Two things I learned this weekend.

First, when making pickles, make sure you have a pot large enough to process the resulting jars. Durrr. I have never used pint sized jars before, only smaller ones. So imagine my surprise when they were taller than all my pots, and of course I hadn't borrowed my Mum's Big Pot.

I ALSO learned that making Yorskhire Pudding is harder than it seems. Well, maybe it's not harder than it seems, maybe you just need to pay attention to the recipe before you go slinging flour and egg all over your kitchen and throwing them in the oven. Oh, that part about how it is CRUCIAL to pre-heat the muffin tin, and that your ingredients be at room temperature? Yeah, missed that.

Granola Girl Update!

--After suffering many humiliating cheese-making related defeats, I have a lead on a source of raw milk....which is totally not legal to "purchase" in my part of the world (grr), but nothing to stop someone from giving me some as a gift. And then maybe I will give them some cash as a totally unrelated reciprocal gift.

(Okay, the Grammar Girl in me is cringing over the oxymoron "unrelated reciprocal")

--Two days ago I started some cat grass seeds on the kitchen counter. Then tonight I started some radish seeds in a jar, looking to eat yummy sprouts in about a week.

--Then I saw Husbandly One's eye start to twitch, as he realizes I am "cluttering up" the counter with my mid-life crisis. Sheesh, relax already. After all, I'm just getting started, hee hee.

--I bought some white wine vinegar a few days ago, and depending on how my weekend goes, I may pickle some carrots this weekend. Yes, I know pickling carrots from the grocery store in March is weird, but this is part of a long term plan. As mentioned, Husbandly One longs for the pickles of his native Portugal. Well, I think I have found a good recipe for these....but they have to sit for eight weeks before eating them. So I figure if I make them now, he will try them sometime in May....early enough to potentially tell me if I got it wrong and still allow me to try a second recipe before our own carrots need processing.

(Sometimes I AM capable of thinking ahead, you see.)

--If any of you have tried (or are thinking about trying) the homemade laundry soap, I have a new warning: do NOT use it in conjunction with bleach. Why? I have no idea, but I assume there is a chemical reason for this.

--Actually, I better go and update my old post on the topic to include this info. Ciao!

See, THIS is why I can't be a "girl"

Had a girl's night out with the ladies from my office tonight. We went for a drink and nibblies, and then off to the spa. Well, actually off to an aesthetics school; these ladies are nearing graduation and offer heavily discounted prices on the procedures so they can get more practice. I will tell you right off the bat that I really enjoyed it; I had some kind of super detoxy blah blah blah facial, it was relaxing, it felt great, my skin feels like a baby's butt, and it was dirt cheap.

On the table next to me, on the other side of the discreet curtain, was a lady I don't have much in common with. You know what, this is my blog, so I'll just spell it out: I think the woman is a complete airhead. But she was trying to chat with me so I figured I could just make some mindless chatter and then she would leave me alone with my lovely facial.

Unexpectedly, she asked me if I was still happy with my homemade laundry soap (I am). This turned in to a whole enviro tangent that frankly floored me. She was asking me what I believe, what I want....and, even knowing that every single person I work with could hear me, I found myself telling this airhead my ambitions of chickens and hogs, of fertile gardens, of sustainability, of living simply.

Then she hauls off and says, "Did I tell you I started my own business? I am a rep for Majorly Expensive Cosmetics. What I love about them is that their products are made from 'botanicals' and the seven step cleansing system is only $400 and it lasts a long time."

(Here's the proof that I can't do this whole "girl" thing.)

I basically replied that while I wish her well, and once received a sample of the seven step process as a gift and agree that it was lovely, spending $400 on a seven step cleansing process doesn't fit in with my desire to live simply, nor does the time involved in a seven step process, that even if it did I could never justify the expense, and what is so wrong with looking my age ANYWAY, and if it hadn't been for this organized outing I would probably never have had another facial for as long as I live, and I figure plain old soap is good enough for me.

And that's when I realized my esthetician, who hopes to spend her live selling such clap trap, was listening. As was every esthetician in the room. As were all my co-workers.

If my back wasn't still so bad, I probably could have gotten my actual foot in my mouth. That's all that prevented it.

Nobody talked to me much after that.

At the end of my facial, my poor affronted esthetician tried to fix my hair with her fingers before I got up. I told her she didn't need to do that, I was good....then I stood up and saw my dishevelled self in the mirror. I snorted, "Omigod, I totally have sex hair!"

My co-workers near me giggled, and I heard one of them further away ask, "What did Irma say?"

"I SAID THE FACIAL TOTALLY GAVE ME SEX HAIR."

I heard shocked gasps from across the room, and my cosmetic selling coworker hissed, "Irma, there are other clients in the room besides us!!!"

Ugh.

Now everybody hates me. Even people I don't know.

Okay

I'm done being hysterically angry Wifely One now.

Although most of the people at work commented on my hair today. You know, people who don't actually spend almost 24 hours a day with me. Or wake up each morning of their lives looking at my hair.

Tongue in cheek, people, tongue in cheek. Boys are so blind sometimes. Oh well, it's just one more way he makes me laugh.

They are so closely related

Hate and love.

I love my Husbandly one with all my heart, I love how he takes care of me, protects me.

I hate that, two hours ago, I dyed my hair after six months of no intervention, and dyed it a whole different colour, and he has no idea. None.

I love how, when his back was on the fritz, I used to get on my knees in front of him, to put his socks and underwear on his body, because he couldn't do it himself. I was giving my everything to my man, and it made my heart sing.

I hate that, now that I can barely walk, I get to hear about how he feels about our dirty house, I get to listen to him slam things around in the dirty kitchen.

Yeah, I am farking bitter tonight, does it SHOW?

Network News, and why it sucks

I am a Canadian living in Canada, but we see more than our fair share of CNN in this house. Most of it is drivel, but we keep watching because, if something Is Really Happening Right Now, it's still the best place to turn.

(I used to enjoy Lou Dobbs, now he makes me stabby. Whatever, different post. But Anderson Cooper is still my dreamy, secretly gay boyfriend. TOTALLY different post.)

We do try to watch Canada's national news network, as well, mind you. But it makes me even angrier and more inclined to stick a pen in my own eye. Case in point: they just spoke to some fashion chick for, I swear, 10 minutes, about what the recession will do to fashion and the decisions people make.

Expert Chick didn't talk about buying trends, didn't discuss the way the ecomony will change the way we look at luxury items. No, after ten minutes all I got was, "Now, don't quote me, hee hee, but I think, hee hee, we will see a real resurgence in longer skirts, hee hee. That will be, hee hee, the trend to watch." Smug smile of the wise.

Listen, I don't work in fashion and I don't BUY fashion, but even I know that for the last hundred years, it has been a statistical fact that hemlines get longer whenever the economy tanks. This is not news, this is something you can read in Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

Is it NEWS? I think not...

What fresh hell is this?

I'm not going to bore you with details, but I have blown out my back. I have zero idea how I did it, mind you, but the simple truth of the matter is that for the first time in my life? I get it, and I whole heartedly agree that lower back pain is, in fact, about the worst pain I have ever endured. Even childbirth only lasted a day, you know?

I am only two days in to this particular experience, and I have already had enough. I can't sit for long, and I certainly can't lie down. A good friend recommended an over the counter pain killer / muscle relaxant, which I began taking this morning. Seems to help, so I made a point of taking one before I went to bed tonight. Oh, and I should point out that this drug warns it may make you drowsy.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Friends and neighbours, it is currently 4 am and I have never been as awake as I am at this moment. I haven't had a minute's sleep yet tonight, and I have to be at work in four hours. Which is probably when I will start feeling sleepy.

I have already given up on my workday; I will go in, do what absolutely can't wait, and then plan to be home again by 10 am at the latest so I can get some sleep. Really looking forward to using another sick day (it'll be my FOURTH in 2009 so far!!) but I really don't see a way arounf it.

Oh, and ever since the back spasms started two days ago, the thought that has been screaming through my head on Continuous Play is: But I have to walk across Spain this fall! But I have to walk across Spain this fall! But I have....