The Weekly Claire: Officially Bored Edition

Officially, I'm bored.  Bored out of my skull.  Studying for the GRE makes me wonder who the sadistic bastards are who write that cluster-fuck of a test (SERIOUSLY! You don't need to know that shit to get a masters in early childhood development and the math and science I need for a science MS is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.  So why is there a shit tastic blanket test that seem to only be able to test my ability to do 10th grade math and unfuck their poorly worded questions.  Maybe its really just testing my skills at understanding my PI)

I can only knit so much before my butt goes numb or my wrist cries UNCLE.  So I've trying to find other fun things to do.  While getting ready on Tuesday, I was going to go to Yoga, I noticed that one of the artist I follow on Tumblr had spent the night at the Great Wolf Lodge and had hidden a drawing here....... 

The Elk at Cabelas.  SO I busted by butt down there and well it was gone.  I don't know if someone had already found the picture of if the grumpy staff and found it and thrown it away.  I was there at 9:30am and he left it about 8! It was still fun.  I went to Target and also walked around the Cabelas. 

On Wednesday I went to Olathe and the K-state extension.  Which is AN AMAZING building.  I talked the Microbiologist there and I might have a few part time jobs.  The key there is MIGHT.  In a few months.  They asked me what I wanted to do, I just wanted to yell "SCIENCE".  We'll see.  

I made kinda gross French Macarons.  My next batch will be better I hope.  I will also fill them with something other than Buttercream.  

I AM GROOT!  I kinda love Groot so I drew him on the white board in the kitchen. 

These bloomed! They have a slight fragrance and they're so lovely.  They're over a foot and half tall and stick straight up, I thought they were fake.  

Easy Dinner- Pork Chops

I love to cook, but I really don't want it to take too long.  Dinner doesn't take long to eat, I don't want to put too much work into it.  Most of my cooking doesn't come from recipes, it comes from techniques.  I never "learned" to cook, it was just something I grew up doing, the idea of not "knowing" how to cook is beyond me.  Roasting and broiling are two of my favorite techniques and when you're lucky enough (like I am right now) to have double ovens I've been doing a lot of it.  I just walk away, make a salad and pull out dinner.

 PORK CHOPS! So these are from The Local Pig, and have been brined but nice thick chops with some fat on them will do nicely. 

Arrange on the broiling pan, we cheat and put foil in the pan so that clean up is faster. 

Season!  This is a sage and savory rub from a great book, which I cannot remember the name of right now.  Dump a bunch on there, drizzle a little olive oil on then get rub all around.  I normally wear a latex glove so my hands stay clean.

BROIL!  Yes thats it, set the oven to broil, stick them on the top rack and enjoy the crispy goodness.

Roast some asparagus  and potatoes (or seen here sweet potatoes).

Make a salad, and in about 30 minutes you've got dinner and you didn't do very much work.  

The Weekly Claire: A Month of Kansas's Edition

This morning we woke up to RAIN!  There was a fantastic rumbly-bumbly thunderstorm, with big rain drops and such.  I was most welcome.  A few weeks ago the pump in the pond up and stopped working.  I did all I could do and then contacted the landlord, turns out the thing was still under warranty so they replaced it.  Funny thing is that pump was WAAAAY more pump than was needed for this little pond and it hadn't working really well for sometime so the lovely babbling brook turned it a fire hose of water shooting EVERYWHERE!  It took me a few days, a lot of rocks and some foil to contain all the rushing water into suitable waterfall again.  In the mean time we lost a lot of water and I wasn't about to pay for it, so I just waited for it to fall from the sky.  Now fish and friends (fish is the remaining orange goldfish, friends are the twin medium size green fish, the large black with a orange collar and the fry) are extra happy with a full up pond.   

I started my Kombucha, I'm growing a scoby from a bottle of original plain kombucha so it'll take a little longer than usual.  I named it Scooby the scoby.  Though in its current appearance I should call it Lawrence, of arabia.  

Happy rain fall! It wasn't a big storm system but it had no intentions of going anywhere, it just lingered over us for a good 4 hours.  Woot for free water.

We went to Dean and Deluca, and I was not impressed.  It was all things I had already seen, eaten, made or could get cheeper somewhere else.  They are an institution but they've gotta do better.

Finally, my x-wing.  Just chilling in my craft closet while it waits for a desk.  I didn't get the job at KU, which I figured but it took me emailing them 3 times to find this out.  Even though I interviewed, made my references jump up and down to get letters of recommendation to them over a weekend (mind you I had to do this, not them they didn't ask me to ask for them until 5:28 on a friday and then needed them on MONDAY) they didn't have the where with all to call and say I didn't get the job.  They were just going to let the start date slip by.  SUPER CLASSY

Necessary Crafty Pants

So I got a new desk, its new at all in fact its reaaaaallllly old.  Its great, tons of drawers, smaller than my old computer desk and wildly more useful but it wasn't made of computers.  It was killing my elbows since I like a put my arms on the desk and push my screen back away from me.  When you've a prescription has high as mine you like to keep that focusing distance out a little.  So one afternoon I busted out this.  

Its super comfy, with flannel on one side and pretty quilting cotton on the other.  It doubles as a wrist rest too, but mostly for my bony ass elbows.  (I have rather pointy bony elbows, ask anyone I've accidentally jabbed with one)

Make two big long rectangles, and sew them together, clip those corners so they make nice corners when its stuffed.

I needed the cotton to be a little longer so I just sewed two pieces together, I own a lot of fat quarters. 

See, nice corners. 

Seriously I've had that bag of Clusterstuff hanging around since like 2007, its now been used up. 

GUTS

Sew it together all nice with a needle and thread or just sew that bitch up on the machine.  I recommend the machine.  

BOOM! Happy elbows.