Frog Prince
Eight loads of laundry and other assorted house chores later, tired Bry is tired. I'm taking a shower and going straight to bed as soon as the 49ers-Giants game is over (go Niners!).

Last week, I brought up the idea of trying new foods, or foods we didn't like as children but would be willing to try again as adults if they were prepared differently. Mom G was all for it, Dad G and hubby were more skeptical but game. I picked a recipe, and tonight we had kale (which no one has had before) with roasted beets (food I hated as a child prepared a different way) and bacon.

Mom G and I liked it (I like roasted beets, yay!). Bean didn't like the kale but ate the beets, but she's always liked beet pickles so I wasn't surprised. Hubby ate some and said it wasn't bad, but he wasn't exactly enthusiastic in his endorsement either. Dad G took one look and refused to even try it.

*sigh*

Mom G and I have a not-so-private joke that if our boys weren't around we'd have a much better, more varied diet instead of the usual meat and potatoes fare. Veggie-wise, hubby won't eat anything outside of peas, green beans, corn, carrots, and tomatoes. Dad G will eat those along with broccoli and cauliflower, but that's it. No vegetarian dishes, tofu is a four-letter word, and experimenting with food is looked upon with deep suspicion.

So the kale-and-beet dish was pretty much split down the middle, with the women for and the men against, and Bean divided between liking the beets and not liking the kale. Pfft, I may make it again anyway, and serve a more conventional veggie alongside.

Here's the recipe in question:

Kale with Roasted Beets and Bacon

2 beets
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
6 slices thick-cut bacon
1 large bunch kale, washed, stemmed, and cut into 1-inch pieces
1/3 cup low-sodium chicken stock
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Wash and trim the beets, removing both ends. Place them on a 12-inch square sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Drizzle with the olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Seal up the foil packet and roast until the beets are fork-tender, about 1 hour.

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon until crisp. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate. Increase the heat to high and add the kale, stirring to coat in the rendered bacon grease. Cover and cook for a few minutes, and then add the chicken stock and 2 tablespoons of the vinegar. Stir to combine, cover and allow to wilt for 6-8 minutes.

Peel and cut the beets into chunks and add them to the kale. Stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons vinegar. Crumble and add the bacon, stir to combine and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Serves 4-6.
Frog Prince
Originally posted by [personal profile] morgandawn at Seems I Am Not The Only One....
......who feels the need to take a break from an increasingly dysfunctional relationship.



Frog Prince
Gacked via [personal profile] celandineb, [personal profile] alisanne, and others:

This journal has no material today in protest of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), the bills which will allow the government censor the intenet. I am sure everyone knows that Wikipedia, Mozilla, Wordpress, and hundreds of other sites are going dark today in protest of the bills, which could be used to shut down all material on the web not generated by corporations with big money lawyers -- affecting everything from whether we can get unbiased news reports to how we share our own news and photos with friends. Though the House bill, SOPA, is closer to being stymied, the Senate bill, PIPA, has several dozen co-sponsors. Find out more at http://americancensorship.org and http://www.fightforthefuture.org.
Frog Prince
2011 was a reaaaaaaalllllly slow fic year for me. Compared to 2010 where I wrote three drabbles, fifteen ficlets, and twelve fics, in 2011 I wrote a grand total of...three stories.

Three. Four, if you count a retooled story I originally wrote in 2009.

Yeah, it was an off year. There were no additions to Neville's stable of conquests, either. Most tragically, I wrote no Neville/Ginny last year. If nothing else, that will hopefully change this year.

On to the (short) list of fic!

Making a Splash, (Neville/Lavender, NC-17), written for ozma_katiebell for wizard_love 2011. When her date with Neville turns potentially disastrous, Lavender finds a way to salvage the evening.

Lavender Fields Forever, (Neville/Lavender, NC-17), written for starrika for smutty_claus 2011. Lavender became something of a workaholic after the war. Fortunately, a certain professor teaches her how to stop and smell the flowers again.

Mermaid's Suede, (Charlie/Neville, NC-17), written for kabal42 for daily_deviant's Kinky Kristmas 2011. It was difficult to imagine such an affable bloke being so, well, kinky, if Charlie hadn’t witnessed it firsthand.

The tweaked fic was The Naming of Direwolves, (Jon Snow and his siblings, gen, G). Jon Snow and his trueborn siblings feed their direwolf pups and decide on names.

So that closes the book on a dismal writing year. We'll see if this one improves at all!
Frog Prince
I have never been a clotheshorse. I will buy enough to get me through the week and wear them until they fall apart. A fashionista, I am not.

Therefore, it was probably a good thing I received two new pairs of corduroy pants for Christmas. I was wearing one of my old pairs last night, sat down to check me e-mail, and Rrrrriiiip. This morning I was wearing another old pair, and the exact same thing happened. Rrrriiiip. Same place and everything. So now I have two pairs of pants to cut up for the ragbag, and fortunately there are two shiny new pairs to take their place!

Today was spent baking another batch of cranberry orange scones, along with a batch of blueberry muffins. I need to go buy more sour cream now. I still have oranges and dried cranberries left! On the other hand, I found a recipe for cranberry curd. Maybe if I make that along with some shortbread tomorrow...? *ponders* Or there's always snickerdoodles. I haven't made those for a while.

The playoff game between the Saints and the 49ers today was absolutely epic! The 49ers scored the winning touchdown with nine seconds left in the game, a 17-yard pass in coverage, and a brilliant catch. Much as I adore my Chiefs, it was the Joe Montana-led 49ers of the '80s that made me a football fan, and I will always have a soft spot for them.

Condolences to the Saints fans on my f-list. It really was an awesome game.
Frog Prince
Well, that's what happens when you lose internet for a few days...all sorts of stuff happens, and once you get it back there's nuthin.

So, today you get All the Things that happened last week!

For instance, Bean's favorite vegetable is carrots. I asked her if she wanted to help me make carrot soup, and she said yes. So I tried a new recipe for Curried Carrot Soup. She wasn't fond of the results and didn't eat more than a few bites (so much for the reasoning that having kids help in the kitchen will expand their culinary appetites), but I thought it was delicious and will probably make it again.

Also, last Thursday in class we all played with syringes and needles, and I didn't pass out or anything! True, none of them were exactly pointed in my direction, which definitely helped. But we practiced reconstituting vials and drawing up the contents into the syringes before injecting them into IV bags. It's the type of activity pharm techs typically perform in a hospital or long-term care institution rather than in a retail setting, but it was still good knowledge to have.

I also made a batch of cranberry orange scones. There was a ton of good fruit sales last week, so I picked up strawberries, blueberries, bananas, kiwi fruit, and oranges, and whipped up a fruit salad. Apparently I wasn't the only one jonesing for fresh fruit, because the rest of the family devoured it. I still have oranges and blueberries left, and will probably make another batch of scones and some blueberry muffins this weekend, and take them in to school next week as study fuel. Midterms are next week, and at the moment I am NOT failing algebra! *\o/*

Also, reveals happened for the two holiday fests I participated in, and I can now thank the lovely people who created their fantastic gifts for me!

Firstly, I must thank nightfalltwen for her incredible Neville/Lavender fic The Right Recipe, which is not only a gloriously romantic story, it also includes links scattered throughout the fic, all going to delicious-sounding recipes like gingerbread and cream scones. If you haven't already, go, read, and give love!

Secondly, I must thank its_art for the sizzling Neville/Ginny artwork These aren't your usual Christmas crackers she drew for me for daily_deviant's Kinky Kristmas! It's hot and cool, and I love Neville's impish expression and Ginny's pose. It's lovely, so take a look and leave more praise!

Incidentally, I also committed fic, both of which I've reposted to my fic journals.

I wrote the Charlie/Neville fic Mermaid's Suede for kabal42 for Kinky Kristmas.

I wrote the Neville/Lavender fic Lavender Fields Forever for starrika for smutty_claus.

On a less happy note, this week we've begun the process of arranging for speech therapy for Bean. She's an intelligent little girl, but while she understands what's being said to her, she's fallen further behind her peers in actual speech and vocabulary, which is affecting her social development. Hopefully by getting her into a speech program we can make noticeable progress by the time she starts kindergarten later this year. I was the same way when I was her age, but I really wish she hadn't inherited her speech/social inadequacies from me! Wish us luck!

I submitted my Valensmut fic last night, so now I just need to come up with a plotbunny for the prompt I picked up at Wizard Love.

We also had our second dusting of snow two days ago. So far this winter we've had less than an inch of snow total, which is unusual. Poor Bean is so anxious for a real snowstorm!
Frog Prince
Title: Mermaid's Suede
Author: [personal profile] coffee_n_cocoa
Characters/Pairings: Charlie/Neville
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Themes Included: bondage, leather (sort of)
Warnings: bondage, leather (sort of), plant porn
Word Count: 2958
Summary: It was difficult to imagine such an affable bloke being so, well, kinky, if Charlie hadn’t witnessed it firsthand.
Author's Notes: Written for kabal42 for Kinky Kristmas 2011. Thanks muchly to [personal profile] ragdoll for looking it over! ♥ The fic is EWE and ignores post-canon interviews.


Mermaid’s Suede )
Frog Prince
Bean returned to school today; I go back tomorrow. She was happy to go back, greeted her teachers cheerfully, started playing right away. We're still a year or so away before the back-to-school groans kick into high gear.

I was mostly lazy today, although I did box up some of Bean's old clothes to give to Goodwill. Tomorrow I need to clean out the closet and see what else I can donate. There are several outfits I can give away that haven't fallen apart, and others I can rip up for the rag bag.

The holiday fests have finished posting. I'm fairly predictable, but I'll toss it out there anyway: Who can guess what I wrote for Smutty Claus and Kinky Kristmas?

I'd make a year-end fic post, but I only wrote three stories all year, none of which were all that great. I suppose I might make one anyway, despite the extremely short list, just for the sake of posterity.
Frog Prince
The Chiefs beat the Broncos today, finishing their season at 7-9. This was actually better than the 6-10 I predicted at the beginning of the season; and if we hadn't lost Eric Berry, Jamaal Charles and Tony Moeaki early in the year and then Matt Cassel later on, we might have finished with a better record. Add in the fact that we went 2-1 after Haley was fired, and the ever-hopeful fans in Chiefs Country can't help but wonder: If we went 7-9 this year with half our starting line-up out with injuries and an incompetent head coach, just imagine what we can do next season with a healthy line-up and a halfway decent coach!

*dreams*

Now, to cheer on the 49ers through the playoffs!
Frog Prince
We still have about 90 minutes before the clock strikes midnight where I am. I have a White Russian in a very large glass, the kiddo is in bed, and I am ready to see 2011 off into history.

Happy New Year, everyone!

:(

Dec. 31st, 2011 02:36 pm
Frog Prince
Hubby just took down the Christmas tree. It always makes me sad even though I know it can't stay up forever. :(
Frog Prince
Now that the year is nearly done, it's time to reflect on the 2011 that was. My year was fairly dull, considering money is/was still tight and I had pretty much nothing in the way of disposable income to do anything fun. I'm hoping that will change in 2012!

2011 in hindsight )
Frog Prince
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! Happy Hanukkah, Happy Yule to those who celebrate those instead! Happy Sunday to everyone else!

Bean made out like a bandit this year, as usual. She received a stuffed penguin, a penguin snuggie-type blanket, a new Barbie, new Barbie clothes, new crayons and drawing paper, a Cars 2 DVD, and yes, a red yo-yo.

I received new clothes, one of those Magic Bullet blenders, and The Hunger Games trilogy, so I made out quite well also.

I have also received nifty gifts of both the fic and artistic varieties!

Firstly, and it is horribly and most egregiously late for me to mention this, [personal profile] katmarajade wrote me a lovely R-rated Neville/Ginny ficlet, Evergreen Entrapment, which is both sweet and sexy, and everyone should go read it.

Secondly, a lovely artist over at [community profile] daily_deviant drew These aren't your usual Christmas crackers for me, a NWS bit of Neville/Ginny naughtiness, which should be seen if only for the fine figure Ginny cuts in her high heels, stockings, and naught else. :D

Lastly, [profile] tealeaf23 wrote a sweet Neville/Draco ficlet for me, Christmas Confessions, which is just deliciously romantic.

Go! Look! Leave love for all of them!

And Happy Holidays to all of you!
Neville/Ginny kiss
Happy Birthday, NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM!!!

You will always be my hero and favorite BAMF!

What if...

Jul. 30th, 2011 04:36 pm
Frog Prince
What if you combined Game of Thrones with My Little Ponies?

My Game of Thronies!

Oh god, the big eyes!
Frog Prince
Bean went on her first field trip today with her daycare, and by extension I went on my first field trip as a mom. We went to a local pumpkin patch and petting zoo, where Bean and the other kids got to see chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, guinea fowl and peacocks; goats and sheep and bunnies, and a calf and a pig. After they all got to pet the goats and calf and oohed and aahed over the other animals, especially the enormous lop-eared bunny, we all climbed aboard a tractor-pulled wagon and headed out to pick our pumpkins. Bean chose a very nice little one and she's been showing it off to everyone.

Anyway, watching eleven prekindergartners is like herding cats. Believe me, I have a lot more respect for daycare workers who have to put up with all that constant energy from multiple sources day in and day out! I overheard one of the other moms who came along that she was ready for a nap after helping keep track of everyone.

I wore my autumn-themed sweatshirt, which features a rustic scarecrow and two pumpkins under a crescent moon, and the rest of the kids thought it was the most awesomest shirt ever for the occasion. So I now have cool points with Bean's classmates. :)

My sisters and I are having pictures taken of all the grandkids to give to Mom as a Christmas gift. Which is all well and good, since Oldest Nephew is a senior in high school this year and will be away at college this time next year, so this is probably the last chance in awhile to get everyone together for photos.

However...Middle Sis (the one who adopted the three girls and a boy from Colombia last year) and Youngest Sis (who only has boys) both decided it would be just wonderful if all the kids wore matching outfits for the sitting. Which means I have to buy a new dress for Bean. True, Middle Sis will be buying three dresses for her girls, but ugh. Do they not have perfectly serviceable dresses in their closets already? *sigh* Both of my sisters are much more Martha Stewart-ish than I am (especially Middle Sis), so of course they thought it was a brilliant plan, and I got overridden. So now I have to buy a fancy dress Bean will probably only wear the once. Right now it looks like the sitting itself will be happening the first weekend of November.

Also coming up: fall party at Bean's daycare, Halloween, a trip to the circus...the calendar is rapidly filling up at Chez G!

Now, if I could just get my Muse to cooperate!
Frog Prince
Thanks to [personal profile] atala, [personal profile] blueaisling, [personal profile] juniperus, [personal profile] kaleidoscopeheart, [personal profile] marie_j_granger, [personal profile] madam_minnie, [personal profile] schnurble, [personal profile] odogoddess, [personal profile] alisanne, [personal profile] faye_jan49, and [personal profile] celandineb for the birthday wishes!

Thanks to [personal profile] ceirdwenfc and [personal profile] sra_danvers for the virtual gifts!

Well, I'm 42 now, so does this mean this is the year I discover the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything? If it is, it's going to have to wait until this nasty cold is over and done with, and with that I am off to bed. Nothing sucks quite as much as being sick on your birthday. Bleah.
Frog Prince
Bean isn't quite ready to let summer go just yet. It was in the 40s this morning. She cried when I wouldn't let her wear shorts and a tank top to daycare, and when I asked her if she wanted to wear her purple shoes, her pink shoes, or her princess shoes, she cried again when I denied her request to wear her sandals. Mean old Mommy was being especially mean for Monday!

On top of that, Mom G has bronchitis, and Bean and I both have colds. Just in time for my birthday, yay. Ah well, it wasn't like I had anything special planned anyway.
Frog Prince
What better way to spend a cool, cloudy day than to bake cookies with your four-year-old? Bean added the ingredients to the mixing bowl when I told her too, rolled the dough in the cinnamon sugar mixture, and helped lay them on the cookie sheets.

They turned out rather tasty!

Tonight, I write. Sometime this week I need to come up with plots for my Yule Balls and Smutty Claus fics, both of which will feature pairings I haven't written in...well, a long time.
Frog Prince
We had the insurance adjuster out today to look at the roof, and we need to have it replaced because of the hailstorm we had last weekend. Fortunately, the homeowners insurance will cover the majority of the replacement costs. What sucks is that we just had the roof replaced three years ago (because it was old, but a hailstorm back then was the final nail in that coffin). Ah well, life in the Midwest.

Bean was moved up to the next class at her daycare, and she seems really happy there. Not that she wasn't happy before, but she adapted to the change in routine and teachers really well.

And we're putting up the Halloween lights this weekend, whee!!! Bean is getting really excited about the upcoming holiday, which is neat. We're going to have so much fun trick-or-treating this year!
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