April 27, 2010 by kim.

For the last month or so, I’ve been playing Suzy homemaker. I’m not too bad at it, either. Cooking? Check. Cleaning? Check. Ironing?

Ironing … ?

Not so much.

I can do it, I’m just not good at it. I haven’t burned anything (yet), but it sure does take a long time. I don’t know why. Mom showed me how to iron. Grandma did, too. Heck, even Chris is better at it than I am. I think it is the perfectionist in me that prevents me from breezing through it.

I get tripped up by things like sleeves. Unless you’re working with a t-shirt, they have things like buttons and pleats (that’s what I call the area where it gathers near the cuff), and that hole area between the cuff (that you’ve buttoned) and the rest of the sleeve. How do you maneuver around that without a special type of ironing board? Then, you have the collar. It curves. How can you press it flat when it curves? Don’t get me started on the shirts that are made to be wrinkled. Do you know how much time I’ve spent in the past trying to straighten one of those?

Sometimes I put in more wrinkles than I take out, no matter what I’m ironing. Unless it happens to be a handkerchief or a curtain, I just can’t get the hang of it. Last time, it took me over ninety minutes to iron five short-sleeved dress shirts, three long-sleeved dress shirts, and three pairs of pants. Should it really take eight minutes apiece?

What about the steam? I put the water in the iron (and almost always spill it), and it seems to randomly shoot steam out beyond my control. Luckily I don’t get my face in the way of it, although it might help with my complexion …

I guess there are some things I’m just not meant to do. Ironing is one of them. Mending clothes is another.

Frankenstein’s monster had straighter stitches …

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April 24, 2010 by kim.

The update is this. I will try to control my MS through diet and stress management. Primarily, cut the sugar that I had gone crazy with since Christmas, and try to relax.

Somehow I misunderstood my Dr. a couple of months ago and thought she told me I HAD to go on this certain drug that I had mentioned to some of you. She didn’t. She said if I WANTED to go on a drug, this would be the one that she would recommend. Way to listen, Kim. I have been completely stressed out about the thought of injecting myself once a week into my leg or arm muscle. As if the shot itself wasn’t going to be bad enough, the list of possible side effects associated with this particular drug are less than favorable:

*Flu-like symptoms (fever, chills, muscle aches, sweating, tiredness) – this is most common
*Depression
*Allergic reactions
*Drop in red or white blood cell levels
*Drop in cells that form blood clots
*Heart problems
*Changes in thyroid function
*Seizures
*Liver injury

Those are just the symptoms listed on the actual product website.

Other side effects I read about from people using the drug state that their flu-like symptoms last anywhere from a day to a week, they’ve had bladder infections, their bones ache, killer migraines, muscle spasms, etc. Yuck. Needless to say, I’m going to hold off as long as I can before I need to subject myself to any of that.

Thing is, the medicine seems to work for a lot of people. That’s great, but it’s just not something I want to try. At least not right now. I know, I know. You’ve seen the video, and you probably wonder why the hell I’m not on something to prevent that. You might even say, “How do you know unless you try it?” I’d prefer quality of life over weekly pain and feeling like I have the flu. Let me tell you, if there was a drug out there that would stop any exacerbations from happening, I would be on it. The MS drugs they have on the market don’t do that. They say that the drugs can push off flares by 30%, but – 30% of what? That number can mean more to one person than another. That isn’t a very high percentage, if you ask me.

There is an oral drug in the works and other promising research going on, so when those treatments come on the market I will look into them. Don’t worry. I’m working with a wonderful neurologist who is understanding and will help me if I get into any trouble. Trouble meaning, a flare I can’t handle. I can put up with quite a lot, though …

Plus, I’ve got my fantastic, caring, lovable husband to help me!

No worries!

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April 20, 2010 by kim.

I thought it was clever …

Chris and I ordered breakfast at a diner a few days ago. Just your basic eggs, bacon (or sausage), potatoes and toast. The waiter asked if we wanted our toast buttered, and we said we did. And so it was.

Naturally, I forgot.

I put jelly on my toast and then realized that the butter was on the other side, presumably melting between the two pieces of bread. It wasn’t, though.

Here is my jelly toast:

Here is the piece of toast underneath:

Here is the other side of the jelly toast:

Why is the butter not melted? Is it butter? Chris kept telling me that it was whipped butter, but I’ve never seen whipped butter look like that. It didn’t taste like butter … it didn’t taste like much of anything but a little like plastic. It sort of looked like Miracle Whip to me, but I don’t think I’ve ever eaten Miracle Whip so I really don’t know whether it was Miracle Whip or not.

Cool Whip. That would have been tasty.

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April 16, 2010 by kim.

No, not the stand-up kind. I’m talking about comic strips. Sunday funnies. The Green Sheet for those of you who remember the old Milwaukee Journal.

I love reading the comics in the Sunday paper. I don’t often buy a paper myself, but my mom will save up the comics from the paper she gets and will mail them to me. That may seem a bit silly to you, but it makes me happy to no end.

So, I was catching up on the comics the other day, and I actually had to look up some of the words I saw. I wasn’t even reading anything heavy like Doonesbury or solving a math riddle given by Jason in Fox Trot. The comics that I got hung up on were Baldo, Get Fuzzy, and Sally Forth (archives).

Let me show you.

First up is Baldo. I wasn’t familiar with this comic, as it must have come from another paper (not my usual Fond du Lac Reporter):

Cascarones was the word that threw me. Initially, I thought that they were throwing hard-boiled colored eggs at each other. After looking it up, I see that they were throwing confetti eggs. Eggs that were hollowed out, rinsed, dried, and filled with confetti. Fun!

Next up – Get Fuzzy:

Being familiar with the characters, I knew that Robert was probably talking about the sport of Rugby. Didn’t mean I knew what he was talking about, though. Here are the definitions:

Scrum
-noun
1. a Rugby play in which, typically, three members of each team line up opposite one another with a group of two and a group of three players behind them, making an eight-person, three-two-three formation on each side; the ball is then rolled between the opposing front lines, the players of which stand with arms around a teammate’s waist, meeting the opponent shoulder to shoulder, and attempt to kick the ball backward to a teammate.

Ruck
-noun
A play in Rugby in which a mass of players gathers around a ball dropped by a tackled ball carrier, with each player attempting to gain possession of the ball by kicking it to a teammate.

Maul
-noun
A play in Rugby in which a mass of players gathers around a ball carrier being tackled and attempts to gain possession of the ball when it is released.

Finally, we have Sally Forth:

DSM-IV? Never heard of it. Is that some sort of texting shorthand? No. It means Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition.

Really? Who would have gotten that? A psychiatrist, I suppose …

Point is, you can always learn something new. Even from something as seemingly simple as the funny pages.

Posted in Fun, Entertainment, Happy | 1 Comment »

April 12, 2010 by kim.

What does that mean, exactly? Does one need a Fred Flintstone car to park there?

Inquiring minds want to know …

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April 7, 2010 by kim.

Chris finished work on a rap video for the book How to Ruin Your Boyfriend’s Reputation by Simone Elkeles about two months ago, and I’m finally getting around to posting this now. This book is the third in the How to Ruin … series. I assisted by taking pictures, documenting the process with Chris’s video camera, and running playback for filming. Meaning, I pressed PLAY on the iPhone and played the music back for the singing and dancing.

Here are some pics!

Recording the soundtrack

Framing a shot

Watching the action

Directing

Cast and Chris

Cast and Simone

Here is the video!

CAST
Amy played by Allynn Simons

with:
John Alix
Erin Krom
Samantha Schechter
Samantha Shafer
Tim Winski

CREATIVE TEAM
Written by:
Simone Elkeles
www.simoneelkeles.net

Directed, Edited, and Music by:
Chris LoDuca
LoDuca Creative and Production
www.loducacreative.com

Choreographed by:
Kristen Gurbach Jacobson

Director’s Assistant:
Kimberly LoDuca

Shot and recorded at American Movie Company:
www.americanmovieco.com

Woo woo!

Posted in Video, Fun, Happy | 1 Comment »

April 2, 2010 by kim.

That would be me. A slow cooker. Someone who takes forever just to make a seemingly simple meal. Baking is my forte – not cooking. Still, I was inspired after watching the movie Julie & Julia. Not so inspired as to try the difficult task of making French food (I’m not that brave), but just enough to try and make some of the things I’ve been seeing on the Food Network. Specifically, on Cooking for Real and Everyday Italian. Sometimes Barefoot Contessa. Sometimes.

I decided to tackle this cooking thing also because I was getting sick of the same old things that we make all the time. Tacos, fajitas, Boboli pizza, chili, pasta, hot dogs, macaroni & cheese, etc. Not too exciting.

The first dish I decided to do was Spaghetti with Olives and Breadcrumbs, Fennel Slaw with Prosciutto, and Bruschetta with Tomatoes (I modified it a bit with onions and pepperoncini and no basil). Looking at the recipes and the preparation times, this meal should have only taken 40 minutes to prepare. Not for me. My time ended up being 4 hours.

4 HOURS.

Let us factor in the issues that I had to begin with.

First of all, the fresh parsley that I bought a few days before had frozen and died in my refrigerator. I misread the directions on storing parsley. Particularly the part about not refrigerating it. Okay. I went and got new parsley. Then I had to shell a little over a quarter of a cup of pistachio nuts. That was fine. I did it while I watched a cooking show. No real time lost there. Then, I looked at the olives I had bought two days prior. They had some weird white specks in them, rendering them useless. Next, the tomatoes I ordered from the A&P (I ordered roma, I got some small vine tomatoes) three days before had white fuzz growing on the vines. Sigh. I had to go back to the store to get some tomatoes and green olives. When I got back, I had to start prepping.

I had to pit the kalamata olives I had, slice up the green olives, cut up the fennel, make the pesto, toast the bruschetta, cook the pasta (I used rice spaghetti which is very hard to work with), make the topping for the bruschetta … by the time Chris got home and was able to help me thin out the pesto (it had ended up the consistency of Spackle, as did the rice noodles), we finally sat down to eat at 8:00pm.

Boy!

It tasted good, at least, and didn’t look too bad:

The next night we had a California BLT. California, I guess, because it had avocado on it. Another simple dinner. Ha ha. The prep time was listed as 10 minutes with a cook time of 25 minutes. Cook time, you ask? Yes. When you are baking the bacon in the oven on a baking rack, it takes 25 minutes. It tastes great, though! Still, the whole thing took me over an hour. You wouldn’t think so, but with me – it did. Washing the lettuce, slicing the avocado and tomato, making guacamole for a side dish/dip … it all took way more time than necessary.

Again, it was very tasty:

The bread I used was ciabatta mainly because I had it left over from when I made the bruschetta the night before. What I really wanted was a large loaf of white bread, but we don’t have any bakeries nearby and the grocery stores don’t sell Texas Toast size bread. I suppose I could have baked a loaf myself since I seem to have the time, but I didn’t. I ended up eating my sandwich without the top slice because it is such a hard and crusty bread that I couldn’t unhinge my jaw enough to take a bite. Too big.

Even something as easy as tuna salad on a cracker took me a half an hour to make:

First I had to set up my plate because when I do open the tuna, Matilda gets all excited and I don’t want to make her wait too long. Then I had to separate out a portion for kitty and another portion for kitty for tomorrow’s lunch, then put the tuna in the food processor, then look something up online which really got Matilda agitated, then put in some mayo, chives, and Spanish olives, then check to make sure Matilda was okay because she pretty much gave up on me giving her any lunch and was uncharacteristically quiet, then pulse pulse pulse, and then it was finally done. That took me 30 minutes.

Sad.

The next thing I’m going to try to make is Baked Felafel Sandwiches with a prep time of 20 minutes and a cook time of 40 minutes. That would translate into about 6 hours, Kim time.

I hope Chris eats before he comes home …

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