this little life of mine

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I'm reading another book off my shelves: There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her neighbour's Baby - Scary Fairy Tales  by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya. And yes, that IS quite a mouthful of a title, but it caught my attention in the bookstore months and months ago, and now I'm finally getting around to reading this colleciton of short stories. And, you know what? They're really, really good! My teaser comes from page 98, which is in the middle of a story called "The Fountain House":

He let the paramedic go. After a brief negotiation with the doctor on duty, money changed hands, and the doctor admitted the girl to the intensive care unit.

I finally got around to printing up some new pictures for my Art Wall. There are shots here from the Coppola Winery from last year's Rehab 2011 Napa Valley Wine Tour, Atascadero Lake and my own backyard. The shots were enhanced in Instagram, dumpr.net and picnik.com. Enjoy!

Award winning wine from uncorked at Oxbow tasting room in Napa, CA.

This evening I whipped up the Ham, Cheese and Broccoli Casserole from the new Clean Eating magazine special Classic Comfort Foods. I picked it because on the surface it looked easy, had just a few ingredients, and sounded delicious. However, when I got down to actually making the casserole, it was a LOT of work! I really should know better than to believe the "hands-on" and "total time" numbers they put on these recipes - it always takes me twice as long to make the stuff!

My hands-on time was at least 1 hour - I mean I had to wash and chop up a head of cauliflower, a couple heads of broccoli and four carrots which had to be finely diced. Then with the cooking, the broccoli and cauliflower is roasted, and the carrots are simmered with evaporated milk then blended with the cheese, then everything is mixed together and baked. Whew! 

Still, in the end, even with the weird carrot/milk/cheese puree-thing, this casserole is delicious!! And, there's plenty of it leftover for Monday as well! I definitely recommend it. I think, however, if I ever make this dish again, I will buy frozen vegetables rather than deal with fresh, to save myself a LOT of time. 

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I started reading Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. (An actual book this time, with paper and stuff, not off my e-reader, Nicky.) I bought this one during my last trip to the used book store along with a couple more Redwall books, before I bought Nicky, and I've been so enamoured with Nicky I haven't picked up any of my "real" books. However, I have several that I need to read and "get off the shelf", and this is one of them. I signed up for this year's Off The Shelf challenge and decided to start with this one. Here's my teaser from page 74: 

Then Frank took a sudden step toward my father. Frank's arms were spread wide, beseechingly, yet his movement was so quick it seemed threatening. 

So, among the many things we did over my four-day weekend (Jiffy Lube both cars, buy groceries for the week, bake cookies, clean up the back yard, and, oh, yeah, watch the Packers *sniff* LOSE!), my mom and I bought a new washer/dryer. Both of the old machines were starting to make funny noises and because they are about 20-plus years old, we decided it was time to replace them before the washer died with a full load of soapy wash and the dryer decided to implode. Also, our local Idler's was having a massive moving sale, so the timing was perfect.

When we pulled the old machines out to clean behind them we discovered both of them still had the labels from the place they were purchased back in my old hometown of Colfax, WA (GO BULLDOGS!!). I wonder if Randy is still in business after all these years?

And, here is our brand spankin' new washer and dryer combo! SO SHINY!!

I love how the new dryer comes with this nifty little pop-out rod where you can quickly and easily hang up freshly dried clothing!

We haven't tried them out yet - mostly because we spent all of Saturday and Sunday washing every possible thing in the house in an attempt to kill the old machines - so we don't know how well they work, but we have very high hopes!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Yay, I am finally able to start reading Cinder by Marissa Meyer! I've been very excited for this book to be published ever since I first heard about it last year, and I pre-orderd it as soon as I was able. I've read everyone else's teasers for this book over the past few weeks, and am finally able to add my own. Enjoy my teaser from page 80 on Nicky the nook:

"Eventualy, Your Highness, we will have to discuss Queen Levana and what you indend to do about her. It would be wise to have a plan."

I'm sure you're wondering why I posted a photo of a boring old house. Well, this is the house where the gentleman who refused to come out back in December lived. It's still being worked on and I'm not sure when it will be habitable again, but the interesting part is that someone wrote a little message on the side of the house. I know it's hard to read, and I tried to blow it up here:

If you still can't make it out, it reads:

This is what a police state looks like. 

Apparently someone is unhappy with the way the entire situation was handled.

I don't know why this short week was so hard. Maybe it's because I went back to Kennedy after two weeks or so without seeing my trainer (ow! ow!), or we were down people at work, or the moon is getting puffy again so all the crazies are coming out, or I blew my eyeball out again (the right one this time, though, not the left like the last two months) so I get to look like a goddamn freak for another two weeks. I don't know. It shouldn't have been bad at all. Sure, I had another birthday, but it was nice and I got a great prezzie which I'll introduce later - oh, heck, it's a new iPhone 4s!! - but, still, it wasn't that bad a week. And yet I'm exhausted, and I'm annoyed at the world.

And, I absolutely cannot WAIT to sit down with a lovely glass of wine tonight!  Cheers!