My Spice House Order

Well, I took the plunge and ordered from The Spice House. I took their advice and waited until I had several items to order, so as to maximize my shipping cost ($9 total shipping). Left to right, I ordered cayenne pepper, single-strength vanilla extract, cardamom, and black peppercorns. I placed the order on Sunday night, it was here when I got home today. My only disappointment was the packaging - only the gift boxes come packed in bay leaves and cinnamon sticks - standard orders come wrapped in paper and bubble wrap, but that was my bust for not reading more carefully.

Overall, I am a satisfied Spice House customer. I needed a little cardamom for a specific recipe - at the grocery store, it was $11 for a bigger bottle than I needed. From The Spice House, I had the choice to forego the glass bottle and buy a plastic-baggy 1-0z refill, which was more the size I needed and only cost $3. Not a bad deal. And everything smells great! Especially the vanilla. I may have just found my spice vendor of choice!

Charlotte is...

I'm not one for trends, but I saw this on two separate blogs today, and found it amusing. I googled "Charlotte is" and this is what I got:

Charlotte is the largest and most accessible city between Washington, DC and Dallas, TX.

Charlotte is not a comic hero like Elizabeth Bennett.

Charlotte is wise, patient, and caring.

Charlotte is amazing!

Charlotte is mentioned 31590 times on our forum.

Charlotte is able to keep calm by withdrawing.

Charlotte is from Sparta.

Charlotte is charged with murder and sentenced to be hanged.

Charlotte is bullish on mass transit.

Charlotte is a blend of traditional and cutting-edge.

Try it using your own name...then you can be cool like Charlotte.

Loyalty

My Tuesday night Bible study group has started a study on the book of Daniel. It's a Beth Moore study, and if you are at all familiar with her, you know she's big on studying the original Hebrew and Greek origins of our English scripture.

Tonight's passage was on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The Bible says they showed "loyalty" to God and did not bow down to the King's golden statue. We looked at the Hebrew origin of that word, loyalty, and at what some of its other shades of meaning are. One of them that really stuck out was "to be prepared." To be loyal is to be prepared. Shadrach, Meshach and Adebnego were loyal to God because they were prepared to be. They decided long before that statue was ever built that "yes, we're captives, and yes, King Nebuchadnezzar is the boss of us, but we will not bow to the gods of this land." They were prepared not to bow down before they were ever asked to bow down.

I don't think I'll ever be in a situation where I'm asked to literally bow to someone else's golden idol, but should I be prepared for such an event? I don't think I'll ever be asked to renounce Christ or die, but should I spend any time preparing for such a decision? Should I decide before I have to decide?

I wonder how many past failings I might have avoided if I had simply decided before I had to decide...

Just Be

I'm still on a bit of a high from the weekend. It was a really, really good time. But not entirely in the way I expected.

The concert was awesome - so much of the music came right back to me after all these years. Music is a memory kicker for me - almost as strong as smell. You know how you can smell something - perfume, a particular food - and it reminds you of someone or something, maybe that you haven't thought of in years? Music does that for me - hearing those old songs reminded me so much of PC, and FCA, and road trips, and Douglas House, and visits to Nashville. What a great time that was.

And it was really good to see some faces again...the band of course, and Jennifer and Kim and Tara (who I never knew all that well, but I always felt like I did - I think that's just the way she is) and Natalie (who I love to see any time) and Shannon and Kyle (who I haven't seen in years, but have enjoyed talking to on-line.) All of that was great.

But here's the part that was unexpected. I had a BLAST with Ben and Daniel. A BLAST. It was such a change of pace for us. They were such little men - they carried the luggage, and opened doors, and kept up conversation. We had a great drive down, great meal together, GREAT time at the concert, and a great evening in the hotel (Daniel loves staying in hotels). I see them every day, and it never occured to me that this trip would be a way to reconnect. It never occurred to me that we needed to.

No matter how hard we try, I think we get into ruts and we forget to really pay attention to each other. We spend tons of time in each other's company, but how often do we really stop and ENJOY each other? Forget about homework and laundry and where we have to be when and just BE together. Just BE.

We were away from home for just 24 hours on the nose, but I will treasure that time forever. Good times.

And Now...the Video

(For my blogger friends, that's Ferdlings on lead guitar, Tighty Whitey on bass, and Greenbeans on keyboards. APFM is not shown, as he was spontaneously combusting in the back.)

A Few Good Men

Good times at the reunion concert last night. The band sounded GREAT and everyone had a good time, me and my kids especially. It was just like the college days, except that the screaming girls down front were all under the age of ten, and there was no real mosh pit.

Didn't get a great shot of the band. Bad lighting. But you get the idea.

Rock.

Dude. This is loud.

I can't believe I walked around with that gunk on my tooth all night and no one told me. I thought you people were my friends.

Aunt Natalie and Uncle Paul.

Good Times.

Uncle Paul. Rocker.

The lovely Natalie and Shannon (Squid).

Technologically Challenged

I'm not exactly the most technological person on the the planet. We bought a new camcorder last October, and just last night I figured out how to load videos from the camera to the PC.

Now that that's done, I'd like to see if I can post videos on to my blog. Please hold.

Rock on.

Future Bloggers

I've got to brag on the kids a little.

Ben is in fifth grade, Daniel third. Their school requires all third through fifth graders to participate in a school-wide "writing prompt" each of the first three nine-weeks of the year. All students write a story based on an assigned prompt. For example, "Your teacher brings a bag into class, sets it on the desk, and it begins to wiggle" - and you take it from there. Then all three grades get together for a big assembly and each classroom teacher awards a winner for the best story in his or her class.

Ben has now won best in class for six of the last eight of these writing prompts (they missed one in fourth grade for some suspicious reason) and Daniel has taken two of his first three. We might have a house full of future novelists!

Apple Turnovers

I had a really bad day at work today, so I made it up to myself by spending the evening baking apple turnovers.

This is what I was going for:

This is what I got:

They didn't taste all that great either.

We're in...

I talked to Ben and Daniel tonight, and we're a go for the trip to Columbia to see Uncle Paul's band this Saturday. Mark already had plans - oh well, his loss. I'm really looking forward to it - hope to see some of you there! If you don't know what I'm talking about, drop in on George's Blog (link at left) and check out the post about the Children at Heart Reunion concert....

The Dentist

Today is MLK day. Meaning, the kids are out of school, the mail doesn't run, and the banks are closed. A really great way to honor a really great man, if you ask me. But I digress.

I took the day off the to spend with the kids, and to take care of various and sundry appointments. These included, among other things, Daniel's check up with the dentist.

Daniel does not go to the dentist that the rest of us Malones go to. Our dentist is very easy-going, calm, gets you in and gets you out. Never anyone else in the waiting room to deal with. Great dental experience all around. And Daniel did go see him in the past. Until he got a cavity. At which point, said Wonder-Dentist referred us to a pediatric dentist, as D's mouth was "just too small for my equipment." Bummer.

So for about four years now, we've been taking D to his own special dentist. I'm not sure if this is the case with all pediatric dentists, or if we just won the insanity lottery, but going to this guy's office is always a freakishly surreal experience.

For starters, like many buildings in East Tennessee, the office is built into the side of a mountain. Which means there is only one window (the door) in the waiting room. The floor and walls are dark, so it feels very much like you're going spelunking when you walk in. The echoing sounds of kids bashing things together doesn't do much to dispel this feeling.

With great consistency, the adult to child ratio the waiting room is at least three to one. No kidding. For every kid in there, there's always something like a mom, a grandmother, and some random neighbor. What is up with that? I can't imagine going to the dentist with my neighbors.

The waiting room contains one bathroom. This room remains locked at all times. You have to obtain a key from the receptionist in order to get in. Said key is chained to some kind of dental device. I'm guessing it's a impression bowl, but it looks like a large, metal athletic cup. It reminds me of using the restrooms at service stations in the seventies, when they attached a tire iron to the key to keep you honest. What the heck kind of issues were they having to resort to these measures?

Apart from these three standard issues (it's always dark, it's always over-crowded, and the bathroom is always under lock-down) the insanity is different each time we go. Today's insanity included two floor-rolling children. They spent the entire time on the floor of the waiting room, rolling around. Now I'm no germaphobe, but come on. I've seen the caliber of people that hang out in there, and you don't want to be rolling around on the bottoms of their shoes. Their mom (beautifully adorned in a Troy Aikmen jersey, just a bit on the snug side, sweat pants, and biker boots) would periodically tell them to get up under penalty of a "butt-busting". It was clear by the kids' reactions (none at all) that this butt-busting was an empty threat and, while a mean dresser, their mom was no disciplinarian.

One of these kids eventually got up to use the restroom. After wrestling the door open with the key and the athletic cup, she proceeded to use the facilities, with the door wide open. And then didn't flush. Or wash her hands. Now, I'm no germaphobe, but come on.

Then began the consult. This is also a fairly standard occurrence - the nurse brings the kid back to the waiting room and takes the parent/grandparent/friendly neighbor into the "consult room". Unless the consult room is occupied, or if there are so many people in the waiting room that the door is blocked, in which case they just have the consult right there in front of God and everybody. Today's consult involved a kid who had experienced some blunt head trauma over the weekend and was now missing a tooth as a result. They could not find the tooth, and were concerned that he might have swallowed it. So the mom went into elaborate detail about how she was "watching for it." Deliver me.

Even Ben, at only ten years of age, observed when we got into the car, "That place is always completely NUTS." Yes, but what a really great way to honor a really great man.

You Know What I Hate?

Heelys.

Sweet Success

I tried the creme brulee again last night, this time from scratch. I used a Barefoot Contessa Recipe, and it ROCKED! It turned out really good. The custard could have been smoother, but it tasted fantastic. And I even got the sugar right. It wasn't all that hard.

3 cups heavy cream - scalded
1 egg
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla (I used a little extra, because the recipe called for liqueur, which I didn't have)

Mix the eggs and sugar until combined. Slowly pour in the scalded cream. Add vanilla. Pour into ramekins. Bake in a water bath at 300 for 35-40 minutes until tops are just set. Cool to room temp, then refrigerate until completely chilled. Just before serving, cover the top of each serving with a thin layer of sugar. Hit it with a blow torch, or put it under the broiler until the sugar is brown and caramelized. Let sit for a few minutes until the sugar hardens. Consume.

I wish I had taken pictures.

What I'm Reading Now

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver wrote The Poisonwood Bible, and if you haven't read it, treat yourself. It's long, but the story is thought-provoking and the prose is amazing.

In her latest book, she switches gears a bit and writes from her real life. She and her family have moved from Tucson, AZ, to Southwest Virginia. More and more bothered by the energy crisis, they want to explore the possibility of growing their own food. They move to a farm and commit to eating only what they can grow themselves, or at the very least obtain from other local growers, for one year.

In the introductory chapters, Kingsolver explains their decision to go local by talking in depth about the problems of a society that transports food the way we do. Not only are we using tons and tons of fossil fuel, but we are losing the cultural identity that comes from producing regional delicacies that can't come from anywhere but where they're grown. European countries have maintained food-centered identities and so should we.

She also makes a strong argument for bringing agricultural studies back to the schools. Students used to study food and agriculture as part of their regular curriculum because everyone lived on farms. When we moved off the farm, we stopped studying farming. But here's the thing, Kingsolver says, we still eat. Yes, trigonometry is important, and learning the Preamble is important, but could it possibly be more important than learning about something everyone does at least three times a day, every day? Food for thought, no pun intended.

I'll keep you posted on how her year goes....so far, it's a good read, although a bit to the left of my normal fare.

The Incredible Disintegrating Red Parka

Note: If my parents read this, I hope that they read it in the spirit of humor with which it was intended. : )

My parents throw nothing away. NOTHING. That's not a completely bad thing, mind you. Frugality on the surface is a very good thing. My car is almost eleven years old. The paint is chipping off and the upholstery looks terrible, but it still runs and it's paid for. I won't be throwing that away until I absolutely have to. But some things, let's face it, need to be thrown away.

Case in point:

Mark, the boys, and I went to my parents' for Thanksgiving this year. Mark and I went out early to do some shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, and it was a bit chilly out. So I asked to borrow a jacket on Mark's behalf as he had left his at home. (Actually, he left his jacket in Arizona, but that's another post.) So Mom produces this red parka and and we go on our way.

A little while later, I notice that Mark is a) not wearing the jacket, and b)shivering. So I ask - "What happened to the red jacket?" He replies, "It disintegrated." I ask for clarification. He says, "Every time I move, or touch that jacket in any way, this cloud of red dust flies off of it. I felt like some kind of synthetic Pig Pen. And it kind of stinks."

I reach into the back seat and grab the jacket. Sure enough, a cloud of red dust followed it, and it smelled like rotting flesh. And there was a blanket of red dust all over the back seat. The jacket was literally decomposing before our very eyes. I put the jacket back on the seat and we never spoke of it again.

Fast forward to this week. Paul sends me a surprise DVD in the mail. "OOOOHHHHH! Videos of Sam" I think. So we pop it in the DVD player, only to find that it's a DVD copy of home movies from when I was a kid. The boys loved it - they couldn't believe the awful clothes we wore (especially Paul) and they couldn't believe Nana and Granddaddy ever looked so young. Good times. (Thanks Uncle Paul!)

Then we get to the goofy "Fun Times" video we made in the back yard one Saturday. I was probably around six - well over thirty years ago. And I notice that my dad is wearing a red parka. The Incredible Disintegrating Red Parka! No wonder that thing was falling apart.

I asked Mark what he did with the parka. "I hung it back in the closet next to a hoop skirt and some stone tablets." If any of it is still in there next Thanksgiving, I think I'll sneak it out and give it a proper burial.