The Weather

So, yeah, it's come down to me having to talk about the weather to have blog material.  Just kidding!  However, I do want to address the weather I've experienced for the last week.  90 degrees.  Seattle (I mean Renton) what the heck?  I thought we had an agreement.  I love you in your upper 70s... and even into your lower 80s.  But twice this month you've been over 90.  Enough!  Let's just hang out in the upper 70s and lower 80s and be friends.  OK?  On a high note, at least the future Mr. put in air conditioning a couple of years ago so we have it better than some. 

Over the Edge - A Book Review

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Over The Edge Bethany House (August 1, 2012) by Mary Connealy

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:



Mary Connealy writes romantic comedy with cowboys. She is a Christy Award Finalist, a Carol Award Finalist and an IRCC Award finalist.

The Lassoed in Texas Series, Petticoat Ranch, Calico Canyon and Gingham Mountain. Petticoat Ranch was a Carol Award Finalist. Calico Canyon was a Christy Award Finalist and a Carol Award Finalist. These three books are now contained in one large volume called Lassoed in Texas Trilogy.

The Montana Marriages Series, Montana Rose, The Husband Tree and Wildflower Bride. Montana Rose was a Carol Award Finalist.

Cowboy Christmas—the 2010 Carol Award for Best Long Historical Romance, and an Inspirational Readers Choice Contest Finalist.

The Sophie's Daughters series. Doctor in Petticoats, Wrangler in Petticoats, Sharpshooter in Petticoats.

She is also the author of; Black Hills Blessing a 3-in-1 collection of sweet contemporary romances, Nosy in Nebraska, a 3-in-1 collection of cozy romantic mysteries and she's one of the three authors contributing to Alaska Brides with her Carol Award Winning historical romance Golden Days.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Seth Kincaid survived a fire in a cave, but he's never been the same. He was always a reckless youth, but now he's gone over the edge. He ran off to the Civil War and came back crazier than ever.

After the war, nearly dead from his injuries, it appears Seth got married. Oh, he's got a lot of excuses, but his wife isn't happy to find out Seth doesn't remember her. Callie has searched, prayed, and worried. Now she's come to the Kincaid family's ranch in Colorado to find her lost husband.

Callie isn't a long-suffering woman. Once she knows her husband is alive, she wants to kill him. She's not even close to forgiving him for abandoning her.

Then more trouble shows up in the form of a secret Seth's pa kept for years. The Kincaid brothers might lose their ranch if they can't sort things out. It's enough to drive a man insane--but somehow it's all making Seth see things more clearly. And now that he knows what he wants, no one better stand in his way.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Over The Edge, go HERE.

Conference Call: A True Story

If you work in corporate America and participate in conference calls ever, this will apply to you.

Brain Dump

• The Olympics.  I love them.  I loathe NBC's coverage, CNNs insistence on putting spoilers on the home page as breaking news, and the lack of attention to the actual games and more on jumping around and showing stupid commercials for Fall programming.

• However, I am looking forward to Fall shows coming back on.  Revenge, you are a dish best served in my living room on a weekly basis and not just during the regular season.  I miss you.

• I have been watching the new Dallas.  I remember watching the original Dallas at my babysitter's house.  I remember loving JR back then.  Some things never change.

• Amazon Prime instant movie and tv show viewing on my ipad.  Yes, Please, and Thank You!  I had just lamented to my friend Adam the other day that it was the thing I missed the most on the ipad versus an Android tablet.  Complain and Amazon delivers apparently.  I'll take it!  I highly recommend Downton Abbey and The West Wing.  Fine dramas at my fingertips.  Love!

• Speaking of my love of Amazon, a few weeks ago I realized all my socks were wearing out, the elastic wouldn't keep them above my shoes, and I now live in the country which means no specialty running stores.  Naturally I panicked and then tried some from Wal-Mart.  Yeah, not so much.  Then I remembered I have Amazon Prime so online I went.  New socks in two days.  Score!  

• Speaking of geek toys, I now own an iphone and a Droid.  I'm leaning toward loving the Droid more. It has a keyboard.  Call me old, but I like the keyboard.  Typing on a screen just leaves me frazzled and stressed and something that is supposed to help my life should not stress me out.  Oh and I'm still on unlimited data so I can create a wireless hotspot at any time and not worry about my bill.  Yeah, I kinda like that feature as well.  

• Two Thursday ago I was able to change my plane tickets and fly to Seattle a day early and surprise the future Mr.  It was fun.  Especially watching him try to figure out how I was texting him a picture of the event he was at real time.  Our whole relationship has been while dating long distance so surprises are hard since it's all planned around plane schedules.  Quite possibly one of my favorite moments of our relationship ever. 

• Moving...it's expensive.  Especially when it's cross country and involves transporting a vehicle.  Forget a registry, donations to U-Haul would be more appropriate.  Kidding.  Sort of.

• I miss my juicer.  Kind of wishing I had made room for it in my suitcase.  Or shipped it seperately.  Call me crazy, but I love juicing vegetables and fruits (beet + carrot + apple + spinach = really tasty) and drinking them for breakfast and lunch.  My waistline sure appreciated them too.

When Automation Is Annoying: A Tale of Toilets (and Sinks and Soap)

Here's the thing, I am a fan of modern conveniences, fun new trinkets, and the latest in technology.  I'm currently a little weirded out by the touch pad in my rental car this week, but that's a different post for a different day.  Today I want to talk about the bathroom.

Here's the thing, it's swell they figured out how to automatically flush a toilet.  It's not swell that they always seem to flush when you're still sitting on them, and yet either don't flush at all when you go to exit the stall or they flush too quickly and you're all "EW, this just spewed on the back of my clothes, backpack, purse, etc."

So you vacate the stall and walk to the sink, only to find the soap and water are also automatic.  And they don't work.  Or maybe the soap works at the sink you've approached, but the water won't spit out.  So you're walking around trying to find a sink that will give you water.  While balancing a backpack and a carry on.  And if you're really lucky in order to activate the sensor you have to practically touch the back of the sink to get the water to come.  UGH...not cool, automation people, not cool.

Finally you have clean hands...and now you have to wave them in front of a paper towel dispenser to get something to dry them with. And 99.9% of the time this actually works.  Thank you paper towel companies for being superior to toilet and sink companies.  Oh, and Dyson, your hand dryers are so futuristic and awesome, but I wonder if you aren't blowing dirty, germy, unclean air onto my just cleaned hands.  Please tell me you're using a filter and that it gets cleaned regularly, unlike the air filter in my house or at the laundromat.

Note: Props to O'hare for having automatic toilet seat covers.  I wave my hand, the seat cover spins around and my bum sits on a nice clean piece of plastic.  I hope.  

Friday Funny

Anyone who knows my family knows that my dad is the king of practical jokes, stories, and any such antic involving the above.  He and I have been known to scheme, but we rarely try to pull things over on him.  So this morning, Doodlebug had a friend over, and was playing a joke on her.  My parents recently made some changes to their cable and now have two remotes.  Doodlebug told her friend that if she talked to the TV it would turn on, change channels, etc.  However, there was a remote hidden under a blanket that Doodlebug was using to control everything.  My dad walked in while this practical joke was occurring and started saying channels as well and the TV went where he said.  Later, my mom walks into the living room and my dad is standing there saying "TV on."  And of course nothing happens.  He said "C, did you change anything on the TV?"  And she said "No, what are you doing."  So he replied "The voice commands aren't working now."  So they yell for Doodlebug to come downstairs and he asks her what she did to the TV to make the voice commands stop working.  I promise, if my parents had hidden cameras, I would pay them $50 a viewing to watch my dad standing in front of the TV commanding it to come on followed by Doodlebug explaining how she was playing a trick on her friend (which ended up making the friend mad.)  The best part is, she had no idea she was pulling one over on him too...just an innocent trick against a 10 year old friend ended up getting the best of a 63 year old man.  Made. My. Day.

Friday: A Good Day for a List

1.  I can't stop making (and eating) this dish by How Sweet Eats: Carmalized Chicken with Mushrooms and Onions.  So far my two favorites were with a nice Biltmore Pinot Grigio and a Barefoot Wines Chardonney that would not have made for good drinking, but made a delectable sauce.  I also made it for a family with a new baby and used chicken broth rather than wine, if you don't want to indulge.  Best part: it's done, start to finish in less than 15 minutes.   That includes me getting the ingredients out of the fridge and chopping the onion.

2. Tuesday night I was making the above and didn't feel like dredging the chicken in flour because a) I always feel guilty for wasting the flour and b) I didn't want to have to get a plate out of the china cabinet so I wasn't sure where to put the flour to even dredge the chicken if I wanted to.  So I got a small strainer out (maybe 3 inches wide) and put a bit of flour in and lightly dusted each side of the chicken.  Worked like a charm.  And that saved more flour for..

3. BISCUITS!  One of the top gifts I have ever been given (Thanks S!) was the book Southern Biscuits.  So far I have only made one recipe, but I've made it many times.  Last time I made it my dad said he had thought I used  Grands.  That was a compliment because he prefers my mom use grands as to make biscuits.

4. Wedding Planning.  Thankfully YOJ Events is handling a lot of the big stuff for me (Candice is a dear friend and a kick butt event (not just wedding) planner.)  However, I've done things like book venues, find dresses (eek, I'm in LOVE with mine), work on invitations, etc.

5. Here's the future Mr.  Well, I guess technically he's already a mister, but he's the Mr. half of the future Mr. &  Mrs.   Thankfully my future MIL took this picture because the above Mr., who is the official photographer of the two of us, failed to take any pictures when the actual event occurred.

6. I need to write a post on why I don't do Facebook.  MoreLucy wrote why she doesn't Pinterest which reminded me I need to write why I don't Facebook.

7. I do Pinterest.  It's where I store the link to the recipe for #1.  And where I store all the ideas I see for inspirations.  I think my favorite thing is storing the recipes.  And then having a place where I can store the ones I've tried that are keepers.  If they aren't a keeper, they just get deleted.  All I can say is I accomplish 5% of the crafts on my boards, I'll have a darn cute house for Christmas and a similarly spooky one for Halloween.  Also, my family will eat a nice balance of healthy and not so healthy food.

8. Today marks 99 days left of being a single girl.  I have not been counting down, but was updating a registry yesterday and they told me 100 days so I assume today would be 99.  Don't ask me 3 week from next Thursday how many days because I won't be able to tell you.  I'm excited, but I'm not obsessed.

9. Happy Friday and Happy Weekend!  May all 3 of you who read this have a great weekend full of wonderful Summer memories.