Well pppppfffffbbbbtt.

I've been trying for several days to get my stinkin' weather station to work correctly. I had to replace the batteries in the remote sensor, which also means you need to replace the batteries in the main station to reboot the whole system. Every time I try the sequence, I either get a blank weather station, or this....



Helpful, no??

I've been wanting to try ribs in the slow cooker for quite awhile, and since spare ribs were on sale this week and today was going to be the first hot day of the year where you don't really want to be trapped in a hot kitchen, I figured I'd try it out.

Ribs, with the usual rub, in the slow cooker in the usual braising mixture - part OJ and part margarita mix.



I also added some sliced onion - hey, it can't hurt - and some more seasoning.




I was at least smart and used a slow cooker liner this time. I figured this had the potential to become very messy.

So, I was going about my day in the usual manner, and I got a phone call. Quick caller ID scan showed it was the one company I interviewed with that I *really* wanted to get an offer from. In this day and age of the interwebs, I'm used to the usual "thanks, but no thanks" email from places. A call is usually a good thing.

Or not.

I thought the interview went well... right now I'm wondering if I maybe seemed a little too stuffy for their tastes. I kinda got the vibe that at least one person I talked to thought I was a little stuffy. And I am SOOOO not.

Who knows. I've been on the other side of the interview table, and I know you just can't try to guess why or why not they didn't want you. And to sound utterly self-confident... it's their loss. I know I'm good at what I do, and I've unfortunately worked beside a lot of other people (although not recently) who have the same title but cannot deliver the same quality of work (this can be a profession where a lot of people who are bad at it can cost quite awhile, given enough lucky chances). Their loss.

But, oh well. The commute would have sucked anyway.

So... after a call like that, I think it is totally expected, if not mandatory, to sit down with some potato chips and dip and just self-indulge for awhile. So I did just that.

And I was happy to not have to do much more fussing for dinner... threw together a quick slaw, tossed some potatoes in the oven, and fished the ribs out of the cooking liquid before slathering them with some sauce and tossing them in the oven.




I must say... pretty pleased with the result.

Yes, spare ribs are a little more fatty than baby back ribs, but for the price difference, I'll happily pick around the fat. It's also nice to know they can be done this way - sure a lot easier to throw everything in the slow cooker in the morning than deal with the foil packets and fussing with them in the oven and so on.

So, unfortunately, the job hunt continues for now. Did do a little more thorough web searching for jobs today and ran across some I hadn't seen before, so I'm not without hope. Even if I am highly bummed right now.

So much friggin' energy....

A whole day, which followed a whole weekend, where I didn't have to think about work.

I think I understand why the rich like this. A life of leisure is pretty nice. No hard thinking. Nothing frustrating. Note to self: Look into becoming rich.

That's not to say I was a lump all day... ate breakfast, worked out, showered, ran errands, made lunch (grilled cheese... something that does not translate to a brown bag lunch) and started cleaning.

Not the general, "make it look nice" cleaning... the things I just never seem to get around to.

Dusted upstairs, cleaned all the windows, washed/changed all the bed linens, washed the window treatment in the bedroom (holy crap! That this is actually WHITE, not ivory!).

I'd already planned a pretty laid-back dinner... jambalaya fromabox. Hey. It's good. And easy. I don't argue.

But... since I'd be home in the afternoon... bring on the No-Knead Bread!

(And I will admit, one thing that kept me running up & down the stairs cleaning was knowing that as long as I kept it up, I was good with having two big slices of bread, slathered with butter, with my dinner. Apparently buttered fresh bread is a very good motivator for me)

Uh... ok... that flopped into my dish kinda lumpy-like...



There... a little shake of the dish.... that is better.....



(And yes, I do see that odd line that looks like it might be cooked residue from the tape that held the lid onto the dish from when I bought this dish. I have no idea why it's decided to appear the fourth time I've used this dish, so I'm ignoring it. Try it with me. It's fun.)

45 minutes later.... pretty, pretty homemade bread....






That little dip in the center isn't a problem with the bread.... it's where the lid of the dish left an impression. Oops. I was afraid this dish was going to be a little small. And I did get a lot more rise out of this batch of dough than the last couple times I made it. It was also not as wet as it's been in the past. But it still turned out very nicely.

I did also stop at the market today... um, twice. First when I was out running errands to get some fresh okra, and then an emergency run at about 4pm when I realized I had no Zatarain's jambalaya mix in the house.

I have some polish sausage in the freezer, but when I was at the market on my first run.....



Sometimes a girl just can't pass up a sausage that beautiful. I'm just sayin'.

I like to start out and brown my sausage slices a little.....



When they've got some browned spots and there is a little fond in the bottom of the pot, then add your water and start the "bring to boil" stage....



When the water starts boiling, add your chopped okra (or even frozen works very well).....



The picture of adding the rice mixture didn't turn out well. But, it's not very exciting anyway.

Slap on the lid, cook for 20 minutes, and then I had some chicken breast and shrimp to add....



Lid back on, another 5 minutes on the heat, and it'll keep off heat for a bit...



Yum.

And in these frugal times, $2.50 for the sausage, $2 for the rice mix, about $1.50 for the okra. I'd guess $1 worth of chicken. Not sure about the amount for the shrimp. I buy cheap shrimp, and usually don't pay more than $5 a pound.

That and the bread made for a very nice meal.

Comfort Food

So... Friday was the last day at work.

I think my boss was trying to prevent me from being an idiot and working the majority of the day... he was at my desk early to do some of the form signoff and take my badge. I took it as a sign, and only stuck around until lunch time to head out to lunch with coworkers, and headed home.

Lunch was nice.

I stopped at the outplacement office to try and confirm when my outplacement appointment this week is... NO help. There was one guy there, I told him who I was meeting and my name, and he said he'd call when he found out.

He didn't.

I ended up having to dig up the number of the guy I'll be meeting with, and I finally got a hold of him at about 4pm.

Dinner was take out... nothing like a perfect batch of Culver's chili cheese fries and a chocolate malt to cure what ales ya, sometimes.

Saturday, the hubby unit woke up early to head into work, and I was planning on headed out with my mom for a bit, but she wasn't feeling well and called it off. Just as well... we didn't have much in the way of food in the house. I hit the grocery store.

While at the grocery store, a very pissed off hubby called to tell me that for the second time in less than a week, he got a nail in a tire on my old Cougar. Seriously - we just had all new tires put on the thing on Monday, when he also picked up a nail.

He high-tailed it over to the tire place in hopes they could do a repair, and I finished up my shopping to then go pick him up.

What to serve a crappy hubby to make him a smidge happier??

Chicken wings! And some Super-Stuffed Baked Potatoes.

I didn't have any Boursin cheese, but I did have open cream cheese that I needed to use. So, I started with some garlic and shallots in a pan with some buttah....



Mixed those with the cream cheese, then added the guts of four potatoes that I cooked in the oven (sorry, Cook's Country... potatoes from the real oven are just better). I got to use my rice. Yay!



Also added in some chives from the garden.



Stuffed potatoes and half-done wings, ready for the oven....



Mmmm... wings.



Although they didn't get as crispy as I wanted. I probably should have steamed them a little longer.

I was pretty happy with the potatoes...



Even hubby agreed, it was a nice change of pace from regular, plain baked potatoes. But it might also be because he never takes up the offer for some chives on his potato. Don't ask me why.

Lovely... butter and hot sauce coated wings....



Always good.

Sunday night was just steaks and grilled potatoes (that decided to not cook all the way through, um, yay?) with some grilled asparagus.

And today is the first day of unemployment... ran some errands (bank, post office and market) and I'm currently testing out the nifty feature of our DVD player/VCR that lets you copy VHS tapes to a DVD. I've got a LOT of stuff on VHS that I'd like to have a more permanent copy of. Lord knows I have the time to do it right now.....

Are you friggin' kidding me??

If I was not already being laid off tomorrow, this was one of those weeks where I just might have quit.

It's been a busy week at work.

Sure, the one group that I need information from has been ignoring me. But there has been plenty more to do.

The two customer notices that needed to be written for projects that no longer have product managers. I knew what the changes were, but finding out *why* we decided to do these changes was "fun".

Re-doing one of our CDs. Three times now, this week.

Making 10 software/documentation CD packages to help get the other writer stocked up, to find out five minutes later that they're doing a software release tomorrow.

Hurriedly making the changes that were supposed to go into the hep files months ago, so they could do into tomorrow's software build. To then be told they weren't going to bother to update the Help files, even though I've been telling them they need to get them in.

Then the fun of undoing all the changes I made.

Updates for four pages to the customer web site.

Creating new CD labels. Five of them.

Creating new CD sleeves. Only one of those.

There has been more friggin' work to do this week than since the first of the year. Ok, maybe except for the last software release.

I kinda lost it when we got notice today that they're doing another software release tomorrow. Um... thanks for the notice???

Right around 5pm today, one of the dudes who is also on the layoff list crossed my path as I headed to the ladies room. He asked me if I was coming in tomorrow, since apparently more than a few people aren't bothering.

Yes, I am an idiot, and I am going in tomorrow. I will try to get some things done... not as much as I originally had hoped, but I sure as heck am not going to let that bother me.

So, easy dinner tonight was a must. I needed to get on the elliptical to work out some of the stress in my shoulders.

Bring on the Chicken Breasts With Garlic and Parsley.

I've actually made this recipe before, and it's one of those great ones where it takes you more time to prep the ingredients than cook the food. Me like.

Dredge some chicken breast pieces in Wondra flour, dump in hot skillet.



Cook until browned (mine always take longer than 3 1/2 minutes).



Dump in garlic, chopped parsley and butter....



It was hard to get a clear picture, with all the steamy goodness....


Ahhhh. Body happy, tummy happy, and the Miller High Life waiting for me on the coffee table will do some good in getting my mood happy enough to not just turn around in the damned parking lot tomorrow morning and head home.

Extra - I never talked about Outplacement, Day Two, did I??

I might have done that because I wanted to wash it from my memory.

The most funnest part was the 20 minute talk on the underlying psychology when you go in for an interview and they ask if you'd like some water or coffee.

Seriously.

As it was told to us, it's some huge psychologic interplay about them offering and you being a good host, and also a power play that you need to take advantage of, and a zillion other things that would be much better presented as "Hey... it's an interview. You will be talking. You might get thirsty. Better to take it at the start since you may/will likely need it."

That was about the point I zoned out of Outplacement Day Two.

But the point where I really, REALLY wondered about the whole service was when the talk was about how to answer the question that you always get, which is something like "What is your biggest weakness?"

(Pretty Little German Rocker Boys like Cinema Bizarre? Oh, wait, not THAT kind of weakness)

What is your biggest job weakness. It is one of those things, in an interview situation, if you're not expecting it, it can throw you.

They gave two ways to answer the question.... and I do think they were more addressing the "how to ace the interview with HR" portion of the interview process and not the "how to interview with potential peers and managers" portion. Because they obviously don't know how badly the answers play upon a lot of jobs.

Choices were...

1. I don't do well on my own, because I thrive in group situations.
2. I don't do well with monotonous tasks, because I thrive on a challenge.

Um. Yeah. As a technical writer, a lot of the work you do is solo. A lot of the jobs out there right now ARE solo gigs. So no Answer 1.

And well, a good portion of all technical writing jobs I have had involve a great deal of monotonous tasks. And you actually kind of value those nice little moments of non-thinking when you are compiling something or generating something and get to zone out and have the brain go to the happy place. So, no Answer 2.

Ugh.

It was also funny that the same day as Outplacement Day Two, I was talking to my brother in the evening. My brother is a somewhat high-up manager in a technical position. He's interviewed people many times. And when I was telling him about the "what is your biggest weakness" portion of the day, he laughed about the "standard answers" because he's heard them before, and always wondered where they came from.

So... yeah.... I have my first meeting with Outplacement Firm, post-job, next week, to get the updated resume and have some sort of "talk". Right now, I'm really hoping that the latest interview results in something good, mostly because I really want that job, but partly because it would mean I don't have to go back.

Pardon me, but who was in pants this morning?

So, this morning, I taped a gauze pad over the burned area on my leg, just so I wouldn't have as much fabric from pants rubbing up against it.

I recall that it was still in place when I sat down in my cube at work, after getting tea. It ws pulling on me. I remember it.

When I reached the point of the after-effects of tea and headed to the ladies room, I was being very careful so I wouldn't dislodge the whole bandage job.

And... it was gone. Not even partially attached, not even hiding down my pant leg.

Whaaaaa?

I have NO clue what happened. I was wearing some sorta tight jeans, so I don't know how it would have been able to move without me noticing it.

As I walked back to my cube, I didn't see it on the ground anywhere.

It was no where on the floor of my cubicle.

Unless it was all somehow absorbed into the fibers of my jeans, I have NO idea where the heck it went. Very odd.

Anyway... tonight was an easy cooking night after last night... steamed some tamales and poured some leftover chili from the freezer stash over them. Always easy, always tasty.

And that left me some time to wander around and check out the growing in the yard.....



Ahh... my beacon silver lamium. I swear, it's impossible to kill this stuff. I can't wait until it's all in, and sprouting it's pretty pink flowers.

And holy crud.... the stuff I planted in the front is actually GROWING!



Even a few little flowers on my.... um.... uh.... um... er.... plant....



I bought some pansies at the grocery store several weeks back. Now, I prefer the purple and white ones. I noticed that these ones were a little more odd than in the past...



What's with the two petals on all the flowers? Oddly enough, I noticed the same thing on some pansies my mother in law planted. Turns out, we bought them from the same chain.

Think my sad little lilac bush is trying to tell me I should have planted it in a sunnier spot?


Yeah... I could do without it trying to take over the steps.

But look... other stuff out back actually growing!!!



And more flowers on the same... um... er... uh... plant.



Oh joy! The first little tomato flowers!


And I do not know why I continue to buy purple basil. This stuff dies on me every year.



But then I also helped my dad plant carrots every year, knowing that we'd be lucky to maybe get four or five out of four square feet of land. Ya never know when you'll get lucky.

One day the headline will read: Hausfrau Dies at the Hands of Fluffy Stuffed Animals....

Seriously.

Last week it was carpeted stairs... this week... water.

Mind you, boiling & salted water - but harmless old H20 none the less.

Sigh.

But at least the pasta was tasty??

I knew I had building blocks of a pasta dish in the fridge from leftovers from the Mother's Day CookAThon.... leeks, mushrooms, Boursin cheese. Add some shrimp and zucchini, and you've got the makings of a nice meal.



There is also ricotta in the picture above. Thankfully, I tasted it before I decided to commit to using it, since it had apparently turned. I never knew that ricotta could go sour, but this stuff sure did.

Shell and cook the shrimp about halfway through....



Add the zucchini...



Leeks and mushrooms...


A couple glugs of milk and the hunk-o-Boursin...


Yummy sauce....



And if you're not me, you just add some cooked pasta and have a lovely meal.

However, if you are me and have a crappy little six-inch deep kitchen sink, you'll end up trying to pour out the pasta and water to let it drain, and the water will swwwoooosh right back up and you and give you a nasty and painful burn on your left thigh. And right foot.

And then you throw out a long string of obscenities directed at the sink as you slam the front door shut and rip off your pants so you at least don't have to flash your neighbors, then finish draining the stinkin' pasta and add it to the sauce, then head upstairs to put your leg under a cold shower for ten minutes. Or so I'm told.

I swear to friggin' (enter diety name here) that when I get a new job, the first thing I am doing is going out and buying a proper, DEEP kitchen sink. I will pull out that old piece of crap with glee. I might have the leave the actual plumbing connections to the hubby, but God As My Witness, I'll never burn myself because of that stinkin' shallow sink again.