. Coincidentally, I watched Annie today just so I could enjoy her performance; she's hilarious.

We sat behind dick Van Dyke (lovely) and his wife (grumpy) at a Swingle Singers concert at Pepperdine. A true triple threat, he dissected each final chord and all but sang along at times; it was so much fun to be near someone having so much fun!

We saw Zach Roloff at the Portland airport. I recognized him and a couple of his friends from TLC's Little People, Big World.

I recognized zero famous people in all my time hanging out in Malibu while working at and attending Pepperdine. I must be clueless, because that town is lousy with them.

Sent from my iPhone

NaBloPoMo Post #28 - Generic Posts are Awesome!

I don't have much for you tonight. The camera is full of pictures from August on not yet downloaded. MetaFilter was boring tonight. The new Pottermore website is in beta, and I can't get on yet. I'm annoyed by something on Facebook - a mommy drive-by that is irritating me. Our Sticky Notes practice went well tonight; why do we sound so good when Diane shows up and waves her arms around while we are singing? I enjoy working on intonation and phrasing, because the "before" and "after" are so different.

So, there you go. 28 days down, two more to go. Cheers.

NaBloPoMo Post #27 -

This is what we did tonight - just shy of a dozen songs at the Community Christmas Tree lighting ceremony for Rancho Cordova. Not pictured are the super-slide stage left, the Ferris wheel across the parking lot, and the bazillion people there enjoying nachos and kettle corn etc. We couldn't hear ourselves (but otherwise sound was very good,) holy COW it was cold, and the stage was wobbling ominously the entire time we were up there. Still, it was a very successful event, and I am proud of how involved our church is in our community. Thanks to Coy our DM and all-around awesome dude for the post on YouTube within minutes of us leaving the stage!

NaBloPoMo Post #26 - Zap

My first experience with a microwave was in the smarty pants pull-out program of my elementary school.  There was a new one in the teacher's lounge, and our little group tried a recipe for fortune cookies made in the microwave.  I don't remember how they tasted - I have a vague recollection that they were inedible - but I remember the teacher making us stand all the way across the room while it was nuking the little disks of batter. I thought that it may explode or cook us where we stood, and was a little afraid of the radioactive food that came out.

We got a microwave in the late 70's, I believe, and it was HUGE.  A large melamine bowl on top held fruit occasionally but usually contained a cat, napping in that warm and protected spot. Vegetables went in frozen or tepid from a can and came out steaming.  It was a very large appliance for warming a mug of water.

When Grandma would serve a meal, her plate would be made up last and almost always take a trip through the microwave - she liked her food piping hot, and "zapped it" until it was steaming.  She also taught me to warm up Twizzlers for a few seconds in the hot box.

Combination convection oven-microwave oven units confuse me. Is it a microwave or not?  Can I keep that metal rack inside or does it need to be taken out?  Will things brown or what? 

The Pampered Chef has several microwave cake recipes that steam a cake in something like 12 minutes.  They also have a wonderful deep dish baker that will cook dozens of delicious recipes with a decidedly mid western flair, theoretically getting dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less.  I didn't try the main dishes, but I liked the microwave cakes, and I do have the deep dish baker. I also have a recipe for a microwave brownie in a mug that is ready in one and one half minutes.  It sounds great and I'd love to make it immediately, but...

I didn't realize how much I used our microwave until it sort of kinda exploded and I had to deposit it on the patio for a few days until we could take it to an ecycling facility.  I would warm up a lot of Stella's food and the same mug of coffee several times over every day. It defrosted a pound of ground beef rapidly with the touch of one button. I could tell it how many potatoes or slices of cold pizza were in there and press go, and it would take care of business. I could add one minute any time I wanted to.  RIP awesome microwave. The counter looks bare and weird without you there.  You served us faithfully, your radio waves and multi-directional carousel faithfully agitating water molecules for almost six years.  I didn't appreciate the black smoke coming from all your vents in the end, though.  Microwaves are such dramatic appliances.