Home is Where Your Hoard Is

Boots has been working late this week and I've been catching up on bad tv.
Have you seen that show Hoarders?
I think I could be a hoarder.
I have potential.
I keep everything.
Everything!
Gift bags and tissue paper from our wedding showers.
Pencils that are probably ten years old because the erasers haven't been completely used.
Broken purses and shirts I don't wear anymore because I might need to make something with the material.
I don't even sew!
I can't put a button on a shirt.
I have potential, definitely.
I am going to do something about it.
I'm off the next two days and I'm going to get organized.
My name is Rachel, and I'm a hoarder.

I'm going through a blogging slump right now so I'll just post something I read that I liked.

"Inside the God Box" by Mary Lou Quinlan

Dear Husband,

Congratulations!
You've made it one month- only 599 more to go.

Much love and admiration,
Yo' Wife

Why is it that the best, I mean the best, blog ideas come to me at night when I'm just about to drift off into dreamland?

I'm cooking again.

And including lots of very bad pictures.

Here we go!

Heat broiler.

Combine 1 pound ground lamb or ground beef with 1/4 cup finely chopped apricots, 1/2 teaspoon coriander, half of a small red onion, finely chopped......

That's where the pictures start.

I'm so not good at chopping and the onion went e v e r y w h e r e ! !

Everywhere!

(I have one of those chopper things, why haven't I used it?)

Here's the ground beef, chopped apricots, and coriander just chilling out.

Literally, chilling out.

I forgot to thaw the meat, again!

Same stuff as above, plus onions, salt (Kosher, of course!) and black pepper.

Form into balls and broil until cooked.

Are they done yet?

Are they done NOW?

Squeeze the crap juice out of one lemon to barely get enough juice for 3 tablespoons.

Vow that the whole lemon squashing process is too arduous and that next time you'll just buy the juice.

Mix lemon juice with 3 tablespoons EVOO, and more salt and pepper.

Oh, yeah.

1 cup couscous plus 1 cup hot water.

(Couscous smells like play-doh to me.)

Let the water and couscous (I swear, it looks like grits!) sit for five minutes, covered.

Then fluff with a fork.

Chop two plum tomatoes (the key to not squashing the guts out of your tomatoes is a very sharp knife), 1/2 English cucumber (what's the difference between American and English?  I just used whatever theTargets had.), mix dressing vigorously, fluff couscous again, and try not to eat all the Feta.

I LOVE feta!!!

Feta and me......what can I say?

I like cheese!

Boots, please don't shake your head at me like that!!

When your meatballs are finally cooked, arrange them prettily with all your stuff in the previous picture.

Enjoy!

Oh, and......cue camera batteries to go dead right when you're ready to take a picture of the finished product.

Yay.

Everybody's Got a Story. This One's Mine.

Three Februarys ago, I started learning what it's like to be on the other side of the casket.

I was nineteen, in my first year of college, and one semester in mortuary school.
I'd bugged him for over a month (I've bugged someone for every job I've ever had!) for an apprenticeship and finally got an invitation to work my first funeral.

I wore one of the only two suits I had.
It was black with purple pinstripes and purple collars and had one of those "false shirts" which I didn't think needed backup with a "real" shirt.
Mistake!

That was the absolute coldest day of my life.
(Since then I've experienced the second coldest day of my life but, that day takes the (frozen) cake.)
I had no coat suitable for a funeral so I went without, telling myself I was "conditioning" in case someone asked, "Aren't you cold?!"

He gave me a tour of his funeral home and taught me the code for the back door.
I sat in his office and read everything on his walls over and over as he sat at his desk and talked on the phone or read the paper or just stared into space.
I would have killed for a nap, I was so bored!
I was wondering if I had it in me to be a funeral director after three hours of mind-blowing self-reflection boredom when Hallelujah! it was finally time to go funeralize!
(My word, not the Urban Dictionary's.)

At the church, I pretty much did nothing.
He said carry flowers, I carried flowers.
He said seat these people, seat them I did.
He said hold this cord and I did.
For the whole funeral.
That elastic cord never left my side!
I was on top of this funeral business!

I froze my nose off at the cemetery.
I was starving to death and mentally exhausted.
I was so glad to finally be "in" and couldn't wait for the next one!

That was the only funeral we ever worked together.
The next week I got a call from the funeral home I work for now and decided I had to take a sure job rather than an occasional experience.
He understood and there were no hard feelings.

I tried to keep in touch with him and keep him up to date on my accomplishments in the funeral world.
At times I wondered if maybe I should have just kept part-timing with him but, since then he's sold his funeral and changing hands mid-stream would have probably been harder.
His health problems started becoming pretty serious and eventually they took over.

He died a few days ago and today was his funeral.
I didn't work his funeral, I only attended.
I'm terribly uncomfortable in situations I don't have defined roles in.
After spending so much time on the working side of the casket it's hard to go back to being on the mourning side.

The funeral was just great.
Great songs, great readings, great eulogies, and a great job by the funeral directors.

I'm sure he'd be happy.

Again, I've got nothing good to say so I'm just gonna blab about my random thoughts.

Tom Bodett, I love his voice.
Everytime I hear radio commercials for Motel 6 I think about that time I was in New Orleans and he called and woke me up at 5:30 in the morning.
"Hi, I'm Tom Bodette.
Ever wake up feeling like running through a field of wildflowers?
......
Me either but, I find it does help to put your feet on the floor first."
If he called and woke me up every morning......

When exactly did people stop wearing big, nice hats to funerals and replace them with designer sunglasses propped up and secured with bobby pins?
I mean, really?
Inside?

Me and Boots

Me and Boots
Originally uploaded by EatingCrowPie

Not Exactly Football Food

Let's talk about something that just makes no sense to me: Women football announcers.
One would expect them to be rough and tough and butch but, they're so girly...
I don't get it.
Is this why guys watch so much football?
Women football announcers?

Like a Rabbit

**Disclaimer: If reading rambling pointless posts isn't your thing, perhaps you should skip this one today.**

*If you missed the recipe links, here's the one for the eggs and the bread.

*Monday morning I woke up with a headache and didn't shake it off until Tuesday night.
I took a whole bunch of pills but, nothing helped.
I thought I really was dying when I put my contacts in the wrong eyes and couldn't see straight yesterday morning.

*Boots had a wee bit of a motoring accident in his work vehicle Monday.
He's ok but, the corner of his eye is black from his head hitting the seat belt holder thing.
The doctors checked his head out real good and so far he seems fine.

*This morning I was listening to the radio on my way to work and Toby Keith's new song "Bullets in the Gun" came on.
(I know some of you are positively stroking out right now about the fact that I listen to country music but, I can't help it, I've listened to it all my life.
Let a good Sawyer Brown song start playing and I'm six years old riding in the backseat of my mama's blue yacht-length Crown Victoria again.)
The song is pretty much a rhyming crime spree.
When he said, "Never see it comin’, just hits you by surprise," I thought, "Is that how so many people become murderers?"
Do most murderers just snap under the pressure of whatever duress they've been subjected to and just go on a rampage?
I'm not trying to justify murdering or anything like that, I'm just telling you how my mind runs.
All this from a song.

*Today's my Friday.
I'm looking forward to a long nap when I get off work.

*I want to walk the four mile loop with Boots again.
Here's to getting him motivated!

Today I have a heavy heart.
I do not mourn as they do but, even funeral directors cry.

I like the way jewelry feels so cold when you first put it on.

I like the way brand-new freshly painted heavy-duty machinery looks before it gets used and dirty.

Around Town

There's been an Indian a Native American festival in our town this week.
Yesterday in between all the bread making and egg boiling I made talked Boots into taking me.
Then I talked him into this.

Look at that stinkeye!

This little boy was wondering how they made fires without matches.

(And, no, I did not get permission from his mother to take or post this picture.)

We went back home and I was lovin' the light so I walked around taking pictures.

These are growing outside our carport.

What are these?

I know somebody knows!

Our neighbor lady's daughter gave me this.

Wedding Boots

If it smells clean, does that mean it is clean?

Just an Ordinary Meal

After a full day of food blogging yesterday, (cook, take pictures, post-- very time consuming) all I wanted to do last night was relax.

So I cooked supper for my mama and Boots.

I made spicy noodles with pork cutlets.
Sorry, no pictures.

I won't call it a success but, I won't call it a flop.
It just was.

The noodles weren't spicy.
I couldn't find the red jalapeño the recipe called for so it went without.
I misread my grocery list and only bought one can of chicken broth instead of two so I used water.
The pork cutlets were great- seasoned with Kosher salt (how ironic!) and black pepper, coated in flour, dipped in egg, covered with panko, and fried in a skillet.
The noodles surely won't happen again (do you know how hard it is to find udon noodles?) but, I'll definitely cook pork like that again.

If anyone wonders why I'm posting before five o'clock in the morning it's because today I'm putting up three tents and a sound system in the name of community relations for the funeral home at a charity walk for kids with disabilities.
If you know what I'm talking about and you get bored today, come see me!

The Bread Trilogy is Complete!

Egg and milk

Bread in the oven

(Don't say a word about my nasty oven.

I haven't got a rountoit yet.)

Forty minutes at 350 degrees

So pretty!

It smells so good!!

That is just great.

Looks like all those months of watching Food Network at work are paying off.

Bread Part 2

Oh, yeah.
I got my recipe from here

Clean your surface

Dump out bread and form a log no wider than your loaf pan

Sugar

Butter

Cinnamon

Melted butter over bread log

Sprinkle sugar/cinnamon mixture over buttered bread log

Melt more butter

Roll it up

Place in loaf pan with melted butter smeared on sides of pan

Recipe says cover with plastic wrap, I chose plastic box.

Hope that doesn't matter too much.

That's all for now.

The final portion of this series should appear sometime later this afternoon.

.

Because They're the Devil to Make!!

This past week I've been wishing for deviled eggs.
I took it upon myself to learn how to make this delectable Southern Baptist staple today.
Here are lots of really bad pictures of my cooking experiment first time making deviled eggs.

Start with a dozen eggs in a pot.

Add water and boil the heck out of them.

Question: Why do the butts of eggs bubble?

Boil violently!

Remove from heat, cover and allow to cool for about twenty minutes.

Rinse with cold water.

Crack and peel.

(There's no picture here because it is impossible to crack eggs with two hands and take pictures of the process with two hands, short of having an arm transplantwhatever.

Be gentle!

Some of them look better than others.

Slice and take out the yolks.

Smash 'em up!

Salt

Pepper

Mustard

Vinegar (can't see that), pickles (supposed to use sweet, I used dill)

Stir together

Pour in a bag (again, only two arms!), pipe into egg halfs

Admire work

Realize you forgot paprika

Have small scuffle with Boots about being a taste-tester because apparently he thinks you're going to poison hiim with something you plan to eat yourself.

Finally convince him they're safe for human consumption.

Admire whiskery face.

The End!

I got my recipe from Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen website.