A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Sooooo, another week in between posts, but I figure that is better than a month or so. This time there are photos, but you have to read through my ramblings to see them. I know, HORRIBLE!

We had an absolutely beautiful week here in the Pacific Northwest. We went down to the boat on Saturday and grilled burgers and then took a nap. We spent lots of time outside in the yard and Darsie rode her bike a ton. It was just a super nice weekend with lots of sun and quality time spent with the family. Monday was not a welcomed event.

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Mommy Daisy tagged me for a meme, so here goes:

The rules are as follows:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
5. Leave a comment on their blogs so that they know they have been tagged.

My random/weird facts:

1. I am addicted to watching The Girls Next Door. Another guilty tv pleasure is Top Gear.

2. My sister never wanted to share a room with me, but I always wanted to share one with her. Looking back, I know why she didn't, she is five years older than me!

3. I drink coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

4. I'm adopted.

5. I play the oboe.

6. I have a degree in graphic design.

7. Jeff proposed to me by jumping out of a box. It was midnight and my SIL came in my room to wake me up telling me that Darsie needed to eat (she 3 months old). I went out and she mentioned there was a big box on the back deck. I thought Jeff had bought a big screen tv. Nope! I got a husband, even better.

Darsie came home from preschool yesterday with this police woman creation. She was sooooo extremely proud of it.



And of course, the best for last... The girls, riding a trike, safety precautions thrown to the wind.

Is there an echo in here?

I'm sure by now there has been a mass delete of this blog from RSS feeders worldwide. I've been lax. I've been lax for months.

I'm busy finishing up a quilt for Jeff that was promised to him for his birthday, that was in JANUARY. We've been taking lots of trips to the library. We've been boating or at least eating on the boat. We dog sat two dogs for two weeks. We've been starting (another) business. So yeah, excuses, excuses, excuses.

I'm going to leave you with two books that if you sew or want to sew, you should buy (or at least check out from the library). I've checked both of them out and they are on my "buy list".
I don't know how to link to them better, so this will have to work until I can get Jeff to give me a tutorial on HTML.

Bend-The-Rules Sewing, by Amy Karol
This was a great, easy to follow book, with lots of various projects. I made the zippered pouch in about 20 minutes. It would have helped if I had bought the correct type of zipper, so while the pouch sucked, it was my fault and not the book's. I added a ton of the projects to my "must-sew" list. We'll see how soon they get done.


And my other favorite, In Stitches, by Amy Butler
I actually just picked this one up yesterday. This is a great book with tons of beautiful pictures, patterns, project ideas, you name it. Buy it or borrow it.

Caucus smackus

If anybody can explain to me why caucus' instead of primaries are the way to go, I'd love to hear it. Or explain to me why it isn't a huge waste of money for Washington to hold both caucus' and a primary (especially when the democratic party doesn't consider the primary votes at all). Please, enlighten me because I'm feeling pretty jaded by the political system at the moment.

Wouldn't it all be a lot more simple if we really did go by the one vote per person theory?

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick

My cooking style is pretty laissez-faire. If you like to do something, go ahead. Don't worry what the cooking "rules" are.

Shortening might not be that good for you, but damn, it makes some fine chocolate chip cookies. To disgust most folks even further, I use butter flavored shortening. I'm eating one of those cookies right now, for breakfast, with coffee. Yes, breakfast at 11:20 AM. Ok, so maybe it is more brunch-like than breakfast-like.

With this upcoming Superbowl thing (I thought the Giants were a baseball team, no?), I've noticed that on a lot of the food blogs that I read, that people have VERY DEFINITE opinions about guacamole. Now, I'm passionate about guacamole. You put it in front of me, I will passionately eat it, unless it is nasty and vile. However, those times where it was nasty and vile are very few and very far between.

Some of the nuances of guacamole that I've recently read about:
No tomatoes, yes tomatoes, white onions only, only avocado, lots of cilantro, lots of lime juice, curry powder, jalapeño, garlic, no sour cream, yes sour cream, and on, and on, and on. Like I said early, people seem to have a very definite opinion about guacamole.

My husband glorifies the guacamole that his grandma used to make him. And I will agree, it makes a very delicious spread and it is pretty simple. Here goes:

Flo's Guacamole
1 avocado
1 tsp - 1 tbsp minced jalapeño
1 clove garlic minced OR 1 dash of garlic powder
1 spoonful of sour cream
1 liberal sprinkling of salt
1 tbsp minced white onion (if you use another color I won't tell...I never tell Jeff that I normally use yellow because that is what I have on hand)
a squeeze of lime juice (if you have it)

Basically, you just moosh this all together...except for the onion. Jeff is very adamant that it is FOLDED into the guacamole so as to not to bruise the onion, or something like that.

Serve with chips. And beer. And nachos.