It's been a long time

Let's see what's new.  I found the perfect back splash tiles at Home Depot when I went in looking for furnace filters (which I forgot to get).  Took measurements today.  Going to HD tomorrow to pick them up.  The project looks pretty clear cut but you know it never goes as planned so we shall see.

Summer school is out so tutoring is over.  I'm officially not working for a few weeks.  I've got some time to chill and get some stuff together for charity.  Tuesday I'm getting the alarm system installed.  Some time soon I should be getting my replacement mattress.  Did you know that I had to file a warranty claim on my bed?  Less than a year old and it developed a bulge on the side.  I ignored it but then I remembered how much I paid for it and filled out the paperwork.  It's been about a month and my papers were approved.  Now I am waiting for the call to schedule delivery.

Lots of tv to be watched.

Siren song

I'm shopping for a home security system.  If you've never shopped for alarms before, let me tell you, it's a job.  I have people coming to the house to do walk throughs and talking to people on the phone.  You can negotiate a lot.  It's possible to get free equipment and free installation.  Over the next few days I have 4 or 5 people scheduled to come out and evaluate my security needs.  I'm planning to make a decision by next week.  It was a new experience for me.  My advice is to negotiate for free equipment.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Bangers

Nothing much to report today.  It is hotter than Hell.  Heat index is going to be about 115 degrees with actual temps about 100.  Tomorrow will be the same.  I got my mani-pedi and went to work before I rushed back home to my arctic temp ac.  AC is included so I keep it like a meat locker.  I'm hot most of the time anyway. I'm doing a great job with getting up early.  I feel way more productive when I'm awake.  ha ha.  It's so hot that I'm taking care of errands in the morning just to avoid the heat.  I need to take a trip to IKEA tomorrow and I'll be there when the doors open.

I want to slide through the farmer's market today but I don't think I can work up to leaving the house in this heat.  Last week it was bad.  Today it's worse.

If you are wondering about the title, it comes from the snack I made before starting to write this blog.  Last week I bought some delicious sausage from the new Thursday Farmer's market.  I tried Santa Fe chicken sausage and British style Bangers.  Both were delicious.  The bangers are pretty good.  I was surprised that I liked the chicken sausage because I usually don't.

Alphas

I'm watching a new show Alphas.  It's pretty good.  The mail characters all have some special super powers like amplified senses, mind control, being able to see electronic waves aka tv, computer and radio, super human strength and extraordinary kinetic ability.  I'm really enjoying it.  It's almost like X-Men as a tv show.  They also have a mentor type guy who leads them and interfaces with a police contact.   The characters are all who you would expect.  The nerdy, geeky guy is the one who sees electronic waves.  He is a tall, lanky white guy.  The mentor is your typical psychiatrist with a beard, glasses and a cardigan, older white guy. The two girls, mind control and amplified senses, are young and beautiful.

The last guy is the one that I have a small problem with.  The super human strength guy is activated by fight or flight and strong emotions.  Why is the black guy the one with the anger management problem?  Why can't he be the electronic wave guy or the amplified sense one?  The black guy on The Real World always has the anger problem.  Leverage is another one of my shows.  One of the cool things about the show is that the hacker/tech guy is black.  I like to see multicultural casting.  Italians don't have to be mobsters.  Black men are not all drug dealers.  Black women are not all welfare moms.  Latinos are not all illegal.  You get the drift.

The moral of the story: Think outside of the box

Rizzoli and Isles

I'm watching some tv before work.  Rizzoli and Isles is a great show.  The girls are relaxing in a spa mud bath when a man comes running in carrying a pregnant woman who has been stabbed.  Isles pronounces her dead and then discovered that she was pregnant.  Since Mom is dead they try to save the baby by performing an emergency C-section on the spa massage table.  I've only been to one spa in my life, the Blue Lagoon Spa in Iceland, and there were NO dead people there.  There were several scary, naked European women but all of them were alive.

Have you ever noticed that people on tv have the most dramatic lives ever?  There are never any shows about people with normal lives.  Guess real life does not sell commercials.  Even the shows that are supposed to be about normal people are crazy and ridiculous.  Friends and Seinfeld are 2 great examples.  They claim to be about real people but the stories were so insane.  My friend Donna is always getting into crazy situations.  I told her she should write her autobiography and sell it  as a sit com.

Pics as promised

Here are some pictures of my farmers market vittles.  In the pot- eggplant, ground beef, mild Italian sausage.

In the pan- zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, tomato, Santa Fe chicken sausage, turkey bacon, sharp cheddar cheese.

Both were baked in the oven.

Hoarders....

I love the show Hoarders.   http://www.aetv.com/hoarders/  If you haven't seen it, check it out.  Every time it's  on I think, "Wow, I'm not that bad.  Time to declutter."  I'm a messy person by nature so it takes a lot to motivate me to clean.  2 episodes of Hoarders and I'm up cleaning something.  I have a big basket of give away stuff in my spare room that can attest to the power of television.

 I give most of my donations to National Children's Center.  http://www.nccinc.org/  I'm not particularly attached to them but they happened to be one of the few places that will pick up from my house.  They were able to pick up first.  Tomorrow I'm going to call and set up a pick up.  I plan to do some more purging  but I'm ok even if they only take what I have ready so far.

For smaller donations, I go to Goodwill, http://www.goodwill.org/ because they are close to home and take donations on Saturdays.  If I have a little bit of stuff Goodwill gets it or I head to my next favorite place Freecycle http://www.freecycle.org/ .  Freecycle is the best place ever to exchange your trash for another person's treasure.  People will take/give anything and everything from craft supplies to goldfish.  They will even pick up your broken stuff.  Some people even offer food.  You post what you want or what you want to give away in the local group for your area and you email to set up a time for porch pick up.  You don't even have to see/talk to the people in person.  How fab is that?  I've been on both sides of the equation and it totally rocks.  While I'm not quite a tree hugger, I like the idea of keeping junk out of the landfill.

Brown update

Because I know you're all hanging on the edge of your seat, I thought I'd give you a bug update.  Ha Ha  I emailed the office and they said that the "june bugs" are cyclical and there is nothing they can do once they are hatched.  They must be treated as larvae.  Damn.  I followed up with asking why we didn't treat the lawn for them in the spring and will we be treating for it next spring.  We didn't have them last year.  I don't want them next year.  Yuck.  They need to treat just in case if they can't figure out the bug hatching schedule.  Next year is a cicada year so we really don't need any additional pests.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/cicada/

Farmer's market goodness

There was all kinds of goodness at the Riverdale Farmer's market.  Great fruit and veg stalls, prepared food and more.  I got 2 huge eggplants for $2 each and a basket of vine ripened tomatoes.  They also had some interesting sausage.  I think there will be 2 delicious dishes with fresh sausage and veg.  Santa Fe chicken sausage is nice and spicy.  It will go well with the aubergines.  I'm going to save the British style bangers for a  nice brekkie fry up.    Dish 2 is a nice baked squash and bacon.  Not much to look at but damn good to eat.  I'll try to remember pictures for you.

http://www.rpfarmersmarket.org/

PS- did I mention that this market is 3-7 so I could actually go once school starts since it's after work?

Another day, Another $$

I could get used to this working an hour a day thing.  I have time to do the things that I usually don't have time to do.  It's only 11am and I've already blogged, checked all emails, fb and contacted the condo office re:  brown beetles, not to mention, taking a nap.  :)  I was going to call my Dad but there was something wrong with the phone.  I kept trying but nothing went through...fast forward 2 hours and I finally figured out that the phone was unplugged at the base so none of the extensions were working.  Maybe I should have spent some of that time folding laundry.  Napping is way more fun.

On a happy note, I put the new bed stuff on and I love it.  The comforter cover is da bomb!  It has a pocket so the comforter does not try to escape out the top buttons.  I also swapped out the down duvet for a lighter comforter.  No more feeling like a baked chicken in bed.  I'll try and take a pic to post.

Speaking of cooking, I think I'm going to cook some yellow squash and zucchini with turkey bacon.  It will be a nice meal on a hot summer day.

Meet the Browns

These are not the good Browns.   My Bachelorette Pad has been besieged with brown beetles!  They are gross.  They are brown with hard shells and I think they are attracted to the light outside of my condo door.  For a few days now, I've been  finding 5 or more dead beetles in front of my front door.  Everyday I have to sweep them out.  I don't claim to be a stellar housekeeper but I do draw the line at beetles.

Off to Home Depot go I in search of a something to kill my unwanted, yucky friends.  Did you know how many insecticides there are?  HD has an entire aisle devoted to them.  I ended up getting some stuff for outside and inside bugs.  In theory, it creates a barrier that keeps the bugs outside.  Not sure how it works in practice.  I did the first "treatment" 2 days ago.  There were mixed results.  Lots of dead bugs outside and several more inside.

I reapplied it last night and the results were great.  No bugs inside.  I sprayed down the entire front door, the light outside the door, the two walls and the floor outside of the condo.  I even sprayed down the lights in front of the building and the mulch.  This morning there was a bug graveyard at the mailboxes!  I've used  almost the whole bottle already.  I got the small bottle not the big one in the picture but I think I might end up getting the big bottle since it actually works.  I also emailed the condo office to get them to schedule a visit from the pest control company.  

Exciting Summer!

Surprise Guest

I'm so excited that my friend Todd is stopping by for a visit.  He's driving from Georgia to Mass and his route is taking him directly through DC.  The thing about surprise guests is that you only have a few hours to get ready.  Thank goodness my house is relatively neat.  I had to clear the clean laundry off of the guest bed, run the dishwasher and take out the trash.  I'm taking a little break to pen this post then it's back to the cleaning spree.  Since I'm cleaning I might as well keep going until he gets here.  I got some new bed linens over the weekend and now's as good a time as ever to put them on.  I should have done it before but I spent the better part of the afternoon dealing with the brown beetle situation at my front door.  More about that in the next post.

No time in a long time

I decided to get back to the blog thing tonight.  Tonight I'm celebrating my freedom from one of my part time jobs.  Most people are upset that they don't have a job or that they are under-employed but I'm blessed to in the opposite position.  At any given time I seem to have 2 or more jobs.  I don't know how I do it or how I keep finding these positions but I do.  All these jobs make me appreciate vacations even more.  In June I went to North Carolina and Williamsburg, VA.  Take a look at some of the cool lighthouses