Sigh.

Thanks to the Chinese spammers, I'm turning on comment moderation.

Dear Readers

You may have noticed that all the pictures disappeared from my blogs a couple of weeks ago. I've been trying to figure out a way to fix it, to no avail. Google (who could fix everything with a couple of keystrokes, I'm certain) does not have anything remotely resembling actual customer service. A few forays into the help discussion groups hasn't gotten me anywhere other than reposting all my pictures (doable, but a major and time-consuming pain). So, I'll post new material (I remain relatively confident that newly-posted pictures will not disappear), and re-load old stuff as time permits.

Anyone know an easy way to restore the Blogger NavBar? I deleted it originally to make things cleaner, but now I think it would be nice to have a way for my faithful readers to search more easily.

Do Your Part in the Fight for Good Design

I didn't think I would ever blog about something like this, but if you are an Oregonian, please go the Oregonian's flag contest site and vote on a proposed new state flag. I won't tell you which one to vote for, but I will say that the leading designs at the moment are not ones that I care for at all.

Wow, they were thorough.

Whoever they were, who signed me up for all the magazine subscriptions. This week I've gotten bills and/or actual magazines for Seventeen, Martha Stewart Living, Traditional Home and Decorating (actually didn't get a bill or issue for that last one--but it's the same people as TradHome, so I found out about it when I went to cancel). What's that make? Eleven?

Sunday Mixed Bag

Sunday was a mixed bag at church. About a million people asked me my due date (I think they were expecting it to be much sooner than mid-October, since I'm really sticking out there), quite a few people complimented me on my dress, I had some good chats with people during the SS hour, and endured one truly cringe-worthy comment in RS.

Here's the dress, which I made with fabric purchased at Bolt a few months back. The pattern, Simplicity 3888, is a maternity pattern, but very similar non-maternity versions are available. I shortened the sleeves about two inches (thank goodness--they would have been too long if I hadn't) to make the pattern fit better on the fabric so I could add about 7 inches in length. Then I also added the contrast border around the hem (thank heavens the fabric store still had that fabric when I realized, upon laying it all out, that I would want to add length). The shoes, by Van Eli, came from the Nordstrom Rack.




During SS I chatted with Skye, who was scheduled to present at Sunstone but stayed home because her husband was starting chemotherapy (get better soon, Jared!). She wanted me to tell her that Sunstone had been boring and uninteresting, but I was unable to fib.

Then there was RS. The lesson was about "the false idols we worship." I tuned in and out, as per usual, so I'm not exactly sure why the comment was even relevant to the topic, but the very sweet, very young and very Utah woman said something to the effect of "One of my friends' families had a saying that 'When the prophet speaks, the debate is over,' and I just think that's a really great way to live your life." The teacher, typical for RS lessons, agreed, thanked her, and moved on. It about killed me, but I kept my mouth shut. 1) Since I hadn't been paying enough attention to figure out how her comment related to the topic, I couldn't figure out how to address the issue without seriously derailing the lesson; and 2) since she's new to the ward (doesn't know me) and has led a very sheltered life thus far, I couldn't figure out how to say something without scaring her to death, making her feel like her new ward is full of bitter angry apostates.

You can probably guess that I think the whole the-prophet's-every-utterance-should-close-all-debate-on-the-topic idea is evil and pernicious, but let me tell you why. My understanding (possibly colored by too much early exposure to My Turn on Earth) of Mormon theology is that in the Great Council in Heaven, we chose to follow God's plan for our earthly existence, and would need to make our own choices about just about everything, entailing both greater risk (possibly making bad choices that would lead us away from God) and greater reward (increased light and knowledge and better preparation for post-earthly existence). Satan's plan, which we voted by supermajority to reject, entailed an absence of freedom of choice, guaranteed return, but no personal growth. The thing is, although we voted down Satan's plan, it's still a very basic human urge to want to avoid making responsibility for our own decisions, to want more rules so we have fewer choices to make. That's what's kept this idea alive.

But what I really want to know is, where did it come from? Who said it the first time? Do they keep saying it, or has it been left to persist under its own steam? Anyone know?

. . . And We're Back

I came home to find this in my garden:



I had hoped my gardener would pick stuff when she came by to water, but I guess she was being polite. So I have a couple of zeppelins to get rid of. Think I'll have to follow Adriana's lead and go for the zucchini-corn pancakes. I'll let you know how they turn out (and post my version of the recipe Adriana borrowed). The smaller zuke, and I suppose whatever I don't use in the pancakes, will work great in the below pasta recipe.

I also came home to a big stack of mail, including invoices for four magazine subscriptions I don't recall signing up for: W, Home, CosmoGirl! and Teen Vogue. Dead giveaway that someone is pulling a prank on me: they don't know how to spell my first name correctly. That and one of the subscriptions was addressed to our two last names, with nary a first name in sight. I strongly suspect that this is at least technically illegal, as well as completely juvenile (true confession: in my younger and much more foolish days, I and some friends did this to someone who really bugged us, but I felt bad about it even at the time). I've even already received my first issue of CosmoGirl!

Our vacation was nice, though because I came down with a cold on the way there I didn't get to spend as much time with family (~new babies) as I would have liked. Mavis and I had our first getaway without kids since having them, and attended the Sunstone Symposium (hello to new readers from there--welcome and feel free to comment!). We also went to see my sister in the Utah Opera production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Gondoliers! at Deer Valley, which was thoroughly enjoyable.

We took way too few pictures, but here are a couple of nephew shots. The first one is of my ginormous 3-month-old nephew, born in May and already about 20 lbs. The second is of my little brother's middle boy's rad cowlick.

You Have GOT to Be Kidding

Mavis and I went out to dinner and a movie tonight because I had a free movie ticket I got for spending money at Old Navy. Of course then we dropped $60 on dinner because I decided late this afternoon that I felt like eating at that particular restaurant, so with that and the babysitter it wasn't exactly a bargain. But we did see Knocked Up, which was quite funny.

What really bugged me happened at dinner. I ordered the lamb sirloin, served with a spring pea-pearl onion risotto and pea shoots. Sounds great, right? But the risotto was Not Fully Cooked. Every other grain of rice still had an opaque white center, and it was downright chewy. Lovely flavors (it included truffle oil--actually a bit much of it, because it was on the greasy side), but bad texture. So I mentioned it to the server when she came around to ask how we were doing, and she came back saying that they like it that way, that it's supposed to be al dente. Okay, first of all I've had risotto in many fine eating establishments (it's a favorite), here, in New York, and all over Italy, and I've never before been served one that wasn't silky and creamy and delectable AND FULLY COOKED. And second, there's al dente (which I don't think should ever apply to risotto) and then there's CHEWY. They brought me some (delicious) mashed potatoes to make me feel better, but what I really would have liked would have been a PROPERLY FINISHED risotto with spring peas and pearl onions. Harumph.

As long as I'm being crabby . . .

I may as well note that I'm a bit dissatisfied with the new range I bought several months ago. Because I wasn't remodeling my entire kitchen, I was limited in my range of choices to something that would fit in the existing space and had a downdraft vent. I had also decided not to upgrade to gas until I do the down-to-the-studs remodel I have penciled in for when Number Two starts school. So, it had to be a Jenn-Air slide-in range, and it had to be electric. Then I had two options: one with removable burner cartridges, or one with a seamless Ceran top. All other Jenn-Air cooktops I had previously used, including the one I was getting rid of and the one I grew up with, had the removable burner cartridges, and I knew they would eventually have trouble with spotty connections that would lead to the burners occasionally losing power at inopportune moments. So, I opted for the seamless Ceran top.

Unfortunately, they didn't tell me that the burners aren't just on or off, with the level of "on" determined by how much juice they send through the coils, and a "high" setting resulting in the burner glowing a steady red. No, the burners on this fancy new, supposedly better range cycle between all the way on (red hot) and all the way off, controlling the level of heat much the same way a microwave oven does, by varying the length and period of the "on" cycle. Unlike a microwave, however, which at 100% power is always on, this stove still cycles even on "high." I'm guessing it must be because the Ceran cannot tolerate sustained high temperatures, but as a practical matter it means that water takes longer to boil, and that anything I'm trying to heat takes a three steps forward, one step back path up to the desired temperature.

I think I'm going to write a letter to the company, telling them that this is something I really would have liked to know before buying. Sheesh.