you know that little black cloud . . .

the one that has been following me around and breaking things in the house . . . like the dishwasher.  for which we are still waiting on parts.  and the toilet, that i fixed, by the way, and the sink that refused to give forth with the clear refreshing liquid it was designed to emit. and the refrigerator that sends me ice burgs rather than cubes.  yeah, that cloud. 

it's back.  k2 went out the garage to head to work and even before she popped back upstairs with the news, i knew something was terribly not so very good.  my bedroom is right over the garage.  grind.  lurch.  groan.  they were all sounds coming through the floor boards.  when i took a look, one of the gear chains was hanging.  when i manually lifted the door so k1 and her car could escape, it spewed cogs and gears like so many snowflakes from heaven. black greasy snowflakes.  ok, so not so much like snowflakes. 

so i called the garage door peeps and told them my garage door opening mechanism had committed suicide.  he chuckled.  really.  he did.  but being the nice guy he is, and having put up with me before, he's got us on the schedule for tomorrow. 

again with the first world problem, jeanne.  people have real issues.  shut up. 

ok.  i was just saying.

incoming . . .

so in continuing our quest for a larger culinary experience . . .  aren't we sounding all pretentious . . .  we are back to one or two new recipes a week.  tonight's experiments were polar opposites on all four quadrants.

one is relatively wholesome and the other decadent to the nth degree.

one is an enormous do-again while the other, a decided flop.  (we have a much better very similar recipe that can be served over grilled bread or angel hair pasta.)

one is thrown together in a singular giant step.  the other requires a slower building process.

one has a bite.  the other melts in your mouth.

on the slurp scale of one to five, here we go.  main dish category.  although we love pasta and basil, and tomatoes and mozzarella, this was a one slurp.  sorry but it was boring except for the mozzarella pearls i may or may not have been tossing in my mouth like so many peanuts. 

nope, not inventive enough to do again.  sorry.

dessert category, are we ready?  carmelitas.  are you familiar with these goodies?  no photo usually means they were gone before the shutter could snap.  not exactly true in this instance but exactly how much gooey-ness can two people consume in short order plus we had to save some for k2 who has a night class after work on tuesdays.  slurp scale?  off the freakin' sugar induced coma charts!!!!!!

and that my little foodies, is that.

lipsmacking good ol' hot out of the oven . . .

picked up a cast iron cornbread mold when i went junking a couple of weeks back.  this is after its first bath in easy off:

 

almost all of the gunk scrubbed off but just to make sure it was squeaky clean, i coated it again and it is sitting in a plastic baggie for another 24 hours.  then it hops into a vinegar bath before being seasoned.  fall and cornbread, what can i say?

happy. happy . . .

There is a site called GSO . . . short for Gallery Stand Outs . . . and they scour all the various digital sites for their daily favorites.

hold your seats there cowgirls and check out the second one down!!!!

yes, i'm a tad excited.  saddle up those ponies and head on down the road.

hummmmm . . .

wht f ( ) wk p n mrnng nd rlzd  ( ) hd spnt m lflng qt f vwls?

spent part of the morning moving the remainder of the wood pile from the wood brace in anticipation of a truck load of oak coming in on friday.  the newer wood will go on the bottom and the older seasoned wood will go on top and yes, i am hoping the predictions for a colder than normal winter are correct.  the fireplace has been cleaned, inspected, patched and the flue has been modified to work more efficiently.

i have visions of cozily sitting in front of a roaring fire with warm tootsies, my laptop and a mug of swisse mocha.  yes, i am delusional but for those five or six days, i am in heaven!!!!

warm kitty, sleepy kitty . . .

pippin has wedged her body between my bent knees and the back of my laptop.  it's warm there apparently.  she is such a florida cat.  a little cooler weather and she goes into wimp mode.