A Hump Day post, complete with pictures and bullet points!

What has two thumbs and some major catching up to do?

This girl.

Yes, folks. I know  you’re loving my Truth Tuesday posts because they’re just sooooo trivial (pun shamelessly intended)…but I’ve been aching to write something more substantial, so I can only guess (or hope, really) that you’re missing that aspect around these parts, too. But if you’re not missing it, then skip right over this post, because it’s allllll about me, and my life, and there is no guessing game for you to play tonight…unless you want to guess how many slices of toast with raspberry jam I had for dinner tonight. (Riveting, I know.)

Anyway, here’s the thing about infrequent updating. It tends to lead to either an incredibly dull, dry “recap” sort of post, or a long, meandering journey through the labyrinth that is my brain when it’s ready to burst with information that has yet to be transcribed into black and white. I don’t know which of the two you prefer, but this is going to be the latter. Why, you ask?

Because I feel like it. And because my husband is playing one of his computer games, and I’m enjoying just being in the same room with him, knowing we get to snuggle up together later.

Anyway. About that update. I started with some bullet points so I wouldn’t forget too many of the myriad things I’ve got rattling around to share with you. I’m sure there’s a smarter way to go about fleshing them out, but I’m just going to take them one at a time, write about them until my fingers bleed, and move on to the next one. We’ll see how much I pound out tonight.

• I’ve been on a reading kick, and I think that goodreads.com is fueling my passion in a serious (and maybe a little bit dangerous) way. I want to read everything. Like…everything.

It’s true. I read several books in a span of a month or two, back when Joe and I were still in the planning stages of Wedding Madness, and I haven’t been able to stop since then. At that time, reading was my winding-down activity at night. I’d get home (usually after hanging out at Joe’s place and reluctantly leaving to sleep in my own bed) and I’d lay back with a book and just get lost in it, let the stress of planning or work or whatever else just melt away…and it’s really great. Now that we’re married, reading has become more of a lunchtime activity; I’ll bring my book and my lunch into Joe’s cubicle and sit on the floor while he surfs the ‘net or whatever he likes to do on his lunch break. It’s my little escape from work, and it beats going out to eat every day because we’re saving money and gas and energy. Anyway, that was a rather boring explanation, but I think what it boils down to is this: I’ve been kind of missing “academia” lately. Or maybe just English. Reading stimulates my mind, my imagination, my vocabulary. So when I discovered goodreads.com? I was doomed. I’ve been adding tons of “to-read” books, finding ones I’ve read already and adding them to my “bookshelf,” and I even joined a Santa Barbara Book Club group on there! I might make some geeky friends around here yet. But let’s move on, shall we? Even I’m a little underwhelmed by this whole paragraph.

• Joe surprised me with dinner last night, on our one-month-iversary. It was delicious.

Ooooh, was it ever delicious. Joe asked me a few days ago what I would like to have if he ever made us dinner all on his own. I didn’t really give him any good ideas, but boy did he pull off an incredible meal. And I was totally surprised, because I went out to Williams Sonoma with our neighbor to pick up some things with our gift cards (Yay KitchenAid mixer!), and when I came home he was slaving away at the stove and said, “Don’t come in here! Go in the bedroom and I’ll tell you when it’s ready.” Man, are those ever the greatest words to hear when coupled with the divine aroma that was floating in the air. So he made two dishes, actually: a penne pasta with artichoke hearts, and a lemon chicken dish which also had artichoke hearts. And together? They were heavenly. I mean, seriously. I think I should just leave the cooking to him, because he knows what he’s doing. Me, on the other hand…well, let’s move on to the next bullet point.

• I made dessert last night, and sort of created my own recipe. And it sort of worked. (Sort of.)

Right. So I bought frozen puff pastry the other day, thinking I could concoct something pretty easy with it since I’d seen so many recipes for tarts and things around the webiverse. I went with a play on Pioneer Woman’s apple tart…but since I didn’t have apples or lemon juice, I substituted them with blueberries and raspberries and grapefruit juice. Don’t laugh at me. The final final product was actually pretty great. But first I completely botched my intital attempt. See, the original recipe calls for a fruit that isn’t overly juicy, which is partly why she asks you to squeeze half a lemon into the mixture. Raspberries and blueberries, on the other hand, are nice and juicy, especially when they’re the kind you buy frozen in a bag. So I threw together the berries and some brown sugar, and without even taking notice of the plentiful amount of liquid the fruit was already sitting in, I squeezed in half of a LARGE grapefruit. And then I spooned a bunch of the mixture onto my thawed puff pastry sheet and tossed it in the oven. This is what it looked like before I baked it:

I’m sure you can imagine what happened. Or rather, what didn’t happen. The juice soaked into the puff pastry and therefore the pastry? Did not puff. It just got really warm and kinda gooey. I didn’t even bother tasting it, because it was icky. Fortunately, I had another puff pastry sheet and tons of the fruit mixture left, so I drained the liquid out of it and went for another shot. Here it is right after I stuck it in the oven:

See how the liquid is not threatening to take over the world this time? They turned out much better the second go-around, and I even felt confident enough to invite our neighbors up to taste it. (They liked it!) So, kind of a success. I think I’d probably nix the grapefruit juice next time, not because it didn’t taste good (it really did), but because there is already plenty of moisture and tartness in the berries. I’m definitely going to try the original apple tart sometime, too.

Moving on…

• I made a whole bunch of necklaces over the weekend and it made me want to quit my job and start beading full time. I can’t do it, of course, but I just might throw a necklace or two on etsy.com and see what happens. Or maybe I’ll start a beading blog.

The longer I think about this, the more I’m feeling like a beading blog could be really fun. Don’t get me wrong: I have no doubt that it could very well turn into a project that only gets updated every month if you’re lucky…but it might be worth a shot, just to see if it goes anywhere. I’m seriously having a blast coming up with new jewelry designs, and whenever I wear things I’ve made, I get a lot of compliments and shocked expressions like, “You MADE that? Wow!” And I know that people sell handmade jewelry for a pretty penny, so I could start with some competitively low prices and see how it goes. I’m by no means holding my breath for a potential career here…but you never know, right? Here’s a picture of one of the pieces I made this weekend (and, note to self: if/when putting stuff up on etsy, learn to take better photos):

So there’s that. Oh, and the beading blog idea also reminded me that I’ve been thinking of getting myself a domain name. Something catchy, memorable, but not obnoxious or overly long. Any suggestions? I don’t think I want it to have the word “blog” in it, because that would limit the possibilities (like using it for the bead blog that turns into a hugely successful online store). But enough about that.

• Not exactly news, but my allergies/food reactions are ruining my life. My mouth and throat seem to react to just about everything I eat these days, and there is no consistency to it. Probably going to go back to my allergist for some more tests. It just seems so futile.

Yeah…not a lot more to say about this one. It’s just that, right when I think I have it all figured out (avoid sesame, mustard, almonds, walnuts, yada yada…), my throat gets all scratchy after eating a bowl of cereal or a piece of chicken. Not cool. Granted, I’ve never had a reaction serious enough to warrant an ER visit or the use of my epi-pen, but it still sucks. Whenever my throat reacts to food, the only thing I can do to keep it from getting worse (or having a panic attack) is stop eating anything for a few hours, drink lots of water, and wait for the throat-closing-up feeling to subside. Add that to the equally frustrating fact that I have weird trouble swallowing anything, and oh how about the part where I get random stomach aches, earaches, stabbing chest pains and other fun unexplained ailments? And I swear my body is, in its entirety, rebelling against me. Fortunately, I have more GOOD things to think about/write about, so I won’t end on this lame note.

• I’m thinking of making a 101 in 1001 list, if for no other reason than I have a bunch of fun (and some necessary) “to do” items that I need to keep track of. One of them was to come up with my own recipe for something, so I could half-cross that one off.

Another is to pay off my school loans, and as crazy as it sounds, I may just be able to do it in 1001 days (almost three years), if I manage it right. But back to the list. A lot of people seem to have their own 101 things to do in 1001 days, and I can see how it could be a great motivational tool. On the other hand, another blogging friend posted her own list recently, but it was a list of things she HAS done in life. That’s definitely something to consider, too, because it’s a way to look back and be thankful for the experiences I’ve had. Hmmm…

• It sounds like my little nephew Levi is not ready to come out of his mommy’s tummy yet, so he probably won’t be a 09-09-09 baby. But the real bummer is just how badly I want to see his little face and touch his tiny hands. I can’t even imagine how excited Josh and Serena are.

That’s all there is to that. No news yet (as of 9:30 p.m.) except that they were released from the hospital today after going in to see how things were progressing. Josh said they didn’t think baby Levi would be coming out tonight… Eep! I can’t wait for that moment to come, so that I can tweet, text, blog, and shout over my cubicle wall that I AM AN AUNT!

• Carpal tunnel sucks.

No, seriously. Another bodily ailment trying to attack me from every angle. My wrists are totally killing me right now. And since I definitely would never leave you with “Carpal tunnel sucks” as a final bullet point, how about this one:

• I’ve  been sitting next to Joe at our computer desk for the last several hours, blogging while he plays games, and despite the fact that I smell really icky (because we went to the gym after work and then had dinner and have been sitting here ever since), I’m perfectly content.

Why, you ask? Because this is my view:

Husband in underwear, with a focused, determined expression, doing his geeky thing = priceless. I love him.

And that concludes this Insanely Long Post. I hope I didn’t lose you guys, at least until after the part about my fabulous jewelry that you all want to buy from me.

I’ll try to be better about updating on life things, so’s you can be spared from reading another one of these heinous ramblefests. Peace out!