Emily's Adventures in Wonderland: June 2010

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Disgruntled Dieting: Black Bean Burger

Per Mrs. Guzman's Request, here is my very, very complicated and difficult recipe for black bean burgers:

Ingredients:
Whole Wheat Hamburger Bun
Fresh Spinach
Tomatoes, sliced
Red Onions, thinly sliced
Light Sour Cream
Liption Onion Soup Mix (dry)
Hidden Valley Dill Dip Mix (dry)
Top Secret Black Bean Ingredients.

Spray your bun with Pam and stick it in the frying pan to toast.
Spray the pan with Pam too.
Thinly slice red onions and put in the pan to grill. Do not add water or any other moisture. These should cook dryly so they are grilled and not mushy.

Get however much sour cream you think you will need per person, per burger. Slap that in a bowl. Put in the dill and onion dip mixes into the sour cream- just enough to season it to your own personal taste. Remember this is replacing mayonaise or thousand island or whatever you usually put on your burger. So, it should be flavorful to you.

Take the toasted buns out of the frying pan and smear some of your onion dill spread on both the roof and basement of the bun.

Now. This is the very important part. And it is top secret and you can't tell a SOUL. This is how we make the black bean burger. Promise not to tell? You have to swear. Ok, as long as we are on the same page I will tell you. Go to the grocery store. Go to the freezer section. Find the shi-shi-foo-foo vegetarian section where they sell Morning Star brand. Find the one that says, "Morning Star Black Bean Burger." Buy it. Take it home. Microwave the burgers for 30 seconds at a time, per side, for a total of one minute. Spray your pan with pam again and throw your burgers in the pan with the onions. Grill it up til it's brown on each side.

Put the burger on your bun, stack your spinach on top and your tomantos and grilled onions and put the roof on! Eat it. All done. C'est Fin.

I have a picture, but I think it must be on my crashed external drive because I can't find it on my laptop. :(

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Monday, June 28, 2010

Amelia's Surgery

So, Amelia had dental surgery last Tuesday. She had a pre-check on Monday night and then I dropped her off at 7am the next morning at Banfield. I was very sad to see her go and I felt very guilty for taking her on her third trip to the vet in 4 days!

I talked with the vet on and off during the day to discuss her lab results and how her cleaning was going and what needed to be done. She unfortunatley had to have two teeth extracted. :( So she came home at 3pm on Tuesday afternoon on painkillers and Clindomyacin (antibiotics). Here is Amelia in her kitty-recovery suite on the floor of my very messy room:

As you can see, we kept her medicine close by. She's got her special blankie and pillow from Great Grandma Nelson, which were actually dollie blankies for me when I was little. (Grandma died in 1993, long before Amelia. But I don't think she would have minded.) We've got Amelia bribery- her brush, which she loves and of course, Dairy the cow, a webkinz to snuggle if she got lonely. Also, her dry cat food soaked in water. She cant have kibble for two weeks!

You can see her poor lil shaved paw in this one where they took her blood!!! :(

And here she is feeling a little better, outside on the porch sniffin' the flowers.

And in her private recovery suite, with her special blankies and bear where she can hide from Tootie, who thinks pouncing on her while she's high on painkillers is totally fine.

She's flyin' HIGH!! Flop, flop, flop!

Amelia doing some extra credit flopping. I haven't seen her flop around like this since I brought her home from the orphanage and she was in heat and flopped all over the exam table at the vet's while purring hysterically. She was SO happy to be safe at home with Mommy!!!

Tootie decided Amelia's ultra-feminine satin and minky pink blankie was the perfect spot for a bath and a nap. I swear, he really is a boy!

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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Emily = Disaster

You are more than welcome to come to your own conclusions. I have already reached mine.

Let's lay out the facts:

In the last 3 weeks the following things have occured:

The lcd inverter on my laptop blew, rendering me completely incapacititated in regards to work. No one on this planet had the parts to fix it on the spot, so of course everything had to be special ordered. This all happened 48 hours before my magazine submission was due. Right.

My computer is still not fixed and the guy won't return my emails.

My bathtub has clogged with my [currently long] hair. I keep forgetting to buy draino. Therefore, my tub is a breeding ground for... you know... stuff.

My car started vibrating when I drove over 70mph on the freeway. I took it in to the dealer where I was informed that one of my tires was splitting in half down the middle, among other things. Hello $450 bill.

Amelia went in for her 4 year old birthday check up and kitty shots and we walked out with a $1500 estimate for requisite dental work and a $250 recepit for the exam, vaccines, and a full blood panel, as required prior to a dental. The blood panel alone was around $150.

I called another place and found out blood panels could have been done there for like, $80.

I got a call from the vet that Amelia's kidney values were in a "gray area" and that they needed to do a urine analysis for an additional $110.

I took the cat to Banfield (PetSmart Vet- whom said everything my vet told me was absolute bunk) and had to drop an additional $50 on another physical 3 days after the first one, and another $200 on a second blood panel and the teeth cleaning.

Amelia's creatinine (kidney) levels were supposed to be between .5-1.8. They came back at 2.1. So her kidneys actually aren't on par. They reccomended the urine analysis to check her specific gravity--- urine concentration.

I consented to the urine analysis. But I consented before I found out that it was rated at $140; $30 more than my home vet.

I later called my home vet to get her specific creatinine levels, which were apparently 1.9. How can something like that jump from 1.9-2.-1 in 3 days? One of the tests in wrong. How do I find out which? By re-testing.... right...

They cleaned her teeth. She has "absorbtive teeth" meaning her body is basically eating away her teeth, in addition to have gingivitis and tartar. She had to have two teeth pulled.

Hello $650 bill.

Tootie yanked on the cord for my 500gb external hardrive, and dropped/pulled it to the floor from the kitchen table where I am now required to work since I have to use an external monitor with my laptop while I wait for the loser repair guy to get with the program. Of course, the external hardrive is now broken. It is telling the computer it has magically turned from a hardrive into a cd drive. Because that is TOTALLY the same thing.

Two shoots, an engagement and a newborn session are NOT backed up and are on that drive. Of course they would be.

I just got home from shooting a wedding for my old boss, the father of the twins whom got me into this business in the first place. The pictures sucked. The weather was terrible (sunny, spotty shade, yelch) and I don't think I got any good shots at all in the time I was there (one hour). I feel like they are so terible I should give them a refund.

I got home and turned on my camera to take a picture of my blackberry violet macaron ice cream sandwich I got at my favorite patisserie here in Sacramento (ok, the ONLY patiserrie) and my fancy camera won't take pictures with auto focus.

AWESOME.

Emily=Disaster

Did I mention I have $2300 charged to my credit card and no income scheduled to come in?

FANTASTIC.

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Wednesday, June 09, 2010

I am going to be published. :)

I received the following letter on Monday:

Hello, Ms. Emily -----,

I ran across your blog in one of your postings in another blog, and I liked the images you have for "Jake and Tina take Tiburon." I am the editor of Latino Bride & Groom magazine and would like to feature some of the images for our Real Wedding section of the publication. Could you send me high resolution images of the attached images, and also the first two images of the floral arrangement and the table arrangement? The images need to be 300 dpi and at least 7" wide with the height proportional to the image. Additionally, if you have the attached right image in 8.5" x 11", please send it in consideration of the cover image. Finally, if you have any other images that you would like to submit, please send me the link to review.

You will be given credit for the images submitted and if you provide us your mailing address, we will mail you a copy of the publication once printed.

I have attached the cover of our last issue, our publication has been in existence for going on five years. Please let me know if you have any questions. The deadline for submissions is June 11.
My image:

all rights reserved copy right emily heizer

Cover of their last issue:

(Ok, I can't get this to upload. Sorry peeps.)

LATINO BRIDE&GROOM
www.latinobrideandgroom.com

www.myquincemagazine.com

http://twitter/LBrideGroom

http://twitter/Myquince

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Something else going on is the lcd inverter in my laptop "failed," ie, it made a clicking noise, flickered and the screen went black right after I responded to the editor's email. WHEWHOO. So awesome, so now, I couldn't send my images to her! Yay, how fun will this be? And THEN after contacting Dell I found out my warranty had just EXPIRED, AGAIN, and THEN I called 3 places and all of them said the part needs to be SPECIAL ORDERED, which takes TIME, which I do not HAVE. ArrrrrrrGHHHHHH! I ordered the part, picked a fixer guy who was recommended by a friend, and then started begging people to let me use their desktop monitors so I could get the images off my laptop. Well, no one would say yes. (????) So last night, armed with the overhead light, a desktop light which I held against the top of the screen, and a flashlight, I navigated my broken computer (you can barely make out the screen with such an arrangement of lights) and it did take several trys of transfering pictures and it not working, or transfering the wrong ones, but I eventually did get the files I needed on to the external drive and then through my old goliath laptop that takes 35 minutes to boot up(seriously) and mostly can't send emails (seriously!) or even facebook messages (!!) I got the images sent to the editor.

I did also contact the magazine directly to make sure the letter I got was legitmate. A copyeditor got back to me right away and said indeed, I had been contacted directly by the editor of the whole magazine. WOW.

Question: She asks me to send her the images attached- which are above. And then she also asks for some other images. I thought she meant the first two images, but now rereading her email, is she asking for a total of three images? Two of the floral arrangements/table arrangements and AGAIN the picture of the ROOM with the floral arrangements or does she just mean the first two pictures? Here is what she was looking at. Opinions?

If you haven't already, go sign up to be a follower on my work blog please and leave me comments- it makes me happy! Especially now that I am going to be so famous!

Does it sound to you like it's a for sure thing? I am excited, but mostly just "for show" (if that makes sense) because it doesn't seem final or for sure to me...

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Thursday, June 03, 2010

The Disgruntled Dieter shares Dinner.

Booooo to diets. But, my weight is totally out of control and I gotta STOP it. Back to calorie counting. Already been back to the gym, semi regularly (from zero to twice a week... it's an improvement right?)

Anyway, my dinner was pretty good so I'm sharing.

Parmesean Dill Burger

Toast onion burger bun with Pam in the frying pan, set aside.
Spray pan with Pam and cook veggieburger in the middle. Slice red onion thinly, surround burger in the pan.

Finely chop dill, mix in with onion and sprinkle on patty. Use a couple tablespoons of light sour cream to mix in a dry dill dip mix, or mix in fresh dill, and a bit of dry... See More onion mix (I like lipton.) Use as a spread on both sides of the bun.

Shave some fresh parmesean (1 tsp)onto cooking veggie patty so it melts a little.

Assemble burger from the bottom with bread, spread, burger, parm, grilled onions, lettuce, slices of fresh avocado seasoned with garlic salt, more spread on top bun.

Be sure to season the patty with garlic salt, otherwise it can taste a little flat, otherwise great!

Strawberry Bleu Cheese Salad

Chop romaine, thinly slice strawberries, sprinkle small amount of candied walnuts/cranberries, and a teaspoon of bleu cheese. Add 2 tbsp of Norstrom's Chamagne Vinagrette on top, mix.

Burger: 330 calories 22 grams of protein, 4 grams of fiber

Salad: 180 calories

My plate was very pretty and colorful. I almost took a picture, but I ate it instead. I was starving. Stupid diets. Booooooo

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Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Why do men think marriage=responsibility?

When I think about marriage and what it means to me- in terms of the benefits, absolute best parts of it, I think of relief- of not being alone, of having MY partner, of security- financial, emotional even physical security; I relish in the thought of KNOWING that this person will be with me FOREVER to stand by me and laugh with me and cry with me and support me and I him no matter what! When I think of marriage, I think of nothing but good things! Wonderful things! Fufillment of a lifetime of dreams! Ever since I was a little girl, I could not wait to get married. Not just because of the wedding- although I have always had a fixation on weddings (just take a look at my current job, hello), I have always been much MORE preoccupied with the MARRIAGE part of a wedding. I don't just want a wedding... I want a MARRIAGE.

I even used to sleep next to the wall in high school so I could pretend somebody was there with me. I always felt just so alone, and being married, or even being in a relationship now, heals so many of those old wounds.

But this is what I have heard from so many men, over and over again: Marriage = Responsibility.

"I'm not ready for the responsibility of marriage or a relationship yet." Over and over. From all kinds of men or boys from all walks of life. Marriage = responsibility. Why do guys think like that? Why is marriage something to be dreaded? To fear? The "ol' ball and chain," who makes up this junk?

I don't get it. Someone explain it to me. I mean, I can think of some things, like perhaps there is a loss of freedom or maybe you can't do exactly what you want to do the moment you want to do it, but... how do any of those "whines" compare to all the benefits.

Ok, married ladies. S'plain!

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