Week 35 Cooking Results

This week was quite random, and proceeded of emptying out the fridge, for the most part. We pared down the types of cheese from around 6 or 7 down to 3. Used lots of leftover pulled pork (sandwiches).

Last night I used La Quercia Apple Wood Smoked Bacon to make Mostacholi alla Carbonara. I thought I had spaghetti or linguine in the cupboard, but when I looked...eh not so much. The bacon was very good, quite quite tasty, but at, if I remember right around $17 a pound, I'd rather use Vande Rose Farms Dry Cured Bacon. It did turn out very well and was quite taste, but seriously, anything with that much bacon fat is going to taste good.

An odd note here, both Shannon (who rarely remembers them) and I had strange dreams last night, mine actually woke me up.

The Eden Farms pork burgers were good, but I would've preferred ground pork. So perhaps I could have mixed something or another into it...but it was very good by itself.

The fridge is still more full then I would like it at the end of the week, but it's getting better.

Vivid dream / Plot for movie

So I don't remember the plot line exactly, but the dream was very vivid and strange. Anyways, general points:

1. Aliens were trying to take over the world and were possessing humans through the base of the spine.
2. The possessed humans could be hurt by punching them in the right side Where they resided.
3. The possessed humans would say 3 words, pause look around, and then continue. It was a very jerky way of speaking.
4. The aliens didn't know the differentiations between males and females and often times the females and males would be thing that would be out of character for them. Example being a woman standing at a urinal and then leaving.
5. There were small groups of people that figured out the patterns and were able to blend in for the most part.
6. The main alien possessed John Lithgow (yes he had a starring role in my dream). Lithgow's character had cancer of something on his right side, and so the punching in the right side didn't work so well...
7. It was semi-serious and yet a parody at the same time...

blah blah blah

I made a sausage, bean and tomato soup on Monday for movie night. It turned out very well...good recipe from Cook's Country. It was interesting to take about half the beans with some stock and blend it up to make a general base for the soup...I've been having a lot of less recipe thoughts in my head and more formulas. So instead of spicy Italian sausage and white beans, switch it over to say some ground chuck or cut beef and kidney beans and you got a thickener for chili (which I still haven't made).

I bought a big leg of lamb (from Iowa), I'm going to have my brother smoke it and use it for a party to celebrate a friend visiting Iowa (from Japan). It has to be the most I've spent on a single piece of meat...I've had steaks in restaurants that cost more, but I didn't pay for them...

I got a new chair at work yesterday. It was nice, adjusted a bunch of things, but in sitting on it today, I'm not sure that I like it. I just don't think it has enough give or cushion on the seat or the back. I think...all the adjustable things were nice, but for long term sitting, I nead a bit more padding. As Shannon tells me, I have no butt, so more padding is nice.

George was making slight movements with his paws and mouth. I wonder if cats dream, and if they do dream if there has been any studies on what they might dream of. I know I heard a story...on NPR I think about mice dreaming...and they dreamed about running mazes (the brain patterns on the mice running the maze were the same when they were sleeping and then they also adjusted to apparently run made up mazes)...So it was just an interesting thought.

We've been collecting roof and gutter bids...they weren't as much as we thought...which is nice. So if you know any roofers or gutters...let me know.

I think I'm working too much...

Yesterday morning, I woke up about half an hour before my alarm went off...I was dreaming about programming...yes...making the next version of Applicant Tracking (AT3) and how to get things to work the way that we want them too....

I think I need some time off.

So I woke up...

So there was a knock on the door, and this couple was outside trying to collect money for this Brazilian school, for, of all things, camera cell phones. So I try to explain that I'm not interested in giving because, I didn't even have one and I don't see why kids in Brazil need them either, espically if I'm paying for them.

They are very insistant. The lady in the couple asks if she can talk to Shannon (who's upstairs getting ready to go out), and before I can say no, she's already upstairs, talking to Shannon... She starts walking back and forth between the rooms and they guy at the door is still talking to me (trying to keep me distracted).

So she came downstairs and is all talking about how she understands why we are not interested in giving and how it's ok and how we have such a nice house. So she is carrying this clear plastic binder and I think that I see keys to our house in there.

So I ask them to stop, and I grab it and look inside and it is one of our keys (I could clearly see the ILCO label stamped on there). So then they confess and they were going to use it to steal our identities. They didn't think that it would be too productive, since they didn't think we owned the place.

So I tried to call the cops, and the phone was busy, over and over and over. It was disheartening. Then I thought about calling the locksmith (a guy down the street works for them), but before I can do that I think I see something on the back porth and the door is unlocked so I open up and look.

It's my younger brother Jed, playing guitar and singing...

And then I woke up...with a strong urge to change my locks.

woah

So I was taking something like the ITBS ot ITED test, but I couldn't keep on task, I kept getting distracted and doing something else. Like I would get up and take my laptop bag and put it in my car. Then I would decide I needed it and then I would decide that it might get stolen so I'd go put it back in the car.

And because of this I only finished like half of the test.

At the end, some kid came in, while I was being distracted, and had stolen my test and put his name on it (PAT in big crayon letters).

I woke up and it was like 5:30 (which is about 15 minutes before Shannon's alarm goes off and 30 minutes before my alarm). So I went to the bathroom and just kinda snuggled with shannon until her alarm went off, then took my walk

what the crap...

So this was between about 4:30 and 6:AM (4:30 shannon woke me up cause I had taken off my mask and was snoring, I put my mask on and fell back a sleep).

So we're in Florida in Disney World on our honeymoon. We start to wonder around and we want to take pictures, but we forgot our camera. So Shannon tells me that we have to go back and get it, so I'm like, all right and whip out the old credit card and we fly back and get the camera. (we sleep over night here in Des Moines)

So we're wandering around and we look at the rides, and we're taking pictures, but we dont actually go back on the rides. Shannon forgot something else, and again we go through the the whole argument and acceptance and heading back to Des Moines.

After the third time, I think I about freaked out on her, cause we haven't spent a night in the hotel in Florida, but then I calm down and she schedules to have a disney magic dinner with the princess from sleeping beauty.

Yeah...the dream was confusing.

whoah, that's a dream..

Well, because of the way I was sleeping before (basically not sleeping), I now have lots more dreams.

So I was in some small town outside of Des Moines, drinking with some people. And somebody decided that we should go to a bar in Des Moines, so I went out and got in my car and needed to get gas, so I went to one of the two gas stations in town and the two lower grades of gas were in the upper dollar range (like 1.80 or something), but premium, was $7.46 a gallon.

That's about the time I woke up (cause Shannon's Alarm went off).

strangeness

So the last few nights or so, I have been having a recurring dream. It pretty much comes down to me, coming home from work, having what appears to be my beautiful daughter, run up and jump into my arms. Giving my wife, who is also a bit pregnant with our second and I know now, a kiss and reading my daughter a story, her favorite. It happens in the house I live in now. I guess that's not what most people dream about, but considering that I rarely remember my dreams (if I have them at all) and the last recurring dream I had was well...back in early college when I was home for the summer (between freshman and softmore year).

I feel very happy in this dream. Not vexed, not stressed, not wondering how I got there, just content.