Monthly Archives: August 2011

Alaska here we come!

Does it seem to anyone else that we’re flying towards September at breakneck speed? And once September arrives, well, we’re headed straight towards Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Wait! I don’t know what our Thanksgiving plans are! And I haven’t even figured out what I’m getting everyone for Christmas!

Yes, that is how my mind works–at least when I let it run rampant. Note to self: continue to discipline the wild horse that is my mind in order to fully enjoy the present and not worry about tomorrow. Amen and amen.

Everyone pause to make a wild horse noise.

Really get into it. Shake your hair about and give it a loud whinny.

It helps to dilate your nostrils and furrow your brow quite deeply during this process. I speak from experience.

Thank you. Now we can move on.

While I’m looking forward to the cooler, crisper weather and the reduction of sweating (that has a directly proportional relationship with the volume of my laundry piles), I feel like I need to really hang on to these next few weeks. Force time to slow down a little. Squeeze every bit of relaxation out for my husband before he faces his comprehensive exams this fall and winter. And where better to do that than Alaska!

Fairbanks, Alaska is the residence of a certain gorgeous ballerina . . .

. . . and this little squooshy-cheeked man.

And together they rule the galaxy.

Heidi’s husband is deployed, in case you were wondering–with still a few months to go. I don’t know how they do it. Or rather, I do–by the grace of God alone.

By the way, now is probably a good time to break some news to all of you: if I ever have a little one, I plan on nicknaming him or her Fatty Lumpkin. I can’t even say that name without working myself into an ecstasy of cuddliness. Yes, I want a fat baby with ooshy-gooshy little rolls on their legs. Fat babies are the cutest, and the most . . . *mom-ism alert beep beep beep* . . . munchable. I will only call them that when they’re quite small and unable to be scarred or embarrassed–I think.

Anyway, we fly out tomorrow morning, and after a cruel and unusual 3-flight journey, we will arrive in the land of crazy temperatures, weird sunlight patterns, and Santa Claus himself. Our Alaskan activity list goes as follows:

-Take as many pictures of Heidi and James as I possibly can.

-Schmooch baby James on an hourly basis. No, not ‘smooch’–‘schmooch.’ Two very different things.

-Visit the town of North Pole, home of the aforesaid Santa Claus.

-Bathe in the hot springs?

-Eat salmon. Or something. Possibly on a dinner boat experience.

-Do this excursion thingy that involves panning for gold.

-Become a gold-panning millionaire and share my largesse with you by inviting you to my new Gourmet Spa Space Station on Pluto.

-Hike around the National Park of Denali.

-Cook up a storm.

-Spend two nights in Anchorage with my man, which entails a 6 hour drive through an incredibly beautiful part of the country.

-Are you ready? Not blog.

-Yes, I’m taking a vacation from blogging while I’m gone.

-Am I allowed?

-I think so.

-I’m glad you agree.

I’ll be back after Labor Day, so don’t go thinkin’ that you can get rid of my that easily! Plus, they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I haven’t really been absent for a while. Using that correlation, that means that fondness may perhaps be at an all time low. I understand–I wouldn’t me jabbering in my own face every morning! So this is really a kindness to you, eh? Eh.

I will have obscene amounts of pictures to share upon my return, I’m sure. Pictures of the Alaskan scenery. Pictures of Those Cheeks. Recipes from Heidi’s kitchen. Who knows what else–besides the whole ‘getting rich panning gold’ thing that I have planned, of course.

I’ll try not to miss you too much . . .

. . . okay, I’m going to miss you. Kitchen Witch‘s beautiful and poignant stories . . . the city and farm tales of my beautiful semi-relatives the Sweet Ridge Sisters . . . Veronica‘s optimism, her Thankful Thursdays and almost daily recipes . . . Joanne‘s insane penchant for running marathons and combining bizarre ingredients to make something unexpectedly delicious . . . you guys have become such a part of my life!

Next week I have delegated a couple posts to a certain ‘friend’ of mine to keep you all entertained. All I’m saying is: she wears a helmet. Or her head is a helmet. Stay tuned, and see you all after Labor Day!

Printy-print-print

Hi folks! I’m just stopping by to highlight something about my frequent cooking and recipe posts–there are printable links to all my recipes at the bottom of the post. They look something like this:

Click here for printer-friendly version: Parmesan Orzo with Asparagus

When you click on the recipe name, it will open a Word document with the simple text of the recipe–no pictures, no falderals, and absolutely no silly rhymes. Not one.

Sometimes they take a minute or so to open, and I think there may be a better way to handle things in order to quicken the download speed (through Google docs?) but, being a creature of habit, I am simply robotically repeating my lil’ method here until something better comes along and hits me on the head with a lead pipe. Or a small thermonuclear device. Only then will I change my stolid ways.

I’ve been providing these lovely links almost since the inception of my blog (and all my recipes have them, though some are .doc files and some .docx), but in the past few weeks 3 different people have told me that they completely missed the fact, and were instead (bless their souls) copying and pasting from the text between the pictures. Which is frequently rife with tangents, rabbit-trails, and general nonsensity.

So in conclusion: print away, my darling friends! I love you all, every one, and I want to make sure the pathways you tramp through my blog are user-friendly, saturated in organization and common sense, and festooned with garlands.

I also want to welcome suggestions from you all! Anyone who has anything to say regarding improvements I could make in terms of the organization, user-friendliness and presentation of the blogging content, Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Now is the time to speak forth! Or forever keep it to yourself.

At least until you boot up your computer tomorrow morning.

And now for something completely different:

My youngest sister Heidi in a toothpaste costume.

You can thank me later for satisfying the urge you never knew you had–the urge to look upon a Human Toothpaste Tube and say you lived to see another day.

Thus endeth today’s public service announcement.

Cheerio, McFeerio!