a meaty sunday

Ok, I screwed up. I took pictures yesterday and copied them onto the computer at home last night, but forgot to save them to my laptop. So I have no pictures of our adventure yesterday for this post. And we won't be home for a few days to get them. You'll just have to come back and look at them in a few days.

Anyway, we did have quite the little adventure yesterday. Alfred found a ranch about 45 minutes from us that raises and sells grass fed beef, so we went there yesterday afternoon to check it out and give them a deposit check. The people we met that showed us around, Tammy and Jeff, were seriously the nicest people I have ever met in my life. They showed us all the sheep, even let Alfred feed them (he almost got knocked over, it was really funny), showed us 2 of their big bulls, and then showed us the rest of the herd of cattle. It was really good to see the farm and see Tammy interact with the animals, you could tell that she really cares for them and that they're in good health. She's also the one that slaughters them, so she'll be killing a ewe for us in a week or two!

They also took us to their house, which is right down the road from the ranch, because they had been telling us about the pork kielbasa they made and offered to give us some. We ended up going home with two packages of kielbasa, some ribs, ground venison, a bucket of crabs, and some other cut of pork that I can't remember. Just because they had so much and wanted to share it. Talk about southern hospitality! Combine that with the steak we got from the owner of the ranch to try out the meat before we place our order, and we are probably set for a month! They were telling us about a hog hunt they went on recently - Tammy stabbed a 250 lb hog in the heart to kill it! That's freaking hard core! We ended up spending about 2 hours with them, they were just so friendly. The coolest thing they showed us, which I unfortunately didn't get a picture of, was an alligator head in their freezer. Apparently the gator had gone after Jeff's son, so he killed it (he's a game warden, ha) and kept the head. The gator was 10'2" long! That is huge!! The head took up the whole damn shelf, they're going to stuff it and give it to the son.

Saturday was good too: I went to a used bookstore near Billy's house, spent an hour and 40 minutes and $15 and bought a few books, then we went out to dinner with Ilya and Mercedes after Alfred got back. And no, he did not shoot any hogs.

ok, this is a bit much

I stayed at this huge house all by myself last night. It was a little scary, just because it's so big, and especially because Alfred found out yesterday that the alarm goes off sometimes when it's windy because one of the doors rattles. I could just imagine it going off in the middle of the night and scaring the shit out of me. But just now was even weirder. I'm in the kitchen when I hear this beeping and a mechanical voice. I jump up, thinking it's the doorbell, but no one's there. Then I think a door has been opened or something and someone's breaking in. But there's an alarm panel right there, and it's still activated and not showing anything. So I disarm it, just in case. Then as I'm walking back to the kitchen I see a little post office truck. As I get back to the kitchen the doorbell rings, I go get a package from the guy, he leaves. Then I hear the beep and mechanical voice again, but this time I can make out "driveway." We knew they had a motion sensor at the gate across the driveway, so apparently it's activated now and literally speaks to you to tell you when someone has entered or exited your driveway! How freaking crazy is that?? Ok, and just for you people (Alfred and Katie) who demand pictures, here's what the bed looked like this morning when I got up:

I built myself a nice, cozy little nest!

busy day, sorry, etc

I was busy all morning and have been in a meeting all afternoon. It was really exciting. Oh, and the cheesecake yesterday was really good. It didn't look all that impressive when it was cut though, so no picture. I think if I make it again I'll use more raspberries.

Some of you know Alfred's friend from Cornell, Clare. Some of you may also have known that she was pregnant. Well, Alfred got an email from her this afternoon - she had a baby girl last month! I hope Clare doesn't mind me sharing these pictures, this baby is just too darn cute. (Clare, if you ever read this and want me to take these down, just let me know). The baby's name is Ella.


She was only 5 pounds 11 ounces, what a little peanut! At least the gift we bought for her will fit for awhile. Now I can finally mail it out - I've had it since the beginning of May and have been waiting to hear that she had arrived.
What a cutie.

Anyway, on to something more mundane: our weekend. Well, my weekend. Alfred's going hunting with a friend of his that he used to work with (he's gonna try to git him a hog!), so I'm all by my lonesome until tomorrow evening. Which was fine with me, until Alfred got a call from the guy we've house sat for with the big house (Billy). Guess who's out of town for the next week and a half and needs someone to stay at their house? So my nice day alone will now be spent at a strange house. That kind of sucks. Then we have to leave super early Sunday to be back home to meet the satellite guy who's scheduled to come between 8 and 12. Blah blah, bitch, moan. It won't be so bad. I can sleep in and lounge around and go to the mall. And get something to eat that Alfred doesn't like. See, it'll be great.

(mis)adventures in cheesecake making

First off, we didn't get home from work last night until 8:45. And then I had to make a cheesecake for Ellery's birthday today. Oh mylanta, as the kids used to say. So Alfred went upstairs to exercise and I got working. I was on the phone with my mom for a few minutes, then she said she'd let me go so I didn't make a mistake with the recipe. (Actually, Mom, I did forget to put sugar in the crust, which I was making while talking to you. But then I just barely had enough sugar for the filling, so if I had put some in the crust I would have been a little short for the filling. So it was ok in the long run.) I got it all made and in the pan, then went to get the foil out of the cupboard (to wrap around the pan to bake it in a water bath, of course) and:


I knocked 2 of the baking dishes that were stacked next to the foil onto the floor, and one of them smashed. And I mean smashed! That shit was everywhere! If you click on the picture you can see it, there were pieces on top of and under the green pan, in between other pans still in the cupboard, I even stepped on one in front of the fridge, which is like 5 feet away. And it only fell like 18 inches! I had to get the vacuum out because there were so many tiny pieces that the broom was missing. It sucks cause I really liked that dish, it had a rubber top and was just really nice. To make myself feel better, I poured the little bit of graham cracker crumbs I had left into the little bit of cheesecake filling that was left in the bowl and ate it. It was yummy. And in the end, this gorgeous creature resulted:


Look how nice and level the top is! The water bath worked its magic, baby. And you can see some of the raspberries that are at the bottom of the cheesecake. Then I worked some magic of my own this morning, and we have this:


Who says I can't decorate cakes? Well, I say that, but I can make a cheesecake look nice! I'll have to take a picture tonight when it's cut, I bet it will look cool with the raspberries at the bottom.

stepping it up

My job search, that is. 2 of the guys who worked with us are leaving after next week. One of them is the son of Max's business partner, so it's not like Alfred and I are special because we're related. It's just getting to the point where they can't afford things. Today I actually volunteered to take a pay cut to help out a bit. In other words, I really feel the need to find a new job.

It's a wee bit stressful. Most jobs I find posted I'm either a) not qualified for because the industry is so specific, or b) wildly overqualified for. Plus, so many of the jobs that are in the area I'd like to be in and actually went to school for (preschool or other early education) pay really, really shitty. They're all in the $8-$10/hour range. I'm sorry, I can't do that. It's too bad they don't tell you in college that you shouldn't pick your major based on what interests you, but in what is most marketable in the future. Katie, you should switch to business or something.

I've applied to several positions I've found on craig's list, career builder, and on specific company websites, but haven't heard back from anyone yet. I also need to set up a school district interview since I missed the recruitment fair, and mail out stuff to some principals to try to get their attention. What a pain in the ass. On the upside, at least now I don't feel quite so guilty having nothing to do, since I'm not getting paid anymore!

happy birthday Mike and Ellery!

That's right, same birthday, a year apart. Both of Alfred's siblings have nice easy birthdays for me to remember, Emily's is on Christmas. Mike is 25 today and Ellery is 24. I was going to call Mike at 6 when I woke up, because it would have been midnight there, but I decided not to be a dick in case his phone was on and I woke him up. He has to wake up early these days. And I'm a nice person. Of course, Alfred pointed out that he's called me in the middle of the night before, but I always have the volume on my phone turned off so it's ok. I learned that lesson in college. The first week of classes my senior year I got a call from a drunk Mike at like 3am, waking me up and pissing me off. But when I woke up for class at 7 or whatever time it was, I called him and woke him up in return. Good times.

Ellery's going out tonight, so we're not celebrating his birthday with him until Thursday. He has requested a raspberry chocolate cheesecake for his birthday dessert. I am happy to oblige. I can only assume it will be delicious. How can that combination of ingredients not be?

In other news, 2 of the girls in my book club have had babies in the past week. A girl and a boy. This brings us up to 7 total for this year, with another 3 due between now and October. It's like there's something in the water. Maybe when we move up here...

so, how was your weekend?

My weekend was just stellar, thank you for asking. I could have done so, so much around the house, but I didn't. I didn't even need to clean because we've barely been home to mess the place up since I cleaned last. I was saying to Alfred yesterday how I wanted the kitchen floor washed, the windows cleaned, the back yard cleaned up and weeded... but I didn't want to do a damn thing. That's not to say I didn't do anything. Here's my weekend in a handy bulleted list.

• Saturday I headed to the farmers market and picked up some delicious, healthy, cheap produce. All of this came to $10. I feel like that's a good price, but I can't really be sure because I've never bothered doing a comparison at the grocery store.

• I got hit on by one of the vendors at the farmers market. He was wearing a shirt that said "Let's flip a coin. Heads, I get tail. Tails, I get head." I was wearing my glasses and hadn't showered yet. He suggested we go to a strip club that afternoon (because he had to give me a bunch of singles as change.) Yeah, it was pretty awesome.
  
• Speaking of my glasses, I didn't put my contacts in once this weekend. My eyeballs thanked me.
  
• We had a delicious pizza Saturday for dinner. Toppings: pears, pecans, and gorgonzola cheese. I was inspired after buying the pears that morning.
• I beat levels 4 and 5 on the second quest of the Legend of Zelda. I'm a nerd, by the way.
  
• We worked on a new set of house plans. Alfred had gotten a whole bunch of books out of the library to look at for ideas and found a really good plan in one of them, so he drew it out and made some modifications to make it fit what we wanted/needed. It looks really good. The next step is to get it drawn up professionally so it can go to an engineer and get approved to build. Then we'll be ready to go once we get all of our permits.
• I caught up on all of the episodes of "so you think you can dance" that were on the dvr. The show where the top 20 all performed didn't record for some reason, so I missed that, but it's ok. I'll live.
  
• Our dvr decided to start to break. I think that's why my show didn't tape (see previous bullet point). It worked a few times this weekend, but not much. Someone's coming out to fix it next Sunday. Luckily we don't have much taping this week, so if it doesn't work, we won't miss much. But I think I'm going to ask Ellery to tape so you think you can dance for me though, just in case. Can't be too careful.

Non stop excitement, I tell you what!