Don't you hate being stuck at home waiting for a package to be delivered?

Especially when they promised it would arrive before 1pm and they are now half an hour late.

In addition to that, you have to time it so that you can pick up your car from the mechanic after its check up and oil change before they close, but of course you can't leave the house until the package arrives, but you've got to get your car before they close.

If you see a very angry and frustrated person glaring out the window, that would be me.

Updated: Finally arrived!! Only 2 hours late. Now I can actually take a shower and go retrieve my vehicle.

...is the grilling.










The worst part are the mosquitos! (Hence, the pictures from the safety of indoors. I got 3 bites in less than 3 minutes).



Yummy grilled steak and onions!!

There's this realty company near where we live that has a big sign that displays the time and temperature. This sign has some pecularities to it. It consistently estimates the temperature about 20 degrees hotter than it really is.


For example, when I was walking up to the grocery store, the sign told me it was 107 degrees.


About half an hour later when I was walking home, it was 110 degrees.


This was around 3:30pm.


According to the weather channel, it only reached about a high of 87-89 today. I think that if it was honestly 110 degrees I would have been a puddle on the sidewalk.


But I walked to the grocery store in order to pick up a few ingredients for a dessert experiment tonight. I caught a rerun of Baking with Julia on PBS this afternoon and while I'm not going to attempt the masterpiece that Gail Gand demonstrated, I did get inspired for a simplified version of her dessert. Details tomorrow if successful...

(inspired by Gail Gand's visit to "Baking with Julia")





Ingredients: Phyllo dough, butter, sugar, berries (or other fruit), whipped cream


Directions:
Thaw dough (don't unroll it!). Cut 3 1/4 inch slices of rolled dough with wax paper still on. Fluff cut strips and remove wax paper (the dough looks like pasta!). Arrange dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper into nests. Spatter with melted butter. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 10-15 minutes (until golden brown... you may need to crank the heat from 350 to 400). Once the nests are delicious looking, take them out of the oven, allow them to cool. Top with berries and whipped cream!


For a variation: Add more whipped cream (yum!!) and shave some chocolate on top!



(Sorry this picture is blurry. I was in a hurry to get it in my belly!)

What does the term "Next Day" mean to you?


What about the term "Next Day: Nights & Weekends"?


If you call on Monday night with a problem, you'd expect that "Next Day: Nights & Weekends" means that someone should be at your home fixing your problem on Tuesday (or possibly Wednesday because the technician may be busy).


What you don't expect is calling Saturday night and spending over an hour working via the phone and internet with a technician that doesn't solve either of your two problems.


Receiving the replacement part on Monday (at least that was timely) and discovering that the replacement part is just as bad as the original and that problem number 2 has escalated into the realm of dire problems. So you spend another hour on the phone and internet trying to solve the problem.


You are told that a technician will come out for problem #1 with the defective part, but that problem #2 isn't an "on-site technician's" job and that it can be solved only by restoring your computer back to its original factory settings (which means blanking the hard drive and losing just about everything that can't be backed up, which is just about everything).


After restoring the factory settings and spending another hour watching the technician remotely mess with your computer and reconfigure your entire wireless network, hearing him declare "problem solved" when your wireless network has been set to UNSECURED!! is not reassuring that the technician had any idea what he was doing.


Next you spend another two hours trying to reset the security on your network. In the process you kill the internet to your work laptop. Then you kill the internet to the WIRED DESKTOP. Then you spend a while setting on the floor surrounded by two laptops and a desktop and the worthless instructions for the wireless router crying. Eventually you restore the internet to the desktop and work laptop and the security settings, but the original problem of a lack of internet capability on the first laptop is still dead.


You wait two days before trying anymore restoration attempts on your own because the outsourced to India technicians are not helpful. By slightly reducing security settings and downloading an updated driver, you seem to have finally solved the problem on your own (no thanks to the four technicians who are paid to fix such things).


Oh, and that next day service for the defective part? Again, you'd think the in-person technician would be at your doorstep Tuesday or Wednesday. But here it is Thursday and all you know is that someone is supposed to call you at some point to set up the appointment with the technician, which is looking more and more likely to be a "Next Week" service than a "Next Day" service.


Conclusion... never, ever, ever order a computer or laptop from Dell again!

The Mocking Thyme/Somewhere in Thyme socks are finished. I actually finished them up last night. I took them with me for my train/subway knitting on our way to the Mets game yesterday. As I was starting the 10 row repeat, I noticed that the leg was looking about the right length. Silly me had left the completed sock at home as well as my notes and bag of notions. And so I forged ahead with the repeat because I didn't have much else to do on the train. As I was knitting along, my brain said "60" and then I remembered that I did 60 rows on the leg and thus was dead on to finish. I mostly finished on the train, but had to wait for the cast off until we got home. (And the Mets won... so good day!).


As a refresher, these socks were knit from Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock - Mediumweight. It was the last of my Rockin' Sock Club from '07. The pattern is Mockery Socks.






Despite your helpful and supportive comments that her head was not too pointy, I ripped back and reworked it. I think it is much better now. Just have to finish the plain portion of the scarf and this will be finished. And there just may be a pattern for it on Ravelry for you Dr. Girlfriend admirers. (It's not there yet, but soon).






These are my new traveling socks. I need to finish them up before the Olympics, so I can compete in the WIP Wrestling event for Team Guild Calamitious Intent!




This is a little curtain that I'm knitting for my office. It seems that the blinds that were in there got broken somehow (they weren't in the window, I found them crumbled and tangled on top of the bookcase). I could ask for new ones, but I'd rather have a pretty homemade curtain instead. This picture is upside down. That fancy part is going to be at the top. The yarn is Louet KidLin Lace Weight.

I've been faithfully Wii Fitting for 70 days now. I've only missed three days when we were away from home (yes, I was tempted to bring my Wii and Wii Fit with me, but then thought that I'm not that crazy).


Overall, I'm still holding around 5-7 pounds lost. I had two straight days of a BMI under 24 today and yesterday. Of course, that isn't all just Wii Fit. My routine recently has been 30-40 minutes of Wii Fit (mostly aerobics and yoga) and 20-30 minutes of exercise DVD. The exercise DVDs are good, intense cardio aerobics. I'm trying to settle into a good, approximately 1 hour routine that I'll be able to maintain once school starts again. (I have this secret hope that the weight loss will improve once school gets back underway... I've got to be burning calories when I'm walking around lecturing, right?).


Honestly though the weightloss isn't as important as just feeling more fit and healthy. The Wii Fit as definitely inspired me to get up off the couch. I feel more flexible and am more conscious of my posture.


The thing that makes me the most proud is that I can not only touch my toes (with straight legs, while standing), I can now place my palms flat against the floor! Woohoo!