Proof positive that I have lost my mind

Here is a picture of Happy, my espresso maker:



Ok, so this isn't a picture of my ACTUAL espresso maker. I'm too lazy to go and drag out the camera, ok? Geez. It's the same model and company, but mine is a lovely, pale vintage shade of blue, which they don't appear to make anymore-- oh, and the price on this model has shot up about $200.00 since Chris bought me mine for my birthday/Christmas present!

Anyway, none of that is the point. The point is that just about every day in the summer, Happy and I concoct a favourite summertime beverage before I go to work: the iced latte, mmmmmm. The recipe is this:

*Two teaspoons of agave nectar
*One Starbucks decaffeinated espresso pod
*Enough ice cold, 1% organic milk to fill up my National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame travel mug (if you ever have a chance to visit this museum, then go, go, go! It is extremely well done, and a lot of fun).
*Ice

Add the agave nectar to the travel mug first. Then, make a cup of espresso and pour it into the travel mug. Add milk, and then ice cubes. Voila! Delicious summertime treaty goodness!

So. I make this practically everyday in the summer... every summer day for the PAST TWO YEARS.

Well, not so on Monday. Nay, gentle reader, not last Monday. Instead, here's what happened:

I made two cups of espresso and added them to my travel mug. Then I filled the milk frothing cup with water and heated it until it was boiling, and added it to the mug. THEN I started adding ice cubes to it, and wondered why they were melting. I also wondered why it tasted so bad...

I blame this and all other similar, spacey, inexplicable mistakes (such as putting in the completely wrong pin number THREE TIMES-- seriously it was something that my brain just completely made up on the spot) on Liam :)

Is there anyone out there who can reassure me that I'll get my mind back... eventually? Anyone?

Hermit's weekend

Do you ever have those days where you feel that you SHOULD leave your house, but you just don't want to? I had a day like that yesterday. I knew that I should go to yoga, and to the grocery store, but... I just didn't want to. I even got as far as taking a shower and getting dressed, and then at the last minute just decided that I didn't want to go.

Instead, I took Kira for a nice, long walk around the neighborhood. When we got back I decided that egg salad would be just the thing for lunch (hence the picture above-- I just love those gorgeous, earthy tones) and set them to cooking. Leaving the eggs to cool, I lay down for a nap and when I woke up I finished up the egg salad:



I make mine with a combination of mayonnaise and sour cream, salt and pepper, herbs d' provence, and dried dill weed. Add some organic green leaf lettuce and organic whole grain bread, and it's darn near perfect.

And that, friends, was probably my biggest accomplishment of the day :)

Chris has been in Florida for most of the week, and he's coming home today, hooray! It's just the motivation that I need to actually, REALLY, TRULY get to the grocery store today.

In other news, I received an awful haircut on Friday (I won't be sharing pictures of THAT!). Having had time to think it over, I've decided that I'm going back to the salon on Tuesday and talk to the woman who cut it. I'm not out for blood, but I just really want her to know that what upsets me most is that I ended up with all three things that I specifically told her that I didn't want. She seems like a nice enough person whose feelings I'm not out to hurt, but darnnit! I have to live with this thing, and it seems fair enough to tell her that I'm not happy about it. I'm so mad, as a matter of fact, that I've woken up the past two nights seething about it. Of course then I feel like the lowest scum because it's not genocide in Rwanda or Darfur that I can't sleep over, it's something as frivolous as my hair. How blessed and spoiled in equal measure I am that that's my most pressing worry.

Whether your weekend was spent in solitude or surrounded by people, I hope that you enjoyed it!
Kimberley

Summertime...

and the living is sweaty! Ugh, disgusting, in fact. It was 100 degrees here today, with a heat index of well over that. I swear I can get sunburned just walking the few steps from my car to the building where I work, and watching all of the plants struggling to live is painful. Also, the hotter it is the worse the smog is, and we've had Code Reds for the air quality more days than not. *sigh*

In "celebration" of these awful temperatures (which might end by September, if we're lucky), I'd like to share a recipe for a Tallulah House favourite: green iced tea with sage. A friend of mine's husband shared it with me and it is right up there with cucumber water, lemonade, Happy's iced coffee, and Atlanta Brewing Company's Double Chocolate Oatmeal Porter in my Most Loved Beverages list :) It is light and refreshing, and not too sweet unless you're heavy handed-- this is NOT the syrupy mess that you'll sometimes find masquerading as iced tea!


Ingredients

• Two teabags of green tea (if you have a favourite, use it! I like Celestial Seasonings decaffeinated green tea)
• Sugar to taste
• One bunch of fresh sage, bruised

Directions

• Set cold water to boil
• Put the sugar, bruised sage, and tea bags in the pitcher (Hint: Leave the teabags attached to each other to make it easier to remove them later. Easy removal is also why I suggest cutting a single bunch of sage, rather than individual leaves)
• Once your water has reached an enthusiastic boil, pour it into the pitcher and give the mixture a few stirs to encourage the sugar to melt. (Hint: I like to fill the pitcher only halfway with the boiling water; once the sugar's melted and the tea is as strong as you want it, add cold water so that you can drink it faster)
• Remove teabags and sage
• Fill a tall glass, add ice cubes, and enjoy!

(I must add that this glass is a piece of Depression glass in the Cubist pattern and that I am very fond of it! I have a set of twelve and they're our everyday glasses-- so incredibly sturdy).

I had a successful day of junking with Frances last Friday and I have some lovely treasures to show you-- found some perfect things for the planned spring re-do of our bedroom. I'll try to get those posted this week.

Here's a thought I'd like to leave you with (saw it on a card recently and thought it was perfect!) :

"Everything will be okay in the end.
If its not okay, its not the end."

If you're discouraged, I hope these words help. If you're hot and miserable, I hope you'll try the tea. If you're happy, cool, and comfortable, I hope that you're thankful for your blessings ;)

Thanks for stopping by,
Kimberley

A dinner party of Lilliputian proportions

Chris and I had our friends Stacy and Andrew (they're newlyweds!) over for dinner on Friday night, and it was so much fun :) S & A would probably agree, except for the part when I forced them both into the bathroom and demanded that they admire the ceiling :)

"Isn't it beautiful?? Doesn't it look amazing? Don't you LOVE IT??," I bellowed, gesturing wildly towards the plain white ceiling and walls. Being polite folks, they agreed... though, now that I think about it, they looked a little scared. ;)

I also had fun getting ready for dinner. I straightened up around the house that morning (although if I hadn't spent much of that time on the phone, with first my mom and then Frances, I would have gotten done faster-- wouldn't have had nearly as much fun, though ;) ) and then headed out to the stores. Trader Joe's was my first stop where I found, in addition to the other things on my list, a fantastic bunch of sunflowers for $3.99! Go, Joe! Though these aren't the actual sunflowers I bought, they are remarkable similar in size and quantity:

(photo from Thomas Hawk's site)

I arranged them in a tall, cobalt blue vase and put them on the corner table in the dining room-- gorgeous!

After finishing up at TJ's, I headed over to Whole Foods to get a rotisserie chicken, which I would later pop in the oven to re-heat. Everyone said that it was good, so I believe them. I always feel weird about serving something that I haven't tried, but what's a vegetarian to do? Take people's word for it, I guess ;)

Here's the menu:

Freshly baked bread (still warm from the oven) and butter
Herbed mixed greens salad, with a flax seed oil dressing

Barbequed rotisserie chicken
Mushrooms and brown basmati rice

Chocolate pound cake (baked that morning)


Here are the recipes for the bread and the rice dish. I'll post the recipe for the chocolate pound cake later, when I have more time.

I got this bread recipe from my mom, and its an old standby: easy to make and delicious!

Ingredients

• 2 packages active dry yeast
• 1/2 cupt sugar
• 3/4 cup warm milk
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 5 cups flour
• 2 eggs

Directions

• Pour the warm water into the bowl of your mixer (don't forget to use the bread hook attachment, if you are in fact using the mixer), and sprinkle the yeast and one tablespoon of the sugar over it. Let stand for 5 minutes.
• Add the remaining sugar, the milk, the salt, and the butter
• Mix together
• Add in 2 1/2 cups flour, and beat until smooth.
• Add eggs, one at a time.
• Add two cups of flour, a little at a time, until the dough is smooth.
• Turn dough out onto a floured board (1/2 to 1 cup) or countertop and kneed until satiny
• Grease a large-ish bowl and place the dough inside. Cover with plastic wrap and a dish cloth and set in a warm place for one hour (I put mine outside in the sun on the deck with great results. A barely warm oven, with the door open, also works well).
• Turn the risen dough out onto the board again, and punch down. Kneed into a ball. Cover it and let it rest for 10 minutes.
• Shape the dough into two loaves.
• Grease two loaf pans, and add dough. Let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.
• Heat your oven to 400 degrees and bake for 12- 15 minutes.
• Remove from oven and turn out loaves onto a clean cloth.
• Let bread cool a bit before cutting, or it will crumble.
• Enjoy with butter, mmmmmm!

The rice dish was one of those happy accidents-- you know what I'm talking about! I'd originally thought that I'd just saute the mushrooms and serve them separately from the rice. But then, as I thought about it, I decided to try it this way. Am I glad that I did, as it was quite tasty.

Mushrooms and Rice

Ingredients

• Brown basmati rise, cooked according to directions (I went the 1 cup water, 2 cups rice route and it made enough for 4 people, with a bit left over)
• 2 packages of mixed wild mushrooms
• Shaved parmiggiano reggianno cheese

Directions

• Cook rice, and set aside.
• In a large saucepan, saute the mushrooms in olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar. Cook until done.
• Add the rice to the mushrooms, and stir. Add more oil if needed.
• Add the cheese and stir until everything's well mixed.
• Add a bit of sea salt and/or pepper, if you like.
• Enjoy!

Ok, I'm off to do a few things around the house. I'm proud of myself, though, as I actually made the bed and did some laundry before I sat down at my computer this morning. Its all about iron control, you see ;)

Thanks for stopping by,
Kimberley

That's MRS. Slacker to you, buddy!

9:16pm. All is pitch dark in the python-stalked environs surrounding Tallulah House (well, as dark as it can get with streetlights and porchlights-- we are a safety-conscious community after all!). However, within Tallulah House all is well as the scents of vanilla candles and Chris's chocolate ice cream, duly drowned in chocolate sauce weave seamlessly, and the punkish joy of Joey Ramone's "What a Wonderful World echoes through the Geek Room. The Ramones for our sweet, little old lady, Tallulah? Sure, why the heck not! lol

Seriously, this is my favourite version of this song. If you haven't heard it, try and give it a listen. I'm taking a little break from the Pink Martini album "Hang on Little Tomato", more for Chris's sake than mine. He is just as baffled by the way I can listen to the same music over and over, as I am by the way he can watch "Band of Brothers" over and over. Ahh, the things you discover about people AFTER you marry them, muwahahaha! *smooch, sweetie, love ya*


So. I know the question that is burning in your mind-- no, don't try to deny it! You want to know whether or not I managed to get the rugs steamed and/or the fence painted. Well, the answer, dear reader, is "no" to both! Oh, the shame! I burn from it *sob*

The only thing offsetting my shame is the amount of other projects that I did manage to do, including dismantling the settlements of several Clutter Monsters. Surely you've met the Clutter Monsters? They move in while you aren't looking and build vast cities of stuff that you vaguely recall buying or getting in the mail. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Well, I've had several of these, just driving me nuts! Today I said, pointing my finger dramatically, is the day! I pounced, sorted, cleaned, threw away, and loaded a bag for the Salvation Army. Once the dust settled and I looked around I saw lots of empty space (oh, and lots of dust, too). I was very glad to get that project off the list. Now the good luck and chi may flow freely without tripping over the architectural folly of the Clutter Monsters :)

I also made potato salad today. I'm from the South, and potato salad is a BIG DEAL here. There can be a lot of controversy about it (my mother has yet to forgive me for not including eggs and green bell pepper), so I'm really putting myself on the line by sharing my recipe. But hey! That's me, dashing adventurer with a hint of Albert Schweitzer thrown in *shrugs modestly*

So, Kimberley's potato salad recipe:

Ingredients

• Several potatoes suitable for baking (choose the amount by how much you'd like to make)
• Mayonnaise
• Sour cream
• Herbes de Provence, dried
• Pepper, freshly ground
• Hungarian paprika
• salt

Directions

• Fill a large cooking pot with water and set to boiling
• Wash and chop the potatoes into medium sized cubes (I always leave the skins on, for the vitamins and texture-- much more rustic and hearty, I think).
• Peel and chop one large onion. Set aside.
• Add the potatoes to the boiling water and cook until done, but not mushy
• While the potatoes are cooking, choose a bowl for the potato salad. Go ahead and put in a big spoonful of both mayonnaise and sour cream. Add the herbes de Provence, pepper, paprika, salt and onions.
• Drain the potatoes through a collander (Make sure that there's a pot underneath catching all that tasty potato water-- there's your base for a lovely potato soup). Rise with cool water to stop them cooking.
• Add potatoes to the mixture in the bowl, and stir well, making sure to coat the potatoes with everything.
• Enjoy!

In between all of that, I played with the canine denizens of Tallulah House, gave some vague thought to the work to which I'll be returning all too soon, AND most importantly, finished up one of my "Pay It Forward" gifts, huzzah! Now, now, I won't be telling whose it is, but I *do* plan to get it in the mail tomorrow!

So, yeah, basically it was another day of slacking-- whaddya gonna do about it ;)

Hope you've got something fun planned for tomorrow,
Kimberley

Do-nothing Days

Its 4:16 on Tuesday and I've been completely lazy yesterday and today :) I did get out yesterday and buy the much-anticipated blue paint and had a funny conversation with the Absent-Minded Hippy who works in Paint (very funny, but probably a lot to explain). I also bought groceries-- badly-needed groceries.

Note: Its a very curious phenomenon: I am the only person in our house who is imbued with the necessary mystical powers to enter a grocery store and buy food! The gods truly smiled on me when they bestowed such a rare gift ;)

Don't get me started on how nauseating I found buying pulled pork for Chris. Oh, wait, I'm already started! Much to his delight, Whole Foods installed a BBQ bar a few months ago. I try to get him a different thing each time I go, but boy howdy, does it gross me out. Everything's hot on the bar, and the smell is overpowering. Only for my sweetie would I endure such horror! (lifts hand melodramatically to brow ala Sarah Bernhardt). If none of that diatribe makes sense, maybe knowing that I'm a vegetarian helps.

But except for cooking dinner last night, that was about it. Oh, I also dropped my car off to have the tires rotated. I had fully intended to paint the fence, but the wood was still soaked. I won't complain, though, as badly as we need the rain. I can hear my buddies over in the UK groaning at the thought of RAIN! Sorry, guys, but we really do need it here in Georgia.

Today, except for installing our new Aquasana filter system , making the bed, washing some newly aquired glass insulators (thanks, Mom and Dad!), doing some laundry, and making a delicious cabbage-thingy (recipe below), I've done absolutely nothing. After all of my recent activity, it seems a little weird. I had fully intended to get the carpets out of the attic and steam-clean them, as well as paint, but somehow the whole day's gotten away from me. Ah, well, maybe tomorrow... or, if the time-warping daemon continues to plague me, maybe not even then!

Here's the recipe for the cabbage dish. Its one I modified from something I got at one of my favourite restaurants:

Ingredients

• 1 small green cabbage
• 1 small red cabbage
• 1/2 small bag of baby carrots
• a good handful of snowpeas, or sugarsnaps
• rice wine vinegar
• flax seed oil
• sea salt

Directions

• Chop the cabbages into medium-sized pieces (if you only want a little, use half of each cabbage. I say go ahead and use all of them, 'cause this will go fast and you'll just find yourself back in the kitchen chopping again!)
• Chop the snowpeas/sugarsnaps-- not too small!
• Shred the carrots
• Combine the above ingredients in a good-sized bowl (you'll need room to mix everything together, so make sure the bowl isn't too small)
• Pour rice wine vinegar over them (how much depends on how much you like rice wine vinegar. I advise starting out with a little and adding more, if you like)
• Add a little bit of flax seed oil. You can of course use olive oil, but flax seed oil is better for ya!
• Add a bit of sea salt
• Stir everything and mix well

This salad can be eaten immediately or chilled and served cold. Its good both ways.

An absolutely fabulous cd to listen to while you're making this dish, or doing anything really, is "Hang on Little Tomato" by Pink Martini, a delightfully retro chic band with lots of talent. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you've had a great day!
Kimberley

I reveal my inner 15-year old

Yes, yes, she's always lurking close to the surface, I'm afraid :) In this instance, she's over the moon-- no pun intended-- about the fact that Eclipse is only 8 days away from being in the bookstores! Eclipse is book three in the ongoing series by Stephenie Meyer, authoress extraordinaire, about Bella and Edward, mortal and vampire.

Stop. I know what you're thinking (oh, and cut out the eye-rolling while you're at it!).

These books are so much fun! Dark, yes, and a teensy bit melodramatic, but such a good read. I've always liked vampire books, but never cared for Anne Rice or that woman who writes the Anita Blake series. Well, ok, I did like the Anita Blake books at first, but eventually they devolved into endless rounds of meaningless sex and bloodbaths-- ick. The Twilight Series (named for the first book) is different, and oh, so enjoyable. You can read more about Twilight and see an interview with Stephenie Meyer about Eclipse here.

My inner 15-year old is now through speaking :)

In other news, I came back home today after a fun few days with my parents. I was very glad to see Chris and the menagerie, as you might well imagine. To celebrate the rain (and, ok, because there was very little food in the house!), I made a pot of my friend Cindy's lentil soup. Here's the recipe, modified a bit to suit my mood and the lack of certain ingredients:

Ingredients

• 2 small or 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cups lentils (I used 1 cup yellow, and 1 cup orange, but whatever)
• 2 palm-sized potatoes, cooked
• 1 large carrot, or half a bag baby carrots, grated
• several fresh basil leaves-- if you don't like basil, leave it out; if you love it, use a lot ;)
• 4 medium, fresh tomatoes (I substituted these for 2 cups of tomato juice)
• salt to taste

Directions

• Fill a good-sized cooking pot 3/4 of the way full, and add the lentils. Cook for about an hour and 15 minutes, or until they're done
• Chop your potatoes into cubes, and set them to boiling. Reduce heat to low/medium and cook until done, but not mushy
• Grate the carrots and set aside
• Chop the tomatoes and set aside
• Chop and saute the onions in olive oil until they're translucent, and set aside
• When the lentils are done, add the tomatoes and carrots and let them cook for a bit
• Add the potatoes, onions, and basil and bring the soup to boiling. Let it boil for about 3 minutes, and reduce heat to low.
• Dish up the soup, and add grated cheese (I used shaved parmesan)
• Enjoy!

I also hung the cord cover on the dining room chandelier and it looks fabulous, if I do say so myself ;) Chris really likes it, too, and confessed that he's never liked that naked cord, lol. At first I thought that I had overestimated and only needed one of the covers, but it turns out that there was plenty of room for both and that having two instead of one made it extra ruffledy. Huzzah, so nice when a plan comes together! I'm also feeling quite smug that it looks nicer (in my humble opinion) than the ones I found selling on the Internet for $39.99.

Tomorrow I'm off to Home Depot for "Provence blue" paint for the fence project. I had an idea for the gate opposite it, and it involves using different shades of yellow that I already have so at least I'm saving some money there. Hopefully I'll get the fence done, and the newly painted plant holders hung there.

My time at home is rapidly running out :( Soon I'll be back at work, and while I really enjoy it, having time to let my domestic diva rule is soooo much fun!

What's your domestic diva up to?
Kimberley

Bathroom Ceiling project, cont'd.

So after I got back from Home Depot (oh, and Whole Foods, 'cause there wasn't much of anything to eat in Tallulah House), I made us some lunch and got started with the ceiling. Here's the recipe for the yummy sandwiches we had:

1. Take one freshly baked (err, bought, but still) baguette and slice off two pieces, however long you want your sandwiches to be; ours are usually about 6 inches.
2. Slice your pieces in half, and then scoop out the bottom slices. This is a good way to "anchor" your sandwich fixings, and also eliminates some unnecessary calories that you'll never miss anyway.
3. Spread some chevre on your "bread canoe"-- I like Sweetgrass Dairy's because it is oh, so delicious, and they're a Georgia (and therefore more local) company.
4. Spoon out sun dried tomatoes (use the finely chopped kind, so that you don't accidently pull out an entire tomato and spill olive oil down your chin-- so embarrassing... not that that's ever happened to me) onto the bread.
5. Add finely chopped, fresh basil (again, whole leaves will lead to the sort of incident described above; plus, chopping the basil releases more of the taste and fragrance)
6. If you're not a vegetarian, add some organic turkey or chicken. I don't recommend beef because it would overwhelm the mild flavors of the other ingredients. I don't recommend pork at all, ever, because its bad for the environment.
7. Enjoy your delicious sandwich!

So, on to the scraping.

I took down the shelves and doodads, the fancy towel, etc, to get them out of the dust. I then moved my ladder in and started scraping... it went slowly. Finally I remembered reading that you can lightly wet the popcorn stuff to make it easier. Whew, what a difference that made! (I know now that there was a reason I never got around to mixing up my garlic mosquito repellant in the sprayer thingie :) )

In spite of wetting it, it was still slow going and MESSY! It was also disgusting to see mildew underneath the popcorn, ugh. Though I am hippy-crunchy girl and use environmentally-friendly products whenever possible, I will confess that it gave me enormous satisfaction to purchase primer and paint with mildewcides in them! Never again will I be forced to watch the inexorable march of mold and mildew across the bathroom ceiling, never again!!

I am going to wear goggles and a respirator today, just in case I'm messing with lead-based paint, which in a house of Tallulah's age means I most likely am.

I couldn't help but think yesterday, as my arm was aching from scraping and I was thinking unkind thoughts about whomever had put in the popcorn ceiling, what some future owner of Tallulah House might be cursing me for one day-- you know, Chris and I do some project that we think is just FABULOUS and one day someone's going, "Why in the world did they do THAT?"

:)