Ruminations on My Shows

I love any shows on television. Of course nothing on the air today can compare to either DS9 or B5. Yes it is definitely possible to be a fan of both shows despite the historical rather rancorous relationship between the two fan-groups.

Deep Space Nine was great for its surprisingly quirky and appealing characters. Think Nog, at times, and the wondrous Garak, always good for a quote. I just loved it. Dad actually loaned his DVD with In the Pale Moonlight on it to a cowokers. Yes, the family tries to share the joy with others. That is one of the penultimate episodes. Now that I’m a sewer though, I look at the costumes on Star Trek and shudder. Most are just ugly. What made the costume designers think that just because humanity has evolved, we want to look bad. Do we become unfashionable do-gooders taking our fugaliousness across the galaxy?

Although I did like the dress Dax wore in the Fascination episode in Season 2.

Now B5 had the epic story line, good acting and vision. I mean, who can deny that Shattered Dreams was one of the most powerfully dramatic Sci Fi episodes, like ever. I still remember seeing that speech of Sheridan’s right before they secede and it gave and still gives me goosebumps. Now, due to the nature of the beast DS9 was able get more powerful specific episodes on average, but B5 had more meaningful seasons.

DS9 had the old Sisko episode, the Kira and the Spoonhead episode, the episode with the dead Captain, Section 31, Garak, Bashir and the un-curable disease, that whole arc at the beginning of season 6 and the final episode of 5, the one where Worf comes on the station, the one with Odo’s mistake.

B5 had dreamy Marcus, the Psi Corps, allusions to WWII (although to be fair DS9 had them too, but B5 had more and from a very different perspective), the coll end of the Shadow war, scenes with Marcus and Franklin, an actually interesting time travel episode (yes DS9 did them too, but more in the tradition of Trek versus B5 only going a few years into the past), very few really cringe-worthy episodes, the episode from the lackey’s perspective, the great Londo-G’Kar interactions. Sad that both G’Kar and Franklin are dead now….

Well, I’ve more current shows I keep up with. Last season I started, for the first time in since I was in high school and DS9 was on, I kept up with a currently produced show. That’s right, I watched Heroes and Jericho, and after they started showing reruns all the time of Scrubs, I began to watch it too. Now I also keep up with House.

I used to love Monk, but it’s lost its spark. I once watched it, then it then Psych, and now I watch Psych first, then Monk, gotta love DVR. Psych is such a hoot and those guys are seriously hot.

I got to thinking about this because I was wondering when the fall season starts again. Is it the beginning of October?

I think I should start to end every blog with a quote from something and guess what, I won’t tell you the source until the next week. You can mention it in the comments if you are smart enough to know it. So for this blog, how about…

Garak “How much damage do you think it would do to the timeline if Quark were to suffer a mysterious” pause for effect “accident?”

Sisko “I don’t know, maybe we should perform a little experiment and find out.”

They walk menacingly away. Name that episode of DS9.

Pondering Good Time Management

So who has good time management skills? Not I, said the blogger. That’s right, I never work on what I need to do before I need it. I’m a time crunch person and this is not necessarily a good thing. I mean, I get everything done, but it’s so much more stressful to work on things on the wire versus slowly and steadily. And I use projects to procrastinate on other projects. Yes I often get a lot of housework done during finals and have been known to sew up a storm when I should be focusing on other matters. I’ve heard that the problem with procrastinators is that they underestimate the amount of time it will take to perform a task and this is true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said it will take an hour to do something, and then it takes 2 hours.

Well, I can’t say ‘no more’ yet. Lol. I need to take control, the semester started today and I need to finish all projects this semester with at least a weekend to spare. I’m going to hereby make Friday’s my wire days and just try to get everything done before I fall asleep Friday night. Now this may seem odd to those of you who don’t know me, but guess what, I have no life. I go to work, come home, do homework, sleep, read, and sew, and that’s the large portion of my week.

So what do I want to accomplish this semester.

1. I want to run a 5k, and worry about the time, not just that I finish.
2. I want to segregate Sundays for personal growth and spiritual enlightenment and stop using it as just another weekend day.
3. Hopefully that will mean I’ll be practicing twice a week on the piano.
4. I will limit my sewing to 2 outfits a week and 1 sewing shopping trip in 2 weeks, this will include Walmart.
5. I will bring my lunch in everyday, even if I must stop by at Walmart to pick it up.
6. I will eat at least 1 major portion of veggies with every meal, and they must look and taste reasonably like what they are.
7. I will sell on eBay to support my eBay habit, no more buying without selling balancing the buying out.
8. I will attempt to keep my sewing area organized and sewing patterns un-mixed up.
9. I will water my plants every Monday.
10. I will take Luna to the dog park every Friday morning.
11. I will take a second job during the Christmas holidays.
12. I will go up to Denton once a month.
13. I will go down to Houston once a month.

And I think I’ll stop at lucky 13. How feasible is this? Well, I’m not expecting to change myself overnight.

Here’s some things I CAN do to expedite these changes.

1. Go to the gym on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
2. Practice piano Sundays and Wednesdays.
3. Dog Park Friday morning
4. Studying Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
5. First Saturday of the month down to Houston.
6. Third Saturday of the month up to Denton
7. Run/walk with Luna every morning before 10 until it gets colder.
8. Cook lunches for the week on Sunday evening.
9. Every other Friday do manicure and pedicure for self and maybe a bubble bath too.
10. Water plants every Monday.

I think this is enough to keep me going with and I hope to keep with blog updated with pictures that WILL show me losing weight, right?

I'm at 168 right now. (Yeah, the scale is not pointing to my weight or any wieght I'd like, I'm thing 135 would be comfortable)

Musings over a Rotisserie Chicken

Hmm, hmmm. So I picked up lunch before work today at Walmart. I got a rotisserie chicken and making for a salad. Then I undid my good behavior by eating the last piece of marble cake from MaryAnn’s retirement party on Thursday. Oh well. The 3 pieces Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups probably didn’t help matters. Sometimes I wonder about food. Don’t you? I wonder about making it and why it can sometimes taste great or lousy depending on hunger and composition. I’ve been making crème brulee more often lately and it’s been pretty good if I do say so myself, and I do. I don’t brown the top since I make it with Splenda and Splenda doesn’t act like real sugar when you burn it. I also use half n’half rather then heavy cream. I pour it into foil lined cupcake pans for automatic portion control. This recipe is also nice for ice cream, only you freeze it rather then cooking it.

From allrecipes.com...

Creme Brulee II
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Hengen

"A wonderful baked creme brulee. Use white or brown sugar for the top. If you do not have a kitchen torch, a regular propane torch can be used or simply place the custard under the broiler for a few minutes. "
INGREDIENTS
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 egg yolks
• 4 tablespoons white sugar
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) and line the bottom of a large baking pan with a damp kitchen cloth.
2. Bring a large pot of water to boil. While water is boiling, combine cream, 1/4 cup sugar and salt in saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally 4 to 5 minutes, until steam rises. In a medium bowl, beat egg yolks and vanilla until smooth. Pour hot cream into yolks, a little at a time, stirring constantly, until all cream is incorporated. Pour mixture into four 6 oz. ramekins.
3. Place ramekins on towel in baking dish, and place dish on oven rack. Pour boiling water into dish to halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cover whole pan loosely with foil.
4. Bake 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until custard is just set. Chill ramekins in refrigerator 4 to 6 hours.
5. Before serving, sprinkle 1 tablespoon sugar over each custard. Use a kitchen torch or oven broiler to brown top, 2 to 3 minutes.

Here's a quote to ponder.

Worf: Death to the Opposition

Contemplations on a Toad

We got a lot of rain here in Dallas earlier this summer. It was nice while it lasted, but I, for one, was definitely ready to see the sun again. Well we have seen the sun a lot lately, but those little frogs that came out with the rain have not gone back home as expected. I still see them hopping about at night all around the neighborhood. I guess that means we water our lawn A LOT. So last Thursday I was throwing Luna’s ball to her and she was returning it and we were having a grand old time. When that dog of mine decided to chomp down on a passing frog as opposed to the ball. And she just chewed on it and wouldn’t let it loose. She gave me a look that plainly said, if you wait it, come and claim it. Yes, my dog has sat with me to see LOTR. Lol.

Anyway, I didn’t think much of it at the time. I just went inside shaking my head at her ickiness. Luna was fine, she didn’t barf, or wheeze, choke, and foam at the mouth. Now I’ve looked up the whole dogs eating frogs thing online and it seems to happen often and sometimes have a tragic result. If I’d known last week what I know now, I’d have called the vet after she ate it to ask about it.

I suppose dogs exist to make us laugh at ourselves, or at least for the warm, fuzzy feeling many generate. Luna is the sweetest dog and she can seriously be a hoot. I suppose that dog deserves a trip to the dog park (it’s 30 minutes away) this week.


Here's a pic of Luna as a puppy. Wasn't she just the cutest dog ever?

A sort of busy weekend...

Well, I had a busy weekend. First there was the Mesquite Championship Rodeo on Friday night. It's strange, I went to school around the corner from the rodeo and never went there until Friday. It was very nice, if a little loud. I'll admit I was moe interested in talking to everyone else who was there rather then waatching the rodeo. Oh well, que sera.



Oh Saturday, I gave a library orientation lecture to a stadium full of mostly 18 year olds. Wow, they were actually well behaved for the first 10 minutes, but then I started losing them. My presentation was only 15 minutes long and they seemed to have some problems keeping still for that long, I hope they get better at it.



I ate Doritos today, not exactly low carb, but surely very tasty, lol. I'll try to be better this week. I get my school year schedule back tomorrow and its great. I dealy love not having to be at work until 10 and having Fridays off, of course, I have to work on Saturdays to get Friday off, but it all balances somehow, right?



School also starts for me tomorrow. I will admit to not looking forward to it. I will no longer have time to spend on sewing or other lazy hobbies. Man, that bites and on that note, here's a few things I completed this week.

From this pattern I made this shirt and the skirt comes from Simplicity 4047. I didn't do the skirt because I wanted to make a pencil skirt to go with it. I actually bought the shirt underneath from Walmart just to go with this ensemble.

I also made a wrap shirt that isn't quite ready yet to be photographed, uually I don't care, but its even more unready then anything else. So onto the forties dress I sewed.

...and my version with some obvious changes since I'm seriously lazy.

I worked on this one awhile back, but kept procrastinating on the buttons, I finally hunkered down and finished them.

---and my version again.

I suppsoe this is enough to post for now.

Got outbid last night

I got outbid last night on some patterns. It was a serious bummer, and the person must have used some program because the final bid came in right before the lot expired, thus I could not outbid them. And I know they aren’t going to use the patterns. They just bought the lot to separate them and resale them on eBay. The bidder has over 3,000 feedbacks, yeah they sell rather then buy. Ooh, I am just so irked and whenever I see risingfeenix, I will never buy their stuff. Here’s the lot I lost. I suppose I only wanted a couple of the patterns anyway, the rest is junk.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110159240962&ssPageName=STRK:MEDW:IT&ih=001

Patterns on my current at the store to-buy list

Mccalls 5466
http://www.mccallpattern.com/item/M5466.htm?tab=whats_new&page=1


I would love to make this the pencil skirted version out of a heavier material. I have some teal that would really highlight the upside of the pattern. Now, I’m all about blue and white right now, so I might make it from some blue challis with white bias tape around the neckline and sleeves. I am looking forward to playing with the sleeves.

Mccalls 5477
http://www.mccallpattern.com/item/M5477.htm?tab=whats_new&page=2


I love so many things about this jacket, the sleeves are so weird, but I like them. I also love the shape and how flattering it must be. I wonder how it would look made up with turquoise and some orange piping at the seams. It wouldn’t go with much else, but it would look good in the process.

I would show ya’ll more of the Mccalls, but the site’s acting wonky.

I sewed a wrap top yesterday. I was inspired by http://sewretro.blogspot.com/2007/08/tie-one-on.html . I love her shirt. Actually all I did was sew the bodice part of a wrap pattern and it ended up a couple inches short for shirt purposes. The pattern was printed in the 40s and doesn’t have a color, so that part of the wrap shirt wouldn’t work It goes great as a wrap over a dress, but with moderate rise pants, I have an inch of skin showing. It’s good that I made the shirt from the remnants of a soft cotton striped material. I used the rest of the fabric for a maxi dress that I’ve worn while sewing, so it has some holes in it from slipping scissors. Oh well, the fabric only cost $1 a yard and I bought 5 so for $5 I reused 2 patterns a got a wrap shirt and maxi dress.