CAUTION: Woman In Progress

I haven't seen the movie, but I love that bleh, bleh-bleh part of that, what was it...Hotel Transylvania? The one about Dracula and his daughter? Animated film. Anyway, I now go around saying "bleh, bleh-bleh" a lot. Mostly when I'm alone because everyone already thinks I'm weird without that added to my "resume." haha Anyway, the point of this post is to say that this week is turning out to be a nightmare. Interviews, meetings, projects, etc. No time for a weekend review which I hate because this past weekend was wicked busy with lots of photos and stories! Tomorrow and Friday aren't looking good, either. So. You may get two weekend reviews next week! haha Oh! And HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! :-)

Ya'll know I'm not much of a sweet tater girl. More often than not, sweet potatoes taste like feet, to me. Or what I imagine feet would taste like, anyway. But I do love sweet potato casserole and I've been known to take out a slice of sweet potato pie when offered. Also, you recall my recent experience with roasted sweet potatoes with peanut butter and maple syrup. So obviously, I don't HATE the things. I just need to tweek 'em to make 'em palatable. Enter Heather's Dish  and her recipe for sweet potato bread. Yes. Bread. Like banana bread except with sweet potatoes. So. I printed it out and immediately thought, huh. I can tweak this. It'll be a Sweet Potato PIE bread. Or, a Sweet Potato CASSEROLE bread.  The original recipe just seemed to be too much plain feet tasting sweet potatoes. It took me a couple weeks to get around to it because, well, I had other things to do. Like record and watch five hours of my favorite HGTV shows. And have Vampir...

So. I'm sorta thinkin' maybe I want to paint my kitchen cabinets. Actually, I'd rather someone else paint my kitchen cabinets. Or heck, since I'm dreaming, I'd really like NEW kitchen cabinets. Or a complete kitchen renovation that would enlarge it a bit. But since it's just me, myself and Libby who'd be doing the work and since we have no real monies to do it, I think I maybe want to paint my kitchen cabinets. They're not hideous or anything. I'm just maybe a little sick of them? And maybe a little jealous of people who have very stylish kitchens? What I'm thinking of doing (and the colors I'm thinking about) is probably not going to be a very popular decision in the land of Jana. My family can be a little weird about stuff. Like when I painted the paneling my family was split on their feelings about it--some very passionately against painting it. Being a rebel with specific taste I went ahead and painted and nobody told me it w...

I think my student assistant just told me that he is surprised that I've actually been working . Not sure how I feel about that. :-D I DO actually work when at work, FYI. Usually . Just sometimes some projects get put on the back burner because of reasons and some of the tasks I really dislike doing *cough*reading newspapers*cough* get sort of a little not done as quickly as it could be. Even doing it daily, sometimes, yeah, I drag my feet on the newspapers in favor of other things. What he REALLY probably meant was, "Thank you for giving ME more work to do" (sarcastically of course) since my recent dedication to getting those stupid newspapers read and checked directly co-relates to him having more newspapers to clip, photocopy, label and file which means HE has less time to goof off. I was an evil genius and didn't even know it. haha I was merely trying to get a leg up on cleaning out the newspaper closet since those dag-blasted things multiply like rabbit...

I've been sort of walking a bit this week. Not Denise Austin style, but rather, you know, walking. Started last week, actually. Just a little stroll around and behind the drill field. This week, though, I brought some actual walking shoes to wear instead of my flip flops. At first, I felt a little self conscious walking around in my dress slacks and beat up hand-me-down New Balance. But then my feet were so happy I decided I didn't care. I don't think I'm getting a whole lot of what most people would define as exercise. I doubt my route is even half a mile and my pace is rather slow. But I'm out there anyway, plodding along in the warm Autumn sunshine. It feels good just to get out and move after so long cooped up avoiding any melting sensations. And while my knees are still not really on good terms with me yet, they are not unhappy to be up and gently moving. Though there were some nasty words exchanged the three or so times I took the stairs the other day. :-...

Today's Lesson: When God tells you to walk a little bit further and go in the front door of your building instead of the door you're headed to, LISTEN TO HIM. Because if you don't--if you ignore Him--inevitably, you're going to walk right into one of the people you wanted to avoid on your afternoon stroll. *face palm* I can almost hear Him laughing at me right now.

Soooooo...Friday night Mama declared it to be Wendy's night. I'm not sure what's up with her current Friday night fast food thing but I'm not going to argue. I probably should , since neither us--nor Daddy--need to indulge, but I'm enjoying it too much. After years and years and YEARS of rarely ever eating "out" I'm getting a little spoiled. And loving it. Have I mentioned that even $0.97 hamburgers were a treat when I was a kid? A treat as in, we maybe got to eat one twice a year? Just plain pickles and ketchup single patty burgers from McD's. We didn't have a Wendy's (or anything, really) until I was a teenager. So as an adult? It still feels completely indulgent to get a burger or a chicken sandwhich that I didn't have to cook myself. Also, I'm so glad Wendy's introduced the "son of baconater" burger. It's all the love of a baconater with half the guilt.  Bacon+me= True love, in case you didn't know. ...

Okay ya'll. Go read this and then come back for my comments on it. Because I would never actually LEAVE a comment on her actual BLOG that was less than flattering because, hello. I'm a nice girl. So I'm going to bash this recipe behind her back. Because that's much nicer than harshing on it to her face and A) hurting her feelings and B) getting completely flamed by her loyal followers/fans who all want to marry her. Let me get this outta the way, first. I love Jess and How Sweet It Is. I really, truly do. She's, like, HILARIOUS and brilliant in the kitchen...usually and if not for this one thing we would probably be, like, BFF's in real life if we ever actually met. I read her blog every day because it, like, sweetens my soul. Or something. That's why I can't ever bash any of her recipe's on her blog because I respect her and wouldn't want to hurt her feelings. But...this has to be said somewhere because this sort of insanity is all over ...

I admit, I was sort of dubious about watching it because, honestly, the original is like my absolute favorite movie of all time. I've watched it enough times that I can pretty much recite the dialog with the actors. I mean, I can literally picture the entire movie in my head from memory. And can recall the exact inflection of their TONES and facial expressions during the dialog of each scene. I'm not even ashamed to admit that I still cry with Sally Field during the funeral scene, ya'll.  So an "updated" version on Lifetime? Meh. Not terribly excited about it. But I was curious to see what they did with it. PLUS, I was intrigued by the fact that it had an all African-American cast with some of my favorite AA actresses. Queen Latifa as M'Lynn. Phylicia Rashad as Clariee. Alfre Woodard as Ouiser. Jill Scott as Truvy. The two younger actresses, I didn't recognize although Phylicia Rashad's daughter played Shelby. I got that from the website . Fi...

Imagine that. Me. Lazy. Bet you'd have never guessed I could behave in such a manner. *snort* Whatevs. I took it really easy this weekend. After the busy-ness of last weekend followed by the body trauma (ugh) I was really wrung out by Saturday. Last week was just a total blah of blahness. After work Friday, Mama and I met up with Sis2 to deliver some maroon and white pom poms. Our little college town was having a harvest/halloween kiddie festival downtown and Lyssa was going as a cheerleader but she only had one pom. Nana to the rescue! And since our evening was already running late, we decided to stop at...wait for it...Sonic for supper. I went home with a big beefy, cheesy, bacon-y cheeseburger and made it with it like a starving girl. YUM. I know, I know. Whatever. I'm not sure what I did after that except for Haven on Syfy at 9pm. I can't miss my Nate , donchaknow. Saturday I slept in till *gasp* 6:45am when I finally dragged my tired butt outta bed and...

Eleven years old and this homemade wreath is still going strong. :)

No real point to today's post. It's a rambler. Enjoy! So. I'm thinking about writing a little editorial piece to put in the university's newspaper. A little ditty about MANNERS and HOSPITALITY. Seriously. Did no one teach half these kids about the common courtesy of checking behind you as you walk out of door to make sure no one's behind you and that if there IS someone behind you, you, I dunno, HOLD IT FOR THEM? Is that hard? Does not everyone in the world learn that little piece of 411 from infancy? Or is it just a few select old school southerners who cling to such a courtesy? You guessed it. I nearly got creamed by a door swinging shut while both my hands were full. I was leaving the coffee shop behind this student who breezed through the door ahead of me and let it swing shut behind him. Had I not thrust one of my ample hips out to catch it I'd be wearing my coffee right now. Even the person who was behind me was kind enough to rush up to catch the do...

So. Friday night was Chick-fil-A supper (I had a coupon for a free sandwich) and a Vampire Diaries Season 3, disc 2 marathon. Actually, I only watched three of the five episodes because I had to watch Haven at nine on Syfy. ;-) But then I dozed off and missed half of Haven . I hate it when I do that. But you know me. Past 9pm I'm no good to anybody. I should have just recorded it and went to bed. Saturday morning I got up even earlier than usual to go to town for groceries. Sis2 and her family were coming out to the country for the day and she'd said they'd be there early. I made it home by 7:30 but then decided to make the banana bread I'd promised Sis2 and that took an hour and a half. I guess I should have made muffins instead of bread. Muffins bake up faster. So that put me getting to the folks around 10am anyway. Sis2 and the kids had been there since 8:30. Not that anyone bothered to call and tell me that. The day with the family was mostly fun. I played w...

Week has been long and frustratingly slow. Except for Tuesday when I was off with Sis2 and Efan and had loads of fun. That went by way too fast. I did finally get all full up yesterday. After I hit send on my post I went back to Chick-fil-A with "the girls" and got a milkshake. That seemed to do the trick. In fact, it did the trick so well that I didn't want to eat supper. But I had to. Sis1 was cooking at the folks' house and she'd have gotten her feelings hurt if I didn't eat what she offered. So I ate a moderately sized portion of spaghetti and meatballs, salad and garlic toast. Bleh. I thought I was going to puke after. Not because it wasn't good, just because I was so miserably full. Instead of puking, I sprawled out on their couch and watched something on RFDTV with them while Sis1 talked on the phone for an hour. *rolls eyes* Did you know that there is such a thing as RFDTV? You know what RFD is, right? Like, rural hokey stuff. And there is an...

I don't know what, exactly, is up with me today. I've been hungry all dag-gum day. I ate a normal breakfast (a sausage egg and cheese Hot Pocket--I know. It sounds awful. BUT...only 180 calories.) Then, because I knew I'd be in meetings all morning, I ate a 100 calorie Special K crisp bar thing around 8:20am and took some iced coffee to my first (looooooooong) meeting at 8:30. About halfway through that 3 hour meeting, my tummy started growling. Ya'll. It is soooooo embarrassing to be sitting in a room full of faculty and have them all bear witness to your super loud hungry stomach. *facepalm* So in the thirty minutes between that meeting and the next, I scarfed another Special K crisp thing. Unbelievably was hungry AGAIN by the time I got out of THAT meeting 45 minutes later. So. I trekked across the drill field to the union's Chick-fil-A and got a chicken sandwich and some waffle fries. While I did actually bring my lunch, I was afraid that if I just ate the tu...

Not for me, silly. My birthday's in March. No. This is the story of what I made Sis2 for HER birthday. Yeah, her b-day was yesterday. While I did give her a couple of small "happies" yesterday, her REAL gift will make its way into her hands on Saturday during her birthday "party." For a long while now she's been harassing me for a lot of the recipes for things I've brought to various family functions and such. I'm always, "Yeah, I'll get that to you" but then somehow I never do. I'm forgetful, mostly. So with that in mind, I decided to give her a cookbook for her birthday. But not just ANY cookbook. MY cookbook. All I did was buy a white three ring binder, decorate it with card stock inserts (scrapbook supplies a'hoy!) and typed up all my favorite recipes that I've collected over the past couple of years. Blogs, newspapers, magazines, etc. Sadly, most of them desserts/sweets. But I wouldn't be me otherwise. ...

So I don't really remember Friday night. Like, at all. I'm pretty sure I was alive and awake through most of it, I just don't remember. And no, there was no drugs or alcohol involved. Just exhaustion. Oh, but wait! I do remember Haven. You know, the show on Syfy? Love it. So glad it's back for a third season. Saturday morning, though, I got up and did my usual trip for groceries. I know at one time I told ya'll my weekly grocery budget was around $30-$40. Well, back when I got my promotion and raise I upped it to $60. I've been using pretty much down to the penny of my weekly budget just because I like being able to actually buy actual stuff I need. Like fresh meat and vegetables. But I'm in desperate need of new towels as mine are eleven and a half years old and getting threadbare. But since I don't actually make enough money to just go BUY a boat load of towels, I've priced the ones I want and have decided to start a small savings for them. I ...