Breadsticks & WP7

I made Olive Garden breadsticks from scratch.
They were so buttery, garlicky, and delicious!!
And surprisingly easy.  It was also my first written recipe.  I can't wait to serve these at my bakery, maybe with soups or something, or maybe as take-home goodies for dinner!

On a slightly unrelated note, I took the Windows Phone Challenge today.
Nick and I stood in line for 2.5 hours this morning, but it was worth it because he's a really nice person and bought me chocolate milk :)
So we both ended up losing to the Windows phone guy, but I get a free Windows phone in exchange for an old Palm Pre Plus.  Windows phone looks pretty nifty, fast, and colorful............... if only it had swype, it might be a contender for my personal cell phone of choice.

Dramatic link

Why on earth would I watch this video!!???????????????

I cried just looking at the words in the link!

Stoic Cat

Stoic is a pretty cool word that is underused in daily conversation. 

I Really Should Read The Book

No post yesterday?  Here's the reason why...

Also, found out from this movie that fruits that look like blueberries are poisonous, which is unfortunate because I am planning on making blueberry pie in the near future and now I will be scared to eat it.

We sat in the very front row because we got to the theater a little late.  I felt nauseated the entire movie; the director decided to make a lot of "running through the woods" and "shaky camera" and "hallucination fuzziness" types of shots which didn't help.  But when I could keep my eyes open, it seemed pretty quality.  I'm really thankful we didn't spring for the IMAX experience.

Anonymous Beaver

Nick and I found some trees on our walk yesterday. It looks like a beaver went to town on them. Pretty cool. We are planning to check back in about a week to see if he made any more progress.

There are a few trees that the beaver seems to have knocked down, but we don't know what he plans on doing with those trees...?

Also, Nick mentioned that these bites look pretty fresh, and you can see all of the wood chips beneath them... we think that we stumbled upon a new project for the beaver and that he was just there last night.

Dear anonymous beaver, what are your plans???  I must know!

Challah

Here's what I was going to post yesterday.  I made challah.  Not nearly as emotional as finding a dead mouse but much more appetizing...

It came out pretty nice but I must say that the first dough I made I completely eff-ed up the recipe and the dough was so sticky I couldn't even knead it at all.  I kept adding flour until I realized that this was going to taste like an eggy brick.  After an hour of feeling horrible that I wasted a whole bunch of ingredients, I decided to give it another go.  Great success!

I was trying to think of good challah jokes but.... didn't come up with any.  When I googled quotes about challah, I only got this lame quote:

“For about 15 minutes, Doug Flutie was the toast of New York-not just the toast but the challah and the pita and the croissants, too.” -  George Vecsey

Who the hell is Doug Flutie?  This is a boring old post.  

________

edit: I asked Nick "who the hell is Doug Flutie?" and of course Nick knew off the top of his head.  He's apparently a quarterback who threw that hail mary pass for Boston College which is like "one of the greatest plays in football".  The quote makes more sense, but this blog post is still lacking any relevant oomph.  Sigh.  Sorry guys.

Not Mickey Mouse

I was going to triumphantly blog about the challah bread I made last night... but instead I am going to gross everyone on this Saturday morning by posting a horrifying and unexpected experience I had.

I decided to go running this morning since it is almost 50 degrees outside (whaat) and sunny.  I put on my running clothes, put my hair in a ponytail, got my iPod+Nike all hooked up, and went to put my shoes on.  There was something in my shoe though, and of course I thought it was one of Bentley's toys (which I have found before in my shoe).  So I went to fish it out.....

.... and it was a dead mouse.  Like a real dead mouse, not just a Bentley toy.

GROSS.
I freaked out, started crying like I just found out Carlos on Desperate Housewives is blind, panic-called Nick...  I don't know how a mouse got in here!  And then how it died!  It looks like it was mauled or bitten or something because of that huge black mark... unless it has the black plague, and in that case I am going to die soon so someone please just award me a certificate in teaching so that my life is not all for nothing.

I think Bentley killed it.  Nick suggested that he died of old age, which is much worse because that means I was living with a mouse who decided one day to croak and then freak me out for the rest of my life.

I can never wear shoes again :(

Staring Contest

"Hello, Bentley"

"Hello, Spotacus"

....

....

....

....

....

"What are you staring at, long neck?"

"You blinked!  I win!"

"What?  This was a staring contest??  What the hell dude?"

"Life in the wild is full of impromptu contests.  Survival of the fittest."

"My cousin is a lion, and I have tiger blood in me.  You wanna mess with this?  Let's go, two out of three"

"Bring it, sucka"

"I just realized your eyes are glued on, but I am going to play anyway because I don't get any more food until morning."

Creeper Cam #1

These two have been sitting here idly flirting while pretending to study at a local coffee shop for a couple of hours.  Girls will take a blow to their productivity when in the presence of a guy who is flirt-worthy.  She has a PC though, and he has a Mac, so I'm not sure it's in the stars for them to be together.  They obviously have differing views of the world.

At one point, hooded guy leaned back and made his move.  He then huskily growled the sexiest, most flirty thing a guy can say to a girl he is trying to woo:

"You have really small teeth."

Be still my heart.

Lisa Frank

A grown man uses this notebook.  ---->
No judgment.

This takes me back to elementary school when Lisa Frank was super popular, and I was naively unhappy because I never felt like I possessed enough Lisa Frank paraphernalia in my life.

Must.  Have.  More.  Happy. Dolphin.  Montages.
IN EVERY COLOR.

I wonder if the school had upper limit on permitted Lisa Frank school supplies.  I feel like the colors would make old school administrators' eyes bleed.  Then again, those old people grew up in the 70s and 80s so they must have seen tie-dye at some point...

I googled Lisa Frank to see if this person (or idea?) is still around or if it died with the 90s, but sure enough...

Lisa Frank Online... the site GIRLS love!

There are so many colors, my brain exploded.  View at your own risk.

Water Pressure

Fun fact:  I really dislike taking showers.
I will do almost anything to get out of taking a shower.  I will even stand dangerously close to a shower head with my extremely expensive mobile phone and take pictures of a disgustingly pale yellow shower room to postpone the inevitable shower.

My cat empathizes with me which is great since most everyone else loves showers and it's like the highlight of their morning or some b.s. like that.

I would, however, really like to be able to live underwater, like a snail.  He has a whole castle, and he doesn't have to work a day in his life.

"Maybe I'll climb to the top of my castle today.  Why the hell not, I don't have research papers to write today... or any day.

Oh what's up neighbor fish?...  Damn you're fast."

Like Puzzle Pieces

You would not think it, but taking pictures of unfinished puzzles is sort of artsy itself.  I love the edges of the interior of the puzzle.

"Hm... I'm looking for a square-ish piece with a smaller thingie here and a really odd looking bulky edge on this side.  It is kind of green but also flowery.  You seen it?"