Woe is My Toes

So hey, remember the shoes I said I was wearing the most? Yeah, so I'm about to swear off of them. Scoob has started painting his models again. (He calls them models; I call them figurines. Whatevah. I guess it just sounds more manly his way.)

Actually we've done a bit of furniture rearranging so he has a designated space for this activity.  He used to do this in the summers out on the patio, but then he'd come inside for something and forget to go back out again, which meant he also would forget to pick up his stuff. So I'm happy to have a corner set aside for his "models" if it means I don't have to deal with the detritus in other areas of the house.

Anyhow, Scoob asked me to go to an art supply store near my office to pick up some matte varnish for acrylics. I set out to do that on my lunch break thinking, "Sure, I can do that. It's just a couple blocks over at the end of the street." Well, woe to the me, y'all. It was half a mile down, and half a mile back. And guess which shoes I was wearing today. Oy!

By the time I got to the store (and discovered they had a more than ample parking lot) I could feel the balls of my feet screaming at me to just stop. For the love of God, please stop walking! Then there was the squinchy feeling—not quite the squishy blister feeling, but that pinchy/squeaky/almost squishy feeling that says, Hello, I'm going to be a blister if you don't STOP WALKING THIS VERY INSTANT!

Did I stop? Hell no. I roamed the aisles looking for what it was that Scoob needed. It's a darn good thing I told him to send it to me in an email (I love my iPhone), otherwise I would have picked up the first matte varnish I spotted (which was for oils, not acrylics). And that just wouldn't do. That would have meant doing this again tomorrow. No. Thank. You.

Then I had to walk back to the office. Which turned into limping. And devolved to shuffling. I had to fight the fierce urge to stick out my thumb and hitch a ride for that last block.

Anyhow, I'm still at work. With my shoes off. Hoping I don't have to move from this chair for the rest of the day because I'll go barefoot if I have to, ragged toenails, chipped paint, calloused heels, and all. Wishing I had a pair of socks to at least hide my scary feet and not quite seem so Oakie. A few folks do regularly shuffle around the office in their socks, so it wouldn't seem quite so out of place. (Hello. Berkeley!)

Also wondering if I really need to eat that frozen entree I brought for lunch. I may just stick it under my desk and rest my feet on it.

I don't think I'll be running my own errands I had planned for after work tonight. I won't be hobbling them either. The things we do for art. And love.

Roasted Garlicy Cauliflower

Growing up, the only way mom could get me to even consider eating cauliflower was when it was steamed to almost complete softness and then slathered in some kind of cheese substance. I've never tried to replicate this myself. Cauliflower was never one of those "must have" vegetables for me. Not like, say, green beans are.

As I got older I found I liked cauliflower raw. But still, it's not something I go out of my way for.

But this, dear friends, this is the most glorious cauliflower I've ever eaten. I don't have a picture for this one. Or maybe I took one at some point and just decided it didn't look good. But trust me, it is delicious. When the weather is cool enough for oven cooking, I make sure I always have a head of cauliflower in the fridge. If I don't, I swear I'm like a cauliflower junkie—I start to get anxious about where I can get some and when I can get my next cauliflower fix.

Roasted Garlicy Cauliflower

Total time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

1 large head of cauliflower, cut into florets

3 Tbsp olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

⅓ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Heat oven to 450°. Toss cauliflower, oil, garlic, salt, and pepper in a bowl until thoroughly coated with oil and place in 9 x 13 baking dish. Sprinkle with half of the Parmesan cheese and roast for 15 minutes.
2. Stir the cauliflower, sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan cheese, and continue roasting for 10 minutes.
3. Flip on the broiler for 3–5 minutes, until golden brown on top.

I love that the ingredient list is small and it takes almost nothing in prep time. Make sure you get the bits that stick to the pan… mmmmmm.

Acorn Squash and Tomatoes

So I lied. Again. I seem to do that a lot with y'all. It seems the book that came across my desk last Friday was not the last one. I forgot we'd had a problem with the first set of printer proofs for Germany. Turns out the gal who sent the files to the printer sent the original uncorrected files by mistake, and somehow in the mix up, the corrected files were lost. So we had to redo that book again from scratch. Yeah. So NOW the final fall book has crossed my desk. 14 down and 2 to go!

Ohh, and one of my coworkers gave me a nice compliment on my hair today—he said it looked sassy. That's probably the first time anyone has used that word to describe me when not referring to my mouth. Sassy!

People, I am so, so, so behind in posting recipes, so these won't necessarily be coming up in chronological order. That said, I made this for the second time this past Saturday night. It's one of my new favorites—ranking right up there with the roasted garlic cauliflower goodness that I've been making at least once a week ever since the weather became cool enough to turn the oven on.

I just scrolled through my logs and it seems I’ve never posted that cauliflower recipe, so I guess that one will have to be next. But first, Acorn Squash and Tomato goodness!

Roasted Acorn Squash and Tomatoes with Tilapia

Roasted Acorn Squash with Tomatoes

Total time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

1 small acorn squash (about 1½ lbs.)—halved, seeded, and cut into ¼ inch slices

1 pint grape or pearl tomatoes, halved

4 cloves of garlic, sliced

3 Tbsp olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat oven to 425°. Toss squash, tomatoes, and garlic with the oil, salt, and pepper and place in 9 x 13 baking dish. Roast until the squash is tender, about 30 minutes.

I love that this is so super easy and uses seasonal squash. And I love that I don't have to peel this squash like I do with some butternut squash recipes. The first time I made this, I served it with a quick pan-fried tilapia seasoned with salt, pepper, and coriander (pictured), which was nummy. When I took left overs for lunch, I had it with almond rice pilaf instead of the fish and loved it. And that's how I made it for Saturday night's dinner, too.

Shoe Porn

It’s wet, wet, wet today. Which is nice, you know, because it is November. But it is a big change from the two 80° days we had last week. Those were entirely unexpected, because, yeah, November! All my shorts and tank tops are packed away and the fans have been put back in the garage and I seriously debated getting everything out again.

I did panic a bit when the cooler weather started to show. I couldn't find any of my long sleeved shirts and sweaters and thought I was going to have to do some serious shopping. I was crushed I tell you. But then I remembered that we had started packing up the house last spring with every intention of moving before summer was over and yes, I had packed away all my cool weather clothes. So I've dug those out, not that it stopped me from shopping. Heh.

So I've recently acquired a new plushy sweater jacket, a few layering tops, a nice deep green jacket, and a new pair of jeans that I just picked up from being hemmed. And what with the new hair cut and all, I'm feeling fairly put together lately.

Anyhow, I've been meaning to share pictures from my shoe shopping escapade back in September. Or maybe it was early October. Who knows. But it's shoes! I went in looking for a particular pair of shoes, I wanted to replace this pink pair (which I pretty well thrashed over the summer) but apparently that style was from two season ago, so then I was forced to browse…

So first I found this similarly styled pair also from Rocket Dog

But I didn't want them to be lonely, so I bought a second pair.

Then I thought, I'd better get a different pair for diversity's sake, because I don't want my shoes to grow up to be bigots. This is my sporty pair. Title IX and girl power and all that.

This pair had a chunky kiss-ass look. I actually wear these the most.

And there's this pair. I thought they looked so sophisticated and classy. I have no excuse for buying these, and I haven't worn them yet. I even went to return them, but then left the store with them in-hand again. I'll cop to it, this pair was a purely emotional purchase.

Scoob's face was priceless when pair 5 landed on the stack. I don't think he'd ever seen anything like it before, at least not from me. Heh. Ugh, when did I become such a girl?

The End Is Near

The end is finally in sight on this project at work. So what was originally only supposed to suck the life out of my September also engulfed October and is hanging around like that house guest that just. won't. leave. into November. Printer proofs for the big fall season book (1200+ pages) crossed my desk last night and now I just have the 2 winter books to get through. I sure hope they come in next week because folks, I'm outta here (at least outta the office) for the second half of the month—I've got vacation and personal time to burn through before the end of the year, and by golly, I'ma gonna burn it!

My back has been bothering me more than usual during this project. I sit in a slightly different position when doing pages than I do when working on the website and the last thing I've wanted to do at home is sit at a desk, hence the lack of blogging. I've thought about it plenty, even had a few good post ideas, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

But last weekend changed things. Scoob and I were out and about running errands (new tires on the car, woot!) and stopped in at Office Max to get a refill for a nice Parker ballpoint pen I have and we left with a new desk chair (and the pen refill). Talk about your impulse buys. I've needed to replace my task chair at home since, well, since this place became our home, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend the money. I'm cheap like that. But I recently got a raise (yea!) and a bonus (yea!) at work and all the task chairs were on sale so I figured what the heck.

I also picked up a lumbar support cushion and have been using it at the office this week. What a difference! My back definitely does not feel as beat up at the end of the day! So I spoke with my manager and they'll order one for my work space. He had actually offered to order one about a year ago, but my back problems are in my upper back around the shoulder blades. I didn't understand how a lower back support would help. But oh what a glorious difference. Don't get me wrong, my back still hurts every blessed day, it's just not as excruciating. I know I'll be taking the cushion on the plane with us when we head out to North Carolina in a week or so, and in the car for the drive up to mom's for Thanksgiving. I'm seriously thinking about getting one just for the car.

Anyhow, I have tried some nummy recipes recently that I want to share and I have pictures from a (not so recent) shoe shopping extravaganza. I think that was back in September. I got a new haircut the other night. New salon and new hairdresser. It's short. I think I like it.

I need some good back juju so I can get back into the habit of blogging.

And the Fun Just Keeps On Comin’

Blast it! Okay, so I am actually reading one of those books I wrote about. Well, mostly reading. One of the books is done in last year's style and layout and I can't send it out to our freelancers because last year's style had no clear style so I can't give them a checklist of things they should look for. So yea, I get to do this one myself.

Which all in all wouldn't be that terrible except I still have all those other books crossing my desk regularly, and all the other stuff I have to do as part of my regular job. So I've only been finding an hour or so a day to look at this one manuscript. So, diligent worker bee that I am, I brought it home with me this weekend.

But before I get back to doing that, I felt the need to relive vacation days. Here are some pictures from my trip to Idaho.

Along with dad and mom, Bungee was my travel companion.

Can I drive?

Dolly's coloring changed quite a bit since last year.

This was the only time the dogs would hold still for a group picture.
Think they're trying to say something?

All of grandma's hollyhocks were light yellow this year.
I like the way this picture turned out.

We made several stops on the leg between Sandpoint, ID and Anacortes, WA—along the Wenatchee River, at fruit stands, parks, and most importantly, at great-grandma's grave. I don't know that I ever knew great-grandma, but dad lived with her and great-grandpa for several years while growing up. It's not often I see dad so somber, but his deep love and respect for his grandma are clear.

It took me a few minutes to see why this place is called Lincoln Rock State Park.

Along the banks of the Wenatchee River. A very calm and peaceful spot, and other than the smell of rotting salmon from the recent salmon run, completely enjoyable.

I'd forgotten to change the light setting on my camera for outdoors,
but I kind of like the blue tint it gave this twisted stump.

I call this my Bigfoot shot, but it's really dad.
Looks just like Bigfoot, dontcha think? But a lot less hairy.
On the up side, I've gotten better at taking pictures of people in motion.
At least you can tell this is a person!

I really like the way the trees in the shadows framed this shot.

We only stayed a couple nights in Anacortes and spent most of our time at the house visiting with grandpa. I hadn't seen him since my sister's high school graduation 10 years ago. I was seriously impressed by his woodworking shop he has set up in his garage. I didn't know it, but apparently he was a master carpenter before he retired.

Grandpa likes to make birdhouses to keep himself busy.

And the birds think this is swell.

The morning sunshine created some dramatic back lighting on these nasturtiums.

We did head out to the Anacortes Farmers Market one morning.
I liked this crazy, colorful arrangement of flowers.

And I thought this vegetable stand photo turned out nicely.
Though, I may need to photoshop that woman's face out of the frame.

White Rabbit

Things have been pretty hectic around here for the last several weeks and I know I've been neglecting my blogging duties. Most of the time I'm feeling about as harried as the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland; constantly second guessing myself and certain that I'm forgetting something of the utmost importance.

I've been working on print projects at work for the last couple of weeks and my website work has fallen to the wayside. That's just the order of priorities lately. We have a partnership arrangement with another travel guide series and I've taken over managing the series while one of my co-workers is out on maternity leave through the end of the year. And of course all these books started arriving the minute I got back from my trip to Idaho.

Unfortunately, I can't be much more specific than that, partly because—you know—that would be unprofessional and I like my job and would hate to have this blog come back and bite me in the ass, and partly because I pulled a really bone-headed move a couple months back that made it just that much more likely someone I know in publishing might actually end up reading this blog, and that much more likely it could bite me in the ass.

You see, someone submitted a question to a publishing email list I'm on about linking protocols when blogging, and when I saw no one was answering him I decided to reply. I get asked questions about blogging fairly regularly, and I thought this was the email list from my editing class. The one with only 25 or so recipients, so I hit reply all, thinking other people from class might have similar questions.

Oh, but was that what actually happened? Of course not.

Instead of going out to 25 people I at least marginally know and may have exchanged pleasantries with, it turns out this was the Bay Area-wide publishing email list I'm on and my reply went out to over 1,000 people. I not only linked to this blog in my reply, but I also linked to the staff blog at work, which I post to with my real name. Oy. So yeah, anonymity out the window there. Not only that, but because it went out to such a large group, most of whom I've never met or heard of, I'm sure I came off as some supreme know-it-all. Which, of course, I am—but I try to keep it under wraps most of the time.

The moment I realized what I'd done, about 18 hours after the fact, I immediately went through all my posts since I first started blogging 2 years ago and either re-wrote or deleted anything the slightest bit negative about work. Granted there wasn't much (remember, I like my job), but still, that whole bite-me-in-the-ass thing. So anyhow, that's also part of the reason I've been keeping a low profile.

Anyhow, back to what I was saying… So yeah, I've been neck deep in a print project for the last few weeks  and oh my lord, I can't remember the last time I handled this much paper. I've got the papercuts to prove it, too! I'd give you a picture of all my bandages, but the camera battery is dead. (I'll let you image my whimpers of pain when I unthinkingly reached into jar of pickles over the weekend.) Today, alone, I went through 1st and 2nd pages of one manuscript (that'd be 2 copies of the same book), and 1st pages of 4 additional books.

Our publishing partner works with the authors and does most of the developmental and copy editing, handles layout, and is supposed to proof each book before it gets to us. Turns out, they didn't have a clear understanding of what proofing was until 2 weeks ago, so that's been part of the headache with this series.

Once the manuscript comes to us, I go through 1st pages once before sending out to the proofreader. I go through 1st pages again when they come back from the proofreader and check everything they've marked for correction. 1st pages then go to cartography for map updates and then to production. Production makes all the approved changes on 1st pages, then sends the 1st pages back to me with a set of 2nd pages. At that point I go through each set page-by-page and make sure all the marked corrections were made, flag anything that still needs to be addressed, then route the pages back to cartography for them to check. Then back to production they go.

Then 3rd pages come around. Hopefully that's the last set before the manuscript goes off to the printer (we're not at that stage yet, and since I've never been this involved in the process, I have no idea). The printer then runs a set of pages, bluelines, and sends them to us, which lets us see exactly how the book will appear in print. The pages make one more pass by me, cartography, and production. The only changes we make at this point are egregious factual errors that have somehow made it into the book—like the writers consistently misspelling the name of the travel guide series. Ahem. Did I say that? Then thousands of copies of the book are printed.

So how many times do I see each book? At least 6 or 7 times, and it's seen by at least 2 other people 3 to 4 times. Do I ever read it? No, I do not. Because I've got about 16 different books to do this with. Reading the book happens with copyediting, and the publishing partner is supposed to be handling that. That doesn't mean we don't still catch copyediting errors, but we're certainly not looking for them at the proofing stage.

It used to really annoy me when I'd find grammar and punctuation errors when reading for pleasure—and it still does. But now that I've worked in publishing for several years, I totally understand how they slip through. Though I still don't understand how that one book was missing the first 19 or so pages. You'd think someone would notice that.

Anyhow, that's what I've been up to.

In other news, I got my roo's in the mail! Grandma saves the day! They arrived with a hoody knit shirt, a tank top, and the one-and-only sweatshirt that I own. Yea, grandma! In return I sent her money for the postage and a copy of the recipe she had asked for. I made Orzo Zucchini Pasta Salad during our visit and it was a big hit. Though next year I'm stealing a page from my friend Becca's family gathering playbook and making my kalua pig. It never occurred to me to make it for a big group, but it's so super easy. Duh.

I may have pictures to share from vacation, but I don't know yet. (See note regarding dead battery above.)

Scoob and I spent the Labor Day holiday weekend apartment hunting and I've realized the budget I'd set for rent is not realistic and I'm going to have to come up with more money for rent. What really sucks is that our rent will be more than our mortgage. But we have to get out of here. We're trying to think of creative solutions, and we may have found one, but I can't discuss it here because of the bone-headed move mentioned earlier.

At any rate, I think we're going to try and stick it out here until March or so since the housing market typically slows through fall and winter—I do not want to be stuck holding rent and mortgage any longer than absolutely necessary. And it feels like listing the house now is just inviting unnecessary stress.

Also noteworthy, I did some serious shoe shopping over the holiday weekend. I've been told I need to post some pictures… Yeah, dead battery. I know, people. It's on the charger now.