Woot!!

The Rays won!! 10 to 9 in the bottom of the ninth. It was awesome!! Mia and I had a great time...



There were over 34,000 people there! I've never seen so many at a Rays game... *tsk, tsk* Fair-weather fannery...









The "We the Kings" concert afterward was okay. Not really my kind of music, but it was fun. But it was cool that the band led the crowd in Take Me Out to the Ballgame (kinda off-key) during the 7th inning stretch:

Can we please elect him, now? k, thanks...

Figs!

Figs are in season in the south right now, in case you had not yet noticed... and possibly elsewhere for all I know. I love fig preserves. It is yummy stuff. My mom loves it too. So I've been wanting to make some all summer. Our fig tree is still too small to produce more than one or two tiny (but yummy) figs a year, and the figs I tried to bring home from South Carolina were too ripe I think and spoiled in the car during the long, hot trip home. But Publix (the most amazing grocery store in the world, fyi) has these lovely figs, and I saw in the Sunday Publix newspaper flyer that pounds of figs are two for one this week, so I bought two pounds when I was there today...

Been looking for recipes for fig preserves and I think I found one that I like. Vanilla Fig Preserves. I'll be leaving out the vanilla and the liqueur because we don't have any of the later and the former... well, though we have some lovely vanilla beans that our neighbors brought us back from their trip to Tahiti last year, my mom doesn't want me to put it in there. She just wants plain fig preserves. So I might just have to go back to the store, get some more figs and make a second batch for myself so I can try it the way it's supposed to be made (though still minus the liqueur)... Oh, the torture... ;D And at $3.00 a pound (with the two for one deal they've got right now, and they are no where near to running low on figs, let me tell you!), it's a total steal!! Even more so when you consider the price of bought fig preserves, that this recipe makes 11 half-pints of preserves, and that I can't seem to find any in the store that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup added. Yeah. Steal.

I'll probably make this stuff Sunday, unless I get up really early tomorrow (possible, but not entirely likely). I'd do it tonight, but the jars won't be clean until tomorrow. And the afternoon is likely out because my friend Mia and I are going to a Rays game in St. Pete. The game starts at 3:55pm, which means we'll leave Tampa no later than 2:45, and there's a concert by a band that Mia really likes afterward, so we'll be there for a while... But there will be details on how it turns out and possibly also pictures when I make it...

An Article...

from the Saint Petersburg Times... Persevering amid life's many tests. There's a 1974 Impala involved. Very sad.

Home!! and Mail-box Suprises...

Finally!!

It was good to get away, but it's just as good to get home. I miss my sister and niece and all my other relatives already, but home is here, so... My cats look different, and the dog has literally doubled in size in the last two weeks. I wish I were kidding. She's almost big enough to jump up on the dining table if she wanted to and she can fly over the pet gates we have to keep her contained in the kitchen if she wants to. Not good. Mom needs to get to the dog training really quick...

I received a postcard from Ilana today. She sent it from Vermont and it has a lovely picture of a covered bridge on the front. I can't wait to show it to my mom when she gets home from work. She loves covered bridges. I'm glad Ilana is enjoying her getaway.

I also got all the back-issues of MaryJanesFarm (which is an awesome, awesome magazine, btw!). I'm savoring each of them. I just came across an article about a home from troubled teenage boys that teaches the boys to crochet to help relieve anxiety and anger issues, among other behavioral and emotional problems. They make lap-quilts to donate to old folks' homes and they make and wear their own slippers. Some of the slippers have pom-poms. With deepest sincerity (in case someone might think I mean to mock), I think this is very cool and utterly delightful, and it makes me extremely happy that these boys can be helped and that they help others in turn. They make all this stuff with donated (mostly scrap) yarn and there's an address where yarn can be sent. I'm so raiding my stash for them.

If you'd like to send them some yarn as well, the address is:

Northwest Children's Home
P.O. Box 1288
Lewiston, Idaho 83501

YAY!

I finally found some Borax (at Food Lion) and so the ants will soon be out of the kitchen. The cinnamon trick helped but now they're just in the dishwasher (of all places).

I'm in such a good mood today. I hope you all are having a good day. The sun is shinning here and I was feeling like crap the last two days, and today I feel so much better. I don't know if it's the change in weather or what, but I'm going with it.

I was driving home from the store and Corinne Bailey Rae singing "Put Your Records On" came on the radio. The image of Ianto Jones rocking out to this song inexplicably came into my head unbidden, and I couldn't stop laughing. If you know this song and you watch Torchwood, sit back and picture that for a moment if you would: Ianto rocking out to "Put Your Reconds On" (location of said rocking out is up to you). I hope you enjoy the visual as much as I did.

Have a lovely, lovely day, my dears!

Mr. Obama = Mr. Darcy? America = Miss Bennett?

Now, I don't agree with everything in this op-ed, and I think some of the suggestions are a bit ridiculous and over-reaching, and just like Lizzie, I'm not happy to be critical of my own sex, but I have to say that some women are apparently frighteningly simple and short-sighted (and yet others also give feminists a very bad name), but I found the article interesting nonetheless.

And it should go without saying that if this comparison holds true, then Obama will win the election after a wonderfully selfless and generous heroic act is discovered and McCain will be proven to be a notorious cad. LOL! Oh, I can but dream!

Maybe I'm so blown away by how die-hard some of these Hillary supporters are because I never really was one. I've always found that she's somewhat too good a politician, or perhaps not good enough because I can always see through her pandering to what she's really trying to do - get elected to the highest office she can by saying and doing whatever she thinks she needs to in order to attain that goal. Which is all well and good, but it doesn't make her the best candidate. And her not being the best candidate has nothing to do with the fact that she is female and everything to do with that I'm better convinced of Obama's sincerity and his politics are slightly closer to mine than Hillary's are. If I really had my druthers, Kucinich would be my President, but that didn't happen and apparently no one wants to discuss how the media counted him out of the race and ignored him so early on that it was ridiculous. I realize that he didn't really have a chance, being as far "left" of what most people consider the mainstream as he is, but he had interesting things to say, I think, if one bothered to stop and listen. But now, I'm all for Obama. He's our best chance, I think, and I hope the majority of voters are with him this November.

In other news: The cinnamon stopped the ants coming in through the cabinet, but there's some coming in from somewhere else and I can't find it. I think it might be behind the dishwasher somewhere, which does the cinnamon trick no good. So it looks like borax is my next step.

First a rant about Robin Hood and then an update:

The rant (with lots of spoilers for the season finale which aired last night):

You know, I don't expect much out of Robin Hood. I don't expect historical anything from it and I think it's pretty much the medieval equivalent of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. But... still...

WHAT?!?! That was SO NOT COOL, MAN!!! I'm kinda upset by this. Sure, Marion annoyed me sometimes... Sure, sometimes I wanted the costumers and writers brought up on charges over her character's clothes and some of the things she did/said... but I didn't want her DEAD! SO NOT COOL! *pouts* Honestly, Robin Hood without his Maid Marion? What exactly are we supposed to do with that? It is so not the story... There was at least one more season that they could have dragged out their romance and it didn't ever need to end with her dying.

Also, I liked both Djaque and Will, and I'm very sorry to see that they apparently won't be back. *grrrrrs*

Lately, it seems like a lot of shows have been ticking me off with their season finales. I can't think of any others at the moment that won't be potentially spoilery to some people who might be reading this (and there are several!), but I feel like I've been left disappointed by a lot of tv lately... I know it's just tv, and really, yeah, it's just tv, but it's supposed to entertain, right? Not leave the audience going OH NO THEY DIDN'T!!! with their surprise, irrevocable twists full of what-the-fuckery... And it seems a number of series have done that lately. At least, that's my take...

And here's the update:

I'm staying at the cabin by myself now. My parents have gone back home and I'm staying until after my niece's birthday. I was really scared at night the first several nights, but I'm feeling much better about being here by myself now. It's easier to identify the creaks and groans that the house makes periodically. FYI, new log houses (and possibly log houses in general) make a lot of noise and sometimes are so suddenly loud that you'd think an elephant abruptly landed on the roof and it's getting ready to cave in. This is, apparently, quite normal, as are thumps and creaks in the walls and floor.

I was going to go to Floyd yesterday to go antiquing, but it rained all day with thunder and lightning, so I didn't risk the unfamiliar, twisty mountain roads to get there. And our kitchen has inexplicably been infested with ants. Little (but not tiny) amber colored ants that don't bite. Even though they weren't congregating anywhere in particular in the kitchen, just crawling around all over the floor, cabinets, stove and countertop, I spent all of yesterday afternoon cleaning and sweeping and making sure there is absolutely no food that could be drawing them in. But they're still a few around. Not nearly as many as before though. I didn't know where they were coming from for the longest time, but after dinner I found that they're coming up through a hole in the cabinet under the sink. Today, I'm going to try to find something not full of chemicals and yet effective to kill and/or get rid of them... Suggestions welcome...

Edit: How to make organic ant traps. Awesome!

In other news: I have been knitting up a storm! I've finished two felted bags, two pairs of baby booties, two dishcloths and two hats since I got here. I'm well on my way to finishing another two pairs of baby booties (each ball of Bernat Organic Cotton makes two). I'm also working on a scarf and another hat (both from KnitPicks). I think once I've done all that, if I finish all that, I'll have exhausted the small yarn stash I brought with me... Not sure what I'll do then. maybe move on to sewing projects...