Process Your Produce

My favorite Food Network celebrity is Rachael Ray. She currently has several shows on the air, but the one I like the best is 30 Minute Meals. The premise of the show is that in the time it takes us to watch the program, she'll have made a delicious and healthful meal from start to finish. Rachel herself is very entertaining to watch, especially as she gathers the ingredients for her recipes from the refrigerator and pantry. She likes to make as few trips as possible, so she loads everything up in her arms and staggers over to the counter. One of the things she always stresses is to process all your produce as soon as you get home from the grocery store. So now, as soon as I get home from the store, I wash all my produce before I put it away in the refrigerator. It's a big time saver during the week as you can just reach into the vegetable bin, pull out what you need, and it's all ready to go.

A Rose By Any Other Name..

Okay, it definitely doesn't smell like roses here. It smells more like vinegar. Over the past couple of months, my drip coffee maker has definitely slowed down the rate of drip and it now takes a VERY long time to make a pot of coffee. So, I decided to run some vinegar through it in an attempt to eliminate some of the mineral deposits that are clogging up the works. As a result, the pungent smell of vinegar has permeated the entire house. It smells horrible. I filled the reservoir with white vinegar and let it run half through. Then I took the carafe and poured the vinegar back into the reservoir so that it would continue to filter through. I've been repeating this process for about an hour and I'm not sure that I notice any difference in the drip rate. I do know that I have a mild headache. Next I'll run clean water through about a half dozen times in an attempt to remove the taste of vinegar from the coffee maker. I'm not even sure why I bothered to do this as I've switched to drinking green tea.

An Embarrassing Incident

I had planned to recount the embarrassing incident that occurred at the movies last Thursday when we went to see March of the Penguins. However, I just visited my son’s blog and see that he’s already recounted the incident. Since he did an excellent job of capturing the true essence of the experience, I think the best thing to do is just link to his entry.

I would like to add that my drink was actually knocked over twice and it’s the second time that caused my seat to become soaked, prompting the move to the other end of the row.

I Think Our House is Haunted!

A while ago, I read on my son’s blog that he thinks our house is haunted. One example he cited is the fact that he came home from work late on a Sunday evening and found the TV on, even though I’m positive I turned it off. I’m already more than a little freaked out by the thought of ghosts in general, but possibly having them in our house scares me to death. That night, at around 9:00 PM, my son had gone to bed and I was folding laundry in my bedroom. Suddenly, I hear the faint sound of music and what sounds like the theme song from The Andy Griffith Show. At first I thought it might be coming from my son’s bedroom next door, but after giving it another thought, I knew he would never willing watch Andy Griffith. Immediately, I was reminded of his post about our house being haunted and with my heart pounding in my chest, I slowly ventured down the hallway to the living room, fully expecting the TV to be on and fully expecting to put my house on the market that very day as I will not live in a haunted house. When I arrived in the living, the TV was not on, but the stereo was. We have our sound system connected to the TV. After puzzling over this for a few seconds, I realized that I must have neglected to turn it off when I was in the living room earlier navigating through the TiVo menu. While doing this, you don’t hear any sound from the TV, except for the little noise TiVo makes as you navigate through the menu system. If you leave the TV on the TiVo menu system, it switches back live TV after about 10 minutes. Even though I was very much relieved that there was a logic answer, it still doesn’t explain what happened on that Sunday evening, so I’m still a little freaked out.

I Have a Dream

Actually, it’s more like I had a dream. A few weeks ago I dreamed that I was in a helicopter with my son and a couple of people I didn’t know. We were flying over the ocean, but instead of being inside the helicopter, we were suspended below it in seats much like those on the Soarin’ Over California ride in Disney’s California Adventure Park. Unlike Soarin’, we were not strapped in and could move about freely on the seats. Below us we could see a bunch of ducks swimming in the ocean, so the pilot nosed the chopper down so we could get a better look. As soon as we got near the water, a giant manatee rose straight up out of the water and clamped his jaws onto my leg. It didn’t hurt, but was a little disconcerting to have this large beast firmly attached to my leg. I eventually shook him off and we went on our way.