Gag Worthy

Be advised: pictures are forthcoming!

There are some foods that, by the pure loving grace of my Creator, I will never, ever ingest. Don’t get me wrong. I have eaten some pretty weird things, like muk tuk, but even the anthropologist in me has her limits.

First, there is Balut. Considered a delicacy in some Asian countries, it is a cooked fertilized duck egg. Yes, fertilized as in embryo.

Just add a dash of salt and some lemon juice, and you are good to go.

To the bathroom to hurl, that is.

Next up we have Haggis. Haggis is nothing more than a sausage, really. A sausage composed of sheep’s liver, heart, and lungs, seasoned and then stuffed into a sheep’s stomach, and then boiled for a few hours.

Hubby has partaken of this while deployed during a celebration. He said it wasn’t bad at all.

I don’t care to find out.

And finally, I come to a heartbreaker, Sardinian Marzu. I love cheese. I really do. I even partake of Limburger. But this…. I just could never, ever eat. Marzu is a goat’s milk cheese to which maggots are added.

Now, after “fermentation”, you are supposed to remove the maggots carefully, and eat the cheese. But some people leave the maggots, because they add an additional rich flavor to the cheese.

I don’t know about y’all, but I can do without ever knowing what cheese-infested maggots taste like.

As a reminder, it’s only a week until Easter, which means I do get to partake of some serious chocolate. That should make up for this post 😉

Animal Fears

Today started off on a low note, and the weather isn’t helping much. So, I am posting a funny today.

Remember to laugh, my friends. And don’t let the….. negative people bring you down 😉

Postal Fail

I send packages all the time, and usually don’t pay attention to the flat rate Priority Mail™ boxes that are commonly used. I just fill, tape, address, and mail. We all do! So imagine my surprise when Son pointed this out:

You don’t see it yet, do you? Well, neither did I at first, and I’m a fanatical Sith when it comes to spelling and grammar.

That’s right: “Express” has TWO “S”s. (I maybe be a spelling Sith, but I’m not sure how to write the plural of one letter. STOP JUDGING ME!!!) And before you think it’s the French word for it, no it’s supposed to be in English. The French boxes have the circumflex accent ( ˆ ) above the second letter “E”.

Now, I won’t rush to judgment and condemn the entire US Postal Service for this. They probably contract out for such items. But it grates on my nerves that they can’t spell check, or at least decide on ONE spelling for that word. Seriously, pick English or French!

Just not Esperanto 😀

Good News in Time For Easter!

Guess what I just found out???

I CAN EAT CHOCOLATE AND STAY THIN!!!!

Now, the article does emphasize that one shouldn’t gorge on chocolate, but it does stress that chocolate is full of the antioxidants that help to promote weight loss. And it also states that bitter chocolate helps to suppress appetite better than sweet chocolate.

All I know is, I am going to start nibbling on bittersweet chocolate twice a week. For health reasons, you know.

But that will happen after I gorge on Easter chocolate. Cadbury eggs are awesome!!! 😉

Just Breathe

Yesterday, though a milestone, was still a hectic day. I spent most of the day running to and fro, conducting errands and taking care of a sick kid. It used to be that I had time for me, but lately I have forgotten about that. I find myself saying that I can just do “that” later, or I can go “there” next week, or perhaps have “this” done at the beauty salon sometime…. but it doesn’t happen. Not because I don’t have the time, but because I don’t make the time.

As I was driving back from the post office yesterday, I was passing a local farm. Yes, we have farms within our subdivisions here. I was looking at the beauty of the field, when I suddenly stopped the car, put the hazard lights on, and stepped out to enjoy the view.

I must have stood there, leaning against the fence just looking, and enjoying the peace and serenity. I hadn’t noticed how long I had been there, until an older gentleman stopped to inquire if I were having car trouble. I told him no, just wanted to stop and look at enjoy the flowers. And then he parked his car, put his hazard lights on, and came to stand by the fence, telling me that as many times as he drives on that road, he had never noticed the field before. We chatted for a bit, until the cattle started to moo, and then we parted. But not without humor.

Me: Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Him: That’s very profound…. Hemingway?

Me: Nope. Ferris Bueller.

Him: HAHAHA!!

But it’s true, isn’t it? Life does move pretty fast. And we should always stop and look around, take a deep breath and enjoy it. 🙂

Eighteen to Life

It’s a funny title, because it’s our anniversary today!!!

And he was sweet enough to send me this:

Yep, and Edible Bouquet! I’ve never received one before, so it was quite a novelty. And Hubby was considerate enough to call them and ask that they NOT cover the strawberries in chocolate…

….but there was a slight miscommunication, and most of the strawberries were covered in chocolate, which made the girls ecstatic, but at least I got the plain fruit, so it was all good.

Eighteen years, going on eighty. This past year has been hard, but soon enough it will be over, and then we can both eat chocolate covered strawberries while sitting on the couch, watching some really awful movie on SyFy™ and laughing at the carnage.

What can I say? We enjoy the little things in life 😀

It’s Quiet….TOO Quiet…

And that’s just how I like it.

I’m still in my very comfy pajamas, drinking my second cup of coffee, and listening in my head to this:

Soon enough the kids will shuffle in like zombies wake and start the weekly chores, and I will spend time in the garden beds pulling weeds and digging holes for new flowers. Once that begins, I shall be listening in my head to this:

Sorry, but there is no way I am listening to the actual Wagner opera. I have better things to do with my braincells than keep Wagner pickling them for sixteen hours 😉

Me, and Mini Me

Today both older kids have ROTC commitments, and that just leaves me with Little One.

I had it all planned: we would go early to the outlet mall, have something to munch on while I took her to her favorite stores, checked out Soma for more PJ’s, then lunch at Johnny Rockets.

The reality? She slept in, decided she didn’t want to go at the last minute. So, I decided to just read a bit before starting to finish folding the clothes waiting by my bed.

So what happens? After I tell her she needs to stop watching TV and clean her room, she then decides that the outlet mall is a great idea!

Convenient, huh? But that’s ok, because she gets to clean her room after we return.

There’s a price to pay for fun in the Sith Empire 😉

Disjointed Ramblings of a Tired Mind

I woke up this morning rather disoriented, finding I had overslept because I set the alarm for PM instead of AM, and was rushing to get Son to school on time for him to catch the bus for the school trip to Angelo State University for an ROTC drill meet. So currently I am operating with only four hours of sleep, and one pot of coffee. Don’t worry, there is another pot percolating quite happily right now.

As usual, thoughts tend to be disorganized when I have not had plenty of rest. This morning was no different. As I drove to the school I thought of how odd that the post office is completely lit inside. I thought that it is due to workers, but no….it’s kept completely lit all day and night. Which made me wonder if it was a deterrent to vandalism, which led to thinking about how many vandals have been caught lately (three), which made me wonder who would want to vandalize a post office, and how. I mean, do they write graffiti on the wall about poor service? Do they put bulk mail in the single letters slot? What?? And speaking of graffiti, it used to be we could ALL read it just fine. Now? Dear Lord above, the misspellings drive me insane. Driving home last weekend I saw a a highway exit sign that had the word “Legion” spelled “Lejion”. And no, it isn’t in Spanish. I just wanted to hit the taggers with the unabridged Webster’s Dictionary. And once I arrived at my folks, the idiots wrote “La Reconquista” up on a highway sign, but they spelled it “LA RECONKISTA”. Seriously?? You want to “reconquer” Texas and can’t even be bothered to spell your cause correctly?? Gah!!

Ok, I think I better go drink my next pot of coffee now. Hubby will be skyping soon, and I need to be lucid for that.

Tattoo You

Full disclosure: I don’t have any tattoos. Nevertheless, I love the intricate works of art that can grace someone’s body. I remember back in the early 90’s, the Dallas Museum of Art had a photograph collection on display of 114 tattoos by 68 different artists, and I was mesmerized. It is different than painting on a canvas. The precision, the detail, and the no-room-for-mistakes make for some beautiful work, and sometimes for major drama when the artist does makes a mistake. Unlike tattoos in the past, nowadays you can correct mistakes a bit more easily, though not without added discomfort!

I had briefly toyed with the idea of either getting a tattoo, or a (SHOCK!!) belly button piercing when I lived in Germany. It seemed everyone was getting one. And Hubby wasn’t opposed to it either, as long as it held some sort of significance.

Me: Significance? Like the kids’ names?

Hubby: No, something oblique that only you and me understand.

Me: Kids’ names in Sanskrit??

Hubby: (big sigh) No, no names. But you do have a lot of moles on your back. Maybe like Connect the Dots? Or hey! How about the Big Dipper? You do have moles that look like the stars in the Big Dipper….

Me: ………

Needless to say, that never came to fruition. And in retrospect I suppose it’s a good thing. But sometimes I think wistfully of the remarks a Big Dipper tattoo would have generated 😉