Homemade bread is fantastic. It’s inexpensive and easy to make, and delicious to eat. Unfortunately, it is not fast to make. I need to learn to not start making bread at 8:30pm. Even when I make it into rolls instead of loaves (the former rise and bake faster) it is just not a good thing.
I guess the good thing is that I now have fresh bread for my lunch tomorrow! Too bad that lunch is in eleven hours and I’ll be at work for five hours before said lunch.
1.) I went on vacation. It was glorious.
2.) I might be back from the vacay, but hey – makes for a four-day week.
3.) My rowing team gets back on the water soon. This is way better than indoor training.
4.) Spring has pretty much sprung. I replaced my mukluks with my galoshes.
5.) After a lot of debate within myself, I managed to put together a really fair proposal for some extra stuff work wants from me. I feel like I am being fair to both of us and will be comfortable with whether or not they accept my proposal
I drank the best beer ever. I did not drink it tonight, but I thought about it tonight, and thus I am sharing my review of Firestone Walker Anniversary Ale 14. At 18.99 for 750 mL I probably would not have tried this beer of my own volition (Dude, that’s more than I usually pay for a bottle of wine – sometimes three bottles of wine!) so I am profoundly glad that I attended a beer class at which someone else had the good sense to crack open a couple of bottles of this – and share them with the rest of us. As suggested by its makers, we drank this at almost room-temperature.
Even from its packaging, FWAA14 comes across as a Serious Beer. The bottle is in a freaking box and there is more to read on and in the box than the average first grade class manages to trudge through in a year. Some of the notes are more relevant than others; ignoring them will not diminish your experience, it will just make you a little less of a geek. Personal choice, etc etc. FWAA14 further lets its drinker know it is a Serious Beer by having an ABV of 12.5%. In liquor terms, that’s 25 Proof. Not fooling.
Despite it’s packaging and it’s high alcohol percentage, above all, Firestone Walker Anniversary Ale 14 crooned smoothly to me, “try me, drink me, enjoy me, yessssssss.” And I did. This beer is helluva smooth, warming the mouth before it slides down the throat. Vanilla. Chocolate. Oak. Bourbon. Whiskey. Caramel. Cherry. Coconut. Forget port – this beer is a drinkable dessert. It’s the epitome of a sipping beer.
Find or invent a special occasion and buy a bottle of this beer. Put it in some fancier glasses – like snifters – and toast yourself.
I went to the eye doctor today; it turns out I should have gone a solid six months ago. (Confession: I do not follow the official guidelines and am on my own biennial plan.) I’m due for an appointment next month, but since my right contact seemed a bit foggy I decided to go early, so as to get a current prescription and buy new ones. (You cannot order contacts with an expired prescription; prescriptions are valid for one year.) I know my contacts are old and assumed that to be the issue. Contacts don’t last forever, you know. Um, there were other, greater, issues.
1.) My formerly stable vision? Yeah, no so much. Ol’ righty is a disaster. My left eye didn’t change much, so it’s still all right for me to drive wearing my contacts. (I asked.)
2.) I knew my lens were a little dated, but turns out they are four YEARS old. Whoops. I gave new meaning to “extended” wear.
3.) I was wearing my contacts on the opposite eyes from which they were intended. That explains a lot.
I ordered new lenses. Going forward, I will be following the standard “annual exam” guidelines.
recalled peanut butter
I totally bought – and ate – peanut butter affected by a recall.
I rarely buy the reduced fat; I usually buy something fattier and more natural. This time, I thought it would be something good and healthy to do for myself.
I was wrong.
1.) In conjunction with my four-day-weekend project, I am going on vacation at the end of the week.
2.) Because I am a grown up, there was no reason for me not to have a dinner entirely of cheese…so I did. Osteoporosis prevention, etc.
3.) On Sunday, I went to one of my favorite brunch places in tundra. I gobbled up their pork belly, poached eggs, polenta, and an english muffin with a lovely bellini. I love me the brunch.
4.) Gas where I work is twenty cents cheaper PER GALLON than the gas where I live.
5.) It’s less than six months until I move away from the tundra!
One of my best winter survival tricks for tundra living is quite simple: leave. Get out. Go somewhere, preferably warm and sunny, but at the very least somewhere else. Winter is a great time for visits of obligation; it’s a better time for fun vacations, but sometimes a body needs to work within certain restrictions. A required family trip to your mismatched Nader’s Raider aunt and “Romney is too liberal” bellowing uncle might not be the most pleasant experience, but if they live in Florida, it is a lot more pleasant if you can couple the visit to them with one to some sunshine and temperatures above freezing. Ideally you can take a week or weekend for fun – cheer on your team at a spring training baseball game, watch the whales migrate in Cabo, surf in Hawaii – but sometimes it is necessary to be a bit practical. Vitamin D is a practical need; if only I could get my insurance to let me apply airfare to my deductible.
Besides the benefit of a break from snow and ice, taking a break from the tundra also gives you something to look forward to…regardless of the weather here, I will not have to scrape ice off my car to go to work next Monday – I won’t be near my car and I’m not going to work! Win. It’s a mental, physical, and emotional break and it is necessary.
So! Tundra. You are on notice. If you are not significantly warmer and sunnier, preferably with longer days, by Thursday I AM LEAVING. One of us has to make a change; I accept that it will likely be me.
Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Great Lakes Porter
Bacon and chocolate chip cookies with a nice, rich porter. ..sounds like dessert to my face! I’m currently in the midst of planning a bacon party that (at this point) will focus entirely on baked goods. For whatever reason, I’m actually trying the recipes ahead of time this round. Perhaps I am growing up and becoming more responsible or perhaps I just really like to bake and post cookies to friends. Regardless of the present and the future, these cookies were the first cookies of my bacon cookie past. These cookies predate my whole “Baconalia” concept and I got the recipe from a friend, rather than from the internet. Seriously. The first time I made these cookies I was completely unaware of the internet’s boundless infatuation with bacon.
Continue reading ‘Baconalia Review: Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Great Lakes Porter’
I finished my book about “two princesses, a prince, and their cousin” and well, that is one of the less-accurate titles I’ve seen. When I bought the book, I hoped it would cover the bastard children of Henry VIII.* I mean, the guy got around – in a way that would make Hugh Grant and A-Rod blush – and birth control pretty much sucked in the sixteenth century. Admittedly, H8 only acknowledged one of his illegitimate offspring, Henry FitzRoy. The probability is high that he had others – some estimates are as high as 20-25. Based on its title, The Children of Henry VIII, I thought that this book was at least going to include FitzRoy. I’ve read other books by Alison Weir, the author, in which she does not hesitate to look at available information and make an as-educated-as-possible conjecture. (Princes in the Tower, I’m looking at you.)
Regardless of how many children Henry VIII actually fathered and who they were, this book didn’t even do a good job with the ones who spent at least some portion of their life as his legitimate offspring – and then it threw in a whole deal on Jane Grey. Jane Grey, his grandniece. The book did talk about the relationships between the siblings (Edward, Mary, Elizabeth) and the impact the same events had on their very different lives. The book doesn’t really get going until Edward’s reign begins and it carries on, in a very linear order, until Elizabeth ascends to the throne. The reigns of Mary and Edward, along with the debacle of Jane, are covered in detail. Like many other scholars, Alison Weir has a couple of books (um, two that I own) that focus on Elizabeth I, so maybe she thought it would be too much or too redundant to cover it in this book as well.
This isn’t a bad book, it’s more that it’s a badly-named book. It is only sort of about the children of Henry VIII, in that it is only about some of them and only some aspects of them. Given the relative reigns, both with regard to time and achievement, of the Tudors, I think that a better name for this book would be “The Reigns of Minor Tudor Monarchs.” Jane can stay, either as an acknowledged monarch or for the context she lends to both Edward VI and Mary I. If that’s what you want to read about, this might be a really good book for you. I generally enjoy Alison Weir’s writing style; it’s crisp and clear, with good flow.
I still want to read about the “other” offspring of Henry VIII. I think I might try this book . Admittedly, I am a little skeptical about the author, but perhaps I ought to avoid judging books by their covers and other titles by their authors.
*I’m counting Mary I and Elizabeth I as legitimate.
dribs and drabs 
3.14 Confession
Tags: confession, dork, math
3.14 Pi, not misquoting John.
Due to this song by Hard ‘N Phirm…
I totally know pi out to forty-six digits beyond the decimal point. If you know me, you should ask me some time. I’ll unintentionally recite it with robotic intonation.