Mmmmm, Cheese

This weekend I decided to get back to cheese making. I stopped by the local dairy (and, no this is not the only place I can get "farm-fresh" milk) and picked up 2 gallons of milk. On Saturday I made a batch of mozzarella, which tastes like my most successful effort yet. Today I made a batch of whole-milk ricotta (you can also make ricotta from whey left over from hard cheese making). They only thing I would do differently the next time is drain the ricotta for 15 to 30 minutes rather than the hour recommended in the recipe. However, it is still pretty good.

Tomorrow back to the real world. I just tried to clear out my work email box (393 emails and 457 bits of spam) and I managed to get it down to 150. I'll actually read the 150 tomorrow when I can ask questions of the people who handled my account in my absence.

Review: SenseoTM Coffee Machine

Because the coffee at my office is horrible and I don't pass a good coffee shop on my drive into work, I entered a promotion to get a free SenseoTM Coffee Machine. I qualified and the machine arrived a few days ago. There is very little set up - you have to fill the resevoir with water and push two buttons simultaneously to flush the machine and fill the boiler with water. This process takes about a minute. Then I was ready to brew my first cup of coffee. I used the Medium Roast pods which came as part of the promotion. The coffee was weaker than I like but had a smooth flavor. No bitter aftertaste either. Probably a good coffee for the "average" American coffee drinker. I will try the Dark Roast once I've finished the medium. I also want to try the flavored coffees (I think they have vanilla, hazelnut, and Irish Cream). My parents are coming this weekend and my mother drinks decaf coffee so I picked up some of the decaf pods for Mom.

I have also promised the VP at work that I will share the Senseo with him. He's quite psyched. I'm sure I'll be sharing with lots of people once word gets around. I don't mind sharing the machine but people get to buy their own coffee pods. A bag of 18 pods is about $5 in my grocery store, although I know I can get the pods cheaper (and in larger quantities) online. Maybe this will be the impetus to get a pod-based coffee maker at the office.

I'm glad to be going back to work next week with my Senseo Coffee Maker. Now if I could just win PowerBall and not have to work at all...

In honor of "Talk Like a Pirate Day"

Your Pirate Name Is...

Skull Crusher Mistress of Death

What's Your Pirate Name?

Yes, Virginia, There is an Upside

Lest you think that there is no upside to endometrial cancer and radiation therapy, I am here to set you straight (ha, ha, ha). I will no longer have PMS or cramps and the lovely other symptoms that accompanied them because I will no longer have my period. I won't have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on pads and tampons. I will not sleep poorly 3-4 nights a month because of the aforementioned cramps etc. I will not have to spend a fortune on Advil because it took 4 Advil every 8 hours to manage my cramps. I will not feel too crappy to exercise 3-4 days a week. Not having had a hysterectomy for my endo CA, I have not been plunged into menopause. With luck I'll hit it around 50. My bladder still has its anatomical support so hopefully I will not need surgery at 48 to prop it up. Sure, having endometrial cancer at 34 and again at 38 is not a good thing but there is an upside. It's time to focus on the upside now that treatment is done.

Why I won't vote for Santorum

I won't vote for Rick Santorum because he's voted against an increase in the minimum wage 13 times in the past 10 years while voting an increase in his own pay 3 times (and he said he wouldn't vote for a pay increase.) He also believes that families should be able to live on one salary and when both parents work they are being "selfish." He said "Making people struggle a bit is not necessarily the worst thing"(reported in Congressional Quarterly Weekly 9/12/03). Of course, as a Senator (and party leader) he makes somewhere in the vicinity of $183,000. The median household income in Pennsylvania (in 2004 - latest I could find) was $44,131. He also didn't bother to pay the Penn Hills (PA) School District for his kids to attend a Cyber School for PA residents when his kids live with him in Virginia. Now the state (of which I am a taxpayer) is paying over $50,000 to Penn Hills to settle the matter. The man is an incredible hypocrite.

9/11/2006

I have very little to say except "I remember." It was my first day back in the office after my honeymoon. I remember the brief time when we didn't know where a friend was (he took the PATH train to WTC every day), I remember not being able to get through to my sister (who works in Manhattan) on the phone, and I remember being glued to CNN.com all day long. I remember my bosses acting as though nothing had happened and expecting us to work (I left the company less than a year later and I think their actions on 9/11/2001 had a lot to do with opening my eyes to the kind of people they are.) I remember the smell, the fighter jets, my neighbor's dwindling hope that her firefighter cousin would be found and then her dwindling hope that his body would be recovered. I remember going to the dentist and the dentist telling me that she was afraid one of her patients had been killed because he never showed up that evening for his appointment and it wasn't like him to just not be there. I was there when she got the call that most likely he had died. But most of all I remember that the next day my grandmother died at the age of 96 after having been in failing health for just under a year. I cannot separate the two events because my grandmother was so very important to me. I don't like to talk about 9/11 or think about it too much because it is so tied up with my grandmother's death. I feel guilty and selfish because my grandmother had a long, happy, healthy life and died a quiet, peaceful death in her sleep and more than 3000 people weren't afforded that dignity. But still, I cannot separate the two events and I still cry when I think about it.

Freecycle Bitch

I posted some things to Freecycle today and got a really annoying response. I noted the town we live in (it is a large town for the 'burbs) and someone emailed me and said "Are you near X town?" I know if I email her and say "No, we are at least 45 minutes from your town" she will say "Never mind." Why not Google the town before sending me the email?