Posts Tagged ‘this post contains pictures’

House guest

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

I was sitting on the couch a couple days after getting back from Minnesota (which is relevant only because the Christmas tree was still up and the fake ficus tree was behind the couch) and heard a weird rustling sound from the ficus tree.  I looked over and tried to figure out what could be making the branches on a fake tree rustle while inside and away from any ventilation.

I saw this:

So I looked closer.

Can you see it?

He’s kinda little.  Let me zoom in a bunch.  Here you go:

Lizard!

I’m not sure what he was doing, but he looked pretty happy.  It’s not like he’s going to cause any trouble, so I left him be.  It’s kinda chilly outside right now.  When it gets warmer, we’ll put the tree outside and let him run away, if he hasn’t done so already.  I haven’t seen him since we moved the Christmas tree out of the house and moved the ficus back closer to the door.

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Coffee!

Friday, January 6th, 2012

How to make coffee using a single-serving hand-held drip-coffee maker:

Things you will need:

Things you will need

Coffee cup and spoon, coffee dripper, coffee, filters (this dripper uses #2), some way to measure out the water, and boiling water (not shown).

Put the filter in the dripperPut the filter in the dripper.

Put the coffee in the filter

Put the coffee in the filter.  I’m using 3 teaspoons for this cup.

Put the dripper on top of the coffee cup

Put the dripper on top of the coffee cup.

Wait for the hot water to boil.

Measure out the water for your coffee

Measure out the water for your coffee.  You can do this by using another coffee cup the same size or by only boiling as much water as you’ll need, but I found that this coffee cup uses just about 1 1/3 cups of water and I need something with a spout on it so I don’t end up with water all over the place.   So!  Measuring cup it is.

Pour hot water over the coffee grounds

Pour hot water over the coffee grounds.  Make sure to get them all moistened.

Coffee will drip out of the bottom

Coffee will drip out of the bottom of the dripper and into your cup.  I lifted it up here to show, but this usually just stays resting on the top of the coffee cup.  And it sits very securely.  I haven’t been at all worried about it falling over.

Keep pouring water over the coffee grounds

Keep pouring water over the coffee grounds until you run out of water.  This is why I measured out the water first — there’s no way to see when the coffee is near the top of the cup without picking up the dripper and checking the cup.  It’s easier just to know ahead of time how much to use.

It starts to get sluggish

It starts to get sluggish toward the last of the water. I’m impatient and squish it around with a spoon, but I’m not sure it really helps at all.  It just gives me something to do.

No more water

Eventually there is no more water left in the dripper.

Coffee ready for drinking!

Remove the dripper and you can see a beautiful cup of coffee.

Sweeten to taste

Sweeten to taste and enjoy!

The filter and grounds go into the garbage and the dripper goes into the sink for a quick wash.  It doesn’t take up any space on the counter, which is good because we don’t have any left.  And I get to go enjoy some coffee!  Total time it took to make this cup, with taking time to take pictures, was 10 minutes.  So it’s not something I have time to do while getting ready for work in the morning, but I get free coffee at my new building anyway.  This is for weekends when I’m at home and craving coffee.  And it’s awesome!

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November

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Ah, yes.  I remember this now.  It’s that time of year when I drive to work in the dark and drive home from work in the dark and the only time I see the sun is during that 30 – 60 minutes that I run screaming from my warehouse of an office space and stand outside blinking in the sunlight wondering “What is that big bright shiny thing up in the sky?  It’s so pretty!”  The fact that we don’t get weeks and weeks of clouds down here in the south is the only thing that keeps me sane during these dark months.

Well, it’s one of many things that keep me sane during these dark months.  I’ll probably be writing about the other things that keep me sane over the next couple months just so I keep them in the front of my mind.

Anyway.  Work is crazy.  The guy in charge of my “pod” doesn’t know where I’m at with the job thing — I’ve been told not to talk about it with him — and he keeps trying to present things that might make me consider staying.  I think that’s what he’s trying to do, anyway.  It’s not working very well because it mostly makes me think about the reasons why I don’t like my current job.  Counter-effective?  Ooooooh, yeah.  Plus it’s just crazy because of how the schedule has stacked up and that’s just the way it’s going to be for a little while.

Enough about work!

I had a lot of fun decorating for Halloween and I’ve been thinking of ways that I could decorate for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I did felt leaves last year and I still like the look of those.

Here’s a picture of the ones I did last year — not my picture, though.  It’s from the post where I got the idea:  HERE.

I found this picture recently, though:

And now I’m trying to figure out if I can do that kind of thing.  I’m not sure where I got the picture from, but I think it’s of something someone’s selling on Etsy.  But working with wire isn’t something I’m very good at doing.

Then, too, I’d also really love to do something along the lines of these:

But I have no idea how I’d go about bending forks into a nice loop so I could use them as napkin rings.  But aren’t they cute?!!!  I WANT.  And I want for cheap, like with the unused set of silverware sitting in the office closet.  One of these days I’m going to take out a fork and a pliers and just see how bendy they really are.  And probably end up with two pieces of one fork.  But hey!  Then I’ll know.

How about you?  Got any crafty plans for November?

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Stuff ‘n’ Things

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

Since I got my hair cut on Saturday, 1 person noticed at church, 1 friend noticed when she came over Sunday evening, 1 person noticed at work, 2 people noticed at the chiropractor’s office.  That’s right — more people noticed at the chiropractor’s office where we go a handful of times a month than the people who I work with 40 hours a week, every week, for the last couple years.  This makes me surprisingly grumpy at my coworkers, but very fond of the people at the chiropractor’s office.

Justin is sick.  He caught something Sunday and has been down for the count Monday and today.  Which means he’s slept most of the day, up for about 3 hours during the day, and then he’s up in the evening for a while.  The sheets are in the washing machine as I type this.  They were smelling distinctly “slept in,” if you know what I mean.

I’m having one of those weeks at work where I wonder why I’m doing what I’m doing instead of something that actually might make a difference, like massage therapy.  Or teaching yoga.  Or running a book store.  Something that has a feeling of accomplishment involved, instead of this repeated frustration of doing the same task for every project that has to be checked off the list of requirements but that no one really cares to look through except me.  I’m getting really tired of it.  And I work for a good company that treats the employees well, with good pay and great benefits and I can’t complain that there’s any hardship involved with what I do at all.  It’s just that the whole points of what I’m doing for the company doesn’t seem to make a lick of difference and I’m tired of spending 40 hours a week doing something that doesn’t matter.

And that’s all nothing but grumpiness.

I’ve been really wanting to decorate the house for fall (even though it’s still really hot here) so here are a couple pictures of ideas I saw and liked.

(I actually did these candles last year and they turned out super cute.)

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Haircut!

Saturday, September 24th, 2011

Justin and I went to Savannah today to get his hair cut and I decided, since we were going, that I would get mine done, too.  It’s been somewhere between 6 months to a year since I got my hair cut professionally, and the ends were starting to worry me.  Plus, it sounded like a nice treat.

So!  You get before and after photos.  (Ignore that I haven’t lost any weight and . . . do I always have those bags under my eyes?)

Front view: before the haircut

Back view: before the haircut

Front view: after the haircut

Back view: after the haircut

It’s kinda hard to tell, but she took off about 4 inches at the longest part, and obviously  much more than that along the front.  It’s not showing it great, but there’s feathering along the front from starting under my chin down the length of the front, and then there’s a long layer in the back.  I love it!  I love the feathering in the front and that the ends are nice and smooth.  And it all still pulls back into a ponytail, though I’m sure I’m going to find some hairstyles that I’m used to doing that will suddenly have nice framing locks hanging loose.

And Justin’s haircut was the same one he normally gets — just cutting off all the long bits so it’s not so fluffy anymore.  :)  We’re both very excited about our cuts!

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