Seizure Salad

Wish List

Perhaps I'm feeling the bite of the economic downturn, but I found myself daydreaming about stuff I'd like to have recently. I'm pretty low-maintenance when it comes to discretionary spending - when I am flush (not very fucking lately) I spend disposable income on getting fancier than average groceries, spinning fibre and yarn, take out food. That's really about it.

But I daydream of these things:

1.    This awesome, amazing, wonderful crocheted vinyl album pillow from Toggle on Etsy.

2.    A Lampe Berger. Damn, I've wanted one of these for years, specifically this one.

3.    A set of really, really good cookware. Really good. Like, think of really good cookware (Calphalon, Paderno etc) and then imagine cookware designed by rocket scientists that makes that stuff look like disposable aluminum pie plates. Maybe this.

4.    Same goes for knives. I have fantasies about this bread slicer.

5.    A ridiculously expensive but so worth it smelly candle from Diptypque.

6.    A vintage Gretsch drum kit.

7.    A $50 steak at House of Chan.

8.    A vacation on Tiree or in Tuscany or Tanzania or Tampere.

9.    My favorite perfume from Frederic Malle which in maddeningly, inaccessably expensive.

Top of my wish list is something which is inaccessible not because it's too expensive, but because the service (and related services) are not in Canada yet due to factors like the Canadian market being too small for these companies to see the worth in negotiating a bunch of licensing agreements outside of the U.S.

10.    The new way the world is going to listen to music on the go.

Jinxed

I am totally jinxed today, at least where cooking is concerned. I went for a walk with the dog and forgot that I had chicken breasts poaching on a skillet on the stove. Got back to the smoke detector blaring and the pan boiled dry. Not to mention rubbery, overcooked chicken breasts.

Tried to salvage chicken breasts by making a chicken, broccoli and rice casserole (a back of soup-can label special) and after cooking for twice as long as the recipe indicated, had crunchy uncooked rice and dried-out top.

Made bread (corn bread from Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread) on my new pizza stone...only to discover that you need a peel to get free-formed round loaves from your counter to the pizza stone. Had flat, deflated doorstops.

During all of this, dropped and spilled many many things on the floor.

Since I am grumpy and have ruined the casserole I've decided to make brownies from a bagged mix for dinner in protest. I am pretty sure I can't possibly fuck this up. Although I did add extra cocoa and instant coffee powder - I take that back, it is entirely possible I could fuck it up.

It's nice though that it is just now getting dark at 7:28 pm - yay for daylight savings time!

E.T.A April 13 - just now re-reading this post, and thought I should update the "how can you possibly fuck up bagged brownie mix" comment. Well, you can't - but you *can* unwisely leave them out on the counter for the dog to consume, thereby ensuring a very expensive trip to the emergency vet late at night.

A little promise to myself

I'm writing a little promise here to myself, to help me actually follow through on it. For anyone in the same circumstance in April who can do it, why not join me?

April is a 3-pay period month for me. I am going to use the "extra" pay period to pay off my credit card debt.

I'm lucky - my credit card balance is relatively small (but ask me about my student loans - ha!). I'd like to pay my balance down to zero and I think I can do it within 2 months with that extra April paycheque.

There is a very large part of my brain that wants to take my extra April paycheque and go to Spain, or Cuba, or just about anywhere other than here. I am telling it to be patient.