she's an 8, she's a 9, she's a 10, i know

it was 78 degrees and sunny today so ripley and i did what any reasonable girls would do and read books about pastry chefs living in paris for several hours this afternoon on the back porch. little did i know it was sunny enough to result in sunburned legs. whoops. first sundress/sunburn of the season.

tomorrow? thunderstorms. that will make it easier to stay inside and apply for jobs.

laughin' with your pretty mouth

could it have been any more beautiful outside today, austin?! i made dill bread and it rose in the sun..

ripley and i hung out all day with the doors and windows open. the front windows still don't have screens, so kitty was able to come and go as he pleased which was kind of nice.

i figured out how to use the swiffer to comb up ripley fur off the rug that the vacuum left behind. what a domestic day.

at one point during the day, i knew it was a little too quiet. then i realized ripley was missing. i looked on the back porch.. nothin. living room? nope. majjy's room? no. but the door to my room was cracked.. ! lo and behold. two scoundrels.

if i wake up with fleas, we'll know why.

word of the week in this household: crooksy. maj accidentally made it up the other day and jeff and i are running with it. it can be used in many ways.

"did you see the girl's outfit? it was so crooksy."

"don't be such a crook."

p.s. here are the facts about what the health care bill means for us over the next several years. there are plenty of things that will happen before 2014.

a number of things will begin within the next year:

*Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Lifetime coverage limits will be eliminated and annual limits are to be restricted.

*Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

*Young adults will be able to stay on their parents' health plans until the age of 26.

*Uninsured adults with a pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain health coverage through a new program that will expire once new insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014.

*Medicare drug beneficiaries who fall into the "doughnut hole" coverage gap will get a $250 rebate. The bill eventually closes that gap which currently begins after $2,700 is spent on drugs. Coverage starts again after $6,154 is spent.

*A tax credit becomes available for some small businesses to help provide coverage for workers.

yes we can

all i can think about tonight are the letters i read from all of the people who watched their family members die, who had kids who had "pre-existing conditions" for being born with genetic defects, grandparents who were choosing between their prescriptions and food, parents who worried about losing their jobs and their medical coverage, and husbands with wives who had battled cancer many times and had reached their lifetime limit on their coverage. they have faces, they have names, some of their handwriting is very hard to read. and tonight i am so thrilled for them.

from today forward, all of those people will be protected. they won't have to stay up all night worrying. they won't go bankrupt. what a victory for them, and for all of us.

slammin' screen door

there used to be a sign when you drove into town that proclaimed round rock the 'daffodil capital of texas/the US (or something)'.. but they've since taken it down. there are 2 little patches of daffodils. pretty but puny.

artisan bread in 5 minutes a day, what is your problem?! the yeast foamed, the bread rose beautifully and then i added deeeelicious roasted garlic and cheddar cheese and then nothin'. it didn't rise again and i ended up with little baby loaves of bread the size of my palm. it's pretty tasty though. just very small/dense.

gram sent a bunch of the dresses i left at her house in mom's birthday box so now i'm all ready for 70 degree days.

ripley, kitty and i are enjoying our quiet day alone. abha and i have been watching movies together via text message. a nice way to spend a random chilly first day of spring.

but i was like a statue

ripley got a much needed bath today. you used to be able to smell her before you saw her coming.

jeff and i did it out front with the hose and freezing cold water. she didn't really mind.
then i brushed the living daylights out of her. if you scratch under her collar while you do it, she doesn't even know she's being brushed because she's so happy. look at that happy face.

then she turned into a giant puffball for an hour or so while she dried. now she's just really shiny and fluffed up.
kitty has some kind of nasty infection on his back that occasionally oozes =\ it is gross.
today we got my car almost all the way back up and running. oil change, new registration, new battery, air in the tires, new switch so my brake lights aren't on all the time, reinstated my insurance. all i need to do tomorrow is get it inspected and i'm good to go.

and dad had a hankering for smores so we made some on the gas stove. so yummy.
ps if you're anything like me and need your travel blog fix, go check out matthew's blog about being a peace corps member in albania. he just got there earlier this week so you can follow him from the beginning. we went to high school together but i can't say i know him too well. he seems like one of the nicest guys you will ever meet though.

dance in the street

too many random pictures of things today so i just picked a few themes.

the first is a continuation of spring springin' in austin. jeff and i went to the old house today to take pictures of stuff we want to put on craigslist, and the bradford pear trees in the back yard are so beautiful in bloom right now.

so then we get home and realize we hadn't eaten anything.. so we made quiche lorraine with pie crust from scratch and no real recipe for the filling. it turned out soo well. the two of us ate half of it in 20 minutes.

then we had been talking about making malted milk balls. so we look up recipes online. there was no recipe for malted milk balls, but we did find one for sponge candy which proclaimed to be just like them, without the chocolate. it called for corn syrup, which we didn't have. so we found a recipe for it too.

the tricky part is that you have to bring the corn syrup to 'soft ball' stage, and we didn't have a candy thermometer, so we had to rely on how it acted when you put a drop of it in cold water. we just guessed. it was fine.

the real problem was when we tried to make the sponge candy. we wanted it to be malty like the middle of a malted milk ball.. so we decided to add 2 T of ovaltine malted milk powder at the end when we were mixing in the baking soda.

once again, no candy thermometer.. this time we're going for 'hard crack' stage. we keep dropping it in the water. it just sinks to the bottom when it's supposed to be forming some kind of brittle string. but after a bit, it starts rapidly turning from clear to golden to caramel colored.

we take it off the heat and jeff dumps in the baking soda and ovaltine as i stir. it immediately quadruples in size and is turning darker and darker shades of brown by the second.

MEANWHILE, jeff is just furiously taking pictures as i'm screaming/stirring.

i dump it into the greased baking pan and hope it stops growing/doesn't get on my hand.

to make a long story short, we did not end up with malted milk balls. we did end up with burnt peanut brittle without the peanuts.

next time, we're just going to buy a thing of whoppers.

springy

what a pretty spring day in austin.

happy st. patrick's day