Sometimes I feel like Izzie

The title of this blog is for all of the Grey's Anatomy fans out there. I am one myself, I even pay $1.99 to my big brother Apple every week to download the newest episode.

Some of you who know me well, know why I am like Izzie at times. I like to bake, but when I am lonely, frustrated or just need a soothing moment I bake. I am not sure why, but baking just makes me feel good. Not to mention, my house smells great when I bake. It feels like a home when it smells like cakes and muffins, I just love it.

When I was in Japan, I would go on baking spree and bring it into my staff. They loved the little surprise and were always aware that I need to hear thank-you and see the smiles on their faces. Maybe thats it, treats make others smile and it makes me feel good. Who knows, all I know is it makes me feel good. Now I only have 2 employees and I am a believer in only keeping one treat for myself, so the CDC here is lucky.

Last week, I made blueberry apple muffins, this week I took my mom's busy day cake and made it into muffins.

I was talking to one of my good friend about the muffins last week and she said good grief girl, you are just too domestic. We were joking around and I said that's why no one sticks, a muffin maker type must be the baby maker type and most guys are scared of that. We had a good laugh out of it, that's for sure.

Here again, my roots are showing through. Thank you mom for baking and being domestic, thank you dad for cooking steaks as big as my head.

All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much. ~George Harrison

You can take the girl off the farm...

But, you can't take the farm out of the girl. Once a farm kid always a farm kid!

As I was getting to know someone a while back we were talking about how we were raised and where we come from, etc. Not living in your home area this conversation happens quite often. I said that I was from Oregon and I was raised on a farm, The person said to me, I could never see you as a $hit Kicker, I smiled and said okay. They followed with, well I guess you must be a sophisticated $hit Kicker. I smiled and said, I guess so. Just as my blog is titled Roots and Wings. Many times I come back to my roots without even realizing it.

This weekend, I made a pact with myself, it was a no money weekend. Meaning, I would not spend money. I did not make my regular thrift shop rounds, I did not go to the PX or the commissary. I have also, stopped using the dry cleaner, in Japan it was cheap, here it is a different story. I dropped off 4 sweaters and when I picked them, up it was just shy of $100, with the Euro rate, and that was on base. Okay, back to this weekend, I kept busy around my house. After being TDY then getting home and being sick there was a lot to do around my house. Not to mention mounds of laundry. Those of you that have been subject to the small, take forever, washing machines of Europe and Japan, know exactly what I am talking about. The fastest cycle takes 1 hour and 5 mins and only holds about 3 pairs of jeans. The dryer is also a pain it takes about 2 hours per 3 jean load. The European style dryer extracts the water from your clothes and it has a little drawer/collection bucket. My laundry is in my cellar, so I have to carry the bucket up and dump it in the sink. Enough complaining, but you get the point.

So, today I tapped into my farm girl ways and attacked the laundry. It is cold out, but sunny, so I thought, hey, I will hang my clothes out. One BIG problem, I didn't have clothes line or string of any type and please note, I said no shopping. So, being resourceful, I used saran wrap to make a clothesline, worked like a charm. I will admit, it was a tad, or maybe a bit more than a tad hillbilly. :) I just got done taking the last load off the line and guess what? They were frozen!

You can take the girl off the farm, but... :)

"We must declare ourselves, become know; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself." ~Gore Vidal

MY TDY

For those of you that don't know what TDY means, it means Temporary Duty. Since we speak in acronyms in the military, it is our way of saying we will be away from our regular job for a temporary time. You may be TDY for a conference, a school, etc. I went TDY for a training/ conference. It was an awesome networking and learning experience, but like most conferences it was pretty dry.

The most random part of the entire TDY was the hotel we stayed in. 2 of my co-worker, my boss and I all went to on this TDY. My boss got special authorization to stay at an off base hotel, which she loved (she told us that before hand). Normally, for TDYs, you stay on base, it is usually close to the training and cheaper.

So, we pull up to this hotel, it has a bright pink car out front advertising the hotel rates, name etc. Kind of funky, yes, but also kind of cute.

We walk into the hotel, it is FULL of crap, there are fake flowers everywhere shelves of strange knickknacks. My co-worker turns to me and says this place reminds me of a no name Vegas chapel with rooms connected. In hindsight I wish I would have taken more pictures.

We got our room keys and that's when it got interesting. All of the rooms had mirrors on the ceilings and little lights in the mirrors with a dimming switch. All the rooms also had saunas and jacuzzi tubs. The hotel was quite the experience and the decor made you think renting by the hour was an option. We are still laughing about the place and wondering about my boss. :)

Las Vegas: all the amenities of modern society in a habitat unfit to grow a tomato. ~Jason Love

Transition to glass

I know random, huh? Transition to glass what the heck am I talking about. I am talking about trying hard not to use plastic as much to store and reheat foods. Thanks to my good friend Allison, I started using Pyrex dishes and other glass containers instead of Tupperware or those ziplock things.

So, why am I blogging about this. Well, the top picture is of the glass storage containers, note, they are clean in the top of the dishwasher.
This next picture is of the can of cheap spaghetti sauce that was also in the dishwasher.

This next picture is of the plastic lids and a plastic container that I was washing to put in the recycling. Note the pink tent, similar to what happens when a red sock gets in a white load. Yes, the spaghetti sauce did this to the plastic.

Lesson 1, cheap sauce must be made with green tomatoes, and then dyed with red die. This cannot be good for you, next time I will consider being less of a cheapo and buying better sauce. No promises there.

Lesson 2, stick with glass for storage, if dye leaks into plastic this severely, then I can only imagine what is leaking out of the plastic into my food, when I reheat and store in plastic.

Random, I know...

An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be. ~Author Unknown