Pets, Photography

Sunday

Shelly

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Today was a lazy day for Miss Brown.

Not so much for me. I baked another apple pie, then decided to try a veggie shepherd’s pie (baked in a cast iron skillet!). The apple pie was even better than the first one I made, but I forgot to add potatoes to the shepherd’s pie, so it was not as tasty as it could have been. It as probably healthier potato-free, but the yum factor wasn’t as good as it could have been. (How the hell did I forget potatoes?!)

All that baking heated up the kitchen. At one point, it was 75F inside, so I opened the windows, which of course meant that it immediately started storming. Harriet slept through it. She is completely useless for moral support during storms. Luckily it didn’t last long.

Harriet is sleeping on her new super soft leopard print fakety-fake fur blanket. It was on clearance at Target for $6, so I couldn’t resist. It’s very warm, because it’s lined with fleece, and it’s big enough for both Harriet and I to sit under while watching TV.

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Grapevine

Photography

Dictionary

Shelly

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I’m always surprised by how much use the paper dictionaries get. I walk past them several times a day, and there is almost always someone using them. I use Dictionary.com instead, but perhaps some of my coworkers make better use of various excuses to get away from their desks, if only for a few moments?

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Irio

Shelly

I mentioned that I have a serious love for both broccoli and green beans? And mashed potatoes? Despite the fact that I normally have a food taboo against mixing ingredients, one of my most favorite comfort dishes is mashed potatoes mixed with green beans and/or broccoli (spinach and corn are good additions, too). I especially like it served with a side of stir fried cabbage, onions, and shredded carrots.

Come to find out, as I was trawling Apartment Therapy’s Kitchn blog, there was a link to a recipe for Irio.

Irio is a Kenyan dish made of mashed potatoes and green veggies that’s a lot like Colcannon, which is a lot like my favorite mashed potatoes. I think most cultures that eat potatoes probably have a similar dish, because it’s quick, easy, filling, and emotionally satisfying.

Photography

Cooking

Shelly

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I’m having steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes for supper. And for lunch tomorrow. And probably for supper tomorrow night, too. I have a deep and abiding love of broccoli (it nearly rivals my love of green beans), so there is no such thing as “too much broccoli” in my world.

Crankypantsing

Speaking of Outlook…

Shelly

And speaking of that Outlook calendar training workshop we worker bees had to attend a couple of weeks ago…

I said at the time that it was silly for us to attend, when it was the higher-ups who needed to learn how to use their calendars. Most of the workshop focused on scheduling meetings for lots of people, so of course, we just got an email from the head of cataloging about a training session next week. An email, not a meeting request. Grrr. Which means that we all have to manually add the information to our calendars, instead of clicky-clicking on a single button so that it’s added automagically.

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Instant Review: Freecycle

Shelly

Although the brazillions of emails from people who ignored or didn’t see my “taken” posts was starting to drive me a little nuts (Reading is Fundamental, people!), the woman who received my two lots of stuff showed up when she said she would, and everything went smoothly.

So, all in all, as a way to get rid of crap you no longer want, I give it two thumbs up.

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Tech Tip o’ the Day

Shelly

As I’ve decided to embrace the evil that is MS Outlook 2007, in no small part because I need a good, functional calendar, I decided to look around for calendar add-ons. Specifically, I wanted a moon phase calendar. There are a couple of websites selling them, but I found iCalShare, which has free calendars. Obviously, these are only as good as the folks who created them, but you cannot beat the price.

I snagged a moon phase calendar, a Mercury retrograde calendar, a Roman Catholic feasts-n-saints calendar, and wonder of wonders, an academic calendar for IU Bloomington. The last is perplexingly missing from our work calendars. You’d think that official university events would be part of the standard Outlook install for our campus, but I guess not.

I think you can also file this under “spring cleaning.” I’m having some sort of OCD fit and am apparently needing to create order out of chaos.