Categories
Hobbies Whining

My failure to paint

I wanted to paint this weekend, but I couldn’t settle on a subject, which is what I’m finding to be the hardest part of this new hobby of mine. That, and the fact that my last two paintings (the Japanese Maple and a portrait of my nephew) came out so good that I’m now afraid of future failures.

I have a Pinterest board where I save photos of things I might want to paint someday. When I’m feeling this urge to paint, I troll the board for hours, trying to pick one thing to commit to canvas, but I have undone myself, ’cause I want to paint them all. The ones that came closest to reality this weekend were a cat on a bicycle in the snow and a cat climbing up someone’s leg. I guess I was in a cat mood.

Sadly, neither became a painting this weekend. Instead I read more of Two Graves, and watched a lot of football. Maybe next weekend.

Categories
Food

So, we meet again, my archnemesis.

I don’t like to cook. It takes up too much time I’d rather spend doing pretty much anything else. Generally my grocery cart consists of deli meat, frozen dinners and vegetables, and a couple of rotisserie chickens that will feed me for a week. Sometimes salad fixings, too, but I go through stretches when I just can’t imagine having to assemble yet another salad.

Being back on WW means having to set aside at least a little time to actually cook. Today that meant eggs for lunch.

I hate cooking eggs. I want to like it, ’cause it’s just about the easiest, quickest meal to cook, but I really really suck at it. They just never taste good. Sometimes they’ll taste bland, which is usually the best I can hope for, but more often they have this weird overcooked taste that I could do without. I’ve tried adding milk, water, herbs, salt, pepper, ham. I’ve tried scrambled, over hard, and omelet style. I’ve tried high heat, low heat, and in-between heats. I’ve tried oil, butter, Pam cooking spray, and bareback. They always suck.

But, not today!

Today I rocked the eggs like they were the yummiest food on the planet! I suspect it was all the oil I added to try to keep everything from sticking to the pan (didn’t really work), and that’s not necessarily a good thing, WW-wise, but holy moly these were AWESOME eggs. I loved these eggs. (Oddly they tasted vaguely like fried rice eggs, even though I didn’t use sesame oil.) They were the Best!Eggs!Evah!

So, in the hopes I can repeat this amazing culinary feat, here’s what happened:

Heat on one-click hotter than medium.
Added oil.
Waited for water drops to sizzle on oil.
Added fresh baby spinach.
Stirred it around.
Turned up the heat a bit.
Added chopped Canadian bacon (two slices). (Maybe this was the difference?)
Sauteed.
Added more oil ’cause the bacon stuck.
Sauteed.
Added more oil.
Added two (non-beaten) eggs.
Rolled it around a bit.
Turned the heat down a bit.
Waited a bit.
Scraped things around because of course the eggs stuck anyway.
Kept scraping things around until the eggs looked cooked all the way.
Served.

Delish!

Next time I should add more spinach, though.

Categories
News

Weight Watchers

I re-enlisted today. I’m at my heaviest since I first lost the 92 pounds in ’98-’99, and I’m disgusted with myself. Ever since WW Leader Linda moved to Palm Springs, I haven’t felt particularly motivated by any of the other leaders I’ve tried, so this time I went to a whole new (to me) location in Santa Monica–new location, new leader, and new promotional materials for their latest program update.

My brain really wants to succeed this time, but I’m not yet convinced my heart is in it. Fingers, toes and all other protruding extremities are crossed!

Categories
Books

Books of 2012

These are the books I finished in 2012:

1. Ghoul Interrupted / Victoria Laurie
2. Vision Impossible / Victoria Laurie (took almost TWO MONTHS, I’m not a big fan of amateur spy stories)
3. Succubus Revealed / Richelle Mead
4. Fair Game / Patricia Briggs (April–looks like it’s gonna be another bad year for books)
5. Buried Prey / John Sandford (5/5/12)
6. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened / Jenny Lawson (5/6/12)
7. The Silent Girl / Tess Gerritsen (7/7/12)
8. A Discovery of Witches / Deborah Harkness (7/12)
9. Shadow of Night / Deborah Harkness (7/12)
10. Lethal Outlook / Victoria Laurie (8/1/12)
11. Kitty Steals the Show / Carrie Vaughn (8/9/12)
12. Unholy Ghosts / Stacia Kane (8/27/12)
13. Monument 14 / Emmy Laybourne (9/5/12)
14. Marked / P.C. and Kristin Cast (11/10/12)
15. What a Ghoul Wants / Victoria Laurie (12/30/12)

Once upon a time, my list of books read in a year was three times longer than this, but it’s been getting harder and harder for me to stay interested in a story long enough to finish it. For instance, right now I’m about six (or ten?) chapters into Two Graves by Lincoln and Child. I usually LOVE Pendergast novels, but this one is leaving me bored and I’m having trouble pushing myself to pick it up again.

My favorite books this year were A Discovery Witches and its sequel Shadow of Night. They were long and rich and comforting and compelling and I can’t wait for the third book. I also enjoyed What a Ghoul Wants and Marked, and of course, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (Jenny Lawson is a hilarious goddess!). In general, though, it was an uninspiring year, filled with many more books that I lost interest in before the final page.

Fingers are crossed for a more prolific 2013. On deck are the new Dresden book, the latest Prey book, the last Women of the Otherworld book, and a few new things I picked up while trolling Amazon.

Categories
Gratuitous Picture Post

Japanese maple tree

It’s January 10th, and I’m already out of ideas for post topics. Ack! So, here’s a picture of one of my favorite paintings–of the ones painted by me, that is. It’s a Japanese maple tree, and I painted it based on a photograph that I saw on Pinterest.

Japanese maple tree
Japanese maple tree, October 2012. Acrylic.