Woot!

Ah rats, I no longer have my cup of tea icon.

Anyway, I used my Cocoa-Latte maker this morning to make a chai.

Well, it's not QUITE like Starbucks. But it's good. And it's closest I've been able to get to imitating Starbucks. I think I could do better using a liquid chai mix. But the steamed milk makes a huge difference in the flavor.

The ingredients:

skim milk
water
instant tea (Nestea unsweetened iced tea mix)
honey
a generous sprinkling of chai blend seasoning

Oooh...this is so exciting! I've spent several years now trying to make an at-home version of a coffee house chai, and everything I've made has been good, but nothing like what I would get at a coffee house.

Oooooh yay! I love this thing!

Behold:

http://www.kitchencontraptions.com/archives/003895.php

(Yes, it takes very little to get me excited. But think of the money and time I'll save because I won't have to order these at coffee houses anymore!)

Clean Bill of Health

Our Reecie - she's a healthy girl.

Just had her one year check up, updated her Bordetella and had her ear looked at. Everything is good. And Miss Reece has finally gotten above the 50 pound mark. I'm glad. Because for awhile, she wasn't eating normally and her weight was stuck on 47 pounds. But I have a few tricks to get her to eat now, so she's eating like a champ and even begs for more after scarfing down her two bowls a day.

Poor dear is a bit traumatized now after the anal thermometer, but she was a good sport about it. And she got her nails trimmed while she was there. Double whammy.

But after a few treats and a game of fetch, she's good. And she hopefully won't have to see the vet again for awhile.

24/7

In the interest if trying to declutter all aspects of my life and save some time, I've unfriended a lot of communities and some people who never post.

I added blog feeds to my Blogger account so that I don't have to go to the individual blogs to read them. The ones I visit frequently anyway (usually people I know IRL) don't tend to update as frequently as I do. So I really only need to check those once a week.

There are certain blogs that I check out daily that I don't really need to read. Ones that are guilty pleasures and total time wasters. I may even stop logging into Facebook several times a day. But since I think blogging is still a writing exercise in and of itself, I don't plan to curtail my Live Journaling for now.

The idea is that I'm trying to find extra time in my day. Time to squeeze in a workout. Time to do some writing.

I'm getting serious about starting this freelance business. It'll probably be a supplemental thing for awhile, but eventually, I would like it to be full-time. I just want to test the waters for a bit. I'm now gathering up the tools and resources I need to assist me with making this happen. I am also trying to network with other writers in my community.

But there are only 24 hours in a day, after all. I need to utilize my free time as efficiently as possible.

From the trashy school of cooking

Dinner was yum, and I just threw together a little of this and that from my collection of leftovers in the fridge.

- cooked some spaghetti noodles
- reheated last night's sloppy joe meat
- nuked a pouch of Ragu spaghetti sauce (they make small pouches for those of us who cannot eat an entire jar of pasta sauce)
- lots of parmesan cheese

Lance had his sans pasta sauce. Just meat and cheese on buttered noodles.

I took a leftover sesame seed bun, split it, buttered it, sprinkled on garlic powder, grated parmesan and Italian seasoning. Toasted until golden brown in my toaster oven. Each of us took half.

Very quickly thrown together, but so very very tasty.

And because Lance raved about these sloppy joes (and I never measure ingredients, so I probably can't replicate these again), an ingredient list: a squirt of Heinz 57, squirt of barbecue sauce, generous amounts of ketchup, 2 splashes of worchestershire, generous squirt of honey mustard, beef broth, 2 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder.

It's snowing again. *scream*

ARMAGEDDON!

Lance has had this thing lately with watching the History Channel documentaries about the Mayan End of Days (which is December 21, 2012) and Nostradamus's predictions for the end of the world.

He thinks it's hilarious bullshit. I told him that when he gets to work, he needs to open up Outlook Express and send the date to everyone's appointment calendar with the option to accept or decline.

He thinks that's a genius idea.