Minor Progress

I've been whirling around, mostly sweeping and recycling magazines, but there is some minor progress to report.





Now I have a place to wrap presents!

I need to dust, clean the windowsills, (not to mention the windows themselves, eww), figure out what those cables are for (Jeff?), file receipts, continue the laundry train, wipe the kitchen table, swiffer the floors, plant my groundcover, rake leaves, get that oversized chair OUT of my bedroom and into the garage or storage,...

...I am going to stop making my list now. See what happens once I get started? Jeff must be soo happy he's not at home right now. I drive my boys crazy when I do my whirling dervish thing like this.

Angst

I've been feeling wanting lately. Seems getting the new bed started this feeling. I got a new dress which started a longing for more new clothes. I got some capris at Old Navy yesterday, if only it was warm enough to actually wear them. I got the cutest sweater to go with them but I will return that. Between the dress and the capris and the start of Jaden's spring wardrobe, I am way over our monthly clothing budget.

I really want a laptop with Photoshop also. I got aggravated earlier this week wanting to update the look of my blog. Blogger is quite limiting actually. I really, really, really want to make a new banner for the top. I found this site that explains how to do it but I can't try any of it without pricey Photoshop.

I am also tired of sitting on this hard chair and working in the cluttered office. I guess I could work on the clutter and ease one portion of my discomfort, instead of blogging and complaining.

I also have four overdue birthday presents sitting here waiting to be wrapped and mailed. One from January, two from February and one from March. This is so bad. I hate being late with gifts especially when I have each person marked on my calendar, so it's not like I forgot.

I'm looking around and see that I have not one single clear surface on which to work.







Gosh look at this office! How can you work in here and NOT be cranky? It's contagious too -- just look at Jaden's desk.



And our behemoth bookcase and its surrounding clutter!



I need Peter Walsh in here stat. This is downright frightening. I don't need a laptop, I need a tornado to whip through here.

Dr. Jess

Jeff always calls me Dr. Jess.

I took this quiz and scored 100 percent!

I guess that's how partly how I earn my medical degree from Jeff.

My Mother's Casserole

Tonight I made the EASIEST dinner of my entire life. No hyperbole here either. I got the recipe from this library book:



It's called "Everybody's Mother's Pork Chop Casserole."

Seeing how I didn't have a mother, I am not surprised I only learned about her casserole today.

But I digress.

The recipe:

Preheat your oven to 350.

Get a casserole dish and some pork chops.
I used two bone-in chops from Whole Foods, $6.89.

Open a can of cream of mushroom soup and spread some so it covers the entire bottom of your dish. Put salt & pepper on both sides of your chops. Put them in the dish.

Spoon the rest of the soup over your chops. I added just a smidge of milk to the can and mixed it up before I spooned it over the top.

Um. Bake it. 25 minutes later, turn the chops and redistribute the soup.
Um. Bake it for another 25 minutes.

Serve it to your sweety with rice pilaf (3 for $5 at Safeway this week) and be amazed when he raves over this dinner. Feel proud. Feel even prouder if you made a salad to go with it.

61

Yesterday my dad would have turned 61, oh but he died in 1998 at 52.

I missed him very much all day and only today could I mention it.

I went to Whole Foods and wanted to buy two dozen tulips for 19.99. Then I thought, how about three cala lillies for 7.99. Then I thought, no flower is going to bring him back so just forget it. It's just old spending habits rearing their ugly heads.

I didn't even listen to Bob Dylan once all day, that seems the very least I could do.

What a pitiful daughter I am.

Living in a Web 2.0 World

I moved into a Web 2.0 world recently, only I am really ill-prepared. I find myself trying to understand things like Browser Wars and Second Life and I don't even have a ticket for it! And I am married to a cutting-edge Web 2.0 engineer!

I need to go back to school and trade in my English degree for something more current.

At least I know how to make a link by heart now instead of going to my little stickie for the code.

You type: _____ (without spaces by the brackets).

So there!!!

(Update: Actually I have not memorized the code at all. I either forgot my quote or bracket in every single link in this post. Sigh.)

Sacrilege

Something today greatly upset me. It was a true story of a cat being "put down" by its owners because he eliminated in the house.

I don't feel like detailing the entire story but one part that I will never understand is that they told their little girls that Jesus wanted a kitty and their kitty was so special that he was chosen.

Sacrilege.

I found out that in their state, killing an animal is not illegal unless inhumane methods are used. I have no way of finding out the method so all I could do was speak up that I thought it was terribly wrong what they did to their poor cat.

Here's to you little innocent kitty, and I have a special connection to your name but I do not feel like sharing it here for some reason.

I am so sorry you had to die.

Wake Up! Wake Up!

Had to share this gem.

Does that first one actually shine a light right on your face, if that's how you hung it?

Goodness!

Kitchen Utensil Challenge

I saw Peter Walsh from TLC's Clean Sweep on Oprah recently. I am a huge fan of the show and have applied many of his tips to the house in the past several years.

On Oprah he gave a suggestion that I hadn't seen before and I plan to try it. Do you want to take the challenge with me?

The Kitchen Utensil Challenge:

Take a cardboard box and put all your utensils inside.

(I have utensils in three drawers plus two utensil caddies on the counter.)

For one month, as you use a utensil from the box, put it back away in a drawer or caddy.

Whatever you didn't use at the end of the month, donate!

I love these kinds of tricks because I know I'm holding on to too much stuff and in a small house, it becomes a real problem.

Now what to do with that bread machine? The classic "We might want to make our own bread even though we haven't made a single loaf since we lived in Venice."

Dear Keds...

Last summer I got a new pair of Keds. I was so excited that I blogged about them.

Well the snap on my left shoe does not work at all now. The shoes are unwearable. They are useless. I take one step and they unsnap. I didn't even wear them very much once fall/winter kicked in so I really only got one summer of use out of them.

I am really disappointed. We are on one income in an extremely high cost of living area (Silicon Valley) so I don't get to buy new shoes very often. I am a long-time Keds customer since 1985. This is the first time I have ever been upset with Keds.

I guess I will stick to laces since snaps obviously don't work for more than three months.

Sadly,
Jessica Nichols

Firefox is Foxy

Jeff updated my browser a few nights ago and it is more rocksome than ever. He told me it would reopen all my open tabs. Sounds good, I said. Thanks.

Yeah until I quit Firefox when I was trying to quit Mail and saw this feature in action! It is a million times better in action than theoretically. I got all my tabs back with zero effort.

Now that's what I call computing.

Signspotting

Surfing around this morning for work led me to Signspotting.

Hasn't this happened to you yet? You're toodling around and then see a crazy street sign, so crazy that you take a picture of it with your cell phone so you can show someone else how crazy it is?

It happened to me and Jeff last summer in Portland.

Here's a great example from Signspotting itself.



Actually, now that I think about this picture, this is not really a signspotting situation at all. It is a simple example of irony. But the sign for the building is what presents the irony. So it is signspotting.

Okay I'll stop writing in circles now.

Now later when I have more time, I'll search iPhoto for the ones from Portland.

Clever with Cheddar

I love Annie's Deluxe Shells with Cheddar. Except I don't love the price, organic or not, 2.49 seems a lot for a box of mac & cheese.

Jeff came home with Trader Joe's mac & cheese lately, which is fine but I am so over those mini "elbow" macaroni noodles. I think they're basically useless. But alas, the price is nice at 99 cents a box.

Well every once in a while my brain kicks into gear and today it went from 1st to 5th. I dumped the useless minis and used my own beautiful shells!

It worked. I got clever with my cheddar today.

A Good Movie

Last night, Jeff and I did our taxes. We finished around 11 p.m., talked about the refund situation for awhile, did some other stuff and sat down on the couch at 11:55 to "relax." We decided to "start" our Netflix movie, and just watch a "little" bit.

I looked at him and said, "We are the only crazy people I know who start movies at midnight."

(Or something like that, I am way too bleary to remember anything now).

I knew we were crazy but it is so hard to settle your mind for sleep after what we did (which is basically realize our withholdings are so far off that we robbed ourselves of a huge amount of money every month for the past 14 months).

Jeff said, "Actually I think we are the most sane people I know."

And then he pressed play.

Well whodathunkit but "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" turned out to be quite the entertaining movie.



I had picked it up about a dozen times at Blockbuster and never rented it. And here it was so good, we ended up watching the entire thing and going to bed at nearly 2 a.m.

Yikes.

So if you need to add something to your queue, KKBB gets four eyes wide open from the Js!

Mind the Gap

The distance between life as you dream it,
and life as it is.

-- totally brilliant quote from Notes on a Scandal

Crappy Cereal, YUM

I love crappy kid cereals. I never used to call them that until Jeff and I got back together and I bought some Captain Crunch at the grocery store. He said, "You like to eat that Crappy Crunch?"

He is SUCH a grownup with his taste for twiggy, flakey, nutty, super whole grain cereals.

I just ignored his uppitty attitude towards my delicous cereals until we had Jaden. Or more precisely until Jaden was about a year old. Then I had to get all surreptitious about my cereal eating because obviously, it is a terrible example to set for your child's newly developing eating habits.

When Jaden and I go grocery shopping together and he sees the kid cereals, I always tell him those are actually grown up cereals and the "grown up" cereals are for kids. And he accepts that!

(Thank God Jeff will eat those cereals with him every morning!)

So I started sneaking in my cereal and hiding it in the pantry and only eating it at night for "dessert." That's why this picture is such a treat! It's 10:30 a.m. and I am listening to Corinne and eating my Lucky Charms and feeling all happy and sugary insde.

Yay!

Oh...

...I forgot part of my vent.

Why oh why did I go messing around with my stupid Blogger template?
I hate this one. Why isn't it listing my posts individually?

Why is it smushing my post up against the title now too? Hello Ugly Bloggy.

GRR!

And why does this make me want to cry a volume of tears that would rival the rainfall in Tutunendo?

I think I'll go make Trader Joe's banana bread and Saving Dinner soup.

Out of Gas

I have nothing, zero, zip, nada for the dog lately.
Je n'ai rien pour le chien.

Oh wait, I do have something for him.
Loathing, resentment and anger.

I am running on empty. I am not sleeping well on my own and when I do manage to sleep, it coincides directly with the times Jaden is not sleeping well. Jaden is going through a serious rough patch with sleep and emotions which is hard enough on a parent under normal circumstances.

Add that to my mix of insomnia, major financial stress and a new j-o-b, and I'm juggling mountaintops with barely the strength to lift a cottonball. And I can't juggle anyway, I'm not that coordinated.

What I wouldn't give for a dinner and movie date with my husband or the next MNO. I miss my mom friends.

None of these types of things are going to be happening anytime soon. 2007 is the Year of Sacrifice to make up for all the Years of Indulgence. Oh wait, more like to make up for Years of Early Parenthood and Cancer Survival. Or both. It's really both. Sometimes we were indulgent and sometimes we were just trying to survive everything.

Normally a vent makes me feel a little better. I seem to have just cranked up my headache intead. But it seems to have helped Jackson somehow, he finally layed down on the floor like a GOOD DOG should. So I guess I'm one step ahead of square one.

Clue

I save the most ridiculous documents. (No I clearly haven't given up the search for my binder labels yet even though I realized 10 minutes ago that I could have made new ones by now). Oy, I am cracking myself up at this point. Anyway, I'm back with one of the all-time biggest wastes of disk space.

Filename: "Clue.doc"

Contents in red:


Clue #1






Clue #2





Clue #3





Clue #4


WOW! Now that would seriously take me hours to re-type. This is a project I did to hide Jeff's Christmas gift one year (2003). I made a scavenger hunt and printed this out and glued it onto little tins. And then saved the document AND the little tins, thereby totally eliminating the need to ever use the document again.

Ya think I save too much? Don't get people started on how I save 99.9% of the emails I receive either. Apparently not everyone does that.

Pantry Chili

I've been using this Real Simple recipe for several years now and always get good reviews from those who eat it.

It is vegetarian but I often add ground turkey, just depends on my mood.

It is all ingredients you can keep in your pantry so you can throw this together anytime. It freezes very well also.

Real Simple Pantry Chili

3 T. olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 T. chili powder
1 1/2 t. ground cumin
1 can diced tomatoes with juice
1 can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can cannellini or great northern beans, rinsed and drained
1 can vegetarian beans or pork & beans (I use Heinz vegetarian beans)
1 T. red wine vinegar

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
Add the onion, garlic, chili powder & cumin and saute until the onions are soft.

Add the tomatoes and 1 cup of water.
Bring to a simmer, partially cover with a lid, and cook for 10 mins.

Add the beans and return to a simmer;
continue cooking uncovered for 20 mins. until the chili is thick.

Remove from heat and stir in vinegar.
Season to taste with salt & pepper.

Serve with cornbread and/or a green salad.

Yum.