And on the 21st Day

Well, life has continued to be dull with moments of supreme interest. Hopefully, you will not doze as you read this.

I finally, yay! had the surgery on my leg. This was an experience that I hope never to repeat. There was good and there was bad. I liked the surgeon as a person. He was very nice and chatted throughout the entire procedure. He did not believe that the "lump" was what was causing me difficulty in walking. He also never looked at the ultrasound. The ultrasound that told the physician's assistant that it was too deep for her to take care of. The "lump" turned out to have 3 "legs" (I've referred to it as a multi-legged beast), one of which went down deep. All total, the mess was about the size of a medium potato. It's gone. I haven't limped since, nor has my leg crumpled. Then again, with the exception of a brief outing on Wednesday, I've been rather sedate. Tomorrow will provide the answer as I will be going back to work.

I ended up taking the whole of last week off. I should have gone in to work on Friday but overslept and, well, there you have it. The incision site has actually be the real problem. I've had to wear really, really loose clothing because of that pain. It's still tender but I'll live. Tomorrow I will be wearing a skirt--obviously. I'm also riding the bus. Yay bus!

I've done a tiny bit of cooking. Tiny because, for the most part, I haven't really been hungry. I had actually lost about 6 pounds, although now that I'm eating again, I've gained back 2. I have wanted to be able to make seitan for some time. Purchasing it has never made me happy as it always seem tough and the sausages are expensive. I held a package of Tofurkey sausages in my hands a couple of weeks ago and almost passed out due to the fat content. So, this week I have made 3 separate batches. Okay, the first of those was made last weekend. I was a bit distracted during that event and couldn't decide which of 2 recipes I was following. Ended up leaving out the spices and the salt so the faux sausages were pretty dry and bland. My second batch of faux sausages turned out perfectly. They are rather mild but I suspect that they will be perfect as a breakfast sausage with some roasted root veggies.

For the batch of faux sausages that I made yesterday, I primarily relied on Susan's Faux Irish Sausages. I added a bit (about 1/2 teaspoon) of Marmite and 1/2 cube of no-beef bullion to the wet ingredients. The sausages turned out nice and tender with a lovely mild flavor. Oh, I also substituted 1/4 cup of garbanzo flour for 1/4 cup of gluten flour. That idea came courtesy of Bryanna Grogan's Italian cookbook.

I made another batch of seitan today using the scaloppine from Susan's Seitan Scaloppine with Lemon-Olive Sauce. My only changes were leaving out the basil and adding about 3/4 teaspoon of Marmite and 1/2 cube of the no-beef bullion. I love it. I plan to put a "pot of stew" on before I go to work in the morning using the seitan. Thanks to my veggie box, I have potatoes and carrots coming out of my ears and a stew seems like the perfect way to create a comfort food out of them. I'll cut up the veggies and set out the can of tomatoes before I go to bed tonight. That way, I can put it in the slow cooker while brewing my cuppa espresso.

My other bit of experimenting this week was trying the diet soda and cake mix recipe. It turned out pretty good, albeit so tender that a fork does not work to carry the slice from the cake pan to the plate. No, I will not eat it directly from the cake pan. Ew. My version was diet Crush and a low sugar yellow cake mix. No eggs; no oil; no water. 9 X 13 inch pan for 35 minutes. How easy is that? I topped it with a mix of 1 cup of the diet Orange Crush, 2 teaspoons of corn starch. Once that was thickened, I added a drained can of crushed pineapple. Oh, and I added a splash of sugar-free vanilla Italian syrup. It was silly fun but not something that I would serve company. At least without some more fussing. I was more impressed with the cake mix and can of pumpkin puree that I baked a few months ago. That has more potential. Just think: spices, shredded carrots, walnuts, pineapple. . . sound like easy carrot cake to you?

Enough with the food. I have a new toy. Okay, I have 2 new toys --one of which I shouldn't have purchased. I have a new PC which I love. I had the previous one for less than 4 years but it was getting slower and slower. I was convinced that my DSL was slower than molasses and was seriously considering doing something drastic about it. I opened up the PC and found that it was filthy inside. I generally get inside and, using a can of air, give it a good clean out every couple of months just on general principle. Somehow, I had either gotten off schedule or it was just a nasty gooey junk magnet. Not wanting to spend a bundle to fix the dang thing, I did the next best thing: I bought a new one. I found one on Tiger Direct that provided me with the choice between Windows XP and Vista. Had to have XP. Sorry Microsoft but Vista has the worst rep that I've ever heard about an operating system. Anyway, I was a bit slow in making my migration to the new PC. I'm having some difficulty with a second hard drive that I've had for years and am praying that it won't cost me a fortune to rescue it because I do have to rescue it. No choice. The second hard drive was my only form of back up. That is a mistake that I won't make again and I strongly recommend that whatever your system, you take steps to back up all of your important data.

I also purchased a laptop so that I could be a bit more portable. My writing just wasn't happening here in my office space so I am hoping that a different environment will help. I'm still working out the kinks there. The only modem that I have for it is dial up and getting the system update by dial up is almost laughable. A little bit at a time. I also am having difficulty with the battery but will be dealing with that this week. I'm not sure if I go through Tiger or to the manufacturer for that but will find out. I will report later on how their customer service is.

Not else to report. I've been reading and cleaning. That's it. Pretty dull but I am pleased that I have actually gotten more serious about my writing. My next post will include a bit of fiction for your reading pleasure. I promise that it won't be weeks from now. Really.

Yes, I know that I didn't provide any links but if you really want them, let me know and I'll hunt them down for you.

I'm so Boring

Where have I been? Right here. Boring myself to death and sparing you the pain and agony of it all. It's pretty sad actually. I, who can usually blather away about nothing, have had nothing to blather away about for some time now.

We had an election this week past. It was, as I suspected, a waste of time and money. Lots of money that the State did/does not have. And everything the governor wanted went down. No surprise there. What does it mean? Lots of painful cuts to everyone who relies on the services of the State.

I'll be seeing another cut in pay even though my agency is not affected by the economy. Yet. I'm not sure that I can handle it. I ended this month in the hole (and the month isn't even over yet). Obviously I have no choice but to work harder at making cuts to my standard of living. I was going to make my own soy milk but fell off that wagon. I will be going back to that. I'll be doing some other wild and weird things in the kitchen--most of which will probably be healthier than I have been eating, not that I eat unhealthily. (is that even a word?) I suspect that the cooking blog will be seeing some action 'cuz I gots me some ideas. Obviously I will need to make other cuts in my life in order to make it through the next 18 months or so.

What have I been doing with my furlough days? I had such big plans back in January. Have not followed through on even one of them. Most furlough days I end up sleeping the day away. Yesterday was a good example. I slept until 4:30 pm. Yeah, a full 17 hours of sleep. And then I was back in bed at midnight. I guess that I haven't been as unaffected by depression as I previously thought.

News on the surgery front: It's still a ways away. While in the six month program, I was not informed that I needed to attend a seminar before I could even see the surgeon. I found out after the April seminar so I didn't get to one until May. I've been sitting on the paperwork that I need to send in before I can actually get to the surgeon. Why? Well, one of the things that the surgeon said during the seminar freaked me out. My plan, all along, has been to get the gastric band. During the seminar, the surgeon stated that people who are grazers do not do well with the band. Why, because grazers are constantly eating. It is true. I have always had something on my desk between meals--theoretically to keep my blood sugar balanced. So, I have been retraining myself in the past couple of weeks to eat 3 meals and 2 snacks. It's been a bit of a challenge because it means eating more at one time than I am used to. I feel like I have been successful in my retraining and so will be sending in the paperwork on Tuesday.

I just read my last blog entry and about choked. I've figured out that I am in a different time-space continuum than the rest of the world. I thought that I had just messed up the pantry-thing a couple of weeks ago. Oy! The first pantry was a failure. I didn't count all of the hardware pieces when I first opened the package so didn't know that I was missing one very important screw--a part of a cam lock. Joy! Then, when assembling the pantry, I didn't realize that two dowel holes were not drilled deep enough. When I was putting on the second side, the two dowels came popping through the side. Yeah team. This means that the first, yes I said first, pantry was ruined.

Last weekend, I managed to drive to Lowe's and pick up a replacement. I'll need to get a new backing for the second pantry but went ahead and used the enclosed one. The second pantry was assembled and mostly filled. I still need to pull out the small appliances, that I intend to put in the pantry, and then move the pots and pans into that cupboard. Then I will be moderately happy. Getting the cookware off the top of the stove and counter will actually make me very happy. It will also allow me to have a really clean kitchen for the first time since I moved into this apartment. Yeah!

And now that I've almost got that project finished, I can move more along with the rest of the digs. I'm not going to wait until the rest of the apartment is perfect before I start selling on eBay. I'm going to have to start doing that pretty darn quick if I want to continue reading. Hopefully, I will have my eBay selling started before the end of June. I decided that I am going to actually sell more than just the romance/erotica that I've been buying over the past two years. I am going to start emptying the rest of my shelves. So, look for religious/new age books along with cookbooks and self-help books. I am not sure how much of the religious books that I will be selling but I plan to part with a huge chunk of the New Age books. Look at it this way, I have to release a whole hecka lotta schtuff in order to make room in my life for more schtuff.

Knitting. Well, I started the Clapotis. Several times. I even ripped it out several times. It is currently in the "ripped out" stage but I plan to put it back onto the needles at some point this weekend. I have me some serious hopes.

I started a scarf out of a pink (really) wool coupled with a variegated mohair (there's a surprising combo). The variegated mohair is black, grays, with a touch of pink. I'm not sure what possessed me to go with the pink but it is kind of interesting looking. I have a possible home for it; however I would really like to give that "home" a much more, oh, sophisticated scarf. We shall see. Hopefully I will get pictures going again.

I have registered with Ravelry but don't spend much time there. My ID is Blueheart in case you get a wild yen to send me an email or invite me to take a peek at your fabulous knitting. Wow. I just realized that I last ripped the Clap in mid April. Yikes. I've also got a MySpace page but haven't done much with it. Why would I be more interesting there than I am here? Eh? My ID there is also Blueheart.

Well, I'm calling it an end to this blog entry. I haven't really said anyhting but I have managed to blather. I am going to do better even if it means that I just say "hi, I'm alive." I need the writing practice. I will post links to my eBay auctions once I get that show on the road.

I feel so alone

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 1 or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. http://howmanyofme.com">How many have your name?

I saw the link to the above Web site and couldn't resist. Sputter but. . . . I am all alone. Once I got over myself I noticed that, according to that same Web site:

There are 33,624 people in the U.S. with the last name Blue.
Statistically the 1048th most popular last name.
Famous people with the last name Blue:
Callum Blue
Vida Blue

Okay, I know who Vida Blue is (incidentally, if my memory serves, Mr. Blue went to the same JC my parents and I attended. But I could be wrong.) but who is Callum Blue? Okay a Yahoo search tells me that he is a 13 year old English actor who traces his ancestors back to the Romans. Very nice. My family is from the wild isles of Scotland. Originally. We won't talk about what's happened since 1747. So we're not related. Oh, wait. This was the youngster from Dead Like Me. Definitely not related.

So much for irrelevant nonsense. Then again, is nonsense ever relevant? Hmmmmm. Philosophy.

This past week marked the last month for my obesity, um, project. I've finished all but one of the appointments and now get to move on to the surgical portion of the show. It should prove interesting and, hopefully, a bit entertaining. I'll keep you posted.

My kitchen is a wreck. I purchased a "pantry" and decided to assemble it this afternoon so I moved all of the assorted schtuff that was in the way. Unfortunately, I cannot find the hardware. When I open a piece of "some assembly required" anything, I automatically put all of the hardware into a Ziploc bag. So the only positive right now is that wherever it is hiding, it is all together. I am so very happy. Not. Oh, and those 3M hooks that say they will not damage the paint: wrong. In spades. Ripped the white paint off and the uncovered dark wood shows brilliantly.

The furlough of State employees is still an unmitigated confusing mess. The first furlough day scheduled is February 6 but there are a couple of lawsuits including one where the Controller is a defendant but has requested to renamed a plaintiff. How on earth does that work and have you ever heard of such a thing? So, as of this weekend, I do not know what will be happening. That said, it is certainly an interesting mess, yes? As the Chinese say. . . .

Knitting and: I don't think that I've done any this week. In fact, I am not sure what happened to this week. I recall going to work and a slew of medical-ish appointments but the rest of the week is missing from my memory banks. Must have been some good sh. . . So, there are no frugal links or ideas. There are no new recipes.

I guess that I should go away. Hmm. . . and continue my search for the errant hardware.

Have a lovely week. Hopefully next week's post will be brilliant.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 2009

Wow. It is hard to believe that in less than 24 hours, we will have a new president. It's been a painful 8 years both politically and socially. We had an election that seemed to have been stolen from us, with hanging chads, recounts and law suits. We were attacked by terrorists. We went to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. We watched in horror while Katrina and Rita wiped out a fair portion of our country and then the delay in government services. We saw the loss of some of our constitutional and civil rights. We saw the economy tank.

We also saw men and women standing tall to serve their country. And serve they did and have. And for far too long. Our military was downsized in the 80's and 90's and we are feeling the pain of it today. As a result of that downsizing, those serving have served far too many turns and really need to be brought home so that they can heal, both physically and psychologically. Yes, I understand that it isn't over but right-size the military for Pete's sake.

Last night I took the opportunity to watch the concert on the mall that HBO was showing and got to knit in the process. It was a delight to see so many artists singing and speaking about this country of ours. And what a joy it was to see Pete Seeger up there singing his heart out. That man is incredible. I could have done without Garth Brooks in his too tight jeans but that was balanced out by the wonderful group of kids singing behind him.

Tomorrow is the inauguration. While I will be at work during the big event. I plan on plopping myself in front of the computer tomorrow night and watch what I can. Hopefully I will find a site that will let me watch the main event along with YoYo Ma. That would be splendid.

Today is supposed to be in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and folks strongly suggest volunteering and/or some other service. I reckon that would be a good thing. Today, however, I am serving myself, selfish narcissist that I am. So far, I've done some laundry, mixed a batch of bread, put on a crock pot of spit peas, made a batch of soymilk and done the first round of dishes. There is still much to be done before I can call it a day. I've been wasting too many days sitting in front of the computer letting life pass me by while the piles climb higher. I'm working on it.

Crock pot. Friday I ended up coming home from work early. I've been fighting a losing battle with a cold and missed far too much time from work last week. At any rate, I decided that I needed a pot of soup so after my first nap I pulled out the crock pot and started chopping. Into the pot went a leek, a couple of carrots, a couple of potatoes, dried tomatoes, dried onions, some rice, quorn (fake chicken), and lots of vegetable broth. That was at 3pm. At 10, the carrots were just starting to get tender and the potato was still quite hard. Took the crock out of the cooker and let it cool down to put it in the fridge. Pulled it out in the morning and put it back in the cooker for another few hours. Did I mention that this was on high? The soup turned out pretty tasty. I wish that I had taken the time to stop at the store for a couple more veggies but thems the breaks.

Since the soup took so long, I decided to run a test with the split peas. Hopefully it will be done much quicker but so far it's not looking good. I have a cookbook "Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, filled with wonderful sounding recipes. Unfortunately, they are all for shorter periods of time than my usual work day. That said, if my crock pot is even slower than a slow cooker, perhaps it may work out just the same. Hence the split pea test.

I would like to eat seitan more frequently, however it, like all fake meats, is fairly expensive. I've been debating all day purchasing some vital wheat gluten to make my own. Blame it on the fat free vegan. Susan has a recipe for Seitan Scaloppine with Lemon-Olive Sauce that sounds tempting. Her instructions for the seitan make it seem so easy that it's hard to ignore. I'll probably break down before the end of the day and order the gluten from Amazon.

I had planned on starting to include some links and ideas for frugal living, unfortunately my brain hasn't gotten that far in my search. I think that I'm still too busy trying to get my ducks in a row. Maybe by next week I will have a better idea of what's going.

Well, that's the babble for today. I hope to be better organized in the coming weeks. Frugal living schtuff along with recipes to be posted. Yes, I feel organization coming down.

The Cranky One Cooks and . . .

It's been how long since I posted?!!

Goodness gracious. You'd think that I'd forgotten how to cook since so much time has passed. I haven't and many a tasty dish has been prepared. It's been a bit challenging as I've been trying to stick to the dieting life. As a vegetarian, one would think that obesity would not be a possibility . Unfortunately it is very possible and I know that I am not the only obese vegetarian out there. I've pretty much been eating the usual foods, albeit in smaller amounts. Hasn't helped me to loose weight. Nope. Not even slightly. I learned a couple of weeks ago, at a visit with my new psychiatrist that one of my meds specializes in weight gain, raising cholesterol numbers and moving patients closer to diabetes. Excuse me! Why did I not read that when I was doing my follow-up reading when I first received that prescription? Oy. The nice doctor asked when last my cholesterol was tested, and I was flummoxed to find out that there is no record in my file of having been tested for at least two years. Oy! Thank all the furry gods that I don't eat foods high in cholesterol.

At any rate, yes this post is on the Cranky Blue Thang blog, I will be visiting the Cranky One Cooks a bit more often. As I prepare for the weight-loss surgery, I will be cooking a bit differently. I've been eyeing a rice cooker-slow cooker combination on Amazon. This will help with soups and porridges. I may pick it up next month.

Another reason that I will be visiting the Cranky One Cooks more frequently is the sinking economy. I will be losing 10 to 15% of my income, beginning next month. Unfortunately, as I live check to check, I will have to make some very drastic changes in my lifestyle Add to the pay cut, the fact that I have to buy a new car in the next few months--yes, have to. No choice in that other than going completely car-less again and frankly that is a no go. So, all told, I need to cut at least $600 from my monthly spending in order to come up with the monthly payment for the car as well as make ends meet with the new lower paycheck. Not an easy task.

I've been scouring my spending to see where I can make those cuts. Obviously one of the first things to go is the book shopping. I plan to start selling on eBay in the next couple of months in order to divest myself of some of the hundreds of books that I have accrued in the past year or so. I may use that money to turn around and buy new reading materials. I'll have to see what happens when that time comes. I'll be calling the cable company and the phone company in the next few days to make downgrades across those accounts. And the cuts will continue. Just think. This is a new adventure in frugality. Remember that word.

Eating patterns are also going to change as are my cooking habits. My laizzez-faire way of handling the food that I purchase is changing. Nothing can go to waste now. Any kale that comes in my box must be cooked and eaten and not allowed to molder in the bottom drawer of the fridge. Nope. No more waste will be my watch word. Soups are going to be another popular word here at Chez Cranky One. Beans, while always popular, will become more frequent on the table.

Another item of change will be that I will now be making my soy milk on a regular basis rather than spending at least $4/carton of Silk. The price of Silk has climbed through the roof and I can no longer afford to say "oh well" before I add it to the shopping cart. So, my SoyQuick will be getting a work out. Look at it this way: Assume that a pound of soybeans is $2 (an extremely high number). I can make 6 liters of soy milk from that 1 pound of beans--roughly 40 cents a liter. So, for that $2, I can get a couple of batches of tofu, bottles of milk, and maybe a batch of yogurt. That's a nice chunk of change.

The nice people at at SoyQuick have come up with a new Premier model that I would dearly love to purchase. The new fancy-schmancy model does not have a filter cup which means that clean up is much, much easier. Susan, over at the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen, talked about actually putting vanilla bean into the pot before making the soy milk. While vanilla beans are not cheap, only a tiny bit would be needed and there would be no alcoholy taste that comes with adding the vanilla extract to the finished milk. All that aside, I am still playing with the recipe. I'd like to get the flavor to be less beany if at all possible. Yes, I realize that I will never get it to taste like Silk but that may be a good thing.

With the homemade soy milk will come homemade yogurt--which will be its own adventure--and tofu--another adventure. I haven't had much luck with either but the budget says that this is what has to happen. And breads, etc. I do okay with my breads but will need to be a bit less adventuresome so that I don't end up throwing loaves away.

And the Coop, sad to say, will be seeing less of me. Maybe. We shall see. I confess that I absolutely refuse to give up my handmade soap. I've got to put my foot down somewhere. I've stayed away from Trader Joe's because of convenience but I suspect that I'll be visiting TJs a lot more frequently.

So what does all of this babbling mean? Well, I will be posting more recipes on the Cranky One Cooks--both of a frugal nature as well as related to the coming surgery. Hopefully the two will mesh nicely. I know that I will be eating a lot of tofu and eggs (well, egg whites) after the surgery. And, I will try to include a bit of frugality on this main blog. Just think it may be fun. Entertaining at the very least.

As I mentioned, I will be losing 10 to 15% of my salary. Our beloved, hah!, governor has, through an Executive Order, ordered that all State office will be closed two days out of the month furloughing all State employees thus cutting their pay. He's been wanting to do this since he's been in office and now he's finally got his excuse to get away with it. This is a complete cut in pay. This is not a program where those days will be saved for two years down the road when the economy rebounds as it was done in the past. No. He is flat closing all State offices. What does this mean to you as a Californian? Well, if you depend on any services, please be aware that all State Offices--barring the prisons and State Hospitals--will be closed on the first and third Fridays of each month. This means that Unemployment claims, which are already overwhelming staff, are going to be delayed even further. Social Security Disability claims will be delayed even further. As will State Disability Insurance claims. Welfare, Social Services, Medi-Cal. Everything. It's going to be delayed even more than it already has been. And this is not a good thing.

Sacramento is going to take another hit in the economy belt. The largest chunk of State employees live and work in the Sacramento region. My understanding is that roughly 50,000 residents work for the State. That 10 to 15% pay cut will be spread out over Sacramento and who know what the net result will be.

All that aside, life is going to be hard for everyone across the board. As has been said by many, this is the worst economic time since the Great Depression. And like that one, this depression has been caused by the greed and arrogance of a few. Jobs and homes will be lost by many. People will go hungry. Misery will all around us. Please, please, please remember that as bad as it is for us, it is even worse for someone else. Help out where you can. If you cannot give, at least share a smile. We need all of the positive energy that we can get in order to turn this around.

Gloom and doom aside, I was reading a discussion, on the Gold Box Forum at Amazon.com, on what changes people were making in their lives to help get through this. It struck me that as people make the necessary changes, not only are they helping themselves out, financially, the small changes can actually help out our environment. Talk of homemade rather than store bought. Think of my soy milk discussion above. I will not be buying 2 half-gallon cartons of milk each week. Hopefully, I will also not be buying packages of tofu or cartons of yogurt. Instead, I will be using glass and plastic containers that I already have to store the homemade products. Less for the landfill. Funny how that works out, isn't it?

Changes to my blog: Yes, I will go back to babbling about the birds I see, and the knitting that I am doing (and yes, I have enough yarn to carry me through) and the cooking and the surgery, etc., I am thinking of adding a bit of information about frugal living. Or at least posting a few links here and there. Whacha think?

Happy New Year to All

Good morning.

It has definitely been a wild ride of a year. The presidential campaign and election was amazingly wild. At several points, I wondered if this is what our parents felt during the campaign of 1960. I'm not going to rehash the whole campaign but just think: we had women really and truly running for the top offices. To me, that is worth the price of admission for all of the rest of the insanity. I won't go into who said what or why said who. It's not important in the long run. And once the dust had settled, we did end up with a minority in the White House. How cool is that?!

And the financial disaster the world is in. Isn't it amazing how the greed of a few can and will destroy the world? While I understand the need for all of the "bail outs" that are going on, I personally believe that all of the CEOs and other clowns should be shown a nice jail cell where they can live out the rest of their life. I tell you, the death penalty is not enough for some of them--I am specifically thinking of one Bernard Madoff. Right now he is being charged with some lovely finance felonies. He has not been charged with murder. How many deaths so far can be traced to that's man's greed? Sadly, he was not alone in his greed. Folks, if it sounds too good to be true, then it is. And those bank CEOs! Still taking down their "bonuses" when the world is crashing around us because of them. Someone has got to explain the legality of that to me.

So here we all sit, with the world falling down around us but we are still flying high over the election. Go figure. President Elect Obama and Vice President Elect Bidden have their work cut out for them. Generally, after an election, there are two honeymoon periods: the first 100 days and the first 6 months. Mr. Obama's honeymoon period will be up shortly after the inauguration. But he will hit the ground running, as he has stated over and over again. Hopefully with the plans he has and the more agreeable Congress, there will be enough momentum to get the balls all rolling again. So to speak.

I suspect that what we really need are some "New Deal" type plans. Sadly, much of our infrastructure has not really been improved since the days of the New Deal. Why do we have levies failing all over the country? Why do we have roads collapsing? Why do we have trolls in the Governor's Office? Oops. Sorry about that.

On a personal note, 2008 saw me in and out of depression. Most weekends saw me sleeping most of the day away. Sad to say, all of my plans for cleaning and organizing have flown out the window. 2009 is going to be different though. I have plans and deadlines. I am hoping to have weight loss surgery late spring, early summer. I want to have my nieces over to visit. And last, but not least, I want to get a couple of cats/kittens.

I have been a shopping fool but that's got to stop. Or at least slow way, way down. I added a couple of subscribe & save's to my Amazon account. If you haven't discovered Amazon's Subscribe & Save program, I highly recommend that you check it out. Things do come in bulk, but the price savings is out of this world. Currently, I am getting 2 different kinds of breakfast (ha!) cereal, Fiber 1 bars, girly supplies, pancake & waffle mix (Bob's Red Mill 7-grain--it's fabulous), whole grain bread mix, Sonicare toothbrush heads and some other things that escape me at the moment. In addition to the price savings, it's kind of fun to go into my UPS store and get boxes of stuff that I "didn't order." And, no, I do not work for Amazon. I do, however, believe in grabbing whatever deals I can. And, no, this does not mean that I will ever shop at that evil entity. Not going to happen.

One of the ways that I've stumbled across to save money is to stay out of the cafeteria at work. To that end, I've been hauling in boxes of cereal, unsweetened almond milk (40 cal/ 1 cup!), and cranberries. While it isn't exciting, it works. This summer, I gave into that "buy it!" craze and purchased a electric water kettle for my desk at work. I've been using it to supplement my thermos of coffee by drinking teas. This has worked out nicely but finding the teas inexpensively has been a challenge. I've found some at Amazon that I'm going to give a try to see if they will work. I could just haul the ones that I use at home but I'd prefer the foil wrapped for work. I am so in love with the electric water kettle that I want to buy one for home. Sadly, when I saw the price of the one that I bought, I choked. Thank goodness I bought the first one as a gold box deal. Hauling lunches to work is another challenge but definitely a way to save calories as well as money.

Any other ideas I can come up with to save money will be a bonus. It appears that we State employees are taking a hit of about 10 to 15% of our wages. I don't mind helping out, although it's going to hurt, I resent, however, the total loss of the wages. In the past, a personal leave program was created and while we lost the pay in the present, it was banked until later. That does not appear to be what is happening here.

Knitting. It's been happening, albeit slowly and infrequently. The pink scarf that I was hating? I came up with this very clever plan to pawn it off on my niece. She seemed to be delighted to get a project on the needles. Yes, she gets to keep the needles. For several weeks, I searched for a yarn to knit a new scarf for myself. I wanted it to be mostly black or very dark. I ended up making several purchases but was not happy with any of them. Did I return the yarn? Uh, no. But I should. At any rate, I wandered back into Rumple for another shot at the perfect yarn and ended up with the simplest of solutions. Don't laugh. Black Cascade 220 coupled with a silk-mohair blend of blacks, greys, and whites. And I'm knitting it in the mistaken rib stitch. I love it. It is amazingly soft and very attractive.

I've promised myself that my next knitting project will be the clapotis. I picked up some yarn at Brooks Farm Yarn. It's lovely. While searching for pictures of the clapotis, I was delighted to stumble across some variations and may end up doing one of those variations such as this one. Then again, I may just stick with the tried and true version. If you are not familiar with the clapotis, I recommend that you do a search for pictures, etc., The best place to search, that I've found is at Ravelry. A friend talked me into joining and, while I haven't used it to the best of its ability, I have found it to be an incredible source of information about projects that others are knitting or have knitted. Doing a search for clapotis will net you nearly 9300 projects, either completed or in process. And how different each is from the other.

I've been enjoying the birds on the lake. Sadly, some crazy fools set off fireworks New Year's Eve at midnight and scared off most of the mergansers. Hearing hundreds of them take flight all at once was an amazing thing to behold. It would have been nice to have seen it. I miss them. They are such entertaining birds. There are still a few but they seem to be hugging the edge on the other side of the lake.

New birds: a few weeks ago, I was very excited because I thought, as I was quickly looking at the lake, rather than driving, that I had seen a particular bird. It turns out that I had not seen what I thought that I had. The other day I spotted a small flock of birds sort of floating just a few feet from the edge of the lake outside my apartment. The problem in identifying them was that they were rolled up tight and sleeping. I think. There was one, however, that would float curled up like the others but would uncurl and swim about more actively for a few minutes and then would rejoin the rest of the little flock. What were they? 13 Ruddy ducks. They are actually fairly small--my guess would be about 1/2 to 2/3 the size of a mallard. Their tails can stick straight up--even curled up, their little tails were almost completely straight up. And they have blue bills. Well, the male has a blue bill. And they are so cute. Really. These little guys were either very, very tired or were just not terribly afraid of me. I was about 15 feet from the lake's edge, in my favorite birdwatching position--leaning up against the building wall. Because I still twitch and shake, I have found it easier to hold the binoculars steady if I am actually leaning against something that is not moving.

So, what have I seen on the lake this past year? Mergansers--both common and red breasted (although only a handful of those), California Gulls (they will just not go away), Great Egrets, Green Heron(s), Black Phoebes, American Coots, Domestic Mallards along with a couple of mutant ducks, Canada Geese (by the gazillion during migration), Pied-billed Grebes, American and Lesser Goldfinches, House Finches, one or two Purple Finches (I think), Cassin's Finch, Pine Siskins, Mourning Doves, Hummingbirds, probably Rufous, White-throated sparrows, Barn Swallows, a Kestral (I think), and a couple of others that I cannot remember their names. And that is not seriously scouring the apartment complex and lake for birds. And that is despite the former upstairs neighbor. The links will take you to Cornell Lab of Ornithology Web site: All About Birds. There you will find pictures as well as a description about each bird. I am quite certain that they developed their Web site with me in mind. It is an incredible wealth of information for the novice (and probably more advanced) birder.

So what will 2009 bring to me? I think that a better question is "what will bring to 2009?" Hopefully, I will be more on the ball and will be able to accomplish all that I set out to accomplish.

May 2009 bring you happiness and joy.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving

Thursday past was Thanksgiving. I hope that all had a good one. Not too much food and a focus on that which you are truly thankful for. I had a wonderful time at my family's gathering. It has been too long, apparently, since I joined the family. Being a hermit has its downfalls. I truly love my family but sometimes it is really hard to be amongst people, even those that I love.

At any rate, dinner was fantastic. My brother and the rest of the cooks did a splendid job. Tofu, believe or not, was our main course although my father insisted on bring a turkey breast for the meat eaters in the family. I have no idea of what my brother did to the tofu but it was fantastic. I MUST get the recipe from him. Now that I think about it, there was no winter squash on the table which is odd for us. At any rate, I ate too much as did most everyone, I'm fairly certain.

Yesterday I went birding with my folks out at the Cosumnes River Preserve. I've never been there before but it was very nice. I think that if I were able to walk farther, it would have been a most pleasant stroll to take in the whole thing. As it was, we were out about 4 or 5 hours in the fresh air. I was able to add birds to my "life list" which was pretty neat. We were able to see a bird that is famed for its elusive behavior: a Sora. We were a mere 15ish feet away and it was in plain view for at least 10 minutes. My father was able to get a bunch of shots (camera guys) before he shot back into the reeds and refused to come back out.

On the way back, we found a Peregrine Falcon that they've been trying to see for a while. Apparently the fellow lives in a radio or cellular tower. Very majestic looking sitting up there.

I'm still working on my cleaning project. It's slow going. I am so tempted to just haul it all out to the dumpster. Oy. I have new upstairs neighbor(s). I'm withholding judgement for a while but so far, even with the sounds of moving, she/he is quieter than the previous tenants. Yeah. Hopefully they will not chase off all of the bird feeder birds: house finches, goldfinches, sparrows, et al. I've missed them.

This past week I had the dubious honor of see the psychologist portion of the obesity program. It was odd. I either was suffering from a blood sugar crash or having a very long bit of an anxiety attack. Hopefully the next time I see her--which will be next week--I'll be in much better shape. I get to take a written test of some description. Yippy! Skippy!

Well, the Cable show True Blood reached its seasonal finale. Believe it or not, I'm still not sure whether or not I like the series. I enjoyed the books, as I previously mentioned, but the series, well, it's different. Very different.

Sadly, that's all I have this week. Oh, I could go on about the ethical problems of people who are able to trample over someone in their need to get a bargain but I suspect that those that read this blog are on the same page as I am. I am, I must say, disturbed by the numbers of people who believe that it is the store's fault for the whole thing. I believe in personal responsibility. You done did it? You are the responsible party. Pure and simple. And that is all I will say on that subject.

Hmm. I wasn't going to say anything about that. Personally folks, the Internet is your friend. Amazon sells just about everything you could possibly want. Really.

Have a good week. Be thankful to be alive.