Random Bits of Monday

• The weather has been gorgeous as only fall weather can be the last few days. It has been cool, though, and the colors don't seem to be quite as bright as this time last year. Part of what I might be missing is the tree which some of you may recall fell on my house last spring. It had the brightest leaves around last fall.
  

• The national weather service is predicting a warm winter for the US, but the Farmer's Almanac is predicting a very cold snowy winter for the Northeast. Any bets on which is more accurate? I love snow; if we have to have winter it ought to be cold and snowy--that's one of the reasons I love living in New England. But not everyone shares my enthusiasm for snow.

• I had a very pleasant weekend. Besides good weather, my friend (and New Testament scholar) came to give two talks at the church. And she brought her doggies along for a visit--the dogs we took care of for a couple of weeks last summer. It was fun having them here for the weekend. I used to be nervous about having people stay at my house, but I am much more mellow about it now, and I enjoy having houseguests.
  

• We're thinking about getting a puppy--perhaps one of these. Goldendoodles (and Labradoodles) are so cute--and theoretically they are low/no shed. I love dogs and I loved having the dogs here this summer. But after having at least one child at home continuously for the last 31 years, there is a part of me that is reluctant to take on another creature that is going to be dependent on me. OTOH, dogs provide as close as unconditional love as you can get....except maybe from babies and I am definitely out of the baby business.
  

• NPR had a feature story this morning about "eating locally", focusing on a project in New Mexico that is trying to market and encourage locally grown meat and produce. A great idea, but what struck me as somewhat ironic was the underlying implication in the piece that this was something new and revolutionary. Isn't this how everyone used to eat?
  

• I'm nursing just a bit of a cold--I seem to have had it in stages: Thursday and Friday my throat was scratchy. Friday I developed a cough, and Saturday my voice was iffy. Yesterday morning my voice was better and the cough wasn't bad, but yesterday afternoon I got a bit stuffy, and I am still a bit stuffy today--not bad, just annoying. And I feel fine, for which I am grateful.

• I've never liked being sick, and it's hard for me to admit to being sick--most of the time a cold doesn't qualify. My mother says that I always said "I feel fine!" when I was a kid, even when I had a fever or was otherwise clearly indisposed. The only time (other than upset stomachs) that I recall really feeling sick as a child was when I had the measles--during summer vacation no less. I did feel pretty miserable then.

• I made some really yummy soup last week. I intended to make a recipe for sweet potato soup from the Moosewood Lowfat Cookbook but realized I was missing a couple of key ingredients. So I decided to improvise. I cooked onion in olive oil til it was tender and then added three peeled and cut up sweet potatoes, a cut up sweet red pepper and vegetable broth. Instead of the seasonings called for (which were southwestern) I added some curry powder, ginger and garam masala and cooked it til the potatoes were soft. Then I blended it til it was mostly smooth and blended in maybe a third of a cup of peanut butter. I added some frozen corn and simmered it for a few minutes. It was DELICIOUS. Now my goal is to recreate it--I didn't measure anything, but that is how I tend to cook anyway. I get good results, but sometimes it proves impossible to reproduce them.

• What is with BlogRolling anyway? I've only been using it for about 10 days, and 2 of those days it has marked EVERY blog as recently updated, and I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. Other days it doesn't mark all of the ones that ARE updated.
  

• I need to take some comp time at work--I've worked far too many hours on days off lately, but it is hard to find extra time to take off. (I wonder what it would feel like to have a job where you work eight hours and then go home and don't think about it again til the next day? Do those jobs exist? Would I be bored out of my mind?) And how annoying is it to have worked on my day off to meet a deadline only to find out that my boss completely blew the deadline off?
  

• I read and enjoy posts of random comments on lots of other blogs, but when I write one I still fear that it is going to bore everyone silly.