Bobotie from Boma

Lost was another Wow! episode last night. The Boy commented on how the worse 24 gets, the better Lost becomes. I had several out loud "Oh My Gosh" moments last night. Every week, I say "This was the best episode yet!" Next week really looks good, with Locke back. And I identify with Juliet more than anybody else on the island right now.

Dinner tonight is a recipe I found on All Ears for meat bobotie from Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. I've made it before and it turned out really well. I'm looking forward to eating tonight. I think I've got the portions down to the right size for the three of us. It's a lot like the Greek dish Moussaka in apperance, but the topping is more like custard.
Boma is one of my favorite restaurants at Disney. I had no idea what to expect from African food, but I thought a buffet would be a good way to try it out. Normally I am anti-buffet, but with a whole style of food I am unfamiliar with, it just seemed like the safest way to go. Anyway, it turned out to be one of the best dining experiences we've had in the World, and we've gone back every trip since then. I am really excited about sharing it with the whole family in June. And I'm looking forward to eating another Zebra Dome. I have the recipe for those as well, but it looks pretty much out of my league, in terms of cooking ability. I don't do desserts well.

Paying Off Disney and Swearing Off 24

Dinner was not ruined. It turned out fine, not the best roast I've ever made, but not inedible. Both guys ate and while they didn't rave about it, they did say it was good. In honor of paying off the Big Family Disney Trip yesterday, today's Jack Handey deals with Disneyland. I am finally getting into planning now that it's all paid for. We settled on 5 nights, 6 days in the parks, and the meal plan. The Vansome was anti-meal plan but I convinved him that it really was the better deal, since we would most likely spend that much each day just on the one sit down meal with the family, so it's like getting all the other food free. It also is a comfort to both of us to know that our food is prepaid, so all we need money for is travel.

I have officially given up on 24 this season. The Vansome quit watching after about the fourth or fifth week. It's just too cougered up, he says, in reference to Kim's infamous cougar encounter of Season 2. I couldn't stop watching, even though the show was getting more and more "cougered up" every week. I kept thinking that they would finally get their writing groove back, and I didn't want to miss it when it got good again. Besides, I really wanted to see the crisis resolved.
Well, they really messed up when they resolved the suitcase nuke crisis that had carried the season about 8 episodes early. They were banking on everyone being hooked by the new crisis with Audrey and the Chinese, but what they didn't realize is, a lot of viewers, like myself, are just not Audrey fans. To quote someone on a message board I read recently, "I knew Audrey wasn't really dead, but I was hopeful."
So after last week's episode, I said I wasn't going to watch anymore this season. I was tempted to turn the TV on at 8 last night, but not that much. I read a short recap and I don't regret not watching. I'm sure I'll keep up with the recaps just so I'll be up on events for next year, but I think it's too late for this season.

Too Much Thyme on my Hands

I believe I have ruined dinner. I'm making a roast in the crock pot. I usually just pour a package of onion soup mix and water over it, and throw in some carrots and potatoes, but I'm out of onion soup mix, so I just went through my spice drawer and threw in a bunch of stuff: garlic salt, bay leaves, oregano, fennel, parsley flakes, ground black pepper, a little bit of paprika, and apparantly too much thyme. (Also beef bullion cubes, cream of mushroom soup, a quartered onion, and some frozen carrots.) All I can smell now is thyme, and it is not appealing to me at all. I dumped the thyme in first, and I put everything else in trying to tone that flavor down, but it's just not working. I was really looking forward to good gravy on my mashed potatoes, but I'm feeling like I'm just out o' luck. I hate when I mess up my food! I've asked the Peas for help, but no one has responded so far. I guess I'll just have to eat it and be disappointed. The Boy is claiming not to be hungry. I may throw out my thyme. I'm really liking it less and less lately.

Update: A kind pea responded that thyme usually cooks out at high heat and so I guess that is why it smelled so strong. I tasted it and sure enough, I can't taste the thyme anymore. It is really really salty, but the Vansome likes extra salt, so he will be happy.

Fried Beef rice W/Scorn and egg

A post on Two Peas linked me to the world's worst menu translation. Check it out here: http://www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order.php
I was laughing so hard I thought I might have an accident. I have shared with my guys, and I wanted to share with any of you that are reading this. Warning, there are a couple of translations at the very end that contain a particular word you wouldn't want kids to read. It's safe to stop at J&J Living the Bowel. Be sure to read his comments in between the menu scans.

Techno me to sleep

I made it to church this Sunday, and The Boy and I both stayed for Sunday School. He's going to my class with me, and he really likes it. I love my Sunday School class. We laugh and have a good time and I learn a lot, too. The first time The Boy joined our class, he said it was the best Sunday School class he'd ever been to. I would really love if the Vansome would come, but I think he's afraid it will be too close to being at Church. I think he would really enjoy it.

I couldn't fall asleep again last night. I took Benedryl and my other meds fairly early to give them plenty of time to kick in, but it was hours and hours before I fell asleep. The Vansome was having just as much trouble. I think it is just another of our house's curses. The Boy used to be the one with sleeping issues, but he's been sleeping just fine, so the curse must have migrated to our bedroom. We aren't seeing the wispy black smoke stuff he sees at night, but we haven't heard the music in our walls lately either. I spent the afternoon today downloading techno/house music. For some bizarre reason, listening to the repetitive beat knocks the Vansome right out. He's been listening to techno radio stations on iTunes, but the computer is in the living room, so he ends up sleeping in the chair. I found some songs by DJ Tiesto and ran them by him. He picked the one that sounded most soothing to him (named Insomnia, interestingly enough) and I burned about 40 copies of it onto a cd so he can listen to it in bed. I literally can not stand it. The repetition makes me crazy. I mean torturous, agitated, "you must turn that off right now" crazy.
I don't know what to do about my own insomnia. It'll probably go away tonight since I don't have to get up until nearly 10 tomorrow. It really is only a problem on Saturday nights. Sunday is the only day of the week I care about getting up early. So I've got another week to find a sure fire way to get to sleep that doesn't make me too sleepy the next morning.

Deer and Antler Playing Cards

The Vansome had to work this morning, but The Boy did not. I will probably relinquish the computer to the Vansome when he returns. He's got some Ebay-ing to do. I was checking his email yesterday (I give his email addy to people I need to get email from because he checks his so often and I neglect mine) and normally if it's not for me, I don't open it. For some reason I opened one from Ebay and saw that he was bidding on "Texas Hold'em Style Deer and Antler Playing Cards." I laughed and laughed, out loud, then I called him so I could laugh some more. His new hunting obsession seriously cracks me up. He's going again next week, hoping to shoot a turkey. He'd really like to shoot a wild pig, and while I like the prospect of free bacon, I'm a little worried about him angering a large pig and getting himself hurt. He tends to put himself at risk in his efforts to do things on his own. He'll spend the second half of the week fishing. It would be nice if he would swing back by the house and take The Boy with him, but the new job takes priority.

I can tell coming up with post titles is not going to be fun

I really hate titling things. I can never come up with anything and I always feel put on the spot about it. I guess I don't really have to do the title first, it's just that the title blank is at the top of the page and I always feel compelled to do things in order. I even have elaborate rules for making up an order to follow when none exists. It can be a little bit debilitating, because I don't do things that need to be done because for whatever reason I can't do all of the things that in my mind I'm supposed to do first. Maybe next time I'll try to compose my blog post first and then come up with the title.

I'm still sleeping like a baby. This blog is better than drugs. So now I'll just blog instead of cleaning my house. The Boy is at work, and he's still liking it. He's gotten himself up and ready completely on his own all week. As soon as our alarm goes off, I think, "I need to go wake up The Boy." But he's way past old enough to do it himself and I don't want to start enabling him again. So I resist, and the urge passes, and soon enough I hear the hot water heater kick in and I know he's fully capable of being a grownup when I just back off and let him be responsible for himself.

I can't believe I forgot to mention yesterday, but as of Wednesday night there is no more Sand-in-my-gina! My gina is now Sand-free! It actually happened a week earlier than I expected. I felt confident all along that despite the best efforts of Howard Stern, votefortheworst.com, and tweenage girls, Sand-in-my-gina wouldn't make it to the top 5, but I thought he would very likely make top 6. I am so happy to have been wrong! Now I only have to mute one contestant instead of two. Hopefully Chris will go next and then I can give the mute button a rest. I'll go on record now saying Jordin is going to win this thing. Sure, Melinda is the best, but Jordin is amazing and getting better every week, and I think she is more marketable than Melinda. Maybe I should change my post title to No More Sand-in-my-gina.

I've moved things around again. The streaming Jack Handey doesn't seem to be changing every day, and it doesn't have many of my faves so I'm back in control by having a daily quote of my own choosing on the sidebar and I've moved the streaming quotes to the bottom of the page.

The Boy is Employed!

The Boy started his new job Tuesday. He is a pizza making fool. He works the weekday lunch shift, one of the many advantages of being home-schooled. So far, he loves it. He has almost zero customer contact, which is right up his alley. He likes his bosses and apparantly making pizza is way easier than making ice cream. All in all, it's been a very positive experience for him.
It's been a pretty darn positive experience for me, too. One of the downsides of home-schooling is that we are together entirely too much. I can't tell you how excited I am to have a few hours to myself during the day. I have been very grateful to have had all of this time with him before he leaves the nest, but it does wear on me after a while. I like my alone time. I need alone time. And it looks like I won't be getting late night alone time anymore, but that's another topic...
You know how if you are in a hurry to get somewhere, all of the traffic lights are red, but if you have something you want to do during a red light (like put on lipstick or read something) all of the lights are green? I have discovered that the sure way to make something change is to not want it to anymore. For example, I was really hating the not being able to fall asleep thing. I was sleeping well, and waking up rested, but just not falling asleep for hours and hours. It was beyond irritating. So that's when I decided to Blog. It would give me something to do besides lay in bed and wish I could fall asleep. I would blog until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then I'd go to bed, that was the idea. Well, I created this blog late at night, edited my second day's post late the next night, and since then I have been falling asleep with the Vansome every night, right away, no problems. I fell asleep before the Vansome last night, while he was watching one of the Scary Movie sequels. He was waiting for the Mad Cow segment-"Moo, m-----f-----, moo." But since it was basic cable, they edited that part out. He was disappointed, but I was too sleepy to care.
Anyway, my point was, I intended to blog to deal with my inability to fall asleep, and apparantly that solved the problem. So now I guess I'll blog while The Boy is at work. (Yay!) More blog maintenance: I found out I was misspelling Jack Handey. I left out the E. I feel bad because it is an actual person's name. Did you know that Jack Handey is not a character? There really is a Marta Handey, too. Anyway, I found a cool "add Deep Thoughts to your site" ticker type thing on the official Jack Handey website, so I replaced my lame looking quote of the day with 10 scrolling quotes a day direct from the source. It also relieves my lingering copyright infringement fears.

Daily Jack Handy

I re-named my blog and I've decided to add a Daily Jack Handy quote to the bottom of the page. The first quote is the source for my new blog title.
"To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?" you can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."
It has to be my favorite quote of his and it has truly become part of our language at home. The Boy and I quote this to each other all the time, changing it to fit our situation. More often than not, it's "Sorry, got this kitty," because nobody wants to disturb a well behaved cat on your lap. But I've been heard to say, "got this newspaper," or "got this blankey wrapped around me," or "got this TV show." Basically, it means, I can't be disturbed right now, do it yourself or ask me later.

I'm trying really hard to ignore the big news today about the VA Tech shootings. I purposely have avoided reading/watching/listening to any news about it, but the headlines on my homepage are hard to miss. Two Peas has 6 different threads on it on the first page right now. I accidently opened a couple that were about victims, one about the first victim name released, complete with a bio and pictures about what an incredible young man he was, the second about a Pea whose daughter had several close friends at school there and had been able to reach all but one, later updated to say that that friend had died. It is really just breaking my heart and I don't want to be sad today. I am having such a hard time lately with the idea that The Boy will be going off to college in just a few short months. I can't even imagine the horror those parents are going through right now. All I can think is how those kids are not much older than The Boy and how they were at the very beginning of there lives. I can't really even do justice to how I feel for everyone involved. I just don't want to write about this, but it feels so petty to be thinking about anything else. I think that's all I can say tonight.

So I guess I'm gonna blog now

I've been having a ridiculously hard time falling asleep lately, and so I've been wasting hours and hours playing on the internet. I decided it might be fun (and mildly productive) to blog. So this is my first attempt. I don't know if anybody will read it, and I kinda don't care. I doubt I ever have anything to say, but I'll say a whole lot of nothing anyway. I don't think I'm going to do any kind of "introduction" post because if anyone is reading this, you most likely already know me, so Hi!
Now I'm gonna play around with the blogger.com features.