Lisa: Total Eclipse of the Heart

Found via Dita Von Teese, who knows something funny when she sees it.

Lisa: The package goes in the box. If you know what I mean.

Some of you know that I work from home, sending out orders for my online business. Thanks to the wonders of Click-N-Ship, my mailman can pick these packages up right from my front porch (for free!) and get them on their way. When I first started doing this, I bought a clear plastic tub with a flip-up lid to corral the slippery Tyvek envelopes and protect them a bit from the weather. It worked fine, but wasn't doing much for the aesthetics of my front porch.

I clearly needed a prettier, more permanent solution. Here's what I came up with:

As a side bonus, the mailman and the UPS/FedEx guys deliver my incoming packages into the box now, so they're out of sight and protected from the elements as well. Materials and more details after the jump!

Base:

After a little research, I chose this unfinished toy box from JoAnn's. The size was about right, and I wanted a box with a hinged lid that could be raised from the top with one hand. On Sarah's excellent recommendation, I painted the pieces before assembly.

Paint:

Our new porch light, house numbers, and mailbox are all either old-rubbed bronze or black, so I chose Hammered Dark Bronze Rustoleum spray paint. Supposedly, it's good for outdoor applications. I primed it first and put on a coat of clear polyurethane after I stenciled the letters on. I always forget how much spray paint it takes to cover something--this project used three full cans each of primer and paint.

Lettering:

I had some leftover Fern Green Patio Paint, which I already knew was weather resistant. I used that with some 2-inch block letter stencils I picked up at JoAnn's. I'm kind of a slapdash stenciler, but I figured that gives the box a pleasing rustic quality.

Flag:

I bought a mailbox flag replacement kit with an official-looking jaunty red flag at our local Ace Hardware, and adapted the instructions a bit for screwing it into wood rather than a thin metal box. As you can see in the photos, the flag is attached on one side, so when it is 'raised' it sticks out past the front of the box. So far, it seems to be an adequate system for signaling the mailman that there are items to pick up.

Lisa: Seriously Cute Crochet

My animals aren't as cute as Sarah's, and my photos certainly aren't as well taken, but I had to share the little amigurumi I've been making from the same book.

Next up: zombies, ninjas, and robots...unless I go with E's suggestion of crocheting Nora an amigurumi Halloween costume, in which case I'd better get started now.

Lisa: Tool of the Week (cheapo edition)

I'm sure only the most die-hard readers of our site remember when I featured Proactiv as a Tool of the Week back in aught-six. I still love Proactiv, but I've had a few problems with it that I thought warranted looking around for another option.

1) I never finished all three bottles of the set at the same time, and buying individual bottles at the mall kiosk in an attempt to even things out is insanely expensive.

2) They seem to have difficulty working out certain billing issues, which is important when their system is based on automatically deducting funds from your account and delivering the product right to your door.

3) They recently doubled the price of the regular 3-piece set, and justified the price increase by calling the same size of bottles a 2-month instead of 1-month supply.

The first imitation I tried was AcneFree, which does seem to have the same results as Proactiv. I found the textures of the products just different enough to be a little unsatisfying, though. The Proactiv cleanser is a little gritty and exfoliating, and AcneFree is not. The repair lotion is different, too--more opaque white and thin. Also, the bottles are identical in size (and design) to Proactiv, so I run into the same problem using them up unequally.

On my next trip to the skin care aisle, I decided to try Klear Action, another Proactiv clone. The slightly sketchy-looking cashier swore Klear Action works just like the real thing, and so far she's right. Plus, the set is sold with a bigger toner bottle (which should help even out the quantities) and the textures are much closer to the originals. Yay!

Both AcneFree and Klear Action are about half the price of Proactiv, and are available at my local RiteAid.

Lisa: Movie Monday

Sorry if you already saw this on Mighty Girl, but it is the most fun, relaxed, and out-and-out joyous wedding video I have ever seen. I wish it was mine.

Brian & Eileen's Wedding Music Video. from LOCKDOWN projects on Vimeo.

While we're on the subject of weddings, I should say that I'll be super jealous if you have yours at Treehouse Point (via Not Martha).

Lisa: Etch a Sketch

Inspired by this glass-etching tutorial on isly (found via this post on How About Orange), I decided to try etching a giant monogram (I love monograms) into my 9x13" pyrex baking dish, in an effort to make it prettier and more identifiable at potlucks.

All the background info and steps are after a jump, but here's the finished product:

I liked my finished baking dish so much (and making it was so fun and easy) that I made another one for my cousin as a wedding gift, this time with just the first initial of her new last name.

I admit, I felt a little less cool when I went to church the next Sunday and found out that etching glass baking dishes is our upcoming Enrichment Night craft. But at least mine isn't made with one of those precut vinyl dealies, right? It's still a LITTLE bit original. So. Want me to make one for you?

Materials:

Computer
Printer
Monogram font
Adobe Illustrator (or whatever program you like)
Scotch tape
Transfer paper
Contact paper (any pattern)
Pen/pencil/stylus
X-Acto knife (sharp)
Spatula
Armour Etch
Pyrex baking dish
Kitchen sink
Silicone baking spatula

Note:

The bottle of Armour Etch says it won't etch Pyrex, so I did a little checking around on the internet. I'm glad I did, because I learned two important things that were backed up by several sources. First of all, you CAN etch Pyrex (at least some Pyrex) with Armour; you just have to leave it on for 25 minutes instead of five minutes. Also, you don't have to just wash the etching cream down the sink when your time is up, like it says on the packaging--you can scrape it right back into the bottle and use it again! A little bit is still lost, but you'll get a lot more use out of that expensive bottle.

Steps:

1) I downloaded monogram kk from Abstract Fonts, and tooled around with my initials for a few minutes in Illustrator. I was hoping the large size of the monogram would make it feel more modern, and that at first glance it would just appear be a pretty, scrolly design. Once you've decided on your design, reverse it before printing. You'll be etching on the bottom side of the dish (so little bits of food don't get stuck in there), and you want to be able to read the letters through the bottom of the dish when it's right side up.

2) Cover the bottom of your baking dish with whatever leftover contact paper you have on hand (keep the color of your contact paper in mind when you're buying transfer paper). Use your fingers or the back of a spoon to smooth out any bubbles. Be especially careful around the logo/raised lettering on the bottom of the pan. It's REALLY important to make a good, smooth seal.

3) Tape your reversed, printed out design on top of the transfer paper, which is on top of the contact paper. Trace over all the edges of your design with a pen. Remove the transfer paper and printout from the contact paper carefully, making sure your entire design got transferred.

4) Use the X-Acto knife to cut out all the pieces of your design that you want to be etched. Don't stress out about this part. I hate cutting with an X-Acto knife on paper and cardboard, because the knife always goes zinging out of control at the worst possible moment and ruins my design, but it's really super easy to cut contact paper on top of glass.

5) Brush on the Armour Etch in a very thick layer (enough so it's opaque and white), making sure you cover all the parts of your design. Don't let any sneak off the edges of your contact paper outside the design area. Also, be REALLY careful not to get any etching cream on your hands, because that stuff burns like a mother. Set your pan (carefully!) aside and time it for 25 minutes.

6) Once time is up, take your pan into the kitchen and very carefully scrape off the etching cream with a silicone spatula. Scrape it into a funnel and then back into the jar, or just right into the jar if you're coordinated enough. Then peel off the contact paper and throw it away without gooing yourself with the creamy side. You might need your X-Aacto knife to catch the tiny bits of contact paper--you don't want to be scraping them up with your fingernail and get Armour Etch under there. Then rinse off the rest of the etching cream on the pan with water. Wash your hands and arms really, really well with soap and water, and wash the pan again really thoroughly before cooking in it.

Lisa: Lovin' it?

There is a matter that has been lying heavily upon my mind for some time. I think it is time to share this matter with you, and to use your responses as a balm for my troubled soul.

I HATE the McDonalds Playland.

It is horrible. Let me describe it for the uninitiated among you. The McDonalds Playland is a giant network of brightly colored plastic pipes. Some of these pipes lead to dead ends with clear plexiglass windows, while others lead up to larger, room-like openings or enclosed, spiral pipe-slides. There is usually one entrance to the entire structure, with a bank of cubbies next to it for kids' shoes. The whole mess is completely enclosed with a combination of plexiglass walls, locked chain-link-and-PVC-pipe gates, and nylon netting.

Maybe that doesn't sound so bad, but let me describe for you just a few of the problems.

1) Half the kids in there are carrying grubby little handfuls of soggy cheeseburger, or half-eaten Chicken McNuggets. These get dragged and squished along the sides and floor of the pipes during play (not to mention the kid with the overflowing diaper dragging his pungent little butt down each tube). Now, these pipes are kid-sized, and adults are not allowed inside the Playplace. You KNOW the employees aren't squeezing in there after hours, wiping down those pipes with any kind of regularity. The whole thing might be "sanitized" once or twice a year, but that's not doing much against day-to-day grimings.

2) Once your kid is past the entrance, there is no possibility for adult intervention of any kind. Did she climb too high, and is now unsure how to get back down? You'll just have to wait for her to stop crying and figure it out. Did some bigger kids corner her at the end of the blue pipe and start menacing her with their broken-off ice cream cones? I hope she remembers those self-defense lessons you've been giving her.

3) Forget getting your child out of the Playland before they're good and ready. They know you can't come in there after them, and they take advantage of that. There is always at least one mom outside the entrance of the Playland, hands on hips, half bent over and calling into the pipe in her sternest voice: "DEVIN! DEVIN! YOU COME OUT OF THERE THIS INSTANT!" There is a sign posted outside the structure detailing emergency procedures, which are basically that the parents are supposed to stay out of the structure, while McDonalds management "gets the children's attention and instructs them to leave the Playland." Right. I'm sure the kids will see giant flames through the plexiglass, hear an unfamiliar voice through a loudspeaker urging them to exit, and will calmly comply. None of them will get scared and huddle in the most hard-to-reach places.

4) Guaranteed, one kid is scaling the nylon netting on the outside of the Playland, while another kid is yelling, "Mo-om! The sign says No Climbing [which it patently does] and that boy is climbing!" There is no choice for the second kid's mother but to yell back, "Are you that boy's mother? No. He has a mother." Must we play out this tired scene again and again?

5) Please don't get me started on the aura of plastic-generated electrostatic that surrounds the whole place.

Nora, of course, loves it. Even when I have to pick pieces of broken Happy Meal toys out of her chubby little knees afterward.

Lisa: I know, it isn't Thursday

I think it's time...for some MAUDLIN PIX. (If you want to know more about this feature, you should ask Sarah, but she might be too busy over at her spiffy new blog to answer. Or you could take your cue from Andrea, who's been doing it better for longer.)

Here's one from the vaults. Obviously, part of what makes this photo so great is that it tells a story.

Lisa: little bunny foo-foo

It's hard for me to believe that Nora is old enough to notice what holiday it is and if she gets a present or not--but this Easter I had to face the facts. Since Blake is pretty adamant that Nora not eat candy (and I'm not actively encouraging candy either), I wanted to make her something special that would take her mind off the lack of chocolate eggs.

This little bunny and her blanket are made from this mmmcrafts pattern, and are sewn from some of Nora's outgrown baby clothes. I used felt, embroidery floss, thread, and batting that I already had, so the only thing I had to buy was the pattern itself. My dad made the cradle for me when I was a baby, and my mom brought it up from Spring City so that I could pass it on to Nora. Tender, right? I mean, I'm pretty much the best mom ever, wouldn't you say?

Unfortunately, my gift was completely overshadowed by the gigantic pink plush Care Bear Nora's great-aunt bought her at a secondhand store. Nora tackled that thing and rolled around with it, giggling and giggling. Ah, well. Maybe this sleepy little homemade bunny will grow on her.

(Oh, and if you think that I copied Angie's wedding colors, then all I can say is thank goodness I have people with really good taste to mooch off of.)

Lisa: I think this settles it once and for all.

As evidenced by this conversation, Blake and I have been arguing zombie apocalypse plans for years now. I can't even explain how gratified I was when I read that Mighty Girl's plan involves taking over a Costco too--not building a stupid walled compound. To my knowledge, Maggie has never been wrong before. Eat it, Babe!

If you like discussing zombies and the related contingency plans (which of course you do, because you are awesome like me) you might enjoy this article by Robert Brockway, brought to my attention by Dave T., who used to read this blog until we got boring. I laughed out loud four times, completely blowing my "I've just got to get this work done" cover story.

Lisa: Live Life to the Fullest

In October of 1992, my deepest aspirations apparently included:

1) Playing pieced-together sheet music on the flute
2) Graduating
3) Getting married
4) Wearing ill-fitting clothing

and let's not forget,

5) Becoming a tiger.

Ah, junior high school, with your ridiculous assignments and even more ridiculous students. We couldn't get to high school without you.

Lisa: Ur jus jellus!

Sarah documented the majority of our Britney experience (and I'm sure she'll share many unflattering photos here), but I thought you might like a little preview:

If you don't recognize immediately that those shirts are made according to the tutorial featurette on the Crossroads DVD, then that is why I am here. TO OPEN YOUR EYES.

Lisa: Mmm! The invigorating scent of "you may have vomited recently!"

Dear Crest,

Congratulations on Vivid White--a triumph, really. One question, though. Instead of Invigorating Mint, don't you think you should just come right out and say wintergreen? Then the people who wish they could brush their teeth with Pepto Bismol would know right away which tube is for them.

Oh, and would you mind passing on a message to your friends at Secret? A squishy goo that is pushed up through a grate when you twist the base can't honestly be referred to as a Conditioning Solid, am I right? Let's try to stay away from outright lies in our product copy.

Sincerely,

Sensitive Gag Reflex

Lisa: Jailhouse Pop

This feature brought to you by HK Magazine:

Jailhouse Pop
What's the worst thing about being an incarcerated Cantopop celebrity?

Lisa: comorbidity

Overheard in the movie theater restroom.

Woman 1: When I went to the doctor for my ear infection, there wasn't even a note in my chart about me being an addict. They could have prescribed me anything! I mean, there should be a NOTE!
Woman 2: I know, that's why I'm so mad I threw away those leftover Percocets.
W1: Hold on, let me take these real quick. [Drinks from the sink faucet.] I can't believe they gave me two 50s instead of one 100. The 100s are totally stronger than two 50s.
W2: Totally stronger.
W1: I told my doctor to write me a prescription for the 100s instead, because they're exactly the same, but she wouldn't. Like, I KNOW they're addicting. I'm an addict. But I have ANXIETY!!

Lisa: Silent in the Grave

One-minute book review of Silent in the Grave, by Deanna Raybourn.

Read it!

Lisa: Tool of the Week

Last week, Blake and I suddenly found ourselves in the market for a new vacuum cleaner. The Hoover we got for our wedding is now quite aged, and though it has served us well over the years, it recently stopped picking up much of anything at all. Since we now have a toddler who seems equally interested in holding up and inspecting every bit of debris she finds on the floor, and in carpeting our home with Cheerios, it's more important than ever that we have a functional vacuum.

On the strength of a glowing recommendation from E, we investigated and eventually purchased a

BISSELL HEALTHY HOME VACUUM

and so far, we love it. It's bagless, and watching that clear cylinder fill up completely with dirt, dust, and rug fuzz the first time we used it was simultaneously appalling and satisfying, in a way usually reserved for the popping of really juicy zits. Of course, it has a HEPA filter for making the air cleaner while you vacuum, but even more of a selling point than that is the attachments that actually WORK. You know that grody little line of dusty carpet at the edge of the baseboards, that the vacuum doesn't really reach? Yup. No longer a part of my life. And it may have been some kind of post-purchase-euphoria-related placebo effect, but Blake swore that the carpet even felt cleaner when he sat on it.

Some of the online reviews criticized the Bissell as being too heavy, but it doesn't seem to be any heavier than our old vacuum, so that didn't bug us. Plus, Blake does a lot of the vacuuming, and he doesn't mind lifting heavy things. It gives him a chance to flex his manly muscles.

If I had to complain about anything, it's that the Bissell is maybe a little bit too awesomely strong. It vacuumed (or at least enlarged) a small hole along a seam of our area rug--but it's nothing that can't be fixed.

Incidentally, my mom pointed out that the problem with our Hoover might be nothing more than a broken belt, and her suspicions were only strengthened when I looked at her blankly and just repeated, "Belt?" Apparently you're supposed to check and maintain these mysterious "belts" on a regular basis. Blake opened up the bottom of our old vacuum, and sure enough the belt was just hanging there, lifeless and snapped in half. I picked up a replacement at the grocery store (right next to the vacuum bags, which I've been buying for years) and we're going to fix the Hoover up and keep it downstairs. Win-win!

Lisa: Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Given Angie's idea of different angles for each day and my current penchant for Photo Booth, I thought I'd try out Movie Mondays. Sarah's not as jazzed about the idea, but I'm hoping I can win her over.

Here's today's offering--I think you'll agree that what I lack in talent, I make up for in enthusiasm. If you've seen me dancing, you know this already.

Lisa: Something Different

I probably should have written myself a script.

Lisa: 25 random things

1. Diet Coke allows me to be the best version of myself. This has been confirmed by outside sources.

2. I secretly believe that if you heat-style greasy hair, it sort of cooks the grease into your hair again, like a hot oil deep-conditioning treatment. That sounded less gross in my head.

3. My genuine laugh is too loud to be considered strictly ladylike.

4. Who am I kidding--even my normal voice is too loud. Someone once told my boss at the library that he should hire quieter employees.

5. The best (and arguably only) reason to own a gun is to be prepared for the impending zombie outbreak. Better make it a shotgun.

6. I have been blogging for the same ten readers for almost six years.

7. I'm sure your McMansion is very nice, but I'd choose a smaller, older home every single time.

8. I am incredibly clumsy (see current black eye). I have a very real fear that I will fall down the stairs while holding Nora and kill us both.

9. I can't remember a time, no matter the number on the scale, when I didn't want to lose ten pounds. It's nice to have a constant in life.

10. I make Blake change his shirt because I love him.

11. It's fine if you hate Obama. Seriously. Just don't tell me it's because he’s a Muslim who wasn’t even born in the U.S.

12. Just because something is in print (on paper or online) doesn't make it true. Check. Your Effing. SOURCE.

13. I desperately need a new water heater. Invigorating cold showers are starting to lose their appeal.

14. I am cripplingly intimidated by everything my mom can do.

15. I'm in love with my daughter.

16. I love routines. Someday I'll put all the right pieces together to form the ultimate routine, and it'll just be perfect week after perfect week from there on out.

17. There were three people before Blake who I believed I was going to marry. Don't worry, if you're reading this I can almost guarantee you weren't one of them.

18. If I had to choose, I'd say James Bond is hotter than Aragorn. Of course, Jim Halpert is hotter than both of them. Not sure what that says about me.

19. I think I could leverage my librarian skills and my natural stalker tendencies into being a damn fine private investigator. Maybe someday I'll find out for sure.

20. If your proposed activity includes a) dressing up fancy and going out, or b) sitting on a couch with a blanket and fuzzy socks, I'm sold.

21. If there are garters involved, I will buy it.

22. I love being asked for advice.

23. I go to church because I think it's important to have a spiritual aspect to your life, and to try to be a better person than you already are. Church is one possible framework designed to help you do that.

24. I can't wait until it gets warm enough to ride my bike again.

25. I have found that people usually turn out to be more awesome than you gave them credit for.

Lisa: Pork Roast

Remember how I'm trying to find main-dish recipes that I can memorize and make regularly? Well, I think this pork roast is easy and delicious enough that it might fit the bill. It's the first crock pot recipe I've tried that I'd classify as an unqualified success, and there's no sign of my pet peeve of crock pot dishes--the instruction to brown the meat before putting it into the crock pot. To me, the whole point of crock pot cooking is that the recipe is super easy and basically preps/cooks itself while you're at work or whatever. If you have to spend a bunch of time getting everything ready to go in the crock pot (including cooking things on the stove), then you might as well choose a regular recipe that doesn't take four hours to cook.

But I digress. Aside from adding a bit of cooking time--I think every crock pot is a bit different--and wishing I had one of those handy gravy-fat-separator dealies, I hardly had to think about it. If you decide to make this (and I think you should), save yourself a headache and cut the roast into nice slices with the electric knife when you're ready to serve. Also, see if you can talk Blake into making mashed potatoes to go with it.

Recipe from Simple & Delicious after the jump. My additions/changes are in brackets.

Pork Roast with Gravy, from Taste of Home: Simple & Delicious, February 2009

This home-style supper can be made [a day ahead]. Strain and skim the cooking juices, cover and store all in the fridge. Then reheat the pork to 165 degrees and finish the gravy in a pan [the next day].

1 boneless whole pork loin roast (3 to 4 lbs.)
1 can (14 1/2 oz.) chicken broth
1 cup julienned sweet red pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. cornstarch
2 tsp. cold water

1. Cut roast in half; transfer to a 5-qt. slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine the broth, red pepper, onion, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar and seasonings; pour over pork. Cover and cook on low for [4-6] hours or until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees and meat is tender.

2. Remove pork [and reserve some for another use if desired].

3. For gravy, strain cooking juices and skim fat; pour 1 cup into a small saucepan. Combine cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into cooking juices. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.

4. Slice pork; serve with [mashed] potatoes and gravy. Yield: 4 servings.

Lisa: diet

I ate hummus, which is totally good for you (+1)
On tortilla chips (-1)
By spreading it onto each chip individually with a knife (+1)
(My chips kept breaking (-1))

Eh. A draw. I think I've earned some cake.

Lisa: sorry

Lisa: no means no

Dear Walgreens cashier,

Please do not expose my one-year-old daughter to the sight of your plush caveman singing Do It Like They Do on the Discovery Channel. Similarly, hide away your mechanical puppy holding a valentine heart and offering an inappropriately sexual R&B message. In fact, maybe stay away from the animatronics altogether. She's saying "no" for a reason.

Sincerely,

Common Sense

Lisa: advanced

Lisa: Are you teaching her how to juggle?
Blake: Yep! Well, I'm trying to. She's totally going to impress all her kindergarten friends.
Lisa: Yeah she is. And her teacher.
Blake: She'll impress EVERYONE. Except Dave. Dave'll just be like, "I've been juggling since I was three."

Lisa: Loves getting a little lacy.

Ah, Victoria's Secret Semiannual Sale catalog. How I love thee.

For a mere thousands of pennies, I can send a box hurtling toward me through space containing something naughty, something nice, the very good, and the very bad. And by very bad, I mean horrendously pun-tastic catalog copy.

To wit: "The lace is on for frill seekers."

Lisa: it came upon a midnight clear

Christmas is in less than one week. I'm not sure how that happened, and my guess is that things are getting a little crazy for you, too. Too crazy maybe to stay caught up on reading your blogs. Shall we agree to just let each other off the hook for a few days? PHEWF.

Lisa: Echinoderms (the low lifes)

Thank goodness Blake's mom had the forethought to save this science assignment. That's right, my friend, it's a comic book in which the phylums battle it out for control of the world--and the echinoderms WIN.

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

Blake may not be able to take full credit for this masterpiece. There seems to be a dispute over authorship with his friend Brian. All I know is that I couldn't let that keep me from immortalizing it here.

Lisa: Turkey Day (And pie day. And roll day. And potato day.)

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I have to go slip into a food coma now.

Lisa: Lil' Brudder

When Dave and Angie got married, my parents placed upon my humble shoulders the responsibility of creating a life-size cardboard standup of our brother Jeff. He's in New Jersey until next summer and couldn't be at the wedding in person, so I guess they figured this was the next best thing.

Step one: have Jeff take an appropriate picture of himself.

Step two: purchase a ready-made cardboard standup of George W. Bush. Trust me, these things are readily available, reasonably inexpensive, and a lot easier than obtaining your own large-scale printout and backing it with cardboard. Print out Jeff's face and neck (No, really, W's neck is gross and not at all fitting for a healthy 19-year-old boy.) on a regular color inkjet printer and cut them out. You might want to do a few of slightly different sizes, so you can try them out and see what proportions look right. Glue Jeff's head over George's, getting creative with the neck and collar area. Slap a printout of Jeff's missionary badge on the jacket for verisimilitude.

Step three: scare yourself silly on at least five separate occasions, walking into a darkened room and catching a glimpse of Jeff's lurking, shadowy form out of the corner of your eye. Put a bright face on things when you help your baby girl become friends with an uncle she's never met.

Step four: secretly hope your parents get the standup out for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

Miss you, Jeff! I can't wait to hug the real thing.

Lisa: a cardigan is not enough

I don't care how good her legs are for her age. You shouldn't let your grandmother go to the grocery store without pants.

Lisa: you could put your weed in there

Before it got too cold outside, I did a mass harvest of my herb garden, stuffed the spoils into ziplock bags, and marked them with their contents and the date. Now if I have the urge to make my own lavender-scented bath products or season a dish with fresh sage, I can just pull the ingredients out of the freezer. I felt like Ma frickin' Ingalls, putting away stores for the winter. Sarah had a different reaction when she saw my stash: "Um, Lisa? Did you know your deep freeze is full of marijuana?"

In other domestic news, for the first time in weeks I haven't had to spend Nora's naptime sewing or hot-gluing. At long last, I scraped, cleaned, and re-painted the bathroom ceiling. Woot!

Lisa: happy birthday to me!

Blake planned an incredible Twilight birthday party for me with Sarah's help, complete with blood-red drinks,

goody bags including glittery vamp-skin lotion,

and a huge cake depicting a vampire/werewolf battle.

Oh, and of course we saw the movie, which was kind of awesomely serious and cheesy and mockable.

My only disappointment? Not getting to see Edward's enormous, satin-draped bed. Oh, and the fact that the restaurant staff somehow got the impression that I'm a rabid Twilight fan.

Edited to add pictures, courtesy of Sarah!

Lisa: last one!

I think I mentioned before that one of the costumes I get to wear in the Music Man is a ridiculous sailor-collared "athletic" outfit. I snuck mine home after rehearsal last night to alter it to fit a bit better. If you think that shirt looks baggy and shapeless now, you should have seen it before.

If you have never been in a play before, you might be blown away (as I was) by the level of characterization that even the most minor characters get. Not only is the newlywed Mrs. Squires (that's me) ridiculously in love, but she also married into money, and likes to show it off by wearing a million different expensive (and slightly insane) outfits. Anyway, the point is that I thought Mrs. Squires would add a little extra something to her gym uniform, so I borrowed a big Gerbera daisy clip for my hair from Sarah's collection.

Here's my final costume in action (pre-alteration). You can't see them in the photos, but those black bloomers are worn over opaque white tights and high-top Converse All Stars. Sexxaaay!

There's still time to change your mind and come see the show! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Lisa: in the best Delsarte tradition

I told you! I get to wear a ridiculously decorated faux toga. Bonus: I decorated it while watching the season finale of Mad Men with Sarah. Now, every time I put it on, I think of Don Draper. Unfortunately, every time I put the toga on, I am also reminded that my hair will never be as awesome as Joan Holloway's.

In action:

We open tonight! I hope I see you there.

Lisa: I don't know how I can ever wait to see

Sorry if I've been a bit one-note, but practicing three days a week has sort of kept the play at the forefront of my mind. Anyway, we open this weekend, so it will all be over soon enough.

The shirt is from Steve & Barry's, and I made the skirt myself using this pattern. The humongous, tulle-topped hat is my favorite of the ones I made. It's not so great for tight backstage quarters, but there's a certain satisfaction in forcing your stage husband to bend down and peer under the brim in order to sing into your face.

[Edited to add a shot of the hat in action. It is fully three heads wide.]

Lisa: "Wow. That's really...bright."

As with the last ensemble, the outfit was provided for me, but I decorated the hat myself. (Good thing I've had lots of practice.) The blue tulle around the hat hangs down in front to form a veil around my face.

So, yeah. When you get to the church, I'll be the one in the pulsing, radioactive ball of blue.

[Edited to add a shot of this costume in action.]

Lisa: You've Got Trouble

What goes with a blue-and-shocking pink gown with padded-out hips? A hat featuring lovebirds in a love nest, of course.

You know you want to be there.

Lisa: prop

This is but a preview of some of the costume-related entries to come. So many hot-glue burns, so much tulle, so much unbridled joy. Nora is going to have the best dress-up box ever.

Lisa: change

After Nora and I rocked the vote in the freezing rain, we needed a treat. Just because she ate some of hers in the cart at the grocery store doesn't make it any less celebratory.

Don't worry, Nora's Obama onesie was safely covered up by her hoodie while we were at the polling location, as per Utah's anti-electioneering polling place rules.

I'm thrilled that Obama won so handily, and I'm really proud that the race was so close in Salt Lake County. WE DID THAT.

I'm scared, however, that over 20,000 people in Utah think that Super Dell should be governor.

Lisa: just doing my part

Blake arrived home from work and found me in my office, printing something out from my computer.

Lisa: Hey! How was your day?
Blake: Blegh. I spent all day neutralizing chemicals.
Lisa: Oh yeah? Well, I neutralized [whips finished Obama poster out of the printer and holds it up] THE OPPOSITION!

Don't forget to vote tomorrow, everybody!

Lisa: Today!

Sometimes you take stock of your life and realize all you do after 10 pm is lie on the couch playing Apollo Justice. Then you email your friends in a panic until they agree to get pretty and go out on the town with you. You choose the Tavernacle, of course, since there's something to watch besides each other AND it involves loud singing. Somehow your camera phone makes its way out of your purse, becomes self-aware, and posts the evidence of your debauchery on the internet. There, there, it's OK--Apollo Justice will be waiting on the couch for you tomorrow night.

Luckily my phone happened to catch a rare appearance of Mallory's WOW face.

And these are my new lacy stockings, which Mallory showed to the table next to us by pulling my leg up perpendicular to the floor.

And this account simply wouldn't be complete without a shot of Sarah's fiance and one of the piano guy with the hair getting his butt grabbed by an extremely inebriated woman of a certain age.

Lisa: Take Three

I know some people think that since Sarah and I write this blog together, it doesn't really count when we do NaBloPoMo, because we don't EACH post every single day. All I know is that we write more, better entries when we have a challenge.

Let the slightly more regular blogging begin!

Lisa: that's what they call a win-win-WIN

Before it becomes completely irrelevant, I should post these pictures from our VP debate party. Nothing goes with talking points and winking like nachos and Palin Bingo!

You can tell how much fun everyone's having by their eagerness to smile at the camera.

Lisa: clarification

Dear Everyone Ever,

Pro-Choice is NOT the same thing as Pro-Abortion. Protecting a woman's dominion over her own body is not synonymous with advocating or condoning baby murder.

Can this be the last time we ever talk about this?

Sincerely,
Lisa

Lisa: Tools of the Week

Contractor Series Mini-Roller

Meredith was not kidding, this little roller is a life-changer. It completely eliminates cutting in with a brush, and makes small areas a breeze. I'll never paint without one again.

HELMER Drawer Unit

By far the most impressively designed and packed piece of IKEA furniture I have ever purchased. A pleasure to build (yeah, I said it) and a handy little set of drawers, too.

Lisa: bittersweet

Today is my last day working for the library, at least for the near future. My feelings about this are so mixed, but I think excitement for the next phase of my life is winning out.

Thank you, thank you to Dawn for helping me find library science, to the University of North Texas for allowing me to earn an MLS without leaving Salt Lake (and Blake), and especially to the Salt Lake County Library System for hiring and training a brand new children's librarian (and for working around my pregnancy, delivery, and new motherhood for as long as they did). I consider this my career, and I'll be back, refocused and ready to work harder than ever in just a few years.

Thank you also to Concert Black, for making this change possible, and to my mom, whose vision, drive, and very hard work has made our little company run so well that instead of working on it "on the side," it can be my main job. I can hardly believe that I'll be writing myself a paycheck for filling those website orders from home.

Thank you most of all to my little Nora, for coming into my life so fortuitously. You have brightened it and made each day better in a way I could never have imagined. It has been hard for me to leave you every day (even with people who love you as much as Sir, Grandma, and your dad do) and I can't wait to be home with you to watch you changing and growing. I feel like I'm growing because of you, too. And of course, I'll be there to make sure you have on pants.

Phewf! Enough sappy stuff. See you all online.

Lisa: What, you don't have a decoupaged business card holder?

Before everything went insane, Jeremy, Marci, Mallory, and Sarah came over for a super Saturday craft day. We pooled our craft supplies and everybody brought treats, and it was awesome. Sarah came up with the idea to decorate office stuff, and I went a little crazy with Mod Podge and some scrapbook paper.

I promise, more real entries to come when it's not my last week at work.

Lisa: don't worry, he's not a democrat either

Before camera phones, we just had to tell our friends about the crazy cars we saw driving in front of us. Now, we can show a photo of said craziness to the entire world. Isn't this a magical time?

I'm not sure you can read the fine print there, but if you prove him wrong (presumably on ANY of the text written on his vehicle), he'll pay you $5. Not bad! Although you would have to talk to a crazy person. So...not great.

Lisa: Adieu, adieu, to yuh and yuh and yuh

Another thing I'll miss about summer: the fleet of strollers outside the door of our church on Sunday mornings. Yes, that's three double-wide strollers you see in the picture. Crazy Mormons.

Lisa: you can't hug a photograph

At the beginning of August, we went to an outdoor showing of Goonies that combined three of Nora's favorite things in the world: being outside, live music, and macaroni and cheese. Not to mention some of her (and my) very favorite people. Don't worry, I have already forgiven Sarah and Mallory for sticking pens in my hair while I was lying on the blanket.

The girls and I let Blake and Nora get to bed at a reasonable hour, then headed to Wal-Mart for midnight purchases of Breaking Dawn. Unfortunately, no one told me to take off my "I was bitten" pin before we went into the coffee shop, so I embarassed myself in front of the barista. Mew!

Farewell, Summer. I hardly knew ye.

Lisa: in the closet, that's my stuff

There was this incident. With the dish brush. And then I suddenly had to get rid of a bunch of stuff from our storage room. Maybe it's best not to ask.

If you're interested in any of these items, click on the picture to go to the ad or auction!

Lisa: does anyone want some herbs?

I don't know if anyone remembers our herb garden project, but I thought I'd post an update since things are going so well.

Here's a view of the whole garden, the HUGE comfrey plant (What does one use comfrey for? I guess I should have researched that before planting.), mint, sage, and our little champion tomato plant. We've picked ripe tomatoes four times now, I think. Sorry, I'm blocking the sun with the camera in some of these shots.

So, does this count as having a vegetable garden? I think so. Now, to find a way to use some of these goodies before they go to waste...

Lisa: This is going to be awesome.

I can see the resemblance:

ETA: A few costumes I might have to look forward to.

Lisa: Red Dawn

Lisa: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234719/
Sarah: Ohmygosh.
Lisa: http://www.themovieinsider.com/m4854/red-dawn/
Sarah: They're remaking it?!
Lisa: A remake. Yes. I was seeing what movies were scheduled for 2010, in case it brought up any awesome costume ideas.
Sarah: WOLVERINES!
Lisa: Blake is going to plotz.
Sarah: Plotz?
Lisa: It's a real word!
Sarah: I don't doubt that, i suppose, I just don't know its meaning?
Lisa: PLOTZ: To burst, to explode, "I can't laugh anymore or I'll "plotz." To be aggravated beyond bearing.
Sarah: Hee. Awesome. Thank you.
Lisa: Thank the Dictionary of Yiddish Phrases.
Sarah: I wish I knew more Yiddish.
Lisa: plotz (pläts) intransitive verb
INFORMAL to be overcome with emotion; give way to excitement, anger, delight, etc. Etymology: < E Yiddish platsn, lit., to burst, explode < MHG platzen

Lisa: Are you going to plotz?
Blake: Absolutely.

Lisa: one man's garb is another man's...garbage?

Lisa: BS!
Blake: Hi hotness
Lisa: I am getting so excited about your costume for Comic-Con. So excited that I might condone you growing your beard out and putting beads in it.
Blake: What is my costume? I am not aware of what is going on.
Lisa: Well...I was thinking you could wear your kilt and dress as THE HIGHLANDER! What do you think? You could carry a sword?
Blake: Yes, I would be The Highlander. I would like to carry a sword and have a braided beard. But if I am to do that I need to start growing now.
Lisa: Hmmm. Well, what if it wasn't really BRAIDED so much as kind of scruffy? Maybe you could get beard extensions. Or have little beaded pigtails instead of true braids.

Lisa: So, what costume are you going to wear for Comic-Con?
Sarah: Hee. Sailor moon, of course.

Lisa: wait for it...

I have so much to tell you, Internet! I've been...

and so much more, really. Unfortunately, I should be spending my at-home computer time getting caught up on the accounting work I've been putting off. The only new content I have to offer is this ridiculous picture, made here. (Thanks for getting me through that last few minutes of the workday, angry chicken! How did you know I was looking for a way to more widely distribute photos of myself?)

See you next week!

Lisa: Feisty

Last Thursday, Sarah and I saw Feist at Deer Valley. She was AWESOME. I already thought her voice was unusual and cool, but it's even more unbelievable live. Plus, she kept teasing the Deer Valley crowd about their lawn chairs and their roasted red pepper caviar hummus with quail's eggs, which was good times. She also had a pair of amazing shadow artists performing behind her, projecting images onto the back wall of the stage--it was worth the hour's wait for dusk after the opening band.

As the icing on the cake, we ran into Andrea and her friend and made them come sit with us, and Dave and Angie even stopped by on their way to the fancy seats.

The only thing that could have made the night better is if Blake and Nora could have been there. Oh, well. I'll leave you with a message from Sarah:

Peace, bitches!

[Edited to add: I just noticed that the girl over Sarah's shoulder in that first picture is reading Twilight. Awesome.]

Lisa: This is why we are married.

I admit it: I got sucked into the Twilight books AGAIN. I thought I was too good for that, but the new one is coming out in a few weeks and I couldn't fight it. (For the record, I have actually liked them better the second time around. Don't you judge me.) Anyway, Blake saw me reading one the other day, and started asking questions about this particular vamp universe. You might recall that we've watched a few Buffy episodes and other vampire movies in the past...suffice it to say that each oeuvre comes with its own mythology. Well, I guess I could have just said, "I don't know" or, "who cares," but I'm a librarian. When faced with a reference question, I must find the answer.

Via email:

Blake,

I thought you might be interested in Stephenie Meyer's (the author's) answer to your question from yesterday.

Q: Is it possible that a human could kill a vampire?
A: Er, not really. A big enough bomb would probably be hot enough to burn a vampire, but the vampire would have to agree to hold still and let it hit him.

Lisa

--------------

Lisa,

Though I appreciate her answer in terms of mythology she just might as well have said it takes magic fairy dust to kill them. "No humans can kill vampires because they have a mystical force shield around them, or rather a miasma that defies the laws of physics."(haha) If it is a big enough bomb they wouldn't have to hold still they couldn't get away. It is not heat that does damage from bombs but rather kinetic energy so if we can determine how much kinetic energy it would take to pierce their skin then we can see whether or not a shot gun can produce enough kinetic energy. She does not understand thermodynamics and kinetic energy but I am preparing the equations just in case she ever asks me. Sorry I am a big nerd but am thankful for your e-mail.

Blake

--------------

Blake,

Well, I don't know about the laws of physics, but it's not a forcefield. It's because they're super hard, super strong, and super fast. Here's more:

Q: Why do they sparkle?
A: They sparkle because they have turned to substance that is somewhat like diamond. Their bodies have hardened, frozen into a kind of living stone. Each little cell in their skin has become a separate facet that reflects the light. These facets have a prism-like quality-they throw rainbows as they glitter.

Q: How about stakes through the heart? Reflections? Photographs? Holy water? Garlic? All that traditional vampire lore.
A: Bunch of garbage. I think all of them get addressed in New Moon except garlic and stakes. But you try shoving wood through granite.

Q: Do the vampires have blood in their veins even though their heart no longer pumps? What would happen if they were cut or injured in some way?
A: Most human fluids are absent in my vampires. No sweat, no tears, no blood besides that which they ingest-they don't have their own blood. They do sort of have saliva-the venom makes their mouths wet, at least. When they drink blood, it runs through their body and makes them strong. It floods through their old blood ways, though they don't have circulation anymore. It lightens their eyes and flushes their skin slightly. If a vampire were cut, there would only be blood if he/she had freshly drunk blood (and drunk a lot). Otherwise, there would only be a bit of venom. It would be like cutting into granite.

Lisa

--------------

Lisa,

I am already figuring out the necessary kinetic energy it would take for a thrust object or projectile to penetrate granite. The initial calculations do not bode well for most normal weaponry but several high powered rifles whose bullets reach teminal velocity in their descent can pass through almost 4 inches of granite. It still may not kill one but it certainly could ruin his or her day. Also interestingly enough a projectile like an arrow if propelled near the speed of sound can pass through 6 inches of granite assuming the arrow is made of a similar material. I guess I should invest in a shotgun for zombies and a guass rifle for vampires. But this is just my initial investigation. I am also looking at chemicals that will eat through diamonds. What about a diamond chainsaw blade hmmmmm, interesting. Can I get a chainsaw for Christmas?

Blake

--------------

Blake,

I love you so much. But also, don't forget the super speed.

Lisa

--------------

Lisa,

So true. I will have to develop a suit like Batman in a comic book set in the future where he had to square off against Superman. These vampires seem a little like Superman so that is what I should try to defend against, or say screw the whole thing and just hope they want to turn me instead of just eat me.

Blake

Lisa: no cruising yet

Bicycle Shop Gentleman: Hi, need a repair?
Lisa: Well, kind of, see--
BSG: Your front wheel's on backwards.
L: ...Yes.

Lisa: congratulations!

We love you, Angie and Dave!

Back to our regularly scheduled programming soon...

Lisa: the fall

Dave: I'm calling to give you a movie recommendation: The Fall.
Lisa: Oh yeah?
D: Yeah. And this should mean something to you if no one else--it's by the same director as The Cell.
L: The Cell? Really? With Jennifer Lopez?
D: I mean, you loved that movie, right? Even though no one else did? Except, this one, instead of being ridiculous and stupid, is the best movie of the year.
L: ...Thanks. So, what's it about?
Angie: It's everything you could ever want in a movie.
L: Everything? Is there singing and dancing?
D: Yes.
L: SERIOUSLY?
D: Well, nobody's crunking [sic] or anything. But, yes.
L: Well, it sounds like I'd better go see it!
D: Take Sarah. She'll like it too.

Anybody want to go?

Lisa: Friends don't let friends wear men's golf shirts.

You know those golf shirts they ordered for everyone at work? Yours doesn't really fit, does it? Like, it's somehow simultaneously too big AND too small? Maybe because you are not six feet tall and shaped like a sausage? I think I can help.

First things first: find a good show on Tivo, so you don't get bored, and plop the baby in the walker. Hi, cutie!

Double-check your measurements against your trusty dress form (you can even make your own if you don't want to splash out for this invaluable tool).

Okay. Turn your golf shirt inside out and put it back on the dress form. Your shirt probably doesn't have side seams now--we're going to create side seams in order to give it some shape. The process is the same whether it already has side seams or not, really. Just grab the fabric at the side of the shirt, under the arm, and pin it together close to the dress form, keeping the pins marching in a fairly straight line down the side. If there's a place where the shirt is already somewhat snug, like at the hips or whatever, then you only need a tiny pin tuck to keep the illusion of a side seam going. You're going to pin the body of the shirt and then continue the line of pins around the curve at the armpit and along the bottom of the sleeve. Trust me, there's enough room in that sleeve to take out an inch or so.

Unpick the ribbed material from the bottom of the sleeves. Just detatch it from the sleeve--don't unpick the stitching that keeps the cuff in a circle. Set those sad-looking things aside for now.

Time to start sewing! Don't bother cleaning off the table first; this is enough domesticity for one day, don't you think? Anyway, you should stitch along the line of pins you put in earlier, pulling them out as you go. After you do both side seams with a straight stitch, change your machine to a zigzag and add a row of that OUTSIDE the side seams. Trim off the extra fabric right next to the zigzag stitch. If you have a serger, this can all be done in one step (but...you are probably a very competent seamstress and don't need my help).

Let's address those monster sleeves. You can cut at least four inches of fabric off of each of those. This isn't an exact science; eyeball it, then fold over the fabric on top of itself as you go, using the cut-off bit as a guide so that you trim off a straight piece. Throw those pieces away, or make one into a headband a la 1990s Seventeen magazine featurettes.

Once you have the sleeves trimmed down to size, pin the cuff back on. Make sure you think this through before you start sewing! Right sides go together, and the underarm seams go together. If your shirt is still inside out, you will be pinning the cuff inside the sleeve. Then stitch a straight stich and zigzag stitch (like the side seams) right along the rough edge of the ribbing.

If you haven't tried your newly curvy shirt on yet, you might want to do that now to measure where the hem should be. Put the shirt on inside out, and pull the hem up over the shirt until you like the length. Pin it in four or five places so it'll stay in place while you pull the shirt back off.

The bottoms of knit shirts are usually finished with a double row of straight stitching. To copy this look, just sew around the hem twice with a straight stitch, picking a place on the presser foot to measure against for the second time around. When you're sure that you haven't hemmed your shirt too short, trim off the extra fabric.

Voila! Isn't that better? You just lost twenty pounds, visually. Work will be 45% more bearable today!

Lisa: Friday, Fries, and Frolf

Last week, Nora and I had 45 minutes to kill before meeting my mom to shop for a Father's Day gift, so we decided to finally try the zucchini fries I've had my eye on at Woody's Drive-In.

After we got our food, we drove to Creekside Park for a picnic. Here's Nora, eating a quesadilla and trying to charm the nearby kids into coming over and making friends. It worked.

My raspberry shake was really good, and the zucchini fries were okay for a novelty food. They're strips of zucchini, battered and deep-fried--kind of like a heavier, wetter version of vegetable tempura.

There was some kind of frisbee golf tournament happening at the park; at least, I hope so. About fifty men in their twenties and early thirties--the majority of them unfortunately shirtless--were just hanging around, throwing frisbees at poles at 3:00 on a Friday afternoon. If it wasn't a tournament, I am terrified for my generation. Don't worry, though, I documented some of the half-naked frolfers for your viewing pleasure:

Lisa: I said who do you think you are

I went to the hair salon on Tuesday.

Stylist: "What's that paper? Aw! Did someone bring a picture?"
Lisa: "Um. Maybe. No making fun!"
S: "Let's see it! What do you want?"
L: (Hangs head in shame, unfolds printed-out Word document and thrusts it at the stylist.) "Pob me."
S: "Hee. All you had to say was 'Posh Spice.' Wow, you even cut and pasted these in here and everything! You're serious!"
L: (Laughs uneasily.)

I think it turned out OK, though.

Sorry about the mirrors--it's surprisingly difficult to photograph the back of your own head.

Lisa: how about I make you a nice sandwich, and we'll forget this ever happened?

I was innocently enjoying this unspeakably nerdy article on retconning in comic books when I stumbled across the words, "they like the taste of your sandwich."

I think it was lunchtime. "Mmm, sandwich," I must have thought. I made an immediate mental note to add this turn of phrase to my everyday speech. To my lexicon, if you will. I tried it out in several contexts:

1. In place of "I like the way you think"
2. In an "I find you adorable" sort of situation
3. As an "I'm picking up what you're putting down" substitute
4. As my Facebook status

I am saddened to report that I had a 0% success rate. People did not like the taste of my sandwich, if you know what I mean. I know, I know, you don't--that's the problem. It either came off as nonsensical or vaguely dirty, depending on the audience and the topic at hand. I'm afraid "I like the taste of your sandwich" will have to be retired (along with such gems as the exclamation, "that's over the COUNTER!").

Now, more importantly: ham and cheese or peanut butter?

Lisa: perhaps the three plagues are dorkfaces, cover bands and cologne

Lisa: practically zero calories

I couldn't resist these tiny 4.23-ounce Haagen-Dazs minis (with a little "spoon" inside the lid!) when I saw them on sale at Harmons for $1 each. They're the perfect size; you can eat the whole container in a satisfying way, but you get to skip the self-loathing that comes with polishing off an entire pint in a single sitting. Plus, there's the extreme cuteness factor.

Of course, I had to use a regular-size spoon for faster delivery.

Lisa: What would Freud say?

When my mom saw my new repurposed-thread-rack finger puppet display system sitting on my table, she exclaimed over the simultaneous cuteness and uselessness of finger puppets. We got to talking about them, and...I think this needs to be quoted directly.

Mom: Hee. A Freud puppet might be funny for intimate moments. [holds up one finger as a puppet, wiggling it] "Are you ready for some...therapy?"
Lisa: [condescending psychiatrist voice] "Does someone have an oral fixation?"

That's right, I took it to the next level. With my mom.

Lisa: raspberry almond blondies

I've been reading about Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share everywhere, especially on Angry Chicken, so I had to check it out from the library and see it myself.

All of the recipes sound amazing, but you have to start somewhere, right? I went with the raspberry almond blondies (recipe after the jump).

Fresh raspberries were a ridiculous $7 a box at the grocery store, so I bought frozen rasberries instead. I thawed and rinsed them, but I think frozen fruit still has a significantly higher water content than fresh fruit. I'm pretty sure this was the problem with my lemon blueberry yogurt bread, too. The blondies came out great, but took 30 minutes longer to cook than the recipe called for.

Martha's Raspberry Almond Blondies

makes 16

9 tablespoons (1 stick plus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup sliced almonds (about 3 ounces), toasted (I just spread them out on a cookie sheet under the broiler and turned them with a spatula once they started getting brownish on one side.)
2 2/3 cups raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. Line with one longish piece of parchment paper, allowing 2 inches to hang over two sides. Butter parchment.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

3. Put butter and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Or cream in a large bowl with a hand mixer. Add eggs and vanilla; mix until combined. Mix in 3/4 cup almonds.

4. Pour batter into prepared dish; smooth top. Scatter berries and remaining 1/4 cup almonds over batter. Bake, rotating dish halfway through, until a cake tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs, 55-60 minutes. If you use frozen berries, plan to add about thirty minutes to your cooking time, checking often.

5. Let blondies cool 15 minutes. Transfer blondies to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Cut into 2-inch squares. Blondies can be stored in single layers in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Lisa: this should cover it

Sometimes you just have to use your camera phone to take a picture of the car in front of you.

In case it's hard to read the individual 2-inch letter stickers adhered to the back of this mini-van, they spell "A SIGN OF DISTRESS/NOT OF DISRESPECT." This confused me for a few blocks, until I saw the white sticker in the lower left corner of his rear window. You can't tell in the photo, but the sticker has a drawing of an American flag flying upside down, along with the same slogan. I'm not going to get into a discussion of proper flag etiquette, but this gentleman's message inspired a blanket-statement bumper sticker of my own:

Lisa: sour cream chocolate chip coffee cake

For our Mother's Day dessert, I made chocolate-chip sour cream cake (recipe from the Boston Globe, after the jump). It was tasty with the chocolate chips, but I think it would be really good without, also--as a regular coffee cake, or with raspberries or something swirled in.

Yum! We had ours with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

CHOCOLATE CHIP SOUR CREAM CAKE

Makes one 9-by-13-inch cake

1 stick of butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 eggs, separated
16 ounces sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
12 ounces chocolate chips

1. Have ready a greased 9-by-13-inch rectangular baking pan. Set the oven at 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, cream butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar, then mix in the egg yolks, sour cream, and vanilla.

3. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir into the butter mixture.

4. Beat the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks, then fold into the batter. In a small bowl, mix the cinnamon with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and the chocolate chips.

5. Pour half of the cake batter into the pan. Sprinkle the top with half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Pour remaining batter on top, then cover that with the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture.

6. Bake 40-50 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Adapted from Deb Perelman

Lisa: no more nougat

Ants ate my Toblerone. This is the universe telling me that I am too fat to be eating a Toblerone.

On the other hand, I won the Toblerone in a drawing at work. I never win things. So, that could be the universe saying, "Go ahead. Eat a Toblerone. You've earned it!"

STOP MESSING WITH MY MIND, UNIVERSE! I am feeling very fragile right now. Yes. What? Yes! Because ANTS. ATE. MY FRIGGIN TOBLERONE.

Lisa: orange rolls

I thought orange rolls would go nicely with our American potluck, and boy, was I right. The jello was fun and everything, but this pull-apart concoction was so amazingly, evilly good. It may become a Christmas morning tradition at our house.

It's easy, too--and if you don't have four hours to let the rolls rise, you can follow the quick-rise directions on the roll package. Recipe (from add to desired taste) after the jump. Reader beware: only make this if you have a lot of people to share it with, or if you want to gain approximately ten thousand pounds. Because you will eat the entire thing.

Easy Orange Rolls

1 package frozen rolls (Rhodes)
1/4 cup melted butter
5 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons orange peel

Preheat oven to 350. Mix butter, sugar and orange peel in large bowl. Add FROZEN rolls, stir to coat. Spray bundt pan with nonstick spray. Pour rolls into bundt pan, making sure all of sugar mixture is on rolls. Cover with towel and let defrost/rise, about 4 hours. Bake for about 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Turn out onto serving plate immediately and pour frosting over top.

Frosting:
1/4 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon orange juice
1 Tablespoon orange peel

Mix with mixer until smooth.

Lisa: and the path leads...to puke

Yesterday I was tooling around online, looking for retro jello recipes to link, and I found a posting from someone looking for recipes for their fifties-themed bridal shower. "Ooh! A fifties-themed shower," I thought to myself. "Fun! I love fifties things!" That made me think of Avocado Memories, and I spent a while there, remembering the awesomeness of Wes's family home and getting caught up on stuff he had posted in the last few years. One of his recent additions was a tribute to the Spirograph, a toy I also had as a kid--and that, in my mind, will forever be associated with puke.

Once upon a time, when I was still little enough to ride in the basket of the shopping cart, my dad was pushing me around the store while he got some shopping done. I started feeling queasy, but before I could get Dad's attention, I threw up. I held my mouth closed as tightly as I could so I wouldn't make a mess, tugged on his sleeve, and pointed frantically at my mouth. Dad, thinking I was playing some wacky little-kid game, puffed out his cheeks and pointed at his own mouth, nodding his head. Unfortunately, at that moment, another heave hit me, and it was more than I could hold in. Puke sprayed out of my mouth, and probably all over me and whatever else was in the cart. I've blocked that part of the story out, because it is disgusting. What I do remember is that my dad felt so bad that he bought me Spirograph, which I played with happily all afternoon in bed.

He also made me a puke-catching system out of nested paper grocery bags, which my mom promptly threw out and replaced with a proper barf-bucket when she got home.

Anyway, thanks for taking care of me, Dad! Sorry about the mess.

Lisa: Ruby Red Layered Jello Salad

When I was assigned a side dish for our last Freaks and Geeks potluck (American-themed in homage to Sarah's impending departure), I knew I had to make jello salad. What's more American than jello salad?

This salad sounded perfectly gross-yet-delicious. An inch-thick layer of pure sour cream? It cuts the sweetness of the fruit jello perfectly. A whole can of cranberry sauce in the top layer? What is jello anyway, if not jellied fruit sauce? Spoon it up. Best of all, it's pretty and translucent and unnaturally red, as jello salad should be. (Recipe from Ping on GroupRecipes, after the jump.)

Ingredients

1 (3 ounce) package raspberry flavored gelatin mix
2 cups boiling water
1 (10 ounce) package frozen raspberries
1 pint sour cream
1 (3 ounce) package cherry flavored gelatin
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 (16 ounce) can whole cranberry sauce

Directions

1) Dissolve raspberry gelatin in 1 cup hot water. Add frozen raspberries, and stir until well mixed. Pour into a glass bowl. Refrigerate until almost firm, about 30 to 60 minutes.
2) Spread sour cream over firm gelatin. Refrigerate.
3) Dissolve cherry gelatin in 1 cup hot water. Stir in crushed pineapple and cranberry sauce. Chill until partially set, about 20 to 40 minutes.
4) Spoon cherry gelatin mixture over sour cream layer. Chill until firm, another hour or two.

Note: This salad is most attractive when made in a crystal bowl so the various layers can be seen.

Lisa: I can't drink that

Sarah and I were loitering in the drink aisle of the grocery store, trying to find the perfect flavored lemonade, when we spied some very appealing packaging.

It was a small, dark blue glass bottle, with little bumps on the sides and a silver screw-top. "I'd buy this one just because the bottle is so pretty," one of us said, turning the drink around so we could read the name.

"Oh. Never mind."

I think the marketing person who chose the name Bawls and the marketing person who designed the bottle are two separate individuals--and the person designing the bottle knew he had to do some of his very best work to overcome that name. A noble effort, too--it was almost successful. Unfortunately, the problem is compounded because Bawls Guarana Exxtra (now with more energy, perhaps?) comes in a white version of the same bottle. If you want the original, you have to request the "blue Bawls."

Thank you, but...no.

Lisa: apple tart

In an effort to use up a bunch of overpriced apples I had purchased for a library program, I found myself searching Tastespotting for good-looking apple recipes. Somehow I still ended up at Smitten Kitchen, with the Simplest Apple Tart.

The tart turned out gorgeous AND delicious. The only trouble I had was with the dough--there just didn't seem to be enough of it. I rolled it so thin that it kept tearing, but it still barely made it to the edges of the dish. There wasn't enough dough to wrap up over the tops of the apples, and it certainly wouldn't have worked galette-style. Or maybe my dish was too big, and I had too many apples. I don't know.

Recipe after the jump.

Alice Waters’s Apple Tart

INGREDIENTS:
For dough:
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, just softened, cut in 1/2-inch pieces
3 1/2 tablespoons chilled water

For filling:
2 pounds apples (Golden Delicious or another tart, firm variety), peeled, cored (save peels and cores), and sliced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
5 tablespoons sugar

For glaze: 1/2 cup sugar

MIX flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl; add 2 tablespoons of the butter. Blend in a mixer until dough resembles coarse cornmeal. Add remaining butter; mix until biggest pieces look like large peas.

DRIBBLE in water, stir, then dribble in more, until dough just holds together. Toss with hands, letting it fall through fingers, until it’s ropy with some dry patches. If dry patches predominate, add another tablespoon water. Keep tossing until you can roll dough into a ball. Flatten into a 4-inch-thick disk; refrigerate. After at least 30 minutes, remove; let soften so it’s malleable but still cold. Smooth cracks at edges. On a lightly floured surface, roll into a 14-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. Dust excess flour from both sides with a dry pastry brush.

PLACE dough in a lightly greased 9-inch round tart pan, or simply on a parchment-lined baking sheet if you wish to go free-form, or galette-style with it. Heat oven to 400°F. (If you have a pizza stone, place it in the center of the rack.)

OVERLAP apples on dough in a ring 2 inches from edge if going galette-style, or up to the sides if using the tart pan. Continue inward until you reach the center. Fold any dough hanging over pan back onto itself; crimp edges at 1-inch intervals.

BRUSH melted butter over apples and onto dough edge. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over dough edge and the other 3 tablespoons over apples.

BAKE in center of oven until apples are soft, with browned edges, and crust has caramelized to a dark golden brown (about 45 minutes), making sure to rotate tart every 15 minutes.

MAKE glaze: Put reserved peels and cores in a large saucepan, along with sugar. Pour in just enough water to cover; simmer for 25 minutes. Strain syrup through cheesecloth.

REMOVE tart from oven, and slide off parchment onto cooling rack. Let cool at least 15 minutes.

BRUSH glaze over tart, slice, and serve.

Lisa: Hand-drawn Friday

We had our Bon Voyage party for Sarah and Marci at the Crown, and I felt the occasion called for a little festive headwear. I did an image search for some of the famous landmarks they'll be seeing in Europe, and drew simplified versions onto colored paper. Voila! Crowns at the Crown. It's not the first time, but it might be one of the best.

Canal houses in Amsterdam

Parliament building in Budapest

London's Tower Bridge

Tyn Church in Prague

Roman Coliseum

Hairy Coo from Scotland

I miss you guys!

Lisa: lemon blueberry yogurt bread

This bread tasted great and looked pretty good considering what a hard time it had coming into the world. The recipe (from Ina Garten via Smitten Kitchen, after the jump) calls for a cup of yogurt that makes the bread super moist. Knowing this, I didn't worry when--after cooking for 50 minutes--the knife I used to test the center of the nicely browned loaf came out clean, but wettish. I soaked the bread with lemon juice glaze, let it cool in the pan for ten minutes, then turned it out onto a cooling rack. Immediately, the uncooked, heavy, wet center of the bread broke through the top crust and started dripping out onto the counter. I quickly slipped the pan back down over the bread, held the rack to the pan and flipped the bread back in, and popped the whole mess back in the oven for another TWENTY MINUTES. The edges got quite brown, but the center seemed to have firmed up. After the bread was cool and I sliced it up, it looked pretty good--I only ended up throwing out two slices from the very middle, where the crater at the top was most visible.

Anyway, I probably wouldn't make this again, at least not without keeping a very close eye on the baking time and temperature. If you're trying this recipe, I might suggest a lower temperature for a longer time. Other changes: I used a little more lemon zest than called for, and regular frozen blueberries instead of miniature wild blueberries (because, seriously?).

Smitten Kitchen's Lemon-Blueberry Yogurt Loaf
Adapted from Ina Garten

1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (if you’re skipping the fruit, you can also skip the last tablespoon of flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3 extra-large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed and rinsed (miniature wild blueberries are great for this, and pose the least risk of sinking)
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan.

Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix the blueberries with the remaining tablespoon of flour, and fold them very gently into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 (+) minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before flipping out onto a cooling rack. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in (a pastry brush works great for this, as does using a toothpick to make tiny holes that draw the syrup in better). Cool.

Lisa: quirky

Jessica of How About Orange posted six of her "unremarkable quirks", and I felt inspired to do the same.

1. The sound of a spoon clonking around the inside of a glass blender jar is one of the nicest sounds I have ever heard. It's at least 30% of the reason I make blended frozen drinks.

2. I really like stalking. And spying. And covertly collecting information on people of interest. Not in a creepy way, of course. But, you? Yeah, you with the hair? I have Googled you.

3. Figure skating (singles, pairs, ice dancing, whatever--give me a spangly costume featuring illusion netting and someone swooping around effortlessly balanced on two tiny blades, and I'm sold) is the only sport I really enjoy watching on TV. Are there community ed skating classes for old people? Do you want to sign up with me?

4. Serial killers fascinate me. If I start looking things up in the Crime Library, I get sucked in for hours. I don't let myself read much true crime, because I'm afraid it would become a habit--and there are probably more uplifting (and better written) things I could fill my mind with. Maybe four years old was too young to start listening to Sweeney Todd...no, I jest, you can never be too young for Sweeney Todd.

5. I love typing, and when I get going, I can type almost as fast as I can talk. It's like talking with my fingers, and for some reason that's a little thrilling. Maybe in another life I'll get a job as a court stenographer--but I'd want to do the voices when I read back the transcripts, and I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon.

6. I have written and published on the internet a three-chapter piece of fan-fiction. It may or may not be romantic in nature and was recognized as a featured story on the site. I am simultaneously proud and ashamed. Try to find it at your own risk.

Lisa: herb garden

It took us at least three Saturdays, but Blake and I finally finished the herb garden we started a month ago (and have been planning since January). It turned into a much bigger project than we anticipated, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. The idea was that the garden would fill the triangular space created by the edge of our patio meeting the angle of the driveway. It's an awkward space to mow, and I thought a raised garden bed would solve that problem AND look nice there.

First, I mapped the whole thing out on paper and took all the measurements. Then I marked off where the garden would go, using a makeshift system of skewers and the ugliest yarn I own, Mr. Brown. We were out of string. You can see in these pictures that there are a few weird features in this corner of the yard, including two different types of wrought iron (the fence and the posts holding up the awning over the patio), two different types of cement bases for the posts, and some little braces connecting the fence to one of the posts--I assume to give stability to the fence. I was hoping the garden would sort of camouflage some of these idiosyncracies.

Blake cut the sod out of my marked area...

...and we picked up some redwood decking at Home Depot for the sides of the raised bed. The guys at the Depot cut it to the lengths I had measured and everything. Blake had to do a little extra cutting to make a hole for one of the wrought iron braces to go through, but that's it.

The corner brackets are made by a company called Frame It All, and I found them at a garden store in Bountiful called J&L Garden Center. The brackets are great, because they allowed us to build something that was much more complex and nice-looking than our carpentry skills would have allowed otherwise. You can use them with any 2x6 wood, too, not just the plastic stuff sold by Frame It All. A few caveats, though:

1) The included instructions only work if you're putting your garden (or sandbox, or whatever) out in the middle of an open lawn. Otherwise, you'll need to figure out the installation on your own.

2) There are two types of brackets--Anchor Joints and Stacking Joints. I think you'd only need the Anchor Joints if you have really loose, sandy soil. If you have rocky clay, like we do, give yourself a break and use the Stacking Joints for both levels. Trust me, that six-inch stake will be stable enough.

3) The copy on the box says that the joints adjust to any angle. This is not exactly true. There is a minimum angle, which is why they recommend using at least a four-foot timber between each joint. Our first layout had a very narrow angle at the top of the triangle, which was too small for the Frame It All brackets. We changed the layout a bit, picked up a few more brackets to accomodate the jog around the post anchor (and a few more boards), and ended up with a shape that I think I like better anyway.

After we cut out another strip of sod, we laid out the boards and anchors where they would ultimately go, to make sure everything would work. Luckily, I had measured things right!

Blake and Sarah helped dig the holes for the stakes, and we got the boards and joints all in place and screwed together.

We took three trips to the garden store for bags of dirt, because we completely underestimated the amount of dirt it would take to fill up the garden. I think it was ten bags of compost and potting soil all together.

After the fresh, smooth dirt was in, it was quick work to plant the herbs and things we had bought. There's parsley, two kinds of sage, rosemary, thyme, two types of oregano, comfrey, two different mints, and I think a few others, plus several sweet williams (a Mother's Day gift from my mom) and a couple of the strawberry plants we got from the Turnbulls.

We left a little space to plant something that will climb up the post that is inside the bed. Now, if we can just manage to keep everything alive and looking nice! One of the lawn sprinklers is inside the new bed (Blake added some pipe to make it taller), so at least our efforts shouldn't be foiled by a lack of watering.

Lisa: Strawberry 100%

From the back of a book I checked in this morning:

EXT. ROOFTOP OF A SCHOOL BUILDING
SUNSET

FADE OUT

Oh, Junpei. We've all been there. May your quest for the perfect strawberry print panties be fruitful.

Lisa: headboard

The other day, I started vaguely considering a minor bedroom-revamping, and I priced some upholstered headboards online. That morphed into looking for instructions on making your own upholstered headboard, and then suddenly all the raw materials were at my house, waiting for me to do something with them. Funny how that happens.

Anyway, one day while Nora was down for a nap, I brought the baby monitor outside, dragged the chipboard and foam out of the garage, and got started.

I got the foam pieced together and glued by the time she woke up. I hadn't really thought about how I was going to glue the foam together, but I remembered from Cockeyed that contact cement might work. I wasn't sure what contact cement was, and I knew I didn't have any, so I googled it. Hmmm. That container looks kind of like blue glue, doesn't it? I dug the blue glue out of Blake's bag of sprinkler stuff and used that--it's stinky, but it worked fine. It didn't take much to get the edges to stick to each other.

For the headboard's arch, I traced a template I had found online, printed out, and taped together. After I had the shape marked, I used Marci's RotoZip saw to cut it out. This is the perfect tool for this kind of application. The RotoZip is basically a drill, but with a little guard added around the drill bit, and an extra handle on the side for stability. you put the guard right up against whatever you're sawing, and then move the drill wherever you want, making a freehand cut. So, it's not intimidating to use for anyone who has used a drill before. It doesn't make a perfectly smooth or straight cut (especially in a material of varying content, like chipboard), but that's OK when you're planning on covering your cut with thick layers of foam and fabric, and you just need the right overall shape. Thanks, Marci!

Meanwhile, Nora was being a superchamp, yelling back at the saw and thinking we were playing an awesome new game.

Once I had the wood cut out, I wrestled it on top of the foam and traced it with a sharpie. I used my trusty electric kitchen knife to cut the foam. That's what the instructions said to use, and when the lady at JoAnn's used an electric knife to cut the length I needed, I figured it was the way to go.

Nora thought the knife was almost as fun as the saw.

After I brought Nora inside and got her set up with some toys, I laid out my fabric, right side down, and lugged the wood and foam inside and centered the foam on the fabric. I trimmed the extra fabric a bit.

I got some big covered button kits (the only kind sold at JoAnn's) and made some buttons with the scraps I had trimmed off. I pinned the fabric loosely to the back of the foam, flipped it over, and figured out where I wanted to place the buttons. Then I sewed the buttons through the fabric and foam, and through another button on the back side to keep the thread from pulling through the foam. Here's the thing. In my experience, tufting with buttons is harder than you think it should be. For one thing, if you're using a covered button, the loop that your thread has to go through is on the back of the button. If your button is pulled into the foam really deeply, how do you get your needle back through that loop for another pass? It doesn't seem like one thickness of thread would be strong enough to keep the button tight against all that foam, either. And the first time you're pushing the needle through, it's tricky (and hurts your fingers) to push the needle in as far as you can while simultaneously compressing the foam to get the needle to poke through the other side far enough so that you can grab the tip and pull it out. I am convinced that the pros have a different set of tools to use when they're doing deep tufting--possibly including a very large needle, very strong thread, and some kind of button system with an open-faced (?) button on each side of the foam, which is easy to pull tight and allows for a decorative covered button to be snapped on afterward. Anyway, my buttons aren't as deep as I'd like, but they look OK.

Once I had the buttons sewn in, I unpinned the fabric from the back of the foam, laid the chipboard down on top of the foam, and stretched the fabric as tightly as I could around the back of the board, stapling as I went. In a few places I had to pull the staples out, smooth things out a bit, and staple again, but it worked pretty well. I'm really glad I believed the part of the instructions that says to glue the board to the foam ONE INCH BELOW the top of the foam, even though they are cut to the same size. This allows the top of the foam to curve back around the board, making a nice round edge at the top of the headboard, instead of a slope ending with the hard edge of the board. With the headboard being so big and heavy, it was hard to get the fabric pulled tightly enough while keeping things smooth. Maybe enlist a strong person to help.

Speaking of strong people, I got Blake to help me prop up the headboard above our bed so that I could take this extremely anticlimactic picture of the final product. I don't know what's going on with the focus and the lighting and the colors here, but I'll post some prettier pictures when the whole revamping is done.

foam: $40
fabric: $18
button kits: $10
chipboard: $8
Everything else I already had or made Sarah dig out of her storage unit.
Total: $86

If I were going to do this over again, I'd use a lighter but still rigid material (MDF?) instead of the chipboard and a slightly thinner foam covered with a thin layer of quilt batting to soften the edges of the foam. I think I'd also cut the foam a bit larger than the backing, so that it would wrap around the edges more. I'd definitely try to figure out some way to get the buttons sewn in more deeply. All in all, though, I'm happy with it--and it was certainly cheaper than buying one readymade.

Lisa: chicken & broccoli quiche

Soon after I had Nora, my awesome friend Gabrielle brought over dinner. It was SO GOOD, you guys. It was a salad with homemade dressing (in a container that I complimented so much that she got me one for my birthday), and a deep-dish quiche with broccoli and chicken. Blake loved the quiche so much that he called Gabrielle and told her so. Possibly more than once. Gabrielle thoughtfully included a handwritten copy of the quiche recipe, and I finally got around to making it last week. Why didn't I do it before? I'm kicking myself, because it is so easy and so delicious. Anyway, this is definitely going to be one of the ten recipes I memorize.

Gabrielle's recipe is after the jump. Things I added are in bold. If you want to kick the whole thing up a notch (both in taste and in difficulty), make it in the homemade crust of your choosing.

Edited to add: I only have one glass pie pan, so I made the second quiche (which wasn't eaten yet by the time I took pictures) in a square baking dish. It worked fine, but the crust--which started out round--looks a little funny. Don't you judge me.

Gabrielle's Chicken & Broccoli Quiche

Serves 6. Cooking time 35-40 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1 unbaked 9" pie shell (I use Pillsbury) These are in the refrigerated section near the Pillsbury crescent rolls in the tube. Get the rolled up refrigerated kind instead of the kind in the freezer section that are already in a pie tin, because then you can bake the quiche in your own dish and crimp the edge yourself so that it looks more homemade. Tricky! They come two to a package, so you might as well make two quiches at once.
2 cups fresh broccoli, cooked and drained
1 whole chicken breast, cooked and chopped Or chopped and then cooked, which is how I did it since I was in a rush. Small pieces = faster cooking, plus they don't have to look pretty because they'll be covered with delicious, delicious egg and cheese.
6-8 ounces Swiss cheese, cut into 1/4" cubes When I was buying the cheese, I forgot I was doubling the recipe, so I bought an 8-ounce brick. When I figured out my mistake back at home, I threw in 4 additional ounces of cheddar that I had on hand. The cheddar was tasty in the finished product, and I ended up with about 6 ounces of cheese per quiche. Disaster averted.
3 eggs
1 cup heavy cream I also only got enough cream for one quiche, but I added a cup of milk to make up the difference in volume (skim is what I had on hand). I didn't notice a difference, and there was a little less fat, so...whatever. Your mileage may vary.
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
chives (green onions) to taste

Leave the pie shells out of the fridge for 15 minutes or so before unrolling. Unroll pie shell and place in pie pan while you prepare the other ingredients. Sprinkle broccoli in bottom of the shell. Top with chicken, then cheese. In a small bowl, using a whisk, beat the eggs, cream, lemon juice, salt, and pepper until blended, but not frothy. Pour over cheese mixture; sprinkle with chives. Bake in 375-degree oven for 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted in the center comes out clean. (If you have some extra, sprinkle grated swiss over the top for the last 15 minutes of cooking.) Let stand at least ten minutes before cutting.

Since I made two quiches but only needed one, I pulled the other out of the oven at 35 minutes and stuck it in the freezer. The interwebs tell me I can warm it up in a 375-degree oven for 20 minutes. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Lisa: potato leek soup

We tried our second recipe from Everyday Foods a while ago, and it was a definite improvement over the last effort. Blake cooked while I held Nora and dispensed unhelpful advice, and he was very competent and patient. The soup was good, but not good enough to bother heating up and eating later, apparently--we ended up throwing the leftovers out a week later. If you have a recipe for a main dish you think I should try, please let me know. I can always find a dessert recipe that sounds good, but I struggle more with the main course.

Recipe after the jump--things I added are in bold.

Potato-Leek Soup

serves 4 * prep time 15 minutes * total time: 45 minutes

6 medium leeks (about 2 1/4 pounds), whites only, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise, cleaned
2 cans (14.5 ounces each) reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 baking potato (8 ounces), peeled and diced We used two potatoes, and I'm glad we did. The soup was still fairly thin.
Coarse salt
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup snipped fresh chives mental note: chives are green onions, dummy

WASHING LEEKS:
Leeks can be extremely dirty and are best cleaned after they've been trimmed and cut. Soak cut leeks in a bowl of cool water; lift them out, replace the water, and repeat until no grit remains at the bottom of the bowl. Drain on paper towels. Good luck "lifting out" chopped up leeks. I think we used a colander.

1. In a large saucepan, combine the leeks, broth, potato, 2 cups water, and 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil; reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the vegetables are very tender, 20 to 25 minutes.

2. Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender, transferring it to a clean bowl as you work. (To prevent splattering, fill the blender only halfway, and allow heat to escape: Remove the cap from the hole in the lid, and cover the lid firmly with a dish towel.) Blend a little longer than you think you need to, so the potato blends in well and isn't still grainy. Stir the cream into the pureed soup, and season with salt. Garnish with the chives. Serve immediately.

3. If desired, chill the soup: Cover loosely with plastic wrap, adn chill until cold, at least two hours and up to two days. If necessary, thin with water, and season with salt. Serve the soup in chilled glasses, garnished with chives.

Cook's note:
Depending on the weather, serve this comforting soup hot or cold. You can quickly chill it by placing it into a metal bowl set into an ice bath; stir frequently until the soup reaches the desired temperature.

Lisa: Sorry, Mom.

I thought I'd kick off Handwritten Fridays with a few truly useless but laboriously handwritten items that have (against all reason) survived for THIRTEEN YEARS since their creation.

You see, kids, in the dark days before text messaging, public school students annoyed their teachers by passing long, detailed notes to each other, expounding upon the controversial topics of parental injustice, how close they were to failing Bio, and the heartbreak of unrequited love.

If that student of yesteryear were lucky enough, the object of her unreturned affections might pass her a sweet, encouraging note like this:

(Yes, since you ask, I had a crush on him for five years. Can't you see why?)

Lisa: they put the "bling" in sibling

Some of my innate awesomeness obviously rubbed off on my brothers and sister, because...

David is trying to decide between the architecture programs at Columbia and Virginia Tech (assuming his dance career doesn't work out), and I couldn't be more excited that he and Angie just got engaged.

Sarah (as you know) is on her way to Europe for a study abroad program, and will graduate from the U with a major in Being Completely Awesome next fall.

Jeffrey is serving selflessly in the slums of New Jersey for one more year, and then will return to his school for slightly socially awkward geniuses.

I'm so proud of you guys! I could just sit on you and poke you in the ribs all day.

(Happy Sibling Day, everybody!)

Lisa: Marathon Stats

All this looking back reminded me that I intended to collect all the numerical data from our marathon entries, put it into Excel, and generate some kind of graphical representation. Because I'm a nerd and I like stuff like that.

Anyway, here it is at long last:

For each data series, you can see a line linking the actual data points (the jagged line) and a smooth line indicating the overal trend of the series. In general, as we added more distance, our spead decreased. We might have gotten in better shape, but that improvement was obviously directed toward distance, not speed. My weight stayed pretty much the same over six months of training, but my body fat percentage did exhibit a small downward trend. Now you know.

Lisa: five years

I can hardly believe it's been five years since we started this thing. I don't think we've really reached my initial goal of "being awesome just like Defective Yeti," but it's been fun and, you know, full of self-discovery (or at least self-indulgence).

How else does a terrible scrapbooker document her travels to the exotic locales of California (Several times, I guess. Hee.), Massachussets, Maryland, Illinois, Southern Utah, Scotland, and England?

Where in real life would I find someone willing to hear about me learning to knit or starting to cook? Suddenly caring about politics?

And you know I would have forgotten exactly when and how I did some of the stuff on my 29x29 list, like buying a house, going to grad school, starting my career (where I meet such interesting people), finishing a marathon, and having a baby.

Five years of Two Loose Teeth means a few entries I read again and smile. I'm glad there is published proof of Scrabble pee, my feelings on personal grooming, an attempt at instant messaging without a keyboard, Thanksgiving panties, humiliation at the car dealership, waxing philosophical about books and religion, feeling a mom's love for the first time, or just sharing the good times and the not so good.

Most of all, it means five years of blogging with the best pal a gal could have. Thank you, Sarah, for being my same-brain-sister and my best friend, even though I was totally mean to you twenty years ago. Here's to the next five.

Lisa: Do this, don't do that--can't you read the sign?

Quite a prodigious collection of passive agressive notes for one 8'x10' break room, don't you think?

This one reads: "If you make a mess on the table, sink, or in the frig or microwave, Please use these wipes and clean up after yourself immediately. Thank you. [smiling sun]"

I especially like the escalating comment penciled in on the bottom corner here: "I didn't know water made a mess! [signed,] Deeply offended Jean"

These two should be viewed as a set--the sign asking people not to leave coats at the table, and a sweater left at the table. The sweater's owner has been flaunting her disregard for that sign for weeks. Well, days.

Let's round out the set with a sign-up sheet for cleaning (only 7 of our 20 employees took the bait on that one), a "helpful" warning that personal belongings deemed objectionable will be thrown away by an anonymous judge, and a notice of paper towel machine changes (I don't even know).

Sarah: LOLisa

Because we like to join internet phenomena long after their "best before" date, Lisa and I (and Mallory and Marci) have long joked about LOLCats, their ridiculousness, the mystery surrounding their charm, and so on. I suppose I've already hinted at this schtick here.

Perhaps because we'd already joked about it, a string of emails from Lisa first confused, and then utterly charmed me. See, i could just picture my adorable sister giggling uncontrollably over her keyboard as she wrote these messages. You should imagine a similar image. It greatly enhances the experience when you know how much she was cracking herself up:

Date: March 5, 6:40 pm
Subject: You can thank me later.
Body: LolCat Bible

Date: March 5, 7:48 pm
Subject: I don't think there are enough thank yous in the world.
Body:

Date: March 5, 7:52 pm
Subject: Obviously this is a sickness.
Body:

And then, weeks later, the best email yet:

Date: March 27, 9:55 pm
Subject: LOLNora
Body: Nora has a message for you.

Awesome.

Lisa: lemon bread

I've been looking for a dessert recipe that sounded fresh and spring-y, but that would mail well so I could send a treat to my brother Jeff. A coworker suggested a quickbread, and after a little looking around, I thought lemon bread sounded perfect.

The recipe I used is from Muffins & Quick Breads, from the Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library (recipe after the jump).

I finished baking the bread at around midnight, and turned the loaves out on the racks to cool. I considered leaving them out all night, but after puttering around for half an hour, I decided the bread was cool enough and wrapped one up in foil and sealed it in a padded mailing envelope, and put the other one on a plate with foil over it (because doesn't lemon bread sound delicious for breakfast?). The bread smelled so good, I had to slice a piece off the second loaf and eat it right then. It was delicious. The crumb wasn't as fine as it looked in the picture in the book, but that might be because I didn't chop the almonds fine enough, or because I cut it with a dull knife while it was still warm. Anyway, thank GOODNESS I tasted a piece (and took pictures), because...the ants.

The next morning, when I came into the kitchen, I noticed a thick trail of my tiny nemeses emerging from the edge of the cabinet by the dishwasher and leading across the front edge of the countertop, directly to the foil-covered plate of lemon bread. After shouting "oh NO!" loud enough to wake up Sarah, I whipped off the foil, and confirmed my fear that my newly-baked loaf was swarming with ants. Stupid little sugar-loving bastards.

Anyway, there was some crying. Some yelling. Some detective work. Some poison spraying. But we lived, and Jeff's (antless) loaf got mailed off all right. Thanks, Mom and Blake, for your help with all of that.

Shall we remember the bread that was?

Lemon Bread

Ingredients

1/2 cup (4 oz/125 g) vegetable shortening
1 cup (8 oz/250 g) sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups (5 oz/155 g) all-purpose (plain) flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (4 fl oz/125 ml) milk
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 cup (2 oz/60 g) chopped pecans

FOR THE LEMON SYRUP:
1/4 cup (2 oz/60 g) sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Preparation

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Grease and flour a medium (8 1/2-inch/21-cm) loaf pan.

In a large bowl combine the shortening and sugar and beat until blended. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. In a medium bowl stir and toss together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the shortening mixture, along with the milk and lemon zest, and beat until blended and smooth. Stir in the pecans. Spread evenly in the prepared pan. Bake until a thin wooden skewer inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 1 hour.

While the bread bakes, make the lemon syrup by combining the sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl. Set aside, stirring occasionally; don't worry if the sugar does not dissolve completely.

Remove the bread from the oven and, using a fork, gently poke the top in several places. Stir the syrup, then slowly drizzle it over the hot bread. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 1 medium loaf

Cooks' note:
This recipe carries a double dose of lemon: grated zest in the batter and lemon syrup poured over the bread after baking. For a heavenly dessert, bake it in 2 miniature loaf pans, then top the slices with berries and whipped cream.

Lisa: tortilla soup

As my mom pointed out the other day, I haven't really turned out to be much of a cook. ("You're more of a career woman!" was how she softened the blow.) That said, I think it's really important when you have a family with kids to sit down at a table for a homemade, nutritionally sound dinner every night and talk to each other. Well...now the theoretical kid has become an actual kid who is starting to eat solid foods, so I guess I'd better get this cooking thing figured out.

I checked out a cookbook from the library, and I'm really excited about it. It's called Everyday Food: Great Food Fast from the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living. The photos are gorgeous as always with Martha, and the recipes sound tasty and easy, using regular supermarket ingredients. I got Blake to go through the Spring section with me, and we marked all the recipes we thought would be fun to try. We're going to make a new one each week.

This week's effort was tortilla soup (recipe after the jump), and it was okay. The soup itself is super basic, just chicken broth with shredded, boiled chicken in it. The interest is all in the toppings you add--even the "tortilla" part is a topping. Also, garnishing a brothy (as opposed to creamy) soup with cheese is a little odd. The cheese doesn't blend in and make the soup creamier; it turns into melty self-contained globs floating in the broth, or glomming around bits of chicken or your spoon.

What I wish I'd known beforehand: The instructions as written require you to own two pots large enough to hold more than 8 cups of soup. I only have one pot that big, which meant some last-minute improvising, leading me to momentarily forget about the tortilla strips burning in the oven.

Verdict: The soup was fine, but I probably won't make it again.

Tortilla Soup

Serves 4 * Prep time: 30 minutes * Total time: 30 minutes

For the soup

4 skinless chicken thighs (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 can (14.5 ounces) reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 jalapeno chile, diced (with seeds for more heat)
6 corn tortillas (6-inch)
3 tablespoons canola oil
Coarse salt

For the garnish

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (5 ounces)
4 large scallions, thinly sliced (about 1/2 cup)
1 green bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, diced
1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced
1/4 cup cilantro sprigs
1 lime, cut in wedges

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. In a large pot, bring the chicken, broth, jalapeno, and 8 cups of water to boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium; simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate; let cool.

2. Brush both sides of the tortillas with oil, stacking them as you go. Cut the stack in half, and then slice crosswise into 1/2-inch strips. Place the strips on a rimmed baking sheet; bake, tossing the strips occasionally, until golden, 15 to 20 minutes.

3. Using a large spoon, skim the fat from the surface of the broth in the pot, and strain the liquid through a sieve into a clean pot (you should have about 8 cups). Shred the chicken with a fork or with your fingers, and return it to the pot. Stir in 1 teaspoon salt. Divide the soup among serving bowls, and add the tortilla strips. Garnish as desired.

PLANNING AHEAD

The chicken can be cooked up to a day in advance; cool, then store the chicken and cooking liquid separately in the refrigerator. Shred the meat just before using. You can also use the leftover or store-bought roasted chicken in this soup; use two quarts homemade or reduced-sodium canned chicken broth instead of the cooking liquid.

Lisa: 29 x 29

When I was making my list of things I want to do, I started thinking about the things I've already done. I think everyone should do this--we all need a little pat on the back and a reminder that we've experienced some pretty cool things.

In the last 29 years, I have...

1. Backpacked through Europe
2. Become a regular at a restaurant
3. Bought my own house
4. Chosen a pumpkin from a pumpkin patch
5. Collected trilobite fossils
6. Cooked with fresh herbs I grew
7. Danced in the rain like a crazy person
8. Earned a Master’s degree
9. Finished a marathon
10. Found the best recipe for chocolate chip cookies
11. Given birth
12. Hung my own art in my home
13. Landed a job in a career I love
14. Laughed until I peed my pants
15. Married someone who thinks talking nonsense as I fall asleep is charming
16. Performed in front of an orchestra (four times)
17. Picked fresh raspberries
18. Printed using an old-fashioned letterpress
19. Seen the Grand Canyon
20. Shopped for honey at a Trappist monastery
21. Spent the night on a train
22. Started my own business
23. Stayed up all night reading a book
24. Stood in four states at once
25. Swam with a sea turtle
26. Touched a stalagmite
27. Tried water-skiing and snow-skiing
28. Worn something I knitted
29. Written a blog featured on Boing Boing

Lisa: 35 x 35

I'm turning 30 this year, a milestone that I think typically comes with a lot of soul-searching and maudlin whining about getting old. Time is going by faster than ever, and I was starting to get concerned about waking up one day as a sixty-year-old, having no idea how I'd gotten there and wishing I'd done more along the way. When I saw Maggie's list of 100 Things to Do Before I Go, it seemed like the perfect way to take control of the next few years of my life and accomplish some things--big and small--that I want to do for myself. Instead of 100 things to do before I die, my list is 35 things I want to do before I turn 35. I work better with a deadline.

1. Appear as an extra in a movie
2. Attend a fancy-dress ball
3. Be debt free
4. Build a tree house
5. Buy a new car with cash
6. Eat off the fancy china more than twice a year
7. Find the perfect signature scent
8. Fly first class
9. Give homemade Christmas gifts
10. Go on a photo safari in Africa
11. Help someone learn to love to read
12. Ice skate at Rockefeller Center
13. Inspire someone to become a librarian 3/20/08
14. Make Nora the Halloween costume of her choice, like my mom did
15. Meet an honest-to-goodness celebrity
16. Memorize (and regularly use) ten main-dish recipes
17. Order room service in a five-star hotel 3/23/09
18. Own a fabulous designer bag or pair of shoes
19. Paint every room in my house a different color
20. Quit my job and work from home9/4/08
21. Rent a scooter in Greece
22. Reupholster a piece of furniture myself
23. Sew Nora’s baby clothes or Christmas pajamas into a quilt 4/12/09
24. Sign up for a pottery class
25. Sing in a musical 11/14/08
26. Spend money only on essentials for one month
27. Start a vegetable garden 8/20/08
28. Stop needing validation from other people
29. Tailor all the clothes in my closet so they fit just right
30. Take ballroom dance lessons
31. Teach Nora to knit or sew
32. Walk along the Great Wall of China 3/29/09
33. Wear a bikini on the beach without being embarrassed
34. Weave a rug on a loom
35. Write and publish a book

Lisa: local flavor

Just Cook It

A month or so ago, some friends brought over a meal from Just Cook It, and we all made it together. It was some kind of Thai chowder with chicken, and it was DELICIOUS. The idea is that you sign up for however many meals you want (certain dishes are only served on certain days), and the groceries and a detailed recipe calculated for the right number of people will be delivered to your door. The groceries were beautiful and fresh, and we got just the amounts we needed. Just Cook It serves a very limited area (eastern Salt Lake City), and the meals aren't much cheaper than dining out, but if you enjoy cooking but hate the shopping and meal planning aspects, or if you want to look like a much more accomplished chef than you really are, it's worth a try! I think it's a great option for a date or social gathering where the cooking is part of the activity.

So Cupcake

When a cupcake bakery opened up less than two miles from where we live, Sarah and I had to go check it out. The bakery is called So Cupcake, and it's a very cute little shop in a very ugly building. The cupcakes have cutesy names like "So High the Moon Lemon," but we ignored that and got several to try: red velvet, lemon, mocha, and carrot cake. They were all tasty, but my favorite was carrot cake, followed by the lemon. The cupcakes themselves were moist and good, but it was the frostings that really stood out. Tasty--and how fun to have them so close! I figure that if we walk there, we can justify the calories of the cupcakes...

Mighty Leaf Tea

Mighty Leaf isn't local, but you can purchase their tea online or at a nearby Wild Oats. After seeing a recommendation on Mighty Girl, I ordered a sample pack of different herbal teas, and so far they've been really good. As Maggie said, they're a definite step up from most bagged tea, but you still have the convenience of the tea bag. I'll let you know which one's my favorite one I get through the whole selection.

Lisa: Kudos on your correct usage of "amongst." Ugh.

I use plenty of long and arguably obscure words in conversation, so I'm not sure why I got irritated the other day when someone I was talking to used "amongst." I was all ready to find out he was using the word incorrectly, but a little research turned this up instead.

among vs. amongst

Dr. Grammar: "Both are correct and mean the same, but among is more common."
Columbia Guide to Standard American English: a few minor but confusingly-worded differences, such as "amongst has a rather dusty-genteel quality...among is often followed by a singular collective."
Blurtit: "the word "among" should be applied to contexts when people, or things are stationary (they remain in one place), while "amongst" is used more frequently for people or things that are in a state of motion."

Consensus: Among is more modern and colloquial, where amongst is more formal and British. Other than that, they're pretty much interchangeable. So...if you use amongst in regular conversation, you will be correct. Pretentious, but correct.

I was similarly foiled when I tried to find justification for my smirk at the large "KUDO" hand-written on a printout of an email posted in the back room at work. Although I did find kudos in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as expected ("praise given for achievement"), there was also an entry for kudo. To wit:

Some commentators hold that since kudos is a singular word it cannot be used as a plural and that the word kudo is impossible. But kudo does exist; it is simply one of the most recent words created by back-formation from another word misunderstood as a plural. Kudos was introduced into English in the 19th century; it was used in contexts where a reader unfamiliar with Greek could not be sure whether it was singular or plural. By the 1920s it began to appear as a plural, and about 25 years later kudo began to appear. It may have begun as a misunderstanding, but then so did cherry and pea.

So, there you go. Dumb people are allowed to just make their own words. And that is why you'll find me watching Cops in the evenings, pencil in hand, taking notes ON OUR FUTURE.

Lisa: it's easy being green(ish)

I'm not going to try to justify my choice to use disposable diapers for Nora, but I will admit that I feel a guilty twinge every time we take a bag full of the little bombs out to the trash. I figure the least I can do is try to balance things out a bit by lessening our environmental impact in other ways. As we all know, white people love saving the earth without having to do that much, and I'm no exception. We're not single-handedly halting global warming or anything, but these things are super easy AND make me feel better about myself.

1. Reusable grocery bags. We have enough plastic shopping bags under the sink to last until we die. Last time I was at Trader Joe's, I bought a cute grocery tote made of oilcloth. It's super sturdy, and big enough to hold a decent amount of groceries. We're getting better at remembering to bring it to the store with us, too.

2. Seventh Generation laundry detergent. Our local market now sells high-efficiency Free & Clear detergent, which is fragrance-free and vegetable- (instead of petroleum-) based. I bought my first bottle the other day, and as soon as I try it out, I'll let you know how it is.

3. HP print cartridge recycling. When I was replacing the print cartridges in our Photosmart printer at work, I noticed that the new cartridges now come with postage-paid envelopes so that you can send in the old cartridges for recycling. I sealed those babies up and dropped them in a mailbox the next day. Easy peasy!

4. Reusable soap dispensers. Instead of buying new pumps for the kitchen and upstairs bathroom every time we use up the soap, I got some refillable pumps at Target and a giant refill bottle at Costco. I had a slight misstep with a metal soap pump that corroded from the inside out, but now we have two glass soap pumps (and a matching lotion pump for the kitchen) and all seems to be well. Theoretically, it's cheaper this way, too.

5. Refillable metal water bottle. I have a hard time drinking enough water when I use a cup. I don't know why--it's stupid, really. I don't mind the taste of tap water, but I just don't get around to drinking water out of a glass. When I was pregnant, I'd buy those big flats of water bottles at Costco, and have a bottle with me all the time--convenient and effective, but wasteful. It's supposedly harmful to keep refilling the same disposable bottle, and even Nalgene bottles are apparently leaching chemicals now. Then I read about SIGG bottles on ljc, and they were just so cute I had to go get one at REI ( Blake waited very patiently while I dithered around, choosing the perfect one). My only complaint is that the cap has so many threads that it takes forever to unscrew the silly thing. Ah, the sacrifices I make for my principles!

So, there you go. Five easy ways I'm being a little more responsible. What else should I be doing (within reason)? What do you do?

Lisa: Babies for Obama

Since Nora had so much fun voting for Obama on Super Tuesday, I thought she might like a campaign shirt of her very own. I designed a graphic to look like his other swag and had Zazzle (who I've (used previously) print it up for me. I got it a little big, so that she can wear it this summer when the election's closer.

Don't be jealous. You can buy one too! I think I get like a dollar for each onesie sold--and I'll donate any proceeds to the campaign.

Zazzle's changed their site around, so here's the fancy new link to my gallery:

Lisa: thanks for the heads up

This morning, I finished up helping a middle-aged gentleman on one of the public computers, and then walked back to the information desk. The other librarian on duty was helping a customer at the desk.

Librarian: You might want to wash your hands.
Me: O...Kay...
Librarian: (hands me a canister of Clorox wipes)
Customer: He's filthy.
Me: (wiping my hands) What?
Customer: I saw him sneezing into his hand and then licking it. Over. And over.

Lisa: tender mercies

Why are cashiers trained to give you your change with the dollar bills on the bottom and the coins balanced precariously on top? Why? This may seem like a convenient setup for the person offering the change (all parts visible and in one hand), but for the recipient it's a disaster waiting to happen. The customer must grasp the end of the offered dollar bill without touching the hand of the cashier, and then hope they've grabbed enough of the limp paper to maintain the slightly curved structure that will support the much heavier coins. If the customer is in a car at the drive through, then they must carefully navigate the bills and their coin payload (which they must only guess at the presence and exact location of, since the drive-up window is six inches above the customer's head) carefully down through the car window without tilting it too much to one side, thus allowing the coins to slip off their perch and tumble down under the car, never to be seen again. If this happens (heaven forbid), the drive-through attendant invariably looks down at the ground between the building and the car and says "Oh." They do not offer to replace your lost coins.

HOW DO WE CORRECT THIS TRAVESTY, you cry? I am happy to report there is a simple and painless solution. After removing your change from the till, cashiers should:

1) drop coins directly into your palm, then
2) offer paper bills.

See? It's actually faster for the cashier because she doesn't have to combine the coins and bills (which she had to grab from separate little bins) into a stack before handing them to you. Everybody's happy.

Lisa: afternoon delight

Sarah: Note to self: stop saying "afternoon delight." It is weird and unfunny to everyone but you.
Lisa: Afternoon delight=creepy. THEY ARE HAVING SEX.
Sarah: So you think sex is creepy?
Lisa: That song is creepy. Surely you cannot argue with that.
Sarah: I know what I know. I have disassociated the song from the phrase. Now I just use it willy-nilly, though, which is frowned upon.
Lisa: Well, of course it is. Because you are conjuring up pictures of adults home in the afternoon, having sex.
Sarah: Adults? Why is it worse with adults?
Lisa: Hee. I don't know, but it is. Because...they should be at work? Teenagers are expected to sneak home in the afternoons and be having sex. The adults are just being lazy! BESIDES THE PHRASE AFTERNOON DELIGHT IS JUST GROSS. It's like a dessert name, but then you realize what they're talking about! Sunny Delight. Turkish delight. Old men saying young girls are "a delight." When is the word delight ever used besides in those situations?
Sarah: Looks like it IS a dessert:

Lisa: give, said the little stream

Nothing makes you feel more virtuous than giving a little of your hard-earned money away to a worthy cause. If you want to feel better about yourself and about mankind and the future of your country, try donating a few dollars to...

The Dewey book drive, organized by Pamie, sends books to libraries in need--and has been going strong for five years.

OR...

Barack Obama's campaign is close to reaching one million donors. As he says,

If we can reach our goal of one million donors by March 4th, we can send a powerful message that the Washington establishment and big-money interests cannot ignore. As one million people with one voice, we can tell them that their days of dominating Washington are coming to an end -- the old politics are crumbling and a new voice is breaking through. Our voice.

Or, if you're strapped and can't give anything yourself,

read this story about a little girl and her family who were given the gift of words. Then go about your day, feeling good about the kind of people that give tangible support to a family they've never met, or an ordinary man who became an extraordinary father, or a girl whose spirit and determination can overcome incredible obstacles and will touch your anonymous heart right through your computer monitor.

Lisa: mystery man

Several weeks ago, my neighbors erected this papier-mache figure in their front yard. You can see, it's impressively large...but what is it? Or, who is it?

Is it a bizarre tribute to President Hinckley and his puckish nature? Saint Valentine or an elderly cupid? A tribute to the sculptor's grandfather, who loved acting in community Shakespeare productions?

Lisa: window shopping

People make such pretty things. If you already bought everything on Mighty Goods and need a few more ideas, try these:

Zhivago Capelet
Pollen earrings
Mavis softie
artisan undies
Floral Dots tee
Gummy Bear Necklace
Zombie Escape Plan journal
Little Teapot onesie
Howdy key-ring pouches
screen printed wall art

I found a lot of these sellers in Craft and ReadyMade (which is now carrying its own printable shrinky sheets--buy them here!).

Lisa: calling all Mormons

Now that your beloved Mitt is out of the race, might you consider voting for Obama? What if Utah went Democrat this year? Let's blow America's minds, people.

Lisa: I'm just saying...

To Whom it May Concern:

If you complain to my boss about my appallingly loud voice and even go so far as to suggest that vocal volume should be taken into account during the hiring process, I may be less inclined to help you with your computer problem.

Lisa: we voted

Nora and I voted for Obama. What about you?

Lisa: Claremont

I've been missing my baby brother, Jeff. After a year away at Harvey Mudd College, last May he left for a two-year missionary stint in New Jersey. Sarah and I drove to California to pick him up from school, and he took us on a tour of the gorgeous Claremont Colleges while we were there. I thought I'd post some pictures of the campuses because 1) they're pretty and 2) they make me think of Jeff.

Harvey Mudd is where Jeff found his people. It's a small, private college that focuses on math, science, and engineering. Bill Nye the Science Guy is speaking at their commencement next year. The architecture has some kind of proto-Aztec vibe, featuring decorative "warts," where the students hang their unicycles. Really. Here's Jeff's dorm (Case), the dining hall, and the man himself. There are a few more pictures after the jump.

Pitzer College has xeriscaped gardens and the buildings are covered with murals (many painted by students). Here is the Grove House restaurant, the Interhueman mural, and some kind of tower. More pictures after the jump.

Claremont McKenna is one of the larger of The 5Cs, and is big on the social sciences. We caught them setting up for graduation festivities.

Pomona College is where Real Genius was filmed (but the movie is based on CalTech, a Harvey Mudd rival). Their mascot is a chicken. I know Jeff told me more about all the colleges when he was showing us around, but this crap is what I remember. More pictures after the jump!

At Scripps College, the women's college, we met up with Jeff's friend Sally for an insider's tour. Scripps is beautiful, and is full of little walled gardens and things, so I took a ton of pictures (lots of which are after the jump). The center picture here is the common room of one of the dorms, if you can believe that.

If you read World War Z (WHICH YOU SHOULD), you might remember that a bunch of Claremont students barricaded themselves inside Scripps and fought off thousands of zombies. When I got to that section of the book, I stopped reading and yelped to Blake, "Jeff survives!" He had no idea what I was talking about.

The five Claremont Colleges are on one contiguous piece of land, and share a central library:

More from Harvey Mudd:

More from Pitzer College:

More from Pomona College:

More from Scripps College:

Lisa: yard work

Blake and I never had a yard before moving into our house, and it has been kind of a rude awakening. I thought about the furniture we'd need for our new place, but not rakes and shovels and fertilizer and lawnmowers and all of that. I also underestimated the time it takes to keep things looking really nice over the entire growing season.

The previous homeowners thankfully had a pretty low-maintenance system going. I always intend to weed everything on a more regular basis, but we've been able to keep things basically in control between the automatic sprinklers, one or two pruning sessions, and a (usually) weekly lawn-mowing. But who doesn't want to improve on the status quo, right?

Spring 2005

I bought some planters on clearance at JoAnn's, and filled one with flowers and the other with herbs. The herbs hung outside our kitchen door (theoretically for easy cooking access)...

and the flowers beautified our (non-functional and somewhat hideous) lamp post. I was totally proud of myself for buying some black chain at Home Depot and improvising a hanging system for this planter.

Spring 2006

I picked up two more planters for herbs, and added one on the other side of the kitchen door and one around the corner over our trash cans, to counteract the delicious warm-garbage aroma. I really liked the look of the planters flanking our kitchen door, but they had to get watered every day or they'd dry out in the bright summer sun. That just gave me an excuse to buy a cute watering can and feel all domestic!

We also bought two lilac bushes for the empty corner of our back yard that gets tons of sun and had previously been planted with tomatoes (turning the soil acidic). One of the bushes is doing great, while the other looks sickly and will probably have to be replaced.

Spring 2007

I had really ambitious yard plans last year, but I got pregnant. We started off well, ripping up about half of the black weed-blocker fabric under the top layer of dirt in our flower beds and tilling out the weed-infested area behind our garage for a future vegetable garden. We even cut down the bizarre eight-foot-tall bush-tree at the corner of the house (you can see it on the right of the top picture here) and let it grow back as a regular bush. Soon, however, lifting heavy things and bending down in the heat was mentally and physically out of the question--and I didn't even pull out the planters again.

Spring 2008

This year maybe I'll be able to get to the projects I meant to do last year--a vegetable garden and a raised herb plot off the back patio. The vegetable garden will go behind the garage, where there is a separate sprinkler station so that we can set the timing however we want. There's plenty of sun back there, and the weeds are thriving, so I think it could be a good place for it. The herb plot will go in the weird triangular space between the back patio and the fence separating the yard from the driveway--it's really hard to get the lawnmower in there anyway. LJC is my inspiration for both of these. I want the herb plot to be in sort of a raised box, like this, and I love her four-square veggie garden. I think I'll plant our vegetables in rows, though, since the area behind the garage is more of a rectangle than a square. Maybe when it gets warmer, Nora will love spending time outside and can keep me company while I work on the garden. Who knows?

Spring 2009

Sometime down the road I want to put in a little flagstone patio with a pergola over it on the side of the garage, to make some shade in that end of the yard. I also want to replace the aluminum awning over the back patio with a pergola, and get new (possibly fabric?) awnings for the front and kitchen doors. Onward and upward!

If you've done any of these things before, please share your tips with me in the comments. Assume I know nothing.

Lisa: fiat

fiat:

From the Latin fieri, "let it be done."

1 : a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort
2 : an authoritative determination : DICTATE "a fiat of conscience"
3 : an authoritative or arbitrary order : DECREE "government by fiat"

(via Merriam Webster Online Dictionary)

Fiat:

Tiny italian car.

Lisa: news of the nerdy

Like every self-respecting librarian, I have the comic Unshelved emailed to me every day. It's a little like Dilbert, in that its humor lies in the everyday follies and frustrations of the workplace--but the workplace is a library instead of a cube farm. I don't want you to think it's just a Dilbert knockoff that only appeals to librarians, though--Unshelved is hilarious in its own right. The authors also do something I love with their Sunday strip: the characters "talk about a book they've read in full-page full-color comic strips" that often mimic the style of the featured book. The authors call it the Book Club.

In a tenuous segue...

One day back in August, I was reading my daily installment of the Unshelved blog (for those of you hoping to up the nerd quotient of my entry, this blog was accompanied by a strip featuring Jayne hats), and came across a mention of the comic Wondermark, its author David Malki!, and his video Me vs. Comic-Con: Who's Better?. Since I hadn't yet encountered the time vortex, I gave my curiousity the reins and watched the 16-minute video. If you have the time, and you like things that are funny, I recommend clicking that link. I discovered an intense love for comic book nerds that I didn't even know I had. I shouldn't be surprised, I guess, given my penchant for nerds of all kinds, including...

Johnny Lee. Blake came home from work today and blew my mind with these Wii remote projects (which you have probably already seen if you read more tech blogs than I do). Using the technology of the Wii game system, Lee has created a head tracking system (making the 2-D TV screen appear 3-D), a low-cost interactive whiteboard or tablet display, and finger tracking (so you can control the computer by waving your hands in the air a la Tom Cruise in Minority Report). Something is wrong with the world if Johnny Lee isn't handed an amazing job or a lot of funding.

I can't even force a segue here, so I'm going to stop pretending this is a linear narrative. For those of you who live in Salt Lake, Ken Jennings (who I interviewed here!) is appearing thanks to the King's English bookshop on Thursday, January 31st to host a trivia challenge and sign his Trivia Almanac, which came out today.

Also announced today was the MacBook Air, a disgustingly thin and gorgeous new laptop perfect for people who are always on the go or who want a portable addition to their desktop system. Considering the jaw-dropping Macworld keynotes this year and last year with the iPhone, I'm hoping next year Steve Jobs will be announcing the introduction of the disposable paper cellphones you can buy from a vending machine like on (the absolutely terrible) Ultraviolet.

Lisa: In case you were wondering...

Despite being married to a high school football-playing jock, I have no interest in football--I didn't in high school, and I don't now. And forget watching football on TV; on Superbowl Sunday, I only watch the halftime show. That said, I have fallen in love with Friday Night Lights.

As a relative newcomer to high school football culture (and certainly to the all-encompassing version that surrounds Texas high school football), I suddenly found myself needing to know the difference between a cheerleader and a rally girl--and whichLyla Garrity is.

Exhibit A: In FNL's first episode, Lyla says she has to go to "rally rehearsal," so I figured she was a rally girl.
Exhibit B: At the end of episode 2, the Dillon rally girls are shown delivering baked goods to their Panthers in a sequence that ends with Lyla bringing Jason a cookie in the hospital. Is this because she's his rally girl, or does she do it (and does he forego the services of a rally girl) because she's his girlfriend? Incidentally, (just like Wallace's spirit boxes on Veronica Mars) treat-bearing rally girls apparently do exist in real life.
Exhibit C: The show definitely considers cheerleaders and rally girls to be two separate things. Lyla notes their uncharacteristic alliance (and by implication, their accustomed rivalry) in making Jason's banner. The casting calls for extras support this, noting that 'cheerleader' is a specialty role, while rally girls (though required to be "super cute") receive standard pay.
Exhibit D: The Wikipedia entry on cheerleading doesn't mention rally girls at all, but I love that the neutrality of the article is in dispute.
Exhibit E: TWoP forum participants know all. BananasFoster explains that being a cheerleader is more prestigious and exclusive, while anyone can be a rally girl. TexasTumbleweed agrees, adding that the rally girls are indeed the providers of spirit boxes and banners. It sounds like rally girls are a lot like what we called "pep club" at my school.

Verdict 1: I think Lyla must be a cheerleader. She's often shown on the sidelines of the game, cheering in the uniform and with pom-poms, just like my school's cheerleaders. Plus, she was dating the star quarterback--clearly a role only a cheerleader can fill. "Rally rehearsal" must have meant practicing for a rally, not practicing with her fellow rally girls.
Verdict 2: I have spent too much time thinking about this.
Verdict 3: I love the internet.

Lisa: I flew there in a miniature plane

In an effort to...

1) clear out the old "draft" entries that have been hanging around, cluttering up the back end of our blog, and

2) celebrate Sarah's love of CSI and the miniature killer storyline,

I'm posting these "model village" pictures I made almost two years ago, inspired by this post on LJC.

The instructions to make your own fake model village pictures can be found here. Happy Photoshopping, to the two of you out there who haven't tried this yet!

Lisa: chocolate chip cookies

As part of the splurge that precedes every good diet, I made chocolate chip cookies. Not just ANY chocolate chip cookies, mind you--these cookies from Gourmet on Epicurious, found via Super Eggplant. These cookies are by far the best I have ever made. They are big, chewy without being too thin or raw, and completely delicious. Blake ate three, which is saying something considering his usual abhorrence of sweets. The recipe is kind of finicky (yes, I actually measured out 1 3/4 tablespoons of an egg), but I followed every step except for flattening the mounds of dough with a moistened palm. Gross, right? Anyway, they spread out just fine on their own. [Recipe after the jump in case that link ever dies.]

Thanks, Sarah, for your help--and for the use of your hand mixer after mine ingested its own power button. On a completely unrelated note, does anyone know how to get melted butter out of clothing? Washing it in cold just makes little butter balls on the surface, and I'm afraid hot will just melt it back in again.

For those of you who are much more domestically advanced than I am (and I don't kid myself, that is probably most people), regular chocolate chip cookies might seem too elementary. To you I give Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Maple Cinnamon Glaze. You're welcome.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Gourmet | October 2003
Adapted from Carla Rollins

Active time: 35 min Start to finish: 2 hr

Servings: Makes about 28 large (4 1/2-inch) cookies.

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (16 oz)

Preparation

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment or wax paper.
Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Lightly beat 1 egg with a fork in a small bowl and add 1 3/4 tablespoons of it plus 2 remaining whole eggs to butter mixture, beating with mixer until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture until just blended, then stir in chips.

Scoop 1/4 cup batter for each cookie, arranging mounds 3 inches apart, on 2 baking sheets. Flatten mounds into 3-inch rounds using moistened palm of your hand. Form remaining cookies on additional sheets of parchment.

Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and continue making cookies in same manner using cooled baking sheets.

Cooks' note:

Cooled cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature 3 days.

Lisa: a stake of truth

Blake: (Science talk)
Lisa: ...
Blake: Sorry for being a wonder killer.
Lisa: You're like a non-wonder killer. You kill the wonder I wasn't even wondering about.
Blake: I'm like a vampire slayer, but my stake is the truth!
Lisa: HA! Aw, I wish you could kill vampires with the truth. (Voices) "You use too much hair gel." "Aaah! I'm melting!"

Lisa: Muffuletta

This year, the girls exchanged gifts at Jason's Deli, a chain that prominently features the muffaletta on its menu. No one in our group wanted to order the muffaletta, because we didn't know what it was (and no one wanted to ask what it was, for fear of looking dumb). Also, we couldn't bear to involve ourselves in a dialogue including the words "whole, half, or quarter muff."

Thanks to Wikipedia, I can now report that the muffaletta is a huge sandwich defined by its bread (a round, foccacia-type bread, not a muffin or English muffin as some of us guessed) and by the presence of a spread made of olives.

In other Jason's menu news, a Po'Boy is a sub sandwich made on a baguette, and "Spud au Broc" joins "Moons Over My Hammy" and its compatriots in the category of "menu items too embarassing to order by name."

Lisa: Free Rice

If you enjoy...

a) Word games
b) The self-satisfaction that comes with having a higher vocabulary level than other people
c) Wasting time at work
d) Ending world hunger
e) Flashbacks to the ever-increasing-difficulty structure of the GRE exam
OR
f) All of the above

...then you should go play FreeRice. They give 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program for every word you get right.

(Thanks, Shifted Librarian!)

Lisa: another man's treasure

I can never resist the seasonal aisle in the grocery store, mostly because of atrocities like this:

Yes, you are reading that right. Holiday. Hip-hop. Doberman. Who dances and raps Jingle Bells. Who twists and moves to the groove. Thank goodness I am not the first person to document this. I'm not sure why this toy is so specific--why is it not enough just to be a holiday doberman? Or a hip-hop doberman? Or a holiday hip-hop...person? The good news is that if you are in the dog-owning hip-hop-blasting christian kitschy-animatronic-singing-toy-loving demographic this product targets, the Holiday Hip-Hop Doberman can be yours for only $14.99. Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood grocer!

Lisa: A Satisfied Ewe

1) I hate the word 'ewe.' I don't know why, exactly. I think it's picturing the spelling of the word while I say it, since I don't have an aversion to saying 'you.' It's just so completely NOT spelled phonetically. It is saying, "Just try to sound me out, young reader! I am ready to trick you, HAHAHAHA!"

Whatever, shut up. It's distracting.

2) I appreciate a good pun as much as the next person. Puns in product and/or business names can be clever, incorporating multiple relevant meanings. But a pun for no reason is just using the WRONG WORD.

Case in point:

Mutton is not on the menu, and this restaurant's clientele does not include sheep. So...why? And this is just gratuitous:

That said, their Navajo Tacos are tasty.

Lisa: Can I fluff your pillows?

All of Sarah's holiday domesticity reminded me to post about the pillows I made for our living room. Blake and I gave each other two leather armchairs for Christmas this year, and I wanted to celebrate finally having adult furniture with the addition of some pretty new throw pillows. Nice-looking throw pillows are surprisingly expensive, but I thought I could make some on the cheap using the upholstery fabric I had left over from making my needle case. $75 worth of pillow forms and fancy trims later, I got all the pieces cut out and ready to sew. Four simple seams, right? Zip, zip, zip zip, turn it inside out and stitch it up, right? Well, sort of. It is really tricky to hold the trim tight enough against the zipper foot and keep all the layers lined up straight. If I were doing this again, I'd sew the trim onto the right side of one of the pieces of fabric first, like my mom suggested.

Here are the finished pillows:

[ETA: These pictures looked fine on my monitor at home, but on my work computer they're super dark. I'll try to take some more with all the lights on!]

Lisa: let it snow

Now that snow is finally falling outside, things are looking all Christmassy! I thought it might be time to get out the tree and the decorations.

I forgot one of the garlands, and some sections of the lights aren't working (which means some tedious bulb-by-bulb checking), but it's still festive!

Lisa: happy macbook to me!

I'm finally getting all moved in to my pretty new MacBook. It is so much faster than my old PowerBook!

Leopard has some nice upgrades, too, but also some things that are different enough to take some adjusting. There's been only one downside so far: all of a sudden the text in Safari started acting all crazy and overlapping or not appearing at all. I took this screencap so that I could ask all of you geniuses for help.

Anyway, it's all fixed now with some thingy I did in Terminal that I didn't understand, found on this thread. Hurrah for Google!

Unfortunately, now I'm slightly worried about the magnetic power cord connection. I set my computer down on the couch and left the room for a second. I heard a popping noise coming from the living room, and when I came back, the twist-tie keeping my camera's USB cord neat had been sucked up against the empty port. This seems bad, somehow...an electrical socket that pulls small bits of metal into itself. It's almost like my computer has become self aware and is TRYING TO BURN DOWN MY HOUSE!!! Almost.

Lisa: be still my nerd-loving heart

John Francis Daley is the new Adam Brody. Dr. Sweets, indeed.

Lisa: accessory clips

When I hung up the letter hooks in Nora's bedroom, it started an addiction that could only be fed by adding more hooks. Blake hung some little brass hooks in my craft closet for me that are now holding gift bags, and I ordered three more hooks from Restorers (through Amazon) for Nora's room.

I knew I wanted to hang her blessing dress and the gorgeous handmade blanket she got from her anonymous "secret grandma," but that left one empty hook and a long narrow space in the middle. With Sarah's help, I brainstormed an accessory holder.

Here's the result:

I'm really happy with how it turned out, and the whole thing took less than two hours to make. Endless variations are possible to suit your needs and tastes. Instructions and the materials I used are after the jump, if you're interested.

Materials:

Steps:

1. I cut the cardboard to the width I wanted, getting rid of the bent-up corners in the process. Then I set the cardboard on my fabric and cut around it, leaving plenty of extra fabric to wrap around the back.

2. I pinned the dark green ribbon down the center of the right side of the fabric, and just stitched right down the center with the sewing machine. Easy peasy.

3. The next step was a little bit tricky for me, since I'm not really a good spatial thinker. I centered the cardboard on top of the fabric and ribbon, and marked the top center and bottom center of the cardboard with a pin. Then I messed around with the clips, the light green ribbon, and some pins for a while, until they looked right. The idea is that the light ribbon threads through the clip rings, which are held in place by one pin through all three layers in the center of the loop. These pins will be replaced with stitching in the next step.

4. Next I replaced the pins with stitching. I slid the rings on each side away from the pin, carefully removed the pin without letting the ribbon slip, and backtacked over the light green ribbon a bunch of times.

5. I cut a piece of batting a bit smaller than my fabric.

6. Then I plugged in my trusty hot glue gun, and while I was waiting for it to heat up I ironed my fabric so the final product would be nice and smooth. Placing the fabric right-side down, and the batting centered on top of it, and the cardboard centered on top of that, I folded the two ends over the cardboard and glued them down. I took special care to make sure the ribbon stayed centered on the cardboard, and pulled each end of the ribbon tight while pressing it into the glue. Don't burn yourself--hot glue hurts like a mother.

7. Folding the corners like wrapping a present, I pulled the sides in tight and glued them down, too. While the glue was still warm and slidy, I turned the project over to the right side and made sure things looked smooth and not puckery from the front. Then I took the leftover light green ribbon and glued it in a loop to the back side of the top edge. If I'd wanted to get fancy, I could have cut a panel from the leftover fabric, ironed the edges under, and glued it to the back of the project to cover the empty cardboard and rough edges. Nora was getting hungry, so I bagged that idea, but I might still do that sometime if it starts bugging me. It would definitely look more professional and finished that way.

8. Ta-DA! I used five of the curtain clips for optimum future flexibility. I'm only using three of the clips now (see the top picture above), but in the future I might want to display different items, and I wanted to be able to accommodate various sizes.

Lisa: Tools of the Week

#1: IUD

#2: REVLON MOLTEN METAL

Target didn't have the annoyingly-packaged silver Pure Pigment Shadow Stick I usually get, so I bought Molten Metal in Scene Steel-er to try instead. It is AWESOME. The packaging is totally pleasing, with a lipgloss-style foam tip applicator. You shake together two layers of clear liquid and silty pigment, and then swipe it on. It's shimmery but not too heavy, and stays on all day. I'm totally converted--no more scratching my eyelids with the plastic edge of the Shadow Stick!

Lisa: meeting of minds

Lisa: Adam Baldwin is by far the best looking Baldwin. It's not even a contest.
Sarah: I didn't realize he was even really one of the Baldwins. He looks different enough.
Lisa: Yes, he is one of the brothers. [ETA: Sorry, Sarah. He is NOT one of the brothers. I apparently completely skipped over the words "no relation" in his IMDB bio.]
Sarah: Plus he doesn't have the slicked hair. The Baldwin helmet.
Lisa: Good point. Or that bloated, drunken smirky look! So. I was reading IMDB, as one does, and I couldn't help but notice that one of the comments on his profile was titled "his butt." So...I clicked on it. Because, OBVIOUSLY.
Sarah: mmhmmmm
Lisa: The thread was completely bizarre. The first commenter was all, "Has anyone seen his butt?" And someone replied, "Yes, in some show (blah blah), it was nice."
Sarah: lol
Lisa: And then the first commenter said, "So...was it soft and squeezable, or hard and muscly?"
Sarah: HA! Why didn't she just see for herself, since she needed such detailed descriptions??
Lisa: So then another commenter was like, "Um. That's a weird question. It's hard to tell from TV, but it looked pretty muscly. HERE'S A PICTURE."
Sarah: Well? did it look muscly?
Lisa: It did indeed.
Sarah: That's weird. That's the sort of investigating you do on your own.

Ten minutes pass.

Lisa: Admit it, now you're curious about Adam Baldwin's butt.
Sarah: Vaguely. Are you wanting to send me a picture?
Lisa: No. As you said, that is research that should be done on your own.
Sarah: Well, at least not with STRANGERS.

Ten more minutes pass.

Sarah: So are you going to show me Adam Baldwin's butt, or what?
Lisa: Ha! It is linked from his IMDB comments. Or you could probably Google it. But boy, will your face be red when you get fired for Googling "adam baldwin butt!"
Sarah: lol

30 minutes pass.

Lisa: So, did you look it up?
Sarah: No. I don't want to be fired!
Lisa: Probably wise.

Lisa: your secret is safe with me

Lisa: Can I just say that big sweaters cinched in with little belts never looks good in real life? Just on the models in the Victoria's Secret catalog.
Sarah: Yes.

Sarah: Lisa. I might buy leggings soon. I'm apologizing in advance.
Lisa: NO. SARAH.
Sarah: I CAN'T HELP IT. I'VE BEEN RESISTING THEM FOR OVER. A. YEAR. They've slowly broken down my defenses.
Lisa: It is a slippery slope!
Sarah: What if I never wear them as if they're pants? What if I wear them with little shrugs and heels, and cut little holes in the backs where they rest on my calves?
Lisa: You are sentenced to watching Chocolat again to remember the flattering timelessness of 50s fashions, because blousy shirts and skinny jeans/leggings are NOT FLATTERING.
Sarah: NO ONE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT BLOUSY SHIRTS! I would not wear leggings with a long shirt. I hate you for suggesting that. This conversation is over. Just know that when i show up somewhere with leggings, you were warned beforehand.
Lisa: What are you going to wear them with?
Sarah: I would wear them with dresses, not blousy shirts, bitch.
Lisa: What about opaque tights instead?
Sarah: Opaque tights run. Plus, you can't wear open-toed shoes.
Lisa: Um. Leg coverings are worn in winter. Winter is not the time for open-toed shoes. I am just saying this for your own good.
Sarah: I am not fighting with you anymore about leggings.
Lisa: I was only fighting you because you ASKED ME TO A YEAR AGO.
Sarah: Okay, well now i am just saying that it might happen and there's nothing more to be done.
Lisa: OK. You have released me from my obligation. Also, what are your feelings on sweater dresses?
Sarah: Ummmm, I like them in the VS catalog, but they can be lump-magnifying.
Lisa: "Pleated cami has a luster so bright you'll radiate at every angle." I don't think that is a good thing.
Sarah: No. Not unless you're that one super hot model. Not Giselle, the other one. The brunette! Who's super hot! But not Adriana Lima, she of the huge lips.
Lisa: Hee. Oh, THAT one.

Lisa: Can i just say that a tube top should not have pockets?
Sarah: Now, with extra middle-widening!
Lisa: Also, an easy way to pull the top RIGHT OFF YOUR BOOBS.
Sarah: hee
Lisa: Do you know how many times i have almost bought that oxford shirt bodysuit?
Sarah: So many times.
Lisa: It's wrong. I know. It has a thong bottom.
Sarah: My question is, do you really want your nice oxford shirt to be wedged in your ass crack all day? I think not.
Lisa: I know! Thank you. But...it looks so cute and sleek and stays tucked in to your low-rise Marisa-fit butt-lifting pinstripe pants!
Sarah: I'm not arguing that with you. But...the ass crack. On your shirt.

Lisa: calorimetry

Instead of going to the yarn store like I wanted to last week, I forced myself to dig out an unfinished project I already had. The girls and I all bought yarn to knit Calorimetry together, but after a few introductory knitting sessions, our impetus kind of fizzled out. I thought I could finish mine pretty quickly, thus satiating my need to knit AND allowing me to figure out any tricky bits in advance so that I can help the girls with the pattern if any of them ever decide they want to work on it again.

Here's the finished product, which (in spite of the unflattering picture) I really like. Basically, it's a sort of headscarf that buttons at the back of the neck, so that your ponytail or whatever can stick out the back.

The pattern says "It is very important to obtain the correct gauge for this piece," so instead of just skipping the boring gaugeing altogether, I went ahead and knit the little square with 5mm needles and the yarn thickness that the pattern calls for. My square was too big, so I figured that if I knit the whole thing on 4.5mm needles instead, it would turn out about the right size. I didn't bother gaugeing again, which was a mistake. My first product was the humongous thing in the photo below.

I started again, but this time cast on 80 stitches instead of 120. The pattern uses short rows, working in a 2x2 rib until a certain number of stitches remain on the end of each row. I knitted 7 instead of 15 of the repeated decrease rows, and just did enough increase rows so that I had the right number of stitches on the end of the row again. That probably makes no sense if you don't knit or haven't read the pattern, but suffice it to say that this was a pretty easy pattern to knit and to alter. My second attempt was a success--the version on the bottom of the photo below turned out to be exactly the right size. I found a button in my tin that fit the buttonhole, stitched it on, and it was ready to go!

Knitting time (if you only knit the smaller version): four hour-long dramas with no commercials.

Lisa: maybe if i just put a picture of myself next to the doorbell, that will scare them off

When I read Mindy's rant about door-to-door salespeople, I remembered how I felt when we first moved in to our neighborhood. I'm not normally a fan of door signs, and the 'no soliciting' signs you can buy are pretty hideous. On Gabrielle's recommendation, I took advantage of a trip to Color Me Mine with the girls to make my own. The colors are a little off in this picture, but here's the result:

Anyway, it works like a charm on everyone who knows what "soliciting" means.

In other Perschon-family reading, I tried the Celebrity Morph that Charles posted about, but after the site tried to match my face with Dave Navarro, Lance Bass, and Robert DeNiro, I gave up. Sarah, you don't still think you're the mannish one, do you?

Lisa: all you need is love

Nora of mine,

When I hold you and look into your eyes, sometimes I feel a surge of confidence and empowerment. Sometimes I feel a debilitating sense of self-doubt and inadequacy. But every single time, I feel love unlike anything I have ever felt before. I'm pretty sure that that love means I will do everything in my power to take care of you.

We'll be okay, baby.

Lisa: career day

I love being a librarian, don't get me wrong, but we all have days when we think we might want to try out another profession, right?

Here are a few I think might be fun:

Lisa: Can you dig it?

If we lent you our VHS copy of Shaft, will you let me know? I was totally planning to pack that bad boy in my hospital bag.

Lisa: In which I try to bore you to death with completely insignificant details.

For better or worse, the nursery is pretty much put together! It feels good to have that task done. The polka-dotted fabric bin on the lower shelf of the white table holds board books and tub books. You can see the Boppy pillow hanging out on the seat of Blake's grandpa's rocker.

The dresser is full of baby clothes and linens that have been washed with Dreft, folded and sorted by size, and put into labeled drawers. The IKEA frog is sitting in a Bumbo baby seat next to George and Martha and a sweet little baby sock sorting thingie I found at HomeGoods. I made the print over the dresser in my letterpress class--it features my favorite quote from Peter Pan.

The top two shelves of the bookcase are full of baby supplies, and the bottom shelf is picture books. The art is two pages from an advance copy of You Were Loved Before You Were Born, written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Karen Barbour. The book is due out in January.

Under the window you can see the gift Marci got us--the first baby item Blake and I picked out together. Above the crib are the letter hooks I talked about here. Since I took these pictures, I got some big clear totes at Target to go under the crib: one for extra diapers, one for blankets, and one for stuffed animals. We're still waiting for our Sophie bumper and crib skirt to arrive from Pottery Barn.

The light must have been a bit different for this photo, because the wall color here looks closer to how it looks in real life. Anyway, you can see we've been messing around with the toys on top of the bookcase and on the shelf above it. We swapped out the fancy (and arguably creepy-looking) dolls I had when I was younger for the Cabbage Patch Garden Fairies I adopted in college. And of course we had to dig out my Boo doll and press her belly a bunch of times. The soccer-playing Build-a-Bear was a gift to Blake from the girls he coached one year, and the other one is Olivia, who Blake gave me for our anniversary three years ago.

TA-DA! She'd better friggin' love it.

Lisa: Buy a shredder. Now.

If, like me, you don't take identity theft that seriously, you should probably read The Torn-Up Credit Card Application, from the genius who brought us How Much is Inside. Rob tore up a junk-mail credit card offer, then taped it back together and filled it out, requesting a change of address and using a cell phone number. The helpful folks at Chase sent him a brand new credit card, no questions asked. Friggin' terrifying.

Lisa: Through Any Window

Jenna Fischer is such a babe. Read about her experience shooting the video on her MySpace. And the video is directed by the nerdy guy from Lane's band!

Lisa: I knew I hung on to those hideous socks for a reason...

So, if you live nearby, I have an odd request. I'm trying to collect (as cheaply as possible) costume pieces that 8-year-old boys could use to make themselves a superhero outfit. I bet some of you might have appropriate things lying around, such as...

Lisa: There was no "giant pregnant stomach" body type.

About a month ago, when ljc posted her Simpsons avatar, I checked out the Simpsons Movie site and tried making a few. The Simpson avatar maker is like a less-sophisticated version of the Mii-maker; you choose facial features, hairstyle, etc. that you think match your own. I came up with a fairly decent one for Blake, but I didn't think there were enough options to get a real likeness, so I didn't make one for myself.

Burger King's Simpsonizer supposedly takes a photo and actually morphs it into a Simpsons-like character. I'd seen a few surprisingly good likenesses, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. You still get to choose skin color, hair color, accessories, and body type, but it's in the guise of tweaking your Simpsonized photo, instead of starting from scratch. I tried it twice. The first time, my Simpson-self was a middle-aged black woman. The second try was a lot closer, but had long, glamorous dark red hair. Here's what came out after a bit of messing around:

Not too bad, I think! I mean, completely ridiculous of course, but not bad!

Lisa: Kudos! (mmm. kudos.)

My parents finished the vast majority of the work on their amazing property in Spring City in time to show it off at Jeff's farewell party in May. I stole some before pictures from a few of Sarah's old entries so that you could see the difference side by side.

Here's the side of the big stone barn before:

And here's what the barn looks like now:

You can kind of see my sign hanging over the trellis in front of the door. The back of the barn is gorgeous, too, with giant glass french doors looking out over the back yard. Like Sarah said, my parents cleared out all the stalls and things so the barn can be used for summer parties. Now I just need to convince them to buy a Thelma's Frozen Lemonade machine to keep out there.

Here's the slightly sketchy-looking entryway of what we call the "big house" before:

And here it is after:

Here's what the top of the turret on the corner of the big house looked like before:

And here's the turret in all its current glory:

This doesn't show it to its best advantage, but here's the gorgeous new kitchen in the big house:

I couldn't find a before picture, but here's the vastly improved "little house:"

The little house got fixed up first, and it's where my parents have been living during the bulk of the remodel. It's tiny (just a kitchen/living room, one bedroom, and a bathroom) but darling, and my parents uncovered and highlighted some great period moldings around the huge windows. Now that the big house is fixed up, they've moved in there and the little house is now a guest house for when we come to visit!

Lisa: my love is like whoa

I thought I was already a pretty big Office fan, but my Mindy Kaling love has grown by leaps and bounds since I found Things I've Bought that I Love, to which she is a frequent contributor. TIBTIL was linked on not martha, and I was thinking "this girl is awesome and hilarious and I want to be her" and then there was a picture and it was Mindy Kaling and my brain exploded.

(You can thank me later.)

Lisa: you almost make me forget about tacos

Happy anniversary, Blake! Thank you for being so sweet and patient with me over the last six months. You're going to be a great dad. Congratulations on the job offer!

Lisa: after

I got my car back a few weeks ago and it's all pretty and whole again. Thank goodness for car insurance, because I sure didn't have $6000 to fix it.

Lisa: hooked on phonics

Back in June I mentioned that I bought some letter hooks for the baby's room. I got them hung on the wall over the crib soon after that post, but it's taken me a month and a half to download the pictures from my camera. AT LONG LAST, here are the hooks in their natural habitat:

Here's a closeup of the hooks. I want to get some prettier hangers, but these work for now.

And this is why everyone keeps asking me if I'm having twins:

Lisa: you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll ride your cruiser to the grocery store

Find out the Walk Score of your neighborhood (via not martha). Our neighborhood got a 65, which I figure is pretty good for the suburbs. This is a fun tool, but I think that (like the Hotspotr wifi map) its accuracy and ultimate usefulness depends a lot on individual businesses updating their listings.

I didn't know I needed to read a presidential debate in YouTube comments, but I did. You do too. Thank you to the always hilarious Matt from Defective Yeti, who inspired me to start this blog in the first place.

And thanks to Mallory, who emailed me this awesomely horrible fan art and poetry. Yes, the evil Hot Topic-managing hag Carissa's nemesis is now a published writer.

And this is here mostly so that I don't lose the links before I get around to these projects, but maybe they'll be of interest to you, too: How to Digitize Cassette Tapes, and a few software possibilities for making photomosaics, all on Lifehacker.

Lisa: Jack Bauer would get this all straightened out.

When Gabrielle's good friend Anne flew to Oregon to visit her parents last month, her husband (a German citizen and a Muslim) was detained by U.S. Customs and then sent back to Germany with no explanation. Anne and her family have no rights here, and the situation may never be resolved. Please spread the word if you can.

Here's the article from the local paper in Eugene.

Lisa: practical knowledge

I was in Provo last week for another children's literature symposium, and here's what I wrote in my notes:

Venison is the least nutritious meat you can eat. It is 11% protein at best, and always wormy. Beaver is the most nutritious meat you can catch in the wild--it's very high in protein, and tastes a lot like beef.

I would trust Gary Paulsen on that.

Lisa: I just don't know how to feel

I just got poked in the stomach repeatedly by a 13-year-old boy.

Him: (POKE.) Are you pregnant?
Me: Ha! Yes.
Him: (POKE. POKE.) Can you help me on the computer?

Lisa: you can have what's left of me

A little bird named Sarah told me that SOME people have been complaining that I never blog anymore. That is because I have forced my usually razor sharp brain to become banal and empty.

There are important things I could be thinking (and blogging) about, but I choose not to. Delivering a baby? Avoid. Breast-feeding, or worse, breast PUMPING? Avoid. Finding a way to reduce my work hours? Figuring out a childcare plan? Changing my entire life to become a parent? Avoid, avoid, avoid. Why? Because these things are simultaneously the most stressful (to me) and most boring (to you) subjects in the universe.

Here are a few things that are left among the cobwebs. Worth blogging about? Maybe I'll let you decide.

Lisa: state of the nation

I kind of can't believe how much bigger my belly has gotten in the last three months. (for comparison purposes)

Lisa: upping our Google count for "knobs"

I've been working on painting our hand-me-down crib and dresser white to match the new side table for the baby's room, and I wanted to get some knobs for the drawers that would tie everything together. I decided on some cut glass knobs from Anthropologie, and while I was there I couldn't resist these letter hooks.

I am afraid buying decorative knobs might be addicting. Now I want to replace all the drawer pulls and doorknobs in our house.

Lisa: Why don't you give me a nice papercut and pour lemon juice on it?

The preliminary estimate for the damage on my car is $4500, so it might be considered totaled. Oh, and the other driver is claiming that his car isn't safe to drive. Awesome.

Lisa: I saw the sign

I finally finished my dad's Christmas present--just in the nick of time for Jeff's farewell party Memorial Day weekend. It's a sign that will hang outside the big stone barn on my parents' property in Spring City. My dad had the shape cut out of wood, painted it with chalkboard paint, and screwed in some hangy-hooks. My job was just to paint the lettering on each side.

This side is for when there are special events in the barn--they can write in the name of the event with chalk.

This side is the side facing the street most of the time--when there's not a special event going on.

I used stencils and a special weatherproof paint. As always with a new craft project, the most time-consuming part was going to different craft stores to track down the supplies. I found Patio Paint on the JoAnn's website, but not in the store itself. Roberts had Patio Paint, but not the stencils I wanted. I went to Michael's last, and they had by far the best selection of stencils and stenciling supplies. NOW YOU KNOW.

Lisa: ouch.

If they wanted a birds-eye-view diagram, they should have been more specific.

Thank you, Marci, for rescuing us. Sarah REALLY had to pee by the time you got there. Thank you, Blake, for taking care of all the insurance phone calls. Thank you, other driver, for being nice to the pregnant lady who couldn't stop crying.

Lisa: You will NOT be assimilated. Sorry.

Can I just say that I hate (HATE) those little bluetooth ear-clip phone thingies? There is no faster ticket to Tooldom. If you wear one while you drive to avoid accidents, fine. If you work in a call center and your company has those instead of wired headsets, fine. Wear it at work. No one (NO ONE) needs to wear one all the time. If you must wear one while tooling around your own home, so be it--but for the sake of all that is good and holy, take it off when you venture into the public realm.

Lisa: and stay away from my frozen burritos

In case you didn't already see it on mimi smartypants, Passive Agressive Notes has compiled a collection of real notes that is awesome in both size and content. I think my favorite is still the note from Sarah my parents found after a night out:

Dear Mom,

Sarah

If you aren't as creative as Sarah, and are stuck not knowing exactly the right words to skewer your nemesis, try these cards from Glarkware.

Lisa: try to catch me ridin' dirty

I think I'm going to sell my mountain bike and buy a cruiser. With a basket and a bell. I'm not really the daredevil off-roading steep-hill-loving uneven-terrain type, you know?

Anybody want a practically new Diamondback Traverse?

Lisa: what to expect when you're expecting a vampire baby

Blake and I watched two episodes of Heroes last night, which brought up some very important issues that had to be resolved before we could go to sleep.

1. If you could have any mutant power, what power would you choose?
2. Are Magneto's powers stupid?
3. If the baby could have any mutant power, what would you want it to be?
4. If the baby could be any horror-movie creature, what would you want it to be?

These questions were tricky to come to a consensus on, particularly because Blake answered in this highly irritating fashion:

1. Magneto's powers.
2. No. They are AWESOME.
3. The power to make sound waves into light. (I was able to bargain him into controlling the weather.)
4. A vampire.

Lisa: people who try not to laugh out loud at their computer monitors at work (cracker division)

I heartily endorse Sarah's addition of How About Orange to her favorite sites. Without How About Orange, I would never have found Threadbared, and I would never have been so delighted by vintage patterns with wacky captions that I started reading right at the beginning, and I would never have found this family on their way to the weekly meeting of the Racist Memorabilia Collectors Club (Cracker Division).

My life is so much better today than it could have been. Thank you, Sarah.

Lisa: voila

In our fabulous language, there is sometimes a gap between a written word and its spoken equivalent. Spanish doesn't have this problem--each vowel is said the same way, every time. Their rules of pronunciation are simple and finite. Not so with English. English is full of EXCEPTIONS to the rules. Some of the rules even have exceptions built right in: "I before E except after C or when sounding like "ey" as in neighbor and weigh." What kind of rule is that?

This gap presents a problem for readers and non-readers alike. People who have read the word but not used it in conversation often betray their ignorance with an incorrect pronunciation, while people who have heard the word used out loud might stumble when it comes time to write the word down--and no amount of dictionary searching will help BECAUSE THE SPELLING DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. See "segue." I think the French are usually to be blamed for this.

Imagine my embarassment when I read Imogene's Antlers out loud to my mom as a child, and in the crucial scene where the fancy (French) milliner reveals a new hat he has created to hide Imogene's offending appendages, I confidently exclaimed "VIOLA!" Like the string instrument. I'm sure Mom was very nice about it, all "Heeee. Oh, sweetie, it's pronounced WA-LA!" I could have shrugged it off, or nodded in comprehension. I chose to be mortified.

Now. Let's all learn from my childhood mistake, shall we? When you look at the words "wa la" on the screen after typing them, your instinct tells you that these are not real words. FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCT. Type "voila" instead. Use italics to indicate a foreign language. Smirk to yourself about how smart you are.

Lisa: It's a girl!

And I think she likes karaoke.

Lisa: one track mind

While I was setting up the auditorium for our "War of the Worlds" No Girls Allowed program, a four-year-old boy wandered in and gasped with delight at the alien party streamers I was draping around the edge of a table. He picked up a stuffed puppet.

Boy: "Look! Two zombies on there!"
Lisa: "I think those are supposed to be astronauts."
B: "Astronauts! And they're in a planet!"
L: "Um, I think that's a space ship."

He picked up another stuffed toy.

B: "This one is a zombie!"
L: "That one's an alien."
B: "..."
L: "Do you know what an alien is?"
B: "Aliens aren't even real! They live in space! They couldn't be on Earth because that would be CRAZY!"
L: "Yeah."
B: "So why are you decorating with all these zombies?"
L: "And astronauts and aliens?"
B: "Yeah!!"
L: "Well, because we're having a program today about aliens and outer space."
B: "AND ZOMBIES????!!!!"

Lisa: buy me some peanuts and crackerjack

Spring means baseball.

And baseball means Marci and Mallory eating the world's biggest hot dogs...

...with radioactive relish.

And finding out Sarah's true feelings for me.

Goodnight, boys. Let's play again sometime.

Lisa: stone cold sober

This is why we are all glad that I don't drink. And before you ask, yes, my jeans are screenprinted with a silver design featuring glued-on rhinestones.

Thank you, Mallory, for bringing this moment of glory to my attention.

Lisa: word to the wise

When I am in the middle of helping someone else,

1) Do not slam your hand down on the counter and shout, "WWWWWWWWWAKE UP!!!!"

2) Do not follow that up with an enthusiastic statement about how people don't have to be quiet in the library anymore.

3) When I turn my attention to you, do not ask me an asinine question about whether we have a certain tax form that you already know we don't have ON THE DAY TAXES ARE DUE.

4) Do not finish our interaction with an exhortation to "SMILE!!!"

See, I normally give exemplary customer service. I pride myself on it. But when you hit me with all of the above, I have no alternative but to give you the bitch stare of death through the fog of rage that has suddenly enveloped me. Two other customers rushed over and immediately started empathizing with me, which means that either you JUST WENT TOO FAR, or that they took pity on the pregnant lady who looked like she was going to burst a blood vessel.

Either way, please, don't do those things.

Lisa: help

I have a couple of things I need to get done in the next few weeks.

Lisa: research

The labor stories of other women are alternately hilarious, reassuring, and terrifying. Here are a few I've read lately:

Mighty Girl
Superhero
Dooce
Fussy

Here's what I know:
1) Women have been doing this for thousands of years. My body is made to do this.
2) I will be giving birth in a hospital, not at home with a midwife whose idea of an amenity is shaping the umbilical cord into a heart.
3) The epidural is my friend.
4) Blake and Sarah and my mom and dad got me through the end of the marathon. They can get me through this.

Lisa: perilous pastilles

I think Tootsie Rolls were originally developed as a weapon, or at least a joke candy. See, if you start to eat a Tootsie Roll that's too big (as most of them are), they glue your teeth together until you start to choke on the copious amounts of chocolate-flavored spit that have suddenly been produced out of nowhere. This should be a deterrent, right? The funny thing is, Tootsie Rolls are so delicious that when you finally stop coughing, your hand automatically reaches into the bag for another piece. My theory is that when the would-be pranksters wouldn't stop eating the tasty morsels themselves, the makers shrugged, all, "Huh...well...the customer knows best!" and started marketing them without the irony.

And don't get me started on the delectable danger that is Dots.

Lisa: Bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies!

As Andrea mentioned, we read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane for book club last month. Because it was a kids' book, and because I'm a little craft-obsessed, I had everyone make a bunny out of felt. I was hoping to make these little guys, but I couldn't find the book in time. Instead, I printed some of blue by you's photos for inspiration.

I love how all the bunnies came out so different and so fun.

Meet my rabbit, Randall:

Lisa: Internet, work your magic.

It seems like all the books I can find on decorating a baby's room or making baby-related crafts are super cheesy and overdone, syrupy-sweet, or just plain hideous. Itty-Bitty Hats is an exception, and I can't wait to get started on the pumpkin hat.

Can anyone recommend other titles for me that won't bring back the morning sickness?

Lisa: office, redux

Since the office next to our bedroom is eventually going to become the baby's room, last weekend we moved the bookcases and desk downstairs to the family room. I was worried it would feel too crowded down there, but actually I think it's an improvement--it's looking like a real room instead of just a few stray furniture rejects in a weirdly long space. Here's what the family room looks like now:

In the first and last pictures there, you can see a big set of white louvred doors behind the black office chair. A while ago, with inspiration from various design magazines, catalogs, and books on organization, I made the inside of the closet (which is quite deep and included outlets for power and telephone lines) into an office. It's not as pretty as the mini-office I linked, but it's functional and I can close the doors on the whole thing to make the room look neater. I do all my work for Concert Black from there. Before and after:

With the furniture out of the way, it was a lot easier to repaint the office/nursery. The old paint color was like Kermit after a hearty meal of radioactive waste, and we don't want the baby to go blind or anything, so we painted over it with a much softer, more minty green I had already bought for the downstairs hallway. An improvement, don't you think? And I still like how the green looks against the other paint colors in the nearby rooms and hall.

Thanks, Blake and Sarah, for all your hard work and help!

Lisa: corndog karma

A few nights ago I got corndogged. In case the name isn't enough of an explanation for you, corndogging is a prank in which the pranksters obtain a large quantity of frozen corn dogs and drive them into the prankee's lawn stick-first in the middle of the night. With any luck, by morning the corndogs have defrosted, and have become a smelly and tantalizing treat for the neighborhood pets.

The first problem with the fact that I was the victim of this harmless but irritating attack is that corndogging is my signature prank. I INVENTED IT.

Secondly, this meager attempt barely qualifies:

THIS, my friend, is corndogging:

Live and learn. Oh, and stay off my lawn!

Lisa: dental hygiene is so hot right now

Sometimes the Fergie-bot says some stuff that the kids out in the suburbs can't understand. This time, the confusion-causing lyric was found in Glamorous:

Livin' my life
In the fast lane
And I wont change
By the Glamorous, oh the flossy flossy

Investigation was obviously called for. After verifying that the lyric is indeed "flossy flossy," I checked the sometimes helpful (but always offensive!) Urban Dictionary. There were two helpful definitions that actually predated the song:

1. Extremely flashy or showy.
2. Someone who is hot, sexy, or banging.

Yahoo! Answers also chipped in with:

3. Ornate or showy in a flashy, often almost vulgar way.

Now I'm wondering if Jennifer Lopez wasn't just talking about dental floss when she said "if I wanna floss I got my own." Thoughts?

On an eerily related note, Sarah bought me a toothbrush that plays Let's Get it Started by broadcasting sound waves through my teeth and directly INTO MY BRAIN. That's what the package says, anyway. It's awesome--now I in the mornings I shake my thang AND brush for a full two minutes!

Lisa: dude looks like a lady

Is it possible that hot rollers induce mannishness? One would assume that artificially curling one's hair would result in a more feminine appearance. Strangely, no. Each time I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflective surface, I am somewhat stunned by the incongruous man-face peering out from the center of a soft cloud of curled hair. A dark day for all of us.

Lisa: checking in

Lisa: Tool of the Week

Over the last 15 years or so, I've tried a lot of mascaras. Luckily, I wasn't makeup-age during the era of the colored lashes, but I've tried every tube my mom ever bought (Clinique, Arbonne, and various other high end stuff), every brand they sell at the drugstore, and some things in between.

By far, the best mascara I've ever used is...

MAYBELLINE INTENSE XXL VOLUME + LENGTH MICROFIBER MASCARA.

The tube is divided in half, with one end being a whitish "lengthening primer" and the other end the black top coat. No lie, this mascara does make my lashes look significantly longer and more full. My natural eyelashes are barely average, but when I started wearing Intense XXL...

This is obviously no ordinary mascara. Try it! And tell me about your favorite beauty product in the comments!

Lisa: well-heeled

Sometimes people question why I spend time or money on 'unneccessary' grooming procedures. Other people ask, "how can you stand to walk in those things" or, "why are you always all dressed up?"

THIS IS WHY.

Excellent grooming goes a surprisingly long way to make up for a lack of natural beauty. Our friend Jennifer Aniston can testify to that. "Excellent grooming" means a regular regime of waxing or shaving, moisturizing, finger- and toenail care, hair upkeep (cut and/or color), daily hairstyling and makeup application, and making sure that whatever clothes you put on constitute an "outfit." You don't have to spend a lot of money on any of it, and it shouldn't be overdone (if all the makeup you need is lipgloss and mascara, great), but it has to be done. I've talked before about showing respect for your body by taking care of it, and I hold to that, but I think for me it's mostly about being prettier.

Why skirts and heels? Well, quite simply, I think the Fifties look of heels and a skirt with a nipped-in waist is just the most flattering for a traditional female figure. Plus it's easier to pull off a classy, old-school glamour thing than to follow trends--especially when you're no longer 16 years old, over 98 lbs, or don't maintain the figure of an 11-year-old boy.

Heels look feminine and graceful. They make your legs look longer and more shapely, and change the contour of your butt for the better. Plus, you look like you're putting just THAT much more effort into looking nice.

Like all of you, I wear pants when the activity calls for it. However, for a woman with hips, a skirt is more flattering than a pair of pants EVERY TIME. And contrary to popular argument, I find that skirts are often more comfortable than pants, due to the lack of restriction around the lady bits.

Yes, you have to be slightly more conscious of your body when you're wearing heels and a skirt. Wearing a skirt forces you to be ladylike--keep your knees together or risk exposing yourself a la Britney. THIS IS A GOOD THING. What's so bad about comporting yourself like a lady? Sitting with your legs wide apart in jeans still looks vulgar, even if your panties aren't technically visible. Walking in heels, feeling a skirt brushing against your legs--it makes you feel your femininity. Own it.

I think I dress like a 50s TV housewife for another reason. Even though I consider myself a feminist, deep down I still think I should do (or at least be able to do) everything June Cleaver did. But...I don't really cook much. I'm not the best housekeeper. I'm not always sweet and kind and unruffled, waiting, martini in hand, for my husband to get home from work.

But I CAN look the part. I can be the best at walking in with a skirt and heels, a smart-looking coat, and a pretty bag. And you know what? We can eat take-out. We can hire someone to clean our house. But it's still frowned upon to pay someone to be sexy for you. So...I figure I picked the most practical of the three.

Lisa: street smarts

Q: When is a good time to take my car to the dealership downtown for an oil change that is 3000 miles overdue?

A: 7:00 am, before the streets are plowed, during a blizzard.

Bonus points: Remind the service guy that a part needs to get installed. When he asks you what part, tell him you have no idea. Watch while he looks up the record of your last visit, where someone painstakingly typed in all caps, "CUSTOMER STATES SHE HIT SOMETHING VERY HARD, AND NOW THERE IS SOMETHING DANGLING DOWN BY THE TIRE. SHE SUGGESTS JUST TRIMMING THAT PART OFF BECAUSE MAYBE IT ISN'T IMPORTANT."

Lisa: Thank you?

I never know what people are going to say to me at the information desk. I think some people don't know what a librarian is, while other people are just strange. I try not to take it personally.

"Gosh, you're so bright--why do you work at the library?"

"So are you all volunteers?"

"Gee, you'd make such a great secretary. Maybe I'll offer you a job!"

"You have a master's degree? Really? Seriously? So...did you always know you wanted to be a librarian?" (No. Actually, I got my undergraduate degree in music.) "What do you play?" (The flute.) "Oh. I...don't play the flute."

"You're the smartest girl in the world. And not only that, you're pretty good lookin'! I can say that because I'm old, so it's not a threat."

"Did you know your thyroid gland is enlarged?"

"Can I ask your advice? Do you think half a stick of dynamite would be enough to blow up this whole library?"

Edited because I just had to add one more from today:
"You always look so nice when I come in here. I prefer brunettes with white shirts and black skirts, and you always look very nice."

Lisa: There is someone here inside

Until recently, my family owned a Scrabble game with light pink letter tiles. A special collector's edition? No. You see, in the early 1980s, Scrabble was sold in a dark red fabric-covered box. The letter tiles were plain wood, just like always. One day I was doing whatever it is kids do to entertain themselves, when I felt a vague need to pee. Sure that this inconvenient urge would eventually just go away, I remained ensconced on the throne I had built by cushioning the Scrabble box with a decorative throw pillow. Perhaps you have already guessed that I eventually peed through the pillow and through the red box, transferring the dye from the box to the tiles WITH MY URINE. Gross, I know. Arguably grosser? The fact that my mom just washed the whole thing off and we played with that Scrabble game for years.

The problem in this instance (and, to be honest, throughout my entire life so far) was that I didn't "listen to my body." In fact, I HATE listening to my body. Even as an adult, I always wait too long before I give in and run to the bathroom. I don't sleep. I drink Diet Coke instead of water. For some reason I feel the need to constantly assert the fact that I am in charge. My body is not the boss of me and I'll do it 'cause I want to and not 'cause my body tells me to! Obviously this is very self-defeating behavior, but what can you do?

Well, my body is getting the last laugh. For the past several months, all I've done is listen to my body and try to anticipate and fulfill its every physical need. Why? Because now my body has the leverage it has always lacked: puke. Don't get enough sleep? PUKE. Don't eat enough? PUKE. Don't eat the right thing? PUKE. Don't eat at the right time? PUKE. Move too suddenly or in the wrong direction? PUKE. (Can you hear the maniacal laughter coming from the vicinity of my stomach?) Nothing says "I am not in charge of my own body" like a good round of vomit, especially when you hate throwing up as much as I do.

Say it with me: one more week. I've been in charge for 28 years--I guess I can listen to my body for one more week. I'll even throw in six more months of above-average consideration.

But if you see a pleasantly pink-tinted Scrabble game at D.I., think twice before buying it.

Lisa: I'd like to thank the Academy

Helen Mirren always looks amazing at awards shows--gorgeous and sexy but age-appropriate. I'm so glad my favorite act of the Oscars recognized her hotness too. Here's to aging gracefully! I don't know about you, but I plan to stick a picture of Ms. Mirren to my bathroom mirror.

Lisa: hint, hint

Normally I hate Valentine's Day with the fire of a thousand suns, but don't you think these would make a great V-Day present?

Besides, if you have to wear this knit jersey tent, the least you can do is put on a pair of kickass sexy red heels with it, right?

Lisa: tick tock

Because it is my life's mission to copy Maggie in every possible way, I had to get a pregnancy countdown ticker. Mine looks like this:

It'll be at the very bottom of the main page of our site until I get tired of it.

Lisa: the secret is out

Maybe some of you already know, and some of you have already guessed, but I am having a BABY. Yes, that's right, I am GROWING A WHOLE SEPARATE PERSON INSIDE OF ME. From SCRATCH. It's kind of blowing my mind. Here's how it went down (conception excluded [obviously]):

1) Four weeks ago I stopped drinking Diet Coke because I thought I was getting an ulcer.
2) Three and a half weeks ago I thought my reproductive organs had shriveled and died, possibly crumbling into a black powder.
3) Three weeks ago I was getting really tired of having the stomach flu.
4) On January 23rd I finally figured out what was going on and took a pregnancy test. I broke the news to Blake by walking into our bedroom at 6:00am brandishing the test. "Um. Blake? This stick says we're going to have a baby."
5) Two weeks ago our immediate families found out through the postal system--a tiny slip of paper wrapped around a little plastic baby and stuffed into a small mailing tube with tissue paper. I was too shy to call everyone.
6) Last week we started referring to it as Las Plagas, which of course makes me The Infected.
7) This morning I had my first prenatal doctor's appointment. Not only did I get to HEAR the HEARTBEAT, but I saw a little blob wiggling around on the ultrasound screen! It is confirmed: something is definitely in there.

This isn't a blog about a baby, so I'll try not to get obnoxious or too boring, but having a kid is going to be kind of a big thing for me. You may be hearing about Las Plagas from time to time--consider yourself warned.

Lisa: appetizing

You know what sounds good to me today?

What? I'm completely normal. No, really.

Lisa: not in the best of taste

My stomach has developed a sudden and inexplicable (but nonetheless vehement) hatred for bile. I have tried explaining that bile and my stomach should just get along, that they could in fact work together in perfect harmony, but to no avail. Whenever my stomach detects the presence of its arch enemy, the offending bile must immediately be expelled. Alas.

Lisa: Supercharged

Every electronic gadget we buy seems to come with its own proprietary charging cord and adapter. I've been wanting to make a charging center to hide the resulting ugly and inconvenient cord soup residing in the bin on our kitchen counter. At first, I was thinking of a painted wooden box, with holes drilled in it for the cord ends to poke out of. Then I got inspired by these ribbon boxes, and Sarah helped me develop the final idea.

Here's what went into it:

As with most craft projects, shopping for the supplies took far more time than the project itself. It seems like I used to see those cardboard photo boxes everywhere, but maybe they've fallen out of fashion. Once I got the stuff, all it took was cutting the holes in the box with the X-Acto knife, and attaching the bookplates around the openings with the brads. I was initially planning on using grommets or eyelets (like in the Martha Stewart version), but I couldn't find any big enough for all the plug ends to fit through.

Here's the result!

Lisa: Maybe there could be a point system for sins.

Sometimes I think the church is simply a program engineered with the lowest common denominator in mind, aimed at corralling the largest percentage of people possible into heaven. It's kind of like Weight Watchers.

If you follow the program, Weight Watchers works--there's no question. But...it's not the only way to lose weight, right?

Lisa: M-F-E-O

Lisa: I think I need more Tim Gunn in my life.
Sarah: Hee. Don't. We. All.
Lisa: In my head I just imagined his voice saying "Where's Andrae?" and I started giggling.
Sarah: Andrae= googley-head, which adds hilarity.
Lisa: TOTALLY. I think Tim Gunn would make me sack up and offer me some much-needed direction in all areas of my life.
Sarah: It's possible. He's good like that.
Lisa: Plus, I can picture him looking at my hair and sort of shaking his head with his hand on his chin, all "Well.....make it work!"
Sarah: Speaking of hair, I really liked [our cousin] Heidi's and I've been wanting to dye mine ever since we saw her at Christmas.
Lisa: It was so pretty! But...your hair is already dark? And her hair is straight but with enough wave/body to make it do the swoopy styled thing.
Sarah: Yeah, but I want to dye it darker. Plus, it's growing out anyway. I have to do something with it.
Lisa: OH MY GOSH.
Sarah: What?
Lisa: Nothing. I temporarily went insane and was like "We could have twinner sculpted Jetson hair! Just alike!" and then I had to remove that part of my brain with a scalpel. Apparently I left some bits.
Sarah: Don't make me giggle out loud. I love that part of your brain. Can I keep it? Maybe in my pocket or on a saucer somewhere in my house?
Lisa: Hee. I have it in a jar and keep it in the back of a very dark drawer, pulling it out only occasionally to bark "BAD BRAIN" at it. Then I shake the jar a little before replacing it.
Sarah: Oh, that makes me sad.
Lisa: Don' t feel bad for the Jetson-hair-twins part of my brain. It should be punished.
Sarah: No, no! If you don't want it, let me have it!! It needs sunlight, Lisa. I can give it WHAT IT NEEDS. Plus, I love Jetson hair. Many of the side ponytails of my youth were inspired by the Jetson daughter.

Lisa: Bored Now

I think the girls are getting tired of me taking their pictures at Crown Burger every week. Does that mean I will stop? NEVER.

Lisa: Wax On

Factoid: it is surprisingly difficult to take a picture of your own eye. But aren't my brows fabulous?

Today on my lunch hour I went to the spa for a bit of judicious waxing, and I got to thinking about why more people don't wax. Here are the common obstacles I see:

1) It hurts.

Well, yes. It does hurt. BUT BEAUTY IS PAIN. No, I'm just kidding--if it was too painful, obviously it wouldn't be worth doing. Look at it this way: have you ever groomed your brows with tweezers? You know how much it hurts when you pluck just one hair? Well (and if you haven't waxed, you'll just have to trust me on this), if you yank out a whole section of hairs at once, it hurts about the same amount as plucking just that one hair.

Admittedly, most of us do not go after our bikini lines with tweezers, and that skin is certainly more sensitive--but what's the alternative? Shaving, with the associated razor burn and immediate prickly regrowth? Waxing the bikini line hurts, a lot, for about one second per cloth. That's six to ten seconds of pain, total, for two weeks of clean skin. Compare that to one or two days of clean skin followed by a week of itchy discomfort.

There's also anecdotal evidence that each time you wax, it hurts less. I don't know if that's from gradual desensitization, or because there's less hair to deal with each time (pulling hair out by the root often damages the root and a new hair won't grow there), or if it's just less scary because you know what to expect. Your mileage may vary.

1.5) Something will go wrong and it will RIP OFF MY SKIN/BURN ME/AIIIIIIIEEEE!!!!

Well, I guess if you were bleaching your own hair you could potentially give your scalp a chemical burn and your hair would all fall out. This is why we leave it to the professionals. Your waxer should be a licensed aesthetician who has gone through hundreds of hours of classroom training and clinical application.

2) I don't want someone else all "up in my business."

Okay. That can be kind of uncomfortable--but it's not as bad as going to the gynecologist. For one, you get to keep your panties on. And your waxer will be super professional; if she wasn't, she wouldn't get any repeat business.

2.5) I am embarassed to have a stranger see what I look like.

Trust me, your waxer has had clients who are much fatter and hairier than you are. Also, if you DO wax, those areas will look better and you'll be less insecure the next time!

3) It costs money.

Yes, services cost money. Just as you can dye your own hair or paint your own nails, you can wax your own brows or whatever area suits your fancy. There's going to be a quality tradeoff, though, due to inferior commercially available products, a lack of expertise, and your not being a contortionist. Also, I personally have never had the guts to do my own waxing--but a stranger won't chicken out before ripping off that strip!

Any hair-removal regime is going to cost something, whether it's razors and shaving cream, depilatory cream, or waxing supplies. You have to decide if the benefits of going to a professional are worth a few more dollars from your budget.

4A) My brows look fine naturally.

Yeah, maybe they do. But...they could look better. Even if you stay with your natural shape, there will be hairs that are "outside the lines." Get closer to the mirror. Yes, other people can see those. Brows are one of the most overlooked facial features, but one that can make a huge difference to the appearance of your eyes and your whole face. An aesthetician can help you determine a brow shape that will flatter your face, and will help you achieve that shape without overplucking.

4B) No one sees my bikini area anyway.

Maybe no one sees you naked. But what if you get invited to go swimming or hot-tubbing? What if you get in a car accident and the doctors have to cut off your clothes?

More importantly, YOU see your bikini area. Just like wearing pretty underwear that no one else sees, you will know when you are well groomed and you'll feel sexier and more confident. Plus, that pretty underwear will look even prettier without unsightly hair sticking out of it.

And...ladies, it must be said: if you are married or in a committed sexual relationship, then sack up. Your husband/boyfriend sees your bikini area, and even though he loves you no matter what, he will appreciate your grooming efforts. Keep the romance alive!

4C) Only sluts wax their bikini lines.

No. Clean and well-groomed women who have respect for their bodies and take care of them wax their bikini lines. You don't have to go Brazilian, and you don't have to shave in your boyfriend's initials. Your lady bits are not inherently dirty. Admitting that you have a bikini area and taking proper care of it doesn't mean you're showing it to all the boys.

4D) I am a dirty hippie.

I can't help you there.

Lisa: I am just hoping that they don't have sink pudding.

In the drive-through line at McDonalds this afternoon, I made a startling discovery.

McDonalds? Lives. In. Squalor.

Lisa: The Illustrated Librarian

Thanks to Santa, I am wearing a temporary tattoo that says "Read or Die." How awesome is that?

Lisa: good advice

As if I needed another reason to love Ken Jennings:

If both time and money are in short supply this winter, use your body. Romance a lonely librarian. As the movies have taught us, when librarians take off their dowdy glasses and let their hair down, some are real lookers.

(Thanks, Dave!)

Lisa: No, I haven't written my Christmas cards yet. Why do you ask?

We met Sarah at the delicious Sampan at South Towne after work for a gift exchange with the girls. I'm doing my part to beautify the internet by posting some of the pictures.

Here's the lovely Sarah...

And the awesome wind-up sumo wrestler set she got from Mallory...

And here's Mallory, looking fetching as usual...

And of course, the ravishing Marci.

Merry Christmas, ladies! I love you.

Lisa: Boogie Woogie Santa Claus

As promised, I'm posting pictures of our Christmas lights...

Also as promised, Mallory took us to see the light show in Murray that is animated and set to music. When we got there, a long line of cars was inching along, each waiting for their turn to see the show. I passed the time by taking pictures, of course.

Blake was the first to be blinded by my flash--which was probably poor planning on my part, since he was the one driving the car.

Even though I was obviously taking the lion's share of the flash's assault, Jeffrey was so blinded he couldn't even open his eyes. Amateur!

In that last one, imagine Jeff's face looks like this (the only picture from the bunch in which he toughened up and pried his sensitive little peepers open):

I'm not sure how Mallory escaped the photographic onslaught--possibly because she was in the passenger seat right in front of me and was shielded by the headrest.

The house right before the one with the animated show sported some serious lights, too.

Finally, we got to "Christmas Utah," and it was worth the wait. Let's just say there was quite a bit of undignified clapping and squealing coming from our car. It was really hard to get decent pictures when the lights kept flashing on and off, but you get the idea--and if you want to see it in motion, try the link above.

Thanks, Mallory! I think this will be a new Christmas tradition.

Lisa: Huh. So, I guess smart people...read books?

The Shelf Life newsletter with my Ken Jennings interview has finally been published!

Here's the interview as I submitted it:

----------------------------------

Local Jeopardy champion and Brainiac author Ken Jennings took time out from his book tour to answer a few questions.

Do you have a memorable library experience you could share?

My mom is actually an elementary school librarian in Utah County. But my most memorable library experience probably happened in fourth grade. We had gym class before recess some days and after it on other days, and I got the schedules confused and accidentally skipped gym to sit in the library reading Encyclopedia Brown books, thinking it was recess. It took me about 45 minutes to realize that I was missing, not recess, but the fourth-grade mini-track meet out on the soccer field. My assigned partner for the three-legged race was ticked.

So, the only time I ever cut class in my life (well, until college), I wound up in the library. Nerd!

How many books do you read a week?

A week? Wow, that's ambitious. You guys do know that some people, like, have jobs and TVs and stuff, right?

Actually, I've been traveling a lot lately for the Brainiac book tour, which is a great chance to catch up on reading. I'll read five or six books in a week if there are enough cross-country flights in that week. If I'm home, I'm lucky to get through a book a week.

What book is on your nightstand right now?

Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. And in the same stack, also unfinished: that new Brian Wilson biography and a collection of old Little Lulu comics.

What is your favorite genre to read?

Novels, especially ones with that faintly literary sepia-photo cover you see on Vintage Books trade paperbacks. That way I look really highbrow when I'm reading on a plane.

Is there a book that has changed your life? How?

Monetarily, it's Mike Dupee's How to Get on Jeopardy!...and Win!