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Some days, I just need chocolate more than others. I won't go into the reasons why, other than to say if I could, I would get rid of the reason because I'm never going to have children. Today, the craving for chocolate has overtaken me. So, today's Thursday Thirteen is all about chocolate. The first 6 are varieties that are currently on my desk, thanks to the basket of candy I keep handy (I don't really eat that much - but I get a lot of visitors at my desk, because everyone knows I have a candy basket). The next seven are what I wish were on my desk.
Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Gina 2. Raggedy 3. Chickadee 4. Amy (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!) |
Showing posts with label Thursday Thirteen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thursday Thirteen. Show all posts
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Thursday Thirteen
Thursday, February 15, 2007
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Hubby, StepSon and I are headed to London 4 weeks from tomorrow. So you know we've been planning up a storm lately to decide what we're going to do. Here are the thirteen things I'm most looking foward to in Merry Ol' England: 1.) British Museum - so much to see, that I know I won't see it all. 2.) Westminister - is it weird that hubby and I seem to like to go visit dead people? The first thing we did in Paris was visit the Cemetery of Père Lachaise, where we spent too much time looking at graves, mausoleums and head stones. And we finished off the trip with a visit to the Pantheon to see the graves of Voltaire and Rousseau (among others). 3.) Portrait Gallery - because if we can't visit dead people's graves, at least we can look at their pictures. 4.) Food. This should have been number one, but I'm too lazy to rearrange the order. The absolute best part of visiting other places is the food. I've been told the Indian restaurants are unbelievable, and the Chinese a close second. Hubby is trying to convince me there's no such thing as a Mexican restaurant in London - but I've made him promise that if we find one, he has to eat in it. I'll be doing research on that shortly. 5.) The Tempest staring Patrick Stewart. Do I really need to say more about this? I squeeled as I hit "purchase" on the website for these tickets. Then squeeled again when I got the confirmation email. I will TRY not to squeel at the actual performance. No promises. 6.) Men with sexy British accents, any variety will suffice. So many different accents...each sexy in their own way. Yum. (sidenote: my hubby thinks he can do a sexy british accent. He can't. It just makes me giggle.) 7.) Harrods. Does this need any explanation? I think I'd better wait til the end of the trip for this one so that I don't spend all of my money on the first day. 8.) Canterbury - we're taking the train on a day trip to the town of Canterbury. More dead people to visit, since Thomas Becket was murdered here - part of a church problem a few hundred years ago that my husband and stepson will probably spend hours debating while I shop. :) And if I'm good, I'll get to climb around some more castle ruins. 9.) Riding on the Thames. not sure what the ride will consist of, or how long it will be. Hubby's been talking about some kind of trip where you ride the boat - which will be tons of fun - and then they drop you off and you walk around a bit before walking through a tunnel that goes UNDER THE RIVER. I'm still working on the courage for that part of the adventure, and he's promised that we'll get alternate transportation if the tunnel thing freaks me out too much. 10.) Going to Hastings (well, the town is actually called Battle ). This will be a second day trip, and it's a pilgrimage that my British Historian Husband has to make on every trip to the UK (or so I've been informed). This means that Stonehenge is out, but that's ok since they don't let you touch the rocks anymore. 11.) Shopping, Shopping, Shopping! 12.) Just walking around the city. Hubby lived there for a while, and he knows so much history about everything that he'll could keep us entertained for days. 13.) Buckingham Palace. Something else that needs no explanation. So what did I forget? Let me know in the comments! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Shelly 2. Bubba 3. Karen 4. ms. george 5. catherine 6. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!) |
Thursday, February 08, 2007
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| 1.) The hours: I can come and go pretty much as I please, as long as I work 80 hours every pay period. There are a few rules, but this is so much better than the strict 7:30-4:30 regimen I’ve had. I had forgotten how much I loved being able to make my own hours. Does that make me less of an adult? Yes? Good.
2.) I don’t have to waste an hour on a lunch break, unless I want to. It’s never taken me an hour to eat ANY meal, which means that after 20 minutes I’m ready to go back to work. Which leads to me falling asleep while I wait for time to pass…which leads to a not-pleasant wakeup after only 30 minutes of napping. Naps are to be enjoyed and reveled in, not stolen on a lunch break.
3.) My new boss. Have I mentioned him around here yet? He doesn’t lose my emails (not that I send him many), he doesn’t need me to use small words, and he doesn’t expect me to do his job. And dear god, I don't have to explain myself everytime I crack a joke! Finally, someone who understands how marvelously humorous and witty I am! >G<
4.) Getting home before my husband. Call me old-fashioned, but I like being home when he walks in the door. For the past year and a half, he’s almost always beat me home, and was usually waiting at the door. Now it’s my turn to give the welcome-home hug.
5.) I’m home on Monday nights, so I get to cook dinner for my stepson. Sure, he actively dislikes the green things I put on his plate. And he’s not nearly as excited as I am about this – he’s been getting pizza, burgers, or something equally nutritious once a week because I wasn’t around to do the hard task of opening a can of corn.
6.) Reading material. Yes, I know that I’m not really supposed to read all of the journals that come across my desk word for word. But when an article has the word “castrating” in the title – and it’s not talking about male anatomy – sometimes you just have to read a bit to see what they’re referring to.
7.) I’m no longer part of the coffee-club drama in the front. This deserves another post entirely to itself, so I’ll only say that my absence in the coffee club is a hole in the caffeine-circle that created a vacuum. The life is being sucked out of everyone because of something that should bring nothing but joy.
8.) I get to see the sunrise every morning. So far. Yeah, you’re not supposed to be nature-watching while traveling at 75 miles an hour. But there is something about being up and awake enough to see the blacks and grays and blues turn to reds and yellows and oranges in front of your eyes. And every day it’s different.
9.) I don’t have to leave my desk to refill my coffee cup – I have an urn that I bought and fill up with a half pot of coffee, and it sits within reach of my hands at all times. It’s the first thing out of my bag when I get to my desk in the morning. And it’s already got my favorite cream in it, so all I have to do is pour until it's gone.
10.) My chocolate stash on my desk is lasting a lot longer these days. Sure, the library staff knows that I have a basket full…but the students aren’t eating it anymore.
11.) I get to play with spreadsheets. They aren’t complicated one with formulas and stuff that will make me cuss and rip hair out as I try to figure out if the “$” symbols are all in the right places (which I love to do, btw)…but that could change, if I have my way about it. Our new personnel system means we have to keep a lot more stats. And I love doing percentages.
12.) I get to learn a new software program – Microsoft Access. I’m now scheduled to begin that process in the middle of March (when I should have started the classes yesterday). It’s not a new or anything…but I love learning new stuff like that. And then I’ll drive my boss batty with it, because I know all I’ll want to do is play with all the cool features. And he’ll keep telling me “But that’s not really necessary…” And I’ll be like, “yeah, but I can DO it!” sometimes, ability outweighs necessity.
13.) I just like the new job, ok? I knew I’d like it, and I haven’t really said why in this post. But I like it even more than I thought I would. Maybe I’m just meant to do the boring and mundane on a daily basis. Because really, there’s nothing exciting about underlining the first letter of every article’s title, or putting a period after the author statement. But I’m loving every letter and period.
Links to other Thursday Thirteens!1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!) |
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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Thursday, January 18, 2007
Thursday Thirteen
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Earlier this week, I made French Onion Soup for the first time. I had never even eaten it before, but Hubby loves it and I had two pounds of leftover onions that I needed to do something with. So I made some soup (using the last bit of my homemade chicken stock), and it was awesome. And, in the way of most soups, it tasted better the second day than it did the first. So, in that spirit of things….: 13 Foods I Want to Make This Year 1.) Osso Bucco – because really, can you ever get enough veal 2.) Risotto - I found a recipe for Sunshine Risotto looks really yummy – lots of colors of bell pepper all over the place. Now, if I can just find it again…Ahh! Here it is! 3.) Lemon Sorbet – we’re going to pretend that the one I made a couple of months ago never happened, even though my hubby was a good man and pretended to like it. He loves lemon sorbet so much that I have to get this one down. Of course, it would be a lot easier if I had an ice cream maker - since 99 percent of the recipes I can find call for using one of those machines. And I'm a wuss - my arm gets tired. 4.) Petit Fours; I think I’ll do these in a couple of weeks for a retirement party. I’ve even found a no-bake cheesecake version that I can use if I wimp out. But I want to try the real thing, complete with jam, icing and a wrecked kitchen. 5.) Potato Soup – I love, love, love me some good potato soup with a little cheese and bacon on top. Or maybe I love, love, love me some cheese and bacon with a little potato soup underneath. Either way, I’ve never made it from scratch. 6.) Creamed Cucumbers – mmm, maybe they’re not creamed. But there’s a recipe in Mark Bittman’s cookbook “How to Cook Everything” for some kind of cucumber dish –served warm - that sounds interesting. 7.) Quiche – So many yummy variations that the hard part will be deciding what to put in the thing. And then convincing my husband to eat it. 8.) The salmon in the dishwasher recipe. My curiosity for this is overwhelming. Every time I see salmon in the seafood case, I tell myself that one day I’m going to try it. And now that I’ll be getting home before the husband a few day a week, I may actually get a chance to cook it without him seeing me remove it from the dishwasher. 9.) A few good homemade breads – not the kind that requires a machine. The closest I’ve come to making bread at home is my grandmother’s cheesebraid recipe. And I have a bread machine. But I want to make some whole grain breads from scratch. More importantly, I want to smell them baking in my oven. 10.) A couple of Indian dishes. Hubby dearly loves Indian food, but the closest good restaurant is about 40 minutes away. I’m thinking that something like this eggplant and potato curry might be a good place to start. Finding some of the spices will become the first step in the process, since I’m pretty sure that Wal-Mart won’t have them. And since Calera doesn’t have an Indian population to speak of, then this gives me a really good excuse to check out a few spice stores that I don’t visit often enough. 11.) Chayote Squash. I bought one a couple of days ago, because I’ve never had one and it wasn’t too expensive. So now I have to look up how you cook one, and what you do with it. That will happen either tonight or tomorrow, since it’s already sitting on my counter staring me in the face. 12.)Flan. A good one, nice and smooth and creamy…mmm… 13.)Bouillabaisse - My sister always makes such an incredibly good one that I’m scared to even attempt it. But the taste sensation is enough to get my saliva going. Of course, getting fresh seafood when you’re 1 mile from the coast like she isis a little different than when you’re a couple of hundred miles. Still, there’s a seafood place up in Birmingham that I think I can use. And it will all be worth it, if I can pull of her second trick of culinary magic and transform the Bouillabaisse into a bisque the next day. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Cheeky 2. Amanda 3 Suki 4 Karen 5 Caylynn 6 Jill 7 Lindsey 8 (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!) |
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