blogging, Sims 3, William, WoW

Ugh… Butters, go buy World of Warcraft, install it on your computer, and join the online sensation before we all murder you!

I have been playing too much World of Warcraft. Way way way too much. Like, all day sometimes. I’m not the only one in this house. 

So we have a new rule. For three hours, after we are up AND dressed (it’s not always necessary to get dressed when one is playing WoW all day.) we have to do all the things we need to do, that WoW is keeping is us from doing. Now, for the most part, I have been doing pretty well on keeping the house neat. Until the last couple of days, dishes were done at least once a day. Bed has been made every day, except the day before yesterday. Floors and couch vacuumed of kitten hair, bathroom clean and littler box scooped. But it’s starting to slip.
Today is the first day of the new rule, which is in effect Monday thru Friday. The goals are different for each of us. I do not, yet, need to look for a job. However, I have lost touch with almost all my friends. That makes me lonely. So while chatting and emailing and such are on my list of things to work on, they really are not on Wil’s. He doesn’t have this problem. 
These are the things I plan to work on, in my 3 hours:
  • Housework
  • Blogging
  • Blog redesign
  • Reading and commenting on other bolgs
  • Facebook, chatting and email to stay in touch with friends and family
  • Writing in general
  • Meal planning

Anything that is not WoW. Watching tv and playing with iPhone are not allowed either. I’ve been chatting with Fee for a while. My fingers are tired. 

Of course, when the Sims 3 comes out in 3 weeks, the Rule might have to go to hell. 
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William

Greetings from sunny Edmonton Alberta

In the spirit of total disclosure, I started this post, and wrote that title, when we were still in Edmonton. We got home late last night. 

A few weeks after Wil was laid off, we went out and bought him a new suit. Originally, we looked for a dark grey, but the suit we found is actually black. We bought two colored shirts and I got to pick out a pretty tie. He looks very handsome in the whole get up. I told him that now he was ready not only for interviews, but for fancy parties, special occasions, weddings and, god forbid, funerals. 
We are in Edmonton for the second funeral of the month. What is up with that? Poor Wil has had a hell of a month, emotionally. It’s the first time he’s lost someone so close to him, let alone two. Enough is a enough, really. I don’t understand why the fates, should there be such a thing, have to focus on the funeral part of my unfortunate comment. Where are the fancy parties, special occasions and weddings. And interviews, most of all, where are the interviews?
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Cooking and food

Well, it’s better than talking about the weather. Which is beautiful, btw.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to try to make lasagna. Lisa sent me a link to this recipe. I made it and it was AMAZING. So good. I fell in love with it. The only thing I did differently was to use shredded mozzarella and hot Italian sausage, which Wil is a huge fan of, instead of breakfast sausage.

I was pretty pleased with myself. We ate on that lasagna for 3 days. When it was gone, I missed it. I dreamt of the next time I’d get to eat it. Low and behold we had a house guest the following week. So I made it again. This time, I followed the recipe and used sliced mozzarella cheese. The result was awful. I’ve never been so sad about anything I’ve cooked. I was so looking forward to it. The problem is, she talks about how simple and generic all her ingredients are. Nothing fancy. I took that too literally and used some Kraft Mozzarella slices. Basically, it was like making lasagna with white American cheese. Overly gooey, overly salty and not good. Very bad. It was thrown away.

Since I was so sad, I thought I would give it one more try yesterday to cheer myself up. Perhaps I am slightly obsessed with eating this lasagna right now. Once again, success! Using shredded mozzarella.

So, that’s my lasagna story. I wanted to post the link to the recipe, in case anyone is interested.

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Uncategorized

Oh man, did I break it but good.

I have a terrible problem with procrastination. I am always waiting for things to be perfect in order to do something I want to do. The weather, my mood, my health, my environment. It’s too loud, too quiet, too sunny, too grey. And these are things I want to accomplish… honestly. I guess I am intimated by the process in some cases.

Today I was contemplating my blog redesign I’ve been planning/desiring/threatening/sitting on for months now, and I was reading Zen Habit’s Dead Simple Guide to Beating Procrastination. Specifically Number 9: Forget about perfection. Just start doing it, and fix it later. In the spirit of that, I have removed my template and applied a Movable Type template. Over the next few days, I am going to be adding content back to the site using their new Widgets methodology. I wanted to do some cleaning up of the sidebars anyway. After the content is the way I want it, I will be changing the over all design.

If you are an RSS subscriber, this won’t make much difference to you, unless you comment. Perhaps I could just redo the whole thing on a clone blog, perfect it, and then do a grand unveiling. But it’s that kind of ambition that has made me put it off this long. I learn by doing things, and I’d rather just jump into my blog, and get started. Even if that means some construction messiness for a couple of weeks. I won’t want to leave it in a generic template for long, so it’s bound to motivate me to finish.

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Cooking and food

waffles

Like the english muffin, the waffle is a dish with an admirable appetite for butter. I like that in a breakfast food. I remember my stepfather assisting some kid* in buttering his waffle saying, in all seriousness, “It’s very important to get butter in each and every one of the holes.”

While enjoying my Eggo this morning, I realized he’s right. You DO have to get butter in all the little valleys of the waffle. Butter is savory, it has salt in it. A bite of waffle with just syrup is only sweet. But a bite with butter AND syrup is a marvelous mix of sweet and savory, to return to another a bite of just sweet is a disappointment. It is worth the extra effort.

Buttermilk Waffle, I salute you. Welcome to my tummy.

*I think my friend was babysitting this kid and she brought him by our house for breakfast. I remember him taking it VERY seriously. He was that kind of kid. He probably insists, to this day, that each and every waf in his waffle has butter.

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Canada, movies and tv, William

Oh god! Oh god! Bobbies! We are NOT watching this. I’m sorry about the boobies.

One of my favorite things about Canada is their attitude towards adult content on tv. Basically, after 10 pm, it’s your responsibility to make sure your kid doesn’t hear the F word or see bare breasts. There is a content warning after each commercial break, warning you about content, but that’s it. I love that. We are so prudish in the States. (See J. Jackson’s Nipple v. The United Priggish States of Football Watching America for further evidence.)

But the truth is, I’m not a parent. I don’t have to worry about anything. Until Wil’s daughter comes to visit. Wil and I are not used to thinking about the content of what we watch. To be honest, every single tv show on Canada seems to have a content warning of some kind after the commercial break. You become sort of immune to them. Several times this week, we were caught off guard. I wanted to watch a show about a housewife with multiple personality disorder, as naturally a person like myself would, but on the “previously” scenes there were bare boobies and people having the tv sex. Oops.

We were looking forward to watching tv simulcast of Will Ferrell’s broadway show “Your Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush” on HBO for weeks. It was on Saturday, at 8 pm. So the three of us were sitting on the couch, watching it together. HOW WERE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW HE WOULD SHOW A PICTURE OF A PENIS???? I mean… COME ON! It’s not our fault.

If it were my kid, I wouldn’t care. By age 11, we probably already would have spoken of, and looked at pictures of, penises. For educational purposes. But I have no idea what her mother’s take on it is. I have no grasp of how mature she is about these things. The last thing I would want to do is treat a kid like an young adult before her time. For reals. That makes me sad. Other people’s kids are mine fields, you know what I mean?

I know for sure she does not know the definition of the word “muff.” Thanks for saying it 14 times in a row, Mr. Ferrell.*

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blogging, Cooking and food, William, work

Must have meat.

The hiatus was unintentional. I have reasons. Maybe we’ll discuss them later. And I feel extremely rusty now. I think I will baby step back.

1. The old lady in front of me at the store today smelled of beans and franks. Also, I’m pretty sure there was a guy in bulk foods who had recently pooped his pants. I have the nose of a dog.

2. Does anyone have a really good lasagna recipe? I want to learn to make lasagna. Feel free to share. Must have meat.

3. I didn’t mention this earlier, but Wil was laid off at the end of January. We knew it was coming. He’s looking for a job. Please give him one if you have one free. Must be fun and pay lots of money.

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blogging, Cooking and food

A subject more universally understood than World of Warcraft

I do love english muffins. One, because they call themselves “muffins” even though they are not part of what I would, traditionally, consider the muffin family. Cheeky. And, they make the sublime Egg McMuffin possible. (You want to blow your own mind? Make your own egg mcmuffin at home. With cheddar cheese. Good god, that is good eating.)

What I like best of all is the way the english muffin encourages my excesses. No sooner do you touch your knife to the muffin, then the butter disappears into deep crevices. And you have to get MORE BUTTER. More butter = more better, that’s just a fundamental truth. Everyone knows that.

Thank you, english muffin! Welcome to my tummy.

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