Author Archives: Cindy

random boring stuff

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I survived the dentist with very minimal freak-outs. I have 4 cavities, which is the same as I had 6 months ago – but sadly, my insurance company sucks and only covers 20% of my fillings, which means I have to come up with several hundred dollars to pay for them, and… yeah. It’ll get done, eventually. Meanwhile, I’m trying to just pretend like I don’t know about them. Please don’t tell me how bad an idea that is. I can’t hear you, la la la la.

I got all excited because the weather was really mild yesterday, and again today (high in the low 70’s), and I started making plans of how Dave and I can do stuff outside this weekend, like using our new grill, or cleaning the garage, all that fun stuff. But according to weather.com, it’s going to be in the upper 80’s again this weekend. Which means that if we try to clean out the garage, we’ll last all of 15 minutes before we die of heat exhaustion. Hm, perhaps not.

In other news, I just got this exercise video collection (and I am NOT typing the name of it here because I don’t need those types of Google hits, thank you very much; let’s put it in code and call it “C@rm3n El3ctr@’s A3r0b1c Str1pt3@se”), and I love-love-love it. It feels very silly at first, and I was all self-conscious and kept worrying that Dave was going to stick his head in the room and ask me what in the sam hell I thought I was doing. But I’ve done it twice now, and I have muscles aching today that I haven’t felt in a while, because, well, let’s just say it works *entirely* different muscle groups than walking or jogging, which is basically all I’ve been doing lately. So that’s pretty cool.

And the exercise thing is good, particularly since I had the very healthy lunch today of leftover pizza. Which has the very unfortunate side effect of making me feel something like this:
See how skinny I am in the morning?
And see how not skinny and unhappy I am now?

Yeah, the pizza? Is not my friend. (As a side note, aren’t my artistic skills impressive? The stringy hair in particular is frighteningly dead accurate.) But all is well, because I shall go home tonight and prance around like a big ho in the privacy of my living room. And pray that if there’s a God in heaven that my neighbors don’t have binoculars aimed in my vicinity.

put on a grumpy face

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In about an hour, I have to go to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned. Which is not that big a deal unless you suffer from dental anxiety, which I do, or if you’re a regular flosser, which I am not. Well, actually, I go through phases with the flossing. Sometimes I’m really good for weeks and weeks. Lately? Not so much. I actually totally forgot about the dentist appointment until they left me a reminder message on my voicemail the other day. So in other words, you’re coming in tomorrow, too late to start flossing now! You’re busted! I guess I’ll just fess up and admit that I haven’t, rather than lie about it. What are they going to do, make the sharp pointy metal thing prodding my gums even more painful than usual? HA! I’d like to see them try! I actually have a very accomodating dentist, they give you headphones and a remote to a little TV on the ceiling so you can distract yourself while they’re torturing you. Love that technology.

Anyway, because of this, I am in a very bad mood today. Oh oh oh! And remember the drugs my dermatologist gave me for that weird outbreak I was having? Well, they worked, and my skin totally cleared up. Which was great. So I stopped taking the drugs. And now? The zits are back. WTF?? So yeah, that isn’t helping my mood one bit. Y’all might want to think about sending Dave a sympathy card, as I have not exactly been the most pleasant little ball of sunshine to live with lately.

fun with fruit

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Not a whole lot happened this weekend. Dave and I got haircuts on Friday, we went to some friends’ wedding on Saturday (which was lovely), and we chilled out most of the day on Sunday. Actually, Dave chilled out, and I apparently went into hyper nesting mode or something. I don’t know where this came from – I got up on Sunday and made chocolate chip muffins for breakfast. Then, since I had already established a theme of healthy and nutritious eating for the day, I spent about an hour in our yard picking blackberries so I could make a cobbler. I’ve never attempted to make a cobbler before (I consider myself sort of mediocre on the whole baking thing), so I had no idea how many blackberries I needed. I think I ended up with something like half a gallon. I only needed 2-1/2 cups for the recipe. Oops. I hope blackberries freeze well, but I guess we’ll find out for ourselves in the near future.

Oh, and for the record? I didn’t even begin to make a dent in the overall blackberry population of our yard. They are everywhere. Which is sort of a mixed blessing – I love blackberries, but the bushes here grow like kudzu and will take over the whole yard if we don’t keep them trimmed back. And what with the thorns, it’s almost impossible to trim them ourselves without getting sliced to ribbons. So we actually have a landscaping service that’s supposed to come sometime in the next couple of weeks to cut them back. Which is probably why this is the first time all year that it suddenly occurred to me that, hey! Our blackberries are going to go away! I should go retrieve as many as possible and make fattening desserts with them! (Well, that, and the fact that August is really the first time of year that they’re ripe enough to eat.)

I meant to take pictures of the before and after – the huuuuge bowl of fresh blackberries that I picked, and the really pretty cobbler after it came out of the oven – but the camera was upstairs and I am lazy, so alas, I have no pretty food photos to share. Maybe next time. Meanwhile, here’s the recipe that I used for blackberry cobbler, which is awesome and super-easy (thanks Google, and bettycrocker.com).

Blackberry Cobbler
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (I used the lactose-free kind & it still tastes great)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
2 1/2 cups blackberries – fresh or frozen (thawed & drained)
1 cup sugar

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, salt & milk in an ungreased 8-inch square baking pan or skillet. Stir in butter until blended.
3. Mix blackberries & sugar, let stand about 20 minutes until fruit syrup forms. Spoon over batter.
4. Bake 45-55 minutes until dough rises and is golden.
5. Serve warm with cream, whipped cream or ice cream. (Again, no lactose for me, so we used cool whip, which is non-dairy. Still awesome.)

During the time that the cobbler was baking and then cooling, Dave and I watched the latest episode of “Six Feet Under”, which made me cry. A lot. Honestly, I thought of the cobbler as my reward for such an emotionally harrowing hour of television. Lordy.

boom!

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In honor of my new co-author, I’ve started playing around with my theme to make it less girly, and a bit more Northwest-y. I’ve scrapped the daisies (although I really love that photo, so I may end up reusing them, I’m not sure), and instead I’ve put in the picture of the mountain that Angie liked – and god help me, I wish I knew what mountain that was. All I know is that it’s visible from the ferry dock in Anacortes. So, maybe Whistler? Mt. Baker? Do any of you locals recognize it? Help me out here. I’ve also changed my tagline, sort of the way Cat suggested, but with minor edits.

So, what’s the opinion on the new look? Do we like the mountain, or should we bring back the flowers?

Blogpooling

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In an effort to become more environmentally aware, I have decided to blogpool with Cindy. Not only does blog-pooling result in less harm to the environment, reducing the emission of noxious gases from the internet that are destroying the ozone layer , but it also entitles one to use the HOV lanes on the information superhighway. You want to double your bandwidth and help the cause? Blogpooling is the way to go!

But seriously; it appears that I am such a clutz for allowing some idiot spammer to hack my site that I’ve had to shut it down for now. Not that I was exactly prolific, but it still pissed me off none the less. For now though, Cindy has a new blog-buddy.

Yay!

new author

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Since Dave’s blog went away (tons o’ comment spam + never posting = why bother keeping it?), I set him up with an account here. So, you may now start seeing the occasional post from my darling husband. Of course, if he becomes a regular contributor on poobou.com, I’m going to have to change my little tagline, because my blog won’t be all about the nerdy southern girl anymore, but about her significant other as well. Hmm, how to sum up both of our lives in one quick, catchy phrase? That’ll be a challenge. Anyway, be on the lookout to see if he starts writing anything. Or, start leaving him nasty comments and emails telling him to get on the stick and start blogging.

whales and other wildlife

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Our trip to San Juan Island was great. I’ve been having problems with my blog all day, but I finally got the pictures online. That might tell the story better than I can at this point. But to sum up: we saw a couple of bald eagles, many whales (I guess if you find one, you’ll probably find the whole pod, which is like 25-30 whales, and I think we saw at least two pods), we met a very friendly camel named Mona, and I personally encountered about 10,000 mosquitoes. The bed & breakfast where we stayed was very cool, but Dave and I were both happy to get home and sleep in our own bed last night.

And um… There’s other stuff to say, but I’m too tired and can’t think of whatever it was that I was going to say, so I’m just going to wrap this up. Go look at the pictures. Enjoy. The end.