This weekend I took a major step backward in time. It started on Friday when I was microwaving some frozen waffles. (I like to microwave frozen waffles because they stay softer and also I didn't own a toaster.) They got to an un-frozen point, but they never really got warm. I kept retrying, and finally gave up and ate them at room temperature. I decided that I had overcooked them and they dried out which caused them to get cooler. This makes no sense, but I hadn't had coffee. The next morning (Saturday) I was trying to cook oatmeal in the microwave. I gave it the standard 1 minute and 30 seconds cook time and it didn't work. I tried it twice more and it was still stone cold (I'm not too logical before my coffee). This was the point at which it occurred to me that perhaps the fault was in the microwave. Now the logical thing would have been to transfer it all to the stove. Once again, I'm not too logical before my coffee, so I dumped out the already mixed up packet and started to heat up some water with the teakettle for a new batch. Of course I didn't have the patience to wait for the water to get warm enough so it ended up on the stove anyway.

I'm moving in a month, at the end of October (a story for another post). I don't want to get charged for a broken microwave. It still turns on, moves the food in a circle and makes the noises. It just doesn't make the food warm. So I don't want to report it, I think I can skate by and not get "caught". (Yes I realize that I shouldn't be charged, but I'm fairly nervous anyway.) Thus I need to live for about a month without a microwave. I eat lunch at work where there is a microwave so in theory this is doable. I went out and bought the awesome Toastation. I had one in KC (that I appropriated from my parents) and they're fantastic. They're small and just the perfect size for either toasting or toaster ovening. This allows me to heat stuff up without turning on the big oven. So it helps me to survive the microwave less time.

Thus far I'm doing fine. Except that everything takes more time and requires more forethought. I'll keep you all updated.

It's been snowing in the mountains for two weeks. Every day that snow sneaks farther down the mountain. It's cooler and cooler every morning. It's not too long before the snow reaches us.

Last night I made a big batch of pasta. I brought some to work for lunch today. One of my coworkers commented on how good my food always looks and I laughed about how basic it was. It really is the most basic pasta.

Easy Pasta I'm sure you can all make in your sleep:
Brown up some ground beef in a skillet (I toss in some olive oil for a teensy bit of flavor for the beef). Boil up some penne (tube pasta). Drain meat. Add jar of premade pasta sauce to ground beef. Let simmer. When pasta is cooked to your liking, drain. Mix pasta and sauce together. Serve topped with mozerella cheese.

The only thing is that I am simple so I use one bag of pasta and one jar of sauce (and a package of beef). This leaves a lot of pasta but a fairly small sauce:pasta ratio. The noodles are all red and such, but no big glops of sauce. For me this is the idea. So I now have a ridiculous amount of said pasta (basically spaghetti with a different pasta). I ate some for dinner last night, brought some for lunch today. And I have probably 4-6 more meals worth. (I package them mostly individually for quick grabbing before leaving for work, but I put some into bigger ones as I ran out of small containers.)

So what is the big problem? I'm not one of those people who gets bored with food quickly. The problem is I'm allergic to tomatoes. See I'd forgotten why I hadn't made this in a long time. I'm not severly allergic, and fresh affects me more than cooked. But if I have a pasta or pizza with tomato sauce, I usually try to avoid tomato for a few days to avoid a cummilitive effect. And I love fresh tomatoes but I avoid them as much as possible, no more than a slice at a time. Well last night there was some minor sneezing while cooking/eating. No big deal. But today, I have been sneezing since I ate lunch, runny nose, and a headache is building. So yeah, I may have overdone the tomatoes. But what do I do with the massive amount of pasta in my fridge? I wonder how it would freeze... Because I can wait a couple of days and then eat some, but not all of it before it goes bad. And the plan was for this to be my lunches most of the week. (Silly lizzie who forgot that tomatoes make her head hurt.)

There has been a lot going on in my life in the last few weeks. I keep meaning to post, but no dice. Here's what's been going on, in a list, in no particular order.

• Fall has arrived. We've had tons of thunderstorms and rain which I love. Today was cold (and I didn't bring a coat) and rainy all day. Perfect cuddle at home with soup and a book day. I came to work though.
  
• In a four day period, I saw three dead cats along side of local roads. This made me sad.
  
• Last weekend I went to the renaissance festival with H. It was the last weekend for it so we braved it despite the four hours of rain on saturday morning. It was really muddy (like soup), but lots of fun, and very not crowded. The joust was horse-less as it wasn't safe for them, but we did get splat fairy mugs. (Beautiful ceramic mugs that when you turn over appear to have a squashed fairy on the bottom).
  
• My Garth Brooks tickets arrived a few days ago. Ticketmaster always sends tickets out looking like junk mail so your tickets aren't stolen (though you have to be careful you don't throw them away by mistake). So my roommate teased, looks like you got some junk mail today, and then we both did happy dances.
  
• Always fun to arrive at work, as I did this morning, start to catch up on four days lag of email, and have your coworker ask, "aren't you going to ::local school:: today?" Oops! I grabbed some books (and I knwo this well enough to do it basically off the cuff) and headed off. I love school visits and one of the kiddos from the school stopped by this afternoon to say hello to me.
  
• My hair feels weird texture wise the last few days, not sure what was up with that.
  
• I went to a wedding this weekend that was pretty fun. I did not participate in the bouquet toss (and fortunately wasn't forced to).
  
• David was in town for said wedding, so I got to hang out with him which is always much fun.
  
• Holiday Mart was this weekend. I worked my shift (required of all junior league members) and did some shopping. There are always neat vendors and I got some fun stuff, and a little bit of Christmas shopping done.
  
• Speaking of Holiday Mart, last year I saw this really neat home decor plate thing, and I wanted it. But I talked myself out of buying it because it was slightly more money that I wanted to spend on a whim. All year long I've thought (and talked) about those plates. And determined that anything that has captured my attention for over a year, I should buy. That retailor was back this year, so I did. And I discovered that their store is about three miles from my house. Well that's irritating. However it is a wire rack that you can change out decorative plates (about the size of coasters), and I only bought one set of plates. I can always go to the store to buy more sets as the mood (and finances) amuse me.
  
• As the weather grows colder (though often still warm in the day) it is fairly reasonable to run both the a/c during the day and heater at night. (Though today is the cold all day variety). We're doing neither in our house. I get a bit cold at night (especially if I'm too lazy to get out of bed, put on flannel pjs, and grab another blanket). I found that if I stay perfectly still as I sleep, my body heat warms up the sheets/blankets right around me, and I'm in a warm little cocoon (helped by the warm cat tucked into me). So when I roll over, I try to do so in a small little space so as not to leave my cocoon and venture into the bed territory that isn't warmed up yet.
  
• I have never cared too much for chai tea but at Holiday Mart I tried this absolutely delicious fat free chocolate chai blend. It was amazing. Too much to spend on a whim (catching a theme here), but I'm still thinking about it. I checked (getting smarter with experience) and it is sold locally. I may have to go get some. Of course the cold weather makes me crave this
  
• At home I have all the makings for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup (my favorite cold weather meal save homemade potato soup) except bread.
  
• I made beer bread tomorrow edited to fix: yesterday. It is yummy and a good use for older beer.
  
• There is beer in my fridge that expired a year ago. Yep, I'm an alkie who drinks too much (or not quickly enough to get through a six pack).
  

There's more random chaos in my head, but that is a good start. Plus certain people tell me my entries are too long. That's because I update infrequently. So vote: update more frequently with shorter entries, or as I am now less frequent with longer entires?

I've got quite a bit I need to write entries about. I really do want to get this all down if only for my own records. I believe half of what I write in this journal is for myself as much as for anyone else. These things include, but are not limited to

• finishing the story about the Stones concert
  
• going to the Audio Adrenaline concert
  
• my trip to Branson
  
• some other stuff

Recently we had a children's musician come in to the library for a Halloween program. He performs a piece about pizza and had mentioned something about it in the program description. I didn't realize it was referring to a song and not to actual pizza. Neither did our patrons. People kept saying how excited they were to try his spiderleg and cobweb pizza. We were in a little bit of a pickle when we realized that there was no pizza. I had primarily been the one telling people who asked that yes there was pizza. The other librarians had heard the song before. (That's me, the librarian who spreads disinformation). So we got pizza. And then I had my flash of genius. I drew on cobwebs with that string/spray cheese that comes out of a can (called Easy Cheese, not cheez whiz, cheez whiz comes in a jar, this was a matter of great debate among the chidlren's staff and we did eventually have to look it up). I also put on little plastic spiders. The results looked fabulous. (That canned spray cheese is disgusting so we had some pizzas without "cobwebs" also because I only bought one can).

I took some pictures, but with my cell phone so they're not the greatest quality.
( spiderleg and cobweb pizza )
See how cool they look? I'm ridiculously proud of this. This is not even the best looking one. (This is just the last one eaten and the only one remaining when it occurred to me to take photos.) One patron told me she was stealing the idea for her halloween pizza party. Edible string would work too, but edible string is harder to find and harder to convince children that it is edible. I saw one little girl lean over and "whisper" conspiratorily to her brother, "the cobwebs are just cheese". If you wish to attempt this yourself, easy cheese comes in multiple flavors. I used American, and it still didn't taste good (in my opinion). Also one can of easy cheese (sold in the cracker aisle) will draw cobwebs on about four large pizzas.

Cross posted to born librarian.

It's just past nine and I'm already hungry. Why is that? Probably because I skipped breakfast and just grabbed a handful of dry cereal on my way out the door. However I made my lunch and tossed in an extra yogurt so I can eat that on my mid-morning break.

I need to stabilize my morning routine. I read an article that recommends getting up an half hour earlier than strictly needed. Apparently if you fight that snooze button, and you take time for a leisurely breakfast with a morning show/newspaper/whatever, you'll be happier and less stressed all day since you didn't start with that gotta-go in two minutes mentality. I may have to try that. Though it seems unlikely given my past history. But I'm pretty stubborn when I want to be and I could see how that could help.

I had my lunch and I ate my healthy pre-packed lunch. The deciding factor was that I got to spend more time reading if I didn't have to drive and get the food.

One of my coworkers just told me to stop apologizing. I apparently apologize at the drop of a hat. I know this is true. I'm usually feeling guilty even when there is no reason for it. I just don't like people upset with me, angry with me, or disappointed with me. Probably too many years of my mother being all three.

I'm hungry. Lunch is an hour (ETA now a half hour, an hour when I started writing this). I have a healthy lunch waiting for me in the staff refrigerator. I don't have to pay for it, it's there waiting to be microwaved. I really don't want it. I really want to go down the street to Wendy's and get chicken strips (with bbq sauce), french fries, and a frosty. This is very unhealthy and would require me spending money. I've had this craving for a week. So far I've resisted. I keep telling myself that tomorrow I have to spend a weekend in Emporia during which I will be eating out, fast food and probably one slightly nicer meal, for three days during school. (Occasionally I go to the wal-mart and grab a frozen dinner and microwave it in my hotel room; and I usually bring breakfast food with me.) Surely I can hold out. And honestly three days of fast food or even restaurant food and I'm heartily sick of it. So hopefully I'm strong this lunch time.

Two weeks ago, we had a pet show at my library. It was a big deal. I'd been working on it and planning it for months. No one else was as excited as me. I think it is safe to say most of our staff were wary and apprehensive. Since we sit on city property, it took around a dozen phone calls to get permission to use the land. There were so many things that could go wrong; I barely slept the night before. It was a perfect day though. Around 24 pet units (were three hermit crabs count as one "pet") showed up and over a hundred humans. Few pets brought just one human with them and many people showed up just to watch. We didn't have much shade available, just one tent I put together over the water station and one tree on the registration table, but the weather was cool, mid70s, sunny, and beautiful. All the kids got to come up and say what was special about their pet and show a trick. The St. Bernard tried to eat a guinea pig (which to be fair to a dog that size, the guinea pig probably looked like a nice snack), but other than that (which was quickly solved) all the pets stayed in their assigned zones and no problems. (Okay the St. Bernard when she was showing off her trick, and told to sit, she squatted and urinated). Everyone got a first or second place prize for categories such as "best dressed" (went to the pug in a pink tutu accompanied by the 4 year-old girl in a snow white dress), friendliest pet, etc. One little boy, who is a storytime regular, had been so excited his mother said he'd been telling everyone about it for a week, and when I gave him a ribbon, his whole face lit up. The program was hugely sucessful with lots of warm fuzzies. I was walking on air. We had photographers from two different newspapers, one of which we got a small picture, the other a large front page picture, I guess you can't go wrong with kids and animals in terms of cuteness.

So those are some (not-so) brief snatches of my life.

I adore oranges. For my lunch every day, I bring a piece of fruit, either an apple or an orange. I have this theory that the quality of the orange is directly proportional to the thickness of the peel. The thicker the peel, the juicier and tastier the orange. The last batch we had had great thick skins, probably a quarter of an inch thick and the oranges were delicious. These oranges have paper thin peels and aren't very good. The one I had today was basically inedible. It tasted wrong and had big splotches of black on the peel. I didn't eat more than one section. So keep this in mind thick peel=great orange.

I'm also learning that I adore Jimmy Buffett's music. Who doesn't like Jimmy Buffett? Even if the only song you know is Margaritaville, you'll still sing and groove along with that song. He's just so much fun. I would adore to go to one of his concerts. After Jimmy Buffett's big hig with Alan Jackson, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere (which was his first number one hit in his career), he used his appearance at the Country Music Awards to invite anyone he could meet to do a duet with him on his new album. He basically said, I'm having a big party, who wants to come? His recording studio is on his boat in Key West and he wasn't afraid to exploit that. (I watched a really fascinating special about him by the 60 minutes people.) Well, I got that duet (and some solo songs) album, License to Chill, and fell in love with it. It is just a fabulous ablum, and I love his style. It's mellow, relaxed, and yet at the same time upbeat and fun. So my dad has some of his older albums and I ripped them and stuck them all on my ipod. Let's just say, I haven't found one of his songs yet that I don't love. Whatever my mood, his music is soothing and fun. Who knew? I guess that's why he's been so popular for so long. He has such great appeal, he isn't really any genre, somewhere in between rock/country/pop with lots of carribeen influence.

I may just be a parrot head. I need to catch one of his shows before he stops doing them, though he says he has no intention of retiring.

Also, one of my favorite songs of his, and yes I'm prejudiced, is Love in the Library and after that probably Coastal Confessions.

I was in Emporia for class again this past weekend, and yes that is two weekends in a row. After the driving in the snow adventure, it was so nice to drive down in beautiful sunny mid-50s weather. We had the warmest January on record. (The second warmest, which we barely beat, was in the 1930s.) Other than one (two-day) cold snap, we were 40s-60s the entire month. I'm not complaining, but it is a little odd. Are we going to get hammered this month? Or have a scary hot/humid summer? Who knows? (Well, God obviously.)

Class was good this weekend. Our professor did the best job of incorporating the readings into the class that I have ever seen. Too often I feel like I entirely wasted my time by doing the readings because they are never once mentioned in class. Of course, it isn't an entire waste of time; education for education's sake and all that. Still, I like to have some discussion or application of them in class.

Saturday night, we went to Applebee's as we often do. And our waiter remembered me. I've been thinking about this and the weekend before we didn't go to applebee's because we went to a movie, so this is from before xmas break, early december. Fairly impressive. He came up and said, "Welcome to Applebee's, we don't do things quite as well as in Kansas City, but we do our best." And I looked up and saw that it was the same waiter and started laughing. We had a lot of the same people there, because we're all in the same classes or some live in Emporia and just join us even if they don't have the same class weekends. Last time I'd been trying to convince him to do something that they don't do anymore by saying that they do it in Kansas City. Anyway, I'm nice to waiter/ress/(e)s and I tip well. This time, I can't just order normally. Oh no. I'm reading the menu and I see that they offer a Big Apple Burger. I don't see [Big Apple] Burger as in a burger in New York style, I see Big [Apple Burger] as in a large burger garnished with apples. I think, oooh, this seems interesting. At home we make porkchops and apples and it is amazing. Perhaps this is a burger with apples either carmelized or sauteed on top or in the patty (like a veggie burger). Then I read the description and realize my mistake. But at this point, I really want a big [apple burger]. And I already have a rapport with the waiter. So he comes to take our order, and I've been joking with my friends about this. I explain how I misread the menu, and ask if they can caremlize some apples and put them on a burger for me. He just shakes his head in disbelief. Than he explains that they don't have any apples in the restaurant. My friend points out it is Applebee's. But no. He offers that I can scoop out the insides of an apple pie. I go with my option B. I really do think an apple burger sounds good and I'm going to make one soon. I'll report back.

Yesterday was a big day for me. Had a dentist appointment. Argh. Hate those. And a couple of really exciting/but kinda stressful things too. I've told some people individually about those things, but I'm not ready to talk about any of them yet because I want to see how they work out first.

I missed both The State of the Union and Gilmore Girls last night. For the President's speech, I read the key points online and saw some of the highlights on CNN. For GG, I will read a summary online and catch it this summer in reruns. So not really a big deal.