clevermanka: default (gas mask)
clevermanka ([personal profile] clevermanka) wrote2010-08-07 08:40 am

In need of a clean

Someone has familial company arriving this afternoon, so guess who will be tidying and scrubbing once all household members are awake and fed? I'm not looking forward to it, but it's much needed. The house is a wreck (well, a wreck as I see it--you all know my tolerance for untidiness), and a lot of the stuff I can't do by myself since it involves boxes (and boxes) of books and stuff from the CSSF office and the July CSSF summer activities. It's going to be one of those projects that is hellish while you're doing it, but the results will be so rewarding. And really, who doesn't love a sparkling clean house?

The much-anticipated coconut cream concentrate from Tropical Traditions arrived yesterday. While it's interestingly delicious, it is totally inappropriate for mixing in beverages, despite what it says on the label. It forms a distressing sludge at the bottom of the glass or mug, even when mixed with hot-hot-hot coffee. All is not lost, though. I think it'll be excellent for use in cooking (it'll be a fabulous addition to curries) and paleo-baking after I've wrapped up Whole30 (when I'm making things like almond meal pancakes).

And speaking of Whole30, today marks the end of week one. Things are going swimmingly. I'm enjoying what I'm eating (with one exception) and even managed to dine at a restaurant with no difficulty or compromises. The one exception was a rather dry pork roast. I ate it (along with a Brussels Sprout experiment) and decided the leftovers would be better served in a different format. So last night I made a ginger pork stew...thing. Caramelized onions, red pepper, broccoli, the cubed-up leftover pork, and a big spoonful of ginger paste, simmered with some pork-bone broth and a dab of leftover tomato paste until the liquid was almost all gone. It's pretty good. I might do something similar with the one remaining pork roast still in the freezer, since I wasn't terribly impressed with how the pork roast fared in the crock pot, either. Maybe I'm not very good at cooking pork roast. I should stick with chops and ribs.

I didn't intend to have the first week of the Whole30 experiment coincide with my period, but ah well. Nothing like trial by fire! As I reported earlier, I had no food cravings and the period itself wasn't awful. I have no idea if that second bit was due to the clean eating or the fact that My Wonderful Acupuncturist Kiva has been working on some points to give me some relief from my usual heavy cramping. That crazy acupuncture-might-work thing again!

The hoped-for mini-vacation before KU classes resume is not going to happen. Bummer. I'm trying to decide if I should attempt a long weekend in the two weeks between the start of the academic year and opening day of KCRF or if I should just suck it up and wait to take a week off after faire wraps up. Or, you know, do both.

For anyone here who doesn't read [livejournal.com profile] tessagratton's LJ (which you totally should): Congratulations, girl! Woot!

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_luaineach/ 2010-08-07 06:27 pm (UTC)(link)
For anyone here who doesn't read tessagratton's LJ (which you totally should): Congratulations, girl! Woot!

Hooray for her! And hooray for me as the parent of a tween boy! :) The world can always use more YA novels about monsters and magic!

Go go go on whole30. Glad to hear it is still going well. I had some popcorn last night at the movie (karate kid, i was pleasantly surprised to find it excellent!) because it was a 10pm movie and we felt so decadent being out that popcorn was called for. If I make it through today and tomorrow especially, with the beer temptation at bowling, I should be good to go next week. Finally moved myself to schedule myself an appointment with the personal trainer at the Y because when you join you get a free consultation and they develop you a 12 week program to follow with monthly adjustments/check ins. At this point, I'm pretty much down to 12 weeks left until Vegas and so I will latch onto this someone-telling-me-what-to-do-and-i-just-do-it-thing, aided by Jet going back to school and my having time to do so.

And I think I might get a spiral perm or a body wave. I used to always have perms -- it's the only thing that always made my hair look like I had hair -- but have had this blown straight modified aeon flux look for so long now, I had forgotten. We'll see.

Okay! Thanks for letting me use your comments as my own mini-post!

[identity profile] clevermanka.livejournal.com 2010-08-09 01:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Go, you, with the trainer! You know once you find your groove, you're golden.

[livejournal.com profile] mckitterick is getting ready to start a YA hard SF novel with technology and aliens. No magic, but lots of monsters in human form. =D

[identity profile] shrijani.livejournal.com 2010-08-07 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)
...distressing slugde...

LOL! =)

Yes, distressing sludge is no fun at all! Damn shit is distressing!

I made a good pork tenderloin one time, but I think those are incredibly difficult to screw up. They're best on the grill. I wonder how slicing one and grilling the slices in George would work out.
Edited 2010-08-07 20:46 (UTC)

[identity profile] clevermanka.livejournal.com 2010-08-09 01:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Mmmm. Grilled pork tenderloin*...I have got to clean up the grill that [livejournal.com profile] roya_spirit gave me. Talk about distressing. I can't believe I haven't even bought a replacement tank for it! Shameful.

* [livejournal.com profile] nataliesee and [livejournal.com profile] tessagratton refer to it as "horsecock."