so my mom had oral surgery the day before yesterday and is on a diet of pureed and soft food for two weeks. two weeks! i had been thinking, "oh, i'll make mashed potatoes and creamed spinach one day and maybe a gazpacho another day, la de dah..." but two weeks of pureed food is going to be quite the culinary challenge for me. i started gathering ideas and shopping (piles of produce from berkeley bowl—oh my!) yesterday evening and spent most of this morning reading recipes. eric even got sucked into helping me out by running back and forth to the store and chopping a staggering quantity of onions.

here's what i've been making:

( smoothies )

( garden gazpacho )

( creamy mushroom soup )

and

( Read more... )

ahhhh, a meme about food...i can sink my teeth into this (ha ha, at least i crack myself up)...anyway, below is a list of 100 edibles. i've eaten the things in bold, have not eaten the things not in bold, would not eat (or would not eat again) the things in italics.

( 100 edibles )

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

alas, they did not have long curly boy hair...so sad...i almost put eric in a dress so that i could give him long hair; instead, i'm going to pretend it is in a ponytail.

i've been out of sorts all day today...leaving things at home that i need at work, leaving things at work that i need at home, and just being generally disorganized. i used to be very laid back about forgetting things, very few things were important enough that i couldn't "wing it" without them for a day, week, month...now, i forget my phone (which is also my calendar, etc.) and i feel as if i'm trying to cope without my nose. i can function without it, but it's more work and very obvious that it is missing. then, this afternoon, i went to look up a note in my work spiral* and i couldn't find it. i pretty much ransacked the office, freaked out my coworkers, and wasted a good chunk of time looking for it and all i accomplished was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and a clean desk. fortunately, i found it at home and am relieved to be reunited with the many pages of misc. information that i may need at any given moment.

* i always have a work and a personal spiral notebook filled with random info -- the work one has all my misc. project notes, phone conversation notes, etc. the personal one is more random: part diary, but mostly tidbits like directions, train schedules, store hours, house dimensions, lists...and i keep the old notebooks...not only do i never know if there is something in there that will be useful later, but they make for interesting, unpolished, memorabilia...

"that brown house" is what my mom has been calling the new house. she abhors the color and can't seem to get past the concept that not only did enf and i buy a brown house, but we like it. i think it's like loving your ugly child...it's my house and i love it, so how could i possibly think it is ugly...perhaps "brown" would not have topped my all-time favorite house colors list, but it's clad in cedar shingles and brown shingles are supposed to be brown. nonetheless, thanks to mom, we have started calling our new home "that brown house" and have therefore registered the domain thatbrownhouse.com to move all our house blogging to one spot (thus, we will cease to plague the f-lists of those of you who just don't want to read about our experiences with stripping wallpaper, buying toilets, hiring contractors, etc.). however, if you want to continue to read about our adventures with our wonderful brown house from your lj, you still can! enf set up a syndicated account for it.

thanks!

happy super fat we-got-court-confirmation-on-the-house tuesday!

the sun is out. there were cute old people lawn bowling outside my polling place. my partner and i have a house.

at least for today, life is good.

i'm on the carousel riding an ostrich
while balancing pottery on my head
going round and round
and up and down
the dishes are clinking and rattling
the repetition is maddening
going round and round
and up and down
if i get off i'll be wobbly
and unsure of where to go next
no interest in distorting mirrors
too old for spinning teacups
so i'm on the carousel
going round and round
and up and down
while balancing pottery on my head

today was the sewer inspection.

we just spent the morning at the house with the inspector. we'll have the report over the weekend, but he verbally went through his findings with us. *most* of his recommendations are for items already on "the list" but the list is growing.

( here are some highlights )

as of yesterday, enf & i are in escrow for a cute 1910 arts & crafts house near piedmont ave in oakland! it has style & charm, but needs more than a little bit of work. so this is a shout out to all our homeowner pals (and other folks in the know) for recommendations for contractors/subcontractors. we intend to redo the electric, install central heat, do seismic upgrades, do some pest mitigation, renovate the bathroom, re-shingle the cedar shakes, paint the trim and eaves, repair or replace the front stoop, eventually weatherproof the garage enough to use it for storage, eventually redo the kitchen, eventually rebuild the back steps and/or add a deck, eventually add solar panels...how much and when is going to depend on getting real estimates. we have gotten some "ballpark numbers" but now it is time to get real.

You Are Valentine's Day

You are a true romantic who places the ultimate importance on love. You are warm hearted, and you find it easy to care for people. Love is what drives you - and you have a love to give. You enjoy making someone's day. You're full of surprises. What makes you celebrate: Being with the person you love on a special day At holiday get togethers, you do best as: The sentimental one On a holiday, you're the one most likely to: See it as romantic and special

valentine's day is the holiday i'm most indifferent to...maybe because it isn't all about food...

hi. since i was asked to check out an lj entry, i figured i may as well post and surprise any of you who still have me collecting dust on your f-lists.

soooooooooo, lately, i've been really busy doing nothing exceptionally noteworthy.

work has been engrossing.

my learn-to-knit obsession got replaced by an obsession with sim city which got replaced by an obsession with civilization IV (my first real computer gaming experiences) and now i've moved on to learning to sew (on my new *pink* sewing machine). since sewing seems to be more about ironing than sewing, i'm not sure if it will reach obsessive levels (i lose interest in ironing rather quickly). so far i have made two reversible placemats and spent a fair amount of time reading about sewing. after i finish the other two placemats i think i'm going to try to create a slipcover for the bed in the living room that (hopefully) makes it look less like a bed and more like a really really big ottoman.

or in my case hair yesterday, gone this morning...not all gone, however...it probably still qualifies as long (between my shoulders and my breasts) but it's 18" shorter and won't be getting caught in the waist of my jeans again for a long time. it's weird to *not* feel it brushing against my elbows when i walk, but nice to not have it getting trapped between my shoulder bag and my back and pulling...however, i'm certainly going to miss seeing it fly behind me on the scooter!

we went to a really nice dinner gathering and to watch the kfog kaboom fireworks tonight...i loooooove fireworks. earlier today, enf went orienteering. i wussed out and instead had a good 'me day' in alameda: hair cut, wandered around the street fair, went shopping...i bought a pair of junior's plus size jeans...when did there start being junior plus sizes? they seem to be somewhat snugger cut than normal plus sizes...almost like being the size between. speaking of which, didn't junior's clothes used to be numbered in odd numbers? anyway, the main difference seems to be that the styles are younger and more casual and the sizes don't go up quite as large...

anyway, other than that things are just rolling along in my world...it looks like i have quite a bit to catch up on in lj-land...soon, maybe...i definitely want to check out some folks' travel logs...spain, mexico...i hope you are having/had wonderful trips!

p.s. happy mother's day to all you mothers out there!

is what i come up with when i string together today's spam subject lines...kinda like magnetic fridge poetry without the fridge

good:
i have a furry purr machine

not so good:
the furry purr machine keeps flopping down on my keyboard

i will catch up on lj...maybe...

enf & i started dating 2 years ago today! i had thought it was yesterday, but since we decided to spend yesterday evening with friends and observe it today, i went ahead and looked it up. he was right and i was wrong, it is today. we're going to celebrate over sangria in the restaurant where we had our first date...woo!

i wish i could be a slacker (without guilt) instead of one of the responsible people...

hope 2007 is everything you want it to be and more...so far jan. 1, 2007 is exceeding jan. 1, 2006 in that i have a voice and am tipsy at 2pm *giggle* courtesy of a combination of $1.95 and complimentary strawberry mimosas from the lakeshore cafe! whee! AND soon we will be off to the our last scheduled social event of this wonderful non-stop party marathon weekend! yea!

resolutions:
cut hair...rather, get someone qualified to cut hair & donate it
relocate to a domicile that makes enf happy
*super mystery resolution* that didn't happen in '06...maybe '07 is the year
become informed on investments and make a financial plan for the future (last year's financial resolution was to achieve, for the first time in my life, a financial 'cushion')
and
...to keep striving to not contradict my ideals

...perhaps because i'm in an airport.

this year's featured airport in a city i have not otherwise visited is kansas city...and while kci gets kudos for their free wireless and the terminal's intriguing concrete structure, what an annoyance security retrofits have caused here: we had to leave security and then re-enter security to transfer planes...this means we had to waste our overpriced bottle of water-purchased-in-the-oakland-airport (as well as the whole taking off shoes business)...plus, the conveyor belt coming through the scanner had enough thrust that it sent my laptop flying out of the plastic bin (fortunately, i caught it; no harm). the restrooms are mostly outside of the secure area (a few new ones seem to have been added inside), as are the eateries. it's a pretty decent looking airport and was probably rather nice prior to the addition of the glass wall separating the secure zone from the useful zone. the one nice aspect of this is that non-passengers can very nearly greet passengers at the gate by standing outside the glass wall watching the appropriate gate.