Susie's Meanderings

Back Trouble

I was lifting a 2 oz saucer out of my dishwasher yesterday when out of the blue my back seized up, and within 30 minutes I was paralyzed with pain, unable to move faster than an excruciating shuffle across the living room. My cat finds this fascinating. He is sure I'm stalking some unseen monster and slinks along at my side, looking up at me every so often to be sure he's on the right track, and usually plants himself squarely in the spot where my next footfall is planned.

Today, after much determined standing on my feet, I became mobile enough to foray out to Target and Walgreens in search of a suitable heating pad. Some perverse devil has stocked both of these stores so that all the back pain remedies are on the lowest shelf, thus anyone with back pain has absolutely no chance of reaching them. I did, with great determination, wrest a heating pad off its shelf, but had to leave behind the intriguing "Icy Hot Velcro Back wrap" since one trip to the lower shelf was all I had in me.

Pushing the Boundaries of Office

At work I'm creating a document with a large number of codes, and I'm indexing it, which leads to a great deal of what the spell checker deems "errors". I have auto-spell check on, because it's boring work, and I make a lot of mistakes. The document is almost 100 pages, and the other day, I reached a new low. A message popped up my screen telling me that I had too many spelling errors for Word to be able to continue tracking them, and if I wanted to spell check, I'd have to go back up to tools and do it manually. Who knew spell check had a capacity. I'll tell you though, I also managed to make a formula in excel so long that it filled up the cell, and I had to distribute it across 3 columns. Each day is more exciting than the last.

Sourdough

Well, the first loaf of bread has already been devoured, and I made the mistake of looking at Cook's Illustrated to see how sourdough should really be made. One would never know that pioneers and gold miners made sourdough successfully every day out on the trail without having a baking stone, an instant read thermometer, a dough scraper, and a refrigerator in which to proof the dough. According to their recipe there's another 48 hours between me and a loaf of bread. Sigh. All I can say is there must have been some hungry miners in the 1800s.
In other news, I rather precipitately signed myself up for a 5 k run two weeks from now. Keep in mind I've been almost totally sedentary for the last 6 months, but today I did manage to run all three miles (very slowly) on the treadmill. I'm not sure I want to do it again any time soon, but all my little insomnia issues should be solved today.

Kitchenaid Delight

I have been wanting a Kitchenaid mixer for years. Finally, they went on sale and I brought one home. I really had been wanting one of the pretty lime green ones (or pink, or orange, or navy blue) but I couldn't see spending the extra $100 for a slightly bigger bowl and 25 extra watts of power. So my sturdy little white mixer sat, completely unused, for two weeks on my counter. I faithfully bought butter for cookies, and used it instead in waffles, but today, finally, it entered active duty. I had a little sourdough left from making pancakes, so out came the dough hook, and a very nice loaf of bread resulted (not very sour, but then the sourdough was only 24 hours old...), I was so delighted with how easy that was that I cranked out a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Between that and dinner, I actually ran out of room in my oven. It was very exciting.

Kitty Names

I've had my cat for well, several months now, and he still doesn't have a name. He was adopted under the name Tomas, which is too hard to say, and is just silly anyway. I've tried on "Killer" and "Sir Kitty no-name", and Nando (which is short for Ferdinand, a loose reference to his love of shoes, because I can't call him Imelda). I refuse to call him "fluffy" or "sleepy" or "grumpy" even though he's all of those things. He occasionally has psychotic episodes and has a real affinity for catnip. So if any of you are inspired, I'm fresh out of name ideas for my cat.

Crock Pot Chili

One of the things I love about my crock pot is that I don't have to soak my dry beans anymore. If I think I might want beans for dinner, I just have to get my measurements right, and hey presto! Dinner when I get home. I'm still struggling with the ratio - last week's jambalaya was a little dry, and this week's chili was a little soupy, but it couldn't have been easier. I have a big vat of dry mixed beans from Costco, a can of tomatoes, water, a little bullion, an onion , a little bacon, and then I just emptied my spice cupboard into the crock pot, and I must say, it turned out remarkably tasty....I've discovered this chipotle chili powder which gives everything an interesting flavor. Later this week - chili dogs and nachos....

Gadget the cat

This is why I love my cat... now he goes so far as to put his paw in to help the paper along....