Author: Elaine

Return of the King

I saw Return of the King yesterday with some friends yesterday and loved it. Usually I hate seeing a film made from a book I love, and I have loved the LotR books since I was twelve. I think Scalzi’s essay on Why The Film is Better than the Book addresses this question better than anything else I have seen.

I may even go see it again with Jack. This is quite an accomplishment for a film since I rarely see more than one or two in an entire year.

Handmade Ornaments

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The rubber stamp club to which I belong met at Biaggi’s last night. In addition to great food (I had the risotto special) and fellowship, we had a handcrafted ornament exchange. Here they are.

The ornament in the very back was made using a toddler’s shoe. Someone else made an ice cream cone using a real cone. Altogether, I was impressed by the offerings.

Unfortunately, I didn’t participate because I couldn’t come up with any ideas that I liked. I made several starts, but they didn’t work out.

Roast Chicken

I made roast chicken last night. I don’t make this nearly often enough considering how much I like it and how easy it is. My recipe is simplicity itself: take out the inner bits of a whole chicken and put them down the disposal, rinse chicken with water, stuff which a peeled and quartered onion, put on the jelly roll pan, and bake in the oven for 350 degrees according to the poultry chart in my Good Housekeeping cookbook. A four pound chicken takes 1.5 to 1.75 hours to cook.

The onion keeps the chicken breast, my favorite part, from drying out. Jack and I are a good fit: he likes the dark meat and I like the white meat.

Snow

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I knew we had a chance of snow today, but didn’t expect to wake-up to near blizzard conditions. This photo was taken through the screened window of my office.

Tree

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Jack was joking when he suggested we just use the top of the tree yesterday. Here is the decorated tree.