Boring Can Be Fun

You know those afternoons where you're about 5 slow blinks from being in a coma?  Just sitting upright at your desk, head bobbing sideways, mouth lolling open and drooling ever so slightly? And so you decide, a spoonful of peanut butter will give me a healthy little afternoon perk! And then you eat roughly 1/4 of the jar? And then your stomach hurts for the rest of the night? Oopsie. So, that night, because you ate a dinner's worth of calories in peanut butter (and then still ate dinner), you're all, "I'm-a get up at 5:30 in the morning and work out!" And then your alarm goes off at roughly 6:30 in the morning instead of 5:30? Oopsie. So, because you didn't work out you had plenty of time to get dressed and ready for work, you're all, "I'm-a leave on time and get to work on time!" And then you get behind EVERY SLOW TURNER IN TOWN. WHY DOES IT TAKE YOU SO LONG TO TURN RIGHT?! JUST TURN RIGHT!!!!! GOOD HEAVENS ABOV...

One of my favorite shows is "King of the Hill," and this weekend I went on a mini-marathon of King of the Hill episodes. Inspired by one of my favorite characters, Peggy Hill, I decided yesterday that we needed to make SpaPeggy and Meatballs for dinner. If you aren't familiar with "King of the Hill," well, shame on you. Still, I will acquiesce to your burning curiosity to know what the frank "SpaPeggy and Meatballs" just might be. The different between Peggy's SpaPeggy and regular spaghetti is simply that she adds "regiano cheese and just the right amount of sugar." (She is her own number 1 fan and cheerleader, so obviously that minor personalization, if you can call it that, warrants renaming the meal after herself.) Once I'd decided to make SpaPeggy and Meatballs for dinner, I realized the ground meat was in the freezer and I didn't feel like defrosting it. I quickly edited the meal down to just SpaPeggy, sans meatballs. I...

Boring is as Boring does... or, rather, Boring isn't as Boring doesn't. I haven't had much going on lately, which is why, I suppose, there hasn't been a post for a number of days. Plus, have I ever mentioned I'm lazy? Writing is, like, such a thing , ya know? Yet, I started this darned blog, so I suppose I really ought to keep up with it, huh? And since the blog name indicates that I think Boring, everyday stuff can be fun, I ought to try to work some storytelling magic and make my Boring days sound as completely delightful as possible. A tall order. I take solace in the fact that 3 people regularly read this and at least 30% of the time, they find my posts to be an acceptable way to pass 3-5 minutes of their time. Alright, so here's the 4-1-1. I have finally accomplished something to which many aspire, but never achieve: perfection . Okay, that's a blatant lie. I'm not even sure why I said it. Sorry y'all. But I did spend the last few da...

Happy Ash Wednesday! Is that an oxymoron? Whether it be one or not, Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday is over. Pull your shirt down and put away the beads. It's time to get some ashes smeared on your forehead and spend roughly (or, exactly) 40 days giving something up or taking something on. "Does the fun ever stop with Rebecca?" you may very well be asking. The answer is an obvious, "No." Duh. Anyway. Today marks the first day of Lent. Perhaps not the most joyful time of year, but still an interesting one, and ideally, a reverential one leading up to the celebration of Easter the same way Advent does for Christmas. Even if you don't celebrate it, surely you know someone (ahem, moi?) who likes to try to give something up. Last year it was booze and cussing. I think I failed on both counts. You have no idea how often you cuss, even when you assume you rarely do, until 3 days into Lent you smash your finger and some little 4-letter word pops out of your mouth...

As it turns out, no one is overly interested in how my homemade yogurt turned out. TOO BAD. I'm going to tell you all about it anyway. Oh come on, quit your whining. Fine, I'll keep it short: it worked. It was a little runny, but it was definitely yogurt. I'm going to have to tweak my process a little to get that nice thick consistency I want, but otherwise, I think I can now add making yogurt to my list of "Things I Do For Reasons I'm Not Entirely Clear About." See? That wasn't too painful, was it? So, how was your weekend? Here's how my Boring weekend went: Friday night: Dinner and a drink with a handsome fella at The Front Porch thanks to the very sweet gift card given to us by the Blazin' Blaises. Saturday: Attempt to sleep in. Fail miserably. Chase cat off my pillow (where she sits at best advantage to repeatedly poke me in the head) and get up. Coffee, coffee, coffee. Farmers market, seafood market. Home. Back out to groc...

I've mentioned before that I make my own chicken stock and laundry detergent. We often hang dry our clothes to avoid using the dryer. I wish we had little plot where we could start a garden, but I think I'm going to try to at least grow some spinach in a container on our balcony. I once seriously considered getting a tiny hand-cranked device that would operate as a washing machine for very small loads of laundry; I found it in a catalog for a hardware store up north that caters heavily to the Amish community. (Yes, I know about such things as hardware stores up north that cater heavily to the Amish community.) As lazy as I am, it seems I also desire to be a prairie woman of sorts. A lazy prairie woman. I mean, I don't want to plow fields or break out the old washboard and lye soap.  In my quest for semi-prairie-womanhood, I'm about to take it to a whole new Boring level. I'm gonna make my own yogurt, y'all. At least, I'm going to try. This could be a ...

That moment when you realize you're making a martyr out of yourself for doing things that everyone does every day (or for doing less than most folks)? I had it last night.   My work day As I've mentioned before, and despite its many drawbacks, I try to walk on my lunch breaks. Yesterday, I did not. It was rainy and gray; I was sleepy, it was cold(ish): poor excuses that were nevertheless highly effective. As a result, from the hours of 8am to 5pm, I sat on my tush. I think that's about eleventy hours, right? My evening I decided since my butt was nearly numb from being sat upon for such a length of time, I'd better get some exercise after work. So I did. I got home, changed into some clothes I allow myself to sweat in, and knocked out a 30 Day Shred workout (Level 2 was on the agenda, if you're curious), followed that up with a shower, then got myself in the kitchen to get some dinner started. On the menu was Bangers and Mash, which, if like Patrick you h...

Y'all, let me tell you. Baking is super dangerous. Not because of the threat of burning yourself. Not because of the herculean task of stifling the profanity that is threatening to break forth from your trembling lips when somehow the flour that was just in the bowl is now inexplicably all over you and the counter. It's because it's edible. Like any normal, sane girl, I love cupcakes. I have always preferred them to sliced cake, yet I almost never bake them, or anything else. (Have I mentioned how lazy I am? Yes? Good.) In anticipation of our first wedding anniversary, Patrick and I had been talking about how disgusting the hunk of frozen wedding cake in our freezer might be (turns out, not nearly as bad as we thought) and I decided we needed (oh yeah, needed ) cupcakes so we'd have some kind of tasty treat to eat after having the obligatory bite of freezer-burnt tradition. Some unknown drive to bake overtook me, and I started digging through the cupboards to se...