Handwriting Game

Kristen at Now You Know tagged me in a handwriting game (OVER A MONTH AGO!) and I am finally up for air and blogging again so here it goes!

I am not especially fond of my handwriting and would love to improve on it but it is really hard to do when it is such a part of you and such a habit, someday I will take the time to improve it, but for now I will stick to typing and using my scribbles, after all don't you expect that your doctors and lawyers have illegible handwriting?!

Write down the following, snap a pic, and post it!

1. Name/Blog Name

2. Left-handed, right-handed, or both

3. Favorite letters to write

4. Least-favorite letters to write

5. Write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

6. Write in CAPS: CRAB, HUMOR, KALEIDOSCOPE, PAJAMAS, GAZILLION

7. Favorite song lyrics

8. Tag 7 people

9. Any special note or drawing

Tipful Thursday

Today's Tip comes from Sara at Our Best Bites. She always has great tips and recipes. Be sure to check out her page.

Room Temperature Eggs
Do you notice when a recipe calls for eggs at room temperature and then ignore it? I did that for years, not realizing that it actually IS important! Not everything needs room temperature eggs. Chocolate Chip Cookies for example, who cares. Just dump an egg or two in there straight from the fridge. Where room temperature makes a big difference is in cakes. Eggs beat to a higher volume at room temp so your cakes will bake up better. Another factor is that a cold egg won't incorporate with fat like butter or shortening. Have you ever gone to beat something up and you just get a lumpy mess? Chances are your eggs were chilly. If they are at room temp they'll melt right in the mix and become fully incorporated resulting in better baked goods all around.

Here's a great tip: When a recipe calls for room temperature eggs and you don't have time to let them sit around forever, just place them in a bowl of warm tap water for 10-15 minutes. I do this first and then start gathering all of the other ingredients. By the time I'm ready to start cooking, the eggs are at the perfect temperature.

Separating Eggs
1. Crack the egg against a surface like the edge of a bowl or the corner of your countertops. The crack needs to be big enough so that you can get both thumbs in the crack but not so big that either half of the shell has been completely demolished; you need both halves.

2. Gently use your thumbs to pull the two halves of the shell apart. If you're trying to preserve the yolk, go ahead and do this over the sink so the white runs out of the shell and into the sink.


You need to be very careful because a very thin membrane surrounds the yolk and if it's torn in any way, the yolk will leak out and you'll probably need a new egg. Using very fresh eggs helps with this; the older the egg, the more the membrane has deteriorated. Make sure the yolk is completely in one of the shell halves.


3. Transfer the yolk back and forth between the shell halves as the white runs off.


You can also just dump the whole egg into the palm of your hands and separate your fingers just slightly. Let the whites fall through and keep the yolk.

4. Either way, you will end up with a bowl full of egg whites or a naked little yolk!


Oh, and with the yolks, it's okay (and inevitable) that there will be a little egg white on it, but if you want the whites for beating (like for meringues), there absolutely can't be any speck of yolk or the whites won't fluff up when you beat them.

Freezing Eggs
Once you've separated eggs you often only use either the whites or the yolks. Instead of tossing the unused portion, you can freeze them.

Egg whites freeze really well. Use an ice cube try and place one egg white in each portion. After they're frozen transfer to a plastic bag or other container and you can grab one white at at time for easy measuring. Or, you can freeze them all together in a container. Just be sure to mark the container with the number of egg whites that are contained in it.

Egg Yolks can get lumpy when frozen. To avoid this problem, add either 1/8 tsp salt or 1 1/2 tsp sugar (depending on whether you're going to make something sweet or something savory with them) to every 4 yolks. Stir gently and then freeze. For both egg whites and egg yolks, if you freeze in bulk, just remember that about 1 T = one egg white or one egg yolk.

Hard Boiling Eggs
1. Place eggs in saucepan in a single layer.

2. Fill pan with cold water, covering eggs by 1 inch.



3. Place over medium-high heat. Cover; bring to a boil. When you see the water just starting to get tiny bubbles from the heat, add a spoonful of salt and place lid back on.

4. As soon as the eggs come to a rolling boil, turn off heat; let stand, covered (don't even think about peeking in there or you'll lose all of the heat), 12 minutes.

5. Transfer eggs to bowl of ice water.



Let stand for about 5 minutes, then remove. If you're having trouble getting the shells off nicely, know that the freshness of your eggs impacts that. The fresher the egg, the easier the shell will peel off. Slice or dice and use however you please!

Dry Eggs

It's a great staple to have on hand for those times when you're in the middle of a recipe and you go to the fridge only to find an empty carton. (Or maybe unlike me, when your eggs are out you actually toss the container instead of putting it back in the fridge...) Generally a Tablespoon or two of egg powder plus some water equals one whole egg. I've used them with great success in baked goods.

Top 2 Tuesday

It's Top 2 Tuesday over at the Undomestic Momma.

Top 2 Guilty Pleasures

I have soooo many guilty pleasures it is really hard to pick! One is certainly things that are meant for teenagers.
I will give a few examples of my sad obsession. I really do understand. It is very sad. But I really can't help myself!
I love sleeping in on the weekends. I may as well be 16 again because if you get me up before 11 on Saturday I am one cranky lady!

I also love eating dessert for breakfast. Lately I have been having lunch for breakfast, but usually I like eating dessert for breakfast! Give me ice cream any time of the day and I'll take it!
I'm also kind of a glitter nut. I like anything sparkly!
Luckily I didn't get into these books! Just the show (that's about rich bratty HS kids...really Steph, really?!)
Twilight Saga. I am totally obsessed with it all, the books, the movies, the actors (well Taylor Lautner anyway) I even have collector's cups and now thanks to Ross I also have a Twilight popcorn bucket. He's just adding to the problem, which he loves to run in my face for taking the bait!Harry Potter - oh you were my first and I will never forget you. I am so obsessed, that I have convinced two innocent people to tag along with me to the Harry Potter world at Universal in Orlando next week. Approximately one week after it opens, I'm sure there will be no lines, right? even though it is June...

My second guilty pleasure is BAD television... How do I know it's bad you ask? Well almost every show I start to like gets canceled. That's How I know! I have quite a few favs that I know are just as horrible and are still running (Jersey Shore, Hills, Big Brother to name a few)
But here is a tribute to three of my favorites that just didn't make the cut for very long, sadly.

Eli Stone, you were a great man...with a brain aneurysm...that allowed him to see the future. (Totally believeable right?) He had another super power, he was a lawyer, that counts right? So he would try to save people by using both his super powers. Unfortunately, his version of seeing into the future was complete dillusions that would happen, of course, in the most inconvenient times possible. Like on dates, in board meetings and in court. I still don't know why this show isn't on anymore! Only survived two seasons :(
Wildfire. I loved you. It centers around a girl (Kris) escaping from juvie and stealing a horse, named Wildfire. They were inseparable and loved each other. Of course bad people always tried to take Wildfire away from her and the family that owned him, and she would do something stupid and almost go back to juvie, but never really have to go. I heart Jr. (who looks just like my friend Andy from college) a son of the horse racing mogul (Ken Davis, Sr.) and his sister (Dani). Of course Jr. and Kris were meant to be together and were married by the end of the show and made happy little wildfire babies, but there were struggles, like a little love triangle between Kris, Jr. and Matt (the son of the lady Kris now lived with). Apparently, you can stream Wildfire on Hulu, I know what I will be doing the rest of my lunch hour. This one made it three seasons!
Now, Love Monkey, it only made it one season (not even one full season, 8 episodes) but it had Tom Cavanagh who was in Ed, and I loved loved loved Ed the bowling alley lawyer. So I gave it a try. This time he was a record producer who was "damning the man" by starting his own record label, his girl bff was of course in love with him. That's the extend of the plot line really. Fun fact Teddy Geiger was on the show and sang For You I Will.

Honorable mentions:

• facebook. I am hopelessly addicted to facebook, for no good reason. I absolutely have to check it about twice per day.
• my blackberry
• ice cream
• anything with sugar really

Tipful Thursday

So somehow I wrote this on Thursday but wasn't really thinking and scheduled it to post Friday...oops. Just pretend it's Thursday ;) Happy Friday everyone!

I'm just no good at regular posts, so I'm giving Tipful Thursday (formerly known as Tipful Tuesday) another try...

Here are some useful Kitchen tips :) Thanks to Kelly over at Keeping up with Kelly & Co. for the hints.

Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to pick the little "stringy things" off of it. - I actually started doing this in high school and it makes opening those tricky little things so much easier!


Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they will ripen faster.


Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.
Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.


Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.


Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic, and at the end of the recipe if you want a stronger taste of garlic


To warm biscuits, panacakes, or muffins that were refridgerated, place them in a mircrowave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.


Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry the cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.


Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keept it in the glove box of your car. When the windows fog up, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth.


If you have ants, put a small pile of cornmeal where you see them. They eat it, take it home, can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a few days, but it works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed.

Happy Thursday Gleeks!

Oh Glee, you make me oh so very happy. Tuesday night was the finale. I will certainly put up clips when they're available but apparently for now I will settle for a couple other favs from this season. I loved the Gaga episode. So I will start there!

This is the cast doing Bad Romance
Pretty Killer, love the costumes!



I also loved their version of Beth in that episode.




P.S. I can't find a good version of Poker Face with video but it is certainly worth putting up just for the audio. I love Idina Menzel and Lea Michelle (perfectly cast as mother and daughter) and this features them together!

Wishful Wednesday

'I wish' .... I had the opportunity to change careers and it would be to become an English Professor.

There is no doubt in my mind that I would love to go back to school and be an English Prof. I love reading and analyzing novels, films, short stories, anything.

So, what is stopping me you say? Well that would be my massive amounts of student loans that I have from law school. So I guess unless Ross or I hit the big jackpot one of these days I will be sitting at my desk being a lowly lawyer and not in a classroom full of snobby college students anytime soon.

Happy Wednesday!

Top 2 Tuesday

OMG, has it really been a month and a half since I posted...WOWZA. Where has the time gone? I will have to update with all the happenings soon!

For now.... it is Top Two Tuesday over at The Undomestic Momma.

This week is Top Two Books.

I cannot begin to tackle this one. I couldn't possibly pick two favorites (and frankly I wouldn't even want to try) so I am going to do the last two books I've read instead.

I am currently in the middle of two books and am love love loving them both.
The First is one of the Sookie Stackhouse books, All Together Dead. They all have "dead" in the title so don't let the title intimidate you. These aren't your regular vampire novels. They are kind of dirty and lot of fun! They all center around the oh so human Sookie Stackhouse and her involvement with the supernatural beings (supes) in the world. Throughout the books she discovers that no supe was a fairy tale (including fairies) and she has all sorts of entertaining adventures with them. In the first novel vampires had recently "come out of the coffin" and are no longer in hiding. The Japanese created a synthetic blood substitute and they no longer need to feed off humans to live, but many do just for fun, and many humans (fangbangers) are more than willing to oblige them. In this novel Sookie is accompanying the Queen vampire from Louisiana to a vampire summit as her own personal telepath (ok maybe Sookie isn't your average human) and we get to see all the craziness that ensues. This novel is a direct carry over from the previous novel. They all have some carry over but this one in particular has a lot to do with the last novel.
This series of books is currently being made into the True Blood show on HBO. While they are both based on the same stories they are wildly different. I would HIGHLY recommend reading the books before watching the series. I think you would be disappointed if you went the other way around. The show is flashy and fast paced where as the book is slower and gives great detail. Sometimes they are quite different though, and I think I would have a harder time going show to book rather than book to show. I love both the show and the books equally (maybe the show more just because Ross will cuddle on the couch with me when we watch the show and reading I usually am just staying up late by myself).


The other book I am currently reading is the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It is fantastic so far. I don't want to spoil ANYTHING though. Please just take my word for it though, it is worth your time. You won't want to put it down. The author died in 2004 after completing this trilogy which is of course how it always works doesn't it? The great authors never get enough time to put out all the work they really could. The last book in this trilogy (the girl who kicked hornets' nest) comes out some time this month. The second book in the trilogy is the girl who played with fire. I'm sure I will get them all done this summer and will try to post about them all later.

On a side note, I think I am going to try to get into the Nora Roberts and JD Robb books. I haven't ever read any of them if you can believe it. And they sound great. Nora Roberts and JD Robb are the same author but she writes two very different types of novels under each pen name. Nora Roberts is romatic and JD is mystery. There is even one she wrote under each author and incorporated each type into one novel, just a book 1 and a book 2 deal. I can't wait to get started on those. There is never enough time to read. Especially in the summer when I love to read most! You would think up here in the tundra you would get a lot of reading done in the cold winter months, but instead you just want to hibernate and watch a lot of tv.