annie blog

You know, maybe the artist is right.  His graffiti might not be all that great.  But he gets points for humor AND spelling.   You know, spelling and humor will get you pretty far.

Happy Friday, y’all!!

Young man pictured here is not the artist. Just there for scale.

I have a few suggestions for you.

For example, this drink, the Dark and Stormy, looks super yummy.  It also has the advantage of having an awesome name descriptive of the weather caused by this hurricane.  AB Chao shows her version on her blog today.  Ginger beer, spiced rum, lime and ice.  Sign me up!  Now I just have to find ginger beer in Starkville.  My hopes of that are not going to be set all that high, unfortunately.

Another thing that I wish to say on the drinking front is that I recently bought a Spoetzl Family Reunion 6-pack.  Found lots to like in there.  The Black Lager was nice and I especially loved the Prickly Pear.  It was great.  Try one of those if you get a chance. I think that they are only around for the summer.

Prosit!

I just finished reading Anne Lamott’s newest book, Some Assembly Required.

It was funny and I liked it.  My favorite quote from the whole book came when Anne and a friend were visiting India.  One of her lifetime dreams was to see the Ganges River at sunrise.  So, for several mornings in a row, she and her friend hired a boat driver and they took to the river at 5 in the morning.  It just so happened that each morning that they were out there, the river was socked in thick fog.  On what was like, the third or fourth morning, the boat driver kept saying, in response to the foggy river and the difficulty of seeing anything,

“Too much the foggy!”

Anne said that this statement basically summed up her thoughts about this life we live.  Too much the foggy! Yes, it seems like that sometimes.

I hope that y’all are well and holding on if Issac is heading your way.

Happy Tuesday, y’all!

Well, y’all, here I sit waiting for my floors to dry.  I’ve finally graduated from mopping just here and there while moving in to now being able to vacuum and then mop, like a normal gal in a normal house would do.

If, in fact, this is a normal house.  Maybe not yet….

There have been many improvements — all of them done by us, of course.  I shall not disparage our landlord/managing agent.  No.  All I’ll say is that I happened to see him the other day, out and about, and the fact that he is still living is evidence that I don’t have laser eyeballs.  Because, otherwise, a scorch mark is all that would remain.  I’ve been so mad at he-who-would-be-a-scorch-mark that yesterday, after Jon fixed my dishwasher himself, I told him that I was going to the Dollar General for milk.  Just to prove how crazy I am, Jon was also silently wondering, as a side trip, if that I was planning on dropping by to do a little yard rolling or, perhaps, some flaming bag of poo leaving, just because.  He had a suspenseful wait until I returned.  Though, now, he must be forgetting how frugal I am, since I would not waste toilet tissue on some innocent trees, ever, though, now that I think about it, that flaming bag of poo idea may have some merit.  Perhaps Martha Stewart has a tutorial.

I’m kind of kidding.

Just as an example of what I’m dealing with here, let me tell you what I did yesterday. I spent the entire day, well, except for making soup and sandwiches and a Indonesian Slaw Salad that I’ll share the recipe for soon, scrubbing our depressing bathroom.  Now, so you know, we shall designate one of the bathrooms as the depressing one and the other as the one with the trampoline floor.  Okay?  So, as I said, I was cleaning the depressing bathroom.  It has plastic, cream tile that has swirls of brown with (I thought) splotches of brown sprinkled everywhere.  Pretty, right?  No.  Anyway, I found out that there were only swirls of brown in the tile, no splotches included in the design.  Those million tiny splotches were ON the tile, not in it.  The lighting in there is poor — which is why it took me this long to figure that out.  Also, the splotches were so wide-spread and consistent that I actually have no idea how they got there.  My only guess is that the previous residents allowed an entire pack of dogs to roll around in cement-like mud and then promptly shut the animals in there to shake it off everywhere.  Also, my guess is that whatever caused it (if it isn’t an innocent muddy dog, then I don’t even care to speculate) was an event that happened repeatedly.  All I know is that it doesn’t bode well when you are cleaning your bathroom and simultaneously wondering if you can locate the chisel, you know, to help it go faster.

Yeesh.

The bug front has certainly improved.  Maybe that is because many of the water problems of this house have been fixed by Jon during his journeys under this house.  It is surprising how quickly my bug reaction adjusts.  A few weeks ago, I had become so acclimated that I wouldn’t even flinch upon seeing a gigantic roach just, you know, hanging out on the shelf with the toothbrushes.  But, as I said, the bug thing is better, so, last night in the outdoor laundry room, after switching some loads around, I very happily stomped on just a few six legged creatures.  I was just celebrating my victory by pumping my fist when a huge roach jumped down and landed on my head.  Oh, the get-that-bug-off-me gyrations that ensued, y’all.

I hope that my neighbors were entertained.

My floors are dry now and I’ve got doings to do…..

Have a good Thursday, y’all!

These grilled peaches with blue cheese, hazelnuts and balsamic glaze look absolutely beautiful.  Wonder if I can still get some good peaches here in Starkville?  I’m thinking probably not.  Peach season has passed in the South.  Right?  These California folk being all show-offy with their produce is just hard to take.   How did I let this summer go by without a peach?  Unaccountable.

Maybe I’ll just have to attempt this with figs.  I’m thinking that’d be lovely and taste great, too.

Right now I’m looking at lovely food pictures and listening to Jon play Wilco and John Prine on his acoustic.  This is a sign that the guitars have been hung.  That means that he’ll be playing and singing more.  What a happy thought.

Have a good Wednesday, everyone!!!

I’ve found a new blog that I really like, y’all.  It’s called Kate’s Creative Space.  It’s by a Kate who lives outside of London and posts lovely crafts, gorgeous cupcakes, and the breathtaking remodel of her kitchen.  Super gorgeous!!!  Y’all should check it out!

Happy Tuesday, y’all!

I find myself listening to lots of music these days.  My house is quiet, since everyone is gone.  I expect that I’ll start spending more time outside when it gets cooler.  Until then I have lots to do inside. It’s not that I mind the quiet — it’s not permanent, after all.  However, Conan is completely bored with me.  He used to follow me around the house in the hopes (I think — he’s a dog, so what do I know?) that I would do something interesting.  But, no.  Now he will occasionally lift his doggy eyebrows at me as I pass through the room with yet another laundry basket and sigh, like, “Dude, there she goes again.  What is it with the baskets?”

This is Mumford and Sons.  It is called “I Will Wait for You” and is off their forthcoming album, Babel, that will be released at the end of September.

I dig it.  I also like that they didn’t get all fancy and try to not sound like themselves on their sophomore album.  So, thumbs up to that as well.

Happy Monday, y’all!

It seems cruel to talk about rain with all of the drought in this country right now.  Even here, in Mississippi, we’re still 8 inches or so behind the yearly average.  But that’s nothing compared to the rest of the country.  Still though, it seems like it has rained like every other day since we moved here.  Monsoons.  Thunder so powerful that it rattles the dishes in the kitchen.  A deluge so noisy that it woke me at 4:45 this morning.  I can’t even remember the last time weather woke me from sleep. It basically sounded like there was a bathtub running full blast out of the sky.  I know that the loudness was due, in part, to the fact that our little rental house lacks gutters.  But, it really did sound like someone left the water running.  That always reminds me of this song sung by Otis Redding that was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound.

It is awesome.

Happy Friday, y’all!!

James was walking through the house the other day after his shower.  Now, clothes aren’t important in his book, but, as a concession to me, he will at least wear boxers while traveling from the bathroom to his room.  And, that goodness for that.  Anyway,  he was listening to his ipod and walking through the computer room when I noticed something was different about him out of the corner of my eye. So I turned around to look at him and saw that he had on a pair of Jon’s boxers instead of his own.  Now, James has lots of boxers, so I said, “James, what are you doing with your dad’s boxers on?  You have lots of your own in your drawer.”  He popped the earbuds out of his ears, and, placing his hands on his hips said, “Yes, but, I thought I’d like an upgrade.”

An upgrade?  That crazy boy.

I hope y’all are having a good Thursday!

Hi, y’all!  I hope that this finds you having a pleasant Wednesday!  Today I’m cleaning and hanging pictures and buying a shower curtain — among other things.

Yesterday, I ran across this quote of Robert Farrar Capon from his great book The Supper of the Lamb.  It’s a good one.

“Do you see what that means? In a general way we concede that God made the world out of joy: He didn’t need it; He just thought it was a good thing. But if you confine His activity in creation to the beginning only, you lose most of the joy in the subsequent shuffle of history…How much better a world it becomes when you see Him creating at all times and at every time; when you see that the preserving of the old in being is just as much creation as the bringing of the new out of nothing. Each thing, at every moment, becomes the delight of His hand, the apple of His eye. The bloom of yeast lies upon the grapeskins year after year because He likes it; C6H12O6=2C2H5OH+2CO2 is a dependable process because, every September, he says, That was nice; do it again.”

I keep meaning to buy that book instead of repeatedly checking it out of the library.  That I am contemplating buying a book considering all that I’ve unpacked recently is really the most ringing endorsement I could give.

Y’all have a good one!