Friday, July 06, 2007

Fri
6
Jul
2007

Homemade Cherry Pitter

Have I mentioned how much I love the Internet?

Wednesday, I decided to make a big fruit salad for Marcus' BBQ he was having over here. I've been really craving fruit since I had a good fruit salad at breakfast over at the Flying J truck stop when we went out last Sunday. Well, we went to Target for groceries and wouldn't you know it? No honeydew melons (which I was really craving) and no decent cantaloupe. They had some really tiny "organic" ones for $4 a piece. Um, no thanks. Well, Marcus drove me to King Soopers and they had cantaloupe (and some good looking green grapes), but still no honeydew. WTF? After we got home, I went ahead and braved Walmart by myself. Not only did I find the honeydew, but they also had cherries for $1 a pound. I was shocked! They've been around $3-4 a pound, so I haven't had cherries in forever. I grabbed a bag and now wish I had gotten more.

Well, as I was putting the salad together, I realized that I don't own a cherry pitter. I tried using a knife and ended up making mush of a couple of cherries. What was a girl to do? Google. I found a site that explained how to make a cherry pitter out of a household paper clip. With a little practice, it worked quite well.

I was a little irked because I had taken a watermelon from a bin at Target marked seedless, but I was obviously not when I cut into it. I personally like seeded watermelons better, but I really hadn't wanted to have to pick seeds out for my salad. I was hoping to find some good peaches or maybe throw in some mandarin oranges, but the peaches were hard (I guess it's too early still) and I totally spaced the oranges. Oh, well.

Anyway, my fruit salad finally consisted of cantaloupe, honeydew, green grapes, red grapes, cherries, strawberries, pineapple, apples and watermelon. I was even a good girl and tossed my apples with a little bit of lime juice so they wouldn't turn brown as fast. In addition to serving it at the BBQ and sending some home with Dad, I've had it for lunch the past two days at work, too. Yummy!

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Thu
5
Jul
2007

Blogathon 2007 Signups Underway

Blogathon 2007 LogoThe official site for Blogathon 2007 opened up for registrations today.

It's hard to believe that in a little over three short weeks, I'll be participating again. I finally buckled down and decided to go with the same charity as last year, Livesrong: The Lance Armstrong Foundation. Last year we raised $148.50 and I'd like to top $500 this year. I signed up rather late last year. I didn't decide to participate until after I got laid off. I've definitely got more time to prepare this year. If you're curious about last year's posts, you can read the 2006 Domestic Geek Blogathon Archive.

This year, I'll be giving a Livestrong wristband to anyone that pledges $10 or more and I'd like to do a contest of some sort and have a bigger prize. Hmmm...we'll have to see about that. Any ideas for what I could do would be greatly appreciated!

Anyway, I'll have the pledge link up in the sidebar in a couple of days, but you can go Sponsor Me now through this link.

It's on, baby!
Thu
5
Jul
2007

4th Recap

Hope everybody had a good Independence Day yesterday. I took a bit of a holiday myself since I wasn't needed at work.

We had a little BBQ with some friends and then watched the Aurora fireworks display from the parking lot of PetSmart over at I-225 and Alameda. There was this one drunk dude there that was throwing fireworks up in the air and getting belligerent when people complained that sparks were falling on them. He made the mistake of throwing one right in front of an Aurora police officer that was patrolling the crowd on a dirt bike. Ha, Loser! I was amazed at all the dumb asses that tried to stop on the interstate to watch the fireworks. This one van load of people even got out of their vehicle. Yeah, like that was smart. Good thing the police were patrolling and moving them along before someone got hurt. Right after the fireworks ended, a really cool wind blew in bringing a heavy downpour with it. It was kind of cool to sit in the back of the Escape with the back door up watch the rain and waiting for the crowd to dissipate before heading home.

The sucky part was I didn't get to sleep until after midnight with all the fireworks being shot off in the neighborhood and a nightmare woke me up at 4 am. Working on 4 hours sleep was no fun today. Thankfully, I got a little nap in after work. It's going to be early to bed for me tonight!

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Tue
3
Jul
2007

I’m All Messed Up

See, this is what I knew would happen. I feel like it's Friday since I don't have to work tomorrow. That means I'm not going to want to go to work on Thursday because it will feel like Sunday and the last two days of the week are gonna draaaaaaaaaag. Mid-week holidays are absolutely stupid. I envy those that could take the whole latter part of the week off.
Tue
3
Jul
2007

Ten on Tuesday No. 12

Ten on Tuesday

This week's subject is something I've really been thinking a lot about lately. I'm not getting any younger, so I really need to get cracking on the things I want to do.

Ten Things I Want to Do Before I Die

  1. Learn to oil paint.
  2. Learn to knit and make a sweater.
  3. Get and learn to ride a motorcycle
  4. Travel to Germany
  5. Get a house and land
  6. Weigh under 150 lbs.
  7. Become an Adobe Certified Expert in Illustrator
  8. Own and embroidery machine
  9. Get a tattoo
  10. Take a cruise to Alaska