What You're Doing

Happy New Year everyone! It's 2009, and like everyone else I've got my own list of resolutions. Some of them are even applicable to this little ole blog!

First and foremost, I SCORED this year at the holidays. I got some incredibly great gifts. I won't bother to give you the gorey details of the rapture I felt when using my brand new can opener. When I reached into my stocking and pulled it out I squealed with joy. Thatboy was confused when I told him I loved it more than any other gift I received. He put his foot down when I asked if I could sleep with the can opener beside me on my pillow. But you've got to understand. I hate hate hate our old can opener. It doesn't work and I have more cuts from trying to get into cans then I'd care to share. It's uggggggly. Sharp metal is not my friend.

This one is like magic. It's got one handle and cuts the top clean off - no sharp edges! AND to save my fingers even more, it has a special tool to lift off the lid! There are plenty more cooking related gifts from Thatfamily and Thatboy which will undoubtedly make future appearances, but now it's time to introduce the newest addition to Thathouse... drumroll please

My brand new droolworthy camera!!!!!!! See, years and years and years ago back when we were living beside the Flintstones, Thatboy got me a gift of a digital camera. It ran off of Windows 2000. Anyone remember Windows 2000? The world was not kind to Windows 2000 and it wasn't long before Windows 2003 rolled along, and my camera became obsolute. Seriously it required special software to download the pictures, and that software would not run on Windows 2003. And the computer refused to recognize the camera as any sort of camera or storage device. So I was back to my old film camera I won at Senior Night at my high school. My parent's had given Thatboy a digital camera shortly thereafter and we pretty much both used it for all our photography needs. Shortly after getting engaged, I went to live in Europe for a summer and took the digital camera with me so I could send home pictures. I never really gave it back to him. Which was fine, we spend most of our memorable times together anyway. But the camera is old and takes forever to take a picture. It can't take any pictures indoors without giving me a message that it's blurry and am I joking or do I really want to save this piece of crap picture.

So Thatboy decided I've been such a good girl this year I deserved something bright and shiny. He picked this one out for several reasons. First and foremost, it's green! Green is my favorite color. Second, it can be dropped from 6.6 feet without any damage at all. Those of you that know me, can appreciate why this is probably a good thing. Third, it's waterproof! For real waterproof! As in, it can take pictures underwater! Which is good given that we love love love snorkeling. Although, in truth, the idea of taking the camera underwater scares the beejeebus out of me and I have told Thatboy under no uncertain circumstances that we won't be using that feature. He keeps threatening to drop it in the sink accidently onpurpose.

I love my new camera and all its new features including (and here's where it gets blog related) a CUISINE setting!!! (although I think I've been using the self-portrait setting more, and the people in line at BestBuy were highly entertained when I tried out all the different lighting settings on Thatboy. Best Buy has neutral flourescent lighting if anyone is interested) Now I can make even jam on bread look appetizing!

Mmmmmm don't you want to take a big ole bite of that goodness? And if you're ever in Idyllwild (and really you should be) be sure to pick up some of the Wild Huckleberry jam. It's very versatile. I put it on everything!

I'm still playing with all the settings on the camera, and so far have come up with a new favorite picture. It's a combination of various color settings, exposure settings, and zoom settings.

Thatdog really enjoyed his new Christmas ball. Thatboy really enjoys the fact it glows in the dark.

Tomorrow I'll fill you in on my other new year's resolution! But for now, I'll leave you with an improvement. You may recall the last time I made fried rice I deemed it completely inauthentic. All my comments said that mine was pretty much as authentic as it gets, but I still hate using the packaged stuff, so I used a tip from gaga: "The keys are to use leftover rice (ideally because it's drier and less likely to give you mushy fried rice) along with whatever meats and veggies and seasoning (usually soy sauce and/or salt) you want!" So here's my authetic version of fried rice.

Non-cheater fried rice

• 1 Tbsp butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 Tbsp canola oil
• 1 green onion, sliced
• 1 cup cooked rice
• 1/2 lb ground pork
• tablespoon soy sauce

1. In skillet over medium heat, melt butter and lightly scramble eggs. Remove eggs from skillet and set aside.
2. Brown pork in same saucepan and set aside.
3. Add oil to saucepan and heat on high until very hot. Add green onions and stirfry for one minute.
4. Lower heat to medium. Add rice and pork and stirfry 2 minutes or until heated through.
5. Add soy sauce and scrambled eggs and stirfry 1 more minute.