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Wednesday, July 18, 2007
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Let's see, how about a quick update to say hello? Hello.
I have thought about writing over the past couple of days (I like to update at least once a week, really), but there hasn't been much to say. I've been working A LOT. I wake up and do a little work before going into work. Then I come home and do some more work. When I'm not working, I'm thinking about how I probably should be working. Or I'm preparing food/eating/sleeping. It's really not that exciting.
I did manage to make my blueberry pie Monday night, and it is delicious. This weekend I will probably make banana bread. The baking urge continues!
I THINK this weekend I get a break, which is good because of Harry Potter. I plan on spending all day Saturday (starting whenever the book arrives) and then as much of Sunday as I need reading the book. The posts on other blogs I read amuse me, as everyone warns everyone else not to spoil them. I myself am not that worried about being spoiled (I'm working too much to dig around the internet), and while I plan to have the whole book read by the end of the weekend, rest assured, I will not be posting spoilers here. :-)
I should probably get back to work now....
- Lizzardie, at 10:19 AM
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Saturday, July 14, 2007
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Good news: When my roommate has had a bad week, she has the same idea as me: gin and tonics, and baked goods. I got to try Hendricks gin last night, which is quite good.
Bad news: All of my weeks are bad lately. :-(
- Lizzardie, at 8:46 AM
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007
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For some reason, I've had an incredible urge to bake lately. I don't know why. It's summer, which means it's warm and baking is, well, not the thing to do. But it's summer, and fruit is in season, so that' s what I want to do - bake with fresh fruit. Plus I've deprived myself of most sweets, so I need to make my own.
Last night I made a blueberry clafouti (because I knew you were going to ask) - this is what you do when blueberries are buy 1 pint, get 2 free. :-) Next week, I might make a blueberry pie, if blueberries are still on sale. I made one three years ago, and haven't made one since, but they are super easy (if you are like me, and don't know how to make pie crust, and have no desire to learn). Last night, I also made more espresso ice cream "batter" (I'm not sure what you'd call this - it's the concoction you put in the ice cream maker, otherwise known as unfrozen, or "melted" ice cream). I'll freeze it when I get home tonight.
The other exciting thing that happened yesterday is that I got my new car insurance policy. This probably doesn't sound exciting to you, but it is to me - my premium was cut in half, due to incidents from September and November 2001 FINALLY coming off of my record. This puts me one step closer to being able to buy a new car (next year, maybe? I think that's what I'm aiming for right now - sometime in 2008).
I am STILL waiting for some scripts to finish running at work so that I may get to MY work. My frustration grows every minute. This is ridiculous and not conducive to creating happy employees (I'm not sure that any exist right now).
- Lizzardie, at 12:05 PM
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Tuesday, July 10, 2007
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I hate my job, I hate my job, you have no idea how much I hate my job right now. I put in extra hours Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday and Sunday in order to get reports out on time. Only to come in today (or rather, wake up today and check my email) to learn that nearly all of that work has to be redone. And I cannot start until tomorrow. Not only did I waste my time this weekend, but now I'll probably have to work even more this weekend to have any chance at getting my work done in a timely manner. Grrr...
Anyhow, because I was stuck with very little to do today, I managed to upload my photos from the pirate/ghost boat ride onto Flickr. This is my favorite one:
I do not have the steadiest hands in the world (this is probably an understatement to how badly my hands shake), so I have a lot of trouble taking even okay photos at night, because of the long exposure time when not using flash. When I have the opportunity, I like to set the camera on a flat surface, because then it is not subject to my shaking hands. To take this picture, I set the camera on the rails of the boat, and did not touch it while it took the picture. The angle is from the boat, and the blurriness of the Boston skyline is also due to the boat - we were moving that fast. I love this picture. :-)
I also forgot to mention in yesterday's post the number of fireworks displays we saw, from all around the Harbor. Kathy said that we could have only possibly seen three from where we were, but we must have seen more - her list (which did include Lynn) did not have anything from the south shore on it, and there were definitely fireworks in that direction.
Back to twiddling my thumbs until 6pm... :-/
- Lizzardie, at 5:14 PM
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Monday, July 09, 2007
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I have been meaning to write a blog post for a few days now (really, I've been writing it in my head), and I'm having a ridiculous amount of trouble falling asleep tonight (I supposedly went to bed nearly four hours ago) so I figured now is as good of a time as any.
There's a lot of work going on right now. I suppose I could not kill myself in the evenings and on the weekend, but I'm not all that efficient at work, and work is usually a little more satisfying when I'm delivering reports on time (which would require extra hours even if I was more efficient), so that's what I've been doing. It will not make for a very social July, but hopefully August will calm down, and I don't work a full week in September, so there are things to look forward to.
The "pirate" tour of the Boston Harbor (officially titled Harboring Boston's Mysteries Sail) was a lot of fun. It was on the Liberty Clipper, one of the Liberty Fleet of Tall Ships, and the weather was wonderful Tuesday night - a little colder on the boat than I expected (I even had a sweater!) but altogether a very nice night. The captain was entertaining, the Freedom Trail people who narrated the mysteries were fun (the guy, whose real last name is Poops, had no idea what he was doing and the girl, playing John Hancock's wife, did but let the other guy make a fool of himself), and it was generally nice to be out in the harbor on a boat - I like boats. :-) We did happen upon a party boat blasting Jay-Z and Beyonce, causing Mrs. Hancock to make a comment about "Colonial Girls Gone Wild" (though she had too much trouble trying to rip open her bodice), and Mr. Poops was unable to talk about Edgar Allen Poe and Fort Independence - so the captain of the boat fired the cannons on the party boat. :-) I have pictures, but I need to sort through them and then upload - a lot did not come out well because it was night and my camera doesn't do night photography very well. And I now really want to visit Fort Independence and reread "The Cask of Amontillado". And while I also really would like to try the Boston Cream Pie (mmm, drunk pie) at the Omni Parker House, I do not want to spend much more time there than I have to. :-)
Speaking of ghosts, I seem to have one of my own! Or at least, it's the only explanation I have for something. Several times, I have been sitting in my living room, knitting and watching TV, when I will smell smoke, as if someone is smoking. And this someone is smoking all sorts of things - cloves, pipe tobacco, pot - apparently it is quite the connoisseur! This smell does not make any sense, though, as I'm inside and no one is smoking in here. One explanation would be that it's from the open windows, since there are fans blowing air into the house. But for me to smell smoke from an actual pipe or cigarette would require, I think, someone to be smoking on my porch (which would also be strange - I think my landlord smokes on occasion, but he's out of town right now). So I've decided it must be a ghost. Kathy, who has also experienced the smell of cloves, but from my kitchen, thinks maybe my ghost likes to throw ghost parties, because it is unusual for one person/other worldly being to smoke that many different things. I am fine with the cloves and pipe tobacco, but would rather it/they lay off the pot - I really don't like the smell.
In more random news, my apartment looks like a craft store exploded, due to my knitting and my roommate's scrapbooking. It's nice to have discovered my roommate is into crafts, though, because it makes me feel less guilty about all the yarn around the place.
V8 Fusion is not nearly as good as V8 Splash.
Ohh, I really wish that I'm now able to get a few hours of sleep - it's going to be a long week!
- Lizzardie, at 3:15 AM
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Monday, July 02, 2007
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Weekend was very low key - my roommate was away and I was home by myself the whole time. This is probably pretty good, because I was in a really crappy mood on Friday, and the me time is always helpful. Plus, I got a lot done! I cleaned the kitchen (dishes, counters, swept the floor), swept and washed the floor in the bathroom, did laundry, straightened up the living room, and swept the dining room and the living room. Plus, there was cooking/baking: I made two batches of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (some with and some without pecans - turns out the pecans don't really add anything to the cookie - they don't take anything away, but they don't add anything), espresso ice cream (Ina Garten's recipe), Monte Cristos (I had wanted to get one if we'd found a diner last Saturday night in NJ, but alas, diners were evading us) and a BLT. There was going to be my chicken couscous salad as well, but I never got around to it, and that's okay - I'll make it tonight. Plus, knitting (of course) and I finally started making my way through my DVDs of The West Wing (I'm a little more than halfway through the first season). My landlord also came by to fix the sink and he helped me install my air conditioner correctly (turns out I had no idea what I was doing) - and I informed him of the mouse problem, so hopefully if everyone is trying to combat it, they'll go away (I've taken care of 4 so far). Oh, oh, and I also did a small amount of (job) work.
Phew! One other thing is that I downloaded Demetri's pictures from Scott and Julie's wedding, which led to me downloading pictures from Jeff and Kristen's wedding (yeah, I'm really behind - while I'm at it, I should go back and see if I can still download pictures from Adam and Catherine's wedding, which was 3 years ago). Those pictures, combined with Kathy finally passing on this link (I have linked directly to the picture, instead of the array of photos, so you don't have to scan through looking for someone you know/me) made me realize this:
Photos of me are only taken at weddings and baseball games.
I may have to create an album somewhere.
This week will probably be interesting, what with work picking up because it's July and the holiday right in the middle of the week. I'm going on some pirate tour of the Boston Harbor (really, that's all I know, wish I could tell you more at this point) with Kathy tomorrow night, which should be fun, and then maybe a birthday party on Friday. Maybe more apartment cleaning (next up: my room!) this weekend, if work doesn't interfere.
By the way, if you want to take some of the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies off my hands, please let me know - I do not want to eat them all myself (two batches equal approximately 9 dozen cookies).
- Lizzardie, at 9:43 AM
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