04 December 2012

Stuffed Peppers

Wow, a random thought turned out pretty yummy!
Here's what I used:

     - 1-2 t olive oil
     - 1/2 red onion, minced
     - 1/4 c garlic (yep, I like garlic. Adjust to taste)
     - 3 turkey sausage links, sliced into rounds & crumbled
     - 1 sm can mushrooms
     - 3/4 c couscous
     - 3 lg bell peppers
     - 1 12oz jar spaghetti sauce w mushrooms
     - 1/2 c shredded mozzarella (approx)

Sautee onion & garlic in oil. Stir in sausage and cook til no longer pink. Drain mushrooms, reserving liquid, and add to skillet. Stir in couscous, along with mushroom liquid and water to make 1-1/2 c. Season to taste w onion salt, garlic powder, & basil. Cover.

Meanwhile, heat sauce in electric skillet or pour into baking dish. Slice tops of washed peppers, remove core & seeds, then slice in half lengthwise. Remove ribs, if any.

Fill each pepper half with couscous mix then place open side up on top of sauce. Sprinkle mozzarella on top of each pepper. Cover and steam through or bake at 325F until peppers are just tender.

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19 April 2012

Bloodshot book review

Oh look, GoodReads just helpfully formatted my most recent review into a format just for copying and pasting into my blog. Seeing as how i'm a DAMN LAZY BLOGGER, who am i to turn down such quick and easy content? (should you care to read it ensuite, as it were, i am sade wolfkitten over there too..)

Bloodshot (The Cheshire Red Reports, #1)Bloodshot by Cherie Priest

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Priest's vampire books (somehow i read the second before this, the first) are like a big tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream: tasty, fun to polish off, not exactly *bad* for you but not your daily staff of life either. Not quite as engaging as the Eden Moore series, but less annoyingly twee than the steampunk stuff - which, i hasten to add, is entirely my own opinion. My taste for alternate histories seems not to extend into the past - call it a bias of linear time.



This is not one of those, very definitely contemporary, but a vampire/master thief main character might be just a wee bit too much of a Mary Sue for my tastes. Your mileage, as always, may vary significantly. And do note that however this may sound, i've read almost all of her books, and will continue to pick them up as i run across them.



View all my reviews

26 March 2012

Fish in a Tree? How Can That Be??

Oh look, i have a blog. Y i has u, blog? Blogging seems so five years ago. i've said before i'm too busy doing things to stop and write about them. When i'm not doing things, i am resting - sleeping, probably, and/or getting ready to do something else.

For a while i experimented with micro-blogging. i still like the concept. i do tweet a lot; i send out little random thoughts throughout the day. When i'm at the day job, this helps the time go by while i'm scrubbing cages and chattering mindlessly to the birds.

i tried collecting and re-posting them to LiveJournal for a time but it annoyed *me*; i can just imagine how my LJ friends felt about it. Incidentally, this seems to have coincided with dropping off of LJ, something i've not been able to get back to even tho i enjoyed the format. LiveJournal was my very personal internet home for years. Not now. Twitter is probably the closest thing to an online 'home' i have these days, but my profile page isn't considered a true blog.

The truth is, i don't see much need for a blog in my life. Yes i know, social media blah blah marketing blah personal branding blah blah quack. Maybe i could be Actualizing(tm) and Monetizing(tm) myself more Effectively(tm) if only i sat my *ss down and wrote something every few days! Yes, my decided lack of glowing financial success can surely be traced to this one bad habit.

WHATEVER.

A week or so ago, i finally figured out why i'm not writing anymore. happydance Hold on to your hats, cause this one's a shocker: i'm happy. i think its been so long since i could really say this (probably not this century, sadly) that i'd forgotten the obvious: i only journal when things suck. i figured this out a long time ago, back when 'journals' still meant physical, paper notebooks, filled with reams of absolutely miniscule handwriting. (Oh yes. Any future biographer who wants to plumb the depths of my personal history will need a magnifying glass: most of my journals have four lines of tiny print squeezed on to every line of notebook paper. Have at *that*, psych geeks).

There are gaps in my personal history. Times when i didn't curl up in a corner somewhere, seeking escape through an mmm-okay maybe slightly manic noting down of what i was thinking/feeling/experiencing at the time. Unfortunately, this means all my best times have evaporated into thin air; 'memory' is something you put in computers, not something in my head. If i didn't write it down, it might as well not have happened.

This means my future self will look back at now and think, i wonder what i was doing that made me so content with my lot? i don't know if i can answer that directly. i can't say, Well, This. This is the thing, or things, that make life Good now. Well, except for this little guy: Marvin

i did mention him here - holy crap, have i really not blogged YET THIS YEAR?! Anyway, his name is Marvin. He is, best as i can tell, a chihuahua-schipperke mix. Schipperkes are Belgian boat dogs and look like black Pomeranians, if you've never heard of them. He is the best thing to happen to me in a *lo-o-ong* time. My last dog was also technically Rasputin's dog, and he's been gone over eight years. i was thinking about maybe getting a dog again when this fellow managed to get lost/abandoned near the theater and wound up with me. Now i wonder why i waited so long - except that i was waiting for him, i suppose.

Besides the pupster, i've finally - *finally* - gotten to a point where i like being home again. i'm pretty sure there was a point back when i lived in Collinhood that this was true, but i can't remember when. Mid90s, at a guess. So yeah, this has been a long time coming, and its nice to have it back. i don't go out much anymore (and yes, there could be a story there too, but its not one i care to tell here). i do sometimes miss the Tremont scene that i was part of five years ago, but its not like its there and i left. It was An Era, its over, time to move on.

i've also got an acceptable balance going between jobs, theater, and personal projects. My day job is in a sort of warehouse of birds for a major pet-supply chain, and my boss there is *fabulous* - a theater friend who would make a great gay husband. He trusts my judgement and lets me pretty much supervise myself. This is so heavenly that it strongly outweighs the absolutely crummy pay. i have another part-time evening job working as a sort of 'test patient' for medical students to try out their exam skills on. Boss there is great too, as is the pay; the hours, well, not so much, but it balances things out.

i am a bit less involved with the theater than in years past, meaning i don't stage-manage anymore than one play a year. This way, once my work as a designer is done, i have nights to myself. Now, i am balanced lightly on the cusp of having just about enough time and money both, so that i can work on my own projects now and again.

Most recently, Photobucket i've been making these Faerie Empress crowns: Just sold my first one on Etsy too, w00t! They are a lot of fun to make, and allow me to make use of my hoardcollection of leftover jewelry bits and sparkly things.

Along with working on projects, i've been continuing on with organizing - well, pretty much everything. i used to have things stashed all over the place, because i could never remember where i'd put things before. Now that i'm not managing a household, raising kids, and dealing with relationships, i've been able to start sorting and consolidating. Amazingly, this means i am now able to FIND an item when i need it =:o i'm even learning to clean up when i'm done, a skill its only taken me *mumble*fifty-odd*mumble* years to acquire.

So yes, add all these things up and you have (*gasp*) a Fairly Contented Wolfkitten. Fairly? That's unfair. Quite. But geez-a-pete, look how long i've been sitting here. i've got things to do! See ya round - sometime.

01 January 2012

2011 Wrap-up

Dear diary:

i know, i know. Believe me. And really, its not you - its me. i do think about you. A lot. Pretty often anyway. But our lives are just so different right now. i promise i'll work on it, okay? i haven't forgotten you, honest. i've just been so busy. You know how it is.

Yeah, its like that. i look at the huge-ass blog entries Amanda Palmer posts, a lot more often than i have time to read them, and wonder, how the *eff* does she manage?! Then i remember - she has Assistants, and does not need to do her own grocery shopping nor scrub the floors. But still.. i wonder how *my* life got so busy. i know i was lazy when i was young, but srsly. i wonder that i ever had hours to sit in coffeehouses doing - what did i do in coffeehouses before teh internetz? i remember when i always had a workbag by my side, stitching little whatevers. But before that, how did i ever fill the hours i spent at Arabica? No clue.

There's no real possibility i can catch things up here since my last entry, so i won't even try. i can tell you that today (the day i wrote this, already over a week ago) i slept late, walked the pupster (o hai blog, i gots a puppyboy),Photobucket drank coffee, went to brunch w/Younger Daughter, did dishes, swept some floors (not all), cleaned the worst of the week's accumulated puppy mess, brought vending tubs in from the car, scrubbed the hallway rug, and straightened the Closet of Holding. Tonight i am going out to my regular weekly haunt, meeting my brother who is in from L.A., then maybe meeting grrlfriends at the punk bar. i think that's all.

Odds are i won't write anything here again until next year. i will be posting on my other blog in a bit; that seems the better place to talk about Solstice. Once again, i'll try to keep up with this better in the new year but - well, i'll try. i will be going to fulltime in the bird room within the next couple months: more work means more pay, which is good; but it will also mean even less time for things that Aren't Work. Hence teh promises, they shall not be made.

i hope this holiday season finds you well, content and surrounded by people you love and who love you. If you're reading this, count me among the latter. Merryhappy ChanaSolKwanzaMas, and i'll see you in *gasp* 2012.