Saturday, November 22, 2008

Up at 1:30 am



Originally uploaded by shadowplay
Just painted my nails.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Memorial of Victory in Second World War

I'll write about the Rodina-Mat memorial later. Oh yes. I will.


Just know this. I've been there.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Depression


Depression 6813.5
Originally uploaded by Kurt Preissler
Been feeling really low today, so I decided to look thru Flickr to find
a photo that would represent my emotional state.

There were photos of people slumped in chairs and corners, heads in hands. Seriously hopeless. "Wow. That's depressing," I thought. Too dang depressing for MY blog!

Then I came across this. Huh?

A depression . . . in the ground.

And I laughed.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

We've just witnessed history.


President Obama and Family
Originally uploaded by zhaydi
A week ago, the United States held it's Presidential election ~ a long slog of campaigning that lasted for what seemed like forever. We had a glut of choices throughout those 2 years:

Democrats: Barak Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Rodham Clinton (the little engine who thought she could & dang well should), Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson.

Republicans: John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, Fred Thompson, Tommy Thompson.

And don't forget Ralph Nader, who didn't even make it onto the Washington Post's list. (Is he still LIVING???!!)

Besides the spectacle of Hillary hanging on like an irritating drop-kick chiuaua on the country's ankle, we had the skewering of Mitt Romney and the question of whether a Mormon who wears "magic underwear" should be the President.

All those other guys? Meh.

When push came to shove, it was down to John McCain and Barak Obama. Naturally, the paranoid, uber-conservative, we-only-know-white-people, insular friends of ours came out in droves ~ emailing their hysterical anti-Obama warnings. He's Muslim! (So what?) His middle name is Hussein! (My middle name is Lynn, but I'm not in cahoots with Loretta Lynn.) He's black! (Okay. I won't even go there.) I even got an email that featured lines of red and blue of alternating huge type warning of the certain death of prayer, faith, God, and the downfall of the country if Barak Hussein Obama took the office. We were entreated to pray 4 times a day to "keep him out of the White House!"

I really liked both candidates. They each have things that I value. They each have things that I disagree with. I was so torn that I really had no idea who I was going to vote for. I felt that either one was a fine choice ~ or maybe that either choice might be the lesser of two evils!

So I didn't know who I would choose until I opened my mail-in ballot and had pen in hand. And when I sealed the envelope, I had a feeling of peace come over me. I don't know that it was a confirmation of a good choice, but I do know that I was glad it was over.

And now that all is said and done, I'm thrilled to have a black family in the White House. I believe that if he does nothing else, he will change the perception of the U.S. abroad ~ which is what we reeeeeaaaaallllllly need.

I don't know that I'll pray for him 4 times a day, but when I do pray, it will be that he will be protected, and will make good choices to help our country get back on track.

God Bless the United States of America!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Too lazy to bake!


no bake cookies!
Originally uploaded by gracefullady
Yesterday I was starving for junk - not an unusual event in my life.

I planed on baking chocolate chip cookies, but I decided they were too much work. (I'm such a homemaker.)

So today I finally caved and decided to make an easier-style cookie - NO BAKES!

My first mistake was to double the recipe. Quickly followed by the fact that I used a too-small pan. But I had already put the butter in and it was a'meltin' ~ and I thought that Mark had pitched our bigger pot cuz the teflon is getting wonky on the bottom. But that's another story.

So I started adding the sugar, foolishly hoping that, against the laws of the universe, the sugar in melted form would somehow fit into it. Then I forgot how many cups of sugar I had added.

I realized there wasn't enough room for all of the ingredients anyway, so I decided to look around for another pan. And found the one Mark hadn't thrown out and made the switch.

So I faked it and added sugar until it looked right. But then there wasn't enough cocoa powder. Or oats.

The mixture rose to the top of the pan ~ and as I frantically stirred and lowered, and lowered the temperature, it boiled over. It was too heavy to lift with one hand, so I just resigned myself to a later scrub job.

When all was said and done, I had a ton of sugar/butter/peanut butter/vanilla syrup, and enough oats that it took so long for it to mix up that it all sugared.

So now we have about 10 cookies and a huge bowl of sugar/butter/peanut butter/vanilla oat granola.

And I don't even want any.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

A Grilled Cheese Stream of Consciousness

It's 4:30 on election morning, and I've been watching a verrry old rerun of While You Were Out while I put off going to bed ~ as usual.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a commercial for Kraft cheese featuring a little girl eating a grilled cheese sandwich.

Mind you, I hate Kraft fake cheese squares. But I love grilled cheese sandwiches~ especially when dipped in Campbell's tomato soup (made with milk, not water ~ gross).

And that made me think of how, in one of my favorite movies, Benny and Joon, Johnny Depp's character taught his mentally ill sweetheart Joon how to cook grilled cheese sandwiches using an iron.

Great movie. Great sandwich. And a great way to make one.