Iced Coffee

There is a huge trend going around for cold brewed coffee, where you take your grounds and soak them in the fridge overnight to make a brew for icing. It's supposed to be a gentler taste, but I haven't tried it yet.

Truth is, I'm not all that big on coffee. I enjoy iced coffee, but I only have 3-5 a week, total. Therefore, I simply ue my husband's leftover coffee to have more than I need. He makes a nice, strong Starbuck's brew and puts the entire pot in the fridge after he pours himself a mugful. From there he only reheats one cup at a time, so there's pretty much always coffee in the fridge.

I like to use liquid creamers in mine. I pour a glass of coffee, add ice, then drizzle my flavored creamer on top and I get a rich, smooth, sweet drink that is refreshing and energizing. Yummo.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my alternative to cold brewing coffee. I'm sure it's good, but I'm also sure that it isn't a must for enjoyment.

Pollination Problems

My zucchini plants are dealing with the same issue as many plants and gardens in North America. Due to a bee shortage we're having trouble keeping our plants pollinated. With zucchini plants there are two solutions- hand pollination and bee attraction.

Planting wild flower mixes in your yard will attract bees and buttterflies that will eventually begin pollinating your garden plants, but for the immediate pollination needs you are going to have to learn how to hand pollinate zucchini plants. Check out this article on Wizzley.com for information on identifying male and female flowers and instructions on hand pollinating zucchini.

Bouncers or Bouncy Seats?

I've been doing some research and writing about bouncy seats for my husband and you know what I've found? 9 out of 10 products are labeled as "Bouncers" but the majority of people search the term "bouncy seat" when looking for a bouncer for their baby. go figure. I've always and forever called them bouncy seats and I don't remember ever hearing anyone refer to them as anything else.

Anyways, I wrote a guide to 4 of my favorite bouncer seat options and posted it on Wizzley. You should check it out! It covers the most snuggly, the most gadgety, the most compact and the most economical seats that I've been able to find...that have good reviews. They're all four winners, so if you're shopping you should really check it out!

Variations on a Theme

I just played the word "strip" by adding an 's' to 'trip'.  It  woudln't have been a good play, except that I got to play the 's' on a triple word block. That made it a decent score. I stripped down a rocking chair last week and painted it green. It had been an ugly, outdated rocking chair, but now it's adorable. I also cut up a giraffe print throw blanket and recovered its cushions with them. The cushions in my diningroom chairs are not soft enough to allow them to be used as desk chairs, but the desk chair is at the desk and I'm in the diningroom, so I'm using a diningroom chair as a desk chair.

Which brings us to the question, why is a raven like a writing desk?

"Yules" is not a word, and yet, scrabble allows it? Why is that? they also allow "Jo," which is my nickname, so I can't think of a use for it where it does not qualify as a proper noun. That should disallow it, but it doesn't. I wonder how many fake words are allowed to break the scrabble rules?

If  I were a fake word then I would break a lot of rules. I would carry extra pixels so that I could change my letters to make higher scoring words. I might even use the pixels to make my vowels have 10 points instead of 1.

I need sleep. I'm tired. I should be working but I'm not.

Caffeine Content

Quinn says there's less caffeine in a shot of espresso than there is in a 12 oz cup of regular ol' joe. I believe him. People feel the espresso because they tend to drink it either as a shot, which is tiny and goes down quickly, or in a sugary concoction that they chug all too quickly and end up with a massive buzz, whereas people who like to enjoy a cup of coffee actually enjoy it...slowly.

I'm becoming something of a coffee addict...again. I was throughly addicted when I was a teenager, but I got over it when I was pregnant. It wasn't worth the leg aches and lack of sleep that it caused. Now I'm getting back to the cup-a-day status and enjoying it very much. I picked up some flavored creamers last week and I think they're making me fat. As if it isn't bad enough to have every snack available loaded with calories- I now drink my calories as well!  Darnitall. I'm gonna have to research sugar free liquid creamers- or maybe go the half-and-half with flavored, sugar free syrups route. Either way, I'm glad for the warmth and the buzz now that fall is here. It goes well with my chunky, cable knit, burnt orange hooded sweater that I'm rocking.

Happyness is falltime full of apples, crunchy leaves and cinnamon sticks.

Runny Babbit

My mother bought my son a book for Christmas. it's a billy sook by Shel Silverstein. Everything Silverstein writes is pretty silly, but this one is an entire book of spoonerized rhymes about a bunny rabbit. Or rather, a runny babbit.

Last night we had some young people over for a movie and game night and ended up with a competition going on to see who in the group could read through an entire poem without stuttering or losing their place. It was hilarious. Nobody made it, but we all laughed ourselves silly. Here is a sample of what we were dealing with:

Runny babbit knearned to lit,
And made a swat and heater,
And now he sadly will admit
He bight have done metter.


Runny be quimble,
Runny be nick,
Runny cump over the jandlestick.
But now- what smells furning bluff?
Guess he didnt' hump jigh enough.

BLARG!

“Do you like vegetables?" Sophie asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards a slightly less dangerous kind of food.
"You is trying to change the subject," the Giant said sternly. "We is having an interesting babblement about the taste of the human bean. The human bean is not a vegetable.” 

Roald Dahl- The Big Friendly Giant

I. Am. Exhausted. Emotionally and physically spent. I'm waiting here for Quinn, who is waiting on Tabbi to get out of the bathroom so that he can use the bathroom and he and I can go for a walk.

It's beautiful outside. It's shifted to fall and the air is clean and cool. The house got too warm this afternoon, but I didn't dare turn the air on so I've just been...warm. Very. Warm.

The neighbor's little girls were going to come over tonight, but I don't think they are coming afterall. I'm going to go get G-man into pajamas and we'll have devotions. It's time for us all to be getting ready for sleep.

“I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony.”
-Roald Dahl- Danny, The Champion of the World