Here's the little container.
You can see how small it is compared to a 9" paper plate.
This thing has gotten my food scraps for 2 weeks now plus a little dirt, some grass clippings, a few leaves, & of course the shredded plates. Some days I don't have food scraps, but when I add to the container, I give it a stir. It smells like 
and there's this "thing" going on wherein some people are gonna make a concerted effort to make less impact on the environment June 1 to 7.
One week! So,since I'm old & all, I figured I'd better get a head start and began engaging in a series of experiments this week to see just what we might be able to do that didn't result in extra psychiatric care.
One part of the experiment is to keep the AC set at 90 degrees. I doubt that we could do that here in August, but this is May, right? So, No. 2 came down from the Midwest with all that thick blood in her body and noticed that the temperatures are quite a bit higher here in North Texas. Em and I felt pretty comfortable this week without the AC. High never even got above 87! But, No. 2 (with the collaboration from No. 1 no doubt) used the heat as an excuse to spend another day at the home of friends of No. 1 who keep the AC COLD (not to mention having a backyard pool). So, to keep them cooler on their drive to this destination, Em let them borrow his car. Check out the look on his face:
He's outside grilling some ribs for the girls (because I'm only using the microwave and the outside grill this week) who will probably NOT make it back home tonight to eat them. That would be THESE girls:
We won't mention how burning charcoal into the atmosphere is probably just as bad as using the oven because had I used the oven I might have felt the need for the AC. Six of these; half dozen of those.
Yesterday, I learned how to make rice and pasta in the microwave. It came out better than the stuff I normally make on the stovetop. I have a history of making brown rice that turns out crunchy and watery, but this stuff was fluffy. Made sloppy joe mix in the microwave, as well...even doing the ground meat. So, SOME positives have already come out of this week's experiments. No. 2 just picked a bad week to visit. 
I should probably also mention somewhere here that the furry grey thing in No. 1's arms is a cat that No. 1's had for over 10 years. She's never been inside this house, but she meows at my office window every morning as soon as she sees the light go on or (now that I'm not using the light) sees the window open. That's the signal for "Put food on stoop NOW!", and just like one of Pavlov's dogs, I do what I'm told.
Hope y'all are having a great day, too!
Continuing in the garden news department, the Egyptian Walking Onions Diane sent me last year are doing something again this year. I have no idea when to pick these things or what to do with them outside of watch them grow. You might notice in the pic that last year's mint is coming back as well as weeds & grasses, so I need to get out there a period of time each day to engage in garden management tasks.
Speaking of gardening, as part of my Spring/Summer make-work project, I'm adding to our inside plant collection. Left alone, Em would be happy to have a home overrun with pothos (pronounced POH THOSE). I intend to mix it up a bit and have been combining that thought with cheapskating to get a few new starts going.
This part of the projects started when I found a sprig of that purple striped leaf plant laying on the street during one of our walks. It probably broke off while moving the plant somewhere, but I knew from experience that it would grow roots and develop a new plant, so brought it home and stuck it in a beer can full of water. Then, I saw a Grape Ivy on sale at Kroger outside the store, pinched off a 1/2" piece and put it in my pocket. <-- I STOLE it! I'd feel guilty about the theft except that I know that these plants NEED to be pinched off to keep their fullness. THEN, I went outside to seek out that ivy I'd worried might be poisonous last year. It's something that many folks grow indoors but grows wild outside here. I found it in my backyard & pinched off a stem of it, as well. THEN, I saw the long trail without leaves on a pothos & couldn't resist the prune. Next step in this department will be moving our dying rubber trees to a location in the backyard. Rubber trees grow outside here and these guys REALLY need a change.
Spring cleaning with Herbie has been moving along at a snail's place because it's boring. Vacuuming the corners of the walls is necessary to get rid of the brown recluses, but we've been entertaining the thought of getting the walls painted for a while now. So, combining cheapskating, environmentalism, and fun, I've begun a series of experiments using milk paint. I chose a wall that was small and self-contained (albeit smack dab in the center where everyone can see it), mixed up some old powdered milk with water and slapped it on the wall with a rag.
There are several things wrong with this "paint". I'm not sure if it's because the dry milk is so old or not, but it has an odor that's slightly offensive to me. I'm thinking of adding vanilla to mask that odor, so I'll wait to see if that helps. 2nd: It has a yellowish cast to it (as perhaps you can tell by the photo) and we're really into more of an off-white wall color. We don't do other colors, so I've moved on to pigment considerations and more milk paint "recipes". I tried washing that stuff off the wall today, BTW, using earth's enemy Tide and it didn't come off. So, I need to overlay it with a pigment of milk paint more acceptable to our tastes. I'm thinking that I can add small portions of off-white paint to the mix and have a gallon of touch-up paint left by the builder. That'll be part of today's experiments in "How to make a house look like EVERYBODY lives there".
'snew with y'all?
Didn’t want y’all to forget about Earth Day because it’s VERY important that we do what we can to shrink our personal carbon footprints. In case you didn’t know, Home Depot is offering one free CFL (compact fluorescent light bulb) to all customers today, so I sent Em over there to get one before he went to work. Who Knew switching just 3 most frequently used light bulbs could result in something like a 500 lb reduction in my carbon footprint? I forgot where I read that because I’ve been reading about all kinds of things I can do personally to lesson my impact on the Earth’s resources.
When Home Depot isn’t giving the things out for free, the CFL “bulbs” cost money, but there are many, many ways to lessen your impact on Earth that actually save you money. No. 2 can tell ya what a cheapskate I am, but I get a lot of tips from fellow cheapskaters. Dawn C. has a number of personal favorite tips for being both frugal and green in her Greening Your World 101 . Thank you, Dawn; you’ve introduced me to several new avenues of cheapskating. 
Diane (damn her!) introduced me to Colin Beavan’s experiment, which led me to feel guilty because I wasn’t doing everything I COULD be doing to help out the environment (or even save money) Some of you may have heard of Colin in the terms of
No Impact Man .
I’m NOWHERE ready to try the stuff he’s trying and since I’m 17 years older than he is, I think I can truthfully say I’m never going to be ready to try the stuff he’s trying. I want to have some fun on the downhill slide.
We DO recycle and I’m working on less impact; I really am. I have a composter in mind, but it’s expensive and I have that cheapskate thing going. In addition, No. 1’s car broke down this week and I charged half the expense of the repair to my CC while she charged half the expense to hers, so I can't afford to buy anything else until that gets paid. While North Texas isn’t the best place to get around without a car, I have several grocery stores within walking distance and cloth bags as well as a new rolling cart:
I'm hoping that BobbyG, my Chicago friend who's involved in saving the great lakes will agree to blog here once or twice/month on conservation/environmental issues. I think we all need to think about the effects of what we do a little bit more. I don't think we need to go crazy or adopt Colin's way of life; I just think we should think about walking more, turning the lights off more, using less, blah blah.
Think about it!
There was all sorts of fun stuff scattered, also. I got a few of those party toys that we like to play with occasionally, too. And no birthday would be complete without a silly hat and a feather boa. :)
Next was the birthday breakfast. Tony had said that he would cook for us, and we watched Breakfast at Tiffany's in color while we ate.
Immediately following was the trip to the Nail Salon to get mani/pedi's. Now we were starting to run out of time, and I realized that I don't have a nice pair of dress pants that doesn't have bleach stains on them from the bar. We made an emergency stop at Kohl's on the way back home.
This made me really think of you Mom and your 3 hours in the thrift store. I myself am NOT a shopper, and I rarely try clothes on in the store. I've gotten to be a pretty good judge on what I like and what I think will fit me and for the most part have success at buying things that fit. Anything that was too small usually just got sent to No. 1. Now that may be a problem. But I still keep stuff for her to dig thru when she does come out this way. I was in and out of Kohl's in less that 15 minutes with 3 tops, a pair of capri's and new shoes. One top was on clearance and casual, two dressy shirts that both matched the capri's and a pair of capri's that turned out to be a tad too big, but luckily came with a cute cloth belt.
After that we probably got ready in half an hour with BOTH of us having to shower and we headed to dinner. Dinner was at a Greek restaurant that had belly dancers performing that evening. This was all a surprise for Jenny and we had 12 family/friend members meet us there as part of the surprise. Dinner was great and went off successfully. After that, we headed to the nearest bar/club.
That turned out to be a lot of fun. I can't remember the last time I went out dancing with my girls and this was one to be remembered. For some reason when I was wearing the purple feather boa, I felt like I was invincible and auditioning for that show, "So you think you can DANCE." I was a dancing fool like no other and loved it!
Come midnight things were starting to get ugly. The boyfriend got extremely drunk and irrational so we decided to relocate. We came back to our town so that we could go to the nearby bar and drink without the worry of driving. We closed down that bar, and things started to get uglier. Another friend's boyfriend decided that he hated everyone, flipped out, and wanted to leave. After a lot of yelling and irrational anger, I decided to try and get my police friend involved to see if HE could calm him down. I walked to the police station (around the corner), but they were CLOSED! Oh no! I walked a couple blocks more to see if he was patroling his usual spot, but he wasn't. (Keep in mind now that I myself have had a couple drinks and left my house with only my keys.)
I find a payphone and decide to try calling the police. It was completely unproductive and went something like this: I don't know the number to the police station, so I dial "O".
Operator: Hello?
No. 2: Hi. Can you please get the (insert town name) Police for me?
Operator: Is this an emergency?
No. 2: No. (I really couldn't call it an emergency in good conscience since no one was hurt. I was just trying to be preventative.)
Operator: Then can you please deposit 35 cents?
No. 2: For the police?
Operator: Yes.
No. 2: But I don't have 35 cents. I just need to speak with the police.
Operator: But you must deposit 35 cents in order to be connected.
I hung up. That did me no good. I finally go back home and find the irrational boyfriend and his girlfriend had left and my roommate had found my police friend and told him I was out looking for him. We settle the situation. Everything seems to be winding down. We make and eat a pizza.
THEN!!! Jen uses the bathroom and the toilet overflows. Water is everywhere. We realize that we don't yet own a plunger.
As soon as we get THAT fixed, our FIRE ALARM goes off. Mind you, it is now about 5am and our alarm is connected directly to the firestation since we live above a store. A few minutes later, my cop friend is back outside our apartment. Then the fire marshal shows up. Then a big fire truck shows up and 2 fully dressed firemen have to inspect our whole building. Nothing. They can't figure out what happened.
My poor cats already had a big problem with balloons all over the house, and are now hiding under Jenny's bed from the horrible noise our fire alarm makes.
We finally get everything settled and get to bed around 5:30-6am. WHAT A NIGHT!!!
Jenny was very upset at this point and felt like her birthday was such a burden. I made sure to remind her that everything that went badly happened after midnight and technically was NO LONGER her birthday. I'm just thankful that in the end no one got hurt. And of course today, my boss tells me that I should just stay at work all the time because bad things happen when I take a day off work. :-)
Wow. That was a really long story. But what a night! And these are the days of my life...
Since I lack a digital camera, I have to rely on what other people have posted at the moment...
And let me state that I'm a little less stressed about this coming Saturday since my one boss told me that they won't be having no bullocks this year. All incoming celebrators will be filtered upon entry. That means that anyone already pretty drunk or with intent of becoming extremely intoxicated will NOT be welcome through our doors.
That will affect my finances a wee bit, but I think I'd rather make sure this St. Patty's Day is a mild one with less problems that a wee bit wealthier of one with lots of violent eruptions, chaos, and possible involuntary digestive projections.
I will do my best to get some photos, but we might have to settle for the ones my cell phone takes if I can't find any of my myspace friends at the bar with their camera's.
But to add some other photo's, here's one that a customer took with a disposable camera and scanned and sent to me...
Gotta love photobucket!!!
Oldnovice update: I deleted or fixed what most of us couldn't see above, and now add a photo of No. 2 on THIS year's St. Patrick's Day (as well as some of her and some other Davidson's crew):
The green hair wouldn't work, but the overall effect was great!
/Oldnovice update
Oh, on another note, I've come to realize that even though my roommate and I are total opposites, we are definitely the ying to each other's yang. We seem to be different in so many ways, but when we come together we find total harmony and seem to balance each other out. Hoo-rah for my best friend and hetereosexual lifemate! :)
Definitely time for bed.
xoxo
Attended two Tarrant County College plays over the weekend.
Rhinoceros was just as silly as you’d think it would be, played by the cast of TCC NE supplemented by Dr. Tony Medlin, who’s been acting since before most of the cast was born. The role of Jean went to Trent Meyer, who did a fabulous job of transforming from human to rhinoceros on stage. We found this play MUCH more enjoyable than the fare we’d attended at UTA the previous weekend. I would have thought it the most enjoyable play of the season, but …
Dames At Sea, a delightful musical performed by the cast of TCC NW, stole my heart. The song/dance/satire moved along so smoothly that I forgot I was watching students; even the scenery was top-notch. My favorite moment, however, was watching Treeva Phillips sing while sitting on the edge of the stage about two feet from me. She’s a cute little thing with a beautiful voice, reminding me of Rowena in Mr. Holland’s Opus.
Now that Spring has sprung, spring break trims down our local entertainment options. Is Spring in the air where you live? What are y’all doing for fun?
You can see the carved cross above, but the next step is to apply a glaze to the carved cross. I've heard that some bakers fill the cross with custard, but I haven't seen that. I used commercial frosting to make the crosses for the following photo, because the glaze melts immediately on the hot buns and we do want hot cross buns.
The lore behind the buns vary as much as the words for the song by the same name. Here are some guesses:
Legend has it that hot cross buns were part of pagan spring festivals, and that a pious monk incised the buns with the sign of the cross in honor of Christ's resurrection. They are now traditionally eaten on Good Friday.
: : : : : : : : : Hot crossed buns. "At the feast to Eastre, an ox was sacrificed and the image of his horns carved into ritual bread - which evolved into the twice-scored Easter biscuits we call 'hot cross buns.' In fact, the word 'bun' derives from the Saxon for 'sacred ox,' 'boun.'" Sacred Origins of Profound Things. A cross bun kept from one Good Friday to the next was thought to bring luck, the buns were supposed to serve as a charm against shipwreck, and hanging a bun over the chimneypiece ensured that all bread baked there would be perfect. Another belief was that eating hot cross buns on Good Friday served to protect the home from fire. [If you see a bun hanging from my chimneypiece (wherever that is), you'll know why ]
Hot Cross Bun
THESE BUNS ARE made especially for Easter and are documented to have existed before the advent of Christian Easter celebrations. These were made as cakes from wheat which was used in Pagan Spring festivals. The buns were traditionally made on Good Friday in the Christian church with the dough kneaded for the Host and therefore marked with a cross to indicate this. These buns/cakes were also believed to have many special properties including the curing of certain illnesses (See also Mystical WWW Mystical Plants). They were also believed to last twelve months without turning mouldy which was of great use during Pagan times when the storage of food was imperative for survival. It was believed that they would protect against evil forces and fire if hung in the kitchen. Sailors believed that hot cross buns would protect against shipwreck if taken to sea. Farmers in certain parts of England (UK) also believed that they would protect the granary against rats.
THE ANCIENT GREEKS made a similar type of bun called a 'bous' with horns dedicated to Apollo, Diana, the Moon and Hecate. It too was said to never go moldy and to have mystical powers. The shape of the bun was said to represent the moon whilst the four quarters divided on the top of the bun represented the four quarters of the year.
Good Friday comes this month : the old woman runs.
With one a penny, two a penny 'hot cross buns',
Whose virtue is, if you believe what's said,
They'll not grow moldy like the common bread.'
Poor Robin's Almanac, 1733.
We had fun on Monday of this week attending offerings for both Black History Month and Women's History Month. <-- Did you know March is Women's History Month? First, we were served a light lunch while we listened to two of these guys in the bottom-left photo and another guy on drums play traditional African music. The Cora (Kora) is a fascinating instrument and Dave Gilden has pretty much devoted his life to it. After they played, we watched traditional African dance. In the evening, we attended a reception combination kick-off for Women's History Month and a Women's Art Show where we were fed again and entertained by female musicians. 'twas a fun free day!
We'll need to pay a little for our March entertainment, though. I have five plays lined up, as well as a symphony concert. I'm squeezing in as much as I can before Em returns to Race Track duty in April. I also have dates with Richard and Bill this month. :-(
Update: Made some beautiful hamburger buns this evening for BBQ beef sandwiches. MMMM!
'snew wit' ch'all?
