G-Grinds My Gears

I know we all have pet peeves and I thought I would share a few of the things I just cannot handle, the things that "grind my gears".

1. People who make mouth noises when they eat, seriously...SERIOUSLY!
2. Messes that do not get cleaned up, especially if they are not mine and someone expects me to take care of it.
3. People who lie, especially the ones who lie about stupid things just so they have something to contribute to a conversation (no one cares, and we all know you are lying!).
4. People who are condescending/pretentious (even if you ARE more intelligent you do not have to make sure everyone else knows it, chances are they already do and have a complex about it--honestly, these people make me zone out so all I hear is Charlie Brown teacher voice).
5. People who make plans and break them, or who just cannot make plans with another person (the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type...I'm married to one and I love him, but sometimes it is soooooo hard to make the simplest plans)

From Alice in Wonderland

6. People who judge you based on where you work (i.e. thinking you must be stupid because you work a menial job...I hate LOATHE these people).
7. When people leave the toilet paper the wrong way on the roll...or they empty the roll and do not change it!

WRONG way!  

Right way! :D

8. When people fold clothes wrong or hang them the wrong way on the hanger.
9. When people will not even listen to your opinions on a subject, because their friend already told them that that book/movie/reporter/political candidate is bad/wrong...but they only heard it from a friend in the first place.  *shudder*
10.  When people use pipette tips from random spots in the box, instead of using them by rows.

I cannot believe someone used this as an advertising picture...http://www.genpore.com/pipette_tip_filters.htm

If liking this makes me OCD...maybe I am a little.  rpcs.org 

I am positive there are a lot more things that grind my gears, but those are the first ones that pop to mind.  Maybe I am a little CDO (That is OCD with all the letters in the right order for those of you who do not know!).

What about you?  What are some things that make you a little crazy and grind your gears?  Nothing is too big or small.

F-French Toast

The first breakfast I made for my husband when we got married was French Toast.  He said that it was better than his mother's and since then, I have become known as the french toast queen...well okay, not really, but it gets a lot of compliments when I make it!

I am going to share my recipe and secrets for great french toast with you!

Take a loaf of bread:  I made whole wheat bread from scratch, but store-bought works too, though I suggest buy whole loaves, not pre-sliced bread! 

Cut the bread into slices about an inch thick and leave out to get stale overnight (yes, this is absolutely crucial, french toast from non-stale bread tastes way worse)

My recipe for my liquid dipping mix

The ingredients for the mix

Mix it with a fork so that it has a yellow hue throughout and the cinnamon is spread out

Dip your stale bread in the mix, let it soak it up, then flip it over to soak in the other side until the bread is soft  from absorbing the mix

Put in skillet on medium heat and cook until browned, then flip and do the same.

Plate the toast and serve with syrup and powdered sugar!  Makes a delicious, and pretty quick, breakfast!

What about you?  What are your favorite breakfast foods?  What is something you have been told you are good at making?

E-Entropy

My husband has the rather stunning power of being a force of entropy in the world (he jokes that we are arch-nemeses because my superpower is returning everything to its original state.).  I literally cannot keep our apartment in order for more than a day (if that)!  He somehow manages to make it more disorganized without seemingly having done anything!  Just this week we were scheduled to have friends visit on Friday, so I gradually got our apartment in good order for having guests.  It stayed that way until Friday evening...and somehow by the time our friends got here we had accumulated dishes in the sink, a coat and plates in the living room, and clothes on the bedroom floor.

Saturday, after cooking breakfast I cleaned the dishes, ran the dishwasher, and wiped down the counters: all was clean, and well, and good...or so I thought!

Over the course of Saturday (just those 24 hours) my kitchen went from this:

The stove after making homemade Kahlua, and late night breakfast

My sink and the pile of dishes from the last part of the evening

My cluttered countertop

The dining room table post game night and late night breakfast

To this:

My pretty stove,

Sparkling sink,

Cleared countertop,

And lovely dining room table.

It went between these two sets of photos about three times over the course of Saturday...holy cow...I put in a lot of effort and work into cleaning it up, but my husband is an absolute whirlwind of entropy!  I also ran the dishwasher 4 times in a day and a half, which is more than I typically run it in two weeks!

These are some more pictures of how my apartment looked after this weekend:

My "landing pad" became a hotspot

Our makeshift guest room

Our bedroom...is almost never this bad

But after this afternoon, and three loads of laundry, it looks like this:

The trick to keeping it looking this way is actually not to kill yourself over the course of a day, but to clean 15-30 minutes a day in short bursts.  It really helps!  So even if your husband's superpower is that of entropy, you can successfully battle clutter and triumph!

What about you?  Do you/your significant other have conflicting "superpowers"?  What are your tricks for accomplishing difficult/large tasks?

D-Dancing (and Dips!)

Ever since I was little I have had a love for dance of all forms...not to say that I was good at them!  My little sister and I used to embarrass the heck out of our older brothers by dancing in front of restaurant juke boxes when we were young (I cannot imagine how bad it was, but it was probably adorable to unrelated observers).

I used to take ballet and tap, and for some reason stopped (I really wish now that I had kept with it).  In high school I was in show choir and school musicals and got much better at real dancing (that does not mean that any displays put on in bowling alleys, school dances, or clubs was anything short of hilarious in my lack of technique).  I just loved to be dancing:  around my bedroom, down the hallways, pretty much anywhere I had a song in my head.  Even today I jam out when I am cooking, cleaning, and even around the lab I work in!

In college I was introduced to the wonderful, world of swing dancing!  I instantly fell in love, and was pretty decent at following.  And let me tell you, having someone lead helps you look a LOT better than you actually are.

I fell in love with partner dancing (and the dips...did I mention that I love dips?).

From my first ever Lindy Bomb!

Thanks to the many amazing people I knew/met/know through swing dancing I easily found a place where I belonged...

A place where there were other "weird" people knew the Time Warp!,

Where I could be me in front of strangers!  (At my first exchange in Chicago.),

Where I grew confident enough to dance solo in front of friends...

...and confident enough to compete for the first time,

Where you meet fun people (tall people swing-dancing!),

Where you remember it is ok to act like children and live in the moment,

Where you feel like a movie star, when someone snaps a picture of an awesome moment,

Where a good dance can make you feel like you are the only two people in the room,

and where you fall in love.

Without swing dancing I would have a lot less friends, a lot less fun, a lot less confidence, and probably would have never married the love of my life.  Dancing has done so much for me throughout my life but mostly has significantly shaped my recent past, present, and future.  Without dancing I would not be me!

P.S. Did I mention I love dips?!

What about you?  What is one hobby that has significantly shaped you?  Do you enjoy dancing?

C-Cotyledons!

So, recently discovered that I have several hobby type activities that I enjoy, that I was not aware of!  You already know of my new love for baking and now I like to plant things and make them grow (yes, I do mean make...I will threaten them if need be lol).

I first started planting at work for lab experiments: basil, elm trees, carrots, celery, grass, and cowpeas.  I tried really hard to germinate vinca, but apparently they are notoriously hard to germinate.  They are very picky about their conditions.  However, when they do germinate and they are fairly hardy and good over a variety of locales...wonder why they are so picky before then.

Anyway...!  I found that it is rewarding (and not really that hard) to grow plants from seeds, transplant, and care for them.  So I thought I would try it at home--I planted some dwarf sunflower seeds I had laying around for...a long time (at least a few years).  For several weeks (or at least it felt like forever), my little pot sat on my windowsill and contained nothing but dirt and seeds (boring!).  Then, magically overnight:

It germinated!!!!

Then, a few days later:

Look at that lovely cotyledon, and the baby germinating in the back too!

I am so excited for these to grow more.  Once they are thee inches tall, I will transplant them.  Once we buy a house, I am going to have at least a small flower and vegetable garden.  So far my cats have not bothered them or chewed on them, so that is a win!

On a final note, this reminds me of a story my oldest brother told me:  My niece (who at the time was about 3 years old) was helping him in the yard, pulling up weeds and the sproutings from helicopter seeds (maple tree seeds) and my sister-in-law (her mom) came home from work and asks what they are doing and her darling answer was "pulling all the cotyledons, mama".  Sooooooo cute.  For those of you who do not know exactly what  cotyledons  are.

What about you?  Do you like to plant things?  What do you think you would grow if you could only pick one thing?

  

B-Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my all-time favorite TV series.  Not only do I love Joss Whedon, but I love pretty much everything he has ever made.

I own all 7 seasons on DVD, and have watched all of them probably three-four times, some episodes I have seen more (like the musical episode, it is fun to have sing-a-longs!).

Buffy started out as a movie and did not make much noise, and was not very well-received.  Joss Whedon realized that he had not done what he wanted with the movie, due to others involved in the process, and created the television series, in order to tell the story he was not able to tell with the movie.

When Buffy first came to television (in 1997), I was eleven and watched it with my parents and my little sister.  It used to scare me, which is funny because when I watch it now it is not scary at all!  Especially the first few season, graphics and monster effects have come a LONG way since then (so has style, just watch the first episode...wow.  Which is funny because in that very episode Buffy notes that she can pick out vampires because only someone who'd been living underground for ten years would think that shirt was still in style).

I think that this is a great show for all types.  It has wonderful humor, great fight scenes, and a strong cast of characters who you grow to love.  I personally love the strong female leads, gives young girls the realization that they do not have to be reliant on anyone and can take on the world.

Other things you should check out if you already know and love Buffy: Angel, Dollhouse, and Firefly.  They all have Whedon's characteristic humor and style (Whedon has also done a lot of guest directing on television shows, work on films, and made/been involved in the creation of many musical pieces).

What about you?  What is your all-time favorite TV show?  Is it as good now as it was then?

A-African Elephants

If anyone were to ask someone what my favorite animal is, most people would respond (without hesitation), "cats", and they would be WRONG!  My favorite animal of all time has been and will always be the African elephant.

http://www.animalspot.net/gallery/elephant-pictures

There is something about them that just draws me in and makes me love them.  If there were pet-sized African elephants, I would totally have one!  They are just so darned cute.  I mean honestly, how could you not love the cute mug and the huge ears on the calf above?!

What's the difference between African and Asian elephants you ask?  African elephants are the largest land-dwelling animal.  Some of the most obvious of their many differences are that African elephants have large ears (just another reason they are adorable!) for heat dispersal, their trunks in in two opposing lips whereas the Asian elephant has only one lip, and their obvious geographic location.

I learned some new things about African elephants recently: apparently there are two species that are lumped into the term of African elephant.  The two species are the African bush elephant and the African forest elephant and they have enough genetic and morphologic differences that they are different species, having diverged 2.5-5.6 million years ago, about as long ago as the Asian elephant diverged from the wooly mammoth!

African elephants form tight family units of females and their calves, led by an older elephant.  Did you know that elephant gestation periods last for 2 years?!  (No wonder the males are not allowed to live with the family units, they would go crazy, lol).

Elephants have very complex brains and are among the most intelligent species on the planet.  They exhibit behaviors including: grief, the ability to learn, all-mothering, mimicry, art, play, sense of humor, concern for others, compassion, cooperation, using tools, memory, self-awareness and perhaps language (they can use infrasound to communicate over long distances).  

http://magicworldimage.com/2011/11/elephants-paint-amazing-works-of-art/

Uploaded by ExoticWorldGifts

I have always loved elephants, I am not exactly sure why but they speak to me.  They have such an utter majesty to them, and they are such friendly, serene, and beautiful animals.  If you get the chance to pet or ride one, you should do it (they are so astonishing up close, and riding them is quite the experience)!

What about you?  What is your favorite animal and why?  What are some interesting, not well-known facts about your animal?