JenLa

Gather round little ones and let me tell you a story about two gullible chicks with sticks.They’re letting me (yes, me – darling, sweet Purling Dervish ) post on their blog.Please know I’m using “they’re letting me” quite loosely since I am subject to allowing them to post at my blog. Let’s also not forget to mention that it DID involve a lot of negotiating and “parties of the first part” and some “here into referred to” and signing away first born yarn stashes. Hopefully, I don’t end up with this nasty looking thing posted on my blog.Yeah, yeah…La’s going to say it has something to do with her tagging me with a meme as payback for me tagging her or something like that. There is nothing quite like selling your soul to the devil and her minion… and her minion’s minion. (WHEE! Ellipses… on the JenLa blog…how many do you think I can get away with? I mean really. No…really…for real!)

*ahem*

Since it is Thursday, that can only mean one thing:

What is going to make this FOAD? It’s what I’m going to hear as soon as they read this.Since Jen and La don’t do memes, I’m going to invent one just for their blog. So they can see evidence of how much fun they are! And how many people like to play along! ***Disclaimer – This in no way is evidence of Jen or La participating or condoning the use of memes. It also DOES NOT entitle anyone to tag them***

Apparently, all of us fat, lazy Americans are not doing enough to support the economy. So, our illustrious and forward thinking president is giving us $600. WOO!! Recession averted, mother fuckers. Or something like that. In honor of that bright shiny $600 check from the government, list six ways you plan to stimulate the hell out of this here economy.

1. Vegas baaaaay-be! No, I have not been yet. Yes, this is a problem.
2. Hire a maid to come in every week for ::::counting on fingers :::: 20 weeks. This is California, yo!
3. Or maybe buy one of these since it will last longer than 20 weeks. I hope.
4. Eat the best sushi 15 times.
5. Go to Disney! Apparently, if you live in So Cal, you get special rates ant the “non-blackout” dates include my birthday. WOO! Shit. Why not skip Disney and just spend a weekend yarn crawling with La? They’re both in the O.C. and really? Nothing says stimulation like $600 worth of yarn.
6. Buy 353 cans of anchovies.

eta - I just realized that it’s V-day. What better way to celebrate than a
blogjacking? Share it with your loved ones.

etaa - for those of you who are misguided enough to actually miss La’s drivial posts, she’s done one over here

Poisonous Pet Food Manufacturers!

Here’s a holistic alternative to scary store-bought canned pet food.

ETA: Jen made a good point in the comments that’s worth repeating. If you’re going to switch your pets to holistic or homemade foods, introduce it gradually into their regular diet.

First, crack open a beer, pour yourself a glass of wine or mix your favorite cocktail…(to satisfy the likker requirement of the “Wineaux Epicurian” because you don’t really want to waste it on Fido, now do you?)

Spot’s (and Fluffy’s) Stew
Yield: 20 cups
use organic ingredients if possible

~2 ½ pounds whole chicken or turkey (bone, organs, skin and all)
~¼ cup chopped fresh garlic
~1 cup green peas
~1 cup coarsely chopped carrots
~½ cup coarsely chopped zucchini
~½ cup coarsely chopped yellow squash
~½ cup coarsely chopped green beans
~½ cup coarsely chopped celery
~1 tbsp. kelp powder
~1 tsp. dried rosemary
~11 to 16 cups spring water

For Dogs Only: Add 8 ounces whole barley and 6 ounces rolled oats, and adjust the water content to a total of 16 cups or enough to cover the ingredients (Grain portions are not recommended for cats)

Combine all of the ingredients in a 10-quart stockpot (stainless steel, please) with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat as low as possible and simmer for 2 hours (the carrots should be quite soft at the end of the cooking time).

Remove from the heat, let cool, and debone the chicken. While you’re doing all this waiting (It’s a lot, you know), you should pour yourself another drink and get your knit on…

With a blender or using a food processor, and working in batches, blend all the ingredients into a nice puree; the stew should be slightly thicker for dogs and more soupy for cats.

Using ziploc bags or plastic yogurt containers, make up meal-=sized portions. Refrigerate what you’ll need for three days and freeze the rest. Be sure and seek your pet’s advice on ideal meal sizes.

For each additional 20 pounds of dog, add 2 cups. (If your cat’s bigger than 40 pounds, you’ve got other problems - La commentary) Remember, all pets are individuals, so let your intuition and observations guide you.

Bon(e) Appetit!

Recipe from Amidst the Dark Cloud of the Pet Food Recall - There’s a Shiny, Silver Lining by Andi Brown in Vol. 8 - Issue 7 The Pet Press.

Andi Brown is the author of The Whole Pet Diet: Eight Weeks to Great Health for Dogs and Cats and founder of one of the first holistic pet products companies - Halo, Purely for Pets.

Bloglines…

…you blow.

You’d better get your shit together and start picking up our feeds as well as updating all the other feeds in my list or I’ll…I’ll…ummm…I’ll send you a tersely-worded email telling you just how much you suck ass…and yell at you…and get really REALLY pissed off, that’s what I’ll do. (Yeah, I’m lame. But do you have any idea how much of a pain in the ass it is to switch over? Besides, those other guys don’t track how many people sub to you. How would I ever keep track of how many subs we bleed [speaking of which, there goes another one hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh] if I were to switch?) Yeah, you just better watch it bub!

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Now that THAT’S out of the way, I’d like to wish a warm and fiber-filled Birthday to the favorite thorn in our side. So, how much “GIFT YARN” have you bought yourself today?

Speaking of KFYS…

It breaks my heart that I’ve missed out on some awesome sales of yarn I would actually knit with, but I’m holding strong! I AM a little worried that I’m not going to make my goal of balls knitted up in the allotted time though. I really need to make that cat bed, yarn doubled on size 15s, then felt the shit outta it. That should use up some serious ballage. Or, gawd forbid, I’ll have to do something drastic, like extend the challenge until I DO knit up 10% of my existing stash. It sure doesn’t help that I’ve picked large project after large project that uses only 1 ginormous ball, and then procrastinate knitting on it. Why yes, Debi (happy bloggiversary), I AM referring to the Forest Path Stole, of which I have no progress pictures because, well, because there’s been very little progress. You all will be happy to know that I’ve ditched the idea of using only 2 of the lace patterns, and have opted to return to the way the pattern was originally written. Now, just to get myself to actually KNIT on it…at least I’ve finally wrapped my head around how this whole thing works, cuz for a long time, it was a head-scratcher.

Yeah, Faina isn’t getting much love from me either. I think I’ve knit 30 rows in the last 2 weeks. At least I’m farther (further?) along than Norma. Pacalaga, how goes it from your end? Melanie’s declaring a do-over, and Donna’s is well under way, but has stagnated for now.

At least Katie is on the move. Has anyone actually finished their Faina?

A while back I did a Pollyanna post about things I like. Well, in the interest of maintaining balance, here’s a list of things I hate. Besides, I know you all are just dying to know what makes La so pissy. (BTW, Chris? That’s s.a.r.c.a.s.m. just in case you were wondering…MWAH!).

Twist of Hate
1. Being forced to use cheapy circular needles that won’t untwist no matter HOW much you yank and cuss at them, thus causing you to twist your knit all because your lovely dog decided to chew your set of Denise size 8s and the cheap-assed twisty piece of shit is all the only other size 8 you have. The ONLY, as in, not even a set of size 8 DPNs.

2. Men who go out and buy useless shit even when you tell them that the money isn’t available for that at the time, and you can’t even have the satisfaction of holding it over his head when you go out and buy a shitload of yarn because you can’t buy a shitload of yarn. You can’t buy ANY yarn because you, in your infinite dumbassery, saw a Knit From Your Stash challenge and thought, Hey! I could do that!

3. Shrubs who think that switching to Daylight-Saving Time EARLY and reverting to standard time LATER is a good idea. Which it isn’t. In fact it totally blows. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to get a locksmith to come out and reprogram your automatic locking doors because they’re on regular DST and not the fucked-up early DST that Gillian thought was a good idea? Can we say FUCKTARD? Thought so.

Look familiar?
4. Dyeing up all my dyeable yarn in one shot and my pusher’s out of town on vacation and won’t be back until April 19 so I can’t order any more!

5. Pets suffering and dying because the food we purchase at the grocery store, pet stores and veterinarian’s office is supposed to be safe.

6. Forgetting to blog about something really important and giving a fellow blogger her props. Like…Indigo Muse has been published! 50% of her net profits from the sale of this and future whimsical patterns goes to Heifer International. A couple weeks back she asked us to name her little felted pig, and she liked my suggestion, Chicharon (Chee-Cha-RON) so much that she named her piggy pattern ChiChi. Chicharon, which is Spanish for pork rind, is what Junior used to call Momoze. When I told Tanya this, she made an extra donation to HI in Momoze name. How awesome is she? I SO suck that I kept forgetting to post about this!

Ripped & Shredded
7. Continued carnage. The Bitch was at it again! This is what greeted me when I got home last night. Does she mangle the DH’s rometard papers? No. Does she chew up Junior’s mail he hasn’t bothered to open let alone remove from the common living area for the last 8 days? No. She goes right for the knitshit. What’d I ever do to her?

8. Thinking that your use of the American language is so superior to other people’s that, on your way home from work, you see a sign with a glaringly obvious typo (not unlike seeing the word “Shrimps” on a menu), that you almost snap a picture of it, except that the light turned green and you lost your chance, and thinking to yourself haha! they’re so STOOPID! I’m SO gonna blog about this tomorrow and make fun of their dumbassness…only to find out that it wasn’t a typo at all, just a glaring indication of just how ignorant and STOOPID I am? What was the sign? It was on a Lutheran Church announcing services for “Maundy Thursday and Good Friday” Whew! Thank gawd I didn’t post about that one, huh?

9. My car playing an April Fools joke on me Sunday by dumping the entire contents of its radiator all over the mall parking lot indicating that I need to have the water pump AND the intake manifold gasket replaced, resulting in my car being in the shop for 3 days and well over $1,000 in repairs. At least my bitchiness got me a rental for free. Hey, sometimes it pays to be a bitch.

10. Self-explanatory.

This rant brought to you by…

And the stupid guilting bitch who works at that convalescent hospital