Bowl

So I pulled out my crock pot this week and made the potato soup from one of my crock pot experiments.  Best potato soup ever!  

And what could be make my potato soup even better?  My potato soup in a bread bowl! 

However…  I am too lazy to make my own bread bowls. 

I had a couple of Kaiser rolls leftover from the bag I got off the day-old rack at Tops and had an idea:  What if I made a mini bread bowl from one of those?

 

 

It worked!  But it was really small and didn’t hold much soup.  I thought I would be OK with it because I don’t eat a lot to begin with, but this wasn’t enough of a meal even for me   

But… it was really good!

This would be a really nice idea for an appetizer, and I think I would serve it as such the next time I have company over for dinner.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Smart Dog

This is good!

 

Nerf

So the other day a friend of mine needed to kill some time and stopped in a Target store.  Wandering around he found himself in the toy department and happened to see a Nerf gun.  He decided to get one for a bit of fun.

 

 

The one he picked out was just like this, only in orange (they also come in red and green!).

Imagine his surprise when he reached the checkout counter and found out that he needed to show his driver’s license to buy the toy.

Ummm… who made up that law?  Do they think that anyone would try to rob a bank with an orange, plastic toy that looks like the one pictured????  One that shoots Nerf (foam!) darts?

I would totally understand if the gun even slightly resembled anything real… I could see someone painting a plastic toy black and it might pass as real – but this?  Even it was painted gun-metal black it stil wouldn’t even look close to real.

Yikes.  What’s next?

Not-So-Wordless Wednesday

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On this day in history in 1945, The Russians liberated Auschwitz concentration camp, where the Nazis had killed over 1.5 million people, including over 1 million Jews.

I had always thought that the Holocaust was a horrible time in history. After visiting Auschwitz on a trip to Poland, it is even more horrible to me. I cannot put into words how thoughts of the Holocaust make me feel.

I posted this cartoon last year, but it’s worth posting again…  (click on it for a bigger/readable version)

Cats

I’m not a huge cat person.  Cats are nice when they are someone else’s – I just wouldn’t want to own one myself.  I don’t like that they walk around on tables and counters and I have this thing about litter boxes in the house.  I know it’s weird – I have no problem cleaning up dog poop and chicken poop outside (and hopefully someday llama poop!), but when an animal does it’s business in the house… I don’t know – it’s just, ewwww 

Anyway, the past couple of months I’ve noticed a couple of cats hanging around property.  It looks like it might be a mother and her baby – one is about half the size of the other.  I haven’t seen a collar on either one, but I haven’t been able to get very close either - they both run when they see me.

I have a few thoughts about the situation:

First and foremost, I worry about them getting pregnant and having more kittens (assuming that they are both female).  There are enough stray animals in the world – I don’t need /want a bazillion stray cats all over the neighborhood.

I do however, have a mouse (or mole or vole – whatever) problem.  Oddly enough, not around the chicken coop – which is where I would have expected it – but in the front of my house and out on the back forty of the property.  After the snow fell this year, it was really evident by the number of trails all over the place.  I have seen both cats hunting and catching the mice (or moles or voles or whatever they are).  I do like that.

But then again, at my last house, my next door neighbor had cats that she let run outside.  They used to poop in my garden beds all the time and that was just the grossest thing ever.  Nothing like going to pull weeds around the flowers and sticking your hand in a big piece of poop.  Disgusting.  At least dogs don’t hide their droppings.  Anyway, now I’m worried that if these cats stick around, I’m going to have the same problem in my garden around here.  Although I am planning on fencing it in this year because of the Stupid-Evil-Garden-Eating Rabbits, what if they decide that it’s worth the climb over the fence to use my garden beds as litter boxes?  I don’t want to go through that again.

Because they seem to be feral cats, I don’t think that they could ever be adopted by anyone as a house cat.  If they were taken to the SPCA, I’m sure that they would be euthanized.  I’m thinking that the best case scenario would be if I could catch them, get them fixed and then let them go about their business.  But I don’t think that I would ever be able to catch them – unless I tried using a trap.  But I only have one live animal trap and I don’t have the $$$ to buy another.  I would want to get them both at the same time – you know, just get everything done at once…   How much does it cost to get a cat fixed, anyway?  That would be another problem…

What to do?  What to do?  

Extreme Makeover

OK, who could watch the show last night and not cry?

Check out ClarenceGrad72’s site with a list of "firsts" from the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Buffalo episode. 

Buffalo should be proud 

Delurking

Of the blogs I follow, many of them often have ‘Delurking Days’, where the blogger will ask readers who normally don’t comment to leave a comment to say ‘Hi!” and let them know that they follow the blog.

I’m guilty of that.  I read many blogs and only comment once in a while.  I’m working on commenting more.   Baby steps 

I think I’ve learned why people do that.  I’ve learned that if I read someone’s blog using a reader, my ‘visit’ doesn’t show up as a hit on their counter.  Only if I actually visit the blog itself will I be counted.  So theoretically speaking, a person could have a thousand readers a day, but if they all used readers, it would look to the owner that no one is reading their posts.

I think that when bloggers ask people to delurk, they are trying to find out how many readers they really have.

Since starting to use Brief, there are a lot of blogs that I will read right from the reader – but there are still a bunch that I will always go to the actual blog page.  Mostly because I like their template or layout, and to me that enhances the experience of reading the post.

I have two thoughts that come out of this:

1. I feel guilty now when I read a blog post right from the reader because I’m gipping the blogger of a visitor count

2. I can now pretend that I have hundreds of people that follow my blog, but I don’t see them on my counter because they use a reader 

My Brain

 

 

Lots going on in there lately!

(except I’m feeling like the little guy on the bottom left)

Too Cool

It’s the middle of January.  (OK, maybe a little past the middle – but it’s still winter!) 

In Western New York.

The high today was 33° F.

That might seem like a heat wave considering the temperatures we’ve had the past couple of weeks, but really – who runs their air conditioning in January????? 

(OK, I know who does.  I just think it’s really weird.)

Wordless Wednesday

Rainbow Bridge

I first heard about Rainbow Bridge from a friend I used to go Geocaching with.  He has a cache called Rainbow Bridge, which is dedicated to loved pets that people have lost (great cache!).

 

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.

There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.  There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.  All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.  The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together...

Author unknown

 

The BBC had an article about pet loss and mentioned the Rainbow Bridge, which got me thinking about Mittsy.  She’s been gone a few years now, but I still miss her – she really was a great dog.

 

I think that I am finally ready to get another dog, but there’s no way it will happen until I have extra $$$ and a schedule that would work so that she (yes – if I get another dog, it’s going to be a ‘she’) won’t be home alone all the time.  So realistically, it probably won’t be happening for a while.

I cry when I think of Mittsy waiting at the Rainbow Bridge and really do hope to see her again.  I hope she is happy.  I hope she visits my Dad while waiting.

Found Change for 2009

It’s time to add up the loose change I found during the past year.  I’ve been out in stores and shopped a whole lot less than 2008, so I am really surprised that I found as much change as I did. 

The grand total for 2009 came to $2.05 – more than my total for 2008!

Here is the breakdown:

.25 - 3
.10 – 9
.05 – 4
.01 – 20 (including a wheat penny!)

 

So far the total amount of change I found laying on the ground for the past three years adds up to $15.05… certainly not Fort Knox, but I’ll take it!   

Must Be Good

As I was flipping through the channels, I came across this:

How funny is that?  Nothing like telling it like it is 

Add-Ons

I use Firefox for my browser - it rocks to no end.  I love that it is so customizable.  I love that it is so easy to personalize.  I love that there are so many Add-Ons that are available to choose from.  I love that they are so easy to add or remove.  I love that Firefox lets you know when there are updates.  I love that Firefox doesn’t crash very often…  Can you feel the love? 

My newest Add-On is a reader for the blogs I follow.  I used a reader years ago when I followed newsgroups, but for some reason it never occurred to me to look for a reader for blogs.  The one that I chose to use is called Brief and I could not be happier with it.  It is so nice to not have to go through all my bookmarks every time to see if there is a new post or not.   As I find more and more blogs I like, it can take a bit of time to scroll through them all – it’s so nice now that the reader does it for me!  I wish I had thought to look for this sooner 

I have many Add-Ons, but some of my particular favorites are: Fission, IE Tab (for those few sites that don’t support anything but IE – I don’t ever have to open IE again in my life!), Personas and XMarks.

I can only say Thank you! to all the people who come up with these cool applications that help make playing and working on the internet a lot more fun…

Hear Hear!

Yes – I can finally hear!

I’ve had problems with my left ear since I learned to scuba dive many years ago.  I didn’t follow directions and surfaced too quickly one time and since then it’s never been right.  I have to be careful when I sleep on that side – if I do and then I get up too fast, it hurts like the dickens.  And I have to make sure that it’s covered up when it’s cold outside, especially when it’s windy.  Right before Christmas I caught a cold and it aggravated my ear.  It got plugged up on Christmas eve and I wasn’t able to hear out of it since.

Until today!  It’s only a little but, by my ear is finally starting to clear itself up and I can hear *something* out of it.

You don’t realize until you experience it, how debilitating it is to not have all your hearing.  Even with one good ear, I know that I was missing a lot.  Not to mention the fact that what I did hear sounded really weird.

I was looking for an ear-nose-throat doctor to see if they could find out what’s going on because it’s been so long, but thankfully I won’t have to now.  I did learn that when looking for and ENT doctor, that’s not what they are listed under.  You have to find one under “Otolaryngology”.  Who’da thunk it?

Wordless Wednesday

Tundra

Growing up, The Far Side was far and away my most favorite comic.  It was a sad day when Gary Larson decided to stop drawing his cartoons.  I loved his twisted sense of humor – I don’t think there wasn’t a cartoon he drew that I didn’t like.  I still pull out my Far Side books from time to time and I laugh, no matter how many times I’ve read them.

I came across another comic that is just as funny.  It’s called Tundra and is written by Chad Carpenter.  His ‘about’ page doesn’t mention if Chad knew or was influenced by Gary Larson, but the style is similar – and I love it!  If I had the extra cash, I would definitely get the box calendar…

Here are a couple comics from the website – enjoy!

 

 

Pictures are copyrighted by Tundra Comics 2009

Committee

I volunteered to be on a new committee for the town.  I’m kind of excited about it.  We had our first meeting tonight.  I really hope that I can make a worthwhile contribution to the project.

Once the project is more underway, I’ll share details – but not yet!

Dual Purpose

Well it seems that the holder for the Cabbage Piñata also doubles as a great holder for a Broccoli Piñata

 

 

 

 

Cabin Fever

So yesterday the cabin fever must have set in for the chickens.  Or they just decided that snow is OK to play in.  Either way, they were eager to go OUT 

The pictures look grainy because they were taken through windows.  It’s hard to go outside and get pictures of what chickens do in the snow because they stop what they are doing when they see me and come looking for treats…

So here it is - this is what chickens do in the winter 

 

They congregate in the driveway  (It was funny watching cars driving by slow down to look at them)…

 

 

They like exploring the path…

 

 

 

     Sorry guys – I don’t have a snowblower anymore…

 

 So there you have it.  Happy chickens playing in the snow 

Wordless Wednesday

The Doctor

I watched Doctor Who a little bit when I was kid.  It was OK.  When I thought of The Doctor, Tom Baker was the image that popped in my head.  Him and that big scarf he always wore…  I watched it a bit, but wasn’t a die-hard fan.

In 2005, the SciFi channel (now SyFy) brought the series to their lineup.  Christopher Eccelston played The Doctor and I absolutely fell in the love with the series.  I thought he was the best Doctor ever.  I couldn’t believe it when he only stayed in the role for a year. 

“There’s no way anyone will be able to be even half as good in the part.”, I thought.

David Tennant became the Tenth Doctor.  That last episode of the 2005/Christopher Eccelston season, I was heartbroken.  But I decided to keep watching the series anyway.  Hey – you never know…

Well, I have to say that David Tennant is far and beyond the best Doctor that ever could be.  And now he is gone, too.

I am highly doubtful that I will like the new Doctor, but I’ll still give him a chance.  Hey – you never know…

Sore

Boy, am I out of shape.  I can’t remember the last time I was this sore (not counting when I ruptured a disk in my back)

Evidently it doesn’t matter that I took the time in October to make sure the generator and snowblower were primed and ready to go.  It doesn’t matter that we had a super mild winter so far and the first time I needed to bring out the snowblower wasn’t until the first week of January.  After getting two feet of snow.  It doesn’t matter that I loved my snowblower because I never had a problem starting it up.  Until today.  Ugh.

I literally spent all day shoveling – by hand – my driveway.  It took me over four-and-a-half hours to get the driveway cleared (I have a lot of driveway to clear), a path shoveled to the chicken coop, the pen cleared out (the wind was blowing from the wrong direction - normally snow doesn’t get in most of the pen), my trailer dug out and the snowblower loaded on the trailer to take to the shop.  Non-stop.  I am so grateful that the snow was light and fluffy for the most part.  Except for all the stuff by the street.   And for some reason, the stuff around the trailer was really compacted, too.  The hardest part was getting the snowblower up on the trailer.  By the time I was done, I was was too tired to do a Happy Dance.

I’m sure that it will be quite a while before I get the snowblower back – probably nine million other people had problems with their snowblower as well.  Let’s just hope the Snow Gods are kind to me until then. 

As for the chickens and how they are dealing with winter…

For the most part, they seem pretty content to stay inside the coop.  See how few footprints are in the snow?  I think they only come out to grab something to drink or a bite to eat.  When they see me coming, they will come out – looking for a treat.

I give them the option to go outside if they want – I leave the pen door open for them during the day.  Before all the snow fell, they wandered around yard in the cold, but with the snow it looks like they prefer to stay indoors.  But who knows – they might get more adventurous as time goes on.  My old chickens had no problem wandering the paths I cleared for them…

This probably sounds weird (I don’t care!), but I have taken pity on them and have been bringing them some warm vegetable soup during the really cold days.  They really love it, and a little something warm in their tummies can’t hurt anything 

Once the pen was shoveled out, all the Ladies did come out for a little bit… maybe I need to find chicken snow boots?

“Lifestyle Adjustments”

As I look out my kitchen window, watching the huge Charlie Brown snowflakes fall – the snow getting deeper and deeper – I ponder… “Should I go out and shovel or not?” 

I don’t like doing chores more often than I have to.  Pulling out the snow blower and clearing the driveway seems really silly when the wind is still blowing and the snow is still coming down.  I’d rather just wait until it stops and then clean it all up when it’s done. 

Still… it’s getting pretty deep.

I don’t have to go anywhere any more today.

But what if something comes up and I do have to go out?

Well, I do have 4-wheel drive…

Look – the snowplow just went by.  Again.

~sigh~

And I guess they aren’t called New Year’s Resolutions anymore – they are now New Year’s Lifestyle Adjustments 

I never did New Year’s Resolutions.  If I was asked, my standard answer was that I was going to stop eating liver and burnt toast.  This year I actually wrote out a list of things that I want to change and/or accomplish this year.  I wasn’t planning on the list – it just happened.

I’m not ready to share my list here – there are a few personal things I’d like to tackle… but I’ll be sure to share any milestones I conquer during the year.