Bees in the house

Just in case the exploding soup were not enough weirdness for the week...on Monday I was working from home, as usual, and noticed a bee in the house. I thought, very weird. I trapped it under a cup and went back to work. Then another one showed up. And another...I started text messaging Christian - "Bees in the house!".

When all was said and done, I trapped 7 bees under 7 cups on Monday. I am really kicking myself for not taking a picture of the 7 cups on the window sill.

Tuesday we caught 4 bees. We think they were coming from the chimney and told our landlord so.

Today the pest control guy came out. I was told initially that he would be wearing a bee keeper suit! OMG I was so excited. I have never seen a person in a real bee suit! And at our house! I had to go in to work in the morning but Christian was all prepared to take surreptitious pictures of the bee suit for me.

It turned out there was no bee suit :-( We do not have enough bees to warrant a suit.

The pest control guy said those were probably just scout bees, he couldn't locate a hive and there was no queen in sight. I can't imagine why they would send out 11 scouts, all down one chimney, but ok...maybe bees are just not very efficient in their scouting.

And that is the story of the bees. I have not seen any today at all.

Exploding soup

On Saturday night for dinner, we had exploding soup! I want to tell this story, but I know that even when I write it down, it is not going to be nearly as funny as if someone had been observing it in real life.

I found a recipe for easy tomato soup in a calendar my mom gave me, and even though it was already late and I was hungry, I decided to give it a try. The plan is to boil the ingredients and then puree it in the blender to make it smooth before eating it. I thought, this can't be too hard, because I had watched my friend Mel puree soup like this in a blend before and it was super delicious and not that messy at all.

The recipe said, and I quote:

Place half of the soup in a blender

So I did. And I turned the blender on to the lowest setting.

EXPLODE! There was tomato soup all over the kitchen, all over the floor, and all over me. This was soup which was boiling only minutes earlier. It got me really good on the arms and chest.
Hearing all the yelling, Christian came in to help me clean up. I had to go rinse my arms in the bathtub to stop the burning. I came back into the kitchen without my tomato-y clothing.

Now one of us decides to give it another try. We decide that maybe the lid just wasn't held on tightly enough. So we do the exact same thing again, this time holding the lid firmly.
EXPLODE! AGAIN!!

So now both of us are covered in tomato soup, and my arms have been burned again. This time I have to completely mop the floor. No one is wearing any "real" clothing because all the clothing was covered in tomato soup and frankly, it seems more practical not to put anything else on because it will just get covered with more soup - because we are not giving up!!

The funniest part for an outsider to observe must have been our third try. The fear and trepidation! Both of us in the kitchen, holding the top of the blender with a towel, in various states of undress. Will I get burned again??!!

Pressing the button....

And this time it worked. I really am not quite sure why, except that we reduced the amount of soup in the blender a tad bit. Also a lot of it had been flung out by then.

So we had tomato soup for dinner. It was pretty good, maybe a little salty. And I have some small burns on my arms and chest to show for it. You will be happy to know that the tomato came out of the clothing after I washed them twice.

Why things end up at Big Lots

I can't imagine why this didn't sell.
Is it just me or does this look like a catheter bag? It's actually a Method hand soap refill...found at Big Lots.

Japanese dinner

I just had to blog about how pleased I am with how tonight's dinner turned out. And yes, I realize this is something else I can add to my list of why I am lame.

A few months ago, the Sunday paper listed a recipe for Miso soup that I have made once before and loved! I made it for my friends Wendy and Eilene when Christian was out at a work function, so he had not tasted it yet.

I wanted something Japanese to go with the miso soup, so I searched the faithful AllRecipes.com and found this recipe for Hiyashi Chuka Noodles. It was a super easy recipe to make, and it really did remind me of dishes we had while we were in Japan. It was also a great excuse to buy a package of nori...hopefully soon we can buy a rice maker with a timer and eat the traditional nori and rice for breakfast! That was one of my favorite things to eat in Japan.

Anyway, I wish I had taken a picture of the Hiyashi Chuka Noodles. Since I did not, I will just list out both the recipes, in case anyone is interested! Have fun!

Hiyashi Chuka Noodles
(original recipe: AllRecipes.com - I made some changes)

3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons white sugar
3 tablespoons white vinegar
5 tablespoons chicken stock
1 teaspoon sesame/sunflower oil
1 squirt of chili sauce (optional)
1 (3 ounce) packages ramen noodles
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cucumber, julienned
1 carrot, grated
1/4 sheet nori, cut into thin slices
1 tablespoon hot Chinese mustard

Mix the soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, chicken stock, sesame oil, and chili sauce together in a small bowl, and stir until the sugar dissolves. Set aside.

Bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Add the ramen noodles and cook for 2 minutes. Drain immediately, and refrigerate noodles until cold. Meanwhile, heat a small nonstick skillet over medium heat. Pour in the beaten egg and tilt the pan to thinly coat the bottom with egg. When firm, fold the egg in half and remove from the pan. Slice into thin strips.

To serve, place cold noodles on serving plates. Top with separate piles of egg, cucumber, and carrot. Pour the sauce over the top and sprinkle with crumbled nori. Serve with a touch of hot mustard on the side.

Japanese Soup Bowl
(original recipe: Dallas Morning News - I made vegetarian adjustments)

2 ½ cups water
3 envelopes of instant white miso soup (a 1.05-ounce package contains 3 envelopes)
2 cups fresh baby spinach, sliced into thin strips
1 block tofu, sauteed until firm
1 (15-ounce) can straw mushrooms (available at large supermarkets, with the Asian products)
2 scallions, sliced (white part and some green), for garnish

Bring water to a boil in a 1.5 quart pot.
Turn heat off and stir in instant miso soup mix until dissolved.
Add spinach, tofu, and mushrooms.
Turn heat to low and heat until warmed through, about 1 minute.
Divide soup between 3 medium (or 2 extra large) bowls.
Garnish each with sliced scallions.

All I want is a Costco

Again last week on NPR/KERA there was mention by an industry expert about how Costco received some kind of award for how well they treat their employees. I was also talking to my friend who lives in Kansas City about how great the organic produce at Costco is, and how cheap she can get things there even though they treat their employees well and have quite a lot of sustainable processes and products.

I started daydreaming about this huge, vast cleared land space at the corner of Northwest Highway and Skillman (within scooter distance of my house), where something obviously very large is going to be built. I grasped at this wild hope - what if it is going to be a Costco?! How awesome that would be!!

I started Googling, but apparently I suck at that. I couldn't find anything, but Christian found this article about the plans for Skillman and Northwest Highway. A JCPenney?! Weird enough. But then, my worst nightmare: ANOTHER WALMART!!!

I try not to curse on this blog, but WTF. W. T. F. ??!!

They just built a new Walmart at Forest & Abrams. Plus, years ago we were told that Walmart won't build in urban areas and our area is something like 7 miles from downtown. Was this a lie?

I saw the Walmart documentary. I know what they do to get the low prices. And I can't get behind that. But what kind of temptation is that - cheap food and other items less than a block away? When I know they would support things I don't believe in?! Costco, where are you?!

Balancing

I'd been meaning to do this for a while, but I finally got a balance ball and have been using it instead of a desk chair when I work from home (which is about 50% of the time). I got a regular Reebok version at Target for something like $21. It looks like this:
I got the 75mm one so that it is tall enough to pull up to the desk.

You can get fancy schmancy chair versions of the balance ball made into a chair for ridiculous amounts of money ($80? $100?).
But what kind of fun is it, if you aren't constantly faced with the possibility of falling off and breaking your tailbone?!

The first day I had the ball as a chair, I got carried away and bounced on it a little too much. I almost fell off a few times. I also allowed the cat to sit in my lap, on the balance ball. I was very careful of her claws. She didn't seem to mind it.

I have been more conservative in my bouncing the last few days, and have found that I should probably limit the time on the ball to around 3 hours at a time, since it doesn't create the most ergonomic position for typing. Also, after sitting on it for 8 hours the first day, my abs HURT at the end of the day!

Just think how OMG ripped I am going to be! If I don't break my neck first.

DFW Blogging fun!

Saturday night I had so much fun attending the DFW Blogger meetup at the Grand Lux Cafe at the Galleria. There were about 30 bloggers there! Thank you so much to Elaine of The Miss Elaine-ous Life and Holly from June Cleaver Nirvana who organized the get-together. Miss Elaine even wrote a clever paragraph on her blog containing all the names of the blogs in attendance! Amazing!

I think there might have been at least one other organizer (feel free to post comments and let me know), but someone was responsible for such beautiful name cards! We each had a completely unique name card with a special design and our blog names. I tried scanning mine in, here is the picture:


Because of an issue with the restaurant and their scheduling, we had to be split into 3 tables rather than just one, so although I got to talk to a few other bloggers such as verybusymomwith4, Miss Elaine-ous (of course), Searching For My Inner Skinny, and As Many As We're Given, I got to spend most of the meal with these fun folks:
If you click on the picture, you can see the Flickr photo with all the folks labeled. Here is a quick blogroll:

PostedNote.com
Becoming Bianca
Chirky (Jes is the one who invited me - thank you!!)
Anything But Nice
La Vie de Laurie
Working Momma 24/7

I had such a fun time meeting everyone, I hope we all get to meet up again soon!