Friday Night Lights

1. High school football frustrates me. Not that I watch a lot of it, just sayin'. Throw the ball already. If you have issues with people catching it, then maybe that's what you need to do in practice. Catching. Because...for real...it seems like the quarterback just trying to run the ball up every play would be hard on him. And, there's no element of surprise if you run the same play over and over and over. So yeah. Boring. But the drum line? Freakin' awesome. My favorite part of high school football.

And then to randomocity and other ponderings:

2. I've realized I'm skirting the lines of "Stepford-ism". I thought about that today. I used to be scared of being identified with them and therefore intentional distance was necessary. Because I am not them. By a longshot. And never will be. Nor do I want to be. Blah. I'll die being different for the principle of not being the same. But...my life is very close to them, the Stepfords, these days. I guess I'm finally confident in knowing I'll never be them and therefore the distance is no longer required? Hmm... (If you are one of these Stepfords, no worries. No offense. It's all cool with me if that's who you want to be. I just don't. Couldn't even if I wanted to.)

3. Parent teacher conference today. It occurred to me on the way there, it's my last elementary conference. And then I started thinking about the last elementary winter concert, the last spring concert, the last... I'm fairly sentimental. It seems strange our elementary days will be over in about 6 months.

With my second, I'm always leary of what's going to happen in these conferences. Because, he's like me. In a lot of ways. A square peg that doesn't really round well. You can try jamming that square peg into your round hole,but it isn't going to happen quietly and chances are you will run out of energy before you are finished. When you become an adult, you are allowed to beat to your own drum. When you are a kid, not so much. People keep holding out hope you can be fixed. Which is what I don't want to hear when I go to these things; that he can be fixed. Because I like him the way he is. (He'll never be a Stepford. NEVER.) You know what's awesome? I didn't have to hear all that. She told me he's amazing and once he can spread his wings (instead of being caged up within institutionalized education), the world better look out. She gets him. I love that.

3. What else? Oh...the book fair. Tomorrow I shall post my finds. I have this great idea for Christmas. I'm going to need some wood.

Start Your Day.

This is good.

Candlestick East

If you don't know he was exponentially happier than he looks here, you don't know him very well.

"Candlestick East"...so weird to go to Fedex Field and see more Niners fans than Skins fans. I mean... I get it. But still, it's weird. The last time we went, years ago, it seemed like we were alone.

Here's a funny thing: There was like a minute left in the game. No way were they going to win or anything. They scored. And then the flags came out and they played the victory song. What? I don't get it. I mean...I get it. Last week they were shut out. Maybe it's a victory to be on the board? (If you don't read between the lines...I dislike the Skins very much and never miss an opportunity to poke fun at them.)

Just some random people in a little post-game celebration. There was a lot of this. Did I mention there were hardly any Skins fans at the game?

No comment.

Happy Halloween!

A jack-o-lantern, a cat, I don't know what Jac was supposed to be and a witch. Because what else would I choose to be? Who ever heard of a happy looking witch?

Surprise

I was supposed to have a party today. I planned this awesome meal and bought some stuff I'd never tried before. Which is never a good idea...just sayin'. It all looks pretty, though, huh?

And then we woke up to this. The weather dude said it was going to happen, but you can't always believe what you hear.

I thought I had another couple of weeks until I would have to embark on my annual pesto making event. I was wrong. I don't even have any pinenuts. Maybe I can use walnuts? I saved from the garden what basil I could. Totally not in the mood to make pesto, though.

The party got canceled, but I figured we could be pigs anyway. And I could try out the recipes I was planning to use. Smashed White Bean and Rosemary Crostini = Delicious. (Recipe to follow.) The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes and everyone liked it.

It looked like this around 1. We had just canceled the party and the weather dude was saying things were "tapering off". I was thinking "Wow. We could have had our party." For the record...it's still freakin' snowing...seven hours later. I told you those weather people can't be trusted.

Vegan lasagna. I don't know where the recipe came from; somewhere online. My review is mixed. I'm not really into fake meat and cheese products. (Truth be told, I'm not really into real meat and cheese products.) If you take off that layer of fake cheese and pick out the fake Italian sausage, it's good. The fake cream cheese isn't even noticeable, so next time I won't bother with it.

Ryan ate it in its entirety. I picked it all apart. The kids didn't eat it at all. (We did eat an entire box of Joe Joe's today, so you have to take that into account. If I would have let them starve all day, they probably would have at least tried it.)

To sum it up, I'm still in the camp of "fake meat and cheese is disgusting". And you can't say I didn't give it a chance. For any of my veg friends who eat this stuff, I have an unopened package of each you can have. Just let me know and it's yours.

Smashed White Bean and Rosemary Crostini

Saute 3 crushed cloves of garlic in olive oil. Add 1 can of drained white beans and heat for 3-5 minutes. Smash beans with the back of a fork. Stir in fresh rosemary and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Season with sea salt.

Slice a baguette. Drizzle with olive oil and broil until toasted. Top baguette slices with the bean mixture.

Eat. Delicious. Very filling. The perfect thing to have with that next bowl of soup.

Rainy Day

T'was the perfect day for napping, except work got in the way. It's cold and rainy and dreary. And windy. Did I mention cold?

One of these days, I'll have a post about sewing. The whole point of this blog was supposed to be sewing. I'm itching to sew, but can't seem to get to it.

Work:

(Don't think we're just playing. I'm going to make them calculate mechanical advantage, potential and kinetic energy. But, yeah...we're also playing.)

Not at work:

Between black bean and corn soup, curried sweet potato wedges, Morrocan Stew, couscous with raisin and mint, cupcakes and a ton of other uneaten stuff in the fridge, it's leftovers tonight. And maybe again tomorrow, as well.

Pledging to sew something this weekend so I can get rid of this itch.

Self-Suffiency

This is great.

To quote:

"'my biggest revelation in terms of self-sufficiency is this: It is no big deal. You can tell yourself anything is too difficult, or you can just do it. And you do not need to reconstruct your worldview or take issue with others.

You just need to be hungry."

Don't I always say this?