Something laugh about

30 Nerd Wedding Cakes

For the record, I've got issues with hacking into Jabba the Hutt. If the characters can come off the cake and aren't part of the cake, I'm not nearly as bothered.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Cooking note

The next time I try the Thai Grilled Steak with String Bean recipe make the following changes:

• Use fresh herbs only: the ratio of the dried and frozen was a little overpowering
• Thicker slab of meat with more fat to cook off and add to the green bean mixture

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The BookWorm

Not like Mom can make

I really wanted biscuits and red gravy this morning. I baked biscuits from scratch, but my red gravy doesn't taste like Mom's. *Sigh* So now I'll have to ask her what the difference is.

Fun with test sites continued all weekend and looks like it will probably continue all week. Issue #1) Taking a full twenty-four hours to think of the simple solution to the database transfer problem. "Why don't you export the tables after the one giving you a fit in the import and just import that half?" Worked in about thirty minutes. Issue #2) All these codes and background programs use different symbols to tell the computer "don't run this." None of the instructions I have said anything about deleting the # in an Apache file. At least, that's what I'm assuming the issue is now. I wasn't able to test the hypothesis before I had to leave for work.

Guess what I'll be doing when I get home. :)

I'm fairly certain what stopped me when I first downloaded everything the instructions told me I needed was that the direction stopped making sense. *Sigh* I've been adding notes on my printouts in the hopes that I'll understand said notes when I have to do this again. :p

Repeat after me: this will all be worth it when I can play with Drupal modules without fear of breaking the whole damn site people are using.

Yeah, primary goal for this is to see if I can build a wiki for the Library. Secondary goal will be fixing the fanart process for Alt. BM Site since the module it uses now will not be maintained going forward. :p

Goal for today: Get the bloody announcement card finished so all I will need to do is print and mail. Everything else is bonus.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Trying a New Idea

Actually a couple of ideas, so bare with me while I detail them.

A). Melatonin is helping me wake up on time. I’m guessing my body really wants to go diurnal, and has no desire to get up if it’s not daylight yet. I’ve woken up better on the two days I took melatonin than on the days I haven’t. I’m also going to get a multi-vitamin that has a healthy dose of vitamin D, since I have to waste all my daylight hours out of the sun.

B). Cooking two breakfast meals and 4 entrée meals is the right balance to get me through the week. Point being I must get everything cooked on Sunday. I lucked into this realization after way too much over-thinking it. Winn-Dixie had a meat special on some cuts of beef, chicken, and pork, and I stockpiled. So then I got some fresh veggies on sale—salad mixes and squash and Brussels sprouts—and decided to cook four different meats since I already had salmon in the freezer. I pulled out South Beach Diet recipes I wanted to try, and then managed to get six days of different lunches and supper out of them. And most recipes made enough servings I could freeze one for later.

The one drawback I found was I didn’t quite have enough Tupperware to single meal portion out everything. Next week, I’ll make sure I have my lunches and breakfasts for work portioned out first because the supper and home lunches will be okay in a larger container. I will also have to ration off some dessert too, since I already ate all the Jello sugar-free pudding.

C). Alternating reading hours for the writing hour. This one really hurts my heart. But the truth is I’m starting to ignore what else I must get done in favor of my semi-created world. I can squeeze in the writing at the paying job; I don’t squeeze in the research reading nearly as well.

D). Paying myself for reading. Yeah, I’m going to bribe myself. Fifteen minutes earns $0.25. As of Nov. 24th, I’ve only earned $11.75. I’d love to get enough on the reading to pay for an external harddrive. (I learned the shelf life of burned CDs and DVDs isn’t as long as I thought and now I’m petrified I’ll lose all my story data. An external harddrive is the first step in dealing with that fear. I need $55, so I have $43.25 to go. *Crossing fingers that it’s doable by third paycheck this month*

If this experiment is successful, I may start bribing myself for purchases I want to make with other chores I hate. After all, I want a DVD burner for the computer and then the set up so I can transfer my VHS tapes to DVDs. I want a dishwasher. I want a Victorian faucet that must be one of the most expensive faucets in the world for my bathtub.

That’s it on life changing ideas. This weekend will probably have me tied to the chair doing all the reading I have been avoiding. I have a few big rocks I still need to accomplish this week, and sadly, it took until Friday before I felt I could do anything.

DONE with the semester!

Turned in my last final last night. Now I need to get the thesis question settled, but I am aware it may not get settled until the beginning of next semester. :p

Of course as soon as I have gotten the major deadline stressor over and done with, I start brainstorming website changes. Right now I'm blaming that on commuting fog. I want to get some other projects around the house finished off the projects list before starting that.

I haven't been sticking to the diet as well as I should, though I can say that my stress-induced sugar cravings were limited to one piece of chocolate cake Tuesday and one candy bar Wednesday. And I'm only officially on Day 3 and sick of salads already. While making the grocery list, I found a couple of soup recipes for Phase One in the SBD Quick & Easy Cookbook. So my plan is to get the stuff for the next couple of days, plus soup makings, and frozen dinners and breakfasts. That way when I'm packing my lunch and snacks and can't face salad again, I have some other choices. I'm also going to see about substituting the suppers for lunches. Recipe wise, almost everything is for serving four people. I'm following the portion controls and freezing the rest, but the meal plan doesn't really cover leftovers.

I also missed my eye exam last Saturday, so I need to reschedule that. What makes me feel so stupid is I spent that whole Saturday going "I'm forgetting something." And it was my own fault since I mis-filed the note to remind me about it.

That's about it. I have some writing stuff but that will go up at DUF.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Big oops on spaghetti squash

I had run across mentions of spaghetti squash and how you can substitute it for pasta, but never sought it out. Perhaps if I had, I would have cooked it better. But it's moments like this that make me marvel that I'm not a bigger culinary klutz than I am. I haven't given myself food poisoning yet. That has to count for something.

I found spaghetti squash for 98 cents at Wal-Mart on Saturday. I had to cook it on Sunday or it would go bad in the fridge. Pull up the latest post I saw about spaghetti squash, then went to All Recipes. One of the comments at All Recipes said to bake it whole, so I did. Then I cut it open and found seeds. Nobody said anything about seeds.

I ended up baking it for a little longer after I cut it open, the scooped out the stringy center with the seeds. Everybody said scoop out the strings, but nobody said anything about seeds. So I scooped out the strings and the seeds and threw the inch-thick rind away.

Dad didn't like it but he accidentally ate a seed. Mom said I probably needed to cook it longer, but my sauce was great. I was really annoyed because I would have to buy 15 of them in order to get enough to go with the amount of sauce I make. And what the hell was up with the seeds! Wal-mart getting mutant squashes or something? Luckily I had Barilla pasta to cook so the sauce wouldn't go to waste.

When I got back to the computer I read all the comments attached to the blog. And one of those commenters said that you scooped out the stringy center and seeds and bake and THEN scoop out the rinds for the noodle squash bits.

I threw away the part you eat.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Food

I'm doing better this shopping go-around on cooking up the stuff I buy.

• The tuna steaks with tomatoes and basil = yummy
• Roasted eggplant and tomatoes = yummy, even though my oven was totally unprepared for the size of the recipe. Next time see what 1 eggplant and 1 tomato can make.
• Bok choy salad = yuck. I don't like onions in abundance. And I think the salad ended up with more green onion bits than bok choy bits. Nope, not a salad for me. Which will give me some room in the fridge when I throw the rest of it out tonight.

I still have the artichockes and tomato-herb dressing recipe left to do. And I don't know how the meals for the past two weeks ended up some tomatoey. Than I'm ready to not plan meals around them for next week. Tomatoes have a limited shelf-life in my house.

Also make plans to go to this writing convention next year just to see the play.

Time to stop ignoring the homework I have to do.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Good schedule changes

Yesterday I discovered that if I didn't stop for gasoline and went straight to campus, I have nearly a whole hour to eat supper on campus before going to the gym for yoga class at 6:30pm. I had to go get gas afterwards and didn't get home until 9pm and I have no idea if my car is going to stick to a Tuesday/Thursday fill-up schedule, but a whole hour to myself. SQUEE!

I also discovered if I spend that hour writing long-hand, a muscle or tendon or something in my right hand hurts terribly (like huge ass needle being jammed diagonally through my hand) when I put any weight on it in yoga class. So I learned a new variation of downward dog in a hurry. Which means I should type instead. Which means stopping by Office Depot this weekend and seeing if the laptop can take a new battery that will hold a charge longer than five seconds so I don't have to waste precious time searching for an outlet.

So shopping this pay period is very household items instead of a lot of groceries. I'm going to scale back on the amount of cooking I'm doing while the semester is in session. I'm not eating supper at home and there's very little room in the freezer. So groceries will probably be just the veggies (which I'm stockpiled on right now) and ingredients for the quiches and souffles for breakfast (since both store and transport well).

I plan on stopping at Whole Foods and Wal-Mart going home. Whole Foods because I want some specialty stuff I just haven't found anywhere else and Wal-Mart for the other stuff on the list. And it's Doctor Who night, so theoretically that's incentive to get out of the stores in a hurry. Stay in there too long and I spend too much money. :p

More thoughts related to the scheduling changes, but I think they may fit better over at DUF.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Thoughts on Food

Started back on August 12, 2007 and forgot to type it up. I've been thinking about my food intake and the Middle Ages.

Nutritionist's diet as follows: a list of correct portions for one serving (the sizes nobody in America eats after decades of bigger is better) and then what I am allowed to have each meal.

Breakfast: 3 carbohydrate servings, 1 protein serving, 2 fats
Lunch: 3 carbohydrate servings, 1 non-starchy vegetable serving, 2 protein serving, 2 fats
Snack: 1 carbohydrate serving, 1 protein serving
Supper: 4 carbohydrate servings, 1 non-starchy vegetable serving, 3 protein serving, 2 fats

At best, I only maintained my weight on this plan.

So what does this have to do with the middle Ages? The Acadiana Medieval Faire's kitchen is my baby (though apparently saying it like that means I have an ego trip) and I've done more studying on it than caveman's diet. Most everyone in the Western world can trace his genes back to a hearty European peasant. (Yeah, I'm being ethno-centric as a mongrel of English and French stock that found its way to Louisiana. Substitute your heritage if need be.)

Consider the peasant. For starters, they used way more calories a day than we do. Farming, walking, and other craft skills involved whole body movements all day while the sun was up. Bread was a staple, but of a much coarser quality than we are used to. Many calories were consumed through weak ales, but that was burned off throughout the day. Vegetables and fruits eaten when in season. So many vegetables in fact, surviving cookbooks only tell us to "prepare in the usual manner." Seafood in abundance thanks to the Catholic Church saying fish was okay on fasting days. Meat was a rarer item on a peasant's table, depending on cost and season--livestock butchered in the fall and eaten over the winter for example. Cheese and butter were eaten, being the only way to preserve milk. Milk in a recipe typically came from nuts like almonds and walnuts. It could be stored for three weeks at a time. As long as you didn't catch anything we have antibiotics and vaccinations for today or didn't die in battle or accident, you could expect to live into your eighties.

So what does all that have to do with me losing weight in 2007?

For starters, bread really can't come back into my diet until I'm burning calories like a medieval peasant and I'm at the weight I should be. Though I will make exception for occasional whole-grain pasta and brown rice, though limited to only 1/3 cup (1 serving). Sorry, but spaghetti isn't spaghetti without pasta.

So that means at least four servings of veggies at lunch and supper and at least three at breakfast. Still practicing portion control at every meal.

What I have discovered since August 12th.

It's hard to make a breakfast dish that stores well already cooked. I tend to eat breakfast after getting to work because blood sugar would get really wonky and I'd want supper at 3pm. The spinach souffle didn't have many problems, but the poached eggs with spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms got really watery (I think I didn't drain the spinach well enough).

And it's hard to find veggies at school. Apparently, the salad bar is only open at lunch time and unless I want sushi all that is available is pre-packed salads. Only so much iceberg lettuce you can before getting tired of it. I don't know if the other cafeteria is open after I get out of classes, and I need to find out.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Weekday cooking bad

Class let out early so I could do it and remind myself again why I cook on the weekend. Veggie dishes cooked. Two entrees half done and the third is marinating. Started on one dessert dish and realized I had to let one ingredient thaw completely before using. Ran out of steam before starting on the second dessert dish.

Homework may not be as bad as I feared with the Queen Elizabeth I class. It's still going to be a lot of reading and class discussions, but I think I have some leeway in what to do. Must lose weight faster to fit into anything first.

Past time for bed. I will answer emails tomorrow.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

The Pantry

I'm not one of these people who keeps a list in head or on paper of what is in the food receptacles in the kitchen. Usually my shopping is sticking to a few recipes and whatever catches my interest down the aisle or I know I eat a lot of. Mom will give over food they have too much of or don't eat too. So typically, I come home with groceries and stuff them into the pantry cupboards, fridge, and freezer.

So having gotten slightly off track last week on the buying the groceries-by-the-week experiment, I started off this morning going to plan the menu and shopping list for the week. And then when I wasn't thrilled about searching for recipes, "Hey, let's see what food is already here. Make the list that Emilie Barnes suggests in her book (Cleaning Up the Clutter, good suggestions but very heavy Christian, you are warned)." Wanting to save money at the grocery store and with Hurricane Dean entering the Gulf of Mexico, it seemed like that voice was making sense.

Five hours later, I have five front-back handwritten pages of what food items are in my kitchen. The only things not listed is stuff I threw out for being old or falling into the "I am so NOT going to eat that" category. I also have achy feet and back.

I moved the whole thing into an Excel spreadsheet, so the next time I get possessed to do it again I won't have to write everything just the amounts of what I have. I also realized that I need to get a little better organized in the kitchen. That way I won't end up with 8 pounds of sugar because I forgot I already had some. The other thing I realized is I need to drink a lot more tea.

So now that I have a list of what I have in the kitchen, I need to specify what I'm cooking this week. And this was not a good day to put off cooking. Classes start tomorrow, and I probably won't have a chance to cook until Saturday or Sunday again. Let me get cracking. I still have to go to the store.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

End of July

So I had a brainstorm over cooking. The problem has been I like to cook but I don't like washing dishes, I cook too much and either get sick of the leftovers or they go bad before I eat them. But cooking allows for better portion control and healthier food choices. I never know what is in the pantry and never have the right ingredients for a dish I get a craving for. When I shop, I buy good stuff, but it goes bad before I get a chance to cook it--fresh veggies are the worst.

Once a week cooking works best with my schedule, so I don't have to figure out what to cook and pack each day. Now, instead of trying to buy a month's worth of groceries a shopping trip, I'm just going to buy a week's worth--especially the ingredients for the planned meals. Hopefully, this will lead to me using up the stuff I have bought ahead and lessen the impulse buys. And the stuff on the I-want list can be budgeted for.

I worked with a chart to show the best way to mix and match, so I wouldn't be eating the same thing twice four days in a row. I came up with three entrees, two veggie dishes, and two desserts. Four to five portions of the entrees will be in the fridge for consumption. The remainder will be frozen. Veggies and desserts will be mixed and matched so there is more difference between meals. The desserts I'm getting from a couple of diabetic cookbooks I have, so there's more emphasis on fruits and less on sugar. And I figure adding one more dish will keep me from going to the vending machines.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Taking a break

Mostly because I've hit a receipe that is defying personal restrictions on the cooking show. How do I get around handling raw chicken for a roast? Right now it's just making my brain hurt. I have a new respect for cooking shows, these scripts are hard than they look and I expect to be improving my way through them.

Got the glucose monitor yesterday and started monitoring the blood levels today.

This might work: the chicken is already roasting on the spit, and the volunteers just get to make mortreaux. Okay, I'm going to try that. I'd like to get the scripts done for day 2 today. That'll leave 3 and 4 for tomorrow, and can start on the shopping lists. The kitchen supplies keeps getting longer.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

So what is the problem?

Nutty-flavored oatmeal. I just can't get used to it. Oh I understand, you add the LSA powder to add protein and essential oils and make it a balanced meal. Right, but the oatmeal tastes nutty, not bad just nutty. I don't anticipate it becoming my favorite breakfast item for the next seven weeks.

Now with that nutty introduction done, great advice on dealing with your editor. And seguing into current writing stuff: I'm having problems working on it at work. I look at the blank screen and go do something else. *Sigh* I such at disciplining myself. I got a few paragraphs done during class, so maybe it's the blank screen. Maybe I need the long hand right now. And maybe it will all be better once I've offically flunked the marathon tracker. Nothing like a lttle self-sabatogue.

Anyways, I'm gong to see if I can get the current draft up at Writerly. No, it's not ready for editing, but if you want to see where it has gone since Pen and Paper days, leave a comment to that fact and I'll get you added to it. At least I think I can do that, still learning the Writerly system.

Once I get those chapters up, I think I'm going to work with long hand for today and see if that breaks up this block which is not really a block. I really wish I knew what to call it besides I'm a defective writer. Calling me names doesn't help.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Homework euphoria

I finished homework, just in time for mail to arrive. :p But I even got all the discussion boards done for today. The chicken soup I cooked last night was delicious, even if it had more vegetables in it than meat. Price of the diet. But I never would have thought of putting sweet potatoe in a soup without the receipe.

Writing not going as well. I only managed 43 words yesterday. Today isn't looking much better. Off to try though.

Read Free!
The BookWorm


Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Homework and Weekend Update

Why do I even plan anything else with cooking and shopping day? I had to put both together on Saturday, since I went to Lafayette on Sunday. From 8 a.m. to noon, I shopped. Cooking lasted from 1:30ish to nearly 9pm when I finally got to eat a supper dish I made. And no I didn't get everything I planned for the week cooked.

But my expectations of the day were to shope a little while, vote, cook a little while, and devote a large chunk of the day to writing. Go ahead, I'll wit while you laugh. Sunday was a grat day off from everything though, so I really don't regret the mess of Saturday.

Except that I am left with a crapload of homework to catch up on. Namely, I'm supposed to be working on writing up impressions on the Tempest from the First Folio and probably Sanctuary too.

I'm also working on getting old posts in Discipline Under Fire and the Garb Closet labeled. That's going about as fast as could be expected. :p But it makes it a lot easier to find stuff now. This one I'm not delving backwards too much with. Only labeling previous exercise posts and current additions.

Also feeling so much better, I have to winder if my ill moods were caused by dehydration.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/