With silver bells and cockle shells

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Frog

After my eye doctor appointment this morning, I stopped to buy plants for the garden. I know you probably don’t care about this, but I wanted a least one positive garden entry this season since it’s usually doom and gloom with the pestilence and the who knows what the heck. So, before I plant a thing, I’m feeling hopeful that this is going to be the season that pleases me most about vegetable gardening. Remind me of this when I’m bitching in August.

I picked out some heirloom and a pink girl variety of tomatoes. Hopefully, I won’t end up with Frankentomatoes because I’m putting a hybrid next to an heirloom. Assuming that the tomatoes do anything this year is a BIG assumption on my part. I also bought two eggplants. I had hoped for ichiban, but ended up with the regular ol’ globes. I also purchased some peppers–a few hot and a few not. Finally, I went a little nuts on herbs: parsley, tarragon, basil and thyme.

We have an onion that has sprouted in the pantry so that’s going out there for fun. I’m going to transplant some of the beans out of the compost pile and I have to move a bunch of chives that survived the winter. All of that is for later in the week when it warms up again. The all-day rain yesterday has really made the weeds go nuts in the garden spot. I think I can finally see some of the lettuce I planted out there several weeks ago. I find it a bit dodgy to weed when new plants are coming up because I worry that a weed and a baby lettuce look too much alike. But, I’m going to give it a whirl in a couple of days when things have dried out a little.

Tomorrow I’m painting the front porch. This week is full of ambition.

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I’m Done Except for that Ceremony

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Frog

Yesterday I defended myself to my committee and they approved me for graduation. It was kind of a funny meeting as my advisor told me the day before that in preparation everyone on my committee were all “what is it we’re supposed to do for her”. It seems there hasn’t been an EdS student in their midst (at least on campus) for something like 10 years. So, it wasn’t all in my imagination. They really were confused about how to handle me. I heard there’s another one floating around now but I’m not sure if she’s in the Instructional Design program or if she’s in one of the more traditional School of Ed programs that produce EdS folks (like educational leadership).

Anyway, I presented the project I’ve been working on all semester and will continue working on through the summer. Folks were pleased and we generated some good conversation. One of the professors on my committee is someone I’ve had as a teacher and she was very complimentary to me about my skills and it was a little embarrassing. I thanked her as well as I could. She remembered some incredible details about our conversations inside and outside of the classroom.

At the end of my presentation, I had to go out into the hallway while they discussed letting me pass–probably more like they had to pass around my exam card so they could all sign it. As I exited the room, I found a classmate waiting to go in to talk about her dissertation. She’s in the early stages of writing so her meeting was more of a check-in type thing. It was really good to see her since I had just referenced her in my meeting. I told her that I’d just been talking about her and how much I liked working with her. I think that surprised her, but it was true. I did enjoy my contact with all of the international students. That’s a very good part of the program. I wished her the best of luck and she congratulated me on finishing.

I’m a bit curious who I will see at graduation. Because the program is so mixed with graduate students and doctoral students, I have no idea who is graduating and who is continuing on. Since the School doesn’t do a formal ceremony, I’ll just have to look for people in the large Graduate School ceremony at o’dark thirty on a Friday morning in May.

Posted in Thinking | 3 Comments

Willie doesn’t disappoint

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Frog

Willie Nelson and his son, Lukas, singing a Pearl Jam song:

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suddenly i can see blue skies again

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Frog

I’m coming up with a list of projects to do in the coming months. One of those is to paint part of the front porch. I have mentioned that there are two different colors of paint (or maybe it’s just primer) on the front porch rails and posts. I discovered this while cleaning the green funk off of them one day (holy cow that was 2010). Yesterday, the better-half and I significantly trimmed the bushes out front.

Here’s one side of the house before:

Here’s the after:

Here’s the other side of the house (the windows look into the garage):

Since those bushes weren’t as overgrown, the after isn’t as dramatic. The hostas are gargantuan and they’ll eventually take over all of the ground space:

The most overgrown and the biggest impediment to me painting had to be the area around the steps:

The acuba will either come back or they will be yanked out and something more appropriately sized will go in there instead:

Assuming the weather cooperates, the painting project will begin next week.

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Perok Fail

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Frog

In the April 2012 Eating Well magazine there was an article about sustainable salmon from Alaska. When I saw the recipe for what amounts to a salmon pot pie (perok), I knew I had to make it. I used Wild Planet canned salmon. I even cut out a little fish shape for the top. The recipe called for cutting out a salmon shape, but seriously.

I don’t make brown rice, but I had to buy a bag to make this recipe. The rice took at least an hour to make and I will spend that time again because it was delicious. It had a teaspoon of dried thyme in it which sounds like not so much, but in practice it is a ton of thyme.

The other ingredients were a cup of frozen peas (I know. I say I hate peas and yet I use them in recipes.), caramelized onions and salmon. The top crust was a blend of whole wheat flour, AP flour, salt, thyme, cayenne and nutmeg. I used up the last of an olive oil the better-half didn’t like. I made the dough ahead of time and let it rest in the refrigerator.

Here’s the perok with a scoop out of it:

The little fish shape on the top came out pretty well when you consider I’m not an artist. It was probably the thing I liked best about this recipe (except for the rice). I don’t know what went wrong but it did not float my boat in the least. The better-half wasn’t thrilled either. It’s a shame because it ended up being a lot to throw away. Thankfully, there are some stray cats, perhaps I’ve mentioned them, who will eat it.

Posted in Eating | 2 Comments

Over and Done

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Frog

I just cut the grass out near the road and I can hardly see now. The wind in combination with dirt, leaves, pine tags, pine cones and tasseled grass has turned my eyes into crazy puffed creatures.

Usually at lunch I watch something either I’ve DVR’d or something like the Big Bang Theory that I can get on demand. Today I was watching a recording of Grimm. I’ve been watching this when the DVR feels like recording it and today in the middle of it, I stopped it. Deleted it. Deleted the whole recording process forever. Seriously, NBC you should be ashamed. It’s a pretty interesting concept but your pacing is slow and I swear I am sick to death of shows that have a VERY LONG side plot of nefarious plotting that is SO DAMN BORING that no one cares what in the hell is going on with that side plot. (I loved the X-Files until the last season or so when I wanted to stab everyone with an alien probe device. So thanks for nothing every show runner who follows that show’s lead.) I am sorry that I couldn’t continue with the show because I really liked the Monroe character and the H-O-T Sasha Roiz was in it but, sadly, he is the main point of the VERY LONG AND BORING AS HELL side plot (he is good at nefarious plotting but jeez). NBC should also know that if Joyce Summers could get over the fact that her daughter was a vampire slayer then Nick’s girlfriend could certainly handle the fact that he is a Grimm. Unless she is as stupid as stupid gets, she knows something is going on. Discuss it already.

Posted in Watching | 1 Comment

Jim on Saturday

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Frog

Yesterday evening when the better-half got home from running a few errands, he was greeted by Jim on the front sidewalk:

Jim was probably saying something along the lines of “Let me in. I am starving.”

You may have noticed something odd about his face in the above picture. Perhaps, it was the dirt:

Posted in Generic Thoughts | 2 Comments

Quick bit of insanity

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Frog

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that we’re totally cutting back on the garden this year and plan on ripping out part of the deer fence so we reclaim what is basically yard or field, or a big mess, whatever.

I took a picture of the garden the other weekend from my office. It does not do justice to how big it is, but short of standing on the porch roof and leaning way around the house or flying like a pixie this is the best I can do.

In the above photo, the blue lines show the existing lines of the fence. The red lines show where we’re going to cut the garden in 2. It looks basically the same in the picture because there is no perspective. We’re keeping the asparagus, the raspberries, the blackberries, grapes and a garden plot in the fence. The red arrow points out our version of a raised bed/aka the garden plot. There’s nothing raised about it, but we are hoping that the boards will help with the gd weeds. We built a little bench out of leftover cinder blocks and a board that was once part of the cold frames we had out there (those were also recycled to outline my garden plot).

When I think about it, I will walk out there with a camera and show you how significant the garden is from the ground and how much smaller it will be this summer. We can’t cope with the weeds without polluting the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed with the smackdown and that’s not how it works around here. And, every year we’ve had that garden it has been a complete letdown. If it wasn’t the weeds:

  • it was the tomato blight
  • it was the freaking squash bugs from hell
  • it was whatever else happens when you build on an ancient burial ground

    • I hate weeding, but should be able to handle that little plot. I’ll show those weeds!

    I’m seriously thinking of plucking a few of the tiny little bean plants that sprouted in our compost pile and moving them to my garden plot. Those dried beans were ancient when I pitched them…who knew they were just waiting for some compost to start growing?

    Posted in Gardening | Comments Off

    Fried and Frazzled

    Posted on April 5, 2012 by Frog

    The better-half has performed a remote desktop support call to me TWICE this week. That’s embarrassing. But, it’s the damn HTML and CSS that’s killing me. I am turning in my class project tomorrow. There are flaws but those will be cleaned up after the evaluation segment. Of course that all depends on whether I’m still alive at that point because my head is very close to exploding from either the crap I really don’t understand or the MFing pollen.

    I hope I’ve learned something this week (doubtful) because I need to burn rubber next week in dumping content for the course I’m being paid to work on into HTML. Jeez Louise. At least the content was approved and folks are happy about my progress. HA! Wait another week and a half and that may not be true.

    So here I am fried and frazzled. Turns out the AV Club had just what I needed:

    Punch Brothers cover The Cars

    Posted in Generic Thoughts, Listening | 2 Comments

    Out like a lamb?

    Posted on March 28, 2012 by Frog

    March came in with a ton of wind and now it’s leaving with it too. Go figure with the moody months. Also, sick of itchy eyes, but I really want to sit outside this afternoon and read my HTML book. I’m just about at the point where I’m going to need to know more about that then instructional methods and content and I feel so far behind. Perhaps I’ll pop a claritin and brave the pollen encrusted wind.

    In other news:

  • I changed out the lawn mower battery by myself and am proud to say the mower now starts. Girl power.
  • I’m sick of stores not opening until 10. I had an early doctor’s appointment and a bunch of errands I wanted to run. I only did two things because the stores don’t open until 10. I was home by then. Perhaps, I need to get better about hanging out in coffee shops to kill time.
  • When I got home, I noticed an unfamiliar van driving around the neighborhood. Turns out the Jehovah Witnesses were out in force. The better-half has their propaganda on his desk as if it were mail just for him.
  • I turned in the content document for review yesterday. Hopefully, I’ll get some good feedback. Although, at this point, I just want some feedback.
  • Asked the other professor for feedback on my project before I begin the major push. He said it would be done by yesterday. Still waiting.
  • The first asparagus are coming up.
  • Woke up last night to use the bathroom and could hear the better-half rocking out to something. Turns out some Alan Parsons and Elton John were recently played on Spotify. Busted.
  • Finished a graphic novel yesterday. I can see why people are drawn to comics (no pun intended).
    • Posted in Gardening, Generic Thoughts, Listening | Comments Off