Average Jane

Blog

  • Average Jane 5×4

    Another Thursday, another meme. I should just admit to myself that this is going to be the norm for the month.

    This one actually came from an e-mail I received from a non-blogging friend, but who am I to be picky when I can't think of anything else to write?

    1. Four places I go over and over: Work (naturally), Mildred's Coffeehouse (bought a medium coffee there this morning), band practice (conveniently just blocks from my house) and the Price Chopper grocery store in my neighborhood.
    2. Four people who e-mail me regularly: My sister, my husband, A Librarian and Spyder. When I say "e-mail," I also mean text message, DM via GoogleChat, DM or @ via Twitter, e-mail through Facebook, etc. We're a versatile bunch.
    3. Four favorite smells: bread baking, freshly mowed grass, lemon, jasmine  
    4. Four places I would rather be right now: Jamaica (happy third anniversary, Allison and Kevin!), Belize (looking forward to February 2011 – you should come with me), Nashville (mmm, Pancake Pantry) or Breckenridge, CO (I'm way overdue for a Colorado trip).
    5. Four current TV shows I watch: Glee, Heroes, V and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

    Enjoy your evening!

  • Average Jane Makes Lists

    It took me a while to get this through my head, but I have finally learned that I get a lot more done if I write down the "to-dos" first. I can keep short lists in my head, but I tend to forget things or randomly re-prioritize, which leads to forgotten grocery items, neglected household chores and unnecessary last-minute deadlines.

    At the risk of boring you to death, I'm going to post my latest household to-do list, in part to pressure myself into hurrying up with all of the tasks. My goal is to have all of them taken care of before next Monday (or Thanksgiving at the absolute latest):

    1. Find all of Trillian's adoption paperwork before her vet appointment on Saturday morning. It's somewhere in the piles of junk on or below my desk.
    2. Dig up medical receipts from the past two months to prove to my flexible spending plan that they're legitimate.
    3. Divide my band's current songs into three set lists.
    4. Type up grant application paperwork from my Soroptimist Club and e-mail copies to non-profits I know that might want to apply.
    5. Buy this year's Salvation Army kids' gifts for donation.
    6. Get a different style of toilet paper holder for the guest bathroom and install it. Spackle the many holes in the wall created by my attempts to install the last one and finish with some touch-up painting.
    7. Buy solar salt for the water softener and dump it in.
    8. Install the new ceiling fan I bought for our bedroom a couple of months ago.

    None of these things is going to be particularly difficult or time-consuming – they just need to be done and crossed off.

    Then I'll be moving on to my Christmas shopping list. I don't usually do this, but I happen to have been purchasing gifts one at a time all year long, so I'm at least a third of the way through with my shopping already. I have ideas for everyone else (except my husband), so the rest should be easy.

    But first I'll need to pick up some groceries on my way home tonight. Eh, I think I'll just wing it.

  • Average Jane, The Basics

    Because it's NaBloPoMo and I'm getting lots of new visitors, I thought I'd steal Mocha Momma's idea and write a post to introduce myself to anyone who hasn't been keeping up with my blog since 2004. Keith, you can probably skip this one.

    I am the oldest of the two children in my family. My sister and I fought non-stop when we were growing up, but now we're best friends. I don't have any kids, but I love hanging out with my niece and nephew and watching them turn into very cool people.

    My husband is a long-haired drummer dude who runs a recording studio and otherwise makes his living playing in bands. We'll have been married 15 years next month and we get along exceedingly well despite some differences in political and philosophical outlook.

    Ever since I was a little kid, I've been crazy about cats. I have four of them right now, which is my "I don't want to turn into a crazy cat lady" limit. One lives in the recording studio and the rest live downstairs in the main part of our house. I get my additional cat fix by volunteering with an animal rescue group and at a low-cost spay and neuter clinic.

    I love to cook and bake, but I'm not home to do so very often. I also keep the baking to a minimum because my husband is diabetic and it's best not to have sweets around the house too often. I still go all out during the holidays and you'll find a bunch of my favorite recipes in the sidebar to the right.

    My go-to recipes when I need something quick for a party are the brownies and the cheese ball. I was happy to learn yesterday that pomegranates have arrived in the stores, so I'll be making pomegranate salsa as often as I can while the fruit is in season.

    Ever since I was a teenager I've been singing in various rock bands. Most of them have been cover bands, but I was in an original alternative band in the early 1990s called Radio Sunday, and a hard rock original band called Dark Crucible a few years ago. I'm currently in a rock cover band called Rock Machine. We just finished recording our demo and it looks like our first gig will be December 12th.

    One of the reasons I've taken to blogging and Twitter so enthusiastically is that I love meeting new people. I've attended the BlogHer Conference every year since it began and I'm already signed up for 2010. I often attend Kansas City area blogger meetups and tweetups, and I belong to our huge Kansas City Social Media Club. It's amazing how many wonderful friends I've gained, some right in my neighborhood and some on the other side of the globe.

    Reading is one of my favorite activities that I don't have as much time for as I'd like (probably because I spend most of my book reading time surfing the 'net and reading blogs). I'm loosely attached to at least four different book clubs right now, so that gives me some extra incentive. Most of the books in my permanent collection have some kind of fantasy or science fiction element: Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter Series, the Oz books, etc., and yet I seem so down-to-earth!

    I really enjoy doing yoga and my company offers classes at lunchtime on Mondays and Wednesdays, which I attend whenever I have time. My sister has a yoga studio, but I rarely take classes there because it's too far away. However, I will be going there on Saturday for a capoeira workshop because the instructor is one of my friends and I introduced them.

    If you've read this far, you know that I can't write anything in brief. I'm working on it!

  • Among Average Jane’s Role Models

    My grandmother was friends with author Alberta Wilson Constant, all of whose books seem to be out of print now, unfortunately. I have autographed copies of her "Miller Girls" series, and my niece is just around the right age to borrow them now, I think.

    Mrs. Constant counts among my role models because of a story my grandmother once told me about her. It seems she had a beloved pet rat that she treated as a member of the family. One day she had some ladies over to visit and one of them suddenly exclaimed, "I simply cannot come over here if that rat is going to be around."

    Her hostess smiled sweetly and replied, "We'll miss you, dear."

  • Average Jane’s Saturday At Home

    I had a very pleasant day yesterday. I woke up early and surfed a bit until it was time for me to go to my volunteer shift taking care of the adoptable kitties at a nearby Petco store. I let all of the cats run around together in the dog training area while I cleaned their cages, then trimmed all of the older kittens' claws and gave each of the five youngest cats a pill.

    I try to choose animal volunteer positions with the least temptation, but one of the kittens is really starting to grow on me. When I opened his kennel, he leaped out and landed on my shoulder, purring lustily. How can you not love that? I keep telling myself that four cats is MORE than enough…

    I didn't have anything else planned, so other than a quick lunch with my husband and a stop at the grocery store, I stayed home most of the day.

    My band is recording our demo here tonight, so I used the Shop-Vac to sweep the stairs leading up to the studio, as well as remove probably a half pound of kitty litter from my office carpet. Trillian is in the habit of doing jazz hands as she leaps out of the box each time, so she scatters litter everywhere. Before I put away the vacuum, I tackled the kitten-sized clouds of cat hair on each step leading up from the basement. Much better.

    I spent a good amount of time in the kitchen yesterday. I made a cheesecake for a brunch I'm attending later this morning and I also baked a loaf of banana bread using two overripe bananas from last week. Dinner was a plate of jasmine rice with butter and soy sauce because I couldn't think of anything else to make. I even washed all of the dishes and pots and pans before bedtime. I don't know what got into me.

    Even with those little highlights of productivity, I still managed to spend a good portion of the day watching TV from last week. I caught up on "The Daily Show," "Ghost Whisperer," "V," "The Office," "Mythbusters" and "Community." 

    I finished out the evening by reading the first couple of articles in the latest issue of Cabinet magazine. It's a great bedside magazine and I can make an issue last a week or more.

    So what did you do yesterday? Doing anything fun today?

  • Average Jane’s Caturday Feature: Velcro

    Since there are four caturdays this month and I have four cats, naturally I decided to feature one per week during NaBloPoMo.

    VelcrostandingToday we'll talk about the grande dame of the household, Velcro.

    She came into my family in the early 1990s when my mom's boyfriend found her tied into a pillowcase and left in a Salvation Army donation bin. She was just a kitten then, but she quickly became my mother's favorite cat. In fact, when my mom was hospitalized after being diagnosed with lung cancer, her boyfriend smuggled Velcro into the room to visit at least once that I know of.

    Velcro was a very feisty young cat who HATED children. My cousin Travis referred to her as "the velociraptor" because of the way she'd stalk and attack him every time he came over. (Travis just turned 25, which gives you an idea of how old Velcro is now.)

    When my mom died in 1998, Velcro came to live with me and my husband and the two cats we had at the time, Kato and Friday.

    For years, Velcro was very bite-y. She was one of those cats who loved attention (hence the name), but she would only accept being petted for so long before suddenly nipping at you. Her teeth are really sharp and it hurt, but she never broke the skin.

    Her dislike of children lasted through the first few years of my niece's life, but she's mellowed considerably and has rarely nipped at my nephew at all. She's also stopped biting us, which is nice.

    Velcrosleeping Velcro had a mastectomy several years ago, but bounced back nicely. In the past year or so she's gone deaf and now she's getting awfully skinny and her coat is pretty ratty. Still, she can vault onto a countertop with ease and she never lets me forget that she gets canned food twice a day, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Because she can't hear, her reminders have gotten extremely loud.

    After all this time, her name still fits her very well. She loves to sit on my lap, shed copious quantities of white hair all over my black clothes and purr contentedly. I don't know how much longer we'll have her around, but I'm doing all I can to make sure she enjoys her life with us.

  • Things Average Jane Learned from TV & Music

    Sesame Street's 40th anniversary is this week, which got me thinking about the other PBS show that influenced me as a child: The Electric Company.

    Electricco

    I recall that it was geared for a slightly older audience than Sesame Street, but it was still full of educational short film clips and skits.

    One thing I didn't realize at the time is that two of my favorite grammar videos were written and performed by satirist Tom Lehrer, who is best known for songs such as "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," and "The Masochism Tango."

    Lehrer was a favorite humorist of my grandparents and I was exposed to his albums early in life. I have the whole boxed set of his CDs that came out around 2000. In fact, it was my first purchase on one of my Amazon accounts.

    Here are his classic Electric Company videos:

    The LY Song

    Silent E

    Yes, there they are in all their groovy '70s glory.

    As I've mentioned before, Tom Lehrer is also responsible for my passing high school chemistry class, thanks to his song, "The Elements." Here's a fun video of that song:

    It's amazing how useful it was to have the majority of the periodic table memorized. The only thing that would have been better is if they'd been in order.

    So that's my little walk down memory lane. Can you remember any songs from childhood that taught you something useful?

  • Average Jane Falls Back On A Meme

    Yeah, I know. It's only Thursday and I've already run out of post ideas. I actually had to go in search of a meme I could glom onto and I chose this one, partly because who could resist the beautiful donuts?

    Random_dozen 

    1. It's early morning, about 2:00 AM, and you're driving home. You come
    to a red light and sit there. There is no one in sight for miles
    around. Do you wait it out or run the light?
    I definitely run it, especially if it's a long red light.

    2. If you had the chance to re-do the last 24 hours, would you change anything?
    Hmmm, maybe I would limit myself to one giant piece of pizza for lunch rather than the two I actually had.

    3. When you reply to someone's comment on your blog, do you reply in your comments or go to her blog and comment? (Or email her)
    I try to e-mail a reply to everyone who comments. I also do my best to visit commenters' blogs and if I see them comment more than once, I'll usually add their blog to my feed reader.

    4. Your favorite Disney movie is:
    Probably "Fantasia."

    5. Do you recycle?
    Yes I do! We have curbside recycling and I am very strict about making sure that everything recyclable goes in the correct bin. I also save glass to take to the Ripple Glass bin near my grocery store. I even save batteries and take them to work to put in the battery recycling bins there.

    6. Games of strategy or games of chance?
    Games of knowledge and skill are my favorites.

    7. Do you have any recurring dreams?
    Yes, I have lots of them – both recurring scenarios and recurring settings.

    8. What did you learn from your first real job?
    At my first real job, someone taught me how to use desktop publishing software, even though it wasn't part of my duties. I think that the comfort level I developed with computers then has served me well ever since. Keep in mind that we're talking about the IBM 386 with DOS prompts at startup!

    9. Do you buy or borrow most books?
    I mostly buy books, but I borrow them on occasion. I'm just not very good about giving them back.

    10. What fashion trend of the past did you say you'd never wear again but did?
    I don't think the phrase "fashion trend" is part of my reality. Seriously, there is nothing I can think of that fits this description.

    11. When do you start Christmas shopping?
    This year I have been buying things and squirreling them away almost since last Christmas, but that's not my usual modus operandi. Generally I start shopping about a week after Thanksgiving or whenever there's a big store-emptying snowstorm, whichever comes first.

    12. Have you ever been so happy that you literally jumped up and down for a few seconds? If so, what was the occasion?
    Definitely! It happens all the time and it doesn't take much to prompt that reaction. Heck, just invite me to lunch and I'll probably jump up and down a couple of times.

  • Average Jane Shares A Retro Recipe

    Fivegenerationscookbook In the early 1990s, my grandmother published a cookbook of recipes spanning five generations of our family. They range from rabbit stew with dandelion root from my pioneer great-great-grandmother, to a handwritten recipe for pancakes from my then-six-year-old third cousin (who is now a chef).

    There's one chapter for each generation, and each chapter is divided into sections by cook. In my grandmother's own section there's a recipe that I remember having only one time, but it made a big impression on me because it had booze in it! and I got to have a piece even though I was just a kid. I loved the cake itself, but the glaze (which my grandmother wisely served on the side), seemed horrifyingly strong and alien to me when I tried a little dab of it.

    I keep telling myself I'm going to buy a bottle of Galliano liqueur specifically so I can make this cake. Perhaps posting this will give me the incentive to actually do so.

    Here's my grandmother's introduction to the recipe in the book. Bob was my grandfather:

    I was introduced to the Harvey Wallbanger cocktail in Savannah, Georgia, when Bob and I were going through on vacation and stopped to see Tom Cheeley and his wife. The guys had worked together for Amoco Oil Co. I liked the cocktail, and when Tom's wife told me that there was a Harvey Wallbanger cake, I asked for the recipe. At the time, I was food editor for The [Independence, MO] Examiner, and thought I had a minor scoop. Imagine my chagrin when I saw the same recipe in the Kansas City Star.

    So without further ado, here is the recipe:

    Harvey Wallbanger Cake

    1 two-layer orange cake mix
    1 pkg. instant vanilla pudding mix
    4 eggs
    1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp. Galliano liqueur
    1 cup powdered sugar
    2 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. vodka
    1/2 cup cooking oil
    1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp. orange juice

    Combine cake and pudding mixes; add eggs, oil, 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/2 cup Galliano and 2 tbsp. vodka. Beat 1-2 minutes until dry ingredients are moistened, then beat on high for 5 minutes. Pour into greased and floured Bundt pan and bake in a 350 degree F oven for 40-45 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes and then remove to wire rack. Glaze: Combine powdered sugar, 1 tbsp. orange juice, 1 tbsp. Galliano and 1 tsp. vodka. Pour over cake while it is still warm.

    Sounds rather tasty, doesn't it?

    This week I'm giving away a copy of my family's Five Generations Cookbook to one lucky blog reader. To enter, just comment on this post before midnight on Sunday, November 8, 2009 and describe or name your favorite alcohol-tinged dessert. If you can include a link to the recipe, so much the better!

  • Average Jane’s Latest Band Update

    I haven't talked much about the band with which I'm currently singing, but things are going quite well. It's a four-piece (guitar, bass, drums and vocals), and we all seem to be equally professional, mellow and serious about learning our own parts.

    We're still finalizing a name and trying to decide which songs to record for our demo while we get our set list worked up to the minimum 40 songs we'll need to play an entire evening. The first gig we have on the books so far is Saturday, December 12th at an American Legion Hall. If you've been wanting to see us but can't quite psych yourself up for the American Legion experience, I'm sure we'll be booked into plenty of normal bars around that time period and beyond.

    Here's our song list so far:

    Free – All Right Now
    Ted Nugent – Free For All
    Black Sabbath – Paranoid
    Billy Idol – Mony Mony
    Doors – Roadhouse Blues
    ZZ Top – Thank You
    Red Hot Chili Peppers – Higher Ground
    Jet – Cold Hard Bitch
    Three Doors Down – Kryptonite
    Judas Priest – You Got Another Thing Coming
    Red Hot Chili Peppers – Dani California
    Beastie Boys – Fight For Your Right (To Party)
    Stone Temple Pilots – Sex Type Thing
    Bryan Adams – Summer Of '69
    Bad Company – Can't Get Enough
    Poison – Talk Dirty To Me
    Audioslave – Like A Stone
    Mountain – Mississippi Queen
    Lit – My Own Worst Enemy
    Green Day – Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
    Thin Lizzy – Jailbreak
    Kiss – Lick It Up
    Buckcherry – Lit Up
    Audioslave – Original Fire
    Green Day – Brain Stew/Jaded
    Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train
    No Doubt – I'm just a Girl
    The Romantics – What I Like About You
    Led Zeppelin – Rock and Roll
    Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze

    So yes, it's a pretty random selection. A lot of the songs are the result of someone saying, "Hey, do you know this one?" which leads to a jam and consequently to another song being added to the list. I've been singing a lot of these songs since I was in high school.

    Still, I'm having fun and l think the sets will go over well in bars. As soon as we've agreed on a name, I'll put up MySpace and Facebook pages and make sure to share them.