San Diego

We've been to San Diego before, for Comic Con, but never got a chance to see anywhere outside the Gaslamp Quarter. So last week we decided to go - booked a hotel (motel?) on Tuesday and drove to it on Friday. I did my first stint of long driving on the interstate. It was really fun. I was way more excited than lordkilljoy who's all "I've done this a million times." Anyway - I didn't crash, which is good. I'm very indecisive, though. I'd come up behind a car going a little slower than me and be all "should I overtake them?" Eventually I got sick of it and just slowed down so that all the cars were going faster than me. Except for some and then they'd speed up when I'd go to overtake and it was all very annoying. I even overtook a truck on a normal road (ie, no divide to keep cars on their own side of things). You have to go well out of your way to find one of them around here - a normal road, not a truck.

So we got in and went for dinner in Little Italy (which was just up the hill). Dinner was amazing. I've never been disappointed going out in San Diego. All the restaurants we've been to (this trip and the last) have been top class. We strolled around a bit, me dithering between wanting to live in San Diego because it's beautiful and the weather is perfect and not wanting to live there because it's a bit intimidating at night.

Saturday we went around the USS Midway (an aircraft carrier museum) which was incredible. Huge and full of metal and cool things and stuff you could touch. I spent the whole trip dreaming about being an engineer driving the ship, an enlisted naval person, an officer and a fighter pilot. I don't know if I've ever mentioned that I wanted (along with twenty billion other things (every time we passed a train on the road I'd express my desire to be a train diver)) to be a fighter pilot... I could say when I was younger, but I still daydream about it. Living on a ship, getting catapulted into the air and flying around. I don't think I could deal with the actual killing people part, though. So, we spent 4 hours wandering around and listening to the audio tour - it was a really cool morning.

That afternoon we went to the zoo, which we spent another 4 hours wandering around. It's amazing how you fit stuff in when you only have a short amount of time. The zoo was lovely, though. I'm so impressionable. Every time we go to a zoo, or park or something I wander around going: I want my garden to look like this. And as we sat in the aviary watching the birds flit around, was was like: I could totally build an aviary in my back garden. I don't even have a garden :/ Ah, imagination - I suppose I can have everything I want through you.

So anyway, the zoo was cool. There's a cable car that goes from one end to the other and takes you up above everything for a pretty unique view of the animals. And there were loads of acrobatics and shows on the evening we went (not sure if this is what it's like all the time). That night we went out again, for another amazing meal. Even though we were both exhausted, we still enjoyed it.

And on Sunday morning we went off to the beach for an hour or so. It was packed. We drove up to La Jolla and spent ages looking for parking. The beach was beautiful, though. White sand, blue-green sea, half metre waves. I tried to resist and only dip my feet in, but I couldn't. The water was warm (compared to Irish sea water) and the waves were inviting and with only a little encouragement from lordkilljoy I'd changed into my swimming things and was jumping around in the surf. It was brilliant.

And then we drove home - again I didn't crash. Go me!

I made crackers today. They are delicious - not dry at all. I've eaten about 10 (probably more) since they came out of the oven. And they're so crackery. They snap when you bite into them. And they are lovely with cheese. I'd say they are very successful. I used my new pasta maker to roll out the dough thin enough. Only I'm not very good at it yet, so some of my crackers are more thin and snappy than others.

I think that's it. I'm still playing Skyrim. I've clocked up a rather frightening number of hours at this stage. Still not as many as Oblivion, though and no where near as much as Morrowind or Daggerfall.

I crocheted a doily-coaster for the glass of water that sits on my desk. I was getting a bit fed up of having a water ring where it sits, so I did something about it. Now that I'm done with that I'm making a cute crochet robot.

I definitely think that's that.

P.S. Hey, Lj, what's going on with line breaks not auto-formatting?

Weekly News (or something)

For the first time in 11½ years I cleaned up my friends page. Anyone whose name I didn't recognise is gone (because if I don't know your name it means we didn't interact much). I also got rid of a bunch of old communities that hadn't had activity in 3 or 4 years. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. My profile page looks so much lighter now.

Anyway.

What news? I made caramel squares on Friday night. They are delicious. The caramel is more like toffee, but it is absolutely yummy. They come out of the fridge and they are so hard to bite into. I've taken to leaving them warm up for a bit. They are also horrendously bad for you. I think they are the most fatty sweet I've ever made. So I have to seriously control myself and only eat 1 per day. Yesterday I nibbled away on one square for the whole day and it was great. A nibble is all you need, really, to get the taste and satisfy the desire for yumminess.

What else? I'm back playing Skyrim again and after one day I was totally addicted. I just want to play all the time. I started with a new character (a destruction mage) and she is so much fun to play. I always thought stealth was the most fun way to go, but there's something delightfully chaotic about laying down fire runes (which are like magical traps that set off an explosion when they are triggered) and waiting for foes to walk into them, then shocking them with lightning as they stumble around on fire. That sounded so evil. But it's so much fun. Bethesda are really good at making games. I don't think I've stumbled into any of the same quests as last time and I'm doing things completely differently.

River went to the vet on Thursday to get 3yearly injections. She was fine afterward.

Ooh - last weekend we went tubing on Salt River. It was so much fun. They give you rubber tubes and a bus trip up to the start point, then let you off to drift back to the main area. It sounds really boring, but every so often the water gets shallow and fast and that is when it gets really fun. And just watching the desert drift by was great too.

We went to see Prometheus on Wednesday. I really enjoyed it. There were some super gory bits in the middle, but overall it was a fun story about a girl whose faith is challenged.

nomnible

Banana bread is cooked and cooled and it is so delicious. I think it is the best banana bread I've ever had. It's so moist and delicate. Not at all dense, like most banana breads. There are banana-y pieces and chocolaty pieces and it is oh-so-difficult to have just one slice (but at 250 calories per slice (decent slice - about an inch), that's about all I should eat). I can post the recipe if anyone's interested.

I was just out walking River (in the 36° heat) and thought to myself, "I'd be quite happy if this weather went on forever." We'll see how I feel in five months' time.
I'm still getting up at half five to walk her. I think I've discovered that going back to bed straight after the walk (and sleeping until 9ish) works best for me. Napping in the middle of the day doesn't work because, apart from River barking, I sleep very lightly and wake up every few minutes.

We went to see Men in Black 3 last night. I really enjoyed it. Will Smith is his usual funny self, and the capers and character interaction are fun and harmless.

Did I mention lordkilljoy and I are playing Diablo 3? We're almost finished, just the last act to go. It's fun. I'm playing a wizard and I don't think I'll ever get bored of shooting a massive disintegration ray out of my hands.

beee-na-na

I think I just found the secret to good banana bread (possibly - it's not out of the oven yet, but the batter tastes yummy out). People say to use ripe bananas, but they never quite describe just how ripe they should be.
I've discovered that the best kind of ripe* is when the outside of the banana feels squishy, and the inside has sort of melted a little bit, and there may possibly be the start of some fermentation going on (bananas never tasted of rum before). You don't even need to mash them before throwing them into the batter, they sort of fall apart all by themselves.
I shall update again in an hour when this is cooked.

*I have a suspicion that this kind of ripe only happens at about 30°C (the ambient temperature of our apartment).

I may have thrown some chocolate chips in there too :)

Things I Forgot Yesterday

I meant to say that my strawberries and basil died while we were away. The rose started growing... which reminds me that I should take it out of the direct sun again. The poor basil completely withered and died. It was a dried out ruin. The strawberries just hadn't grown, and me - not even thinking - decided to put them in a bigger pot where they promptly died. I still had a few seeds left, though, and threw them in the pot instead. I hope they grow.

The other thing is about ducks. It seems the ducks around here like to take a morning constitutional. Yesterday I saw a duck cross the road and continue on his way along the footpath. Today I saw another duck walking towards me on the path. She promptly turned around and walked away from me. I should try to remember to bring my camera, because I've seen other random things around the ponds too. Like a turtle. I think that was the most random. I've also seen a heron. And a dead fish - a really big one.

So Much News

I'm finally getting around to updating my livejournal. I have loads of news... I must also finish off the account of the wedding - even though I've done all the good bits already.

I'm trying this new thing of walking River at stupid o' clock in the morning (aka 5:30am) while it's a nice temperature for walking. It went well enough while I was still on jetlag time, but now that I'm coming out of that things are getting harder. I was so tired this morning getting up and while out walking. It's only now (because 7 is such a less early time :/ ) that I'm feeling a bit more awake. Though, I am very tempted to just go back to bed now. But I want to get this written first.

Poor River's a bit institutionalised after her month in boarding. The day after we got her home she went into her crate in the middle of the day (which never happens). She's also been going in there in the evenings (when she'd usually be up on the couch beside us). But I think she's coming back to herself again - which is good and bad. It's lovely to have mad, playful, loving River back, but with that side comes the barking at strangers, trucks and the UPSman. Very annoying.

Now, I know there was something else... Crochet - ever since penelope_stone showed me how to do it properly, I can't get enough of it. I'm making fingerless gloves and driving gloves. I'm trying to get the driving gloves done fast so that I can wear them. Contrary to all sane thought - gloves are necessary while driving in 40degree heat. And not because things are hot. No, indeed. It's to stop the freezing cold air coming out of the vent right next to my fingers from giving me frostbite. Okay - that was an exaggeration, but not by much. And if you are wondering why I don't just turn down (up?) the ac, it's because the air is a lovely temperature by the time it reaches my face.

Other things of note: I cycled 35km around one of Killarney's lakes last week (god, was that just last week?). I'm still not finished the string top I'm knitting. I'm making gnocchi for dinner today - from scratch.

I spent a good bit of yesterday driving around by myself. I feel like I shouldn't be allowed control something as freakishly frightening as a car. Every time I go, I feel like I'm going to be in a crash or something. But anyway - I got to the post office and the shop for food without any problems. I do think, though, that our car isn't the most efficient ever. I filled it on Saturday and it was a quarter gone by the time yesterday's jobs were done. And we didn't go anywhere far. The dog park was the farthest, at 13miles away. I looked it up and the Cruze does 22mpg in an urban area. That sounds about right, I guess. That's 250 miles per fill for just driving around (it does better on the highway). Does that mean we did 60 miles in a few days? *Off to google maps to add up journeys.* I suppose we did. Wow, driving really ads up.

Emm, right so. I haven't any other news. I think I have to sleep now.

Wedding Part2

Right - I missed a bit yesterday. After we had our dresses on and were running around getting everything ready, and not having time for lunch, I kind of felt like my dress was in the way the whole time. It was so big, if I stood by the dining room table I blocked most of the way through the room. So I kept moving around and eventually just sat on the couch to leave everyone else rush around getting the last bits organised (like jeans for the next day and proper shoes). And the other thing I forgot, which was a bit funny, was that we lost my personal vows on the way to the car. So when we got to the Imperial I told daddy to run in and get a pen and paper so I could rewrite them. Thankfully I had them memorised well enough to be able to rewrite almost word for word.

So now, where was I? The Ceremony.

We said our pieces and signed our names and when it was all said and done, I couldn't contain my excitement. Everyone could see me bouncing on my chair with pure joy. And 70 hugs and congratulations later it was down to the bar for champaign and ice cream. Nom nom (to the ice cream). Liam ushered us out for photographs (me being a bit slow and stopping to chat to people) and off we went to the park for some (what I hope to be) beautiful shots. I'm pretty certain they'll be lovely - I have much faith in Bernie. The photos went smoothly - me going from "ohh, my dress might get dirty if I stand there" to "okay, I'll walk across this wet grass." Ned dropped us back to the hotel then, for more chatting and all of a sudden it was time for dinner.

I can't even remember, now, everyone heading up for dinner, but soon it was only me and Liam... oh wait. No - we went up to the penthouse for more photos, and when we got back down, everyone was already gone up for dinner. So we strolled the candle-lit corridor up to the ballroom, and waited a moment for everyone to be seated and ready before we made our grand entrance to the sound of 70 bells clinking. It was wonderful.

Part 3 to come soon.

Wedding Part 1

The day was brilliant. From getting ready in the morning to being too early to the hotel to a gorgeous dinner and the most brilliant dj in the world.

We got up at half 8, got breakfast (scones) and messed around for a bit before dressing and going down to get hair done. Lisa did my hair in the most beautiful way. She had a plait around the base of my head and a kind of small updo at the back. Then we had a little time at home, in which mammy ironed shirts, we grabbed the quickest, smallest lunch in the world and then over to Martine for make-up. She did it lovely - keeping it as natural as possible. Me and penelope_stone looked so pretty. Back to Lisa straight after that to get my veil put on. About 20 pins went into that endeavour, but it stayed on lovely.

When we got home, we put our dresses on - keeping an eye on the time. Somehow it got away from us because there was a mad rush at 2ish as mammy, penelope_stone and liam rushed out the door. The car for me and daddy arrived early, sitting outside as penelope_stone and them drove off. So me and daddy got the last bits and pieces together and went out to the car. "Drive slowly and take the longest route you can," was the advice, but we still arrived half an hour early. So the photographer, Bernie, jumped into the car and we headed off to south main street for a few photos. By the time we made it back it was exactly 3, so things worked out perfectly.

The people of the Imperial whisked me and daddy up to the room where the ceremony was taking place. My main impression of that was "oh wow, there are so many people, I can hardly see anything for all these people." And then getting to the top of the room and I see lordkilljoy and he looks amazing and all I can do is smile like a lunitic because I'm so happy and excited. The ceremony flew past - both of us making it through the official vows fine and our personal vows expertly, zombie apocalypse and all :)

That's it for now. More to come tomorrow (or the next day, or possibly next week).

home

Made it home safe and sound - if a little tired (5 hours sleep Saturday night and 7 Sunday). It's miserable here, but it's kind of nice for a change.

penelope_stone taught me to crochet today. I made half a flower which was coming along well, but very floppy, before I ran out of wool.

We went for a walk along the Lee Fields today. We had to run back to the car because it started lashing.

I can't think of much else to say. This hasn't been the most scintillating post. Too tired for all but the basics.

I'm a driver

Dreams of being a stunt driver in Hollywood, here I come! Not really. But I did manage to pass my driving test. I got 96% :)

It was fine, really. I think I need the tester to drive around with me for an hour beforehand to ease me into things. I made one mistake - which I knew I had the moment I did it. I looked in the mirrors / over shoulder before turning on my indicator. But that's okay.

We're off on a plane in 8 hours. I don't really know what to do until then. I don't know if everything's done or not. And I didn't get enough sleep last night (hoping to be tired tonight so that I sleep on the plane) so I don't really feel like doing anything.

Actually, right now I can see myself playing soul reaver. lordkilljoy got it on good old games. It's one of my favourites, and watching the intro made me think how much Artificer is made up of everything I loved when I was younger.

Driving Test Today

How does one drive when one is shaking like a leaf in a gale? I've got it kind of bad today - I feel really sick, even though I'm forcing myself to eat, because I might not get another chance for 3 hours and driving on an empty stomach is an even worse idea than driving while shaking. Well, because I shake even worse when I'm hungry.

Livejournal, you've always been here for me before a test. And once more we go through this together. I keep trying to tell my body to stop with this nonsense, but it won't listen, so maybe you can talk some sense into it instead. Thanks.

dog park adventures

We brought River to a dog park with a lake (pond) yesterday. She swam for her (possibly) very first time. She really loved jumping through the water - I don't think she liked swimming so well, so she got around by doing this leaping-forward-through-the-shallow-water thing. It was cute, and pretty funny.

While we were there a little dog swam too far out and panicked. He swam around in circles for ages. His owners called and called him, but any time he started heading towards them he'd get turned around again and start swimming the wrong way. Eventually the man took his shoes and t-shirt off and went in to rescue the dog. Everyone got back to shore safely, but I'd say the little dog was wrecked for the rest of the day.

The weekend was seriously hot. The thermometer in the car read 41 at one stage. The thermometer in the house got up to 38. It's really too hot for doing anything much - we did manage to laze around in the pool for a bit yesterday, but I worried about getting burned (because obviously I was too lazy to put on suncream).

Spinach Curry

I need to write down last night's curry before I forget about it. It was amazing and I made it by modifying a recipe - hence the needing to write down.

Serves 3 (or 2 very hungry)

Ingredients:

1 package firm or extra firm tofu, well pressed and sliced into 1 inch cubes
olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 tbsp garam masala (I used Shan Tikka spice, but garam masala is close enough)
1 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp minced ginger
2 tbsp water
1/3 cup greek yogurt
6oz baby spinach leaves
1 large tomato, chopped

Preparation:

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the spices (this amount makes it very spicy, use less if you like less spice) and water, mix together, then add the yoghurt. Mix together.

Add the spinach, and cover until wilted (about a minute). Stir to coat in the yogurt sauce. Remove from heat and let cool a bit while you move on to the next step.

In a separate large skillet or a wok, sautee tofu and onion in one tablespoon of olive oil until tofu is lightly crisp and onions are sweet.

Once spinach has cooled a little, process the spinach mixture in a food processor or blender until almost creamy.

Add the spinach to the skillet with the tofu and onions. Add the tomato and cook, stirring, until the tofu is well mixed with the spinach.

Serve with rice, naan, or whatever (I'll bet this would be amazing with chopped boiled potatoes).

Rye Pita?

I managed to make some kind of rye pita bread today. I've been experimenting with this yeast-free pizza base recipe over the last few days - making it into flatbread and cooking it like a pancake. Today I had the random idea to swap out the semolina and all purpose flours for cornmeal and rye flour. I also left out the baking powder. It mixed up well. I tried kneading it, but I don't know if rye has any gluten to work with the kneading. So I squashed it into a flat circle between 2 sheets of wax-paper and 2 chopping boards. It came out super flat, and super circly. Onto a pan it went and the pan went onto a super-hot cooker and the bread cooked away, until I turned it over, when suddenly it popped. It magically turned into pita bread - which I wasn't expecting at all. In surprise and delight I took it off the pan, tried a bit (acceptable but the dough needs some extra flavour), and proceeded to stuff it with cheese. Nom nom nom (this sentence translates to "I ate it, and it was good"). Now I just need to figure out something I can add to the dough to make it really yummy.

Food Entry and other things

I haven't done one of these in a while.

We made pizza last night. We each kneaded our own little bit of dough and put on our own toppings. It was wonderful. Mine had a ricotta / garlic powder / parsley sauce, caramelised red onions (when I say caramelised I really mean fried with oil, spices and salt), baby spinach leaves, smoked salmon, feta and parmesan cheese. Unfortunately all my flavours were strong and none really came to the fore (but I think the onions were winning). lordkilljoy had a standard pepperoni pizza (with extra red chile).



Lunch today is going to be amazing (if the rice will ever cook). I got random ingredients (stuff about to go off in the fridge) and threw them together into a one-pot meal thing. It's composed of brown rice, half a red onion, most of a red bell pepper, half a can of stewed tomatoes, salt and minced chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. Oh, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Nom nom nom. Even though I haven't eaten it yet, the bit of sauce I tried was delicious. I'm starving. Come on, cook. It's been an hour and the rice still isn't done.

I'm trying to get a bit fit for the 40km cycle me and penelope_stone are going on. Yesterday I cycled 5 (miles or kilometres) on the cycling machine in the gym, and today I did an easy 5 and a hard 5. I was happy to be done the hard 5, but by the time I got home I was fine again. So I think the machine is in km, because after 5 miles I'd be way more tired. And... on the road, it takes me 5 minutes to go 1 km. And I was on the machine for 15 minutes, and I was working a bit harder than I do when going to the shop... So I guess I have to work up to 45. I don't think I'll be able to add on 5kms every day. Or maybe, with breaks in between. Or maybe do half easy and half hard.

Best Weekend Ever

Friday we went to the cinema to see Cabin in the Woods. A bit scary, a good story and a fun ending. I enjoyed it.

Yesterday we drove the start of the Apache Trail. We brought River along with us, but I guess the sharp bends and ups and downs didn't agree with her. She was very pathetic, and when the road turned into gravel we turned back. It was a good trip all the same, ans we're going to try it again some day without River.

Today, we got up and I didn't know what to do with myself. Go to the hot tub, go to the pool, waste time on the internet... lordkilljoy somehow came up with the idea of going to a waterpark (I wish I could remember how this idea came about). So we looked up waterparks and the big one in Phoenix was having the last day of its reduced price season passes. On an absolute whim we bought season passes, got in the car and went to the waterpark. It was the most amazing fun I've had in ages. All the slides we went on were so much fun - and this one was the best:


The Tornado

You get in, go around a bit, down a big dip and into this huge funnel where you go back and forth a few times until you get spit out the end. It was so amazing. And the great thing was that the park was really quiet today so we got out of the pool, ran back up the steps and didn't have to wait at all to do it again.

The only downside to the day was that the weather was cold. Okay, it was 20degrees, but windy, and when you are wet in a swimsuit that's not quite warm enough. I was shivering badly by the end of the hour and a half we spent there. That's the cool thing about passes. You don't feel like you have to make the most of it, because we can go again whenever we want and it's only 45 minutes away.

Lucid Dreams

A while back, I was browsing reddit and I came across r/luciddreaming. It quickly became one of my favourite places to check when I had a few minutes with nothing to do. I read the posts and marvelled at some people's natural ability to lucid dream. I wanted to do it too - because I have a little natural talent in this area (I've lucid dreamed in the past without trying and I've always had amazing dream recall).

So I set up my dream journal and tried to remember to do reality checks often (I fail at remembering to do things, though). So I went back to reddit and read about an app that helps you to remember to check if you are dreaming. It chimes at random intervals throughout the day and pops up a screen with "Am I dreaming" written on it. I downloaded that about a week ago. And slowly, the idea to remember to reality check has written itself into my brain. I remember to do it every so often without the app's help. So anyway - that's backstory.

Last night I dreamt I was in a shop, wandering the aisles. As I passed a shelf its generic contents changed to jars of nutella. My brain went: am I dreaming? And sure enough... Woooooooo! I tried to change some things but couldn't quite focus enough. So I tried stabilising the lucidity and that worked enough for me to create a doorway out of the dream (with the intention that it would pop me into a far more interesting space). I went through, but as I did, the lucidity vanished and I was back in a normal - but very adventurous - dream.

I'm thrilled and hope that I can become lucid a bit more frequently. Now I just have to learn how to hold onto it for longer.

Photography Musing

I've been thinking about RAW photos recently, even though I can't remember what put them in my head. Possibly post-processing all the photos from Miami. So I reinstalled CHDK on my camera (a cool little program that gives Canon point and shoot cameras the ability to record RAW photo data, and a bunch of other cool stuff) and messed around with it. I finally got it working today and the difference in photo quality is spectacular.

The one on top is the JPG.





See the way the carpet and the bag are over-exposed and the shadows around the table are quite dark. The RAW file smooths all of this out and gives a really balanced light. That's really impressive. It also saves the image at a higher resolution, but I think that could be because I don't have my camera set to the absolute highest resolution.

I just wanted to post my findings here. Now I'm off to clean the kitchen.

Wedding Shoes

I got some pretty dolly shoes to go with my wedding dress. I had to settle for what was available, even though it's not really what I wanted. They are white, soft leathery material, and about 2mm too small, but the next size was about a centimetre too big.


This is them.

They are pretty, and I did want flat shoes. So they'll do. We had considered getting cons, but we woosed out in the end.

I also got two pretty tops today. We had a good day's shopping, really.

Weekend in Maimi

I just made ketchup. I needed 1/2 cup of the stuff, and using heinz would have put me way over my sugar limit for the day. So I made my own with just a tiny bit of sugar. Yeay.

Miami was brilliant. I'd totally go back there for a proper holiday. The beach was amazing (for the whole hour we got to spend there). That's all I keep thinking about. Wrestlemania was good fun and the craic with the lads was fantastic, but it's the beach my memories dwell on. I even have a photo I took of the beach as my desktop.



We actually got to do quite a bit of touristy things (like eating ice-cream and drinking cocktails). We went on the hop-on hop-off bus tour and strolled the bayside area and even managed to make it to the beach for a quick swim in the clear, warm water. It was the perfect time of year to be in Florida, too. It wasn't humid and the temperature was just perfect (perfect being about 28C). It's actually crazy. 28 is my new comfortable temperature. I can sit around and feel somewhat cool in 28 degrees. I'm going to freeze when we go home.

We ate in Bubba Gumps (spin off from Forrest Gump) most of the time. I think it's my new favourite restaurant. Their salmon skillet is the most amazing thing I've ever eaten (I could be exaggerating, but I can't think of any better meal right now).

I'd like to think I could live quite happily in Florida, but then I remember the mosquitoes (not that many around yet, but I still got one bite) and the hurricanes, and I think perhaps Florida is only nice to visit.

I don't have a whole lot of other news, so I'll leave you with some pics...