Please check out my new web page at http://www.judyalter.com. It's totally redesigned and features my forthcoming mystery, Skeleton in a Dead Space. One of the things people have so far really liked about it is the pictures of Kelly's neighborhood, Kelly being the main character in the novel. My friend Polly Hooper and I drove around Fort Worth's Fairmount neighborhood one Sat. afternoon while she took pictures. She's also responsible for my new picture on this blog and the web page. Great job, Polly, and many thanks. (She does this as a hobby!) Thanks also to Oscar Brown and his company who designed and will maintain the site. I'd love to have your comments.
Many parts of Texas got blessed rain today. I haven't watched TV for the official measurements or anything but the world was wet and muddy when I got up this morning. It's been so long since rain--BP as in before puppy--that I'd forgotten about the complications of dogs and mud and how much Scoob hates rain. I didn't mind dealing with it, nor did I mind that my newspaper was quite soggy. It rained, mostly just spitting, all morning. Luckily, I'm washable, even my hair--so I don't mind getting wet. The rain lowered the temperature some, but the humidity was so high it felt like a steam bath outside.
Jordan and Jacob came for lunch, and I'm not sure if it's harder to train the puppy or the boy. He wants to give her orders all the time, even when she's not doing anything bad. Today we worked on "If she's jumping on me, let me handle it; if she's jumping on you, then you tell her down." As it was, he was shouting "Down!" all the time. Sophie has truly been a pain today--I fear we'll never get house training done--she understands about outside, but if she has to go she doesn't think about it. She has "favorite" spots in the house. I read in the monks' book about training that you should never let a puppy see you clean up the accident--makes them think you're their housekeeper, and Sophie tends to think it playtime to see if she can grab the paper towel. So now, if I catch her in the act, I roar, rush her outside, by which time she's always forgotten what she wanted to do, and then put her in the crate while I clean up. There goes a chunk of time! She goes from chewing on wires to destroying the bottom shelf of my bookcase to escaping from the kitchen even when I'm working in there.
I did cook today. Made stuffed mushrooms with my mom's recipe for our lunch--had four mushrooms left from something else and Jordan loves them. Simple stuffing:
Grated cheddar
dry mustard
Worcestershire
chopped scallion
mayonnaise to bind
Bake in a moderate oven so the mushrooms will cook before the cheese runs all over the place. The cheese mixture is delicious just on bread, broiled. No, I don't have measurements--it's something you do by gosh and by golly.
Also made barbecue sauce today so that first thing in the morning I can put my chuck roast and the sauce in the crockpot to cook all day. It's a recipe from Cook's Illustrated that I've used before, but this time I couldn't resist substituting dark molasses for dark brown sugar. We'll see.
And today I finally got ground lamb patties at Central Market--they make them with feta and mint, and they are delicious. One of the butchers told me to call ahead and order them, so I did when I ordered the chuck roast. I cooked half a pattie (they're 8 oz. patties) thinking I'd save half of that for lunch tomorrow--no such luck. I ate the whole thing.
Off to read a good mystery.
Many parts of Texas got blessed rain today. I haven't watched TV for the official measurements or anything but the world was wet and muddy when I got up this morning. It's been so long since rain--BP as in before puppy--that I'd forgotten about the complications of dogs and mud and how much Scoob hates rain. I didn't mind dealing with it, nor did I mind that my newspaper was quite soggy. It rained, mostly just spitting, all morning. Luckily, I'm washable, even my hair--so I don't mind getting wet. The rain lowered the temperature some, but the humidity was so high it felt like a steam bath outside.
Jordan and Jacob came for lunch, and I'm not sure if it's harder to train the puppy or the boy. He wants to give her orders all the time, even when she's not doing anything bad. Today we worked on "If she's jumping on me, let me handle it; if she's jumping on you, then you tell her down." As it was, he was shouting "Down!" all the time. Sophie has truly been a pain today--I fear we'll never get house training done--she understands about outside, but if she has to go she doesn't think about it. She has "favorite" spots in the house. I read in the monks' book about training that you should never let a puppy see you clean up the accident--makes them think you're their housekeeper, and Sophie tends to think it playtime to see if she can grab the paper towel. So now, if I catch her in the act, I roar, rush her outside, by which time she's always forgotten what she wanted to do, and then put her in the crate while I clean up. There goes a chunk of time! She goes from chewing on wires to destroying the bottom shelf of my bookcase to escaping from the kitchen even when I'm working in there.
I did cook today. Made stuffed mushrooms with my mom's recipe for our lunch--had four mushrooms left from something else and Jordan loves them. Simple stuffing:
Grated cheddar
dry mustard
Worcestershire
chopped scallion
mayonnaise to bind
Bake in a moderate oven so the mushrooms will cook before the cheese runs all over the place. The cheese mixture is delicious just on bread, broiled. No, I don't have measurements--it's something you do by gosh and by golly.
Also made barbecue sauce today so that first thing in the morning I can put my chuck roast and the sauce in the crockpot to cook all day. It's a recipe from Cook's Illustrated that I've used before, but this time I couldn't resist substituting dark molasses for dark brown sugar. We'll see.
And today I finally got ground lamb patties at Central Market--they make them with feta and mint, and they are delicious. One of the butchers told me to call ahead and order them, so I did when I ordered the chuck roast. I cooked half a pattie (they're 8 oz. patties) thinking I'd save half of that for lunch tomorrow--no such luck. I ate the whole thing.
Off to read a good mystery.
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