This & That

Nerd Laughter

This is a label my sister coined referring to various geek-inclined people those of us who aren't take our various electronics to, to be fixed, tweaked or massaged. She's been without her SLR for, what is it B? Like 3 weeks now? It is reportedly at a camera spa being cleaned, buffed and whatever else after an unfortunate dirt episode.

Last week my laptop crashed. As in blue screen of death crashed. It's bad enough when that happens, but I'd had a problem with it in May (while it was just barely under warranty) and had been subjected to Nerd Laughter then when they replaced the mother board. This time the warranty had expired (of course) and I had to get a new hard drive, hearing Nerd Laugher in my head the whole time. What really bugged me about this whole process was that I dropped the laptop off, got a phone call about how much they were going to charge me and then never heard another word.....for a week. So I called wondering how things were going and was informed,

"Dude, (said with that whole righteous surfer intonation....which puzzled me. There are no oceans, let alone gnarly waves in Idaho) you're so good to go"......nerd laughter.

And I wondered.....how long would they have kept my laptop there without calling me to tell me it was ready.

As my sister says, Nerd Laughter is never a good thing.

'Tis the Season

As is typical for this time of year, things are a little up in the air. Instead of having everyone on the same school schedule, I have had various staggered start dates for all levels of my kids. As of this moment, everyone is back in school except The Girl, who starts after Labor Day. 

In the meantime I have managed to keep busy. The garden is in full swing and I have been trying to stay ahead of it. Even that fuzzy looking (but not IRL) apple came off one of our trees. We have no idea what kind it is....some kind of summer variety that is sour enough that my DH is a fan. He loves sour apples. He can have them. 

Saturday's project was these Bread and Butter pickles. I have a feeling I'll be drowning in tomatoes shortly.

More Class Layouts

A few more of the layouts I did for the Big Picture Scrapbooking class I took. It was nice to get some pages done and some things documented. You can click on them to make them bigger.

This one appeared on the Scrap Big blog as an example of what was being done in the class. Since these photos are only about 3 weeks old, big Atta Girl for me. :)

There's something about this picture of the girl that makes me sigh. She looks so grown up.

This one was Stacy Julian's design. I was deciding between 2 sets of photos to scrap and ended up doing both. 

 

A couple of cards using designs from the class.

And lastly...

The Shopping

The Girl really looks forward to this time of year. Not really because school's starting soon...that's more my thing, but because we try to schedule a shopping day with my sisters. It's always guaranteed to be a lot of fun for everyone.

So last week, we all met up at Salt Lake City's Gateway Mall and hit all of her favorite stores. It usually works like this. We go through and pick out a few things for her to try on. Then we get her in a fitting room and just throw things over the top as we find them in the store. She's stuck in there trying on item after item while 3 women are cruising around, finding more and more stuff. I will say that she winnows the pile very well. 

New trends we noticed....cute sweaters everywhere, "hot guy" store bags, and perfume sprayed in the stores so the clothes smell good. On the way home, she would pull something out to bury her nose in because things did smell nice. If only we could get rid of the porn at Abercrombie & Fitch, it would be perfect. Still, it was so much fun, and something we look forward to every year.

I'm Officially Old

Yes, I might as well just get me a walker and sign up for Medicare. The Girl...my baby started Driver's Training. 

Seriously, how did that happen? And how can she be so dang happy about it?

Doesn't she know she's forcing me into a nursing home?

Smoke on the Water

Well, maybe not on the water, but definitely over the water. And yes, I'm really dating myself with the title.

This is what we woke up to Sunday morning. This is the view of my back pasture. Evil Kneivel's jump is out there somewhere. And since I was sleeping with the windows open, the whole house smelled like a campfire. There was a lightening-started fire about 30 minutes from here, but the wind was just right to send the smoke over us.  It cleared off pretty much later in the morning, but for a short time, it brought back childhood memories of southern California brush fire season....and my mom on the roof with a hose.

And because I was a child of the 60's/70's, I remember this...and some of you probably do, too.

OK, Maybe There Are 3 Reasons

In spite of my own personal feelings about summer, maybe there is just one more good thing to add to my list of OK things about the season.

1--Sleeping with the windows open

2--Grilling

And fresh tomatoes. There is just nothing like a nice garden tomato. Love them, and had to take a photo of this one before it sacrificed it's life to become a tomato sandwich for lunch.

It Works!

Very cool! This is a ham and pineapple pizza that I shaped to my pizza stone.

You can find the video I watched about this process on the Everyday Food Storage blog and the original recipe appeared on this Freezer Dinner blog.

I got 6 pizzas out of the crust recipe, shaping them to the pizza pans I have in my house. In all honesty, the hardest part about the process, was wrapping them up for the freezer.

Hard Boiled

Cooking is a pretty exact science. In spite of that, perfection is never guaranteed...unless you are my DH's grandmother, who rarely used a recipe, added a little of this and that, and had things almost always turn out wonderfully well.  I have a way to guarantee almost-always perfect hard boiled eggs. I like hard boiled eggs. Some of my kids are not big fans. Some of them will only eat the white part and some won't eat them at all. But hey, I can cook them really nicely if they ever get the urge to walk on the wild side.

If you look at the eggs on this salad, you can see there's no grey edge to the yolk and I can tell you that the shell peeled off really easily. It almost always does. So here's the deal.

Put the desired number of eggs in a pot, covering them with cold water so the water is about an inch over the top of the eggs.

Bring to a boil over high heat.

When the water reaches a good boil, turn the heat off. Yes, turn it off....all the way...and cover the pot, leaving it right on the burner.  Set the timer for 20 minutes.

When the 20 minutes is up, remove the lid and run cold water over the eggs (still in the pot). Use the coldest water you can, even putting some ice cubes in the pot to sit. Let the eggs sit for 5-10 minutes, then you can take them out and peel them or refrigerate them, as you desire.

In Class

I have been taking an online class at Big Picture Scrapbooking over the past week or so. It has been layout examples, projects and ideas from several different teachers. I have really enjoyed being able to find a little time to be a little creative. I even won some Doodlebug product in a random drawing. Fun! Here are a few of the layouts and projects I've done so far.

A layout design idea incorporating summer photos. I tweaked the 12x12 design and used some family reunion photos from last summer.

Rolling some paper into something akin to a May Day basket. I filled it with some summer stuff and gave it to a family down the street with very young children. I wanted it to be a surprise, so I was sneaking around their doorstep after the sun went down. The Girl thought it was hilarious. Of course, she wouldn't join me on the adventure for fear of getting caught.

Some gift tags incorporating photos.

We are making layouts with "I L-word" prompts.

  I Learn---This design was lifted from a layout I saw in Kristina Werener's blog. The original was 12x12 and I tweaked it a bit. My white pen stopped working before I was done, so I'll have to remedy that. As an aside, has anyone ever had a white pen that worked consistently? I have had so much trouble with that.

I Laugh--Yeah, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Fun class.