New blog look, new leaf

I decided to switch out the cute blog background for something more simple. With all the pictures I post I guess I would rather the focus on them instead of the blog background! I hope it works for your computers. My monitors (I have two) at work are W-I-D-E...sort of like my a*s these days (hee, hee). Wow, I'm witty and not totally cranky on a Monday. A new leaf, I'll tell you...I'm turning over a new leaf.

Speaking of that, I have been feeling a little out of sorts lately. I have this pinched nerve in my neck/shoulder that is driving me batty! I'm sorry if I have not been usual self. Well maybe some of you don't prefer my usual self...ah there I am being witty again.

Imperfect. That is the one word that has been popping up in my mind lately. I am imperfect so is my job, my house, etc. But not hopeless or terrible or anything of the short, just imperfect. There is a blog out there with the title imperfect and I can totally relate. I just sent her a quick email to get some editing help, she responded quickly and gave great instruction (thanks Emily). It is just a reminder to me that sometimes I need to ask for help and that there are so many nice/normal people in the world of which I can relate! Who also have imperfect lives and who are trying to be the best people they can be! That's me, I hope to be a better person tomorrow than I am today. Figuratively speaking that is, I do think it takes work and that you don't actually become a better person overnight. :) School started today for the kids here and today I am getting on track! Well that means I should probably get back to my J.O.B. and stop blogging! Happy Monday people.

So here is my August goals, not completed.

AUGUST GOALS
Book flights for Turkey Day
We are headed to Florida AND Boston for Thanksgiving!
Make baby shower banner flag
Camp up north one night & hike & enjoy lakes & Stanley Bakery
Stick with Jay Robb's diet as best as I can back on
Play golf with the Sundby's I'm playing with Willie tomorrow night.
Long day hike
Paint nightstands 3 coats of paint, about 2 more to go!
Catch up with some East coast friends (via telephone) still trying.

Wolf for sale: $11.75

http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_mar2007/RedneckPorchHunter.jpg

To clarify, that is a dead wolf for sale.

Yes, it is true- thousands purchased their permits to hunt wolves starting September 1st. Our very own, Phantom Hill pack's zone will be open from Oct. 1-Dec. 31.

Hearings start on August 31 for the opposition...hunters v. environmentalists.

I will leave my opinion out of this post but stay tuned for more wolf updates from the Wood River Valley. Watch out hikers!
The hunt ends when 220 wolves are killed in Idaho.

Congrats Amber & Reid

Beautiful wedding at the Valley Club. Everyone had a great time. Dancing was once again top notch by all. I spared you all from seeing embarrassing pictures of me on the dance floor. It was fun biking to & from the wedding and spending time with family & friends to celebrate Amber & Reid's special day.

A few things...

Sarah & Ian took us on their cool new boat. June was a natural. If you don't know June you might not understand the picture below...the mug is so her. Also her chin needs to be supported at almost all times.

This is a flag I made for Sam's baby shower. Unfortunately I am going to miss it which makes me sad. I love Sam and she has been my BF for a long time now. Living in Idaho would be superb if I could transplant all my good friends/family from back East here! I hope to get lots of pictures from the shower. I wish Sam a wonderful day...I will be thinking of her.

I made the flag out of felt/fabric/ribbon/buttons. Thanks to Sarah Latham who helped me stitch with her new sewing machine. Camden will be Sam & Justin's baby's name! Luckily I will get to meet him over Thanksgiving!

At my office before I mailed it!

Sam & Hannah

The place: Galena Lodge (Idaho)
The bride: beautiful
The weather: pretty cold and rainy
The food: yummy yummy ginger margaritas, taco bar and CUPCAKES (with a surprise)
The speeches: terrific! A rap by a friend- awesome. I might have peed my pants a little!

The review: Sam & Hannah are a great couple. Their wedding was very special. It didn't matter that it rained, they were excited to be wed and in love! Their friends and family from here to Portland to NYC...were all very nice & fun & psyched to celebrate the day with Sam & Hannah. The weather made us a little damp but we all warmed up around the fire pits and worked on our liquid jackets. The food was delicious, the speeches were great and the rap was so freakin' funny. Music and dancing were superb...I got to sing Separate Way by Journey with the band. It was a super fun wedding. A special day for two nice people. They will definitely live happily ever after!

Julie & Julia

Sarah S. & I had a wonderful date night to see Julie & Julia (Amy Adams/Meryl Streep). I loved this movie, no getting around it. I did have some unanswered questions but I always do. I did some 'research' (ok we all know that means I googled it) on Julie Powell and Julia Child this morning. Immediately some of my lingering questions, were answered. See the movie- it motivated me to cook more and give my husband the extra love he deserves!
http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html (The actual blog)
http://juliepowell.blogspot.com/ (Julie's 'current' blog)

Stop Hating Julie Powell, Please
The famous blogger is now the title character of Julie & Julia. So why has the blogging community turned against her?
By Jennie Yabroff Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 6, 2009

Last night I made fried zucchini squash blossoms. I stuffed them with cheese, dipped them in a batter of Guinness, half and half, flour, and salt, and fried them in oil. If you were reading about my squash blossoms on a food blog (just as I read about several other amateur cooks' squash blossoms on their food blogs to figure out how to make them), it would have taken you several paragraphs to get to the denouement: they were delicious. First, you would probably have to read about my past relationship with squash blossoms. Then you'd hear how I came across them in the picturesque farmer's market or my own sweet little backyard vegetable patch, and you'd see a picture of them, all pretty yellow and orange petals. Next would be the paragraph where my husband/boyfriend made an adorably skeptical remark about eating flowers, followed by a swift (and adorable) attitude reversal once he learned they'd be dipped in beer. Eight hundred words or so in, and you still wouldn't know how to fry a squash blossom, but you'd know a whole lot about me.
Which is the point of food blogs. It's also why the animosity aimed at Julie Powell, the author of the blog that begat the book that begat the movie Julie & Julia, is so misplaced. When Powell began her quest to cook every recipe in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year in 2002, she won a huge audience of readers who found her confessions of ineptitude in the kitchen and in life real and relatable. But in 2005, the book came out, and Powell suddenly had the mantle of authority thrust upon her. She went from blogger to "food personality," which meant she was fair game for a takedown. It was gleefully reported that neither Child nor her editor, Judith Jones, had thought much of Powell's project. Powell wrote an editorial for The New York Times piercing the sanctimony of the organic food movement and made herself a whole new group of enemies. (The recent report that organic food is no healthier than conventionally grown food should give her some vindication.) The news that her next book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, reveals the extramarital affair she had with an old friend was met with both eyerolls and raised eyebrows, and her publisher's decision to push back the book's release date and screenwriter Nora Ephron's omission of the affair from the film were viewed as highly suspicious. Early reviews of the film complain that the character based on Powell (played by Amy Adams) isn't nearly as likable or interesting as the Julia Child character (played by Meryl Streep), and food bloggers, many of whom were invited to advance screenings, are taking the film's release as an excuse to revisit their issues with Powell, which boil down to one complaint: she doesn't really know how to cook. In the seven years since Powell started her blog, the premise seems to have gone from Julie and Julia to Julie vs. Julia, with Julia winning.
What's unfair about this is the fact that Powell never claimed to be a great cook. She was clear, from her project's inception, that it was simply a conceit: not to get a book deal, but to get a life. She was miserable in her job, hated her apartment, and was losing faith in herself. She could have decided to build 365 birdhouses—she just needed something to do. In this way, she resembled Child before she became a cookbook author and star of her own cooking show. Child, too, was looking for something to restore her self-confidence when she moved to France with her husband, Paul. She was desperate to be more than a housewife—she just didn't know what. But the similarity ends there. Though Ephron's film depicts Child taking deep, sensual pleasure in a perfectly cooked piece of fish, the legendary chef was, at heart, a scientist. Her greatest satisfaction came from precision and clarity, so she approached her recipes like formulas, testing them endlessly, sweating the smallest details. Powell would be the first person to admit that this is not her approach; her earliest blog posts show that she was substituting and omitting, screwing things up and hoping a liberal application of butter would cover her sins. Along the way, she found herself, just as Child did. The difference is, Powell found herself as a writer, not a cook. As she wrote on The Atlantic's blog recently, "one of the great discoveries of my year cooking through Julia Child's marvelous, world-changing book and writing about it was that I could develop a voice people found engaging and humorous. (Possibly the greatest exchange of that entire year—Me: 'I never realized I was funny before!' My mom: 'I know—neither did I!')"

Whether you find Powell engaging and humorous or annoying and self-absorbed is a matter of taste, but it is her voice, not her cooking, that she should be judged by. Like it or not, her breezy, chatty, "let me tell you about my dog and my husband and what I did this weekend and oh yeah here's a recipe for fried squash blossoms" approach set the tone for most of the food blogs today, of which there are thousands. Some do it as well as she did, some do it better, some fail altogether. (And plenty are written by people who clearly know far less about food than she does.) But all owe her a debt of gratitude.
© 2009

I will leave you with this: BON APPETIT

Cross it off the life list

Some people call it a bucket list...I have been told to call it the life list.

I plan on making one but I actually crossed something off already- sing with a band (yes on stage)!

Of course the song was Separate Ways by Journey...of course. It was so much fun to sing with the band, I wasn't even thinking of anything except the music while on stage. As soon as the song was over I thought, 'what did I just do?' Fortunately the crowd was all over it and eased my worry. Here are some pictures, thanks Davina I'm so happy to have documented this- it won't be happening again!!

Did I mention we went to a wonderful wedding? I will add a post tomorrow!