Pop pop!

No, that is not a reference to Community...;)


I made scones last night! I was a little creative with them, and I just love it when I can do that. I'm usually too nervous to make up dishes on my own, so even just fudging things a little makes me excited. I started with this:

I wish I could take credit for the fluffy nature of these scones, but I'm sure it was all the mix. One of my goals is to learn how to work with dough so as to create light and fluffy things - cookies, scones, brownies, etc.

Then I looked at this:

I've never made anything out of this cookbook but that is another goal. Looking at this recipe, I discovered I had both lemons and blueberries. Yay!  So I mostly followed the recipe on the back of the mix box and just added the lemon zest and blueberries from this recipe, as well as the sugar I sprinkled on top. It's from this cookbook, if you're curious:

If you're interested, let me know and I can send you the full recipe, I know you can't see it in that first picture. And here is the finished result! (I know it's not the prettiest picture)

And the best part is that since the blueberries were fresh, they just pop in your mouth. :)

Blender Contest

Hi! So, Mark and I are planning on moving sometime soon. Therefore, we are starting to purge. Consequently, I finally completed the Great Blender Showdown.

An Osterizer that's probably at least 20 years old, and a Cuisinart SmartPower Duet Blender/Food Processor.

Cue music:

I took a picture of the ingredients but it came out too blurry to post, so I will just list them:

Vodka (it was actually my dad's idea to add rum, but we didn't have any.  it is now on the shopping list.)

Strawberries

Bananas

Blueberries

Raspberries

Apple juice

Club soda

Ice (key!  according to my dad)

So, after combining and blending...(there was not much science involved - they have different settings so I just tried to use the highest ones on each, to crush the ice)

the winner is...

The Osterizer!!!

Who'da thunk it?  The Cuisinart was fairly expensive and I was excited about buying it.  Turns out Mark's good ol' Osterizer takes care of chunks better than the Cuisinart.  I've always had problems with the Cuisinart not being that good at crushing ice and things like that.  This time it managed the ice, but missed a couple of chunks of banana. What good is that??  There were no chunks left in the Osterizer.  Plus the Cuisinart has this weird leak...yeah, it's time to go.  I'm glad I tested before assuming the newer one was the better one.

Mission accomplished!

Update on Bowie

Hi!  So remember that dog I rescued?  Mark named her Bowie because she has one brown eye and one blue eye.  Well, I just wanted to post an update about her since she is in a wonderful place now.  Some people visited the group that's taking care of her and included her in a blog entry.  This is from back just a few days after they got her, so about a month ago, and I hear from Donna, one of the directors, that she looks much better now.  Mark and I are going to go visit her this Saturday.  I'm excited!


Here's the blog entry:
http://networkedblogs.com/q8kKU

I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.  :)

To remember

So there's this great website called Fab that y'all should go to, in first place - in the second place, I'm seeing online stores on there right now that I need to save!  So this entry is going to be my list of stores and products that I want to remember for future needs.  They aren't things I need right now but they just seem wonderful, so I want to save them just in case.


First:
http://www.ecolutionhome.com/

Second:
http://www.knockknock.biz/

Third:

http://www.whiteyboard.com/



So cool!!!

So Mark went to DesignerCon yesterday, and he met someone who's a bit famous.  Especially in that world, but also in the wider world, lately!  He is the Sucklord, featured on the second season of Work of Art.  Look what he made for me!

I was so excited to see it!!  What a cool thing!  I love you, sugar pie!  (Mark, not the Sucklord.  Although he's cool too.)

Also, I'm watching a Foxy Brown movie right now (isn't there more than one?  if not, I'm just watching the one) on TV and it's AWESOME.  70s cheese at its finest.  She is currently driving a two-seater prop plane around a field running guys over.  Go Foxy!!!

Alice

Oh my god, FINALLY Alice played a new song.  I swear, they've ruined Pink, Adele, and Foster the People for me.  Apparently the new song I just heard was "Not Over You" by Gavin DeGraw, which I enjoyed.



Why do I still listen to them if they play the same things over and over again?  (seriously, I think they have, like, a 10-song loop) Because I like their morning show.  I don't really listen to them any other time.  And they feel the need to throw some music into their morning show every so often.  And they are on the pre-sets in my car, so I flip through them sometimes, but usually end up switching because they're playing One Republic for the 253569th time.

Good job on playing a new song, Alice!

Bishop Ranch, San Ramon

Lily and I had a small adventure this evening.  We went on a hike at the Bishop Ranch Regional Open Space Preserve (why do they have to give these places such long names??).  It was pretty...and very steep.  Pictures!

Beginning of hike

Middle of hike:

And end of hike...

Cows!

So that's where all that cow poop along the path was coming from...

Lily: "omg what are these things"

"MUST BARK AT THEM"

She had a moment with this cow.

This isn't the best quality picture but I wanted to show her running to bark at the next batch of cows.

Seriously, aren't cows awesome?  They just stood there and looked at her like, "wtf?"  At one point a couple started trotting towards her and I started thinking things like, "what if she freaks them out?  what if she gets kicked?"  but it all turned out fine.  I imagine they've been barked at before, they graze on park land where people can let their dogs off-leash.

And she exhausted herself.  I swear, solid barking for probably a good five minutes.  And lots of running.

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