I. . . AM. . . Sporadicus!

[mellymell]

For the LOLZ
Check out Half-Blood Prince in 15 minutes brought to you by cleolinda. I haven't seen the movie yet, but this is a hilarious rundown, as they always tend to be from her.

Also, I'm now posing as Homer Simpson on Twitter. I can be found at hj_simpson. I was just really unsatisfied by the other Homers out there and thought maybe I could do a better job. Maybe. Seem like a huge waste of time at best and just really weird and strange at worst? Well, so do I (at least I have no delusions about it right?). But it's fun and entertaining, so, whatever.

Recycling
Our first curbside pickup for recycling was today. I almost missed it which would have really sucked because a) our bin was completely full last Monday and it wouldn't have gotten picked up again for another month and b) we're paying $10 a month for this privilege and I don't want to miss a single pickup. As I said, we filled it up in just three weeks. Granted, we had an above average amount of cardboard boxes this month, but I feel pretty good about what we've been able to pull out of the trash. I really want to start composting our food scraps even more now and I want a shredder to add mail to the bin as well, since that's a large amount of the paper we'd recycle. And then, well, there's not a whole lot left to throw away. I want to check and see if they'll do a temporary increase in service for, say, December when we're sure to have more boxes and paper than should be acceptable. Or maybe I'll just have to be responsible and proactive and safe any extra we have after our bin is full and take it to a recycling receptacle myself.

Food Porn
We've made weekend trips to the Farmer's Market the past two weeks. It's making us eat more veggies and fruits and is also making us get a little more creative about cooking since we buy the produce then have to figure out what to cook from it (which is backwards to how we usually plan meals).

Made some really yummy stuffed squash the other night. We had a couple of those crazy orange-yellow zucchini (I know, isn't a yellow zucchini just a straightneck yellow squash? well, yes and no, apparently) and I scooped them out, chopped up the contents, sauteed it with some Vidalia onion, pesto and goat cheese, added an egg to pull it all together and stuffed the squash and baked them until they got a little golden brown on top.

Also, made two of my favorite summers meals last week. Imam Bayildi (stuffed eggplant similar to the one they serve at Anatolia Turkish Restaurant but sans the meat) and a similarly spiced basmati rice pilaf. My second favorite summer meal is Alton Brown's Pad Thai (sans salted cabbage).

We also had some Japanese eggplant leftover that we needed to use, so I made some Caponata to have for lunch with pita. I think it turned out really well, very similar to the Sabra brand stuff I've had before and really liked. A crisp toasted pita with some mozzarella and Caponata makes a fantastic lunch or snack (and this is one of many ways cheese finds its way into my daily diet).

We had also gotten some good looking peppers, some Cherokee purple and Bradley tomatoes and some blackberries. Chris made salsa with them. It was AWESOME and gorgeous! I've got a pic.

This week, we picked up some peaches and orange tomatoes and Chris, again, made some really tasty salsa out of them. We've also got some crazy Heirloom yellow stuffer tomatoes that are hollow that we intend to stuff with some sort of quinoa pilaf sort of thing.

Cleaning and organizing
Still at work in the office. Friday I had pulled everything out of the room except the furniture, vacuumed thoroughly, cleaned the carpets where needed (which in turn made a couple of spots worse where a conditioning cask had previously leaked all the way through to the padding). Then, before bed (since everything had been moved into our bedroom), I at least got everything sorted into piles of related crap and put back into the room in said piles. Now I'm going through the piles one at a time and decluttering, organizing and putting them away. I had a rather unproductive weekend in there, though. Oh well, it's good to rest on weekends anyway, right? I've almost got a full bag of trash and I've only gotten through the bills and such that were in the cabinet downstairs and one of three file boxes. I've looked up retention schedules for bills, old leases, medical bills/records, etc. and wow did we have a lot of stuff we didn't need. On the fun side, I ran across old souvenir programs from Huntsville Stars games from when Jose Canseco and Mark McGuire were players there ('85 and '86). Ah, the days when people actually went to Huntsville Stars games. It feels great to get rid of so much stuff though! Kind of liberating in a way and it automatically boosts my mood when I get through a huge daunting stack of paperwork and am left with a huge bag of trash and a small very stack of stuff to put back in the files. But, more than ever, looking at that bag of trash, I'm wishing I had a shredder so it would go into the recycling instead of the garbage. But with the bulk of it being medical and financial bills, I don't feel comfortable doing that without a shredder. I hope to be done with the paperwork/files/office supplies stack of things today so that I can make my way around the room to another group of stuff.

Jonah
Jonah watched The Muppet Movie four times over the weekend. Three times in one day. Twice back to back Saturday night while Chris and Doug were at the Music City Brewfest.

I took him to the doctor on Thursday to see what this diarrhea stuff was all about, since he wound up missing two days of school because of it. Well, she said her son had the same thing and it's just a virus that has to run its course. She said it should be over within about a week, but if it's not, to give them a call again. Well, it started Tuesday, so we'll see. Things do seem a little better today. He's not acting the least bit sick, but we do have to be careful about diaper rash. I guess we're doing a pretty good job on that because aside from the very first day where I guess it was the worst, we've not really had to much problem in that area.

Speaking of the doctor, Vandy has moved some of their offices to the renovated 100 Oaks Mall. While it's kind of weird to go to the doctor in a mall, what they've done with the place is really nice! That's good to see, since it was really a pretty ghetto mall. I think some of the renovations are still in progress, but it makes that whole area seem a little less run down. I'm hoping something promising happens to the Bellevue Center Mall for a similar effect.

Brewfest and the weekend in general
My mother-in-law was to come up and watch Jonah for Music City Brewfest, but as it turned out, she forgot or got confused on the dates, so she wound up scheduling her knee surgery for Thursday and of course would not be recovered in time to come up here and sit with Jonah for the evening. No biggie though because we were trying to figure out how we'd get home anyway and so Chris offered my ticket to Doug and therefore, I could be the designated driver. I just kept Jonah up until 10pm (watching The Muppet Movie) and went to pick them up when it was over. Really glad Doug decided to just come back to our house because he was definitely in no shape to drive. I put Jonah to bed when we got home and then we all split a beer on the back porch and chatted for a bit before passing out. We were all totally groggy in the morning though and just sort of vegged on the couch with coffee and yet another viewing of The Muppet Movie before finally heading to Fido sometime after 10am for some brunch and to take Doug back to his car. Chris and I then went to the Farmer's Market and then Costco for our monthly stock up there. While there, we spotted some really nice leather chairs we'd love to have for our living room. While thinking about furniture, we ducked into World Market for a quick look around (and HURRAY accomplishment! We didn't walk out with a piece of furniture for once!). We found some kind of similar ones in there that we didn't like quite as much as the Costco ones, but since a certain friend is willing to generously share her employee discount there, well, they're a lot more appealing than the others for the price we could get them for, especially if we wait for a sale. From there, we headed home and I put Jonah down for a nap and then proceeded to take one myself while Chris tried to get me to look at electronics cabinets for he den online with him. After Jonah and I woke up, I cleaned up the kitchen and got dinner prepped. Then, once we put Jonah to bed, we pretty much headed to our bed as well.

And, since the kid really needs to go take a nap, well, I'll cut it off there.

Comments

[yocepha.livejournal.com]

Out here in the country we recycle all our paper with a match. Well, except for newspapers and slick magazines, which go to the local recycling dropoff. But letters and kitchen paper products go up in smoke. Yes. ;-)

[mellymell.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought about kindling for when Chris fires up the smoker, but that's not often enough nor does he need enough to get rid of as much as I want rid of right now. I might make a trip to Office Depot or something this week and see if there's a shredder that's not too expensive. Less than $20 and I'd purchase it on the spot.

[baka-san.livejournal.com]

i've got a cross-cut one that i bought, not realizing what it is and does. i wanted to use it for newspaper (so i can compost it), and that completely clogs the thing. figured i'd use it for those "just like cash" checks that the credit card company sends me or something.

you're welcome to it if you want it.

[mellymell.livejournal.com]

If you're not going to use it, sure, I'll take it off your hands.

[baka-san.livejournal.com]

i haven't since i decided that it was less work to tear the paper into strips my hand than it was to deal with it clogging the cutters and then having to pick bits of newspaper out of them. and it's unlikely that i'll use it for much else.