The GirlAlive Blog

Glenn in PA…

Okay, so to the person named Glenn in Pennsylvania who bought one of the I Aim to Misbehave designs from my t-shirt shop, printed on an infant crawler, baby onesie thing, I just wanted you to know that I think you totally rock.  It is not only a good use of the slogan on the shirt (because small children are prone to misbehave), but you are using your child to promote Serenity/Firefly.  You rock even more than the woman in Wisconsin who bought a cooking apron that says "I caught you a delicious bass."  In fact, Glenn, if you see this post and email me with your last name and the date you placed the order, I might just consider sending you some free stuff or something.  (That offer only applies to the guy who placed that order.  I’m not giving free stuff to everyone who buys an infant crawler or toddler t-shirt with that design.)

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Scottish weather

Every conversation I have with a Scottish person I have just met goes like this:

• Scottish Person: (asks some question, like the time or when the bus is due)
• Me: (answer question – SP notices I have an American accent)
• SP: So are you here on holiday?
• Me: No.  I married a guy here.
• SP: So how do you like it here?
• Me: It’s nice.  I like it.  (Despite my issues with Scotland, that is the truth, and even if it wasn’t I don’t like to start conversations dissing someone’s country.)
• SP: Except for the weather, right?
• Me: It’s not so bad.  I’m from Minnesota.  That’s like the Siberia of the US.

 And then the Scottish person smiles or whatever and we continue from there.

Okay, so today I got to experience first hand the true weirdness of Scottish weather.  I went to Tesco (the grocery store near our house).  It is about half a mile away.  When I walked to the store, it was sunny and pretty nice.  I went in and bought mustard and crackers and some food to review later.  I also got a mango that was very tasty because it was on the clearance rack because it was on the edge of overripe.

Anyway, I finished my shopping and paid my money and put the heavy stuff in my backpack and headed out.  As I stepped out the door, it was pouring rain.  And not just normal rain.  Freezing rain.  Half the sky was dark and cloudy, and the other half was still bright and sunny.  And the cloudy half was peeing on me.

I walked across the parking lot, towards the road I take to start home.  By the time I got across the lot and around the corner and onto the road, the rain was starting to let up.  By the time I got halfway down that road, it was downright warm.  At least on my right side, facing the sun.  On the left it was still a bit chilly.  I was starting to think I would need to unzip my coat when I rounded the corner onto the street that leads to my house.  

The sun was to my back and I could still feel the warmth on the back of my neck.  The front of my head, however, was suddenly being pelted with tapioca-sized hail.  I was nearing home so I continued on.  The further I went, the bigger the hail got.  When I finally reached home, it was pea-sized and starting to really sting.  I finally got in the house.  I ate my mango and watched part of Mythbusters. 

And now it looks like it’s getting sunny again.

As a completely unrelated side note, I have job interviews tomorrow and next wednesday.  I don’t even want to go to the interview tomorrow, but I’d really like the job I’m interviewing for next week.  It’s to do data gathering and processing for neurology research with the University of Edinburgh.  I think it would be good.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Ikea again

My husband and I still refer to Ikea as "the bad place".  We went again yesterday.  But this time there was a plan.

I went online and made a list of every item and every item name we needed.  Then we knew we would only need to go to the childrens’ section on the showroom floor (which is right near the end, so we could skip past most of the showroom stuff).  Once there, I got two hanging storage thingies for organizing my yarn, and a reading lamp for over my side of the bed.

Then we went down to the main shopping area.  We got what we needed from the kitchen section: some cutting boards and a container for storing rice.  We also got a big thermos carafe because I wanted one and it was really cheap.  Then zip through to the bedding.  We got what we needed.  Matching blankets and new pillows.  I needed a fresh new blanket and pillow because I hated having a blanket that was all used and full of other peoples’ cooties.  Larry and I are not good at sharing blankets, so we got 2 single size blankets instead of one king size.  Then there is no blanket hogging.

Today I’m cooking a barbecue beef brisket.  It was cheap at the store because it was really close to expired and wasn’t looking so good.  But once it has cooked all day in barbeque sauce and Coke, it should be fine.

I’m bored and tired.  So I’m too tired to do anything, but really bored with doing nothing.  

I guess I could go downstairs and see if Extreme Dodgeball is on.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Gayest Olympic Sport

This is my first year watching the Olympics from another country.  (I once watched the US Open – the tennis one – from a crappy hotel in Russia.  But that’s another story.)  It’s weird.  In the US, all the big winter sports get covered like crazy.  You’ve got skiing and figure skating and hockey and all that.  Here, the only team the UK has that has even the slightest chance of a medal is the curling team.  So I get to see hours of curling every day, and coverage of the British girl who came in 37th in a skiing event.  There is no snow here mostly, so there really aren’t winter Olympic athletes from the UK. 

But curling is not the very gay sport I’m referring to in the title.  Curling is one of those sports like golf; it looks like it might be fun to play, but watching it is as exciting as watching mold grow on an old tea bag.  But it isn’t gay.  The gayest Olympic sport that I think I’ve seen is Doubles Luge.

I used to think that wrestling, with all the partially naked grabbing, was the gayest Olympic sport.  But then I saw Doubles Luge.  That is the sport where men squeeze themselves into skintight spandex, and then one of the men lays on top of the other one as they zoom down a luge run.  I mean, if you’re an athlete and you think, "I’d like to go down a hill really fast with my cousin," wouldn’t you maybe think about getting a 2-man bobsled?  But no.  These inevitably Northern European men just decide to lay on top of each other on the luge sled.  

I kind of miss living in a country that sometimes wins in the Olympics.  But my husband doesn’t mind that I always root for the Americans.  Except for one Swiss ski-jumper that I like.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Food that I made

Okay, so last night I was bored so I made something creative for dinner, and it actually turned out really good.

Chili Cheese Fry Casserole

• Frozen french fries
• processed cheese slices
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 onion
• 1 celery stalk
• 1 can baked beans (vegetarian if you’re in America)
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• cumin (1/2 tsp maybe?)
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 3-4 Tbsp barbeque sauce

Cook the ground beef until it is browned and stuff and drain off the grease.  Add the onions and celery and if you want to maybe some broccoli or corn or something.  Add the chili powder (use more in the US – the chili powder is hotter in the UK), cumin, garlic powder and maybe a dash of cinnamon if you’re fancy.  Stir it all around and then dump in the beans and barbeque sauce and stir it all up.

Put a fairly thick layer of frozen fries in the bottom of a small baking dish (8×8 or whatever).  Cover that with a layer of processed cheese slices.  Then dump in the meat and bean mixture.  Cover that with more cheese.  Put a later of more french fries over the top of that.  Bake it in the oven at 350 F or 180 C for 60 to 90 minutes.  Whenever it looks hot and done.

So that’s my recipe for chili cheese fry casserole.  If you’re in America, you could probably also use tater tots instead of fries.  But they don’t have tater tots here.

Alana

www.girlalive.com
 

Skippy!

Our friends brought us to CostCo the other day.  It was fantastic!  I just wish we had more cash to spend there.  But we got a big 20kg bag of rice, and 24 cans of beans and a huge package of processed cheese slices.  They also had Asian pears that were cheap and delicious.  They’re already gone because me and Larry and the guinea pigs all loved them.  (Except for Homer.  He’s such a picky eater.)

The most important thing I found there was American peanut butter!  It wasn’t my favorite, Jif.  But it was my second favorite, which is Skippy.  2 days in a row I’ve woken up singing "Peanut butter jelly time!" and then had sandwiches and toast piled high with Skippy.  

The other day I went to a charity shop and picked up a few books.  I got one that is called, "I’m Okay, You’re a Brat".  It is very encouraging about my decision to not have children for a while.  I’m not quite ready to give up that much of my life for a kid.

Later tonight, there will be more food reviews, but not until after we have Bubble and Squeak for dinner.

Alana

www.girlalive.com