Blogolalia

Monday, June 23, 2008

What everyone needs ... instructions for How to Nap. Brilliant!

[via evangelical outpost]

Sunday, June 22, 2008

There is new video of the kid and the cat at WC. It is definitely boring for non-family, I think.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

I won’t bore you with the details, but I discovered something about the comment page yesterday when I was poking around the template code and I thought I’d test my theory about it. It looks like I was able to fix the commenting problem. So I’ve turned off moderation and turned on the captcha again. After a test, it seems to be working now.

Please email me if you get an error message when attempting to comment (or if you need hints for some of the captcha questions).

Given that I can’t use the captcha for security against comment spam here until we figure out what’s wrong with the template code, I am considering requiring registration for commenters. I really don’t want to leave my comments open to spammers like they are now. So, my faithful readers, are you willing to register in order to comment? Please let me know if the for-now wide open comments.

[UPDATE]: With further thought, I may wait to implement the registration requirement until I see how long it take to get spammed. I was getting enough comment spam before the upgrade that it caused me to do the upgrade. So we’ll see if they come back now that things are a little more open to them.

But I’d still like your feedback on whether or not you’d tolerate having to register to leave a comment here, please.

[UPDATE 10:45am]: Just got hit by a spammer. Registration is being turned on immediately. I’m sorry to have to do it. I blame Algore, inventor of the internets.

[UPDATE 12:20pm]: Because nothing hard is ever easy, it seems that the registration thingy wasn’t asking for you to register. So I’ve turned that function off. Comments are now set for moderation, which means there will be a delay to your comment appearing until I release it. Supposedly.

Not that anyone is really trying to comment anyway, besides spammers. My blog has become exceedingly boring. I despair.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

I turned comments back on but without the captcha requirement. We’ll see if that works or not.

In the meantime, go look at the pics of my kid I posted last week after our trip and talk to me over there, please.

This assumes you will be able to see this post in order to click the link. If I broke things again, then this is moot.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Dinner with the Sleepys was fun last night. Baby Josh is a sweetie and getting so big. Jesse slept through dinner, which was good. Then he woke up and amused us while he ate his dinner. And then we chilled out while Jesse roamed the living room, had a wonderful dessert of peanut butter brownies and coffee, and enjoyed good conversation.

Our dinner was very good - I think we all agreed that the chicken was delicious. It’s always a gamble to make something new for company, but as I told Beth, sometimes you read a recipe and you just know it’s going to be good. The Chicken with Green Curry Sauce is a winner. Since it is not my own recipe, I’ll let you go to the link to print it out for your own collection. I highly recommend it.

One thing I did that I think made it better than it might have been otherwise - I mixed the coconut milk, chilies, and spices together in the morning and put it in the frig to let the flavors meld before cooking. Also, I didn’t have cilantro on hand, so we didn’t have that garnish, but apart from the visual I don’t think it mattered. I’m not a fan of cilantro anyway. Next time I may use the hot madras curry powder that we have instead of the regular curry powder - or maybe half of each.

I made plain couscous and cooked plain old frozen peas. Beth asked what I did to the peas because she normally doesn’t like peas. I seasoned them when I put them in the pot and just covered them with water. Let the water come to a boil and then turned off the heat to let them finish cooking. I did spritz them with Smart Balance spray before serving. That’s it.

Beau went out to an Indian grocery to buy three kinds of flatbread - Nan, Chapati, and some other kind that I can’t remember the name. I am going to try to make my own next time though, since I found Manjula‘s YouTube tutorials. She’s awesome and makes it look super easy.

So today’s cooking tasks are underway in the crock pot, starting with the pulled chicken. Since I started with an entire bag of frozen chicken breasts, I am positive that it will take the full 8 hours (or more) to get it cooked fully. I’ll get home in time to shred it and then I’ll work on the other dishes for tomorrow’s luncheon.

Friday, May 16, 2008

My church is one of the satellite sites for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit every summer. Having attended two of those summits at Willow Creek, I can attest that they are great and I highly recommend them.

However, they are entirely mock-able as shown here.

Hilarious. I love the quote from Ike.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

I’m proud to say that I have not read a single one of the 50 Best Cult Books.

[via chai llama]

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

I’ve read posts by Brant Hansen that I’ve seen linked at other blogs. He’s a funny writer with good insights into the Christian faith. His newest category addition is If Jesus Had a Blog and the first two posts are brilliant.

He just moved and this post sums up my apprehension about our newly pending move this summer.

Gilbert Meilander once wrote about moving.  He likened it, for the young, single person, to flitting about in a glider.  You want to go left?  You go left.  Want to dip?  You dip.  Wham.  That easy.

With a family?  It’s different.  More like commanding an aircraft carrier. You want to go left?  You signal about six months in advance, and begin a process that throws every hand on deck into upheaval.  More accurately, it’s like commanding an aircraft carrier to begin turning left, then losing your glasses, iPod, and underwear for a week.

I can’t find anything.

He’s been added to my blogroll.

Monday, April 28, 2008

I mentioned that I went to high school with Chris McCandless of Into the Wild fame (or infamy). My sister saw the movie and shares her thought on it here as well as some memories of McCandless and a picture of him from school, too.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

From Jaynee at Cootiehog.

The rules are:
The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
Each player answers the questions about themselves.
At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago. I was in New Hampshire. In April 1998, I was probably preparing for the summer camp season and enjoying my second spring mud season in New England.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today? 1) Work on special order, 2) pick up groceries for lunch at Beau’s Sis’s tomorrow, 3) go to church, 4) take a nap, 5) laundry.

3. Snacks I enjoy: chips/salsa, chocolate, chips/salsa

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire. This is an unimaginable amount of money. There would be much tithing and giving to charity. I would set up trusts for family. I would buy a house. I would invest in small business ventures (think of my friend’s shop that closed because of a bad location but was fantastic). I would take lapidary and metalsmith classes. Beyond that I can’t think…

5. Three of my bad habits: procrastination, piling my clothes instead of putting them away, potty mouth

6. 5 Places I have lived: Washington, England, Virginia, California, New Hampshire

7. 5 Jobs I have had: retail customer service clerk, telemarketer, tech writer, executive secretary, budget analyst

8. 5 people I want to know more about: Anyone! Feel free to participate!

Friday, April 18, 2008

The following is graphic.

As caltechgirl said, “Wanna-Be murderer jihadists planting an IED without sufficient training, as captured by a US AC-130.”

Friday, April 11, 2008

Ok, so I missed the last 30 minutes of Idol Gives Back on Wednesday night and therefore missed the Idols singing Shout to the Lord. And then I missed the controversy about them switching the name of Jesus to shepherd in the song.

But I did see them sing it last night, apparently an encore of sorts, and they did sing the name of Jesus. And I get the controversy a bit, but I also understand the reasoning for the slight change to make it seemingly more inclusive. But word change or not, there’s no getting around that they were singing an overt song of praise to God on national TV when millions of people were watching. It’s quite amazing when you think about it. Watching the Idols sing it made me wonder which of them may be Christians because of their demeanor when singing it - a few of them were clearly very comfortable and, dare I say it, worshipful as they sang.

I wonder what Darlene Zschech thinks about it. The Idols were good, but nothing beats the original artist.

Monday, April 07, 2008

I saw this recipe at A Year of Crockpotting and had to try it. I substituted a couple of things and marked them in italics.

The Ingredients.

--2 largish pieces of salmon
--2 T brown sugar
--1 t paprika
--1 t cumin
--1/2 t crushed garlic (garlic powder)
--1/2 t oregano (Italian seasoning)
--1/2 t kosher salt
--1/2 t red pepper
--aluminum foil

The Directions.

--in a medium-sized dish or small pan ( I used a glass pie plate), combine all of your spices with the brown sugar
--spread out a length of foil on the counter for each piece of fish
--put each piece of fish in the center of it’s own foil
--rub the top of the salmon with your spice and sugar mixture (it’s okay to mound up the spice a bit, and it is fine to only rub the top)

--fold the foil over and crimp up the sides to make a contained packet

--put the foil packets into a dry crockpot

--cover and cook on high for 2-3 hours, or on low for 3-5.

--serve with rice or quinoa and some steamed or roasted vegetables.

I had two thawed pieces of salmon and 2 still frozen pieces. I decided to take the frozen pieces out of the freezer and put them on the bottom of the pot to be eaten tomorrow as leftovers. Tonight we ate the top two pieces - they cooked a wee bit too long, but the flavor was very good. I’ll be interested to see how the other two came out when we open the foil packets (I popped them in the frig untouched).

What I’ll change next time:

1. I’ll kick up the spices a bit more.
2. Less time in the crockpot, unless the frozen pieces turned out better. In that case, I’ll start with frozen salmon fillets.

We had basmati rice and baked beans on the side.

Clever, until the very end. But worth it anyway.

[via VK]