Dishes

I hate doing dishes.

I don't know why, I just do. I leave them until they pile up so high it kind of disgusts me or until I run out of utensils to eat with. Then, I finally do the dishes.

I let them pile up this week because every night this week I've looked at them and thought, 'ugh! I can't deal with this tonight!'

And then, when I finally did ALL those horrible dishes tonight, it took less than 15 minutes.

So dumb! Just do it! (Thanks, Nike.)

And yet... right now, I sit here eating pudding with a spatula because I refuse to wash a spoon.

Leopards, their spots and all that jazz...

Men in White Coats

I keep looking out the window to see if they're here yet. Not yet, but I'm sure they're coming.

I bought one of those bag frozen dinners at the grocery store this weekend. You know the kind that comes with chicken, vegetables and pasta in the same bag? It was pretty cheap and comes with 3 servings. Perfect... sort of.

I decided to split up the ingredients so that I could keep two portions frozen and only make one portion for dinner tonight.

Carrot in the pan, carrot in bag 1, carrot in bag 2.

Chicken, chicken, chicken.

Pasta, pasta, pasta.

Broccoli, broccoli, broccoli.

I knew when I got to the corn that there was something wrong with me.

They'll have to get past Joe and Milo to get to me, but I know they're coming... sneaky bastards.

And in other food related news...

I was watching Dinner: Impossible tonight on the Food Network.

Robert Irvine had to create a gourmet dinner for 200 using only ballpark food by the seventh inning stretch.

One of the dishes he created was brats with American cheese rolled up in a tortilla and fried on the grill.

That sounds DISGUSTING. 

Yuck. Who eats a brat with cheese? 

Double yuck for using American cheese. 

Brats and cheese? That's just wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Don't get me wrong, I like cheese. Cheese and I are buddies. We pal around.

But, there are certain things that you don't eat with cheese.

Brats are one of them. 

Fail, Robert Irvine. Go back to the drawing board. 

And FYI, you cannot call anything that uses American cheese "gourmet."

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure it's one of the laws of the universe. See, it's listed right there after gravity.

Amazing Cakes

I like cake-related television.

I TiVO Ace of Cakes on the Food Network. They make some kick-ass cakes.

If Food Network Challenge is on, I'll turn it on because pretty often, it's some sort of insane cake decorating contest. 

So, when my TiVO recorded Amazing Wedding Cakes on WE, I was all "boo-yah!" 

I spoke too soon.

Amazing Wedding Cakes seems to be about two, possibly three, wedding cake shops going about their business. Not all wedding cake shops are built the same apparently. 

Where Duff and crew (Ace of Cakes) are good natured and up for any challenge, these women are a bunch of neurotic, perfectionist, drama queen, whiny bitches. Blech. 

At Cake Girls, the bakery in Chicago, the customer called to change their order about a week before it was due (the husband-to-be made the call without consulting his wife-to-be) and they bitched and moaned and bagged on their customer, more than once, and in essence called them stupid. 

I didn't know it was possible to dislike a show about cakes. 

Suck it, Amazing Wedding Cakes! You ruined the un-ruinable. 

What the hell is wrong with you? You should be ashamed of yourself.

Advice

Don't wear white when baking.

Especially don't wear white when baking red velvet cupcakes.

Really, really don't wear white if you're undoubtedly the type of person to make a mess and accidentally smear batter on your arms and face. 

It looks like you are some sort of demon child who has just taken part in a blood orgy. 

Well, maybe not that.

But something like that. 

If my husband thought words like "vampire," I'm pretty sure that's what he might have thought.

Pink Lemonade

Is pink lemonade really raspberry lemonade?

At work, they have those Crystal Light packets that will turn your bottle of water into lemonade or orange drink or green tea. I usually use the plain old lemonade packet.

I get kind of sick of lemonade though. Unfortunately, my only other options are Classic Orange, Raspberry Ice or Raspberry Lemonade.

It's unfortunate mostly because I hate raspberries. I want to say that I hate them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, but that would be an exaggeration. So imagine that fiery passion, only slightly less intense and you'll get the picture about how I feel about raspberries.

So, if in fact, pink lemonade is really raspberry lemonade, I'm going to have to re-think my whole stance on pink lemonade. I used to fall solidly into the "pro-pink lemonade" camp.


I had hoped that pink lemonade was really just regular lemonade colored pink. Maybe I was just kidding myself. I feel so disillusioned. It feels like when you are a kid and you realize that "Santa" is actually just Mom and Dad. Just. Like. That.

Ooch!

GameBoy brought in brownies for our team meeting today. They were delicious. Normally, I'm not a fan of walnuts in brownies, but these were truly excellent.

I was interrogating him about it after the meeting and apparently this was his first time baking. Ever! Color me impressed.

Why did he make brownies?
His girlfriend's present isn't going to arrive in time for her birthday, so he baked her some brownies and he brought us the extras. Can I get an 'awww'? That is so sweet. I've never seen this side of him before. Usually he's all Viking camp, martial arts and video games.

The downside is that I don't normally eat brownies at 9AM, so my stomach is sort of annoyed with me for filling it up with chocolate and processed sugar instead of yogurt. As good as it was, eating it was a bad idea. My stomach hurts. Boo.

Minor Food Meltdown

In a few weeks, I'm going to San Antonio to warm my bones. It won't be warm, warm, but it might be about 40 degrees warmer than here, which sounds like a little bit of heaven. 

It's kind of like going home for me. I'm not from San Antonio, but I am from Texas. I haven't been back to Dallas since my grandmother's funeral two years ago. I didn't think about this trip like "I'm going home" when we planned it, for two reasons. One, Texas isn't really home anymore. Two, San Antonio isn't that close to Dallas, so it's not like I'm going someplace I've been a hundred times before.

BUT!

Then, mr. blume and the husband started talking about food today. Did we want reservations anywhere before we go... that sort of thing. I mentioned that I wanted to get some bar-b-que and tex-mex when we're down there, since although you can find those restaurants up north, they are generally crap when compared to the real thing. 

That got me thinking. 

There's also southern food. Real southern food, the kind nobody eats up north. Places where the serve fried okra and chicken fried steak. 

AND there's Luby's, a cafeteria style restaurant, but it's not your high school's cafeteria. The home of a beautiful mac and cheese, mouth watering rolls and my favorite kind of pie. 

AND there's Cajun food. It's more Louisiana than Texas, but you can still find some pretty good stuff in Tejas. 

AND, well can you see my problem? We're only going to really be there for two days. I can't fit all the fabulous food of my childhood into two days. Not even close. Plus, I'm not looking to gain 10 lbs on this trip, so I'll have to pick and choose carefully. 

I'm excited at the possibilities and a little sad that I know that there just isn't time for everything. Until then, all this talking about food makes me hungry, so I'm going to go find something to eat. 

Lunch

Imagine if you will, a cold, cold, cold Wisconsin morning.

You go to the cupboard to choose something to bring for lunch... ah, there is that cup of beef and barley stew you could bring with you. You've never had it before, but it sounds really good on such a cold day.

You are working very hard and as a result you have to eat a late lunch. So, you are quite hungry when you manage to get your lunch to the microwave, which you begin to heat, following the directions exactly. Exactly.

Remove plastic lid. Remove metal lid. Replace plastic lid, heat for 1 minute. Remove plastic lid, stir. Without lid, continue to heat for 30 to 45 seconds.

Only... wait! 15 seconds into "continue to heat for 30 to 45 seconds" your soup explodes and tips over in the microwave.

Soup. Is. Everywhere.

You spend the next ten minutes with some douche bag watching as you clean out the microwave. You clean out the microwave the best you can with extremely limited supplies. You have beef and barley stew all over your fucking hands, but sadly, very little left in your cup of soup. You "enjoy" the soup you managed to salvage which is now cold, because you are terrified to throw it back in the microwave.

I don't have to imagine it. I lived it. You now have a recap of the last 15 minutes of my life. Boooooooooo!

No lunch + It's snowing outside = The Universe hates me today

Smells Like Onions

My hands smell like onions. 

Yesterday I made tacos for dinner. Since they were turkey tacos, I cut up an onion and but it in with taco meat. 

It tasted good, but now 24 hours later, my hands still smell like onions. 

I hate that. 

It doesn't matter how many times I wash my hands or how careful I am when I chop, the smell just lingers. 

Blech.

Dark Days

Some days are darker than others.
Today is one of those days.
The monsters I keep carefully locked away in the basement forced their way out.
They know they can't win, but they can make me suffer.
With the kind of week I've had, it was only a matter of time.
I think someone at work might have slipped them the key.
I've been all over the place today.
Sometimes I'm fine, but right now I feel sad and alone.
AND our company Halloween party didn't have any cookies, they brought in doughnuts instead.
WTF?? Doughnuts??
If you are going to go to the trouble of throwing yourself a pity party, there should be chocolate there. (Preferably in bar, cookie, or ice cream form... not necessarily in that order)

Don't worry and good Lord don't call me. I'll get over it soon enough.

ETA: It's possible I was just hungry. I had something to eat and I'm feeling a little better.

Damn Caffeine!

Dammit! I think there was caffeine in all that fucking tea I was drinking last week.
The tea, plus the two diet Pepsis I had over the weekend = 5 days in a row with caffeine.
Which in turn explains the raging headache I've had all day.
THIS is why I avoid the stuff... too painful!!

Cupcakes

Remember how I told you about how a guy a work used the phrase "... takes the cake..."?

Well I was cautioning him against using it again as it has sparked a minor obsession with cake. And what did he say?

He told me that he was eating the most fabulous cupcakes yesterday!
I'm a little torn here...
On the one hand, he's clearly evil.
On the other, he's got cupcakes.
Evil = Access to cupcakes?

I'm not sure if I should hate him, or aspire to be more like him?

Either way, I still want cake. It doesn't help that I'm hun-gry! at the moment...

Ouch

I burned my tongue eating lunch. It hurts.

Maybe this will teach me some patience. Even if I'm really hungry I'll have to wait until my food is cooler to eat it.

That *sounds* like a good plan, but I wouldn't bank on it if I were you.

Carrots are not Tomatoes

Tomatoes are on the outs right now because of the whole salmonella scare, so today in my Med salad at Noodles & Co., they replaced my tomatoes with carrots.
Yuck!
Normally, I quite enjoy carrots. However, carrots are not an appropriate substitute for tomatoes in a Greek salad. It's just not the same.
*sigh*
Just not the same at all.

Different

Well that was different.
I wasn't drunk the first time I tried Lazy Mutt beer.
It was only the second beer I tried at the Oregon Microbrew festival.
Yet, I remember liking it quite a bit there.
Tonight? It was different... in a disappointing way.
It was okay, but not as good as I remembered.
Boo.
Oh well. You can't win them all.

That WASN'T a twist off

That bottle of Lazy Mutt I just opened was not a twist off.
Ouch!
My hands hurt a little now.
Also, our bottle openers suck!

So! Hungry!

I don't know what has been up with my body lately, but I have just been ravenous the last couple of days!
I want to eat, eat, eat.
And, it's not a psychological thing. My mind isn't saying, oh I really want to eat, even though I don't need to.
My stomach is the culprit! I ate about an hour ago and I'm already friggin' hungry again!
It's been growling for the last 15 minutes.
Shut up, stupid stomach. You're not getting anything else for at least 45 minutes, so you'll have to suck it up!
I have a late meeting today. I may not make it home... argh!

You know what the really bad side of all this is.. besides being hungry ALL THE TIME?
When I get hungry. Not just hungry, but ravenous hungry. I turn into a cranky BITCH. Yeah, that's right. An all-caps bitch.
I'm still sane for the moment, but as we get closer and closer to one o'clock anybody bringing an annoying problem to me may be in danger of their very life.
Let's all hope it doesn't come to that.
If I killed somebody, I probably wouldn't be able to go to Hawaii in a couple of weeks, and that would just be annoying.

Temptation Looms

The first Monday of every month they bring in bagels, doughnuts and muffins for all the employees to enjoy. I call them "New Hire Mondays" because it's (not-so-coincidentally) the day when all our new employees start for that month.

So, when I walk in our break room, you can just smell all that beautiful fat and sugar sitting there. It's the doughnuts that get me. Chocolate icing, glazed, sprinkles... they look so tempting sitting there all in a row. You just know if you bit into one that it would be so soft and sweet.

But, there are no new hire doughnuts for me now or in the foreseeable future. *Sigh*
Oh well, I guess I can just be happy with the sight and smell of them. They probably taste better in my imagination than they would in real life anyway.

A Swing and a Miss

Before I get to the subject of this blog...
Oh my goodness, what a beautiful day!
It was so gorgeous out! It felt wonderful to be outside.
Cash and I went for a long walk this afternoon... and I was wearing a t-shirt. It was awesome!
I love, love, love this weather (finally)!!!

I tried to make sweet-n-sour shrimp tonight and it did not go well.
The smell of the cooking shrimp made me sick to my stomach (and I love shrimp!).
The sweet & sour sauce... just didn't quite taste right.
Jeff actually ate some of it. He said he liked the rice.
I couldn't stomach it. I ate some of the veg and had to quit.
Yuck, yuck, yuck!
We might try to make it again, only with chicken instead of shrimp and a different kind of sauce. The only problem is that shrimp is more calorie economic at 76 cals/serving versus 110 cals/serving for chicken.
Not sure how I'll solve that problem. Maybe less rice, but how much less is the question.
Boo. It makes me sick just to think about it.
Oh well, back to the drawing board on that one.

On a completely unrelated note, I was watching the Simpsons tonight and the Max Power song came on:
Max Power,
He's the man who's name you'd love to touch,
But, you mustn't touch!
His name sounds good in your ear,
But when you say it, you mustn't fear!
'Cause his name can be said by anyone!

Ha! That is the best song ever! I love it when Homer sings that song.
In fact, I love it when Homer sings any song. He sang "Mellow Yellow" in the next episode, which was awesome as well.