I'm boring

I've got nothing to write about.   I'd say all the excitement has gone out of my life, but I never had any to start with.

Work is the same old give-me-my-paycheck-and-let-me-go-home sort of job.  I like the work I do, but the job is sucking the life out of me. 

I'm taking a photography course, but I'm not far enough along in it to be able to talk about it.  It's been too cold to take any pictures to see if I've learned anything. 

The book I'm currently reading is fiction.  The premise is a little upsetting - about a large national business that gets larger and its CEO gets richer by killing 1,000 of its employees in a little factory in a little town in Ohio.  The mass murder is fiction, but in many ways large companies are murdering the hopes and dreams and lives of people everyday through down-sizing, cutting benefits and salaries.  While the greedy little CEOs get richer.

I've been watching Season 7 of Thomas Magnum, PI (it was on sale for 75% off).  Since I watched the Wagon Train DVDs I haven't watched much current TV.  The old shows are so much better than what's on the air today.  You don't realize how much better till you see the old shows again.  You don't realize how much less sex was on TV just 20 - 25 years ago until you see this show with 4 bachelors on it.  (You meaning me, of course.)

I haven't had breakfast yet and it's almost lunch time.  I suppose I could eat brunch.  That's about as exciting as my day is going to get.

Great Americans Day

Today is Great Americans Day.  On your calendar it will probably say "Presidents Day" or maybe "Washington's Birthday, but I propose that we change it to Great Americans Day.

Why? you may well ask.

And I'm glad you did.

We NEED Great Americans Day because:

1. Every great American deserves a holiday, but everybody can't have a holiday or we'd get no work done. 
2. We need to recognize and honor Americans who went above and beyond for their country, their communities, their fellow citizens.  With Great Americans Day we would honor our national and local heroes.
3. Our history is full of men and women who deserve to be remembered for what they gave to us.  That deserve to be celebrated.  To be emulated.  To be honored.   

Take a few minutes today to remember somebody you think deserves to be called a Great American.  Then tomorrow try to be just a little more like that person. 

Maybe someday you'll make the list of Great Americans.

What time is it?

It's 5:20 and I've been up for half an hour.  I've been awake for 2 hours.  I got in the habit of waking up around 3 AM a few weeks ago, but normally I fall right back to sleep, but not this morning.  No, this morning I was wide awake for 2 hours.  Until I stood up out of bed.  Then I was sleepy.  But I can't sleep standing up.

I'll be sleepy all day.  And grumpy.  And downright grouchy.

It's the weekend!

And I'm so excited.  It's the first weekend this year that hasn't been covered with snow, ice, or yuck or hasn't been so cold the hair would freeze in your nostrils.

What to do? What to do?  I'll find something to do besides sit at the computer or in front of the TV.

I wore "real" shoes to the office yesterday, not boots. And instead of my wool coat I wore my ratty old-jacket-that-I-should-be-ashamed-to-wear-to-wear-in-public-but-I’m-not-because-I-like-it-so-much.

The dilly bread I made last week was soooooooooo good. It was so light it practically floated out of the oven. Makes me want to make more bread but I think I'll wait till next weekend when it's supposed to turn arctic again.

Talking about the bread makes me hungry. I've been up over an hour and haven't had breakfast yet.

It's beginning to get light out already and it's not even 7:30 yet. I love it when it starts getting light early. I don't like getting up before the sun does. Of course, in a few weeks (on March 13) we switch to DST (Daylight Stupid Time) and it will be dark in the morning again for another month.

I've got to go eat breakfast.  I'm burning daylight.

What's cooking?

I just made some Dilly Casserole Bread and set it in the oven to rise.  If you've never made bread before this is a good place to start because there's no kneading. 

 

I could have gone to the grocery store and bought a loaf of bread because this it's not snowing and it's not freezing.  But...  Except for the beautiful sunshine and sky-blue sky, it looks yucky outside.   There's still plenty of snow and ice but it's melting into puddles and rivers of slush.

 

While I'm talking about baking, here's a tip I read the other day.  (I can't believe I didn't think of it myself a long time ago, or at least read about it in a cook book.  I have lots of cookbooks.  You'd think one of them could have mentioned it.)

The problem:

Frequently, a pie recipe will recommend using strips of foil to cover the edge of the pie crust to keep it from becoming too brown.  I always found the foil strips a hassle and they rarely stayed in place.  I would end up crushing the fluted edges in vain attempts to secure the strips. 

 Now for the tip:

1. Fold a 12-inch square of foil into quarters.
2. Starting about 3 1/2 to 4 inches from the folded corner, cut a quarter circle out of the center
3. Unfold and you should have a 7 - 8 inch hole in the middle of the foil square.  
4. Center the foil over the pie, folding it loosely over the edges.  
5. You may need to remove the foil the last 10 - 20 minutes of baking to brown the edges, but probably not.

Taste of Home recommends making a reusable pie shield by cutting a 7" circle out of a 12" disposable foil pizza pan.  You can also buy pie crust shields ready made if you make a lot of pies.

Some people!

My department at the Dumass Corporation was recently merged with another department.  For some reason, that other department thinks they are better than us.  And obviously they're not.

I don't know why some of the staff their try to be aggravating.  I have a suspicion it's because they're jealous and/or intimidated by us, but another thought is that they're just not particularly nice people.

They just try to be contrary.  One of our staff, call him Larry, is trying to re-create forms for both departments to use.  One of the forms has a date at the top.  Curly, from the the other department, didn't understand what date should go on the form.  Larry patiently explained that it was the date the form was completed.  Curly then demanded that the date be removed because it wasn't needed.  Even Curly's own co-workers thought that a date was necessary so Curly demanded it be moved to the bottom of the form.  Larry ignored him.

What else are you going to do?  Those people are real Dumass material.

Snow Geese

What a weather week this has been.  First it rained a little, then the rain turned to ice, then it turned to sleet, then to snow, then a little more sleet, than a little more ice, then a little snow and a little more sleet, than a lot more ice, then a little more snow.  And that was all in one day!

Then we had some sunshine.  It was nice while it lasted, but it's supposed to snow again tonight.

When I got home from work this afternoon, I was happy to see that my sidewalks had been cleared by the apartment complex groundskeepers.  Till I got to the sidewalk leading from the main sidewalk to my front door.  For some reason they missed it.  I'm a little ticked at that.  I've lived here at least 5 times as long as the people in the other apartments and they cleared their sidewalks.

Sometimes I think they take me for granted because I've been here so long and I don't complain.  Much.

On a lighter side, we saw a flock of geese on a frozen river this afternoon.  We couldn't help but laugh at the poor things as they tried to walk across the ice.  They weren't any more graceful than I am on a slippery sidewalk.

I hope I don't find a bunch of them outside my door tomorrow waiting to point and laugh at me as I try to walk across the frozen sidewalk.