Poison

This may look harmless...I think it looks like dog food.


Yesterday I spent the afternoon distributing rat poison around the storage unit facility, as well as inside all the vacant units. It was actually kind of fun...if I ignored the reeking smell of rotten fish (that's supposed to smell good to rats and mice). I felt like taking a shower when I finished that job.


Tonight I decided to go work in the garden. I was just walking around, surveying the area to decide what to do with it when I almost stepped on this little guy.

It's kind of cute...

...even though it's dead.

I guess the poison is working.

Cantaloupe

My little plants are finally starting to sprout! I'm trying to stay on top of it and get lots of pictures as they grow so I can put them all together and make a plant video at the end.

Growing Crystals

I bought this little crystal growing kit a few weeks ago for us to do for fun for a date night. We finally got to it tonight. Here's a few pictures for the beginning, and then I'll post pictures later when the crystals have formed.



I read the instructions and Greg did a good job doing what I told him to do and mixing the solution. He even wore the safety goggles! (Haha, they're made for a small child and looked funny on him. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture.)






So it's supposed to grow some bigger frosty white crystals in one, and then dark purple geodes in the other. It's actually just the same crystals with dye that will grow on a plaster mold that we made.




This is about an hour after we poured the solution. The crystals are forming fast!

The Temple

This is a video the church put on it's website, kind of in answer to the TV show "Big Love" and the curiosity I'm sure they've inspired in many people.

World Builder

Put it on full screen when you watch this. It's very interesting.


World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Planting time!

The time has finally come for me to start planting my little garden vegetables! These will be beautiful red and yellow bell peppers. I'm planting some now and more later so when the peppers start appearing I don't have a hundred all at once. I can't wait to see the first little bits of green leaves when they poke out of the soil. It's fun to watch them when they grow so quickly!

Kleptomaniac

Yesterday Greg and I were on a date. I picked him up from school and we were just going to run some errands and get a few things to make pizza for dinner. While we were wandering around the mall, we decided to go into Rite Aide. Just as we walked in we both saw this woman fumbling around with some stuff and shoving it in her big baggy black bag. I pretended to be looking at some stuff nearby (but actually watched her) while Greg went and told the clerk. She saw Greg go to the clerk so she jetted. She went to the women's bathroom right outside the store, so I followed her there and pretended to blow my nose. When she saw me she quickly left the bathroom and went into a restaurant across the hall from the bathroom and Rite Aide. We tried looking for her there but she had just walked straight through the restaurant and out the other side to the street. It was kind of a disappointment since we actually saw her stealing stuff, but it was hard to say what exactly she was stealing, and the clerk couldn't just tackle her based on what we said.

So we continued our shopping at Rite Aide. When we were done there we went back into the hall of the mall and sat down at a table to talk about what we would do next. To our surprise the same woman with the big bag came walking back into the mall. I couldn't believe she would come back! So we jumped up and decided to follow her and see if we could catch her stealing again. Greg was too excited and wanted to follow her closer, but I said we should keep a distance so we could be sly about it. We were like real detectives! Hahahah!

At some point while she was walking down the long mall hall she turned her head as if looking at stuff in a store window but she looked back a little and saw us following her. So she walked all the way down to the end of the mall and then looped around and went back to the beginning of the mall. We stepped inside a store to spy, so the next time she looked back she didn't see us. She went right back into Rite Aide and went straight to the back of the store. We followed her in, and I told the clerk she was back while Greg followed her secretly with his camera phone ready. He knew she was towards the end of one aisle, so he came around from the side and got this picture of her while she was in the act of stealing.



Notice how her one hand is reaching up to something on the top shelf. That's what everybody's supposed to see. Then her other hand is reaching into the lower shelf and sliding stuff off into her big bag. She managed to slip out the front door that leads to the street before we noticed. So Greg and I (having fun being detectives) followed her all the way to Winco. We watched her get a cart and start towards the produce section, so we ran to Customer Service and told the clerk there. A couple men clerks jumped up to listen, and then made a quick signal. Their secret shopper came over and looked at her picture on the phone, then took off to find her. He looked like some random old skinny guy carrying a bag of groceries. He was good too, because we couldn't find him after that.

We did a little shopping there and decided to forget about the woman. But then when we went to the check out line, there she was! After she paid for her stuff she went to go bag her groceries (you bag your own at this store) and we noticed her tying her big black bag (which was a little fuller) closed. Then she took her stuff and sat on a bench. I went to get the car (from the complete other side of the mall) and Greg stayed to keep an eye on her. He said that an older man (probably her husband) came and got her, and then they drove away together. And that was the end of our crime detectives gig.
It made our date a little more interesting than just buying jeans and pizza stuff.

Tortellini--The noodles

To make the noodle part of your Tortellini, crack an egg in a bowl and mix it up. I used two eggs and that made enough for two people with a little extra.



Then plop some flour in your bowl and start mixing it up with a fork.



I don't know how much flour to use...it's just until the mix becomes workable and not so sticky anymore. This picture shows it halfway--it still needs more flour.



It will start to be too hard to mix with a fork. That's when you flour the counter and dump it all out of the bowl. You can mash it with your hands until you think it's dry enough to use a rolling pin and roll it out.



It's kind of hard to roll out. I use a jerking kind of motion in short bursts instead of the long slow rolling you do for sugar cookies. That seems to work the best. The dough is kind of stretchy and will keep stretching out and back in if you do it slow.



How thick to roll it: If it's too thin it will tear as you try to stuff the noodles, but too thick makes for a thick icky noodle. So, maybe about the thickness of a tortilla is good. You can just experiment and see what you like.

Tortellini--Stuffing the noodles

Ok. So you've made your noodle dough, now you need to make the stuffing. Again, I don't use precise measurements. I just plop some spinach (the frozen kind, thawed and drained) in a bowl. For just two people I used about 1/4 cup of spinach. Then you can add about 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese, and a cup of ricotta cheese. (It's ok to use the fat free ricotta if you want. It turns out just the same.) Mix it up and that's your filling! (This amount made a LOT. I made too much because I had friends over for dinner and didn't know how much to do. I'm planning to just use it up and freeze whatever we don't feel like eating right now.)



Next, cut out circles of dough. The top of a glass works pretty well.



You can kind of stretch out your circle a little more if it's thick enough. Then plop a small amount of filling the middle. This is probably about a teaspoon. In a small bowl mix up an egg with a little bit of water. I actually just used a small amount of the egg that I was using to make the noodle dough. You don't need to waste a whole egg on this part.

After you've mixed up the egg and water you can use your finger tip or a small paintbrush to wet the circle of dough around the edges. (This works like glue.)



Then pick it up and fold it over in half. Be careful not to squish the guts part. If they squish out to the edge it will be hard to make your noodle seal shut.



Pinch all the edges together so it seals well. It's a little easier if the egg on the edges isn't too wet. I let it sit for just a minute and it gets a little tacky. Also, if it's not dripping wet then your fingers don't get so gummed up while you're pinching them all closed.



I like to make them all at the same time. I think it goes fast to cut them all out, and then put the filling on all of them, and paint egg on all of them....etc.



When you've got them all made then you can put them in a pot of boiling water. It's good for the water to be boiling already before you put the noodles in, so they just cook quickly instead of disintegrating in the water while it heats up.



The noodles cook pretty fast--about 5 minutes I think. You will know they are done because they will float to the top. It's obvious also when you scoop them out of the water because the noodle is solid instead of floppy.



I still can't decide if I like this better with the red sauce or the alfredo. Both are delicious!



I'm sure there are many variations that would be good. One time I added garlic powder to the spinach/cheese mixture and that was pretty good. I think it would be good to add shredded chicken, or you could probably do ground turkey with italian seasonings and red sauce on top. Let me know if you find something that works well and I'll try it too!

Beautiful

One thing I love about Pullman is the mornings are always so beautiful...even though it is just 9 degrees right now, you wouldn't know it with the way the sun is shining.