Whoreganic

A recipe, by me

2011-07-01T00:16:37Z

My girlfriends took me out to a French place in Dupont called Bistrot du Coin for my 29th birthday. It. was. awesome. Good food, good wine, and lots of fun. To start I had the Salade Frisée aux Lardons. It was, in a word, delectable. I think it's also called Salad Lyonnaise, but don't quote me on that. Salade Frisée aux Lardons contains bacon (holy hell!), croutons, vinegar (trust me, it's good), and a poached egg. Sounds a little f'ed, yeah? I made my very own version of it for dinner this evening, and DH called it "the salad to end all salads." Such a darling.

I'm not exactly sure what a more traditional french version of this recipe looks like, but if you want to try making it from a French recipe, go here. I based my recipe on lots of different recipes (at least 6 or 7), my own taste buds, and how it "looked" at Bistrot du Coin. I'm patting my back after this one, ya'll.

Salade Frisée aux Lardons

cue watering mouth...

Ingredients/Supplies

to poach the eggs:
3 Tablespoons of red wine vinegar. I recommend moderate to high quality - I use Lucini's pinot noir vinegar
4 eggs (you may need more just in case you're like me and you eff up the first couple tries)
large ladle
large saucepan or pot with 2 inches salted water
bowl of very warm salted water

for the salad:
This is really important - use endive lettuce or baby frisee. These lettuces are fairly bitter and will stand up to the hot dressing without wilting. It just doesn't taste "right" if you don't use these lettuces. As baby frisee is rather expensive, I mixed up one little bunch with endive lettuce. Gives the salad a little more color variation.

for the toppings/dressing:
Large saucepan
2 Tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1/4 to 1/2 cup of dijon mustard (personal taste)
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1 large shallot, minced
2 to 3 cloves of garlic, minced (again, personal taste)
Thick cut or slab bacon. The thicker the better. Chop bacon into 1.5 inch long pieces, about a finger's width thick
Croutons
Salad/pepper to taste.

Instructions

Set the pot of water to boil. Add the vinegar and a couple pinches of salt. To poach the eggs, crack the egg into the large ladle, then gently set the ladle in the boiling water with the egg and let it slide out. Add the other eggs, but do not allow them to overlap. Reduce the heat a little bit and simmer the eggs for about 3 to 4 minutes. You want the eggs to be runny when you cut into them. Use a slotted spoon to drop the eggs in the bowl of warm, salted water.

Saute the bacon on medium-high heat in a large saucepan. It should be brown on all sides. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon. You want the bacon to leave plenty of grease behind in the pan - at least three tablespoons. If there isn't enough, supplement with olive oil. Leave the heat on, turn down to medium.

With saucepan on medium, add the garlic and the shallot, cook for 2 minutes. Add a pinch of salt. Turn heat down to low. Add the butter, red wine, and the dijon mustard. Stir until blended.

Divide the salad onto four plates, add the croutons and drizzle the dressing over the top. Top with the poached egg, then salt and pepper to taste. Keep the red wine vinegar handy in case you want a bit more of the vinegar taste.

Monica, why you so quiet?

2011-06-26T15:42:46Z

My garden sort of died this year. I'd really rather not show you a picture. I will take one and post eventually, however.

At the end of the May, Andy and I went to Texas for a wedding. Apparently, it got hot here...Really hot. The critters came out of their hidey-holes too. In March, I planted cabbage and a pretty large variety of lettuces. I had a lot of success with lettuce a couple years ago; we had fresh salad for weeks. When we got back from our trip, the cabbages were moth-eaten, and some varmint ate the tops off all my lettuces! Crap. There went my food. Andy's hops took a big hit as well. He had to cut them down and let them start over (they will send up shoots again if you prune).

So to compensate, I put plants in containers. Hardy plants. The kind that don't die even if you forget about them for a week. Enjoy some pictures.

about that home improvement project...

2011-04-16T20:09:01Z

It's done! (ish) The shelves are up and the cabinets have been torn down.

Before:

I hated those cabinets. The ones on the bottom are still there - waiting for their remodel too. I think we'll just strip those down and paint them a fresher color. Like white. We still need to get rid of the countertop and get new appliances, but those can wait.

After.

I'm still not 100% happy with it, but it is definitely prettier and much more open than before. We'll see what else I can come up with over the summer.

home improvement just got more interesting.

2011-01-31T01:11:03Z

Behold! My new toys...

Looks like I'll be tearing my kitchen apart this week.

Something about the Brits, other than the bad teeth and bad food stereotypes

2011-01-25T00:15:00Z

Has anyone else gotten into this British crown and floral craze lately? I don't usually catch onto fads, but there's something about crowns and floral prints that make me drool right now. To satisfy my hunger I went to Home Goods and picked up four each of these dishes, for a grand total of $28.

Once again, no matchy-matchy is allowed in my house, so of course it makes perfect sense to layer two trends right on top of each other, even if they didn't come from the same company or even actually fit together. Heh. I decided that I wanted to eat on pretty dishes instead of the ones I bought when I was in graduate school...

Details

2011-01-23T19:47:01Z

I have a gypsy house. A bazaar house. Some would probably say "bizarre." Nothing really matches, I don't think, but I've never been accused of being "put together."

We've made a lot of changes to our house recently, like painting, rearranging, and a boredom-fueled kitchen cabinet demolition. At this point I'm realizing that my favorite little things about this house are the details - the random shit I pick up here and there and set next to other random shit. The end result is comfort and familiarity. My house may be messy at times (I blame my shedding dog and my messy husband, let's not talk about my part of the blame), but I can still relax here amidst my stuff.

The stein was a birthday gift to my husband from his brother. Andy is a homebrewer, so by extension we are drinkers. I knit, and that's a picture of my parents on their first trip to DC.

Andy won the German mug in some random raffle in a Russian restaurant. He picked up the matryoshka for me in Moscow. I'm not sure why he thought glitter was my thing - I was expecting something a little more, er, polished, but I love it anyway. I found the bird on sale for two bucks at Michael's, and I made the cherry blossoms out of origami paper and birch branches. You can find the tutorial here.

Andy picked up the red elephant for me in Afghanistan. The grey soapstone elephant was a gift from friends of my in-laws for our wedding. They're from India, and it's customary to give the bride a small gift of jewelry after her wedding, but she wasn't sure of my tastes so gifted me the elephants instead (it has a larger twin on my bar). The bookends were a Home Goods find, and those are antique books paired with some more modern selections.

I saved the picture from the trash bin at school, sort of. The Paymaster was my DH's grandfather's, the table was made by a great-grandfather (?) of my husband.

I found the ribbon piled up on the "refuse table" (as I like to call it) at work. People pile things they want to get rid of on a table in the teachers' lounge. I liberated it, and it found a home threaded through the curtains in my living room.

whoreganic @ 2011-01-20T21:12:00

2011-01-21T02:14:43Z

What is it about this chair that makes me want it SO BAD? Is it the blue? Is it the birds? Is it the general level of awesome? Do you have any idea how amazing this would look in my house? I've had a glass or four of wine and I'm FREAKING out about this chair. It's on RubbishRehab's Etsy page. Thank you, RubbishRehab, for making a beautiful piece of art. I wish I could go on and make this a meaningful post, but that's probably a bad idea at this point.

I've been gone for a while (again), but we've been doing some pretty extensive redecorating on the inside of our house, and I'm waiting on a brand spankin' new Canon Rebel DSLR to come my way. The camera I have now has bit the dust. It has done kicked up and gotten somewhat dead. Bye for now.

What is it about yarn wreaths that is so flippin' awesome?

2010-11-27T19:38:42Z

This pic is from KnockKnocking's shop on Etsy.com. The pink, the red, the blue....the vintage MIXER?!! I'm nearing hysteria over here. Now, how can I convince my husband to let me buy this?

Paint?

2010-11-27T19:28:12Z

The living room is a little cluttered at the moment, but the whole room has such an odd shape that I feel it should be cluttered. It keeps me from obsessing about how misshapen it is. The whole room is in an L shape, with the fireplace in the corner of the L. How the heck do you situate furniture around that?

The fireplace used to be ugly brick. The brick is still there, but I used some heavy duty heat-safe masonry paint to cover it up. It was amazing how much it brightened up the whole room. With that little project out of the way, I feel like I can finally think about what to do with the color. A high gloss white or grey color? I dunno. I'm pretty inspired by this slide show on House Beautiful, but I gotta admit, I'm not excited about painting the living room for the third time.

It's just a house.

2010-11-27T19:01:42Z

I've recently discovered that I have an obsession with decorating. I'm not talking Waverly-patterned pillows and Benjamin Moore paint. I'm talking "finding shit at an antique fair/painting chandeliers on the wall/finding uses for origami paper." I don't know if it's really decorating, per se, as much as it is surrounding myself with things I like. There is no particular design concept or unifying theme in my house, and I like it that way. Nate Berkus would vomit if he ever walks into my house. He's not invited, anyway.

I have a few ongoing projects in the house, listed below.
1. "Let's find pretty stuff to hide shit in."
2. "Oh look! Origami paper!"
3. Chandeliers - painted or on fabric is best.
4. Bright colors.
5. These two things don't match - let's get 'em!

So I have finally figured out what to do with this blog in the fall and winter. I'm a bit of an internet hound. I find myself constantly searching for stirring images and saving them in a folder, to be pulled out later when I win the lottery. With my lottery money, I will buy the things that I find on the internet. Every now and again, I find something inexpensive and figure out how to duplicate it in a practical manner. I may as well blog about it.

Get ready for pictures.

I like insects.

2010-08-04T03:11:29Z

I think my love of Virginia's insects comes from my complete indifference to Texas' insects. I lived for 26 years in Texas, and giant grasshoppers, tarantula-killing wasps, and jumping spiders did not inspire me to take out my camera. Moving to VA has changed that. I don't know if it's the biodiversity, or if I never noticed things like this in Texas, but I'm totally into bugs right now. Methinks gardening has made me into a bug-lover.

Every time I go out in the back to water, I take my camera with me. Sometimes I take pictures of the plants, but most of the time I look for new bugs. I noticed that I started this with "I like insects." I should probably expand that to include "bugs."

I like bugs. Here are some pictures of bugs from my house.

Spider! He was bright orange and precious.

Polygrammate hebraeicum (The Hebrew)

Dragonfly of some type unknown to me.

WTF is this?

And WTF are these?

Goldfinches

2010-08-03T19:03:04Z

Right now, I'm wondering why I ever regretted planting sunflowers in my little vegetable plot. They took up so much space, and I couldn't plant all the veggies I had planned. Sure, the flowers were pretty, but more veggies would have made for more posts.

And then nature came through for me. I'm an amateur birdwatcher. I don't own binoculars (yet), but I do enjoy watching birds. My husband bought me a bird book a few years ago and I keep it handy; waiting to see new birds I've never seen outside of glossy book pages. Imagine my surprise when I found out my sunflowers have become a birdie pleasure garden!

Look closely in this one, you'll see two goldfinches.

Apologies for the blurry pictures. I think it's about time I get a new camera. I couldn't get too close though, these guys are a little skittish. I was sitting about 15 feet away.

I'm getting a kick out of the huge mess they leave behind. One of the sunflower stalks toppled over and they had a free-for-all on the deck. I'm not cleaning it up until they're done.

If you wanna try something like this in your garden next summer, I recommend you get the red sunflowers. They produce multiple heads per stalk, unlike the yellow sunflowers.

We get blue jays and cardinals out back as well, but I'm used to seeing them. We've lived here for two years and this is the first time I've seen the goldfinches.

Here's a pissed off blue jay. The goldfinches were keeping it away from the sunflowers.

So next year, I'll find a new spot for the veggies. I want sunflowers again.

And just because, here are some more pics.

Stretch!

2010-07-04T23:39:59Z

I experimented with sunflowers this year. I spent a lot of time on LJ's gardening community last summer and lusted after other peoples' sunflowers. I tried putting the big edible sunflowers in the ground, but that didn't pan out. Apparently, the birds thought it would be better if they just ate them right off the bat, instead of letting them get bigger. I'm trying again next year, but I think I'll cover them the next time around.

The red guys above (type - Moulin Rouge) did just fine. I read earlier that red sunflowers are the only types that produce multiple flower heads per stalk. The bigger yellow blooms, responsible for giving us seeds and oil, only come one to a stalk. Cool.

Bad thing: these things got so dadgum big that they cast a lot of shade over my garden. I didn't grow as many things this year because they pretty much blocked out the sun in most of my little plot. Boo. But hell, they're lovely, and bumblebees are flocking to my yard!

Cherry's been good to me

2010-07-04T23:20:17Z

But it might be time for her to go. She grew at such an astronomical rate that I think she "done growed herself out." She's dropping leaves like crazy and isn't producing very many new blossoms. She did, however, managed to give me about half a pint of cherry tomatoes a day for about a month straight.

Cherry, somewhat unhappy. Click for close-up.

Do tomatoes do this after a time? I treated it with a copper fungicide regularly and was pretty vigilant about pest control. The two happy, leafy green things on the left are my other happy tomato plants. Cherry has been in the ground since March and has had an otherwise stellar life.

Thanks for takin' a peep!

You mean I can eat 'em too?

2010-06-14T01:35:47Z

For some reason, I felt like growing nasturtiums this year. When I bought the seed packet at Merrifield, I didn't really pay too much attention to what I was doing. There was no rhyme or reason for the purchase, except that I like red stuff. I planted a few of them on the outer edge of my little vegetable plot and just let nature do its thang (I had to help nature a little bit by filing the seeds on some concrete to help germination). A couple months later I had this gigantic nasturtium plant that actually scared me a little bit. They're remarkably easy to grow and the blooms are quite pretty.

And then oops, I accidentally pulled the biggest one out of the ground.

I guess I didn't plant it deep enough or something, but luckily I have three more plants in the ground that look to be prospering. Imagine my surprise when I did a simple Google search and found out that you can eat the darn things. Leaves, blossoms, and all! Instead of ganking this author's work and paraphrasing her amazing ideas for using nasturtiums in recipes, I'll link you directly to Linda Gilbert's article.

Looks like I'll be sticking some blossoms in my salad! I'll let you know how it tastes.

This is the one I accidentally killed.

Writer's Block: Prone to puns

2010-06-10T23:10:38Z

How would you describe your sense of humor in six words or less?

View 1939 Answers

This just looked too fun to pass up.

Six words to describe my sense of humor.

1. Irreverent
2. Dick
3. Fart
4. Accidental
5. Immature (see #s 3 and 4)
6. Surprising

I make fun of Jesus and other holy/inspirational figures. I tend more toward the profane, rather than the sacred. I will never say a good old fashioned "dick and fart" joke is beneath me, nor will I ever claim that I try to be funny all the time. Seriously, the weirdest shit comes out of my mouth sometimes. I often make people laugh because my filter is nonexistent between the hours of 6 and 10 am. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm childish, but there really isn't much I *won't* laugh it.

I say "surprising" because I sometimes wonder how I can be funny or find things hilarious while I take drugs for bipolar disorder. Woot!

Man, I'm Tired

2010-06-10T21:34:32Z

This is the part where I continue to whine about how difficult it is for me to blog these days. The kids at work (well, one kid in particular) are wearin' me down. I get home near 5, I have to cook dinner, then I go to the gym, and then I get home and pretty much die. School is still two weeks from being done! Boo hoo.

I managed not to have any after-school responsibilities today (husband is out to dinner with colleagues), so now I get to sit in front of the computer. I have TONS of photos saved up for blogging purposed, so there will definitely be some blogging happening. I just don't really know when that will happen. July 25? Something like that.

I didn't plant quite as much this year as I thought I would. The stuff this year has already managed to swallow my tiny space, so whatever I have out there now is pretty much it. I'm thinking of trying some vegetables in pots, but I haven't quite had the drive to work on that so far. The three tomatoes I planted (and the one guerrilla tomato that came up all by itself) have had a ball in the well-composted soil in my raised bed. This year I planted the Whopper, Beefmaster, and Sweet 100 cherry varieties. I'm fairly sure the guerrilla tomato plant is a Brandywine, considering that's what I grew last year. I'm not exactly sure how a seed ended up in my garden, but hell, I'll take it.

So, to illustrate how ridiculous these tomato plants are, I present to you:

Photographic Evidence.
Exhibit A, photograph taken June 1.

Sweet 100 in the back, the two newer transplants in front of that, along with the guerrilla Brandywine. The row in the very front is coriander/cilantro.

And Exhibit B, taken 6 days later on June 7.

The angle is a little different, but that tomato plant is taller than me. When I went out earlier today, the plant was WAY taller than me. That's nuts.

I estimate that the Sweet 100 has close to 200 tomatoes in various stages of development. I pull off 10-15 per day for snacks. Yumminess. Is that a word?

I haven't really had to baby these tomatoes this year (compared to last year's disease-ridden ridiculousness). I've sprayed some insecticidal soap on them a few times, but other than that I haven't had to do much. I pull off any leaves with signs of disease and throw them away. I should knock on wood or something, because this has been just a little too easy.

How are your tomatoes doin'?

Flowerses and more flowerses

2010-05-17T00:56:24Z

I gave a girlfriend of mine a gift of artwork for her birthday in April. The artwork has yet to be completed (let alone started), but I'm having all sorts of fun doing the prep work. She has commissioned a floral oil painting to hang in her bedroom. We've traded some ideas back and forth so far. We had a weird psychic connection and discovered that we were both thinking of purple irises, but then I had to get all crazy and suggest peonies, but after today I might be leaning back toward irises. Why?
This is why:

Hello, lover.

Despite this nasty little case of bronchitis, or whatever the hell I've been carrying around since Wednesday, husband and I stopped at Margaret Thomas' Garden in Herndon, VA. It's an AMAZING iris garden that I happened to stumble upon one day after work a year ago. The irises bloom like crazy for two weeks out of every year, and I happened to drive by during bloom time. I was a little pissed that I didn't have my camera with me, so I resolved to remedy that situation this year.

I saw a neighbor's irises blooming a few days ago, and figured it was time to find the little garden. Armed with a camera, we rolled on over to Margaret's Garden. It just opened yesterday (no entrance fee), so the first irises are beginning to bloom. It's beautiful there. Very lovely. Quiet. Why the hell not take a shit ton of reference photos for Miss Morgan's painting?

So I did.

Next weekend, I'm going with my camera, plein air easel, and Prismacolor pencils. I'll be setting up shop somewhere amidst the irises and peonies, with an iPod and a smile.

If you live in this area, I highly recommend checking the place out. Really, it's wonderful. The future of Margaret's Garden is a little up in the air right now, so GO, just in case. They also sell irises - you just grab an order form (or however they do it) and walk among the plants. Pick whatever you want, and they'll be sent to you. All the varieties are acclimated to Virginia, so no need to worry about finicky plants.

Tomato Redemption

2010-05-11T22:32:28Z

Last year I had one hell of a problem with my tomato plants. Not only did I have all sorts of issues with the summer heat, but the plants just straight-up died in August after a low-yield summer harvest. I really did not wanna deal with all that drama again last year, even though those Brandywine tomatoes were huh-mazing. I did a bit of research before I went plant shopping this spring and decided on a few go-to's in the tomato world.

I have been richly rewarded. Check out my giant f'ing Sweet 100. It was about a foot tall when I bought it a bit over a month ago, and it just done blowed up to hip-height. There are about 7 or 8 little bunches of tomatoes on there already.

Cherry 'maters!

I bought two other little plants, a Whopper and a Beefmaster. We'll see how these go this year.

I am not talking any smack about how these two will do until I've gotten a few pounds of tomatoes off of them.

Last year I planted lettuce, cabbage, and carrots in addition to my tomatoes. I've ditched those this year in favor of basil and cilantro. Husband and I have been eating so much of them this year that I figured we may as well grow them. It got so hot last summer that my cabbage and lettuces bolted. Stupid. I'm not growing those again until we either a) get a greenhouse, or b) move up north.

Cilantro is a 6-week crop, so in another week these little guys should be full-grown and ready for cutting. There is another half-row in front of them that has just started coming up.

I started some basil too, but I think I may just go buy some seedlings from Merrifield. Basil is notoriously hard to start from seed. Check out how small these guys are compared to the cilantro, which was planted at the same time. (Extreme close-up)

I have lots more room left in the plot, but I'm waiting on the summer sun to start hitting the back corner of the lawn. There is a dark patch on the back of the plot that is kinda good-for-nothing until it starts getting full sun, which should start at the end of May. It's a bit too early to get excited about anything still, but what the hell. Fetal plants are awesome.

Ranunculus Madness

2010-05-05T02:06:53Z

I have a sickness. Being a somewhat artistic soul with some autistic stimming tendencies (yes, I said autistic), I have become obsessed with some ranunculuses that I picked up from Whole Foods the other day. I like flicking the little petals around because I delight in the visual spectacle. Don't ask, just go with it. After that, I take pictures. Lots of pictures.

Uh, lets just say that I took a lot more pictures than these. I even kindly asked my husband to hold a canvas behind the bouquet so I could get a white background. I let him go when he said he had to pee, with great reluctance.

In garden news, we have hops! Husband is growing hops because he's convinced he'll be able to use them when he brews beer this year. They're mostly Andy's responsibility, and he lovingly tends them daily. They should be long enough to start climbing the trellis soon.

This is Andy's second foray into growing something. He tried cacti last year, but he couldn't remember to water them all five times of the year that they need water. Go figure. They're my miniature cacti now. I saved them from the never-ending drought.

My garden is doing well, and pictures should be up soon. For some reason I keep forgetting to take the camera outside every day. I never really feel like walking up two flights of stairs just to get the camera to take pictures of fetal plants. I have a cherry tomato plant that is not so fetal, though, and will be ready for its photo shoot.

It Begins

2010-04-18T03:33:10Z

I know, "it begins" seems sorta dramatic. What is 'it'? you say? "It" is allergies. "It" is springtime. "It" is growing season. "It" is Monica starts to drink a lot of white wine on the patio, usually starting at 5 o'clock on weekdays and noon on weekends. Wait, never mind, that happened in the winter too, just minus the patio.

A couple weeks ago, when the cherry trees and plum trees and other trees that eventually turn green (yes, all of them) were blooming, I had the distinct impression that I was caught up in a scene from "The Happening", trying desperately to outrun the mysterious chemicals (pollen) that trees were producing to try and shake off us pesky, polluting, climate-changing humans. As my inner histamine warfare escalated, I briefly considering throwing myself off a building somewhere. Not really, but I got really freakin' tired of blowing my nose. And wiping gunk out of my eyes.

Two weeks later, I've finally come to terms with dealing with allergies in Northern Virginia. Shit doesn't bloom like this in Texas, my friends. In Texas, you get lucky if the leaves actually fall off the trees. I need to go outside and take a picture of the Florida Chinkapin in my front yard that has coated the entire area with pollen-covered madness. It's disgusting.

I've planted a ton of stuff in the past couple weeks: basil, sunflowers (edible and ornamental), cilantro/coriander, penstemon, hostas, lilies of the valley, nasturtium, tomatoes, and some other stuff. I decided to stay away from planting cabbage and lettuce this year. They take up a lot of room in a very small garden, and although they yielded a ton of leafy yumminess, it seems like I get more for the money if I plant herbs instead. Lately, cilantro and basil have become a fixture in my cooking, and when you buy that stuff fresh every week it gets pretty expensive. May as well just grow it myself and start buying hydroponic lettuce from Whole Paycheck.

In other news of awesomeness, husband and I are now members of Chrysalis Vineyards in Aldie, VA. We went up last weekend for a little tasting party and some drinking. Today, we went to our local garden center and hung out for a bit after grabbing some tomato plants.

There is nothing exciting to report from my garden yet, although fetal plants are popping up everywhere. In the meantime, here are some pictures of springtime in NOVA.

Chrysalis

Mom at Chrysalis

Blue hosta in my front yard.

Chrysalis

Chrysalis

My local garden center - Merrifield.

Merrifield

Merrifield

Merrifield

Photoblog of the last few months

2010-03-23T00:27:55Z

Methinks I don't feel like rehashing the past few months of record-breaking snowfalls, winery trips, no farmers' markets, und so weiter. Now, for making a long story short....

We got two crazy-ass snowfalls of 24+ inches. We had another three or so of 8+ inches. Altogether, I think we got about 60 inches of snow for this winter. We spent a lot of time inside, and a lot of time shoveling our cars out of the snow. To break up that time shoveling snow, I drank a lot, went to a few wineries, big baller style, with some friends. For Snowpocalypse B, we had a few friends over and we got snowed-in together. We drank some more. Are you getting where I'm going with this?

Without further ado...

First snowfall, 22 inches. This picture was taken the morning after Litz Blitz A, named for three girls, myself included, that drank 10 bottles of wine in a ten hour period. We weathered the first blizzard with booze, music, and drinking games.

Above was another snowstorm, though not one of the crazy blizzards. A group of us got a limo and braved the roads to take a trip to Breaux winery. The limo got stuck in the snow, and the boys hooked it up to a tractor. Nice. I drank way too much, though not nearly as much as some of the others.

Oh look, the aftermath of another blizzard. This one was 30 inches. My CR-V is in there on the far left. My house is also behind there somewhere.

So what do you do after the second blizzard of the year? Why, you get a limo and go on another winery tour. Duh. I take no responsibility for these two guys.

Now enjoy some random winter pictures...

Inner Monologue - How do I pick up where I left off?

2010-03-22T22:36:00Z

I feel like I stopped posting at a lame point in Whoreganic's existence. Whoreganic was turning into a Birds & Blooms sorta chronicle of my backyard and cooking and stuff. Don't get me wrong, Birds & Blooms is awesome. I lost myself in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue while waiting in my psychiatrist's office this afternoon (I usually people-watch and try to figure out the various mental illnesses of the other people in the room). The distractibility quotient is high with that magazine, especially when you're an avid bird watcher like me. WANT. MORE. GEESE. I love goose babies.

Where was I?

The lameness that was Whoreganic. Really, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but I really would like to put a bit more "Monica" in my posts this time around. I wonder if I was self-censoring a bit? Nothing good ever comes from self-censorship. Maybe Whoreganic needs to become more of a personal journal, in addition to bringing you fun nuggets of organic and sustainable goodness. I tend to be an over-sharer anyway. I like just puttin' all the shizz out there on the table...dispensing with pleasantries. I despise pleasantries.

Yes, I have been taking my meds.

This past winter was just way too much fun. In addition to the copious amounts of wine I consumed, I learned a lot about what I like to do besides gardening. I can't exactly recall what those things are at the moment, but I'm about to have a beer and will likely remember by the end of the evening.

This has turned out to be a total crap post. Story of my life :D

Volver

2010-03-07T19:09:54Z

I've decided that it's time resurrect Whoreganic. I went on sabbatical, so to speak, after getting a new job working with children. I wasn't exactly sure how I needed to change this blog to fit in with my new role. After thinking long and hard, and passing up so many blogging opportunities, I'm coming back and not changing a thing. If asked to change something, I will, but until that happens it's business as usual.

So, without further ado, I'll show you what my organic garden zone (the backyard) looked like until recently:

I've been gone since September or so, but at least there hasn't been much happening back there.

New posts are in the works as spring makes its way to Virginia.

Whoreganic is going friends only

2009-10-04T00:52:02Z

To make this fit with my job's internet use policies, whoreganic has to go "friends only", at the least, and possibly has to be deleted later. I can't post anything "obscene" anymore, and goodness knows my language ventures into that territory quite a bit.

Check ya later, dudes.