so what did I do this weekend? Well, Friday I took the day off to get some stuff done that I will need to do in the upcoming months. Mostly I went through my files/folders to pull the 2007 receipts I will need for my taxes which will be coming up in April. I also got a good amount of shopping done, mostly for the dinner I was going to be making for my mom on Sunday. I decided to make a brined turkey breast, along with a order of my smashed potatoes. I got home and did some cleaning and some other stuff.

Saturday, I decided it was a me day. I stayed in all day, and prepped the brine for the turkey breast. My Dad came in, and wanted me to sew a piece of his glove back on, so I pulled the sewing machine from it's corner, and did some quick repairs. After he left, I got the urge to complete the enclosure idea I had for the bottom of my sewing desk so that no oil leaks out, and no dust starts gumming up the works. I spent the next few hours making a mess around the house assembling it. I went to put it on the desk, and realized that since the hole I cut in the desk was off center by ~.25 inches, I didn't have the necessary clearance I needed to put the cover on with the legs. I took the leg off that was crowding it, and in a testament to how much of a loser I am, I was out at 9pm on a Saturday with a grinder taking metal off of the leg. I brought it back indoors, needed more off, went back out, and then it fit. I just need some "L" brackets to stick it on the bottom of the desk with, and to treat the sides of the cover, which are wood, with something to keep any leaking oil from soaking in. I also solved the problem of the low flow out to the barn, so it's a whole lot easier to water the horses again. I went to bed early, because Sunday was just jammed packed.

Sunday I woke up early, got my breakfast on, and started outside. I fed,watered,hayed, and then got ready to go to my Mom's. I had almost everything set aside and organized, and except for a pair of tongs, I didn't forget a thing. Then the Sunday curse kicked in. First, the power switch on my razor broke, which meant I couldn't turn it off. I would have let it run itself down, but that might have over-heated it, so I ended up having to open it, and break off one of the battery contacts to silence it. Now I just have to figure out how to fix it, or get another razor. I loaded up my car with all of my cooking tools and the food, which evoked a nostalgia from happier times, and started off. While on my way, I had to divert to pick up some cranberry sauce, which with just going into the store and buying it took 20 minutes, made me late. I arrived, got the oven ready, rinsed and dried the bird, stuck it with a probe thermo, and threw it in the oven. I admit I mis-judged the time it would take to cook, and made the potatoes too soon, but they were still good. The turkey decided to crawl it's last 15 degrees, but it was finally done. Everyone said it tasted good, but I think it could have used more sugar. I helped clean the bird off, threw that in a bag for the barn wiggles, and sat down to watch the Giants/Green Bay game. Because it was so close, I didn't leave until the game was done, which was like 10:30. I got home, changed into warmer clothes, fed the horses, and came back inside to pretty much crash b/c it was so late. I still have to clean the house and do some dishes, which I may do tonight.

Other than that, nothing much is going on. OK, I should get back to work.


And now, because all of my quotes are on one of my flash drives and I never want to search for it as I write my entries,

Quote For Today:
Scotty: "What do you mean, you're dumping me?"
Fiona: "Scott, I just can't take all the lying and cheating on each other anymore."
Scotty: "What are you talking about? Sweetie, I never cheated on you."
Fiona: "I know. That's what makes this so hard."
Eurotrip, 2004

OK all, I have come up with a final menu for !!!WARNING!!! my visit to Rowan this weekend.!!!WARNING!!!

Main Course
A warm, delicious pot of Chuckwagon Beef Stew. It will feature about 5 lbs of prime chuck meat which I will carve up myself. It will be lightly seasoned to allow the flavors of the meat to come through. In addition to Love, there will also be carrots, peas, onions, potatoes, and of course, dumplings.

Side Dish
There will be two. One will be a serving of buttermilk cornmeal biscuits which I will make myself from scratch. Number two, which was a special request of Danielle, will be a small batch of my homemade smashed potatoes, which will feature a mixture of red skin and russet baking potatoes to encourage a firm, yet creamy texture which will be sure to please the centers of the brain which like to tell us to be pleased.

Dessert
A new item to my repertoire, Skillet Baked Apples. Cored and semi peeled Jonagold apples are filled with a butter/brown sugar mixture and baked in a well seasoned and loved cast iron skillet for 40 minutes. This is so that when dinner is done, the apples have been coaxed into to letting their sweet aromatic fragrance out, and will round off the dinner nicely.

By John A. Morello

OK, my weekend was pretty damn good. After a very hard week emotionally, I was relieved to hear some soothing words from my baby. I took some time off on Friday to go down to Rowan this weekend to make a dinner for her and her roomies. I made her think that I was coming later than I did. So I called her from outside her door and surprised her. I was happy to see her. I said hello to everyone and Kari and I took care of some business and then got back to her room to talk about what we needed to talk about. I laid my cards on the table as did she and I think we're gonna be OK. So I started making the meat sauce and went on till about 11:30. There was a lot of stuff going on in Kari's room and I enjoyed it. Almost made me remember my days in college. Well, the good days.

Saturday morning Magenta went to sleep and two hours later, I woke up. I woke up at about 10:20 so you do the math. I crawled into Kari's bed under the sheets and tried out her new pillows. Sweet. She treated me to breakfast after I showered, and it was pretty good. We went back to her apartment, and went out to look at her "suite"mate, Danielle's, car. It looked like she just blew a hose, but PepBoys told her she needed 1300 dollars worth of repairs. Her Dad decided to get it fixed at a real mechanic and so we went back to raise Magenta from the dead around 1:30. After poking and annoying life back into her, we went to Wal-Mart and I got some wipers I needed and some storage bins for the sauce. We also got some nice Trojan Mint condoms. That's all I have to say about that. We went back to the dorm, and at about 5, I started cooking. To spare the non cooks out there details, we started eating at about 7:20 and everyone seemed happy. I wasn't, but the cook never is. The sauce burned in the bottom of the pan and that is never good. I stuffed too much into the braciole and I had to wrap it tight, which meant it wasn't saucy all the way through. And the garlic bread was a little heavy on the toppings. But everyone enjoyed, and I crashed and watched some tv. Went to bed round 12 and woke up round 9.

Slipped into bed again with Kari and enjoyed the time with her. OMG I almost forgot to mention about how their Seeing Eye Dog, Al, was soooo happy someone was sleeping on the floor with him. He ended up crashing with me both nights and on Saturday night, while I was laying on my stomach, he curled between my legs and just passed out. Kari slowly got me moving and we went back to her house after a DD stop. Their coffee always tastes burnt to me. Spent some more time, watched the game, and went home at about 3 so I would miss traffic and could feed the horses. Got home, found out Huck ripped two bags of cat litter apart. It covered the whole floor of the mud room. I yelled at him and put him out and cleaned it up. Asha was so dumb, she didn't go looking for her food dish that i tucked away so that she wouldn't eat it all rite away. She ate. I let the wiggles out after the horses were fed and they were happy. Did some cleaning around the house cuz I got a 2nd wind and here I am at 12:30. OK, really gotta sleep now. TTYL everyone. Luv ya babe.

Words are amazing things. They seem to be simple. Yet they are complicated. They defy themselves even. the word phonetic isn't spelled like it's said, even though that is the definition of the word. The word big, isn't big. It's only three letter. It's a little word. But the word little, it's twice as big as big even though little is smaller than big. Even the biggest is still not as big as smallest or the littlest

So we've established some properties of words. And here is another thing. Depending on how your mood is, you can take a word, or a group of words (sentence), and interpret it many different ways. If you're hopeful, you can see a sentence and think everything is ok, or at least will be. But look at that same sentence a few minutes or hours later, with a little doubt in your mind, and it takes on an ominous tone. The shade of a single word can change the whole thing and make it seem dark and evil.

Alright, enough for today. I have to figure out my shopping list and try to wrap things up for Friday. I won't be in all weekend, I'll be @ Kari's. I'm making a delicious dinner for her and her Roomies and I must start Friday afternoon for it to be ready for the next day. On the Menu so far is a delicious red sauce which will feature braciole, sweet Italian sausage, a neck bone or two, chopped meat, and some pork loin end. After the sauce has cooked for a few hours and the smell has soaked into the minds of those who will eat it, it will be left to cool overnight to allow the juices to soak back into the meat, making it melt in the mouth. This sauce will be added to some nice cooked pasta which will then have some cheeses folded into it and then baked to make an amazing Baked Ziti. As a appetizer, I will be making a nice baked Garlic Bread loaf or two. I hope it will be enjoyed. OK, anyone need me, just reach out for the celly. I should answer.