I just found Groupon

I'm generally suspicious of online "deal" sites, but I think I'm sold on Groupon. (That's the link to the Spokane site - there are other cities too.)

Today's local deal was a coupon for $8 worth of Slick Rock burritos for $4. I was introduced to Slick Rock last week and they're basically amazing. And since it's right around the corner from the Yoga Shala, I think I'm going to be a regular customer there!

If you wind up wanting to sign up on Groupon yourself, get to the site via this link and I'll get some bucks for it.

Love, J

Some terrible bedside manner

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

This video isn't particularly funny or anything, I'm just posting it because I am blown away by how completely bitchy the nurse at the beginning is. She keeps scolding this poor guy, who is obviously sedated out of his mind. Like it's his fault he won't quietly and attentively listen to the exhaustive list of foods he can and cannot eat after his surgery. Sheesh.

This is especially bothersome if she was the woman he keeps insisting looks just like Meg Ryan. Because that right there is a compliment that lady isn't going to get twice in this lifetime. She should return the favor by not shrieking at him while he's all doped up.

Love, J

We threw a party

Love, J

Rainbow flower pot

I lose things pretty often. Sometimes I can be all que sera, sera about it, but once in a while the missing item will haunt me. It took me years to recover from losing the braided metal bracelet Aunt Micky brought back from a trip to the Pueblos. And I still well up when I think of the Bare Naked Ladies tour t-shirt I left at a track meet the week after I went to the concert. (I loved that damn shirt.)


I made a rainbow mosaic flower pot when we lived in Pullman, but it got lost in our mad-scramble move in Seattle that time we were evicted. (Good story, but not for right now.)

At first I blew it off, because it had taken only a day or so to throw the pot together, no big deal. I could always make another. But then I caught myself thinking about it over and over during the next few years. It turns out, I really had liked that stupid flower pot - I didn't realize I was so attached until it was gone.

And now I've made the replacement,* and it is glorious. It may be too hot to plant anything in it for a while, but at least it's done. I can rest easy.

Love, J

* When I say "I've made," I really mean "we," as my tiny munchkin hands aren't strong enough to break the tiles on my own. Thanks sweetie!

The garden grows

Just yum

Edamame

Cucumbers

Peas

Lettuce and tomatoes

Pumpkins

This is what broccoli turns into when you don't pick it fast enough

Spinach gone to seed, and lettuce

Beans

Beans

Love, J

* Not pictured are the rhubarb plants I have totally killed. I'm not sure what happened, but I think I'll blame the economy.

Party prep

I can't promise it will be fun.

But it will be pretty.

(And fun.) (I promise.)

Love, J

Accentuate the positive

This morning and this evening were just lovely.

Sunny warm, calm hours.

The time in between, I could have done without. During that time, I locked my keys in my car at work and had a several-hours-long adventure trying to get into the car, or my house, or anywhere I would be able to get something productive done.

I failed, and learned that the spare house keys we gave Step-Dad don't actually work in our locks. (What do they go to, then?)

But I am home now, and the hubs is home, and the day is ending as nicely as it began at 5 this morning. So I'm just going to disregard that 12 hours in the middle of the day that totally sucked.

Love, J

Caprese toasts

Or "Caprese little bread things," since I don't bother toasting the bread.

~ Slice up any good bread. I like the skinny French baguettes.

~ Use hand mixer to combine a bunch of fresh basil leaves, some olive oil, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. (I don't measure, but I'd guess it's about 2 cups of unpacked leaves, maybe 1/3 cup of the oil, and a tablespoon of the vinegar?)

~ Top slices with a smear of the basil pesto, a slab of fresh mozzarella, and a tomato slice.

I could live off these things in the summer, they are so amazing.

Love, J

His & Her's

My attempt to make sure we both leave the house each morning
prepared for all this awesome hot weather.

Love, J

Sweet potato

Hey look, I came up with another meal idea. (Are you laughing yet, at the dumb simplicity of all my food posts? ; )

Stab a sweet potato a few times with a fork, then microwave it 3-4 minutes. Slice it open and top with feta cheese. We ate ours with spinach and some hummus & chips.

It even filled up the hubs, which is an almost impossible thing to do.

Love, J

Looks can deceive

She's cute, right?

Getting her nails clipped

Don't be fooled.

She currently has our house under seige, as we try to bond her and Vinny with the two new guys we adopted out of the batch we were fostering. (The rest of them are back at River's Wish now.)


We have to keep the two pairs strictly separated unless we're right on top of them to break up fights. And the old guys still torment the newcomers through the bars of their cages. I'm very ready for the rein of terror to end, so I can snuggle with a happy pile of cuddly rabbits.


For the record, the hubs wanted to adopt an extra bunny and bring our total to 5. So while I am certainly a weird rabbit lady, I can tell you that he's at least one rabbit weirder.



That's my man.

Love, J

Sweet corn

From our yard: raspberries, peas, and the sage in the shrimp & noodles

This was our dinner the other day - and it reminded me that I actually do have an original, I-came-up-with-it-on-my-own cooking tip.

Don't cook your corn. At all. Just shuck it and eat it. Well, I shuck it, cut it off the cob, then eat it, because I hate how it gets stuck in my teeth otherwise. But don't cook it.


In high school I worked on a little family farm for a few summers, and on our breaks we'd sit on the tractor wheels and snack on whatever we were harvesting. Cucumbers we rubbed on our jeans to get the dirt off, then we'd eat them whole. And corn we would shuck and eat raw. And you know what? It's SO much better that way! Not better in the way everything tastes better after you've been working outside, but actually better. Sweeter, and crunchy.

Probably I'd guess it's healthier too, since most things are better for you raw.

So there's my tip.

Love, J

Another visitor

Yay for old friends visiting!

Kel & I scored an evening of this gal's time when she flew back to Spokane for the first time in ages. It was pretty trippy to be chatting & laughing just like old times while her three boys sat around us on the stoop, eating Otter Pops.

Early summer 2002

Summer 2010

I say we look mostly the same as we did. Less... giddy, in the second photo, but it was really late on a weeknight. (Not that I have any idea what day of the week it is anymore.)

And while I was in the photo album, I flipped to the next page and found a picture of my high school change-hunting crew. I forgot this existed, or I would have used it to illustrate my post the other day!

(Sorry you're not in it, Mal - probably you were the one who took it?)

Love, J

Luma

Another project by step-dad and G. I don't know how they did this (he says it wasn't Photoshopped, he was just playing with exposures after dark) but I HAVE to learn how.

His email says: I tried to write “Luna”, but had to do it backwards and got confused. So, it’s now titled “Luma.”

Love, J

PS ~ Happy 4th of July! No plans for us - we're not campers and I dislike fireworks shows almost as much as parades (blech, parades).

I DO like setting off our own fireworks in the street, but our wussy legislators banned that a while back. So I think we'll just walk around and watch our neighbors light their own in the street - all the fun with none of the risk of getting in trouble! (I'm wussy too, see.)

This woman knows me

Insert "boxed mac & cheeze" in the place of "nachos," and this post describes my life exactly as I would, only she's funnier and a has better vocabulary.

I've also never been so filled with emotion by the plight of a stick figure created in Paint.

Love, J

Beeeeagles

I believe in my heart they are the most photogenic of all dogs.

And also the most likely to get at and then eat your entire birthday cake. Three years in a row. Believe me.

Love, J

I'll be cool and piss it all away

Before our run for cross country practice each afternoon, my high school friends and I liked to each take a yard stick and do a lap in the halls, stopping to poke under each vending machine and collect change. We'd also save whatever we came across on our runs, and stash it in a paper cup on the top shelf in our coach's classroom.

By the final track meet that year, we had amassed thirty-something dollars, which we blew at the dollar store on bouncy balls, Mike & Ike's, and other good dollar store stuff. (I'm pretty sure we bought a laundry basket too, but now I can't remember why.)


The hubs and I took on a similar endeavor during the year we lived on Capitol Hill, in Seattle. I rode the bus everywhere, and we both walked downtown a few times a week and found coins just about every time we left the apartment. We started keeping everything we found in a jar, just for the fun of seeing how it would add up.

Each day when we'd get home, the hubs and I would compare our daily total. I had an edge on my commute, as I walked lots of high-traffic sidewalks to get to my bus routes. And he had the advantage during the day, as he trolled the halls of the high school where he taught.

Twice he found dollar bills on the roadside while riding his motorcycle to work, and pulled over to snag them. (I was never that lucky.)


When we came across furniture in the dumpster of our building, we'd tug it onto the elevator and up into our little studio, where it would sit in the bathroom until I got it sold on Craigslist. That cash went in the jar too, because we reasoned it also counted as "found money."


At Value Village last week, I scored a big bag of Cointainer rolls, and when I got home we set about rolling the change we'd found during our year in what is surely Seattle's coolest neighborhood (sorry Ballard).

Grand total...

(is it tacky to say?) ...

(oh, well, I am tacky, so I may as well embrace it)...

$202.

Yeah, buddy.

We want to do something cool with it, and are debating our options. I want something tangible that I can always look at and think of our coining adventures in the Emerald City. Something longer lasting than bouncy balls and Mike & Ike's.

Suggestions?

Love, J

PS ~ I later learned at the bank that we are not supposed to roll our coins anymore. They have one of the machines that count it up for you. And if you do roll your coins, then the teller will sigh loudly as you stand at her counter while she slowly and dramatically unrolls them. But she still has to give you the cash.