About a month ago, Mr Moo ordered new All-Clad LTD pans online.

That photo is from the All-Clad website. Aren't they lovely? It's like kitchenware porn.

Anyhoo, we've been needing new pans for a while now. We decided to invest in some good ones this time around rather than waste our money on crappy stuff from Target that we'd end up replacing in a year like we always do. I gave him the okay to get whatever he wanted (he's the cook in our house, remember) and his parents gave him some money to help pay for them on his birthday back in June. It took him four months to do the research, make up his mind and actually order the darn things, but he finally did it. We are now the proud owners of:

1 - All-Clad LTD 12 inch Fry Pan
1 - All-Clad LTD 4 qt. Saute Pan with Lid
1 - All-Clad LTD 6 qt. Deep Saute Pot w/Lid & Loop
1 - All-Clad LTD Nonstick Round Grill Pan

We didn't order the grill pan. They were having a special promotion and it just showed up as a free item. Free is always good.

We've been using all of the pans for several weeks now and have no complaints about them at all. Well, I piss and moan about how heavy they are every time I have to pick one up (they weigh a ton!), but that's not a fault with the pans. It's just me being a weakling. The only real problem we've encountered since the pans arrived is we didn't have a good place to store them. Our kitchen doesn't have much storage space for large items and what little space we do have is already being used. And we certainly didn't want to stuff them in the drawer under the oven like we've done with pans in the past. It's not a good place to store anything besides baking sheets and never mind the fact they wouldn't have fit. Solution: pot rack.

Amazingly, we only had to go to one store for all of our pot rack needs. Kitchen Kaboodle has a million of them in every shape, size and color. It ended up being too many choices. We were there for quite a while trying to make a decision. In the end, we decided against the typical suspended-from-the-ceiling ones. There really isn't a good spot to hang one where Mr Moo wouldn't constantly be cracking his skull against it. It also would have looked weird having some monstrous pot rack with giant chains hanging in our small kitchen. The perfect pot rack for our kitchen? Wall-mount.

Since they are an odd size that doesn't line up with the wall studs, we had to add the extra pieces of wood behind the racks to get them to stay on the wall. It's not the prettiest arrangement in the world, but it works. They are located opposite our refrigerator and there's still just enough room to open both doors without banging into the pans. Actually, if you throw open the freezer door and let it open all the way, it hits the far right pan on the top rack a bit. We never really open the freezer that much so it's not much of an issue. Plus, we're aware of it so we're extra careful not to do it.

So, umm, yeah. That's the story of our new pans and pot rack.

My first Christmas card of the season arrived earlier this week, all the way from England no less.

Steph, you're making the rest of us look bad getting your cards done so early!!! :-)

According to my bathroom scale (the little flat white liar that it is), I managed to make it through this Thanksgiving holiday gaining only two pounds. ((insert look of utter disbelief here)) Why, then, do I feel like I gained 15? And why do I look like I'm 5 months pregnant with a giant food baby made of stuffing, mashed potatoes and pie? I wouldn't feel so bad about gaining a few pounds if Christmas wasn't just around the corner. In just three and a half weeks, we'll be doing the whole "stuffing ourselves more than the turkey and eating leftovers for a week" thing again. Guh. I need to really focus on shedding a few pounds over the next few weeks or they'll be tying ropes to me and floating me in a parade somewhere for New Year's.

Okay. So, it looks likes two puffs on my inhaler this morning was a little more than my poor monkey brain could handle today. Shaky hands, anyone? My inhaler is feeling empty. The first puff was rather lame and I didn't think I got much, if any, medication from it. I went ahead and took a second drag just to be sure, which is something I almost never do. In retrospect, not my greatest idea ever. My hands are now shaking like a chihuahua on crack. Makes it loads of fun trying to type. I think it's time to find something to eat and start working a bit of this medication out of my system.

Even though a good chunk of it melted before I woke up this morning, I think it's safe to say that our 1-4" of snow just never materialized yesterday.

The sky is still spitting out a few flakes, but I think a dusting is all we're going to get out of this storm. It was really coming down when I posted last night. Unfortunately, it stopped not long after and never really picked up again. Oh, well. It's only November. I'm sure we'll see more of the white stuff before spring arrives.

It took a while to get going, but it's snowing now! And it's sticking! Woot!

Looks like we got a light dusting of snow overnight, most of which is gone already. So much for our big snowstorm. One of the weather reports I just read claims we could still get 1-4" today, but I'll believe it when I see it. I have a meeting at a new website client's house in a couple hours. If it does snow anymore today, hopefully, it will hold off until after I'm home from that.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 078

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Mr Moo and I put up all of the outside Christmas garlands and lights tonight. Normally, this wouldn't be a huge task. However, it seemed like 90% of the lights were burnt out. It took an age to replace all of the burnt out bulbs and there were a couple garlands that we just gave in and replaced the entire light strand. We even had to make a trip to the store for a small strand of just 50 lights since I didn't have any extras. We're glad to have it all done, but it took forever and a day and we're pooped. I'm going to hold off taking any photos until at least Monday. There's a storm heading our way and the latest forecast claims we're going to get 2-4" of snow, which will make for some pretty photos. If it doesn't happen, you'll get to see my house in the more typical mud and rain.

A quick update for anyone following the saga of Mr Moo's December business trip to Israel and his expired passport. The trip has been postponed indefinitely. Phew! He didn't have to drive all the way to Seattle and back on Wednesday to renew his passport. He did mail it in for expedited processing though since Intel is paying for it, but it doesn't look like he'll need it until the end of January at the earliest. Mr Moo says there is a good chance the whole trip will end up being cancelled in the end. That's what I'm hoping happens because I really don't want him to go. As much as he tries to convince me the area he'd be going to is perfectly safe, I just don't like the idea of him going anywhere in the Middle East right now. More on this as it develops.

We have officially survived yet another Thanksgiving at the Moo House without anyone dying from eating too much. It was a close call for a little while with Mr Moo, but he finally let out a big burp and felt better.

We had our normal crowd of eight people. And, as per usual, we made enough food to feed 40. We'll be eating nothing but leftovers for the next week or so. Anyone want to come over for lunch today?

My game plan for today is to finish cleaning up downstairs and get the Thanksgiving decorations put away. If I'm still feeling ambitious after that, I might think about getting out the Christmas stuff. Or I might have Mr Moo light me a fire, curl up on the couch with a blanket and watch the brain rot all day. Tough decision.

The turkey is in the oven.

I laid back down and attempted to get a little bit more sleep, but I just couldn't nod off. Mr Moo is sawing logs though. Think I'm going to take a shower and get dressed then wake him up.

Happy Thanksgiving! It's oh-dark-hundred and I'm up to get the turkey in the oven. I went to bed relatively early last night, but I just couldn't get to sleep. I ended up getting a grand total of about four hours of sleep, I think. Guess who will be going to bed wicked early tonight.

Here's a really poor picture of the table centerpiece Mr Moo bought for me yesterday:

I'll try to take a better one later today.

The table is set and ready to go.

We don't have very many people coming this year. I probably could have fit everyone at the 8' banquet table (foreground) and not used the smaller dining room table (background) at all, but at least no one can complain about not having enough elbow room this year.

On today's agenda, we have:
- make the pies (yup, still haven't done that yet)
- peel and boil every potato I can find in the house (which amounts to a small truckload)
- make the stuffing (someone remind me to find the grinder soon)
- finish setting up the buffet table
- take a nap
- go to the store(s) for: a floodlight bulb to replace the burned out one in the kitchen, a floral centerpiece for the dining table and more frozen corn (we bought some last week, but I ate it all)

19.51 lb turkey...

...$3.53

According to the receipt, we either paid for some extra frost on the turkey or we were overcharged by 0.11 lbs. That's three whole cents! We were robbed! I should spent $8 in gas and $50 of my time to drive back there and complain.

We received a beautiful card for Thanksgiving from my in-laws over the weekend.

Inside reads: Thinking about all the things that make you such a special son and daughter-in-law. Happy Thanksgiving.

Today, I must get cracking on preparations. I've got pies to make (I never did get to them yesterday - bad Moo!), cleaning to finish and setting up to do. It doesn't seem like much when I write it down, but it will take me the rest of today and probably some time tomorrow as well. I also have some sewing work that I should do at some point, a couple errands to run and an appointment for a wax today. Could someone, please, send me some extra time in a bottle? On the agenda for tomorrow is cooking whatever I can ahead of time. I will peel and cook several metric tons of potatoes, make the stuffing (my great-grandmother's recipe made using an old steel food grinder even), and get several other dishes ready to go. (Dan, I need you to chop onions for me!!!) It's going to be a jam packed couple of days for 20 minutes of eating on Thursday. Wheee!

Just in time for Thanksgiving:

I've pretty much given up on getting any baking done tonight. It's getting late and I'm getting tired. Not a good combination for using the oven. I was hoping to at least get the pie crust dough made so it could chill in the refrigerator overnight, but I think I might just focus on cleaning for the rest of tonight and start fresh with the whole baking/cooking thing tomorrow.

Today was supposed to be "Baking and Cleaning Like a Fool Day" in preparation for Thanksgiving on Thursday. So far, I've done nothing except work on a client's website for six hours. Granted, I got a lot of work done, but my list of things I have to do hasn't gotten any smaller and the pies certainly haven't baked themselves. Think I'm going to take a shower, get dressed (yeah, finally), and start thinking about getting to work on some things on my list.

EDIT: Aight. I lied. I worked for three more hours. Now I'm going to take a shower. For reals!

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 077

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Mr Moo and I just got back from our annual Friday before Thanksgiving midnight food shopping trip. We have to get the turkey this early in order for it to have time to defrost before Thursday. We could have shopped tomorrow, if we had wanted. However, based on past experience and seeing how franctically the grocery store employees were trying to get all of the shelves fully stocked tonight, shopping tomorrow would have been a complete nightmare. I don't even want to know how crowded it's going to be in there come morning. Thus, we shop late Friday night instead since, aside from all of the crazed employees, we're practically the only ones in the store. We got everything we need for Thursday except for the fresh fruits and veggies, which I'll pick up on Tuesday. We bought the turkey. 19.62 pounds. Anyone want to guess how much we paid for it?

It seems like everyone in my neighborhood has one of those electric leaf sucker-upper things. Whatever happened to a rake and some good, old-fashioned elbow grease?

This morning, I dreamt that I woke up, got out of bed and was busily working away for a couple hours in my office. Imagine my surprise when I woke up for real and discovered I was still in bed and none of my work was done. Damn!

Momma got some brand new clothes last week, including a new striped turtleneck...

...and a new Christmas sweater.

I love sweaters, especially Christmas ones. They're always so pretty and shiny sparkly (and those of you who know me well know what a sucker I am for the shiny sparkly). I should move to the North Pole so I can wear them year round.

According to our bathroom scale, which is a notorious liar so I'm not jumping for joy just yet, I have lost 30lbs as of today. I'll do my happy dance if I get the same reading tomorrow. I was at my heaviest just after the first of the year, so I've lost this weight over the course of about 10 months. I don't think that's too bad considering how sloppy I've been about working out (read: I haven't worked out in an age) and I haven't really been trying all that hard to lose either. I've just been doing my best to eat better and not as much. Makes me wonder where my weight would be if I had been able to stick to working out on a more regular basis.

My sister has a really, really not-so-bright neighbor. He's the kind of guy who makes Forrest Gump look like someone who graduated summa cum laude from Yale. My sister and I both agree that it's just a matter of time before he kills/hurts/maims himself and/or everyone within a one mile radius of him when his stupid finally goes supernova. The other day, something outside my sister's bedroom window caught her eye.

Is that a fire?

Yes, indeedy, it's a fire. Her dumbass neighbor decided to burn some of his yard debris in the woods behind their houses.

He decided a spot covered in underbrush and dried leaves with a canopy of tree branches overhead was THE spot to light a fire. Finding it hard to believe anyone could be this dumb? Here he is next to his giant illegal fire.

My sister ended up calling the fire department. They sent someone out to talk to him and my sister thinks they gave him a ticket. Amazingly, the fire eventually died down without taking the woods or anyone's house with it. I figured my sister needed to laugh about it before she went outside and killed him herself, so I made this for her:

Anyone have a good recipe for sauteed string beans?

There's a million recipes online, but I like to get recipes from people who have actually tried and like them.

My friend, J, and her hubby are on their honeymoon in Europe at the moment. We received a postcard they sent from France in the mail yesterday.

My French is terribly rusty, but I believe it roughly translates to: Here is why, in Bourgogne, one should never drink the water!

She wrote on the back that she didn't know what the postcard says, but had to buy it for me because it had a cow on it. I'm sure she'll have a good laugh when she learns what it really says!

Josie's new favorite sleeping spot...

...on a towel on my desk under the heat of my halogen desk lamp.

Mr Moo's dodgeball league wrapped up another season this week. They're having their "playoffs" today. It's a single elimination tournament that all teams participate in. His team has not done well this time around, so he expected to play one match, lose and come home. Well, he just called to tell me that, by some sort of miracle, his team has won their first two matches! Excuse me while I faint. They're off to get some lunch right now and will play again at 1340. While I would love to see his team kick some major butt this afternoon (some of the more "winning" teams aren't very good sports and could use a good smack down), I can't quite foresee them winning four more games to take the whole thing. However, I'm a notoriously poor judge of these things and they could very well win it all. We shall see.

EDIT: Mr Moo's team got spanked. They're out and he's on his way home. Oh, well. At least they got to enjoy a few minutes of victory.

Mr Moo attempted to make a box of herb and butter rice as a side dish to go with the salmon we had for dinner last night. The instructions called for 1.5 cups of hot water. I had used our large 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup to measure milk for my oatmeal yesterday morning. Since that was in the dishwasher, Mr Moo resorted to using one of the regular smaller measuring cups. He grabbed the 1/2 cup one and filled it three times. Into the microwave the rice went and all was well in our world.

Or so we thought.

When Mr Moo opened the microwave and said, "What the frell?!?", I knew something awful had happened. If that hadn't clued me in, the stench of something burning that overcame me about half a second later certainly would have. I hesitantly made my way into the kitchen to see what was going on. In a nutshell, Mr Moo had made us Chernobyl rice for dinner. There was a dark brown, stinky, fused mass of what was once rice in my lovely French White Corningware casserole dish. I believed I summed the whole thing up with: "I ain't eatin' that."

We tried to sort exactly what went wrong. The first thing that entered my mind was the microwave was malfunctioning. Want a quick way to ruin your day? Convince yourself that your microwave oven is broken and you just filled your house with enough radiation to power a Typhoon class submarine for a couple months. That one will bring you right down, let me tell you. Mr Moo assured me that we would not be glowing in the dark anytime soon and proposed something was wrong with the rice. My response: "Defective rice? Are you kidding me?" We then moved on to the instructions. Perhaps there was a misprint. A quick check of the box confirmed that it did call for 1.5 cups of water and Mr Moo was sure that's the same amount he's used before when the rice turned out actually edible. It was at that moment Mr Moo looked in the sink and discovered the problem. He had used the 1/4 cup measuring cup instead of the 1/2 cup one.

Moral of the story: rice + half of the water the instructions call for = natural disaster in your kitchen

EDIT: Sorry, no photos of this culinary accomplishment. I was going to take one once we finished eating, but Mr Moo cleaned up the mess before I had a chance to get out the camera.

Thanksgiving card from Mr Moo's aunt and uncle that arrived in the mail yesterday:

I love it! Inside reads: Sink your teeth into celebrating! Happy Holiday To You

Am I the only person who totally cannot believe that Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away?

And, there are a million leaves on the front lawn again today. Sigh. Hopefully, there will be some sort of break in the weather (it's started raining again today) this weekend so Mr Moo can get out and mow the lawn. The leaves that are out there now are few and spread out enough that he can just mow them. At least I got to enjoy my nice clean yard for a few minutes.

I had planned to take before and after photos of the front yard, but I only just finished up about 20 minutes ago and it's pitch black out now. Guess you'll just have to deal with only a before photo and use your imagination to imagine what it looks like with no leaves in it.

My next door neighbor came home while I was raking. She came outside not long after and helped me finish up the bit of my lawn I hadn't gotten to yet and the little piece of her lawn that adjoins it. She also helped me clear the street gutters in front of her, my and my other next-door neighbor's house as well as a large section of the one across the street. She's such a nice lady. After she went back inside, I raked up some more leaves on the other side of our driveway (behind where I was standing to take the photo) and pruned my rose bushes a bit. I still need to cut my rose bushes way back for the winter, but I'll do that another time when it's light out so I can see what the heck I'm doing.

Needless to say, I'm quite pooped and in desperate need of a shower now.

I think I'm going to head outside and attempt to rake some leaves - emphasis on the word attempt. After all the rain we've had over the past few days, I'm not sure I'll even be able to walk across the lawn without disappearing into it. The way things looked yesterday, I could start growing rice or cranberries in my flower beds. At the very least, I should be able to get the leaves cleaned off the driveway and sidewalk. And, it will do me some good to get outside for a bit and enjoy the relatively nice weather we're having today before the monsoons come back tomorrow.

Only one more month to go after this one. Where has this year gone? This month's Cows in Shining Armor calendar image (click to see full size):

El Cud
One of Spain's most celebrated of heroes (second in renown only to Herdinand and Isabulla), El Cud doth be famed in both song and story. A passionate believer in eating more chicken, he didst prevent Europe from being overrun by the burger-eating Mooers. His greatest victory was at the fortress city of Toledo, where his mighty cowtapults knocked holes in the walls. The people of "Hole-y Toledo", as it became known, coined the phrase "Holy Cow" in El Cud's honor. We use it still.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 076

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I meant to post these a while ago, but I, as per usual, completely forgot about it. By request, photos of my super duper amazingly homemade laptop stand for the exercise bike:

It's just two pieces of wood screwed together in an L. I had to cut a large crescent-shaped notch (which you can't see) in the bottom piece so it would fit over the magazine rack/ledge on the display panel. That was probably the most difficult part. I used the nylon strap from some tool belt/fanny pack thing I found in the garage to secure the laptop because I was bit worried about it being top heavy and falling down when open. Here's what it looks like from the driver's seat:

It's not exactly easy or comfortable to type, but it is do-able, if necessary. I've found it's just easier to restrict myself to reading and maybe a little clicking so I can focus on my pedaling. If I'm going to spend an hour every day reading the news and such, might as well be getting some exercise while I'm at it.

I have one of those sores on the roof of my mouth right now. You know, the ones where you go blind and forget your name for five minutes whenever you touch them. Of course, what foods am I jonesing for right now? Why, crunchy cereal and tortilla chips, of course!

Some pictures from last week:

Halloween candy!!! M&M's and Skittles. Only the good stuff at the Moo House. I ain't gettin' egged. :-)

Halloween decorations on the table in our front entryway. While I was unpacking everything, I started setting stuff there to get it out of the way. I ended up liking how it looked, so I just left it all there. It's the only area of the house most people get to see and it made decorating a breeze.

Mr Moo found out this morning that there is a close to 100% chance he will be going to Haifa, Israel for a week in December on a business trip. I took a quick look online to see how much it would cost for me to join him and found most airlines want $1000-1200 just to get me to Tel Aviv. I would still have to make additional arrangements to get to Haifa. Even though there wouldn't be any additional cost for lodging (since Intel will be paying for his hotel room and I would stay with him), I'm not sure it would be worth spending all that money for me to join him. He'll have to work almost every day and there would be little time for us to sightsee together. I don't have a problem going off and doing things on my own at all, but I'm thinking it might be better for us to save that money and take a trip together at another time when he wouldn't have to work.

EDIT: We've decided against it. It's too expensive, too close to Christmas and Mr Moo won't have enough free time to make it worth it. Maybe next time.

We're home! We got back from Rochester late last night. If I remember correctly, we walked through the door a tiny bit before midnight and were in bed sound asleep at 1230. With the three hour time difference between NY and Oregon, it felt like 0330 to us and we were shattered.

My friend J's wedding was wonderful. Everything went smoothly, she looked beautiful and it was great to spend time with everyone since we hadn't seen any of them in at least a couple years. Since I was in the wedding and Mr Moo was helping with a lot of things, we didn't bring our camera because we knew we wouldn't have any time to take any pictures. Hopefully, I will be able to track a few down and get some posted soon.

Just wrapping up a few things then I'm heading to bed. Our flight to Rochester is at 1100 tomorrow, so we'll be heading out as soon as we're up and dressed in the morning. I'm actually going to get some sleep tonight. Woot! First time for everything I guess.

We'll be home late Sunday night. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Why does everything I touch turn into a flaming pile of poo right before I leave on vacation? Every. Single. Time.

We're leaving for Rochester, NY in the morning. I'm going to be in my friend J's wedding this weekend. I can't even begin to describe how busy I am at the moment. Ugh.