Tales of a Shoebox Princess

MST3k goal update: I'm into season 3. Seasons 1 and 2 were only 13 shows long each, but season 3 is 24 episodes and I'm about a quarter of the way in. The final episode of season 2 is mostly unavailable (there is a 15 minute clip of it on youtube that I watched) so I had to skip it, but other than that, I'm keeping a decent pace. My only problem is that I tend to fall asleep about half way through each episode. Jim and I both do. We wake up all scrunched over on the couch with the DVD blaring the screen saver music. It brings me back to the days of doing the same thing when the kids were all younger and they would get annoyed when they'd hear the repetitive music of a DVD and they'd stomp out of their rooms and turn off the TV. They still whine about those days. Book update: Finished Sense of an Ending. I wonder why it won a prize? It was just an ordinary book. I did like all the theme of history and memories being not very factual and changing with the  years. ...

How many times can a person see Weird Al in concert? Not enough. This is my 5th time. We bought tickets for Katie and Christian as a Christmas present.  Us and Grumpy Christian Weird Al takes the stage The Vanity tour was fun, even though and because it was not highly produced like his other tours. This was just Al and the band playing what they wanted to play (not the parodies, except for Yoda/Saga Begins, and the medley near the end of the show) and sitting on stools and talking in between songs. I recognized all the deep cuts, and even sang along to a few of them. Al did a cover song during the encore, which pleased Jim to no end: Squeezebox by the Who. Jim is a huge Who fan and the comments Al made before playing it (I'm going to play it as God intended--with an accordion) made Jim smile. We had so much fun that Jim and I are going to see Weird Al when he performs in Clear Lake, Iowa in June. We'll take Matt since he wanted to go to the Utah sho...

In March, I saw on the Snapchat of my younger daughter a checklist for 36 books to read this year, It's does not contain titles, but subjects, such as "Book set in Summer," "NYT bestseller from 1990s," "Play or novella," or "book with blue cover." Seeking to expand my reading among other genres (I tend towards YA dystopian, sci-fi, or thrillers) I have set this list as one of my 2018 goals. I came upon this list in March, so I've lost 2 months, but I feel fairly confident that I can catch up. I've already read 5 from the list. So far: Self Help book: Declutter Your Mind   Meh. But I did like the encouragement to be more "in the moment" rather than always planning ahead and fretting about stuff that hasn't come up yet. It was also a reminder to pause and take deep breaths once in a while. I don't much care for self-help books, so I buzzed through this as fast as I could, just to check it off the list. Childhood fa...

I love bread, especially homemade bread. I also like taking as few steps as possible to make something. 5 minute, no-knead bread satisfies both checkpoints. I saw the recipe here  and tried it out. What I like about this particular recipe is that it is easy to follow and there are tips on what kind of pan to use, what to do if you want to use whole wheat flour (which I did), etc. I made the dough yesterday, let it sit in the fridge overnight, and then baked a little loaf this morning. It is so difficult not to eat the whole thing. I love bread beautiful golden bread you can't smell it but I can crusty, part whole wheat bread No kneading at all. My involvement was minimal. I flung the ingredients together and let the yeast do all the time consuming work. The only downside to this whole process was that I burned my hand putting the loaf in the oven. It's gonna leave a mark. I had a bag of frozen, chopped onions on my hand for quite a while today, and I ca...