Summer Day

Why I am who I am ... another addition.

Okay so I have told you the cast story and you now have a pretty good picture of just how weird I am and yet you are still here so I have decided to trust you with yet another vignette.
A broken arm was not the only strange with I had as a small child. I also REALLY wanted to have my tonsils out. It seemed SO romantic. You got to stay home from school. You got to eat all the Jello and ice cream you can stand. You also got LOTS and LOTS of attention; this was probably the most important point. Anyway I was desperate to have them out. I begged, I plead, I begged and plead but my mother wouldn't relent. There was no way for me to help things along; I was NOT take my tonsils out crazy.
Anyway after a few months of this my mother and her infinite patience grew weary of my pestering her and she came up with a fool proof plan, she declared tonsillectomy day!  For one day and one day only I could stay home, I could watch day time TV(woo!), I could eat all the ice cream and Jello I could cram into my body. Best of all my mother would stay home with me all day and wait on me hand and foot. It was perfect. Of course there was a catch, my mother was no fool. In exchange for my day of total decadence I had to swear an oath of TOTAL silence. You see you can't talk when you have had your tonsils out, not a word, not a whisper not a peep. Not talking is SO hard for me, it is pretty much impossible.  So in getting to spend of day of quality time being spoiled by my mother I couldn't have so much as a conversation with her. The lesson was a good one. Getting what you want is NOT always a good thing. I think it is an important lesson, really I do. I just wish we had known what a valuable opportunity we had that day. Those opportunities to be alone together, to talk, we wouldn't have very many more of them.
Anyway for what it is worth when I was in the 10th grade I did end up having my tonsils out. I didn't eat Jello or ice cream, I could hardly swallow water. Day time TV sucked. And mom was right, you can't talk when you've had your tonsils out.

Poor kid, she looks so normal.

Funny story...if by funny you mean deeply disturbing.

I know you might find this a bit difficult to believe, but I was a really demented little kid. Really. I mean I am okay with it, I didn't have the most conventional upbringing as I am sure you have managed to piece together. Anyway I did lots of crazy things mostly in an effort to get some attention and this is one of those tales.

I don't know exactly how old I was; we'll call it second grade-ish.  I desperately wanted to break my arm so I could have a cast. I tried everything I could think of; I tossed myself down the stairs, down a steep hill near my house, banged my arm in the kitchen counter repeatedly. Seriously, I needed a shrink. Anyway, I finally had a grand, fail proof plan. One night when my parents were out I went into the kitchen and appropriated the meat tenderizer. Oh yeah I just heard you groan, you figured out where this is going. So yeah, I took the meat tenderizer up to my room and started to wail on my arm. When my mom got home I went to show her that I "hurt my self". What I didn't count on of course is my mother having a brain or the fact that meat tenderizer leaves a very distinct mark. I suppose at this point my mom realized that I needed a little help. She didn't take me to a shrink but she did get me a cast. She brought home all the supplies needed from the hospital and made me a cast in our bathroom. I know it sounds like I just learned that if I take extreme measures I get my own way but the story has an epilogue. My momma was one smart cookie because about 5 hours after the cast went I was bored of it and I wanted it off. But no! She wouldn't take it off!! She made me keep that damned thing on for the whole weekend. Maybe it wasn't 6 weeks but it was so annoying. Lesson learned (maybe!)

Well adjusted cutie pie or prepubescent sociopath? You decide!

Kitchen creativity...

A couple of things to note... My husband and I own a house. You know this. You also know, especially if you also own a home, this means we are in deep deep debt... especially after the crummy year we have been having.
You also know we like food... a lot. SO ... in order to tighten our belts, save a little money and still eat great ... we are going to try cooking at home!! Isn't that novel? Most of the time we are just gonna cook regular old food certainly not worth blogging over but from time to time we are going to experiment, try something new and that I am going to share with YOU! Don't you feel lucky.
Gil wanted to jump right in trying something new with a recipe he found on line for Watermelon juice. It was super duper easy and very yummy.

 

 Start with a nice juicy watermelon. We picked a seedless one because it was easier to strain and you don't have to worry about swallowing bits a pureed seed. 

Scoop out all the pretty pink flesh but avoid the bitter white stuff it is yucky!

You can scoop it into a bowl and work it over with a potato masher first but we opted to just scoop right into the food processor.

 Then you gotta puree crap right out of it!

This becomes....

THIS!

Next up you have to strain it with a thin mesh stainer or a cheese cloth. You don't HAVE to stain it but I do recommend it or it is just too thick. We added half a cup of water but no sugar as we felt the watermelon was juicy enough all on its own. Then we put the pitcher in the fridge and chilled it for a few hours. The result?

Delicious!!!

Home.... still... bored!

So I have been home from work for 7 days now I am going stark raving mad. The first few days I was so drugged up and sleepy I didn't know how bored I was. Now I am on drugs that have me a little more lucid and I can see how awful resting really is.
I'm cranky and I can't seem to find anything else to say.