We Really Don't Need You After All.....

Last week Andy received notice that his final date at work has been moved up by nearly two months--May 9.

Granted, I'm not sure how Emily Post would have written the "Thank you for staying on to help us outsource your job" letter, but having never worked anywhere for 18 years (OK, I was still in college 18 years ago), I guess I assumed that a company would applaud my loyalty, be sorry to see me go, and yes, shed a tear or two if I had spent the last 18 years with them and now, for financial reasons, they needed to end our relationship. But Andy's letter didn't even merit a "Dear" before his name. I guess corporations can't get emotionally involved, but if it had been me, some tiny part of me would have been expecting flowers. Optimists are rarely troubled by reality...

What it does mean, however, is that our 90-day version of the "Can't Buy Anything New" program has jumped up by two months, which means it will encompass Andy's birthday but not mine. That doesn't seem exactly fair, but I'm not sure to whom. It seems crazy to be trying it for a longer period of time, but it's easier to lose your job and income when you're making a bit of a game of it, don't you think? I'll bet Mary Poppins would have if she had been around for corporate downsizing, though she'd probably get smacked with that umbrella of hers by a disgruntled employee who didn't find a cheery singing nanny at all helpful after losing his job of 18 years....

And now I'm off to perform a dance routine with chimney sweeps.....or is it the gas man since we have a gas fireplace....?

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the job loss go down....

The "Recipe of the Week" Weekend

When you have resolved to make one new recipe each week and have putzed around the entire week, you're going to be cooking on Saturday. Period. So, last night we enjoyed "Braised Chicken in White Sauce With Garam Masala," and since I'll be gone next weekend, I made "Sauteed Salmon with Five Spice Lime Butter" this evening. OK, to be honest, mine was little more flambeed than sauteed, but the flames were quite brief and I still have my eyebrows. We had been doing much better in the kitchen--it has been over a year since Andy's flaming robe incident, but we keep several fire extinguishers around "just in case." Someday we're even going to try a recipe that is SUPPOSED to have flames. The fire department will be notified ahead of time.

Dem fischer sin fru

The new KAL has been open for 24 hours now, and I'm sure someone has already posted a message that they have finished clue number one and that they are translating the Old Testament into pig-latin in order to have something to do while waiting for Clue #2. Luckily, as you might have guessed, this KAL is in German, so I am unable to read most of the messages, having studied Latin instead of German while in college. But if the Vatican ever hosts a knit-a-long, I'll certainly know what is going on.

I have started clue 1:



I am probably behind, but I learned to knit long ago to help cope with my Type A behavior, and am trying very hard to avoid competitive knitting, though there is a part of me that might be tempted to argue that if one can call Curling a sport, competitive knitting can't be too much of a stretch. I bet an experienced sock knitter turning a heal burns about as many calories as a curler. Throw in the occasional temper-tantrum over a dropped stitch or a printed chart error and presto! ESPN might even be interested.

I am a Slow, Slow Learner

Today is the kickoff of the dem-fischer-sin-fru, which is not a German festival, but another Mystery Stole knit-a-long (KAL). When someone first mentioned it, I was firm--this is The Year of the Stash (see the "A Little Yarn on the Side" link for that one). I have plans, and I still haven't finished the MS3 Mystery Stole, which has been banished to the back of the closet where all bad knitting projects end up.

Then someone else mentioned it.....

And someone else...

Last night was the final time to sign up before it was closed and the clock was ticking and......I joined. I am so weak!

I can just hear my mother's voice, "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?"

Why yes, apparently I would, provided there was yarn involved.....

Toni's Almost Fool-Proof Dessert

Yesterday's post did bring up a good question--my friend is neither incredibly brave on the culinary front nor overly optimistic. I make exactly 2 desserts without difficulty, and one I can't share because it would violate copyright laws, but the other is my own creation and can be freely shared to help the rest of the pastry-challenged world. I thought this up while working for the American Diabetes Association, so there was a stronger emphasis on nonfat/low sugar and less emphasis on "compounds that exist in nature."

Early in the day, take the following:

*1 angel food cake, sliced (if you choose to make one from scratch you are clearly not on my playing level and you do not need any help from me)

* fruit, either fresh or frozen. If it is frozen, thaw and pour off the extra liquid

* 1 large box (or two small boxes) of instant, sugar free pudding in your choice of flavors. I've used white chocolate, banana, vanilla, and cheesecake with success. If you want to branch out to chocolate or butterscotch, you are braver than me and I wish you luck.

* 1 carton nonfat non-dairy topping.

In a trifle bowl--or anything else you might choose--arrange a layer of cake, add a layer of fruit, followed by a pudding layer. Repeat until you run out of ingredients. Top with nondairy topping. For a serious "gourmet" touch, toast sliced almonds or coconut to sprinkle on top.

See? No baking powder or ovens involved!

Easy as Pie

This past weekend, a friend of mine asked me to bring dessert to a dinner party. To put this in perspective, I am generally BANNED from bringing desserts anywhere, which possibly stems from a very unfortunate sugar-free cheesecake I once made, which has become legendary for all the wrong reasons, the three years I worked for the American Diabetes Association, or my generally acknowledged ineptitude concerning desserts--once having to pass off cake as "brownies" because it refused to rise and at various times inadvertently leaving the salt, baking soda, and sugar out of desserts. At any rate, that anyone would request a dessert from me for ANY reason made my entire month.

In college, in an effort to impress a guy I was thoroughly smitten with, I attempted to make a banana cream pie from scratch (i.e. no Jello pudding involved). Let's just say that the pie & the relationship ended up in about the same state. On the positive side, my experiences with dessert catastrophes has left me with the following knowledge:

* While it is pathetic to mess up an angel food cake made from a mix, you can make pretty decent cookies from a botched angel food cake mix.

* If it's made with applesauce, the fact that you forgot to add sugar to a coffee cake will be less noticeable.

* If you use enough frosting, no one will notice that a chocolate cake didn't rise--just call it "brownies"

* Baking powder really is necessary in a cake.

* If it's an old refrigerator, the freezer may not get cold enough to freeze ice cream or sherbet

* Chocolate yogurt from the store must contain a LOT of sugar, or be a different recipe than the one I have

* Once you scorch food, throw it away--there is no way to redeem it

* Chocolates freeze fairly well, and serving cold chocolates with coffee can be passed of as a "gourmet" thing instead of an "I-just-botched-the-dessert-thing."

*"Easy as pie" is a very stupid saying

A Month Later - Month of Not Buying Anything New Aftermath

We've been able to buy things for a month now, but have not reverted back to "impulse buying" yet. Apparently when you've had to fantasize for weeks about buying epoxy, it sticks with you. Deciding to establish more of a budget, I set up an "allowance" for each of us through our online bill pay. We each have a credit card in our own names only in case one of us has identity theft problems, so I set it up so our online bill pay sent our allowance directly to our personal credit cards. This worked really well for me, since my card is from my old bank, but logging in to our account one day, I noticed that Andy's card showed no recent transactions. Andy checked with the bank. Their response: "That's a great idea, but it doesn't work."

It turns out that when we used online bill pay, it sent a check back to our own bank, and they automatically put it back in the checking account--apparently not stopping to wonder why we were writing checks to ourselves. So, since our account was linked to the credit card, I set up automatic transfers, which worked quite nicely until about two weeks later---the card balance was back to zero.

Now it's Andy's allowance, not mine, so if he wanted to spend every single dime of it, that is his choice, but what were the odds of spending the EXACT amount? So I checked with Andy, who had not been on a spree, and he called the bank. Their response: "That's a great idea, but it won't work."

Since the accounts are linked, in an effort to be helpful, our bank automatically moved the money back to the interest-bearing checking account because who would want to keep a negative balance on their credit card????

No wonder we are a nation of debt--it's the only thing our banks understand!

We do want to make our "reduced spending" habits permanent, so we have decided to go 3 months without buying anything new--starting when Andy gets laid off at Micron, which is slated for the end of June. Seems like good timing: make no money, spend no money. The new experiment will coincide with both our birthdays AND our wedding anniversary, which will be interesting. Maybe a little "shopping ahead" is in order......