the annie blog

Here I am, totally in the mood to cook, and Mark’s not hungry. I think I may make it anyway in an hour or so. But if he refuses to eat it, the what’s the bother making it. He only had Taco Bell for lunch – not like he was at a buffet or anything. I mean, your wife wants to cook for you – do you know how many people would love that? But, I guess he just wants a sandwich. boo-hoo

I need to finish house work tonight. Finish laundry and clean the kitchen. Make a new batch of iced tea for the week. Give myself a pedicure, and check on my online class to see if I have anything messages to reply to. Not bad – easy little list.

I have two meetings on campus tomorrow – I suppose I should always dress up for them, but because I’m usually the only one not really working – I just show up in shorts and stuff. I’m not working people! I think some people look at me, but hey, it’s summer vacation, I only have a nine month contract, and I am called in for a meeting. I think summer clothes are fine. I wouldn’t freak out if someone walked into a meeting in shorts when they weren’t working. I would kind of expect it.

I think we’re supposed to get storms tonight. It looks all dark one minute, then the next it’s all sunny. But the radar says it’s on it’s way – all comin’ in from Wichita. At least it won’t hit us till even later tonight. I like sleeping during storms.

Everyone have a good week!

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1] What’s the most decadent, indulgent, and delicious dessert that you’ve ever tried?
My mom used to make these chocolate mousse crepe. They were the best. It was a chocolate crepe filled with chocolate mousse, but the mousse was thicker and heavier than a regular mousse. Then the filled crepes went in the fridge to set. When you ate them you topped then with whipped cream and this hot chocolate sauce – I don’t know what it was – it was runny, very dark, and very sweet. You could only eat one because the mousse stuff was so rich. But, if I remember correctly, the mousse was made with raw eggs?? I think??? I don’t know…

2] Which candies/treats did you enjoy most when you were a child?
I like Necco’s, pixie sticks, candy cigarettes, gummi bears, spree’s, bubble gum, sixlets, blow-pops. Mostly fruity stuff.

3] If you could invent a brand-new ice cream flavor ~ one that nobody has ever tried ~ what would it be?
Something hot fudge. Sonic makes a hot fudge shake. Unreal! It tastes like you’re sucking hot fudge through the straw. I love it – I was skeptical at first though. I would want something that tastes like hot fudge with chocolate chunks and almonds in it.

4] Which is best, in your opinion: white chocolate, milk chocolate, semisweet chocolate, dark chocolate, or no chocolate at all?
Here’s the deal. I used to be a white chocolate freak in high school. I think I liked it because it was different. But it got old to me. I rarely eat milk chocolate. Semi-sweet is awesome in cookies, and dark is good just plain. Wanna know a great way to eat dark chocolate??? Take a square – like from a Special Dark bar – and put in the microwave for just a few seconds. You want it to soften, but not lose its shape. Then you get another bowl full of whipped cream – the stuff from the tub works better than the stuff from the can. I keep stirring the melted chocolate so it doesn’t harden up, but it’s gotta be cool – that’s key in this little concoction. When the chocolate is cool, stir the two together. My God in Heaven – it’s awesome! If you don’t let the chocolate cool, it’ll clump up when it’s mixed with the whipped cream.

5] Do you have a favorite cookie? What is it? [If you have the recipe, feel free to share it with us if you are so inclined!
I like chocolate chip cookies, but my way only! I always add more chocolate chips – about half of what the recipe calls for in the first place. Only semi-sweet. Then I don’t bake them all way till they’re hard and brown. Mine come out still soft. I remove them from the sheet right away so they stop cooking. I place them on a cooling rack. This way, no matter when you eat the cookies, the chocolate is still all ooey and gooey!

Thanks for reading this week’s edition of The Friday Forum.

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I can’t let this day get away without a post. I guess I’ve been busy. I have actually. I’ve been doing work stuff since 1:00, and stopped for lunch. I’m done now for the night. Enough work I say.

We are going to check out movie times and stuff for tomorrow, we aren’t sure what we want to see, we’ll see what there is, and what fits into our time frame.

Oh, I had Chicken Cordon Blue for dinner. One of my faves. But this was not so yummy. Very odd. They took a the piece of chicken was fried, like in Southern Fried chicken. It just didn’t seem right. Plus, the ham was a smoked ham with lots of smokey flavoring. Not right either. Then they poured this sauce on the top. I have no idea what it was. It looks like they tried to make their own Hollandaise or Bernaise sauce. It was buttery, but THICK. The butter tasted like butter flavoring though. ICK. I couldn’t finish it. Then I had the twice baked potato with it. Not good either. I adore twice baked taters too! This was obviously from a box. I don’t even know if the potatoes were real or fake. It had lots of cheese and bacon mixed in. Almost too much bacon. The potato shell part was perfectly formed – I think these are manufactured potatoes or something. So, I had a so-so dining experience tonight. But, I did come home and have coffee and O*reos! Yum.

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was lazy this morning, but I did a lot of stuff this afternoon. I went to the post office, dropped off the electric bill payment, bought a ring! Yes, I picked one out. I’ll post pictures later, I promise. I came home and cleaned our front porch, it was dusty and full of cobwebs. I then made pasta salad so it can cool down before dinner tonight. Then I put some old photos away. Called in a prescription. Paid some bills, and now I’m done.

Mark is doing dinner tonight. He is grilling bratwursts. He is 100% Polish, and grew up in a Polish area of Milwaukee (Ok, which area of Milwaukee is NOT Polish), so he has a passion for brats. He piles his with red onion and lots of mustard. I make mine with sauerkraut and mustard. MMMMM! We’ll have pasta salad to go along with them. Not a bad dinner.

We just got season two of Curb Your Enthusiasm from Net*flix today. So, I hope we get to watch all of those. They crack me up.

Tomorrow I have to be on campus for a couple reasons. I have a meeting to interview Presidential candidate number 5 – we only have 7, so the end is near. Then there’s this program on campus for kids during the summer that Mark runs. One of the classes has it’s “final” tomorrow – they”re presenting a play. So, I’m going to watch that. Not sure about dinner tomorrow night – we’ll have to see what we feel like. The best thing to do would be to figure it out tonight – but it’s slim pickin’s around here right now. I haven’t been grocery shopping in awhile – oops. Oh well, there’s always cereal.

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I was ring shopping this afternoon. I am looking for a sapphire ring in white gold. Something small. With or without diamonds on the side. I don’t know. I went to two jewelry stores. The first one is known to be pricey – I found a couple rings for $129 or $199. Then I went to the other shop and the same types of rings were $230 to $385. WTFO? That’s a huge difference. So, I am probably going to the first shop and check them out again. Plus, I am going to tell people that this first store is not the expensive jewelry store like people say. I may go back tomorrow and re-look. Why am I doing this? When I got my Professor of the Year award, part of my gifts was gift certificates for some shops in our town. So, I have a little bit of money to spend on myself. I’ve been thinking about what to do with it, and last night Mark convinced me to go look at jewelry. I want a sapphire because it’s my birthstone. Spheres are pretty in white gold and silver.

For the rest of the afternoon I have some little odds and ends to do around here. I made a list and I’m slowly checking it off.

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I had to be on campus again today. More interviews for a President. I am feeling a little more energetic than I was on Sunday. Sunday was a nap-fest for me.

Tonight I need to do something. I should probably work on my writing and then read. I got the most recent edition of Poets and Writers magazine. So that could take up a good part of my night. Why do I feel an early bedtime coming on? Wouldn’t it be lovely to cuddle up with the kitty and have it all nice and cool in the room?

I made chicken and dumplings tonight – quick version. It wasn’t bad. Filling. Tomorrow I’m making calzones. My summer of recipes has been kind of disappointing. I haven’t found anything that’s absolutely a keeper. The thing is, during the schoolyear, I do not have time to cook. I need quick meals. The things I’m doing this summer sometimes involve more time than I would have during the school year. Plus, Mark is very picky. I think on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the pickiest – Mark is probably a 7 1/2. I am a zero. I eat anything. I have a theory on that though.

I am the oldest, and growing up my parents let me eat anything for dinner. Say, for example, she would serve liver and onions. The rule was I had to taste it – one bite, then I could have whatever I wanted. But, I had to make it. So, I would usually have PB&J or cereal. But, if I didn’t feel like making anything, I would just eat the food on my plate, even if it was liver and onions. My parents talked to me like an adult and explained where the food came from, what it tasted like, and why. I remember I was afraid of beets, and we spent a good portion of the dinner discussing root vegetables and what they taste like, how they’re grown, how they are prepared. And I ended up tasting them – and I love them. Some of it was they would take a bite, then give their analysis of the taste, and they would then expect me to do the same. So, to feel like a grown-up, I would taste it and then give my analysis too. It worked. I eat everything.

Mark was forced to sit at the table until the plate was clean. Even until the wee hours of the night. Poor guy. Oh well, I still love him even if he is a picky little eater.

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I’ve been feeling kind of disjointed lately. A little out of whack. Not sure why. I could probably spend the next few weeks sleeping. That’s a problem, wouldn’t you say? I’m fine once I get going, but it takes awhile to get me going. I have been a couch potato the past few days. I hate it though. Then I feel all guilty and icky for being lazy, then I get all down on myself, then I get sad and want to do nothing but sit. I have tried to solve all this by napping, but that doesn’t do much either – it just makes me feel guilty for wasting time. Mark says it’s ok to be this way once in awhile, especially because I’m on vacation, but I don’t know…

And, today is father’s day. I have to call my dad this afternoon some time. It’s been ages since we’ve actually talked on the phone. His birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and I just left a message – so I suppose it would be good to actually talk this time.

We, of course, don’t celebrate mother’s day or father’s day. We don’t even talk about it.

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have been slacking off on some of my work this week – cleaning, reading, writing, and homework all have suffered because I’ve been lazy and been knitting more than usual. Once in awhile it’s ok to do that though. I still feel guilty here and there about it. I will allow myself time to be lazy, but I feel guilty sometimes about it. I have been overly tired this whole week – it’s that time, so it must be because of that – sometimes it just kicks my butt.

The weather is awesome today – the windows are open, and I want to sit out in the porch and do something. I’ve got laundry going right now, I’ve cleaned the kitchen, and am thinking about snoozing for a little bit. Then getting up and finishing laundry and hanging out in porch for awhile. I don’t know, I may end up doing nothing but surfing, who knows. I am very lethargic – can you tell?

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Here is today’s Friday Forum:

1) Are you taking a summer vacation this year? If so, where are you heading? If you already went on vacation, where did you go?
We will be taking our vacation in August to celebrate our anniversary. We will go to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We’ve never been to Arkansas, and it’s supposed to be such a fun little quaint place. Lots of touristy stuff, lots of shops, tons of B&B’s, lakes, outdoor stuff – perfect for us.

2) Planes, trains, or automobiles…what is your preferred mode of transportation to get to your vacation get-away?
My preferred mode would be a plane – However, my hubby despises flying. So that means we drive everywhere. But, I don’t like to be the car forever, so we usually keep it close because of that.

3) Any vacation locales you would recommend for those looking for ideas?
Of course, perhaps because I’m from there (hee-hee), I think Kansas City, MO is one of the best places ever. I always love going back – there is so much to do. We often say that if a dream job opened up in KC we would go back in a heartbeat. I also think Lawrence, Kansas is a fun place to be. If you’ve ever been you’ll know what I mean. It’s so cool. When we go we stay at the Eldridge. Right smack dab in the middle of things. I also love going to Dallas. That is so much fun – talk about stuff to do! But I do love going to Chicago. It helps that we know a lot of people up there. That would be fun to catch up with people too!

4) What US city/state have you never been to but would love to visit?
My traveling experience leaves plenty of room for desire – so I would love to get to NY some day.

5) What international city/country have you never been to but would love to visit?
Well, like I said, I have not traveled much at all. I have never seen an ocean, so a big body of water would be awesome. I would like to go to Greece, England, France, Germany, Canada, Norway, and Italy. But I’d go any where actually! I just wish we could fly places. Then I’d get to see more of the world.

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