Mandajuice

Death on toast

I caught Dave's sore throat.  Send chicken soup quick.  Or vicodin.

How come there are no sick days written into my employment contract?

I fiddled with my design a bit today

In the end I just changed to one of the typepad themes.  I'm actively trying to take pictures specifically for use on a banner, so hopefully I'll get around to that some time soon.  Design is obviously not my thing and I keep meaning to get in touch with the people who commented the last time I asked for design help. 

Also, if you're reading this from an RSS feed, you probably haven't seen that I've been logging my weekly menus on the sidebar.  I try to do it every Sunday, so I know what to cook for the week, but I've been late and now it's a bit out of order.  This week I'll try to get it all up in advance.  More recipes are coming soon (next up is the roasted cauliflower my friend Kate taught me how to make and which we now eat approximately 18 times per week). 

By the way, I absolutely LOVE getting e-mails when you try my recipes.  It makes me feel like I'm hosting a big dinner party in the sky or something.  Have I mentioned that I love food?  And I love cooking?  And I love parties?  And as such, I think recipes are doomed to become a more permanent feature on this blog.   I've definitely got some good things in mind!

American Idol predictions, Take two, The Dudes

Okay so last week I thought David Archuleta was a bit of a goofy kid, but this week he totally blew me away.  I almost maybe like him more than Carly Smithson.  But, shh, don't tell her that.

Also worthy of mention was David Hernandez who knows how to pick a song.  (Papa was a rolling stone).  Most of the guys made TERRIBLE song choices.  The seventies was chock full of excellent music and yet I barely remembered hearing half of those songs before.  I predict that  pretty soon we'll see a Motown night because otherwise I can't believe no one has sung any of those hits yet.  How can you do a 70's show and not have at least ONE Jackson Five song?!.  If none of the girls sings Diana Ross tomorrow night, my theory is solid.

My guesses for which boys will go home this week:
Robbie Carrico, who might very well be a "rocker" but who isn't anywhere near hot enough to pull it off.  He's more like the grubby nerd who lives in the apartment next door smoking bowls and blaring Def Leopard.  He always looks so dirty.  Definitely not destined for stardom.

Jason Yeager, whose horrifically bad dancing embarrassed me so thoroughly that I had to fast forward through to the end of his performance.  I hope he goes home this week just so I never have to witness that again.

How does your garden grow?

Six years ago when we lived in Davis, I spent a bunch of money in a futile attempt to start a vegetable garden in the backyard of the duplex we shared with our crazy 90-year-old landlady Juanita (RIP).  I had the landscapers rototill for me.  I bought seeds and equipment.  My grandparents even helped me out with it.

Then summer came and I basically never set foot in the backyard again.  The garden never grew because I never even planted the seeds.  It was a total waste of energy.  Apparently my blind ambition had caused me to forget that we basically lived on the sun and that my 300-pound behind could not take the heat.  I spent that summer enjoying store-bought zucchini from the comfort of my air-conditioned kitchen.  I forgot all about the garden.  The one I never planted.

But apparently Dave has not forgotten!  This weekend I began planning my garden in earnest.  I pulled out the half-dead bush next to the fence.  I started my seeds in one of those Jiffy indoor greenhouses.   I even bought a little calendar to remind me when to transplant things and to track my progress.  And every step of the way Dave has been niggling me and giving me a hard time.  He even went so far as to tell me I shouldn't blog about the garden because won't I be embarrassed when I let it go to weeds?!

I blame this reaction on law school.  You see, I've set a PRECEDENT of having sucked at following through in the garden and now THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS.  This is a constant theme in virtually every heated discussion we've ever had.  If I've done something ONCE, I'm doomed to repeat it in perpetuity.  I keep telling him that people aren't like case law, we're allowed to change our minds and evolve and do things differently just because we feel like it, but he'll only believe it when he sees it.  When I set a new precedent. 

So this year I'm really looking forward to the garden!  My seeds are all beginning to sprout and I can't wait for the sweet, acidic, tomato-flavored "I told you so" I'll get to enjoy.

You can follow my progress on Flickr:

1. Basil
2. Green Beans
3. Carrots
4. Leaf lettuce
5. Simpson lettuce
6. Walla walla onion
7. Parsley
8. Pumpkins
9. Brandywine tomatoes
10. Yellow tomatoes
11. Beefsteak tomatoes
12. Watermelon
And maybe more, we'll see...

Monday list

1. Am I the only one who wakes up every Monday morning to a house that looks like a tornado went through it?  Every single fork and spoon we own was dirty!  I've spent the afternoon cleaning like a crazy person and the only room I worked on was the kitchen.  I even cleaned all the grimy drips off the cabinets and the took apart the stove.  It was getting pretty nasty.
2. Now I'm drinking a well-earned chick beer (Newton's Folly hard cider from Trader Joe's) with my feet up while Genoa watches Lazy Town next to me.  Naked.  (her, not me).
3. Dave's health continued to deteriorate all weekend and no matter how much I love to say "I told you so" I wish he'd just gotten his butt to the doctor on Saturday instead.  Like I told begged him to.  Last night he sent me to Walgreens at 10:30 just to buy him some cold medicine so he could sleep.  This morning he woke up with his eyes crusted shut and two hours later he returned from the doctor's office with SIX prescriptions.  SIX!  [Two for reactive airway disease (snot-inspired asthma), one for his goopy eyes, an inhaler, a cough suppressant and some nose spray.]  All day I've been reminded of this video (originally seen via Dooce).
4. Genoa insists on pooping in the potty now.  I haven't changed a poopy diaper in four days!  Pee-pee still depends on whether or not she's got clothes on or not, but if she's naked, she's basically potty-trained.
5. Carol's house is coming along.  Fernando was over there painting all weekend and the results are pretty awesome!  Hopefully she'll be moving up here in the next week or so.
6. Is anyone else watching In Treatment on HBO?  Dave and I are absolutely and totally addicted to it.  Neither of us can figure out why we love it so much, but our addiction is SOLID.  They put all the episodes on Comcast On Demand on Mondays and we've usually watched them all by Tuesday night.  If you have HBO and you aren't watching this, it's a series about a therapist and his patients.  Each night they run a half-hour episode featuring a session with a patient.  Each Monday it's Laura (who is in love with the therapist and vice versa), Tuesday it's Alex, Wednesday is Sophie, etc.  You get to follow the therapeutic progress (or lack thereof).  Like most things HBO, the writing reels you in and you feel like you know all the characters in real life.  Few non-HBO shows ever do that to me. 
7. WARNING THE WIRE SPOILER!!!  *****Speaking of, RIP Omar Little , my most favorite character ever on The Wire.  You were the world's most bad ass homo.
8. When is Dave going back to work again?  I swear I can't get anything done with him at home.

In which Target and its magical marketing department OWNS me

I went to Target this afternoon with the following list:

Returns (I returned $38 worth of stuff!)
dog food
coffee
sippy cups
testing strips (for the glucometer)
garden supplies

And I came home without the sippy cups or the testing strips, but with coffee, dog food, two shirts for Genoa, three pairs of cool garden gloves and all of this:

"Clear out the mercury glass section of the Global Bazaar!"  was not written anywhere on my list, but that's exactly what I did this afternoon.  Every time this stuff has been discounted, I would start putting things in my shopping cart and then eventually put them back in an act of common sense.  25% off? Not cheap enough!  50% off?  I seriously considered that pear, since I wanted it SO badly. 

But today everything was 75% off.  My resistance was futile.

For $7.49!   I've been wanting to start a collection for the kitchen and it looks like I'm off to a good start.

I also grabbed this little glass basket I've been dying to put on my dresser for $4.99.

The tag there says, "Does not hold water."  Really!?  Who knew?!

Apparently Target is my kryptonite.

Relaxed Saturday in (almost) Spring

Genoa and Alex are outside playing in the house (which is really a tent) that Dave just put on the lawn.

The kids had hot dogs (all natural from TJ's and SO GOOD) and homemade alphabet mac 'n cheese for lunch, which they gobbled.  Genoa had almost two whole dogs!  I made Alex's into a hot-dog-topus.

I still have my pj's on.

We've already had a visit from the Jehovah's Witnesses who all agreed that Genoa was adorable, even without pants.

The dog is asleep in a patch of sun from the back door.

Dave is sitting in front of his new laptop googling "wooden play structures" for the backyard while coughing like he's hacking up a lung. 

[My goal today is to get him to go to the doctor!]

I'm about to go get started on my garden patch.

It's a good day!

American Idol predictions 2008

So far I'm really disappointed with this season of American Idol.  Last year it seemed like I had too many favorites and this year I'm having trouble coming up with even a SINGLE favorite.  Why do they keep saying that there's more talent this year than ever before?  It seems like they picked the top 24 based on their STORIES and not their singing and I find that annoying.  Most of the singers sound average to me and very few stand out.

That said, so far I'm totally pulling for Carly Smithson.  She's by far the best singer of the bunch.  I like that she's got this tough-looking tattoo-parlor exterior and that her voice doesn't necessarily match that.  She's not obvious; you can't look at her and tell what she's going to sound like.  (As opposed to Amanda Overmyer, who both looks and sounds like a biker chick.) 

I also absolutely love Brooke White.  I love that she's so sweet and happy and that she pisses Simon off.  Her voice isn't spectacular, but she's a real musician and I like that.  I want the sweet young married Christian nanny to win it.  (Dude she babysits TWINS!  That alone makes her my hero).

Another force with which to be reckoned is Ramiele Malubay.  Every time she sings, she's flawless and I love her style.  She's got such a great voice.  And she's so squishy and cute!  The only problem is that her name is IMPOSSIBLE to remember.  I bet that will be her downfall.

I'm not truly a big fan of any of any of the boys.  What a mediocre crew.  My favorite, by far, though, is the be-dreadlocked Jason Castro.  He's so unassuming and shy and likable and his voice ain't half bad either.

Michael Johns is pretty decent as well.  He's consistently good and I could see him actually recording an album.  The only problem is that he looks like he belongs in a Apple commercial.

People I want to like, but whose voices aren't really that great:
Asia'H Epperson (Such a sweet girl!  And her daddy died and I really want her to win, but her voice isn't spectacular).
Joanne Borgella (Bringing it for the plus size ladies!  And SO beautiful, but not that great of a singer, sadly.  Her voice sounds a little whiny to me.)

Who do I think will go home this week?
Amy Davis
Syesha Mercado
Robbie Carrico
Jason Yeager

Yay for cousins!

My cousin Amber had her second baby this morning!  Sabrina Willow was born 30 minutes after they arrived at the hospital.  Amber's labor went so fast that they didn't even have time to get into the birthing tub! 

The best part is today is my Uncle Mark's birthday, which he'll now get to share with his granddaughter.  Amazingly, Amber's first daughter was born on my Aunt Rinda's birthday, so now each of the Amber's parents shares a birthday with one of their granddaughters.  How awesome is that?!

MOTHER OF THE YEAR?? I win.

On Tuesday, Alex came home from school with a crusty right eye.  I hadn't noticed it before, but I found myself cleaning it at least a couple of times before the end of the day.  After he went to bed it hit me that goopy yellow eye crust probably isn't normal and I told Dave I was pretty certain he'd wake up with pink eye.  Sadly, I was right.

So I hauled both kids to the doctor's office to check on it first thing Wednesday morning.  The doctor confirmed pink eye and then while examining Senior Taco Pants, she also unearthed a RAGING ear infection in one ear and an almost infected second ear. 

Genoa has also had the snots for a while, so I randomly asked her to check out Genoa's ear and even though I was technically supposed to make a separate appointment for her, the doctor was nice and had a look.  Turns out one of Genoa's ear's is actually WORSE than her brother's and her second ear wasn't infected but was bulging and ready to perforate if we didn't get her immediately on antibiotics.  

The worst part is that I had NO IDEA Genoa was really sick, even though she had woken up several times in the middle of the night and walked around to my side of the bed to pat me on the head and tell me "Yets go downstairs, Mommy!"  I just thought she was hungry because she wouldn't eat any dinner (which should've been my first clue that it was more than a simple cold).

Anyway, both kids are appropriately drugged up and on the mend.