Currently:July 24, 2007 link

I kept meaning to update, but I am fooling around yet again with the design of this page and I accidentally saved over this version. I finally realized I could recover it...duh.

Weekend baking:Glace de Viande

Okay technically, it's not baking. This yummy jelly started as 8 quarts of homemade chicken stock reduced, skimmed and strained over the course of several days. I have been saving this recipe for it FOREVER.

"A spoonful can bring much happiness."

Indeed. It seems daunting because of the time but it's really a great recipe for the lazy. I also made a blueberry buckle but we devoured it before I could get a picture.

Friday evening was spent wrapped up in the Harry Potter madness. I usually get my book the next day and this year I decided that I should see what all of the Midnight hoo-ha was about with this being the last book and all. It was fun and I am glad I did it and once was definitely enough.

We are getting prepared for the grand road trip to Wyoming. One of the essentials was getting some sort of device that would enable us to listen to our iPods on the road and I ended up only spending a whopping ten bucks to get a cassette adapter. Works beautifully. I would like to find an audio book that J and I could both enjoy but J doesn't read for fun. His books are things like "Technical Analysis of Forex Trading". I think a good spy/art thief type story would work because we both love those kinds of movies, but I don't read those kinds of books, so if anyone has a suggestion let me know.

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July 13, 2007 link

Gosh...not a lot going on at the moment. I have been busy working lately and who wants to hear about that?

I thought I was going to paint the hallway this weekend in preparation for The Great Hallway Makeover. Recently Megan posted a link to Making it Lovely and I got sucked in right away and have been going through Nicole's archives reading about the progress of fixing up their her first home. Oh it's so inspiring! She is currently tiling her own kitchen back splash with the same subway tiles I want in our kitchen so that it totally cool. It really enforces the fact that Yes! I could do it.

And I am going to pay particular attention to what she does with the bathroom that has an unfortunate tubcolor as I am suffering the same malady.

What I would really like to do is rip up the hallway carpet downstairs and put in some laminate, but that is just so not in the budget at the moment. And speaking of budget, I decided that the money I would spend on paint and paint accessories would be better suited to prepare for our upcoming drive to Wyoming so I bought some shorts* and an ipod adapter for the car. Maybe I will paint next month.

I am going to be living vicariously through Fanny as she has begun her internship at Pierre Herme in Paris. That is just so cool. I am just thrilled for her.

I got sucked into the Next Foodnetwork Star this season. I like to Tivo it and then fast forward through the tense moments. That's how I watch TV. I found this fantastic blog when I was doing some research on the contestants and I am so happy that I am not the only person on the planet appalled by Sandra Lee and her low-slung boobs.

*It has been so long since I wore shorts that I can't even REMEMBER the last time I wore shorts. I often wondered why this was exactly, usually after someone asked me how I could wear jeans on a sweltering hot day and I could never really come up with a definitive answer. This was until last week when my mom told me about how my father just recently bought himself a pair of shorts and she didn't understand why he never showed his legs ( "He's got great legs!" ) and it finally hit me: It's genetic. It must be a mutant gene or something. I don't know why I don't wear shorts. I don't need to - I inherited it.

July 5, 2007 link

Oh man! It sure what noisy around here last night. Fireworks are legal in the city of Olympia so everybody and their brother had their own personal fireworks display. It's actually kind of amazing the quality of fireworks that one can buy these days. I have a feeling I will be sleeping with earplugs for another few days unfortunately.

I have had the past few days off and I had this really big list of stuff I wanted to get done and (surprise) haven't really done much of it because I needed to reread HP and the Half-Blood Prince to make sure I was fully prepared for the next book. I did make a little bit of progress on my gnome door:

It's not quite done. As you can see it's missing hinges and a door knob, but I had to shove it in there just to see what it would look like and it's so CUTE! I love it.

I am going to try to get some serious sewing done with the remainder of the week so I will leave you with some more baby llama pictures. They named him Donatello:

I walked up to the fence and he came running over to me like a little puppy, it was so funny.

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