friday

Food & Aidan & Spinach & Stuff

/ aidan, food, recipe

I’ve discovered that I kinda like cooking things other than spaghetti or Cream of Wheat and bacon. And now that autumn is rolling in and the oven won’t turn the apartment to 38957495 million degrees, I can get back into baking.

Last night, I made chili, and I made enough for lunch today and for lunch or something another day. I sprinkle LOTS of cheddar cheese and crush Fritos on top of it. Yummy. I had spinach as a side.

It’s getting to the point where spinach is a part of almost every meal I prepare. I crave it like I crave spaghetti, and sometimes I have them both in my meal. It’s so good and so good for me.

Tonight, I cut up a chicken breast and sautéed that, and I also sautéed some spinach, made some mashed potatoes, and some corn. What made me very excited about tonight was this:

Aidan willingly ate vegetables. I mean, corn probably doesn’t really count, but hey, it’s a start, right? He ate almost all his chicken, a great deal of his mashed potatoes, and HE EVEN TRIED THE SPINACH. I had some spinach last week and I could tell he was curious, but not quite ready to try it. Tonight, I reminded him that he loved it when he was a baby, and so he said “pretend I’m a baby” and then he tried a bite. I don’t know if he’ll eat it again, but at least he tried it, right?

Anyway, my “recipe” for sautéed spinach is really not a recipe at all. It’s just a way to cook up some yummy goodness really quickly:

Fresh spinach
a bit of olive oil
water

Coat the bottom of the skillet with a bit of olive oil.
Add in some water.
Add spinach.

Sauté until the leaves are bright green.

ENJOY.

I prefer to use organic baby spinach, but as that’s quite expensive and hard to find, I usually end up buying Popeye bagged spinach. At Marc’s, a bag of mature spinach (http://www.popeyefreshfoods.com) costs about $1.78, and it keeps me happily fed for about a week. If I can’t find bagged, I can find Popeye canned spinach, which is just as good, especially if I get the no salt added can. The only problem is that I eat the entire can in one sitting–that’s three servings!

Bedtime for both of us. G’night.

P.S. Sore arm due to a flu shot from this morning. Eeeek!

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Adventures in ZB Land

/ happy, work

Oh man. Fridays at ZB are sure interesting.

Not only did the Rollo Fairy leave me a Rollo this morning, but s/he left me a little Nestle Crunch bar as well! 🙂

A few people set up a mini beach retreat for all of us. They took one of the conference rooms, added a beach chair, some beach towels, beach scents and sounds (Jimmy Buffet CD & Homedics noise machine set to “ocean”). The kicker was that one of those REALLY BRIGHT sun lamps was added, and people could sign up for ten-minute sessions. It was AWESOME. In addition, they made smoothies for us (but I drank plain pineapple juice, because honestly, I don’t like lumpy drinks, and even though they’re called SMOOTHIES, let’s be honest. They should be called LUMPIES.)

So, there was the mini beach retreat. We’re all rallying to make it a permanent thing.

Then, there was a mini reception for the mini art gallery. Some of the art and design (A&D) people got together and made this little gallery, and the installation changes every 2-3 weeks. This week, there is a domino exhibit up. Last time, it was an actual “Art” gallery. Meaning, it was a gallery full of pictures of guys named Art. Anyway, there was a reception for that at noon.

THEN, I was copy editing some ancillaries, and came across this lovely sentence:

Ronnie was passing so fast and so hard that Xander couldn’t catch his balls.

After laughing for five minutes, and discussing it briefly with some other copy editors, we decided that the sentence NEEDED to be changed. NEEDED. I wanted to check, because I know I have kind of a dirty mind. But everyone was thinking what I was thinking, and if WE were thinking that, then who KNEW what a 5th grader would think, so yeah. Red pen, commence. It was fun.

I changed it to:

Ronnie was passing the basketballs so fast and so hard that Xander couldn’t catch them.

Better, yes?

Now that I think of it, I should have changed it to:

Ronnie was passing the basketballs so hard and so quickly that Xander couldn’t catch them.

Poop. Oh well.

One more mistake I noticed this week: A story about a female lion. The problem? The picture of the lion had a mane. So um… yeah. FEMALE LIONS DON’T HAVE MANES! I changed the text, rather than change the art. Much cheaper. Plus, the art is super cute.

Someone’s cell phone played a lively tune which caused all the people in her pod to either dance, or say “I didn’t do it!”

Yesterday, after the staff meeting, I came upstairs, wrinkled my nose and kept it wrinkled til I got to my desk. Then I yelled out “WHY DOES IT SMELL LIKE A BIG POOP BACK THERE?” Heather thought that was really funny.

Tonight, a bunch of them are going bowling, but I have other plans. Good times.

I like my job.

See ya!

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Friday…!!

/ books, life, work, writing

Yesterday, I read The Giver by Lois Lowry. And like a fool, I started crying, right there in my cubicle. I swear, I’ve cried more in the past month I’ve been there than I have the entire six years I was at Nationwide. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But WOW. That book just gripped me. I remember Lois Lowry’s Anastasia books. I loved those books. But The Giver. Wow. She’s versatile and sooo good. Soooo good.

I’ve been reading a LOT at work. Since I’m working on the Literature and Character Education (LACE) teacher guides, it’s important for me to know the material in the books. OH DARN, right? SUCH a hardship. Getting paid to READ, right? Seriously, I cannot complain. Except for the fact that I read too damned fast! I need to slow down. Some days I manage to make it through two books AND the LACE guides.

What else? Oh yes. My doctor put me on a medication for my headaches and BOY DOES IT MAKE ME SLEEPY. He told me to take it before bed, which I did. But I had a hard time keeping my eyes open today. I was so cold so I had the hot thing and I was drinking cocoa and once that stuff took effect, I felt all fuzzy and warm. It was hard to stay awake.

Speaking of cold… there was snow here yesterday! Lots of flurries. Lots and lots. Kind of exciting, but then again, not really. Although I did enjoy getting out my cute scarf and hat and gloves.

I’m so glad it’s Friday! I really am. Two days of not getting up when it’s still dark out. Nice.

Last night, in my drug-induced post-sleep haze, I started thinking of the church I used to go to when I was in college. The St. Thomas More Newman Center. There are people there who were there when I used to go there!! Wow, such a long time ago, the Catholic me. But you know, there is a little bit of her still in me, the current me.

I’ve been on a MADONNA kick lately! I don’t know what my deal is, but I’ve been listening to loads of Madonna. I guess it’s just time for that phase in my life.

Writing. Sigh. Even though I’m on a break, of course it’s calling me. However, I stay out of the professional loops and things–I’ve really cut myself off from that world, because hearing of everyone else’s success is just highlighting my failures and it makes me depressed and bitter and angry, not to mention jealous–so yeah, it’s a good thing I’m keeping away from the writing world for now. It’s really hard to see everyone else moving ahead, while I stay stuck. 🙁

Anyway.

Happy Friday, people! 😀

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Friday Friday Friday!

/ imported

Today was my last day at McGraw-Hill!

I hadn’t told many people, so when the Bichons got wind of the news, they seemed sad to see me go. Shannon hugged me, but then said “Boo.” I didn’t realize I’d be missed.

Cleaning out my desk was bittersweet. I was glad to know the reprints were done, but sad because I did like it there, had gotten comfortable, and adored my co-workers.

At about 11am, the receptionist came online and said “And now for the announcement you’ve all been waiting for. Due to the holiday, the offices will be closing at 2pm.”

I came home and fell asleep almost immediately. I’m still pretty tired–still would be sleeping if I hadn’t been awakened around 4 by a phone call. Now, I’m waiting for Rob to come over so we can have spaghetti and hang out. 🙂

I’ll do a survey in the meantime. YAY.

w00t

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Random Recap (Pictures)

/ friends, meme, recap, ronni, survey, Uncategorized

Wednesday night:

Rob came over, and I made him spaghetti. The only sauce I had was onion, garlic and something or other else. I didn’t think I’d like it, but after avoiding the onions, it turned out to be VERY tasty. Rob liked it too. I made “garlic bread” out of wheat hamburger buns with butter and Taylor Street cheese sprinkle on top. Oh YUMMMM. We also had a good conversation outside by his car.

Rob is always enjoyable company. 🙂

Uploaded pix to Deviant Art site. I might be addicted to photo posting sites–but nothing will compare to my Flickr. 🙂

What I did last night:

Finally fixed the time settings on my camera, so it wouldn’t say AM when it should say PM.

Decided I needed to figure out how to use the fully manual functions on my camera.

Went down to The Basement (inside Fat Eddie’s) to see Tony Lucca (of former MMC fame) open for Marty Casey (?) and the Love Hammers. Tony was amazing, but he wasn’t really meeting with any fans after the show, which sucked. I wanted a picture with him, so I could compare it to when I met him in 1993.

Was told by the guys that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures with my nice camera at the request of the band. AFTER I’d taken several of Tony already (not knowing this request). They’re afraid I’ll sell them.

I laughed at that. Seriously, who’d want to buy these?

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