That’s right, I make my own birthday cakes: Molten Lava Chocolate Cakes.

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I’ve got nothing special for you today, though I’m planning a post on what I’m making myself for my birthday.

So instead, here are some of my favorite ingredients:

Strawberries
Dark chocolate
Walnuts
Pecans
Lemon
Vanilla

With these ingredients, I love to make:

Bittersweet brownies
Molten lava chocolate cake
Lemon shortbread cookies
Sugar cookies with strawberry icing
Lemon no-bake cheese cake

You?

Sometimes I am quite baffled by the search terms that come in for my blog.

I mean, in the past month there were 18 different searches for me? I find that… unlikely.

But I have had some particularly awesome searches recently.

hot chicks with banjos
Eight different searches for this? Really? I am ashamed to admit that I can’t even think of any female banjo players off the top of my head. And as much as I like the banjo, I don’t see myself taking up stringed instruments again. I’m entirely too lazy for the work required to become good.

things that make people mad
Republicans.

bad reviews in 2009 on the abacus group
I have no idea how this search landed someone at my website. In fact, I can’t even remember talking about abacuses here. Not that I haven’t discussed them before, but still…

peonies buds shrink up and look like the
Well hell, now I want to know the answer to that.

broccoli midgets
OK, the Enchanted Broccoli Forest comes to mind, but I know I’ve never written about that.

3.141592653589
and
2.7182818284
Add ’em together and you get a tasty pastry.

this is not sophie
Oh yes. Yes, it is Not Sophie.

TAG! You’re it!

My day lilies are almost all blooming now. Last year I moved one cultivar to the front of the house, and when I picked up three new varieties at the WVU Greenhouse this year, I took the opportunity to move some other flowers out so most of the day lilies could be in the front bed.

There are also several species of Asiatic lilies blooming, but as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like them, and really don’t like their smell, so I’m not too excited about trying to get close to photograph them. I may move them next year, because their scent is overwhelming.

Jasmine. This is a potted plant I put on the deck every summer, and every winter I wonder if it’s going to survive the basement and the cats.
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I often complain about my hair, but no one seems to take me seriously.

I’ve spent the evening reading, and when I read I often absentmindedly run my fingers through my hair.

Here is the result:

I forgot to mention earlier that Todd Wheeler is once again holding his Summer Reading Program.

For every book we read and post on his site, Todd will donate add $1 (up to $100) to The Children’s Literacy Foundation (CLiF). Additionally, even if we read more than a 100 books, for every 25 individuals who read, Todd’s sponsor will donate one book to the CLiF.

So if you’re reading anyway, you may as well help us force Todd to donate books and money to a good cause!

So… another doctor’s appointment, another medication.

The depression has been okay recently, but the OCD and anxiety not to much. And I’ve been terribly achey for the past month or so, which is not doing much for the anxiety and my ability to relax. SSRIs give me TMJ, but right now all my muscles are tense and unable to relax, which is uncomfortable and unhelpful.

Work has been crushingly busy, and although aspects of it are frustrating, I do really enjoy what I do. My only problem is that although I am good at being a people person, it’s very difficult for me. And exhausting. Especially when dealing with unhappy or frustrated people. And I got a fair amount of those this week. So I’ve been exhausted by the time I get home. Not depressed per se–not really–but unable to do little more than collapse on the sofa when I get home.

But on the bright side, I’m getting lots of exercise, and exercise is good for my depression!

So that’s where I am. Tapering off one med and onto another. We’ll see how this one goes.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Is the week over yet?

Despite the fact that the second book in Simon R. Green‘s Eddie Drood series was sub par, you really should be reading the rest of Simon Green’s books. Especially his Nightside series.

John Taylor is a private eye who also happens to have mystical powers. These powers give him the ability to find lost things. Unfortunately for him, despite thinking he has escaped the Nightside, he’s drawn back in, and one there, he’s returned to the intrigues and mystery that drove him away in the first place.

What is the Nightside you ask? It’s where dark deeds are done and your worst nightmares are available at any price. It’s where all the scary things you were hoping didn’t really exist actually live and hang out.

Nightside is appalling. But so is John Taylor.

The Nightside is full of Gods and monsters, visitors from the past and from the future, and people who simply don’t fit in the real world.

Like John Taylor.

John Taylor is Spenser living in a modern Thieves’ World, only with magical powers. John Taylor is wanted dead by many in Nightside, although he has no idea what he’s done to earn that death sentence. And of course many who want him dead are also willing to hire him, because he may be a right bastard, but he’s also John bloody Taylor, part of the Nightside royalty although no one is quite sure why.

These books are both fantasy and horror, but they’re not frightening (which is what I typically associate with horror). The creatures that fill the Nightside are horrifying monsters, misshapen and evil. Because that’s what the Nightside is. The place where evil can go and hang out.

Why, you are asking, would anyone want to read about John Taylor and the Nightside? Because these are tales well told. Good mysteries, but most importantly they’re a lot of fun. John doesn’t take himself seriously–nor does he take anything or anyone else seriously. Despite his powers, he often relies on slight of hand and a nasty reputation to get things done. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t do nasty things–he does, and sometimes quite willingly. But he also tries to do good, at least in his own way.

That doesn’t mean these books are for the faint of heart. Nightside is a dreadful place where dreadful people and creatures live. Really awful creatures in many cases, such as the Lamentations or even Dead Boy.

Best of all, since Nightside is such a terrible place, Simon Green can have his characters do really terrible things and you don’t feel bad about it at all. But John Taylor and his friends are witty and amusing, so even when they’re being appalling, they’re still a lot of fun.

Nightside: Something from the Nightside (2003), Agents of Light and Darkness (2003), Nightingale’s Lament (2004), Hex and the City (2005), Paths Not Taken (2005), Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth (2006), Hell To Pay (2006), Unnatural Inquirer (2007)

For rejoining the ranks of the gainfully employed!

Now go out and architect stuff!

Yay Anne!

I didn’t think my web design posts were THAT bad.

One day I’ll stop being crushed at work, and then I won’t have to write all my posts for the week the previous weekend.

But that time is not now. Let’s play word association shall we?

Ready? Chronicle

Several friends have recently started diet and exercise programs, and that got me thinking.

I have a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards “diet” as watching what you eat, but am a huge proponent of exercise.

First, I most likely have a mild case of body dysmorphic disorder. Because of my tendencies to obsess, I do not own a scale or a full length mirror, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. If I don’t see the numbers I can’t obsess over them. If I can’t see myself, I can’t look for flaws.

I do, however, focus (obsess even?) on the health aspect of exercise and diet (not in the sense of eat this and get thin, but in the sense of this is what you need to eat to be healthy.) Why? Because I was 28 when I had my first friend die of an undiagnosed heart condition. Since then I have had a multiple friends lose family members due to undiagnosed and untreated health conditions–people who on the surface were completely healthy.

So health is important to me, but I don’t buy the idea that weight is the most important indicator of health status. What I do believe is important is a healthy diet and keeping active.

I haven’t eaten mammals for coming up on twenty years–that’s more than half my life. The reason I stopped eating mammals was for ethical issues–I believe that we are required to treat animals ethically, and as I’ve noted many times before, the food industry does not, in fact, behave ethically when it comes to the animals or even humans.

Aside from that, I eat what I like and what I think tastes good. But that last bit is the kicker: I bake and decided long ago junk food was a poor substitute for what I can make at home. Why eat products that are artificial when I can make things that taste so much better? Can everyone do that? Perhaps not. But I can guarantee that goodies from a local bakery are going to taste better than the products with a shelf life of years.

Is this more expensive or time consuming Yes. But as I said, I want to eat things that taste good, not just because they are there.

And then there’s exercise.

As I’ve noted before, exercise is one of the ways I treat my depression, and that has kept me exercising when I’d just as soon give it up. It forces me to go to the gym when I’d rather go home and collapse on the sofa.

My exercise plan started out modestly: some friends and I would walk at lunch time. Did it more days than not, but rarely five days a week. Then I switched jobs, and that 30 minutes a day walking morphed into a way to keep in touch with my friend at my old job. I left that job nine years ago, yet excluding her pregnancy, my friend Kim and I have continued to walk for half an hour at lunch.

This walking isn’t just exercise, it’s our chance to keep up, and our break from the day. It’s when I try and reframe the crappy events of the day into amusing stories. And yes sometimes we bitch and complain, but for my, this time is a haven in the middle of the day. And eventually, even when she can’t walk with me, I walk for 30 minutes by myself with my mp3 player. Why? Because that break in the middle of the day is far more important than I first thought. If I’m in the office, I can be asked questions. I’m looking at my computer. I can hear the phone ring. I can see e-mails coming in. When I’m walking that is 30 minutes I am away from my desk. Yes, I do get stopped in the halls, but I’ve discovered that most people are loathe to interrupt my time and conversations with Kim, so questions tend to take a few seconds–something very different from when I’m walking the halls normally.

And eventually I discovered that I felt a lot better on days when I walked at lunch. So then I started adding in a trip to the gym. First just to walk, but after awhile I started adding in the machines for weight training as a break from walking. But I kept it up because it made me feel better.

And that, truly, is what I believe you have to do if you want to be healthy. You have to find an exercise that you like, and then do it every work day, five days a week (or seven days a week, but I think seven days a week is unreasonable.) Why every day? Because it’s too easy to slip into the pattern of, “Oh, I’m really (whatever) today, I’ll do it tomorrow.” And then you’re maybe doing it one day a week, and then you don’t bother at all. Because every day the (whatever) may change, but it’s always something. There is always something “better” to do than go to the gym, so (excluding illness and injury) there are no free days.

Because when you come right down to it, there is nothing better I can do than take care of myself.