One Ringy Dingy

We're headed out to go pick up my engagement ring from the jeweler. The center stone had come loose last week and we took it in for repairs before it could fall out. (It's fallen out once before.)

Going to the jeweler isn't terribly convenient; it's about 30 miles out of our way every time we need to take it in or pick it up. This is the third repair in 5 months. So we've talked about getting a different ring.

It rained here this morning, so the world seems bright and fresh.Hopefully we'll find something fun to do while we're out. I'm angling for a trip to the library... oh, what an exciting life we lead.

So I've been receiving an unusual number of calls the last few days (like 3 times a day) from American General. They don't leave a message and they don't leave a number. I have no idea what my connection to them is or why they're calling. A Google search turns up several American General companies connected to loans, financial products, insurance and whatnot. I think I'll be reviewing my credit report this weekend. I'll need coffee for that task.

I love the smell of coffee, especially in the morning. Here's an article on how to roast your own coffee on the cheap at home. I'm fortunate that my commute takes me past two coffee roasters on the way to work each morning, Peet's and somebody else. I always breathe deeply when I pass through the cloud of coffee roasting goodness on the freeway. Of course, I then cough up a lung because I'm also sucking on the tailpipe in front of me. At any rate, I don't think I'll be trying this coffee roasting trick at home--my kitchen is just too small and, quite frankly, it seems like way too much bother. I'm happy to stick my face in a container of Folgers and call it good.

In other news, I caught up on the VP debate here. (Links to the video are embedded in the article about halfway down.)Gotta say, I'm pleased. Biden didn't run at the mouth and Palin held her own. I don't think the debate will really change anything, but all those Republicans calling for Palin to step aside may give her a little more breathing room after this performance. Granted, they both got some facts wrong, they both did their fair share of misrepresentation, and they both side-stepped some questions, but overall I think Biden seemed to answer a larger number of questions more directly. Thankfully the fact checkers have been hard at work.

When I think of politicians, I think of talking heads. And with Halloween approaching I think of pumpkins. And pumpkins as heads makes me think of the legend of Sleepy Hollow. Crikies! Can you imagine the headless horseman riding around with this monster?

On the subject of Halloween, I think I've found my costume for this year.

Some Things Stay the Same

Mornin'. I slept in a bit this morning and got up at 6:30 instead of 5, but I still had enough time to do my yoga, have a bowl of cereal, and my coffee is starting to kick in.

I took my measurements last night; No, I'm not posting them here. The good news, there's been no real change from when I took my measurements around the same time last year. The bad news, there's been no real change from when I took my measurements around the same time last year. *sigh*

According to this piece in the New York Times, that extra hour and a half of sleep will make me more creative and give me an edge. It would be nice if I didn't spend that extra time dreaming of editing and coding text at work.

So I'm debating whether I should try to catch the VP debate tonight or pick it up online later. My mind is already made up. It's been made up since February. I'll be voting Obama/Biden. But I must say I was pleasantly surprised when I watched the Sept. 26^th Obama/McCain debate last week, and I learned a few things. You see, I used to really like McCain, back when he was something of a free-thinking Republican. Back when he could credibly be called a maverick.

So I feel partially compelled to watch the VP debate, even though I'm nearly certain it'll be a train wreck. If nothing else, Tina Fey will have fodder for this week's SNL.

I picked up this story of four students at an Oregon Christian university hanging an image of Obama from a tree on campus. Now, I'm from Oregon and I'm beyond disappointed. I'm disgusted and angry and not because it was an image of Obama, but because you don't do that. You just don't do that. There is no possible justification.

I've wandered over to the Art of Manliness site a couple of times now and even though I'm not a man and a don't have a pair (at least not a pair of those) I find it entertaining. Don't think manly-man, think gentlemanly-man and you'll have a better sense of what you'll find there. Here's a link to their Best of September round up. Somehow, I don't think an Art of Womanliness site would go over as well.

And Bush is out to change history... again.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

All in all, this getting up early thing is starting to get easier. I think it helps that I'm not giving myself a wake-up buffer before I start my morning exercises. If I don't jump right into yoga, the challenge is finding something to do during that buffer time, otherwise I fall back to sleep. Like Monday. And yesterday.

Even though I didn't have enough time to fit in my yoga, I did get some stretching in and overall, I'm still up moving around earlier than I used to, and that's gotta be a good thing.

But not today, today I exercised.

I ran across this shower manager contraption the other day over on the Gather Little by Little blog. I bet my mom would have loved to have had this when I was a teen. I liked one reader's comment about using a light timer. Mom just shut off the hot water--that seemed to do the trick just fine. I'm better about conserving water now; I turn off the flow while brushing my teeth and I don't leave it running while I'm scrubbing up dishes in the sink, but there's no way my showers are down to 5, 8, or even, 11 minutes.

I found this article on wisdom from TimesOnline an interesting read this morning, if only for how the individual people have learned or applied particular pieces of wisdom from or in their lives. I especially liked the pieces from Clint Eastwood, Judi Dench, Madeleine Albright, and Billie Jean King.

As much as I feel you have to take Michael Moore with a shaker of salt (not just a grain), there's usually a nugget of truth entombed in his rants. After reading his latest from Monday I have to wonder, Just how connected are rising health care costs and failing mortgages? We're able to afford our mortgage, but if we incurred significant and unexpected health care costs, would we be screwed? Probably.

More thoughts on Facebook.

Chayote & Sausage Stew

We've been trying to cook healthier in the Wayward household lately and this recipe started as an experiment using chayote>. Chayote is a gourd and is a low GI food with only 25 calories, 3mg of sodium, 2g of dietary fiber, and 1g of protein per serving in it's raw state. (Nutritional info)

I first had chayote in 2000 while traveling in rural Chiapas, Mexico. We cooked it in a pot over a campfire with some type of meat (I didn't want to know what it was) and ate it with fresh corn tortillas.

When I made this dish last weekend, it received unexpected raves at the table and will now be in regular rotation at our house. It keeps well in the refrigerator for leftovers; I don't think it would freeze well.

We like this served over rice.

Chayote & Sausage Stew

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 links of Italian sausage, cut into ½ inch pieces

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion chopped

3 cloves of garlic, minced

3 chayotes, seeded and chopped

2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and diced

1 15oz can of diced tomatoes

1 15 oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup corn, frozen or fresh

½ teaspoon ground thyme

1 teaspoon chili powder

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Over medium-high heat, cook sausage until browned, and remove from heat.
2. Add olive oil, onion, and garlic to pan and cook until the onions are translucent, 3 -5 minutes.
3. Return sausage to the pot and add chayotes and jalapeños, saute until chayotes begin to turn tender, 10 - 15 minutes.
4. Add tomatoes, beans, corn, thyme, chili powder, salt, and pepper, cover and reduce heat.
5. Cook until heated through or ready to serve.

From the Kitchen

So, this may surprise more than a few people, but dudes, I can cook. More than that, I like to experiment. Sometimes I fail and sometimes I surprise myself. So, from time to time I'll be dropping some recipes on these pages.

Back in high school, my friends all knew that I majorly sucked at anything even slightly resembling the domestic arts, and cooking was probably tops on that list. My mother has a picture of my first attempt at cooking oatmeal. Apparently I thought that in addition to rehydrating the oatmeal you also had to cook it down until it was re-dehydrated. It was a disaster, and a standard joke in our house.

My best friend even went so far as to buy me a copy of The I Hate to Cook Book, by Peg Bracken. Seriously. I think I cracked it open a few times, I may have even been feeling ambitious and tried a recipe or two. But I didn't take to cooking until much, much later in life.

Come to find out, The I Hate to Cook Book was quite the feminist's guide to the kitchen when it was first published back in 1960. I guess it was simply unheard of then that a woman might not enjoy cooking. Peg Bracken lived in Portland, OR and passed away October 23, 2007.

I think I still have that copy knocking around somewhere; maybe I should revisit it with new eyes. It's currently out-of-print.

i(have)Tunes

So I got the iTunes working again and downloaded some new music. I can tell I was starting to wake up as I went along as the songs became louder, faster, funkier.

Here's what I chose:

Les Freres Guisse--Fabala
Donavon Frankenreiter--Life, Love & Laughter
G. Love & Special Sauce--Peace, Love & Happiness
Robert Plant & Alison Krause--Gone, Gone, Gone
(then I started to wake up)
Vampire Weekend--Oxford Comma
Shooter Jennings--Gone to Carolina
The Raconteurs--Salute Your Solution
Ryan Bingham--Bread & Water

I've been trying to think about what to do this weekend and did you know that Saturday is Museum Day 2008? Follow the link and check out which museums nationwide are participating, download and print your FREE pass.

Locally, the Friends of the San Francisco Library is having their annual book sale this weekend. Dude, massive stacks of books at massive discounts. Like I need more books in the house, but really, can you ever have enough books?

Seeing as how about half my office is on Facebook and my high school graduating class is beginning to coalesce there in preparation for our *gulp* 20-year reunion, it may be time to review the dos and don'ts (mostly the don'ts) of using Facebook.

So the whole economic bailout thing seems like it's going well, not. Watch for the garbage to pile up on Wall Street, literally, as part of a protest. I don't agree with dumping your trash on Wall Street, but the guy has some valid points.

And, lastly, an intergalactic take on our situation.

Morning Stuff

So this morning I woke up at 5, called my workout pal, and promptly went back to sleep until 6. Then I got up, did my yoga, cooked breakfast, and read some of the day's goings on online. I gotta say, 6 is a much more civilized hour. There's even just a hint of dawn in the sky, at least for a couple more weeks. Then we have to wait until November to turn the clocks back this year. November! Whose bright idea was that anyhow? Oh yeah.

So anyhow, ran into a snag with my iTunes so I didn't get to download any mellow, happy morning music, but I'm also not being subjected to machine gun fire this morning. So all in all, it's good. (We game in the Wayward household, just in case you couldn't tell.) Now if only the landscapers for the townhouse complex would stop already with the leaf blowers.

A couple of things caught my attention this morning. In lieu of mellow morning music, the images in this Forbes Travel article on The World's Quietest Places did just the trick. I don't think I've actually been to any of these places, but Muir woods is definitely nearby and a few of the others are doable.

Another little tidbit was the news that McCain wants to call a time out on the Presidential campaign while they all head to Washington to sort out the economy. And if you're President, what then? I don't think the rest of the world's leaders are going to let you call dibs on anything or take a time out.

Interestingly, but not the least bit surprising, while McCain is calling for an investigation into what caused the current economic mess, many of the folks closest to the situation, according to the WSJ can be counted among McCain's friends and colleagues.

Lastly, I saw this Ninja Cat video over on Will Femia's blog at MSNBC and just thought it was cute.