Books I’ve read recently

In the beginning of December, I went to visit my family in New Mexico for a few days. My wonderful mother, sent me home with a few books as she usually does. Besides Eric Clapton’s biography, she sent me home with a few random books including the first of the Twilight books. Now I had no plans on reading Twilight as I had heard all of the teenage girls were reading it and I, being in my thirties, was much too intelligent to get involved in that sort of thing.

But of course, I picked it up and thirty pages later looked up and realized I was hooked. The next couple of weeks were a blur of frantically reading and Andy making fun of me in his dorky lisp voice. There was an emergency trip to Barnes & Nobles to purchase the third book. I was able to calm down and buy the fourth (and last book) from a great seller on Amazon.com.

One of my Twitter friends recommended another series of books House of Night. This series features a young woman who ends up becoming Marked as a vampyre and has to attend a school for young vampyre’s. I’m currently waiting on the fourth book. I’m not sure how many more there will be. My same Twitter friend (who is a librarian) also recommended Meg Cabot’s “Mediator” series. This set of books protagonist is a young woman named Suze who can see and communicate with the dead.

Do you see the disturbing pattern here? How can a woman of my education and fine upbringing like this subject matter? I’ve always been drawn to these types of stories. I remember reading Edgar Allen Poe before I really understood all of the themes and nuances and being absolutely fascinated with his work. I’ve endured a lot of ribbing from my family and now Andy, but I like the darker side of life. Especially when it comes in the form of juvenile fiction.

My first blog post for work…

I got a chance to write my first blog post for work. Check it out! I can see some things I would change on this post as I am a semi-perfectionist. My next post will be much better. For some reason, I really stressed out about this post. I thought about exactly what I was going to say for two days and then it took me a few hours to write it! Granted I wrote a bit, did some other work tasks, came back to the post wrote some more, did some other works duties, came back and wrote, etc. And there was a lot of deleting. Really. A lot of deleting.

After the post was published, I sent out an email to almost everyone I know with the hyperlink embedded in the email. I’m going to check the stats and see how many people visited our site. I’ll report back with a rough estimate of the number of page views or visitors. It’s pretty exciting seeing your writing on a company website. Yay for me!

(Update: Aisle7 has since removed my post. I’m not sure why.)

Des Moines, IA

My work sent me to Des Moines, IA to demo our software application to end use customers. When I travel for work, it’s usually to train our business clients on how to use our software so this was a unique experience.

For many years, I worked demoing and/or sampling products in stores, festivals, pubs, skateparks, radio events, etc. Not to toot my own horn but I’m pretty good at it. Sampling and demoing looks easy. I mean how hard is it to either show someone how to use something or give them a free product? Well, not everyone can do it. It take a lot of patience, quick wit, the ability to laugh at yourself often, and a desire to interact with the public. And last but not least: passion for what you are doing.

Personally I love to talk to people. I know, all of you are so surprised because I’m so shy. (For those of you who don’t know me, I’m not shy. Really.)I like to find out what they are doing, who they are, what they like, etc.

For this demo, I offered some fruit or nuts or even Kettle Chips newest baked chips. While you are grabbing the toothpick, I ask if you’ve had an opportunity to use the Fresh Ideas Center (see the kiosk beside me?) I then proceed to show you how to use it to find a recipe or choose a great bottle of wine.

Why do I do it? Well, besides the fact that its my job, I do it because I believe in our product. How many times have you gone to the grocery store and not known what you were going to make for dinner? Well, these handy (and might I say conveniently located) kiosks have hundreds of recipes on them.

Have you ever gotten a prescription at your grocery store and wondered if your St. Johns Wort interacted with the new medicine? Well, these kiosks have side effects and interaction information on them. Have you ever purchased produce that was on sale but had no idea what to do with it? Once again, these kiosks have information on buying, storing, and preparing all sorts of produce. You can even access recipes that use that produce.

So if you see one of these kiosks in the store, use it. Print out a recipe. Look up a health condition. Find out about some new produce you’ve been wanting to try.

Fudge Cake

I made Andy a fudge cake for his um…well.. you know. That thing he hates to celebrate, that thing he denies, that thing he doesn’t even want presents for. Last year I made him a carrot cake from scratch. It was my very first cake from scratch. I got the recipe from Land O Lakes. And it was GOOD…. As you all ready read about, my brother Jimmy gave me several cookbooks for Christmas. One afternoon I was looking through the deserts and saw a recipe for fudge cake. It just sounds delicious. And it was pretty easy to make.

In the photo above, I am pouring the ganache on top of the cake. Basically the fudge cake is like making brownies but pouring more water into the mix. Then you bake it and let it cool down. After it’s cool, you mix a cup of creme with some baking chocolate and pour on top. The ganache soaks into the cake and makes the it weigh about two pounds. You let it sit for about an hour and then eat! One of the cool things is that you have extra ganache left over. You can put it on icecream or waffles.


Enjoy!

Des Moines, IA

Just wanted to let you all know that I am in Des Moines, IA for work. I’m not ignoring the blog. Just really busy. I don’t know about the rest of you. I don’t sleep all that well when I’m away from home. Makes it hard to get up and start your day. But anyway, I’ll have a lot of interesting stories and photos to post when I get back. Take care!

Update

Today Andy and I went to Clackamas Town Center to get a Simpsons calendar and some pants for my upcoming trip to Iowa. Andy is a big help when I’m shopping for clothes. He doesn’t join me very often but when he does, it’s really nice. He has a good eye for fashion and color.

We also went to Barnes and Noble to use a gift card that we received for Christmas 2007. Andy picked out an electronic Monopoly game that lets players utilize a ‘credit card’ to make purchases rather than use cash. I chose the second book in a series that my mother got me hooked on. Perhaps you have heard of it: The Twilight Saga. You know the movie and the books that all the young girls are dying over. Yeah, that one.

I also made a soup from “The Ultimate Soup Bible” that my brother gave to me for Christmas. I made Sweet Potato and Red Pepper soup (page 202). I added rice and a bit more Tabasco that the recipe called for. But I like my soups spicy and with a bit of texture. It turned out fantastic!

yum!

Andy and I had a pretty good time on New Years. We hung out with some friends drinking some beer and eating pizza. Dick Clark scared the heck out of us and we got worried that we had missed the last bus home. But all was well.