Upon showing my husband the first thing he told me was "You should have made the bird bigger."Men.
Then just add the fish for oh about 5-10 minutes til it flakes with a fork. I love how quickly fish cooks. I used way more butter than was probably necessary but that was so I could pour it back over the fish and some of our couscous.
And this is my second non- "meat" dish in one week. Aren't I just the awesomest wife ever?
A wheel tax? And not only that but it's a $50 wheel tax.
What do you think? Too much blue? Probably too much blue.

Heaven help me, but I was a Girl Scout once (and by once I mean for about 5-6 years). It was not a fun experience.
One year the leader clearly had it out for me as she'd single me out to reprimand me for the smallest or most made up things and make me go sit off by myself, another was so lazy we'd basically just play Red Rover the whole time and then go home.
To pour salt into the wound my father was involved with the Boy Scouts at the time so I got to witness all of the cool stuff they got to do, like rappelling, learning how to start a fire, archery, camping. While we sat in a little run down building making recycled paper. Woo-bloody-hoo.
And oh those cookies, if you sold 1,000 boxes you may get something neat like a cap. But you'd better be bringing in some serious dough, we're talking drug runner money, before you'll get anything really fun and useful like a trip or a bike or a t-shirt.
I gave up shilling when I hung up my green sash (yeah I made it all the way to Junior) and have not sold or peddled a thing since. No candles for a band trip, no ad space for Block & Bridle. I just can't take that horrible slimy feeling you get wandering through a neighborhood in the dead of winter knocking on peoples doors knowing that they're inside doing their best to hide from you
But it's still hard to give up that cookie crack and feeling for the poor things I guess I'm willing to shell out $7.00 for a couple boxes if only so they don't lose their toes battling to each door in January.
Was anyone else a Girl Scout? Did you have to sell your soul for a few boxes of Tagalongs or Samoas? Better yet, anyone remember when those things only used to cost $2.50 a box?
Second - For the Oscar Wilde fan or the lover of witty one liners: "Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance" by Gyles Brandreth
Third- For any history, mystery, feminism, or just plain good novel fan: "Mistress of the Art of Death" by Ariana Franklin.
It was wonderfully tasty, I loved the breadcrumbs mixed with some butter on top. I fear I could make a meal out of just that. And it was oh so creamy, I suppose adding real cream will do that.Speaking of microwaves, there is one very important piece of equipment in every molecular lab that you probably have sitting in your own very office. Can you guess what it is? That's right, the spectrophotometer!
No wait, that's actually a microwave. Apparently someone gave me the wrong script. And just to prove I'm not lying, here's what I was in fact microwaving:
The microwave is needed to melt our good friend Mr. Agarose so it can be used to make our pure evil friend Mr. Gel. It's kinda like Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde but with more radiation.
And my last picture is of bubbles. I had to work on removing all the bubbles out of a tube yesterday for a few hours and I just thought they looked kinda cool:
What the Grammar Nazi does is quote your post it doesn't agree with (or maybe it does, no one ever really knows) and then merly point out where you used an incorrect "there" or one too many commas all to show off their complete superiority in all of the world and how your entire argument is wrong because you are not MS spell check.
They will not add a damn thing to the discussion at all, and instead of anyone learning anything by once again finding out that oops they used "it's" instead of "its" they come across with a feeling that you just had your IQ zapped by about 5 points.
I don't know if I should dare to feed my own little Alphabets troll by informing him/her/it it's a wonder I got my other post out at all as in hitting blogger spell check it suddenly spell checked and deleted HTML on me so I had to go through and fix all my pictures and anything it tagged (Why does Cheddar always have to be capitalized anyway? Is someone named Cheddar?). Oh who am I kidding, they'll never be back anyway.
For the Grammar Nazi feeds like a flock of locusts, moving from one post onto the next feeding its insatiable hunger for a superiority complex. They're the type to sit on a pier watching someone try to dock a boat in horrible weather and after spying failed attempt after failed attempt when the mariner finally succeeds, instead of offering to help tell them how they would have gotten it in one go.
They get some strange high out of knowing that in their minds they are infallible. Everyone must be beneath them because they know how and when to use a colon! Oh when it comes to verbiage and useage they are like a god among men.
Just what can be done with these interneters running around with a red pen trying to mark the whole world? Aside from giving them thousands of high school essays to grade not a damn thing sadly. Slip them some fodder every now and again (misuse of "there" and "its" is sure to cause them to all but orgasm) to keep the masses happy and just ignore it.
Oh and I look forward to someone finding all the mistakes I left in this. And . . . . . . Go!
You should wind up with about 3 cups of cheese though I went a bit higher cause I like cheese
Now here's the interesting part. Take 8 ounces of elbow macaroni and place it in the boiling water, but only for 4 minutes. This is so it'll get very al dente. Then just rinse off and cool:
Next, you mix in with the cheese 1 and 1/4th cup of milk and 2 cups of cream:
Then you fold in the al dente macaroni and this sits in the fridge overnight sucking up all the delectable creamy and cheesy goodness
Tonight when we get home I just have to place it in a baking dish, cover the top with some cheese and bread crumbs then bake for 20 minutes at 400. Easy peasy really.
It was rather fun to put together as the instructions were printed on the stapled cardboard and were harder to read than the Dead Sea scrolls and less intact. But after a few false starts we got it all together and I promptly felt I had to whip out a painting to christen this bad boy.
I guess this means that this painting thing is quickly becoming a serious hobby. So serious in fact that I am seriously considering opening up an Etsy store (serioulsy) if only to get rid of some of the back clutter.
The only problem is that now I need to think of a name for said store. "Introverted Wife's Paint and Gloss emporium" just doesn't have quite the right ring to it I fear. I could call it "Acrylic Central: Here for all your acrylic needs" but that sounds too much like a hardware store.
If anyone out there has their own etsy store, I'd love all the advice you have. And really if anyone has a good idea for a name of the store I'll be forever in your debt.
In fact, maybe I'll trade your own special painting for a name. If anyone can come up with a great name for my store then I'll paint you whatever your little heart desires. And in whatever color too.
I'm open to just about any name really, as long as its cool, funny, and awesome.
I hope I didn't make it too much of a challenge.
It's a rune stone and it stands for "Humanity." I've been wearing it since I was about oh 13 or so. Well aside from a few years when my husband and I were long distance so I gave it to him for safekeeping. Then as soon as I moved to be with him it went right back on my neck.
And this is what I did to deface the poor thing. My thoughts were to make it look like Vampires have invaded the Vineyard and run it now.
For the front window I had to think outside the box a touch as I couldn't get in and paint the wine and cheese. Instead I added some "cracks" to the windows and if you can see a pair of bloody hand prints.
The leg bone was from another kit that we just had sitting around. The hardest part here was adding the word "blood" to the sign. I was so focused in the middle of painting it I had to ask my husband just how to spell "blood." I only wanted to give it one "o" for some reason.
That is one grinning skull there, though the cat seems none to happy to have Vampires around.
One of the windows, with some bloody visitors. But what I really love is what I did to the grape edifices to make it look more like a monster out of Lovecraft.
In the windows on the back I tried to paint to different silhouettes. It sort of worked.
It's amazing how the addition of a little paint can make something go from a cute little Christmas themed village to the Vineyard of the Damned. Just have to add a few vampires outside and it's all ready to go.
The corn cob on the left is my attempt at it, and believe it or not the corn cob on the right was not in fact gnawed away at by a family of squirrels but methodically masticated by my own husband.
Let's just say I have a funny feeling Pete's been getting into something a bit more substantial than just parsnip. Best to be on the safe side though and not eat any of Pete's "parsnips" or you could wind up with an eyeball that's so lazy it could drip out of its socket.
I don't want to know what this bunny has buried in his garden.
Now for colony picking. This is by far the hardest part of the growth curve and you may have to help your monkey out. You want to add just one single colony of bacteria to each tube to control the amount added. So you need a steady hand to pick one small white dot that sits right next to another white dot.
After swirling your loop inside of the tubes to release all the bacteria time to lightly cap them off (you don't want to completely close the lid or no gas can get in and the bacteria die) and put them in the incubator for a few hours.
While those are growing up enjoying that wonderful feast you prepared for them you may want to take this time to catch up your lab notebook, or feed some cells, or if you really feel so inclined to actually get to that evil PCR.
What it does is measure the optical density of the bacteria cells. As they grow the bacteria become more and more clouded so less light can shine through. It's that absorbance or percent transmited of light that we measure to determine which grows best out of the different media.
After checking every 1 to 2 hours the growth should eventually peter out and you'll have a nice cloudy mixture inside of the tube. Hello, my little bacteria friends. Say hello back!
And that ladies and gentlemen is how to prepare a growth curve. Now I expect you all to start your own little bact labs growing up and ODing bacteria to your hearts content.
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But really, we're all starting to get a bit tired of the act.
Yes yes I know, it's only February. Traditionally we've still got March and some of April to fight you off, but a person can only take so much before they must take action.
Try to not think of this as us giving you a pink slip. It's a bit more complicated than that. We just think you'd blossom more doing some freelance work. Check out the arctic circle during most of the year, keep them busy down at the South Pole. You can always visit for Christmas and New Years.
If you have your desk cleared out and all your snow collected by Mid March then we may be able to squeeze you in for a little April freeze.
Ah Ms. Spring. So nice to make your acquaintance. Yes we may have an opening for you to fill. What are your thoughts on May flowers and April showers?For all you non-Halloween freaks (probably just about all of you actually) feel free to just skip over my madness. But here in no order are some of the neatest new additions for 2009. If you want to see them closer up click on the images to get a bigger picture.
Usually we don't care too much for the Egyptian ones but I just love all the detail, even with the one priest wearing an Anubis head.
Thanks to a really great after Christmas sale we got our hands on a Vineyard house that while set up for Christmas I was thinking I could alter to look more like say a vineyard for vampires. This little figurine called "Bloodbath" would fit in so perfectly.
Just look at the menu on this one. I really love Dessert.
This one is called "Demon Cave." I love the fact that all these evil things get together to have a little boozing and then poker, he he he.
This is called "Witch Tree" and it has such a cool eerie feel like some old knarled trees I've known in my time.
I've been wanting a good witches piece for a while. Only I'd have to paint their faces flesh colored because I just don't hold with Witches being green (blame my name and too much Pratchett) and I do like how the witches are sitting back and relaxing after a hard life of witching. Now to find a way to get Greebo in there..
Anyone else getting a Cave of Carbanorg feel from this one? I can already picture the cute fluffy bunny in there.
Only Lemax could think of all the classic monsters getting together for Bowling night. My favorite is the mummy.


There are tons more, I just highlighted my few favorites. If you are as into it as I am, check out House of Tam here. Now I just have to wait til Michales gets them in on August. I may have chewed my fingers down to the nubs in anticipation.