One of the things I love to do is cook things from scratch because I get bored with plain ol’ hunk a beef and some potato’s. My husband was raised on meat and potato’s and I was raised on mac and cheese with the occasional wacky ‘dad’ recipe that resulted in family traditions and heirloom recipes. I take after my father more and can cook odd things much better then I can make normal things. Although just about everything I cook has a major hit and miss factor.

Right now, cooking is pretty much on the whim and I miss it. Our family normally sits down every night together and eats. I would say the TV goes off, but since it’s now in the living room which is connected to the dining room which is connected to the kitchen….it’s often left on. But that doesn’t stop us from giggling, talking and sharing the days events. Add in a few “RB…stop that with the chair” and “PDQ…elbows off the table” as well as my person favorite “You took the last one?!” with a blank stare at my husband. I used to start cooking dinner around 5:30 and we would eat around 6:30. Always. With the exception being summer and we might eat later if we were grilling (I don’t grill.).

Now, it’s eat up to 7:30pm, depending on when the chores are done and it’s not full recipes. It’s quick things that I can start and PDQ can watch, then the man and I work together to finish them while we are taking turns showering after chores. It’s a family process and although I love it for that part…I hate it because cooking was part of the way I provided for my family. Tonight, I was unable to help the man in the barn since our youngest is hacking up a lung again. Which meant..I could cook his favorite recipe that requires constant supervision. If you have a 13YO, you will understand that it’s downright impossible for them to constantly supervise anything for long periods of time that doesn’t involve lounging on a chair or playing of face book.

What am I cooking? Cambells Salisbury Steaks! We used to do the freezer kind, which I’m a bit ashamed to admit, but there you go. Now, I do the real kind and tweaked the recipe to make it taste even better! Anyone who has read my recipes before will know that I don’t measure. Part of that is math….I hate it….part of it is lazy.

You will need:

2 cans cream of shroom soup
milk
one onion
1 egg
a bunch of sliced mushrooms.
1 pound ground beef
bread crumbs.
Olive oil (or use any type you like)

Dice up about half the shrooms and 1/4 of the onion. Put that in a mixing bowl with some bread crumbs, 1/4 can of soup and the ground beef. Put a pan on the stove with some oil in it and turn it on medium and toss some more bread crumbs on to a plate. Get your hands ooy gooy and mix that sucker up while the oil heats up. Once it’s mixed, pat out as many ‘burger’ size patties as the mixture allows (I can usually get 5 normal size ones) and bread crumb each side of the patty then place it in the hot oil. Allow each side to cook for a few minutes until the outside of the patty is a bit crispy.

While the patty’s are crisping up, dice up some more onion (I use about half but whatever you like to taste) and dice some shrooms. In a bowl, mix the shrooms, the onions, the rest of the soup and enough milk to de-thicken it together. Your patties should be about crispy so now pour your soup mixture over the meat using the same pan. Cook on low for about a hour, stirring the sauce mixture and occasionally shoving the meat around so the patty’s don’t stick to the pan.

Serve with mashed potato and crescents for the win!

It’s one of those moments….your doing fine..then remember something that happened and suddenly your attitude goes south and you want to bite the head off of anyone who comes near you. Your nostrils start to flair and your mind begins to imagine ways of ripping them to shreds while you cackle in glee. Or maybe that’s just how my own imagination works. Could be….I am a bit twisted like that and make up all sorts of scenes in my head on a daily basis. Some good, some not so good.

At times like these, I tend to disappear. I rarely confront the person who annoyed the hell out of me because nine times out of ten, it’s just me. Not them. If it does happen to be that one time out of ten it’s them, it’s still not the conducive to maintain friends and confront them because…well the whole ripping to shreds imagination issue. Just won’t work out well for anyone. So I keep my mouth shut, go about my day and stay far far away from the vast majority of people until my imagination starts pooping rainbows again.

One of the things I like about playing on the grid is that a person can actually dress the part of their mood. They can be cute and sweet, naughty or….as in my case right now; down right mental looking with a grey outlook. So I hopped over to +blacklist+ to check out a tunnel system that was built connecting another store called Pig. I read about this on plurk and thought it might fit my mood. Runky came along for the ride and about three non-related IM’s later, it was already time for me to log. Without getting any pictures. Which cranked my ass up a bit more.

So now, I’m back from barn chores, I stink (this has been a proven fact post after post of mine), getting ready to shower…do some more laundry and then you know what…I don’t know. Why don’t I know? Cause I have a serious case of the CRANK!

Misty-thecrankbuttwhowilljusttakeabreak-Harley. Out.

The other day Velveeta and I were hanging out at Mystical and I noticed the sim was starting to tank. This isn’t uncommon because it’s a homestead. Anyone who lives on a homestead will know exactly what I mean. Constant watching, re-arranging, moving things and sometimes even realizing certain items just can’t be left out or left on. So off into the debug menu for some serious investigating. One of the things I noticed was some sort of script attached to the name of…..you guessed it…Velveeta!

Here’s the conversation we had:

[7:00] Velveeta Biedermann: Ok….
[7:01] Velveeta Biedermann: check the stats and let me take off the MT
[7:01] Velveeta Biedermann: tell me when
[7:01] Misty Harley: kk hang on
[7:01] Misty Harley: kk take it off your at.118 now since your AO is off..ooh wait
[7:01] Misty Harley: turn your AO on
[7:01] Velveeta Biedermann: on
[7:02] Misty Harley: you just shot up to 1.129!
[7:02] Misty Harley: ok turn the AO off first *nods*
[7:02] Velveeta Biedermann: off
[7:02] Misty Harley: down to .150
[7:02] Misty Harley: ok now the MT
[7:02] Velveeta Biedermann: gone
[7:03] Misty Harley: down to .029 which might be the chair
[7:03] Misty Harley: and this is why I like Emerald. I use the emerald AO..doesn’t register for scripts and the Emerald Radar…agian no scripts. So when the script limit goes into affect/effect….my stuff won’t stop working *nods*
[7:03] Misty Harley: you should blog this!
[7:04] Velveeta Biedermann: YOU should.
[7:04] Misty Harley: can I use this IM?
[7:04] Velveeta Biedermann: sure

This isn’t the first time that I noticed the scripts attached to the avatar using sim resources and eating them up like a child does a lollipop. It was rather amazing to watch a resident remove a major script and suddenly, her stats went down and the sim went back up a bit. Of course, in both these cases, other issues were also at play but oddly enough the avatars themselves ranked up pretty high on scripts.

It’s going to be interesting as the lab starts to work on script limits (that is…if this new fangled idea of theirs even comes to light). I’m not sure exactly what it all means, I’m not techy enough to figure it out. But I will say that it will be very interesting indeed.

Let me set the scene for you….I’m in my favorite hang out. I’m sitting on the table and well…..this conversation happened with this person:

Sweet Razorfen: thainks misty because you founded my dragonlet tail
Misty Harley: it was right where you dropped it
Misty Harley: and your welcome
Sweet Razorfen: O.O u look like MJ
Misty Harley: yes, I get that alot *nods* fantastic isn’t it?
Misty Harley blinks
Sweet Razorfen: yes
katerina Meiler has entered chat range.
Sweet Razorfen: IM A BIG FAN OF MJ!
Sweet Razorfen: can you do moonwalk?
Misty Harley: nope…I only look like him…..

(I mean….really…at this point what else am I going to say…and we continue…)

Sweet Razorfen: oh ok
Sweet Razorfen: you make me cry by remembering
Misty Harley: aww sorry about that. Well…you can think of it this way. MJ was not blonde or female *nods so really no similarities there..that should help
Sweet Razorfen: i know this

(earm..ok…going forth…)

Sweet Razorfen: on all modes
Sweet Razorfen: lol
Sweet Razorfen: im going call my kitty Mickey but hes second life first name is Reki
Misty Harley: your kitty has a sl account? whoa..that’s oen smart kitty!

(I was being serious there….!)

Sweet Razorfen: ty
Reki Matova has entered chat range.
Sweet Razorfen: MICKEY?!
Reki Matova: wait im in my human form
Reki Matova: need 2min for turn cat
Reki Matova: hi
Misty Harley: now..that is impressive for a kitty *nods*

Now..you tell me….do I really look like MJ?!

(that outfit? I’ll have more on it tomorrow because I bought it to showcase a V-day cane I made. Also check out MH Creations for today’s stuff

OH! and….I must inform you that I made a very very important decision. One that will involve lots of money. TONS of money. I’m getting a new car. You know..when we have all that money. It’s a tad bit annoying when you go over 10mph and you lose your heat with the temp being 20 degrees outside. bbbrrrrr cold.

I’m always a little late to follow trends and this time was really no different. I’ve been hearing about the Ozimal Bunny’s for a while now but just today, decided to buy one. See, I was talking to Gabs and she had some then before I knew it I had a notecard and landmark in my possession. I figured it would not hurt to go take a look but then I saw the price, which was pretty cheap for a start up kit that included food….and…and…well I bought one.

I took my package home and rez’d a little nest on the ground. Within a few seconds (seriously! it was seconds!) I had a bunny. A cute, perky, tiny little bunny hopping around. Luckily I had Gab’s still in IM and she was sharing with me all the necessary things like setting hop range, etc. The most important feature (in my book anyway) was how to set the name, which I did. I decided to call my cute little straight eared bunny….Hoppy. I’m very original like that.

After a bit more conversation about how they like to interact with other bunny’s, I figured I would go back and just look around the Ozimal store some more. Of course one does not just look….one always buys. And I did. Again back to the land and rez’ing a nest to quickly get a new bunny that I decided I would call Floppy. Thus…Hoppy and Floppy came to be.

I was happily hanging out on the land, watching my new little bunny’s hop around and talking to Gabs at the same time. She had to go and teach Kevin the fine art of baking bread and I had to go get some coffee and start some laundry. When I came back to the computer, it happened. Yes…yes…I know…for some reason ‘it’ seems to happen often in my life.

(holding Floppy for dear life in case she decided to run off too)

Hoppy was missing. Yes, you heard me right. I could not find Hoppy any where. Not in my inventory, not in the debug field for EM’s….it was like Hoppy disappeared off the face of the planet or world as the case may be. Now really I should have known better then even attempt some sort of virtual pet thing. I mean…the chicken egg wasn’t even hatched and I had the thing dead. But in my defense, there was lag. And stuff. So really, I only killed the 2nd chicken and those things were script lag monsters anyway. So it’s all good. But Hoppy? Different story.

See, they didn’t do much to the scripting on the sim (I checked it out…oh yes I did) and they were….well….cute. So I really wanted to keep Hoppy alive and in my care as much as possible. Besides, Floppy needed her friend. But alas, it was not meant to be. I plurked my sudden loss of Hoppy and Quaintly hopped (see what I did there?) over to see if she could find through a object finding gadget she had. No luck then Velveeta came over and brought her bunny, (who is not named Marx but is named Carrot Top) over and looked as well. No luck. It seems that my dear bunny Hoppy decided to run away to asset server land in the great field of tangled wires to never be seen again.

Velveeta asked me what I learned from this. I replied with a quick “Buy another one?” theory. I could swear I heard her sigh and even saw her head shake at me. But really…Quaintly thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to name the new one that I will buy on Tuesday “Hoppy Jr.” So what if it’s a she right?

(HUGE thanks to both Quaintly and Velveeta for trying to find Hoppy for me. I really appreciate it!)

Seriously…who needs it? I learn all the good stuff, the up to the minute stuff, world stuff, local stuff, in world stuff, out of world stuff….just by reading my plurk time line. It’s like a little news feed all in itself.

Today I learned:

J.D. Salinger died, which is sad. He lived to be 91 years old and although I learned he died a day late (he passed on 1/27), I still learned it on plurk first. When I was in high school, my english teacher had tried to get me to read Catcher in the Rye for three years running. Yes, for some reason I was blessed with the same English teacher for two years and that third year, he would bombard me in the hallways asking me if I read it yet. I refused on the notion that the book was about baseball. I finally gave in my senior year and do not regret it to this day. One of those stories that just sticks with you. I’ll have to re-read it again since apparently it didn’t stick too hard and all I can remember right now is that it is not about baseball. I’m blaming old age. Rest in Peace Mr. Salinger and thanks for a good read.

I also learned Miramax is closing it’s doors. Along the same lines of learning, it’s parent company is Disney. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. Rumor has it that they aren’t really closing down, just being sucked into operating under Walt Disney Studios. Which leads us to believe that Mickey is going to star in the next Pulp Fiction with Goofy heading up The English Patient. Of course, that last spin is mine. But hey! It could happen! Moving forward, I must ask what Goofy really is anyway. Yet another one of those things that has plagued me from the party hard 80’s. He has a dog face, walks on two legs and his paws are sorta like hands. Ma-og? Dunno.

I would say that’s plenty of plurk learning for today.

Oh and I think there was a quick quote that women buy shoes to not only wear them but also look at them Which puts me to a total of three learning experiences and a small rant about shoes. They confuse me. Too many choices in too many colors. So I think I’m going to start collecting shoes from Chopine. Check em out….Chopine Blog If you have ever bought time period clothes (which my alt has and sshhhh…don’t say anything cause I think the rule with alts is that you don’t speak of alts….sorta like fight club *nods wisely*) in world, then your probably familiar with Wunderlich and if I read that blog right, she..they….*coughs* sorta like fight club (actually you can read about it on her blog link that I provided) and let me tell you….she makes the most fabulous Ever After dress that was inspired by the movie with Drew Berrymore. And for the record, it was released under 20th Century Fox so I highly doubt Daffy Duck will be staring in the remake. Just saying.

I would show you a picture but apparently my *coughs* alt *coughs* does not want to rez for me and I get to go back to the barn and shovel hay to the cows. Wha? you thought you would get at least one blog post from me without the mentioning of cows…oh heck no. And for the record, I did see a calf in the hay manger area (that’s the proper term for it….who knew?) and it startled the beejeezus out of me. It was still hooked to it’s chain. No crazy wayward cows acting like Kujo today.

It all started innocently enough. I was happily feeding the cows when I noticed two cows in the heffer barn were crossed in their stalls. One with a chain and one without (those who have dealt with cows, just keep reading and stop groaning) so I decided to try and help the cows along and attempt to move them. After a bit of prodding and poking with a quick chain swap…I gave up. They weren’t budging and I figured they would be just fine or work it out themselves. Going merrily about my way, I finished feeding the rest of the cows and starting scraping them down.

That’s when it happened. I saw the one chainless cow in the middle of the walkway. That’s when I decided to play farmer and get it back into it’s stall.

I grabbed my trusty yellow handled scraper (yes, that scraper but HEY..I did get them acclimated to it and they were doing just fine!) and walked towards the cow. At first, we were doing pretty good. She turned around and began to head in the direction of her stall. Right about the time all she had left was a quick step over the drop and into her home, the dogs decided to help.

When the dogs decide to help, it’s a given things are about to go wrong. Very, very wrong. Two dogs, one cow and me. One of the dogs decided to start nipping the other cows tails (you know..the ones that were safely tucked away in their home) while the other dog decided to position itself directly in front of said wayward cow. The wayward cow side stepped the one dog, took a wrong turn (maybe it needed a gps?) and found itself on the walkway that hay carts go on. The dog then decided the best course of action was to get behind the cow, while I ran around and got in front of the cow. The other dog was still happily nipping at the wrong cow’s tails, getting them all riled up (he’s helpful like that). The wayward cow decided that a stroll through the hay bin was going to bring him home, which in turn…managed to upset the other cows even more.

*takes a deep breath and continues*

Suddenly! It all happened rather fast. The dog nipped a tail (again) the wayward cow upset the other cows and every.single.one.of.them. in that row started to buck. So the wayward cow started to run. Right.at.me. since I was still in front of it. Naturally the best course of action that came through my mind was to throw the scraper and run for my life. I whipped around one corner, with the crazy ass cow chasing me and then whipped around the other corner…went up the next walkway and SPLAT….down I went. (note to self: barn floors are slippery) I looked back and at the same time, the crazy chasing Misty cow also went splat trying to round the corner after me. Now both of us are down, but I’m a bit quicker having two legs and all and got up first. The only problem I had was my heart was beating so darn fast, my adrenaline was pumping so hard that suddenly the world went into slow-mo and my feet didn’t want to work. Luckily, my brain kicked in and I took off like a bat out of hell to the milk house. Where I promptly slammed through the door and banged it shot.

There I sat breathing heavy like I just ran some sort of marathon, looking through the plexi glass and thinking of Kujo wondering if cows could get rabies and start banging against a door that was no way in hell holding it back. I mean come on….a 1000 pound cow versus a measly 100 year old barn door that only locks with a latch. My bets are on the cow. That prompted me to get out the milk house and get into the house where I could access a phone to call the man. Yes, there is a phone IN the barn but no way-no how was I opening that door to reach over and grab it. Kujo the rabid cow was on the other side of that door and I was not going to give it any more reason to barge me.

After getting the man to come home, relaying my story to him (and might I add, listening to him laugh at me….ok..it is kinda funny NOW..then? not so much) he went into the barn and wrangled the beast to it’s stall in a matter of minutes. This is when he also informed me of what to do if a hefer ever got lose like that again in the barn. Let it run. Seriously. Let it run. Yeah….I gave him that look too. You know….’are you absolutely freaking insane?’ look. Especially when he added in that if I had stopped, it probably would have ran right past me. Cause I’m so not trying out that theory. Apparently the story goes that hefers, went lose in a barn, will run. Because they get a bit wild (nnooo…really?! never would have guessed.) Your supposed to not run, but you are supposed to corner them, put the rope on them and walk them back to their stall.

yeah…no. Ain’t gonna happen. Next time….I just let it wander cause I’ve skinned my knee and that makes me not so happy.

A recent IM conversation reminded me that I have a pet peeve. One of many but then again, I never remember them until they occur. Which is probably why it’s called ‘pet peeve’ it strokes your annoyance level to high alert when it happens then you promptly forget about it until the next time it rises up. Yeah, I made that up all on my own. It sounded good.

Babe. Honey. Sweetheart and most other terms of ‘endearment’ that are used around the grid drive me absolutely nuts. I’m not a babe, I’m certainly not your honey (considering the only person to get away with that is my husband who I sometimes think has forgotten my name since he uses ‘honey’ or ‘hon’ more then anything else. But I love him so it’s forgive and I digress…back on track!) and I know for a fact that I do not qualify as a sweetheart. I also find ’sweetie’ equally annoying when it comes from another woman. Sorta like being spoke down by the person, even if it’s not their intention.

A few things happen when I am faced with this pet peeve. Occasionally….very very occasionally, I’ll let it go. Most often I become extremely juvenile and my replies are littered with extremely goofy terms of endearment to equally annoy the other person. Call me Babe? I might just call you sugar muffin. Call me Sweetheart? I just might return the favor with a snookums. I’m nice like that and work under the idea that one good annoyance deserves another in return. On the off chance you catch me on a good day, I just might be blunt and state that calling me ‘babe, sweetheart, honey or add in your own” is probably not in your best interest. Sadly, it’s generally met with absolutely no reply and most often, a removal from friends list. Oddly enough, the snookums means I can keep them as friends. Odd.

Generally speaking, it’s men that tend to get the most out of joint when you tell them to knock it off. These are the men that seem to think women everywhere enjoy these little honeypots of goodness and take them as compliments. Newsflash: some of us…just don’t. Nope, we don’t. I can speak for many women (note I said many, not all) that find these little pieces of idiocy just that…idiocy. My word of advice to men everywhere who have come to some sort of insane conclusion that calling a woman you barely know ‘babe, honey or sweetie’ is a good thing: Stop it!

On a side note. I’m blond today. Why? because I bought the Bailey hair at Magica (deleted that silly ass “no rez or lose it and get stuck in a datebase as a possible copybotter–which I am not” script, I’m tired of cold weather and want spring and it goes fantastically well with the Tuli Kalista Light skin and the white pants and top I got for sale at Indie Rose before they closed down. My nod to wishing Spring would just hurry up and get here!

Side note number two! Ivana claimed some land while I was a maid and Bridget was brb’ing. He’s sneaky like that.

Recent conversation heard in the Misty House at 5:45am:

PDQ in whiney voice: Mom..I don’t have anything clean.

Me in firm voice: I just did laundry all weekend, look in your basket

PDQ in even more whiny voice: I dddddiiiiiiiddddd…there is nothing theeerrreeeeeeee!

Me in exasperated voice: Not my problem, I did laundry laundry all weekend and today is only Tuesday. You have clean clothes.

PDQ with tears stomping upstairs.

Me with looks to kill debates making her walk the stairs properly 5 times (standard in our house for stomping) and decides against it given the time and the notion that I’ve been up since 2:30am.

End Recent Conversation begin Rant:

If there is one thing on the face of this planet that will drive mothers everywhere to the point of breaking, it’s whining. It hits our spines, sends nasty little tingles up through the neck and shoots flames out the eyes. Smoke starts pouring out of our ears and approximately 1,000 different ways to take a child’s voice box out of their throat starts to dance in our brains.

Whining is the bane of all mothers existence and children know this. They are in a bad mood? Whine. They aren’t getting their way? Whine. They want something and not sure if you will say yes to the request? Whine. They woke up on the wrong side of bed? Whine. It never ends. Not even when mom, with a very firm voice states very clearly “Use your normal voice.” They might do so for that moment, but give it another five minutes and BAM…..the whine monster comes out.

As a mother with limited patience at times, I don’t do well with the whine factor. I have been known to yell for it (not one of my better mommy moments), ground for it, take Ipods for it, remove computer rights for it and the list goes on. I know eventually the whining will cease. The children will grow up and move out and someone….had the audacity to tell me….I’ll miss the whining. I think they lie. There is no way, no how on the face of this planet that a mother will miss the whining nasal voices of children pleading for whatever it is they plead for. At least not this mother.

Once that whine leaves my house, the good news is if they do it on the phone. I can say “call back when you can use your normal voice” and hang up. I might not be able to take the phone away anymore. But I sure can use the hang up option.

I.do.not.like.whining.

What you plan to do isn’t always what you end up doing. Trust me, I know this. Yet, I like to plan. Alot. Even if the plans change, as long as I have a plan…I’m pretty happy. The Man says it’s cause I’m flexible but really it’s because I plan for plans to change.

Case in point:

Today, the plan was to get up, work on some in world stuff then clean all the main area floors including the stairs that go down to the basement (total side track, but I have to break up cleaning cause this house is so darn huge). Then run to the barn, do those chores and come back inside. Shower and grab a bite to eat then pack up some more newspaper with a box or two and run to the house. Pack stuff up there then go to the store. Grab what I need and hightail it up to the school, get PDQ and dump her off at dance. Run home, meet RB for the bus (if I’m late, it’s ok cause The Man is here but it sets him behind in the barn and wait..there’s a reason that can’t happen today). Start some laundry, give RB a quick snack and then head back out the door to get PDQ from dance and go to cheer. Spend an hour teaching half the girls the beginning stages of the dance routine (oops..forgot to pick out a song! dang!). Once that is done, head out and meet The Man at one of our favorite local restaurants that we received a gift certificate too and enjoy a nice meal with the kids (now see why I can’t be late today?).

Unfortunately!

One thing led to another starting with something I was going to make for a friend that just was not coming out right began to set me back. Slap me on skype with Velv and Meka and even though I ended my part of the conversation on time, it still set me back a bit. Oh..add in that someone (bless them!) bought a Demure Maid animation and unfortunately I set something wrong so they go the whole darn pose stand AND all the five of the poses when they were supposed to get just one. Lucky them but I had to IM them, return the pose stand to them and explain what happened. Then I had to shop for yet another pose stand (no this isn’t the pose stand I’ve plurked about but the new one) and get that set up. Speaking of: THANK YOU VELV FOR TESTING! Yeah, she’s good like that.

Anyway….somehow I got behind and now after cleaning all the floors (again, this at least an hours worth of work, if not more for just the main living area) along with doing the barn chores…I’m just tired. So I came up with a new plan: Eat then Nap and do the rest tomorrow. Except the kid part, the eating out part, the cheer part, the store part, the picking out the song part (I better not forget!) and the starting laundry part.

*snoozes*