No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

So there I am... I came home from work yesterday morning, with the ambitious intention of scraping the peeling paint from the trim of my house. I got out scrapers, and went to find the extension ladder that is kept under the back deck. Upon dragging said ladder out, I discovered it was lacking one of the little "feet" that holds it in place when leaned up against a wall. This, naturally is a problem. I am not so keen on the idea of climbing a ladder that can slip out from under me at any moment, sending me careening into the bushes (or worse yet, the driveway). This should have been an omen, but no... I perservered. I got out the smaller stepladder, hoping to at least be able to scrape what little paint I could reach. I decided to begin with the front of the house (as that was the only place I could reach with the shorter ladder). I began by scraping around the windows, and to my utter horror, I discover that at least one of the windowsills has been reduced to virtual sawdust, most likely held in place by the paint I was trying to erradicate. Hmmm.... I climb the ladder, hoping to scrape the trim, where it was genuinely peeling, and found another corner of impending doom (rot). Motherpusbucket... so much for actually making improvements on my home. I shall wait until it dissolves around my ears.

Oh, Its IN There

After waking up from a somewhat shortened post-work nap, I was famished and meandered into the kitchen for some type of sustenance. I decided on spaghetti, as it is fairly quick with minimal preparation. I poured some Ragu into the saucepan while the pasta boiled. Now, I know the Prego commercial say "Its In There" but that is completely fallacious; it is thin, watery and tasteless. Ragu is far better in my opinion, but I still firmly believe in sprucing up one's tomato sauce. So, out of my plethora of spice jars, I pulled out a large Italian seasoning. Said jar has two openings on the lid; one with holes to carefully mete out spices, and an open side into which one may insert some type of spoon. In my sleep-deprived stupor, I opened the wrong side and gave a generous shake. I was immediately horrified to see roughly 1/2 c of seasoning resting on top of about 1 1/2 cups of sauce!!! I scooped out as much seasoning as I could that had not yet been tainted with red, and stared helplessly at my simmering lunch. The rescue? I decided to add more sauce! You know, dilute the spice. At any rate, the sauce ended up being quite good; a bit more fibrous than I would normally have made, but whatever.

La Primavera

This morning I have decided to be completely selfish and skip church in order to be one with Nature. That sounds far more earthy-crunchy than I had intended, but so be it. Today looks like it will be genuinely gorgeous, and this is such a fantastic time of year. New England is beginning the process of recovering from a brutal, bleak winter. We are past the point of Biblical downpours everyday, and the trees are starting to bud. People are having brush fires in their yard that remind me of my childhood, running around barefoot and playing "guns" with the neighborhood kids (back when it was ok to have a cap-gun). The last few days that have been nice, I have either been in the house teaching, or in bed due to my part-time night job. But this morning is mine. I am quite seriously thinking about parking my pale, Scottish arse on the back deck with a good book and a bottle of SPF 50.

Technological Whooligals

About a month and a half ago, I proudly stepped into the 21st century and purchased my first iPod Nano. It is so tiny I live in fear that I will either lose it or break it (I am prone to freakish accidents that often wreak havoc in my wake). To date, I have successfully managed to load about 150 songs onto said thingamajiggie. Of course, when I first loaded iTunes onto my non-Mac apparatus, it instantly sucked in all of the music and videos currently residing peacefully in my hard drive. This is all well and good, except for the fact that none of these items were in a compressed format (which sort of defeats the purpose of the iPod in the first place). I figured it would be easier to just delete it all out of iTunes, and put in only those things I really wanted (I mean, after all, do I really need the Brandenburg Concertos on my iPod?), and compress them as I imported them. In theory this was a fine idea, but in actuality it turned out to be an enormous clusterfuck. Now, in what I can only assume is some sort of passive-aggressive retaliation, iTunes refuses to allow me to import any music from the hard drive. This is exceptionally annoying, since every Beatles album in existence is on my computer, and I ended up loading them manually. Once, I had considered myself somewhat technologically proficient. I have since changed my views and wonder how I could have been quite so deluded in the first place.

The Chef Obsession Continues

And it is done. I have officially signed up to be a Pampered Chef Consultant! And, as it turns out, the kit had all sorts of things I do not currently own. There are several pros to this new venture, and very few cons. First, I am able to make some extra money. This is especially important, as in the summer I don't have nearly as many students, and I can only pick up but so many extra hours at my part time job. Second, it enables me to work within my own schedule, and get out and see people. But the most important reason is that it has renewed my love of cooking. For me, Kitchen Time is Therapy Time. If I am angry or upset, I cook as though preparing to feed an army. There is, perhaps, nothing finer than to beat the hell out of homemade pasta dough when one is feeling particularly homicidal (it fights back, you see). I have been known to talk people into things (sometimes good, sometimes less than good), so at least I am peddling something safe and fun to play with (well, the knives aren't really safe, but...).