yes, i still love this.

I laugh-cried again just now.

first world problems

I think Sam is in another shedding phase. He's dropping hair left and right, usually in clumps on the floor. Yay black dog hair and light brown hardwood floors!

My goal for reading this year was 75 books. I finished my 75th book on October 8, which was Donald Rumsfeld's memoir, Known and Unknown. Blech. Andrew always asks me why I read memoirs from politicians in the Bush administration (Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney) if I disagree with their politics so much. It's because they've taken the time to explain their reasoning and the rational behind their decisions and actions and I want to understand why they made those choices. Plus, I've read memoirs from Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright, but there just happens to be a slew of Republican memoirs being published now.

So since I've met my 75 goal, I've upped it t0 100 books in a year. I'm currently at 89 right now so it's very doable. Here's what I've read since September 15:
68. Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
69. Not Becoming My Mother, Ruth Reichel
70. Run Like A Girl, Mina Samuels
71. Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, Lois Frankel
72. Freakonomics, Steven Levitt/Stephen Dubner
73. The Leftovers, Tom Perrotta
74. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford
75. Known and Unknown, Donald Rumsfeld
76. To Be a Runner, Martin Dugard
77. Superfreakonomics, Steven Levitt/Stephen Dubner
78. The Greatest Music Stories Never Told, Rick Beyer
79. Devil’s Knot, Mara Leveritt
80. The President and the Assassin, Scott Miller
81. In My Time, Dick Cheney
82. The Violets of March, Sarah Jio
83. Why We Buy, Paco Underhill
84. How I Killed Pluto, Mike Brown
85. Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, Lauren Redniss
86. Secret Daughter, Shilpi Somaya Gowda
87. Killing Kate, Julie Kraemer
88. Blood, Bones & Butter, Gabrielle Hamiliton
89. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

My favorites are Unbroken, The Leftovers, Freakonomics/Superfreaknomics, How I Killed Pluto, Killing Kate, Blood, Bones & Butter and The Night Circus.

Since I read so many books, I usually get a ton out from the library at a time.

I'd like to get a Kindle so I don't have to go to the library every week and also so I don't have to carry multiple books around with me at once, say if I'm almost to the end of a book and think I'll finish it before I get home. It would be a good Christmas present, yes?

But here's the thing: The library doesn't have nearly as many ebooks as it does actual books. I looked at books I've currently requested and it's about 40-50% available in ebooks. Otherwise, Amazon does have a lending library system, but you have to be a special member ($80/year) and you can only borrow one book a month. ONE. That's not reasonable for me. I also don't want to buy ebooks all the time, since those are $12-16 per book. So if I get a Kindle, it might be a half and half thing, where I borrow on Kindle if possible and otherwise get a hard copy. Man, my life is so hard.

Here's pictures of Sam to cheer you up from thinking about all the problems I face in life:

Sam and a lobster treat that Mom and Harry brought back from Maine.

Sam clearly also has a very difficult life as well.

Here's what I'm making for dinner tonight: Crock pot mac and cheese.

And HOLY CRAP. This is double stuffed acorn squash like a fall explosion in your mouth. I highly recommend it:


Ok. Time to go de-dog hair my apartment. I will save all the hair for a homemade pillow for Sam to lay his little doggy head on, since it was his hair in the first place.

Bacher out.

P.S. Oh yeah, Kari is in the country.

pushover

What's going on with you today?

Not much here... Sam and I are just hanging out.



You can guess who the pushover in this relationship is.

trees, gourds and sprouts. and a car.

Things going on:

We bought a new car! Huzzah!

Andrew's starting making terrible engine noises on the way back from WI a few weeks back. After checking it out, it was either 1: new engine or 2: new car. Considering the body of his car was in pretty bad shape and we were thinking about getting a new car sometime in the next year anyway... new car it is!

Car shopping is a huge pain in the ass. You spend a lot of time looking on websites to find vehicles in your price and mileage range, then go to the car lot to see that the car is in worse condition than it looked online or that it's been sold already. We were very close to buying a different car and while we were giving the dealer 36 hours to think about putting new tires on it, someone else bought the car. That was disappointing, but I really like the car we bought and it's in great condition and has less miles than the other car. So go us!

Since our evenings were consumed with car researching/test driving/buying for the past two weeks, the house pretty much went to shit. I only finished the last of the Massive Pile of dishes yesterday (it was so massive that it deserves uppercase). It didn't help that we needed to continue to eat, thus adding to the Massive Pile. We also had a Big-Ass Pile of laundry, but we did that on Sunday.

I opened up a retirement account - woo! Considering the economy is shit, I'm in a pretty aggressive fund, hoping that by the time I retire at 88, I'll have enough to pay for a mediocre old folk's farm. I'm not betting that Sam will take care of me in my old age... he seems pretty thankless.

Sam spends a lot of time sitting or trying to sit on our laps.

Ok, that's Dia. I took that to make Sam jealous.

Andrew cut down this big ass tree and we want to make a cutting board from the wood cookie:

For scale.

Although that little shit has been taking bites out of the bark. I found him chewing on a hunk of bark just this morning.

I just made a batch of acorn squash seeds using my patented "forget about them and remember in a panic" method. They are pretty damn tasty. I'm going to try gnocchi this afternoon.

I bought a pumpkin at the store and made pumpkin puree. I haven't used it for anything yet, so I'm open to suggestions of pumpkin-flavored deliciousness.

I also bought two stalks(? sprouts?) of Brussels sprouts at the farmers market while I was on the way home from a happy hour last week. Impluse purchase? No, never. Not when it comes to Brussels sprouts. We're down to one last serving of sprouts from the two stalks, so that'll be my lunch today.

Ok, there's a finale episode of Project Runway that's calling my name, so time to go cook sprouts and make gnocchi. Bacher out.

camping

A story in pictures.



(ok, this one is in here because Sam had a leaf hanging from his mouth.)




The end.

how to make perfect roasted squash seeds

My secret tip to cooking perfect squash/pumpkin seeds?

Rinse/salt the seeds. Put the oven at 200 degrees. Leave the seeds in the oven and literally forget about them. While getting a drink of water before going to bed, realize you forgot the seeds were in the oven and take them out in a panic. Enjoy!

Perfect, seriously.

the chicken and i

Step one: Get a chicken.



Step two: Cut the chicken apart.


Step three: Make stuff from the chicken for later.


Step four: Eat stuff from the chicken now.


Step five: Repeat.