New menu

I've been meaning to blog this for more than a week now... but I guess late is better than never.

When I talked to Hunter Naman out at 5East for my story on salad dressings, I asked when he was going to change his menu again (he does this every now and again)... He actually had a new one at the printers and hit some of the high points of the new one.

• Balsamic chicken wrap
• Added desserts - apple pie and bourbon pecan pie
• Jumbo roasted prawns
• Roasted duck breast
• Risotto
• Turkey burgers
  

No, my dryer is not broken

I have two stories to share.

One is sad. The other is mildly amusing.

THE SAD: I am a bad dog mom.
I got home late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning and gathered up a load of laundry to wash as I got ready for bed. Evidently, when I went into the laundry room, both of my dogs followed me in and then went out the doggie door in the garage. But I only saw Lulu go out. So when she came back in, we both headed back the hall to go to bed. I noticed Gracie wasn't in the bedroom, but assumed she had gone into the living room and gone to sleep in her crate (which she does on occasion).

I didn't sleep well, but I thought it was because I'd had an eventful day. But when I got up this morning, Gracie still wasn't in my room. She wasn't in her crate, either.

And what is a good dog mom supposed to do then?

Panic.

So I panicked. I ran out into the back yard looking for her. She wasn't there, so I ran into the garage, where the happiest dog ever (also possibly the wettest dog ever because of overnight rain) bounded through the door. She had evidently spent some significant time outside this morning, but I could tell that she'd slept on her pillow out in the garage at least part of the night.

No wonder I didn't sleep well. My baby was in the garage, wet and cold.

At least she didn't threaten to call the ASPCA on me.

That was the sad. Now on to the amusing.

Photo Editor Jeff Melton and I have been working on an illustration for my column on Sunday (which is about finding the right pair of jeans to fit your body). After a few minutes of brainstorming, we decided it would be cool to string up a makeshift clothesline in the studio and use clothespins to hold the jeans on the line.

But after stringing it up, one pair of jeans made it sag so far that we quickly realized the studio was not the right spot.

A day later, Jeff and I found ourselves outside, at the very front of The Star. The line fit perfectly between the columns at the front of the building. (Jeff's idea, by the way) The sun was shining perfectly and the wind was blowing (an added bonus we hadn't expected). As we were hanging the jeans on the line, one woman going through the parking lot asked what we were doing. My explanation: Sunday Lifestyles.

Moments later, a police officer came rolling through with a prisoner in the back of his car.

"You know, my dryer works at home," the officer yells from his window.

We cracked up.

Because before then we were so focused on what we were doing that we didn't notice all the people driving up and down the road staring at us.

So, if you were one of those people, I have an explanation: Sunday Lifestyles.

Better than a vacation

I don't think I've had a better weekend than this one in a long time. I'm usually out of town on the weekends, but ended up staying in Shelby. My intentions were to work on some minor house projects, do some much-needed cleaning and maybe cook a meal or two.

Instead, I watched two Netflix movies Friday night ("Bounce" was absolutely wonderful, while "Dog Park" pretty much took a nose dive). Then Saturday I slept until lunchtime then cruised around the Internet for a while, made a few phone calls and discovered that there's a watch-it-now feature that comes as part of my Netflix subscription. So... continuing in my laziness, I watched "A Good Woman," (also a wonderful film) then two Ron White comedy shows (both were quite funny), then completed the first half season one of "30 Rock." (Here's the show's Web site) The incredible laziness continued on into Sunday and I finished the rest of the season.

For those of you who know me, the fact that I watched that much TV will probably come as a shock... and an even bigger shock is that I'll probably start watching "30 Rock" episodes regularly.

So, with all that said, my weekend was better than a vacation... though I do feel a little guilty about slacking off...

Just in case you're wondering, I did get a few household tasks done... and I blogged.

Miss Scarlett is no lady

A few months ago, Lifestyles Land was given an evaluation copy of an upcoming book called "Rhett Butler's People." The book, based on Margaret Mitchell's classic "Gone With the Wind," is written from Rhett Butler's perspective (hence the title).

I'm going to try not to spoil the plot, though, so parts of this will be a little vague.

In Mitchell's original, Rhett was always my favorite character, so I was overjoyed to find out that this book was all about him. Before I started it, I had seen several ads for the book and a New York Times Book Review issue that gave it what I interpreted as a thumbs-up.

My conclusion after reading it is that it might not have been worth all the hype, but I do, overall, like it and would recommend it to "Gone With the Wind" fans. They do, however, need to be cautioned that it repeats part of the original (as it must), which is a little annoying. The book is written using everyday language and I'm confident that anyone who has read the original should be able to read this one without any problems.

Although the book explores the personalities of Rhett's people - Belle, Tazwell, etc., the development of Rhett's father was a lacking in my opinion, while the development of Andrew and Rosemary are perfect. How things end with Andrew and Tazwell are great, though.

The ending is a bit bittersweet, which I liked and the reading itself went by fairly quickly, which I also liked.

Overall, the book gets a thumbs-up from me, despite its flaws. It's a good read, but don't come out of it expecting it to be as good as the original.

Here's a link to the book's Web site.

The best redneck Christmas ever

I spent some time the other night with a good friend of mine from college who happened to be in town. We had a lot of funny moments, including these three:

He went to visit family that he didn't know that well. Upon pulling up in the driveway, he was greeted by more chickens than he saw the entire time he was in the Peace Corps, along with plastic deer that were riddled with bullet holes. But they weren't the only thing with bullet holes - his distant family's mobile home also had them. Upon entering, the Christmas tree was Dale Earnhardt and the background noise... yep, they were watching a Jeff Foxworthy special on CMT.

The other odd thing I will relay is that there really isn't an un-awkward way to hug in a car.

And... chocolate-covered espresso beans are not meant for canine consumption. My dogs stole them from my mother's Christmas gift. They were all four OK, but were literally bouncing off the walls for hours.

Kitty problem solved

After putting out a plea for help with the kitty meowing at random times inside my house problem, the solution was oh, so simple.

All I had to do was turn off the volume on my computer's speakers.

Turns out, someone on my IM list has a cat's meow sound when they sign in or out of IM.

So much for putting tuna out in my garage...

Anyway, I felt like a doofus, but I sure am relieved to not have a cat stuck in my home.

Kitty crisis

It seems like every couple of days, something will go wrong at the house...

One of my dogs will conduct a successful trashcan raid or rip the stuffing out of a toy and scatter white fuzz all around the house, or something will start leaking or an appliance will squeak... just about any of these things disturbs the domestic tranquility...

But here's a new one.

We keep hearing a cat meowing.

It started last night and has continued into the morning. Every few hours, a meow or two. But I can't figure out where it's originating. Obviously from a cat, but I can't tell if it's somehow stuck inside my house (although I think the dogs would have taken care of that problem), inside the garage, which is enclosed and hasn't been open since Saturday, or outside somewhere. Each time it happens, I go to all the doors and check to see if I can see anything... but I'm not having any luck finding this misplaced kitty.

Anyone have a suggestion on how to 1) Find it and 2) Get rid of it?

Post-Christmas chatter

It's the first day after Christmas and "Lifestyles Land" is back and in rare form. We're tired and cranky and some of us would actually rather be here than at home.

Although most of our Christmas celebrations went off without a hitch, I think we've all taken about as much insanity as we can possibly handle.

Allison (Assistant Lifestyles Editor) has dealt with noisy kid toys and pondered why a barn her son received doesn't have a place for the sheep, which were included in the set. She was, however, super-excited about the stuffed Yoda her husband bought her and the slightly off-kilter magnets her sister gave her.

Cherish (Reporter) announced that she got the most fabulous set of pots and pans ever. (FYI, I'm more than a little jealous.)

I, however, was quite excited over the gift of a Belgian waffle maker. Yay! I tried it out on Christmas morning... my first attempt stuck to the maker and came out in little fluffy chunks. This, of course, was at 7 a.m. (not the best time of day for me) and had a little freakout moment. My sister, who got one last Christmas and who is, by now, an old pro at making them, notified me that I didn't use enough nonstick cooking spray. I'll know that for next time...

My mother also did me the kindness of purchasing a new dining room table and chairs for my house... I was a little concerned beforehand because mom's style is very ornate, while mine is a little more "Pottery Barn," but she did a great job picking it out and I like it. (BTW, thanks mom!)

At any rate, I think all of us in the corner had a pretty good holiday...

Until next time, enjoy your own gifts!

Health addition

I promised earlier this week in the paper that I'd add some information here that I couldn't fit into the lab tests package. So... here it is.

A urinalysis really does show a lot -- from infection to diabetes.
If there are white blood cells in the urine, there could be an infection.
If there are ketones, the person could have gastroenteritis (stomach upset/infection) or diabetes.
If there is protein in the urine, a person could be diabetic.
If the microlbumin if off, it could be an early sign of diabetes.

A CBC is also a pretty telling test.
In addition to the things I mentioned in the paper, it checks for several other things.
MCV - Helps determine which type of anemia a person might have. If it's low, then the patient has iron deficiency anemia. If it's high, the patient has pernicious anemia. Usually if this number is off, the doctor will also check Iron and folate levels.

An interesting bit of trivia: Dr. Robert Jones Sr. also told me that physicians can tell if a patient is drinking too much alcohol based on their blood count results.

Dr. Chris Cerjan also mentioned that all children, when they're born, are screened via a heel poke at the hospital for several diseases and disorders. The blood is sent to a state lab, where a thyroid test, a test for sickle cell anemia and tests for other rare congenital conditions are performed.

The best pretzels ever

My sister and mom and I made our yearly trek to the Amish horse sale in Troutman (near Statesville) on Friday night. As always, we looked around at the horse-related items in the buildings and the variety of buggies and wagons parked outside, then we went inside toe barns to look at the horses and mules. They ranged in size from about 100 pounds for miniature ponies to thousands of pounds for the draft horses. Prices ranged from $100 to more than $4,500 for a single animal while we were there. We also got our yearly Amish pretzels that are made out of some secret recipe yeast dough. They were, like always, fabulous?

This year went significantly better than last year, when I slid down the hill in a mixture of mud and horse manure. I won't tell the whole story on here because it involves a great deal of bad language, laughter and some poor Amish kid accidentally seeing a little more flesh than he bargained for. (It's a much funnier story now than it was a year ago.) It was also a lot warmer this year than it was two years ago when we were walking popsicles with scarves.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and it's yet another chance for Graham to mock my agricultural upbringing, but I don't care... I got a pretzel out of the deal.

Think you might want to go? It's not over for another day or two. For more info., call the Iredell County Fairgrounds. To get there, get on I-77 and take the Old Mountain Road exit. We took I-40, so I can't give more specific directions from Shelby.