Von_Bon's Xanga

Friday, November 06, 2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:35:47 GMT

I return!

So what have you missed? Not too much, although, at the same time, a lot. I've slowly been sorta working on my crocheting. I've finally learned how to read a pattern so that should help. I personally think I need a smaller hook, and need to work with making my stitches larger, to allow them to be used with cluster stitches. Either way, I'll be taking another stab at it again shortly. Why the delay this week? Well there are a few reasons for that. One, I've been playing Hellboy with Brit. It's been a nice detour in the daily goings on, and it helps her to relax better.

But alas, we finished the game. It was rather short... and now I have nothing else to play. I guess it's back to reading and chrocheting every night.

Aside from that, most of this week has been spent debating what to do about our eating situation, and our bodies. Based off of the reading that's been done, I'm pretty sure both mine and Brit's body is in the process of detoxing. How can that be, since I never set out to detox? quite simple, really. I quit eating processed crap. Except for the days when we goof up, we don't eat a lot of processed foods. Almost everything is homemade. Along with the fact that we can't afford a lot of meat, we eat more veggies, which is also condusive to detox.

So apparently, that's part of the reason my body has been acting funny lately. So lately, we've been trying to find ways to facilitate this. This is particularly hard, because in teh winter months, all there really is in season is frikking squash and tubers. Ugh. I'm so tired of squash and potatoes. So finding good meals has been a challenge. I imagine we'll find something, though.

Along with this, we decided to try some reflexology last night. We procured a book on it, and went through the basic movements and routines on eachothers feet, and holy crap! You could tell something happened. I'm not sure what, but something. After having my feet done, I could feel my left side light up. My knees burned, my kidney (only the left) burned, my stomach hurt, and my back was trying to straighten things out. It was pretty crazy to feel such a difference within 30 minutes of doing it. I'm sure most of you are thinking "why do that if it causes pain?" I say because removing blockages isn't easy. Usually things feel worse before they get better. I take it as a good sign that something got somewhat fixed.

Now just imagine if a professional did it. Hoo boy.

And lastly, the weekend update- this weekend's baking list is rather long. I'm not sure how I'll get it all done. I need to bake a few more loaves of bread, I have Udon to make, Noodles, jelly and butter are all on the list. I still need to figure out what I'm taking to mom's house for Thanksgiving. I'm tossing btwn pie, apple sauce, and pumpkin bread, along with bread, rolls and butter. I'm not sure what I'll make, but I'll figure it out.

Till next time.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:42:49 GMT

Ahh... so it's another Monday, and a new month to boot. Hurrah.

I'm so effing tired. For some reason, last night, I just couldn't fall asleep... so i'm dead tired today.

Last week, I didn't really ever drop back in to update, so allow me to do so now.

I managed to find a jacket last week. It took until nearly 9pm, but I found it. And it's warm. Too bad it's a poof coat, too bad it was expensive. But seriously, I wasn't finding anything. I've found that I have a medium sized waist, and XLG sized shoulders in the world of jackets. And 'lo! They don't make jackets in that style. Not to mention I apparently have long arms. However, because I bought that jacket, I got $10 in Kohl's cash. Which I used to buy two pairs of jeans and some sale jewelry. An asymmetric long necklace, and a swallow- for Aset/Herhert.

So yay! Jeans and jacket. My list is slowly getting marked off.

As for baking, I tried to make pasties this weekend, and it was kind of a flop. The dough didn't stick well- I needed more water. Britt said it was like a short bread, which wasn't the kind of dough she always had with pasties or some crap like that. Either way, the altitude is totally fucking with my ability to make stuff. Ugh. I went to the book store in an effort to find a high altitude book for cooking, to which I Found nothing. However, Taste of Home has this huge cook book that talks about how to make bread at high altitude, and that I need to add the flour last- slowly, to make sure that I don't put too much flour in. So that's my next attempt. I would have loved to have bought the book, but it was $30... and I'm not willing to part with that much right now. So we'll see.

In other news, I decided to re-pick up crochetting. I actually wanted to try my hand at knitting, but after messing with it, running through book after book, I just couldn't figure it out. So I decided to stick with crochetting, which I already know the basics in. So now I'm working on crochetting a scarf. We'll see how that turns out :P

And lastly, I've been irked... or saddened, or something. You know, when you live a state or 10 away, it's really easy to forget you have a family. You understand that you can't go to every function, that you won't see you family again for potentially years. If ever again.

However, now that I live back in state with my family, I had hopes of joining my family for more get togethers. I hate feeling like the outsider, like no one gives two shits about me because I no longer live in the valley. Save for my parents and my grandparents, I feel like most of my family doesn't realize I exist. I guess I was hoping that by finding them online, moving closer, etc. that might change. But it hasn't. Still, I'm forgotten for a lot of things. Yeah, I was invited to the last bday party (which I couldn't go to because of deadlines. Figures). But still, things like Halloween, I guess I'm just not cool enough. Nothing like going onto FB and seeing a picture of your father with your aunt... and going... wait a minute... when did that happen? And finding out, oh, it was last night. You were just ignored again. For some reason it hurts, and I can't figure out why. I mean, hell, I've always felt like the outsider. I don't act like most ppl in my family, I picked the odd path, thereby singling myself out, but still, it stings and burns, despite all of my attempts to harden that part of me. To realize I may never fit in with some of my extended family, and may never be included in their affairs.

Ugh. I'm sure my parents, Britt, others- they'd tell me to get over it, not to worry about it. That it's not worth worrying about, but still. I guess it's the Virgo in me- the par that wants to feel a part of something. And I guess since I have no friends (since I left college they've all moved onto their own things) and therefore no social life.. Brit and my family, that's all I have. And my family.. I hardly even have that.

Just hurts, and it won't stop. I guess it's time to harden up that outer shell again, cuz if it hasn't changed in this amount of time, it's not going to.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:03:37 GMT

It snowed XD

Too bad it'll probably all be gone by the end of the day *cry* I miss it already.

I did manage to find a jacket this week. Took me until about 8:30 at night, and going to every store in town to find one... more expensive than I wanted, but I needed it. That's for sure.

I worked on melting down my "syrup" last night into a jelly. It worked pretty well. Put it in the fridge, and took it out this morning to have with my toast. I place my knife into the jelly to place it on the bread and I hear
"Clunk!"
Turns out my jelly probably sat too long on the stove and hardened to what could have been candy. Sooo.. I throw it in the microwave, and bam! Instant jelly :P It was still pretty damned good.

Other than that, nothing else is up. I am having the green poo again, which is a symptom of the illness/stomach bug I just got over. So it's my guess that either the Chinese food place or the Mexican food place is doing it. Ugh. More and more I don't trust my stomach with other's foods. Too bad there isn't any way to cook foods here at work, or I probably would.

Anywho, that's it for now.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:33:51 GMT

It's getting cold!
It hasn't reached 50 degrees yet today, and there is risk of snow tomorrow. And me without a good jacket. Ugh. I've been looking for a jacket, as it does get cold here, but I've run into 2 problems so far:
1-It doesn't fit
2-Too expensive
Really, I haven't found anything that fits that's remotely in my price range (actually I haven't found anything that fits period. I just don't try on jackets more than $50). I have the large shoulders, and with my recently shrunken waist line, I'm not sure how to find a jacket the fits both. Sigh. And I need a jacket soon. My wool isn't holding up. I've gotten too small for it, and the air gets btwn me and the jacket, making me cold. I'll keep it around, because if I get a jacket to wear in btwn the wool and my clothes, that would work well. But finding that mid range jacket is going to be a chore.

And for those of you unaware, I walk to work, which is why this is a big deal to me.

Although I'm freezing, I hope it snows tomorrow. I'd love to see it. Bwahahahaha. I love snow.

Made pancakes this morning with the help of Brit. They turned out pretty good. Ate them with my "syrup" and after eating it, I'd guess the sugar didn't get hot enough. I'm thinking of putting it into a pot tonight and boiling it down a bit to see if that helps it any. I mean, hell, what can it hurt at this rate? I'm also gonna go pick some pine needles, and make some pine tea tonight and see if that is any good. I've heard it is, we'll see.

Nothing else new outside of that. Enjoying the new layout of the house, that's for sure. It's gotten cold enough that the window needs to be closed all night, and now you can even have the fan off all night, and it's fine. Brr! lol.

Carpet gets cleaned Thurs and Fri at 4:30. Guy says that the cats could eat the treatment they put on the carpet, and would be more or less fine. So I don't have to worry about them getting it on their paws. Hurrah. Hopefully it'll clean it carpet up pretty well. My be hides most of the severe staining, but I'd love for the carpet to feel a little better. It feels pretty icky. I guess we'll see.

That's it for now.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:37:27 GMT

So this weekend was hectic. I spent most of my time up and doing things. Sold my matress, got my IKEA futon, and now my house looks more put together. Hurrah!

Outside of that, I baked another batch of bread. The yeast did a lot better, though I think I beat it down one too many times. So next time I'll be sure not to beat it the extra time. Yay! I also tried making Gnocchi, but I didn't split the recipe properly... so they came out weird. I hate splitting recipes in half. It leaves a lot of room open for errors. Ugh. I also made some jam... I'm not sure what happened there. I'm guesssing that I need a real jar, and that that makes a difference. Basically, you heat up sugar in one pan, and raspberries in another. You pour the sugar on the raspberries, and it liquifies the berries. It's pretty awesome. However, I have syrup more than jam. So I'm gonna make some pancakes for breakfast this week, and use it for that.

Waste not. Want not.

So that was my cooking adventures.

Clothing wise, the new pair of jeans I got ripped the first day I wore them. Sigh. Stupid goodwill. I found another sweater, though for $8, so that's good. But still no luck with jeans.

That's it for now.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:11:03 GMT

Not much new at the moment. I'm slowly starting to feel better, which is a good thing. Though I still get tired really easily at the moment. Most of the office is gone due to being sick, and many of the people that do show up are only here for a little while before leaving. It's really weird- after the last batch of deadlines was met, almost no one is here all day. Makes me wonder what is going on.

Went and got a small rack for my kitchen last night. Found it on CL for $5, which is a pretty good buy. I can now keep my fruit, veggies and bread on it without any problems. I plan on putting my canisters on it as well, once I get some. That way, my cupboards aren't all full of flours lol.

I also found a baking book at Bookmans. It's got a wide variety of stuff in it, and I look forward to experimenting with some of the stuff. I need to find another bread recipe soon, because we're onto the second loaf, which is too small/short for toad in the hole. So I'll probably be baking this weekend again. Along with that, I'm gonna try making some jelly/jam. Grapes are on sale, and apparently Brit's gma had a recipe for using grapes, so we're gonna talk to her mom, and see if we can procure it and make some. I miss jelly lol.

Other than that, I'm waiting to see if someone is going to buy my matress. If they do, then I'll be heading to Ikea this weekend for my futon. Otherwise, it'll be the waiting game until Black Friday. I can't wait to get all of the furniture I need. It sucks, I want to save, but I also want to better my housing situation. You can't really do both at the same time. Ugh. Our company just needs to make more money lol, so that my pay can be upped.

Wee. Nothing else to report. I'm too tired to rant about the stupid tv show, so I guess I'll hold off on that as well.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:20:07 GMT

Another check in. Wee.

I've jacked up my right hand. It's hurting quite badly, esp around the base of the thumb. It hurts to move it, tighten it, stretch my arm, or pick anything up. Along with this, I have a pain in my left jaw- by the joint near my ear. It's the first time I've ever had pain on the left, and it doesn't feel like TMJ. I'm not sure what's up. It feels like someone clocked me, and that I should have a bruise... but there isn't anything there. So I'm a little lost as to what to do. I'm hoping it goes away, because both make it hard to sleep. I can't sleep on my right side, so I'm forced to lay on my jaw... and it takes a while to find a way that's comfy enough to fall asleep.

Fun.

So my fridge totally went psycho. It froze a whole carton of eggs, which I now have to throw out. Froze half a pound of hamburger, and everything in my tuperwares. What a pain. It's a good thing I took most of my produce out, which is now sitting on my counter top. Heh. Stayed home until the office opened, which made me late for work, and told her about it. Now I'm getting my fridge replaced. I'm hoping I get a new fridge, though. I don't want a used p.o.s. I want a new fridge that actually has shelving and whatnot in it. So we'll see.

As for my carpeting, I have yet to receive word when that will occur. I was supposed to get a call this morning, but I haven't heard from her yet (surprise...). We'll see.

We thought we were gonna find a sleeper bed this week, but when we went to look at it, it turned out to be crap. Brit jumped the gun, and put the bed up on CL, so now we're debating going down to Ikea this weekend to get a futon, because someone wants to pick up the bed on Friday. I'm not sure I want to drive all the way down to Tempe on such short notice... but I know it's gotta get done sometime, and I don't know that I want to wait until Black Friday either. So I'm a bit torn. Either way, it's looking like it'll probably happen. Buying a futon for about $200, if we're lucky there will be one in the "as is" section, and it'll be cheaper. Hopefully.

Also need to look into desks or tables, so that I can add one to my kitchen. I totally need more counter space, along with some extra cupboard space. So we figured we could get something that could double as storage, counter space, and a table. So maybe Ikea will have something.

So if anyone wants to meet me at Ikea this weekend, let me know.

I found a pair of jeans yesterday that fit pretty well. It's about time. All of my jeans are falling apart. They have holes, or are getting holes. And most of them are waaaaay too big. So I've been looking for jeans, to no avail. Most jeans are too long from the waist to the crotch, so they make me look bigger. The Jr's jeans usually are short enough there, but they're all into the skinny jean right now, which looks atrocious on almost anyone. However, I manahed to find a pair of Angels jeans (jr) at the good will last night that fit pretty well. If I could lose more of my pudge, they'd look better.

Speaking of clothes, I've been looking for clothes, and have found out that I must have lost more weight than I thought. I've gone from Larges down to Smalls in Misses clothing. Still can barely fit into XLG in Jrs, but their sizing is whack. Jeans I range from an 11/13 in Jrs to 8/10s in misses. Crazy.

As for my baking- my pie hasn't been eaten much. My stomach doesn't like the milk in it. Brit thinks that my lack of dairy intake is making me lactose intolerant. Joy, just what I wanted. So I'm not sure what to do with it. I don't want to bring it into work, for fear that I might have contaminated it while I was sick. So right now, it's sitting in my fridge- getting frozen, and then unfrozen, and then frozen again. It's probably not safe to eat for that reason alone. We've almost gone through the whole loaf of bread so far. I'm surprised how much of it Brit has eaten, so I guess that's a good sign. I have one in the freezer... but I might need to bake another loaf, because we could run out before my next baking weekend. I'll have to look up another recipe if that's the case. See what else I can try.

Nothing else is up. I'm tired, and still feel rather ill. We have a couple ppl at work sick, so we're pretty sure that it's something that spread from one person to another here. We've got some form of stomach bug, so if that's what everyone else has, then it's likely we caught it from eating at the same place. Heh.

That's it for now. I have a potential rant later about Extreme Paranormal, and how it's a piece of crap.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:21:23 GMT

I feel like crap. Hurrah!

I've been ill off and on for the past week, and it just keeps getting worse. I took yesterday off, and while I felt alright at home, I'm back to feeling crappy. Joy.

Random question- anyone have a cure for green poo?

I baked over the weekend, everything turned out alright. My bread is tasty, though I'm not sure it is correct. I had to convert a 3 loaf recipe to a 2 loaf recipe, which could have caused errors in my math. Not to mention I'm high alt. which could have also caused problems. All I know is the bread didn't rise very much. Brit speculates that we either didn't put enough yeast in, or the area we left it to rise in wasn't warm enough. Either way, it's more of a Euro styled bread- thicker, less airy, with a hard outer crust. It's pretty tasty, I'm just not sure I did it right :P

As for my pie- I was worried that the crust recipe wasn't correct. Brit kept saying it didn't look like what her mom's looked like. I kept telling her "Well lets find another one" to which she was all "no, it'll be fine". Well it was okay but you can tell the crust is lacking. So I'm gonna have to try again with another recipe I found. The pumpkin filling is good. The only problem with it is I don't have the proper machinery to beat the pumpkin to as fine of a pulp as I'd like. So it didn't completely come together as smoothly as it should have, because I don't have a food processor. So when I make my next one, I'm gonna buy the pumpkin that's in a can, because that is apparently smooth.

We also made box brownies, which messed up. I think it's because we didn't follow the high alt. instructions. Ugh. It's annoying living in high alt lol.

Other than that, not much happened. We went to look at a sleeper loveseat, which turned out to be crap. So we're back to looking for a futon at some point. It's a pain in the butt, but we need the room, so we have to find something.

Yeah. That's about it for now.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:10:58 GMT

Hurrah. Another day.

I be the tired. Brit's sinuses are running a muck with her. So it'll be interesting. She's still going to work, but definitely not running at top speed. But then again, neither am I. I'm still having problems focusing and staying awake. Ugh.

So this weekend is going to be rather busy, which isn't what I really want to hear, considering how tired I've been. I've gotta go to Winslow to check out the flour there. The local Albertsons has 5# bags of flour for $2, which isn't bad. But I don't really trust Albertsons flour- it's unbleached, but still enriched. So it makes me wonder, because if it's unbleached, it shouldn't need to be enriched. Either way, I'm exploring all my options. So here's to a one hour drive to WalMart. Ugh.

Along with the flour, I need to get ahold of a cooling rack for my bread, and I need to find a pie pan. Joy. I also need to procure Crisco for the crust along with Brown and Cane sugar. Hurrah.

Rue 21 is having a big sale this weekend, so we're planning on checking that out, in accordance to finishing up some of our goals. While there, I'll check Ross, so that way I have a good price comp for when I go to Wallie World. Let me tell you, baking is cheaper, but procuring all the crap to bake... not so much.

In other news, I talked to Michelle this week. It was nice to catch up. We've both come a long ways since high school.

I also found out more about my carpeting. They're not going to rip it out, instead the head guy wants to shampoo it... again. With a different company. So aggrivating. I told them I want fans, because I don't want wet carpeting for 3 days. So that at least is a good thing. However, I'll have to take a good chunk of the day off from work, which blows. *sigh*. But if I don't do something, it'll never get fixed. So hopefully it'll work. I guess. Otherwise, I'm still going to complain. Stupid head honcho dude being stingy with his effing money.

Also, I found out that my aunt got stung by scorpions twice, and has Swine flu! Hurrah to that! Makes me a little glad I didn't go to Houtson's party, because I seriously can't handle getting sick right now. I've got too much going on.

Anywho, off to start working.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:23:44 GMT

Another check in for all you lovely ppls out there.

So far, this week has gone better with eating in. We haven't broken it yet, the only thing that we've done "bad" on is we got a coke when Britt's stomach wasn't agreeing with her. Otherwise, we've stuck to the plan. And with the stomach not agreeing, that was due to our ham hocks and beans. Next time, I'm not using canned beans. They're more expensive, and not as tasty as dried beans. So that's the goal for next time around.

I'm still on the hunt for unbleached flour and wheat flour. Laurel says that Walmart has GM flour pretty cheap, so I'll have to drive to Winslow this weekend to take a look. I've got to procure some yeast because I'm out of bread. So I'll be making a wheat loaf this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

With that, I'm probably going to be making some pumpkin pie to use up my pumpkin thats left over from my bread. I froze half of it, used 1/4 of it for my three loaves of bread, and I have that last 1/4 sitting in my fridge. I dont' want it to go bad, so that's my best option. I'll have to get some pie tins.... too bad mom's house isn't closer because she has a ton of them she never uses *sigh*. I'm debating making some cookies, as I've been craving them, but I'm not sure if I'm going to. I don't want to overload on sweets. Course, with cookies, I can freeze most of them, and eat them later. So we'll see.

Lots of baking. Too bad the nearest big walmart is an hour away. Ugh. How can pissy little Winslow have a super walmart, but not Flag? Makes no effing sense. I've thought about going to the local Sam's Club to see if they have unbleached flour, but their website says otherwise. So... we'll see, yet again.

That's it for now.