forgotten

yesterday i was taking my rings off to wash dishes, and i wanted a place to put them ... so i looked up in my cabinet and found a small bowl.

sometimes, things are "out of sight, out of mind", as were these mini bowls/dishes.

they were a gift, probably more than 10 years ago, from a friend. the rest are still stacked up in the cabinet, but i did pull them out for a photo =)

they are little japanese bowls.

lights

i learned something valuable recently, regarding my decorative lights.

apparently, when these lights go out, they must be replaced with 12 volt bulbs!

this goes for any of the decorative 10 light strings. i had tried replacing them with some other mini bulbs, but the ones for a strand of christmas lights doesn't have enough voltage.

here's what i bought at Ace Hardware (i purchased online and had ship-to-store for free).

see in the top right corner, "For 10 & 11 light sets/tree toppers" ? ... yep.

so, this afternoon, i got out my little ladder, and replaced an old bulb, and it's glowing like all the others =)

pot roast

i'd never done a pot roast before. heck, i had to ask the butcher at the grocery store which cut of meat to get (i showed her my recipe, and explained i've never done this, and had NO idea).

she graciously walked me over to the cooler and showed me exactly.

the recipe i had found online, via an email list of the allrecipes website.

which made it even less daunting was it had a video!

looking at the video now, i see how their cut had a lot less fat. oh well ... the recipe did deliver. it was easy to do, and the meat just fell apart.

so, it looks like i'm going to be eating a ton of beef this week.

st. patrick's day !!!

i almost forgot to turn my lights on last night, as i was so enamored with my old/new lamp!

these are my shamrocks. i keep them indoors in the winter, and out on north facing porch in the summer. they are much healthier in the summer, and sort of limp through the winter.

if they were planted in the ground, they would be dormant right now, and come back each year.

a couple of years ago, when i first planted the purple ones, i gave one of my bulbs to mom. i took it to her in a pot. later, she got lazy, and combined it with her pot of green ones, so hers look like a hybrid of the two (green leaves with a tint of purple on the underside).

i love it!

i showed my lamp (as seen in the back of my truck from the previous post) today to my friend schmutzie. i'm like, "isn't it pretty?!" ... and she's, "ummm, NO."

we have very different aesthetics. for example, see these two lamps? schmutzie is on the left, i am on the right.

so, moving right along --- after leaving there, i headed to a shopping center that would have everything i was looking for today (a ball of yarn and a lampshade).

by the way, that lamp above, on the left, she has that lamp in her den.

next, came the game of dressy bessie. notice how my lamp has a harp? i tried on lots of shades, that would all fit on the harp. but, they all seemed wrong. they sat up too high, and had to be a larger size to cover the other parts.

i took the harp off, and then tried smaller shades that would sit lower. BINGO.

the print isn't really as dramatic as pictured above. that's the "BeFunky" app doing its fun effects =)

the color of the flowers is really a pale beige-gray.

and now, my lamp is complete. 

this is what it really looks like ... though, the photo apps are loads of fun!

life is colorful

so, i got a new lamp. and, it's "colorful". tacky? no ....



it's sideways, down in the bed of my truck. $17.50. auction. all is metal but the base. really?! ... how can the base be plastic?!
the globe is green and the lamp is a 3-way. green globe on/off, incandescent on/off, both.
well, green is my favorite color!

long day

so, i did get off early today as well ... but, i also went in early. i don't know, i kinda prefer the rush of 5 o'clock "rush hour" vs. the leftovers when i'm usually off work.

anyways, i came home and was catching up on life & phone calls until later than i prefer ... and then i remembered i needed too cook some chicken. tonight.

as i'm waiting for my food picture to upload to flickr, here's a pretty shot of my flowers from schmutzie last week. she's probably one of the few/only persons to give me flowers in the last X years. 

i love alstroemeria. they come in so many colors, and i can get a 5 stem bouquet for $4, and they last about 2 weeks ... money well spent.

and schmutzie got them for me =)

okay, back to food. so, i thoroughly enjoyed my lunch today, from my indian style stew. the flavors were amazing!

but tonight, i had to cook some chicken. once it comes out of the oven, and is cool enough to handle, i will portion it out, and likely wrap up 3 ounce portions to freeze.

not the prettiest picture, but still ... i'm enjoying all these photo apps =)

what to do?

sometimes i wonder if i should merge my two blogs. this and the knitting one.

but, i've not researched if they can be merged or if i just start posting non-knitting on my other blog.

i've always wanted to keep them separate, because when i visited crafty blogs, i most enjoyed the ones only about the craft, vs. all of other life's "things".

but "things" have been rather busy lately ... since early summer. and i don't post here as often as i use to.

perhaps i just need to get over it, and remember this is for me, and not for an audience.

today. today is a cold and sunny sunday. my laptop is near a westward window, so i'm sitting here with a sun visor on. yes, it's ridiculous.

i'll wear the visor to keep the sun out of my eyes so i can see my computer, but i won't close the blinds. the sun feels too good. the light is too pretty.

today, i'm cooking something for the week. i had a recipe which had more ingredients than i was willing to spend on, so i found this other recipe, which was way cheaper, and probably tastier.


it's an indian style recipe, with tons of flavor in it ... such as cumin, mustard seed, curry, garlic, coriander, ginger, cayenne, etc. the base of it is red lentils. so, it'll be good to serve with rice, and maybe some shrimp or chicken on top.


i had started out in my smaller crockpot, but once i got everything in, it was simply too full. so i carefully dumped everything into the larger crock (a 5-6 qt i think).

once it's finished, i will add some lemon juice and cilantro. holy crap, it's gonna be G O O D !

while it's cooking, and i'm sitting here on my computer, i'm listening to some music, which for some (more high tech than me) will be a bit "old fashioned".

i'm using my ipod mini from maybe 2005? ... and it's plugged into my old, very old, gateway desktop computer speakers (i saved the speakers, but the computer is long gone).


it's pink. it's old school. but it works.