An Update, a Mystery, and an Outrage

This weekend we went to Bellingham to surprise my dad for his birthday. He was asleep when we got there--it was closing in on 11:30 pm--but my mom made me wake him up so he would know what I came for. What followed was this conversation:

Mom: Wake up, honey. Someone's here to see you.

Dad: What?

Me: Surprise! Happy birthday!

A minute of chatter including "thank you"s, etc.

Dad: How long have you been planning this?

Me: A few weeks.

Dad (to Mom): Did you know about this?

Mom: Yep. I actually kept a secret!

We mostly ran errands on Saturday, but we did make it to Lynden (a Dutch settled town near Bellingham) in an effort to go mini-golfing. My dad loves mini golfing. Sadly, the mini-golfing place was no longer open. But as a consolation prize, we got to take these:

 

  

Last night for Jason's dad's birthday, I made creme brulee. For the first time. I'm always a little worried about my first attempts in cooking; they frequently turn out like this. What I've come to realize, however, is that the only cooking I can manage to truly mess up is simple cooking: cakes from a box, chocolate chip cookies, etc. Which means that for a first effort, my creme brulee turned out quite well. Next time, I would torch it from the start (we tried using he broiler to caramelize the sugar originally), which would keep the creme part from cooking with the brulee part. I didn't get a picture of the finished product to share because I was too busy licking my ramekin clean, and I mean that literally. But if you're curious, the recipe came from Epicurean.com and can be found here.

As for the mystery, this ought to be a shocker. Remember those strange aquatic beasties Jason and I found while hunting for tadpoles? Yeah, they disappeared. Which makes for another batch of aquatic pets we've somehow managed to lose. Here's the evidence:

See? No strange beasties swimming in there! (It is kind of hard to tell because of the swamp murk.) In this case, we suspect that the transfer from swamp to tank shocked them into changing into some kind of flying beast instead of a swimming one. So if you see a strange orange mohawked flying creature, wave goodbye to it for us.

And finally, the outrage. Before I go on, take a moment to look at the date stamp at the top of this post. What does it say? Hmmmm? Oh, yes. March 8th. And I'm writing this from just outside Seattle, where the weather is fairly temperate all year round. Except for on March 8th, 2010, when it randomly snowed.

 

It didn't stick, but it's the principle that matters! Also, I hate snow, so when I hear of it snowing anywhere, I get angry. That's why I never watch the weather; I just look it up online. 

Anyway, now I have to go to work and I'm probably going to be late if I don't let this post get on its way. I have a few projects planned, so we'll see if I can actually blog about real things instead of just making fun of people. Should prove to be an interesting experiment.

Can I see Your ID?

We went tadpole hunting yesterday. I've been wanting to since I told Jason about how my brothers used to go catch tadpoles and snakes in the swamp behind a park near our house. (The swamp was conveniently located behind a fence with "No Trespassing" signs on it.) I think they even took me with them once. So now that we live back in Washington, on a piece of land that comes complete with a swamp minus the "No Trespassing" sign, I've been itching to hunt for baby frogs.

The thing is, the frogs haven't laid their eggs yet. (We did get some frog eggs, though. Don't ask me how; it was sad and gross.) So we ended up catching other crazy pond life. And I do mean cah-razy. One of the weird things we caught is a worm (hopefully not the kind that wiggles its way into your foot and up to your intestine), but we're still unsure what the other strange beastie we caught is. So we've been searching the internet, asking various known pond life pictures, "Are you his mama?" But all has been in vain. So now I ask, can you ID this little lost creature?



It's not the best picture (you can't see it's freaky head, for instance), but it does show some of our little pet's more defining features, like its weird double mohawk fins and the weird butt-stomach sitting on its back. I'll try to get a better picture of the swamp thing. In the meantime, please help us solve the mystery of the SWAMP THING!

Why is it that all our mysteries involve aquatic life?

(For your entertainment: The list of events this blog title reminds me of includes the time last summer when a Costco sample lady asked me if I was old enough to get samples without my parent or guardian.)

Caution: Work Zone

You may have noticed some interesting happenings here at Tina Reigns. The layout experimentation, for instance. Or the infrequent postings. These are all outward manifestations of recent changes in my circumstances and my knowledge. Let me explain.

You may know that for the last almost three-ish months, I've been teaching, which is not what I intended to do when I said goodbye to BYU. I wanted to write. I had some ideas about the what and the how and the who for aspects of my dream, but those were dependent on an unreliable job market. But regardless of the who, what, and where, all my online contributions and activities were meant to help create the reality of that dream, including this blog. It's been mostly a sort of online, informal portfolio to showcase my internet savvy. Now that I'm teaching, my perceptions about what my blog should be have changed. Not that I don't want to write any more; I will always want to write, but it will be something I do on the side until it becomes a viable option for lifestyle supporting work. Instead, I'm going to teach and enjoy teaching. But that change in attitude leaves meunsure about what to do with this blog. If I no longer feel my blog should be only a portfolio (and, to be honest, a lame one; I haven't really written on it in months), what should it be?

I feel like the answer to this question is dependent on the answer to another question: What would I write about on a semi-frequent basis? I still have concerns with being a waste of internet space; I don't want to end up being one of those bloggers who spend countless hours and words saying nothing at all. So I've been thinking about the sites I spend time on on the internet. I certainly spend time on family sites. I could turn this into a personal blog, the kind that keeps my family and friends informed about what's going on in my life. After all, it serves a little of that purpose as it stands. I feel like that would be a valid use of time and space, but I don't feel comfortable in that role. I've never been able to just open up to anyone about my life, even regarding trivial matters. If I focused my blog on that, I would never write on it; it would be better to just take it down.

I spend a lot of time (as I've discussed before) on food blogs. How I love 'em! There are a few in particular that I would love to emulate: Smitten Kitchen, Sophistimom, Picky Palate. But my problems with going all food all the time are many. First, there are so many food sites, I would feel redundant. I'm a good cook--depending on what I'm making, even great--but I'm not an original cook. I can definitely copy and adapt, but I rarely create. Thus the rebirth of this blog into a food blog would be it's rebirth into mediocrity, which is something I'm not willing to accept.

I also enjoy craft and home decorating/improvement sites (probably a shocker for some of you, but don't worry: I rarely finish my projects), but again, there are problems. The mediocrity that would come with rarely finishing craft projects I start. That could be a positive; perhaps I would only do simple projects that people like me can finish. But then, I also don't have my own home to decorate or improve, which puts a damper on that idea.

I also can't quite leave behind the original snarky side of my blog. What can I say? It comes natural. So maybe this blog will become a meld of all of all of the above ideas, like a strange and slightly hideous crayon sculpture a child makes that you can never quite seem to look away from. I'll let you know.

I'm also messing with the layout as an experiment with the knowledge of website and blog creation I'm trying to gain. It's slow in coming (the knowledge, I mean), so be patient. It will probably also change many times as I decide and re-decide what I want to do with my internet persona.

So hang tight while I experiment. If you have any suggestions or ideas about any of this, I'd love to hear them. You know where to find me.