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Nothing Much

I have nothing much to report. It's been raining off and on … something that Madison really needed which has put a bit of a damper (pun intended) on our outdoor activities, but rain is nice indeed to watch from the windows.

We've been doing some “rainy day” craft projects. I've got a large stock of found-objects and it's high time some of them get used up. As a tribute to some of these pursuits, I'm in the midst of making a crafts page for the site. But it's not quite done yet.

We went and saw Bend it Like Beckham at the (cheap) theatre yesterday. That movie is so fun and bright. It was well worth the $4 we paid to see it.

I miss you, Grandpa.

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Poppy Seed Bread

from: Paula Kafer

Ingredients
Bread
3 cups sifted flour
1 ½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 – 2.5 tsp poppy seeds
2 ¼ cups sugar
3 eggs
1 1/8 vegetable oil
1 ½ cups milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tbsp butter flavoring
Icing
¼ cup orange juice
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
butter flavoring to taste

Directions
Line two loaf pans with wax paper and grease sides. Preheat oven to 350. Sift dry ingredients together. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat together for 2 minutes.

Pour mixture evenly into prepared loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to 1 hour. While the bread is baking, mix together to the icing ingredients until they are a smooth consistency. Let the bread cool slightly and then ice it.

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Tennesee Pumpkin Bread

from: meals.com

Ingredients
1 2/3 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, ground
1/3 cup oil
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup Libby’s100% Pure Pumpkin
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg, in a medium bowl; set aside.
In a large bowl cream sugar, oil and vanilla. Beat in eggs until creamy. Stir in pumpkin until mixed. Fold in flour; alternating with water beating just until smooth. Do not over beat. Fold in chopped walnuts then pour the batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake in 350 degree oven for 45 to 50 minutes. Cool, then remove from pan.

Glaze; in a small bowl blend together powdered sugar and lemon juice. Drizzle over warmed pumpkin bread and slice.

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Too Bad

Miss Wisconsin didn't win. But Matt and I had a great time watching the show. The commentary by the “color commentators” was awful (and therefore hilarious) and so was the hosting. Nearly all of the girls sang for their “talent” but we had some good fun suggesting what their talents should really be, especially for Miss Wisconsin (cow milking, cheese making).

Ahh… if only all TV were that entertaining.

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A Testament to How Boring Wisconsin Is

Matt and I are watching the Miss America competition. It's one of those kitchy pleasures. And as we're watching, we're cheering for Miss Wisconsin, but not because we have state pride (we don't even really want to admit we live here). No, we want her to win because we assume that if she does, they'd have a parade.

A parade would be awesome because it's kind of boring around here and a parade would be a lot of fun to go to (the kitch factor again).

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Greenway Station Beginning to Open

Greenway station is about to open. I haven’t made up my mind if this is going to be good or bad though. The niece thing about is there are lot of nice to upscale restaurants and shops, that are opening there that you can’t find anywhere else in Madison The bad part about is that it's two block from our apartment and will probably bring a lot of traffic, noise and mess Guess we’ll know in a few months.

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Fun Fun Silly Willy

I'm quite hyper. So is Matt. Maybe it's got something to do with the barametric pressure. Anyhow, we're in really good moods.

I think it's way easier to be happy and hyper when you've had proper sleep.

In other news, I've cleaned my computer with Spybot and Have it protected with Spyware Blaster and I've still got something that's popping up icky ads. It's driving me nuts. Why must people do that? It doesn't get them advertising hits. It just makes people mad and then I wouldn't click on their ad even if I was interested in it!

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Such Tenacity in One So Poorly Paid

Friday the phone rang three times during the day. Each time it was an unknown caller. I picked it up the first two times, and it was the same woman wanting to speak to Matt. I patiently explained both times that he wasn't available. The last time I just let it ring.

Yesterday the same thing happened. Except with more calls. I finally just started picking it up and immediately hanging up because the ringing was driving me nuts.

So finally, after Matt got home, she called again and I made Matt pick it up. Turns out she wanted to offer him another credit card from the same bank he already has one from (Mastercard instead of Visa).

If she calls again today, I'm getting nasty.

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Strange Searches From the 4th Dimension

I was looking at my “status file” which shows things like the top files people have requested, and more interesting (to me anyhow) where the people who view this page come from. The vast majority come from direct references (people typing in www.jesser.org). Some come from search engines … and I'd love to know their queries because I'm certain this domain is at the very bottom of pages But there are a few that I just can't figure out. I've gotten 4 hits from a pokemon/digimon forum … explain that one! I even went to it and did a search and couldn't find anything. I also got 10 hits from a “free money” popup hell page. I have no clue how their “free,freebies” page sent 10 people to my web site.

Anyhow, if you found this page, would you kindly post a message (see that little comments thing down there?) and tell me how you got here. I can't help but be curious.

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Falling for Fall

Well, as Matt said before, fall has come to Madison. After a summer of the most beautiful weekends, it rained all day today. Not that I mind it … I love rain.

But in spite of the rain (or maybe because of it) we had a very productive day. We went to the used book store and got a few new books. Matt got an ancient (1970s) photography book for a song and we bought two new cookbooks, one devoted to Asian Cooking and the other to Smoothies. Both were really good deals.

Then we went grocery shopping and when we got home we cleaned the house. The rest of the day has been spent cooking and listening to musci and watching some Malcolm in the Middle on DVD. Now we're working a little and I think later we'll go see if we can't find the hottub.