That light at the end of the tunnel? It's getting dimmer.

Just a couple days ago, I felt like I had more opportunity than I needed. I was actually anxious about which opportunity would get to me first and what I should do. How should I handle it?

Well, those days are over, and I am no closer to being settled. I thought I saw that light at the end of the tunnel. I feel the same way today as I felt about a year ago, when my last dream job decided on another candidate, after months and months of a dragging screening process. I have to say, I was very optimistic then, and now, and see where that positivity got me? Ok, ok, I have to believe that what is meant to be, will be. Things happen for a reason, right? If this doesn't work out, something better will come along, right?

Right???

I kinda feel like kicking positivity right in the fucking shins right now. But I'll wait until that tunnel totally closes up first. It's still open, so I guess there is still hope.

Superbowl Feast

I'm supposed to be eating healthy still, but there are always those days where the bad food kicks in! We actually managed to be somewhat healthy, believe it or not!

We started the pre-game festivities with margaritas and pistachios

And then moved onto the veggie plate with two types of dip and guacamole. We made a shit ton of guac (5 avocados worth!) considering it was only two of us. The bowl in the picture is only a fraction compared to what we made!



The highlight of the day was certainly going to be the pollo asado and adobada tacos. We bought the meat from Stinky's (5 pounds of meat, tortillas and a macaroon for $16! Very MM) and my awesome H did the BBQing



Don't the tacos look awesome? And for any non-Mexicans out there - all you need for real street style tacos: Corn tortillas, meat, white onion and cilantro, Tapatio and maybe a little guacamole. That's it. No cheese, no taco sauce, no flour tortillas. These are perfect as is.





So perfect, I ate maybe three too many, and couldn't eat anything else the rest of the day. At least I didn't pig out on wings though, right?

The problem with blogging every day

Is that sometimes I have nothing to say. Or at least nothing I think anyone else would be interested in reading. Though that has never stopped me before! I slay myself.

Junior League and more e-ring drama

I decided to postpone my Junior League experience. It was too much money for us at the moment to join, and God knows I have a bit on my plate these days. They are doing their bus trip tour today.

On a similarly depressing note, I didn't have my engagement ring back for two days, and the other baguette fell out. WTF? I was already worried about wearing my ring, so now I'm beside myself. And of course I was on my hands and knees with a dustpan and broom and flashlight, looking for the chingadera. I did that for the better part of an hour,  until my husband started yelling at me that I looked like a crackhead.



So when H picked the ring up the other day, the girl that was working in the shop when  told him to tell me to "not hit it on anything or it could crack again." Excuse me? WTF? Like if I DID whack it on something, it would be on purpose? And if I whacked it hard enough to CRACK PLATINUM, it wouldn't break the diamond? She kept telling H that Platinum is softer than gold, as if that is the reason it cracked. Ummm, I'm no brain surgeon, but if platinum is softer, then wouldn't it bend? Off to Google: apparently, not if the metal itself has been overworked, which is why you anneal it - to keep the metal soft, because it becomes brittle if it has been shaped too much without annealing.

Apparently the jeweler has never heard of annealing. He looked at me like I had three heads and was purple with orange spots. That put me off a little, but regardless he says that the baguettes are his cross to bear and he will replace them as often as he needs to. He is also reworking the metal a little and soldering the rings together, hoping that offers some more stability to the entire ring so these things don't happen. I sure as fuck hope the center stone stays put. Oy.

Gray Hairs

I'm an old broad. Being an old broad, I have to deal with gray hair. I really try to not focus on how old I really am, but those damn grays are making it awfully difficult. They are short, wiry, and stick straight up, right out of my part. I think they make me look vaguely like a crazy person. I have used wax, pomade, straightening balm, and a flat iron and flat iron spray to try and tame those little fuckers into submission. By the way, Sleek.look by Matrix Smoothing System Iron Smoother Spray totally rocks. On everything BUT short little wiry gray hairs.

So, WTF? Do I have any other old broads reading my blog that have this same issue and have conquered it? I have resorted to pulling the more offensive ones right out, but I know I can't do that for long. Any suggestions?

Beatles Rock Band vs. The Jonas Brothers

Apparently Nick Jonas played a surprise show in Downtown Disney Tuesday night - he posted it on Facebook and everything. About the same time that Nick Jonas was no doubt showered with adoration from screaming girls, I was playing Beatles Rock Band with my husband.

I don't know how many of you have played or seen Beatles Rock Band, but there are a lot of screaming girls, just as there were way back when the Fab Four introduced their music to the masses.

And that got me thinking - are the Jonas Brothers the new Beatles? My first reaction is that there is no possible way they are as talented as the Beatles. No possible way. But, then again, I have never listened to anything Jonas. Could I be wrong? Could they be that talented?

2010 has potential

It really does. H and I are starting to figure things out, get on the same page. The budget is coming together, even with H's low unemployment pay (let's hope that H can get a job before UE runs out), and he also got the surgery to correct his varicocele issue, so hopefully his SA numbers will be in the normal range by summer! I don't have skin cancer, which is always a good thing (and I encourage everyone to get annual checks by a Dermatologist in addition to self checks - skin cancer is serious stuff). I have some potentially exciting professional opportunities and my company is opening more locations, hopefully by the end of the year, which offers even more potential opportunities. I am proud to be part of Team in Training and I am getting such a feeling of fulfillment by helping others achieve their goals.

Most importantly, I have wonderful and amazing friends and family to share the good times as well as commiserate about the bad. I have faith that 2010 will have less of the latter and more of the former!

Not Totally Together Journal

I found this website/blog randomly the other day: The Totally Together Journal. Man, I hate her. I know hate is a strong word, and this woman totally doesn't deserve it, but hell - does she make me feel bad about myself. Not only does this woman manage all kinds of shit - well - but apparently did it all while pregnant/giving birth/with a newborn. This blog post talks about how she has a three week old, and yet this one is the date that she had the ankle biter. I mean, she must have set all these automated blogs up just in case? I don't have a clue - I think it's going to be a challenge just to blog every day this month, and I even picked a short month!

But I am going to take my hatred, and try to put it to good use. Maybe I will be able to keep a house cleaning schedule. I would love to have people over someday! Just kidding, at least about the hate. If I wasn't so stinking jealous of her, I would probably want to be her friend. I would certainly want to buy her journal, if only the stupid publishers went ahead with printing.

NaBloPoMo

That sounded dirty.

I am participating. It's one of my 101 things, and today seemed like as good a day as any to start. I found this email in my inbox this morning:

"The theme for February is TIES, so some of us will want to blog about all the things we feel tied to (family, people, jobs, cities, emotions, eras). Others may take me more literally and pull out their stunning collection of neckwear. Still others may find a meaning I've yet to parse, but hopefully it will have something to do with all those knots they learned to tie during their years on a tramp steamer."

I don't know how much I will talk about ties. Or maybe I will talk "ties" a lot. Who knows. But here we go!

Pasta!

My mom recently got a Kitchen Aid pasta set for Christmas so she could make her own pasta. Well, make her own pasta using the abundance of eggs my parents get from their chickens on a regular basis! And even more recently, 10YT sold her Kitchen Aid pasta set. This got me thinking - I have had my own KA pasta set for probably 5 years now, and only used it once (which was a total disaster because I tried to make pasta out of soy flour ::facepalm::). I figured if I wasn't willing to part with it, then I need to use it. So tonight I set out to find semolina flour with a goal to make my own pasta.

I easily found Bob's Red Mill at Mother's Market. Perhaps it could have been found at a regular grocery, but I was not interested in driving around all night. I had some Pasta Making to do!



I followed the recipe from the book included with the KA Pasta set, mixing the eggs, oil and water into the flour with the paddle mixer for 30 seconds



And then switched in the dough kneading hook for two minutes. Okay, maybe more than two minutes. The dough was very crumbly, so I hand kneaded it while adding water until the dough would stick together, and then let the hook do the rest of the work.



I hand kneaded it a little more, and then divided it into 8 parts as instructed with the recipe. A dough cutter is a dream for stuff like that - just a tip. Damn, this is a lot of pasta dough. I started running the first dough piece through the flattening attachment, slowly forming it into a thinner and thinner sheet. This part was actually working okay - the dough was holding up, not crumbly or sticky, and it had a good amount of elasticity! I was pretty excited at this point.



Then I tried to run it through the spaghetti cutter. My strands weren't really separating, so I clumped them back up together to try it again from the beginning. I did that a few times, and then realized I had nowhere to dry them.



Then I also realized that maybe I should flatten all the dough into sheets before running them through the cutters, you know, so I wouldn't have to keep switching the attachments. And then I realized, I didn't have space for that many flat pieces of dough, and they all stuck together.

I tried to cook some of my spaghetti, but it really clumped together - not sure how to keep the strands separate, unless I'm cutting them right into a boiling pot. Once they sit, they tend to just combine again. The fettuccine cutter was slightly more successful, but not by much. In the end, I cooked two parts of the eight, threw two parts away, ate one part raw (not too bad!), and wrapped three parts in plastic wrap and put in the fridge. I have no idea if those will still work.

My biggest challenge is going to be getting the cut strands to not stick to each other. My guess is more flour, but not sure of the correct application method. This entire experiment cost about $2.50, so not much. I am not sure it is cheaper than store bought, and it certainly isn't easier, but it was fun. I am certainly willing to give it another shot though! Stay tuned for Pasta Take 2, after I do some online research. Oh and figure out a drying method/apparatus.