Foods and Stuff to make......or Not

I used to cook gourmet foods. I was/am a big fan of the late Julia Child and have several of her cookbooks. I put them to good use, making many of her delectably delicious recipes including one for rabbit cassoulet. Not the biggest hit, though.

Now, I probably cook more, rarely cook gourmet. For example, here's what we've had so far this week. Monday, roast chicken and green salad, Tuesday hamburgers/chips/pineapple upside down cake, tonight, sirloin on the grill, green salad, baked potato. Real exciting stuff, huh? My younger sister, a gourmet cook, says I cook "old people food". Well, all I have to say about that is try eating the way they eat for the rest of your life and you may end up looking like a prize heifer. We have to keep it simple, being over 50 years of age and all. Not to mention, I really do not enjoy cooking any longer.

I have a Paul Prudhomme cookbook with two recipes in it that I make occasionally. One is for chicken curry (Cajun style, of course - we're talking Prudhomme here) and Cajun Meat Pies. I just went to his website and he has lost some serious weight. The last time I checked, he was very obese. Now, he looks great. I imagine you can find these recipes on his site.

The above is my introduction to an interesting recipe I just discovered today. A very clever recipe, I might add. It's on a great website called "Instructables" and it is the "Lazy Man's Pancake". Instead of making lots of little pancakes, you just pour the batter in a pan and cook it in the oven until it is light and fluffy. What a super idea. Well, maybe everyone might not think it's so wonderful...................

Instructables is just chock full of some great and not so great ideas people concoct. I saw one instructable for a postage scale using old CD's, wire and a clothespin - brilliant. How about a Universal Bike Light Battery starting with an 8 oz. Kraft Parmesan Cheese container?

The Monster Container with Bottles

I'd be making one of these if only we drank pop from those big bottles. Basically, we don't drink soda pop. (When I lived up east, pop was soda. I actually like "soda" better, but I'm no longer up east.)

A Snowy Sunday. What to do with one's self?

It's back to winter. Light snow has been falling all day. So light that there is virtually no accumulation. That's alright by me - keeps us from having to negotiate through it when driving

Here are some winter things to help pass the time.

View this cute card my nephew emailed to me. (Note: it's a little squeamish in parts)

Make a cool paper airplane.

Browse The Pioneer Woman.com. I just discovered this website. It's fun and interesting. I don't know where this woman gets the time to do everything she does. I'm guessing there are assistants involved somehow, but possibly not.

OK. That's enough for now. Have fun.

A post a day keeps the real work away.

Now I'll go do some real work....

Tropical Colorado

Tropical Music to Slideshow

THE NEW LANNIELAND HEADER

I designed the header shown at the top of this blog last year, but just figured out how to get it to fit this blog. Anyway, it's not as "slick" looking as the other one, but it's more fun.

By the way, if you are reading this right now, you might be "follower" of my blog, meaning that you read it sort of regularly, or at least check in to see if I've added anything new (I know, I'm not great at posting regularly). If so, it would be nice if you would register as a follower by clicking on the "Follow This Blog" link shown in the right hand column. That would be nice.............

I am getting the itch to travel lately. The funds to do anything extravagant are not there, so I'm trying to come up with a long weekend somewhere around here. Last year, we went to a cabin and skied for a couple of days. Maybe something like that again. I'm already planning two trips for later this year. One will be our typical wanderings around USA Southwest and the other (in the fall) will be new travel territory up north to Glacier National Park and beyond. I have started planning spreadsheets for both of these trips that show destinations with mileages, # of RV nights and/or motel nights. I calculate gas costs, lodging costs, food costs and any miscellaneous costs so we can start planning how much money we need to have available. I've done this for years and it works. My estimates are fairly accurate and so we can go without worrying about credit card bills and such after our return. It makes that aspect (the largest) stress free.

On Sunday, we packed up some hiking apparatus and headed to a nearby, very small town for breakfast. This town is called Hygiene - yes, like clean and it is a very hygienic little town. Very pretty and situated in fairly close proximity to larger towns for shopping and such. Here's what Wikipedia says about the origin of this unusual name - it makes sense once you read it. Afterwards, we drove a couple of miles to Rabbit Mountain Open Space and hiked one of the trails. It wasn't a long hike, but it was adequate and gave us some great views of our front range area. By the time we got down to the trail head again, the parking lot was almost full. It was also warm, so we put the top down on Merle's Wrangler and drove through the mountains a bit and then back home. A very satisfying outing.

It is supposed to be 71F today - in January, believe it or not. The past couple of days have been in the 60's Farenheit. Wonderful! I have hiked and biked and made every possible effort to be outside before it turns winter like starting day after tomorrow. Temps will then be more typical for this time of year. However, we are all just totally enjoying the tropical breezes for now.

Malama Pono means "take care" in Hawaiian.

Malama Pono to you

Music

Did I ever mention that I like music? It may be evident since all of the videos I've ever posted have music soundtracks. Actually, it's the music that inspires me when I start thinkingg about making a video. I browse iTunes and Napster looking for the perfect music. I like classical, jazz, rock, country, some pop stuff and more. So, for now, I will be including "music to read the blog by". Just turn up the volume and start the music video. The song on thie "music video", actually a slideshow to accompany the music, is "You Can Close Your Eyes" by James Taylor as sung by his ex-wife, Carly Simon, his daughter Sally and son Ben. It's a beautiful version - my favorite. The photographs are ones that I have taken over the years and they linger for a bit, so don't think something is awry when the picture doesn't change quickly.

.....and speaking of music.

Pandora Radio. If you haven't tried it - do. My daughter recommended it to me and now I'm a big fan. I use the free version which means that every 40-45 minutes they stop the music and ask me if I'm still listening. I just click a key and it resumes. They also throw in a short commercial every once in awhile that I could do without, but hey - it's free. The great part is that you can create your own radio station by typing in the name of a favorite artist or song. They will then setup a station that plays that music and other similar types of music. It works. I have several radio stations. the Loreena McKennitt station (so far my favorite), The Beatles station, the James Taylor station, the John Williams station and so on - you get the idea. I guess you can have as many stations as you like. They also have their own stations you can choose from, all commercial free (except for that one infrequent commercial).

I subscribe to Napster. I also download occasionally from iTunes to my computer for video soundtracks because their player has a WAV converter for the Mp3 songs. I use WAV with Windows Movie Maker. OK. No more technical stuff. Anyway, I have many playlists with Napster. However, there is now one Very Refined Playlist I've compiled that has my most favorite tunes on it. It brings me much happiness to listen to it as I do things around the house. I also haved owned a Samsung Mp3 player for several years now and have no complaints. When we travel, it goes with me. A set of Bose speakers also travels in our little trailer.

In addition to all of the musicalness, I play the piano - not well, but adequately. We have an older piano that I occasionally dust off and play. I'm pretty rusty, though. I used to sing way back when. Now, the only singing I do is with my downloaded songs or the radio and certainly only to myself - well, my grandson, only 7 months old, has heard me but he doesn't know any better...........

For Christmas, I bought Merle a Fender acoustic guitar. He is currently taking lessons. When he comes home from his lesson, he shares the information with me and I also practice so that I can learn to play. We are both working to get callouses on our fingers because without them, it hurts to hold down those strings (more like garrote wires, if you ask me). Merle is ahead of me in the callous department - probably because he practices more than I.

So, in closing, I can gladly say that music is a huge part of my life. I love beautiful songs, funny songs, complicated songs, simple songs, love songs, sad songs, instrumental songs, hymns - just lots of songs. I have some sort of music playing all of the time. Without it my life would feel very strange.

LANNIE

As we venture into 2009.......

Click the arrow in the bottom left hand corner of the picture. It's not a video, but a single picture with music. Listen to the music while you read the rest of the blog. The song is a very pretty one called ,

"Ashokan Farewell" performed by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason.

Above is my interpretation of me entering 2009. Just agog at the fantasticness of it all (yes, fantasticness is a word, albeit one I sort of made up).

Who knows what we will be smacked with this year? At my age, I know better than to try to predict the future. I have learned that you cannot do that, at least beyond the next five minutes and mostly not even then. Generally speaking, I have found that you can expect the most unexpected things to happen and I'm pretty OK with that unless it's something very dire, like death or dismemberment or when the bathtub doesn't drain properly..............

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

Today I rode my bike in 45F weather past the frozen reservoir. Glowing red sandstone buttes stood on the other side. I stopped at the river, also frozen, to consider how blessed I am to be able to ride my bike in such a beautiful place. The sun was out, I had on my thick biking pants, fleece, windbreaker, gloves and ear bags. (see below) These are great little "only on your ear" tiny earmuffs. They fit very well under my bike helmet. They are also great because they don't mess up your hair like banded earmuffs or winter hats. However, since I'm generally wearing a bike helmet when wearing earbags, my hair is a mess anyway after stuffing my wiry wig under it. Anyway, I was plenty warm, almost too warm after a period of vigorous pedaling. (Isn't this a cute couple I copied off of Google Images. Just makes you want to go out and buy earbags and be cute too - not.)
Our holiday was a good one. Family visitors from Texas and Florida, other nearby family members for fun, food and games, a trip to a cabin, 3 movies at the theatre, creative endeavors by both myself and hubby. Speaking of, we are preparing to submit photos of our creative endeavors to the Boulder Art Fair and see if one or both of us might be accepted. I did it last year, with some success and hope to repeat that performance with even more success. I'm doing smaller, less expensive paintings considering the current state of the economy. Now if I don't get accepted and he does..................

I've made a couple of softies recently. These are cute little handmade stuffed "things" - animals, dolls, creatures, etc.. Go to this Etsy link to see others people have made that are for sale. I also will be putting softies up for sale on Etsy at some point. Audrey (my daughter) and I plan to make some. Here's a picture of one softie I have constructed. It's rough sewn to give it a more primitive, handmade look. Her name is Rebecca (Merle's name for her) or Myrtle (my Mom's name for her).



Reading report: I'm reading a Connie Willis book called Bellwether. She's a well known science fiction author from our neighboring town. This book is not science fiction, at least so far, but it's good. She's a very good writer and I might try her science fiction next.

In closing, here's a video pan of the "studio" where I do my stuff.

Arrivederci, Baby..

(it's also an old movie)