Happy New Year's Eve! Chili Day Take 4

Look at these lovely cranberry beans soaking for tomorrow's chili! In a pink bowl!



I am not a huge fan of black eyed peas so we are making a new tradition. These beans are especially gorgeous bought fresh, which mine are not, but check them out in their spotty pods.

Jason suggested making a Tabasco cream sauce but IKEA scale says I am officially FAT so I will be eating mine simply, with some lemon and herbs, per the Eat to Live guide. I suppose it is not strictly chili, but it is beans and so we press on.

I think I did pretty well for December blogasm. I missed some days but did not beat myself up about it. In the spirit of success and new chances, here are a few modest resolutions:

-Eat better and move more. Now that I know I have a good 50 pounds to lose (the internet says I am officially "obese" which is something of a wake-up call) I'm resolved to cram myself full of beans and vegetables until I can at least qualify for "pudgy" again -- and maybe less.

-Reclaim my hobbies. I love to knit but it all has been stuffed in the closet for so long that it is hard to get started on anything. Likewise, I am a huge theater buff but I rarely go to shows anymore. It is desirable to spend money on things that will make me happy and more interesting.

-Do not sweat the small stuff. 'Cause, you know, it's all small stuff.

Happy new year to all!

Chili Week Day 2 - Dumplins

3 bean chili with corn dumplings, from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.

This is so neat because it cooks all day (or, night, as the case may be) and then you drop the dumplings in during the last 45 minutes and they cook right in the pot.

Nom!

Chili Week! Day 1

Sunday: steamer broccoli; Hormel chili in a can

Questionable Gifts for Your Formerly Vegetarian Friends and their Omnivore Children

Hubert the Pudge might be considered hilarious or it might get you off the xmas list permanently.

Let's find out!

People who loved Hubert also loved:
Benji Bean Sprout Doesn't Eat Meat
Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon

Xmas Spirit

Well, howdy!

We made some format changes around here. Sorry about the flashy picture thing over there. It was the only option.

Pulled out the wrapping paper today to make some merry. I found the "nice kitty" cat stocking from Ryan J. last year. So, the cat has a stocking and none of the rest of us do. Typical for how things work around here.

Tonight: EGG NOG.

If I were in the vegan food business, I'd make a mock-nog called "Egg not." "Mock nog" is pretty good, too.

The new archive format highlights months in which I was particularly verbose. No surprise there: the beginning and end of the school year.

Hope you and yours are making merry, too.

But Mom Lets Me Do It...

All year, the rule has been "bed is for humans and cats" and the dog has never argued, save for the first few days home after staying with a more lenient dogsitter.

Today, though... man.



Every time I turned around that dog was all "whoooooo dog on the bed!"

And I was like no, NO, no dogs on the bed!

And she was like: Come ON. I have put up with you people and your ridiculous "loveseat" for like a YEAR and it is cold and I miss my couch. Let a dog on the bed.

And I was like NO. The cat is going to claw your eyes out.

And the cat was like: Nah, I'm cool.

And I was like FINE but you CANNOT tell Jason -- and then we all took a nap. One huge calico Christmas vacation 3pm nap.

It was soooo good.

Still Here

Nothing to report.

Oh, except, I have been trying to figure out how to eat my persimmon but I can't figure out what kind of persimmon it is, so it just keeps sitting there getting riper.

I am going to go slice it!

UPDATE:

Looks like salmon, tastes like spicy mango. MMM.

Dream Jobs

Lucky guy.

"Three months ago, Favreau lived in a group house with six friends in Chicago, where he rarely shaved, never cooked and sometimes stayed up to play video games until early morning. Now, he has transformed into what one friend called a "Washington political force" -- a minor celebrity with a down payment on a Dupont Circle condo, whose silly Facebook photos with a Hillary Rodham Clinton cutout created what passes for controversy in Obama's so far drama-free transition."

It's Beginning to Feel

a lot like Starbucks should never have replaced their Gingerbread Lattes. Seriously. Get those soggy ginger bits outa my coffee.

Christmas carols this morning on NPR were not annoying. NPR in general is annoying. Give us Diane Rehm! I want to hear about dogs and morality!

Jason's co-worker's bestest mixest mix is almost as good as Christmas carols.

I hand addressed 75 Christmas cards today. By the end, my cursive was indecipherable. I'm sorry: none of the cards were for you. Bizness only.

This daily blogging thing is a pain, and I missed a few days, but I am trying.

2 more days until Vacay...

So the new Secretary of Ed. plays basketball and is very tall.

Works for me.

VIPs

Earlier today, Jason--in a relentless attempt to make me function like a grown-up-- sorted a stack of Very Important Papers for me to go through and identify as 1) save; 2) shrederate; 3) WTF.

Category 3 is a pile I invented myself, for items that I don't know what I'm supposed to do with. Like -- address labels from the humane society with my address and kittens! Who throws that away? They probably spent a lot of money on the printing. I bet I could use these someday.

Anyway, the cat was like "SHREDERATE!" and I was like, hold on, I'm not done sorting yet.

In this holiday season of annual appeals (LOOK--I am sorry PBS, you are not getting any more money from me until someone answers my email about why the digital station won't work and NPR, you are not getting any money either: I want MORE talking and LESS classical and no I won't subscribe to your HD whatever) I think about people with lots of money and all the mail they must receive this time of year.

For them, I wish personal assistants to hang the holiday cards and pay the bills and give the money that needs to be given, and cats with sharp claws to turn the rest to confetti.

List of Animals and Descriptions Contained in 1 Packet Yam Yam - Choco Cream

Mole - In a Hole

Cat - Say Meow

Rabbit - Eat More Carrots

Mouse - Do Not Be Timid

Seal - Loves to Sun Tan

Whale - Biggesy Mammal

Zebra - Herbivore

Stag Beetle - Love It

Panda - Go For More

Driving to Austin in T Minus...

Just waiting for the pod to charge.

Doodle doodle dooo.

The apartment hunt is looking up, maybe.

Did I mention it snowed yesterday?

I've been so WOWed this week I am ready for things to get bland again.

Ok, here goes...

Hell Freezeth Over

Sorry ladies, I think you have to go to school tomorrow.

Film Review in Middle School

"I cannot believe how much that movie sucked."

Like, totally, kid.

Movie download

Son of Rambow - yes
Milk - yesss
Grizzly Man - eurgh?
White Diamond - yes yes

Do not go gently into that 24 hour Walgreens

Maybe you should call it a night, instead.

Uuuugggggggh my head.

And also

Fresh off of yesterday's post:

Bill and Melinda Gates go back to school

It's Not Too Late

I had basically sworn off ever getting a master's degree in education, but this might be interesting:

Lesley University School of Education: Master of education in curriculum and instruction: Out-of-School Time

Ignore the part about being a teaching fellow.

Lesley University is a school I have never heard of that, of which my Harvard School of Ed. educated buddy thinks highly. Do not get excited: I am not moving to Boston.

The benefit for me: a more robust understanding of after-school time as an under-utilized opportunity to raise student achievement.

Still not as important as business school for what I do, but I think I need at least a master's degree for any job with a large foundation.

Should we talk about the fact that, when it comes to education, I am basically a Republican? Sorry, mom. It took me many years to realize this; that and pussyfooting around the question: "What do you think of NCLB?" I used to say--blah blah, underfunded--but my new answer is: YES, it's a start. Yes we MUST measure student achievement and hold teachers accountable for moving children forward under their care. We must STOP saying "it's the parents, stupid," because all parents want the best for their children and to operate under any other belief is bigotry.

Interesting movement on this front in Houston:

HISD taps Acronym leader as HR chief

HISD board member takes on union's Leader

As a purely selfish aside: Because I know these people, it makes me feel EXTRA IMPORTANT and also all tingly.

And, while I am trying to operate with a spirit of generosity, a certain ANTI-ACRONYM person is at the tippy-top of the Secretary of Ed short list, which I warned you people about (on facebook) months ago:

NYT Op-Ed: Who Will He Choose?

Respectfully submitted, yours,

Can We Ride With You?

"Did you drive, or did you have a driver?" demanded Richard Shelby (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate banking committee, which questioned the lowly threesome. "Did you drive a little and ride a little? And secondly, I guess, are you going to drive back? And, if so, if some of us wanted a ride to Detroit, could we ride with you?"

Muffin

I call the cat Muffin sometimes, too. All sweet things become "muffin."

Dec. 4 Out of the Way Early

I really, really love outdoor fires.

Even better with a guitar.

Even better with foil dinners.

Even if you can't have either of the above.... wow. Fire. Total Magic.

Get This Done In Four Minutes

Happy birthday, Stacy.

Later, let's talk about shopping vs. saving; the obscure sacrifices we need to make in this "new economy" (which I have not felt yet, knock on wood).

Surely, it must be more than "turn the water off when you brush your teeth" which I learned in 3rd grade.

I Had a Good Thing Going Here

It is not hard to pinpoint when the bloggy break started. It started when I discovered google alerts and started tracking certain keywords to aid me in my work. And then I discovered things from those alerts that I surely was not meant to see -- college livejournals stressing over an upcoming acronym interview; somebody trashing a bad interning experience.

And then I got all paranoid about little nothing small-audience blogs like this one thrust quite unknowingly and unwillingly into inboxes everywhere, because of a keyword. Someone inadvertently reading about the ONE TIME I was dissatisfied with a job, a co-worker, a volunteer.

And it turns out that if you don't have anything nice to say, usually you don't have much to say at all. Gofiggure.

I am trying to change that. ANONYMOUSLY.

Tonight Will Be Fine

I am trying to do this thing where I blog every day regardless of whether I have anything worth saying. This is because a certain relative of mine is showing me up in the blogging department and, well, we can't have that. Also: it is hard to judge if things are worth saying if one is not generally saying anything at all. Therefore, MUSIC VIDEOS!

Here's this wonderful cover song from a Leonard Cohen documentary (with Spanish subtitles?):



And here's another guy featured on that same Leonard Cohen documentary singing a Leonard Cohen song (but not the song he sang in the documentary):



And because you are probably sick of Leonard Cohen now but still appreciative of the rule of threes, here is a song I heard covered this weekend and was like, "whoa -- I know all the words to this song -- because my parents played the crap out of that record when I was growing up." It is a video of two happy looking people on their honeymoon. She looks about my age. I bet her parents played this record to death, also.

Doggonit

So apparantly people still celebrate these things called "holidays" during this season we call "winter" and would you believe they happen annually and yet every year I find myself thoroughly unprepared. Could someone please give me a HEADS UP next year and I will try to pay attention. Gosh.

It is nice to latch onto a project to distract onesself from all the non-holiday drudgery, but difficult when said project is not instantly gratifying. What's more, I am tired of apologizing to potential landlords for the dog. The dog is very sweet, she does not bark or chew, she lives with us and she is not going away. I know, I know, no sane apartment-seeking person is going to say "yeah, I have a dog; she's a holy terror" but the fact is that PEOPLE HAVE DOGS and IT IS NORMAL and so why must the realtor insist on acting all squirrelly like "wellll... could the dog pass for 45 pounds?" No, Weirdo, the dog weighs 58 pounds. She is all muscle and legs. She is a skinny-assed greyhound and she can run circles around you for approximately 5 minutes and then she will be on the COUCH eating popcorn and watching cable.

Find me a landlord who appreciates this and let's make a deal.